Illamasqua Pink Raindrops Swatch And Review

The giveaway has ended and I'll be announcing the winner shortly.  Stay tuned!  Meanwhile, on Tuesday we celebrated LO's birthday and took her to get fries for dinner.  I noticed that it's one of her favorite foods, so of course I had to spoil her with a plate.  We went to The Counter for burgers, and ordered her her own plate of two mini veggie burgers with a side of fries.  She nearly devoured all the fries herself along with a veggie patty.  She had a ball!  If she had a belt, I swear she would have loosened it a notch.

I recently got my hands on Illamaasqua Pink Raindrops and I was totally excited to swatch it despite the poor reviews I read about the formula.  The formula lived up to the hype(or un-hype perhaps), and was not easy to apply smoothly.  It was thick and patchy and didn't self level at all.  I used three coats for the mani below with no topcoat.  Regardless, I love every single pink iridescent flake in the mani.  The pale pearlescent pink color, not so much.  The pale shade doesn't do much for my skin tone.

Illamasqua Pink Raindrops

Illamasqua Pink Raindrops

Illamasqua Pink Raindrops

Illamasqua Pink Raindrops

Illamasqua Pink Raindrops

The flakes don't show up in the mani as well as it does in the bottle, and they're really hard to see IRL.  It's a shame that both Raindrops have crappy formulas, but I'd much rather tangle with the original blue grey Raindrops - the coloring is more flattering for me and worth the trouble.   I could stare at the bottle of Pink Raindrops all day though - it's like swimming in a heavenly sea of shimmering pearls.  Here's a closeup of the bottle:

Illamasqua Pink Raindrops

It's a shame that it doesn't transfer over onto the nails, otherwise this would be an incredibly stunning nail polish.  This is the first time that I've been disappointed by Illamasqua but it won't deter me from purchasing other nails colors from the line.  Illamasqua has always provided me with perfectly performing polishes(say that three times fast) and I'll continue using their brand.  

Love & Beauty Moonwalk and Sparkling Coral Swatch And Review

Happy Thursday!  It's my last day in PA and hopefully I've done a lot of damage with the credit card.  I love shopping here because there's no tax on shoes and clothing and it's a mecca of outlets.  I've already taken advantage of it by sending some of my online orders to my parent's address.   DH needs to get a suit for the wedding too, hopefully he found something!  Oh, and who could forget a visit to the mother of all Saks outlets, which is the warehouse location in Maryland.  Woot woot! 

Recently Forever 21 had an online sale of their makeup, and a bunch of their polishes were marked down to 99 cents.  I managed to score only a few after dumping a bunch into my cart and then trying to reason myself down to only three.  I really don't need any more polishes in my collection, so I chose only the colors that I knew I was lacking. 

First of these is Moonwalk, a pearl white shimmer with holo glitter hexes.  Formula seemed gummy somehow, I guess you could say it was on the thick side.  It didn't dry as quickly as I like and you can see some brushstrokes from some of the dragging I got towards the tips.  I used three coats in these pics.  I love how the little holo glitters pop in the sunlight.  It adds a bit of edge to an otherwise innocent looking mani.  It may be perfect for the wedding that I have to go to this weekend!

Love & Beauty Moonwalk

Love & Beauty Moonwalk

Love & Beauty Moonwalk

Love & Beauty Moonwalk

Love & Beauty Moonwalk

Next is my favorite of the ones I got, and that is Sparkling Coral, a lovely coral jelly with bits of iridescent flakies.  I love flakie polishes and I could stare at this all day. I could have used two coats for this but instead used three to diminish VNL and to add depth to the flakies.  I finished this with a topcoat of Poshe.

Love & Beauty Sparkling Coral

Love & Beauty Sparkling Coral

Love & Beauty Sparkling Coral

Love & Beauty Sparkling Coral

Love & Beauty Sparkling Coral

Don't you love how the iridescent pieces pick up the purple and pink?  I think this may be one of my favorite Love & Beauty polishes evar!  Sadly the bottle only reads the color as Coral but it's definitely called Sparkling Coral on the f21.com website.  I wonder if there are more colors from Love & Beauty that have flakies... hmm... will have to investigate that some more!  What's your favorite cheap flakie polish?