Wet n Wild - Megalast nail color (Disturbia, Sugar Coat, Red Tape)

Hi! Today I'm reviewing some new Wet n Wild megalast nail color polishes.

First up is Disturbia

This is with 2 coats. I really like this dark, eggplant purple color. The application was smooth and streak-free. The polish is also very shiny, the picture above is without a top coat so that I could show you the shine. I have to say, I really like this polish a lot.

The 2nd color is Sugar Coat

This is with 3 coats. The color is a very sheer, pinky / peachy shade. It can be worn in 2 coats, but I wanted to see how close to opacity I could achieve. Again this picture was taken with no top coat and the polish has a great shine to it. I'm not a big fan of sheer or nude colors, but this is nice and would compliment many skin-tones. It applied as well as the 1st polish and that's always a big plus for me!

The final color is Red Tape

This is with 2 coats, and again with no top coat. I'd describe this as a fairly sheer yet bold cherry tomato red! I really like this red! As much as I enjoy red polish on others, I never tend to choose it for myself. This one makes me want to wear red! It's a really fun shade!

So, overall, I think these are pretty great considering the price. There is a wide selection of colors, dry time is quick, and I had no chipping for about 4 days. Polishes are .3oz  They can be found at Walgreens, Amazon, and other drugstores.
My only complaint is that the brush is short and a little wide. If you have small nail beds, like mine, application is not the easiest compared to other brushes.
The formula is toluene, phthalate, and formaldehyde free (a big plus)!




** These polishes were provided to me for review, all opinions are my own**

Zoya nail polish for Sale in the Shop!

Hi ladies (and fellas)! I am now selling Zoya polish and anything else from the art of beauty line! Such great products!
You can check out everything available over at http://zoya.com/
Purchase by hitting the SHOP tab, and email me if there's something you want, but aren't seeing!

~ Alison

Q & A - ask away! or share your random comments, and thoughts!

I wanted to create a space just for you to ask questions, leave comments, or anything else that might not be relevant to any of my existing posts! This is basically a free-for-all area! Please be considerate, and please do not promote your own blog here. Email me at beautyblog411@gmail.com if you'd like me to help promote you! Thank you and enjoy!

Water Marble - Quick Tutorial for St. Patrick's Day

Hi! I really enjoy nail art, and think water marbling is a great method! I'm still very new to it and I will do future posts as I improve. It can be very frustrating when you first begin, but don't give up!
This is just a quick tutorial on the St. Patrick's Day marbling my sister and I did last night.
Feel free to ask questions if you don't understand a step, I didn't get quite as many pictures as I would have liked. Also, if you have suggestions to help me and others with the process, please share!

It is recommended to use filtered, room temperature water. I accidentally wrote 'distilled water' on the grocery list! But at a gallon for less than a dollar, I figured I'd just try it and it seemed to work very well.

First you want to basecoat your nails and allow them to dry. Usually people paint their nails in the lightest of the colors planned to use in the marbling, which is what my sister did. I actually just used ridge-filling basecoat and did not paint my nails.
Once they are dry, you want to tape around your nails. I use basic clear scotch tape.

I do a strip down each side of the nail, wrapping around under the free edge, and one piece across the finger above the cuticle.

The next step is where it gets tricky! Have your cup filled with the room temperature water. I like to use glass, but have seen success with many cups. Do not use Styrofoam because the polish will eat through it!
Not all polishes will spread in water, so there is some trial and error involved here.
When you find the colors you want and see that they will spread, you want to move somewhat quickly, dripping one drop of polish at a time, alternating colors, to form a bullseye.

This is an example using 3 polishes. You can touch the drip of polish to the water, but avoid touching the brush to the water!

Here is a second example, using 2 polishes.












Once you have made your bullseye, you want to 'draw' a pattern through it. I used a toothpick to do this. Try to keep the toothpick touching the polish, and not dipped too far into the water. Also wipe it off if too much polish is sticking to it.

I, unfortunately, only captured one picture of drawing. I will get more up for you! I find it best to start at the outer edge of the cup and bring a line in to the center, then repeat from the opposite side. Do this again to form a cross or X design. From there you can pull in from whatever area you like until you have a design you like! Remember not to take too long or the polish will dry up. You will also only want to dip 1 or 2 fingers at a time, so don't worry too much if your design doesn't cover the entire water surface!

