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.