revlon parfumerie sniff test: that’s one hot flower

I’m tempted to tell you that this actually smells like turkey and gravy. Now I’m wondering if I actually do, how many would believe me.

Revlon Parfumerie – China Flower
Collection: Parfumerie | Fall 2013

Boy, do I ever wish this actually smells like turkey and gravy. It would be the great Easter Egg of Nail Polish 2013, taking gimmicky to the level of epically awesomely gimmicky. Also, it would smell so much more pleasant than it actually does.

Let us commence an Expectations vs. Reality on this deceivingly gorgeous colour.

EXPECTATIONS: With a name like China Flower, one would expect a melodious scent of delicate florals coupled with an exotic undercurrent of the orient, perhaps the distinct sweetness of osmanthus or handsome elegance of the narcissus. Or maybe even something as cliché as the china rose, or godforbid, a lily scent.

NOTHING WILL PREPARE YOU FOR THE CRUSHING WEIGHT OF DISAPPOINTMENT THAT IS ACTUALLY REALITY. NOTHING!

REALITY: Spice + grandma powdery smell + musk = NOTHING floral.

That being said, the colour is extremely satisfying. In the bottle, the red leans slightly poppy, definitely not the crisp, vibrant red it is on the nail. On the nail, it’s scream-in-your-face-I’m-so-fucking-red-you-shall-choke-on-your-coffee awesome. Colours like this usually looks glorious against a fair complexion like mine, but I see no reason for anybody to be without this colour in their collection.

All in all, the polish is undeserving of its name (in a good way). Don’t you just hate it when the package doesn’t come together?

Camera: Olympus E-PL1 | Lighting: Indoor; natural | Revlon Parfumerie – China Flower

revlon parfumerie sniff test: vino fingers

Ready, set, inhale.
Yep, that’s definitely toxic nail polish smell.
Wait, I smell grapes. Overripe grapes, kinda ferment-y. A little sweet. VINO!
Oh wait, there’s that nail polish stench again. Why doesn’t this surprise me?

Revlon Parfumerie – Bordeaux
Collection: Parfumerie | Fall 2013

This smells like cheap wine; fairly sweet, a little too grapey. Most have reported that the scents on the Parfumeries don’t surface until they are fully dried on the nail, and I do agree for the most part, although you really can catch tiny snippets of expired grapes over that standard lacquer-in-a-bottle smell. When dried, it’s a mix of table wine and dried nail polish. The addition of top coat definitely tones down the fragrance, to the point where you only get whiffs of it when you are seriously trying to ignore the scent of top coat.

Application was patchy on the first coat, a little bald-ish on the second, opaque with the third. Fortunately, the formula as thin enough that three coats doesn’t look too thick or gross. The brush was on the skinny side, but the ball shaped handle took some getting used to. In terms of oxblood polishes, it’s not the deepest or the richest, but it does compliment my fair complexion nicely. I wouldn’t go as far as saying it’s elegant, but it’s nice.

Overall, Bordeaux was a little disappointing, but not enough to make me regret buying it. The formula is a bigger let down than the scent. I’m probably be more cynical than most about these, but it’s refreshing is it not?

Camera: Olympus E-PL1 | Lighting: Indoor; natural | Revlon Parfumerie – Bordeaux

no place for nails on fire

I’m a whore for limited edition. Who isn’t? I will literally sex for item #500 in a limited edition run of 500. Yes, I’m that annoying person. Be jealous.
I’m also a sucker for dystopian anything. And also the colour red.
Do you seriously not see where I’m going with this?

CoverGirl Outlast Glosstinis – Rouge Red
Collection: Capitol Collection – Catching Fire | Fall 2013

Just take a minute and look at it. Just…look…at…it. LOOK. AT. IT.

And now I suppose I should actually tell you about this tiny bottle of ridiculousness. This, my friends, is #610 Rouge Red of the CoverGirl Capitol Collection for Catching Fire. It is 3.5 mils of red, orange, and yellow glass flecks suspended in a orangey-red jelly base. It is the base for the District 8 nail look put out by CoverGirl. It is shiny, it is red, it is orange, it is awesome.

This is two coats sans top coat. It is the only bottle I’ve managed to find with in a 10 miles radius of my house. It makes my heart skip with joy.

Let’s also talk about the collection for a moment. When I heard that CoverGirl picked up the 2013 Hunger Games polish collection, I really didn’t know what to expect as CoverGirl has only recently rose up in the polish scene. And then press releases came out, I saw Rouge Red and I all about shit my pants. Tiny ass bottles of flecked glassiness retailing for $3-ish each. There were no words expect for WHERE?! There really can’t be made comparison to the China Glaze Capitol Colours Collection from last year, but I really do prefer the sentiment of the CG collection more. I only picked up this and one other from the collection as the rest of the colours were quite blah and the finish was just redundant. Overall, I still like the China Glaze one better because there were an assortment of colours, finishes, and effects. I should post something from that.

