Yesterday's blue eye of the day - Sleepy Hollow and gold

Tried a blue look yesterday. I have to admit, I did enjoy it. I don't know what my thing with blue is... Maybe I just never think to use it when I'm surrounded by green and purple?

This had a rich antique feel to it. Sorta reminded me of Van Gogh's Starry Night.


This was:
Urban Decay Primer Potion
HIP Gilded duo- the gold shade only, on lid
Fyrinnae Sleepy Hollow, applied wet with DuWop Payoff in crease and on lower lashline
Fyrinnae Envy Me to highlight
Urban Decay Liquid Liner in Honey
A tiny bit of Urban Decay Heavy Metal Glitter Liner in Baked over Honey
Urban Decay 24/7 in Zero
Cover Girl Lash Blast


I really tried my best to capture the pretty gold sparkle in Sleepy Hollow.... you might need to enlarge the pictures to see it. I took a blurry one to see if it showed up better, and you can see the sparkle a little bit here:

See them? Deep teal-blue with gold microglitter? It's a pretty gorgeous color.

It did make me panic a little, though! I've learned that if I want to use Fyrinnae glittery colors in the crease that I need to apply them wet, but I'm never very precise when I apply my crease shade. I always clean up the placement and shape with my blending brush afterwards... So this time I applied it wet and when I went to blend, it wouldn't blend! The blue pigment is so strong that it was on like cement. I freaked out and grabbed a bunch of wet Q-tips to try and fix it... luckily it turned out okay! Otherwise I'd have been rocking the Mimi Bobeck blue-to-the-brows look O_o

I like blue and gold together. It has a totally different feel than the usual blue and green that I seem to gravitate toward.

I'm digging' Sleepy Hollow a lot... need to think of more ideas to use it. Bet it would make a great liner. Love the gold sparkles. I'm starting to get better at using Fyrinnae, I think!

My Spring It.... for bearded ladies like me.

Recently I was approached by the owner of Beauty By Rachel to see if I wanted to try out the My Spring It facial hair removal device... I'm a hairy beast- I could probably get hired as a body double for Cousin Itt- so of course I said I'd try it out. I'd heard of this type of device before and admittedly I've been curious. I've been using it over the past month and thought I'd share my experience.

What this 'device' is is a spring. A long, skinny, loose but densely coiled spring with a weighty plastic knob handle on either end.

I've included a familiar object alongside it to give you a general idea of how big it is. It's not that big- it's really skinny and about the length of two OPI bottles. Or, for more reference, around the size of a Fender whammy bar.

The one I received is red, but they come in other colors like pink and black. Actually... now that I'm looking it really only comes in red, pink and black. So, you have a choice! I would have preferred a black one but the color really shouldn't matter too much because I won't be using this in front of anyone... heh.

There's an instructional video on the product's website, but I couldn't quite get the hang of their technique. They instruct you to bend the MySpringIt into a U shape and rotate the handles. I couldn't get it to work that way, so I used a different technique.

I bend the spring into a soft curve or up to a deep U bend depending on what feels right. I touch it to my skin while it's curved, get a feel for how much hair it's going to grip and then I straighten the spring and roll it while still against the skin. This technique works better for me.

You can feel it grip every tiny little hair. I am really quite impressed with how well it works. It's extremely goofy looking when you're doing it, but it is effective. It can grip a lot of hairs at once, but you'll need to do it a couple times for complete removal.

I find it to be most effective on the upper lip, but it also worked on the side of my face, the tiny fine blonde hairs below my lower lip (which I probably shouldn't have removed but I was curious) and under the chin.

I normally wax or use an epilator on my upper lip, so I can compare the MySpringIt to those methods-

Pain-wise, it's more painful than waxing but less painful than epilating.

Mess-wise, it's a million times less messy than waxing and slightly less messy than epilating- when I use an epilator the hairs it pulls out can stay on my face and make a mess- the MySpringIt traps the hairs in the spring coil.

Thoroughness is a little more complicated. It grabs tiny fine baby hairs much better than waxing in my experience, but it is less precise than the epilator. It takes a little longer than the epilator to get all of the hairs because of the angle and curve of the spring. I try to cover as much area as possible with the curve of the coil, but it still took 4 or 5 passes to get everything. Still, not much of a time investment.

I tried it first on full growth and again on really short fine regrowth and it worked excellent both times. It's very, very good at grabbing really short hairs. It doesn't leave redness on your face like waxing does and it doesn't leave the little red spots like epilating does.

