Giveaway #50

Well, I never expected this day to happen, but I have reached 50 (actually 51) followers. My last giveaway was when I reached 10 followers so I'm quite thrilled! This giveaway has a bit more luxe items. Everything was purchased by yours truly.
Here are the rules:
1. 1 lucky winner will receive everything in the picture below. To enter, leave a comment with the following information:

- Your name (or alias)
- your blog address if you have one
- your favorite color
- And again, any particular thing you want to see on Jeweled Thumb whether it be a specific item review or what (be creative)!
2. You must be a follower of this blog to enter!
3. I will be shipping worldwide *clutches wallet* so my dear ladies across the pond can most certainly enter as well.
4. If you (re)post this on twitter or your own blog, you will receive an additional entry (please link me if this is the case in a separate comment).
5. This giveaway will take place between January 18th and January 31st at 11:59pm EST. Winners will be picked the following morning.
6. Winners will be picked randomly by random.org
7. You do not need to leave an e-mail address for me to contact you. However, I will be posting the name of the winner (so at least give something descriptive and not anonymous when you post!) on the blog on February 1st. You must contact me at jeweledthumb@gmail.com within 48 hours with your mailing address. If not your win will be forfeited and I will pick a new winner. Since my spam folder ate the last giveaway winner's e-mails, if I don't respond to you within 24 hours, please comment on a recent blog post in addition to your e-mail.

As with the last giveaway, I will not be responding to individual comments so it's a bit easier to track but I read every single one (as always).

• Stila "Ulta"mate set: mini peony convertible color, kitten, golightly, wheat and mystic eyeshadows, illuminating tinted moisturizer in #1, major lash mascara and "ULTA"mate pink lip glaze
• Barielle Perfect Pair Set: protective hand cream & total foot care cream
• Giorgio Armani fluid sheer in #18 
• Giorgio Armani smooth silk eye pencil in #4
• Missha shadow brush (#8)

I had meant for there also to be an empty Stila palette but I think it's in post office limbo. A package of some description arrived stuck in the mailbox and DH left a note saying they should hand deliver it or something but I think our post man ignored the instructions. Grrr. If it arrives before the 1st, it'll be included.

Anyway, good luck everyone!

Current Faves

Kiehls Nurturing Baby Cream for Face and Body: This is in Kiehls Babies line but I find it great for dry sensitive skin in the winter. This is a very rich emollient cream with a very subtle scent especially suited for babies delicate skin. My skin literally drinks this stuff up and unlike some of the lotions and creams I get in the drugstore, I don't need to squeeze out tons of it to get the desired softness - a little will do, which makes the $18.50 price a bit more reasonable. I usually use this on my hands and body but have been known to put a little on my face when it's quite dry at night. The next morning it is super soft. Also the tube is kind of cute, huh? Major ingredients include apricot kernel oil, shea butter, glycerin and honey.

Benefit "That Gal" Primer: I bought this during Sephora's Sale Sale in this set. At $28 at regular price, I feel it is over-priced but in the set it came out to about $9 and that is a bit more reasonable. This comes in a weird sort of packaging but it works and at least so far hasn't broken me out (I've been using it a bit over a week now and quite like it). It kind of reminds me a super thick lipgloss tube, the product twists up and then out in little holes poked in the top. It's a pink cream that smells faintly of strawberries though I wouldn't necessarily call it moisturizing. However, it's not super thick or sticky like a lot of primers on the market and it does a decent job of evening out my skin tone and making a good base for foundation/concealer.

Garden Botanika Eye Shadow in Blossom: I picked this up when ULTA clearanced the GB brand and this shadow had an unfortunate fall recently but that doesn't mean I won't give it the love it deserves. This is a very pale matte pink color and does a great job of brightening my eye area up. I also sometimes use it to set my under eye concealer since it's very close to my skintone. It gives me a "my eyes but better" look and my eyes instantly look fresher with a little bit of this and a coat or 2 of mascara.

Coffee by Cuisinart Coffee Maker: Yes, I know this isn't makeup. But I do love coffee (I put a little lite whipped cream in it for foam).

Sherlock Holmes Makeup

My husband took me to see Sherlock Holmes today. The movie itself was great but what I really noticed was the makeup for Irene Adler played by Rachel McAdams. She really rocked the red lips. Everything from deep coral reds to deep brick reds. I don't usually talk about celebrities here, but I thought I'd share some movie stills of her different looks. Also the clothing was fantastic.

 

 

source for photos: www.aceshowbiz.com

For much better photos, see the official Warner Brothers site, here.

Blog Pretty-fying

Ok, I know a bunch of you have a whole bunch of fancy gadgets on your blogs. How sad is it that I know HTML and can make graphics but I can't figure out how to make my blog pretty? I mean, take my horribly out of date portfolio site for instance (only the painting link works if you are curious about some of my other work). Who wrote the (ridiculously) simple code? Me. Who created all the graphics? Oh yeah, me.

Why can't I make my blog pretty? Someone help me!

