Purple Holo NOTD

Until my most recent haul, I was sorely lacking in holos. I had a couple things that had some holo glitter, but very few fully holographic polishes. My very favorite was Sally Hansen Purple Diamond, so when I got my haul I went right to the purple holos:

I decided on Color Club Fashion Addict, which is part of the Catwalk Queen collection. I am in love. & I took lots (& LOTS) of pics to share my love with you guys:

Now, I think you all know how hard it is to photograph holographic polish ... I did my best but it's even better in real life. I also took a couple of videos with my camera ... but I decided I had enough pics & would anyone really want to watch a video anyway? So if you would have preferred a video demonstration of how gorgeous this polish is instead of or in addition to pics, let me know (leave a comment or email me if you'd prefer not to broadcast your opinion) & I'll certainly post one if anyone actually wants to see.

Still struggling on my other computer so I'm going to let it rest after the work of uploading all these pics LOL. The only upside is that it's forcing me to finish my books that are almost due =) Thanks for reading.

~Colette

PS - I know this is an awful lot of pics, but come on - they're all different! Reason #1 why holo polish is distracting & gorgeous.

H2T Haul

My first haul from Head2Toe Beauty, and it was a pretty serious one. So hard to resist so much cheap polish... I mean, I was up to 24 polishes right off the bat when I decided I wanted all of both the OMG & Kaleidoscope collections ... a little more browsing, and ... well ... 7 pounds of polish showed up at my house in a big box:

Which had lots of little boxes inside:

Which had lots & lots (& lots) of pretty polish inside:

Ahem. Thus what was kind of supposed to be a no-buy until I found the Tracy Reese collection over the weekend. I'm going to be better now, honest, there are only a couple of things left on my lemming list that they were out of stock on when I placed this order, like Revvvolution.

The OPI DS in it's own little box & very top left of the big shot is Desire - I seem to have neglected to take a close up pic of it out of the box, but here are the rest; some of the tag pics are a little fuzzy, but you should be able to read the names for everything if you click to englarge (if you can't & want to know, leave a comment & I'll check):

Essie:

Misa:

Color Club:

China Glaze:

^OMG Collection

^Kaleidoscope Collection

So I'm a pretty happy camper right now. Haven't decided which one I'm using, but one of them is going on tonight, something holographic & purple I think but that still leaves me several choices =) Thanks for reading.

~Colette

Purple NOTD & TOTD

I used to be really bad about my tips & my toes HAD to be the same color. So even though I hated doing my toes, I would diligently do them once a week so they matched my fingers. But, now that I'm doing my nails 2-3 times a week, there is no way I'm doing my toes that often. I'm just not. So they haven't been even close to matching at all lately ... but I happened to pick out purples for both of them at the moment.

NOTD: Tracy Reese for Sally Hansen Night Hydrangea, Konied with China Glaze Devotion & plate S1. I should have dug out the plate that has a smaller version of this flower on it (m26) for my pinky, but I was too lazy:

The one that has the color closest to life is the normal lamp, as far as it showed the purple less blue than the other 2 pics, but it is still a darker color in person than shows on camera.

TOTD: Revlon No Shrinking Violet:

Very messy I'm sorry to say, but I just can't make myself make the effort when it's cooled down enough again that I won't even be wearing sandals for the next couple days, so who cares if they're sloppy behind my socks? Thanks for reading.

~Colette

Finally

I don't know if I mentioned I'm on a semi-no-buy. A think really hard, ask myself if I really need this, do I even remember how much I just spent online?!-before-I buy. Well, I found a few things I maybe could have resisted but didn't:

Left to right: Milani Garnet Gems, Revlon No Shrinking Violet & Not So Blue-Berry. That wouldn't have been so bad. 3 bottles of polish is allowable. But I found something else ... something I stared at in astonishment for a few moments before convincing myself I was not hallucinating:

Yes, FINALLY, the Tracy Reese for Sally Hansen Spring Collection (click to enlarge & see names). This was the 2nd Walgreens of the day & 3rd of the week & they had 2 of each color, in a totally nondescript display with some other normal Sally Hansen products. It didn't even say what the collection was. There was no sign declaring them super-cool & hard to find, almost like Walgreens knows they'll be gone so quick they don't even need to make an effort to advertise them.

Runner up for coolest thing of the day was that they lady at the cosmetics counter goes, "Hey, you have a lot of Sally Hansen, let me see if I have a coupon for you." She proceeded to pull out a stash of coupons from behind the counter, explaining that they get books of coupons with the displays sometimes. She pulls out a book from Sally Hansen, and says something along the lines of, "Oh, you have 7 bottles, we'll just use 7 of these $2.00 coupons." So that pretty much took care of any slight guilt I might have felt for splurging on all of the colors instead of the 3 I had planned on. Revlon was buy 1 get one also, so that was a deal.

