Call Them Valentine's Nails If You Want To... (and Highlights from the Week)

Yesterday I spent time scrolling through Instagram looking at the #valentinesnails hashtag, cultivating some ideas for a heart-filled mani today. I even went so far as to decide on a theme and pull out a bunch of cute pastel polishes with which I was going to paint lots of small, dainty hearts onto my nails.

But then I realized I don't want to do any effing Valentine's Day nails this year. DO I SEEM IN THE MOOD FOR VALENTINE'S NAILS???

Sorry for yelling at you.

After abandoning most of my pastels and telling my heart-making dotting tool to go eff itself, I settled on another look entirely... a look which still ended up being semi-Valentinesy, much to my chagrin. The pink polishes used might give off a V-day vibe, but this was really just a way for me to use a Deborah Lippmann polish that I received as a 100-point VIB gift from Sephora a couple months ago. The polish, absolutely adorably called 99 Luftballons, has a sheer fuchsia base that's glitter-packed with multi-colored rounds and hexes.

My nails each have 3 coats of Sally Hansen's Pink Blink, and my thumb and ring fingernails each also got 2 coats of 99 Luftballons. Pink Blink is such a streaky bitch of a polish, but it's still a pretty color!

I didn't realize the base color of 99 Luftballons was going to be so colorful until I applied it over the top of Pink Blink. The fuchsia color surprised me, since the polish is so packed with glitter in the bottle that you can't really discern a color in the base. I thought it was going to be clear!

This has been another snowy week in Boston, and we are due to get another 3-day storm in the coming days. I'm not going to say that I hate the snow... but it's taking some getting used to, after enjoying balmy Pacific Northwest winters the last few years. Honestly, I'd much rather have rainy winters filled with lush green grass and trees than snowy winters where everything looks dead and depressing. Maybe a pretty strong sign that the Pac-NW was a good place for me... #LifeDecisions.

Despite the snow, I've been trying to not be a hermit. On Tuesday evening I took the T into downtown Boston to meet my friend Kara in the Back Bay for a post-work drink. We intended to go to a regular bar but Kara inadvertently discovered a freaking CHOCOLATE bar, which you may have seen me RAVING about on Instagram:

Max Brenner is a chocolate bar, restaurant, and all-over goddamn EXPERIENCE, people. Hot chocolates, choctails, milkshakes, desserts, crepes, waffles, and a full restaurant menu as well... I mean, it was like Willy Wonka opened a classier place for adults. I got a salted caramel milkshake (right) and Kara got a Mudslide milkshake (left). We both felt pretty good about ourselves afterwards. And by that I mean... I think we both skipped dinner that night.

On Wednesday afternoon I was on my way to a doctor's appointment (a follow-up orthopedic appointment about my neck/shoulder problems) when my entire car started to shake on the highway. Thinking I'd gotten a flat, I immediately pulled over on a super shitty part of I-93 - right at an off-ramp - and risked my life to check all four tires, which were all perfectly plump with air. Getting back into my car and driving off, the damn thing starts shaking again. Obviously worried, I pulled off at the next exit, parked in a bank lot, got out and looked underneath my car...

... where I saw something very metal and very important-looking dangling, half-attached, from the underbelly of my poor Toyota Yaris. "What the actual fuck?" I wondered to myself. Getting AAA on the phone was a 25-minute process in itself (busy day in Boston, thanks to all the snow), and then I was told that a tow truck would be out to help me by 5:45pm. I looked at the clock. It was just before 3pm. Fahk. Cue waiting in the cold car for nearly 3 hours with a dying iPhone, using bubble wrap as a blanket:

At 5:45 on the dot, the tow truck rolled into the lot. I described my problem to the driver, who looked under my car, identified the dangling atrocity as my heat shield, and told me it was no biggie and that I could very safely drive the car to a repair place myself. No tow needed.

....

YEAH. Really fantastic way for me to spend 3 hours. I even had to cancel my doctor's appointment. On the bright side, the heat shield is so unimportant (apparently) that the guy at the Monro Muffler place simply removed it for me, no charge! Thanks, Monro Man. I'm sorry I didn't get your name.

