Color Club Alter Ego: Keep It Under Cover Collection Spring 2011 Swatches and Review

Aha... now here's the exciting part. Part two of Alter Ego (or really, probably part one, you can't really Keep It Under Cover after you've already revealed your mystery), Keep It Under Cover. This half is filled with glass fleck sparkle, duochrome shimmer and vibrant color.


Alias. This color has so many faces... It's purple, it's blue, it's glass fleck... It has yellow flash, green flash, red flash... Purple shimmer! Silver shimmer! Pink shimmer! It's freakin' awesome.


Alter Ego. This has a very greyed-out purple base with crazy gold and silver glass fleck shimmer. Very, very shiny... Very cool to look at.


Masquerading. This is an interesting color. You'll notice in the first picture that it dries matte. I'm not sure if it's intended to be a matte, it doesn't seem to have that typical matte formula and it doesn't chip as easily as mattes do... Just a bonus feature, I suppose! In the second picture I've added topcoat. It is a metallic grey-teal, a touch on the frosty side but not super streaky. Nice depth to it, though... Looks light in the middle and dark on the edges, I love that! Black highlights!


Secret Agent. Gorgeous silky vibrant purple. It's a frost. Like Masquerading, it's a silky frost, not a streaky frost. Just a very fine shimmer with a soft-feeling formula. Makes me think of Jessica Birds of Paradise or something.



Total Mystery. I have to apologize for these terrible pictures. Why does it always have to be that the best colors are the hardest to capture? This is the best color I've seen in a while. It's crazy. It's bright blue and purple. Blurple? It's duochrome and shimmery. It's like OPI Ink on steroids. Everyone who saw me wearing it commented on it. I just grabs your eye and won't let you look away. If you like blue or purple, you have to get this one. At least see it in person if you can.


Ulterior Motive. This is a fun one, too. It has a dark pink / dark fuchsia glass fleck base and lots of very visible blue and purple glass fleck pearls. Go ahead, enlarge the pictures, check out those sparkles! I love blue sparkles!

The formula on these was great as well. No application issues to be found. Great dry time and wear time. Opacity was good, but I did three coats on all just to see what it looks like. Also, since this set comes with the Vivid 10 Color Intensifying Topcoat, I put a coat of that on as well.

The Vivid topcoat is a lot like the Milky White basecoat; it has a slight blue-violet tint and it brightens colors. It's not really that noticable. It is a very nice topcoat, though. Very shiny, adds a little brightness. It makes a perfect refresher topcoat if your mani has lost its shine. Dries quickly.

Now, this collection has me excited. The excessive amount of purple and duochrome make my heart skip a beat. Every color is great and beautiful. Total Mystery is a definite must have for me, and I'm thinking about getting a few backups, I love it so much.

And hey... purple glass fleck duochromes for spring? I have to love them for that. Sure, they did pastels too, but they did this at the same time! They gave us holos and duochromes and glass flecks for spring a few years back... Now every year I can't wait to see what Color Club is going to do next. Always a surprise.

(These were sent to me for review.)

Wet n Wild Fast Dry Nail Color in Teal of Fortune

I was going through my nail pictures folder and I saw this in there... I completely forgot to post this color when I did my post on the Wet n Wild FastDry polishes! I suppose it is pretty enough to get its own post...


Teal Of Fortune. It's a lot more green toned than my picture shows, but I have a feeling you already know what this looks like. It's a teal-blue jelly base with duochrome glass fleck/borderline foil shimmer. Very similar to Zoya Charla and her army of clones. I wouldn't call it a duplicate, but it's definitely in the same vein as all those other colors. Very pretty. Also very inexpensive. Too bad the brush isn't better!

LORAC Multiplex 3D Eyeshadow Palette Spring 2011

You may recall a few weeks ago when I was freaking out over LORAC's new Multiplex 3D collection, right?

Well, I had the privilege to try out a few of the new items, and I'm really excited to be reviewing them! Today I want to talk about my favorite item, the Multiplex 3D Eye Shadow Palette.

The box is holo. Oh man. I love it.


But not just the box! The palette itself is holographic, too! This seems like a mother of pearl-esque base with a black snakeskin pattern printed on top. It feels soft and leathery. It is absolutely gorgeous.



Here are the shadows in different lights and at different angles to show the detail. None of the shades seem to have names, but:

The top left shade is a light yellowy-golden peach with red pearl duochrome.
The top middle is a reflective bronze metallic.
The top right is a red-brown with green duochrome (think MAC Club)
The bottom left is a reflective metallic silver.
The bottom middle is a medium blue metallic with a sprinkling of microglitter.
The bottom right is a black with multicolored microglitter.