NYX Sale

NYX Cosmetics is currently having a dollar sale on their website. No code required. Sale begins today and goes till January 25th, 2010. There is a bit of a bug which doesn't allow you to add certain items to your basket from the sale pages but you should be able to from the regular lists and the price will be $1 in your basket. Looks like they fixed this.

Shipping is also ridiculous, however; depending on what you buy it still turns out to be a good deal. For instance, I bought a few foundations and sponges for my kit and paid about $1.75 per item - their liquid foundation is usually $14 - so I got it for 80% off.

The shipping chart looks something like this:

2 items - $7
25 items - $11
35 items - $27
...
I'm not sure if adding certain items changes the chart, like foundation which tends to be heavier or if you are closer to their shipping center (in CA) it will be less. The calculator seems to be a bit wonky.

Basically, if you only want 1 or 2 things, I wouldn't bother; but if you can come up with a few things or items that are generally over $5, you're going to save a good 50% percent on the listed prices.

*EDIT*

I've gone ahead and e-mailed NYX asking what the shipping prices should be. I imagine their CS is swamped but when I hear back from them, I'll post the details.

Breaking News: MAC Re-Releases Lucky Green!

Just got this e-mail from MAC in my inbox. Lucky Green came out in the Belle Azure collection circa 2005. This is a highly coveted shade. I'm hoping it's the same color and formula!

Breaking News: Japan's Shiseido Agrees to Acquire Bare Escentuals

"Shiseido Co., Japan's largest cosmetics company, is set to acquire the American make-up company Bare Escentuals Inc. for $1.7 billion, marking the largest acquisition in its 83-year history."

Read the rest of the article here.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Rite Aid Delivers

Well, as you might know, Rite Aid is currently holding a Game of Life contest; similarly to the Monopoly ones Subway and McDonalds have held. The deal is - each time you buy anything at Rite Aid you get a game piece and some products net you more game pieces.

Nouveau Cheap - one of my favorite bloggers ever that I reference practically every week has all the deets.

Anyway, you can probably see my comment on her site that the Rite Aid that I went to did not hand me any game pieces. I called customer service and I spoke to the most pleasant lady on the phone. Seriously, she was a joy to speak with. Well, she said she would send me some pieces in the mail to make up for the fact that the store forgot to give me some.

I received a letter with my address HAND WRITTEN (!!!!!) that did not sound like a form letter from this amazing customer service agent.

Ms. S****,

It was a pleasure speaking with you this evening. I apologize that you did not receive your "Game of Life" ticket at your local Rite Aid store. Here are the tickets that I promised you. Good luck in the game and I hope you get something good!

Seriously going to contact Rite Aid to gush about this woman. I mean, you expect this from small little shops and stuff, not from a giant like Rite Aid.

CVS Sale News

I mentioned previously that the CVS semi-annual sale is going on and it appears that some stores still have not put the green or hot pink stickers on the products. But I discovered something at the CVS near where I work. First of all, even though something is not marked doesn't mean it's not 75% off (most have already figured this out). Second, there's a way to figure out whether an item will be on sale without going and checking the price checker for every item. The bar code will be blacked out. At the CVS I went to, not all the items had a sticker, but the ones where someone had scribbled across the barcode rang up on sale. Now granted, you won't know whether the discount will be 50 or 75 percent unless you've been stalking blog reports like I have (did I just admit that?). But it might be a useful tool to figuring out the sales. I don't know if this is common practice at every CVS or just the ones I generally go to but it's worth a shot.

I also found a large stack of $2 off coupons below the Physicians Formula display good for their Organic Wear line which has a quite large amount of products on clearance. I wound up picking up one of the eyeshadow duos for FREE after coupon and a blush for a mere $1.25 after coupon. So look out for those. I think I'm going to go back during my lunch today to stock up on some more if the coupons are still there.

Smelly Polish

This, ladies and gentleman, is my rather sad looking nail. As you noticed in my NOTD pic, my cuticles are in bad shape but that's not why I took this picture. Today was day 4 of my manicure and everything was going rather well, other than the usual culprits (I have a bad habit of flicking my nails so a few showed some tip wear but most were unchipped). But then, I noticed something, my nails smelled... and not the normal, "I'm wearing nailpolish and it doesn't generally smell good" smell; it smelled faintly like old band aids. I don't need to go into further detail, I'm sure you know what I mean.

Now, because I'm prone to infection, I wash my hands almost constantly and always use antibacterial gel in between. I have no idea how this smell manifested itself, but as I was eating lunch, I just couldn't handle it anymore and peeled most of my nail polish off (I know this isn't particularly good for my nails but darn it I was going to eat my lunch without wanting to hurl!). I don't know if it was the YSL which I was using for the first time or the OPI (and likewise on this particular shade but I have definitely used other colors in the past without this problem). All I know was it was an awful smell that I decided to share with you poor unassuming folks.

Any bright ideas as to what happened? For now, I'm going to take the rest of the polish off and let my nails have a breather and plenty of scented antibacterial items (with lotion to compensate for lack of moisture).