Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear: Coral Reef

I was browsing around the cosmetic section and noticed some new Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear shades. I was instantly drawn to the bright coral pink named, Coral Reef.

This polish is a creamy coral color that leans more towards pink. I've had polishes on this vein before but would turn out more orange or orange-red on the nails. This one is definitely a pinkish coral and still looks pink on the nail. I also just love the vibrancy of this shade. It's bordering on fluorescent, so be prepared for some serious brightness.

I personally have a sort of love/hate relationship with the Xtreme Wear nail polishes. I find that the formula is a bit too thick and hard to work with. I had to use 3 coats because it was somewhat streaky whereas with other polishes I would be only building opacity by having 3 coats of varnish and the application is easy. This certainly isn't the worst formula I've ever tried so I wouldn't completely write off this line of polishes. Plus, I haven't been able to find this shade in other brands so I'm willing to deal with the formula.

You can get this polish for around $3.49 any place that sells Sally Hansen.

EDIT: If you find that Coral Reef is too loud for your taste, I suggest that you also check out Island Coral by Sinful Colors. It's less fluorescent and much easier to wear than Coral Reef. This price is also affordable at $1.99 and the formula is not as goopy, at least for my bottle.

Fresh Sugar Lip Treatment

So this was birthday month and while I was at Sephora treating myself to a new eyeshadow palette, I also picked up my complimentary birthday gift. This month it was deluxe samples of the Fresh Sugar Lip Treatments.

This cute little box came with the regular transparent lip treatment and the rose tinted one. Both are 2.2 grams are basically miniature sized versions of the original. This balm offers SPF 15 protection, seed oils, antioxidant vitamins, and of course, sugar.

Revlon Colorstay Longwear Nail Enamel: Midnight

I wore Blue Slate for 8 days and it was about time to try a new shade. Considering the weather has been rather rainy and windy, my new color seems to match the climate.



There is definitely some green to Midnight making this blue more of a dark teal blue. At first I wanted to call it a navy blue, but compared directly to a navy color, the green in this polish stands out since a navy shade has more purple to it.I quite love my shades of teal, especially those that are on the bluer side so I really like this color. I'm also tempted to put Essie's Shine of the Times over this shade, but I haven't decided yet. Leave a comment if that's something you would like to see.

If you're the type of person that likes one coat nail polish, I'd  say this could be the shade for you. With the right amount of thickness it is possible to do so. I personally  prefer to apply thin coats of nail polish at a time so I had to use 2 coats to get full opacity.  I also used my trusty Sally Hansen Insta-Dri top coat over this varnish for the fact that the top coat just evens everything out for a nicer look.

As I stated earlier, I didn't actually wear my Blue Slate for 11 days, but for the 8 days I did the polish held up very well. I really put the polish to the test since I was more rough with my hands last week than usual. There was some even wearing away at the tips but absolutely no chipping. Granted, I did have a top coat in addition to the polish, but I have had polish chip despite my nice top coat and I wasn't as rough with my hands like I was while wearing the Revlon Colorstay varnish.

Revlon Colorstay Longwear Nail Enamel: Blue Slate

I was browsing after having some dim sum with my dad today and I found the new display for Revlon and I totally zoned in on the new nail polishes. I've been on the look out for a more muted blue so I was so excited to see that there were two of these shades and there was a BOGO 50% deal for Revlon nail products!

I'm currently wearing Blue Slate in the photo and I am in love with this color. It's a blue with some grey undertone to it. This polish is definitely appropriately named too since if you look up, slate blue, you'll find that this is one of the shades that show up. I think this is just such a sophisticated yet modern color to wear and did I tell you how I much admire this color? I also purchased another blue polish called Midnight that is a nice dark teal blue color.

Maybelline Master Precise Ink Pen by Eye Studio

I've been experimenting with the new Maybelline Master Precise liquid eyeliner pen or ink pen as they call it. It's been about a week I would say and I decided that it was time to finally post my review on it.

This pen advertises that it's a 12 hour wear liquid eyeliner and that the pen has continuous flow "for smooth and even lines." Maybelline also points out that their pen has an "exclusive ultra thin 0.4mm brush tip." The packaging is made of plastic and very light weight with white lettering printed on it. It's definitely not the most fancy packaging out there but there's something sleek and modern about it.

Clio Professional Art Lip Gloss

I had another review in mind but last night while out for dinner, I stumbled upon a cute little beauty shop called, Sune, that sold Asian skin care and cosmetic products. I was really excited to just be in the store and I ended up picking up some stuff. This post will be about the lip gloss I bought, but I did also buy a bow velcro pad for my hair, some make up wipes by Lioele, and My Beauty Diary facial masks. What's cool about this store is that I was able to basically customize my own My Beauty Diary box. For me, a box of 10 masks is $16 but for the same price at this store, I could choose several types of masks from My Beauty Diary plus also masks from 2 other brands. But back to the main topic of this post.

Clio Professional was on sale at Sune and I was really drawn to the color of this gloss, which is Pink Peach A118, and the packaging. If you notice the top of the lip gloss has a sort of picture embedded. Clio Professional has a whole line of make up apparently that has different pieces of art work on the packaging. This gloss comes with your standard doe foot applicator by the way.

Maybelline Dream Bouncy Blush

So I totally broke down and bought the Bouncy Blush after I found out that it actually feels bouncy! And then I proceeded to buy a second one.

The first shade I purchased is Pink Plum. It's not quite as plum as I wished it to be but it is a very nice subtle pink. The texture is more squishy than bouncy to me since it doesn't actually go back to it's originally shape if you press into it. Maybelline  describes this blush as feeling, "lightweight like a powder, yet melts into skin like a cream."

Small Drugstore Makeup Haul

I really couldn't help myself with two Buy One Get One 50% Off sales going on at once for Revlon and Maybelline. My friend had wanted the Red Velvet lip butter so I picked up the Pink Truffle color for myself, which is why there's only one Revlon item in the photo.

I've been looking for a liquid liner pen for a while now and have been debating looking to Asian brands for it, but the price tag on those products are pretty steep. The Maybelline purchase was sort of a chain reaction since I really wanted to try the Dream Bouncy blush once I heard that the blush itself actually feels sort of bouncy or springy. So since I had one Maybelline product already I was deciding between the really hyped cream shadows or this liner. I'm really not a cream shadow person so I went with the liner.

Reviews will be up shortly for both Maybelline products as soon as I can play with them a bit. As for the Revlon lip butter in Pink Truffle, it really isn't as pink as I had expected it to be. It's more of a brownish pink and turns out to be a kind of "my lips but better" shade for me. However, I have my Clinique Honey for that already so I wasn't as excited as I was initially about this one.

Maybelline Dream Lumi Touch Highlighting Concealer

Maybelline is certainly starting the year full force releasing several new products at once. I was definitely tempted to buy all sorts of makeup products while I was at the drugstore but I was good and just picked up the Dream Lumi Touch Highlighting Concealer. I've been pining after Clinique's Airbrush Concealer for quite a while so when I saw Maybelline's I had to try it.

My shade is Ivory, one shade over from the palest. The shade selection was decent with 6 to choose from, but it seems that those with the deepest skin tones might still have a hard time selecting a shade. Still, that's a great deal better than the 3 I hear is only available in countries besides the U.S.