Influenster Spring Fever Vox Box! and imPRESS nails

This is my second Vox Box form Influenster. Its a neat program that sends out samples of full size products for bloggers to try out and share with the internet world.

 Sorry for the crappy photo, my camera's size setting was set at a smaller scale than I thought. I wasn't able to crop the crap

In the box was:

1. Secret Outlast Clear Gel Antiperspirant/Deodorant - supposed to be good for 48 hours!
2. NYC New York Color Applelicious Blossy Lip Balm - delivers color, shine and moisture 
3. Tastykake Kandy Bad Kakes - mine was made with Reese's peanut butter, but there is also Smores and Peppermint flavors
4.  OSiS Dust It - mattifying powder that adds root lift, texture and control
5. Broadway Nails imPRESS Press-On Manicure - press on nails that supposedly lasts up to a week

What did I think?
I will be reviewing the imPRESS press on nails. So being a nail gal, I was sort of excited by these. There are cute (a water marble look), they are easy and fast. My nails have been growing out some. They are at the point where I am pretty proud of them. But I had an unfortunate incident and tore the nail on my middle finger. Perfect time to try press on nails, right? Sure.

 So these weren't too bad to put on. I had some issues finding ones htat fit really well. My pointer fingers have pretty flat nail beds, so I had issues finding a nail that would fit it. Also, I guess my middle finger nail is either wide, or has a really short nail bed. That one felt SO long.

You can see the edges of my nails under the pointer finger, but the white-ish edge of the middle finger is just fuzz that caught on the excess glue. The one was far longer than the edge of my finger, unlike the others. My current nails are about end of my fingertips which are good for typing and not scratching people accidentally. Actually my smaller nails, like my pinky, my nail almost showed at the end of the press on.

And worse. When I took them off they started tearing at my nails. Like pulling up a layer at the end and peeling it off. :(  I have two nails I claim as casualties to the press-on glue pulling up the ends. To be fair, they stuck on like CRAZY. If i was willing to wear them for a week or so until they came off on their own, they might have come off easier.

So easy and fast, yes. Thick acrylic tips, yes. Wear them again. Never.

If your nails are longer than mine, or you don't often have issues with peeling tearing nails, you can check out the fun colors and prints here. http://impressmanicure.com/

Maybelline Sandstrom and Hard Candy Black Tie Optional

Its summer! My laptop is fixed!

The kids and I have no been adjusting so well to a rainy beginning of summer (read TICKS!!! ewwww, and lots of messes, and no time for school), so I have had a little drugstore retail therapy this week. I got a few Maybelline limited edition polishes and knocked off a lemming with Hard Candy Black Tie Optional.

Maybelline Sandstorm is a light tan/beige cream. The first coat was pretty streaky, but the second coat left me with a perfect background for glitter. What? you don't look at neutral shades as great backgrounds for glitter? You poor dears.

Enter my lemming. To be fair my lemming was a black and white glitter top coat. I have decided I am not that into indie polishes in general. The ones I have I really like, but I just like walking into a store and walking out with polish. Its more exciting. I missed the China Glaze black and white glitter a few months ago, and HC Black Tie Optional has been sold out at most of the stores I have been to until Thursday afternoon. In a stressful store trip to buy paper towels for mess cleaning and Oreos for 'positive behavior reinforcement' I went down the nail polish aisle. And it was there. Actually they had more than one of every color in the display. But, I only walked away with black tie optional. *pat on the back*

It went on like a dream. I only needed one coat for this coverage. My other hand I applied the top coat a little thicker and I didn't like it as much.

I love this manicure! Its fun and still classy. I will totally wear this again. It chipped on the second day, but I was helping someone move in, so that manicure got a workout. (And hey no nails chipped so wohoo!)

Maybelline limited edition polishes run for $3 at Walmart.  The Hard Candy polishes were all $4. I buy all my polishes myself. With cash too, like a responsible budget following person. Or like someone not leaving a paper trail. You decide.

