Nail Comparison: China Glaze For Audrey and Orly Gumdrop

China Glaze For Audrey is one of the most popular colours of nail polish ever I think, at least since I've been into nail polish. It's gorgeous and definitely one of my favourites. However, another favourite of mine which is very similar is Orly's Gumdrop which came out in the Sweet collection. I actually just got Gumdrop this week, I had a hard time finding it. When this collection was out at Sally's, every Sally's, I mean every one that I went to was sold out of this colour and I can see why. I recently stopped ordering nail polish from etailers, specifically Transdesign and I limited myself to Amazon, I have a favourite seller and they had Gumdrop recently, so I picked it up

For Audrey is that classic Tiffany & Co aqua blue colour, it is very recognizable and I get compliments every time that I wear this polish. This is a creme that applies well and doesn't look much darker than the bottle after two coats. This polish is an homage to Audrey Hepburn and Tiffany & Co. It is available in the core China Glaze line at Sally's Beauty Supply.

Gumdrop is a light blue/green creme, the application was not as smooth as the China Glaze For Audrey, but not terrible, the formulation is very thick. This is my right hand, and since I am right handed it is difficult to paint this side.

As you can tell, Gumdrop is slightly more green and For Audrey is more blue. They are both pretty colours however and are the same pastel, light tone. They are more flattering on all skin tones as well.

Another picture to show you just how similar they are, if you wore them on different days, you wouldn't notice the difference and I doubt that others would either. Side by side, they do look different though. These are almost perfect dupes of each other,

Do you have either For Audrey or Gumdrop, which do you like better?

Cherry Culture Haul

I received my items from Cherry Culture recently. I ordered during their 20% off Labor Day sale. It took me two weeks to get my items, I am all the way in Canada, so it always takes me longer to get stuff in the mail. I have a variety of items and am pretty happy with everything.

NYX Round Lipglosses in Real Nude, Whipped, Peach and Apricot.

Real Nude is not a nude at all, which I knew based on some reviews, it's actually a purple colour. Whipped is a really nice colour that can go over nude lipsticks. Peach has lots of shimmer, not as much on the lips though and Apricot is a bit darker than Peach. I normally buy the Mega Shine glosses, but I thought I would try these out.

My first Milani blush Luminous, which is a golden pink that looks very similar to MAC's Springsheen. This applies very smoothly. I can't find Milani blushes around here in drugstores, so I have to order them online.

Milani Mai tai is a corally red blush. I was disappointed in how dark this was in person, based on reviews I thought this was a corally pink, I don't know if I can pull this off. 

NYX Peach is a matte, pale pink blush. Looks similar to Well Dressed by MAC. I don't think this looks peachy at all however, it looks slightly peach in the pan, but once swatched, more of a hot pink colour, which is pretty, but not what I was looking for. Damn you NYX!

NYX Concealer Jar in Light. I previously bought this in Porcelain and it was  very light, and despite being quite pale, I need a concealer that is a colour more like this one.

Milani HD Advance HD concealer in Light. This is the product that I was most excited to receive, it's packaging is really pretty a shiny heavy gold metal and the applicator is nice too. The colour is a good match for me, thank goodness as this only comes in 4 colours. 

And here is everything that I bought. You can tell that the NYX Concealer Jar is much more pink tone than the Milani HD Concealer.

Have you used any of these products? If you'd like full reviews on anything, please let me know! :)

Announcement: Winner of Back To School ELF 500 Follower Giveaway

So my giveaway "The Back To School ELF 500 Follower Giveaway" ended a few days ago and that means it's time to choose a winner for all the goodies.

Thank you to everyone that entered and wrote comments about your current favourite products. The winner was chosen by randomizer.org and the name chosen was....

The winner is.... 

Renay Shanel

I will be contacting you, or already have by the time you read this for your mailing information and all that. :)

OPI: Swiss Collection Fall/Winter 2010 Swatches and Review

I had a really hard time getting into this collection when it first came out, mostly because it was summer and this is a fall/winter collection. I remember I first talked about OPI Swiss back in May..and no one cared, I've been looking at swatches all over the blogosphere since early July, I don't know how people get polishes so early. Anyways, I picked up three of the 12 polishes recently. The only ones that really appealed to me were the bluey-green shades, the three of them, Ski Teal We Drop, Cuckoo For This Color and Yodel Me On Your Cell. I knew that I wanted Ski Teal We Drop for sure, it seems like the winner of the bunch in my opinion and then I wanted to choose two more, I was standing in my Trade Secrets trying to decide. I don't know if they do this at every Trade Secrets but they let me paint a swatch on a piece of tape to see which one I like. I find it weird that they let you open new bottles of polish and try them out, I wouldn't want to buy a previously opened bottle.

