China Glaze Sea Spray v. Eyeko Rain Polish.

I made a tiny haul when the China Glaze Anchors Away collection came out. When I finally got around to trying out Sea Spray, a lovely blue-grey, it looked oddly familiar...

 Oh hai Eyeko Rain Polish! 

In the bottle China Glaze Sea Spray and Eyeko Rain Polish look identical. If I had to pick a fancy name to describe the colour it'd be storm grey - a combination of green, blue and grey. Both polishes have a slight silver shimmer in the bottle that isn't really visible on the nail.

Can you tell which finger has which polish on it? I can't unless I look really closely. My thumb is Eyeko Rain Polish and all the other fingers are China Glaze. If I have to pedantic, I'd say the Eyeko is just a smidge lighter and has slightly more visible shimmer, but they are such close dupes that you won't need both. Formula wise they are similar, both are easy to control and opaque in 2 coats.

Close up of China Glaze Sea Spray:

 Closer look at Eyeko Rain Polish:

Eyeko Rain Polish on thumb and China Glaze Sea Spray on all the other fingers:

China Glaze Sea Spray courtesy of my credit card and 8ty8beauty.com
Eyeko polish courtesy of the lovely Old Cow.

Sponsored review: Misikko Hana Titanium flat iron.

I was recently contacted by John from Misikko to do a review of their Hana Titanium flat iron. Misikko stocks a large range of professional grade hair straighteners, hair dryers, curling irons as well as hair and skin care products. CHI, BaByliss Pro, GHD, Hot Tools and Hana Salon are just some of well known brands sold at Misikko.
Onwards to my flat iron!
I received the Hana Titanium Ionic 1.5" Flat Iron which boasts adjustable temperatures of up to 450F (that's 232C for us non American folk), pure titanium plates for maximum heat retention, tourmaline integrated ceramic heaters and a rather fabulous 2 year warranty.

Each flat iron comes nestled in each own tin case which contains a rubber mat, a sample sized bottle of Hana Shine Shield and about 20 different pouches - 19 of which I am unsure of its intended use xD.

A closer look at the plates:

 The Hana Titanium flat iron's power switch and temperature dial:

Now to some experimentation!

My apologies for the unfocused photos, my tripod was in the boot of the boy's car so I had to take these photos with my wobbly hands -___-"
Anyway, as you can see from the photos, my hair has a slight wave to it and has lots of little frizzy bits.
After a pass with the magic wand:

 Tada! I thought I'd take on the additional challenge of creating some curls using the flat iron.

 I then lightly dampened the curls and used the flat iron to straighten out the previously curled hair to test out the flat iron's power against curly hair.

Back view after everything was straightened out.
Final verdict:
I am very impressed!! At $174.99, this is easiest the most expensive piece of hair styling equipment I've ever owned or tried out. Being cheap, all my previous flat irons have been $30 jobs from the pharmacy, and I can see a world of difference between those irons and the Hana Titanium. Those cheap irons would take forever to heat up, would snag in my hair and pull off bits of my hair every time I used it, the plates would not fit together properly and it would take at least 15-20mins to straighten out my hair as I'd have to go over each section again and again.
The Hana Titanium literally glides through my hair with no snagging or pulling. My hair is thick and coarse, but it is easily straightened out within a few minutes. Heat up is lightning fast. I also like the fact that it has a manual dial instead of a digital control as I feel it prevents accidentally switching off the iron or changing the temperature.
I looked up all the hoo ha on ceramic plates, and it apparently allows for faster heat up and thus protects your hair from heat damage. Tourmaline releases large quantities of negative ions which means your hair straightens out faster and retains shine and manageability. This flat iron has the best of both with its tourmaline integrated ceramic plates. As you can see in both the photos and the video, my hair is shiny and silky after straightening so those plates must be doing their job.
The only thing I don't think the Hana Titanium iron is up to is curling. The plates are simply too wide to comfortably curl hair with. That's not to say it's impossible, just that its rather difficult.

I did a quick video review! Please forgive my blabbering and awful editing. I simply couldn't pass up all the cheesy extra effects.

P.S. why do videos inevitably use your most awkward moment as your video's thumbnail?

I've missed you all...

A short video to make up for my lack of presence around this here blog:

As you can see, I clearly have no idea what I'm doing.