BB Couture For Nails

I just got my first BB Couture for nails polishes, and I can't believe I have never tried these until now. They are too cool! I got four of the colors that appealed to me, and I'm already plotting my next BB Couture Purchase...

Here are the ones I ordered:



Dragon's Breath. This is a purple that leans very red and it's studded with multicolored glitter. The glitter in this is very fine, and you can see a lot of different colors in it. When you step outside with this polish on, it practically starts on fire! I mean, not literally of course, but the flash and fire from the glitter is breathtaking. Very cool polish, very cool name.




Frosty Meadow. This is a light, fresh, slightly blue-tinged green with a slight jelly texture and very fine silvery blue glitter. Like Dragon's Breath, the glitter in this polish is very fine but it packs a punch. It's a very spring-like green but unlike other spring shades, this one has personality!



Poison Ivy. A medium green creme. There can never be enough green cremes! This one is kinda strange- it looks at least a shade lighter in the bottle than it does after it dries on the nails. I've seen this happen with a lot of polishes before, but rarely with greens. It's also a little bit dull without a topcoat. I adore the color and I'm dreaming up all sorts of good layering combinations to go with it.


Sea Of Cortez. One of the most beautiful polishes I have ever seen. A bright blue jelly with super fine pale green glitter. Even if you're not into glitter polishes, you still have to be able to admire the beauty of this polish. It's just.... mesmerizing! In fact, after I took this picture I left the polish on and I'm still wearing it! I might need a backup!

Overall, I am really loving BB Couture. For a brand I've never heard of and know absolutely nothing about, they sure shocked the hell out of me with their awesome colors!

Formula-wise, these polishes aren't perfect. They have three-free syndrome, being both thick and runny at the same time. Poison Ivy was particularly difficult to apply, it wasn't the smoothest creme I've ever used. This issue with the formula is easily fixed with a little bit of thinner, so I don't mind. The colors are worth the slight difficulty of application. They do dry very quickly and they seem to wear well- no basecoat or topcoat and I still have no chips or tipwear.

The line seems to be comprised of a lot of boring pinks and reds, but with a few awesome colors like these tossed in there. From what it looks like, each new collection is more and more interesting, so maybe there will be more amazing colors like this in the future. I know I'm definitely going to try more of these polishes. They are awesome, and the fun colors they have are not like any others I own. I admire companies with unique colors, and BB Couture For Nails has definitely earned my love and admiration!

Rimmel Part 1

I thought now would be a great time to post about my love of Rimmel polish. The other day I was out shopping, and noticed that the Rimmel Underground Play Fast polish displays at every store were completely empty! This can only mean one horrible, horrible thing: They're being discontinued.

On the bright side, a few of the colors (Camouflage, Hard Edged are two that I saw) seem to have been repackaged in the 'regular' 60 Second bottles, and they have a new display.

A few of the stores I went to still had a couple lonely Play Fasts on their displays, so if you've been thinking about buying a particular Rimmel color but haven't yet, now would be the time to do so. I've had my eye on a few shades but haven't bought them because I assumed that they were permanent and were never going to be discontinued. Now I might be too late!

Anyway, the intention of this post is not to make you go out and buy Rimmels, but to share may love of this particular polish line. I just thought it would be worth mentioning that these will soon disappear.

I will do another two or three parts to this post when I'm done photographing my Rimmel collection. So, you may consider this part one :)


Rimmel Underground Play Fasts:


Hard Edged. One of the most beautiful polishes ever to see a drugstore shelf. It's a vampy brown shimmer with pretty strong duochrome. As you can see in the left hand side of the photo, there's some green/gold iridescence visible in the bottle. This is visible on the nail, but it's very subtle. Hard Edged seems to change from brown to purple in some lights. This picture doesn't capture the true beauty of this polish at all. It has a lot of tonal similarities to OPI Black Tie Optional.


Camouflage. A gorgeous, gorgeous quick-drying golden green shimmer. What I like the most about this shade is that it's more green than gold. A lot of drugstore greens in the past have been too light, too gold, and not green enough for my liking (Maybelline Go Go Green, L'Oreal Bijou Gems B. Strong.) but Rimmel Camouflage is nice and rich. It's a St. Patrick's Day green.
Perfect in every way.


Night Life. An edgy mushroomy taupe-brown with golden bordering on copper shimmer. Rimmel may have been ahead of its time with this color! This was released years ago, and just this past year mousy taupe-browns and purples started to become extremely popular. This is a very unique shade, I can think of only one similar shade- CND Family Secret. While they're not exact matches, the taupe/brown/grey with reddish shimmer makes them cousins.



