Holiday Party Makeup: Shiny Shiny Red Cliché

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Well, it's maybe getting a little late in the month for you to be "inspired" by my holiday party makeup look, but since I'm not exactly a makeup pioneer or a brilliant photographer, who gives a shit. Mostly I just want to blog about Milani Lip Flash pencils, which I wore last December to parties too. I tend to forget about them all year, and then get really excited about them for a few weeks. They are 50% off in CVS's clearance sale, so now is a good time to pick some up. I really like Hot Flash, which looks like metallic red foil on your lips. I've said it before: when you wear this, it looks like you frenched a Christmas tree ball. Hot, indeed. I matched my nails to my lips, which I don't usually do, with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Red Carpet. It's the prettiest red nail polish, period. And one of the cheapest, at around $3. You can get it pretty much anywhere. Photos are below.

Here's what these Milani lip pencils look like, but you should try to find them on sale at CVS, if you have one nearby.

Milani Lip Flash Full Coverage Shimmer Gloss Pencil in Hot Flash

It looks even more metallic in person. (I took this photo the day after the party I went to. I did a better job of coloring inside the lines when I actually wore it in public.) These pencils are easy to use, unscented and unflavored, and most of them are opaque. They wear okay. You might need to touch up if you're going to be drinking a lot of nog. Some of them are more shimmery or sparkly than foil-like, but all the ones I have a really pretty. They're definitely not subtle.

Swatches of Milani Lip Flash Full Coverage Shimmer Gloss Pencil in
Hot Flash, Flash Light, Flashy, In a Flash, and Star Flash

And on my nails I wore my favorite red polish, which I often forget about, because I don't wear red very frequently. The test of awesomeness is whether or not I stare at my nails all day like a weirdo, and with Red Carpet, I do. It's a red jelly full of small red glitter, and it's opaque in two coats. It is apparently a dupe for China Glaze Ruby Pumps.

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Red Carpet

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Red Carpet

My overall look was basically black gel liner with a little wing and this red metallic lip. Fucking revolutionary, I know.

Have fun painting your faces for the holidays! The longer you spend in front of the bathroom mirror, the less time you have to spend explaining to your family why you don't have kids. Or why you have so many kids. Or whatever else it is you're doing wrong.

How to make every nail polish you own double as a holographic polish for $6-15

I've posted about this before, but there's no real need to buy holographic nail polish in every shade when you can just buy a holo topcoat and use it to transform any polish you have into a linear holo. It really works. Here's are some examples:

One coat of holo topcoat (shade)

One coat of holo topcoat (direct sunlight)

See? Just buy one bottle of topcoat instead of ALL THE HOLOS. The easiest at-home dupes.

My cheap jewelry haul (picture heavy post)

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.
Note: Forever 21 has free shipping today only (July 4) on orders over $21. Use code FREESHIP.

The people have spoken, and you said that you would like to see the shiny things I bought from Forever 21 recently, despite the general shittiness of that company. If we're talking purely in terms of affordability, I think F21 is the way to go for cheap jewelry. Costume jewelry, I guess? Do we still call it that? Anyway, you can get things very comparable to what you would find at places like Banana Republic or Bauble Bar, etc. - i.e. base metals, plastic (ahem, sorry, acrylic or whatever word they use to avoid saying plastic), and paint (ahem, again, lacquer or enamel, etc.) - for significantly cheaper. I have seen things from shops like those, identical in every way as far as I could tell to items at F21, selling for 2-8 times the price. Some of the F21 jewelry is just plain crap, and some is way too juvenile for me, but if you take your time and look carefully, you can find some really decent items.

Note: I've bought all my F21 jewelry online. I've never had luck in the stores. I don't know if it's just picked over too quickly in the stores, but I always seem to find way better things online.

But you wanted pictures, right? There are a lot of them below the cut, beware.

Here's one of my favorites. I got lots of compliments on it when I wore it the other day - it really does look like stone. It also comes in light blue and silver, and I had a hard time deciding which one to get.

Faux marble nugget necklace, $9.80

UPDATED: Avon Glazewear Lip Gloss Swatches, Photos, and Review

UPDATE: I redid the photos of these glosses, since I really hated the old ones I had, and added a new shade (Plum).

