Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Artdeco - 246

Today I wore a duochrome nail polish. The polish is from a German brand called Artdeco. It's was sent to me from my best German friend, Tini. We've been sending packages back and forth to each other for two years now! She supplies me with all my favorites from German cosmetics companies. And when I can I send her awesome American beauty products that she can't find. We also chat with each other online and lean on each other for support. Tini is the best. :)


I used three coats to reach opacity. The color of the polish shifts from a light blue to purple to dark blue purple depending on the way you move your hand. 




It's a gorgeous polish. One of my favorite bottle shapes too. :) Thanks again Tini for the great nail polish pick! Tschüss! 

Sephora Formula X - System XCEL Kit

I received this nail polish box from Influenster to try out and share my opinion about the product. Inside was the Sephora Formula X - System XCEL and the Delete All nail polish remover. The System XCEL kit contains a nail prep, base coat, top coat, and a polish color. If you were to order or buy this at Sephora you would be able to choose the polish color. I received TGIF, a pretty coral in my box. The Delete All is sold separately from the System XCEL Kit.


I did actually take the first video ever of applying my nail polish. I used all four steps of the system. If you would like to watch. You can see that it was generally easy applying the polish.


I've purchased Formula X polish before and have used it. I've generally liked it. It's in the same price point as OPI and Orly. The brush is wide which you can notice in the video. I followed each of the steps. I first cleansed my nails with Cleanse XCEL. It helps remove oils from the nail bed. I followed up with a coat of Prime XCEL the base coat. After that I applied two coats of Formula X - TGIF. Following that I applied the top coat Shine XCEL.

The System XCEL claim is that it will provide you a gel like mani. I would have to agree. The Shine XCEL top coat really set the manicure. After it dried which was very quickly! It had a very hard shell to it. My nails were extremely shiny too. I'm unlucky in that I've never really been able to have great wear time with polish. Usually about two days before I have giant chips. No matter what type of steps or products I use. I have a similar issue with gel polish with a light. Where I usually need to take it off in 7-8 days. So I wasn't expecting too much with this product. Surprisingly, I got nearly a week of wear which is pretty nice. I believe they claim you can have 10 days with no wear. So I was getting closer to that mark.



Day 1: Sephora Formula X - TGIF


Day 3:


Day 7: This is after two different painting projects. So I was actually generally happy that I didn't have even bigger chips. The one nail with no polish wasn't nearly as bad but I was picking at it.