Last night I went to dinner at (Boston's famous) Regina's Pizza with Jenna and had a fantastic evening of catching up and eating carbs. Tonight I've got a sushi dinner date with Steph and her friend Cris at Sei Bar in Medford. Friends and food seem to be my big themes of the week :)

Hey, how the heck has YOUR week been going?
Did you eat anything super yummy this week?
How is your car holding up through your winter season?

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Minty Emerald Ombre Nails

Happy Valentine's Day, bitchessssssssssss!!

Today's mani uses 3 nail polishes that have each been showcased on my blog in the last month or so. I showed you the Sally Hansen Jade Jump and Revlon Parfumerie Balsam Fir polishes in my Drugstore Madness blog, and Revlon Orchid polish was the first radiant orchid polish that I showed you in January. I was immediately interested in doing an ombre look using Jade Jump and Balsam Fir, and only by coincidence did it occur to me that I liked the look of Orchid being thrown into that mix as well. The 3 polishes just happened to be sitting near each other on my desk the other day, and I thought, "Well DAY-UM you three look like one hot ticket."

So yesterday I set out my little makeup sponge, my three polishes, my dotting tool, and some Scotch tape, and got to work on this little look:

I think my ombre is improving - this is just the third time I've done it. You can see the other two ombre looks here and here.

After applying two coats of Jade Jump to all of my nails (it was streaky after the first coat, but evened out much better after the second coat), I taped up my fingers with the tape. This ensures that less polish will get all over your fingers, and makes clean-up easier later...

Then I sponged on my ombre...

Here they are after I removed the tape - still some clean-up to do, but not nearly as much as there would have been if there'd been no tape!

You may be able to tell in that above picture that I also added a Revlon matte top coat over the ombre, because. Just because.

Finally I added my orchid heart accent using my dotting tool, and gave the heart a quick pop of top coat to make the shiny heart stand out more from the matte ombre.

What do you think of these Valentine-y ombre nails? It's definitely a bit more work to give yourself a sponged ombre mani, but it's worth it every once in awhile. Treat yo self.

Do you have any big, sexy plans tonight?

Do you exchange gifts with your lover? If so, what'd you get your S.O.?

And happy birthday to my baby sister, Markie - she turns 22 today! #MyLittleValentineAngelBaby!

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{Linking up with What I'm Loving Fridays, The Nail Files, and Friday's Fab Favorites}

All products were purchased by me!

New Beauty Products from LUSH

Something about staying in the guest bedroom at my sister's house in Massachusetts turns me into a late-night web browsing fiend.  When I was visiting the East coast in January, my nights were spent propped up in bed in the dark basement guest room trying my damnedest to catch up on all of the blogs that I've been slacking on reading. Between my two jobs (my full time job and the side job I took in September), I don't get nearly enough time to read all the blogs that I'd love to read.

So being in Massachusetts affords me two things:  suddenly-free nights when I can lay in bed surfing zee net (something I don't normally do when I'm with Dave), and a time zone difference that allows me to begin work at a luxurious 8 or 9 AM, rather than the normal 7 AM that I work when I'm home on the West coast. In short: If you need me I'll be surfing the web till midnight because I don't have to wake up till 8 the next day! #Holla.

Naturally, after catching up on a ton of beauty blogs, the next step is to want everything that I just read about... And let me tell you, I read a LOT of blogs about new LUSH products. SO HERE WE ARE. Now just sit back and picture me with a huge, virtual bag of LUSH goodies, and then also picture me grabbing you by the collar and yelling, "LOOK AT ALL OF THE PRETTY THINGS (MOST OF WHICH ALSO SMELL GOOD)" while giving you a good shake.

Or don't do that last part. Your choice.

So yous guys know I love me some LUSH. Well, the Valentine goodies are here! And some of them are only here for a little while, so if I were you I'd hop on that shittttt!

Prince Charming shower gel (limited edition):  This is a hot pink shower gel with a bright, sweet, citrusy smell. It smells most like sugary sweet grapefruit and pomegranate. I don't notice anything really fabulous that it does for my skin necessarily, but the gel does lather up nicely. At $9.99 for a 100mL bottle of it, this is only something that I'd buy as a special treat for myself. The smell really is lovely, so I'm not upset that I spent the money on it... but seeing how quickly I've been going through it and realizing that it doesn't do anything spectacular for my actual skin, I just know that this isn't something I'd repurchase. Which is fine, since this is a limited edition shower gel and that won't have it anymore after this holiday!

