October Birchbox – Fanfare
It’s here! It’s here! I’ve been seeing people’s boxes on Instagram for a week!
October’s theme is “Fanfare” – celebrating all the new shows and stuff coming out. Technically, I was watching The Walking Dead a few nights ago and I was actually watching Nail’d while I was doing my nails tonight – shhhhhhh…
Birchbox offered a product choice again this month – I chose Mally High Shine Liquid Lipstick in “Petal to the Metal” – full size! I also got dr. brandt pores no more vacuum cleaner (Excited – I hate my pores); Essentiel Elements “Wake Up Rosemary Shower Gel” (STRONG SMELLING); a sample vial of Harvey Prince “Petaly Noir” (Maybe all of Harvey Prince’s fragrances smell like old lady – This one actual reminds me of Bath & Body Works “Black Amethyst”); and ModelCo POWERLASH High Impact Black Mascara.
Another great box!
If you would like to try Birchbox, click on my referral link – https://www.birchbox.com/invite/5453f – I’ll get 50 points if you join.
Lunchtime Haul
Sooooo…since I picked up the wrong Sinful Colors top coat, I figured I would look for a better one…but guess what? Sinful Colors doesn’t make a polish top coat that’s quick dry. Well damn. That’s okay – Sinful Colors are still on sale…and the Kempwood location already has a Xmas display out!
I picked up “Twilight Twinkles”, jagged gold flakie glitter; “Gilded”, gold and red microglitter (possibly a dupe for Julep “Love”?); “Calypso”, a dark teal creme; and “No Text Red”, a bright red creme (like I need another one!) promoting their “No texting & driving” campaign. (I’m supposed to paint my thumbnail red to remind me to not text and drive. Weird.)
I also bopped over to Bath & Body Works to use some coupons. I used a coupon for a free travel size – but I got the wrong thing! I’m trading out my travel size toiletries from “Carried Away” to “Mad About You”, but I couldn’t remember the last thing I needed. I needed a shower gel, but now I have 2 lotions. Damnit. I also had a coupon for $5 Body Cream, instead of the normal $12.50. At least I got the right scent – “White Citrus”.
I somehow managed to resist the 7/$24 Hand Soap Sale….even though I also had a 20% coupon…maybe next time.
Gumby?
At first I thought of green Play-Doh, but then I was like…no – Gumby!
Lily also wanted her nails done and she demanded that we match. I tried to talk her into Sinful Colors “Vintage”, but refused. She chose Funky Fingers “Oogie Boogie”, Sinful Colors “Pine Away” & “Mystery Moonshine” and China Glaze “Four Leaf Clover”. I couldn’t handle all of those together…but I picked something close.
I tried out the Sinful Colors Basecoat – it was fine. It went on smoothly and dried quickly, no complaints. I put on 2 coats of “Four Leaf Clover” and then topped with Sinful Colors “Green Ocean”.
I tried out the Sinful Colors Quick Dry…and I totally misunderstood the product I was buying. I thought it was a quick dry top coat, but it is a quick dry oil – like Julep Ta-Da! Well fuck. I already have 2 bottles of Ta-Da! and I don’t really use them. The combination REALLY needed a shiny topcoat – the flakies in “Green Ocean” sank into the polish and made the finish all cloudy. Since I had already started with the Quick Dry, I couldn’t put another top coat over it. Live and learn…
It’s Been 4 Weeks Since My Last Sin…
Sinful Colors are 99 cents at Walgreen’s again. It seems like they were just on sale recently…because they were – 4 weeks ago. I checked my posts, and the sales are coming every 4 weeks like clockwork. DUH. How did it take me that long to notice?
I didn’t go crazy this time. I only picked up one polish – “Vintage”, from the Fall 2014 OMGeode Collection. It’s a metallic olive green and inspires me to try my Freddy Krueger look again.
I also bought a Sinful Colors Basecoat and Quick Dry, which were NOT on sale – $3.99 each. I figured, why not see how they stack up to the others I’ve tried?
The Walking Dead
So The Walking Dead is back tonight, so I made blood-spattered Zombie Apocalypse nails for the occasion. I’m not all crazy about the show, but I do watch it fairly religiously. I’m not going to riot if they kill Daryl or anything. I will, however, riot if they cancel Talking Dead.
I used RUFFIAN “Naked” (from last month’s Birchbox) for the flesh tone. It’s the most perfect nude polish ever. It is a bit streaky in one coat, but two coats are perfect, with no visible nail line. I used Maybelline Street Art “Wild at Heart” for the blood and gore splatters. I tried a kind of splattered gradient effect by applying a second coat of “Wild at Heart” to the right side of each nail. I went back to using the Revlon Quick Dry Base and Top Coat, because they are WAY better over non sparkly glitters and polishes than the NYC.
It reminds me more of the comic book than the show…
This is Halloween
It doesn’t get any Halloween-ier than this!
