I have been craving a mint green nail polish for quite a while now. First, I thought I wanted Essie Mint Candy Apple but unfortunately that polish has long been sold out here. I’d also been wanting to try Eyeko nail polishes in general for a while and since Eyeko had the minty green “Vintage Polish” I decided I should bite the bullet. I also ordered the Eyeko Cream, Eyeko Tinted Cream, and the trio of Fat Balms and Vintage (the polish retails for $5). This is my first experience ever ordering with Eyeko. I actually placed an order about a month ago and received my products in about 2 weeks (regular first class shipping). Back to the polish; Vintage is a mint green nail lacquer which even though it is cool toned looks wonderful on my warm toned skin. I was pleasantly surprised with the color to say the least. It took three coats to get an opaque finish and I should note that this is a cream formula with no shimmer. The polish itself is quite thin when you apply it, almost runny but it still dries fairly quickly. I used my normal base coat combo, then 3 coats of Vintage, followed by a coat of Seche Vite.
In terms of wear:
After wearing this polish for a week I found that my dominant hand (Right hand) chipped significantly on my index finger and middle finger. The wear however, on my left had was nearly perfect with only one minor chip. Here are some pics.
(Above is 3 coats)
(Left: 1 coat Right: 3 coats)
(Left: 2 coats Middle: 3 coats Left: 1 coat)
(Above: Left hand after 1 week)
(Above: Right hand after 1 week)
I hope you enjoyed this review. Unfortunately this specific shade has sold out via the Eyeko website however, there are plenty of other shades that look just as fun like their Lilac polish.
Like everyone else with brown eyes, I've long dreamed of having blue, green, even gray eyes. Currently, I wear glasses but I try not to depend on them too much; they are mainly for night driving. The idea of going to the optometrist and purchasing contacts which I don't need to wear (unless at night) seemed a bit daunting, not to mention expensive. Also, with regular colored prescription lenses you can hardly see the color! So I gave up.
Recently though I stumbled onto the concept of Circle Lenses which are a cosmetic colored contact lens that is used to enhance the size of and change the color of your iris. For reference the iris is the colored portion of your eye and the pupil is the black dot in the center. I was quite intrigued/curious and wanted desprately to order a pair. Then it came down to: Who is certified to sell them?, Do they have fast shipping (I'm impatient), Are they recommended by people who've purchased from them before? and finally, Do they have the lenses that I am/was looking for?
After much thought, consideration, and research, I found Pinky Paradise. They specialize in selling a huge variety of circle lenses at an incredible price. I was only able to find 2 reviews on Youtube (which is my go-to review place now) so after watching both I decided to go for it. I placed my order on November 20th and received my order on the 23rd! (Shipping is from Malyasia and I chose the FedEx Express option which was $18--told you I was impatient!) I ordered 3 pairs of lenses, each of which came with a cute animal case (it was a nice extra but remember to change cases from time to time). You can purchase lenses with prescription but I chose to order Plano (non-prescription). Circle Lenses should not be worn for more than 6 hours!
Here are the lenses I purchased and pics of how they look on my eye:
First, I'll show you my eye alone (All pics were taken without eye makeup so you can really see the color minus any distractions!)
I say that I have a medium brown eye (my friends say my eyes look like root beer in the sun)
The first lens that I'll show you is the E.O.S. "Adult Grey" [E-203] (E.O.S. is the manufacturer)
The Adult Grey was actually the lens I was most excited about and one of the harder to find. It photographs very blue and I'd say it is a blue/purple toned gray. The pattern fades pretty nicely into my actually iris color and they compliment each other fairly well. This shade really opens my eye even though there is not really any enlargment shown. The enlargement effect comes from having a darker (limbic) ring around the outer edge of the lens. Since the limbic ring is absent from this lens the color change is the greatest effect. These look wonderful on and they are very comfortable. For reference these are 14mm, 8.6 base curve (price: $22.90)
The next lens I purchased was the Tri-Color Green (World Series) [CM-903] Manufactured by Geo Medical. Geo is probably the easist brand of lens to find here in the US and is also probably the most common. Many sites sell Geo not many sell such a large variety as Pinky Paradise.
The color of these lenses are absolutely beautiful. Very natural gradiation pattern and the center can blend well with the natural brown iris color. Even though I love the color this pair isn't my favorite. I love it, but not my fav! This lens like the Adult Grey is not really for enlargement also there is slight enlargment due to the gradiation. For reference: 14mm, 8.6 base curve (price: $20.90)
The finally pair I have to show you is my favorite. They are called Hana SPC Natural Grey (Hana SPC is the Manufacturer)
To show the enlargement I'll show my regular eye next to the eye with the lens.
