Dollar Tree Haul

Every so often, I pop into Dollar Tree to see if they have any makeup goodies to be had (though mostly all I find are either ELF products that are already a dollar or no-name brands I'm not interested in). This time, however, I hit the jackpot and I've heard others in different states finding similar items so get thee to your local Dollar Tree!

I go through bronzer at a glacial pace since I'm so fair, but I couldn't resist picking up one when I saw this! Physicians Formula Healthy Wear!

More Physicians Formula, if you can believe it! I wonder if other stores got different stock, but there was only one colorway at mine. This is the Shimmer Strips in Smoky Hazel Eyes #1150. You can still find this packaging at places like drugstore.com from $8.71 - $9.59!

I also found some Milani, but there wasn't a whole lot of variety and some of the items had been tampered with. I managed to find two that were still safely secured, a Shadow Eyez in Royal Purple and a lip liner in Rose Pink (I hope this works well with my Revlon lipstick).

 

In the nail arena, I found two packs of the Sally Hansen Salon Effects in unusually bright cheery spring colors #520 Spring Fever and #560 Tie-Dye For (usually it's neon greens or seasonal collections only- but these will actually be season appropriate soon - before they have dried out - both of the colors are on drugstore.com though on sale from their normal $9, so there's hope they haven't completely dried out!)

And finally, I found 1 lone pack of Essie nail appliques, for $1 of course! This color is still on beauty.com for $10.25!!

Have you seen any awesome Dollar Tree sightings lately?

NOTD: Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Sparkly Rose + Revlon Powder Puff

This Nail of The Day includes Walgreens clearance as you can see from the slightly obnoxious "reduced price" sticker on Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Sparkly Rose. I had a hell of a time trying to photograph this polish. It's so complex with the shifting rose/coral sparkles, though quite beautiful. Since I intended to use it sheer, I layered Revlon Power Puff underneath, perfect since it's a suede and dries quickly. Before you think I'm lying about the Rose, look at the bottle picture below. 

Anyway, as I mentioned actually photographing this was a pain. I took several pictures and none really gave the awesome duochrome flash the polish gives, which is one of the reasons I chose it as just a flash at work is better than full on glitter bomb!

You can kind of see from the pinky that with just a little movement, the pink flash goes away.

Anyway, I think I've bored you enough with my manicure today. I hope everyone in the US has a wonderful Mother's Day!

Feburary and March Empties

Sure Deodorant - Pretty standard.
Zoya Remove+ - As I mentioned in another empties post, Zoya sends free gifts if you reach a certain total with your purchase and they tend to like sending these 2oz sizes. I, for one, am not complaining!
The Body Shop Coconut Beautifying Oil - I've quite enjoyed using this oil from The Body Shop. It smells good, it sinks in quickly and it does have a positive impact on my often dry legs. Would definitely repurchase!

Noodle & Boo Ultimate Cleansing Cloths - These are basically overpriced baby wipes. I needed to reach a certain dollar amount for an order and $9.50 for 75 wipes isn't too shabby. These have an added fragrance which I wasn't a fan of, but I found they did a decent job of removing makeup and somehow they managed to stay very moist even down till the last few wipes. I wouldn't repurchase but they did serve me well for several months.

Rimmel Lash Accelerator mascara - I had heard a lot of great things about this mascara but I didn't care for it. It was too wet, it didn't hold a curl. It didn't seem to make my lashes grow either. Wouldn't repurchase.

Josie Maran Argan Oil - I loved using this for my cuticles. On my face or hair it wasn't that amazing, but on the cuticles it rocked! I think I have another one of these small sizes hanging around, but I'd repurchase!
Embryolisse Lait-Creme Concentre - I know tons of people rave about this moisturizer, but to me, it was only ok. It didn't seem moisturizing enough for me and I think the added fragrance irritated my skin. I much prefer the Oilatum cream. Wouldn't repurchase.

Ophelia's Apothecary Shaving Balm - I had a bad experience with this particular etsy shop, but I loved this shaving cream. I try to shave my legs rarely so it lasted for a long time but I think I'm going to continue seeking shaving balms in lieu of the drying shaving creams that you can buy at the drugstore.

A few samples:
La Fresh Makeup Remover Wipes - Surprisingly effective and nice!
Nuxe Reve De Miel Ultra Comfortable Foot Cream - eh
Macadamia Deep Repair Mask - Made my hair soft and smell good.
Alcohol pads from the Sally Hansen Gel set - Don't buy these, "make" your own!

Well there are my empties that spans two months. What did you finish recently?

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri + Gel Update

I said I would let you guys know how the regular polish plus Sally Hansen gel topcoat (plus some curing) lasted (original post here). Well, I'm happy to report that my nail polish has lasted pretty darn well considering it usually chips within a day (I did this on Sunday morning so this is nearly 6 days of wear). The wear is more obvious on my right (dominant hand) as is expected. Otherwise, it's pretty much tip wear and the chip on my middle right hand finger is actually due to my error of not placing the gel top coat there, not the gel performing poorly. Clearly, the polish would be nearly gone or looking worse for wear without this stuff. And, one of my coworkers thought I had them professionally done!

