Showing posts with label beauty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beauty. Show all posts

Monday, September 30, 2013

Manicure Monday - Barry M with dot details

Happy Manicure Monday, friends!

I don't actually know, but apparently it's a thing on Instagram? Well, I'm going to be a rebel and not do it on Instagram. And I can because it's my birthday. Also because the wifi at the beach house I'm currently staying at in Portugal is refusing to work on my phone and I actually can't Instagram. I know. It's hard. Like a true addict, I'm going through severe withdrawl symptoms.


These are all the Barry M gel nail polishes that I picked up when I was in England. I'm glad I was able to get my hands on them, but I'm still not completely sold. They're great for the price, but the color selection is quite limited and you really need to thickly coat them to get a smooth finish. You can also fudge this using a top coat, but I can't always carry a top coat around with me when I travel ;)

// What's on your nails this week?


Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Product Review: Nivea Lip Butter

I was a bit skeptical of this at first, since I'd tried other nivea lip products before and never found to be very moisturizing. I actually remember the disappointment. I was in France on a short-term study abroad program while I was in high school. I got 2 Nivea chap sticks- one with shinner, one without- because I had this impression that Nivea was a special brand and I was on a trip (and therefore able to get things I normally wouldn't). They smelled so good, but remember being really disappointed that they didn't really work. Regardless, I used them with pride at my luxurious products. Many years later when I was living in Japan, and found myself with chapped lips and no chap stick. I wasn't quite sure what chap stick to buy, so I went with a familiar brand. I remembered the disappointment so many years ago, but also hoped that they'd changed the formula during those years. It had not. I was sad.

However, after hearing some Youtubers rave about them, I decided to give the brand another try. Plus, these lip butters were relatively new, so perhaps they were the formula change that I'd been hoping for all those years!

Thankfully, the lip butter is amazing. It smells really, really sweet in the tin, but is actually fairly faint once it's on your lips. I think it's just the perfect amount of scent for a lip product. Even better than that, it keeps my lips moisturized for quite a long time.

It's in a small tin, which is cute and thin so it fits into clutches without bulking them up, but it also requires you to apply it with your finger. Recently, I've started to just touch one of my lips to it, so it kind of looks like i'm taking a bite out of it. Not the classiest, but I figure that it's better than smearing public transportation germs all over my lip butter!

As a softer product, I was worried that it would melt and run everywhere, since I'm sure we've all had that happen once of twice with chapstick. Though we're in a heat wave now, and I've left it in a relatively hot car before, it has yet to go runny on me. That being said, I wouldn't really risk it, because that would be one sticky mess to clean up. It seems to work for what I need it to do. One huge downside to this, however, is the lack of SPF. This girl doesn't want sun burnt lips!

Once I've finished it all up, I'm not sure that I'd repurchase it immediately (especially because it lacks SPF), but I will eventually, just to have on hand at home.

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Nail Polish: OPI vs American Apparel

I may not always be the most fashionable when it comes to clothes- I usually stick to black or denim trousers with a neutral top- but when it comes to nails, more often than not, they will be painted. 


OPI was really popular in college so most of my collection is OPI, though Dior is now my favorite. However, neither of these brands are particularly cheap. I wanted to try out a mint nail polish, but didn't really want to spend more than $10. There's an American Apparel between my office and the subway so I popped in to see if they had nail polish- they do! They're under $10, don't have DBP, toluene or formaldahyde in them AND it dries really quickly.

Since I like to do an accent nail or two, I used both the colors in the photo above. 
Pink = OPI, Mint = American Apparel
and look what happened to just the pink nails! Both of my accent nails were ruined. 


I can't get over how fast the American Apparel nail polish dries, and the color is just like you see it in the bottle. The only downside being that they have mostly trendy colors and their range is not great, but next time I need a trendy color, I know where to go!

I ended up redoing just the accent nails (and painting one with a purple/gray color from Lancome instead) and then having some fun decorating them. I ended up loving the mint and light pink combination so much that I used the same two colors when repainting them the next time. 

Check out the designs below!


//  Do you have any great nail polish/makeup finds?