Julep Maven program-Check it out!

I was just reading through some other blogs and I found out about the Julep Maven program. You sign up, take a quiz to match your style, then every month for $19.95 they send you a goodie box with over $40 worth of stuff!! The cool thing is that you have lots of options with this program. If you don't like what they have chosen for you, you can choose something else. If you want the to send that month's box to someone else as a gift, they will, for no extra charge! If you just don't want anything you can skip a month, and if you decide it's not for you, you can cancel at any time. Here is a link where you can read more about it and take the style quiz and see what they have to offer.


http://www.julep.com/?r=18624178

I just ordered my first box, and I can't wait to share it with you when it arrives!

Sally Girl Series: Mango Tango 812040 & So Disco 812030

Finally! One of my Sally Girl polishes actually had a name on it!! The majority of them don't, so I have to search the Sally Website for the name. So Disco is actually labeled, yay!! I hope this is a new trend.

First I put on Mango Tango, a medium tone orange color. It's like a fall orange. This picture is 4 coats and you can still see a bit of VNL.

Then, just so I could keep on polishing, I put on some So Disco glitter. I just love glitter. But I have never had such a hard time photographing one!! I don't have the benefit of natural light and I have tried everything, this is the best I can get.

With flash.

No flash.

I think the next thing on my list of things to do is moisturize, when did my nails/hands/cuticles get so dry?? Yuck.

Revlon Colorstay 2012 - Update

OK, it's now been 5 days since I applied this and it's still pretty much perfect. I did have a small chip on my thumb but I think that was more an issue of a crack in my nail than the manicure. All the other fingers look fine. Barely even any tip wear. The only problem, for me, is that it's boring to wear the same manicure for 5 days!! And I can't sit here and swatch my polishes just for fun like I like to do sometimes.

So if you need a mani that stay for days, definitely try this. I am also going to do a couple more experiments, one wearing the Colorstay polish with other base/top coats and another wearing the Colorstay base/top coats with different polish.

Here's a picture of five days of wear. Sorry I got so bored with it I put some China Glaze Glam on the tips, but I think it's thin enough (I didn't finish) that you can see the tip wear or lack of it. And unfortunately you can see where my cat managed to scratch me right at the cuticle on my picture hand!! I obviously need to do something about them anyway, they all look horrible. But the polish is good. :)

Revlon Colorstay 2012

I saw a huge display of this stuff at CVS the other day. It promises a gel-like shine for 11 days. The small print tells you that this is if you use their base coat, polish and top coat. All they had was the colors here, no base or top coat. Tonight I was at Walgreens and found the display with everything. I just had to try this out.

I remember the old Colorstay nail polish. It came in a bubble pack of a color and a top coat, many of which were glitter. I actually still have a bottle of the top coat and it smells like plastic so bad (and always has) I remember why I hardly ever used it.

So I have better hopes for the new stuff, and I picked up the base coat, top coat and 3 colors. I am going to test it out and see how long it really lasts. I will keep you updated. The thing I find odd is that Revlon does not have any information about this polish on their website yet, and I wanted to link to it. I don't get that. If it should ever go up I will put a link to it. There are several colors in the new line.

Here is the top and base coats and the three colors I got: Rain Forest, Amethyst and Cafe Pink.

Amethyst

Cafe Pink

Rain Forest

Base and Top Coat

I did my manicure on Saturday, finishing about 2am, so far, so good. I was really looking forward to using the green but sometimes I can't keep the darker shades on my nails for too many days. I'm not really a dark polish person, even though I like it, so I tend to wear it less often and for shorter periods of time. So I used the Cafe Pink for my test run. I did have to use 3 coats but it smoothed out really well and I think it looks nice.

I will keep you updated about how long this lasts, etc...

Sally Girl Series: Luv It 812049

I've been wanting to get swatches of all my Sally Girl polishes out there. I love these little things. They have some great colors, and at $.99 a piece they are a great way to try out colors that you might not want to buy a full bottle of. The only thing I don't like about them is that the name of the polish is not on the bottle, just the SKU number. I usually go through the list at sallybeauty.com to match the number to a name. I will just randomly pick a color each time and post about it. Enjoy. First up is Luv It, sku 812049, a glittery blue.

Luv it is very sheer, so you need a few coats to make it really stand out.These fingers took at 5 coats to get it even this.

On my thumb I tried my new holy grail color to use under sheers and glitter , Powder Puff (I have a whole post coming on that soon), and then 3 coats of Luv It.

Looks better and more even to me. And that's my first Sally Girl polish post. More come!

Dupe of the Day

I've been inventorying my polish collection and testing the each out as I list them. China Glaze Re-Fresh Mint and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Mint Sorbet are definitely very close. If you have on you definitely don't need the other. The Sally Hansen is just a touch more green, but it's a very small difference. Formula wise they both go on about the same.

New Wet n Wild Megalast polish - On a Trip

Wet n Wild has come out with a new bottle and new brush as well as some new colors. My store didn't have many out, but I did get one. I really like the new brush. They call it a Manicurve Pro Brush. It's a lot like the brushes in the Sally Hansen complete salon manicure bottles. The size of the bottle has gone from .30 fluid oz. to .45. The color I got is called On a Trip, and it's number is 213C. It's also one of those colors that is hard to capture in photos, turning out much more blue than it really is. It's actually a more like a darker lilac creme.

WnW On a Trip - 2 coats

Taller, squared off at the top and 50% bigger than the old one.

And the new brush

Have you tried the new WnW Megalast? I really like the brush a lot better, and the formula was really easy to work with.