To truly see the difference look at the amount of "white" on my eyes! Also, note the dark ring around the edge of the lens which is called the limbic ring. This dark ring gives your eye depth hence providing the appearance of enlargment!
The pattern and color of these lenses is very natural. I absolutely love this pair! They are the most comfortable out of the three I purchased. For reference: 14.5mm, 8.6 base curve (price: $25.90)
Customer Service
The customer service with Pinky Paradise was amazing. I emailed with them back and forth a few times before making my purchase. As I mentioned previously their current promotion is for 1 free animal lens case with the purchase of 1 pair of lenes (2 pairs=2cases, 3pairs=3cases, etc). As I mentioned I used the FedEx Express Shipping option which is delivered within 3-5 days. For my purchase of 3 pairs, the cost was $18, however the cost varies by weight so purchasing more lenses will cost more to ship. There is also the registered mail option which arrives within 7-21 working days (again, cost varies by weight). My package was shipped the same day that I placed my order and everything came wrapped in layers and layers of bubble wrap, then everything was placed in a bubble mailing envelope which was then placed into the FedEx bubble mailer. Very safe!
Pinky Paradise also offers a wide range of brands to choose from including Hana SPC, G&G, Dueba, Geo Medical, E.O.S., T.Top, Barbie and numerous others. Besides selling lenses and lens paraphanalia Pinky Paradise also sells Asian products including Makeup, Hair Dye, Lashes, Masks and other fun items including Animation Lenses and Cosplay items.
The only downside to my purchase was that there was no instruction card as to how to open the lenses. Now, I had done plenty of research and watched plenty of videos so I knew how to do it but, I am thinking about other people who may not be so well informed. :)
(what the animal cases look like)
As a side note and why I am loving Pinky Paradise:
I ordered lenses from another popular lens company that is actually based here is the US (I will not name names but if you've watched many youtube videos on Circle Lenses it is pretty easy to guess). The prices were comparable and the shipping was cheaper. I placed that order on October 30 and still have not received it. Not to mention that they still do not have one item I ordered in stock! I ordered from Pinky Paradise with low expectations and truly couldn't be happier with everything.
Last bit of info--For the 3 pairs of lenses shown above, 3 cases, and shipping my order total was: $87.70 (way cheaper than some companies who are advertsing via youtube right now!)
Autumn is my absolute favorite season for nail polish. All the beautiful vampy shades come out along with the golds, oranges and reds that are tried and true favorites. This season has also brought a fairly new texture as well; matte. Now in all honesty I wasn't all too excited to look at mattes let alone wear them so I probably shouldn't have started with the color I did. You Don't Know Jacques? Matte by OPI is an ugly color in the bottle but thank goodness it looks better once it is against a skin tone. Like some other bloggers have mentioned OPI really made a mistake in naming their matte shades the same as their other polishes--adding "matte" to the end of the name implies that the colors are similar to their shiny counterparts--do not be fooled! Instead of telling you all how annoying I find this naming concept I'd rather talk about wear, application and overall ease of use.
It is recommended that you do not use a base coat with this product although I gave it a try with a base coat. I used Nail Tek II (not foundation) and let it dry thoroughly and then I began applying the Matte polish. Be fore warned this formula starts to dry very quickly so be ready to move fast!
My first coat was nearly opaque and a little streaky to be honest but part of that may have been just getting used to how quickly it dried. My second coat was easier. I applied the second coat a bit thicker than the first. Once the formula was fully dry it was a bit streaky--maybe that's not the right word, it was more like you could seen the brush strokes. While that wasn't all too annoying it was a bit unexpected so keep that in mind. Here's some pictures of what 2 coats look like (in two different lights):
You don't know Jacques? Matte was a bit brown, a bit gray, and a tiny bit plum. Over all the color was surprisingly nice against my skin tone. In terms of wear I really did not have a issue with chipping instead the color just wore away a bit on the tips which always happens. I had two days of perfect wear followed by two days wear the texture changed from Matte to Satin which occurs when you apply lotion, do dishes or any other activity involving a lot of water or cream. Anyways, I will be purchasing a few more OPI Mattes based on this one.
Today I applied one of my new Zoya colors from them "Dare" collection called Envy. Envy is an amazing vampy deep green cream color that in some lights look black and some a jungle camo green. I have always been a fan of the green polishes. This truly made it feel like fall even though it still over 100 degrees outside. Two coats gave an opaque finish and wow! I can't wait to see what this looks like in direct sunlight! Here's some pics of Envy (keep in mind the color looks different in different lights):
In the sunlight...
Don't you just love it! What are you favorite fall nail colors?
