Paris palette by Sigma | Review and swatches

Today I want to review a Sigma palette for you. The reason why I want to do this is because this palette is fairly expensive and it's nice to see what you're going to get if you decide to spend the money on it.

First of all, now that I've started with that, it costs $59. I found a coupon online so I didn't have to pay shipping, which was very nice. This palette is limited edition but it's been on their website for a while now, so I don't know when they're going to stop selling it.

The palette comes with a sleeve that is, in my opinion, prettier than the actual palette but whatever, the important part are the eyeshadows and blushes.

Here's a picture of everything that comes with it. The brushes are travel sized ones: the eyeshadow one is an E55 and the blush one is the F40. Then it comes with 8 Paris-named eyeshadows and 3 french-named blushes. Everything is gorgeous if you ask me.

Here are some swatches of all the eyeshadows in opposite order of the photo above, so: Versailles, Triomphe, Notre Dame, Elysées, Orsay, Louvre, Seine and Eiffel. The only matte color is Louvre, which is kind of disappointing, but since all the colors are so pretty, I'm not complaining too much about it.

These are the blushes in the same order, so: Rouge, Pêche and Lumiére.

Overall I think it's worth the money because everything is pretty, wearable and pigmented. Obviously, most colors are not for every day use, but they're perfect if you're going somewhere where you want to "dress up" your make up a little bit, or even if you just want to wear a more sophisticated look.

xoxo

Nail of the day - Jaded Night

I had never used a Revlon nail polish before but I have to say that I'm in love with the quality of this nail polish. It is Jaded Night and there's a sticker on the bottle that says it's a new shade but it might not be, I don't know.

Anyway, this is a dark green color, which I feel it's perfect for fall. I like that it is very creamy and it was almost opaque with just one coat.

2 coats, natural light

I also got another Revlon nail polish, so I'll be showing you that one soon.

xoxo

Nail of the day - Flamingo Coral

This is the nail polish I got at Topshop while I was in London and obviously it had to be a pink color, since I'm obsessed. This one reminds me of "Rose Libertine" by Rimmel but it is a little bit more light and vibrant.

It's called "Flamingo Coral" and this is what it looks like under natural light:

It applies very thick which I think is nice because you could get away with just one coat, even though I did two just in case.

Do you own any Topshop nail polishes? Which one is your favorite?

xoxo

My trip to London | Part 1

As you may or may not know I recently traveled to London for a little bit more than a week with one of my best friends (the blonde one) and her sister. This was my first time there and I'm in love with the city. It's very crowded but you can definitely enjoy it anyway.

When we arrived we decided to visit the most popular places such as the Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, London Eye and surrounding areas.

As you can see it was a very cloudy day which is not very nice for pictures, but at least it didn't rain (that day).

I'm going to have a few more posts showing you what I've seen and done in London and, of course, I'll be posting a haul with what I bought (which wasn't much, surprisingly).

xoxo

Coming up: British Museum, walking around, M&M World, Harry Potter studio tour, parks, Sherlock Holmes museum, Portobello Road, Buckingham Palace.

Pink Swoon by MAC: review + swatch

I have another MAC blush review for all you you today. I love blush and I feel like I can never have enough (I actually don't have that many) because they're all so unique and different, even if the difference is really small.

This blush is Pink Swoon by MAC and I would say it's a perfect pink color for your cheeks.

MAC blushes are really amazing quality and I recommend them to all of you. Just go to your MAC store or counter and swatch a bunch of them, because they are really pretty.

They are a bit expensive if you think about it (prices are different in every country but I believe it cost me around 20€) but totally worth the money. As you can see the package is really good. Little story here: I held this blush in one hand and my NYX creme blush, which looks really similar, on the other hand and that's when I really noticed the difference. This one is more heavy and the material feels nicer. You may think it's kind of stupid but I think it's important.

The color looks brighter in the package than it does once it's swatched or on your cheeks. When you apply it, it looks light pink instead of a really colorful, bright pink.

Here are two swatches on my arm so you get the idea of the color it would have once you apply it on your skin.

xoxo

Launch Away! by MAC: review + swatch

I went to MAC the other day because I wanted to get this blush. I've been seeing the Hey Sailor! collection all around blogger and youtube and I wanted to get something so I went online to see what they had and loved everything! So that was a problem, but when I went to the actual store, I fell in love with this blush.

 First of all, the packaging is really cute, and that's always nice when you're trying to see what you like; and it goes pretty well with the sailor theme of the collection.

I'd say the color of the blush is a light peach. It really is light and it's also kind of sheer, so you actually have to apply quite a bit of product to see its real color. Even though, when you're wearing it, it can look light pink.

Here's a swatch on my arm. As you can tell it's really hard to see but it gives my face a nice glow. It might look better on darker skin tones because it would stand out more.

Did you get anything from this collection?

xoxo

Nail of the day - Lemon Fizz

I'm excited to show you this because it's my first time trying a yellow nail polish. I've never thought I'd like yellow nail polish because I think some polishes can be too bright or too in your face. Anyhow, this nail polish that I'm showing you is more on the pastel side and it's pretty light, so I actually really like it.

As you can guess by the little of the post, it is "Lemon Fizz" by China Glaze. I think this is one of the most popular yellow nail polishes and that's why I decided to get it: if so many people liked it, it had to be pretty. And it is:

2 coats, natural light

Like I said, I like how it's more on the light side and it's not too eye catching; although there were a few people who noticed it and commented, but they all said they liked it.
I recommend it to all of you, specially if you're afraid or hesitant to get a yellow nail polish, and hopefully you'll love it too.

