Garage Sales For The Win

Personally, garage sales are not my thing. Luckily, my mom is the complete opposite & she made a haul for me yesterday. OPIs - for a quarter! & some other stuff too:

From right to left: OPI Ponce De Lilac, OPI Virgin Island Velvet, OPI Pompeii Purple, Revlon Amethyst Smoke, Revlon Mocha Mirage & another OPI but this one unfortunately without a label. Not to mention the cute little decal stickers. ♥ Mom =)

That's all for now. I've just been so low-energy all weekend, I'm going to try & get back on top of things Monday. I did do a fresh mani, but that's a lot more pics to dig through & edit so I'm aiming to get that posted tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

~Colette

5 Excellent Things

Thursday, I finally got some pics of L8r G8r in the sun. It was hard to part with, but at least I got these before I took it off (this starts us off with Excellent Thing #1 - a holo in the sun):

Then, today (well, it's after midnight so I guess yesterday if you want to get technical) has, seriously, been an awesome day. I really don't think a single thing went wrong, and so many things went right! Starting with the mani I wore today & did last night (Excellent Thing #2 - a fresh mani).

I really wanted to do some fabulous Konad. I've seen plate m73 used recently on a couple of blogs, over at The Nailphile & La passion des ongles, so I decided to try out the cascading squares pattern with some (very messy) test skittles. Unfortunately, none of these combos were quite what I was looking for:

Another day I might have gone with one of those, but I ended up going through my unworns, looking for ... something. I really wasn't sure - until I found it. Savvy Golden Mauve, which I decided to Konad with China Glaze Passion & plate m36. This dusty mauve has a great golden shimmer, click to enlarge & check it out =) This is 2 coats of polish w/ Seche:

This really turned out well & although I certainly do love some bling on my nails, this subdued mani kept me smiling all day. Among other things - I had to work late Tues & Wed to get caught up after the holiday, but that meant I got to leave early today - at 12:30! & on a sunny gorgeous day also (Excellent Thing #3 - leaving work early for any reason).

As if I wasn't already having a great enough day, I totally lucked out at Big Lots! Which just goes to show they're always getting new stuff, since it had only been about a week since I went to this one. They didn't have a lot of these, but more of a selection than usual. Revlon Sweet Nothings & Dark Pleasures:

Right to left: Satin Sheets(720), Barely Blush(730), Rendez-Blue(745), Scarlet Letter(790), Talk Dirty(780), Midnight Affair(785), Steel-etto(800). Going from the way these are numbered, there must be some in the middle there, so I'm going to try & hit the other Big Lots again tomorrow & look for them. I also picked up some star-shaped glitter at the Dollar Tree next door to the Big Lots, but it's being too reflecting to cooperate taking a pic, so you'll just have to take my word. One bag of multicolored, one bag of silver & gold. (Excellent Thing #4 - a cheap polish haul)

Which brings us finally to Excellent Thing #5 - FREE STUFF

I got home from my grandparent's & checked the mail & almost tripped over a medium sized box on the front steps. I didn't remember placing any orders lately ... what could this be? I had totally forgotten that I requested one of the "limited number of samples available upon request" until I saw the return label - & I've got to give a huge thanks to Lisa Cocuzza of It's a Glam Thing for the opportunity to try & review this Hana Salon Mini Ceramic Flat Iron & Shine Shield hair serum:

Is that cool or what! I hope I'll have time to review it this weekend, but I've got a lot of other catching up to do, so I'm not going to make any promises (like I broke last time...). I know I've also talked about some things recently that I intended to post up that I haven't & honestly I haven't forgotten, I just haven't gotten around to everything yet. But I have no plans this weekend aside from a trip to the library, so hopefully I'll be able to get caught up with:

• Review of the Hana ceramic flat iron
• Review & comparison of the Mary Kay Satin Hands Sets
• I'm very behind on my Books List - even when I don't have much free time, I still go through a lot of books just from reading at work
• New NOTD & TOTD this weekend. I really like this mauve but I've got a couple chips already. I don't know if I was a particular klutz or what I did, but it's bugging me. And I'm sick of my toes being so freaking bright; I think I'm going to paint them dark again.

