Girly Punk Valentine's Day Nails: Neon Pink and Black Roses

Nothing says girly punk like hot pink and black. And nothing says romance like roses. So when I decided to do Valentine's Day manicure, I decided to combine these two aspects, although I'm not very girly, punky, or romantic. I keep seeing all these sterotypical reds, pale pinks, and sheers coming out near Valentine's Day, and I keep thinking - why shouldn't I do something different?

So here you are: neon pink, black, and roses. The horror!



To be honest, I didn't quite like my nails when I first wore them. I thought they were ugly (and I'm sure some of my readers will think they ARE ugly), but for some reason they grew on me, and I can't quite figure out why either. Maybe I got used to the ugliness. Or maybe the hot pink colour matched my funky Valentine's Day eye look. LOL. But it did grow on me, and yes, I was walking around with blinding hot pink nails with OTT rose designs. Yeeha!



For the neon pink base, I used Eyeko Punk Polish for Neon Nails, which is a one-coater if you're careful. Like other Eyeko polishes I've used before, the consistency is a little on the thick side, so if you prefer a thinner polish consistency, one or two drops of thinner would be more than sufficient. Oh, and this polish is NEON. Like eyeball searing, highlighter pink kind of neon. I know it doesn't look like it in the photos, but that's because I just couldn't capture the blinding neon-ness of it on camera.

For the black roses, I used my favourite konading black of all time, Wet n Wild Black. It's dirt cheap (if you don't count the cost of shipping it outside of the USA), easily available, and opaque in one coat. Perfect for konading!

The konad plate used was M65. I figured I could get away with such an OTT rose design only around Valentine's Day!



So this isn't your traditional Valentine's Day sweetheart manicure. But I have those too! If this is making you puke, feel free to try some other sweetheart, Valentine-appropriate posts: there's one with girly chic, a feminine pastel purple that's holo to boot, a nude with a touch of flowers, and the near classic jewel pinky-purple holo. Probably more traditionally Valentine Day-ish than this sad excuse to wear hot pink, LOL!

I'm not much of a romantic, and I really couldn't care less for Valentine's Day. But I figured, since it was the occasion for it, why not go all out in dressing up my nails? It's the perfect reason to get away with whatever I want!

(Eyeko product sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

Eyeko Chi Chi Polish and Punk Polish Swatches!

Eyeko has launched two new shades, Chi Chi Polish and Punk Polish. One's a glitter and one's a neon, but they're both pink! Punk Polish is a hot neon pink creme, while Chi Chi is a rose pink glitter in a clear base.



You know I'm a huge fan of swatching, but unfortunately, it so happens that I happen to already have done my nails, complete with nail stickers and bling, and it would have been difficult to remove all that to swatch two polishes. (What, you mean you haven't seen my nail bling yet? See my nail bling here. And follow me on Twitter so you don't miss my future exploits!:P ) So I swatched them on some false nails I had lying around instead. I hope you guys don't mind, I promise that real nail swatches will be up soon!

Here is Chi Chi Polish for Girly Nails:



This is a not-too-dense glitter in clear base, and this was 3 coats. You'll probably need 3-4 coats for full opacity. This would probably work well for layering, because the glitter won't obscure the colour below it. As a standalone colour it's pretty, but you'll need to put more coats on. I personally love this colour, it's sweet and girly but it still packs a punch due to the glitter. It's not too boring.

Here's Punk Polish, for Neon Nails:



This is a hot pink neon shade. It's not retina-searing neon, but it's still a pretty bright hot pink nevertheless. This is a creme and it is nicely opaque in two coats. Otherwise, there's not much I can say - the pictures do all the talking, really :)

Application-wise, both of these were the usual Eyeko quality - that is to say, the texture is a bit thicker than some of the other polishes out there, but they apply quite well. And they're pretty good value for the price, too, so these are worth checking out if you like any of the colours.

(This product was sent to me for review. I am not affiliated with or compensated by the company. This review is my honest and complete opinion.)

Glowy FOTD and Reveiw: Eyeko Extra Glow Cream

Eyeko has just released a limited edition highlighter cream, called the Extra Glow Cream. This is distinct from their current cream highlighter (called Eyeko Cream) because it is a light pink cream with silver shimmer (instead of gold like most highighting creams), so it works better for cool-toned ladies.