From the LUSH site:

Lather up in our brand new, limited edition shower gel! Fresh pomegranate juice and grapefruit oil cleanse the skin while their bright, energetic scents help wake you up on early mornings. Add to that a blend of Fair Trade vanilla pod infusion, skin-softening marshmallow root and almond oil, and you’re in for royally soft, moisturized skin all over. The fragrance was made especially for this product and we think it’s an instant classic. Prince Charming is bound to sweep you off your feet!

Neon Love soap (limited edition):  Another limited edition for Valentine's Day! This bar of soap was one of the first things I saw in the store because it was part of their front window display. It was really difficult to accurately depict the color of this product in a photo (same with the Prince Charming shower gel). For some reason the pictures show up a bit... yellower? Or something? In real life, this soap is a neon pink/orange color, with white heart-shaped chunks inside of it. I haven't used it yet (because I've been using the shower gel instead), but it's been sitting in its wrapping in my bathroom since last week and it has made the whole room smell quite LUSHy. The scent of this soap (which is quite strong in the room, so it may also be quite strong on the body) is made up of things that I simply do not recognize. It's sorta spicy, sorta floral... but mostly I'm at a loss. I will let LUSH describe it for you:

We’re excited to introduce a brand new soap made especially for Valentine’s Day. With fresh passion fruit juice to cleanse and soya yogurt to nourish, Neon Love is one we want to use all over our bodies in the bath and shower. A new perfume was blended for this bar, and includes citrusy bergamot, rosewood and spicy cinnamon leaf oil. Hiding inside the huge heart-shaped soap are little white hearts to ensure every slice looks just as beautiful as it smells.

Neon Love Soap goes for $6.95/100g. I got a big 190g chunk of it for $13.21.

Charity Pot: This was sort of an impulse buy, but LUSH matches 100% of the price and donates it to charity, so I impulsed away. My hand-health has been going to shit lately because of the wintery air. Anyone else? My cuticles have been really angry and my hands have been dry and alligator-y. I was in need of some new hand creams, fo sho. Charity Pot is a hand and body lotion made with almond oil, cocoa butter, and ylang ylang, and it retails for $5.95 for a 45g pot. A little goes a long way with this lotion, plus I only intend to use it on my hands, so the smaller 45g pot seemed like just the right amount to me. You can also buy the larger 225g pot for $22.95.

From the LUSH site:

Inside every black pot of Charity Pot is a whole lot more than a creamy body lotion to hydrate parched, dry skin. Of course, it’s filled with the finest ingredients, including Fair Trade organic cocoa butter, and made by hand with love. Not to mention the gorgeous fresh, ylang ylang floral fragrance. What makes it so special? Every penny (yes, every single penny) that you pay for a pot, excluding the tax, goes to fund and support grassroots charities all around the world. You end up with softer, floral-scented skin AND you’re doing a world of good with every pot purchased.

When I take care to really rub this stuff into my hands and cuticles for awhile, it does a lovely job of softening my skin. You definitely do have to work it into your skin for a little while though - otherwise you may feel like it's too greasy. I promise if you work through it, there's a light on the other end of the tunnel.  My favorite part about this vegan lotion is that it smells distinctly like a chocolate Tootsie Roll. Mmm...

Lemony Flutter: This cuticle cream has been popping up a lot in other people's blogs, so it was on my radar. I was about to buy some at LUSH this time when I noticed that it cost $17! Whaaaa? For some freaking cuticle cream? Granted it was a huge container, as far as cuticle creams go (this was a 45g pot, compared to the 11.3g "pot" of the Sally Hansen cuticle cream I'd been using), but good lord. $17?? As a solution, I asked the employee for a sample of the cream, which she was happy to give me:

From the LUSH site:

We made Lemony Flutter to soften your dry, cracked cuticles and nourish your nails; it’s our thickest, zestiest cream yet. In fact, it’s so good at softening, our customers have been using it on other rough body parts, like feet, elbows and knees too. Fresh lemons infusion is lovingly blended in our rich butter base to brighten skin and lighten nails. Each batch contains twenty-two pounds of beeswax and cold-pressed avocado oil to moisturize and soften your skin. There are so many nutritious butters and oils in each pot, it’s no wonder that such a little amount can go such a long way.

