FREE ZOYA NAIL POLISHES- ends 1/7/11

I was checking out EmeraldC's blog when I stumbled upon this great little tidbit... until Friday January 7, 2011 ZOYA is giving away your choice of 3 nail polishes for FREE (jjust pay shipping) So you know I had to rush to the site and select my three shades, for a grand total of $6.95... which was the shipping rate.

Hurry and claim your three while you can!

1. Pick your 3 desired shades and add them to the basket

2. Enter code FB2011 at checkout

3. Select your choice of shipping and voila! Three free polishes are on there way to YOU

I'd love to see swatches of  what you picked.

Awww... the joy of free items LOL Enjoy your weekend everyone!

Aromaleigh haul + swatches pt.2

Today is rather bittersweet for me… my final Aromaleigh order came in. I ordered 11 shadows (mostly mattes) from their various collections, and once again, I am kicking myself for not getting multiples of certain colors. The color intensity of every color is pretty damn good, I applied each shadow in the swatch photo WITHOUT a base, and they apply easily and blend well (even the mattes). A few of the shades show up chalky in the photo due to my cleaning the brush in between swatches, but it is not the case when you are working with them. I wouldn’t say they are creamy, but they do apply fairly smooth. I got them during their going out of business sale at about $2.50 a pop (full size), which was pretty amazing. I’m actually wishing that somehow Aromaleigh pulls a “phoenix” and comes back from the ashes (so to speak) because they had some truly amazing and unique shades that I have yet to see anywhere else… they were really killing the mineral eyeshadow game!!!

 I.   II.  

III.  IV. 

As for my favorites so far, I would have to say STARFISH, WISTERIA, UMBER, and ROOM SERVICE are really doing it for me. I wish I’d have grabbed another jar of STARFISH, UMBER and WISTERIA (and a few more colors I passed on) because I have a feeling they will be getting used A LOT, as STARFISH is such a great neutral eye color for anyone and UMBER is just that great deep, flat brown that everyone needs in their collection.

 Swatches in order of appearance on pictures:

 

I. Moss(m), Lagoon (m), Luella

II. Starfish (m), Mela, Room Service

III. Wisteria(m), Umber, Violette(m)

IV. Marsh(m), Severina(l)

Were you able to grab any Aromaleigh before their final curtain call? I’d love to see some of the colors you managed to pick up and hear what you think.

 

And here’s a belated Happy New Year for you!!!

 

P.S- Any resolutions for 2011?

Teena Marie - If I Were A Bell (live)

I still can't phathom the truth in this. I can hear any one of her songs and be transported back to a specific memory of something grand in my life. Prayers go out to Alia Rose in the wake of her mother's passing. There will never be another one as talented, charismatic, poised and gracious as Lady T.... REST IN PEACE.

Aromaleigh haul + swatches pt.1

OH DANG!!! My Aromaleigh vault order came in the mail today & I just about lost my damn mind when I got my hands on these beautiful pigments that I ordered LOL As most of you know by now, Aromaleigh has closed down shop, but before they did.... one helluva sale ensued!!! Now, I'd purchased samples from the company before, and LOVED them, but I'm more of a collector than a user... I'm trying to be better about it. So in all honesty, I've never bought a full sized pigment from ANY company regardless of how much I liked them because I didn't really know what to do with them, but they were selling their full sized pigments for $3.50 and $2.75 A PIECE!!!! WTF! I'd have to be a dummy to not get in there and do a little bit of damage.

Now, this is titled pt.1 for a reason, as I have another order with the company coming within the next few weeks containing pigments from their reg. line/collections... swatches and reviews to come ASAP. In this shipment, I got 8 pigments from the WONDERSTRUCK, SPELLS, & MYTHOS collections... and after receiving my order, I'm pretty pissed that I didn't order more and duplicates.

The colors I picked up were (in order of appearance on the pics):

1st pic:Pass the Tarts, Mimsy, Curious and Curiouser, ...but this is my dream, Curious Dream (all from the WONDERSTRUCK collection)

2nd pic: Selene (from the MYTHOS collection), Orchidious, Rictusempra (both from the SPELLS collection)

I absolutely fell in LOVE, LOVE I tell you, with Selene from the MYTHOS collection. I even rushed and did a quick EOTD using it on the lid & my Sleek Bohemian palette because I was so smitten. And BE KIND, I literally started practicing my eyeshadow/pigment application a few months ago... like I said, I was always more of a buyer/collector than a "user". 

Did any of you get a chance to grab up any Aromaleigh during their farewell sale?