The cream comes in a cute little pink plastic pot and it has a white lid (not shown in the photo below) inside the pot to prevent the product from leaking. It's a pretty huge pot, like around the size of a face cream, so you know you'll be getting your money's worth!

The cream itself has a slightly harder consistency, it's not runny or liquid, but more of a solid, along the lines of a cream blush as opposed to a face cream. I actually like the more solid consistency, it make it easier to pick up the right amount with a stippling brush.



The colour itself is a very light beige-pink with fine silver shimmer in the pot, but when applied, the colour doesn't show very much, and just becomes an off-white silver shimmer. Unless you use copious amounts of this, the base colour isn't going to show up on you. And although Eyeko has marketed this to the cool-toned girls, I feel because the colour just ends up being off-white shimmer, I think warm-toned girls can wear this too, because you can't really tell the colour of the shimmer once it's applied. It just looks like a sheen on.

The swatch below shows the cream used in natural light, both blended out, and unblended:



I actually quite like this cream. I tried it in outdoors light and in indoors light, and although I thought the shimmer particles were larger than I'd like, it actually wore very well, even indoors. You can see the shimmer indoors, but it's not too much. I think given the inexpensive price, this is actually worth the money - you won't get huge disco-ball glitter chunks on your cheeks, the shimmer is much finer than that. It's still not as fine as the really top-end brands (Becca and Smashbox come to mind for awesome shimmer products), but it works pretty well and is a LOT cheaper.

Here's an FOTD I did using the cream on my cheeks. I dedicded to pair it with Illamasqua's Sin blush (another one of those colours that looks scary in the pan but beautiful on), because it's a matte colour, and I thought it would showcase the blush colour and the highlighting effect of the shimmer nicely. It's taken in natural light, and like I said, it looked a lot more natural and subtle than I thought it would be.



Here's a break down for the FOTD:

Eyes:
LORAC Persuasion
Covergirl Lashblast mascara
GOSH Velvet Touch Eyeliner in Metallic Brass (outer lower lashline)

Face:
MAC Studio Finish Concealer NC20 (undereye area only)
MAC Select Cover Up Concealer NC20 (spot application on face)
Agnes B Radiant Loose Face Powder Lumiere D'aurore mixed with some CS Silica Powder
Illamasqua Sin
Eyeko Extra Glow Cream (on cheeks, applied over Sin)

Lips:
Lancome Juicy Tubes in Beach Plum

I've said before that I don't use foundation, just concealer and loose powder to set. I know a lot of girls don't feel confident wearing cream products over powder, but as this FOTD shows, it's perfectly possible (I'm wearing the Eyeko Cream over Illamasqua Sin, which is a powder blush, and my Agnes B face powder). The trick is to use a stippling brush, like the MAC 187 or 188. Here I'm using my Flirt Feather Dust-Her! brush. Using the brush, lightly stipple the cream product onto your face with light tapping or bouncing motions, and don't rub or drag the brush too much. With this technique, you don't disturb the layers of powder underneath (well, you do disturb them, but minimally). Hopefully this helps someone out there! :)

(This product was sent to me for review. I am not compensated by or affiliated with the company. This review represents my complete and honest opinion.)

Eyeko Rain Polish and Saucy Polish NOTD, Swatches and Review!

Eyeko has released two new nail polish colours, Rain Polish for City Nails, and Saucy Polish for Naughty Nails. These are limited edition and come in slim, small bottles, housing 8.5ml of polish. That's a slightly smaller bottle than average, but these bottles still pack a punch in terms of pigment - in fact, both of these can be one coaters if you're careful with how you apply your coats.



Rain Polish is quite aptly billed as being "for City Nails" (the way Eyeko tells you what effect their polish is supposed to give your nails never fails to make me chuckle, it's so cute!), and indeed it does kind of remind me of cities - particularly the ever-cloudy skies of London. When I first started living in London, I was struck by how it was always overcast, and the sky was never blue (well, it was Fall back then). It was always some weird shade of blue-grey, and it was a couple of months before I saw my first glimpse of blue sky in London.

So what did that all have to do with the polish? Well, Eyeko has done an awesome job of capturing the grey-blue colour of the skies I saw in their polish. This colour is just the colour of those skies, which I think is pretty cool. And it's a beauty, too! It's a cross between a blue and a grey, and I can't decide if it's a blued grey or a greyed blue. It's a muted, dusty colour, one that's really chic and stunning without being loud or neon. Awesome stuff.

