Maya Cosmetic New Release

I have some really pretty polishes to share with you all tonight. Check out these new beautiful polishes that were just recently released by Maya Cosmetics.

              Left to Right: Daydreaming, Cupcake Violent and Paramour.

DAY DREAMING

This is a Sheer sky blue base with blue shimmer and white, teal, purple, and pink satin glitter. As you can see it's very buildable in 3 coats. This is a fantastic color for the Spring. The formula was very easy to work with. I only had to thin it slightly as I do most of my Indie Polishes.

I took a lot of pictures of these, but they are pretty spectacular and it was hard not to.

A full size bottle retails for just $9.50 USD. The glitters suspended in this are so delicate and pretty. This color screams Spring for me.

VIOLENT CUPCAKE

This polish has the most amazing shimmer. I loved this, it's a lavender base with holo micro glitter, silver glitter, scattered holo pigment, and violet shimmer. 

The holo glitter is fantastic in this. This is 3 coats alone, very buildable and opaque.

Again, the formula was great for me. I did have to thin this a bit more than most, but it was perfection to apply after that. I like my formulas super thin. This is my favorite out of all Maya Cosmetics that have tried to date.

PARAMOUR

This is a pale pink base with rose pink and black glitter. BAR GLITTERS TOO.

LOVE THIS ONE! For those that follow my blog you all know how I have a soft spot for bar glitters. I am probably one of the few that love them. I feel they are highly misunderstood lol. 

To me they give the polish a very unique look. This reminds me of a Barbie Doll pink with a kick. This is 3 coats alone. Very Jellyish. Is that a word? lol.

Do not fear the bar glitter!!! :) Another great formula and easy to apply.

These polishes can be found at Maya Cosmetics Online store HERE and retail for $9.50. These are beautiful fun Spring colors. 

(*these polishes were sent to me for my honest review)

Swatches for Trelly's M.I.S.C. Spring 2013

Here is the first look at Trelly M.I.S.C's Spring 2013 Collection! This set is AMAZING to say the least. I loved every polish in this set and it's perfect for Spring/Easter. 

 

Okay if that doesn't convince you that this set is an amazing set, I'm not sure what will :) 

On to the individual polishes. 

COTTON TAIL 

This is exactly how I picture Peter Cotton Tail to be. I love this polish! This one is perfect for Easter. This is a clear base loaded with iridescent glitters of different sizes that flash pastel colors. It was a little difficult to photograph on white, but it was stunning to look at. This is 3 coats of Sation's Snow White, with two dabbed on coats of Cotton Tail.

LUNAR ECLIPSE

We have 2 lunar eclipses that will be in April and May of 2013. What a prefect polish for this spring. We all know how obbsessed I am with moons and stars, so this is a must have for me. I LOVE IT. This is 3 coats alone. Check out the yellow and blue glitters in this. It looks so much like a night sky, gorgeous to say the least.  The moons, stars and square glitters are are pretty silver holo. I did not place any of the larger glitters, this is how I brushed them on straight from the bottle.

(PS> I didn't realize I banged up my index finger until after I took photos - sad day in swatching lol) 

Robin Eggs

These remind me of those yummy chocolate speckled eggs that come out for Easter. I love that there are shreds in this one. You can see that on my ring finger. This polish is perfect for Spring/Easter. This is three coats alone. This polish may make you crave chocolate :)

Wine With Everything

Who doesn't love a little bit of Wine? This is Burgundy glitters of different shapes and size in a clear base. I love how different this is. I wanted to really see the glitters in this, so I layered it over 3 coats of Sally Hansen's Insta-Dry Expres-so Yellow to contrast with the glitters. I love the way the square shaped glitters look in this.

Basket of Goodies

This really does look like an Easter Basket to me. If you look closer you will see small green bar glitters that remind me of the plastic grass you put in an Easter basket. This polish is a clear base with glitters in all spring colors of pinks and blues. I layered this over 2 coats of Model's Own Lime Green. This would be a prefect polish to wear on Easter morning!

 

Your Egg Needs a Dye Job

Hehe, I love this name. This is a really cute name for a polish. This also reminds me of those speckled chocolate eggs that start to surface this time of year (similar to Robin Eggs above). It also makes me thing of birds eggs. All the cute little birds will start having babies soon as it starts getting warmer outside. A lot of people associate blue eggs with Robins, but many songbird eggs are this pretty blue too.  This is three coats alone.

