Models Own Blues

OK OK. I know. I promised a post last weekend.

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.

Models Own - Tropical Sun

I think I mentioned yesterday that I have been looking at some different cruelty free brands and this is one. They advertise themselves to be "Furry Friendly" and go on to explain if you click on it, that they do not use animal products or test on animals. Good enough!

I don't honestly know how long this brand has been around but I've seen it on other blogs and there are some rather spectacular colors. This is a British company which means overseas shipping and they do charge for it. Quite a lot. So I didn't screw around. I bought a bunch and made the shipping feel more worth it. Also, as it was my first order I was able to get a free black eye liner which helped with the shipping sting as well. I picked up the Beetlejuice collections, both of them, plus the Hed Kandi collection. Today I decided to try Tropical Sun. It's a peach so it's springy, but it definitely has a hot feel to it.

I thought, too, since I'm always telling you the mechanics of a manicure that I should show you what these steps look like, but I think I will make that a separate post as it would make this very picture heavy and keep you from looking at something you might really be interested in. So without further ado, here is Models Own - Tropical Sun:

It's a lovely pinky orange sort of thing. It's really very complex.

Here is one coat over everything I'll show you in the next post:

OK...very sheer, and very pink. It's really not this pink going on. It took me awhile but I figured it out. Between the natural sunlight from the window and the flash...pink. But that's OK because there really is quite a bit of pink in it.

A closer one coat shot. Let's see what we have here...a pink sheer with a yellow gold flash. OK...I buy that. I also feel a sort of green in this. Does that make sense? I don't detect green consciously, but it feels very green...and very hot. If this color had a temperature it would be hot. White hot.

Two coats and looking very pink here. It really honestly isn't and I can show you that in a bit. Just hang with me because these pink shots DO help explain the polish some. This is the pink in the peach. In normal every day lighting you will never see this pink but it's in the polish. It's there and it's what gives the color depth.

A two coat shot. I think I was still deciding if three was going to be the way to go. I did three and more, actually, but we'll get there. I'm still using a flash here.

Here is what happens when wonder genius (me) takes the flash off:

Ah. The actual color. But see what is happening? It's like a duochrome effect, with gold flash. THe pink is in there but it's not that noticeable. However...those bubbles are. I barely shook this so what is up with the bubbles? Oh where ohr where is that Twit in the Beret when I need her?

My right hand was better able to be in the sunlight from the window where I was sitting and this shows the color beautifully. You can also see what a rubbish paint job I typically do, but regardless, this is a great representation of the color. There is a lot happening here but it's very wearable. This is three coats. Three coats gave a nice opacity. Two might have been OK, but I like three better.

Less light here, but a nice show of the color in low light. It becomes more tangerine, which is also very pretty. I was wondering what this would do on someone who could generate a tan. I cannot. I will be this ghostly no matter what. Redhead. But it's pretty on me, I think.

A nice bottle shot. Ugh. The bubbles! I will walk you through how I attempted to fix that.

The bottom label shot. Note the pink at the top of the bottle. Fascinating!

Mechanics:

1 coat Models Own 3in1 - It came with the set.
1 coat Nailtiques 2 Plus
2 coats Seche Rebuild
3 coats Models Own Tropical Sun
1 coat Models Own 3in1

The 3in1...hm. Well....it was a nice base coat. We'll see how it wears. As a top coat...it wasn't bad, but it was slow to dry. Not terrible, but remained tacky. I had a dinner to put on and tacky wasn't going to cut it. Plus, I had those bloody bubbles. So. I put on a fourth coat of Tropical Sun and then a coat of Seche Vite top coat.

Here are the results of that in natural sunlight:

OK, blurry but neat photo. The camera focused on the barn wall and not my fingers. However, this does show the glow this polish has. It looks like a Tropical Sun. Isn't that great? No hint of the pink we saw before but without it this wouldn't work, I don't think. It's really quite lovely.

Against the black top. A nice glowy peach. You can see here how wearable this is.

Now all we need to do is see how it wears. Now...with the fourth coat of lacquer over the top coat it should wear very well. I find that is a cute little trick to get the most out of your polish. I've already had a casualty, however, where it apparently didn't dry all the way through and got pushed back on one nail and bungled on another. I didn't take pics. We'll see how it does over all. I need to go make a repair attempt on these two and we'll go from there.


Some notes on the packaging. The bottles come individually shrink wrapped. At first I was really not amused by this. What a nuisance! Then I thought of the LCN debacle. They keep emailing me and I keep not ordering from them. I'm not wasting my money on polish that comes open and spilled all over. I suppose the shrink wrap system DOES prevent that. I was grumbling inwardly because I almost always ruin a nail getting that crap off when..what did I spy?

 Check it! It's a little pull handle! I should have known. The company IS purported to be owned by models, which means they have probably applied a layer of lacquer or two in their day which means...they may know my pain! This was painless!

Pull the little tab and Voila!:

It comes down the little perforations like a dream. Un-zips in a lovely way and no split nails over it. Nice.