I've barely tried this yet because I've been going HAM on my Charity Pot hand cream (as well as another hand cream which you'll read about later this week). But I will say that the smell of Lemony Flutter is basically like lemon-scented PineSol - it kiiind of reminds me of a public bathroom in that respect. Like a freshly cleaned public bathroom, but a public bathroom nonetheless. The texture is also much creamier than the Sally Hansen cream I'd been using (that was more of a waxy texture) and reminds me a bit of cream used on diaper rashes. Wow, I am really selling this product - public bathrooms and diaper rash cream. Two things you never want to associate with your beauty routine? YOU DECIDE.

Catastrophe Cosmetic fresh face mask:  Whoohoo! Another LUSH fresh face mask! (I've written about Oatifix and Cupcake in the past.) I'd heard phenomenal things about Catastrophe Cosmetic, especially that it is good for troublesome, sensitive skin. That's meeee! It contains things like blueberries, chamomile, and almond oil. I will do a whole post about this one when I eventually use it. It retails for $6.95/60g pot.

 

From LUSH:

Prevent disasters by taking regular care of your skin with our deep-cleansing, nutrient-rich blueberry mask. The little blue bulbs are packed with vitamins, and blended into calamine, rose absolute and chamomile blue oil to soothe redness, irritation and cleanse the skin without stripping it of its natural oils. This one is wonderfully soothing on sensitive skin. Treat your face to Catastrophe Cosmetic as often as you can to keep your skin looking its best.

Have you tried any of these products? I'd love to hear your thoughts, if so!

As I mentioned, some of these Valentine's items are limited edition, so don't be mad at ME if you slack and miss them! You can browse their other Valentine's items here.

And hey, today marks my 250th blog post. That's something to celebrate right? I'm patting myself on the back right now. How will you celebrate?

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All items were purchased by me.

{Linking with Monday Must Haves}

Valentine's Day Nails: Hearts & Dots!

I kind of freaked out this week when I realized we were into the first week of February and there weren't any Valentine's Day nails posted on my blog. WERE YOU FREAKING OUT, TOO? Oh, what's that? There are a million other nail polish blogs posting Valentine-themed nails all over the internet, and you're totally all set with all your V-Day nails this year and you don't even need my ideas at all?

Oh.

Well, tough shit. I've got one for you anyway!

I used Essie's A List (red), Sinful Colors' Snow Me White, and Revlon's Stiletto (black).

It's been quite awhile since the last time I did any hearts on my nails, so there were some serious practice rounds on paper before I even brought my dotting tool to my nail. And even with the practice rounds, I still ended up mucking it up and needing to wipe it off twice!

I did several Valentine's nails last year, if you want to check out any of those:  

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 

OH, by the way. Congratulations to Joey for winning my *first ever* giveaway! I'll be sending her a bottle of Revlon Orchid and a bottle of ORLY Preamp! HOOZAH FOR THAT!

What do you have planned for the weekend? Anything fun? I've got a fun brunch to go to tomorrow morning with a few other Vancouver bloggers. I love brunch and having blogging buddies, so it should be a great combo tomorrow!

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{Linking up with The Nail Files, What I'm Loving Fridays, and Friday's Fab Favorites} 

Sally Hansen Coral Reef + Neon Hearts

Happy Valentine's Day! I bought a new nail polish recently - a Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Extreme Wear polish in the color Coral Reef. It was so bright and cheerful and eye-catching in its bottle that I thought it would be a great color for spring... or now... or whenever I wanted to wear it, really.

Incidentally, it's the same exact color as a sweatshirt I got recently while thrifting in Vancouver:

SO. Guess that color is trending... with me.

This past weekend I tried it out for the first time and ended up taking it two steps further to ultimately create 3 different nail polish options. #thisgirlisonfiahhhh (#ihatethatsonnnngggg) As it turns out you can even wear this today for Valentine's Day!

Starting off with the first option of just rocking Coral Reef, as is. This was a bit streaky after the first coat, but was pretty much good to go after the second coat was applied.

