I'M BACK :)

Wow!! I cannot believe how long is has been since my last post.  Our move was pretty intense.  We lived with family for about a month and I had no access to my laptop so that left me unable to blog.  I give tons of credit to people who can blog from a phone.  I couldn't do it to save my life! I was also having some major nail issues.  With my nerves shot for most of the time we were in limbo, I began biting my nails again.  They are recovering from my binge now lol.  So I have some really cute festive nail art coming in the next couple of days.  For now I have a guest post.  My very first guest post from my friend Michelle.  Really cute!!! Glitter gets me every time!!  She will be starting a new blog of her own soon (link to follow).  For now here is her first post...

Hi all!  Sirena asked if I would do a guest post on her blog and I was really excited to do it because I like to show off my nails, but like her I have many needy kids and never find time.  I finally decided to just do it!  I hope it's a good post.

I felt being Christmasy today.  What is more Christmasy than red with silver and gold glitter? 

My base coat is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear's Red Carpet, which is a red jelly with fine red glitter.  It's so pretty!  

Lately I've been drooling over indie glitters.  I unfortunately cannot fathom paying $8-$12 for a bottle of polish, so when I saw this company having a Cyber Monday deal of 40% all polishes including mini's, you know I went to town.  I got 9 mini bottles!  So I popped my indie cherry!  The company is Pop Culture Cosmetics and they have some really cute polishes.  I used their Silver and Gold polish, which has large and small gold and silver hex glitter as well as some bar glitter, as the glitter top coat.  You can't really see the different glitters because of the bad lighting, but it is really a cool color combo.

I hope you enjoyed my first nail post!

Best Mascara EVER!

Benefit.com

Hello! I just had to make a post.  It's been too long.  My family and I are in limbo right now.  We have moved out of our home and living with our parent's until we are out of escrow.  Which means all of my nail polishes are boxed up.  My plan was to have them accessible to me while we are in our transition, but because of our limited space I really have no where to set up and paint my nails.  In fact, I have to admit, I bit them all off because I've been so nervous with everything. Yup, yup, I am very ashamed of myself.  I was going strong since April of this year and it all came crashing down with our very stressful move.  And moving with my little guys does not make it any easier, but I love those monsters :)  Anyhow, I really wanted to share this with you.  I have been on the hunt for the perfect mascara for what seems like years now.  And there have been a couple I have really liked but they either dry out to quickly or flake.  Well I have found one that has not let me down so far.  There is no flaking, no dragging my lashes down, it's a very black formula and has a GREAT brush.  It's Benefit's "They're Real!".  I cannot say a bad thing about this mascara other than it is pricey.  My sister bought a kit from Sephora for $23 that came with a full and trial size mascara along with a couple other Benefit items (sorry I can't recall).  So she gave me the trial size and I fell in love!  The pictures above are literally 1 quick curl and 1 coat of the mascara.  Excuse my brow's from growing in :)

This formula kept my curl, darkened the lashes and didn't flake.  I will update with a close up picture of the brush, for now I'm using the Benefit picture.  It has a ball tip and the brush has separated rubber bristles.  I've always been skeptical of  rubber mascara brushes since trying a couple of really bad one's about 6 months ago.  The tip being being surrounded by rubber bristles is extremely helpful.  It helped to remove any clumping that may occur and separates nicely.  I also noticed that my brows were just as curled and dark at the end of the day as they were when I first applied my makeup.  Removal is easy as well, I used some Johnson's baby soap and it was off quickly with no under eye residue.  So I just wanted to share with you all my awesome experience.  Thanks for visiting!!

ULTA %40 OFF SALE

I just HAD to share this with everyone in case you haven't already heard.  Ulta stores and Ulta.com are having a %40 off sale for NYX, Almay, Physicians Formula and Revlon.  The sale runs now until Saturday, September 29th.  I also just saw on the website that today only - Wednesday the 26th, they are offering free shipping PLUS a free gift with a $35 purchase from 10 am to 4 pm.  This is a great deal!!

I have been in LOVE with the Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm! It lasts all day and doesn't have a nasty taste.  There is a really nice variety of colors and it retails anywhere from $7 on sale to $9.  Right now Ulta has them for $5.49!! I wanted to actually share these with everyone because they're so great.  I'm not one to re-apply lip color.  Once I put it on, I mostly just stick with chapstick for the rest of the day.  So it's nice to have a pretty stain that I can just apply chapstick over. Another thing very worth mentioning is that this stain isn't dry like most other stains.  Here is a few I pulled out of my purse.  These are my favorite colors at the moment and what I carry in my bag with me. 

