Nails! ~ 3 Budget Friendly Glitter Nail Enamels for NYE !!!! ~

*UPDATE: mybeautyexpress is now crazybeautyland.blogspot.com

Tis the season to wear glitter! December is everyone’s favourite month of the year isn’t it? Holidays, decorations, lights, pleasant weather… all things to enjoy. I like these vacations more than summer vacations because of the weather. At this time of the year, in Mumbai, its just starting to get cold, its quite lovely and I enjoy going out everyday. My skin is at its best, aka normal. In contrast, summers are hot and the sun is unforgiving. I sweat all the time within my house also. But summer has its benefits too, like bright colors!

 December has festivals and also signals the end of an year, which means parties and celebrations. What is your must-have accessory for celebrations? Mine is glitter. Glitter instantly adds more statement to your look, it is also absolutely fun to play around with.

There is probably no easier way to incorporate glitter in your look, than by adding it to your nails. Its simple and quickest to do(and its also a pain to remove, but there is an easy method).

I picked up 3 affordable glitter nail polishes that stood out for me this year. Of course there are more than just three released this year, but these ones are easily accessible and economical, compared to the rest. I’ve decided to do mini reviews and comparisons, just for you!

You can buy these online from Nykaa
See my shopping experience with Nykaa HERE

One notation to keep in mind: Ease of removal:- 1 indicates that the nail polish is easy to remove, like any other nail polish, 5 indicates its difficult to remove and requires the foil method.

You can zoom the photos upto 60 times to see the nail polish more clearly. (you will end up seeing my dry cuticles as well, but that’s what happens when you continuously swatch nail polishes >.<)

*UPDATE: mybeautyexpress is now crazybeautyland.blogspot.com

Starting with the cheapest of the lot:

1.Maybelline Color Show Nail Enamel in Velvet Wine:-

Cost: Rs.75

Color: this is not a color I’d normally pick, but I was shopping online so you can understand. Velvet Wine seems like that “rani pink” which is over used by a lot of people and a color that I personally hate for nails but its actually a deep fuchsia color with silver and fuchsia shimmer. Two coats makes the color even more deep, leaning towards raspberry pink. The color is between deep fuchsia and raspberry. It’s the perfect color to wear with indian traditional wear, it will complement Indian attires and colors beautifully. I have used two coats for the swatches.

 I liked that the vibrancy and shineyness of the nail polish stayed the same for the entire time I wore it, even after 5 days of wearing it, it looked freshly put! I experienced tip fading only on the third day, and I wore it without a top coat. But it made the whites of my nails yellow, and it has a strong nail lacquer odour.

Nails! ~ NOTW | Maybelline Color Show Nail Enamel in Constant Candy, Bold Gold and Colorama Nail Polish in Astral| Christmassy Nail Art Attempt ~

*UPDATE: mybeautyexpress is now crazybeautyland.blogspot.com

The Maybelline Color Show bug has bitten me too, I WANT them. The tragedy is that they are not available anywhere near to me, and I don’t mind ordering them online but none of the online shops have all the shades I want. So I’ve resigned to the fact that I’ll have to buy shades individually, and not all at once. I asked my sister to buy me Constant Candy from her store, but she needed me to buy something more so that she could pay by her credit card (needs a bill above Rs.100). Now, I have a list of things I need from MNY, other than Color Show(CS) nail polishes but somehow I forgot all of that and asked my sister what all CS shades were available at her store, the bug I tell you. None of the other shades that I wanted were available, still it didn’t occur to me that I needed a new mascara and also a compact, I just told my sister to take CS Bold Gold even though its not on my list of wanted CS nail polishes. 

(L-R) Constant Candy, Bold Gold, Astral

After taking the nail polishes I started right away with this nail art I wanted to try. You can see the video here, I take absolutely no credit for the technique, it is just something I liked and I wanted to try out. The youtube user simplenailartdesigns is really amazing, I recently discovered her while browsing for simple nail art(duh!).

From the video (for which I have previously mentioned the link) I performed only the parts I felt were absolutely easy & I could do quickly. I tried this nail art twice with different nail polishes. The first time I tried it was on 15^th, the day I had to leave home and return to college hostel, I was upset about having to go back so soon and I figured any form of makeup would cheer me up.

