Christmas Came Early!!

Damn! I ordered a lot of polish!!! In my defense - I reallllllllly needed the China Glaze To Be Naughty or Nice Holiday collection. Because it's phenomenal.

And of course since I was ordering from 8ty8, I needed to make the shipping charges worthwhile, so I added on a couple Color Club's from the recent Untamed Luxury collection, as well as a few miscellaneous CG and CC.

And then I found a fabulous little sale on Magic Maid, so I took advantage and ended up with 23 polishes from her. 

I really ought to be ashamed. But I'm not because I'm too damn excited!!!

So I didn't even know my camera had this function where it takes a super long time to process a picture but you don't need to use flash inside. But the top picture is what my polishes looked like using that. 

The bottom picture is normal macro with flash. 

The polishes are (from left to right) Top row: Color Club Wild Orchid, De-Luxe-cious, Snakeskin, Wild at Heart, and Soft as Cashmere. Bottom Rom: China Glaze Party Hearty, Jolly Holly, Frosty, Peace on Earth, Cheers to You, Ruby Deer, Mommy Kissing Santa, Emerald Sparkled, Bermuda Breakaway, and my replacement For Audrey. 

Holy crap! So many polishes! Top Row (Left to Right): H&M Mad About You, Diamond Cosmetics Hue Are You, Gosh Mystery Night, Gosh Black Passion, Wet 'n Wild Gilded, Wet 'n Wild Frostbite, Finger Paints Laugh My Art Off, Milani Cyberspace, Milani Hi-Tech, Sinful Colors San Francisco, Sinful Colors Rise and Shine. 

And Bottom Row (L to R): Icing Ice Queen, Rimmel London Hard Edged, Rimmel LondonNight Before, Nina Ultra Pro Velvet Revolver, Nina Ultra Pro Leaf Me Alone, Nina Ulta Pro Vintage Velvet, Maybelline Steel Wheeling (which looks AMAZING), Maybelline Spin Around Brown, Maybelline Glass Slipper, Sally Hansen In The Navy, Maybelline Express Finish Brown Aluminum, NYC Chinatown.

Whew. 

I also have a package from Zoya scheduled to arrive tomorrow, as well as a package from Barry M containing, among other things, Dusky Mauve! I'm so excited to have a Paradoxal dupe!! 

Mini-mini Haul

This is some pics from my extra mini haul that I just made. I wonder what is the minimum amount of products one needs to purchase in order to constitute a haul. Well anyway, I was on a strict no-buy after spending way too much money on polish last month. But that didn't last too long. So yesterday when I was at the mall I found this amazing store called Beauty Mode. They have Zoya!!!! It's awesome. And they have practically every OPI in the world. Or at least a few polishes from every collection. Easily twice or three times as many as Ulta has. 

Anyway, so while I was there I grabbed the Burlesque mini-collection, which contains Rising Star, Take the Stage, The Show Must Go On! and Ali's Big Break. I must admit I was super excited to see this because I've been coveting Ali's Big Break ever since I saw the All Lacquered Up reviews. I also grabbed some CND Stickey as well as OPI's You Don't Know Jacques. 

Then when I got home I saw that my mailman left me a fabulous present! Now you may ask yourself, is it really a present when you pay for it yourself? And my answer would be yes! Because when you order stuff online (and from China) it takes so long to get here that you forgot what you ordered to begin with! 

Well when I opened my package I found some hex glitter and brushes. I loveeee this glitter! Seriously, I'm pretty sure its exactly what is in Deborah Lippmann products.  So I received an assortment of colors, and some new clean-up/nail art brushes because acetone eats the crap out of my brush bristles. 

Sorry for the crappy pictures! It was dark out when I got home and so I had to take the pics indoors and then the flash kept ruining the pictures, and my camera absolutely refuses to let me take a low-light picture. Seriously it won't let me. It says low-light and then puts the flash on. And if it does by chance actually take a picture, the exposure seems to be like 10 times the length of a normal exposure so its just a blurry greyed out mess. 

Some close-ups of the glitters. So pretty! Unfortunately there are only the hex glitters in there no tiny regular glitter a-la Lippmann. So I've definitely got to find out where to buy some regular glitter that is good for nail art and frankening. 

