Favorite Fall Nailpolishes

Hi all,

   Wow I feel like I'm on a roll with my posts! Or maybe that is just me procrastinating on my homework (guilty!), but either way I was thinking about what in my nail polish collection would count as on trend. Needless to say, I found a good amount of polishes since I harbor a deep DEEP love for rich jewel toned nail polishes. But I saw so many popular nail polish trend videos on youtube with brands like Essie and OPI. Don't get me wrong, I love OPI, but the cost makes me stop once in a while and attempt to find them on Ebay, Amazon, or my job where I can get a little discount on them. So I figured, let's see what I have that can still be on trend but on a cheaper, financially friendly budget. 

   So we have all heard how jewel-toned or as I prefer to say "rich and deep colors" are very popular. The first color family I love is my purples/ wine/ blues: (no particular order)

1. AVON nailwear pro: midnight plum ($5 normal price, but usually have 2 for 6.99)

    This is probably my go to color because it is so deep and rich. You can get away with one coat making the purple a bit lighter, but I am in love with 2 -3 coats to make it super rich and almost black. The downside to getting this polish is that I have to order online, which can make it a little more than what I truly want to spend. But a good investment overall. 

2. Sally Hansen Hard As Nails: Flirt or number 38 ($2.99 normally, usually can find it 2 for $4)

   This color is almost black looking in the bottle but on the nails it is a very, very dark version of a wine color and has time red/ gold reflects. It is probably something I would wear with a white or cream sweater at holiday parties to offset the lightness, and bring some color to my skin. 

3. New York Color in a New York Color Minute: Manhattan ($1.99)

  This color is like a slightly deeper wine color. It's not the black/dark of the last two colors, but still is very lovely on the nails. It does dry faster than many nail polishes, but not as quickly as it claims. Overall one of the better colors from the collection. 

4. Sally Hansen Hard as Nails: Plum Power ($2.99 or 2 for $4)

  By now you can probably tell that I love my plums, and my Sally Hansen polishes. This is a bright plum purple, that still stays in the relm of a darker version of the color. It has gold, silver, pink, and purple reflects in the polish, so it is just an overall fun color. More, as my mother would call it, a loud color. 

5. NYC Long-Wearing Nail Enamel : Skin Tight Denim Creme ($0.99)

  This is one of those more out there colors, but on short nails can be so much fun! It has light and dark blue reflects, so it goes with the metallic trend. 

6. OPI: Meet Me On the Star Ferry ($7.99-12.99)

  This is one of my few nail polishes from OPI, and I bought it because it is different than other colors I own. It has a lot of shimmer, with gold, pink, wine, and silver tones, but comes together in a light wine color. It is much prettier than I can explain, but another lovely shade. 

Phew! Now I have two red toned nail polishes that I adore, and can't wait to use up. 

1. AVON nailwear pro: Cherry Jubilee ($5 or 2 for $6.99)

   It is a true cherry red color after it has been in the syrup. It is bright, but not the scary bright bright reds we see a lot. It does not chip as easily as some of my other polishes do.

2. love & beauty: Magenta ($2.50)

  This is from the Forever 21 store, and my first polish from this brand. It is a lovely Broadway curtain red with red and gold shimmer. I went through a similar color within one season because I loved how it looked on my nails, I can only hope I love this one as much. The one downside of this polish is that it is very thin and runny, so it would take 2-4 coats instead of 1-2. 

I hope this post helped with this one aspect of the trend, I don't wear greens or other colors simply because my mother is a nurse and always tells me that when I have green fingernails, I remind her of a dead body. Gruesome image, but just out respect to her, I oblige :) Let me know if you have any other colors that you would add to this list! I'll be writing another blog on the other trends coming in for nail polishes, but it just would have been too long all in one. 

xoxo,

Ema

Fall Favorites!

Hi all,
  So I saw the lovely emilynoel83 do a Fall Favorites video and got completely inspired to do this tag. I found myself trying to reset my mind to wear more Fall tones. This is rather amusing since I think secretly I've been ready to jump into deeper tones of nail polish, and "rusty brown" tones. So let's jump in!

Beauty & Fashion:
1) Top 5 fall makeup items?

