OPI Sapphire in the Snow

Ah darlings, at long last I bring you Sapphire in the Snow, from the 2009 Holiday Wishes collection, which is quite a lovely collection, if I do say so myself. :) I have 4 polishes from Holiday Wishes (Sapphire, Comet Loves Cupid, Smitten With Mittens, and Holiday Glow), and am going to get Merry Midnight as soon as I can get my hands on a bottle.

Sapphire in the Snow is a stunning blurple (blue/purple mix), which leans to the blue side. It is a pure creme, absolutely no shimmer or sparkle. It is gorgeous. My only problem with it is its tendency to look black indoors. However, when the light hits it, the loveliness of the polish shines through and makes me want to sing with joy.

The wear and tear of this formula surprised me greatly. I wore it 4 days with absolutely no chips. *cue Hallelujah chorus* Wunderbar! OPI outdid itself on the formulation of this collection. Four days of flawless blurple creme goodness makes for a happy Faith.

Yet More Wizard of Ooh Ahz

Alright dearests, here we have another Wizard collection polish - Ten Man. It took me awhile to figure out why in the world it was called Ten Man, but then I realized; ten fingers. Ohhhh.

Ten Man is a wonderful light silver with lots of small round silver glitter stuck in. It sparkles like snow. It reminds me a bit of Zoya Ginessa, but is, of course, silver instead of white. And I don't much like Ginessa, whereas I love Ten Man. New favorite glitter silver!

I think it is interesting how these polishes have their glitter just lightly dotting the formula, instead of the glitter overtaking the polish completely - it is like it is simply accenting the pretty polish. :) There are 4 of this kind of glitter in the collection, and then 2 all out in-your-face glitters - Ruby Pumps and Dorothy Who?.

The only problem I had with Ten Man (and Good Which?) is the wear and tear of the formula. Both polishes chipped on me within 2 days; kind of annoying. However, they are pretty enough for me to forgive that. :)

More Wizard of Ooh Ahz Goodness

What's that you say? 2 posts in 3 days? Scandalous!

Today I've got China Glaze Good Which? for you, obviously named after Glinda the Good Witch. It is a fluffy pink with round pink glitter interspersed throughout the polish. And here's the thing. Normally I would be bored with a color this pink and girly - but I loved every minute of it! I'm pretty sure that this is a color my mother will love, which generally means that I don't like it... but not in this case. It is just so Glinda that I have to love it. :)

This was taken in natural light, but unfortunately, it was cloudy, so you can't quite see the glorious sparkles. You can, however, see the pretty pretty color. :) This might actually be a pink I'll wear again.

China Glaze Ruby Pumps

Good Monday, darlings! Guess what I have? RUBY PUMPS! I have been wanting this polish ever since I discovered the world of nail polish. Now it is finally mine!

A short note on the condition of my nails. Playing piano at university requires nails to be extremely short - I used to keep mine short just because I dislike excessive clicking on the piano, but now my professor hands me the clippers whenever there is the faintest click. Thus, my deplorably short nails. Secondly, this is a bad picture because I had to take it indoors and because it is blurry. Sorry, it was cloudy and cold outside. Oh, and that random ugly thing on my ring finger... yeah, just ignore that. Sorry to assault your eyes!

Now, past the apologies and on to the polish! :) Ruby Pumps is part of China Glaze's permanent collection, but was originally released with the Wizard of Ooh Ahhs collection. As I'm sure you all know, the Wizard of Ooh Ahhs was just rereleased. Yay! Ruby Pumps is a chunky-ish red glitter in a clear red base with some golden glitter interspersed. It is gorgeous. Before I got this polish I couldn't really understand why everyone went just so gaga over it, but now I know. Ruby Pumps rules the world. I don't want to wear any other sparkly or shimmery red ever again because this one rocks so much. Love at first sight. :) All the girls on my hall think so too... my roommate is quite pleased that I own this color now.

I plan to get more pictures of this next time I wear it, so that you can see just how awesome it is. I mean, its not like you can see it on any OTHER nail polish blog. Haha!

