Essence Me & My Lover, Plus More

Happy Friday! Today I have Essence Me & My Lover, courtesy of Lizzy! Love, Love, Love this polish! It comes off as a pinky toned red, hope that makes sense, with gold and what looks to be fuchsia colored glitter. Know what makes it even better?? It's a texture polish, Long Live Textures! The sparkle on this polish is beautiful but my camera did not want to capture it. Didn't help that my regular camera hates any shade of red or pink so I had to use my phone for all the pictures in this post.

Application of this polish was flawless, dried super fast, as I have found with all the Essence polishes I have. I applied 2 thin-ish coats. You can see a hint of the sparkle on my pinky

Me & My Lover reminds me of Ruby Mine by Sinful Colors, it was in their Crystal Crushes collection, I'll do a comparison post in the near future.

Also wanted to show y'all what I have on my toes, because I,m loving it! I used 2 coats of Duri's Peach Buzz, from their Tutti Frutti Collection, and topped it with a coat of Mer-Magical from Pure Ice.

Warning: TOES for those of you that do not like feet/toes ;) so just scroll by really fast to the next part of this post.

Finally today a little Friday Fun! My hubby had all week off from work and he decided to play a little pratical joke on me. I always take my wedding rings off when I do the dishes and I have a habit of forgetting to put them back on as soon as I get done with the dishes, and get caught up in other chores around the house. Well yesterday my hubby locked them up and hid the key from me LOL

I did finally find the key and was able to release my rings! Such a jokester!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend :)

Spring Fling VoxBox Misses

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I'm usually pretty happy with all the products that I receive in my VoxBox's from Influenster but this one I've already got three products that are misses for me.

First up the one I had high hopes for, Softlips Cube. Love the packaging, it's so cute and sleek, but the product is just okay. Softlips Claims it's their advanced 5-in-1 formula and it provides a luxurious blend of lip perfecting ingredients like Shea Butter, Antioxidant Vitamins A, C & E, plus SPF to make lips feel soft, smooth, hydrated and protected while adding a light touch of shine.

The only thing out of their claim that I agree with is it adds a light touch of shine. My lips did not feel moisturized or hydrated at all, within 10 minutes of applying this I was reaching for my Carmex lip balm. Sadly as cute as it is, it's just not a product for me.

Moving right along, the Playtex tampons, I don't use tampons so that is the only reason this product was a miss for me. However, I did run across an article the other day online, before I received my box, about using tampons to remove the polish on your toes so you don't mess up the polish on your fingers. So when I got my box and seen these, I thought I would give that method a try. It's not the greatest method in the world, but if you are in a pinch it will work with a little bit of effort.

The last product that was a miss for me right off the bat out of this VoxBox was the Peach Pie car freshener from the Labor Day Movie, it smells kind of like peaches but not that much, it is a very faint smell. I'm not a big fan of car fresheners anyways, so I did not have high hopes for this one.

Hoping for better results from the mascara! Anyone else get this box? Any misses for you?

TIOT: Essence LOL

Today I am trying on another one of the Essence polishes that Lizzy sent me (Thank You!) called LOL.  I like this polish for so many reasons: great color, dries super duper fast, great application and the name!

I started out with 2 coats of LOL and then topped that off with Fuzz-sea from the Sally Hansen Fuzzy Coat line. I think they look great together, although the green bar glitters from Fuzz-sea kinda blend in with LOL. The blue glitters though stand out really well against LOL. I also decided to go with a matte finish, which I don't think really looks matte in this photo. I may have took the photo before the matte coat dried all the way, but in any case I used Matte FX from Salon Perfect.

I think this would look cute on the toes too ;)

I know super short post. Tomorrow I think I'll be back with short reviews on 3 of the products that were in my Spring Fling VoxBox! Hope you all have a great day!

Spring Fling Influenster VoxBox

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It has been a while since I have received a VoxBox from Influenster, last one was July of 2013! So I was super excited to see that I would be receiving the Spring Fling VoxBox! Today I'm going to be showing you what came in the box and telling you just a little bit about it. I will be testing out the products over the coming weeks and will have full reviews on them at a later date.

