March Ipsy Glam Bag review

It's that time of the month again! (No, not that time of the month.) I continue to be very happy with my Ipsy Glam Bags...I think their rating algorithm really works! I got nail polish again too!

For those who don't know, Ipsy is a monthly beauty subscription service. For $10 you get 4-5 full size or sample size cosmetics or skincare products. You can personalize your bag by telling Ipsy what you like and by rating previous bags. You can try Ipsy out using my referral link here!

I'll start with my favorite products (can you guess which?)...

Nicole by OPI On What Grounds?

Nicole by OPI On What Grounds? Two coats.

On What Grounds? is part of NOPI's "Roughles" line of textured polishes. (I think that name is fairly clever, don't you?) It's a matte sky blue with little grey and blue flecks. This one is unique in my collection of textured polishes because it has glitter but is still completely matte. Not sure what it reminds me of, but I like it! The texture itself is comparable to OPI's Liquid Sand polishes--not a big surprise. The dry time was fairly quick.

Be a Bombshell Bora Bora Eyeshadow Quad

I probably wouldn't have picked out this palette for myself because I tend to stick with "safer" eyeshadow colors. But once I started playing with it, I had fun! The eyeshadows have good pigmentation and were easy to use. They seem fairly crease-resistant too. I tried a look using Rock Bottom, Risky Business and Bora Bora. Not sure I pulled it off! (I apologize for my shoddy eyeliner/mascara; I mentioned once before that I have a super hyperactive flinch reflex, so pointy objects + my eyes don't really mix.)

bareMinerals Marvelous Moxie Lipstick in Get Ready

(If you're wondering where the cap of my lipstick went...I accidentally knocked it off my desk and it vanished into the ether.) This is really nice lipstick! It applied very smoothly and wasn't too sticky. It contains some moisturizing oils, so it has a somewhat lip-balm-y feel. I like the color too--bright, but not too bright. The only downside is that it's not really long-wearing.

Pixi Flawless Beauty Primer

As always, there's one dud in every box. I was really looking forward to trying this primer, since I still don't have a really good one. I tried it out under my usual makeup. It didn't seem to even my skintone at all, as it claims to--it was pretty much invisible, except if you looked really closely there was a little shimmer on my skin (I guess that's the "youthful glow"). Once I put my mattifying makeup on top, the shimmer disappeared anyway. I will say this primer seemed to help keep my skin from getting excessively oily over the course of the day, but by nighttime my makeup was creasing and pilling up. I also saw no difference in the appearance of my pores. Oh well! I'll put this one in my blog sale (over in the sidebar -->), since I've only used it once.

For those of you who do Ipsy, did you like your bags this month?

FingerFood's Theme Buffet #11: St. Patrick's Day

OK, I realize St. Patrick's Day was two days ago. But I was nonstop busy mixing polish and filling bottles to get my blogger samples shipped out! I didn't even have any polish on my nails for two days! Soooo I did my St. Patrick's Day mani today. I'm only 1/8 Irish and I don't like beer, so the holiday isn't that exciting for me. But I do like green!

For three of my nails I used China Glaze Four Leaf Clover topped with Indigo Bananas Lucky Strike (two very apropos names!), and for my accent nail I used Zoya Ziv with Four Leaf Clover for the shamrock. To do the shamrock, I just made four large dots and dragged a toothpick through each.

Did you celebrate the holiday this week? Green milkshakes maybe?


Check out the rest of this week's St. Paddy's Day manis!

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2014 Blogger Challenge #6: Frittatas!

Hi all! Hope you had a nice weekend! It's time once again for the 2014 Blogger Challenge, and this week's theme is food. I've been really busy lately getting ready to release my next polish collection, so I was actually thinking about skipping the challenge this time; luckily Mr. ALIQUID provided me with an easy topic when he asked me to make something eggy for breakfast this morning.

What I ended up making is a frittata (basically an open-faced omelette), which is practically foolproof and a great way to use up leftover veggies or meat. I started by roughly chopping half an onion and half a bell pepper, which I cooked on medium-high heat with some olive oil, salt and pepper until the onions turned golden brown. Be sure to use a nonstick skillet.

The type and amount of filling is totally up to you, depending on what ratio of eggs to filling you want. The important thing is that the filling is fully cooked and that any water in the pan gets cooked off (otherwise you'll have watery eggs, ew!).

Meanwhile, I whisked four eggs in a bowl and added some salt, pepper, and torn up slices of cheddar and muenster cheese. You can get fancy and add herbs too.

Once the veggies were cooked, I turned down the heat to low and poured the eggs into the pan:

Now you just let the eggs sit until they're cooked all the way through (firm and opaque), but only just; the eggs should still be tender and moist. (You can also do this part in the oven at 350 degrees for a few minutes.) Slice it up and enjoy!