The Wizard of Ooh Ahz Returns!

Guess what Faithy got for Christmas from her loverly friend Libby? AHHH, NAIL POLISH! You can never go wrong with nail polish - especially nail polish that is full of glitter! Hooray! I've got Ruby Pumps on now, with a review to shortly follow. I'm so excited about new nail polish, cuz I've been extremely good while I've been at college, and have only bought perhaps 1 or 2 new polishes. Now, SIX! :)

Topcoat Trials Take Three

Welcome to the Topcoat Trials, my darlings. It's been a while since I last posted one of these babies. In my search for a top coat that matches the extremely quick dry time and lovely glossiness of Seche Vite yet is without the gloppiness, short brush, and expensiveness, I picked up Sally Hansen Mega Shine Extended Wear Top Coat. Long name, yes? This is one that many people recommended to me, and so I decided to take a shot at it.

How did I like it? I found that the claim of a 90 second dry time really was quite true, or at least a 2 minute dry time was very easily obtained. My nails were dry to the touch in about 2 minutes, and completely dry in 5. Very lovely. The shtuff itself did not get goopy once I got down past the halfway mark, but stayed nice and thin. However, the thin part is something I wanted to talk about. Mega Shine really was not shiny and thick enough for me - I quite like how Seche lays such a thick layer over the polish, since it makes it impervious to chips and beautifully mirror-like. Mega Shine has a thin formula, and does not form this lovely thick layer.

In conclusion, I liked Mega Shine, but I did not stop there. I am pushing on with my search to find a new topcoat! :)

Teaser Tuesdays - A Bookish Post

Today I have no new nail polish for y'all. I am wearing China Glaze Watermelon Rind, which I have reviewed before and love. I do, however, have something fun called Teaser Tuesdays. I copy/pasted the below from shouldbereading.wordpress.com.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB ofShould Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I am not reading any books for pleasure at the moment, so I am giving y'all a teaser from the Lombardo translation of Dante's Inferno, from his Divine Comedy. I am reading it for a course I am taking, but everyone should read it! I've read this book perhaps 2 or 3 times before, and have always liked it. :) This translation is particularly nice.

Of course I wept, leaning on one of the stones

of the hard crag, so that my escort

said to me, "Are you still one of the fools?

Pity survives here where pity is dead"

- Canto XX, lines 25-28

Books!

So, no nail polish today. But I do have BOOKS! I freaking love books, y'all. Lately I've been very unhappy because I cannot read anything not required for school since I have no free time. At all. Ever. I've taken to going on goodreads for extended periods of time and drooling extensively over books. I call it book porn. Oh, and for those who do not know what goodreads is, it is a wonderful website in which you and your friends can review books you have read. Everyone should have one! You can organize your books by shelf, and I tend to spend inordinate amounts of time reorganizing my shelves when I want to procrastinate. :)

Anyways, I wanted to let y'all know that I recently found all these lovely lovely book blogs. I've been lazy and have not searched for book blogs before, but the other day I had a paper due and thus much procrastination was in order; so I searched. I found such an abundance of bookworms, and it makes me so extraordinarily happy! :) I haven't read enough of them extensively enough to say which ones are my favorite yet, but I promise to let you know once I figure things out. So far I know that I do like Book Lady's Blog (www.thebookladysblog.com).

Oh, and also, today I talked to my mother about majors, and told her how much I wanted to major in English, and she told me that that made so much sense for me. Very happy Faithy. I was scared that it just wasn't practical enough ... but I love reading too much not have an English major, methinks. I'm thinking that I'll double major and minor. I would like to major in International Studies, maybe with a European concentration, and English, with a Literature concentration. My minor would be music, concentration in voice, most likely, though piano is very possible. Yay for school! I sign up for Spring classes this Friday ... I kind of have a sucky registration time though, since registration started yesterday. Boo. But hopefully I'll be able to sign up for British Lit. and ballroom dancing and a course in Latin on Ovid. Woot!

Back from the Dead?