And on the skin:

I love the duochrome on the first one. It's like a warm version of MAC Vex! Subtle, but so flattering and fascinating.

Now, the official description of them says that they are holographic, but they aren't quite. They're all slightly duochrome and the black has multicolored glitter, but no holographic effect or hologram glitter to be seen. I am a bit disappointed by that, but not too badly because despite lacking holo, they're gorgeous shadows.

The texture is really unique. I don't have a whole lot of experience with LORAC eyeshadow, so I don't know if they're all this way or not, but they're really fluffy. They're light and airy and soft, they make a lot of powder when you put your brush to them. They seem really loosely pressed and powdery.

These can all be used wet or dry, and the packaging encourages you to use them both ways to change the depth of the look. I tried two looks with the shadows so far. First, with the warm half:



This was:
Too Faced Shadow Insurance
The top left shadow used wet on the lid
The top middle in the crease
The top right just to accent and darken the crease and a little on the lower lashline
The bottom right used wet as liner and topped with the 3D Liquid Lustre (will review that next!)
Cover Girl Lash Blast

They apply pretty smoothly wet, and since the black glitter shade is so powdery, it's easy to mix in some water to make eyeliner. Actually, I used Pixi Eyeliner Sealer instead of water to make the eyeliner, but I used water for the gold color on the lid.


And then I tried the cool half:

This was:
Too Faced Shadow Insurance
The bottom left shade on the lid
The bottom right shade in the crease and lower lashline
Kryolan UV pink as liner (I know, I know... but I was really in the mood for neon!)
Lash Blast


I accidentally smudged mascara onto my eyeliner, so I tried to cover it up by adding more liner and instead ended up with my lashes covered in eyeliner! Oh, irony. Anyway, this was a really fast and easy look to do. Just two colors and they blended together perfectly. I did notice that the silver was rather sheer and needed to be built up more than any of the other colors, and I also noticed that the silver had faded quite a bit by the end of the night. I think I'll have to try it wet next time. The black was smooth and silky, but almost none of that beautiful multicolored (blue, gold and silver!) glitter showed up on the eye.


My overall impression of these is positive. They're a lot lighter in texture than the shadows I'm used to, but they're also extremely soft and blendable due to that light texture. They apply just as nicely wet as they do dry. The colors mesh together well and you have both cool and warm options in the same palette. I also like that there's a shade dark enough to deepen a crease or create eyeliner included in the palette.

The packaging is just amazing. It is truly a beautiful sight to behold. The hologram snakeskin palette is just to die for. They score major points with me in the great packaging department. This is the kind of palette I'd like to display instead of hide it in a drawer!

The only downsides for me are the fact that the colors aren't holographic, only mildly duochrome, the glitter on the blue color seems to be overspray (or just really subtle) and that some of the shades are on the sheer side. They can be used wet to make them more opaque without layering, but I usually prefer not to add an extra step.

But... after using it a couple times, would I still buy it? Oh yeah. I'd buy it just for the duochrome gold shade, I don't have anything else quite like it. I love the colors in the palette and how shiny and sparkly they are. Even if the colors were hideous, I'd still want to buy it just for the palette design...

I really love the colors in this. I'm trying to think of a look to do with the blue. Silver and blue? Ooh, or a bronze smoky eye with blue liner?

I also have the 3D Liquid Lustre to review, I've already reviewed some of the Multiplex 3D Glosses (3D is being re-promoted with this collection alongside a new shade called 4D), and I ordered the Ulta Exclusive Multidimensional Beauty Collection, but it hasn't shipped yet... It has an Ulta exclusive shade of Multiplex gloss!

So, what do you think? Are you diggin' the Multiplex? And how hot is that holo snakeskin palette?!

(This was sent to me for review.)

(By the way, Happy Valentine's Day!)

New Wet n Wild FastDry Nail Color Shades for 2011

Along with those awesome eyeshadow trios, Wet n Wild released some new shades of FastDry nail polish for the new year. Apparently, they re-used some names that they used for last fall's colors, but the shades aren't quite the same. I was mistaken in thinking that they were re-releases; I didn't buy any of the fall colors because they didn't look that interesting to me, but these shades are fantastic. These are the ones I chose (though they all looked great):


Blue Wants To Be A Millionaire? This is a really sheer blue holo. It's very pretty. It reminds me of the light blue Nubar holo Absolute. It's not a strong hologram finish, it's really delicate and light.


Buffy The Violet Slayer. Pretty much the best purple shimmer ever. My picture is nowhere near accurate; this is the craziest, prettiest, most vibrant violet-purple color. You really need to see it in real life, it's amazing. Look at the shadow on the bottom half of the bottle, that's much closer to the actual color. It's not blue toned like it looks here. It glows.