FingerFood's Theme Buffet #10: Dots and stripes

Finally posting this week! I've been working really hard on my next polish collection (and posting previews on my Facebook page) and I think you guys are really going to like it!

Today I got around to this week's FingerFood challenge. The theme this week is dots and stripes. I cheated slightly by making my dots into stripes!

I love this mani because it's pretty minimalist in terms of color, but still interesting to look at. I started with a gradient of Zoya Bevin and Julep Roc Solid, then mattified it with Revlon matte top coat. Finally I added alternating lines of dots using the same two polishes. In real life the dots fade even more into the ends of the gradient and it looks really cool!

Check out the rest of this week's manis!

An InLinkz Link-up

Glitter Daze Luxury Hand Fizzy

The product in this post was purchased by me. All opinions are my own.

I mentioned yesterday that my hands are getting a little beat up lately because I've been testing a lot of polish. So I decided that today, instead of doing a new manicure, I'd pamper myself a bit by using my Glitter Daze Hand Fizzy! I got it as a freebie with my last order from Glitter Daze during their anniversary celebration.

Ingredients: sodium bicarbonate, citric acid, mango butter, milk, honey, coconut oil, avocado oil, vitamin E oil, witch hazel, rose petals, fragrance oil, FD&C color

Normally the hand fizzies are solid, but mine came as a loose powder. You drop it in warm water and soak your hands and cuticles. It's got a bunch of nice moisturizing ingredients and smells great too! (The scent isn't listed, but it reminds me of candy, like Sweet Tarts or Pixy Stix.)

I dropped half the powder in a bowl of water and it fizzed up! I love the added touch of the rose petals, which open up as they absorb water. So pretty!

The moisturizers gave the water a slippery feel that was very soothing. I kept my hands in for about five minutes and massaged my cuticles. Afterwards, my hands felt very soft and smooth and had a faint scent. I was dumb and forgot to take before-and-after pics of my cuticles, but they're looking good!

The Luxury Hand Fizzies are out of stock at Glitter Daze's site now, but they normally cost $1.50.

The product in this post was purchased by me. All opinions are my own.

Swatch: Pretty & Polished Day in the Park with Swift Sparkle Top Coat

The products in this post were purchased by me. All opinions are my own.

As you may know, the indie polish company Pretty & Polished recently started selling beauty box subscriptions. I had never tried any P&P products before, but I had heard a lot of good things, so I sprang for a three-month subscription! In these boxes you get two full-sized exclusive polishes, a mini of an existing P&P polish, one or more bath and body and nail art products, plus a coupon code for the shop.

In March's box I got the two exclusives Day in the Park and Liquid Gold, plus a mini of Jawbreaker, a bottle of Swift Sparkle quick-dry top coat, a cuticle balm, a nail file, and a fimo stick. Pretty nice haul! Today I tried out Day in the Park with Swift Sparkle on top.

I'm showing you my right hand because the cuticles on my left hand are getting a little shaggy...too much polish testing I guess! I'll have to pamper them for a while. I kind of forgot how to pose with my right hand...

Pretty & Polished Day in the Park. Two coats with Gelous and P&P Swift Sparkle topcoats.

This polish is definitely making me look forward to summer! It's 50 degrees here today, so we're slowly getting there! Day in the Park is a sky blue crelly with various hexes and dots in green, blue, pink and yellow. The base wasn't too thick; I did have to dab a little to get the glitter in place, and I got a few glitter stacks as you can see. I used Gelous to smooth everything out, then added Swift Sparkle on top.

Swift Sparkle seems pretty comparable to Out the Door. It dries to the touch very quickly, but it can still be dented for maybe a half hour or so. I haven't noticed any shrinkage so far.

If you're interested in a Pretty & Polished box, next month's should be going up for sale in two days! Click here for more information. I can't wait to see what I get next month!

The products in this post were purchased by me. All opinions are my own.

FingerFood's Theme Buffet #9: flowers

Wow, I'm really late on this week's FingerFood challenge! I totally have a good excuse though...I've been working hard on my next polish collection! Look for it in a couple weeks! (My labels take forever to ship, grrr....)

Anyway, this week's theme is flowers. I decided to go with a sort of Gothic rose idea. Kind of Beauty-and-the-Beast-like.

I haven't done very many freehand floral designs, so I'm pretty happy with how this came out! The base color is one of mine from the upcoming collection--how sneaky of me! I used Color Club Wild Cactus and China Glaze Four Leaf Clover for the vines and leaves, and Zoya Carmen and Nails Inc. Richmond Terrace for the the flowers. I topped it all off with Revlon's matte topcoat.

Check out all the other lovely floral manis!

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