I'm a baaaaad blogger

It looks like March 24th was my last post. It looks like new baby + new job + broken laptop = sucky blogger. Thing is, there is so much stuff I want to write about! Chanel summer and fall! Magnetic polishes! Nail trends! Oh, so much. There's also lots of other things I have grown to love in the past few months. I've begun my journey to becoming healthy. I've also refound my joy of all things crafty. I'm going to try and post, I'm not making promises, though. If you're still here, awesome!

My the odds be ever in your favor

Yep, I'm one of those.

I had no desire to read The Hunger Games. The thought of kids killing kids turned me off. However, my two sister-in-laws kept bugging me to read it. There was one thing that finally pushed me over the edge into "read it" status.

Lenny Kravitz

Yep. I looked on IMDB and saw that Lenny Kravitz was playing Cinna and I was completely on board. Shallow? You betcha. I own it. So I read it. In two days. Now, I'm getting ready to drop the spitfire and little miss off at the babysitter's house (aka my parents) and head off to see the movie. While I do it, I will be wearing this:

I may just wear some Urban Decay El Dorado eyeliner as a homage to Cinna - but probably not.

Ombre Manicure

I am not one for intricate nail art, however, I have been a bit more adventurous with minor nail art. I've delved into the accent nail, and now, I've tried an ombre manicure.

Ombre manicures consist of 5 different shades of the same color group, one on each finger. Honestly, even with my fairly large collection, it's difficult for me to pick out a set of similar colors. This time I just let myself go. I picked shades of black and gray. With the exception of one gilttery polish, I picked cremes.

On my thumb I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White on. It's awful. I don't know why I have it. It's a thick and gloopy, but at the same time streaky white-out type of polish. On my pointer finger I used Zoya Dove. Middle finger is Nails, inc. The Thames. Ring finger is Orly Rock Solid and pinky finger is Orly Liquid Vinyl.

I've had this manicure on for three days now, which is normally my limit for nail-polish boredom, so it's probably going to come off soon. I actually received a lot of comments (many confused) on it, but I actually kinda like it.

Next I have to start looking for a good green polish for St. Paddy's Day even though I don't have a drop of Irish blood in me.

Maybelline Super Stay 10 Stain Gloss

Lip stains are the current wonder product. There are a wide range of lip stains out on the market right now. I have tried the marker-type stains and I don't like them. Yes, I love the color staying on all day, but it actually looks like I grabbed the spitfire's markers and colored my lips.  So, now two companies (one high end, and one drugstore) have come up with a stain/gloss hybrid. YSL has their own for $32, and Maybelline has theirs for $7-8, depending on where you buy it. Yeah - I'm going for the more budget-friendly one.

I will say right off the bat, I have not tried the YSL one, so I don't know how this compares to it. From the Maybelline Website, it says:

Why You'll Love It

The first 10HR Stain Gloss:
• Vibrant and shiny wear; never flat
• Feels fresh all day, never dry.
• Glides on wet and smooth, never drags
• Shine enhancing formula provides a lightweight layer of lasting color

Some of those claims hold up, some don't. First up, the wand. It's kind of cool - it's donut shaped and actually holds a little reservoir of color within it.

It does glide on easily and smoothly, with no drag - that clam is good. The formula, like most stains, is very thin. It's not runny, but it is thin so you will need to go slowly and take care when applying as you can very easily go outside the lip lines. It has a very strong synthetic fruit punch smell, so if you are sensitive to smells, I would be pass on this one. It does dissipate quickly, though and has no taste, but putting it on, especially a product that goes directly under your nose, it's quite strong.

I grabbed two colors:

The coral is not very coral-colored, but a mauvey-pink, and the mauve color is a light burgandy. Yeah, so the naming of the colors is a wee bit off. Cool Coral is listed as color 150 and Mauve Dream is listed as 180. Don't get me wrong, I like the colors, but they're nothing like how they are named. They do go on very shiny, and they stay quite shiny for awhile, but then it begins to dull around the two hour mark. So the claim of vibrant and shiny wear, never dull is half correct. It goes on vibrant and shiny, and stays like that for a little while, but then it begins to go dull.

Cool Coral

Mauve Dream

It never feels dry on the lips, in fact, once it's dried down, it doesn't feel like anything at all. Nothing like traditional long-wearing lipsticks that completely dry out your lips where you have to add lip balm all day, just nothing. In fact, when I'm wearing these I check in the mirror to see if they're still on. And here's where the claims fall a bit short.