Hello dearests! I have cruelly neglected you, but somehow my followers list keeps growing - how this has happened I'll never know. Welcome to the party, everyone who's joined since I last posted! :)

As usual, school has been keeping me insanely busy and on my toes, but this week I'm having a blessed respite from the storm of homework, and so will try to post more than just this once. :) I've got a Spanish test, a biology presentation, and a paper due on Friday, but only the Spanish test is too big of a deal, so I'm not overly worried. Last week was a little rough, with a 2 page paper, a 4 page draft, and multiple other things due, but now I'm done with that and happy. And guess what? Thanksgiving is in 3 weeks or so! Glory glory!

I went home a week ago for the first time, and while that was lovely and full of good food and cuddling my puppy, it made me homesick for the first time since I came to Trinity. I believe I cried harder in the car leaving Houston than I did when my parents dropped me off here. :( But I'm feeling better now, since my roommate loves me and so do the rest of my friends. Yay for friends! :) Unfortunately Alli is sick right now, and that's always sad - I act like her mother and buy her juice with lots of vitamin C and ice cream and stuff. Haha!

Anyways, on to the nail polish. I've got Zoya's Rihana for y'all today, and goodness, she is a pretty one. A shimmery berry almost-vamp that is very similar to China Glaze Cowgirl Up and OPI Bastille My Heart, except that it does not have the blue shimmer of Cowgirl Up, and is more shimmery and purple than Bastille My Heart. Quite pretty. Its not super unique, but I love love love this type of color, and so I have no qualms about owning many many versions of it. Look at that... there's golden shimmer and red shimmer and purple shimmer... and its just beautiful. :)

You're a Pisa Work

So sorry about the sucky photography, my darlings, but I am unfortunately very forgetful and neglected to take a picture of this nail polish before it got dark. Oooopsy.

Here is You're a Pisa Work, from OPI's Italian Collection. I must say, it is rather boring and unoriginal. I believe that the Italian Collection was released in 2001. While this is a very nice pink creme, I don't believe I'll ever wear it again. I believe I will give it to one of my nail-polish-hungry friendlings, who come into my room with nail-polish lust in their eyes. :)

Mmm, I was going to give a real, nice review, but it turns out that it is almost midnight and I am not even close to finishing my homework. Did I mention I only got 4 hours of sleep last night and no nap today? Eff my liiiiiiife.

Topcoat Trials: Sally Hansen Double Duty

Today, I am posting. I know, it's a weird thing. What? Faith post? Nooo, that doesn't happen. But, as it turns out, I realized I hadn't posted in a long time, and I'm trying to write a paper that's due tomorrow, so what better way to procrastinate than write a blog post?

Remember how I need to find a new top coat? Here is the first thing I tried, Sally Hansen Double Duty Strengthening Base & Top Coat. I grabbed it while I was in CVS one day and needed a cheap base coat. This one was cheapest (about $4), and it happened to be a top coat as well, so I tried it out as both things.

Doubly Duty works admirable as a pillowy base coat that keeps polish from streaking. However, I've been truly spoiled with Seche Vite's lightning-quick drying time, and I found that I could not handle a normal drying top coat in any way, shape, or form. "15 minutes before I can touch it? I don't understand! Please take it away!" I'm too clumsy to have a slow-drying top coat ... I would hit my nails on something after 10 minutes, and then be very angry. "Shit! Now I've got to redo 3 nails!" I hate redoing my nails; because I'm fickle and would like to put a different color on when I smack them on something, but then I feel guilty about putting a different color on, so I just go around all unhappy for the rest of the day. Haha!

Sally Hansen Gunmetal

What's that you say? A post about nail polish? Shocking!

I've got Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Gunmetal for y'all today. Sadly, this is the best picture I got. The sun was not cooperating. :S But, while this picture is not so great, I think it captures the color well enough. Gunmetal is a grey heavily leaning towards the blue. It is pretty dang cool.

Gunmetal is slightly metallic, but not enough so that you get brushstrokes or anything. I lurve it. The formula was lovely, smooth and full of pigment. I think I used 2 coats to achieve this opacity. Isn't it lurvely?