One advantage I find it has over my epilator is that it doesn't make noise (or look as naughty). The epilator I use for my face is a crazy pink battery-operated thing that looks and sounds way more suggestive than it actually is, but the MySpringIt comes in a sleek black velvet pouch that says "Beauty By Rachel" on the front. Very unassuming, doesn't require any power to use and makes no noise. Albeit, the pouch is rather poor quality... the Velcro came off the second time I opened it, but at least it comes in one and it's discreet. Carry it around in your purse and no one will look twice. Looks like a makeup brush or something.

Cleaning is really easy too since there's no mechanical or electrical parts. I just stretched the spring over the sink and blew the hairs out and then wiped it down with alcohol.

A disadvantage to this method is that it requires both hands to use. I know it's supposed to be a facial hair removal device, but I was hoping I could use it for other areas too. I couldn't get it to work on my legs or arms or knuckles... Only on my face. An epilator will work anywhere and doesn't require both hands.

The price is reasonable compared to what I'd pay for a salon wax or to buy an epilator- they're $16 each, 2 for $27 or Buy 3 get one free. Shipping is 99 cents domestic. After having used it for a while and faced with the choice of whether or not I'd buy one- yeah, I'd totally buy one. I had good results with it. I really like this thing. It's small, it's clean, it makes no noise, it's portable and doesn't need any heat, batteries, cords, strips or electricity to use. Very convenient. Makes my eyes tear up when I use it, but still, it does a good job!

Mine was sent to me for review, but they're sold via the MySpringIt website. I have not seen these things in stores but I can see them being stocked in salons or beauty supply places...

Blue look from last November

I'm having fun posting my makeup pictures. So I'm going to keep doing it!

I was talking about how I never do enough looks with blue and then I remembered I did this one last year and I really liked it even though I felt like it was a little too dark on my lid. I usually only do dark colors in the crease and lighter colors on the lid so it doesn't darken my eyes even more.




I'm trying to remember what all I used for this. It looks a lot lighter and less saturated in these pictures. I think this was before I started taping a napkin over my flash, haha!

I'm pretty sure I used Primer Potion or Shadow Insurance..
Urban Decay Cream Shadow in Grass on the lid (was streaky and weird)
Urban Decay Grass shadow from the Deluxe Palette (don't remember for sure)
Fyrinnae 1.22 Gigawatts (super awesome blue)
Some darker blue, possibly MAC Deep Truth
Bare Escentuals Seashell over the green and in the corner
Urban Decay Ecstasy Liquid Liner
Urban Decay Lash Primer Potion (that one I remember for sure)
Lash Blast

I wish I could remember for sure... I'm going to have to re-create this one!

And wow, I looked a lot less red-faced and much paler in November.

*continues digging through old unposted EOTD pictures*

Nicole by OPI Collections for Summer (and Spring?) 2010

It's technically still summer, even though all the fall collections are coming out now. So... I realized that I never posted the Summer (or Spring?) Nicoles!

These are two separate collections. I don't think I know the names of them, or if they even have names at all... And I think maybe the big collection is the spring collection? And it might be called Hypnotic? I think they're the Target ones. I can't find my info. But here they are anyway!

First, the smaller and in my opinion awesomer of the two collections. Yes, I made up a word.

A New Kind of Blue. Dude. This is awesome. It's a super-rich deep blue foil!! It looks amazing indoors and in sunlight. It reminds me slightly of Sation Suede Shoes, but this is richer and not as slivery.


Nail Ya Azalea. Is it just me or is that name a little dirty? Heh. The color is excellent despite the hilarious name. It's a deep pink glass fleck shimmer! Lots of iridescent glass fleck particles, you can see them in the bottle in this picture but I couldn't capture them on my nails in this picture. Blah. Wish this photo had turned out better.

Oy Oy Oyster! Punk rock oyster! XD Another color I couldn't quite capture- this is a sheer pale ivory base with lots of pink pearl flash and it's filled with iridescent pastel opal glitter. Pretty, fairy-like and delicate. I love it even though it's super princessy! I like opal glitter.


Rent A Magenta. Mmmm glass fleck. Bright magenta (though actually this looks fuchsia to me) with iridescent glass fleck particles. Lots of sparkle!


Traffic Cone. An orange! A glass fleck orange! How perfect. This color is utterly spectacular. First of all, it's orange and I love orange. Second, hey, glass fleck! It's not a creme! Nothing wrong with orange cremes, but we don't see orange shimmers that often! I am excited about this color! Lots of exclamation points!!!

