Maybe I Need To Stop Buying Nail Polish- A Haul

So I may not be posting as much but that does not mean that my spending on nail polish has waned. In fact, it has probably increased. In the past year or two the amount of polishes available to consumers has exploded in conjunction with the popularity of nail polish itself. We now have available to us polishes from countries around the world along with the always innovative polishes from indie sellers. Big name brands have taken notice of this and stepped up their game offering a wide variety of creative colors and finishes. Now is definitely the time to be a nail addict. I'm definitely happy, but maybe my bank account isn't! These are all polishes I've bought in 2013. And there are probably more that I've stashed away in a Helmer that I've forgotten about (bad girl!).

Hard Candy polishes. From left- Crush On Pink, Crush On Tin, Fun 'N Festive, Pixie Pink, Cocoa Smore, and Gummy Green.

Sigh. I'm so, so impressed with Hard Candy and bringing out this completely revamped line of 45 polishes. I literally want every single one. I don't think that has ever happened to me before. There are maybe a few I could live without. It was almost torture limiting myself to these 6. The bottles are small at almost half the size of a standard polish, but the price is right at $4 a bottle. Just be prepared to go hunting at WalMart to find them. (Here is a list of all the polishes)

Hit Polish. From left- Tes-Stained Linen, Turq-ish Delight, On Angels Wings, and Lilacs in Bloom.

Unf. These are so pretty. I'm most excited about Tea-Stained Linen. It's so unique!

Cult Nails polishes. From left- Disciplined, Untamed, Scandalous, Flushed, Annalicious, I Got Distracted, and Spontaneous.

I finally picked up the Cult Nails polishes that had been on my wishlist when they had a sale recently. You can never go wrong with Cult Nails.

Etude House Sweet Recipe Ice Cream Nail Polishes (not sure if they have actually names but the colors are numbered 1-4).

I was REALLY excited for these. The whole Etude House Sweet Recipe collection looks amazing, but these called out to me the loudest. These polishes were shipped all the way from South Korea (Etude House is a Korean brand) and I couldn't be happier. Korean cosmetics and skincare are becoming a new obsession for me. (I bought these on eBay)

Hits Mari moon Modern set. From left- Cool, Dreamer, Trendy, and Cutie Pie.

More foreign polishes! These are from Brazil and I bought them from Ninja Polish. I have the Unique Set (and posted about it here) and need the Modern Set to round out my collection. These polishes are a must in any polish lover's collection. Especially Cutie Pie. I think I need a back up of it.

From left- Ninja Polish Divinity and Nebula, A England Dragon, Hits Salsa and CanCan.

The rest of the polishes from my Ninja Polish order. You can't tell from the picture but Divinity is a multichrome in the same vein as Clarins 230 and Max Factor Fantasy Fire. The bottle of Nebula is backward because it shows the color shift in the bottle better. The A England polish is a long time lemming that I'm super excited to finally have. And lastly the two Hits polishes are color changing flakies in a colored base. It's hard to tell with Salsa, but it has the same color flakies as Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure and Essie Shine of the Times.

From left- Orly Orange Crush, China Glaze Beach Cruise-r and Surreal Appeal, Essence Oh My Glitter!

Some random polishes. The first three I think I got on clearance at Ulta or Sally Beauty. Something like that. It was a busy polish buying day.

From left- Rainbow Honey Be Mine, Urban Outfitters Chilly, Ulta XOXO and Diva, and OPI Fresh Frog of Bel Air

Last batch of random polishes. I needed Be Mine by Rainbow Honey to round out my Valentine's collection from them. The Urban Outfitters glitter polish I'm really excited about. I wish I had bought a few more polishes while I was there but I was trying to be restrained. And the last three were Ulta impulse purchases.


And theeeeeeeeeeeere we go. I really should stop buying polishes faster than I can wear them. Do you see anything that catches your eye?

Fish Scales and "Woe is me" Tales

I'm STILL upset about the stupid neighbor thing from yesterday. Especially since we had to spend $90 and 4 hours building a mini fence in front of the actual fence between our yards. I acknowledge that my dog is bad to chew on the wooden fence boards when her dogs are barking at him, but I try and prevent it and don't let him out when her dogs are out. But she doesn't do anything when her dogs are running and bouncing off the fence on the other side. I have to be the responsible one and throw money away to keep my dogs from misbehaving while hers are free to do whatever they want. UGH! You know what? I don't think she let her dogs out ONE TIME today. Talk about an extreme reaction. They still need to go to the bathroom. Does she seriously think I don't ever want them to go out? I wanted to thank everyone who commented yesterday on my rant-y post. You all made me feel so much better. I just want so bad to believe that everyone has at least some shred of rationality to them, and it bothers me that some people will never have that, no matter who talks to them or what they say. So sorry I've been a bit of a Debbie Downer lately. I'll return you to your regularly scheduled pretties shortly.
As a way of easing back into it, here is the fish scales part of the title.  According to my boyfriend this mani looked like fish scales.

This is 2 coats of China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise under 1 coat of Hard Candy Break Up.

In the sun

My camera is dumb. It makes non-neons looke neon and actual neon look pastel. Turned Up Turquoise is a saturated neon green-based teal shimmer. Break is large opalescent hex glitter in a clear base. They glitter is hard to get even, but I like the way it looks so I keep using it.

In the shade

Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!