OPI Up Front and Personal

I have been wearing this for 4 days now waiting for sunlight to take photos. I give up. Its been dreary, cloudy, rainy, and filled with Tornado warnings. Spring is finally here in Kansas!

OPI Up Front and Personal is a sheer gold with bits that reflect red and gold in the sun. Its from the Spring 2010 Brights collection.

This is 2 coats. I knew it was going to sheer, so I decided to embrace it. A lot of people hate seeing visible nail lines. If that is you STAY AWAY. This really is a sheer color. For me, I think sheer colors look really clean and tidy.

But, this gold is a really flattering color. Its not very yellow, and the red and green sparkles will keep you staring at your hands when you stop at red lights or sit near a window.

This is an older collection, but I think the color is still pretty popular. Its easily found on Amazon in the $5-6 range.  I bought mine from a discount beauty supply store online.

OPI You Calling Me a Lyre?

My laptop fell and cracked the screen. So its in the shop until June.  Awesome. Next week's post is ready to go, and the only desktop we have has Ubuntu as the operating system. If you don't know what that is, well I don't either. It can't run my preferred photo software for cropping photos. So I am on strike. Plus, my husband graduates this Friday with his associate's degree. FINALLY. Its only taken since before our fist child was born over 5 years ago. Ha! And we will have family visiting for a week. If I disappear for a bit, I will be back.


Ready for some nude nails? Oh the scandal!

This is one of my favorite types of nail polish. Its great as a go with anything polish. Its also ideal type for musicians, sign language interpreters, and others that can't wear color. Or even if you like color, its nice to change it up!

OPI 'You Calling Me a Lyre?' is from the NYC Ballet Soft Shades collection in Spring 2012. They are all sheer or semi sheer soft colors. They actually are described as sorbet colors. Sorbet means they are super glossy and somewhat sheer. This is a new term for me. I guess Jelly is like what you get with Jello, and sorbet is more like turkey gravy (at least the way I grew up making it without flour added, just some starch to thicken the broth/drippings). 

This one is a light peach tinted pink. This color reminds of the color of pointe shoes and I want to go watch some movie or TV show about ballet students now.

I know some people have claimed this color/collection is streaky. I did not experience that with this color. I know a few of the colors I did add a drop or two of polish thinner to combat streaks. It might help that I am applying it in the winter and its cold and dry.

Bootie Babe Pink Slink

Last week's post was draining, so you know what that means, pink polish. Also, I have started doing nail polish swaps. Its the awesome of nail mail and the freeing joy of getting rid of polishes I will never wear.

Bootie Babe (the brand) was created by a man. No surprise here. Have you see the butt on the bottle? Its like sexual harassment being marketed to women. *sigh* I did not photo the butt. It felt almost lewd. This bottle shot was just in my hand while checking lighting.Outdoors was too bright, and I ran out of batteries before I took another shot.

I got Pink Slink in a mystery box blog sale. Its a spring pink creme. Coverage evened out in 2 coats for the most part, but it was streaky. Its a nice spring color on me, but I would not really recommend it. See below.

Now this is an older polish (made in 2011), so if you buy new ones from the company, ignore the next rant. They fixed it, but since I am reviewing the one I have here it goes. The handle is a BEAST. Its short and wide. Even my 5 year old had issues. And the brush is teeny. I think the brush are the main causes for streaky hot mess. Ugh.

As an aside, when I was looking up info on the company I found out when this polish was sold they retailed for $6 and could be found on sale for $4. Now they run $12 for the bottle and clearance at $8. I guess that longer handle led to a 100% increase in costs. :-P So yeah. Love the color, not a fan of formula and less a fan of the brush/bottle. I would probably go pick up a drug store light pink cream for less than $6 and be happy with it.

Here is the tiny bottle compared to a Sinful Colors bottle. The SC is about half used and there is still more polish than in the BB.