Gray's Anatomy. Practically an exact replica of Lippmann's Wicked Game. It's a multichromatic shade that flashes grey, green, purple, blue and silver. It's a little frosty, but since it's a duochrome, I can ignore that.


Hannah Pinktana. Really? That's the name they chose for this one?! There was no other television series title they could have worked the word pink into? Silly name aside, this is another sheer, delicate holographic finish but in a shade of mauve-pink. This one is a little too sheer for me, but it sure looks pretty in the bottle. Maybe I could franken it with something to make it less sheer.



Party Of Five Glitters over Buffy The Violet Slayer. This one was a little too sheer to wear alone. It's a combination of large and small hexagonal glitter in shades of silver, pink, red, green... wait... is there one more shade in there? That's only four! Maybe there's some blue, I can't tell. This one was rather hard to apply, the clear base is thick and the glitter is sparse, kind of a difficult combination.


SaGreena The Teenage Witch. Oh man, these names are killing me! But this is a rather nice shade of green. It's a medium emerald green shimmer, bordering on frost. It's a little more sheer than I prefer, but it's not bad at all.


The formula on these is just okay. It's a little inconsistent, a little runny/goopy in some shades and some of the colors are a little sheer. It's not terrible but it's not the best. The bad part is the brush- it's slanted! Very odd brush. Not my favorite. I think they might need to re-think the brush design on these. The drying time is good on all of these, so no problems there.

One of these days I might pick up the rest of the colors, but these were the ones that interested me the most. There was this gorgeous gold glass fleck that looked really nice.

I'm continually impressed with Wet n Wild's new products. Really happy about the prices, too!

Fyrinnae Velvet Vampire Look

Remember the other day when I said that Fyrinnae's Velvet Vampire was a must have? I meant it. It is one of the greatest eyeshadows I've ever seen. It's a burgundy based duochrome; if it were a nail polish I'd call it a glass fleck. It has little pearls of iridescent crystal-like shimmer that shift colors and sparkle even in really low light. I did this look with it the other day and I couldn't get over how amazing Velvet Vampire looked. I wore Kat Von D Lightning Sheer Lipgloss in Stormy (smoky red shimmer) with it, but my pictures of that didn't turn out. My lip pictures never turn out... But anyway, I took a bunch of pictures of the eyeshadow. Gah, I love it so much.

Natural light:




Flash:


This was:
Too Faced Shadow Insurance
Fyrinnae Velvet Vampire applied wet on lid
The black half of the Hourglass Prism duo in crease and lower lashline
MAC Reflects Blackened Red glitter on top of the black in the crease
Fyrinnae Cheeky to highlight
Black liquid liner (I don't remember which one I used)
Cover Girl Lash Blast

I know I didn't capture the full beauty of this color, but you can at least get an idea of how it looks. It shifts colors when you blink! It's so sparkly and sexy and vampy, it really does look like velvet. I couldn't have picked a more perfect name for this color myself.

On a sidenote, Cheeky is my new favorite highlight color. I'm going to have to order a full size soon. It's close to the color I would normally use on my browbone, but it's special 'cause it has a hint of red shimmer to it. Subtle, but really special. Makes a nice neutral lid color, too.

Peace and Love Nail Kit from TJ Maxx!

Back in December, while I was out Christmas shopping, I stumbled across this little set at TJ Maxx:

Yeah... it looks pretty dorky. That's why I initially didn't grab it off the shelf. But then the light hit it just right and I noticed something sparkly inside...


Oooooh! A light purple toned holo glitter!

There's a few really nice colors in the set, and it was only $7, so not a bad deal.


All of the best colors are in the top row. A sheer green/gold/red duochrome that's the most amazing thing ever, a fine silver glitter, a sheer glass fleck blue/purple/grey duochrome sparkle and a black/silver sparkly color.


The bottom row has a sorta ugly warm brown shimmer, a purple holo glitter, a hot pink shimmer and a purple shimmer. There's also some purple press-on nails, purple toe separators with peace signs and some little stick on nail gems.

Man, look at these, they're so hot:


It's a little hard to tell in this picture, but it's a bit like OPI Fireflies. It's very sheer and it looks white, but at one angle it's a crazy strong green and gold and at another angle it's red and orange. I can't get over this. I love it SO MUCH.

Here's the periwinkle-slate-lavender-purple-grey whatever duochrome shimmer. Again, hard to tell how sparkly and pretty it is in the picture, but it's gorgeous in real life.

Plus, they're made in China and smell like crazy awesome chemicals, hooray!

I love stumbling across random unexpected inexpensive gems like this.