First up we have Rimmel London Scandaleyes Retro Glam Mascara, retails for $5.99 Supposed to give you a bold wide-eyed look, fanned out volume with no clumps!

Kiss Everlasting French Nails, retails for $6.49 I have used these before and like them, but I prefer the nails that don't require the use of glue.

Also got a Peach Pie car freshener from the Labor Day Movie. When I first seen this I automatically thought apple pie, but I was wrong :) The other side is a dark blue and says Labor Day.

I was also sent a box of Playtex Sport Fresh Balance tampons, retails for $3.99-4.99

I love trying out new lotions, so I was happy to see a bottle of Nieva Skin Firming Hydration Lotion in the VoxBox! Says in as little as 2 weeks you'll see firmer more toned skin. This retails for $2.49 for 2.5oz and $10.99 for 13.5oz

I was also one of the select influensters that received a Softlips Cube, this retails for $3.49. Supposed to be a 5-in-1 lip care product. I got it in Pomegranate Blueberry, it also comes in Fresh Mint and Vanilla Bean.

Did you get the Spring Fling VoxBox?

I hope you all had a great Memorial Day weekend! I had a blast hanging out at the motorcycle event for veterans. I may post some photos from that later this week :)

Memorial Day Nails

My plan was to get this up yesterday, but as we all know that did not happen LOL then I was goning to get it posted this morning before I headed out to the event I was attending and I just didn't have the time. Better late than never right :)

I used Cherry Merry and Lucky Strike fom Duri Cosmetics and Snow Me White from Sinful Colors. I painted all my nails, except for my ring fingers white, put down some striping tape and painted them again with Cherry Merry. I used a holographic Color Club polish for my stamping. I would tell you what plate I used, but I'm too tired (lazy) to get up and go see which one it was, if you really want to know let me know in the comments and I'll let you know ;)

I hope you all have had a great weekend! I will be back Monday with a look at the Spring Voxbox from Influenster!

Sinful Colors Tidal Wave

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The other day I received a bottle of Sinful Colors polish in the mail from Pinchme. If you are not familiar with Pinchme here is what the site says about how it works:

"PINCHme gives you the unique opportunity to discover new products and try them for free. It's simple - you choose a product from one of our leading brands, and we then deliver it to your home or workplace for free. But be quick, we’ll reserve the products in your box for a limited time, to ensure that everyone has a chance of receiving the available products. Once you've tried, tasted or touched the exciting products we offer, you can leave your feedback. Start pinching now!"

The polish that I received was called Tidal Wave. When I first seen this in the bottle I didn't think I was going to like it at all, but once I got it on my nails, it's really pretty. It's a very pale sky blue, applies smoothly and dries quickly.

I wanted to add a little bit of sparkle to this so I topped it with Color Club's Starry Temptress Topcoat, but It didn't really give off much sparkle. I don't know if that is because that topcoat was designed to work with the Starry Temptress polishes, guess I'll find that out soon ;)

So when that failed I grabbed one of the new Pure Ice polishes I picked up from Walmart called Sparkling Seas from the Sparkling Seas Collection. Not really much of a collection if you ask me, it only has 3 shades. Anywho, these polishes are glitters with a slightly tinted base. The one I used today has a blue tinted base and I think it looks lovely over Tidal Wave.

Still not very sparkly, but I think it's okay. I'll do a more in-depth review of the Sparkling Seas Collection soon.

My post tomorrow will probably be rather late, Saturday hubby and I are headed to a motorcycle event for Veterans and I want to do a nice red, white and blue mani for the weekend!

Review: Maybelline Dream Smooth Mousse Foundation

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Maybelline Dream Smooth Mousse is a cream-whipped foundation that is supposed to be good for normal to dry skin, provide 100% baby smooth perfection and leave your skin looking and feeling hydrated for 14 hours. It's oil-free, fragrance free, and safe for sensitive skin. The whipped formula is designed to give an air soft matte finish with a weightless feel. The foundation is very creamy and provides medium coverage.

