Birthday Haul!

For my birthday this year, I wanted something simple. I wanted something useful. And I wanted it to come through the mail because it is HOT outside.

So, I ordered nail polish from Walgreens. As far as I know, they're the only place online to order Sinful Colors, and while a lot of the more expensive brands have released some cool colors, I was feeling extraordinarily cheap. But I do like Sinful, I think they might be the very best drugstore brand, and they certainly have the most colors.

From L-R, on my scarred up old desk, Sinful Colors "Love Nails", "24/7", "Midnight Blue", "Purple Diamond", Wet N' Wild "FuchsiaRama", Sinful Colors "Boogie Nights"

I'm a bit disappointed with "Love Nails" because it looks so similar to the other shimmery blue polishes I have from them. Shimmery blue is to Sinful Colors as orangey reds are to Essie. But I'll give it a try.

I plan on swatching these throughout the week (I'm on vacation, y'all!), and tomorrow REIT will be showing how awesome her nails look today.

Feels good to blog about nail polish again!

Today is a very special day...

TODAY IS HALLOWEEN CLEARANCE DAY!

Oh, and yes, it is R.E.I.T.'s birthday! Happy second birthday, big girl!

Now, I'm not kidding about it being Halloween clearance day. If you love nail polish, and if you have a Meijer by you, you owe it to yourself to stop there today. Here's our haul:

These are five minis from Phantom Frights, which I must assume is a Halloween cosmetics company, because I can't think of any other day someone might buy a cosmetic meant to make them frightening. The pink, magenta, and orange are really not at all frightening. I quite like the magenta! The orange is the exact same color as Studio M "Orange Hot". The black and white are standard, I would say, and one of those blacks is a more sheer black with silver glitter, which is suitable for layering. The original price was $4.99, but I got it for $1.24!

When I saw the remaining pumpkins, I couldn't resist. They're so cute. One is a sheer, green-tinted glow-in-the-dark glitter, and the other is a clear base with green micro-glitter and large silver hexagonal glitter. Both were $2.49 originally, but came home with me for $0.62. The coffin-shaped polish came home for the same reason... it's so cute. As it turns out, it's a pretty nice berry red, so I wasn't just buying the bottle. The company is Fright Night and the color is "Bloodshed". It was originally $2.99, but I got it for $0.74!

Now, even though that last one up there isn't necessarily a Halloween polish, it was in the Halloween clearance, so it counts. It's one of Blue Cross Beauty Products' color-change Mood Struck polishes. I've seen people play with these on their blogs, and since it was marked down to $0.99 from $3.99, I figured it wasn't too big of an expenditure for curiosity's sake. It's supposed to change from that coralish pink to a creme, but I haven't tried it out yet. I'll have to report back with results.

This is my crowning achievement of this Halloween season. Color Club "Cast a Spell" set. This one is "Bewitching". Four polishes and a set of Halloween decals. From left to right, "Hocus Pocus", which looks to be a holo glitter, "Spellbound" (Hey, that looks just like Studio M "Orange Hot"!), "Charmed I'm Sure" which is such a beatiful purple it was worth buying the whole set just for it, and "Bewitching", the absolute coolest, plastic-finish black. It's like coating your nails with black vinyl! I know you can see it in the picture, but I want to say it anyway: This set was marked down from $7.99 to $1.99.

So, that's $6.20 for thirteen polishes (some minis) and some nail art decals. Not too bad a haul, even if you subtract the two oranges that look exactly like Studio M "Orange Hot", a color I already owned (Studio M is made by Color Club, as I am guessing these minis were, as well), that's still 11 polishes for $6.20, which is about $.056 a piece. And I would have gladly paid $6.20 each for "Bewitching" and "Charmed I'm Sure".

Did anyone else go out and get spectacular deals today? Let us know in the comments!

Barielle "Shades of Argyle"

Okay, I have a confession to make. I left the following comment on Frazzle and Aniploish when she shared her photo of the "Shades of Argyle" collection display:

I can't think of anything more boring than Argyle to base a nail polish line off. They should do, "The colors of Formica" next.

Okay, so, based off a picture of the internet, they really did look super boring. But at Ulta today (I had some money left on a gift card that just had to be spent, and they had a buy two get one sale) I saw them in person. And I had to have them.

First of all, if you're into flash bang whizz zoom colors, this is not the collection for you. But if, like me, you occasionally want to wear what I call a "grown up" color, you won't be disappointed in these. They are gorgeous.

Because my nails and cuticles are still horrorshow, I spared you the sight of them swatched these on a spare nail wheel:



Unfortunately, the picture doesn't do them justice. No matter what lighting I used, I just couldn't get a completely faithful representation. But anyway, from the left,"Wool You Marry Me", "Tight Knit", and "Cashmere Or Loose Me".

"Wool You Marry Me" is a dark (but not as dark as the picture) berry red cream with a slight brownish cast. The closest shade I have in my collection is Essie's "Wicked", but this is a shade or two lighter and leans closer to brown than purple.

When I first picked up "Tight Knit", I thought it was a brown. Then, when I swatched it, I found it was a muddy rose. I have nothing close in my collection, so I'm glad I picked it up.

