Tagging Back into the Swing of Things

I know I have been shamefully out of the blogging world. No time during the school year, no time during the summer, apparently. But here is a little something to get back into the blogosphere. I was tagged by http://polishdejour.blogspot.com/ aka KAREN to do this tag! (in my HS days they were called surveys and you didn't have to "tag" anyone...you just assumed people were interested enough in you to want to read this stuff, ;-)





Here goes!





4 things found in my purse


-keys


-camera


-makeup bag


-wallet


(Whoa, I am interesting)





4 things in my room


-my makeup desk


-my bed


-my TV


-my HELMER!!!





4 things I have always wanted to do


-go to school to become a cosmetologist (and finish)


-be skinny/lose my excess weight


-play professionally in an orchestra pit for musical theater


-persue singing and acting seriously...like, on Broadway...or any other stage that will have me.





4 things I am currently into


-painting my nails and nail art


-teaching music


-Youtube


-getting better on my ukulele





4 things I bet you didn't know about me


-I am indifferent to getting married or having kids. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, it doesn't and that's fine too. I very much identify with the character Katherine Watson from the movie Mona Lisa Smile: (on marriage) "yes, I suppose I will someday, I'm just not going to plan my life around it."


-I have secret aspirations to become a Youtube star.


-I would love to get a Ph. D. In something...


-I cry on a daily basis. I usually find something so beautiful, so sad, so moving, so tragic or so sweet happening each and every day, that a day in which I don't cry is rare. I'm not talking about bawling, but a tear or two is usually shed whether it's from a scene in a movie, a paragraph in a book, a child being kind to their parent (for a change) or a line praising God or His son in a hymn, something usually makes me cry.





4 songs I can't get out of my head


-Wig in a Box, Hedwig and the Angry Inch


-I Dreamed a Dream, Les Miserables


-Speechless, Lady GaGa, The Fame Monster


-Defying Gravity, Wicked, the Musical





4 people I tag


-Carleen http://lifelibertycoffee.blogspot.com/


-Deborah http://universityknitter.blogspot.com/


-Scrangie http://www.scrangie.com/


-Thu http://editionsofthu.blogspot.com/

And because this is supposed to be a beauty/girl related blog, here is my NOTW: 8+ days of wear. Essie's Pretty Edgy, Nailtek Foundation base and Quicken top coat. Impressed with both the color and wear.

And as for what I have been up to, beautywise, I have been trying to grow out the entire length of my nail. As soon as a week pops up, I file them back down to nubbins. I will try to take an update pic when this polish comes off. I have some shots of the nail prior to this. My nails will be MUCH better, once all the damage is gone. I have been taking Biotin with the advice from http://nailsbyasami.com. (I tag her too!!!) Biotin is what she said she takes to help her nails, and I have to tell you I think it helps. I did my research before taking this vitamin and I think my nails grow faster. As for stronger, well, I will have to do an in-depth review when my nails are all better.

Thanks for reading! I will try to be back sooner than last time!

First Swap!!!

Twice in one day? Boy are YOU lucky...

Here are pictures of my very first swap! I have never successfully completed a swap before. I have only ever been in preliminary talks about swapping. And in both instances, I was never able to get back in contact with the people who initiated the swap. Oh well. This swap with http://glam-anon.blogspot.com worked out! I present my new Tokodoki Diamante Cromatico Palette:


Super cute outside packaging - clear lucite with an animated graphic on top


The angry little charm inside of the cube, under the palette


The 4 palette colors and swatches: Diamante, light frosty neutral with chunky glitter; Rubino, a frosty taupe; Romeo, a deep burgandy frost; Nancy Rocks, a frosty medium purple.


Swatches blended out.

These shadows seem quite comparable in formula to Urban Decay Shadows. I am pretty excited to try them out. I am very curious about Romeo. The crease color possibilities are intriguing to me as I don't usually use a color like this (I'm not even sure if I have a similar color in my collection.)

When I complete an eye look with this, I will post pictures.

Thanks for the swap Thu!

I think I've Moved On Enough to Post This...

This was my FIFA World Cup manicure. Orange to represent the Huis van Oranje and the red, white, and blue for the flag of the Netherlands. Oh, what could have been. True, both teams had never won the cup before, but why couldn't it have been the Netherlands. They are a teeny, tiny country with a little over 16.5 million people inhabiting an area only slightly larger than Maryland, so to make it as far as they did is awesome. And the game was well matched (and both goalies PHENOMINAL)...but...but...why couldn't it have been us? Third time was not the charm.

C'est la vie...or whatever the Dutch equivalent is.

Anyhow, the manicure was awesome. I used Zoya's Sienna for my orange, Sally Hansen Xtreme Nail Color in Red Carpet, Orly's White Out, and Sally Hansen HD Nail Polish in Laser.

