Blog Awards!

From the Unknown Beauty Blog!

Recently I received 3 different blog awards! I couldn't believe it! So here are the blog awards and all they entail! :D

The first one I received was from the wonderful Olivia from The Unknown Beauty Blog Check out her great blog here! I adore that most of her photos actually have her covered up. That always makes me laugh as it really is Unknown what Olivia looks like! 

Here's the criteria for the award!

~ Post about the award and copy the rules (there's not many! Yay!)

~ Link to the person who gave you the award!

~ Choose 3-5 blogs you would like to give the award to and link to them as well. Leave a comment on their blog to let them know!

~ Important: This award is for unknown or new blogs only!

Here are the three blogs I'm giving the Bloggy Award to!

1. the black panties! Here! I always feel a little risque going to her blog just because of the name! Her reviews are always great too!

2. Evermore Immortal 18! You can see her here! This girl is so so talented! Her looks are to die for good, so creative and stunning!

3. Miss Diorista! Check her out here! I love how spring-like her blog is and how she includes some of the neatest looking cooking concoctions! Plus she is a doll, so sweet!

Next up is the Stylish Blogger Award! Thanks so much Varnish Vixen for giving me this! I really appreciate it! Varnish Vixen is one of my top favourite nail bloggers, not only is she endlessly friendly and has the neatest quirky steampunk style I adore her photographs and her header is adorable!

Here are the Stylish Rules:
1.  Thank and link the person who gave it to you,
2. Share 7 random facts about yourself
3. Give the award to 15 other bloggers and let them know about it.

Seven Random facts about myself!

1. The reason I got my gerbils (two little boys that are brothers) is because I was lonely at university. Ever since I got them I've snuck them into my residence despite the fact there is a no pets except fish rule. I figure since they live in an aquarium tank and drain their water bottle on a regular basis they can pretend to be fish if anyone asks. :D

2. I'm in science but I hate math and physics. I like the solidarity and confirmation numbers can give you I just can't manage to work them well myself.

3. I honestly believe I was supposed to be born in another era. I love history especially Scottish history and I adore myths and legends from the Britain as well. The fashion the activities such as horse riding, falconry, and embroidery. All of these things draw me so much!

4. I spend most of my time reading. To me it is the ultimate hobby and stress-relief.

5. Walking back to my place at night now is not nearly as intimidating after I had to go to the washroom in the dark in Tanzania. Worry of weirdo people has nothing over the worry of hungry hyenas.

6. I adore Cookie Dough ice cream. I also love Cherry Cheesecake ice cream. Some of the most decadent yummy things ever in creamy cold form. Ice Cream is a gift from the gods.

7. My favourite television show is Bones. I love how intelligent she is and yet completely oblivious to social norms at the same time. Plus the characters just interact so well together!

I've decided to only give the award to four others. Here they are!
~ Gina at Nouveau Cheap (I love all the awesome deals she has with dupes and swatches galore!)
~ Rae at The Notice: A Beauty Blog (She always has the best overview of some Canadian only brands!)
~ Cami at Cami Loves Kiwi Beauty and Dinosaurs (Such great reviews and I love her sense of Humor!)
~ Olivia from The Unknown Beauty Blog (Great Reviews, good swatches and such a wonderful name for the blog!)

There is another award that the lovely Miss Diorista gave me a while ago but I've run out of steam for this post! I'm hoping to get to it soon! Have a great weekend everyone!

Rescue Beauty Lounge- Polish Colour of your Dreams

From RBL Blog

For those of you who don't know yet, Rescue Beauty Lounge owner Ji is hosting a contest where 3 lucky people will get to have their dream polish colour created into a Rescue Beauty Lounge polish! How cool is that?! You can check out the blog here, it has all the details but the contest is only open for 48 hours, starting noon today! I've submitted my entry and though it is unlikely I will win I'd sure like to! Here's the image I chose to show my inspiration:

Mike Blair Photography
His Website here

For those of you who don't know, these are the Callanish Standing Stones. Over 5000 years old these are on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. One of the most amazing places on Earth in my opinion. Here's my description for my entry, tell me what you think! Would it be a colour you'd wear? What types of colours would you choose if you got to pick any colour in the world for a polish?

My perfect nail colour is taken right from the Hebrides of Scotland the Callanish Standing stones. I would love a colour that is mainly a light grey like the stones themselves but has a reflect of mossy green like the grass that grows beneath the stones and the moss that grows on them. Slight flecks of purple like the heather that grows nearby and the variance in the rocks themselves would be the finishing touch. A colour that would truly reflect one of the most amazing places I've ever been.



