Essie Too Too Hot

Hey there, I thought I’d just post a picture of my new Essie polish from my Luxe Box, in Too Too Hot, which is a really nice, bright coral-red colour:

Sorry for the messy cuticles. I wanted to show you what the polish looks like on its own, and I generally don’t clean up until after I’ve done my top coat. Anyway,  it’s very shiny, and nice and opaque after only 2 coats. I’m really happy with it!

Failed attempt: Halloween Gradient Nail

Hey everyone! Today I thought I’d cross off one of my nail designs off my want to try list, and show you guys a step-by-step look at my very first attempt. Unfortunately, I made really bad colour decisions, but this post will still give you an idea of the effects you can achieve with this technique… Why mess up your own nails when you could be learning from my mistakes?

But first, because I like to brag, I want to show off how long my nails have gotten, without any polish covering them up:

I know they aren’t very long compared to a lot of girls, but this is probably the longest my nails have ever been, and I really have to thank OPI Nail Envy, partly, because it really has helped make my nails much much stronger.

So, anyways, the polishes I’m going to use for this look are Rimmel Lyrca Wear 10 +Minerals in Black Satin, Sephora by OPI in Caliente Coral, and The Face Shop in OR202, and the top coat I’m going to use is Clinique All-in-One Base & Top Coat:

I started by covering my nails in a coat of the black, and let it dry:

Next, I painted just the tip in the OPI:

And then, thinly painted about halfway down my nail with the Face Shop:

And finally, added one more thin coat of the Face Shop polish about 75% of the way down my nails, so that there is still uncovered black at the base, let dry, and finished it with a top coat. The final product:

It’s a little messy, but I’m still pretty pleased with the results. I hadn’t seen any videos where someone used black as their base, so I wasn’t entirely sure how well it would work.

Tips:

• If you’re using black as a base like I did, make sure you don’t spend too long in each coat of colour over top. I did this on both my thumbs, and it results in a weird swirling of the black and colour, as the base colour gets wetter and the two mix.
• Be sure to let each coat dry before you move on to the next one. This is especially important for the base colour coat, and also for the first layer of your gradient, but should also be kept in mind for every other coat. One of the main issues with my gradient mani was that it took way too long to dry, and I messed it up because the top seemed dry, but it was still wet lower down.
• I would suggest not using black as a base, or at least not trying to mix orange and black.
• Try to get nice, even line on every coat, so that it doesn’t end up looking messy, like mine.

Do you like the idea of me posting my failed nail art attempts, as well as my successful ones, so you can learn from them, or should I pretend I’m always awesome for the sake of this blog? Let me know what you think!

Impulse Buy: Michael Kors Very Hollywood Roller Ball Duo

The other day my best friend wanted to check out the Michael Kors store in Pacific Centre Mall (which is apparently the largest MK store in BC), because of this red bag she fell in love with online. Turns out they don’t sell it in Canada, but then we started looking at wallets and perfumes. There’s a wallet there that’s about $150 that I am absolutely in love with, and will try to convince myself not to buy, but if I still want it, and it’s still there in December, it might be a Christmas gift to myself…

But, anyways, that isn’t what this post is about. This post is about the perfume/lip gloss duo I bought on impulse, basically just because it was only $22 and smelled really good. Also, the lip gloss side is really nice. It’s neutral, smells great, and isn’t sticky at all. This is like a really good quality version of the roller ball duo I had with Britney Spears Curious perfume in grade 10!

Have you bought anything on impulse lately? Love Michael Kors? Once again, I want to see your comments!

Halloween French Mani

Okay, so it’s only 10 days now until Halloween, and personally, I’m excited! I mean, what’s more awesome than dressing up, eating candy, watching movies with friends, and drinking! Actually, Christmas is better, but that’s beside the point…

Anyways, so I took off all my polish earlier because it was chipping, and accidently started to paint them orange. For most people this wouldn’t be a problem, but I work on Saturday, and I have no intention of taking it off before then. So, in order to make it look more… acceptable… I decided to make it a Halloween manicure, so I can say that it’s festive, and maybe no one will even blink. Besides, I’m only there for hours a week anyways, who cares?

Right, so here they are:

Just a simple French mani, done with tape to get the clean lines. A little messy, but I think it looks pretty good. I’m glad my nails are finally long and strong enough to pull off a French mani. =)

The polishes I used were both from The Face Shop, which was a little Korean make up store in Metrotown (which probably doesn’t mean anything to you if you don’t live in or near the Vancouver/Burnaby area), and the colours are BK901 and OR202.