I've been very impressed by the SH Xtreme Wears so far ... methinks a CVS run is in order. :)

My Life For The Last Few Days

Hello everyone!

I'm a horrible blogger. I'll have free time and I'll be like, "Hey! I should write a blog post!" But instead, I'll sleep or sit around socializing. Ah well, I suppose socializing is important. ;) Sleep is important as well. That is something that I most assuredly did not get enough of last week. For the last 3 days I've gotten a combined amount of about 18 hrs of sleep ... which is not enough for me. I prefer 9 hours of sleep per night. Haha! So excuse me if I seem delirious. I plan to sleep all day tomorrow. ;)

So, about Michael's post. I believe that it offended one or two people, and I'm sorry about. I'm not going to apologize for putting it up or for letting Michael post it though, because no harm was meant. I could say that Michael hijacked my computer and decided to write something, but, while he did hijack it, I didn't make any fuss over him posting on my blog. He just wrote it to be Michael. ;) By the way, I didn't know having a blog was considered so exotic. Some people in my dorm have found out that I have a blog, and they're just astounded. They think that that's the coolest thing ever. Um, ok. Haha!

I realized that I haven't talked about my roommate at all on here yet, which is weird. Her name is Alli, and we pretty much have everything in common. We want the same super power, like the same kind of icecream, believe that a messy room is a cozy room, etc. Yay! So, no fights, no drama. Actually, we both hate drama.

Anything else interesting about college? Let's see. I'm taking 16 hours, 3 of which are music related, so that's happy. I'm taking a 6 hr course called HUMA, which is described as "Reading From Western Cultures". We write a paper/week and read a different classic approximately every two week. Right now we're in the middle of the Iliad. I have never liked the Iliad ... I have always preferred the Odyssey. But now I'm learning an appreciation for it. Yay for learning to like things! :) I'm also in a 4 hr Spanish class, since I wasn't quite up to the college Spanish I. It's pretty fun, I love learning languages! And then there's Biological Impact and Issues (3 hrs), which is about infectious diseases this year. It's pretty cool, and gets half of my science requirement out of the way. I actually don't mind science at all, I find it very interesting. It's just when it gets into physics and stuff that I can't stand it. MATH! Ugh, I can't even describe how much I hate math. In fact, it's absurd how much I hate math. I can do it, I just feel like I'm in hell the entire time. Haha. And then there's choir and piano. Woo-hoo! I'm so happy to be back in choir! It's been 2 years, and I have missed it so. The first day when we started warm-ups, I was like "WARM-UPS! OH HOW I MISSED YOU!" Haha, music dork.

Yesterday I went to Schlitterbahn for the first time. For the uninitiated Texans (or, *gasp* FOREIGNERS! foreigners include anyone who is not from the blessed state TX)), Schlitterbahn is a very large and fantastical water park in New Braunfels, which is in central TX. Since I'm now in San Antonio, it was only 30 or 40 mins away. It was pretty fun stuff. They have this awesome lazy river that isn't lazy at all ... the current is uber strong and there are waves all over the place. If you don't have a floatie, you can still get swept around the entire thing without having to touch bottom. So fun. Of course I went on the big slides as well ... what kind of adrenaline junkie would I be if I didn't? (For those who don't know, I love love love wild rides. You know the Superman at Six Flags? Ohhh lordy, that one's fun. I love the dropping feeling, it's pretty much my favorite. )

Let's see, anything else? Oh, tonight we're having a Pride & Prejudice night in our room. I have the 6 hour version, and my sister and I watch it religiously every month or two. Jessica is now 3 hours away from me, but I do have a hall full (or rather, 3/4 full, there's a suite of boys) of girls. :) Alli and I are going to Target this afternoon to get some M&Ms and popcorn, because how can you watch P&P without chocolate? Oh, and if any of you have not watched the 6 hour version of Pride & Prejudice, Go. Out. And. Watch. It. Right. Now. You will squeal for the last hour of it. *sigh* Mr. Darcy!