Lip Layering Experiments

So, I should be studying for my test right now. But I'm writing this blog post instead. I'll just compromise and make it a QUICK blog post.  The worst thing for me about being busy all the time (besides not getting to sleep as much as I want) is that I don't have time to play video games anymore. I can't just play a game for an hour; it isn't satisfying for me. I have to set aside huge blocks of time to play games. And I don't HAVE huge blocks of time. Luckily summer is a bit slow on good game releases so I'm not missing much. But fall and winter are going to be crazy and I don't know how I'll be able to keep up with all the games. Here are some of the games I'm looking forward to- Gears of War 3, Dead Island, Elder Scroll IV: Skyrim (!!!!), Saint's Row: The Third, Mass Effect III, and probably more that I can't think of right now. I STILL need to finish Red Dead Redemption, and I want to play the Mass Effect games again before part 3 comes out in March. Oh, and I still play WoW (World of Warcraft) about once a week, mostly to PvP (arenas) with my boyfriend. I've been playing WoW off and on for over 6 years, so I am more than just a bit bored with it.  What games do you guys play? And no, Farmville doesn't count! Just kidding, I used to play Farmville, too. :)

Anywaaaaay, on to the good stuff. Here are just a few random lip layering thingamajigs I had laying around in my "to post" folder.

This is Wet n Wild's 525D lipstick under Wet n Wild This Too Shall Glass lipgloss.

This is a mix of Wet n Wild 520E and 511B lipsticks with Hard Candy Gorgeous lipgloss over it.

This is NYX Pumpkin Pie lipstick and NYX girls Peach gloss.


Thank you for reding and have a great day/night/whatever!

Hard Candy Baked Blush in Living Doll Swatches and Review

I had been wanting this blush forever but my Walmart never seemed to have it in stock.  Which isn't a huge surprise- Walmart's beauty section is *this* close from declared a federal disaster zone.  But when I was visiting my parents a month and half ago I beheld the rarest sight known to man (okay, this may be pushing the hyperbole a bit too far...)- a fully stocked and clean beauty section at their local Walmart.  I didn't even pay attention to the rest of the Hard Candy display, I just bought this baby lightning fast. Now I'm kinda wishing I bought some more...

Thankfully this blush lived up to it's hype for me.  The texture is soft, non-powdery, and pigmented.  It's a shimmery blush but comes off looking like a sheen on my cheeks and not huge chunks of pore-enlarging sparkle.  It's fairly light, so it probably better for lighter skin tones although my darker skinned gals could probably use it as a highlighter.  But what do I know?  My friend and fellow blogger Vijaya of Fierce Nerditude pulls off light blushes like no one else can.

I thought this was kind of weird- it says "Use wet for intense, dramatic color." I don't think I've ever heard of anyone using a power blush wet before.  Have you or do you know anyone who has done this?

Sorry this is only half of my face.  The other side looked weird, haha.  And I also apologize for applying it so heavily.  I think I must have been a drag queen in a past life because I a tend to be very heavy handed with makeup. As much as I want to think so, more is not always better.


Available:

• I'm not even sure if this blush is sold at Walmart anymore.  Or maybe only in certain store.  I do still see at online at Walmart.com for $7, though.

Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!

I'm Too Foxy For My Blush- Hard Candy Fox in A Box Blush swatches and review

Okay, I know the song says sexy and not foxy, but I couldn't resist referencing one of the best songs of all time- Right Said Fred's "I'm Too Sexy".  For some reason I really liked this song as a child even though I doubt I knew what sexy meant.  My mom would have never allowed me to listen to this song so I remember going over to my older neighbor's house to "play" when I would really be listening to songs like this and "Barbie Girl" while she practiced her makeup skills on me.  Remember "Barbie Girl"?  Like you could forget!

I don't own any of Benefit's boxed blushes (yet!) but when I saw their drugstore dupe, Hard Candy's Fox in a Box blushes, I knew I had to own them.  And usually I could care less about names, but "Fox in a Box" is so cute!   Despite not owning any of Benefit's blushes I have swatched them and tried them on my face so I do know that Hard Candy's version pales a bit in comparison.  But still, for $22 less, were you expecting any different?  The texure isn't as soft and smooth, but these are dang good blushes for 6 bucks.  And as far as pigmentation goes, one of the blushes was TOO pigmented for my uber pale skin.  I'm going to have to use a really light hand with it.

There are two types of Fox in a Box- bronzing duos and blushing quads.  I got one of each.

The colors I bought are:

• Truth or Dare- a bronzing duo with a shimmery pale pink and a light golden bronze
• Hot Flash- a blush quad with a shimmery peach, a matte nude, a shimmery watermelon pink, and a matte strawberry red (Ha! I just realized I used fruits to describe 75% of the shades!)

All swatches are done with my finger on bare skin.

Left: Truth or Dare      Right: Hot Flash

The boxes close pretty securely with magnets. (Magnets, how do they work? ;-) Props if ya get it)

Truth or Dare

Far left is the bronze half, then it is the pink half.  The third swatch is the two mixed together.  I really like this blush.  It actually functions as a bronzer for me.  This is the first bronzer I have ever been able to use that just gave me a subtle glow and didn't make my skin orange or dirty looking.  My only quibble is that the bronze side is a bit more pigmented than the pink side.

Hot Flash

The swatch order is the top two squares from the left followed by the bottom two.  The fifth swatch is all the colors blended together while at the end is the blush blended out a bit.

The bright pink.red color almost makes this blush too pigmented and dark for me.  When I use it I'm just going to try and avoid that shade with my blush as much as possible.

Pros:

• Inexpensive
• Unique (for the drugstore)
• Several color options
• Offers a good bronzer for pale skin
• Hot Flash is very pigmented
• Colors blend together well

Cons:

• Only available at Walmart
• The included brush is worthless
• The pigmentation varies even within one box

Available:

• $6.00 on Walmart's website and in stores

 Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!