Just one more to share with you.  I got this picture from the Physician's Formula website.  This is the lash boosting eyeliner.  I have NEVER been good at putting on eyeliner until my sister introduced me to this one.  The tip is so fine, it's actually kind of hard to mess up.  I don't really buy into the claims that it fattens up my eyelashes because I've been using it for months now and I don't notice a difference but the eyeliner is so great that I don't even care.  I recently purchased this on sale at CVS 2 weeks ago for $11.49 and it's on sale at Ulta right now for $6.59!!!! Ugh, Oh well!! This really is a must try, especially if your incapable of making even wings or a straight line with your eyeliner like I am :)

 Anyhow just thought I'd share this great sale with you all.  Thanks for stopping by!!

Julep Subscription

Hey everyone :)  I've been MIA lately due to impending move with the sale of our home and a search for a new one.  Cleaning and the early packing stages has wrecked my nails! Seriously, I didn't even want to post these swatches.  My ring finger is screaming, I got a deep paper cut right on the side of my nail by the cuticle and it was killing me as well as my nails are really dry from all the cleaning solutions and cardboard boxes I've been handling lately.  Anyway on to the meat and potatoes!! 

I've been seeing all this Julep hype around and had to try it out.  Julep is a monthly beauty subscription.  Basically you pay $20 a month and you receive a box of polishes and other nail care related items worth $42.  It works along the same lines as the Hautlook or Birchbox subscriptions, where you would take a quiz and would get sent colors or products based on your answers.  The Julep subscription is a bit different in that you can go online and preview your box before it is sent.  If you aren't happy with that months box you can either request another pre-assembled box or opt to skip a month at no charge to you (if you call in time - see link for details).  You can also cancel at any time.  At Sephora and other stores Julep retails for $14 for each polish. 

There are several introductory codes out there for Julep right now.  My particular code was for their sneak peek box - HANDMADEREVIEWS.  I was able to get 3 polishes plus and additional 2 free for $10.  Making each polish just $2.  They also have their 1 cent special - code : PENNY.  And it literally is just 1 penny for 3 nail polishes or 2 polishes and a foot heel cream, depending on the box you choose.  My first box took about 5 days to arrive.  The subscription can also be cancelled at any time before the 27th of the month.  That is when they charge your card for your next box.  

On to the polishes.  Julep has a huge variety of Jellies and cremes.  Beautiful and very opaque! In my selection I received 1 glitter - Chelsea.  And it seemed that in the entire collection there is only a handful of glitters.  I have to say this glitter was not nice to me, I didn't like it at all.  It didn't spread on my nail smoothly or even a tiny bit smooth.  It was extremely chunky as you can see from the pictures I couldn't even get it to cover the top of my nail evenly.  If I had added more, even with a quick dry topcoat the polish would have never dried.  Maybe I got a bad bottle.  It just seemed that the formula was too thick for that type of brush and together it was a bad recipe.  All of the other polishes were wonderful to work and beautiful colors.  They lasted long and covered almost completely opaque with one coat with the exception of the one sheer polish - Emma, that took 3 coats.  Overall I really like Julep.  It's fun getting my monthly box.  Even though I'm paying for it, it feels like I'm getting a present each time my box arrives lol.  Thanks for visiting!!

School Girl Nails

I've been wanting to try doing a plaid pattern on my nail for a while now so when I found my old uniform at my dad's house I took a picture of the skirt.  Free-handing this was harder than I though.  I thought about using tape when I began but that would have doubled the time I already don't have enough of.  I do actually kind of like how the lines aren't too straight.  The only thing that kind of got me was I began with doing a base of green/blue/green/blue lines, but I wound up accidentally washing out the base pattern, so the base appears to be all blue.  I still think it's pretty cool and I'm planning on a cute Christmas colored plaid when that season rolls around.  I used all Sinful Colors polishes with the exception of the black.  Thanks for stopping by!!

NYC Hamptons Radiance Bronzer

I had to take a polish time out to share my other love - makeup! I found this gem at Target the other day for $2.60!!! Target is always having sales on N.Y.C. cosmetics.  This bronzer completely rivals my higher end bronzers.  In fact it gives the same effect as a Chanel highlighting blush - Reflex I bought a few months ago and has the same staying power as well.  This is a truly awesome buy.  Even at $4 which is the non-sale price it is still a great product for the price.  I have nothing negative to say about it.  In fact I've been to 3+ Target's looking for more of these for my sisters and they've been completely sold out for weeks now.  So if you get lucky and run into one of these, PICK IT UP!! You won't be sorry! Thanks for stopping by!!