In other news, I apologize for being AWOL. I've been really ill and my new semester at school has started leading me to the land of stress and doom. Hopefully I'll be back in full blogging action again soon!

Peacocky Haul, Swatches, and Comparisons

One of the Kissable Lipcolours were already sold out!

I'm sure most of you know that the Peacocky collection has been released into stores this week! I Went yesterday, the day after the release of the collection and was able to play for a good 15 minutes as well as take pictures and swatch to my heart's content. Yay for the super friendly Mac Artists!

I love the layout of this collection like a Peacock with it's tail feathers spread, I think that's really creative! I only bought four items but I wanted so many more! There was just so many wonderful highly pigmented colours in this collection! The only thing I was disappointed in was the Peak-at-You eyeshadow. It lacked pigmentation and sheen. Other than that I loved the formula of both the Mega Metal Shadows and the Kissable Lip Colours but more on that later! Here's a closer look at the eyeshadows.

Closer look at all the shadows (sorry for the washed out shades!)
Top L-R: Odalisque, Tweet me, Prance, Peak-At-You, Dalliance, Paparazz-she, Spectacle of Yourself, Centre Stage, Unflappable
Middle row L-R: Noir Plum, Ego, Mating Call, Sexpectations, Dandizette
Top of the Posh

And the washed out shades not washed out!
Top L-R: Tweet Me, Prance, Peak-at-You, Dalliance
Bottom L-R: Ego, Mating Call

And a couple of eyeshadow swatches from colours that interested me! I kept getting distracted by different colours I loved so much that I never got around to swatching all the eyeshadow colours but here is a bunch of Mega Metal eyeshadow swatches. Enjoy!

Top- Bottom L: Tweet Me, Dalliance, Prance
R: Soft Force

See how invisible Peak-at-You is? So disappointing! And that was two swatches of colour compared to the one swatch I needed for the left colours! You can barely see it!

Top: Spectacle of Yourself
Bottom: Tweet Me

Dandizette

In other swatches of this I thought it was a lovely Indigo colour somewhere between blue and purple but in real life it looks like the photo above a denim blue colour so I was a bit disappointed. Lovely blue just not what I thought it was going to be.

Unflappable

I kept hearing things about Unflappable. That it was so unique and special. To be honest I didn't think so. Great pigmentation but to me it just looked like a neutral dark brown.

Next up is the Kissable Lip Colours which I did swatch all of the available ones for you all! Missing is Exxhibitionist.

L-R: Woo Me, So Vain, Temper Tantra, Peacocky, Super

L-R: Love Peck, Strut Your Stuff, Scandelicious (More Raspberry in real life), Vanity Fair, Flaunting It, Enchantee

The formula on these lip colours is amazing! I love the silky and moisturizing feeling that they go on with, no stickyness AT ALL! They then dry down a bit to a drier more longer lasting finish. And you need so little to get major colour pay off! Love Peck looks almost black here but when sheered out onto the lips it becomes a lovely dark berry shade. I highly recommend these if you see a shade you like! I know I want more than just the two I bought! The nice bit about the darker colours is that they stain you lips as well so even if you eat you still have a light stain of colour left over! Wonderful!

Comparisons! I've got a couple comparisons between the colours to other brand shades or other Mac shades. Hopefully this is useful to some of you!

Top: Ego, Bottom: WnW Envy

Left: WnW Envy, Right: Ego

Gosh I want Ego so so so badly! But I told myself that Envy by Wnw is close enough that I do not need yet another green eyeshadow. They'll probably look the same on the eye. Even if it is my favourite dark green ever with such an amazing blue undertone.... *Tears*

Left: Nars Cheyenne Right: Spectacle of Yourself

I was a bit worried when I got Spectacle of Yourself that it would be too red and therefore too close to my cranberry shade in my NARS Cheyenne duo. Luckily I was wrong and they are different enough to justify me having both. Such wonderful colours!

Left: Spectacle of Yourself, Right: Nars Cheyenne

Left: Vex, Right: Dalliance

Many people are saying that Mac Vex is a dupe for Dalliance out with this collection. I am here to prove this WRONG! (Of course this may also be because Vex is my all time favourite).

Left: Dalliance, Right: Vex

Left: Vex, Right: Dalliance

As you can see when swatched Dalliance is a white-gold and Vex is a grey with pink reflect. Not the same at all!

The Kissable Lip Colours I purchased were Love Peck and Peacocky. The two eyeshadows are Dalliance and Spectacle of Yourself. I'll post lip swatches of the colours in a couple of days.