All claims of lasting all day, or long wearing - yeah, uh.. no. They do last awhile, but not 10 hours. Lipsticks don't tend to last very long on my, 2-3 hours at the most. I can get about 3 hours before they fade, and after about 4-5 hours there's a bit of a ring around my lips where it's faded away. Better than a gloss? By far. Better than a lipstick? Yep. 10 hours? No way. 

Mauve Dream after 1.5 hours and two cups of coffee.

It hold up well against eating and drinking during the first few hours.

All in all, I like this. I like them quite a bit, actually. I've actually purchased 3 of them, and wear them a bit. Since Little Miss was born, I've not worn much on my lips because I can't keep my lips off her head and end up kissing her very often - this stuff doesn't smudge off on her.

I would very much recommend them.

Decisions, Decisions

My birthday is coming up in less than a week. If you remember, last year I made a big announcement on my blog. No big huge announcement this time, just a decision to make - I need to figure out what is going to be my birthday manicure!

This year, the spitfire is no help, he's more interested in Wii than mommy's nails, although I'll try to get him to pick tomorrow. Here are the contenders:

Pointer - two coats of OPI Princesses Rule with a coat of OPI Teenage Dream on top
Middle - Julep Brooklyn, quite smudged at the cuticle, of course
Ring - Dior Aloha
Pinky - A England St. George

I have a feeling spitfire is going to gravitate to St. George, because it's green, but I'm leaning towards the pink.

Oh, the problems we face!

Glitter Gal 3D holographic polish in Green

Ok, I did it. I hopped on the Glitter Gal bandwagon. A few weeks back I placed an order on Llarowe for a bunch of holos. The first of which I posted about last week. Today's pick is Glitter Gal 3D holo in Green.

The color is a light green with a very lovely linear holo. Oh, how I love the linear holo. It is dangerous while driving in direct sunlight as one tends to stare at their nails - or maybe that's just me.

This polish definitely shows up better while using a flash, otherwise you just don't get the dancing flashes that you would in real life. Here is a picture in indirect sunlight (because the sun was refusing to help me out today).

Still pretty, though!

The polish was good. It was on the thin side, but not so bad that it runs into your cuticles. I did use three coats and there was still a faint nail line. Again, being that it is a holo - it wasn't enough to deter me from loving this. The brush did have a stray bristle, but a snip of my little scissors remedied that right away. The bottles are smaller than I expected. 9ml, so bigger than the tiny Le Metier de Beaute polishes, but smaller than most that you will find, especially for the price. But, from what I understand, holographic polishes cost a bit more to make, which is why recent holos have been on the pricy side.

This particular color is still available at Llarowe, as well as a few other colors in the holo line.

Wanna know how opaque a polish is? Check its balls!

Boy, oh boy, I can't wait to see the Google search that leads people to this posting.

Have you ever brought a bottle of polish home thinking you have this awesome bottle of polish only to find out that the color is so sheer that you need 7 coats just to get the color of the bottle? The opacity of many polishes will clearly be evident. However, if you pick up a bottle and are unsure, just check its balls.

The little steel mixing balls of course! Now, obviously, if your polish doesn't have the mixing balls, well, you're out of luck. However, it if does, hold the bottle up to check 'em out. With opaque polishes you will only see the little dot of the ball. Check out the pictures:

Looking at the two bottles above (China Glaze Mediterranean Charm on top and Zoya Jenine, yes I bought it just for the name, on the bottom), all you see are little dots. This are nice and opaque polishes, see:

Those are both only one coat of polish.

If you hold the bottle up and you can pretty much see the entire ball, you've got a sheer polish on your hands here:

With these two polishes, you can pretty much see the entire ball. Both of these polishes (Butter London Disco Biscuit on top and Revlon Grapefruit Fizz on the bottom), while pretty, are quite sheer.

These are both 3 coats of polish, and you can see how sheer the polishes are.

Now, granted, the opaque polishes I picked are pretty obvious, as are the sheer ones. But I have put down bottles based on the ball trick (one being a Deborah Lippmann, which is a brand that I love, but I wanted the color to be opaque, and it was just too sheer). As a rule, I just don't like sheer polishes, I'm way too anal about a visible nail line to futz with sheer polishes, and I never have luck with underwear polishes, I usually just avoid them. I did willingly buy Disco Biscuit after the ball trick because I just simply loved the color and couldn't resist.

I may be stating the obvious here, a thing that everyone knew and I'm last to the table, but just in case I'm not last - I'll repost it for those that are!

Between balls, anal and underwear, this blog is probably going to be placed on interesting lists. Weeeee....