Tag Archives: Clarins

The Best of 2011: Nail Polish, Nail Art, Makeup, Skincare & Fragrance

Swatch And Learn The Best of 2011 It’s been quite a year, hasn’t it?

I’ve tried all sorts of new beauty products including nail polishes. And I’ve had tons of fun coming up with nail-art designs!

Now that it’s the last day in 2011, it’s time to reflect upon the year.

I’d like to share with you my Best of 2011 list! I still have a ton of favourites from last year, so these picks are strictly new ones that I’ve blogged about in 2011.

You’ll see it broken down into the following categories: nail polish (duh), nail art (double duh), fragrance, makeup, and skincare. All lists are in no particular order. (It was difficult enough to whittle down my picks for the nail polishes!)

Feel free to click on the links – they’ll take you to the blog post with the swatches, reviews, and tutorial (where appropriate).

Now I’m so curious about what you think!

Is there a lacquer that you feel I sorely missed including? Have you found your Holy Grail facial cleanser? What nail-art design have you worn in 2011 that you would consider wearing again in 2012?

Please weigh in with your picks! We’re all different, but our love for beauty products brings us together. 🙂 Continue reading →

Cult Nails Unicorn Puke Swatches & Review (Layered Over Unicorn Pee & OPI’s OPI Ink)

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Natural Light Cult Nails Unicorn Puke Swatches & Review My immune system is quite strong, so I don’t get ill too often. However, as fate would have it, I’m feeling feverish right now as I work on this post. Must have caught something on the subway. There was a guy sneezing a whole lot.

Perhaps I was just really feeling this incredible polish, Cult Nails Unicorn Puke! Yeah, looks like the unicorn picked up a different bug than I did. Poor unicorn!

Unicorn Puke is a multi-coloured flakie polish that’s so gorgeous, it’s making my palms sweat just looking at the bottle. (And it’s probably magnified even more because I’m not feeling well. But enough about this sicko!)

Here, I’ve layered Unicorn Puke over Unicorn Pee (aka Clarins 230 – I thought this was appropriate to combine these body fluids) and OPI’s OPI Ink. (Whenever I type that name, I feel like there’s an echo in the room.)

If you missed out on pre-ordering Unicorn Puke (only 275 limited-edition bottles of it were made), don’t worry! It’s coming out in the Cult Nails Super Powers Collection (their winter collection), except it’ll be called Clairvoyant and the packaging won’t have the gold lettering.

In person, the polish looks even better, and it totally stands apart from the few other flakies I own.

I was already over the moon (and into the stars) about Unicorn Puke, so you can imagine my delight when Marta from ChitChat Nails asked me if I wanted to do a twin post with her on this gorgeous polish. Of course I said yes! Check out her post on Unicorn Puke here!

I’ve been admiring her nails for quite a while because somehow every colour she wears looks so classy. She’s incredible with nail stamping and photography! But beyond her nails, I’ve found her to be a really sweet and good-natured person with a funny bone. She’s become a good friend to me, and I’m so thankful to know her. Please be sure to also check out her Unicorn Puke post!

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Clarins 230 Swatches & Review (Layering ‘Unicorn Pee’ over Orly Sapphire Silk)

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Clarins 230 Swatches & Review Clarins 230 nail polish is a page out of a makeup fanatic’s fairy tale. Heck, it’s even known as Unicorn Pee!

This shimmery rainbow in a bottle is so unique that people are willing to pay an obscene amount of money to own. And others lucky enough to have nail buddies are swapping for it.

Clarins 230 is highly sought after and is quite possibly the hardest to find nail polish because it’s been discontinued for several years.

Is Clarins out of its mind? The story goes that the sparkly multichrome pigment used for Unicorn Pee doesn’t exist anymore and can’t be recreated yet. No pigment? No polish!

My bottle photos turned out decent – I was able to capture the rainbow and shimmery goodness. But I was really disappointed with how my Clarins 230 swatches turned out. This polish really didn’t want to show its true beauty in the swatches even though I literally took hundreds of photos in all different lighting!

Most bloggers show Unicorn Pee swatches where they layered Clarins 230 over a purple polish. While it’s truly a mesmerizing combination, I took a different route and experimented with a dusty-blue base color – Orly Sapphire Silk (from the Spring 2011 Collection).

Despite my lackluster swatches, I hope that you can still get a glimpse into the wonder that is this polish. I tried to show you, but really, Clarins 230 is a polish you really have to see in person to experience the magic (as cheesy as that sounds).

Warning: This post is picture heavy!

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