Street Wear. Another edgy, sexy muted shade. This time it's a grey putty with subtle gold shimmer. Extremely hot. It reminds me of mushrooms. I think this picture makes it appear a little more warm-toned than it actually is, but it shows the shimmer well.

About half of the shades in the Rimmel Underground Play Fast line are these fabulous sheer, flaky shimmer colors that are really amazing.


Out Of Control. This is a really old picture! I haven't taken a new picture because this one is just about perfect. Out of Control is a pinkish-red color, more of a coral really, that has outrageous gold shimmer. It truly is out of control! The polish is made of little flakes, so it takes three coats to reach bottle color.


Pop Quiz. Light, peachy orange flakes mixed in with silvery white flakes. Another very unique shade from Rimmel. I'd be hard pressed to find a match for this polish. The different colored pearly flakes all combine to make this pretty light orange color. It's very sparkly, and I have a feeling that it would be great layered on top of one of the other more opaque Play Fast shades like Mouthy.



Scene Stealer. Mesmerizing gold/taupe/bronze/grey shimmer flakes with a slight duochrome effect. This is a very beautiful polish, I've never seen anything like it. It is very sheer but still packs a punch! This picture is three coats and you can still see through it a bit, I'm sure four coats would make it 100% opaque, but I like the sheer look of this. It sparkles and changes in the sun, and even looks good in dark indoor lighting. Another polish with layering potential, would probably go well with Night Life.


And a couple "regular" Rimmels...


Green With Envy. Not exactly what I would ever consider green, but pretty anyway. A bright metallic blue/aqua type of color. You may notice that the bottle is absent from this picture. That it because somehow I accidentally threw it across my kitchen and it shattered all over my ceramic tile floor. Swatching is dangerous... >.<
Torrid. This color has been repackaged, so this is the 'old' version. The new version appears to be exactly the same, but I won't know until I apply them both. Sometimes companies do that. No idea why. Anyway, Torrid is a rich plum-brown shimmer. I can't decide if it's more reddish or brownish. I guess it doesn't matter if it's as beautiful as this!



Dazzle. A very unusual drugstore find! A festive light gold metallic packed with fine medium-gold glitter! As much as I adore this color, this one is a victim of "good idea, bad execution". When you mix light-colored and light-textured metallics with glitter, instead of looking like a nail covered in delicate, sparkling glitter, you get a nail with weird speckles and lumps. Glitter and thin-formula metallics rarely work. Another example of a metallic with glitter that doesn't work: L'Oreal Bijou Crystals B. Shocking. Instead of a nice glitter look, you get chunks. But, for every few failures, there is one success... One of the best light metallics with glitter is the ancient OPI Mystic Moonshine. So, it can work, but it rarely does.


I really love Rimmel polishes. The formula on them is always perfect, they dry quicker than any non-holographic or neon polish I can think of, and they have a variety of incredible unique shades. I have seen UK-only shaded that are even more spectacular than the ones they sell here!

I wish people would start to love drugstore polishes instead of shunning them because they're 'low-end.' You all know I love my OPI, my Rescue Beauty Lounge, Dior, Lippmann Collection, Essie, all of the more expensive and popular brands. Drugstore polishes can be just as good! If I put a Rimmel in a Chanel bottle and told you to use it, you'd probably think that Chanel had improved their formula. I encourage you to look past the name and packaging and love the polish inside.

The odd thing about drugstore polishes is that they're not always inexpensive. I almost bought a Revlon the other day that would have cost me $7.50! I'll talk more about this in another post, but the idea that drugstore polish is cheaper is quickly becoming inaccurate.

SuperStar Nail Lacquer Spring 2009 Collection: Rising Star Couture

I recently got a chance to try a few polishes from SuperStar's Spring 2009 collection, Rising Star, and I'm very pleased with them!

SuperStar is a small polish company that has some really great unique polish colors. I've previously reviewed some really nice neons from SuperStar, and these new spring colors are just as bright and flashy, but with some added oomph!

As you all know I'm a huge fan of duochrome/iridescent polishes, so as soon as I saw these colors I knew we were meant to be.


Orangeu An A-Lister? A super-bright neon coral-orange with an overlay of silvery iridescence. Bright and cheerful but with a kick! The silvery pink flash makes this a really unique neon. This color is very difficult to capture on camera because it's so bright. It's a little darker and a whole lot brighter in real life. This picture I took indoors shows just how much it glows:







Park Avenue Purple. A bright, shimmery purple with blue overlay. Really, really gorgeous. Not quite a true duochrome, more of a purple with blue iridescence. The base of this is a nearly-neon purple, and the blue shimmer adds a cheerful punch to it. Another very bright, attention-grabbing shade.

