Squared Away Glitter Gradient

Hey everyone! Today I have some nail art for you. I love glitter gradients because they are so easy to do! I started off with two coats of Essie Under Where?, a beautiful lavender creme. Then I took KBShimmer's Squared Away and layered it, concentrating most of it near my cuticle and dotting a few glitters further up the nail. Squared Away is a beautiful glitter topper with blue, pink and silver holographic square glitters and blue microglitters. I hope you enjoy!

Cult Cosmetics Nail Polish and Makeup Review

Hey everyone! Spring is in the air! Thank goodness - it's about darn time. I have a something a little different for you all today. I was sent the Cult Cosmetics Blackbox, which included two nail polishes and a makeup palette. Lets get started!

 

First up is PCH, a beautiful dark teal polish with a metallic finish. The formula was perfect. At first, I was worried about brushstrokes, but after the second coat dried they were almost nonexistent. Shown below is two coats, no top coat.

The second polish is Avalon, a bright peach creme. The formula on this one was what you would expect for a creme polish of this color - it was streaky on the first coat but it evened out on the second. I was able to get away with two coats, but I could see it taking up to three to achieve full opacity. This polish dried to almost a waxy finish so make sure you use a good top coat if you want it to shine. Shown is two coats without top coat.

Okay, now this is where I, as a fairly new beauty blogger, step into the unknown! I love wearing makeup and trying new looks for my eyes and such, but I've never blogged about it, so bear with me please!

The Cult Cosmetics Blackbox came with the BH Cosmetics Malibu Eyeshadow and Blush palette. This palette comes with 16 eyeshadows and 4 blushes, all of which I swatched on my freakishly pale forearm that has the potential to sear your eyeballs. You've been warned.

Warm Tones

Cool Tones

Blushes

Overall, I'm pretty impressed with the quality of this palette. Most of the eyeshadows had great opacity, especially when used with a primer. Some, however, needed a little extra product to acquire the desired opacity. The blushes/bronzer/highlight were all very pretty and actually showed up a bit better than my pictures show. I absolutely love all of the colors in this palette and I'm happy with the mix of both matte and shimmery eyeshadows and blushes. The beachy tones will be perfect for spring and summer. I'm excited to try more looks, but for now, here's what I came up with:

You can sign up to receive your first Cult Cosmetics Blackbox by clicking here! Or if you would like to buy the polishes separately, go to https://www.cultcosmetics.com/. I hope you enjoyed this post, even though it was a little different for me. Let me know in the comments if you would like to see more posts like this!

Thanks for reading,
xoxo Maggie

Born Pretty Store Review

Hey everyone! I hope everybody's week is going well. I worked my two 12-hr shifts yesterday and Monday, so I'm free the rest of the week! I'm still job searching, but things are good for now. Today I have three types of nail studs to show you from the Born Pretty Store.

First of all, I would like to say that I did not test the wear time of these products until they fell off. I wore these studs for about a day, which for my purposes is great because I usually change my nail polish every day, anyway. To apply the studs, I have a pencil shaped picker-upper (for lack of a better word) with a flat, almost concave end with which to pick up the studs. The tool came with a pack of rhinestones I bought on Amazon about a year ago and it worked wonderfully on these. I didn't use any glue to apply the studs. Instead, I applied them to wet polish and added a layer of top coat over them, which worked well for me. The studs sat smoothly on my nails and looked and felt great. I am very happy with these products. Now - on to the rest of the review!

First up I have some neon studs (Item #7219). These studs came in a wheel with pink, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple studs in both round and square shape. I loved the colors on these! They really pop on the nail and almost look like candy. I used these studs over OPI Black Onyx in the picture below.

Next I have round and square silver and gold studs that also came in a wheel (Item #7279). These were so shiny and beautiful! I can't wait to use them again. I used the gold squares over Zoya Odette.

Finally, I have some silver star studs (Item #10755) ! Aren't these adorable? They came in a little packet of about 50. I decided it was only appropriate for me to place these on blue and red polish! I used Zoya Sookie and Sinful Colors Endless Blue.

I am really happy with these products and I can't wait to try more. You can purchase these items and more at http://www.bornprettystore.com/ and if you use the code AZJ61 you can get 10% off your order!

Thanks for reading,
Maggie xoxo

*These items were provided to me for the purpose of honest review*