Buy online from  Nykaa
See my shopping experience with and Nykaa HERE

The first time, with- MNY CS Constant Candy & Bold Gold

(L-R) Constant Candy, Bold Gold

Each costs Rs.75.

Few things I realised while doing this nail art:

•   Constant Candy is the worst nail polish I have worked with.
•  Bold Gold is AMAZING.
•  I don’t have a top coat.
•  I still have to take bath.

~ My Fall - Winter Skincare, Vol. 2 ~

Are you enjoying my Fall skincare and make up posts? I know I love to see what people are using, its like window shopping really, and I get to know what amazing products I’m missing out on.

 You can check out:

My Fall-Winter Skincare, Vol 1

My Fall-Winter Makeup products & More..– Most used products

This is a small update on skincare!

I’ve been using two moisturizers for face. Chambor Essential Day Moisturizer( normal to oily skin) for daytime. I’ve had this one since months and I think winter time is the best time to use it. Its not suitable for my combination skin otherwise, it suits normal skin only. Avon Solutions Moisturizer is a nice night moisturizer, I mentioned it in my previous skin care post as well. It’s meant for oily skin too, but in winters my skin is normal and this suits it well.

Online Shopping Experience - Review of ASOS and a small Haul !

I’m soooo happy! My ASOS Haul is here!

 This is what I wanted write on 14^th, when this parcel arrived, unfortunately I wasn’t able to blog because I had to pack and come back to college. Plus, I had to take ALOT of pictures for future posts (hence a few posts may have the same background).

Well, this post is about ASOS, and what I brought from it.

ASOS.com is one of the UK's largest online-only fashion and beauty stores. ASOS.com offers over 50,000 branded and own label product lines across womenswear, menswear, footwear, accessories, jewellery and beauty. ASOS has websites targeting the UK, USA, France, Germany, Spain, Russia, Italy, Australia and China and also ships to over 237 other countries from its two distribution centres in the UK.

url: http://www.asos.com/

*UPDATE: mybeautyexpress is now crazybeautyland.blogspot.com

My Fall-Winter Makeup products & More..– Most used products.

*UPDATE: mybeautyexpress is now crazybeautyland.blogspot.com

Opps...Its been so long since I posted. I'm back in my college now, hence there was a huge delay in publishing posts; I'm dependent on college wifi...sigh. It was really frustrating to write posts and edit pictures but never get a chance to publish them!! But anyways, continuing with the fall-winter skincare that I had done last week, here’s all the makeup I've been enjoying for winter.

Starting with the eye make up:

Maybelline The Falsies Mascara: Its a great mascara, especially for my bottom lashes. Definitely false lash effect! Too dramatic to wear it to college though, but perfect for parties and otherwise.

Maybelline Color Tattoo in Tough as Taupe (Review here):

Its a lovely grey color, has certain lilac tones underneath. Its a good color for fall, I use it as a base for brown colors to make them more taupe-y. On some days I use it as it as with just a black liner and mascara.

Bourjois Ombre Stretch eye shadow in Flexi Brown:

Its a lovely brown color perfect for fall and winters, I love the gold flecks it has. However, I get a decent color pay off only when I use it wet.

Inglot round eye shadow refills in 463DS, 418P, 378M :

(From my Inglot Palette) They are the only neutrals I got from Inglot and I'm loving them. 463DS is perfect for highlighting, 418P is an amazing green color and 378M is dark brown color which is a must have for me.

Faces Single eye shadows in FES00064 and FES00232:

I love FES00064(pale pink one), its a "my lids but better" color for me, some times I use it just to give a wash of color on my lids, some times I use it as a blending color. I also mix both of these to get a nice soft brown color for blending in black smokey eye looks. 

Lakme Eyeconic Kajal in Black:

This one is a recent purchase and I'm loving it! It has got so many reviews already so I won't be reviewing it on my blog. Its a great kajal and liner, I apply it on my upper lash line and then smudge it to get a smokey look.