Here is my take on it:
For the last 2 years or so I have not used an actual foundation, I had only been using BB creams, because I could not find a foundation that would not cling to the dry patches or just make my face look super dried out. I love my BB creams, but I wanted something that would give me a little more coverage, so off to Google I went. I came across this product and read that it was good for dry skin, the only thing I read about it that concerned me was that it had pink undertones, my cheeks tend to get red when I'm a little hot or from washing my face with a cloth of some sort, so I didn't know if that would enhance my cheek redness or not. I picked out Porcelain Ivory, which I believe is the lightest color they offer, I probably should have got the next shade up since I purchased this around the time the weather was warming up, but with a little bronzer it works fine.

I am very glad that I gave this a try! I love the amount of coverage it gives me, which is about medium, and the pink undertones do not enhance any redness that I have on my face. Finally a foundation that I can wear that does not adhere to and accentuate my dry patches or make my face look as dry as a dessert, I think this is due mostly to the consistency of the foundation, it is so creamy! It feels very light on my face, so much in fact I usually forget I have it on. My face feels hydrated and soft throughout the day. For me personally the wear time is great too, the day I took the photos for this post I wore it for a little over 8 hours and never touched it up.

My only issue with this foundation is the packaging, and the only thing I don't like about it, is it does not have a mirror and it makes you think you are getting way more product. It does come with this little sponge to apply it with, I've not used it so I can not say if it works well or not.

This is all the product you get, it's .49oz

 I 've used this pretty much every single day since I got it 5 weeks ago and I still have plenty of product, a little bit of this seems to go a long way, which is great!

I use my ELF flat top powder brush to apply the Dream Smooth Mousse. I lightly tap the brush in to the product then kind of stipple it on my face and buff it out, then I'll apply some bronzer and spray my face with ELF makeup mist and set. This is besides the point, but Avon is coming out with a makeup setting spray!!

Here is a nice collage of my face LOL Top Left no makeup at all and as you can see I have redness in my cheeks and on my chin from cleansing with a cloth prior to doing my makeup and a nice little scratch on my nose, Top Right I'm only wearing the Dream Smooth Mousse I think it helps to conceal some of the redness, Bottom Left I have my bronzer and eye makeup done, Bottom Right shows my face after wearing the DSM for a little more than 8 hours with no touch ups.

Everyone's skin type is not the same so I know this may work great for me but not work so well for others. My skin is normal to dry and I do not tend to get any oiliness, so if you have skin very similar to that, I would highly recommend this, especially if you have issues with other foundations clinging to dry patches.

Dream Smooth Mousse comes in 6 shades at Ulta and online, but for some reason Walmart's site lists 4 additional shades that were not available on the other sites. Prices are different on each site but range from $7.97-$9.99

Don't Even Pink About It & Kaboom

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I hope you all had a great weekend! Hubby had to work all weekend so I just watched Law & Order: SVU on Netflix then had crazy dreams because I watched to many episodes :/

Today I have a two-fer for ya! Fing'rs Heart 2 Art Don't Even Pink About It and Salon Perfect's Kaboom. Fing'rs sent Don't Even Pink About It for me to try out and I picked up Kaboom at Walmart a few months ago, it was the only one like it and I could not find any other colors of this particular kind of polish.

Don't Even Pink About It is a hot pink cream polish that dries to a semi-matte finish. This polish was super easy to work with, applied like a dream, no dragging or anything. It did dry pretty fast, even the nails that I did thicker coats on. I think this is a great color on it's own, especially for the Summer time, it would look so great on the toes! I wanted to add a little something to it so I dug out Kaboom, Kaboom has a clear base with teeny tiny yellow and blue circle matte glitters. When this polish dries it does have some texture to it, apparently it was part of their Neon Collision collection. That collection had 6 colors in it, wish I could have found the rest of them! I am assuming Kaboom could be built up and worn alone, but can you just think of the trouble you would have removing it.

Here is a close up shot of Kaboom, look how tiny those glitters are!