Diamond Cosmetics Haul

Hey, here are some pics from the lovely DC haul I got a few days ago. Can I just say how much I loveeeeeeeee Diamond Cosmetics?!? Love the products, love the quality, love the color, love the customer service, love the speedy deliver, but most of all I love (yet also fear) the fact that you can order up to 20 bottles and still only pay 5 bucks in shipping! I mean come onnnnn! That's amazing! When I buy bottles from my usual ebay retailer, shipping is 2 bucks a bottle - every bottle! Transdesign and 8ty8 are pretty good but my shipping costs are usually like 7 or 8 bucks and I never get 20 bottles. Oh.. plus DC polishes are sooooooooooo cheap!!! 2 bucks. Two measly dollars. That's right BD, two. So go ahead and order one. Or two. Or preferably 20. 

From Left to Right: Matte Top Coat, Burgundy, Under the Willow Tree, Concrete Jungle, Joust for Kicks, and Serendipity.

L to R again: Serendipity again, Giddy, Matte Smoke, Tranquility, Hi-Ho Silver, and Oh Tiff. 

I am super excited to try these out. Apparently I'm on a blue/gray stormy day kick. I can't get enough. I've already swatched some of these so hopefully I'll get them up tonight. Although I might hold out on posting all of them right now because it was pretty darn rainy here in FL today, and here in FL you really can never predict when the sun will shine and when it will hide behind clouds all day. Stupid fickle weather.

On an unrelated note - I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO happy that hockey has started again. It has been a longgggg summer of watching baseball. And I hate baseball! But there is nothing else on in the summer. I love the "fall" specifically because the good sports (hockey and football) come back and provide me with something to do every night. You know, I mean besides the astronomical amount of reading that I am assigned. 

Also - I am ecxited about my shows coming back on! How I Met Your Mother! Big Bang Theory, Glee, House, The Office, Modern Family, Survivor! I've seriously missed you all. And even you cheesy CW shows like Gossip Girl, ANTM, and Life Unexpected. 

And... now I've got to go and at least pretend to do some reading.

Essie Haul

So today a fabulous item arrived on my doorstep - the Essie cube I ordered from Amazon! I'm sooo excited! I was originally going to just grab the mini cube they have at Ulta, which was 17 dollars for 4 of the 6 colors, and they are mini bottles, so it only contains .16 oz of product (as opposed to the usual full sized bottles of .5 oz). But since my last trip to Ulta in which I grabbed a few 1/2 off Essies, I realized I reallllllly wanted to get this fall set. So I went to order the mini set from Amazon, and instead I found a full sized set! With all 6 colors! for 35 bucks! Including shipping! In other words - ridiculously cheap! And it came really fast, I must have ordered it on Sunday and it shipped today (Thursday).

From left to right:  Little Brown Dress, Velvet Voyeur, Merino Cool, Sew Psyched, Limited Addiction, and In Stitches. 

Very excited to swatch these!! 

Another Ulta Haul

Only a mini haul. I only went in to exchange one of the bottles that I just purchased because the brush was messed up. And of course I found a bunch of fabulous $2 Ulta polishes that I needed to have. And I also found a fantastic set called "Shades of Grey" that I had to have. And at the register there was a giant bowl of 1/2 off Essies. So naturally I had to buy those too.

Okay so from left to right: Ulta Moody Blues, Ulta Devious, Ulta Scene Steel-er, The Shades of Grey collection (which is comprised of City Sidewalk, Concrete Jungle, High Rise Haze, and Smoke Screen), Ulta The Jungle Look, Ulta After Party, Essie Bold and Beautiful, and Essie Lacy Not Racy.

Damn, that store is going to be the death of me. Or at least the death of my credit score. 

