Video Tutorial: Metallic Hot Pink & Gold Manicure

I'm revisiting my metallic hot pink and gold manicure and this time, I actually did a video tutorial! Ha ha!

I did my very best with the tutorial, but my lighting isn't the greatest, I kept getting in the way of the light from behind me. Whoops!

Anyway, enjoy! :D

 

 

 

Products Used

• OPI Nail Envy
• Hard Candy Little Hottie
• Wet n Wild Fergie Gold Album
• Pure Ice Endless Fortune
• Wet n Wild Fergie New Years Kiss
• Wet n Wild Fergie Glamorous
• Sally Hansen Insta-dri Clear Coat Top Coat

For Clean Up

• Target Nail Polish Remover
• EcoTools Angle Eyeliner brush

 

Weekly: Current Manicure!

After three failed attempts at manicures last night, seriously what's wrong with me? I kept smudging the polish on my left hand, ugh! Ever have that happen? Working on a manicure then smudge city? So frustrating!

Anyway, this wasn't the originally planned manicure I was doing last night. It just, sort of, happened? Of course, after 3 fails, I forgot to photograph how I did this. I think it's pretty simple. FYI, there is a dupe alert here though. 

Polishes Used:

• Wet n Wild Fergie Glamorous
• Wet n Wild Fergie Gold Album
• Hard Candy Itzy Glitzy Little Hottie
• Pure Ice Endless Fortune

Being I forgot to photograph the tutorial, I'll try to give step by step instructions. It's pretty simple, I think so at least, and I'm sure there are plenty of other tutorials out there explaining this better than me!

Step 1. Base coat! I used OPI Nail Envy, then allowed it to dry.

Step 2. Apply the color of your choice for the base. I decided on Hard Candy's Little Hottie from the Itzy Glitzy collecion, two coats were used. Allow both coats to dry enough to move onto step 3.

FYI, Little Hottie is almost an exact dupe for Nicole by OPI's Scarlett from the Selena Gomez collection. There is a very, very subtle difference, but if you aren't a polish-a-holic, you won't notice it.

Step 3. Sponge time! I use the sponge technique to do the gold gradient. I take the thickest edge of the cosmetic sponge and actually rip little pieces off of it so it isn't perfectly straight. Using Gold Album, I slather that onto the sponge then start to stipple it onto the nail going only half way down the nail. Trying to twist the sponge around before placing the polish so that nothing appears straight. Then I go back a second time, but only applying the gold closer to the tip of the nails, so the color is more opaque.

Step 4. Taking Pure Ice's Endless Fortune, which has diamond hologram glitters in it. This is actually a little tricky because of the hologram glitters. I only wanted to use just the regular gold glitter in the bottle. So battling to get the diamond glitters off the brush, once that's accomplished (this is probably the time consuming part with having to re-dip the brush to get the large glitter off). If you have a regular gold glitter polish with a clear base, more power to you! Anyway! You just apply the gold glitter over the gold gradient that you just did, going just a little lower then where the gradient ends.

Step 5. This is optional of course, I wanted a different size glitter, so I ended up using Glamorous. Not terribly easy because the base is thick, and you don't always get the larger glitter onto the nails the first go around. For my pinkies I actually ended up using a dotting tool to place the gold circle glitter into place. Then for the other fingers, I just try to manipulate the glitter to the edge of the brush for placement.

Step 6. Apply top coat and your done!

Not difficult, I just ended up making it more challenging for myself haha.

End Result!

To Dupe or Not To Dupe: Hard Candy Crush on Lava vs. MAC Mean & Green

 

Welcome one and all to the lastest edition of To Dupe or Not To Dupe. Now, lets jump right into it!

 

I was (and still am) excited about this one. Now, let us take a trip down memory lane to when MAC released their Venomous Villians collection which was based off of Disney Villians. There were several sought after nail polishes from that collection, one being Mean & Green. 

Venomous Villians has long been discontinued, but there are dupes out there of these polishes, some perfect dupes (ie Orly Space Cadet, not sure if those are now discontinued though) and some not so perfect dupes.

Mean & Green is a teal based duochrome polish where to the naked eye gives off a shimmer of copper, purple and pink depending on how the light hits it. It is a gorgeous colors, and if you couldn't tell by my bottle, I used it quite a bit. With the flash on, it appears to have a blue hue to the pink of the duochrome. The formula for Mean & Green also is on the thin side, at least mine is.

So now the possible dupe?

Crush on Lava is from Hard Candy new polish line. It is another duochrome, but not as prominent as Mean & Green. The duochrome is mainly pink, red and copper. So where is the difference? There is no teal base with Crush on Lava. The base appears to be more of a bronze base. Formula on Crush on Lava is thin as well, right on par with Mean & Green.

