Cover Girl Lash Blast Review

I have been looking for a new mascara ever since they changed the formula of my beloved L'Oreal Volume Shocking. I have since tried a dozen different kinds of drugstore and high end mascaras, and none of them lived up to the glory that Volume Shocking provided to my lashes.

I love Volume Shocking. It's everything I ever wanted in a mascara. You get killer length, insane volume, super black color, everything. It's that fake eyelash look, and I loved it.

After extensive testing and inevitable disappointment, I think I may have found a suitable replacement.

Cover Girl Lash Blast.

When I saw the gigantic orange tube on the shelf at Target, I knew I had to try it. I mean, this thing is huge, it has to make your lashes huge, right? Marketing at its very finest.

My thoughts on Lash Blast:
It gives decent volume and length without clumping, the color is nice and black, the formula is smooth and not too dry, and it doesn't seem to flake after an hour.

I really like this mascara. Sure, it's not the same as the magnificent, glorious Volume Shocking, but it will do. There are, however, a few things I don't like about it.

The brush is gigantic, which makes applying the product difficult. The bristles are also pretty scratchy, it irritates my eyes a little and when you accidentally scratch your eye with it it HURTS! It takes a while to build volume, which is understandable but time-consuming. And the tube is HUGE. I mean, ridiculously huge. If someone saw it in your purse I'm sure it would be mistaken for an, uh, adult toy. In fact, I think it could double as an adult toy. How about that? Multi-tasking mascara! Hear me, Cover Girl? I have your next absurd marketing tactic!!!

Anyway, I think I would buy this again. It's not perfect, but it's definitely the best of all the drugstore mascaras I tried. If only they would bring back the old Volume Shocking. *sigh*

Malacca City, Malaysia

I want to introduce to you one of the most beautiful and famous Malaysian towns - Malacca (Malay Melaka). I've been to Melaka in 2007 for just a day. I must say I didn't see everything, just the main part. Me and my ex came all the way from Penang to Batu Pahat in 1 night (took us 9h by bus accross whole Malaysia, that is around 1000km!). We only had to days to stay in Batu Pahat and visit her family. The next day we decided to go to a short trip to Melaka, took us 2-3h, I don't remember anymore. But it was a long ride, yet definitely worth it.

So why is Melaka so significant? Because it gave the name to the whole nation of Malaysia. The second thing so speacial about Melaka is the history. Melaka was ruled by the Portuguese, Dutch and British. And those influences are seen until today, be it in architecture, food and religion. Also famous from Melaka is the Peranakan culture also known as Baba-Nyonya. This is the culture of Chinese immigrants who adopted Malay culture and kept some of their Chinese characteristics and created a mix, which became a culture on it's own. Nyonya food is very famous everywhere in Malaysia and Singapore and can be found even today and offered as something special. The Nyonya people are declining in their number though. However, Melaka still has to offer a lot and you should visit it if you have the chance. It's one of Malaysia's top tourist destinations, you'll see many people from all over the world.

Here are my photos of Malacca (Melaka):

The famous Dutch Mill.

A nice roundabout.

The Christchurch of Melaka.

The interesting Dutch paving.

A lovely fountain refreshed the air for us.

We went closer to the fountain.

Here are also many museums.

Famous A Famosa fort from the 16th century.

This famous ship is a Maritime museum.

[My MALAYSIA page][Photos by MKL, 2007]

Dior Gold Nugget 2008

Dior Gold Nugget nail polish. I love metallics, so naturally this called my name. I like it and all, but doesn't it seem sort of dark for something called "Gold Nugget"? It's almost more bronze. It's really sparkly so I'm not complaining.

OPI Purple With A Purpose

Here's a picture of OPI Purple With A Purpose for dear reader Tabe-chan.



Click for more detail.

Nubar

This is my first experience with Nubar polishes, so I think I'll do a little review.

Service, overall, was slow and with very little communication.

The polishes themselves are awesome. The formula, which is 3 free, seems nice and smooth but still has that annoying dripping problem that 3-free polishes have.