Here is my finished mani! Of course I had to take this photo with my phone, because my camera was not having any of it LOL I really like the way this came out, I think it's a great mani for the spring and summer. I did 2 coats of Don't Even Pink About It and one, as thin as I could, coat of Kaboom. I did apply a thick coat of NYC's Grand Central Station, but for the most part you can still feel the texture of Kaboom. I will also add that Don't Even Pink About It is showing up darker in this photo than what it looks like in person, think pink highlighter and that is really what it looks like.

Not sure if I will have a TIOT post tomorrow, but Wednesday I'll have my review on Maybelline's Dream Smooth Mousse Foundation. Hope y'all come back for that :)

Essie's I'm Addicted & Avon's Plum Illusion + Life Update

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Y'all this week has been a crazy one! First my nails then if you're still around I'll tell you all about it. 

Today I wanted to give Essie's I'm Addicted another try cause it is such a gorgeous color. I'm going to call this a neon sky blue! I decided to pair it with Avon's crackle polish called Plum Illusion for two reasons; one get two unworns out of the way at one time and secondly because of a mani I seen over on Lizzy's blog!

I used two coats of I'm Addicted and I feel that gave me pretty good coverage. Clean up was easy too and did not seem to stain my fingers and they dry time on this was pretty good too, around five minutes. On thing I didn't really like about it was the application was a little streaky and I had some dragging of the polish issues. The second coat did even out the streaky from the first coat

Next I tried re-creating the mani I mentioned above using striping tape. I think it came out quite nice and I think it is such a unique way to use crackle polish!

Okay if you stuck around that must mean you are interested in hearing about my week, yay :)

On Tuesday afternoon I got a phone call about the job I applied to and it turned out that I got the job. I was really excited about it, but also really nervous. On Tuesday evening I stepped out on our back porch to talk with my Father in Law and when I went to go back inside my foot snagged a little piece of wood that was sticking up and I got a good sized splinter stuck in my foot so deep that it required a trip to the ER, a shot to numb my foot and a tetanus shot!! Wednesday I went to my job and pretty much hated every minute of it. The guys I had to work with were super nice, but it was so hot and dusty in there, by the end of the day my clothes felt like I had got caught in a rain shower, there was so much dust stuck to my sweaty face it felt like sandpaper, I was smothering from all the dust and physically ill from the heat. I came home in tears called the next day and told them I would not be back. Now before you judge me, I don't mind getting out and working or getting dirty while doing it, but if it's gonna make me physically ill I just don't think it is worth it. So now I am back on the hunt for something else in a better environment. Preferably retail cause I'm good at that.

I hope you all had a great week and hope you have an even better weekend :)

I'm going to spend my weekend (hopefully) getting some blog post together for next week!

TIOT: Essie Vices Versa

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I'll go ahead and put it out there, I'm a little on the fence about Essie's 2014 neon collection *gasps* I know, sorry. I have 4 of the 6 polishes and the shades are amazing and they apply pretty decent, my issue is how fast they chip! I know neons do chip more than regular polishes, but the same day come on now.

I've used two of these, I'm Addicted a super pretty light neon blue, chipped the next day. I tried out Vices Versa next, it chipped the same day I painted them, not super bad chips but still chips. Hoping the other two that I have won't be like that, but we shall see. Still not sure if I will get the other two shades from this collection.

Okay let's get to Vices Versa, it is a super bright neon green! Love the shade, perfect for spring and summer manis. It dries to what I'm going to say is a semi-matte finish, not completely matte, but not really shiny either. It is slightly sheer, I applied 3 coats and you can still see my nail line, not a huge deal to me but I know some don't like that. Application was decent, no real issues, with it being a semi-matte finish it does dry a little faster than regular polish so you have to be careful and not take too much time or else you will start to drag the polish around.