Here's a swatch. This is as colour accurate as I could make it - you know how hard it is capturing accurate photos of greys and purples. But I think I pretty much nailed it!



She's a beauty, isn't she? This polish has a slight shimmer in the bottle that doesn't really show up on the nail, it kind of just reveals itself as a reflective sheen instead. This is definitely the next big hit for Eyeko.

And next we have Saucy Polish. Now this is billed as being "for Naughty Nails", but we all know reds are a classic - they just give off that 1940s movie-star vibe. Sexy, classic, and a little retro all at once. I always feel it's a pity that red nail polish, just like red lipstick, seems to have gone the way of the dodo now that girls are so cautious about wearing red.



This is red. Straight-up neutral red. Fire engine red. Telephone box red. Hollywood movie starlet red. Colour wheel primary red. I love it! I don't normally wear reds, but I'm of the opinion that every girl needs a red lipstick and a red nail polish, and I like this one. It's a middle-of-the-road neutral that leans neither too cool or too warm - this is pretty much as neutral as red gets. And it's not too dusty or muted, but it's not so bright it's neon either. It's just right. I love it. If you're looking for a red nail polish on the cheap, this is probably as good as any other.

Application on both was pretty good. These are a little thicker than I'd like, and are not as thin as say, Zoyas, which may or may not be a good thing, depending on your preferences. These are also awesomely pigmented, which means if you're careful with application, one coat is enough. However, my swatches all show two coats, because I couldn't get the first coat to be even enough due to the slightly thick texture.

Colour-wise, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE Rain Polish. It's always going to have some sentimental value to me, reminding me of the London skies I glimpsed at when I first stepped foot into the city. The only catch is that being blue-based, it's a shade that might potentially be unflattering on girls who are really warm-toned. Still, I think it's a pretty shade worth a shot if you're game for it.

(These products were sent to me for review. I am not in anyway affiliated with or compensated by the company for this review. This review reflects my honest and complete opinion on the products.)

Random POTD Holiday Pic: Eyeko Coral

Over the weekend, I was with some friends in Cornwall, UK, and it was fun. We were so fortunate that the weather was relatively warm, and that it didn't rain, so we got to take lots of pictures, eat awesome seafood, and play by the beach.

Of course, you guys probably know that I hate a tan and have this kooky Asian idea that the-fairer-your-skin-the-better, so of course I was suntanning Asian style (or more accurately, my style, since I don't even think my Asian friends do what I did). I was lying down on the beach, sunning myself, while covering myself with my jacket to prevent the UV rays from hitting me. LOL! I know I could have used a sunscreen, but on that day it so happened that I had only applied it on my face and not my arms and legs, hence the jacket. (Who am I kidding, even if I had applied sunscreen everywhere I would have still used the jacket. I'm weird like that.) I think everyone else on the beach thought I was a total nutcase, but I wanted to lie on the sand, feel the warmth and smell the sea - without the UV rays. I know, I'm too demanding even for Mother Nature. And somehow while sunning myself (under my jacket), I fell asleep with my head resting on my bag, and when I woke up I had bag-fabric prints on one side of my face. As you can tell, I'm the paradigm of effortless glamour, NOT.

Anyway, on to the more important question - what pedi was I wearing on my tootsies for the holiday? Unfortunately, it was the rather conventional beach colour choice of a coral, which I've already swatched on my fingers HERE. But, I just thought I'd show you guys a couple of pictures of it on my feet anyway.

Here we are, POTD (Pedi Of The Day) pictures! And now we all know I have duck feet:



Very summery and beachy, no? Anyway, application was good, and it was opaque in one coat, although I think I used two, simply to even it out. But if you're careful, one will do. Lasting power was a bit problematic though - by the end of the weekend, the polish had chipped off on one toe, which surprised me. I mean, polish on my toes normally doesn't chip until WEEKS later. Maybe I ran around bumping into too many rocks at the beach.

Anyway, apologies for this boring post. Being back from holiday means I have to catch up with my real life (yes I actually have a real life, LOL!) which in turn translates into less time to blog. I promise I'll post with something more interesting tomorrow. :)

Eyeko Petite, Coral and Vampira Polish Swatches!