I'll be using Night Hydrangea for my mani & No Shrinking Violet for my pedi, but probably won't post up until tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

~Colette

My 1st Product Review (Barielle), Cake Pops, & Flowers

So, the other day I was pleasantly shocked & surprised to receive an email from a Barielle rep, asking if there were any of their products that I would be interested to receive a free sample of in return for reviewing the product on my blog. OMG, free stuff!! Yay!

The hardest part was choosing from their wide range of products (check out Barielle's website to see what they have to offer), but I finally decided on a lotion since I've been trying very hard with my New Year's Resolution to moisturize as much as possible.

Now, I've talked about quite a few products that I use, but I've never done a "real" review, so please if there's anything that I'm missing or anything you're curious to know about this product, leave me a comment & I can go back & edit in more information.

In all the hassle of dealing with my broken comp, I had kind of forgotten about my free gift coming. I'd only responded back to the rep late Saturday night, so when I got a package Thursday, I didn't know what it was for a minute. Then I realized it must be the Barielle & I was impressed with the quick shipment. I've never placed a normal order with them, but I'm assuming they're equally prompt with their paying customers, and I think that 5 days is pretty good turnaround.

Here's my happy package:

I kind of got a kick that my PO# was listed as "blogging" LOL:

Even having narrowed it down to lotion, I still had a lot of choices, but in the end I picked the Deluxe Hand & Body Lotion & here's a pic of it both in & out of the box:

As someone who has allergies & sensitive skin, I know a lot of people are very careful & concerned with what goes into the products that they purchase. I took the kind of lazy way out & took a couple of shots of the box & bottle, ingredients & instructions:

Barielle's website describes this product as:

"A unique formula that will bring out the natural glow of your skin. This lotion also serves as a cleansing agent and odor absorber. Enriched oils and mango seed butter will leave your skin smooth and silky to the touch. Fresh citrus scent."

& I have to agree with all of that. My first reaction when I put it on, I literally said out loud, "Oh YUM!" This is the best smelling lotion I can remember using, and I am pretty picky about scent. The citrus scent is light, not at all intrusive, with a sweet hint of mango. It has a good texture, not runny but not too thick or gloppy either, and it goes on smooth & absorbs quickly. It does not leave an oily or greasy residue on my hands, they just feel healthy & well-moisturized.

I try not to let my hands get too dry, but I think you can still see the difference this lotion made in these before & after shots:

Now, the only downside to this product is the price. But it works so well it may be worth it. Normal price for a 6 oz. bottle is $22.00. If you order from their website, shipping fees go from $5.00 to $8.00, with orders over $60.00 having free shipping - right now they have an offer of free shipping on orders over $50.00. I've only had this for a day, so I can't honestly say if I'd pay the price to keep using it after this bottle is gone. Normally I'd dismiss a $22.00 lotion out of hand as being too expensive, but you really do get what you pay for. You're not going to find a moisturizer this nice for 5 bucks.

... I'm not sure if I should have like stars or a 1-10 ratings scale or what ... for now I'm just going to give this product 2 thumbs up.

So what did you think of my first review? Anything I missed? Too MUCH info? Let me know. Hopefully I'll have further opportunities to bring you more reviews & put any suggestions to good use.

As if this post wasn't long enough already ... I did some baking yesterday. I was tempted to give these guys their own post, but I think you all probably know it's more my style to cram everything I have to say into one post. PLUS with my old comp it's way easier & quicker to just do one. So, I give you my 1st attempt at making Cake Pops:

I made these to take to my grandparent's house, and brought a few of the extras in to work, where they were a HUGE hit. I think I made everyone's day a little brighter, put a smile on their face LOL. I got the recipe & instructions over at Bakerella's blog (Thanks for the link Brooke!) and if you have a sweet tooth I seriously suggest heading over there for a ton of great ideas.

These really were not that hard to make, although they were somewhat time consuming. I just used regular sandwich baggies & then ribbon to tie them closed with. I'd like to make them again, just because of course the first time you try any recipe you learn things to do better the next time around.

My main lesson was that the edible ink pens that they sell at Michael's SUCK. I'm going to be returning mine, because they were next thing to worthless for drawing on the cake balls. Bakerella recommends another brand, and you can see how nice her faces turn out. I had a whole page full of creative smiley faces that I didn't get to use because the pens just refused to work. I scrawled some basic eyes & mouth on about half & then gave up. They're just as delicious without a face LOL.

Last thing to share for this post are a few flower pics from the walk we took after dinner:

Thanks for reading.

~Colette