2 coats, natural light

xoxo

Nail of the day - Bright orange

Basically last week the weather was getting warmer around here and I thought I'd start the spring time by wearing a bright nail polish, so I painted my nails with this pretty orange. The bad thing is that the weather is cold again and now I look kind of stupid with bright nails, but oh well.

I'm not the kind of person who paints their nails every single color and this is the first orange nail polish that I own. I've never painted them green (real green, if you know what I mean, I love mint), yellow, brown, black or white either. So it's sort of out of my comfort zone but I actually like it.

2 coats, natural light

This nail polish is Kiko's number 358 and it's one of the three nail polishes I showed you on my last haul.

I like that this color could be considered a neon orange (you have to see it in person) but at the same time has a hint of pastel in it (I think you can see that in the photos).

 Are you going to wear bright nail polishes this spring?

xoxo

Nail of the day - Minty green

As promised on my last outfit of the day post, here's the nail polish I was wearing that day. It is the number 345 from the brand Kiko. I don't think this brand is available outside of Europe but I might be wrong; and also I don't know if you can get it all over Europe. I know you can find Kiko stores in Italy, UK, Spain, France, Portugal and there might be some other countries, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, I'm loving pastel colors and mint is one of my favorites. I own a few nail polishes that have this kind of tone, but a lot of people (around 8 really) have asked me about this one while I was wearing it.

Another good thing about Kiko is that it's really cheap. Their nail polishes retail for 2.50€ and it took me 2 coats to be completely opaque. I really like them.

xoxo

Nail of the day #10 - Essie's sparkly nails

You all know I love nail polish and nail of the day posts. Hopefully you like them too. I think they're really fun and helpful because it's always nice to see how a nail polish looks on someone's nails before purchasing it if you're not sure that you're gonna like the color, consistency...

Today's post features two Essie nail polishes: the base color is "Bobbing for baubles" from the 2011 Winter Collection which is a dark navy blue; and on top of that I used "Pure Pearlfection" from the 2011 Luxeffects Collection.

Natural light towards the sun

I did two coats of the first (base) nail polish and just one coat of sparkles.

Natural light with no sun

Please excuse the messiness of my nails, I kind of took the pictures in a rush and it looks weird. Anyway, I love the effect of this glitter nail polish because it's very fine glitter instead of chunky and it gets the color of the nail polish; meaning that if you use it on top of a pink nail polish, the glitter will have pink tones.

xoxo

Nail of the day #8 - pink glitter

Today I'm showing you guys this nail polish that I was going to show you a long time ago. I forgot back then, but since I just remembered to post it, here it is:
It's "Brilliant" by Nubar and I really love this nail polish because it has really fine glitter and it feels like a regular nail polish when you apply it, and it has a very pretty color.

xoxo

New Year's Eve: outfit + nails + photos

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I hope your year started great and you're all having a great time. I don't know how many of you have still a couple more days to relax before getting into classes/work, but if you do, enjoy! :) (I still have time since I go back to class January 9th).
I'm going to show you my New Year's Eve party outfit and my nails.

Dress - Forever 21

Belt - Forever 21

Bracelet - Forever 21

Shoes - Marian (brand)

Necklace - Marc Jacobs

And for nails, I wore Essie's "bobbing for baubles" as a base and China Glaze's "some like it haute" on top of that:

xoxo

New Year's Eve (tutorial)

This is my first time doing a tutorial and you're going to notice I haven't quite figured out how to set my camera, lighting and all that stuff...yet.
Even though that's not the best, I hope you all still enjoy this fun tutorial I created for New Year's Eve.

1. Apply any eye primer you have. Here I'm using Urban Decay's "Primer Potion"
2. With a flat shader brush, cover your lid with any gold color you have. I'm using "half baked" from the Naked Palette (also by Urban Decay).
3. Apply a darker gold color (or brown if you don't have dark gold) to the outer corner of the eye and the crease. I used "smog" from the Naked Palette.
4. Highlight your brow bone with any highlight color. I used "virgin", also from the Naked Palette but you can find highlight colors everywhere and you can also skip this step if you don't have any.

5. Get a little of gold eyeline under your water line, below your lower lash line to make it pop even more. Here I used NYX slide on, glide on pencil in "glitzy gold".

6. Apply black eyeliner to your water line.
7. Apply your favorite mascara. Mine is the Maybeline Colossal Volume Express waterproof.
8. To finish the look, apply blush (Milani's baked blush in "luminoso") and any lipstick or lipgloss (NYX mega shine lipgloss in "tea rose").

And here's the finished look:

xoxo

Nail of the day #7 - Fifth Ave.

This is my first time trying China Glaze and I have to tell you that I'm seriously impressed in a good way!
I don't have this brand where I live so I had to find it online; I thought it was going to be expensive (since everything that's not available in my country comes more expensive online) but I was wrong. It cost me $3.99 + shipping, which I consider fairly cheap.

I expected it to be very sheer and bad quality for that price, but I was proved wrong again.

China Glaze's "Fifth avenue"  is a very pretty color and it took me 2 coats for it to be completely opaque, even though you can probably paint just 1 coat and it'll be fine. It comes a little darker than it seems in the bottle but it's gorgeous.

I'm in love with this color!! It's one of my favorite nail polishes ever! I recommend it to you all because it's cheap, good quality and the color is amazing :)

xoxo