Born Pretty - Fimo Review!

Hi everyone! Look at the cool stuff I have to show you today!
Born Pretty generously sent me this fimo set to review.

As you can see, it comes with 100 canes, 2 empty wheels to put your fimo in, as well as some super glue and blades for cutting the canes.

I prefer to use topcoat to adhere the fimo to my nails but you can also use fimo for things like decorating cellphones or other trinkets or even scrapbooking! You could use the superglue in those cases.
(However I really like the super glue for making nail polish jewelery!)

I wanted to show you all the fimo you get so I took pictures:

So many cute ones! I especially love the hibiscus flowers, the fruit, and of course the cupcakes!

Another cute one is the watermelon because you can use them whole or cut them lengthwise to make half slices!

I cut up one entire cane to show you how many pieces you get from one cane.

A whole lot!
But it does take some practice to cut the pieces the right size - you will make some mistakes!

But you make more good ones than mistakes. You get the hang of it!

You have to practice cutting them thin so they will lie more flat on the nail.

One cane makes so many that they totally fill a compartment in the wheel!

Now I'm going to show you some looks I did with this fimo!

Fruit fimo manis are some of the most popular! They are super cute, especially in the summer.
(Polish color - Orly Frolic)

I love the pink grapefruit one!

This is a mani I did that is more winter-appropriate! This snowflake fimo is really cute. I got a lot of compliments on it!
(Polish colors - Zoya Neeka with a glitter franken)

The fimo pieces do stick off of your nail a bit depending on how thick you cut them but you can mostly flatten them with a few coats of topcoat.

Here is the link to this item on Born Pretty.
As always, they ship for free, world wide!
And don't forget, you can still get 10% off anything with my code RCJ61! It's only valid until the end of the month so if you are thinking about buying something, now is the time!

(As well - their stamping plates are all on sale for $1.55! You can't use the discount code on the special priced items but $1.55 is a steal! They have dupes of a bunch of the best Konad plates. I bought 7...)

Tomorrow I am starting an exciting posting series! I decided on my top 10 polishes of 2011. Stay tuned tomorrow for #10!

More about → Born Pretty - Fimo Review!

EZ French Nails review;

hello :) today, i have a small review to share~

a few weeks ago, i was contacted by Raquel over at EZ French Nails to do a review on their quick and easy french nail tips.

this is what i received...


a booklet & applicator.


the booklet contains 9 pages of varying sizes of nail tips for both oval and rounded-squared nails. these pictures were taken after i already did my mani .. thats why there are some stickers missing. and i only took pictures of 6 random pages..


the applicator looks like a pen but it isnt! haha. its a needle tip that helps pick up the nail tip stickers.

here were my end results;





awkward side picture to show how nice and flat the nail tips were. :P i did add one layer of top coat over (top coat is optional).

im not gunna lie, it took me almost 5 minutes to get my first tip on .. but after that, applying the rest of the tips were a piece of cake! its really easy to do once you get the hang of it. (there is also a video provided on the EZ French Nails website on how to apply the tips.) im not someone who usually likes doing french tips on my nails .. but i was wow-ed and in love! with my french mani. my mani lasted almost 2 days, which is what the EZ French Nails website states. the one and only thing i didnt like about my mani was the shape of the curve of the thumb nail; maybe its just my personal preference, but i would've liked it more if the curve wouldve been a bit more curved and less straight.

overall, i was impressed with the EZ French Nail Tips. they were easy to use, super fast to apply, and the best part - - they dont smell! :)

check out the EZ French Nails website for more information and products. and once again, thanks to Raquel for providing me with the products for a review.

have a good one!,
<3KATRINA

More about → EZ French Nails review;

My First Haul

Well, this was my first and probably last haul! It isn't my last because I had a bad experience, just because I'm cheap! I heard about Kleancolor and went to their website and found about one million things that I *needed* so I bought them all. I didn't do any swatches because I kind of find swatches boring, but if you're curious about ANY of these products, feel free to ask me to do a swatch of something and I'll happily post it!!!

This is everything I got! You'll notice in the background the Hair Polisher, which ended up kind of sucking. It was very thick and a bit greasy. I got it for my boyfriend because he likes a silky product in his hair, but it was definitely a bust. 

Here from left to right we have: Cuticle Remover, Calcium, and Madly Matte

The Cuticle Remover doesn't seem to do very much, I'm honestly not sure what the difference between good cuticles and bad cuticles is. I only know what the difference between average cuticles and INSANELY GOOD cuticles looks like. The Calcium works nicely, I like to use calcium as a base coat, and this one doesn't allow staining any more than any other base coat, so it works nicely for my purposes. Madly Matte is wonderful. I have been wanting a matte topcoat for some time now because I LOVE how matte nails look (so much so that sometimes I don't top coat my acrylic paints so that they keep their matte-ness). Madly Matte does what you would think it would do, but I've never used any other matte topcoats, so I can't compare it to other things. 