Ulta Haul

So..... my dear friend BD and I went on a lovely trip to Ulta today. Holy crap. We should not be allowed in that store. I don't see how it's possible to nottttt spend nearly a hundred dollars. Everything is so pretty! And it seems so cheap so you rationalize with yourself that you're getting a good deal and that you need to buy it. Next thing you know your 90 bucks poorer. But it is worth it. I absolutely love everything I got. Plus it was great for this blog that I know some people are occasionally reading (even if you guys don't officially follow me). The Ulta polish was on sale for only 2 bucks. So obviously I grabbed a bunch. China Glaze was buy 2 get 1 free - but I usually buy my China Glaze from Transdesign.com or 8ty8beauty.com so I wasn't as tempted to stock up on those. But omg I'm so glad there was no OPI sale, because instead of 90 bucks poorer, I would be 200 bucks poorer. Anyhoo - they had a lot of fantastic Halloween stuff on sale - like glow in the dark polish for 99 cents. Also.. they strangely had Diamond Cosmetics glow in the dark polishes, which is AWESOME because I think Diamond Cosmetics makes the best Glow in the Dark polishes. Even though they have glitter (which I view as a good thing although I know some will see it as a detractor) they are 100 times more glowey than any other glow in the dark i've owned. Although - I must say I reallllllllllllllly miss the Discovery Channel store - which is where I first discovered that glow in the dark polish existed. That was the best store. I wonder if they still exist. If they do, I don't think they're in the Tampa area anymore. Which sucks. but I digress...

Haul.... 

My birthday gifts from the loveeeeeely BD, along with a beautiful card. :) 

From left to right: Sinful Colors Love Nails, Sally Hansen Insta Dri Mint Sprint, Sinful Colors Nail Junkie, and Sinful Colors Gorgeous. 

Thank you my love!! You know me so well. :)

And on to Ulta stuff.. 

The Untamed color palette which I was hesitant to purchase, but BD talked me into it.. so I threw it in my basket. lol. It looks pretty awesome and I can't wait to try it out. I also can't wait to buy some more. Damn you Ulta!

Ulta polishes (from Left to Right):  Envy, Steppin Out, Blue Streak, Alter Ego, Sun Sational, and Plum Street in the back. Also in this picture is the little tiny bottle of glow in the dark polish that was 99 cents (side note - why is there no cent sign on my keyboard. how the heck to people make that cent sign? I guess $ 0.99 will work.)

And in this picture you can sort of see the Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Shooting Star that I grabbed (because my target is silly and never restocks polishes. Even after they've been opened and broken and empty or are sold out. I don't know why my target has no polish love) and am super excited about. Also I had to refill my dwindling supply of Bare Minerals. I've tried other mineral makeup, like Everyday Minerals, which can be bought online and is super cheap.  But nothing compares to the fabulousness that is Bare Minerals. Totally worth the ridiculous price they have online - but actually at Ulta I think it was pretty cheap. 25 bucks for 8g of foundation, and only 19 bucks for 8 g of mineral veil (WHICH IS THE BEST PRODUCT EVER MADE FOR FACES). Yeah thats right - I yelled it.. because it's true. 

Also in this picture you will see some awesome bows which are adorableeeeee and I can't wait to wear!!!! And what you probably can't see is a FANTASTIC (looking - cause I haven't tried it yet) nail stamping set! OMG! I feel like such a FOOL for buying fake Konad stuff online and waiting 8 years for it to be shipped from China. How could I not have known that this stamping set was right here in my own backyard (relatively speaking - the tampa area). It comes with a plate, a stamp, and a scraper. For how much, you may ask... FOR A DOLLAR AND FOURTY NINE CENTS, I will answer. OMG. I paid over 20 bucks for my Konad stamp (which is incredibly shitty, by the way) and 3 plates.. one of which is the french manicure set that blows big time. I can't believe it. If you have an Ulta near you, get this instead of buying crappy products from China. Not that I have anything against Chinese bootleg movies (cause I'll be dammed if I pay 25 bucks for a 10 year old Disney movie when I can get every disney movie ever made for 20 bucks from China). But I suppose I just expected a better quality product and didn't get it. I tried BD's official Konad set and it blows mine out of the water. This may be why I hate Konad. My plates are too shallow and it doesn't hold any polish. So I'm going to try this Essence set and see if it is any better. And even if it isn't.... IT WAS CHEAPER THAN A 20oz SODA.. which makes it worth it in my book. 

Wow - what a bunch of random ramblings. I think I'll stop now. 

Current Reading:  Edward Said:  Orientalism.