Peacocky

Love Peck

Dalliance

Spectacle of Yourself

Top: Spectacle of Yourself, Dalliance

What does everyone think? Great collection in my opinion!

Peacocky Update (and some swatches)

Image from Temptalia

If you don't know already Peacocky has been released on the Mac website! The free ship code (at least for Canadians) is Peacocky and I can't wait for tomorrow as I'm going to most certainly be at my Mac store! I've got a couple things I'm leaning towards but I feel like I need to compare some of things I've already got to some of the items I want! I'm trying to be smart about my purchases otherwise I'll end up with a billion purples and greens that all match! 

I recently saw some swatches provided by a wonderful Mac Artist on Specktra named Paparazzi Boy and I thought I'd post the pictures for you to enjoy too!

Kissable Colour Lip Swatches

Left Top to Bottom: Strut Your Stuff, Love Peck, Vanity Fair
Right T-B: Exxxhibitionist, Temper Tantra, Scandelicious
Huge thanks to Paparazzi Boy on Specktra for these swatches and photos!

Left T-B: Peacocky, Woo Me, So Vain
Right T-B: Super, Enchantee, Flaunting It
Huge thanks to Paparazzi Boy on Specktra for these swatches and photos!

Mega Metal Shadow Swatches

Left T-B: Odalisque, Noir Plum, Top of the Posh
Right T-B: Paparazz-she, Tweet Me, Mating Call
Huge thanks to Paparazzi Boy on Specktra for these swatches and photos!

Left T-B: Prance, ----, Ego
Right T-B: Unflappable, Dandizette, Centre Stage
Huge thanks to Paparazzi Boy on Specktra for these swatches and photos!

Left T-B: Dalliance, Sex-pectations
Right T-B: Peek-At-You, Spectacle of Yourself
Huge thanks to Paparazzi Boy on Specktra for these swatches and photos!

I love so many of these! So many colours I want for my eyeshadow collection! Although unflappable and Prance are not shown anywhere near their true beauty on the cards. Here's the ones I'm interested in:

- Spectacle of Yourself (What a lovely Auburn colour!)

- Ego (I'm a sucker for anything Dark Green)

- Dalliance (I've been looking for a Silver-Gold Shadow and I think this might be it!)

- Dandizette (looks like such a lovely denim almost violet colour!)

- Prance (A unique silvered pink, it's one of the few pinks I've ever been drawn to!)

- Tweet Me (Pretty much a pressed version of Melon Pigment or a powder of Rubenesque Paint pot both of which I continue to eye up longingly.)

- Unflappable (A dark taupe-purple sounds interesting!)

- Peacocky (BLUE! Blue lip gloss! I know this won't be worn often but I want this because it's blue!)

- Flaunting it (A purple. I love purple lippies. I'm trying to convince myself to pass on this as I have a bunch but at the moment I'm not sure that's going to happen *-*)

- Love Peck (Oooh dark red. I love dark reds!)

What about everyone else? Any shades in particular you're interested in?

2010 Favourites of the Year!

A bunch of you voted saying you'd like to see my favourites from 2010 so here they are! If you want to know more about any particular thing leave me a comment and I'll either answer or I'll bump the item up on the reviewing schedule!

Runner-up Note: The only reason some of these have Runner ups is because they almost were the favourites themselves they were that close! I tried not to do a runner up unless it was a realllllly tough choice!

Eye Favourites (Excluding Eyeshadow)


Pencil Eyeliner: Mac Chromographic NC15/NW20 Pencil Link to Review
Gel Eyeliner: Mac Rich Ground Fluidline Link to Review
Mascara: Blinc Mascara in Black Link to Review
Eyeshadow Primer: Too Faced Shadow Insurance Link to Review
Eyebrow Pencil: Annabelle Eyebrow Pencil in Auburn
Eyeshadow Palette: Urban Decay Box of Shadows II

Eyeshadow Favourites (By Colour)


Purple: Urban Decay Ecstasy
Pink: Mac Petalescent (This may have been Limited Edition I have it in an old palette- it's also the only light pink I own so it was kind of a given for this spot)
Yellow: Too Faced Rich B!tch Duo (Right side)
Orange: Nars Cheyenne Duo (Left Side) Link to Review
Burgundy: Nars Cheyenne Duo (Right Side) Link to Review
Brown: Stila Eden
Nude/Skintone: Wet n' Wild Color Icon Single in Brule (I'm a pale NC10- NC15, a darker skintone may match my brown favourite or even darker would probably suit a different colour. Please let me know your favourite skintone eyeshadow is! There are so many different skintones out there so it would be interesting to see what others use as their skintone/nude shade.) Link to Swatch
Gold: Don't have one I use yet! :(
Grey: Mac Vex
Silver: Wet n' Wild Night Elf (Top Right) Link to Swatch
Black: Urban Decay Perversion