This is a must have set for 2013. I loved every one. I really liked the opacity on these. The colors where very solid, not streaky or too see through on the nail. Cassie at Trelly's M.I.S.C scored a homerun on this collection.

These polishes go on sale March 11th, 2013 at Trelly's M.I.S.C. Etsy Page found HERE.  The Under Sea Collection will also be released at the same time. You can see my swatches for the Under The Sea Collection HERE.

(*the polishes show here were sent to me for my honest review)

Base Coats - Part Two

Welcome back to my mini series of nail care. Part One - Cuticle Care can be found HERE. Tonight we are moving on to Part Two of the series...

BASE COATS 

I would like to mention before I get started, that base coats vary greatly from person to person. Some base coats can work wonders for certain people and others hate that same base coat. Each individual has different body chemistry so I can't promise what works wonderful for me will do the same for you. I had to go through a lot of different brands of base coats before I found the ones that worked best for me.

MY FAVORITE GO TO BASE COAT COMBINATIONS: 

I wear a ton of glitter polishes, so having a decent base coat is very important to me. My favorite and top choice is Barrielle Camouflage. This bottle is super old and it now comes in the newer style bottle. It can be purchased at Transdesign in the newer bottle style. This works wonders for me. It goes on very thin and provides a nice sticky type base for me.  It helps to prevent staining as well. I have several polishes that have permanently stained my nails, which is no fun. This works great for anti staining.

I also like Orly Nail Armor, which can be purchased at Sally's Beauty Supply.
This is much thicker, but also works wonderful.  What I love about using this as a base is that it has a Ridgefiller built right in.  I have had really good results using this as a base coat.

Finally, is Barrielle Hydrating Ridge Filler. This can also be found on Transdesign as well. This is a nice hydrating base coat. I do get dry brittle nails some times, and this helps prevent that. This is much thinner then Nail Armour.

I also like to venture out...

When I want a less thick base coat for a simple solid creme polish, non glitter polish, I use Essie Feed Me. I really do like this one. You can purchase this is Walgreens and other places that carry Essie.  I usually use the next four bases for non glitter polishes

Essie Sensitivity Base Coat.  This is a mini bottle size. Another favorite here.

Poshe treatment base coat. I use this if my nails start to peel or show signs of breaking. This saves a step if you are wanting to treat your nails as well as apply a base coat.

Finally, Posh antimicrobial Base Coat.This prevents fungus on the nail. now granted I never got a fungus from a manicure...but anything that prevents fungus works in my germaphobe world lol.

I have tried many other base coats as well, but so far I stick with these. Variety is important to me. In no means do you have to own all these base coats in order to get a good manicure. Some people like to just use one kind for everything. I have not had luck that way. I do suggest you do use some sort of base coat. A lot of people skip this step but it really does help protect your nails. Especially if you are changing polish often like myself.

Here are some examples of combinations...

A glitter: Barrielle Camo, Nail Armour or Barielle Hydrating Ridge Filler.

A smooth creme: Essie Feed Me, Essie Sensitivity Base coat, Poshe Anticmicrobial

When nails feel week and and start to break and peel: Poshe Treatment base coat, Feed Me

 One of the only bases I plan to add in the future is an aqua base. This is supposedly excellent for all hologrphic polishes. I am not sure which brand I will go with yet on this. Once I decide, I will edit this post to include it.

Thanks for reading guys and stay tuned for Part Three on Top Coats, coming soon!

Maya Cosmetics Release...

Tomorrow, or actually today (since it's after midnight here) Maya Cosmetics is having a big new release. The release is scheduled for 4:00PM EST tomorrow, March 7th!

Tonight I'm showing you two polishes being released. First, SILVER LINING. This is a light blue-gray with silver shimmer and purple, green, and blue flakes. The shimmer is so beautiful on this and very noticeable on the nail. The following is two coats alone.

This is kind of a Raindrops dupe but not exactly. It does remind me of it very much. The formula was excellent and went on very easily.

Check out the shimmer!

The second polish is RUCKUS which is fuchsia, cobalt blue, light turquoise, and silver holo glitter in a clear base. I figured it would be awesome to layer over Silver Lining. 