These colors are very welcome during this season of boring, drab pastels. All of SuperStar's shades are a little bit glam, a little bit edgy and above all, fun. They have duochromes, glitters, neons, greens, metallics, not the usual lifeless pink-red-white-beige shades that we're constantly being bombarded with from polish companies. I'm especially digging the neon-duochrome and neon-holo glitter combinations released in the spring collection.

The formula and brushes are excellent. I had no problems at all with application, the texture of the polish is very smooth and it dries quickly. Quick drying polishes earn big points with me!

I really appreciate SuperStar's love of color and their willingness to release fun, funky and fascinating shades instead of the stereotypical spring-summer-fall-winter 'required' polish shades. Neon raspberry with glitter in spring? Hell yeah! Metallic silver in fall? Right on!!

Another thing worth noting about SuperStar: they listen! When I had originally reviewed my first polishes from this company, a lot of people voiced their opinions about the SuperStar website being difficult to navigate and not being the most user-friendly site in general. SuperStar listened, and has completely re-designed their website with a colorful, spunky look and an easy to navigate format!

So just a reminder to all of the lovely people who read my blog: Your opinion matters! If you want something from a polish company, ask! You never know who might see your comments, and you could inspire wonderful things.

Anyway, SuperStar nail lacquer is available at the brand new SuperStar website. They currently have 24 shades which retail for $8.50 each, but if you pick five colors you can get them all for $35 with promo code 5for35.

Genting: Malaysian gambling paradise

My first time gambling and I won!

Three days ago my girlfriend and I went to Genting Highlands, located 50km north from Kuala Lumpur. It was a trip, organised by my girlfriend's boss. We were a group of around 16 people, arranged in four cars, starting off from Batu Pahat.

It was my first time in Genting and also first time experiencing Malaysian cold highland climate. The temperature was around 15 degrees Celsius, which is no wonder to me, since the resort is located 1850m above sea level. Almost the whole stay, there was a thick fog surrounding the whole resort, especially the last day. It really felt like heaven. I mean, it's in the clouds, you have shopping malls, theme parks, restaurants, casinos and many pretty Asian girls. if that's not how heaven looks like, then I really don't know, how can it be any nicer. :)

Anyway, that doesn't mean, I liked everything. In fact, I was a bit disappointed at first. Since I told myself not to gamble. First shock is the climate change, it was about 17 degrees difference comparing to KL, so I felt pretty cold in my shorts and sandals. We stayed in the First World Hotel, one of the biggest hotels in the world, it has over 6100 rooms, it's like a small town itself. We parked the cars in the garage, took the lift up to the lobby. There was hundreds of people waiting to check in - it was like at the airport. We had to wait 1h to get the keys to our rooms. So, be prepared to wait if you go to this hotel.
The room was nice, quite big, 2 beds, so big, that 2 people can sleep on 1 bed. The TV was small and didn't have any special programmes, but we didn't watch it anyway. The water comes from the mountains, that's why you can drink it from the tab. I only missed a toothpaste, since I forgot mine. The hotel provides you only with towels, soap and a shower cap. You have no blow dryer, so bring one, if you wanna wash your hair every day.

Well, the first and second day, we were exploring the place. It's basically 4 hotels connected together by various subways, underpasses, lifts and even trains. There's some kind of a plaza in the middle, where you have many trahsy immitations of the Statue of Liberty, Eiffel's tower and Big Ben. You even have a part that looks like Venice, with Gondolas, who run in circles (automatically) and with a fake Gondolier. It was amazing to me, that some people actually ride these things. Besides all these fake touristy stuff, there's a wide range of international food chains (KFC, McD, BK and Pizza Hut), asian food restaurants, coffee shops (Starbucks, Coffee Bean, Old Town) and almost all clothes and shoe brands. So if you wanna shop, there's plenty of opportunities, but the prices can be from modest up to very high. Food is also more expensive than the rest of Malaysia, for example, McD set costs about 50% more than usually. You also have a lot of souvenir shops, cinemas, bowling, snooker, video games, karaoke, a big concert hall with international singers and an outdoor theme park. So that's the reason why Genting is called 'City of entertaiment'.
Anyway, if your a gambler and a fan of cheap trashy entertainment, Genting is the best place for you. But for me, it doesn't have a great value, since I'm not a gambler and not into theme parks.