Thanks for reading =)

~Colette

Recovering From A "Bad" Mani

OK, so it wasn't so bad that I needed like therapy or intervention or anything LOL, but I still wanted something on my nails that I knew would not disappoint. What's a girl to do? Why, pull out a holo of course! China Glaze L8r G8r from the OMG Collection.

I know a lot of people say a top coat dulls the holo, but on the other hand it extends the wear & so I usually put one on anyway. I took a pic to demonstrate the before & after difference; for this particular polish it didn't seem to dull the holo much, but the color came out a little darker & a tad bit more yellow. Here we have no top coat on ring finger (left) & Seche on the pinky (right):

And here are the rest of the pics, topcoat on all fingers. Unfortunately no sun here today! But lots of pics all the same. Some of the progressive pics came out a little blurry & I apologize but you still get the feel of the color even in those:

The overcast pic is actually one of my favorites. This is just a really cool tone of green when it's not in direct light & the holo gets so muted it's almost invisible.

One thing I've noticed the past couple manis is, now that my index finger is finally growing out to a decent length, it has a considerable curve to it on one side. It's not the most aesthetically pleasing thing some of the time, it photographs kind of lopsided, but other times or different colors it's barely noticeable at all (I thought it looked much worse with the pink french than with this holo). I have a feeling that my index & possibly my middle finger on my right hand will be the same way once I finish growing out the peeling & they start to hold on to some length. All I can say is ... sorry. LOL if you want to see my polish you'll just have to get used to my little mutie nail. Because I don't think it can be fixed & I'm not cutting my nails down back to the point it wasn't as noticeable.

Enough about my deficiencies ... I don't want you to think I'm fishing for compliments LOL. I did my toes a few days ago & finally got around to taking some pics of the pedi - China Glaze Raspberry Festival from the Summer Days collection:

Pretty bright compared to what I normally put on my toes ... I'm more likely to do a denim blue or a dark purple but I've gotten several compliments on this color.

If the sun comes out anytime soon, I'll get a few more pics, and some of the color changing pair also, but it's looking pretty gloomy the next few days =( Thanks for reading.

~Colette

Hauls - Polish & Shoes!

Kind of a lot of shopping lately. I've been to Sally's:

Big Lots:


& although I hadn't had much luck lately prior to this trip, my Dollar Tree luck is looking up:

And for the shoes, some casual sandals & some more dressy heels, DSW:

I kind of have a thing for shoes. The only reason they haven't made it onto the blog yet is because I haven't gotten any new ones since I started it. It's hard to keep track (I don't keep a spreadsheet like I do for my polish LOL), but I probably have around 30-40 pairs of shoes. My shoe rack takes up most of one wall, and I have more boots & stuff in boxes under my bed. And although I usually tell myself "If I get these new black sandals, I should get rid of some old black sandals" that doesn't usually end up happening.

And then another Big Lots:

Yes, that says color changing on the packaging. And yes, as soon as I exited the store, I took them out of the bag & they did indeed turn bright pink & blue. I'll have to get a pic tomorrow when the sun is (hopefully) out again, along with pics of my fresh mani =) No, I couldn't stand my french manicure for more than a day, but I don't have time to edit up all the gorgeous pics of my new choice, so it will have to wait for tomorrow to be posted up.

Until then, thanks for reading.

~Colette

Not Too Happy With This ...

But I'm going to show you guys anyway. We'll chalk it up to a learning experience.

I got this idea from my friend's manicure, she got it done pink french tips with a silver smile line & I had every intention of taking a pic ... but didn't. I wanted to recreate it, and I'm pretty happy with the colors I chose, but I failed in the execution.