Maybelline Hypersharp Liner: 

Thanks to this, I'm able to draw on a cat eyeliner and winged liner which I wasn't able to do earlier with gel liner and pencil. Now I can draw them by pencil as well, I’m yet to try with my maybelline gel liner, but its all dried up and using a liquid liner is sooo easy!

~ Kryolan Supracolor shade R21- Review,Photos,Swatches ~

Happy Sunday ladies! What do you love about Sundays? Me..well I like to get up late.. really late, that’s why I’m awake till now! Since its vacation time, Sunday is just like any other day for me, but if it wasn't, I’d go out. I’d find some new places to hang out at, take some pictures, and have fun with friends. I also reserve time for blogging, after a day full of fun, I find that my mind is at its richest and happiest.

Today I’m going to talk about a multipurpose make up product. I’ve been using this all week because I find it easy to use. Kryolan Supracolor in R21 is something my sister brought for herself actually. She wanted to do a pinky- purple eye shadow look and she picked up this magenta shade to use as a base. I’d never heard of this product before, Kryolan is a lesser known brand in India since presently it is available in only 3 cities in the country, so even hoping to know about all of its products is out of the question.

Here’s what I found on supracolors from the Kryolan India website:

The Supracolor range is renowned for its outstanding coverage levels, unbeatable skin compatibility and extensive selection of bright colors. Apply with a sponge or brush to create a vibrant, long-lasting finish

Yes, not a lot of information is given on the website. So I’ll tell you what I think of it and how I use it.

Cost:- Rs.200.

Qty:- 4gm

Maybelline Color Sensational High Shine Lip Gloss in 110 Mirrored Mauve- Review, Swatches

*UPDATE: mybeautyexpress is now crazybeautyland.blogspot.com

Maybelline Color Sensational High Shine Lip Gloss in Mirrored Mauve is one of my current favorites. This is one of the new glosses released by Maybelline this year and its available in 8 more shades! There’s a lot I Iove about this lip gloss, even if you are not a lip gloss person, you need this, and I hope I can convince you. ;-)

~ Inglot Freedom System And My Experience ~

*UPDATE: mybeautyexpress is now crazybeautyland.blogspot.com

“ A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions”                                                                   Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Inglot is famous for its freedom system where you can create your own custom palettes. The refills are very cheap but the palettes cost a bomb. I’ve come across Inglot eye shadow refills and blush refills so many times on both Indian and international blogs that I always wanted to own all a few eye shadows myself. I did do that, way back in July, I ordered a few refills online, you can read about shopping at majorbrands.in here. You can find at least a gazillion swatches of all Inglot eye shadows and that makes online shopping a cake walk. But I didn’t feel like using them yet, I needed a palette! Many of the blogs I read said that you can store the refills as is in the box they come, but that wasn’t convenient for me. So I decided to buy a palette, and I got the time to do that this month only.

Until last week, I had been to the Inglot store just twice. The first time was when I just happened to see the store while shopping for other stuff, I had heard so much about Inglot but I’d never come across the store. I went inside and it was all so over whelming, the Visual Merchandiser of the store had done a wonderful job. I ended up just asking about all of their products and walking out, just like that.

The second time I went to the same Inglot store, it was quite, umm, memorable? I’m not sure what adjective to use here, not memorable, something between interesting and memorable. One of the SA/MUA’s was a guy and he had full on make up; a smokey eye and I kid you not, GOLD LIPS, and to top it off he was wearing gold pumps. It was over whelming to look at him and he was assisting me. I ended up buying only the eye shadow base, because all other people outside the store were staring and I started to get really, really conscious. I never give a f*** about people’s stares or looks or taunts or whatever, you can’t live in Mumbai if you don’t ignore all that bullsh*t, but this time it got to me.

So after two not so eventful visits to the Inglot store, I wasn’t feeling optimistic about my third visit. And all the online reviews about Inglot stores in general didn’t help me either; people have said that the SAs force you to buy palettes, they are rude and inattentive and all that. 