Avon Glazewear Lip Glosses, natural light: (left to right) Diamond Dazzle, Mirage, Iced Pink, Darling Pink, Cinnamon Apple, Rave, Crimson, Intense Plum, Cherry Liqueur

Avon Glazewear Lip Glosses, with flash: (left to right) Diamond Dazzle, Mirage, Iced Pink, Darling Pink, Cinnamon Apple, Rave, Crimson, Intense Plum, Cherry Liqueur

This isn't usually the sort of blog where I swatch a single product in a bunch of different shades, and holy shit, it was a lot of work! I don't know how swatching bloggers can stand it. But I love Avon Glazewear Lip Gloss so fucking much! I bought a bunch of minis recently, so I thought I'd post some photos. I hope they are useful, because the color swatches on the Avon website are not very accurate, and they don't provide descriptions, so it's difficult to tell what you're getting. For instance, from the website, I would have guessed that Rave is brownish, when it's really a purple-pink. 

I've raved about the formula and finish of this lip gloss before, and I still think it's one of the best ones out there. Note that I don't say best for the price. I mean this is one of the best glosses out there for any price, period. It's not sticky, it's moisturizing (or at least not drying), it stays put, and it has absolutely no smell or taste (I think that's ideal, since every scent will annoy someone). They don't bleed, and most don't settle into lip lines at all (the "Intense" shades do, slightly, but it is only noticeable very close up). They come in a nicely sized tube with the use doe-foot applicator. I have no complaints about the packaging at all. I've been impressed with every shade I've tried. The regular price for these glosses is $6, which is good to begin with, but they are frequently on sale or part of some BOGO type deal. I've never had to spend more than $3 on one.

Fix Your Face: Avon Glazewear Lip Gloss Swatches

UPDATE: New swatches have been posted here.

There are some weirdly awesome pieces of jewelry on HauteLook right now

Pretty cheap, too. Here's my invite link, since you need to sign in to see the rest (go to: "Stock Up: Jewelry Blowout").

Octopus bracelet

Winged skeleton necklace

Your Claws: Cheap and awesome duochrome

Just painted my nails with Spoiled by Wet N Wild in “Good Karma”. Check out this photo at LUUX.com. It’s a beautiful duochrome/multichrome polish. I guess it’s the latter, because it shifts from green to teal to blue. It’s really amazing. More range than most of those China Glaze duochromes that came out this fall, even. And a good formula: 2-3 coats.

And it’s $2! But I would recommend opening the bottle and checking out the brush in the store. Spoiled brushes can be shitty. Make sure you find one without any extra-long or stray bristles.

Your Claws: Peridot dupes redux

I posted before about Chanel Peridot dupes, but I am here today to tell you that you really need to get one. I finally got the Color Club version (called Editorial), and it is mesmerizing me. No amount of time spent looking at photos of it online will prepare you for how fucking amazing it is in motion. The color changes constantly, and it’s so shiny. I’m in love. I don’t care if it’s last year’s trend or whatever. I’m not interested in that shit. I just want to look at pretty shiny things at the ends of my fingers, and this is the prettiest and shiniest.

Where do you find affordable jewelry?

I just bought a bunch of stuff from Forever 21, because it’s pretty and shit-cheap, but they are kind of a gross company, so I would love other suggestions. (But for real, they are doing some really nice trendy, vintage-looking rhinestone stuff right now.)

If you’re going to say etsy, please suggest particular sellers!

I like beadycats. 

Bauble Bar (referral link) also has decent things sometimes.

And if you like little sparkly shit, this site has “free” jewelry. You pay $7 shipping, but it is nice. I have a ring and a pendant from here that I wear regularly.

You Claws: Chanel Peridot dupes

So it seems like every fucking nail polish line in existence has a dupe (or near-dupe) for the gorgeous Chanel Peridot that came out in Fall 2011. (Check it out at The Swatchaholic.)

For example:

• Jessica Iridescent Eye


• Nicole by OPI Mer-maid for Each Other


• China Glaze Unpredictable


• Color Club Editorial


• OPI Just Spotted the Lizard


• more?

I still haven’t got my covetous little hands on one of these. Have any of you got one? What do you think? What is the best (in terms of formula and color-changing)? I get the impression that the OPI and Jessica polishes are closest to the Chanel, but I guess that doesn’t mean they are necessarily the best. Anyway, I think the Chanel cost around $24, and these are all more like $4-8, so if you don’t care about being a season behind (I really don’t - I just want to look at pretty colors), then you have lots of options.