Friday, March 25, 2011

Why hello there...

Well, here's my sorry butt pulling up a new post on my computer because I feel a tad guilty not writing anything for quite a while. It's spring break! But it's almost over   :-( I've had a fabulous time hanging out with my family though, its nice to relax and be completely spoiled by your parents.

Unfortunately i don't have a polish to show you! I haven't put anything on since I took CH off at the beginning of this week, but soon I will have a haul from ULTA to flaunt, I just need to take the photos. (pst...thanks mom :-) I also haven't done any homework either, which may be bad news bears. I think tomorrow I'll have to pull out the books and force myself to read Immunology. Yay for cytotoxic T-cells! (no really, they can save your life!).

Enough science geekery. Here's a photo of the flowers the BF got me for Valentine's Day:




Aren't they lovely? They lasted forever and brightened up my day like you would not believe. 

One closing question, do people think it's OK to not use turn signals anymore? When did that stop being necessary? The Answer: NEVER. You should always use your turn signals, even if you're just changing lanes!

Sorry for the rant, there are stupid people on the roads sometimes, and they make me grouchy. Maybe I should stop letting other people's actions control my emotions...hmmm. Food for thought. 

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Catherine H

I've done something really, really bad. 
So bad I can't believe I actually did it. 
I spent an UNHOLY amount of money on one nail polish. ONE. Oh my aunt kitten's whiskers.

What is this polish you ask?
The gorgeous and incredible Catherine H from Rescue Beauty Lounge.




I was lemming after this, but didn't plan to buy it since RBL's are sooo expensive. The only other one I have is Concrete Jungle from last year's 50% sale, but unfortunately it's no longer in stock.

So why did I buy this full price? Because it's one of those things that's love at first sight. I was craving Anne, another color from RBL's Tudor Housewives Collection, and when that one sold out, I panicked and absolutely could not miss out on CH. I even had to break the "no buy" rule me and the BF had set down. He and I made a deal that if he was allowed to buy his solid state drive for his computer, then I was allowed to put down an obscene amount of money for this polish.

I know I keep complaining about the price, and I'm making it sound absolutely horrific. RBL's polishes run at $18 a pop, and with $7.50 shipping, that's $25 for one! So yes, it is horrific. But I don't feel too terrible for paying so much because I have so much respect for the company, which has great customer service and holds itself to admirable high standards. I swatched this last night, and here are the photos from today:

in shade

sunlight






The adorable box and wrapping that it came in. 

This is one FABULOUS polish. It went on smoothly, opaque in one coat, but the color is more vibrant with two. I honestly can't stop looking at my hands; it's starting to get pretty distracting. The color isn't loud by any means, but it's so subtle that it's intriguing. It has a Wedgwood blue base, but is filled with blue, pink and purple microglitter that gives it character and depth. I put a top coat of Seche Vite on and it dried to a very weird eggshell-type finish. I've never had Seche do that to me, and I wonder if it had something to do with the formula of the RBL. I'm not complaining though, because it only adds to the unique-ness of the polish.

So was it worth it? For me, definitely. I love so much about this brand. I love the formula, the company behind it, and as silly as it sounds, I love love love the little square bottles it comes in. Classy, unique, and clean cut. Thank you Ji Baek, thank you.

Just so you know however, I will be reinstating the "no-buy" rule I had in place...for a very loonngg time.



Friday, March 18, 2011

Blazed and a Gimp Finger

Hey there.

So today I have a wet n wild polish that I snagged from Walgreens the other day. I went there to specifically look for Milani Rad Purple since I had a huge hankering to buy it, but no such luck. *Super sad face. However, while I was there, I decided to pick something for my friend's birthday tomorrow, and in the process discovered the $0.99 Wet n' Wild polishes and I had a difficult time restraining myself.





Wet n' Wild Blazed. This is a vibrant coral and orange-ish polish, and in the pictures it looks pretty squishy and jelly-like, but I'm not sure if I would classify it as a jelly...but it was definitely bright. I've heard this is similar to what Chanel Orange-Fizz looks like, but there's a true dupe out there, Essence What do u think? which I'm planning on buying, and then we'll see how close these two are to each other.

You may notice that I my index finger is slightly swollen and that there's a bandaid on it. My parents came up to have lunch with me Tuesday afternoon, which was wonderful. We had lunch in this delicious italian place, went grocery shopping, (yay for parent-paid groceries!) and had a really good time together. When it came time for them to leave, and for me to go to my last class of the day, they drove me to campus to drop me off. And....my finger got shut in the car door on accident. It's pretty funny now looking back on it, but it hurt like hell at the time and you can see how swollen my finger is. Not very pretty! But, my finger is WAY better now, just bruised.

I'm loving these wet n' wild polishes though, only $0.99, and they have some pretty fantastic colors. I grabbed some others as well, so I'll have to show you them later. :D

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Sag Harbor

I feel like I need to give ample warning and a sincere apology for the state of my cuticles/nails. I did a crummy job this time around on my manicure, and it looks awful. I didn't realize how bad it was until I looked at the photos on my computer, and my first reaction was "EWW". I'm slathering on cuticle cream as I write this in a vain attempt to moisturize.

So, I apologize for the haggard pictures. When I get stressed, I tend to pick at my cuticles, often until they bleed. Which is horrible. And it hurts! I can't figure out how to stop doing it. Any thoughts or advice?