I wanna see your Halloween manicures, too! Leave a comment if you’ve done something cool lately!

Loose Button Luxe Box Review

Hey everyone! Alright, so I got my Glymm box just Tuesday (if you’re interested, I already did my post on that, but I absolutely loved it!), and then yesterday my Luxe Box arrived! After my fantastic Glymm box, I was really excited to unbox my Luxe Box, but I did remember to take some pictures, so like with my Glymm box post, I’ll give you some pictures of the packaging before I get into the products I received:

Feel free to ignore the fact that I’m in my pink fleecy monkey PJ pants in these photos…

And inside, with the little card

And everything inside! I love the little logo pattern on the inside of the box.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the cool little customized sticker with my name on it before I folded it over so it would stop getting stuck to everything… but on to the products I got!

The first thing I pulled out was the biggest packaging: the Lise Watier Flash Lift Radiance Vial. According to the card in my box, this is a new product that either hasn’t even been released yet, or was just released, so that’s pretty cool. This product is sort of multi-purpose, and is supposed to erase signs of fatigue, smooth wrinkles, boost skin’s radiance, and keep your makeup on “all day long.” Now, that’s a pretty impressive pile of claims there, but I figured I wanted to look good that day, and I’d just got up, so I popped it open and used it (its a one use vial) before I could get a picture of the bottle. I’m not sure it did too much, as I already have pretty nice skin (I’m not trying to brag, but when people continuously tell you you have nice skin, eventually you start to believe them), but my makeup did stay on a long time. Whether that was because it was a good quality eye shadow (the Vasanti from my Glymm box), or because of this product is hard to tell, but that’s life. This product is $27 for 7 of these vials, so this was worth about $4:

To give you an idea of the size. Basically like the picture on the box.

I think the vial is a little big to be just one use… I felt like I had a lot of excess product, but besides that I don’t have much to say about it one way or the other.

My second product was the Keratase Elixir Ultime, which is $50 for a full size bottle (125 ml), which makes this sample worth about $2. I tried this on my day old hair, and it took about double the amount I was expecting it to. Granted, I do have very thick, long, curly/wavy hair, but I have a similar serum that I use sometimes which doesn’t require quite so much product. However, that said, it does do what it claims to, which is to deep condition and boost shine. It is also supposed to help to protect hair from “external aggressors”. Did I mention it smells good? It does:

One product that it seems from YouTube videos that everyone got, but which I wasn’t really too excited about was the Olay Professional Pro-X Eye Restoration Complex, basically an anti-aging eye cream, which costs $60 for a 15 ml full size product. This packaging doesn’t really say how much is in the tube, but it’s a pretty large sample. I gave this to my mom, because I don’t have much use for it, and apparently she had been wanting to try it for a while, but didn’t want to shell out the $60. Compared to another eye cream she had in a 15 ml size, this tube seems to be about 10 ml, which would make the approximate value of this sample $40:

Yes, my bathroom sink is purple. Had to run to the bathroom to find the tube to get a picture, since my mom had already taken it.

I also got a full size Essie nail polish in Too Too Hot, which is normally $8, according to the card, however, when I bought my Essie polish at London Drugs, I think it was actually $10. At first I thought this colour was a sort of red coral colour, but its really more of an orange-y red. I like it a lot, and I’m really happy to have another Essie polish, since I really liked my first one:

Ignore my ugly toes and poor lighting.

And finally, I got a nice big sample of Chloe Eau de Parfume. The 50 ml full size product is $90, which makes this 5 ml sample worth about $9. I really like that this isn’t one of those tiny tubes, and comes instead in a tiny, adorable version of the full size bottle. As for the scent, I’m terrible at describing, so I’ll give you the description from the card: “This fresh, smooth floral fragrance evokes sublime powdery rose. The effect is chic, comfortable, and entirely addictive.” I’ll agree with that last part! I really love the scent of this perfume, and I’m really disappointed that my mom is allergic to roses, so I have to be careful when I decide to wear it:

I’m not sure what’s up with the weird gray bar on the bottom of these last two pictures, but you get the point!

And I suppose I should mention the $25 dollar off coupon for Dealuxe.ca, although I don’t really think it’s that great, because you need to spend at least $75 to use the coupon code, and the site is very expensive, but not with many designer brands that I, personally, have heard of. However, it was part of this month’s box, so I should show it to you:

In all, there were 2 good products, though only one full size, in this box. The total approximate value of the products in my box, excluding the Dealuxe coupon, which doesn’t count, is about $63, except, because the eye cream isn’t useful to me, that leaves only about $23 worth of product. However, the box  was only $12+taxes, so this is definitely a good deal nonetheless.