This is a picture of my left hand. There's some tip wear but otherwise, it's looking pretty good.

This is my right hand. The tip wear is more noticeable and also you can tell I'm horrible at painting this hand as the cuticle area is uneven! Otherwise, still not too bad.

Anyway, I'm going to continue to use the Sally Hansen Insta-Gel on top of regular polish for longer lasting manicures. I'm actually getting tired of this color and might remove and repaint tomorrow or Sunday.

The kit itself is $29.99 and it comes with the light needed to cure the gel as well as the top coat, and a pack of the gel stickers (which I wouldn't recommend). You can buy the top coat separately for $12.95 as well. A note that the gel stickers are priced at $14.95 and come with a full size bottle of the gel top coat if they go on sale or clearance.

NOTD: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Purple Haste + Gel

I recently tried the Sally Hansen Salon Insta-Gel Strips and I didn't get on with them as well as I had hoped. My nails are more rounded so they tended to lift around the edges. Anyway, I thought I would do a little experiment. The kits come with a bottle of the gel top coat and I had read that you could use the gel top coat on top of regular polishes as long as you made sure they had plenty time to dry. So last evening, I painted my nails with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Purple Haste and allowed them to dry overnight (unfortunately, this also led to sheet imprints). However, I then did a top coat of the gel top coat this morning and cured for the allotted time. This particular polish has tons of microglitter glass fleck particles in it which doesn't really translate to the nails all that much. The gel really helps that!

Sally Hansen Purple Haste sans top coat.

non-gelled nail (left) versus gelled nail (right)

 

It is so hard to get this polish to focus properly, but you can kind of see the hidden flecks in the middle finger here. I'm a bit bummed that the dents show through the top coat but I suppose it serves me right for doing the painting so late last night.

I'll keep you guys posted about how the gel impacts the lasting power of the regular polish. Here's hoping it reduces the number of chips I get. I'm pretty hard on my nails which is why I tend to stray from dark or bright colors which make the chips all the more obvious. If I could manage a week of one manicure looking decent that would definitely make me happy!

Sally Hansen Salon Effects Weartime (review follow up)

The true test of longevity for nail polish for me is my Thursday night water Zumba class. Chlorine combined with vigorous arm movements pretty much kills any nail polish for me. The Sally Hansen Salon Effects however, did surprisingly well. This is a photo taken when I got home from my water Zumba class tonight. I applied these babies on Sunday evening. That is pretty awesome. I removed the polish tonight as well which was a pain in the neck but I'd imagine they would have at least lasted through the weekend, though I did experience some chipping on my dominant hand (right - this picture is of the left). I'm impressed and will pick up a few more packs if I find them on clearance or at Five Below again!

Halloween NOTD and Sally Hansen Salon Effects Review

I picked up the Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Spun For You (spiderwebs) for Halloween. I found them at Five Below for $3 and I had been meaning to try them but hadn't quite gotten around to it. First of all, I thought they would be a lot harder to apply than they actually were. I can be a bit shaky handed and combine that with very thin strips that can easily rip didn't seem like a great combination. I was pleasantly surprised, although I did make a few mistakes. However, I managed to do both hands with only one of the packs which means I can keep the other pack for Halloween 2013 (I even had 2 leftover)!

I can't speak much for wear time and this post is pre-scheduled ahead of Sandy since who knows whether or not I will have power on Halloween. Fingers crossed though.

The finished look.
Happy Halloween!

New Drugstore Products

I stopped by a Rite Aid I never go to. The parking lot was nearly empty and the beauty section was huge! Hardly anything was missing from the displays and I got a few shots of some new (to me) products. Now, it goes without saying the fabulous Nouveau Cheap has probably already showcased all of these products on her wonderful blog, but I was so excited to see new products, that I snapped some photos. Sorry for any fuzziness, I have the worlds most shakiest hands.

NYC has jumped on the lipstain marker bandwagon! The back row is all lipstain markers, "16 hour kissable color" and in the front are lipglosses. Quite a nice color range. I didn't pick them up to try but the markers are $4.99 and the lipglosses in front are $2.99. There's a little disclaimer at the bottom saying that the 16 hour claim is only for the lipstain markers. I thought that was kind of funny.

Neutrogena Healthy Skin Compact SPF 55, the amount of SPF in this product is kind of mind blowing for a cream foundation (and Neutrogena doesn't let you forget it since they say, "most powerful level of UVA-UVB protection available in a compact". I've never seen something like this at a place like Sephora, let alone the drugstore! Not the greatest shade selection but then again Neutrogena tends to cater towards light to medium skintones. This retails for $13.99. Promises lightweight coverage and a non greasy formula, I guess it's cream to powder then? Contains the same kind of SPF (helioplex) as their liquidy sunscreen I reviewed here.

