Burb Beauty

I have so many Spring things to show you! I'm determined to get all my spring 2014 swatches up before May, so this should (hopefully) be a fun month!

Anyway, onto this pretty...

1 coat over Dior Porcelaine

Dior Perle is a cloudy base with purple iridescent shimmer. It's meant to be a topcoat, so I applied it over Porcelaine because Perle definitely looks best over lighter colors. The cloudy base makes darker shades look...just plain ugly. The matte finish makes the shimmer extra glowy; it's a nice touch.

The formula is nice enough to allow you to apply one coat without any streaks. Perfect for layering. My only gripe is that the base limits its combo possibilities.

Dior 187 Perle retails for $25 and is available at Nordstrom.

2 coats

Dior Bouquet is a salmon pink creme/borderline crelly. It's a bit brighter in person. Salmon pinks, lilac and lavenders are probably my favorite shades to wear because they're just so bright and cheery. I could probably find something very close to Bouquet in my stash, but I'm still happy to add it to my collection. If you do decide to pick this shade up, you can expect the same luscious, self-leveling formula of most other Dior polishes. Yay!

Dior 457 Bouquet retails for $24 and is available at Sephora.

I was swatching the new Ciate Doll House collection, which is a mini set of six "porcelain finish" polishes, and I had to stop and do a full mani with Poppet because it's gorgeous!

3 coats Ciate Poppet stamped with Konad White

Ciate Poppet is a pale lilac with a bit more pink in it than what's showing up in my swatch. The finish is an extremely smooth, matte creme that really does look and feel like porcelain. I stamped Poppet with an image from BM-404 and Konad White. It reminds me of wallpaper, and I want to put it on my walls!

I'll have a full review and swatches of all of the polishes in this set up soon.

1 coat

Formula X 10 Below is a bubblegum pink foil. My middle finger is what the polish looks like applied if you don't shake it very well before use. I kind of like the effect, so I decided to include it in the swatch. Like Arctic, 10 Below is quite reflective, is opaque in one coat, and has a smooth finish.

If Sephora ever offers these foils without the foil base coat, I would definitely recommend picking up both Arctic and 10 Below.


Formula X The Foil Look 10 Below set retails for $25 and is available exclusively at Sephora

Ah, spring. On one hand, having spring collections released in the dead of winter gives me something to look forward to. On the other hand, it sort of feels like a cruel joke, taunting me. Regardless, I will happily sport my Spring 2014 pastel nail polishes with my heavy down coat and scarf.

3 coats

Dior Porcelaine is a pale blue creme. It looks like a cloudless sky - so crisp and clean. I know I'm going to be wearing this one a ton. The formula was slightly streaky, but it self-leveled very well. I didn't have to apply very carefully to get a smooth finish.

There are a couple other pale blues in my stash that are similar: Zoya Blu and Essie Borrowed and Blue. Porcelaine has more pigment than Borrowed and Blue, but is pretty close to Blu. I would say it's okay to skip this if you already own Blu.

Dior 204 Porcelaine retails for $24 and is available at Sephora.

Formula X The Foil Look is a two piece set that includes a foil base coat and a nail foil (in an opaque black bottle for some reason). So far, there are three shades including pink, blue, and silver foils. I picked up the pink and blue but skipped the silver since I have the silver foil that OPI recently released.

1 coat

Arctic is a silvery blue foil. It's quite reflective and super pigmented.

The box does say "one-night-wear," so I imagine the wear won't be very good. However, these would be perfect for a special occasion or if you change your nails daily anyway.

My only gripe is that these sets all come with the foil base coat. If you bought all three, you'd have base coat for days! Also, the $25 price tag gets a little difficult to swallow after the first set because of the duplicate base coat.

Formula X The Foil Look Arctic set retails for $25 and is available exclusively at Sephora

Not only are the ILNP multichromes stunning on their own, they also stamp really well!

ILNP Birefringence (H) over 1 coat Illamasqua Boosh

And here's a blurry sun pic to try to catch that (H)

ILNP Birefringence (H) over 1 coat Illamasqua Boosh

I stamped with a plate from the Bundle Monster create your own collection, BM-404.