Hi guys.

This isn't Faith. instead, you get the insights of Michael Petty tonight. No, Faith does not have a boyfriend; I'm just a weird ass guy who hangs out with her all the time. So, It seems fitting to introduce myself a bit more. I am also a freshman at Trinity, I'm on the HUMA hall, I enjoy music (all kinds except country), and am planning on a major in either history or political science.

but enough about me. lets talk about some important things.

the backstreet boys are currently playing on Alli's computer - a highly underrated band if ever there was one. their hypnotic beats and homoerotic dance moves know no bounds on my soul. but I wonder if they knew that they would have that effect when they were formed for the explicit purpose of making shit tons of cash for their label? it's a question I often ponder at night - can someone wholeheartedly put their soul into their work if there is not personal drive or need for it? can a halfway decent artist be incentivized by money to produce a masterpiece? the crucial thought here is, and this important, what is the nature of why we do things? that's what I want to know. why do we create needless societal constructs that are flimsily held in place by the groups sheer willpower so that we can classify all sorts of needless things into "needed" and "amoral" and "criminal" and "loving" and so on.

Maybe Decartes was correct, in a way, on his postulate that man exists in his current state only because he thinks he exists in his current state?

kinda just blew your fucking mind, didn't I?

but it's true. people like to have a group, a place to fit in and be accepted by others. that's not in question here; what is in question is: why is that so, and what is the ideal means to accomplish that goal? because currently, society is doing a piss poor job of holding everyone together in any sort of reasonable way. Our civilization is most accurately described, as George Carlin said, as a "competition for shit. we need alot of it. and then we need a big house to put all our shit in, and security to protect it. and we need a job so we can buy more useless shit and get a bigger house with better security to keep our shit even safer. and then we get condescending and give some paper shit to the people with shitty shit so they can get drunk and forget about how shitty life is."

that's probably not a verbatim quote. but whatever. the point is that mankind's constructs are erroneous at best and lethal to thousands who get the short end of the stick daily at worst. probably the latter if you're a liberal and the former and if you're a rational person.

Of course, if you're a republican than God set it all in motion 6000 years ago and hates those people because they didn't maintain faith in his silly rules but it's OK, because you're supposed to help them, but there's no rush because, as most eloquently stated by a pastor I once listened too, "There will always be poor people". and you're a dick.

that's pretty offensive.

sorry, my bad.

just my two cents. like I said at the start, I'm just some weird ass.

-Petty Out.

We'll Always Have Paris, Darling.

I just realized that this picture was blurry. So sorry!

But the color is lurvely. In fact, I lurve it. Greatly.

We'll Always Have Paris is a vampy browny purple from the Fall 2008 French Collection. I love that collection. I pretty much have or want every color from it. Fabuloso.

I believe I only needed 2 coats to get good color coverage, and there were no streaks. Um, hello, that's awesome! :)

My brain's failing now. I want to think of something witty and interesting about this nail polish, but I can't. Not because it is ugly, but because I didn't get enough sleep last night. Oops. See, I meant to go to bed at 12 ... but when does that ever happen? Never, apparently. Everyone was like, "you're going to church tomorrow? what's that? STAY UUUUP! Be sociable!" So I did. They all got to sleep in (and they aren't awake yet, sadly), but I had to wake up at 8:30. Boo! Church was, however, quite lovely.

Anyways, I wanted to say, that yes, I've been doing like one post a week. I'm sorry about that. I know that lots of people blog regularly when they're in college, and I'm going to try my hardest to do so. I just think it'll take some time for me to get back into my groove (and to actually have some free time). So, please bear with me!

Tonight is the start of Hallympics, I should be able to get a post out of that, as I decorated an awesome t-shirt for it yesterday, and it sounds pretty fun. Until then, adios! :)

My Favorite Orientation Event

You might be wondering what a freakingly awesome wax hand is doing on here. It is on here because it is MY wax hand. How cool is that?

