Collective Haul | March 2015

Ooops, I did it again... For some odd reason, I thought I was doing really well by not buying too many things this past month because I was busy for at least half the month with no time to shop...  But that all changed once I put everything I've purchased throughout the month all together for the collective picture to realize that I purchased a lot more than I had intended to.  I blame my hoarding this past month on stress!

Sooo as we can all see, a good chunk of the products are actually lip products.  I am a lip product addict and I just love to try new products.  That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

The lip products I picked up are:

• Softlips Cube in Fresh Mint
• Softlips Cube in Pomegranate Blueberry
• Nuxe Reve de Miel lip balm
• Rimmel Lasting Finish Colour Rush in All You Need Is Pink
• Rimmel Lasting Finish Colour Rush in Give Me a Cuddle
• Rimmel Show Off Lip Velvet in Meteoric Matte
• ELF Lip Balm Tint in Peach
• Milani Power Lip Lasting & Moisturizing Gloss Stain in Cabaret Blend
• Almay Smart Shade Butter Kiss in Nude-Light/Medium
• Jordana Modern Matte Lipstick in Matte Classy
• Jordana Modern Matte Lipstick in Matte Dare
• Jordana Twist & Shine Moisturizing Balm Stain in Fresh Fig
• Hard Candy All Glossed Up Hydrating Lip Stain in Pout
• Hard Candy All Glossed Up Hydrating Lip Stain in Mauvelous
• Hard Candy Plumping Serum Lipstick in Victorious
• Hard Candy Plumping Serum Lipstick in Infamous
• Hard Candy Plumping Serum Lipstick in Wanted
• NYC Smooch Proof Liquid Lip Stain in On Everyone's Lips

I also managed to snag up some nail products.

• Sally Hansen Salon Effects Real Nail Polish Strips in Laced Up
• Essie's Fiji
• NYC's Strip Me Off
• Nail Aid 1st Acetone Power Gel No-Rub for Glitter & Nail Art

Some impulse hair products:

• TRESemme Perfectly (un)Done Wave Creation Sea Foam
• Batiste Dry Shampoo in Clean&Classic Original

Also some face products:

• Freeman Dead Sea Minerals Anti-Stress Mask
• Rimmel BB Cream Radiance in Light

And lastly, the miscellaneous products:

• L'oreal Voluminous Butterfly Intenza Waterproof Mascara in Blackest Black (x2)
• Covergirl Full Lash Bloom waterproof in Very Black
• Jergens BB Hand

I will admit, I did overdo it by a lot in March.  I'm really hoping that I will purchase exponentially less products in April, especially since there's the Sephora sale and I'm already eyeing two things I want that are quite expensive.  Let's hope for a more controlled spending in April!

Life | Update

I have some sad news on my part... I'm going to go on a hiatus for the next two-ish weeks.  I unfortunately procrastinated on a personal matter for way too long and it has now caught up to me.  I thought I could do it all, but it has come down to the point where I have to choose how to spend my time wisely, and I am now choosing to put all my free time and effort into that matter.

My little thing will be done towards the end of the month, so I will be back and running again before the month is over.  I just won't be able to post for the next two weeks-ish but everything will return back to normal after that!  I'm excited for what I want to do after that, and I am ready to get reviewing on the massive hoard of products I've managed to acquire recently.

Until then... Take care!

Nails | Teal Combo

I know I just did a nail post last week, but I'm a little busy for the next few weeks and I already had these pictures taken.  Hope you won't mind the increase of some nail posts this month!

taken under indirect sunlight

Lately I've been really loving the teal color.  I've noticed myself gravitating towards anything in that shade and I will admit at one point, I've thought of how I can work that color into my far off future wedding.  Yah, I'm just that crazy about this color right now!