But I have to say, it was exciting for me, to experience the world of Casinos. It was my first time. In Genting, there's 3 casinos, small, medium and big. I've been in the last two. First we went to the medium one and it seemed quite big to me already. But when we entered the big one, whoa, it was enormous. And so many people, of whiche were 95% Chinese, the rest was Western, Indian and some Arabs, I think. Anyway, Chinese people love to gamble, I knew that already before, but when you see it in real, it's even more impressing. Many come from as far as China or Singapore. And besides gambling, many are looking for some cheap China girls, who would follow you to the room for small money. When my girlfriend's friend was gambling, I stood next to her. Suddenly a 50 something Chinese man started a conversation with her, thinking she was a China girl. So inbetween, he emptied his pockets like he was searching for something and put a bunch of hundred ringgits on the table, but we knew he was just showing off with his money. The whole thing stopped when she told him that she's a local girl. Chinese girls born in Malaysia and Chinese girls from China are two different worlds. It's a different mindset and different mentality. China girls have a bad reputation of being cheap and willing to do anything for small money, while Malaysian Chinese girls are the opposite.

So while the first day I was a mere observer, the second day I decided to gamble myslef. I broke my rule and said: Why not! Juts to try. So I set myself a limit of 50 ringgit, which is only 10 euros. So I changed to two 25rm chips and I played the Banker/Player game, which had a minimum bet of 25rm per game. And guess what: I won 300 ringgit! Inbetween I even reached 400rm, but then I lost 100 and stopped playing. I changed the chips for money, so I won about 60 euros. Not bad for a first time player. My girlfriend lost 200 rm in 2 days, her boss even lost many hundreds, which is crazy. I would never bet so much and gamble so extensively. I was very safe and only bet 25 per game, sometimes 50. So I slowly reached to 400. I wanted to see, if I can make some big money, but I soon recognized my limits, so I stopped at the right time. But I feel it's not bad, starting with 50 and winning 300. So I basically got the money back for my trip expenses. This was the highlight of the whole trip.

The next day we returned to Batu Pahat, it took us 7h, because we made several stops. I'm happy that it's over, because I was very tired yesterday. We gambled until 4am the night before. So today I'm just taking it easy.

[My KUALA LUMPUR page][Related post: More Genting Highlands images]

[My MALAYSIA page][My BATU PAHAT page][All photos by MKL, 2008]

Color Club Spring 2009 Collection: Femme Fatale

Part two of Color Club's spring collections for 2009! In case you missed the previous post, Catwalk Queen is part one.

(Also, be sure to check out The Nailphile's swatches of Catwalk Queen and Femme Fatale and The Polish Addict's promo pictures for Catwalk Queen and Femme Fatale. )

Femme Fatale is meant to be a racy, seductive and freakin' sweet collection of French manicure shades. Here's what they say about it:

"The French Manicure gets revolutionized with dark to light duo-tones from Color Club."

Now, if you know me at all or you've read this blog for five minutes, you'll know that I am not a fan of the French manicure. However, when it's done with fun colors or different finishes, I'm all for it. I've heard this referred to as a "Funky French."

This collection would be perfect for that. It's also perfect to wear each color alone, which is what I did.


Femme Fatale. This is really nice. A sheer polish with pink/red crystals. It's different than just a plain shimmer, and while it looks similar to Ready To Wear from the Catwalk Queen collection, it's quite different. The shimmer particles are what make this polish really special. They're like... little... balls? Shimmer balls. Tee hee!


Oooooo La La. Beautiful, clean, crisp white pearl. A white that's opaque without being chalky, it's softened by the pretty pearl finish. Very wearable even by itself.


Oui! Oui! Oui! A sheer, shimmery silvery/green/blue duochrome. Another seashell type color that looks incredible over black. Like its Catwalk Queen Cousin, Runway Muse, Oui! Oui! Oui! reminds me of OPI Think It's Pink?/Sea The Change?.




Revvvolution. Yes, three V's. I like saying it... Revvvvvvvvvolution. Hehe. This is a stunner. A heart-stopper! A true black holo, like OPI My Private Jet but BETTER! It's so dense and smooth that you can get away with one coat, whereas My Private Jet needs three or four. I have a feeling this is going to be a huge hit. It's too beautiful to ignore. Color Club did an amazing job on this shade.



Where's the Soiree? The only disappointment in this collection. From the Polish Addict's promo pictures, this color looks like it was supposed to be a black with shimmer or glitter, somewhere along the lines of Misa Wishing On A Star. But, unfortunately, Where's The Soiree? is just a plain black creme. It's a nice black creme, but not what I was hoping for based on the promotional images. Maybe they had to change it at the last minute. Ironically, this is the only one that gave me trouble with application- it was rather runny and watery and kept pooling at my cuticles. Had to redo it three times.