If you want to buy this brand to give out as gag gifts or to your favorite chauvinist pig, you can google the company name and find them. They do not have a regular line, so if you like a color you see, buy it.

P.S. I only reviewed this because I decided to review everything I wear if I have a camera handy. But now I want to go pink cream polish hunting.

Life with a child with autism

April is autism awareness month. I will tell you what it is like having a child with autism.

Every morning we wake up and eat the same thing for breakfast. Even if he is sick or not hungry, the food has to be put onto the table with chairs up to it and all proper looking. Unwanted food is dumped on the floor, thrown across the room, left in another room, or when he is being nice abandoned. Abandoned food does not mean he is finished eating though. Food removed when abandoned, but he was hungry will lead to tantrums, attacks, and food getting dumped.

His days are spent emptying kitchen cupboards, emptying bookshelves, emptying bags of chips or flour or any food that is left out to be danced in and on. My days are spent eternally cleaning. I clean up the broken glass of the nice teapot then go clean up the dirt that came from the house plant that is no longer with us. I re-fold laundry, re-wash everything.

When he is sick I get a break. He will only want to lay around, snuggle, and watch movies. At those times, the only messes are bodily fluids. Then his sister gets sick. By the time I get sick he is better. So the house is trashed worse than usual.

Having a child with autism is a great form of birth control. I don't know if I can imagine having an infant around my child. I can't imagine the infant staying safe around him. He does not do well with most baby pets. He has the curiosity of a 15 month old that is newly walking, but the physical reach and power to move chairs and climb cabinets.

Many of my friends have large families (5+ children). Most of them do not have special needs children. The ones that do have special needs have some physical medical conditions. They might require expensive medical surgeries, but there is no question that the child will be able to be a normal part of society. They will someday move out. They will be able to hold down a job. They won't be looked at and pitied.

The larger families I know with children with special needs have less severe disabilities. When their child no longer qualifies for government paid services and they get angry because their child has progressed so much in the last 6-8 months when they had service. No longer giving this to their child is not 'fair.' But what is fair?

I just wish my child would call me mom. I wish he would call anyone mom. I wish requests from him were in sign language, picture cards or on an electronic device. Instead my requests are getting a cup shoved into my face (that means he wants a drink). If I am ignoring him and working on school, requests will be in the form of him grabbing my head and butting my face with his forehead. That sounds cute, but its painful. I end up with black eyes, scratches, bruises, and more from him. I usually end up taking tylenol or ibuprofen at least once a week for a headache that was from trauma. I have scars on my arms from where he pinches when he is upset or in pain.

We purchase extended warranties for everything we buy. We usually have to use them as well. Most people purchase a $500 laptop and expect it to last a few years until they want to upgrade. We expect it to be broken at least 4 times a year. Keys will be ripped off, water/milk/whatever will be spit onto it. Our laptop before this one we sent in for repairs probably 6 times in the first year. Most of the things breaking were not the manufacturer's faulty device. It was accidental damage.

We get kicked out of the movie theater at the matinee showing on a weekday because he has thrown a shoe and we cannot find it. We can't go to sit down restaurants because it takes too long for food to show up. And its noisy. The lighting is different. The food is different. He will soon outgrow the high chairs that we use the 2-3 times a year we try to go to a restaurant when we visit family of they are in town.

There is more, but that is just a small idea of what things are like in my house. Its exhausting. Painting my nails is a way I take care of me. It is a way I can still be feminine unlike the scratches, bumps, and bruises. It forces me to sit down and do nothing for 10-20 minutes while my nails dry. It is rather inexpensive, and the supplies don't take up much space. It is a good fit for me and my life.

Zoya GeiGei compared to Sinful Colors Glass Pink

It has been spring for a month now and I am still sending my children to school in coats. Yes full on coats. I even put the mittens back on them too. Its cold here. Not like January, but hello is April. I remember as a child that the last week or so of April was always the worst at school. The official date the AC would turn on was May 1st. Well guess what, they won't be needing the AC any time soon.

