NOTD: China Glaze Deviantly Daring

Deviantly Daring is one of the duochrome polishes from China Glaze released in the Bohemian Luster Chrome collection.It is a bluey green polish that looks blue at certain angles. Reminds me of Sephora Moody Woman polish but this is more blue than green. The duochrome is quite strong, certainly noticable.

Taken without flash in natural daylight

Application was fine, can't remember whether it took 2 or 3 coats, but I probably did 3 for good measures. It did chip on me quite quickly, I don't find China Glaze polishes at all long lasting. It is very pretty though and I change my nail colour every 2-3 days, so it's not a massive deal.

I bought mine from eBay, but in the UK China Glaze polishes cost around £7 (although BeautyBay are selling this for £12.75?) and you get 14 ml for your money.

See more pictures after the jump!

Urban Decay Ocho Loco 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencil Set Review and Swatches

Another lovely set this holiday season (yes, I know it's only mid-October, but you know make up collections are always a season ahead) from Urban Decay is the Ocho Loco 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencil Set. Similar to last year's 15 Year Anniversary set, this set also contains full size 24/7 eyeliners in a variety of shades and finishes, both existing colours and some exclusive ones.

24/7 eye pencils are one of my favourite eyeliners, they are creamy and easy to use, but they set quickly and don't smudge. I find they don't last for very long on my waterline, but on my lashline they last for several hours. They also have such a brilliant selection of colours, they always come out with new ones and you often get these great value sets too. I have so many 24/7 eye pencils, I have now lost count. I use them every day and they last for a long time. I think I've only finished 3 of them over the last 3-4 years and those were the tiny travel sizes (0.5 g I think).

Ocho Loco set contains 8 full size (1.2 g) 24/7 eye pencils, including 4 existing shades: Perversion, a matte very dark black, Rockstar, one of my favourites: a lovely aubergine colour, Stash, an antique gold shade, Junkie, a teal with gold shimmer, as well as 4 new colours. Actually, Junkie is new to the UK, it was part of a 5 colour travel set, but only in the US, although I did get it through eBay of course.

The new colours are very nice too, Mushroom is a metallic taupe pewter, Hustle is a medium brown (reminds me of Bourbon, although I didn't compare them side-by-side), Psychedelic Sister is a bright purple shimmer and LSD is a navy with bright turquoise shimmer - possibly my favourite!

You also get a double barrelled pencil sharpener with the set. This set, while still a great value, is less good value than the 15 Year Anniversary set was. This one costs £40 for 8 full size (1.2 g) pencils plus the sharpener, giving you a £104 value for your money (8 x £13) excluding the sharpener. The Anniversary set was £60 for 15 full size pencils which was AMAZING value! But let's not grumble, this is still great, even if you already own some of the existing shades (plus let's face it, you can't have enough of Perversion or Rockstar anyway), you still get 4 brand new exclusive shades for less than the price of 3!

This is limited edition, so if you want it, be quick. You can be sure it won't be available for long. You can buy Urban Decay from Debenhams, House of Fraser, Beauty Bay and Lookfantastic in the UK, but I can't see this set on the latter two websites.

See lots more pictures including swatches after the jump!

Nars 413 BLKR Velvet Matte Lip Pencil

I bought this Velvet Matte Lip Pencil from Nars's recent collection 413 BLKR (released in celebration of Fashion's Night Out). The lip pencil is a blue fuschia colour, it looks pretty bright, but it's actually very wearable.

It's matte, but unlike a lot of other mattes, it's a lovely formula, not drying at all. It's not as long lasting as I thought, probably got through around 3 hours without eating and drinking, but it did disappear more quickly if I ate. I like the jumbo pencil, it's so easy to use, just outline your lips and fill in. All in all, I like this a lot.

You get 2.4 g which is quite a bit less than usual lipsticks size (3-3.5 g) and it costs £17.50. So it's not cheap, especially considering how much you get, but it's a lovely shade and nice formula, so if you don't mind the price, it's well worth checking out. I believe it is exclusive to Nars, so might not be available at counters, however, the Nars website offers free delivery every so often, so it's worth signing up to their mailing list if you're interested.

See more pictures including swatches after the jump!  

My Mac By Request Haul With Swatches

I wasn't sure whether or not to write this post as Mac collections tend to sell out so quickly, there's hardly anything left 2-3 days after release day. This is especially true of online only collections. However, despite being released on Monday, Mac's newest collect By Request is still in stock as we speak, so I thought I might as well show you what I got and do some quick swatches in case you see something you like. I haven't worn any of them yet, so I won't be doing a proper review.

I bought Moth Brown and Guacamole eyeshadows, Moxie and Rocker lipsticks, Bait, Flash of Flesh and Cult of Cherry lipglasses. I didn't get Candy Yum Yum or Jete because I already owned them from earlier releases.

The eyeshadows cost £12, the lipsticks are £14 and the lipglasses are £13.50 each. The collection is exclusive to the Mac UK website. Have you picked up anything from the collection? Let me know in the comments!

See more pictures including swatches after the jump!

Urban Decay Vice Palette Review and Swatches

Urban Decay has come out with 4 different eyeshadow palette for the holiday, I only decided to buy the Vice Palette as the other 3 (Fun, Feminine, Dangerous) only contained eyeshadows that I already own. The Vice Palette supposedly only contains new shades, but I'm sure some of these can be duped with other Urban Decay shadows or other brands.