The bottom line: go buy it now.

Camera: Olympus E-PL1 | Lighting: Natural; indoor | CoverGirl Outlast Glosstinis – Rouge Red

on the hunt: revlon parfumerie

ANOTHER new series alert!
Look at all this effort that I’m putting into this place! Yay me!

After the wildly popular Keyboard Tuesdays, here we are with the fall premiere of On The Hunt.

As usual, the premises:
1. This is what regular people call Hauls.
2. It’s a ‘hunt’ because I very rarely just browse and buy. I’m a purposeful buyer with specific targets.
3. This is not a weekly installment.

Leggo!

Remember when the original Revlon scented polishes came around? Like….I really can’t remember when. Those weren’t so hot, in my books at least. I’ve never really been a fan of scented nail polish, mainly cuz they just usually smell like toxic versions of whatever fragrances they were meant to be. To be honest, I didn’t pick these up because they were scented, I did it mostly for the colours and the packaging.

After the success of Brilliant Strength, I figured that the Parfumerie collection couldn’t be too far off par. I really wanted Autumn Spice, as it’s apparently the statement autumnal colour, but I just really couldn’t get with the scent. The spicy, cinnamon-y smell is seriously on my dislike list. Instead, I picked up these four, which was really an accident as I’d only meant to buy Italian Leather and Bordeaux, but a $3 off 2 Revlon items coupon sucked me in. Coupons are the devil’s spawns.

Wild Violets (Fruits & Florals) – a what looks like deep purple littered with blue and red micro glitters
Italian Leather (Sweets & Spices) – green based grey with silver/gold micro glitters
Bordeaux (Sweets & Spices) – deep plumy red, standard oxblood polish
China Flower (Fruits & Florals) – poppy red that I highly doubt smells like some kind of Chinese flower (wtf are Chinese flowers anyway?)

As far as I know, this collection is split into three parts, labeled by (surprise) scent categories.

• Fruits & Floral – coral and pink and red and so on
• Sweets & Spices – deep and heavy autumn colours
• Freshes – bright and springy

Now, since the Parfumerie line isn’t on Revlon’s official website yet, I can’t pull any company descriptions to make fun of. This I find odd since you’d figure they’d at least write up on the scents so people don’t have to go in blind, cuz let’s face it, noses are sensitive protrusions.

Sniff tests to come. Yep, I said SNIFF TEST.

kiss my rainbow unicorn ass doma!

All across the land, the gay is now a little gayer. Or a lot, depending on how optimistically gay they are. DOMA has kissed the sweet asses of all rainbow kind alike and I choose this glorious occasion to present the Pridecure of 2013.

Rainbowness!

Orly – Haute Red (not shown)
Essence – Wake up!
Zoya – Pippa
Collection: La-Di-Da | Summer 2009
Insta-Dri – Just in Lime!
OPI – No Room for the Blues
Collection: Brights | 2009
China Glaze – Spontaneous
————————
Finger Paints Special Effects – Flecked
Finger Paints Special Effects – Flashy
Warpaint Beauty – Matte topcoat (available at Hot Topic)

This year, I battled with the idea of a pride mani for a while. I didn’t plan on going to any pride events or scream at wear tie-dye rainbow shirts. I did a few test runs sponging rainbows over the weekend, but nothing turned into anything solid. And then DOMA got canned so I just had to make this gayness happen.

It’s surprising that I found all the colours of the rainbow in my collection. I think Spontaneous is the only purple I own and I have never ever worn it. Ever. There was no technique involved.

1. I painted the base colours (two coats each) and let dry for a few minutes.
2. Then I sponged on the layering colours.
3. Add flakies for distraction.
4. Some quick dry for lack of patience.
5. Matte top coat just because.

I like to wear my flakies matte because the satin finish brings out the colours and shine better under a wider variety of lighting. Plus, it feels nice and smooth.

Here’s a look of after quick dry/before mattification.

I didn’t keep this one on simply because it was too many layers and quite uncomfortable to wear. But I have pretty pictures and you are looking at them.

And the family because unicorns.

Finally, a sidetrack on the whole gayness thing. Yes, this is a giant step for the sexually homogeneous from sea to shining sea, but for this to really actually mean something, ie. discrimination laws, reinforcement of equality, immigration change, state laws, generally married people shit, it’s gonna take a really really long time. Good luck getting Texas to unban same sex anything.