Anyways, may I present Essie's lovely lady, Sag Harbor.




















This is the prettiest, dusty powder blue that I have ever seen. There is a very light shimmer that's not entirely noticeable until you get into the sun, but unfortunately the sky was funky today and I didn't get any sun in my apartment at all while I was there. I think it gives me a slight case of lobster hands, but I do not care. Not a little bit. My roommate commented that it reminded her of Easter, but it makes me think of the dusty blue that the sky gets when it starts to mist. Lovely.

It's also the exact shade of one of the BF's t-shirts, which I just noticed today. We were chatting and I looked at my hands, then at his shirt, and put my nails up against his arm and said "My nails match your shirt!! Isn't that cool?! Wow!"

He wasn't as excited about this as I was, haha. He was also confused about the name, but Sag Harbor is a place in New York (here), it doesn't have anything to do with sagging....haha.

Friday, March 11, 2011

The Jungle Look

Two posts in one week! I'm on a roll here.

I replaced Sweetheart Pink with another polish from ULTA. The Jungle Look, which can be described as chalkboard green. There isn't a lot of depth to this color and it looked flat whenever I would glance down at my hands. This photograph is from a few days after application and you can see some tip wear and I should have touched up my top coat, which is probably why it looks flat.  However, I really did like it.




































The polish flowed relatively well, and application was a breeze in two easy coats, which is what I've come to find with most of the polishes I've tried. However there is a particular Revlon color that requires 4 coats, and will remain nameless for it's own protection.

Random question, have you ever tried oolong tea? No? Well get yourself to your grocery store or local asian foods market and buy yourself some, and none of that pansy fake oolong. Buy the authentic, real oolong; you won't be disappointed. Seriously, I can't advertise this tea enough. I'm practically living on it right now, which is bad because the (small!!) box costs $5.99 at King Soopers and I'm almost out already. I'm not sure as to the caffeine content since the label is in Chinese, but I'd assume it has some. So if that's something you look out for, I'd take note of that.


P.S. That Revlon I mentioned? I'm being a total jerk about it. It says "Sheer" on the bottle, so I shouldn't be surprised that it took four coats until it was opaque.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Sweetheart Pink

As I may or may not have said in my last post, me and the BF had tickets to the Colorado Ballet's performance of Romeo and Juliet. And may I say, it was absolutely beautiful. The dancers were phenomenal, and Juliet's dancing was perfect. Tybalt was probably my favorite character, just because he was so antagonizing. The BF and I didn't eat before the performance though, which was a huge mistake. The intermissions (there were 2) were ridiculously long, and I found myself focusing less on the ballet and more on my shriveled stomach. I said I bought a cute LBD and pumps for the occasion, and here they are!





















Just disregard the crooked pictures on the back wall, and my ridiculously messy room.

But on to the polish:
I put ULTA's Sweetheart Pink on my tips for the ballet (which in hindsight, wasn't a great idea because I REALLY wanted to put Essie's Sag Harbor on instead.) And here she is.





















Please excuse my ravaged fingers, the weather all of a sudden got crappy these past few days, and my cuticles are suffering.

This is a lovely bubblegum/coral pink. The formula was nice, and I haven't had any major chipping since I put it on Saturday night. I'm not super happy about it though, and would much rather see it on my toenails than my fingers. I think I'm going to take it off tonight and replace it with another ULTA or maybe an Essie (wink wink!) It doesn't look bad on my hands though:


















It actually looks fine, I'm just not a huge fan of pink. What do you think?

So, tomorrow is the start of Lent, and I haven't thought about what to give up at all. I considered giving up nail polish, but this blog would suffer marvelously. Plus, I'm not buying huge amounts of polish anyways, ever since the BF forbade me to buy anymore until I tried out the new ones I already had. But this was a fantastic idea of his, so I'm not sore about it.

So maybe I should give up a habit, or behavior instead, like my impressive procrastination. We'll see. I'll think about it tonight as I'm splurging on Fat Tuesday.

P.S. Is there some sort of addictive substance that those cheeky Girl Scouts add to their cookies? I ate 2/3rds of a box of Carmel Delights (or Samoas) within a day of buying it. Woops.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Can't Wait for Spring

Wow, I haven't posted in a while. Things got crazy over here and I totally forgot to post.
It's a beautiful day out today, and I can't wait for the trees to start blooming and for the grass to get green again. I'm so excited for spring!

As a juxtaposition to the springy warm weather, here's China Glaze's Frostbite!
This is a vibrant, glossy blue, with a blue microshimmer, and I loved it. It was too bright for me to consider it a color I would wear often, but I though it was a fantastic color, and would recommend it to anyone who loves a blue.






Can you believe it's already March? The semester is 8 weeks in, which means we're halfway through, which is a crazy thought. School is eating my life. 

I'm super excited for Saturday, as my boyfriend and I have a date to see the Denver production of the Romeo and Juliet Ballet. We haven't gone to anything super fancy like this together yet, so it's going to be a lot of fun. I have a super cute LBD I found on clearance and the perfect pair of black pumps that I'm planning on wearing, but I can't figure out what to put on my nails! Any ideas?

And on a side note, you see that little button on the side, that says "follow me" ? Click it! I dare you.
Love you guys!