Light. Shiny. Perfect spring color. Or the pink to brighten the winter blues. Its the color of the palest flowers welcoming warmer weather. I love pinks! (Sorry the bottle shots are out of focus, I will try again before this actually posts to get clearer photos. Its been cloudy and gloomy lately.)

Imagine my surprise when I pulled out Gie Gie from the last Zoya sale (that I participated in) in January. If you hang out at the $2 polish racks at drugstores, you might think this color looks familiar. It IS! Its very close to the color Glass Pink by Sinful colors. Glass pink is a bit lighter, and GeiGei is more color intense. But formula wise, Glass Pink was blown out of the water.

 One coat looks pretty similar. Sheer. Pink with a silvery shimmer. Left to right: Zoya, Sinful Colors, Zoya, Sinful colors.

Second coat is where the truth comes out. GieGie actually looks pink. Glass Pink is still sheer.

Now for the review:

Sinful Colors Glass Pink.
Pros: Easy to find. Cheap! This costs $2 retail, but Walgreens often has sales so you can find this for $1.
Cons: Sheer. If you like this, buy it. I was disappointed by the sheerness of the color is why I haven't been wearing it. By the time I get to 4 coats and opacity, I bump my nails. Then I have to start again. Nightmare. But for days I feel like a sheer sparkly pink, this is great.

Zoya Gie Gie.
Pros: Easy to use formula. Opaque in 2 coats.
Cons: Cost. This is $8 retail and though its starting to show up in more places to purchase retail, its still harder to find in stores on a whim. That means you need to plan your purchase, and if you are cheap like me find a sale.

This is so not related, but I LOVE the name of this polish. The name reminds me of the (male) cat from Kiki's Delivery Service. If you haven't seen this Hayao Miyazaki film, rent it or borrow it from your library. Its super fun. Its about a girl named Kiki. She is a witch and she has to venture out on her own at 13 for a year as part of her witches training. Gigi her talking black cat comes along and participates in her adventures.

Zoya Emme

Finals week part 2: More Pink! Ok technically this is posting in the week between classes, but I wrote this at the end of finals week. Scheduled posts are awesome!

This week I made my first bulk nail polish purchase since August from Tonynail.com. Its almost all discount 'clearance' brands and colors that no one will probably recognize. I am pretty excited though. I think I have worn everything IN my nail polish bin. "New Toys!" said just like in Toy Story 3. I got a few of the bigger brand names (OPI and China Glaze) as well as some top and base coats, so I am excited for this package!

Zoya Emme is a pearly pink from the Ooh-La-La collection Summer 2009.

This polsih sucked. Yeah I said it. The color is pretty. I don't even necessarily mind brush strokes since I am a fan of metallic and frost finishes. But bubbles on the nail and problems drying are a different matter. I waited 30 min and it was still soft. It didn't even feel like it was going on that thick. Thicker than many of my Zoyas, but no thicker than other colors. So I left my fingerprint. I checked all the other fingers an hour after I took photos. They all got fingerprints. Awesome right? Not so much.

Most of the finger prints leveled as it finally dried, but who has time to wait an hour for polish to dry? Maybe some people do, but I do not.

If you are a sucker for pearl pinks, add thinner and pray it works.
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This is where I was planning on ending the post. But, while writing up this post, I decided to try it out myself. I added Beauty Secrets Nail Polish Thinner from Sally's. Usually I add about 4 drops. This time I gave it a good squeeze. Not a ton, but probably 2-3 times my typical 'dose.' It worked. Awesome right? Sure its great that it dries easier. Its great that it was far less streaky when I applied it. Its great that there were no more bubbles. Unfortunately, I had to add thinner to make the polish usable. And this was literally my first time opening the bottle. So, buy this color with caution, or at least a bottle of thinner on hand.