Sinful Colors “Mystery Moonshine” is one of those polishes that you only set to wear once a year – or maybe twice – it has a kind of Mardi Gras thing going. It’s a metallic green, purple and orange jagged glitter in a clear base. I carefully chose my solid colors to match up with their respective glitter colors – Sinful Colors “Pine Away” for the green, Sinful Colors “Amethyst” for the purple and Julep “Zoe” for the orange. (I felt naughty mixing brands, but “Zoe” was just too perfect.)
Each of these polishes looked great after a single coat over Orly Bonder. I’m weary of Sinful Colors “Pine Away” now – it stains like a sonofabitch. I had to dab the “Mystery Moonshine” a bit, but it didn’t take a lot of work to get a good glitter spread. I topped it off with NYC “Grand Central Station”. I really need to get another good top coat.
Confession…I’ve never seen The Nightmare Before Christmas. I know, I know…
October Beauty Box 5 – Effortless Allure
I just got the email that my Beauty Box 5 shipped yesterday and I already got it today! Woo Hoo!
October’s theme is “Effortless Allure”. Inside my box: Chapstick Hydration Lock (double headed Chapstick – one for day and one for night); Bellapierre Cosmetics Cheek and Lip Stain in “Pink” (Creative name?); Extend Your Beauty Cosmetic Tool (it’s a skinny little spatula to get that last bit of product out of your bottles – I LOVE THIS!); Nanacoco Nail Polish in “Illusionist” (Violet shimmer- yay!); and Lashem Picture Perfect Instant Wrinkle Reducer.
One of the things I like about Beauty Box 5 is that it seems that I am pretty much guaranteed to get a nail polish every month. That might annoy some folks, but not me!
Flash! Ah Ahhhhh…
So I was going for a Flash Gordon, lightning type thing…it didn’t exactly turn out how I imagined.
After Orly Bonder, I did one coat of Sinful Colors “Yellow Spotted”. To get a glowy effect, I then did one coat of Julep “Casper”. In retrospect, I should have done 2 coats of the “Yellow Spotted”, because “Casper” totally obliterated the yellow and made it look like a muted gold. Oh well. I then did one coat of Sally Hansen “Star Burst” Crackle Overcoat. Crackle polishes are very unpredictable. You may get a beautiful crackle, like on my thumb nail – or you could get very little crackling, like on my ring finger. “Star Burst” was very thin and grayish, but a coat of NYC “Grand Central Station” made it dark and glossy.
I tried to get a pic of the glowing, but “Casper” doesn’t glow as brightly as Funky Fingers, but maybe that’s just because I only did one coat.
Did you know that one of my nicknames in High School was “Flash”? (My BFF started it – and yes, we’ve been BFFs THAT long.) I’ll divulge no further details, other than it wasn’t for my running speed.
Fall 2014 Freeman Beauty Mystery Bag
I couldn’t resist another box filled with a mystery assortment of beauty products! This one is from Freeman Beauty is only $30 for over $100 of products – and it’s STILL available on their website!
Here’s what I got in my box: Freeman Facial Creamy Scrub in “Apricot”; Freeman Facial Purifying Clay Mask in “Acai”; Freeman Vita-K Professional for Deep Facial Lines; Freeman Barefoot Moisturizing Massage Cream; Freeman Barefoot Repair! Overnight Foot Cream; Pssssst! Instant Dry Shampoo; c. Booth Milk Bath & Shower Cleanser; eclos Night Booster Fluid; eclos Daily HydraPrimer SPF 30; and a stack of 7 different samples of masks and creams. I am gonna be sooooo smooth! My only disappointment was that I didn’t get a Charcoal scrub – my little sister uses Freeman’s charcoal sugar scrub and highly recommends it…Alas and alack.
This box of goodies was finally the last straw with my husband…as I was opening it, he issued an ultimatum about all the boxes that I get in the mail…HE wants a box, too. Muahahahahaaaa….I knew he would get sucked into my evil trap…
Hemi Harlow
I found it…after trying maybe a zillion polishes…the perfect polish to match my car!
This is Zoya Matte Velvet “Harlow” – not to be confused with Julep “Harlow”. Zoya “Harlow” originally came out in Winter 2009 (along with “Veruschka” and “Savita”), but they’ve re-released them all! Zoya describes “Harlow” as a rich, saturated rose plum packed with sparkling metallic shimmer in a velvety MATTEVELVET finish. Fancy!
I didn’t read the site first – like the Pixie Dusts, you aren’t supposed to use a base coat or a top coat with the Matte Velvets. Oops. I used Orly Bonder first. It seemed to work okay – no bubbles and it dried really quickly. The site also warned that it’s not as long wearing as regular polish…Oh snap!
I can claim that this is a Halloween themed manicure, since my fingers are dressed up like my car, right? The only thing missing is the racing stripes (sorry, Dave).