OPI Pirates of the Caribbean Polish Collection

I initially found the PotC because there was an advertisement in my cosmo. Once I saw it, I knew I had to have it. My polish collection at the time had zero pastels, now it has six, and two shatters!

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First color, from left to right:

Skull and Glossbones. This is a really interesting white nude color. It looks like newspaper, and I plan to use it to try out newspaper nails.

Steady as She Rose. The magazine advertisement showed this color as a light pink. It's not as pink as all that. As you can see in the pictures, it's a very very light pink, with a lot of murky white in it. It's almost a grey with very light dusty pink in it.

Sparrow Me the Drama. This color came out pretty true to the advertisement color. It's a darker pink with a little bit of a dustiness to it.

Planks a Lot. This color is darker than the advertisement shows, but is still a gorgeous purple shade.

Stranger Tides. I'm not too hot on this color. It's a very murky dusty, dull green/yellow.

Mermaid's Tears. This color is just gorgeous. It's a bright dusty green. It's not as pastel as is shown in the advertisement, but it's still amazing.

Silver and Black shatters.



Ok, So when I got the polishes, I spent FOREVER deciding which one to use first, and went with Planks a Lot, the purple shade. I like it- a lot. The polish is smooth, easy to apply, dries fairly quick, and is just gorgeous.
I topped the purple with the silver shatter. I'm not sure how I feel about the silver shatter. It's really, really pretty, but with these dusty pastel shades, it seems like the silver just covers them up, rather than letting them pop.

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Ok, forgetting that the camera on my phone is pretty terrible, I just don't think the silver provides enough contrast for the colors in the collection to show through. They seem much better with the black.

Inglot eyeshadow review and swatches!

I've been talking about doing this review for awhile, but was so busy with work I didn't get the chance to swatch, use, play with the shadows, and put together a decent review. Well, I have today off and am finally writing the review.

I first heard about Inglot at this video on amarixe's youtube channel and I wanted to try them. I did some more research, and saw that they got a ton of great reviews from a lot of people- makeup artists and regular consumers alike. That got me really excited. A lot of the time, high end makeup that meets the standards of artists is just so expensive(IE- MAC) The quality is awesome, but it's just too expensive for regular consumers. So when I heard about Inglot and checked out their webpage, I was totally shocked by how low the prices are.

Inglot has a system called the freedom system- you can choose a pallet, and then choose colors to go in it (think MAC pallets and their refills) Whats so awesome about Inglot's system is that their eyeshadows are HUGE(2.7 grams each!) and their prices are really affordable. And, the more shadows you purchase, the more affordable they get.

• 1 eyeshadow= 7.00 usd
• 3 eyeshadows= 5.00 usd
• 10 eyeshadows= 4.50 usd

The pallets list prices are kind of expensive, but when I made my order, the prices for both a 20 pallet and a 10 pallet were lowered to just 5.00 each. That's a whole pallet for the price of one eyeshadow. So yeah, their prices are just awesome. It's incredibly affordable for a high quality product, and because of all the rave reviews, I had no hesitation about making a large order from them. I ordered one 20 pallet, one 10 pallet, and 20 colors.

So far, I've only been able to use a few of the colors, but wow, they're just beautiful and incredibly smooth and buttery. and So, so, so pigmented and dimensional. The colors themselves come out pretty close to the color in the pan, but there are a few that will surprise you, so be sure to swatch them when you get them.

I went ahead and swatched all the colors I got and here are my swatches. The pictures were taken outside in the sun. Some of the colors aren't quite the same in the pictures are they are in person. Possibly because I'm using a cameraphone instead of a real camera. Please forgive the second picture having kinda sloppy swatches. I was going to do them both on my left arm, but there were a couple colors I honestly couldn't get out of the primer side of my swatches. *glances at arm* Yeah... The colors are still there.

Anyways! Here are my swatches:

From this arm I had primer on the top half of the swatches and none on the bottom half..... 352 I have been using as a kind of a highlight color. It's matte, so not very shimmery, but still adds a decent amount of pop to my eyes and helps me look more awake. 46 is a more shimmery highlight. 397 has been getting a lot of use as an allover color for me, but turned out to be a bit too shimmery for work. I haven't really used 407 yet, but after swatching it I'm thinking it's going to get a LOT more use. It's one of those that's not very true to pan color. In the pan it's kind of a shimmery muddy copper looking color, but on my swatch it's not muddy at all. 74 and 72 had to be built up to the pigmentation on my arm. It's not that the color itself wasn't pigmented, but they spread out a bit more powdery and so didn't spread onto the skin as well as the other colors, which are more buttery.

For this arm, primer is on the bottom half of the swatches. I've only really used the 399 from this set of swatches. Very pretty, but again, a bit too shimmery for work. 440 is another of those colors that's not very true to pan color. In the pan it's a light purple, like a light pastel. On the swatch its very light, much lighter than in the pan. It couple probably work as a highlight on a purple eye look. 63 had to be build up a bit to the pigmentation on my arm. Again, it went on a bit more powdery. Of all the colors that I purchased, if I had to pick one that I was totally unimpressed with, it would have to be 63. The color in the swatch is built up, and as you can see, it's just very.... sheer for a black.

