Makeup Haul! 1st time...maybe last time?

Hello lovely people!  Something you may not know about me is I am not only a nail polish lover, but I love makeup too!  I've actually been into makeup a lot longer than I've been into nail polish, but nail polish has definitely taken over and it is my number one beauty-related love.  MUA (MakeUp Academy) is a UK brand and they were recently having a sale.  I believe the sale was 30% off PLUS free shipping including free shipping to the US.  First off, their products are already extremely affordable but something about the free shipping was what gave me the push!  I had heard good things about the eye shadows so I figured what the heck!  When it comes to makeup, I am definitely an eye person.  I love eye shadow and eye liner.  I am very much drawn to colorful eye shadows but I am mostly a neutral girl.  Most of the time I save the colors for my nails! :)

When I named my blog, I actually named it Polish and Such for the exact reason that I thought I would maybe someday want to include other beauty related things.  Here is my first one.  I just took pics of the things I ordered.  The grand total on all of this was under $20!!! Crazy, right?!!

Let me know your opinions on this post.  I was thinking about doing a Naked palette comparison/possible dupe on a future post if that would be something of interest.  Or would you rather I stick to just nail polish??

I am pretty sure this eyebrow pencil is not going to work.  I love the brush on the end but it is just so dark!  I have pretty dark eyebrows but I tried this and it made me look crazy and just doesn't seem like the consistency an eyebrow pencil should be.  It is actually creamy.  Maybe I can utilize it as an eye shadow base.  

This shade doesn't have a name.  It just just number 2.  I like it from what I tried.  It is creamy.  Also blends out well if you like using your lipstick as a blush.  

Just a general sum-up of the eye shadows, they are mostly very good and pigmented.  A couple of the more sparkly ones are pretty chalky.  I haven't actually used these on yet but I'm looking forward to doing so.  

Again, I would love to hear your thoughts on this kind of post.  

ABC Challenge: "R"

Today I bring to you the letter R in the Alphabet Challenge.  I've said this before, but I love this challenge!  I have brought out so many polishes that I would probably never even think about.  And this one is a gorgeous polish!  I picked Revlon Royal Cloak for this one.  It is a purple with some small flakies in it.  Unfortunately this was a limited edition polish so I don't believe you can get it at the drugstore anymore.  But you could probably try Amazon or eBay.

This was tough to get color accurate photos.  It is not as blue as it is showing up. But this is pretty close.  It is an extremely gloomy day here and I could not get good lighting.  But, I have been told that purple is very tricky to photograph.  

ABC Challenge: "Q"

I haven't posted anything for a few days here and I feel a little behind on the challenge.  This week we are doing Q, R, S and T.  I haven't posted anything yet as my little 8-month-old boy had minor surgery on Monday.  I took some time off of work and blogging to make sure he got all of my attention.  It's pretty amazing how fast kids can bounce back from things!

So for the letter Q, I went with what might be my favorite polish of all time!  The reason I say this is this...in the past, I have heard the question, 'if you could only wear one polish the rest of your life, what would it be?'.  This polish would be my choice.  Why you might ask?  Well it's a neutral and I love neutrals!  But it's a neutral with a little something added.  It has this slightly holographic, silver shimmer to it which amps it up a tad.  So in my eyes, it is a polish that is "work appropriate" but also elegant and even has a little edge to it.  Plus, the formula is amazing!

So this is Butter London All Hail the Queen.  Yes, I know it does't technically start with a Q, but it has a Q in it and that Q happens to start the longest word in the title of the polish so I'm going with it!  

ABC Challenge: "P"

Here we are at the letter P.  This is going to be a short post.  I picked Color Club Pucci-licious which is a gorgeous neon purple.  I used two coats with one coat of NYC Grand Central Station.  Application was smooth.  It does dry kind of matte as it is a neon but top coat takes care of that if you don't like that look!  It was sooooooo hard to photograph and get color accurate photos.  The last photo is actually with my iPhone as it actually photographed it pretty close to true color.  Look at how different they look!!!  

Have a good weekend everyone!

ABC Challenge: "O"

We are on the letter O for the Alphabet Challenge.  I don't have very many polishes that start with the letter O.  I have a few oranges but I just wasn't feeling orange for this one.  I actually picked the non-orange polish I have, put it on, took pictures, edited the pictures...and I just was not happy with it.  Then when I was getting ready to put together the blog post with the mani that I wasn't crazy about, a little light bulb went off in my head....Ombre!  I have done this in the past although not on the blog and I really love it.  I decided to go with blues for this.

Now for an ombre, there is a method where you take one color that is on the darker side and you custom mix each nail using white.  So lets say you took a vampy red.  This would be your darkest color.  Then you'd take some of that vampy red and add a little bit of white to it on some sort of mixing surface.  Then for the next nail do the same with a little more white.  Then you continue making it more pale until you get the desired color for each nail.  This probably makes a more true ombre.

The way I did it was I picked a dark blue and a light blue, and then I picked the rest of the in-between colors that I thought fit in.  Onto the photos!

If you are wondering, the colors I used were Hard Candy Sky, Essie Bikini so Teeny, Sally Girl Epic, Essie Mezmerised, and China Glaze First Mate.

What do you think about this type of manicure?

ABC Challenge: "N"

Well, we are a little bit past the halfway point of the Alphabet Challenge.  I have absolutely loved doing this challenge so far.  It has given me a chance to use polishes in my collection that I otherwise would not have.  I always have been gravitated towards newer polishes to feature in my blog.

For some reason, I don't have many polishes that start with the letter N so this one was really easy for me to pick.  I picked Butter London No More Waity, Katie.  Butter London describes this as a soft lilac glitter.  This polish is gorgeous!  The glitter just makes it almost glow!

In the past, I have layered this.  I think I layered it over Zoya Caitlin but this time I wanted to try it on it's own.  I think I actually prefer it this way.  For the pictures below, this is three coats of No More Waity, Katie with one coat of Seche Vite top coat.

This last photo is indoors with flash.  

ABC Challenge: "M"

I am so excited for the letter M today.  I have a very special polish for today.  I had really been wanting this particular polish and I had set out to set up a swap to get it.  I also had posted on my Facebook page, really for conversation reasons, that I had a sudden urge to have this polish in my life.  Someone I have gotten to know through a beauty group I belong to responded.  She had wanted to just surprise me and sent it to me but then she was worried I was going to set up a swap before it could get to me...which very likely could have happened as I was on a mission.  I am so completely grateful and taken aback by this particular person's generosity!  It was so kind!  Well, it is the infamous OPI Mad as a Hatter and I absolutely love it!  I am so happy it has made it's way to my collection.

I had originally thought about layering this but I wanted to show off it's glittery goodness.  This is three coats with one coat of Seche Vite.  It is surprisingly smooth for being three coats of a dense glitter.