The formula was...runny. Not terrible, not watery like the horrible experience with Spa Ritual but runny enough. Several times I had to stop and re-dab the brush because polish was running down the wand. It wasn't hard to control but you had to pay attention. Which probably explains why I have lacquer all over me. I was trying to root on Tony Kanaan (Maybe next year is your year, baby! You keep driving like you drive! Third is COMPLETELY respectable at the Indy!) and I wasn't fully focusing on my paint. Sorry, but I've been pulling for Tony to get an Indy win for over a decade now. I just love to watch him drive. And no, I've not met him personally but when you root someone on faithfully for 11 years you FEEL like you're on a first name basis. The drivers I met in my youth (and my parents wilder days) are now coaching from the pits. But I always root for Tony.

I suspect if I left the top off this for about an hour it would thicken up nicely and be a breeze. It was kind of annoying but it wasn't unbearable.

So let's see how it wears!

Happy Talons!!

Rescue Beauty Lounge - Opaque Pink

This quote from The Princess Bride keeps going through my head: "You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means." Inigo Montoya. (No, I didn't kill his father, I'm not preparing to die.)

Opaque. I think it means not able to be seen through. Kinda close, right? Saturated to the point of not being sheer.

Opaque Pink is not that.

Opaque? Not so much.

Or...maybe I need to look it up!

Dictionary.com:

not transparent or translucent; impenetrable to light; not allowing light to pass through.

Yeah, no.  This is not at all Opaque. I swatched a bunch of stuff before the holidays and didn't get it all blogged so this is pre one coat swatches. This is two coats. 

I hate sheer. You know I hate sheer. 

This is really, really NOT opaque.  It's pretty, I guess. It's a nice pale pink and over an actually opaque base coat it might be fine. Note the line on my middle finger? That was where I had a nail repair there and some of the darker colors I had swatched had stained the glue there. You can see that. 

 Label shot...blurry, but here. Note the streaky thumbnail. I...am not a fan of this! I'm sorry! Normally Ji Baek and her group at Rescue Beauty do no wrong, but...Good lord. This is not working on me at all. 

Here's a closer shot and the back of the bottle so you can really see what it looks like in there. It's...pale dusty pink. It's kind of a streaky mess. I don't know if another couple coats would have helped this out, or good base coat or what. This is just a swatch so this is on bare nails. Maybe that's the problem. 

 Uhhhh...is it me or does it look slightly yellow on me in this shot? 

 OK, this one makes it look slightly doable...maybe. 

 A tighter bottle shot. It's pretty in the bottle...if it had actually been opaque I might have liked it better. 

Wow. A very rare fail from a very reliable manufacturer. I just didn't like this. 

The formula was predictably good, but streaky. I think it's just a product of whatever pigments they sprinkled over this to get some color in it. You can see it has plenty of shine. 

I'm kind of speechless and that's not a good thing for a blogger to be. 

Happy Talons. 

Deborah Lippmann - Whatever Lola Wants

Lola gets...and little man, little Lola wants YOU....Make up your mind to have no regrets....and how could you have any regrets with this polish. I kinda was putting off getting this one. I confess, I picked it up to pad an order to get free shipping. Erp. Well, the whole Kelly Ripa design thing kinda threw me off, I barely know who she is, just she's this very very skinny person on those appliance commercials, like we're supposed to believe she a. eats actual food that can be cooked, and b. uses her own appliances. I mean, maybe she does, what do I know, but I was like...who is she and why would I want her nail polish?
Well, cause it's gorgeous. It's not really my thing, I generally eschew all sheers but if you put this over an opaque pale pink cream you'd have something. It's pretty on it's own, too. However, as an avid polish wearer, discoloration isn't new to me and sheers don't work with that. It's like you're trying to cover up a 2 pack a day habit and it just doesn't look pretty. Opaques...polish addicts usually go for opaques.

Pale pink. But it looks like icicles! Pale pink icicles. I loved this. It was like brushing on diamond dust, and if you know Lippmanns, you know diamond dust is a real possibility.

This would be a really lovely color for like, a wedding. I don't plan on ever having one of those but you guys might and this would be a good color to keep in mind if you are doing a traditional wedding. Elegant shimmer, won't detract from the flowers, dress or ring.

See how pretty? Dries smooth, too. The microshimmery particles in there probably would not be dulled down with top coat, either, but you might try a nail before you commit. This is VERY sheer, I think this is 2 coats, I don't know what it would take to get to opaque if you even could. I'd be surprised if you pulled that off.

Little blurry to show the sparkly iciness. I really do like this quite a lot. It's mesmerizing.

See that dark spot on the index nail? Just as aside that is a stray piece of Shake Your Groove Thing. Those glitters are beautiful, but GOD are they hard to get off! And the glitter sticks to everything. You, the dog, the carpet, the walls. It's everywhere. Ugh.

So back to Lola...like her? I think she'd like you! This would look good on anyone because it's so pale and so sheer, it's just going to work with whatever color nail beds you have. Mine happen to be pink so it looks more pink but I think if you were of a darker skin tone it would work well with that as well. You can't beat sparkle!

Happy Talons!