Category: General
Obligatory Xmas Gift Post
I would like to say that my holiday hiatus was a planned, well deserved break…but…In reality, I went out of town for a few days and then got sick, so I decided to be lazy. For my first post back, I wanted to share a few of the beauty-related gifts I received for Xmas.
First off are the super-cute nail polish Xmas ornaments I received from my big sis. They’re made from real polish bottles, filled with glitter!
My son came through with Vera Wang Embrace Rose Buds and Vanilla. I admit that I had dropped a few hints about the scent at Kohl’s a few weeks ago. It’s been on my mind since receiving a sample in an Influenster Vox Box earlier this year.
My husband got me an oil diffuser – now I can make the whole house smell like roses! (He also got me Wonder Woman Underoos – the vintage-styled ones, just like the ones I had as a kid!)
My lil sis gifted me with a wonderful Evil Queen clutch and Wonder Woman wooby. (I have an unhealthy obsession with soft and fuzzy blankets). Evil Queen and Wonder Woman – I wonder what that says about my personality???
What did YOU get for Xmas???
My Husband is Getting Annoyed…
An email with a 25% off code is rare – they’re usually either 20% or $10 off.
After a grueling drive in snarled post-Hurricane Saturday traffic, I finally made it to the second Bath & Body Works – the first one I tried was closed due to flood damage. I was looking for one specific thing, or scent rather. I wanted Wallflower Refills in “Blushing Rose Petals” – my new favorite scent after getting one a few months ago. Alas, that scent has been discontinued. I settled for “Cactus Blossom” – hoping it smells nice in my bedroom.
While I was there, I went ahead and stocked up on Bath Poofs and Scentportables for my car. And of course…more Hand Soap! They were 50% – 75% off! I wanted to try a new formula – the creamy luxe formula.
My husband said I don’t need any more soap…but he’s wrong. What if there’s another hurricane?
Back from Hiatus
Somehow I managed to get stacked with a business trip to Dallas and a Girl’s Weekend in New Orleans within the same week.
It was like I was on another planet for over a week!
At least I had the pleasure of coming home to a nice healthy pile of boxes – Birchbox, Ipsy, Beauty Box 5 and Influenster!
I’ve managed to open them all and peek inside, but it will probably take a few days to post them all…
Since we were going to New Orleans, I had to bust out “Bitchcraft” from Delush Polish’s Scream Supreme Collection.
My nails had to look good as long as possible, so I used my best base coat – Orly Bonder – and topped it with 2 coats of Glisten & Glow “HK Girl”.
After 2 coats, my nails were as hard as rock.
Let me tell you, it was a sonuvabitch to get off – it took over 30 minutes.
We had planned on doing a full American Horror Story Coven tour, but my hangover prevented us from going on any tours. I’m not as young as I used to be – I can’t hang with the big dogs. We did, however, go find Madame LaLaurie’s mansion in the French Quarter before we started drinking too heavily. They don’t allow tours anymore, which is a bummer, but we did peek into the courtyard and look into the windows.
I guess that just means we’ll have to go back again soon to get to see the Garden District house and all of the other locations we had planned on going to see!
Genius Idea
So…I LOVE the “Swatch Me” stickers that come on top of Julep polishes. Those stickers make it a snap to find the polish in seconds, instead of having to dump my Color Caddy to find what I’m looking for. True – Julep does sell those stickers, but they’re hella expensive. What’s a girl to do?
A girl goes to Office Depot and spends $6.99 for a pack of 1,100 5/16 x 1/2 inch labels instead!
I really tried to find round labels, but they didn’t have any white ones that were small enough. I kind of like the rectangular ones though – they give the polish enough room to spread. They work great on the flat tops of bottles, but they don’t work so well on bottles that have a slight rounding to the top (Rimmel London). They also aren’t working great on bottles that have a raised imprint on the top of the bottle (OPI, Nicole by OPI, China Glaze, Sinful Colors), because the stickers are not sticky enough. I might have to use clear tape to keep them on.
I’ve gotten through about 200 polishes so far – a little over 2/3 done. I’ve actually never counted my polishes, so I guess that means I have 350+. I’m not stopping til I hit at least 1,000.
