I suck.
But here is one now, and I have photos edited for two more so I just have to write them, which I WILL do, plus another post in my head (fat lot of good it does you there, I know) about how I kind of went a little cray-cray on Sephora.com (the work of the devil, I'm convinced) in the aftermath of the whole To Sell in China You Must Animal Test debacle.
You are aware of this, correct?
If not. Here is the thing as I understand it. China is now requiring any foreign imported cosmetics to be animal tested before they can be marketed there. This is impacting many major brands, probably many major brands you and I have had faith in as safe for us bunnyhuggers. Estee Lauder falling into this trap is HUGE and I mean...HUGE. I don't know if you all know this but Estee Lauder makes like...everything. Bumble and Bumble, La Mer, Clinique, MAC, most perfumes...pick something. HUGE. Urban Decay is also falling victim to this law. Their PR departments are going berserk trying to convince us they are still OK because hey, we're not actually torturing animals OURSELVES. Buy from us!
I've really struggled with this and finally decided that Chinese bunnies are still bunnies. Still bunnies being tortured and made to suffer for something as, let's be honest with ourselves, banal as makeup. Can't do it. So...my moisturizer was almost gone, but I did not head to the makeup counter, I went to www.sheaterra.com and ordered something that is cheaper and, honestly, probably better for my skin. I didn't get the rooibos and vitamin E cream that I know really does magical things with my skin because they were out of it. The lovely souls at Shea Terra sent me an email offering me other options that were in stock and that had roughly the same set of promises. Let me know if you want to know what I think of Tamanu. That's what I chose. Of COURSE all this stuff smells approximately like ass on a hot day, but that does not last and what you are left with is the most amazing baby smooth skin ever. And it looks better, too. Highly recommend the Egyptian carrot seed oil if you have really super dry skin like me.
So, the moral of this babble is that after doing some struggling with the whole "But MAC doesn't bunny test....Urban Decay still isn't bunny testing....BUT BUNNIES ARE SUFFERING FOR THEIR GREED!" argument with myself, I went searching for other options. There are some great British brands, like the one I'm eventually showing you today, and I got on a little expensive mission to try some of them. I have a list! I have a list of vegan/cruelty free companies I am going to try and I will be sure to share those results with you. I have at least one bottle of Ciate coming and some Nails Inc, and another new brand called The New Black. Those come in sets so you can do ombre manis, which I don't give a flying fu----udge about. Woo. You painted each of your nails a different color. You're...five. Of course, this could be a reflection of my being a cynical old beeyatch. Regardless, I'm not impressed with your mad painting skilz on that one. It looks like you got drunk one night or something. That does NOT mean, however, that I'm averse to wearing the colors the normal way. I did not realize this, but you can also get Julep on Sephora, which is an idea I like a LOT better than a subscription sort of annoyance so I will likely be trying one or two of those in time as well. As I do more research into this I will try more brands. There is some stuff out there I've been curious about for awhile so maybe now is the time to divert my polish dollar on to smaller and more bunny friendly companies. I did contact one I was interested in, promising that I wouldn't start a campaign against them if they aren't cruelty free, I simply won't promote them and I have heard exactly nothing, which I take as an "Aw shucks, we torture bunnies" admission, but like I said, they'll remain nameless.
I have been busy while I've been not blogging. I don't forget you, I just can't always stand to be on a computer. I sometimes read other blogs...how do you think I find some of this stuff? There are some fun trends I would love to try out there. Sponging? Looks cool. Now a sponge ombre I'd do! That's more than one color on each nail in a gradient succession and looks awesome. I found one post about cruelty free and how pretentious it is that still has my blood boiling. The argument is that the bunnies are already dead because in the US each thing only needs to be tested once so you aren't saving anything. Really? Really. So we should encourage it? I suppose by that logic we should no longer control the war machine because the soldiers who have fought and died are already dead, right?
Really kind of pissed me off.
So on that note!
I give you Models Own Balearic Cool with Indian Ocean:
OK, yeah. These are in the bottles. I somehow, through all this process - I say that because I have a post demonstrating how I repair chips coming up and it was with this manicure - I never took a shot of me holding Indian Ocean, that sparkly goodness on the left. I confess, Indian Ocean was the whole reason I looked into Models Own and I am SO glad I did.
Look at that thing. I mean...I'm drooling on it. Enlarge the picture to really see it. I dare ya. (website to order: www.modelsownit.com) Balearic Cool, on the other hand, while gorgeous, was absolutely impossible to accurately photograph. Flash, no flash, sunlight, electric light...I tried everything I could think of. It's darker and richer than this. It's not sky blue as it's going to appear in every single picture that I took of it. Maybe another blogger had better luck, I don't know.
So...BMWWU says "I know. Let's layer these". OK!
This is natural sunlight on the black top of my driveway. Some idiot in a minivan nearly wrecked watching me do this. WTF? My driveway and I live in the sticks. Run along! Run along!
This is as close to a perfect swatch of this manicure that I was going to get. It's still washed out but not as badly as some of them.
Yes, one small chip there, which will be fixed in a later post!
The rest of it, as you see, is flawless. This was several days old. The Indian Ocean adds a depth and character which softens what is essentially an electric neon gigolo blue. It's very sheer so it didn't really do more than tone down the Balearic Cool while adding mouthwatering pink and purple shimmer. I wanted to try Indian Ocean on every single blue I owned after this. I didn't...but I did have that urge.
Stunning.
I don't remember how she did this. I might not have been paying attention at all. I know it was two or three coats of Balearic cool and one coat of Indian Ocean. I don't know that you could get Indian Ocean to be opaque on it's own, I'm not sure you would really want to. It's like bacon: it makes everything better.
This wore great until it didn't. I did repair it once, which held it for about 2 more days and then it was polishapocaplypse.
It came off in sheets.
I have a pic of the other hand but it's not loading it for some reason.
Bloody picture problems. Let's see if we can get the kind of funny one I took
of the big sheets of polish peeling off.
NO!
Love it. What a POS. Do other bloggers have these problems?
This wore roughly a week. I was getting tired of it, actually.
It's very pretty but I'm used to wearing polish for about 4 days and then it
peels or chips and I remove it. I'm typing this with bare nails now. I'm trying
to choose a color...my nails are in good shape now...hm.
Regardless.
Models Own. Great colors, great wear, trendy, pretty, easy
to apply...what is not to love? OK...maybe the price and WOOO the shipping from
Britain. Make sure you make it worthwhile for yourself. I wound up ordering a
ton of polish to be able to justify the shipping but they do give you a
discounted price when you buy their sets. I bought two plus some other random
ones. I also got a free black eyeliner for my first order. I haven't tried that
yet, but after the polish I have high hopes.
Sorry I've been so wordy lately. I'd love to tell you I'll
cut it out but I probably won't.
Happy Talons!
ETA: Picasa seems to be behaving right now. Here is what the sheets of polish coming off looked like:
Check it out! It's...CHUNKS! When this stuff decides to go, it does not pussy foot around. It goes. The up side to that is that it could take it a week to do it. When you're working in an office handling a ton of paper, typing and then coming home and cleaning and doing dishes a week is a damned God send. I think I'm a Models Own believer.
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