Labor Day Dots: Youtuber Inspired

SCCastaneda Youtube Beauty Guru

Sinful Colors "Rain Storm"

Sally Hansen "Sun Kissed"

Santee "White"

Here is my labor day weekend manicure.  I was up the other night cleaning and watching my Youtube makeup video subscriptions when I came across SCCastaneda's latest workout clothing video.  I love watching this girl! She Mexican, like me and she's a riot! She actually began the video with her outfit of the day which was a really cute patterned dress.  There is so much nail art inspiration in this dress I just can't take it!! I altered it a little for time's sake, I was starting the manicure at about 11:30 p.m. and super tired.  So instead of the squares in the orange which is toward the bottom of the dress in the picture, I went with orange on blue and polka dots instead of squares.  I like how it came out.  I used 2 pieces of striping tape for each nail and it took really no time at all.  I polished my nails earlier that morning so I was basically just doing the nail art.  Hope you enjoy and thanks for stopping by!!

Faux Water Marbling

I am a huge fan of water marbling only I can't do it myself.  I have tried many, many times and have been unsuccessful each time as well as left with a HUGE mess.  So after perusing the nail art blog world, I found many people utilizing this technique as an easy, clean alternative.  It's basically dabbing 3 or more colors on your nail and using a toothpick to drag through the polish leaving a marbling affect.  You just have to work quickly because as soon as the polish begins to dry it will start to get chunky and difficult to work with.  I like how it turned out for being my first time.  I maybe could have not done so many swirls so it looked more like a water marble but I still really like it.  Thanks for visiting!!

And the Winner Is....

a Rafflecopter giveaway Thank you to everyone who entered and submitted some really great nails!! I'm already assembling a fall giveaway & Seche Vite will be part of it thanks to the poll results and everyone who supplied their input. Again thanks for visiting & Congrats again Gabbby!

Sinful Colors: Study in Style Collection "Pull Over" Swatch

I snapped the photo of the collection display when I stopped at Rite Aid today.  I'm really loving this set! Only thing with this collection is that "Leap Flog", a really rich pretty green is the only new color (I learned this fact from Nouveau Cheap - awesome blog!) . I will be swatching "Leap Flog" shortly .  According to G from Nouveau Cheap and many other bloggers, Sinful Colors notoriously re-releases colors all the time.  Anyhow I just fell in love with yellow so I decided to swatch it first, AND green is my favorite color so that should tell you how gorgeous this yellow is! It reminds me of a Thanksgiving-ish color, a really rich yellow and a bit on the dark side with some almost orangy undertones.  It was almost completely opaque with just one coat.  And it's only $1.99! This color makes me want to rush into Fall - I do not like the heat or Summer.  I like bundling up and getting cozy with my chubby babies.

I've been missing my nail art lately! Recently I haven't had much free time.  I just finished up my son's first birthday party and we've just started the process of getting our home on the market so between open houses and trying to keep the place clean for then next open house, I've had little time for my nail art.  But I have tons of post it notes on  my phone with all my nail art ideas to come.  Also before you go submit a picture of your summer nail look.  Just send a quick email with your favorite summer manicure attached to enter into the Summer Giveaway.  THERE IS JUST 2 DAYS LEFT FOR ENTRIES.  And just wanted to remind everyone that if you want to be considered for the awesome prize you need to enter a photo.  Good luck everyone and thanks for stopping by!!

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Pure Ice Twinkle

I thought I would do a simple swatch today.   I've been working like a mad man planning my son's 1st birthday party so I've had no time whatsoever to do any cute nail art.  I picked up this color at Walmart the other day because it was only $1.67 and it was so pretty.  It's like a perfect summer color with how it reflects gold nicely.  Kind of like looking at a really nice sunset.  I added a picture from the the Pure Ice website so you can see how it looks in the bottle.  The picture does it no justice at all.  It also went on almost opaque with one coat.  Anyway before you go check out my giveaway page.  Just send a quick email with your favorite summer manicure attached to enter into the Summer Giveaway.  There is less than 2 weeks left for entries.  Also just wanted to remind everyone that if you want to be considered for the prize you need to enter a photo.  Good luck everyone and thanks for stopping by!!