The thing is, I had brought round refills and Inglot has now discontinued these in India as well. I wanted their large palette in which you can store any type of refills. So here’s how it went down with the SA:

Nails! ~ Another Perfect Fall Color, feat. Colorbar Exclusive Nail Enamel in Dusky Mauve

What do they say about first impressions? Something like, it’s the last impression. I think the “love at first sight” is derived from that quote itself. You see that person, butterflies start flying in your stomach, your heart beats faster, your knees go weak, you become all smiley, your brain starts to exit your body… all this, only by laying your eyes on him/her once. Why am I talking about first impressions and love at first sight? Well, because I had a certain experience that refutes both of the above theories. Here’s why:

I brought Colorbar Dusky Mauve nail polish in June thinking that it would be kind of a dark nude suitable for work wear, I was doing internship then. But its not a nude, after I put it on my nails, because I was expecting a nude, I went “mud-brown, ughh” and stashed it away. Since it was fall, I decided to give this color another try because this fall is all about dark shades. And guess what, I LOVE it!! I realised that is a beautiful taupe with slight hints of mauve which are seen in certain lights only.

I didn’t realise it the first time I wore it, but its so pretty. It’s another perfect fall color; I’ve been wearing Dusky Mauve on my nails all week with different attempts at nail art, which I haven’t put up here, but all in good time ladies!

Maybelline Cheeky Glow Blush in Fresh Coral - Review, Swatches, Photos

*UPDATE: mybeautyexpress is now crazybeautyland.blogspot.com

Maybelline is slowly becoming my go to brand for good and more importantly, affordable products. You can expect a lot to see a lot of Maybelline products here because at the moment, I’m all about affordability. I might pamper myself, this being holiday season and new year’s and what not, but I already got a gift… a camera! So I’m gonna focus on what I already have in my collection and after I’m done with all of them, well most of them, I’ll move on to new products. Somehow, I don’t have that itch anymore, you know, that “I-MUST-have-this” feeling.

Coming back to Maybelline, I brought their Cheeky Glow Blush in Fresh Coral when it was released. Well, my sister brought it for me and I bided my time till it reached me in my hostel. What a cute name, fresh coral, like fresh rose or fresh lily! Like Every Other Girl, I love corals too, its one color that can brighten up anyone’s look. Every girl needs a few coral blushes, right?

Cost:- Rs. 225.

Weight:- 7 g.

Shelf life:- 36 months from mfg. date.

Buy online from Nykaa 

Company Claims:-

For Cheeks that glow with a natural finish. Ultra light weight, silky, blendable powders. Meet the new blush on the block. So Silky and smooth, it blends flawlessly for the most natural finish.

Comes with 3 fresh colors for your pretty skin: Creamy Cinnamon, Fresh Coral and Peach Sweetie.

Online Shopping Experience – Review of www.nykaa.com

Yet another online store I have shopped from for makeup. To tell you the truth, online stores have lost their charm for me. You just can’t rely on them to be completely honest. They show you all the products and after you place an order and pay the money, they mail you saying that the product is not in stock—that’s purplle.com for you. They sell shamelessly sell old products to you, aka in.loccitane.com. And then, the late delivery of products, brought to you by www.majorbrands.in.

*UPDATE: mybeautyexpress is now crazybeautyland.blogspot.com

By now, your probably like, “what possessed you to shop again, girl?” Well, like they say, desperate times, desperate measures. I don’t get access to make up brands except Lotus and Lakme in the area where my college hostel(my home for 9 months a year) is, and international  brands tend to release new stuff when I’m not at my home, aka Mumbai.

This fall, Maybelline released new products every month, like the Bold Matte lipsticks, the Cheeky Glow blush and of course—The ColorShow Nail Enamels. When the Color Show enamels released, what was I supposed to do? Just sit and bide my time till I got a chance to come home? Hell, no. I had to get my hands on them asap. I was surprised to see them available online within a week of their launch, at Nykaa. So I happily placed my order, along with a few other items so that I could get a bill of above Rs. 500 to avail free shipping.

screenshot of the home page

A little bit about Nykaa: (taken from their site)

URL: www.nykaa.com

Who are we?
Promoted by FSN E-Commerce Ventures Pvt Ltd. and spearheaded by Ms. Falguni Nayar, the former Managing Director of Kotak Mahindra Capital Company, India's leading investment bank, along with a team of experienced professionals. Nykaa.com is committed to bring to you the best and the biggest brands, an incredible shopping experience and excellent customer service. Our wide selection of brands and comprehensive advice will delight you day after day.