The range of colors is excellent, and they have enough of glitter and duochrome shades to keep someone like me happy.

The bottles are great, a unique yet stable shape with a comfortable, wide lid.

Enough talk, on to the good stuff.


Angelic Glitter. Not the most flattering due to the yellow tint, but would be awesome layered over just about anything.


Gilded Gold. I love this. You probably can't tell from the picture, but there are little gold glitter shapes in it. Like little triangles of foil, they catch the light and reflect like crazy.


Golden Glow. I'm not sure about this one... This could possibly be the most unflattering polish I own. I love the holographic gold glitter. I think this one would be best for layering, unless you have the patience to do 20 coats.


Gold Leaf. This is incredible. It's an extremely strong gold/bronze/copper duochrome. It glows so much you'd think it was lit from within.


Grass Green. Lots of very fine green glitter. I love this. It's oddly smooth for a glitter polish. This is three coats.



Indigo Illusion. It's blue/green/gold/purple. Need I say more?



Iris Dust. It seems to be a purple/orange duochrome that changes a lot depending on how the light hits it. Yes, those two pictures are of the same color.


Love Rainbow. In the bottle it looks like blue/pink/silver duochrome, but on the nail it looks kinda blueish silver. My only true disappointment out of the bunch.



Peacock Feathers. This is the one that made me try Nubar. It's amazing. Sometimes it's purple, sometimes it's blue, sometimes green or gold. It's freaking amazing. The lovely Makeup Alley member Love8Brain has much better pictures of this.


Purple Beach. It's futuristic looking, isn't it? It's purple/green/gold/grey.


Purple Rain. it's dark purple with multicolored and holographic glitter. No Prince jokes required.


Sour Candy. Very cool turquoise jelly tint with holographic glitter.



Stardust. Can you tell I have a thing for duochromes....


...And glitter? This is Sugar. Hot pink jelly with holographic glitter of varying sizes.

Last, but not least, they threw in a bottle of this color (as well as base coat and quick dry top coat)


Sexy Red.


What do you think? Are these cool or what?

Purple

Whoops, haven't had time to do a real post in a while.

The good news is I finally got my Nubar and NYX polishes that I've been waiting for.

The bad news it that it was too dark today to take any pictures.

I'm in a purple mood again. Here are a couple of my favorites.




Zoya Yasmeen. In my opinion, this is one of the best purples on the planet.


OPI Ulta-Violet




CND (Creative Nail Design) Deep Velvet






OPI Pike's Peek-A-Boo Purple



Zoya Roxy





OPI Black Tie Optional.


The Polish Addict has a post on neon purples this week, you should check it out! Neon purples are awesome!

OPI Designer Series, Part 1.

My Designhergals.com blog gal isn't showing up! What's up with that? I suspect photobucket is the culprit. Grr.

I don't often see the OPI Designer Series polishes getting much love, so I thought I'd post a few swatches to show how beautiful they are. I really love them a lot- they dry so incredibly fast you don't even need Seche Vite.

Once again, click for more detail. These suckers are huge.


Chiffon


Design



Diamond


Exclusive (my personal favorite)


Fantasy (has more multi-colored shimmer in bright light)


Glamour



Jewel (ok, this one is kinda funky.)



Original


Royal



Ruby


Shimmer

and


Signature.

Aren't they gorgeous? I think this is about half of the shades in the line, so I'll post the other half when I get a chance.

These do cost almost twice as much as a "regular" OPI polish. Why? I don't know. Maybe it's the "diamond dust" that's in them. If you saw my post earlier this week about the OPI It's Summer For Shore collection you'll notice a similarity. I'm wondering why that collection cost the same as a regular OPI, but the Designer Series costs more, even though they look the same.

So it's 1 am and I'm rambling. Forgive me if I make no sense. As a peace offering, I give you one more polish to add to your wishlist:




My Private Jet (from the Night Brights collection).

I will now attempt to sleep, which is probably more wishful thinking than reality.