NOTD: Black Diamond, matte

This is Pretty Serious Black Diamond, two coats with no undies other than base-coat:

It's pretty much opaque with two coats (I did do a little dabbing in a couple of spots), but I think when I wear it again I'm going to put Black Creme under it, just because you can't get this kind of polish to wrap around the tips & sides like I'd like. Considering the type of glitter - i.e., definitely on the chunky side - it does go on relatively smooth, but I did use a coat of Glitter Food under the matte top-coat. If you really like your polish to have a super-glass-slick finish, I would say you might want two coats of Glitter Food (or Gelous, or whatever). But one did well enough to suit me.

I never posted a picture or anything last week, but what I wore all week was Pretty Gritty - by itself for a couple of days, and then after it had (inevitably) chipped a little I patched the tips up and put Jin Soon Gossamer on top. (That's my #1 manicure extending trick, if you haven't figured that out already: use the original polish to patch, then add a coat of some sort of topper - my favorites for this are Gossamer, Travel In Colour (China Glaze), or Bubblegum Punk (RBL), something that changes it up just a little without being too drastic.)

Mistletoe Kisses

This is Virago Varnish Mistletoe Kisses:

It's kind of an odd name for this color - it's not the color of any mistletoe I've ever seen - of course mistletoe doesn't even grow around here, as far as I know, so it's not like I'm any expert. I live too far south for a lot of the traditional holiday greenery. (If the pictures on Wikipedia are anything to go by, the colors do vary, apparently.) Anyway, it's a pretty color - sort of silvery medium green with almost a blackened tinge to it - and it's nice to have something different from the usual holiday greens. This was a holiday polish a couple of years ago, so it's no surprise that I don't see it on Virago's website.

Goblin, Kale

These are both minis, Mod Lacquer Goblin and Chirality Kale:

Goblin is fairly similar in some ways to the last polish I showed, Slightly Unstable, in that it's a green duochrome with some scattered holo glitter and a brown flash. But it's a brighter green than that one, so it looks a good bit different. Kale is a slightly more grayed-out green, and it's a holo. It was really the first holo I fell in love with. It's still available, but Mod Lacquer is apparently out of business.

Slightly Unstable

This is Slightly Unstable from Paint Box Polish:

This is the kind of thing I usually refer to as a "funky green." You sometimes find these in Halloween collections, but this one is from a Women of Harry Potter collection, and it's meant to refer to Bellatrix Lestrange, although to my mind calling her slightly unstable is like calling Donald Trump slightly self-centered. (Sorry, that's the first comparison that came to mind.) It's definitely got a slight duochrome to it - brown, maybe? and I think also a little bit of holo glitter.

Lodgepole Pine, Meow Meow

This is Square Hue Lodgepole Pine and Rescue Beauty Lounge Meow Meow:

The Square Hue polish was from this past January, so it's the Adventure Series and I had "Hike Banff" on my spreadsheet so that was presumably that month's theme. (All Square Hue polishes are LE but check their website if you fall in love with something because they do sell off their leftovers, as I understand it.) And then the RBL was from an Italian-themed collection - it was meant to be the color of a cat's eyes, as I recall. Anyway, it's another beautiful green glitter but I seem to have a lot of green glitters, somehow. Lodgepole Pine stands out more in my collection because I don't seem to have many dark-green cremes. (I bet these two would look very nice layered.)

More goodies from Sephora

I mentioned way back here that I didn't get a July Sephora box because they "oversold" them, so they said, and they sent me 500 points instead. Then they put up this Kat Von D set for 500 points a week or so ago, and I decided to go ahead and get it. I knew I liked her eyeliners and there are two of them in this set, and I'd never tried her lipsticks, so that seemed like a good deal. Here's what showed on Sephora's "Beauty Bazaar" where it shows the available bonuses:

And here's what it looked like when it arrived:

Here's what was inside:

The little bag is in the bottom although you can't really see it here. The other items are minis of a studded lipstick (in Cathedral), a liquid lipstick (in Vampira), a Tattoo Liner (in Mad Max Brown) and an Ink Liner (in Trooper, which is black). That works out well since I already have the Tattoo Liner in black. I think the Ink Liner draws a heavier line than the Tattoo Liner, so that will be fun to play with. Eyeliner is about the only eye makeup I wear much these days.

Here are the two lipsticks swatched on my stupidly pale wrist:

The lighter one is Cathedral and the dark one is Vampira. I was a little worried that Vampira would be so dark as to look ridiculous on me but I actually think it looks fine. You can see around the edges of that swatch that it has berry undertones and that's usually pretty flattering to my skin-tone.

Then I found a Sephora Favorites lip set that said "limited edition" and seemed like a really good deal at $28, considering it has two full sized products in it - a Lancome Juicy Shaker, which is $21 normally, and a Smashbox Always On which is $24, plus four other mini-sized products. I figured I'd decide which ones are good colors for me and put the rest in my stash to give gifts from later.

I didn't have time to swatch these yet but I do have pictures of everything. This box is so adorable:

And inside it looked like this:

You can see the products on the box, but for the record, they look pretty much exactly the same as they did on the box:

Besides the two full-sized ones I listed above (which are the two on the right), the brands are Too Faced (the Melted liquid lip), another KvD studded one (in a different color, luckily), a Nars pencil, and the Fresh Sugar lip. (I didn't write down colors but if you click through to that Sephora link, I believe they're listed there.) I went ahead & ordered this since it said it was LE and you never know how long those sets will last. I'm still trying to decide what I'm keeping and what I'm giving away, out of all this - I'm keeping the Melted for sure, and the Kat liquid lip from the other set, and maybe the Juicy Shaker, I'm still thinking that one over. The Smashbox one is not my kind of color, and I already had that same Nars lip pencil so those two can definitely go. Anyway, some are staying, some are going, that's what I intended from the start. (Added: I was right, this set sold out within a couple of weeks. Lately there has been a different one that I think was called "Give Me Some Bold Lip" but that one may be sold out now too. I'd keep an eye out, if they're selling that well they might come up with a different set between now and Christmas. Anyway, for the record, I eventually I kept three from this set - the Melted, the Sugar Rosé, and the Juicy Shaker. I do really like the Juicy Shaker but it seems like it disappears from your lips really quickly, so I probably wouldn't buy one for full price!)

I also took a picture of my usual quota of samples:

Two are fragrance samples - the one on the left is a men's cologne but it smells AWESOME, I was tempted to steal it for myself. The Juliette Has a Gun one also smelled really nice. And then that's some Sephora-brand foundation samples, I believe it was. And then a Briogeo curl product, which was one of those free-with-a-$25-purchase premium samples. (Everybody knows to check the "weekly specials" on Sephora's front page, right? That's usually where they put that kind of thing. If you're buying stuff online from Sephora and not taking advantage of those you're missing out.)

Chita, Mistletoe

This is Zoya Chita and Julie G Mistletoe:

These are both textures - Zoya's from the Pixie Dust line, of course, and Julie G's from the Holiday Gumdrops collection. They look pretty similar as far as the texture, and it looks like they may both have silver glitter in the mix. Chita looks like it's a darker color and Mistletoe looks brighter, but actually I seem to remember Chita reading brighter on the nail than it looks in this swatch.

Both of these are still available:
Chita
Mistletoe