NYFW Spring Summer 2014 Round Up

I was actually very interested in New York Fashion Week this year. I even considered hopping a plane and going to watch! Instead, I ended up watching from my computer screen and even though it's come and gone (and London had theirs too), I thought you might be interested in some of the show highlights that I enjoyed.  (All images courtesy of the companies that they represent unless otherwise noted.)

CND

When I think of Fashion Week, I think of CND and how hard they work to create amazing designs. This year, they unveiled 36 unique designs at The Blonds Spring/Summer 2014 Fashion Show at MILK Studios in NYC. 

butter LONDON

I didn't realize butter LONDON was hitting the US soil so hard but now I see it EVERYWHERE. This year, they launched their own exclusive Fashion Week shade The 444, a champagne glitter.

However, I felt like butter LONDON played it safe with fashion week - lots of nudes & matte top coats. One show that did get wild was the LIBERTINE show where lead manicurist Katie Jane Hughes, butter LONDON Global Colour Ambassador started with Union Jack Black and then added holographic foil & applied several colours to the nails includes crystals and studs and finally a small red pom-pom on the accent nails.

Morgan Taylor

I still need to share my brand overview on Morgan Taylor - both lovely fashion forward young women who are really digging in their heels with their brand. I was happy to see them at fashion week, such a young brand to have such a powerful position.

BUT THEN they also went the nude, light, and matte way. Rawr.

The stand out was the Betsy Johnson show (duh). Lead artist Danielle Candido created an "Aurora Borealis Mani" using a silver base of Could Have Foiled Me, layered with Adorned in Diamonds and finished at the tips with Sweetest Thing.

Zoya

Can't forget them! Zoya has been providing custom nail colors for their designers in recent fashion shows. Each designer nail palette was created in direct collaboration with Zoya Color Developer Rebecca Isa (who officially has my dream job). Once again, the designers tended to go with soft colors but the Peter Som set spoke to me most. 

Zoya Edie (blue cream), Zoya Alexa (green cream), and Zoya Stella (peach cream). “The inspiration for the Peter Som custom trio was - Where land meets sea… - the serene marine blue represents the water, the vibrant green represents the lush plant life surrounding the water and the soft peach is the delicate first bloom of spring flowers. Eddie and Alexa are full coverage and very pigmented so that a shaded half-moon mani can be achieved; which is exactly how the shades were worn coming down the runway”.

There you have it! Hope you enjoyed my picks from Fashion Week!

The beginning

I found this today and just had to share - I "got obsessed" with nail polish in the summer of 2009, and I found my first "stash" photo. All China Glaze, my first love.

I was so proud of myself.

Glitter Daze Summer Sprinkles

Press Sample

Glitter Daze [Website | Facebook | Pinterest | Instagram | tumblr]  is an indie line from my home state in Texas. I cannot believe I missed meeting the creator while at Cosmoprof North America Las Vegas this year but she made sure to shoot me an email and asked if she could send me a few bottles. As you know, I'm still learning about indies and while I have my favorites, I do like finding new brands.

Glitter Daze features two size options for her polishes - a full size 15 mL for $11-11.50 & mini 4 mL (shown above) for $5.00. I'm very impressed with her business. Not only does she offer two different sizes, but she also has her own base coat, her own top coat, her own cuticle sticks and a Subscription Box with 3 different levels and including only a 100 run Limited Edition full size polish.  Oh wait, there's more... she has apple blossom scented polish remover and hand "fizzies"! And she has international shipping available through stockists AND she has a rewards program on her website.  Deep breath.

I used a base coat of NYC Clear, 1 coat of polish and topped it with Digital Nails Ain't Nobody Got Time For That. On my ring finger, I used Golden Rose 38 to show this over a color.

Okay, so this is a glitter polish that has multicolored neon glitter with black and white microglitter all in a clear base. It looks like a super blended fruit salad which is suoer fun.

This is just one coat! I love that it's a clear base, no issues with bleeding.

I didn't have any issues with the glitter being curled or raised with just one top coat, so that's fab too.  This is like an awesome glitter bomb that I have no problems wearing far into winter. What cracks me up is that I would have never picked this normally in the bottle but I LOVE it on. So don't judge a polish by its bottle!  Truth!

Glitter Daze [Website | Facebook | Pinterest | Instagram | tumblr]  features two size options for her polishes - a full size 15 mL for $11-11.50 & mini 4 mL (shown above) for $5.00.

Disclosure: The product[s] in this post was [were] provided to me by the company for consideration.  For more information, please read this post.

Zoya Carter

Press Sample

I'm falling behind on the #31DC2013 but I hope to get back at it. Meanwhile, I wanted to share Zoya Carter from the Fall 2013 PixieDust collection. Texture polish has been the RAGE for 2013 and I have greatly enjoyed the polishes from Zoya. 

I used a base coat of Cult Nails Get It On, and 2 coats of Carter. I did not use a top coat in order to keep the texture consistency. 

It reminds me of lava - except purple.

The shade and the sun look the same, crazy huh?  So, make sure you wrap your tips with this polish because it can have quite a bit of tip wear since there isn't a top coat to protect it. I wore this manicure over the weekend and then spruced it up for my Purple Nails in the #31DC2013

Zoya [Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Instagram | YouTube] can be purchased on their website for $9/bottle. (Normally, $8/bottle but all PixieDust polishes are $1 more.)