Revlon Vital Radiance in Pink Sands

   In no particular order: ELF Cream Liner in Coffee, Wet N Wild Acapulco Glow (as a highlight), Physicians Formula 2 in 1 Bronzer and Blush in Light and Pink Rose (since it is together in a compact, it makes it easier to carry), and for the eyes is my Revlon Vital Radiance in Pink Sands trio. Fall time is the best time to wear my browns, for me, since I do wear jewel toned clothing or jewelry.
2) Favorite fall hair product?
   I don't do much with my hair on a normal day, and really can't state that I change what I use unless it    comes down to using conditioner and shampoo brands. I don't have a favorite and usually grab what is on sale!
3) Favorite fall Nail Polish?

Cherry Jubilee

   I LOVE my Avon nailpolishes in Midnight Plum and Cherry Jubilee. I bought them when they were on 2 for $7. Anything that has a nice deep, jewel toned richness has been an ultimate favorite, and now since it is currently back in season, I can't wait!! Maybe I'll actually finish a nail polish this year!
4) Favorite fall scent?
  Not 2 weeks ago, I fell back in love with my Burberry London perfume. I stopped using it for a while and once I spritzed myself again, I fell so in love with it. It has a very slight floral hint to it, but not sweet. There is a cleanness yet a spicyness to it. It sometimes feels like I have my boyfriend's hoodie on, and mixed it with a more girly scent. It's just all around warm.
5) Most worn clothing item & accessory?
   I would have to say that during the fall season, I love pairing heeled boots with jeans and a jewel-toned sweaters. I love having a simple v-neck tshirt under a military style jacket or blazer. When it comes to accessories that I love to wear, I find that I go towards necklaces and dangley earrings.

Random fall Questions:
1) Who's your fall Style icon?
   I really don't have a fall style icon. I usually will see someone and think "oh wow, she just knows how to pull herself together".
2) Going to a corn maze, what do you wear?

LOVE this film

   I have been to corn mazes in the past and have learned from experience to wear shoes I don't mind getting dirty, comfortable pants (ie jeans or sweats), and layering tops. I would probably go with a long sleeved shirt and my "winter" hoodie.
3) Favorite Halloween movie?
   I LOVE Hocus Pocus. I remember since I was a young girl I would watch this movie when it was on TV. I never stop laughing about it, and it would not be Halloween season without it.
4) Favorite Halloween candy?
   Is it sad that I don't have a particular favorite? I never got to celebrate Halloween, so to make me feel better my mom would take me out for movies and ice cream!
5) What are you going to be for Halloween?!
   Well going along with number 4, I never celebrated, and since this year Halloween falls on a pretty heavy day class-wise, I may just pop a pair of cat or mouse ears in and call it a day haha. 


So that was just a fun little tag. What would you say are some of your favorites?


xoxo,
Ema

Mini Haul

Hello Readers,
  Yes, I am still alive! I've been pretty much on a shopping my stash kick for a long while so I really didn't change anything in my makeup routines, be they loves or dislikes. But no fear! I have finished out about 5-6 products so far and will review them and do my price breakdowns of them! Since it is a change of seasons, I am shifting to more fall colors To kinda lift up my spirits from a really tough last few days, I went on a Dollar Tree mini shopping spree! (my dog had died a few months prior at the young age of 6 in my arms, and a friend of mine got the same breed dog and would not shut UP about how cute her new puppy was. Love her to bits but really? *rant over* ) I was especially happy to see some more ELF products in my Dollar Tree, and I have been very happy with my previous purchases from there so I picked up a few. Now these are just my first impressions, I will probably get to using them in the next month or so (I am working on finishing out 2-4 eye shadows *it's pure murder, not really but who knew they took THAT long to finish!*) So in no particular order let us begin!

1. ELF Bronzing Brush (regular retail $1, bought for $1)
  I have the all over face brush from the basic line, along with three eye makeup brushes and love them. I wanted to shift into using bronzer more, plush with such big fluffy brushes I had a harder time contouring. This brush is so soft, but still picks up product nicely. It is easy to use and to blend color out. I have not noticed any fallout (yay).