Influenster Vox Box – Frosty Vox Box
I finally qualified for an Influenster Vox Box! That golden moment when you have just the right demographics and the Influenster gods shine down on you and send you box full of fun stuff to test out – complimentary, for testing purposes, of course.
Inside my Frosty Vox Box: Boots No 7 Protect & Perfect Intense Advanced Serum (I had gotten a sample in my Target Beauty Box and used it last night – what a coinkidink); NYC Expert Last Lip Color in “Sugar Plum”; Celestial Seasonings Candy Cane Lane Decaf Green Tea (This will go to Logan); EcoTools Sleek + Shine Finisher Hair Brush (Excited!); Rimmel Scandaleyes Waterproof Kohl Kajal Eyeliner in “Black” and Gentle Eyes Makeup Remover (Yay! I am almost out of my Ulta Makeup Remover); McCormick Gourmet Thyme (This will go to my husband); and Fruit Vines Bites in “Cherry” (These will go to Lily).
This box has something for everyone! I can’t wait to dig in…
Extreme Bedroom Makeover
So….my nail polish collection has gotten a little bit out of control. I’ve been fine the last few years, storing them in a plastic caddy, but then I filled both sides and had to get another caddy for remover and tools and then even that was not enough. I’ve got polishes EVERYWHERE – on the floor, on my vanity table, still in stacked subscription boxes…not to mention scattered through the rest of the house.
It’s not just the polishes that are the problem – it’s the subscription boxes. Since I’m a hoarder, I can’t throw any of the boxes away because I NEED them. I use them to mail stuff, to put gifts in and I’ve also started covering them with fancy Duck Tape to use for storage. The problem is that I get boxes faster than I can use them. Not to mention all the samples that come in those boxes – they are stacked up everywhere as well.
Again, Angie is my inspiration. I had been really considering getting a HELMER from IKEA (the nail blogger holy grail of nail polish storage), but I don’t quite have THAT much polish. (The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. Obviously, I’m not there yet.) Angie suggested getting a RÅSKOG instead – it lets you see what you’ve got. We finally made the long trek to IKEA yesterday and I picked one up – after visiting my grandparents, who are conveniently buried across the street from IKEA. (It’s like they planned it.)
I put all of my polishes into the bottom two trays – including my Julep Color Caddy. I may end up booting it if I run out of room, but it’s so pretty! I tried to clean up the lotions and other stuff on my vanity – I dusted and culled a few old bottles. What I really need to do is clean out the drawers, which are filled mostly with jewelry – important stuff I inherited from my mother and grandmother, but also stupid stuff, like my elementary school jewelry. That’s a project that would take an entire weekend…at the very least.
The vanity itself was my grandmother’s. The finish is horrible – scratched and scuffed – but I don’t have the gumption yet to refinish it like I did my other vanity. (I did a red and black crackle finish on the other one – it’s beautiful, but it was a pain in the ass.) I went ahead and put all my boxes underneath it, I don’t sit at it, so really it’s just storage.
I’m very happy with the result. I expect I’ll outgrow my RÅSKOG soon, but I’ve got room for another…
Girls Day
Saturdays are quickly turning into “Girls Day” for Lily and I. Since I take her to Gymnastics on Saturday morning, we usually end up eating and shopping afterwards. It reminds me of the infrequent “Special Days” that my mother would alternate with my sister and I…except I get to do them every weekend. (Don’t worry, I spend one-on-one time with my son, too. We just don’t anything Beauty related…)
After Taco Bell, Lily finally screwed up enough courage to get her ears pierced. The girl at Claire’s tried to tell her it wouldn’t hurt, but I stepped in and told her that it WOULD hurt, but only for a second. Lily actually haggled with the girl for 2 suckers if she didn’t cry. That daughter of mine is TOUGH. No tears, she just said, “Ow.”
Of course, after Claire’s…Ulta. Physician’s Formula is still “Buy 1, Get 1 50% off”, so I picked up Mineral Wear Face Powder to replace the one I am almost out of and Mineral Wear Correcting Powder, hoping it is similar to the stila Correcting Powder. I also picked up a clearance Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear “Sea-ly String” for 79 cents. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my 20% off coupon…
The day was going so well that I even gave into Lily’s begging to visit PetSmart to look at the adoptions. (Why bother with the zoo when PetSmart is a ZOO every Saturday?) Although it was inevitable that she would end up begging to get another dog, we managed to leave without a tantrum. Saturday with Lily was an awesome day!
