Hello hello hello! Hope you like the color purple because it's pretty dominant in today's look.
Cheap thrills.
In all fairness to this polish, I find this shade really, well, hard to resist.
Ah, it's feels so good to be able to do a NOTW again! If you didn't know, I've spent the last couple of weeks trying to get my nails to grow longer because posting a photo of them so short and bitten isn't a sight of sore eyes. Problems of a nail biting blogger, amirite? ;) My nails aren't too long but they've definitely improved. Hopefully, they'll be alright next week.
To celebrate my nail growth, I decided to whip out a polish from my box of unopened ones. I picked essence's Hard to Resist. Hard to Resist is such a gorgeous shade of blue, isn't it? It's a deep sapphire-like shade which reminds me so much of Kate Middleton's engagement ring (which is sapphire, fyi). I don't know, it looks very regal and mysterious and different. I know there's, like, 50,000 dupes for the shade alone but I'll probably end up liking them all, even if they're just the same shade. Blue's my jam, people.
As this is a shimmery polish, it glided on smoothly and I had no problems with painting this on. It wasn't streaky or patchy; it was a breeze to work with. Consistency's just right but it's a tad thicker when compared to my NARS polishes. The polish is quite opaque that you can get away with just one layer but I still recommend doing two layers to even everything out. It dried to the touch fairly quickly and once it's sealed with a fast drying top coat, it's all good.
I have a handful of blue polishes on my stash so I thought I'd have something similar but alas, I didn't. I thought it was close to China Glaze's Blue Year's Eve but that polish was 2-3 shades lighter and is more shimmery than Hard to Resist. Guess this joins the blue polish party now! Yay!
I finally have it!!
DIY dotting tool realness.
Meet my new brow brush.
If you're wondering why my last NOTW was almost a month ago, it's because I've ruined my nails. Nothing gory, but it's all because of my unbreakable habit: nail biting. My nails are very short and very unbloggable (lol) and I want all my NOTWs, especially those featuring a new polishes, to have presentable nails, not short, gnawed ones. I don't even know I'm posting this, as you can see the short nails I currently have. :))
It feels like forever since my last haul post, no? Guess I just wasn't in the buying mood these past couple of months so when I started shopping for some bits and bobs in the last two weekends, it felt pretty good to have new things in my stash. I know this isn't a big haul and all that because I've put accumulated a lot of products that I put myself in a no buying mode until I've reviewed every single one of them. That and the fact that I pretty much like spending money on food haha!
Anyway, so here are the beauty bits I've purchased. First up is the San San Eyebrow Powder Duo in Chocolate-Dark Brown (150php) and lemme tell you how long I have to wait to be able to purchase it: around 2 or 3 weeks. According to the SA, this product sells out fast and they don't restock it in big quantities. True enough, the last time I dropped by the HBC store there were only a few number of duos sitting on the shelf. Anyway, the brow duo comes in 2 variants and I got the darker duo. The lighter duo, in my opinion, will cater more to blondes and light brown haired gals. The Chocolate-Dark, Brown duo, the one I have, looks really good and promising. It's decent in pigmentation and doesn't feel cheap at all. I'm pretty stoked to use this because the Body Shop brow duo I've been using for a long time feels gritty already and it doesn't look good anymore on my brows. I'll definitely review this, positive or not!
I dropped by Watsons in Sta. Lucia East Grand Mall yesterday and purchased two products: the Marionnaud N38 Slanted Eyeline & Eyebrows Double Side brush (129php) and the iWhite Korea BB Holic Everyday BB Cream in Beige (24.50php). The bristles of my current brow brush, the Fancl Eyebrow Liner, are haywire already which makes brow filling quite challenging so I thought of purchasing a replacement. I decided to try this brush because almost all the Filipina beauty bloggers and vloggers I know use this brush, some even swear by it. So I guess it's just right to try it for myself. The iWhite Korea BB Cream is an impulse buy, tbh. Thing is, I was supposed to purchase the Myra BB Cream but I just couldn't get myself to shell out 100php for such a small tube of BB cream haha! This sachet is pretty cheap to try and if I don't like it, at least there are no regrets considering it's very affordable.
The last product I have is one I got from the drugstore. I've been seeing face primer and setting spray DIYs everywhere and all of them involve one ingredient: Glycerin . Since I'm all for DIY, I'm going to experiment with Glycerin and see if it's effective as a primer. Primers are pretty pricey but what they all have in common is Glycerin in the mix. And since Glycerin's the main reason why face bases stick longer on our faces, let me use it in its purest, most concentrated form. If this works, I'll be pretty darn happy because a small bottle only costs 34php and it'll probably last me half a lifetime. Stay tuned!
And that's pretty much the things I got! Pretty excited to use everything in here and don't worry, they'll all be reviewed here in Shash Stash. See you on my next post! xx
It's so stupidly easy and effective.
So what do you do when the look you're going for isn't working at all? You just roll with what you already started and, well, wing it from there. :P
It started with a graphic look I had in mind: sharp, bold liner, bold brows, black everything. EH, what happened? Well, let's just say it didn't work. My lines aren't going where I want them to go, I got black blobs all over my eyes and hands, I got frustrated because I'm effing up the eye look, yada yada yada. The moment I knew it wasn't working, I knew I had to change plans. I already started on the brow, might as well do something with the eye area, yes?
I had no idea for this look. All I knew was that I wanted some color and I really wanted to use a green shadow. So one product led to another and here we are. I guess while I was working on this look, I pictured that I was a queen of a fictitious race of creatures and that I wanted something that's really unconventional, a bit grubby, something that's weird and not at all wearable. This isn't really an extreme look as I didn't have a lot of time to put more details to it but I'm quite pleased with what I have now. Plus, I get to color my lashes white which is my favorite thing to do because it's just nice to see them like that. Haha. Weirdo alert.
Anyway, after I decided that I'll be keeping the bold weird brow, I went straight to priming the lid with MAC Painterly. After that, I applied Bad to the Bronze all over my upper lid and a little bit on the lower lid. I used my fingers for this and the messier, the better! After that, I went to my green shadow, Nice Stems!, and applied that to the inner and outer corners of the eye, leaving the center areas alone. I didn't bother putting shadow on top of Bad to the Bronze because it sets anyway and I pretty much like the color on its own. This step is optional but I added Honeymoon, an antique muted gold with an olive undertone, on top of Nice Stems! but that's only to enhance the shimmer of the shade. I didn't pack Honeymoon; I just lightly added it, After that, I curled my lashes and scrubbed Milk on a spoolie then used that as my mascara. I also used it to line my lower waterline. And that's pretty much it! Oh, and if you're wondering why there are flecks on my brows, it's because I dusted a bit of Half Baked on it. In hindsight, I should've skipped it because it looks like brow dandruff, tbh. :))
PRODUCTS USED:
Mac Painterly Paint Pot
Maybelline Bad to the Bronze (lid; lower lashline)
Too Faced Nice Stems! (inner and outer corners)
Too Faced Honeymoon (on top of Nice Stems!)
NYX Milk (lashes; waterline)
MAC Blacktrack (brow)
Urban Decay Half Baked (brow)
How I survived all this time without this is a mystery to me.
Found a pencil I'm willing to use more than my gels. ;)