Disclosure: The product[s] in this post was [were] provided to me by the company for consideration.  For more information, please read this post.

Beautisol Summer Glow Dark Self-Tanning Lotion for Body

Image courtesy of Beautisol

Nothing to Disclose

I had the pleasure of meeting Sinead Norenius in 2012 at Cosmoprof North America after missing her in 2011 and boy, am I glad I did. For starters, she's beautiful - and a true believer in her product. A native of South Africa, Sinead has very pale blue-tinted skin, and wanted a self tanning product that would change the way everyone looked at self tanners. I truly believe she did it.

Before getting into my experience, I have to rave that Beautisol is paraben free, propylene glycol free, sodium laureth/laurel sulfate free, cruelty free (PETA certified), vegan and gluten free. Sinead is a licensed aesthetician and used to work as the Director of Education - North America for St. Tropez Tan.

Now, I am pretty much anti-sun. As a teenager, I had a couple of bad sunburns that left me very miserable and as a 20-something, I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and the medications I have been taking leave me very sun sensitive. (Just this past Labor Day, I burned my face terribly in just an hour - didn't realize it until my eyelids were peeling!)  On top of that, I don't like self-tanners because I don't want to end up orange, I HATE the smell and I'm pretty lazy when it comes to do something "all the way."  I once tried to give myself highlights and ended up with leopard print spots of bleach in my hair because I was too lazy to do it the right way.

So you can imagine how much hesitation I had going into Beautisol. Sinead tried to send me some for free, but I kept avoiding it because I didn't want to HAVE to do it, and HAVE to write about it and all that jazz. Plus what if it was horrible? I really hate writing negative reviews, but I'll do it when I have a bad product.

You're probably wondering why I bought it then. Well, on my husband's birthday this May, he wanted to go to a theme park and it was blistering hot. I didn't really think ahead and long story short, I burned pretty badly. This left me with tan lines that I was really irritated about having because this summer I had a lot of traveling plans going on.  When it came time to figure out what I was going to where for Cosmoprof North America 2013, I had settled on several skirts/short dresses and then realized not only do I have terrible tan lines up top, but my legs are pasty white. Even though I live in South Texas where we have months of triple digits temperatures, I tend to stay inside and pretty much always wear jeans.  I don't go to the beach or tanning so my legs were as pale as can be.

One night, after seeing that Sinead would be on HSN, I decided to tune in and watch. I was really shocked to see normally tanned Sinead with only one tanned arm and leg, and the other was her natural skin! It literally motivated me to buy.

Now, the special on HSN was pretty fantastic, but it wasn't for the Summer Glow Dark Self-Tanning Lotion for body, so I went straight to the Beautisol website and picked the Summer Glow One Time Purchase which is $39 for the 8 oz bottle and 2 packs of latex gloves (for each application), but then I also added in the Hammam Deep Exfoliating Mitt ($12) and another application mitt ($8). I had received their e-newsletter which had a coupon code for $15 off so over all it was $55.35 with shipping.

I did have a little slip up with shipping. I was using my iPhone to purchase everything and their website is not mobile optimized and I hit a 404 error after purchasing. However, I reached out over social media and it was corrected and sent out in time for my trip.  

I was really nervous about the claim of "Pure Scent Odor Eliminating Technology" but spoiler alert - I knew it couldn't smell THAT bad because I had tried the Beautisol Wash-Off Body Bronzer with Tea Extracts before thanks to an iFabbo Shop perk that I had received and my husband asked me what my new perfume was because he loved it. I am not making that up. I laughed for a few minutes after that one especially because he didn't believe that I was wearing self tanner!

Back to the process. First I showered and used the Hammam Deep Exfoliating Mitt which, she's not kidding when she says that it really does work. You look at it and think "Eh, whatever" but then you scrub and it's powerful. After my shower, I decided to use the latex gloves instead of my application mitt, and following the application guide that is included with all kits, I put a big blob on my leg.

So far so good. Make sure you rub it in completely - the tint of product shows you exactly where you have applied product.

I had put a bit much on my thigh but I was able to rub it in.

I finished both legs and took a quick picture.

The difference is slightly there but this is also RIGHT after application. For best results, you are supposed to let the product set in for 8 hours, so this is preferably done at night, which I did. I slept in yoga pants and an oversized t-shirt to protect my bed and didn't have any issues of product transfer.

I also used the product on my arms, stomach, back, neck, feet and chest.

After the first day, I was happy but I wanted to be EVEN DARKER (lol), so I did a second application of Beautisol. I decided to do a before and after that really blew me away.  On the left is no product at all. On the right is after 2 applications that have been set in (so 8+ hours after application).

Are you convinced now? Because I am. I didn't have any side effects and the tan slowly faded over the next several weeks as I did not want to take it on vacation with me. You should apply one a week to keep the tan consistent.

Overall, I'm really glad I ordered. This product did exactly what I needed, when I needed, with no issues whatsoever in smell, or application. I'm a very happy customer.

Beautisol is available on their website, through retail partners and in online stores. You can also purchase through HSN.  For more Beautisol, you can follow them on Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and like them on Facebook.