So yeah, that’s it! I didn’t really compare the two boxes here, because I want to do that in a Glymm vs. Luxe box video, as well as tell you guys a little bit more about how I’m liking the products. I’ll probably record that sometime in the next couple of days, so remember to check back!

Have you tried any of the beauty boxes, or any of these products? Leave me a comment below!

Glymm Box!!

Wow! Alright, so I had watched so many videos and read so many blog posts about Glymm that I was super excited to get my first box, and I probably would even have been content, and only a little disappointed if my first box hadn’t had any full size samples, however, y first box just came today, and well, I’ve got to say I must have picked the best possible month to start my subscription! I opened up my box to find not one, not two, but three full sized samples!
Now, I’m sure that many, if not all of you, have seen tons of pictures of the outside of Glymm boxes, however, I take too many pictures of everything, especially when I’m excited, so here’s a bunch of pictures for you before I get into any more stuff:

The outside packaging (I was sitting at my bus stop… >_>)

The box! (I’m on my bus now… I am not a patient person…)

Inside, with the pretty ribbon and October note.

Ad for their beauty boutique (and underneath, the cards for advertising Glymm to your friends)

And the products!! Everything looks so pretty!

As you know if you read the little captions under my pictures, I was on the bus when I opened my box, so I didn’t really have much of a chance to play with the products, but I did try out the Principessa Lip Balm, which is one of the full size products and would normally cost $11, according to the card. I absolutely loved it immediately! It smells a little like candy, but its not a gloss like I was expecting from the packaging, its more liquidy, and its super soft and smooth. Also, it made my lips really soft once it had absorbed. I might actually repurchase this if I still love it when I’m done the package!

(At my boyfriend’s house here, hence the change in lighting.)

Sorry for the poor picture quality on some of these, my camera was refusing to focus properly >_<

Just to show you what it looks like on. Just a little shiny, no colour.

I was very amused to realise it was from Vancouver!

The second full size product is a Lise Watier Lip Kiss Crayon Gloss in “Rouge Flamenco”. I’ll probably try this out tomorrow, so I’ll probably post a quick picture and review of that tomorrow night. This product would normally be $18 dollars, so a really nice deal, and a pretty nice colour on me, at least as far as I can tell from the little swatch I did. I also really like the idea of a gloss in pencil form… (Plus, it smells fantastic!):

My third full size product was an eye shadow from Vasanti, which I’m pretty excited about because everyone seemed so please with their blushes from one of the last boxes. This sample is in “Tokyo,” and is a really nice neutral pink with gold shimmer. Its really silky, and would normally cost $15 dollars. It’s just too bad that there isn’t a store near me that sells it:

Also, this may be a really tiny detail, but I love that it has a mirror inside.
I have a lot of shadows that don’t.

A little darker on top, and lighter on the bottom, though its harder to tell in the picture; it mostly just looks like a mass of glitter… Its pretty, I swear!

My smaller, but very expensive sample was a little tube of Caudaile Premier Cru Cream, which costs, for a full size of 50 ml costs $150… this sample is 2 mLs, so it’s worth about $6. It doesn’t really have much of a scent, I haven’t tired it out yet (I will be tonight), so I don’t know if I like it, but I will let you know:

And finally, a little jar of JellyBellys… which seems to be a normal thing for them in every box now, from the reviews that I’ve seen. These were black and orange for Halloween, of course, and I think they were orange and… grape? I’ve already eaten all mine with my boyfriend while I was at his house… xP:

So, that’s everything! Like I said, I super impressed with this box, and I can’t wait for my next one! This box, which cost $10 plus taxes gave me about $50 worth of products, and that’s ignoring the Jelly Bellys, but they wouldn’t be that much more. My next box won’t actually be that long from now, since I won the contest on YouTube for the September Glymm Box held by everhip03. You should check her out, she’s one of the few beauty bloggers I follow of YouTube =D.
Oh! And there’s also my Luxe Box to come, which I hope will be here by the end of the week!
Did any of you get a Glymm box? Did you get the same stuff? Were you as impressed as I was? Comment and let me know!
Edit: I couldn’t wait, here’s a picture of the Lise Watier Gloss on my lips. I love it!!

Edit #2: If you’re interested in signing up for Glymm and are also feeling generous and want to give me points for referring you, click here: http://www.glymm.com/share/youwerefantastic95