Birchbox August

 Woohoo! I always love getting this in the mail! Looks pretty interesting this time. It came with a nice size of Befine night cream, Befine exfoliating face wash sample pack, Twirl perfume sample by Kate Spade, Lift Lab Lift & Fix High Potency Solution which I'm assuming is to help wrinkles and the like, Blinc water resistant mascara in what looks like full size, and a Twistband hair tie.

Here are the descriptions.

 

This is the mascara out of the packaging tube. It kind of looks like a cigar case. I haven't tried this yet. 

I have been using these nightly for the past two days. Obviously I haven't seen any results. They don't feel weird on or anything though. Kind of hard to review this lol. 

I've heard some raves about the Twistband and I really like mine. It isn't freaky special, but I do think it's a little better than a traditional hair band. I feel like it reduces the chance of getting the dreaded pony tail crease because it's wider and spreads out the pressure. I do like the way it looks on my wrist too :D. 

What did you get in your Birchbox?

Pedi From the Boyfriend :D

So he told me he would paint my toes before he left for deployment more than six months ago. He didn't have time, so I gave him a rain check. Of course I didn't forget!! Six months later...

He picked the colors for me :D.

Isn't is pretty? Not too messy either! This is NOPI Wile Blue Yonder Matte from Amber :D. It's a lovely, normal blue, glitter matte.

Here it is with the glitter - Funky Fingers Sand and Stilettos!

Bling bling holo!

And the finished product in the sunshine on our fishing trip!

Does your man ever do your toes? I love it!!

I'm Back!

Really I've been here all along, reading your comments and chatting here and there as always. I've just been SO busy! His parents left recently and we've just now started to get time to ourselves again after his deployment. Not to mention I still have work and school starts in a couple weeks. But I'm here and wanted you to know we're having an awesome time!!!



This is us before dinner at the Melting Pot, a lovely fondue place, one of the first nights we had back together. He looks so fine in his custom suit!

 

 Here we are on a fishing trip where we caught like 50 croaker between the 4 of us and had an amazing fish feast that night with plenty left over. I also caught a blowfish, and boy did he taste good. I ate that bitch up.

 Here is our catch all together.

 Jeremy caught two at once!

I wrangled the shark that his mom caught :D.

And here we are at the comedy club that we like to visit down town.

We've been having a blast! I'm going to get back into blogging as much as possible, don't worry. I won't disappear or blog a lot less. He's already fussing that we're never going to get out of the house at this rate lol!

Guest Post: Max Factor Polish

Meet Stacy from Stacy's Nail Diaries! ~Megan

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This is Max Factor Max Effect Mini Nail Polish in Dazzling Blue. 

Despite my pics not showing the true multi-chromatic nature of this polish, it is a duo-chrome/multi-chrome that glints teal, green, royal blue, and purple depending on lighting. 

This is 2 coats of MF Dazzling Blue over 3 coats of Lex Cosmetics PeaBow, one coat of Seche on top. I got this one in a swap from my friend in the UK :) 

Application is gorgeous - no visible brush strokes, very smooth. I looove the color(s) and the shine. Can't stop staring at my hands! :) Sorry my pics are crummy. I tried SOOO hard to capture from different angles and it just doesn't do it justice. 

Guest Post: Half Moon Mani

Thanks to Erin at The Sugar Cube for this super cute and easy to do post! ~Megan

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Before I start this post, I'd like to thank Megan for giving me the opportunity to guest blog for her. I racked my brain trying to think of a suitable topic to blog about here, and hopefully at least one of you will be able to take something from this simple tutorial that I made. If nothing else, I at least hope that I could do this blog justice! 

That said, on with the tutorial!

I've seen a lot of girls wondering how to do half moon manis, and the technique is surprisingly simple. If you're at all familiar with using tape to create nail art designs, you'll be able to churn this look out with no problem at all.

Materials you'll need:
- Nail polish in 2 different contrasting colors. Ideally one would be much lighter than the other.
- Reinforcement labels. If you have no idea what those are, you're not alone. They're the little round stickers with a hole in the center that are used to patch loose notebook paper when the holes rip. I bought mine at CVS in the aisle where they sell pens for roughly $2.00. 

- Top coat. 

Step 1: Paint your nails with your base color. It's obviously a good idea to use the lighter color as the base, since you'll need the other color to cover a good portion of the nail. I used OPI What's With The Cattitude. Let your base color completely dry. I usually wait about 45 minutes before moving onto step 2.

Step 2: Whip out your reinforcement labels. In case you're still confused about what these are, here is a picture of what mine look like.

Step 3: Apply one of your reinforcement labels to one of your nails, right where your cuticles are. The majority of the label should be above your nail, and only a small half moon shape should be on the nail itself. Once you have the label in place, press on it until it's completely stuck to all contours.

Step 4: Paint the entire nail with your darker colored nail polish. I did not include a picture of this step because it's very important that you remove the label when the polish is still wet and I didn't want to run the risk of it drying while I snapped photos :P

Step 5: While your darker colored polish is still wet, carefully remove the reinforcement label. Apply top coat once it's dry.

Step 6: Repeat steps 1-5 on each nail and then marvel at your half moon mani!

Guest Post: Multi-Chrome Goodness

This is Purple Beach by Nubar.  I have tried several of the Duochromes from Nubar and I have loved them all. This one was no different.  I am surprised though that they have not come out with just a set of Duochromes, they have sets of everything else it feels like.   

Well this was two coats of Purple Beach on top of Seche Vites Retain.  I have noticed that with alot of duochromes they tend to be on the opaque side and need at minimum 2 coats of polish, 3 probably working best.  Not that I usually use less than 2 but just the way they tend to apply seems to always be sheer.  The dry time on this was slightly slow but I am impatient.  I then topped it with Seche Vites fast drying top coat.  I love the way that top coat makes everything just a little more shiney :).  

This one is in sunlight. 

So to describe this color is trickier than most.  I can not really decide if it is a purple with brown duochrome and gold shimmer, or a brown with purple duochrome and gold shimmer.  You decide from the pictures.

Guest Post: Cult Nails

Hey dolls, it's Lakeisha from Refined and Polished. Today I have for you one of the beauties from Cult Nails…My Kind of Cool Aid. This is a light greyed-out purple that has a subtle silver shimmer included. Maria calls it gravender, which describes this color perfectly. The formula on this shade was awesome as I have come to expect from Cult Nails. It applied easily and was almost opaque in 1 coat. The second coat just increased the depth of the color. The dry time was relatively quick, which is always a plus.

I love this shade. It’s really unique in my collection and I love how it varies from grey to lavender in the light. This is definitely a shade that can be worn year round. I attempted my first scotch tape mani using My Kind of Cool Aid as the base. OPI’s Your Royal Shine-ness was used for the diagonal tips and Aldo Hit the Pavement for the dots.

I really like the way this turned out for my first attempt. While the color combo doesn’t scream summer, it makes me happy because they are my high school’s colors. I’ll be attempting more scotch tape manis in the future now that I know how relatively easy they are. I just have to be sure there are no air pockets in the tape to get a smooth line. Please feel free to leave any tips on ensuring clean lines when using tape. Hope you all enjoyed the guest post. You can see more of my nails here. Happy polishing dolls!