Extreme Bathroom Makeover
Makeup. Makeup everywhere. Makeup on the counter. Makeup in makeup bags, stacked and hanging from the towel rack.
Did I mention that this is my husband’s sink? My sink is surrounded by face wash, deodorant and hair crap.
My makeup collection had outgrown the bags and had spilled onto the counter, even after “the purge”. Even though he rarely complained about the fine layer of powders and streaks of eye shadow in his sink, I was much more vocal about the prospect of beard hairs sprinkled all over my stuff. My stuff that was technically in his area…
Last Sunday was a monster trip to Target to take advantage of an additional 5% off coupon that I had been awarded via my son’s frequent and varied prescriptions. (I guess I can thank Impetigo for my coupon?) I decided on a plain white armoire and a cadre of wire mesh baskets, drawers and bins.
The bottom shelf has two large bins. One holds foundations, BB Creams and Primers; the other has powders and blush.
The middle shelf has a compartmented basket, with lip and eye stuff in the front and all of my shadow palettes in the back.
The top shelf is my favorite. I have random stuff in the drawers, like individual eye shadows and sharpeners. The reason that it’s my favorite part is that I get to display my mother’s jar. She used to keep eyeliner and brushes in this jar and so do I. It’s a milky white glass cold cream jar – you just don’t see those anymore. The jar has ELCAYA in relief on the side and ELCAYA NEW YORK on the bottom. Google told me that Elcaya Creme was a fancy cold cream sold in the 1910s and 1920s. It was $4, which is like $50 in today’s dollars.
Every day, I think of a question that I wish I could ask my mother. Today, I wish I could ask her the story of this jar. It couldn’t have been used by her or even her mother. If I had to guess, I’d say that she picked it up at a flea market. Most weekends, we would go flea marketing, looking for furniture to refinish. I never thought about why until now. The “cynical me” says that it was because we were poor. The “whimsical me” says it was because my mother preferred things with a history. The “realistic me” says that it was because of “blue laws” and flea markets were the only place really open on Sundays back then. It’s probably a combination of the three…
It’s not fancy or anything, but it works. My husband gets his side of the sink back…kinda. I still do my makeup on his side, I just put my stuff up after I use it. Everybody wins!
1 Monthiversary
It’s Beauty Hoard’s 1 Monthiversary!
When I started Beauty Hoard, I kind of suspected that I would get bored a few weeks in and would be pissed that I wasted $11.95 on the domain registration. I’m not bored yet…in fact, I am more hyped up than ever. My mind is brimming with all these crazy ideas…are you scared yet? You should be scared.
My Shocker Mani has inspired me…I have a bunch of new ideas that I’m DYING to unleash. If you don’t know what a “Glass Bottom Boat” is, prepare your socks to be knocked off.
In addition, I’ve signed up for Birchbox and Ipsy…so yeah, my addiction is spreading.
Thank you for reading my insane ramblings!
Welcome to Beauty Hoard!
My name is Lara and I’m a hoarder.
My obsession isn’t dead cats or bottles of piss or used diapers…nothing good enough to get me on TV. I hoard beauty products. Nail polish, body products, antibacterial handsoap, eye shadow and more. (I also have a problem with buddhas, garden gnomes, Barbies and flamingos, but we’ll get to that later.)
Instead of hiding my shame, I decided to share it with the world. Okay, that’s a lie…I am not the least bit ashamed of my “habit.” I just want to legitimize the amount of money I spend on all this junk by plastering it all over the internet. Also, I’ve been experiencing writing block when it comes to my other website – knobbyverse.com – and I figure the best way to get past it is to make a detour and write about something else for awhile.
I’m not really sure what I am going to end up doing with this site…maybe pictures of my fingernails? Stupid shit I buy on clearance at Target? Or maybe I’ll get bored after a few posts and let it die…unless of course, I figure out a way for this site to make me some money…