Physicians Formula has come out out with quite a few new products (new cream liners in metallic shades which Olivia - who by the way is one of my favorite people ever - reviewed here) and a host of other things. The thing that my eye gravitated to was the cutesy Valentine's Day powder, called Happy Booster. Everyone say Awwwwww! Obviously it makes you glow like you are in a love. The price kills that blissful moment as the powder retails for $13.95 but it is so pretty and it has a $3 coupon on it and PF should go on sale before these sell out.

And now we have more and more brands making Minx manicure dupes...

Sally Hansen for $9.79 has an impressive array of colors & patterns, but for nearly $10 you may as well get the ones from Sephora are only $15.

And then Broadway nails has come out with four different faux minx sets except these are only $5.49 and there's a $1 sticker on the display.

Do any of these new things catch your eye? I think I'm definitely going to try the new NYC lipstain markers when NYC goes on sale.

Also at Rite Aid, I saw little signs indicating some cosmetic brands gave you $20 in rebates if you were to spend $100. I'm going to look into this further as Rite Aid had the same deal last year with L'Oreal. It would be super amazing if you could combine brands towards the $100.

NOTD aka Me Attempting Free Hand Nail "Art"

Now, even though I have my Bachelor's in Art, I never claimed to be good at drawing on my nails! Give me a canvas over a slightly shaky hand any day (yes I did just link you to one of my older 'portfolio' sites back when I made web pages for fun). Anyway, here is tonight's Nail of The Day.

Ignore the cuticles, thank you Dazzle Dry for the shine! The gray is a shade I'm testing out for Beauty Debutante and the red is the LE Sally Hansen Fireberry. Quite pretty. Only needed a thickish coat of each for the base and the free hand "french". Next time I should be less lazy and use little guides. All my "french" - ies are different shapes!

NOTD: China Glaze Towel Boy Toy & Layers!

I've decided to take a vow to solemnly swear to try to use more of my untrieds and stop amassing a small army of untried polishes, which would suggest buying less polishes, right? Wrong! It means more layering.

Tonight I bring you a threesome, Mr. Towel Boy Toy and 2 Sally Hansen shades (yes, one is Hidden Treasure).


First I started off with 2 coats of China Glaze Towel Boy Toy. This dries matte but there is a very faint blue shimmer in it. This is not accurately portrayed on my camera, I'm afraid.

Then I did one coat of Sea And Be Seen from Sally Hansen which is a gorgeous slightly sheer blue silver blurple shimmer (it really does look like the sea over the China Glaze). Isn't it a stunner (LE I'm afraid but not selling out as fast as Hidden Treasure so there's hope yet!).

And then...

The angels sang, the waves parted... "laaaa!"

And they sang in great exultation...

Hal-le-lu-jah! Hal-le-lu-jah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Ha lleeeee luuuu jaaaah!

Hidden Treasure

Now that "the precious" is in my hands, last night I played around with it over my current manicure (AA L'Esprit). A note that I am having a super hard time photographing just how gorgeous Hidden Treasure is. Once you catch the flakies in a certain light, they just glow.

Anyway, this was only one coat over the American Apparel. I can't stop staring at my nails!

This picture is super small because my cuticles are disgusting so I recommend not enlarging!

It's kind of hard to see the individual flakies in most of the pictures, but I promise they are there! This is one of those polishes where it is probably dangerous to drive with it on your nails because it is so glowy and pretty!

I Found The Precious*

This entry would be perfect if you listened to this music (usually, I never post videos in my entries).

Unfortunately, I can't really choreograph blog posts. But you get the idea.


* sigh nerdy DH

NOTD: Hard Candy Mr. Wrong

This has been compared to Sally Hansen's Opulent Cloud. In this, there is glitter, but I don't find it over the top, since it's fairly consistent in color to the base. Opulent Cloud has more of a shimmer, so it's a bit more subtle. I really like the brush on the Hard Candy polish. It's fairly thin and short and even though this may mean streaks, it also cuts down on the amount of skin-painting I do. I find the OPI brushes sometimes too big and floppy and my polish looks like a disaster!

Pre-cleanup and with the snazzy ring that comes with the bottle. I've been meaning to do a NOTD but my nails have been rebelling. Each time they grow out, I snag them on a file at work and then trim them all down so they grow evenly. They are finally starting to look like their old selves again and polish is so much easier to apply when they are a bit longer!

Oh, here are comparison pictures between the Hard Candy manicure and the Sally Hansen one. I'm  going to guess that the lighting isn't exactly the same in either photo, but it'll give some of you an idea of the differences in these two shades. It's obvious that Opulent Cloud is lighter and has a touch more silver to it than Mr. Wrong. I like both shades and don't really find them all too similar. Similar color family and same chameleon like quality but not dupes by any means.