This nail combo is nothing special.  I used China Glaze's Shower Together and Nicole by OPI's That's What I Mint from their Gumdrop collection.  Shower Together has been a favorite of mine ever since I purchased it almost two years ago, but it stains my nails when I take it off, even with a base coat!  But it's such a gorgeous color that I can't help but love it!  I had a hard time trying to capture the true shade of this polish, so I included pictures of how the polish looks in direct and indirect sunlight so you can see how gorgeous the polish looks either way!

taken under direct sunlight

I have never been a fan of the texture polishes.  Actually I never really liked a bunch of the nail polish trends, from shattered to magnetic to textured.  I think nail polishes should be plain old nail polishes!  ...Until I found the Gumdrop collection from Nicole by OPI.  I actually am not a big fan of how the nail polish looks without any top coats on, but as soon as I use a top coat over them, the polish becomes 1000x better!  There's so much dimension and a lot of different colors in the polish!  The only thing I'm still a bit iffy about is that even with two layers of top coat, the nail polish still feels gritty.

What is a nail polish shade you are absolutely obsessed with right now?

Roseroseshop Haul

About two months ago, actually two months ago, I made an order on roseroseshop for some products I've been lusting over for a while.  For those who are unfamiliar with the website, they sell a ton of Korean beauty and skincare products at a competitive price.  The prices on this website is the cheapest I've seen from all the other websites, but the only down side is that you have to pay for shipping and shipping costs quite a bit.  

I made the order on Jan 6th and received the products around Jan 30th, which is reasonable since they are shipping it all the way from Korea.  I will most likely do a shop review and/or comparison with another shop in a bit so I will go over the details of the website along with customer service then.  

They had a huge selection of sample products you can purchase.  I went a little crazy and purchased a lot of masks and sleeping packs.  I purchased:

• Tonymoly Intense Care Dual Effect Sleeping Pack Samples
• Too Cool For School Pumpkin Sleeping Pack Samples
• Tonymoly Intense Care Snail Hand Cream Sample
• Holika Holika White Wine Therapy Sleeping Pack Samples
• Banila Co Clean It Zero Samples
• Etude House Play Therapy Sleeping Pack + Soft Clay Pack Samples
• Skinfood Royal Honey Mask Samples
• Skinfood Rice Mask Wash Off Samples
• Skinfood Black Sugar Mask Wash Off Samples
• Etude House I Need You, Hyaluronic Acid Mask Sheet Samples
• Etude House I Need You, Tea Tree Mask Sheet Samples

I've literally been eyeing these lip products for the longest time.  I'm so happy I finally got a hold of them!

• It's Skin Macaron Lip Balm in Pineapple
• Tonymoly Kiss Kiss Lip Balm
• Tonymoly Petite Bunny Gloss Bar in Juicy Cherry

I've also been itching to purchase some of the more popular products.

• Mizon Sanil Recovery Gel Cream
• It's Skin Power 10 Formula VB Effector
• Mizon Good Night White Sleeping Mask

And finally the main reason why I made the order in the first place... for these babies!

• Mizon Snail Repair Eye Cream
• Mizon UV Mild Sun Block

I'm so excited I found some affordable places to buy Korean skincare and beauty product!  Have you tried heard of or tried any of these products before?

Nails | Minty Chevron

These pictures have been sitting in my collection of pictures for a while now and I thought I would dig it up for a nails post.  I like to recycle my plain nail swatching manicures as bases for more "intricate" ones that have designs to extend the time between manicures.  This particular one was created after my swatches of Julie G's Gelato In Venice nail polish; so yes, I have had these pictures for THAT long.  

This was actually my first time doing a chevron design, and I have to say I'm pretty happy with my first time.  There were some things that I could have done differently, but it still turned out pretty well in my opinion.

For my base colors, I used Julie G's Gelato in Venice.  The chevron was created using Wet 'N Wild's French White Creme and the accent nail glitter was with Sephora by OPI's I Found a Pot of Gold!  I really liked the mint green and gold combination.  If I were to redo this design, probably in the far future, I would have used the white polish as the base color for the glitter polish instead.  I think that would make the gold stand out a lot more.  I would also have switched the colors for the chevron nail, so that white would be the base and the mint green would go on top.

Overall I was really happy with my first ever chevron nails.  What are some of your recent manicures that you are happy with?