There was this big party last Sunday night called the Coates Caper. The Coates Center is where the mail is, where the unhealthy food is, and where it is just generally cool. At the Coates Caper they had wax hands, cotton candy, nachos, and a BIG INSANELY AWESOME DANCY PARTY! :)

I had never had a wax hand made before. I thought maybe it was like a mold, you know like you do with plaster of paris. Nope. You stick your hand in hot wax 10x, and then they pull it off of you. And dye it. How cool is that? We had just been to a lecture on diversity, so my friends and I decided to get ours dyed half black and half white, to show just how diverse we are. Haha! And the 3 is for Winn 3rd. Which is our dorm. Get it? A 3 in sign language is a W, and then 3 is 3 ... no? Well, whatever. We got it. ;)

So yeah. There you have it. Wax hands, cotton candy, crazy dance party. I was going to write more, but tiredness just set in. Which is totally weird. Because I only had one class today, and I got something crazy like 10 hours of sleep last night. Whatever. I'm odd.

Anywho, I've got to read my Biology Syllabus, and do some laundry. The laundry part is pretty essential. I basically don't have any clothes right now.

Rimmel Hard Edged

Hellooooo! Did you forget about me?

College has been crazy thus far. Well, I haven't actually gotten to the college part of college, just the orientation part. But the orientation part has been crazy. ;) I promise to start blogging more regularly now.

Today I've got Rimmel Hard Edged for you. Hard Edged is a fantastic color. I stupidly let this sit in my untried pile for a few months, because I thought it was just going to be plain brown. Umm, wrong! Look at this next picture.

Um, hello? It gets all sparkly and awsome in the sunlight! The sparkly stuff is purple. Yay! Plus there's a slight green duochrome both in shade and sunlight. I just couldn't capture it on my camera. Boo.

Hard Edged applied very nicely, I was done in 2 coats.

Well, I'm off to practice piano. I've got a piano audition in 1 1/2 hrs. It's no biggie, just an audition for piano lessons, but I haven't played in a week, and don't want to be rusty. I've also got a choir audition at 3, which hopefully will go alright. I lost my voice the other night after screaming a lot at an orientation event. I haven't sung yet today, but I'm hoping that when I DO sing, it will sound better than it did yesterday. Yesterday, when I opened my mouth to sing, nothing came out. It was horrible! I had completely forgotten that I shouldn't be screaming since I had a choir audition ... so I paid for my stupidness. I'm hoping that if I still do stuck today, I can explain it to the choir man and get a later audition time or something. I really want to get into choir!

A Day of Silliness

The other day my sister Jessica and I were bored, so we decided to go HEB and get some weird candy, and then play some board games. I shall now present to you the events that followed in picture form. :)Here is our haul. (top row, l-r) Fusen gum (many flavors!), Goya Dulce de Leche wafers, tamarind candy. (bottom row, l-r) Ginger candy, strawberry flavored Pocky, and milk chocolate Cadbury.Me, looking at the ginger candy suspiciously.

And it is pronounced good!

Mmm, very good.

POCKY! Oh, how we lurve Pocky.Lurvely sister eating Pocky.But, oh no! The tamarind candy is yucky. Very yucky indeed!In fact, I had to pretend to vomit about it.Moving on to more cheerful topics, the melon flavored gum was very yummy! :)Alas, Jessica beat me at Sorry. Noooo! My last piece was halfway around the board when she made it in ... so sad.And alas! I was beaten once again, this time at Monopoly. Jessica got the accursed orange monopoly and put hotels on it. Booo! However, I did beat her at Monopoly the next day, so that made it all better.

You guys, I leave for Trinity in the morning, so please forgive me when I fall of the map for the next week or so. I'll see y'all once I've settled in! :)

Sally Hansen Blue Me Away

Today I give to you Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear in Blue Me Away. Quite a mouthful, eh? It's my first Xtreme Wear. There was this lovely, captivating display of XW's at my CVS, and I couldn't resist. I bought two colors, as there was a sale, and I plan to go back soon and get more. Yay for nail polish! ;)

Of COURSE I would buy Blue Me Away. I mean, look at it! It's sky blue! Durr.