I love the two together! The formula on this was no problems. I did add 4 drops of thinner, which I do with a lot of my Clear base glitters.

Check out the giant cobolt blue hex glitters. I just love those!

You can follow Maya Cosmetic on Facebook HERE.

The release of these polishes will be March 7th at 4PM EST.

(*the following polishes were sent to me for my honest review)

Cuticle Care - Part One

Due to popular demand, I will be doing a small series on my nail care routine. I get a lot of questions about how I take care of my nails and what products I use, etc. so this post will hopefully answer a lot of your questions. I did a post similar to this when I first started this blog, but it is now very outdated. At lot has stayed the same and a lot has changed. Since my routine and products are bit extensive, I'm going to break this post up into 4 Parts..

• Cuticle Care - Part One
• Base Coats - Part Two
• Top Coats - Part Three
• MISC - Part Four

 First up is ...

Cuticle Care  - PART ONE

 
I always start my cuticle care with cuticle remover. I let the remover sit on my cuticle area for a minute or two, and then I push back my cuticles (very gently) with a cuticle pusher. I use CND Cuticle Away as my cuticle remover. I like this particular remover because it is very gentle on my cuticles. I have very sensitive skin and any other remover I have tried turns my skin around my cuticles red and puffy, CND does not. I purchased this from Transdesign, but I do not believe they carry it any longer. I will have to find a new source myself once I run out. I can tell you that this bottle shown below is 3 years old. I use very little. 

Here are the tools I use to push back my cuticles and trim hang nails once the remover has sat on my fingers for one to two minutes.

The cuticle 'pusher' pictured on the left was also purchased at Transdesign. I love this pusher because of the hook end which comes in handy for cleaning under the nail. The cuticle clippers show on the right are from Sally Hansen and can be purchased at any Drug Store. I only use the clippers to clip hang nails. I never EVER NEVER clip my cuticles. I have tested this out and my cuticles will grow back harder and more fierce if I clip them. The skin gets tough and unmanageable. It may look neat and clean when you first do it, but in the long run it is not worth it. Once I started using remover and a pusher, my cuticles grew very little and were much more manageable and pliable.

I always sanitize my tools prior to use. I'm a HUGE germaphobe, but when doing anything to your cuticles you should always use clean tools. I purchased Mar-v-cide cleaning solution and a container from Sally's Beauty Supply for cleaning my tools. You just dip them in the solution for 10 minutes, and then they are ready to use.

After I 'push' the cuticles with the scoop end of the pusher, I end up with a lot of remover and dead skin on my fingertips. I head to the sink and do some scrubbing. 

My scrubber of choice is California Mango Buff. This scrub is gentle and cleans things up really nicely and I love the smell of it too. It gets rid of the cuticle remover and dead skin very well. I purchased this at Sally's Beauty Supply. You can use any kind of hand scrub for this step.

I then move on to disinfecting. YES, disinfecting AGAIN. This is what germaphobes do lol. I spray my fingers with disinfecting spray, Sea Breeze. If you have ever went to a professional nail salon they would have sprayed your hands with this after cleaning your cuticles. I was thrilled to find out that Sally's Beauty Supply carries this as well.  I love the smell of this stuff and it makes me feel confident that if I pushed any dirt, germs etc under my cuticles, I will not get any weird infections. In my mind, my fingers will get infected and fall off otherwise, of course :) 

My final step is to apply cuticle oil and lotion. I first apply the cuticle oil and then I seal it in with the lotion on top.

My choice items are Barielle Intensive Nail Renewal Oil and Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Creme. In the 3 years I have been doing my own nails I have tried CRAZY amounts of Oils and Cremes. I have tried every one available on the market, and these two work best for me. The oil is very light and not too greasy and the butter seals things in very nicely. My cuticles have improved 100% since I started using this combination.

This is something you do have to experiment with. Everyone's skin chemistry is different and will react differently to varies products. A lot of oils were extremely greasy and actually drying out my cuticles and making them very hard. It took me a while to find my winning combination. I wish I could say this combination will work for everyone, but I'm afraid you will have to experiment on this part.

I hope this is helpful. After I let the oil and lotion sit for awhile I will go wash my hands and move on to applying a base coat...

Stay tuned for Base Coats - Part 2 coming soon!