NYE Glitter look!

I remember now why it's rare/non-existent I do videos. It's such a pain to edit!  With that being said I present an easy natural New Years look with glitter!  I've actually been wearing this throughout the Holidays, had a lot of compliments on it. So, yeah, enjoy!

Holiday Nails

I'm not the most holiday happy person, but a lot of sales I found made me slightly happier.  Of those, Zoya had a nice one right before Christmas. I received the 18K 'Gilty' Topcoat (retail $35) free with my purchase of a dream box.  I hadn't purchased any of the ornate polishes, so I used it to my advantage and grabbed the Holo-Day Cheer box (retail $24).  I can confess my love for those polishes another time.  To my surprise I kind of love the topcoat!  My holiday manicure slightly backfired and reminded me more of Fireball, the cinnamon whiskey I love so much.  I decided this would be my Krampus polish. 

I did a sponge gradient of OPI Sephora "Curvacious", MAC "Vintage Vamp", and OPI Sephora "I'm with Brad", topped with these awesome gold nuggets. The color palette was inspired by nails I saw for the Gareth Pugh 2013 runway done by MAC.  For reference, Krampus comes from old folk tales the same as St. Nick. They were partners even, with St. Nick rewarding the good girls & boys, while Krampus carried away the bad ones in a bag. Post holiday, I've seen so many facebook photos of kids who complain about their Christmas gifts. I think Krampus should be brought back to scare some grateful behavior in to bratty kids. Whew. This manicure has lasted me a full week with just a little wearing at the ends.

I have a lot of other things I'm testing and looking to review, with a video of the mystery boxes I received from sneakpeeq.

New MAC Pro Palettes

I stopped by the MAC Pro store in Nashville a few days ago with a target in mind. MAC recently revamped their palette packaging.  It is now a sturdier, clear palette that you chose if you want a 15 pan shadow or 6 pan blush insert. I was limited to a purchase of 4 so here's how I housed them. Bonus  the 5 lipstick palettes recently released. I'm really happy for the space saving these will provide when I freelance!

Divider bottom

 These palettes have pros and cons.  There is apparently a duo palette coming out that stores more shadows, so I'm going to hold off on additionals. More shadows are in need of a home.  Googling the duo lead me to Spectra where I posted about the new palettes.  I've used these for about 4 days, and my pro/con list is as follows:

Pros:

- clear top
- sturdy thick plastic
- they close securely
- inserts are easy enough to work with (one con on inserts below).

Cons:
-clear top shows smudges, powder kicks up, and little fuzzbunnies/critter fur seem to be attracted to it
- BIGGIE: These palettes are not magnatized (unless I'm doing something wrong).  Not even the bottom under the insert. No magnets, so even if you've stuck magnets on your pans they just sit in the insert.  To pop the insert out I've placed my hand over all shadows but one and flipped it.  This "dumps" the one shadow out then I can lift the insert. I don't know if I'm over complicating this but I've looked at it a few times for an easier way.

 Overall, I really do like this palette design minus lack of magnetized security.  I've enjoyed z palettes for their clear top but have been less than enthused about them essentially being made of card board.  This is like an improved z palette.  I've placed a jump where I compare size to 2 z palette models as well as a unii palette.  More reviews coming! I did a lot of overhauling this holiday season with beauty items I'm trying out from Sneakpeeq.com. I may even go crazy and throw in some clothes because I like them!  Happy Festivus!

*UPDATE 12/28: These ARE magnetized.  Magnets I have on my shadows from depotting either aren't strong enough or thick enough so I need to replace them. Ones on pan shadows I've bought are A-OK.  Also instead of dumping it out, if you gently twist the palette like an ice trey the insert pops up.  I always over complicate things.  Thanks to the people that know what they're doing over at Specktra.net.