I usually use guides when I do french tips, and as long as I am very careful applying them they work pretty good. I guess today I was a little impatient or distracted or something, because I ended up with a mess. And that's where the problem started ... I thought I'd cover up the messy edge with a gold line, since this pink has a lot of gold shimmer. But, putting it under the existing pink tip, I think it ended up too low, it makes my nail beds look stunted. I should have put the gold line on top of the pink instead of under it, or tried to clean up the pink edge & skipped the gold all together, since freehand is not my forte & it came out kind of thick & messy. Either way, I didn't hate it enough to remove it right away, but I think this will probably come off tomorrow.

But, here we go - I started with 2 coats of China Glaze Golden Enchantment for the base, China Glaze Strawberry Fields for the tips, and Sally Hansen Gold Nail Art Pen for the smile line:

Soooo close ... but not quite what I had in mind & so no cigar. Thanks for reading.

~Colette

This Is Me Trying To Take A Picture Of My Own Eyeball

And I'm very, very sorry I'm so late getting around to this. I know I said I'd post this on Monday, but I've had a lot of extra running around to do, one of the results of which is that I finally got the big shiny piece of crap back ... I mean my lovely nice new computer that I will never ever trust again. I'm not going to rant about Best Buy taking 4 weeks to fix it or other points of their extreme incompetence. Because this is my happy place ... but I am going to mention that if I were to give in to the urge, it would be a very long & angry rant.

I suppose a shorter title would have been "Review: Revlon Fantasy Lengths" but I had a hell of a time taking these pics LOL. I really have to give high praise to you beauty bloggers that regularly post up pics of makeup, because I found trying to get a halfway decent shot incredibly awkward & frustrating. If I got a decent angle, the light was weird, or vice versa. I don't know that I'm exactly happy with what I ended up with, but they're good enough to serve the purpose.

I was actually kind of looking forward to trying these, since I'd never tried fake eyelashes before ... & the product was pretty good, but I just don't think they're for me. Let's get to the details. I got 3 different styles from Revlon; top to bottom: Flirty, Lush & Intensifying:

Revlon's website says:

"Glamorize your eyes! Instantly get beautiful sexy lashes in a snap with REVLON Fantasy Lengths Maximum Wear Glue On eyelashes. Glue included."

The instructions included on the box & on the included insert seemed pretty simple (click to enlarge):

I didn't have any expectations as far as difficulty level, since this would be my first attempt ever, and I have to say I think I did pretty good applying them. They're very flexible & were fairly easy to get down close to the lash line. although, why don't they make the glue black? Or clear? Because the white glue is kind of noticeable ... or maybe I was just sloppy, but I really felt like I was being as neat as possible while still using enough glue to hold them on. Other reviewers have mentioned using eyeliner to cover the glue but I didn't go that far.

Well. Enough stalling. Here's the eyeball, before & after. I used Flirty:

Maybe for a special occasion or something, but I don't have many of those. Honestly, I don't bother with much makeup on a daily basis. So I didn't have any mascara on hand to blend them with my natural lashes as I've seen recommended. And while they were fairly comfortable, I could feel them in a way that drove me crazy & I just couldn't follow my original plan of actually trying to wear them out for a little while. I took them off after about 5 mins wondering how anyone can stand it.

So ... I guess these get a thumbs up, even though I can't see myself using them. They're easy to apply & if that's the look you're going for they do a good job. I believe these retail for around $5.00 a pack. They are reusable, although the tube of glue is pretty small & I'm not sure if it's sold separately.

I really hope & plan to get back on a better schedule for posting now that I have the fast computer back. I've got quite a lot from the past couple days to share:

• New NOTD this weekend ... much as I love purple glitter,& even as well as it's worn, it's been a freaking WEEK since I've had time to do my nails.
• New TOTD this weekend ... still trying to take better care of the feet. I found a moisturizer I really liked & then of course could not find it again, so I've got to find something new again.
• Hauls! Sally's, Big Lots, Dollar Tree, & maybe another Big Lots & Dollar Tree by the time I post up LOL.
• Shoes! I bought the cutest shoes today. I've been trying to curb my shoe shopping because they take up a lot more room than polish, but I just couldn't pass these up & so why not share?

So, please bear with me while I get caught up on comments, posting, and other blogs! Thanks for reading =)

~Colette