"Cashmere Or Loose Me" (did they mean "lose"?) is a golden brown cream with very subtle gold shimmer.

All the colors dried super glossy without a top coat, and I'm sure they'll look amazing with my boring and extensive collection of sweaters and turtlenecks.

I tried to enlist R.E.I.T. to help me swatch, but she took one look at the colors and said, "No. No more brown!" So, I guess she'll be on board when we swatch something else.

Awesome Deals and a Swatch!

This weekend, I got some awesome deals! First up, my local Ulta had almost their entire collection of Borghese on clearance for four dollars! I hope this doesn't mean they plan on discontinuing the brand in their store, because I would love to see another super deep discount like that in the future. I snapped up "Mezzanotte Blue", which is a deep navy. It reminds me quite a lot of Hard Candy "Mr. Right", minus the shimmer.

Over at Sally Beauty Supply was the really exciting find, though. For some reason I always miss the good stuff on their clearance tables. I get there when it's really picked over and all that's left is scented cuticle oil and unbranded base coats. This time, though, I found two colors from Finger Paints's fall collection, marked down to $1.99. Not bad. And then I got to the register and found out that all their clearance merchandise was 50% off! So, I got two Finger Paints polishes for one dollar each! I absolutely loved their fall collection, so I was excited to get two more colors, "Harvest Hues", which is a shimmery dark green, and "Autumn Moonlight", a gray-blue with silver shimmer.

Now, exciting deals aside, the big find of the day was Borghese "Vigneto Berry". I had seen this polish swatched on a ton of blogs and read rave reviews, but none of the Meijers in my area seemed to have the limited edition display out! I thought for sure I'd find it at Ulta, so imagine my disappointment when they didn't have it, either. I had three OPI polishes in my hand, due to their buy two, get one sale ("Who The Shrek Are You?", "Rumple's Wiggin", and "Suzy Says Feng Shui"), along with "Mezzanotte Blue" and went to stand in the longest line ever. Luckily, the line wound right past the Borghese display with their fall colors! Excitement!

Unfortunately, the four dollar sale didn't extend to this one tiny little display (boo), but I was so excited that I didn't care. In fact, I was so excited to find this one that I asked them to put back all the OPI that I had picked out. It just didn't look as "must have" next to "Vigneto Berry."

I had to wear it immediately:



Pardon my messy fingers. Borghese makes very wide brushes, and it's a bit hard to get used to. This picture kind of highlights the problems with the polish. I love that it's matte. I love matte finish polishes. But I took this picture literally five minutes after apply the second coat, and it's already cracked. I think this must be due to the crazy shrinking the polish does while drying, so I would recommend waiting until the first coat is absolutely dry before apply the second coat.

However, just look at it. Matte magenta, with glitter. It's ridiculous that anything should look so good.

Another thing I noticed on the blogs was that this is a very versatile polish. It looks completely different when you put on a glossy top coat:



And again with the messy fingers. Chalk it up to my excitement. I couldn't wait to get it on my hands. This is with one coat of Seche Vite. Look how completely different it is! It's like I bought two polishes in the same bottle. I did one hand with top coat, one without, and the results were shocking. The hand without the top coat looked elegant and very "high-fashion". The hand with the top coat looked fun and funky.

R.E.I.T. absolutely loves this polish, too, but she prefers it without the top coat. Or, "bumpy", as she calls it. It's actually the first polish that I think she's worn twice in a row!

Shopping Haul and Bloggish News

Good afternoon everyone! R.E.I.T. and I just spent a wonderful afternoon at Sally's Beauty Supply. You see, today is Daddy's and my wedding anniversary (only four years, though we've been together eight), so as a present, Daddy let us go out on a little shopping splurge. What did we get? Soooo glad you asked. Here's what I picked out:


L-R: Finger Paints "Autumn Allure", Orly "Galaxy Girl", Seche Vite

I know what you're thinking. "Seche Vite? Top coats aren't wonderful and interesting, they're just clear." This is wonderful and interesting to me. For years I've used Sally Hansen Hard As Nails as my topcoat, and then when I started getting interested in nail blogs, I notice that just everyone uses Seche Vite and sang its praises. I've finally given in to the hype, and I'll do a comparison post after I do, so we can all find out if Sally has lost her crown.

Here's what R.E.I.T. picked:


L-R: Orly "Old School Orange", China Glaze "Solar Power", Orly "Royal Navy"

At one point, R.E.I.T. also had Orly "Purple Pleather" in her hand, then decided that it was too much like another purple. At least, I think that's what she meant by, "No, it's same. Same. Too same! Back!" before she put it back.

I also pointed out to Daddy that "Royal Navy" and "Solar Power" look a lot like Blue and Maize... the colors of Daddy's hated rival school, University of Michigan (Daddy is a diehard MSU fan). He was less than thrilled, so I promised that she would never be allowed to wear the two together.

I'll definitely be reviewing "Old School Orange" for a later post, as it is the most bizarre texture/color of any nail polish I have ever seen.

Now, onto bloggish news. Over on the right there, you should be able to see little mini-updates from all the nail blogs that R.E.I.T. and I like to read together. I'll be adding more in the next few days. If you know of a really kick-ass nail blog, drop us a link and we'll check it out. We love making new blog friends!