Not Your Mother's Hair Care Review

I was in walmart not too long ago picking up some christmas decorations for the house and ended up in the hair aisle... like I always do... and stumbled upon a new brand of products called NYM (Not Your Mothers). Everything in the line retails for under $5 at Walmart, so it's certainly affordable... but is it actually any good? Hell to the yes... go grab you some lol

I picked up four of the 6 items that my local walmart had (passed on the thickening spray and the tease me hairspray... I don't need any thicker or teased hair LOL). I have not used the KINKY MOVES curl cream yet, so I'll have to review it separately when it stops raining and I can go back to my standard wash 'n wear curls... but here's the rest of the review for ya'll.

All of the items have a GREAT scent to them. I'm usually rather sensitive to scents, and while it's fairly strong, the raspberry smell did not bother me when I was using the products. And it made my hair smell great even after heat styling. I started out by applying the SMOOTH MOVES cream to just washed, damp hair and combing through before spraying my entire head with the BEAT THE HEAT protectant & blowing my hair dry. Neither product left any stickyness or waxy residue on my hair like alot of the blow dry lotions/creams do. I noticed that my hair got pretty darn straight in a shorter amount of time than usual (as my hair holds water something awful)... which was a plus! 

Next, I parted my hair into 4 sections and used my brazilian heat flat iron to straighten my hair, freshly applying more BEAT THE HEAT protectant spray as I went along. Again, NO sticky feeling or white residue on my hair... and for ONCE my hair smelled of raspberries and NOT hot hair (you know what I mean?). I ended up pin curling my hair for the night and  set it with the ALL EYES ON ME hairspray and wrapped it up for the night. When I woke up in the morning, I had beautiful, shiny, bouncy curls that still had a hint of raspberry smell to them LOL. 

I so LOVE this line and the products I've tried and will making them a staple in my haircare routine from now on. I know walmart tends to switch out lines pretty often (or at least my store does), so I will be going back and grabbing multiples before I can't find them anywhere else. I did a search for this line and came up with some ridiculous prices for these products, which were being sold in salons, so your local walmart is the best bargain for these amazing products.

Had you ever heard of the NOT YOUR MOTHERS hair care products before? If you've tried them, what do you think about them?

Buried Treasure: Palladio Herbal Eyeshadow + Sally Girl Blush

Don't you just love it when you find things you forgot you even had? Re-discovery is the best... especially when it comes to makeup lol. Well tonight, while searching through storage boxes for christmas ornaments, I came across a box that had these beautiful little gems inside!

I bought these when my SO and I went to camarillo awhile back and had only swatched two of the shadows. First, they blend soooooooo well, and are so freaking creamy!!!! They're comparable in texture to the MAC matte2... possibly even better. The colors I picked up were Matte Brown, Navy Blue and Black Onyx. After finding and playing with these beauties again, I can surely say I will be heading to my local sally's to pick up a few more shades for my ever-growing collection. I can't recall the exact price, but I'm pretty sure that they were only a few dollars a piece. And the blush by Sally girl is called FLUSHED... and it is such a beautiful coral-pink, one of those good on anyone colors. I also had a Sally Girl eyeshadow quad in GUM DROPS.... but the color payoff wasn't any good IMO so I decided not to even post it (if you want swatches of that palette anyway let me know & I'll post them.

My hidden treasures: Palladio Herbal Shadows

L-R: Matte Brown, Navy Blue, Black Onyx, Flushed

For the quality, amount of product and payoff you get, you can't beat the $$$ of the PALLADIO Herbal Shadows (which are $3 per shadow... I googled it LOL). If you haven't tried them, go out and grab a couple, you deserve a few stocking stuffers of your own LOL And if you have been lucky enough to own any of these babies... were you as in love with them as I am?

My DECEMBER Birchbox

I received my 2nd Birchbox shipment a few days ago and I have to say I really LOVE this one. Excuse the pics, as I didn't get the time to edit them. Included in this month's order was:

1. BLOW- Bow up volumizing spray

2. JOUER- Luminizing Moisture Tint (I LOVE IT!!!!)

3. SERGE LUTENS- L'Eau

4. STILA- Lip Glaze in Kitten

I really like the color of Kitten, but this is the 1st time I've tried Stila's lip glaze... and I am not a fan. It was really thick and sticky, and left my lips pretty dry when I wiped it off... and it left tissue stuck to my mouth, so I had to end up using olive oil to get the sticky off. But, the item that I just flat out fell helplessly in love with is the Luminizing Moisture Tint from Jouer. The color I received was Deep Bronze (which was a shade too dark... but I made it work). This is probably the best tinted moisturizer I have ever used. It actually has pretty good coverage for a moisturizer and made for a GREAT base under my Jane Iredale mineral foundation. I would definitely reccommend this product. The Jouer site offers this product in a full size AND a travel size tube for $38-$20.... which is a bit high, but it is soooooooo worth it.

As for the Serge Lutens perfume, I liked it... can't say I would buy it, but I would love to get it as a gift LOL I mean damn.... $105 for 100ml... we're still in a recession!

Have you guys tried Birchbox yet?