P.S. Keep an eye out on Zoya's facebook page. They have traditionally had an Earth day promo involving discounted polishes and a special so you can send in your bad for the environment polish for them to recycle. Earth day is April 22nd.

Zoya Jules with Zoya Blaze

ALIIIIIVEEE!

Its finals week! Plus, I get a week off between finals for Winter term and the Spring term. So I am blogging. Hurrah! I am going to try and spend my 15 hours not studying to line up a few weekly blog posts by at least doing photos. I hope to get enough posts in the next two weeks to publish once a week until the end of Spring term (in July). That is the goal at least. I will reevaluate time when my husband graduates from the local community college in May.

Today's nails are two toned. Zoya Jules is a grayed champagne metallic. It was from the Spring 2011 Intimate collection. Zoya Blaze was part of the holiday 2012 Ornate collection. It is a mulberry red with micro holo glitter. Sorry I didn't get a good photo of the holo.

I have been busy in the garden. Its finally warm enough for the green weeds to show up. I took photos outside because I could. Look at that green!

Jules was like most metallics from Zoya. Sort of runny. So watch out for cuticle flooding. I ended up with 3 coats. The lighting and contrast with the red make this look more like it might be a manicure hand color for me. It is not. It looks like it would match some pearl finish beige pumps I had almost 20 years ago. So I guess that is why people call it 'vintage' or 'old lady.' Not the most flattering neutral for me, but it is a nice finish that goes well with lighter spring neutral wardrobe options.

Blaze was a different type of formula. It left no brush marks and the finish was more like a jelly. Shiny! I did two coats and I could see a bit of visible nail line. in the right light.

Overall Imrepssions:
Love them both! But, I think I won't wear them together again. The gold shimmer in the Jules seemed to compete with the silvery holo glitter in Blaze and distracted from both at least in certain lights. In the bottle, Jules was far more gray looking than on the nail. Now if I was staying indoors the whole time, it works pretty well together. But bright light and outdoor light pulls out the gold.

Zoya Daul and Faye

Sorry for no post earlier this week. Turns out my 3 year old has asthma. And I started going back to school this week. Its been an eventful couple of days.

The Zoya promo is in full swing, so go get yours!

Here are the colors that look like they could almost be dupes on paper.

First up is Faye. Faye is from the Summer 2011. Its a mauve purple with lots of gold microglitter. This isn't like standard glitter, its glitter look without the glitter clean up. LOVE!

This is somewhat sheer, so either layer it up or just appreciate it on its own. Its not as sheer looking in person as in macro photos.

Zoya Daul is from fall 2012 Diva Collection. Its a deep purple with gold micro glitter. I apologize for this photo, but somehow all the other ones I had of this color on its own were terrible. So, mediocrity wins.

Again, this is a a more sheer color. Much more purple than Faye. Because of the purple, the gold glitter is less yellow in appearance.

And comparison pics.

 Daul, Faye, Daul, Faye

And, slightly out of focus; Faye, Daul, Faye. So you can see how the shimmer looks in the light.

So go check out the Zoya Promo. Three free polishes $10 ship or free ship with $25 purchase.
You can make an account using the link here. https://www.artofbeauty.com/rd/0168AE43

Zoya Danni and Zoya Adina

Its purple day! Today's purple polishes are both spring colors from Zoya, in years past. Its been a swatching marathon today and I even redid a few shots for this post.

 Sorry for the crappy bottle shots! I promise the fingers are prettier. Danni on left, Adina on right.

Danni is from Zoya's Spring 2011 collection. Its a lovely bright purple with a pink shimmer. They describe it as an enchanted orchid metallic. All I know is its purple and pretty.

 I am guessing this is because I bought this bottle in a blog sale, but application was TERRIBLE. It was thick sort of goopy. I have only run across that once with Zoya polishes and what do you know, it was from the same blog sale. Needless to say, I was pretty fed up with it. But, it was a one coat wonder...sort of. I will thin this down if I wear it again. I am not a huge fan of purples, so that may or may not happen any time soon.