1 coat   vs   2 coats

This polish looks insanely different in different lights. Indoors, it can look either ultra peachy, ultra corally or ultra hooker chic. Like, crazy neon orange looking. Outdoors it looks much pinker and looks more like a neon pink. Look at the color differences below:

.  inside  .

.  outside  .

That shit cray.

So for the second option, I added white hearts to just a couple of nails using a dotting tool:

I was doing this solely for the ensuing 3rd step of adding more colors on top of the white hearts. Nail polish tip:  Just like with any painting project, you'll get a more vibrant color payoff if you begin with a white base. It will really make your top layer's color pop! So I was painting these white hearts as mere base hearts for my upcoming neon hearts, but I really liked the way the white hearts looked, too! I almost stopped there... but I really wanted to see how neon hearts would look, so I kept going...

... to my third nail polish option: Adding neon hearts! After the white hearts had sufficiently dried I used a few different neon polishes to add hearts right on top of where I'd laid down the white hearts earlier. I happen to have a nice selection of bright neon-ish colors:

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Flashy Fuschia

Neon Green by Love & Beauty

Sunshine by Claire's Cosmetics

(And that's Coral Reef on the far right)

.  artsy progress pics  .

And there you go! Which one do you like best?

Happy Valentine's Day biddies! I'd love to see what you end up rocking on your nails today. 

♡ Tweet me a pic @akaBailey! ♡

Anti-Valentine's Day Nails

This look was inspired by one of my Twitter followers, Bridgette. I share all of my nail polish looks on Twitter and she recently responded to a particular tweet about Valentine's Day nails by basically saying, "Yay for Valentine's nails, but nay for Valentine's Day." Truth alert:  She didn't actually say the words "yay" or "nay" but the sentiment behind the sentence was basically the same.

So I got to thinking... Yeah! Fuck Valentine's Day! Or.... at least make a nail design that says as much.  Not everyone thinks Valentine's Day is the cat's meow, the bee's knees, the dog's tuxedo or the JoBro's coiffed locks. This is for anyone who wants the rest of us to just shut the hell up already about Valentine's Day.

Ready to really flip the bird to Old Saint Valentine? (Uhh... no offense to anyone of course.)  Here's my version of Anti-Valentine's Day Nails!

I used the following colors:

A chunky Crystal Silver glitter polish from Love & Beauty, Sinful Colors' Ruby Ruby, Sinful Colors' Snow Me White, and Revlon's Stiletto.

Look, I even made a Paintbrush doodle of what I wanted my nails to look like:

Let's all have a good chuckle about the (at least) double meaning of "FU VD". Ha, ha. Now let's get started!

Step 1:  Paint your thumb and middle fingers two coats of white polish and your pinky and pointer fingers two coats of black polish. Paint your ring finger as many coats as you need of your chunky silver glitter. Try to really deck it out and pack on the bling!! I kept adding more glitter layers throughout all of the following steps.

.  as usual, don't let your nails have all the fun - let your fingertips get in on some of the polish action too! #accuracy  .

Step 2: Now we pretend like we're going to make a sweet, lovely manicure and paint some hearts onto our thumb, pinky and pointer nails using a dotting tool... reserving our middle fingers for that very special, totally ladylike message:

I added the middle finger sentiment via a toothpick dipped into black polish.

.  yes, it's on the middle finger on purpose  .

.  indeed  .

Step 3: Get angsty! Using a striper brush, splash a big ol' black X across your thumbnail. Cover all those pretty hearts up with a flare that says, "OH THESE HEARTS? YEAH I COULD DO WITHOUT THESE. WHATEVER."

Step 4: Use a toothpick dipped into black polish to draw little cracks through the hearts on your pointer and pinky fingers - this was actually really easy to do without screwing up:

Don't forget to keep adding layers of chunky silver glitter to your ring finger all the while. The symbolism there is, of course, that you can bling yourself out and don't need a man to throw some sparkle on your ring finger for you on Valentine's Day.  ;)  And on that note...

!*!*!*!*!* MUSICAL INTERLUDE !*!*!*!*!*

.  pinky ring worth about fiddy BLING BLING!  .

Thanks for indulging me there. Now where were we?

Oh yes, angst. Well I think we're done! Here's a photo vom of the finished loooooook:

Now get out there and TP your local florist's shop for jacking up her prices so much this week! ♡