Ralo Speckled Nail Polish Review

Hello everybody! Today I am blogging out of Doppio Zero today as we have had no internet for 2 days and I am freaking out! I came here to try get my emails from the past two days, but it's a good excuse to have some eggs on toast ha ha!

This month Ralo gave me their new Speckled Nail Polish to review, and when I saw how pretty it looked in the bottle, I was super intrigued to see how it looked on my nails!

The nail polishes are all yummy pastel candy shades, and they have a mixture of small and large black glitters in them to give a speckled look. I decided to try out the baby pink one as it looked so feminine.

In order to get most glitter nail polishes to give good coverage, I find that I usually have to use a dabbing technique, but this polish seemed to distribute the glitters well with just the normal painting technique. I did 3 layers to get the best coverage, but completely forgot to do a top coat! Even without that, the polish lasted quite well before chipping - about 3 days.

I love the shade of pink! It is sweet and girly, and makes my nails look candy :) With the success of the pink one, I'm dying to try out the green one now!

What do you guys think?

Palladio Herbal Dual Wet & Dry Foundation Review

Five days in and I have to admit that I am hopelessly in love with this foundation! I had been lusting after the Physician's Formula mineral powder foundation for a while, but didn't have the guts to spend R200 on it, especially since I have a very strict December budget. Then last Friday I decided I was just going to get it - after having a really tough week, I needed some retail therapy ;) I went straight to the Physician's Formula stand at Dischem, picked it up, swatched it on my arm to see what coverage it offered, and made my way to the till.

On the way to the till I passed by Palladio's stand. I have always liked Palladio, so I gave it a once over to see if they had a powder foundation. They did - so I swatched the tester on my arm to see coverage and it looked pretty similar to the coverage of the Physician's Formula one. When I saw that it was only R100, my mind was made up! Being cheap on a budget, price was a huge factor for me.

Palladio Herbal Dual Wet & Dry Foundation

I got home and was so tempted to film my first First Impressions video but I was too damn excited to try it out that I couldn't wait. What I like about it is that you can use it wet or dry - dry gives less coverage than wet, but for me the coverage from it dry was more than enough! It comes with a sponge to apply, and if you have oily skin you can just wet the sponge with water before applying, or you can use it wet with moisturiser if you have dry/normal skin. The compact also comes with a little mirror so you can carry it around with you for touch ups.

Here are some before and afters. As you can see, using it dry gave me really great coverage and hid all the redness and uneven skin tone perfectly. What I like about it is that it is buildable so you can get the coverage you want.

Now for the lasting power. This claims to last all day, but with my oily skin I have trouble with foundation staying on, even with a primer. I refrained from touch-ups and I took photos throughout the day to check how it was holding up, and I must say that I am quite impressed. Although my face did start looking oily, the makeup stayed on and looked great! And I did have quite a hectic day - I was out and about quite a bit seeing clients and shopping. Here is how it fared during the day:

Impressive huh? I love this foundation so much and I cannot get over how airbrushed it makes my skin look. I do make sure that my skin is exfoliated and moisturised before I apply it because I think that the powder could look bad if the skin is flaky, but I haven't experienced any "cakiness" yet. The oiliness of my skin is still an issue, however I am about to start using a new primer that it supposed to help, plus I still carry my trusty oil control paper so it isn't too much of an issue for me.

Have you guys tried powder foundations before? Let me know what experiences you have had with them :)

Colgate Optic White Challenge

Happy Almost-Holiday-Time everybody! I cannot wait to get my butt down to Cape Town and get some fresh sea air :)

With the Christmas holidays comes tons of photo-ops, and I decided to get my chompers looking extra sparkly for the camera. My teeth are not very yellow or stained, but they aren't Hollywood-white either.

I looked at a couple of at-home options and decided to take the Colgate Optic White challenge - they claim that using the toothpaste twice a day for a week will leave your teeth one shade lighter.

I bought a double pack of the toothpaste from Dischem for R29.99. The tube is 75ml and the toothpaste itself is white with little blue granules in it. I used my electric toothbrush and brushed for 2 minutes as I usually do. The toothpaste didn't feel any "stronger" than the toothpaste I am currently using, and my mouth felt as clean as it normally feels after brushing with regular toothpaste. I was disappointed that the pack doesn't come with a Tooth Colour Guide so that you can compare the difference in shades from using the product. Some of the other tooth whitening products come with one and I like to see that there is an actual difference and that it's not just in my head that my teeth are whiter!

Here is how my teeth looked before I started using Colgate Optic White. As you can see, they aren't terribly stained, but the bottom teeth do have some yellow discolouration. Probably from a lack of daily flossing in the past *blush* Also my mouth looks really weird when I try show my teeth.

Now I am not hoping for miracles - as much as I would love to have dazzling white teeth that blind people when I smile, I am pretty certain that I am not going to get results like that. Professional whitening costs over R1000, and this is just a R15 tube of toothpaste, but I am hoping to see a noticeable difference in my teeth.

I will brush my teeth twice a day for 2 minutes, and resist the urge to do brushing in between, so that the results are fair. I normally don't want to brush my teeth more than twice a day, but I'm so excited to see the results that now I want to brush all the time to make it work faster! Just to clue you up on my tooth stainage factor, I don't smoke, but I do drink about 2-4 cups of tea and coffee a day. I now floss daily since I got my Aquaflosser and I use an electric toothbrush with a 2 minute timer.

Have you tried using Colgate Optic White before? Are there any tooth whitening products that you swear by? I'd love to know!