Review: Sigma Premium Travel Kit

Sigma Makeup released their Premium Travel Kits today, they come in 4 colours: Hot in Pink, Stylish in Black, Sweet in Pink and Classy in Silver and sells for $59 on the Sigma website. This comes with 7 of their premium brushes in travel size. Sigma sent me this kit a few weeks and I was so excited to share it with you, but I had to wait until it was released on the website first. This kit is really nice, I love the brushes that are in here and already have several of them in full size. The only thing this kit is lacking is a foundation brush, you can use the large concealer brush or the duo fibre brush to apply foundation, but I would of loved them to include the F80 flat top in this kit.

The brushes that come in this Premium Travel Kit include:
- F25 Tapered Face Brush
- F15 Duo Fibre Powder/Blush Brush
- F65 Large Concealer Brush
- E50 Large Fluff Brush
- E45 Small Tapered Blending Brush
- E20 Short Shader Brush
- E10 Small Eye Liner Brush

Also, you get a free E25 blending brush when you order, since it's over $30. I chose the Stylish in Black kit. The brush roll is quite nice, with a metal magnetized closure on the front and a zip compartment to put extra brushes into. It's not real leather, but a faux leather material. When I first got this, it did smell funky, but that dissipated over time.

F25 Tapered Brush - I love this brush in the full size and having another one with a short handle is great. I use this brush for applying contour, powder and blush. The head on this is slightly smaller than the full size,which is great. I suggest keeping the brush guard on this to maintain the egg shape.

F15 Duo Fibre Powder Brush is an oval shaped duo fibre brush that I use for blush application mainly. I know some people use this for powder and even foundation. Again, the size of this one is almost the same as the full size.Mine is a bit pink because I used it today.

F65 Large Concealer is a large flat black synthetic bristled concealer brush. I am not crazy about this brush personally, I would of rather they had included a foundation brush instead. This brush can be used for covering large area of the face with concealer.

E50 Large Fluff is a large eyeshadow brush. I love this brush because it can cover your entire lid with shadow very quickly. I found the full size version of this shed on me terribly, but this one did not shed much at all, which was great. The size of this one is considerably smaller than the full size.

E45 Small Tapered Blending is a point eyeshadow brush that can be used in the crease to blend out eyeshadow. I like this brush a lot, it's soft and effective.

E20 Short Shader is an eyeshadow brush that can be used to smudge eyeshadow onto the lower lash line or to smudge eyeliner.

E10 Small Eye Liner is just that a small eyeliner brush, this is quite precise and good at achieving a thin line. I don't really wear eyeliner, so I don't have a use for these types of brushes.

Now you probably wonder how these compare to the full sized versions, I will show you below.

As you can tell there isn't much different in the brush head size, which is great of Sigma to do. If you like your large sized ones, you can also have very similar travel sized ones too.

Does this Premium Travel Kit interest you? What are your thoughts about it?

Review: Sigma Makeup F60 SS190 Foundation Brush

Today's review is the Sigma Makeup F60, formerly the SS190 foundation brush. I generally do not use brushes like this to apply foundation, I use flat top brushes, but I purchased this brush just to test and review it out. The F60 is a synthetic bristles brush that can be used to apply liquid or cream foundation, moisturizers and even for concealing large areas. This brush sells for $14 on the Sigma Makeup website. I refer to these types of brushes as paint brushes, they look like the type that you would use to paint your walls, I find these give a streaky finish.

Despite not really favouring these types of brushes, I do have several of them. My favourite one believe it or not is the Revlon foundation brush (on left). We don't have Revlon brushes in Canada as far as I know, I got mine at Walgreens during a trip to the states, I believe it was also around $14. I do not have the MAC 190, but I have the special edition one (next to sigma in pic above). The Ecotools one is okay too, and the Quo one is really bizarre, it's pointy and round at the base, I'll do a separate review of that one, if you have that one, tell me below if you like it.

I think the Sigma brush is most similar to the Revlon, it's about the same length and the bristles are similar too. However what I like about the Sigma one, which is unlike all the others that I have, is the slightly pointed tip. I like that aspect for getting in creases of the face like around the eyes and nose. I have no issues with this brush, it did not shed or bleed colour. It is quite soft and appears well made, it maintains it's shape well too.

I find these types of brushes trap product in them, in this case foundation, very easily and need to be cleaned regularly or else it makes for icky application. Also it takes longer to apply foundation with these brushes, opposed to a flat top which is quite and covers a wider area. I like these for under eye concealing and covering redness on my face,but for foundation, I reach for my Sigma F80. Also, if the MAC 190 is like this Sigma one, I would definitely not recommend spending that much money, as there are many dupes of that brush available.

Although I love Sigma brushes for the most part, I found this brush to just be pretty average, my main problem with it was that the bristles were too thin feeling. When I apply it to my face the bristles have too much "give". What I like about the Revlon brush is it feels stiffer and less flexible, like there are more bristles to it, as it doesn't bend too much during application. When brushes like are too flexible, it can mean a streaky application.

Do you have this brush, do you like it? Do you use foundation brushes like these?