Yum-egranate. Last and definitely least.... This may go down in history as one of OPI's worst names. Yum-egranate?? Seriously?? That's the best you could come up with for this color? I refuse to believe that this was the best name on the list. Honestly. The name bugs me so much that it's detracting from an otherwise pretty color. A deep magenta with pink-violet flash.


Those were pretty great. Glittery glass fleck goodness. Here's the other ones now:

Note: I am missing one of these- "I Have A Plum Thumb"- and I don't know what happened to it! But if I find it I'll add it to this post.


Don't Cloud Me. This is a super bright clean shimmery iridescent white. In the same family as Zoya Ginessa and actually really similar to that Nicole polish from last spring... I can't remember the name. But it was a lot like this! This is a really gorgeous color though, it's so dreamy looking.


Honeydew You Love Me? ....Do you love me? Have you ever drunk Bailey's from a shoe? Anyway... horrible, horrible, frighteningly awful picture, I know... I'm embarrassed to even post it... But! This is one of those cute shaped glitters that I like so much. It's a sheer base with opalescent glitter specks and shiny turquoise blue hearts. I'm wearing it over Lemon Lime Twist, which was probably a bad choice as it looks pretty funky over it... I should have gone with one of the pink cremes for this picture... *sigh*


It's A-May-Zing. Medium magenta shimmer with pink flash, somewhat washed out in this picture but a pretty standard color.



Lemon Lime Twist. This is really more green in real life, but for some reason my camera is only picking up on the yellow. It's actually really cool looking and pretty! Almost electric looking. Light bright crisp green and yellow fusion. A little frosty. Pretty, though, really springy!


Loyalty To Royalty. Deep blue shimmer metallic. Close to being a frost. Frosty shimmer. It looks a little duochromey in the bottle but it doesn't show up on the nail.


Mango Maven. Ooh orange! Maybe it's more coral. It's a bold orange-coral with a gold duochrome shimmer thing going on... I think it's pretty fancy looking... I'm a fan.


Poised in Turquoise. Turquoise metallic shimmer. Another one that looks pretty duochromey in the bottle but you can see a little bit of it on the nail unlike Loyalty To Royalty. Borderline frosty, really tiny fine shimmer. Blue-green shimmer particles. Oceany.


Pop of Poppy. Really washed out picture, yay! I was really not on my game for these, was I? Pinky coral bright creme.


Something about Spring. Bright cool candy pink creme. Touch of purple.


Spring Romance. This is over Take a Powder Pink. It's more complex than Honey-dew You Love Me?. This is a clear base with tiny red flakes, iridescent opal glitter and hologram pink hearts. The little red flake pieces are really cool! I like them a lot!


Take A Powder Pink. Pale creamy baby pink creme. I do actually kinda like this... it's looks like 60's lipstick. I would probably not wear it too often but it is pretty cute looking.

Formula was good. I don't recall any sort of application issues. My only complaint is the Nicole melty bottle! It makes the brush seem too short and the bottles don't line up nicely on my polish racks or in drawers.

Can't remember what else I wanted to say about these... I think I'm having writer's block. All I know is I love the first six and a couple of the 12-collection. Nicole is doing a lot of those sweet shaped glitters lately. I wish they'd do some more shapes- I want lightning bolts and shamrocks and squares and triangles and... and... spirals! Spirals would be kinda cool.

(These were sent to me for review.)

Eye of a couple days ago- with taupe!

This one turned out surprisingly nice for such a plain look. I wore MAC Tunnel of Love Superglass with it.

This was Sunday... you can see how much worse my brows have gotten in only two days!

I used:
MAC Paint Pot in Painterly
Fyrinnae Species 8472 on lid (applied wet with MAC Water Based Mixing Medium)
Fyrinnae Equality dabbed on center of lid
Bare Escentuals Creme de Menthe in crease and on lower lashline
Fyrinnae Nijiro to highlight
Urban Decay Zero 24/7 tightline and waterline
MAC Blacktrack Fluidline
Urban Decay Lash Primer
Cover Girl Lash Blast

I've been using a lot of Fyrinnae lately. I decided to try them again after trying them a few years ago and not having much luck. I'm trying to incorporate one new (to me) Fyrinnae color into my look every day. I still can't get every color to work for me/apply perfectly but I'm really enjoying a lot of them. Species 8472 is a subtle taupe with a lot of little sparkles that don't really show up, so I put some Equality on top to satisfy my sparkle craving. Bare Escentuals Creme de Menthe has green sparkles on a warm brown base, but I still needed more. Creme de Menthe reminds me a little of MAC Club.