To the naked eye (and polish challenged) one wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two.

Would I call them Dupes? Not quite, they're similar and could pass, but up close Crush on Lava appears to be more warm, while Mean & Green seems to be on the cooler side. 

Price: Hard Candy is available at Walmart for $4.97 (mine however sells it for $5.00 so be sure to check the price), Mean & Green is discontinued.

Haul: Covergirl, Hard Candy and Fing'rs

Quick post, as I'm still rather ill (boo!). I'm wanting to review the foundation I got last week (which the pump just broke to!), but look like a hot mess! UGH! Besides that, I ended up going to Walmart (I don't often due to how far the nearest Walmart is) and Target. Seriously, Walmart has to stop trying to kill me with their nail polish shrine! Too many temptations.

What I ended up getting at Walmart...

Hard Candy Crushed Chromes in Crush on Lava $4.00 Uh, I think this may be a dupe for another polish I have that is discontinued, I'll do a post about it!

Fing'rs Edge Art Box $4.98 This come with three mini nail art tools, an angle brush, a pointed brush and a dotter as well as several stickers.

From Target...

Covergirl Outlast Stay Fabulous 3 in 1 Foundation $9.47 I purchased the LIGHTEST shade which is 805 Ivory. Funny enough 805 was constantly sold out.

Weekly Nails: B-Right Greeny

This is going to be a super duper quick post. Nothing fancy or anything like that (apologies!). I'm trying to find my tripod to MAYBE do a tutorial. Maybe. Can I stress the maybe? Providing I FIND my tripod.

All I knew is that I wanted to use the Hard Candy polish I purchased on Friday (Itzy Glitz collection), but after swatching it, I didn't feel like doing multiple layers to get it opaque. Next best thing? Layer it! Going through my lime green mini-collection to find the right one. 

Base coat used was O.P.I. Nail Envy. Top coat, Inm Out The Door.

After letting that dry, I began with Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear Nail Polish in B-Right On!. B-Right On! is a vivid, yellow-green cream polish. Two coats were used for it to be opaque (no clean up yet!). 

After letting that dry, I next began to layer on Hard Candy Teeny Greeny (lime green metallic with gold/copper flecks) on top of B-Right On! Three coats were used. (Annnd now clean up!)

And there you have it! Definitely an easy one and I love the effect with the layering. I'm not sure though, but I do believe B-Right On! is discontinued. I haven't been able to find it on any site that I was able to check.

Review: Naturally Gorgeous

Last time I was at Walmart, they finally had the Hard Candy Naturally Gorgeous (it's either $5 or $6) palette back in stock.

Naturally Gorgeous is a nude/natural palette from Hardy Candy's Top Ten Eyeshadow Collection. There is a total of five different palettes, ten shadows each with two sponge tip applicators (the Walmart site states that it comes with a brush, not true).

I really and truly can't say whether or not this little palette could be a suitable dupe for either one of the Urban Decay Naked palettes as I don't own either.

So, without further delay, onward to the review!

One of the applicators went missing!

Packaging. It's typical hard plastic. Very sturdy, snapping shut with no problem. Behind the black and silver panel is a mirror. Speaking of the panel, it isn't something I care for, and seems to pull away because of how tightly the top of the palette closes. That might just be with mine though.

I should say right off the bat, all ten of these colors are shimmer and as far as I know, the other four palette are also all shimmers.

None of the eyeshadows have names, so I'll split it down the middle, starting with the first five on the left, which I'll say is the light to medium shades of the ten.

A quick note, a primer was not used with the swatches.

First five shades on the left of the palette.

The issues I had out of these five were the first three from the left. The lightest shades are both champagne colors, one being slightly different than the other. I did my very best to try and get those two to show up, but they didn't want to cooperate with me. The third color (which seems to be a brownish-champagne color), does have more color payoff than the first two, but is still light, it can work if it's packed on though. From the copper color on, the color payoff improves. Just the three lightest seem to be tricky.

Five shades on the right.

As I said, from the copper color onward, the payoff is perfectly fine. I haven't had any problems with these shades.

Texture wise with all ten shades, in my opinion, they're very soft with fall out. While I was doing the swatches, I noticed that I'd get lumps of the shadows on my fingers. I suppose it'd be safe to say the eyeshadow caked on my fingers. The same thing happened when I used the applicator. There's no problem though when using an eyeshadow brush. Tapping the brush off is a must with these shadows.

Would I recommend this? Yes, unless you're fussy about shimmers, soft eyeshadows that can cause fallout and the color payoff being iffy on three out of the ten shades.

I can definitely say that I do want to get the other four palettes to see how they are.

Disclaimer: Products mentioned in this review were purchased by myself.