2. ELF Studio Line Single Eyeshadows (regular retail $3, bought for $1)

ELF amethyst

  I purchased 6 of these shadows (nuts I know) but they looked so lovely! I purchased:

    -Amethyst: a beautiful brown/purple with plum/gold reflects
    -Butter Cream: yellow-gold with gold reflects
    -Sand Dollar: white with white/ gold reflects (least favorite)
    - Wild Wheat: tan with gold reflects
    - Pebble: Taupe/ light brown with almost no shimmer or reflects. (closest to a matte shade)
    - Saddle: Deep brown with bronze and gold shimmer. (favorite)
  Now I love how these are packaged. I picked them up figuring I might as well save two bucks per shadow since I was going to get them anyways. These are not frosty shades exept for Sand Dollar. It comes out like pure glitter with white powder added to it (not the white with shimmer) All have a buttery feel and darn good payoff!

3. LA Colors Blush in Berry Plum (retailed at $2, bought for $1)
  I have no idea what got into me recently, I have been moving towards plummy and berry toned blushes for this season. I really haven't had a lot of experience with this shade since I have always used Benefit Dandelion, but hey why not try it! It has a little bit of shimmer, but it is very subtle.

4. Almay intense i-color for green eyes (retailed at $4-$9, bought for $1)
  I have heard such great things about Almay, but my local drugstores carry so little of the products, and my eye caught on the purple and dark green tones. They are very soft but frosty (a la shimmer strips from Physicians Formula)

5. ELF Brightening Eye Color in Ivy (retailed at $1, bought for $1)
  You can probably see a pattern, I like my elf products. I could buy them in Target, but the nearest one is about an hour away from me, so it adds up to more if I factor in gas or even shipping to purchase ELF. I would like to state that I am blown away by how pigmented and buttery these 4 shadows in the quad are! I realistically will never use the light green shade, but all others are beautiful! The dk brown shade has notes of purple in it, and its just a color I can't wait to use.

6. Covergirl Eye Enhancers Single in Mauve Souffle (retailed at $3, bought for $1)
  This is my least favorite product I purchased. In the packaging it looks like a silver/ very light pink/ very very light lavender shade of eyeshadow with shimmer in it. It is far from the soft feel of eyeshadows. It is a pure glitter that doesn't even blend. I might use this for a night out as an all over body glitter, but almost nothing transfers via finger, brush, etc.

So by the end of this little shopping spree, I did feel a little better, and knowing I spent less than I would have made me happier too. So stay tuned for more incoming posts!

xoxo,
Ema

PS Does anyone still want me to do Birchbox posts? Please comment below if you would like me to blog about them!

Using Up My Products

Hello Readers, 
  So I have not written in a long while, part being because I was travelling a lot this summer and part because I was using a lot of the same products.  I am the type of person that when I start an eyeliner, I want to finish it before I start on my next one. So instead of boring all of you followers with the exact same monthly posts, I decided that perhaps it would be better for me to do a "favorites" by season. I have not been buying many products either and actually the entire month of August has been free of buying products! *insert shocked face here* I got to that point where I had so many similar colored nail polishes and eyeshadows that I finally passed it up.  This has actually been the longest on-going project, and while I am not on a strict no buy, my focus is finishing out products that I've owned for much too long. I will create another post focused on exactly what I used up and how long it took me. 


And let's not get started on how long certain products take to use up! Oh my goodness, a small pan of bronze shadow took me 6 months, and my black eyeliner is something I have been still working on since January!  I really feel that part of being a bargain beauty gal, is infact using the products that we purchase. I get the most joy when I first buy the product, hit pan on it, and then finally finish out the product. I love to see how long it lasted and then divide up the price of the product by the months it took to finish. Call me such a dork, but it's that secret joy of saying "haha I got SUCH a great deal on this, and it lasted THIS long, and basically meant I spent THIS much a month". By cutting monthly expenses, it's how we all save up for that wedding, trip or future.  


For example, my Wet'n'Wild black kohl eyeliner. I purchased it in January for 0.99, and won't finish it until October (trust me...it like GROWS  when it's in my makeup drawer and I'm not looking). So 0.99 divided by 10 months equals about 9 cents a month! How much better of a bargain is that? My one greatest investment is my Benefit lemon aid primer. It was 19 dollars when I purchased it (and ouch for my up front cost) but I have been using it since last September, aka bout 12 months, so 19 divided by 12 equal about 1.60 a month, and still counting! Granted I can't use that mentality to purchase all high end make up, but isn't that just a cool way of seeing if you really are getting a good deal? 