I like taupe. I feel like I'm always wearing taupe and grey, purple and grey and green and yellow combinations. Which is cool, because I think those colors suit me well, but maybe I need more variety. I need to do a blue look or a pink look this week or something. Mix it up a little. Hm.

OPI Swiss Collection Fall 2010 Swatches

Let's just jump right into swatches, shall we?

A recap of the indoor skittle swatches:



And the individuals (in sunlight):

Color So Hot It Berns. Bright clean red creme. A little Christmassy looking. I like these types of reds. Bright and crisp. Very simple and classic. Not much else to say about it!

Cuckoo For This Color. Sparkly medium blue-green shimmer. It's darker than it looks in this picture but I think this picture shows the sparkliness really well. It is similar to China Glaze Emerald Fitzgerald, but Cuckoo seems more blue to me. Almost a teal.

Diva Of Geneva. So pretty. In my top five for this collection. Medium shimmering gilded plum. It's like a really red-based purple (mixture of purple and red-plum colored pearl) and lots of gold pearl, almost like a duochrome, you get glimmers of purple and gold depending on the angle. I had originally thought that LA Colors Pink Sizzle was a match for this color, but it turns out they're not really as close as I thought:

They looked really similar in the bottle to me, but as you can see LA Color Pink Sizzle is much lighter and pinker.


From A To Zurich. Dark rose berry. Not really my thing.

Glitzerland. LOVE this. It's almost a champagne version of Dazzled By Gold, but not quite as sparkly. Still majorly sparkly, though! It's practically a foil it's so sparkly. You can see each individual shimmer particle, makes me think of champagne bubbles.


I'm Suzi & I'm A Chocoholic. This is not really the color I think of when I hear chocolate! It's more red than brown, much more of a dark brick or maroon color than a chocolate color. Not particularly flattering on me but still nicer than Color Club Charity Ball.

Just A Little Rösti At This. My favorite of the least-favorites, haha! Another deep wine berry shade. Sorry about the clouds. I know this picture is pretty bad :(

Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous! Marvelous, indeed. A smoky dark silver/grey foil. Near-foil really. Foils tend to blend into one sparkly sheet of color with hints of particles, but this one behaves more like a glitter showing every individual shimmer particle. Shimmer-glitter-foil! Similar to China Glaze Jitterbug.


Ski Teal We Drop. Oooh! A dark teal creme! We don't see these too often, especially not from OPI! I like. I like a LOT. Awesome color for fall. Makes me want to wear plaid.


The Color To Watch. Sheer light purple shimmer with strong blue pearl and microglitter. This is a pretty complex shade, lots of different colors mixed in. It looks like a duochrome but it doesn't seem to shift colors like one. I see all the colors at once. Blue pearl on top of lavender shimmer with silvery microglitter. This is the most sheer of all the colors- I used four coats.

William Tell Me About OPI. Deep, dark, luxurious, sexy vampy eggplant. Very nice. Very dramatic. I can see this one becoming the new Lincoln Park After Dark. In fact, I like this color better. This looks like it could have been in the Chicago collection!


Yodel Me On My Cell. This is my favorite of the whole collection. It's an aqua blue with lots of shimmer. It has small fine shimmer like a regular shimmer polish and then it has flecks of larger, more iridescent shimmer. Double shimmer! It makes me think of Catch Me In Your Net without the glitter. Has a kinda jelly-ish deep look. OPI does really good blues when they decide to do them!


The formula on these was nice and consistent. It wasn't too thick, too runny, it wasn't streaky or anything like that. The formula was consistent between shades as well. Nice to see some consistency in formula as they tend to be all over the place lately. The opacity was good- I did two coats of all but The Color To Watch, which needed 3-4 coats. I used topcoat on most of these because a few seemed to dry less than shiny. Good dry time, yet slightly longer than I'm used to from OPI. Overall strong formula, good brushes, I have no complaints.

I think I say this about every OPI location themed collection, but I'm not sure if these colors are really Swiss or not! Any residents of Switzerland want to comment? I think of red for Swiss Army knives (lol), brown for chocolate, white for snow-capped mountains, green for Tyrolean hats which are probably not Swiss but make me think of the Alps... That sort of thing. So perhaps these colors really are appropriate!

Not a bad collection at all! I love Yodel Me On My Cell, Diva of Geneva, Glitzerland, Ski Teal We Drop, William Tell Me About OPI, Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous and Cuckoo For This Color the most. I don't particularly care for the berry-type shades, but that's usually a given for me. I wish there was a snowy glitter or a true brown in this collection, though!

I believe the release date is August 4, so next week we should be seeing these in stores.

(These were sent to me for review)