Beauty Tips for Women: SinfulShine – Alfresco

Here is a beauty product review of the polish color Alfresco from the SinfulShine with Gel Tech line from SinfulColors.

Alfresco is a blue cream color that seems to have hints of purple in it depending on lighting.  The formula was great and only used two coats for full coverage. I totally forgot to take pictures prior to stamping.  I used plate Pueen26 from Pueen Love Elements collection.  I used Konad white to stamp the image.

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Overall I love how this manicure came out.  In general I think that SinfulColors polishes are good quality and affordably priced.

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I give SinfulShine – Alfresco 5 brains.

BRAINrate5

Beauty Tips for Women: Avon Nail Art Sponge Kit

I haven’t done a beauty product review in awhile so here we go.  The beauty product review is on Avon Nail Art Sponge Kit.  I purchased this item.  It retails for a $1.99 and it comes nicely packed in a clear box.

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The Avon Nail Art Sponge Kit includes 5 sponges, sponge holder, and an instruction page.  Nail Art Polish Beauty tips for Women 406

My first impression was that the sponges are not really sponges but rather foam.  If you do any crafting then you would recognize this material as the same ones for foam paintbrushes you get at hardware stores or craft stores.  The second thing I noticed was the size, it is very big.  The foam is about 1 inch across and is ½ inch deep.

I applied a base color of white to my nails to help the colors pop.  I decided to go with a yellow to orange gradient.  The instructions say to apply the colors on paper then press the sponge into it and roll across you nails.  As you can see from the picture there is a lot of the black sponge showing through the colors.  Plus this sponge really soaks up the polish.  Again I have to point out how much larger this is than a makeup sponge, so a good portion of the sponge is not being used.

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I did the rolling method per the instructions.  What I noticed was that I was getting a lot of holes with no color, almost like a Swiss cheese affect. The sponge is airy, full of way more holes than a makeup sponge.  I applied a second coat hoping to fill in the holes.  This didn’t exactly work.  The colors got more intense but I would still see the holes of empty space.  I placed the top coat to smooth the gradient but those little holes where still present.  I applied China Glaze Fairy Dust to try and cover the holes.  It kind of worked.  I stamped some palm trees and sealed with top coat.  If you look closely to my thumb you can see the little Swiss cheese holes the sponge makes.

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I was not pleased with this manicure at all.  It looked like a hot mess.

Here are my final thoughts about the Avon Nail Art Sponge Kit.  I would not recommend this product nor would I purchase it again.  I think the idea is a good one but the execution is all wrong.  The sponge is not a sponge but rather foam.  The foam is not dense which causes holes plus it soaks up the polish a lot.  I could not reuse the foam for another manicure because the nail polish had soaked up to the middle of the foam.  So even if I cut the part with the dried polish off I have the issue that the foam no longer has the depth it needs to fit properly in the holder.

I give the Avon Nail Art Sponge Kit zero brains. BRAINrate0

Beauty Tips for Women: Reptile Scales Manicure

Season 4 of Game of Thrones is about to start and to celebrate I tried my hand at doing a reptile scales style manicure.  My goal was to try and make it look dragonish.

I started off with one coat of Daphine Polish – Blue Spruce.  I did a gradient using Daphine Polish – The Hessian.  The Hessian is a holographic black polish but it is not thick so it required a couple of passes before I got it dark.  It certainly wasn’t the best choice to get the effect I wanted but I was committed to the look.  I used Mash plate Mash-39 that has a nice scale image and stamped it with Konad black.

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I’m on the fence about this manicure.  I don’t hate it but I think my polish choice didn’t work for what I wanted.

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