I needed to breakaway from my tribute to the red, white and blue (first for July 4th, and then for the Netherlands) so I decided to test out my grabs from the L'oreal Passport to Paradise Collect. I did Ocean Breeze for my manicure and found myself with a HUGE FAIL:


Indoor Lighting


Outdoor Sunlight

Look at the fail that is this polish. Boy, was I bummed. This was some lovely color in the bottle (and lovely swatches on other nail blogs) but a disaster on the nails. This was a heinous polish to work with - it was runny and goopey all at the same time and dried with bumps, lumps and ripples. Ugh...I took this off the very next day. I don't know about this. I was so disgruntled that I am reluctant to even try and save this with a little polish thinner. Maybe I got a rogue bad bottle. I picked up another bottle from this collection, so maybe the next one will be better (though with my past experience, I am reluctant to use the next bottle.) I have one other L'oreal polish from their regular line...a purple and the name escapes me. I swatched it on ONE nail when I first got it (for swatching purposes only) and it seemed OK and I do plan on wearing it in the future. I feel I owe it to the bottle to give it another shot. When I run across my polish thinner, I will give this bottle another go.

One last bit...I am going to cut my nails. (LOL, I love how this is "news worthy" to me. I am convince that the reason my nails look so bad is because of the salon manicure I had at the end of May. The picture I posted in my Seche Fail post is still pretty accurate of how the nails look. I have stopped using Seche Recondition (I can only take so much insult to injury) and started using Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails Hard as Wraps Powerful Acrylic Gel (does anyone else find SH names to be obnoxiously long?) to strengthen my nails because they are peeling and shredded in certain areas. Though the condition is pretty bad, the nails hold up fairly well with polish on them. But enough is enough. I am starting fresh (well, as fresh as I can...I think I would need to let more nail grow out to completely start fresh.) But maybe I will keep them short until all the damaged nail grows out. I don't know why I opted for the salon manicure - I almost never do. I guess because I was wrapped up in the "special occasionness" of graduating and thought "what the hell." I don't know why I am surprised. My toenails look that bad too without polish on them, and I get pedicures far more often than I get manicures (and then I don't even get pedicures too much. Do you realize that you can buy 3-5 bottles of polish for the cost of one salon pedicure+tip?) Ugh... I must start my quest for healthier nails. When I was using Nailtek I had very happy results. Maybe it's time to dig that stuff out again.

Until I regrow my length, here is the last shot of my long nails, wearing Essie's Lapis of Luxury - tipwear, crusty cuticles and all!



Fear not! I will still post nail pics. I will use this opportunity to test out more loud and vampy shades that some would consider obnoxious on longer nails (not me though...nope...I don't discriminate based on nail length.)

Fourth of July Manicure

I have to say, I am pretty proud of this one:



I created this manicure with Sally Hansen HD Nail Color in Laser, Orly White Out, and Sally Hansen Xtreme Nail Color in Red Carpet. I also used Sinful Color Nail Art stripers in their red and blue colors as well as a Migi Nail Art pen in white.

This manicure was very intimidating to do...it is probably the most intricate nail art I have ever attempted. I first saw this kind of art in a video by Julieg713 on Youtube. Her nail designs always look so effortless. The nail design was very hard once it got going, but once I started on my right hand, I couldn't stop shaking!

And just to prove I DID do it on my left hand...



I hope everyone had a wonderful Fourth of July. Getting started on my next NOTD right now.

Thanks for reading!

That's Money Honey!

...love me some GaGa.

But anyway, here is a US currency inspired manicure I just completed. I don't know if it can hold up until the fourth, but I'll do my best to baby it.






I used Seche Recondition for a base (hey, I'm trying to finish up the bottle before I never use it again), Color Club in Wild and Willing (copper), What a Drag (silver), Seche Vite topcoat, and Migi Nail art pen for $ sign (the green from the silver collection.)

Pretty easy. The formula on these Color Club polishes was great. Really opaque in 2 coats (but I did three just to be safe) and they dried very quickly before the top coat was applied. Sometimes with glitter polishes the formula can be pretty goopy as you apply more and more layers, but I was really pleased with this application. I used my janky homemade french tip guide stickers. With this nail polish, I found that they peeled off better/cleaner when the polish was still wet (otherwise it pulled at the very end of the inside of the tip.) Very pleased with this mani. What do you think?

Seche FAIL

So remember how I obtained a bottle of Seche Recondition from Sally Beauty Supply as a gift with purchase and I said I would give this a shot and see what it could do for my nails?



Sorry if I just made you lose your lunch. I'll give fair warning next time.

I'll post something lovely a little later to make up for this.

NOTD...a week late.

Hey there! Last week threw me for a loop, but I am trying to get back into the swing of things. This is the manicure I wore all last week:



For this manicure I used Essie's Looking for Love as the base (which looks like a lilac in the bottle, but as blue a lilac as you can get before turning into an actual blue), Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Brisk Blue for the french tip, and Orly's White Out for the polka dots!

I enjoyed wearing this manicure so much this past week. I have tons of colors to swatch coming up and will try to post once a day for the rest of this week. I am already backlogged terribly and don't want to fall any further behind! I can't start swatching tonight for the sun has gone down and I really want nice pictures of these swatches, but tonight I will paint my nails Mr. Wrong from Hard Candy. It's one of my newest bottles and I am very excited to acquire this lemming.

In unrelated news, my financial aid came through today and Igot my student teaching assignment! No high school (which is a major bummer because that is the grade level at which I wish to teach) but I got paired with some really good teachers.

That's it for now, I will be back tomorrow with some awesome bottle shots (at the very least) of the newest bottles I have purchased!

Night!