There are 20 eyeshadows included in the palette:

• Desperation (greyish taupe brown matte-satin)
• Muse (dark reddish brown w/golden and multidimensional shimmer)
• Jagged (matte black base w/gold metallic)
• Blitz (bright gold metallic)
• Penny Lane (bronze metallic w/gold glitter)
• Junkie (dark green-blue w/gold shimmer)
• Chaos (vibrant royal blue w/very subtle shimmer)
• Unhinged (electric turquoise blue metallic)
• Occupy (dark grey-blue metallic)
• Black Market (dark charcoal black matte-satin)
• Provocateur (light greyish pink w/lots of multidimensional glitter)
• Rapture (dark greyish purple w/multidimensional shimmer)
• Vice (dark eggplant w/subtle red shimmer)
• Noise (dark reddish-pink metallic w/big gold glitter)
• Armor (greyish brown metallic w/silver micro-glitter)
• Nevermind (light taupey-brown shimmer)
• Echo Beach (light wheat-champagne shimmer)
• Anonymous (light whitish-pink nude matte)
• Freebird (light peachy-pink w/silver micro-glitter)
• Laced (pinky-taupe matte)

(descriptions taken from the Urban Decay website)

The eyeshadows are not full size (0.8 g instead of 1.5 g of the full size shadows), but they are a decent size. You also have a double ended Good Karma shadow and crease brush included as well as a full size mirror in the lid. The palette isn't as bulky as the Books of Shadows (especially the last one which was massive!), there isn't any unnecessary extra bits and bobs included, no drawers to put out, etc. 

Quality-wise the palette is pretty good. There are some really lovely shades, soft, buttery, well pigmented, and there are some glittery, chunky, powdery ones too. The nicest ones for me are Blitz, Penny Lane, Junky, Chaos, Occupy, Unhinged, Vice, Armor, Nevermind and Echo Beach. The worst ones are Jagged, Provocateur and Freebird. All 3 have a ton of glitter and massive fallout. The rest are pretty good. The brush isn't my favourite, especially the shadow end, the crease blensing end is okay.

All in all, this is a nice palette, but not the best I have ever seen from Urban Decay. My personal favourites are the 15 Year Anniversary Palette and the first Book of Shadows. At £42 it's still great value as you get 20 just-over-half-size eyeshadows plus a brush for the price of 3 full size eyeshadows. If you're a fan of Urban Decay you will probably want it because it's very pretty and there are some really lovely eyeshadows in it. If you're not a fan of glittery, frosty shades, this one is probably not for you as there are only 4 mattes in it and to be fair the two lighter ones are a bit meh.

See lots more pictures including swatches after the jump!

Stila Stay All Day Liquid Lipstick in Amore - Review and Swatches

Stila has released a new liquid lipstick called Stay All Day Liquid Lipstick. I was sent a sample in the colour Amore to try out and here's what I thought about it.

Firstly, let me say that the name "Stay All Day" is actually a terrible name. To me this suggests 8+ hours of wear, minimum. Even Stila only claim this is supposed to provide 6 hours of continuous wear. So putting "all day" in the name is pretty much like putting "miracle" in the name, it puts my expectations so high, the product can only fail afterwards.

I'd say this lipstick stayed on me for 4 hours, but with eating and drinking it quickly disappeared from the inner part of my lipst mostly just leaving a not very attractive rim after a couple of hours. I found application quite difficult as there doesn't seem to be a stopper at the end of the tube, so when you pull the wand out, the doefoot applicator is covered in the product. Therefore unless you wipe it off on a tissue (and wasting loads), you are applying way too much product on your lips. It feels quite nice and smooth when applied, it quickly dries down and feels a bit dry on the lips. I kept wanting to lick my lips as they didn't feel comfortable. It wasn't drying though, but not moisturising either (which is another thing Stila claims this does).

The colour Amore is a vampy plum shade, perfect for autumn and winter. It's actually very similar to my hair colour right now. You get only 3 ml for £15 which actually makes this liquid lipstick more expensive than Guerlain! Their Rouge G L'Extrait liquid lipsticks retail for £29.50 for 6 ml, so double the size of this one. They are actually very similar products, but if I had to choose I'd go for the Guerlain ones, the gorgeous case with mirror is just so much nicer than a see through plastic tube.

All in all I like this, but don't love it. The colour's nice, but the formula isn't the best, it doesn't last as long as it claims, the name is stupid (6 hours is NOT all day) and the packaging is really not great. I won't be purchasing the other colours in this line.

See more pictures including swatches after the jump!

NOTD: Ozotic #730 Duochrome Nail Polish

I have been buying nail polish like there's no tomorrow and one of the sellers/shops I've been using is Llarowe who has a massive amount of indie brands on their website including Ozotic. It's a US based shop but the shipping isn't bad, so I have ordered a lot of nail polishes from Leah Ann who runs Llarowe.

Today I want to show you this gorgeous duochrome simply named #730 from Ozotic. I had heard about Ozotic and really wanted to try it out as I love my duochrome polishes. This one shifts from pink to red to orange. It's really vibrant and gorgeous especially in the sun. I used it alone, but of course it can be layered on top of black polish for a different effect.

Formulawise it was a big disappointment, it was weird, it didn't spread as nicely as other polishes, just sort of stayed where I put it. So it ended up really quite streaky. It took 2 or 3 coats, I can't remember now, sorry. Sadly it chipped on me very quickly (within 24 hours) and I had to remove it after just 2 days as it looked rubbish. Shame really because it's very pretty to look at.

I bought mine for $14.50 from Llarowe. I don't actually know how much you get in the bottle, I'm guessing somewhere around 15 ml, it's a decent sized bottle. Weird that it doesn't say on the bottle at all though.
 
All in all, a nice looking polish, but I'm not a big fan of the formula. Maybe other colours in this line will fare better? Have you tried any of them?

See lots of pictures after the jump!