Find the area you like best and dip your nails, trying to keep the nail flat going into the water. Once in the water you can straighten your fingers. Keep them in the water as you use an orangewood stick, q-tip, etc. to clear away the remaining 'floating' polish away from your nails so that it doesn't glob onto your nails as you lift them out of the water!

Once you clear around the fingers, lift them out! Clean leftover polish out of the water so that it's ready for your next nails. If it seems there's a lot of oils floating around, I find dabbing a napkin or paper towel onto the top of the water helps, like so...

Don't worry about the messy, dried up polish on/around the glass. It will not hurt the next dips. My cup looks like a disaster halfway through this!

Remove the tape! As you can see, it can still leave a mess, but it's so simple to clean up with q-tips, or cotton-wrapped orangewood sticks and polish remover. After clean up, apply a topcoat and you're set!
Here are our other various finished results from last night (before all clean up) The orange decided to stop spreading for me so my second hand is just the 2 green polishes! Like I said, possible frustration, trial and error!

I was really happy with this petal-like design we achieved!

These are my sisters nails, using the 2 greens.









The best advice I can give is have fun!
Some patience can be required, but it's honestly not as painstaking as it may seem!

Let me know if you'd like to see another water marble post, if you have questions, would like a picture to help show a step, or anything else! I was also considering doing a video tutorial, what do you think?

Happy St. Patty's Day!!!

Polishes used:
Lighter green is Essie- Navigate Her
Darker green is Zoya- Shawn
Orange is OPI- Home on the O-Range (not sure why that one stopped spreading on me?!)

Beauty Blog Shop Open!

Hi everyone! I just wanted to let you know I've opened a shop on the blog! You can enter where it says 'SHOP' at the top of the page.
I will be adding more products very soon!
Please feel free to email me at beautyblog411@gmail.com with any questions.

Quick & Easy Polish Removal Method - Tutorial

I can't take credit for this removal method, I'm not sure who came up with it! I can say it is the quickest, easiest method I have used and want to share it with you!

To Start: You just need polish remover, a cotton ball, and I like to use a little dish to hold the remover (you can use the cap if you don't have anything).

First comes the cotton ball!
unroll a cotton ball, use your fingers or scissors and split it in half length-wise, then rip the strips into small nail-sized pieces as demonstrated below...

I get about 10 pieces per strip (20 total for 1 cotton ball)

Now it's time to remove that polish! Click on the pictures to enlarge them!
Pour a small amount of remover in a small dish or the lid.
Dip one piece of cotton at a time, just the tip (it'll travel up the rest of the piece) into the remover.
Place the wet piece onto nail, and continue with each nail.
I do one hand at a time, just a little easier to work with.

After about 20-30 seconds, push (not hard) on the cotton and slide it off the nail!

If there are bits of polish left, use your extra cotton pieces to finish cleaning up.
This took me less than 1 cotton ball, and very little remover, to remove all polish from 10 fingers!

Now GO! Try it! And tell me if you love it!!! 

Glisten & Glow - body lotions

I have had the privilege of finding Glisten & Glow, thanks to Facebook. Jill, the lovely owner, brings you handmade, customizable bath and body products in a huge variety of scents (75+) including men's fragrances! Not only can you customize your scent, but also your label, making it truly your own!
With some luck, and kindness, I won 4- 1oz body lotions through a recent Twitter contest, and would like to review them for you.

I chose the scents: Lemonade, Mango, Pina Colada, and French Vanilla.

The lotion has a nice consistency, (not too thick, not too thin) and left me feeling soft and smelling great, not greasy! I adore the packaging as well. These were customized with my original Beauty Facebook page's name, Express Your Inner Beauty, so cute! I like the size of these because it's nice to keep one in my purse for whenever my hands are feeling dry, or I want a bit of fragrance. They all smell great, I think my favorite is Pina Colada... *summer*!!!
I'm a big fan of supporting small business, especially when you find a quality product!
I look forward to trying more of the Glisten & Glow line, and I do recommend checking out everything available at  http://www.facebook.com/GlistenandGlow  where you can also shop or even contact Jill if you have any questions. You don't have to be a Facebook member to visit the site.


**These were won in a contest, all opinions are my own**