This is a very lurvely sky blue. It is way brighter and deeper than any other sky blues I have. I promise that I'll do a swatch test soon of all the sky blues I have. I want to buy China Glaze Sky High Tops first though. BMA might be close to Sky High Tops. China Glaze Caribbean Blue has nothing on it in terms of intensity (I still lurve my Caribbean Blue though), and the same is true for Essie Shelter Island. I have a couple of other sky blues, just can't remember them right now.

This polish really was strong, very happy about that. I had just been wearing a bunch of colors that chipped in ridiculously short amounts of time before I put this on, so a strong polish made me happy. :) It also covered very well, perfect in 2 coats. Yay for intensity! :)

A Great Lacquer Hunt

I have a confession to make!
I've become dissatisfied with Seche Vite. So much so that I'd like to find a new top coat.
I know! It's pure blasphemy! It's treason! But, it is so.

If you are unfamiliar with the glories of Seche Vite, let me enlighten you. Seche is a extremely fast drying top coat ... I mean, like 5 minutes after you slap it on, you're good to go. It also forms a hard, shiny, gelatinous coating over your polish that keeps the polish from chipping for quite a long time.
Why would I want to abandon this wonderful invention, you say? Well, I have a couple of reasons.
First off, the brush in this thing is ridiculous. After you've made your way through about half of the bottle, it is pretty much impossible to get anything out unless you revert to tipping the bottle to odd angles and screwing the top back on every time you dip the brush in. Very irritating.
Secondly, Seche Vite bubbles and thickens like no other. After 1/2 the bottle is gone, you'll notice some thickening of the polish and a little bubbling. Nothing too serious, but annoying all the same. But then when the bottle is maybe 2/3 gone, this stuff goes insane. Bubbles everywhere and it turns into glue. I've tried adding huge amounts of (Seche brand) thinner. While that does help a little with the thickening, it does nothing for the bubbles. And who wants bubbles in their manicure?

So here's what I'm proposing to do. I will start a great lacquer hunt for another amazing top coat. It must dry quickly, be shiny and gelatinous, be cheap (Seche Vite is expensive-ola), and not thicken or bubble. That's quite a list, we'll see what I come up with! I'll be posting about all the new top coats I try.

Do y'all have any suggestions for me?

Perfume Post

So, I've gotten quite a few fragrance samples lately in random ways, and I thought I'd review them here. I don't have a fancy nose, and can't tell you about top and heart and base and all that, but I can tell you if it smells good or not. :)

Let's begin with Prada's Infusion d'Iris. It seems like Infusion d'Iris is lauded by women everywhere, but I couldn't stand it. To me, it smelled like old lady in the worst way.

I really really tried to like it. The description is so lovely, and I wanted to be sophisticated enough to like it, but I'm not. It starts off all right, soft and floral and all that, but after 1/2 hr or an hr, it becomes overbearingly powdery and just blah. :( You can buy Infusion d'Iris at Sephora from $56.

