SOCIAL MEDIA

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

I See Blue: Maybelline Great Lash Limited Edition Colored Mascara

Hi guys! Long time no blog. So recently I made a trip to my local Walgreens when Anna came to visit me. She was on a hunt for some drugstore beauty products she couldn't find at home. While we shopped, I happened to discover Maybelline's new limited edition Great Lash mascaras. I know, I know. Great Lash has been around forever. However,  the new limited edition bottles cash in on the summer trend of colored mascara. There are six different colors to my knowledge (blue, teal, green, pink, purple, and a deep red/berry color) and as badly as I wanted like 3 of them, I only picked up one: I See Blue, a cobalt blue toned mascara. Blue and violet mascaras are great for bringing out brown eyes (which I have). On to the review:


Pros:
The price: At around 7 dollars, this mascara lets me play around with the colored mascara trend while still keeping me within budget. I've wanted to try out colored mascara since January, but every brand I've seen so far with colored mascara (Benefit, Calvin Klein) has been a bit expensive for an "experimental" mascara.
Mascara Quality: Maybelline's Great Lash always gets great reviews in the blogging world so it's nice to see them come out with a colored mascara that uses the same formula.
Color flexibility: This mascara goes on a true bright cobalt blue that you can visibly see over my naturally black lashes especially in direct sunlight outdoors. At first this kind of scared me because I thought I would never be able to wear this as a daily mascara since blue eyelashes do not exactly make the work appropriate list. However, the color is not noticeable at all indoors making it office appropriate as well. Yay! 
Cons:
Mascara Quality: I know I said this was a pro, but I feel it is a double edged sword. While the Great Lash is a great formula for mascara, it is not my favorite and doesn't really do much for my lashes compared to the ten other mascaras that Maybelline makes. For example, I don't get the same amount of volume as I would if I was using Colossal Volume. For a next step, I'd like to see Maybelline make their colored mascaras for other mascara types.


I apologize for the blurry picture. It seems my camera refuses to focus on the wand when there are a million speckles in the background. As you can see the pros outweight the cons and I definitely encourage you to pick this one up if you are interested in the colored mascara trend. What color would you rock?
XOXO,
Signature Fonts

Friday, July 26, 2013

SWATCH & REVIEW: Julep Taylor and Julep Meryl

I have a quick post today. I just wanted to share swatches of two more Julep colors that I borrowed from Haylee. I don't think I've ever seen a Julep color that I didn't like. The formula on both of these was great, too. They both were completely opaque in 2 coats.

First is Julep Taylor:


I used this one as the base for the flower manicure I did as a guest post for Fun Size Beauty. It's such a nice, bright blue--I love using colors like this on my toes.

Next is Meryl:


Meryl is a pretty standard grey creme polish, but I really love this polish because of its great formula.

What are your favorite Julep colors? Haylee went on a spending spree and bought a bunch of Julep polishes, so I'm looking forward to playing with those when I go visit her next week!
Wednesday, July 24, 2013

ARTSY WEDNESDAY: Designer-inspired

Today's theme was designer-inspired. I was inspired by this gorgeous Monique Lhuillier dress:


I was pleased that my idea for my nails panned out:


I used Wet n Wild Shine Black Creme as the base, and used paper reinforcements to make the half-moons. [There's a great tutorial here.] I used Wet n Wild Shy on top of the black. Last, I used one of my new Bundle Monster stamping plates, BM-20, to stamp the design on top of my half-moon manicure. 

This was my first time doing a half-moon manicure with paper reinforcements, and I learned how important it is not to use a thick polish for your top color. If the polish is too thick, then it's hard to get a clear half-moon. Also, if you accidentally put too much polish on your nail, you also don't get pretty half-moons. This was also my first time using my stamping plates; I plan on doing a review of the plates soon, and I'll include some tips on stamping there, too. Also, let me know if you would like a more detailed tutorial of this!

Be sure to check out the other girls' designer-inspired manis:



Sunday, July 14, 2013

NAIL ART: Brown and White Stamping

For today's post I just wanted to showcase some nails I did using my Cheeky Vibrant Collection stamping plates. My personal goal is to do a nail art post with each one of the designs. 


I painted the entire nail with Hard-Kourt Fashionista a dark brown Nicole by OPI polish for the Kardashian Kollection. Then over the top I stamped with New York Color (NYC)'s 134 French White Tip
Enjoy! 
XOXO,
Signature Fonts

Friday, July 12, 2013

NAIL ART: Summer Inspired Gradient and Polka Dots

So I was inspired by the summertime (sunsets in particular out here in the desert) and some new polish colors I bought back in May to try to do my first gradient design.


I used Julep's Clara for the base's peach color and sponged the limited edition Pierre Hardy for NARS color Vertebra Left. For the dots, I used a dotting tool to carefully place Kiss Nail Art Paint in black.
Enjoy! XOXO,
Signature Fonts