I loved this color on it's on, but I wanted to add a little something to it. I had some 2mm Fluorescent Round Rhinestones from the Born Pretty Store that I thought would go great with this color! The set came with green, pink, orange and blue rhinestones. I decided to use the pink on my ring finger to make an accent nail, I did a simple French Tip type look, mostly because I had house work to do and didn't know how well these would stay on. I have to say I'm quite impressed, I only lost one yesterday and that was because I didn't get it coated well enough with my top coat and I was messing with it. I really like these rhinestones because they are pretty flat, so the won't get snagged over stuff. These come 400 pieces to a set for $3.12, free shipping and you can save 10% with the following code: SMBW10

I am trying so hard to get my unworns whittled down, but honestly we all know that is a never ending task because I can't stop buying new polishes LOL If any thing in there catches your eye and you want to see it let me know and I'll test them out first ;)

Alright that's all for today! Hope you all have a great day, we are expecting some storms over the next few days, hopefully nothing severe!

A Flakie Comparision + a Life Update

I'll tell you about the comparison first! The other week I used ELF's Fairy Dust in my mani and it made me remember that I had heard it's a dupe for Essie's Shine of the Times and since I have both  I wanted to see of it truly was. I had a really cute mani in mind to test them out, but the flakies did not want to show up well! It was so horrible that I didn't even keep the pictures. Then I thought flakies show up really good on black polish, so instead of painting my nails black, I just used a nail wheel.

We've got Essie Shine of the Times on the left and Elf Fairy Dust on the right. They are very very similar, but for me they have one tiny difference; I think the flakes in SOTT are finer than the flakes in FD, allowing you to grab more of them on the brush. Since the flakes in FD are a little bigger I feel like you are not able to get as many on the brush, causing me to have to use 2 coats of FD and just one of SOTT Other than that though they are pretty much identical to me, Essie is around $8.50 and the Elf is $2

I have looked at these swatches several times trying to figure out which one I like better and I'm still not really sure. Which every one you choose you can't go wrong, both are great flakie polishes!

Life Update
Y'all last week was such a crazy week for me, I felt like I had no time to blog at all. I've been on the hunt for a job :/ I had put in several applications over the past couple of weeks and was beginning to think I was not going to hear anything about any of them. Well Monday I drove the 200 mile round trip to visit my Mom and when I got home Monday night I had a message regarding one of the jobs I had applied to! Thursday I went for an interview then went back Friday to fill out some paper work. Supposed to find out Tuesday for sure if I got the job and when I start!!!! The whole process was a bit overwhelming for me, I have not filled out an application in seriously over 10 years and I've not worked outside the home since 2006! If I get it, I will most definitely be out of my comfort zone, it's a factory job and all I've ever done is retail, so fingers crossed I get it and I can keep up with everyone else :)

Tomorrow  I think I will have Essie's Vices Versa from the 2014 neon collection!

Do any of you watch the show Revenge? OMG

Easy Splatter Mani

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I love the look of a splattered mani, but I can't ever seem to create one that I like, so I got these really cool 3D nail stickers from the Born Pretty Store to try out and review. You get quite a few splatters in yellow, orange, pink and green. When I saw them online I saw my mani flash before my eyes, okay maybe not flash before my eyes, but I knew what I wanted to do with them.

Since these stickers are so bright I thought white would be the perfect background for them, so I pulled out Snow Me White from Sinful Colors and applied 2 coats to even out the streaks. White polish always streaks with me, does it with anyone else?

After my nails had fully dried I got out my tweezers and started randomly applying them, all I had to do was just rub them a little bit and they were good to go! These are a little bit thicker than a water decal and a lot less messy to work with, no need for water since they are stickers. I also think that you could apply them with out using tweezers if you wanted to.

I think a thick layer of top coat is necessary, at least for me, cause you can feel the edges of the stickers and I was afraid they might start to peel off if I didn't have a good layer of top coat. I applied one layer of my NYC quick drying topcoat then applied a layer of Sally Hansen Double Duty Base and Top Coat. I've had them on for about 3 or 4 days now and they still look good, no issues with them at all.

I really like these, I've gotten quite a few compliments on them! They are just really unique and fun to play with. You can find these on the Born Pretty Store website and they are only $1.59 plus you can save 10% with Coupon Code: SMBW10 and as always free shipping!