Next up is KenzoAmour. Amour is described as "soft, sensual, woody, musky", and is inspired by fragrances around Asia. The beginning of Amour is lovely, all that it should be. My problem with it is that after an hour or two it evolves into pure play-doh. I'm not kidding. You go around all happy cuz you smell nice, and then you catch of whiff of yourself and you go, "What? I smell like play-doh! Nooo!" This has happened to me more than once, because I keep forgetting that it does this. Ooops! I'd like to try KenzoAmour Indian Holi, to see if it has the same pitfall or not. KenzoAmour Florale sounds lovely as well. You can buy KenzoAmour at Sephora from $25.Now onto something I legitimately like. elle Yves Saint Laurent is rather strong, but nice. It is woody and floral. Normally I have a hard time with anything woody, musky, or amber, but I do like elle. I looked up the notes, and discovered that freesia is involved. This explains my liking for it. Somehow I lurve anything with freesia in it. It's very odd. Anyways, elle starts out strong and heady, and ends up mellowing out a bit, letting the floral side come out more. I don't know if I'd actually buy a full-size bottle of this, since I'm very picky about my fragrances (and get bored easily ... ), but I do like it. You can buy elle at Sephora from $61.Aquolina Pink Sugar. This is another of those very popular smells. Let me tell you, when they say pink sugar, they MEAN sugar. This smells crazy like sugar. It supposedly has lily of the valley and fig leaves and stuff in it, but I can't smell any of that when I wear it. All I can smell is sugar ... all kinds of sugar; white sugar, brown sugar, everything. After a while the sugar does calm down a bit and leave you with a mellower, generally nice smell. It just depends whether or not you can bear the insane sugar smell. You can buy Pink Sugar at Sephora from $19.
And finally, here is the perfume I own in full-size and use (well, I use Gap Dream too, but I'm too lazy to talk about it, except that it is divine). Ralph Lauren Ralph. Ralph has TWO kinds of freesia. I know, freesia lover's heaven, huh? It's pretty good. I've used about 1/3 or a little more of my 1 oz, and still like it pretty well. My only problem with it is that it can be a little cold. That's the only way I can say it. There's nothing to soften it up, make it a little powdery. Now, I'm not a huge fan of powdery perfumes, but I think Ralph needs just a teensy bit of powder to make it perfect. You can buy Ralph at Sephora from $22.

I'd like to try Marc Jacob's Splash in Cucumber, Calvin Klein ck one, the Kenzos I mentioned above, and quite a few others.

What perfume do you wear? Favorites, hates?

Cover Girl Bronze Beauty

Here's a polish I picked up before my addiction really started ... I believe I bought it because a magazine told me it would look good with my skin tone. While it does look good with my skin tone, it's pretty boring for such a cool color as gold. Zoya Richelle is much cooler. :)

One fun thing about Bronze Beauty is that it is made up of silver and gold particles with larger copper particles stuck in, giving the overall effect of gold. The name terms it bronze, but I'd call it gold.

I'm trying to consolidate my nail stash, so I gave this one to my mama. :)

In other news, I'm writing this from my brand new 13" Macbook Pro! Yay!

Anthropologie Lustings

Warning, this is a very picture-heavy post, full of my current Anthropologie lemmings. How I wish I could afford them ALL. Some of the sale ones are actually very decently priced, but alas, I don't have very much money at the moment.

On to the clothing! the Bold Boutonniere dress. I think that this is scrumptious. It looks so fall-ish and cuteFlowers-By-Numbers tee. On sale for $29.95 Very picnic-y.
Shellseeker Cardigan. On sale for $49.95 And how cute would I look tooling around campus in this?Sylvie Top. On sale for $29.95 Light and airy for the 3 months of summer we Texans still have.

the Terasina dress. I need a nice black dress. This one is ruffly! :)
the Well-Matched dress. I just think that this is cute. Period.
Asymmetric Architecture Jacket. On sale for $49.95 If this was black and leather, I think my wishes would be complete, and I would most likely buy it. As it is, I am content to wish for it.
Park Days Cardigan. On sale for $69.95 I would do exactly what the title suggests. :)
Quiet Light Dress. On sale for $49.95. So pretty and floaty.
Simplicity Dress. On sale for $69.95 It's yellow and has a ruffle and cinced waist. What more could you want?
Upon-The-Shore Jacket. On sale for $69.95 Ack, I can't even stand it! Why must you be so beautiful?
From-The-Sky Skirt. On sale for $99.95 This is one expensive skirt. It was originally $228. But it is so beautiful! If I had $99.95 to spend on a skirt, I would spend it on this one.
Sand Spurrey Espadrilles. On sale for $89.95 There are ROSES on these shoes. 'Nuff said.

Do you see? I should never browse stores online again. It's very bad for me. Makes me covet and lust for things. Luckily, I have an Anthropologie near me, so as soon as I get money, I will head over there. ;) That will probably not be until Christmas though. Because the money I have now has to pay for a bike and a bike lock and maybe part of a laptop, and then shampoo and other random things while I'm in college.
*sigh* Being practical is so boring.