The last time I tried Eyeko's polishes, I wasn't impressed at all. Not one bit. This was back when Eyeko was still carried at my Superdrug last year. I saw their polishes in their cute bottles that looked like little milk jugs, picked up 3 or 4, tried on Pretty Polish, and promptly gave it away. It was sheer, streaky, annoying and took 4 coats to even out. And the cute milk jug bottle? It looked really eye-catching, but didn't help polish application one bit, since the polish tended to get clogged up around the too-wide rim of the bottle, and the flat cap was hard to hold.

Enter 2010, and Eyeko seems to have reformulated their polishes. These ones that I've tried were much better, both in terms of packaging. Gone are the annoying milk jug bottles with the too-wide rim and hard-to-hold cap. These ones are thinner, and sleeker, and the rim and cap are normal to hold and use. The formula also seems to have improved - out of the three I've swatched, only one was sheer, and it was billed as a polish for French manicures, so that's to be expected. There are also some interesting and surprising dupes here.

First up, we have Petite Polish, for French Nails (don't you just love how Eyeko tells you what sort of effect their polish is supposed to give? I think it's kinda cute). This one is sheer, as billed. One coat was a barely noticeable pale milky sheer pink, two coats still left VNL (visible nail line) but was still sheer. This swatch is two coats, in natural light. Pardon the stained nails:



As you can see, this is a far cry from my past experience with their Pretty Polish. While that one was impossibly streaky, this was actually even with just two coats. Streakiness is a major downfall of many a sheer french pink, so consider me impressed, even if the colour isn't devastatingly unique.

Speaking of not being unique, there are similar colours, and a close-but-not-quite-dupe in other lines:



L-R: Eyeko Petite Polish, Rimmel French Rose, Nails Inc Elizabeth Street, Eyeko Petite Polish

I used two coats of each for the swatches to ensure consistency. As you can see, Nails Inc Elizabeth Street is the most opaque of the lot, reaching near-full opacity in 2 coats. Rimmel French Rose is the sheerest of the lot, showing the most VNL, while Eyeko's Petite Polish is sort of in between, but closer to the Rimmel French Rose polish.

I think these are great for French manicures, and also very work appropriate - barely anyone is going to notice you're wearing polish with these.

Next up, we have a stunner in Eyeko's Coral Polish, for Resort Nails. This one really gives a very summery, holiday feel, and was opaque in two coats:



This is really very pretty isn't it? I generally stay away from most coral colours, because they usually carry too much orange for my taste, but this is on the red side of coral, and thus doesn't make me look as jaundiced as it potentially could. I also liked the application on this one, it applied well and was smooth. I really love this one, it's not neon, but it's bright, summery and happy.

Lastly, we have Eyeko Vampira Polish, for Goth Nails. Although I'm not quite sure if black automatically equals goth, considering that China Glaze's Lubu Heels is pretty much a classic in the nail polish fanatic's world, and it's a very similar colour. Vampira Polish, as is Lubu Heels, is a sheer black with red glitter, which is pretty much opaque in two coats. If you can't see the red glitter bits, feel free to click on the picture to view the humongous full size version, complete with messy cuticles (don't say I didn't warn you):



You know I love me my vampies, so you know I'll love this. Black with red glitter? I'll take it!

But how does Eyeko Vampira Polish compare to China Glaze's cult favourite, Lubu Heels? They look awfully similar, could they be dupes? Well, I know you'd be wondering, so I generously swatched them for you :P LOL! These swatches are two coats of each:



L-R: China Glaze Lubu Heels, Eyeko Vampira Polish, China Glaze Lubu Heels, Eyeko Vampira Polish

As you can see, they are pretty much dupes, colour-wise, right down to the size and density of glitter. I know the China Glaze diehard fans are going to howl at the presence of a dupe of one of their cult favourites, but to be fair, the China Glaze version was easier to apply, and didn't pull or streak as much. So they might be dupes colour-wise, the China Glaze had a better application. But for anyone in the UK who can't get their hands on China Glaze, the Eyeko is definitely a good substitute.

After my previous mishap with the older Eyeko polishes, I swore I'd never buy anything Eyeko again. These polishes have redeemed Eyeko in my eyes. None of these colours are super unique, but they are good basics with good quality, and worth a look at.

These products were provided to me for review purposes. I am not affilated with the company. This review is my complete and honest opinion.