What does Nykaa offer?
Nykaa is a beauty and wellness e-commerce platform with a difference.
•An extensive selection of curated products and services
•100 % genuine, fresh products
•Comprehensive content including product reviews, beauty tutorials, articles by experts and an e-beauty magazine
•A beauty helpline to assist you in choosing products and services best suited to your needs to ensure sustainable beauty for all time to come.

Coming back to my experience…

 Nykaa clearly mentions on their site that they use 3 courier services- Bluedart, DTDC and Aramex. I’ve had a good experience with DTDC, but not with Aramex, and you can read about it here. Also, Aramex customer service agents are rude, they never greet you with a Good Morning/evening/afternoon and don’t even address you by “mam”. But coming back to Nykaa, given my bad experience with Aramex, I called up the Nykaa customer care and specifically requested that my items should be shipped through DTDC only and not through Aramex under any circumstances. The customer care executive(CCE) assured me that they will be shipped only by DTDC and made a note of the request along with my order. I even called them the next day to confirm all this again.

After 3 days from placing the order, I received three emails from Nykaa regarding shipment of the items. Yes, I kid you not, they took three days to ship the items. It was a Sunday that day, I opened the emails and saw that my items were being shipped in 3 lots and 2 lots were through Aramex. I was appalled;  even after I’d gone to the pain of calling them up and making it clear that I don’t want my items to be shipped through Aramex, they did that anyway. I immediately dialled for customer service but unfortunately customer services has a holiday on Sunday.

The next day I called them up, and expressed my anguish and disappointment. The CCE lady assured me that everything will go smoothly, and blah, blah, blah. What could I do? The items were all shipped and there was no way to get them to backtrack and change the courier services. So I just waited for them to reach me.

*UPDATE: mybeautyexpress is now crazybeautyland.blogspot.com

The first delivery:

The item shipped through DTDC arrived first. It came to me on the 5^th day from placing the order. I received the other items through Aramex on the 7^th day from placing the order, typical Aramex speed. 

NYX Single Eye shadow ES32

The invoice 

The item I got through DTDC was nicely bubble wrapped, they actually wasted a lot of bubble wrap and paper for one tiny eye shadow box.

The second delivery:

The items from Aramex were not packed well. Aramex shipped the two nail polishes and a nail filer and only one of the nail polishes were bubble wrapped. 

And did you notice the nail file is too big for the box it came in, how did they fit it in? It just popped out the second I opened the box.

Summing up my experience:

I’m not happy with the service and I definitely won’t consider shopping again if I’m at college. When I’m in Mumbai, if the need arises I probably will try it again because Mumbai is a place in which I’ve always had good online shopping experience. Also, I’m not happy with the time they took to ship and deliver the products; it can definitely be made faster. The customer service is polite and attentive. Because of my experience I can say that there is a communication gap between the CCEs and those who are incharge of packing and shipping the orders and that should be bridged. 

Overall Verdict- 2.5/5


Update: I have placed orders with them when I was in Mumbai and it always took 2-3 days for the parcel to reach me, which is pretty good. 

Other online shopping experiences:

• Review of ASOS online store
• Review of Slassy 
• Review of majorbrands.in
• Review of Jabong.com
• Review of L'Occitane online store
• Review of Sleek Makeup online store

*UPDATE: mybeautyexpress is now crazybeautyland.blogspot.com

~ My Fall - Winter Skincare, Vol. 1 ~

Good Evening ladies!

<3

 It’s the fall-winter season now, time for major changes in our skin care routine. I thought I’d share the skin care routine I have been following since the past few weeks, which has been working well for me. As I was taking pictures of my most used items, I realised that there’s a lot more left, and I’d have to divide all winter care into parts, so here’s the face and body edition. Hair, makeup will follow shortly along with an updated face care! 

This post can also be considered as a favorites post, because I am loving all the stuff I’ve mentioned here.