Buongiorno da Italia!

Ciao, everyone! As y'all may have noticed, I've stopped updating this blog... alas, while I still have an undying love for nail polish, I don't seem to have the same zest for blogging about nail polish that I used to. :(

However, I am in Italy this semester, studying in Siena, so if anyone would like to see what I'm up to in beautiful Tuscany, I'm blogging about it at semesterwithaview.blogspot.com!

Top Coat Trials: Essie Good To Go!

Oh hello, darlings. Today I've got another installment of the Top Coat trials for you, of Essie's Good To Go! quick dry top coat.

I was pleasantly surprised by this top coat, as I wasn't expecting much, for some reason. However, Good To Go! worked wonderfully for me - it created a thick, glassy coating over my polish that kept me chip-free for days. I loved it. But about 2/3 of the way through the bottle, the polish got gloopy, nasty, and bubbly. Exactly what I didn't like about Seche.

Will I ever find a top coat better than Seche?! I'm starting to lose hope. Essie was almost perfect, but at about the same price point as Seche and with the same drawbacks, it's not worth it to me to buy Essie over Seche.

Someday, my prince (of polish) will come...

Milani Jewel FX Gold

Omygosh you guys, I have the most exciting polish for you today. This is Milani's ever so creatively named Gold, part of their Jewel FX collection. It's made up of medium sized hexagonal glitter in a clear base, and is possibly the most thrilling polish ever. I mean, just look at it.

I got super intense coverage in just 2 or 3 coats... I can't quite remember how many I used, but I know it wasn't very many. If you want to layer this over another color, you'll only need 1 coat to get awesome layerability. Yes, I just made up a word. It did chip on me in about 2 days, but I think Gold's wondrous sparkle makes up for the poor wear.

The only thing I don't like about Gold is its name. I mean, really Milani, Gold is all you could come up with? It looks like a treasure chest full of gold coins, or better yet, dragon scales. Yes, your nails will look like dragon talons when you wear this. And only in the best way.

Birthdays

Y'all know what I did today? I cleaned. Whoa. That is something right there. My roommate and I are extremely good at being the opposite of clean, so even though we clean roughly once a week, it's still a disaster area by the weekend.

In other news, it's gorgeous in San Antonio (80 degrees today!) and I spent the afternoon outside pretending to do homework. :)

Last night was my friend Alex's birthday, and since his roommate Michael's birthday is this coming Saturday, we decided to go out to dinner to celebrate. We went to a place in the Quarry that was ok, not the greatest food ever, but we had fun. Plus I got free cake when the waiter spilled water on me. ;)

Here are the birthday boys... this pretty much sums up their roommate relationship.

And here are Alli and I being adorable matchy roommates. That was unplanned, by the way. We are just cute like that.

Today is also my sister's 17th birthday - hooray for birthdays! She's mainly excited that she can buy M rated games without Mama in the store, haha.

Back, and with a glitter

Hallo dolls, sorry it took me so long to get accustomed to school again. :) I am now safely ensconced in my dorm room and getting adjusted to my new classes/schedule (can I just say that I'm in a Chaucer seminar and it is possibly the most awesome thing ever? I love my major).

I've got a glitter for y'all today! This is one of the glitters Revlon put out recently, Galaxy. It consists of hexagonal holographic glitter amid tons of little tiny holo and black glitter, all in a clear base. So cool. Holo and glitter are two amazing things, and when you put them together you get a happy Faithy.

Galaxy is definitely better for layering than for wearing alone, but it is most assuredly possible to wear it alone like I did here - you'll just need at least 4 coats, haha. I was mesmerized by my nails the entire time I wore this... holo will do that to me.

For a glitter, the wear and tear time wasn't too bad. I think I got a good 3 days out of it before it chipped? That's a pretty long time for a glitter, since a lot of them will chip on me after a single day. I'm upset I didn't buy more of these when they were on sale at CVS... are they still selling them, do you know?

P.S. If this post seems a little sleepy and disjointed to you, my apologies. Every single one of my muscles is sore after an exhausting workout at my Body Pump class today. Somehow my suite convinced me that it would be a good idea to take this awful Body Pump thing, and all I know is that life is pain because of it. I hope someday it won't hurt to raise my arms to wash my hair...

Belated Christmas Post

Well, now that Christmas break is very nearly over, I am finally getting my act together to post a Christmas post. I thought I'd put up a couple of my favorite pictures of break - don't worry, I won't overload you with boring pictures.

Here is our Christmas tree newly chopped down, and the family to go along with it. :) Note how my siblings and I are all the same height now - it's quite odd for my little siblings to be the same height as me... and they are threatening to overtake me. I'm going to be the shortest sibling at 5'6"!
This is Jessica and I all dolled up for our annual Christmas Tea. We decorate a gingerbread nativity scene, carol, and drink tea. It's quite fun.
Every year Grandma comes over and helps us make lebcuchen, a traditional German cookie. The recipe makes 12 dozen, and this is us frosting all 144 cookies. I'd post the recipe, but it's a really long arduous process to make the cookies, and most non-German people don't like lebcuchen because of the anise in the frosting. Also I think our particular recipe is secret? Not sure.
Finally, I really like this picture of Jessica and I on Christmas Day. Mama got us semi-matching pajamas. She's really into us wearing "pretty" nightclothes, and whenever I come home from college wearing my ratty t-shirts and sweatpants to bed, she's appalled and rushes out to the store.

So there you have a tiny synopsis of my Christmas. I go back to school tomorrow, and I am excited for another wonderful semester! Do not fear, I will do my very best to keep posting somewhat regularly! I like blogging again.

Lippmann Across the Universe

Behold, my lovelies, some of the most wonderful nail polish known to mankind. Whenever I wear this I cannot stop staring at my nails. It's just too pretty. What is this fabulousness, you say? It is Lippmann's Across the Universe (from the Fall 2010 collection), of course! As soon as I saw this on ALU, I knew it had to be mine. Unfortunately, as a poor college student I couldn't really afford the $18 price tag, so I put it in my mental pile of polishes I someday long to own, and had to content myself with lusting after it from afar. But then, lo and behold, my beautiful suitemate bought it for me for my birthday! I know, world's best suitemate, yeah?
Just stare into the depths of this beautiful blue-based glitter, and you'll start to think you are a mermaid... The glitter in Across the Universe is quite heavy, and is hexagonal and about equal parts green and blue, with mini blue flecks interspersed in there as well. The base blue is a darker, neither-navy-nor-cerulean blue and is my favorite texture of all, jelly. I use about 3 coats for maximum glittery awesomeness (and in order to get rid of any stray streaks). Wear is not the best, but allowances must be made for it being a glitter. We all know that glitters chip like crazy. However, I think because of the jelly base, Across the Universe is not so brittle-feeling as some other glitters, and lasts about 3 days before chips, which is actually quite good for a glitter (Dorothy Who? chips on me after one day ever single time).
Ciao, belle.