As you can see from the swatches, primer doesn't really make too much of a different as far as pigmentation goes. Primer does however, affect how long it will remain crease-less and how easily it can be removed. On both arms, the non primer side wiped off easily with one or two swipes of a cottonball with my eye makeup remover. On the primer side.... It took some scrubbing. The lighter colors came off without a lot of a struggle, but a few of the darker colors are still there, several cottonballs and 5 minutes of scrubbing later.

All in all, I am officially a convert, will be buying more pallets and colors, and would recommend inglot to anyone without hesitation. If you're looking for a high end eyeshadow and don't to pay a high end price, Inglot is the way to go.

Vampire Diaries chenille blanket

This Pier1 chenille blanket is used in an episode of The Vampire Diaries. It's on clearance at pier1 stores for only 10 dollars, so I decided to grab one. Pier1 has an online catalog, but you can't order online, you have to go in to a store. You can't even order over the phone. But, luckily, I talked with a super nice woman at the store closest to me(which was like, three hours away) and she took into consideration me being military and it would have been a three hour drive for a clearance item, and she took the order over the phone and shopped it straight to me! yay!

Anywho.... the blanket arrived a few days ago, and it is just amazing. It's 50"W x 60"H, so kinda big, and super, super soft. It's fairly warm- not hot enough for a winter night, but not so cold it feels like nothing. It makes a nice little throw, or wrap for days when you're just lounging around. It has been shedding a little bit, but I think that's just because it's new and hasn't been cleaned yet. And my nightshirt is white, so the little red bits show up really well.

Only downside I can think of is that it has to be dry cleaned. I have a feeling that if I ignored that tag and washed it normal, that it would just fall apart. I don't get... any of my laundry dry cleaned, so I have no idea how much it'll cost.

I totally recommend picking it up at your local pier1 if they've still got it. It's a really nice blanket, very "rich" feeling, and at 10 dollars, it is totally worth it.

Big Haul next week

I've ordered a TON of stuff, and pretty much all of it will be coming in next week, so I'm super excited! I'll wail till it all gets here and do another haul post.

I think that I'm the most excited about the nail polishes that I ordered. I saw a magazine advertisement about the OPI Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides nail polish collection and completely fell in love with all the colors. I decided to order the whole collection for a couple reasons:

1. I don't have any pastels in my collection. None at all. This collection is gonna give me 6 pastels, and they're all so pretty!
2. They're all so pretty!!! I looked up a bunch of swatches, and I love all the colors. They look especially good with the silver crackle over them, which I ordered as well. I also thought that they would look great with the black crackle, so I grabbed that, too. 

I just love the colors and am sooo excited to expand my collection.

Oh yeah, and I ordered a little minisize set of the polishes that I think I'm gonna do a giveaway with once I hit like... 50 or 100 subscribers.

Makeup Organization

Organizing makeup is no easy feat. When you first start collecting, sure, it's easy then. Owning just a couple lipsticks, a mascara, and a blush makes organizing simple. But as your collection grows, a little wire basket no longer suffices. And some collections, as though watered with miracle grow, just keep outgrowing organizers bought for them.

My current collection is rapidly approaching that point, so I thought I'd do a quick blog on how I organize it. I am completely open to suggestions, and will be doing another "after" blog once I redo it.



Ok, so by the numbers:

1. This little drawer stack holds all my hair accessories- ties, pins, headbands, clips. The little wooden box on top of it holds jewelery that I don't wear. Well, wear often.
2. This is a nice little jewelery tree that I picked up in a store in the mall.... claires or some such similar store. In front of this is my inglot 20 pallet.
3. My brushes. There's two little jars. The front one holds all my sigma brushes, and a blush brush from another collection. The back one holds just a bunch of other brushes that I don't use too often, but can't get rid of.
4. Cotton squares, cottonpads, and Q-tips. On the left of that is my bikini's and a bunch of makeup bags that I throw stuff in when traveling.
5. Perfumes and my MAC loose powder and kabuki.
6. Various skin and hair products.
7. Nail polish. In the back of this drawer is also a bunch of random stuff- a empty inglot pallet, some plastic brush protector things for traveling, other small odds n ins.
8. Lip products. I'm constantly looking for a HG lippie. This drawer holds all the ones that I've tried. If I truly hate something that I try, I just get rid of it. It doesn't go in the drawer.
9. Eyeshadow and face products. I have a ton of eyeshadows in here, a couple blushes, mascaras and liners, and a few foundations. But mostly just eyeshadows.

And that's it! Unfortunately, my drawers are filling up, and leaving me with no room to put more stuff! So I am looking for a new storage solution. I would love to get something pretty, but I'll more likely end up going with something utilitarian and trying to decorate it.