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Next up is Zoya Adina. Also from a spring collection, 2010 this time, titled Reverie collection. Unlike Danni this one is a duochrome. I like to think of this like a purple opal. I know that makes no sense since opals are whites with color change, but it just does. Its a medium purple (not too different from Danni in intensity) with a color change to a purple/teal color. Some people call it a mermaid color because of the color change.

This polish is also very sheer. It took 2 thick coats to get full coverage on my short nails. If you are familiar with Zoya I would say the formula is about standard. Not super thin, but thinner than a lot of other brands that are only 3 free instead of the 4 free or 5 free polishes.


And now the finale. I painted every other nail with each color AND took photos outside. I got some really bright lighting thanks to all the snow that will never melt so enjoy these in true technicolor.

Turns out I really like them together so I think I will be sporting an ombre style 2 color skittles Manicure until I paint my nails again.

Like these colors? Love them? Starting Monday 1/7 there will be a special coupon for 3 free bottles of Zoya polish ($10 S&H, free S&H with $25 purchase). I will be blogging next week with more colors. I still have some yummy microglitters and pink posts in the works. If you don't have a Zoya account yet, sign up for one here. You can start shopping and adding colors to your cart now and wait until you know exactly what you want before you actually buy.

Disclaimer, I bought these both myself. All opinions are my own.

Three FREE bottles of Zoya nail polish!

You can get 3 bottles of their nail polish (excluding the Spring 2013 colors) for FREE starting Jan 7th until Jan 13th.

You do have to pay shipping/processing charge of $10 for this.

If you don't want to pay shipping, you only need to buy $25 or more in other Zoya and Qtica products.That would be 4 colors and 2 color spoons, or some other combination. That example would get you to the bare minimum though

Don't have a Zoya account yet? Go make one here: https://www.artofbeauty.com/rd/01663B3B Then you can start adding the colors you want to your cart for Monday. I already have Zoya Jules in my cart. I just need to find my other two freebies!

Want to read the press release? Go here.


P.S. Expect a bunch of Zoya swatches over the next week. Anything I haven't swatched yet will be up!

Different Dimensions "On Wednesday's We Wear Pink"

Happy Wednesday!  And its a Happy New year too! I have the perfect polish for y'all today. Its called "On Wednesday's we wear Pink" and as a HUGE fan of Mean Girls the movie, I had to try it. Plus its pink and I just love pink polishes!

I just wish they had "Wanna do something really fun? Wanna go to Taco Bell?" Because, that is totally my favorite line. I don't even know what color it would be, but I would probably try to sell something to get funds to buy it. Just for the name. Anyway, I digress.

On Wednesday's We Wear Pink is a pink milky based glitter. The glitter is lots of sizes and shades of pink with a little bit of green to blue holo glitter. I absolutely love it in the bottle.

This is over Monday's mani (China Glaze Sci-Fi). Can you see how that lavender shade of the chrome really pops under the pink milky base? The main sad part if that it dulled the shine of the undercolor. Not a big deal though. I also ended up adding an extra coat of Butter London topcoat after this photo to make it that much more shiny.

That being said, based on the photos in her etsy shop I thought the polish would look WAY different. I am guessing the swatch photo there is literally a jelly sandwich. I did 2 coats of to get this much coverage, but to match the shop photos I would have to tone down some of the glitter with something else.  If you go look at her etsy store you will understand what I mean.

Its not like I disliked this polish, I almost like it MORE the way it is than the swatch photo, I was just surprised why what it was when I got it on the nail.

I did like the formula. It wasn't really thick, but the glitter didn't settle really hard and it dried in a reasonable amount of time. I did roll it a little before using. I also didn't have to fish for glitter or anything.

Disclaimer I bought this myself! I think there was a sale or discount (because that is how I roll) but you can pick this up anytime for $8.50 for a full size bottle in the Different Dimension's etsy store.