Worth The Risque. Gorgeous. It seems like I'm repeating myself a lot with these collections: gorgeous, beautiful, stunning, spectacular, sexy, fantastic, wonderful. All of the above are true for any polish in both Catwalk Queen and Femme Fatale, so it bears repeating. This is a perfect silver holographic polish that's much, much more dense than any holographic polish I own. It's perfect and beautiful, and like the other Color Club holos, blinding.


And, because they were just begging to be layered, here's the sheers from Catwalk Queen and Femme Fatale layered over Where's The Soiree?





Index: Runway Muse
Middle: Ready To Wear
Ring: Femme Fatale
Pinkie: Oui! Oui! Oui!

See how spectacular they are layered? It really brings out all the colors of the duochrome polishes and makes the shimmer in the sheers stand out.


I can not even express to you how positively thrilled I am with the new Color Club holos. This is the first time I've ever seen them do a holographic polish and they totally nailed it. Perfect in every way. I hope there are more Color Club holos in the future! They rock!!

Application on all of these was perfect, with the exception of Where's The Soiree?, which was watery.

I haven't used the holos with Konad yet, but they seem like they would be perfect. I'm going to try it as soon as I can find where I left my stamper....


Overall, both Catwalk Queen and Femme Fatal are awesome. Amazing. Breathtaking. Color Club saves spring! They've delivered us from the usual blah colors and given us something new and interesting. I think it's my top spring collection. Zoya Twist and Misa Living On The Fast Lane are tied for a close second. But, it's hard to compare this collection to the other spring collections because it's so different. I love different.

If you've never tried Color Club before, you really must. They're such high-quality polishes and they have some of the most unique and amazing colors (Glitter Vixen, Dance To The Musique, Neons, remember those??) but they are extremely affordable. High-end quality for a low-end price. You can't beat that.


*sigh* So pretty....

(With a spring collection this amazing, I'm dying to see what they have planned for summer!)

Color Club Spring 2009: Catwalk Queen

All of these spring pastels are really depressing. Year after year after year we get the same old boring, lifeless pastels for spring...

Luckily, we have Color Club to save us!

They've released two collections for spring that literally made me jump for joy. Sure, there's some pastels, but they're different. Different and awesome.

Take a look for yourself, you'll see what I mean!



Catwalk Queen. Good gravy, this is one of the hottest purples ever! It's a rich, dark, vampy purple with dense particle shimmer. Super sexy, not at all spring-like and right up my alley! I'd say this is a must have for purple lovers- it's a dark purple that still looks purple and not black!



Fashion Addict. Different lighting and angles to show just how insanely holographic it is. HOLO!! FOR SPRING!!!!!! HOLY CRAP!!!! Fashion Addict is an amazing light purple holo. It's extremely dense and blindingly prismatic.



Front Row Diva. A lovely, unique light grey with a tiny touch of purple and a beautiful pearl finish. For those of you confused about the difference between frost and pearl finishes, this is a perfect example of a pearl finish. It looks like expensive grey pearls on your nails!




Ready To Wear. A sheer, pearlescent pink/grey near-duochrome. Very dreamy and romantic. This picture is three coats, and you can tell that it's nearly opaque. One more coat might have made it totally opaque, but I actually like the sheer look of this. It even looks nice with just one coat.


Runway Muse. It's not really obvious from my picture, but this is a strong aqua/pink/silvery duochrome. Very seashell-like. Gorgeous. Reminds me a lot of the rare, discontinued OPI Think It's Pink?. It gives me the impression of a layer of sheer, dreamy fabric. Fairy colored. This is extremely pretty on it's own, but it's even better over black. I'll get to that in part two.



Vintage Couture. A mod lilac-baby-pink creme. Very pretty and delicate, but kinda 'edgy' at the same time. It's so stark and strong that it's very unusual compared to the types of pinks you usually see.


This collection is amazing. I'm floored by it!! I'm so utterly impressed with Color Club- they tend to be more daring, more fun and definitely not afraid to take a chance with their colors. I love them for that. And this is only one half of what they've released for spring!

Application was perfect. Great formula on all of them. The only one that gave me a little trouble was Vintage Couture, because after I applied the second coat, it kept wiping away a spot of polish at the cuticle and leaving a little bald spot. This was fixed with a third coat. A little annoying, but not a deal-breaker for me.

Fantastic collection, I love every single color.

Aren't you curious about part two? The second Color Club spring collection? Stay tuned :)

Tom Cruise Has Abs [Photo]

Who knew Tom Cruise was ripped?

Not long ago everyone was calling him pudgy. But is seems Cruise has to get in shape for an upcoming role, and he's doing a good job. He has a personal trainer and has been working out like mad.


All the latest SMACK at CelebritySmackBlog.com!