And here is the reason I went to Kleancolor in the first place: Chunky Holo Black, Chunky Holo Bluebell, and Chunky Holo Fuschia

Oh man, oh man. I love these so much. Chunky holo black is like my favorite thing ever. I like the picture that I took here because it gives you a good idea of what these colors look like if you don't use a base coat. The "black" is almost like a mustard-y brown, the bluebell is a light-ish blue with hints of red, and the fuschia is vibrant with hints of blue. Over a solid color base coat, these all look essentially the same. The one difference is that the black has multiple sizes of holographic hexagons where as the bluebell and fuschia only have one size. This makes the black almost look like a flakey.

An important thing to know about these is that they stink, literally not figuratively (figuratively they rock). When you open up the polishes there is a pungent smell that can easily over take a room. This didn't bother me too much, but I could see how some people might not like that. But for the price, about $2 each, can you really complain?

Left to right: Born to the Purple and Blue-Eyed Girl

I really like both of these. They are both full of two sizes of hexagon glitter and have dark jelly bases. The colors look a lot like how they do in the bottles. The only problem that I had with these two polishes was that the polish dries really really slow. For me, that was a hassle because I generally don't have a huge amount of time to paint my nails so having to sit around without moving my fingers was really annoying. On the plus side though, the hexagons easily came out of the bottle and applied thickly to the nails, so there was no lack of glitter!

Left to right: Holiday Jingle, Golden Nightmare, Holo Orange

Holiday Jingle is totally un-holiday. In the bottle it appears to be a dark green glitter, making it perfectly Christmas-y, however on the nail it is really bright green. It is neon enough that I wouldn't call it a holiday green. What I do love about it though is that the glitter is SUPER dense, so your nails just look like glitter, not at all like polish. Golden Nightmare is a black with gold sparkles. It applied nicely and looks almost like a night sky, I like using it as a background for galaxy nails! Holo Orange is gorgeous, it is what it says it is, a holographic orange polish. It isn't as dense as some holos are, so it works really nicely over top of another polish. It can definitely also work alone, and if you want to wear it by itself it looks very much like it does in this picture and only takes a few coats to become opaque. 

I also got this set of tiny tiny beads for nail accents, they are hard to apply, but I love how they look. I also go a package that looks exactly like this of holographic glitter, but it was insanely hard to photograph, so there are no pictures.


Anyways, I hope this was interesting, and like I said, if you want to know more about any of the products, feel free to ask!

More about → My First Haul

massive e.l.f. review! part 2

Hi guys! This post is gonna be a long one so let's get right to it.

I'm going to show you half of my e.l.f. polishes today!
A lot of you seemed really excited about seeing these swatches so I hope you like them.

I'll start off by saying that the colors of the polishes on the website are not quite accurate, but pretty close.
And the formula on most of them is shockingly good! And considering these are just $2 each, they are a really good deal.

I had heard before that they were not great but I found mine to be awesome except 1 or 2.
Most of the shades have a sticker that reads "New Improved Formula!" and I really do think they must have improved it!

On to the swatches!

Innocent, Desert Haze, Nude, Smoky Brown

First I'm going to show you the neutral shades.
These first 4 have a great formula and dry really quickly.

Innocent is basically the perfect nude for my skin tone. The formula on this one was really lovely and it takes 2 coats to cover perfectly.

Desert Haze is very similar to Innocent but a bit darker. Same great 2-coat formula.

This one is called Nude but as you can see it is a bit more of a peachy color than a nude. Again, 2 coats, great formula!

This is Smoky Brown and it again has a great formula and almost covers in 1 coat, but you need 2.
This one is an exact dupe of OPI You Don't Know Jacques. Great dupe for a much better price!

Punk Purple, Royal Purple, Purple Dream, Dark Glitter Purple

Now for the purple shades!

Punk Purple. This one is not the newer formula and you can tell because it does not dry as quickly. It does cover well in 2 thin coats so that is still a plus!

This is Royal Purple and the last photo is the most accurate. This polish is really pretty but the formula isn't the best. It takes 3 coats to cover and you need to let it dry between coats to avoid streaking.

This is Purple Dream and this is also very pretty! The third photo is color accurate, and in the second photo you can see the fracture in the bottle! This is the one that broke in shipping. The fracture doesn't go into the polish, just the bottom of the bottle, so it is okay!

This is Dark Glitter Purple! See how pretty it is? It is a deep, almost black, inky purple, with blue and fuchsia microglitter in it! It's very pretty and I really like it.
This is just 2 coats!

Mango Madness, Dark Navy, Matte Finisher

Now for three random shades that don't fit in another category!

Mango Madness is what I would call the "problem child" of my e.l.f. haul. The formula is really thin and doesn't dry quickly. And I'm not a fan of the color. This one is 3 coats.

This is Dark Navy and I think this one is my favorite out of all 20! It's just lovely. This is 2 coats but it was almost perfect in one.

This is one coat of Matte Finisher over Dark Navy. This matte topcoat is decent but a bit streaky. It also smells stronger than the other polishes but that doesn't bother me.
I also tried a second coat to see if it would get better:

2 coats makes it much better but still a tiny but streaky. This is a great matte topcoat for the price, though.

That was a long post! I hope this helps you guys!
Remember, e.l.f. polishes retail for $2 each and you can buy them here!
And keep in mind, they currently have everything on sale buy-one-get-one-half-off or free shipping!

The products in this post were sent to me for review.

More about → massive e.l.f. review! part 2