Rainbow Honey - October 2014 Mystery Bag

Well hi!

I picked up Rainbow Honey's mystery bag this month because *mysteries* but also because I haven't gotten one in a while and I missed it. I went with the $10 mini version because *broke* and still made out like a dang bandit.

Included in this month's mini mystery bag:

Cafe Con Leche 5mL - Basically couldn't have been named anything more appropriate. Super creamy nude with gold and silver shimmer: the perfect polish for my skin tone for mannequin hands! Smooth, easy formula. 2 coats + topcoat under OttLite.

Zi 5mL - Purple jelly packed with blue, gold, magenta and silver micro glitter. It almost looks like a glass fleck, but like, a micro glass fleck, if that makes sense. A bit on the thin side color-wise, this guy built to opacity in 3 coats. The first picture is under OttLite, the second is under crappy kitchen light to show more accurate color/shimmer (both swatches are with topcoat).

All Your Base base coat 15mL - Full size! Yeah girl! I, uhhhh, very rarely wear base coat (scoff!) because of how often I change my polish, but this one apparently has pretty good reviews. I actually got the mini size of All Your Base a few months ago and HAVE used it, thank you.

L'orange Ganache nourishing lip balm .15oz - I can never have enough lip balm during the winter. This one smells like chocolate with maybe a hint of orange, but I mostly just get chocolate. And it tastes kind of sweet, which is nice, because nothing is more disappointing than a yummy smelling lip balm that tastes like nothing. :( I have it on right now, and it feels, you know, nice. My lips are happy.

Sweet November Eu de Parfum Rollerball 4mL & Shimmer Soap .5oz - I loooove sweet scents, so this couple is perfect for me. I'm glad RH includes an info card detailing the products or I would have described this scent as 'Um... sweet... there's like, vanilla and maybe, like, some caramel notes..?' Officially, Sweet November is "a warm sweet musk with notes of coconut and vanilla sugar". It makes me want to wrap up in a big, warm blanket and lay in front of a fire surrounded by Christmas lights.

Like, I HATE winter, mind, but I really love feeling cozy. This smell makes me feel very cozy.

So heck yeah, right? I'm never disappointed with these bags, especially for the price. I love how much of a variety of products are included, too. It's nice to see an October mystery thing that isn't specifically Halloween-related.

Ulta: My Two Cents Swatch & Review

GUH.
My cuticles are the WORST and what's with that, like, ledge going up the sides of my nails that polish gets onto and makes my nails look all wide-middled? My nails desperately need some TLC. Will be researching the crap out of that!

In other news:
Per Ulta's $2 polish sale, I picked up a couple bottles, one being My Two Cents. Also, today's the first day of Fall. Also, this is kind of the perfect polish for such an occasion.

My Two Cents consists of small round copper and orange glitter (which is a subtle color difference but a nice touch, unless I'm just seriously losing it and the glitter is all just one color but some of it looks different because of the layering... but I'm like 98% sure it's two different colors) in a sheer brown base. It could very easily be a two-coater, but Patches McMissingspots over here suffers from Application Disaster Syndrome so I applied 3. It dries like, you know, glitters tend to, so I topped it with 2 coats of SV.

Artifical Light

Why does this picture look like some sort of weird 80s glamor shot? Also I put my watermark over the middle nail to try to hide the shredded nightmare that used to be my cuticle. Ha!

Sunlight

 Do you see what I mean about the two different shades of glitter, though? Like, one color is much more saturated. Isn't there some research I could do to actually figure this out? Man. Best Blogger of the Year award coming my way for SURE.

Shade

This polish has some nice depth to it thanks to the darker base. It was also pretty easy to work with, despite the amount of glitter all up ins. This was my first Ulta swatch and I look forward to, you know, getting more (when they're back in stock...).

Happy Fall you guys!

Autumn NOTD

Since having a baby, what summer is has changed for me. It's no longer drinking beers on a patio somewhere, taking night walks and participating in general, warm-weather shenanigans. Now it's more, um, do the same stuff every day except not hate it as much going outside because I'm not freezing to absolute death. I loved summer. Like, loved loved it. I dreamed about it during every other season. And I still do, really, it's just different.

So, the fact that it's going to start getting colder doesn't affect me as much because, like I said, it's not really going to change how I spent my days. No more hiding from thunderstorms or hordes of spiders, so that's pretty cool. Also Fall is my second fave (maybe first fave-tied) so, you know, whatever. It's all peachy. OH PLUS APPLE PIEEE.

Here's an Autumn inspired NOTD using a bunch of untrieds I have.

Starting from the tip, there's:
China Glaze -Xtreme Thrash
Sally Hansen - Chop Chop Copper
OPI - London Bridge is Falling Brown (also on index finger)
Layla - Softouch Effect 11
OPI - DS Illuminate
and the dark brown underneath it all is Barielle - Coco Bar.

 

Looking through my polish stash on Pinterest, I have sooo many flipping fall colors I haven't tried yet. Geez Louise, guys! I need to get it together.

Essence: Gorgeous Bling Bling Swatch & Review

 Gorgeous Bling Bling. Gorgeous. Bling. Bling.

Oh, what a silly name for a polish. For this polish, specifically. It's gorgeous, but it's not exactly bling blinging. Gorgeous Pumpkbling, maybe. Gorgekin Pumpling. Anyway, I picked this up at Ulta on clearance and I'd do it again! This is three coats, topped with SV.

Sunlight

Shade

Gorgeous Bling Bling is the color of pumpkin pie, of crunchy fall leaves, of every pumpkin-scented candle ever made, and also it has very pale gold glass flecks scattered throughout. It looks pretty squishy when applied, so I'm gonna go ahead and call it a crelly because this is MY blog and I do what I want! The shade picture is more accurate in color than the sunlight one though it's not quite as red-tinted in real life.

I, um, have nothing to say about application, really. Or wear. Which I probably should since I'm reviewing nail polish aaaand those are kind of important key details. Sorry. Sorry guys.

In other news: THERE IS A GIGANTIC BEETLE FLYING AROUND MY LIVING ROOM. It sounds like a tiny airplane. Blicky.