Face Favourites


Concealer: TheBalm Time Balm Concealer in Lighter Than Light Link to Review
Foundation: Estee Lauder Double Wear Light in Intesity 1.0 (Lightest shade)
Matte/Satin Powder Blush: Laura Mercier Second Skin Blush in Rose Petal (Runner up: Mac Azalea Blossom Blush Ombre is so lovely but LM wins due to how good it is with a bunch of different looks!)
Shimmer Powder Blush: The Body Shop Autumn Leaves Blush in Berry Link to Review
Cream Blush: Nars Penny Lane (I just got this and I love it already! Review to come!)
Face Primer: No real winner this year though if I had to choose one I liked the NARS (non-SPF version!) the best of the ones I've tried this year but I've not found my favourite primer yet! Link to Review
Liquid Highlighter: Lorac Oil-Free Illuminator in Pearl
Powder Highlighter: Don't have one I use and like yet! :(
Setting Powder: Mac Prep + Prime Translucent Powder
Tinted Moisturizer: Laura Mercier Oil Free SPF 20 in Porcelain

Lip Favourites


Lipstick: Mac Courting Lilac Lipstick (This may be new but gosh am I wearing this often! Runner Up would Mac Most Wanted Slimshine which was unfortunately discontinued.) Link to Swatch
Lip Gloss: Lorac Multiplex 3D Lipgloss in Vivid (Runners up are tied with Revlon Super Lustrous Lipgloss in Lilac Pastelle and Nars Downtown Lipgloss)
Lip Stain: Revlon Twice Bitten Lipstain and Balm in Twilight

Nail Polish (By Colour)
Green: I bought so many greens this year and none of them lived up to the standard of my favourite green (which is my favourite colour) :(
Blue: Eyeko Indigo Polish Nail Swatch
Purple: OPI Rumble's Wiggin Nail Swatch
Pink: I don't wear pink polish or at least I've yet to find a pink I like!
Red: Sephora OPI Sample Sale
Orange: Wet n' Wild Inferno Nail Swatch
Peach: NYX Fire 136 Nail Swatch
Gold: Looks Like Rain, Dear Nail Swatch
Taupe: Nubar Gem (Has a taupe base to it but it doesn't really look taupe on the nail!) Nail Swatch
Grey: Color Club Revvvolution Nail Swatch
Silver: Wet n' Wild Vixen Mitten's Dasher mini (Small silver holographic glitter) Nail Swatch
Black: Eyeko Vampira Polish Nail Swatch
TOP Nail Favourite: Nubar Gem was the winner this year, so unique and beautiful. Something that I didn't think I like but fell in love with! Nail Swatch

Nail Care Favourites


Treatment: Nail Tek II Intensive Repair Therapy Review
Cuticle Remover: Revlon Gentle Cuticle Remover Mini Review

Skin Care Favourites


Cleanser: Murad Clarifying Cleanser
Face Wipe: Say Yes to Cucumbers! Gentle Cleansing and Make-up Removal Wipe
Night Moisturizer: Murad Skin Perfecting Moisturizer
Day Moisturizer: Haven't found one I like yet with enough SPF to be worth it
Lip Balm: Josie Maran Argan Oil Lip Treatment Review
Hand Moisturizer: Bath and Body Works in Exfoliating beads Mango and Passion Fruit

Miscellaneous Favourites


Dry Shampoo: Batiste Blush Dry Shampoo
Make Up Brushes: Eco Tools Brushes Review
Favourite Mac Collection: Mac Tartan Tale Collection (As could most likely have been guessed by all of you lol) (Search Tartan in the search box and ALL the posts will pop up!)
Sunscreen: Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Water Light Daily Face Sunscreen Review
Nail Polish Remover: Rexall/Life Brand Pot Sponge Remover


Hopefully the coming year will have a bunch of other favourites including the:


Things I'm still on the Hunt for!

•        Moisturizer with a decent amount of SPF in it that also feels nice on
•        Powder highlight I’ll actually use on a semi-regular basis
•        Green lippie of some sort, because there aren’t any currently and I want to do a Forest Sprite/Nymph look (yes, I know I’m kinda crazy) Also a green polish I actually love!
•       Something to get rid of blackheads and make my acne completely disappear
•        Auburn eyebrow wax (that won’t cause acne flair ups!)

•        Undereye gel/cream that will help prevent wrinkles and help fade my dark circles!