So yay, but really meh. Then again, I’m not very optimistic about anything when there’s politics involved. And I’m Canadian, we don’t have this problem. FUCK DOMA!

Camera: Olympus E-PL1 | Lighting: Indoor; natural | Rainbows and unicorns!

new year (and birthday) with red

Hi there, long time no blog huh?

I have personal shit, like feelings and other fun stuff.

Mah birfday was this past Wednesday, yes my birthday is the most ordinary sequence of numerals in existence — zero one/two three. It’s awesome. Didn’t really have time to think about what to wear for it and this was a last minute decision.

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri – 270 Racey Rouge 

This is a polish I picked up months ago but have never wore because it’s not really my type of colour. In the bottle, it’s definitely a berry red with a strong blue undertone but it really doesn’t translate well onto the nail. Under most lighting, the polish simply look like a slightly muted crisp red. I tried really hard to duplicate the original bottle colour in the pictures in shooting and processing to give you guys a better idea of what it actually looks like.

The upcoming year in the Lunar calender is the Year of the Snake. Having being born before the Chinese New Year in my year of birth, I barely squeezed myself into being a Snake (my lunar birthday is 12/27). In the Chinese tradition, one celebrating their birth zodiac year must wear red (and participate in different blessing and evil warding activities) to welcome wealth and bliss into their birth cycle. It’s hard to explain. BTW, Chinese New Year is Feb. 10 this year!

Sidenote – Chinese zodiacs are assigned according to the lunar calendar, meaning that you may have been reading about the wrong  zodiac off paper place mats in Chinese restaurants. The Chinese New Year usually falls in January to Feburary each year so all you Jan. and Feb. babies may be living as the wrong animal. Just FYI.

Note to self – Go back to watermarking and then resizing. These pictures are fuzzy as fuck.

Camera: Olympus E-PL1 | Lighting: indoor; natural | Insta-Dri – Racey Rouge

 

fall colours, you say? i think not!

Hello from the land of Sporadic Bloggingness!

Here’s life in list form as of late:

– rewatching Friends by the season in single sittings
– perfecting my milk tea recipe
– job hunting
– job hunting
– job hunting
– job hunting
– job hunting
– grad school considerations
– being forbidden from buying any more nail polish

This is a recent phone conversation as whilst browsing the aisles of Ulta:

J: I feel like buying nail polish.
L: Fuck no. Don’t even think about it.

And that’s life.

China Glaze – Hey Sailor
Collection: Anchors Away | Spring 2011

I’m really not a person who cares about seasonal colour trends or even colour appropriateness. I wear whatever I feel like and that’s that.

I like red. True red. Fresh blood red. Really really crisp red, so red that it hurts to look at.

The end.

Camera: Olympus E-PL1 | Light: Indoor; natural | China Glaze – Hey Sailor

hello world! i wave at thee with rimmel – red rock!

Oh hello there! Welcome to the cocoon of wonderment and silliness that shell here forth be known as Flying Rice and Polishing Nails.

Welcome! Welcome to my humble abode!

To be honest, I don’t know what I’m trying to accomplish with this flying adventure, but (as the saying goes) share and share alike and I shall do just so.
Now, I’m certainly not new to the nail polish phenomenon or food world, and am modestly acquainted with the blogging universe, but I’ve always had an inkling of a desire to the epidemic known as nail lacquer addiction and generally anything to do with food stuffs. And so here I am, ready with handfuls of fumy varnish and platefuls of whatever I’ve got, ready to attempt at making a dent in the ravenously dangerous place known as the Blogosphere.

Of course, a few disclaimers before my tiny plunge.

1. I am not even remotely related to either the world of beauty or food. I’m simply good at eating and figuring out what I want to eat and buying nail polish.
2. I’m lazy.
3. Please be patient and put up with my dabble in photography. I also rely heavily on my phone camera.
4. I ramble. A lot.
5. I don’t remember the rest. Oh well.

And now, for the first bits of actual content, I present to you my current claw. (Yes, I know it’s not pretty, but hey! I’m working on it.)

I really don’t wear reds too often, but it is technically fall, and this is probably the most appropriately autumnal colour I own.

Rimmel Lasting Finish Pro – 380 Rock Red

  

Rimmel Lasting Finish Pro is, hands down, my favourite polish brand. The formula is impeccable, the packaging is a dream and the application is oh so perfecto. And it’s cheap! I do wish for a bigger colour range, you don’t get everything you want. And oh boy, look at all that noise on them pictures. That’s what you get for taking pictures with your phone as the sun is going down in a dark room. I am truly and deeply sorry for the crappiness of these pictures. So very sorry.

And with that, I bid you adieu. More to come.

Camera: Galaxy S3 | Light: Indoor; natural | Rimmel – Rock Red