Well, I hope every person tonight and any time you will read this post is safe, my coast got hit with Hurricane Irene, and thankfully my town only experienced a little bit of flooding, and all friends and family have power, water, and are safe. I know others are not as fortunate, so all my best to you all <3 


xoxo
Ema

Summer Updates/ What would you like

Hello all my lovely readers out there! Well this has been a really busy summer, and specifically a busy month for me.  I spent a lot of my July traveling both nationally and internationally hence the reason why I have not had much time to post on this blog. Not only that, since I had very limited space in my suitcase, my makeup routine was taken to a bare minimum of choices. So... I'm just leaving this post as a kind of "what would you like to see in the next post" kind of open forum. I can update about birchbox, what I took with me to travel with, July favorites etc. Or if you want to leave a question for me as a kind of "get to know who Ema is" I can do that too. I hope everyone is having a great summer!

Benefit Dandelion vs Wet N Wild Pearlescent Pink

Hello Fellow Readers!
   So today I went to Walgreens where I came across the Wet N Wild Blush In Pearlescent Pink. In the container it looked very similar to my favorite blush Benefit dandelion. I have tried to use many other blushes, and just haven't found one that I feel is just as easy to use as Dandelion, until I saw this color. I could only wonder if there is really a blush I could love as much as my (I suppose I could say coveted) boxed blush. So for those who want to get the Benefit Blush, but cringe at the price tag of it....could Wet N Wild have come up with a product that is comparable to Benefit? Let's do a quick rundown!


Benefit Boxed Blush in Dandelion:
- 10g of product
- comes with a brush
- light pink powder with gold shimmer. Rather sheer and can be used for highlight powder on cheeks. "foolproof".
- $28 

Wet N Wild In Pearlescent Pink
- 4g of product
- comes with a brush
- pink toned powder with gold shimmer. This product has a little more pigmentation that Dandelion, but very easily blendable.
- $2.99


Final Words: I really like the Wet n Wild blush and with this price, I can get 9 blushes for the benefit blush. The Wet N Wild is very blendable and easy to use. It has a little more pigmentation than benefit, but once applied to the cheeks, it's basically a dupe for Dandelion. 


Hope this helps you ladies!
xoxo
Ema

June Most Used

Hey everyone!
   So June came and went so quickly! It's been crazy in my area with the weather, upper 80's up to 100 degrees for most of the month!  What I realized when it comes to monthly favorites is that I might not use a lot of different products in one go, but I re-use or rediscover a lot of what I have because so many colors are similar to each other. I will try to omit a lot of the products I use a lot, because it gets repetitive and if you are wondering why I repeat some of these all the time, it is really because I haven't come across other products that I like as much as that one, or haven't gotten them. So let us start, these don't go in any specific order it's just whatever I grabbed out of my bucket first.

1. Jergens Natural Glow Face Daily Moisturizer in Medium: Yes I got into the Youtube rage of sunless tanners and bought this one. I have to say though, I don't like it for its basic purpose. I used it on my face and it had a strong scent that bothered me a lot, was oily, and even had me breakout. So I had this little bottle in my room and decided, hey! It's still a sunless tanner so I can use it on my body and at least finish it out. What I had to do because it still had a scent that was strong, was slather on an extra lotion with a citrus scent. But even then it smelled a little bit through. I won't repurchase this product because just the smell made me too self-concious.

2. Bath and Body Works White Cherry Blossom Body Splash: This was one of my favorite purchases from years ago. I remember when this product came out for the first time, and I still see why I love it so much. I like it even better than plain cherry blossom. It's light and summery, with the floral scent but it also smells like sunshine. Now you'll think I'm crazy for saying something smells like sunshine, but I'm sure you can all relate with that bright and sunny scent that when you step out of your house and take a deep breath in, and feel the sun on your face...it's just the sunshine scent haha.

3.Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in Hot Magenta (03): I bought this color like 5 years ago, and felt like I could not pull it off so it sat in my nail polish box until I went hunting again.  It's such a fun and bright color. It has a metallic finish and only needs two coats. I would say that it's a dupe for OPI Pompeii Purple. It's so much fun to look down and see that awesome pop of color!

4. Elf lipstick in Seductive: So this was a product that I put into my rut bucket and I was nervous about it. I usually stayed with pinks or glossy looking lipsticks that looked like I was wearing a tinted gloss. I wore it to work for the first time with some Elf Studio Minty Gloss in San Diego and got so many compliments. It ended up creating a lovely coral shade but still muted within the red range. It has a more matte finish, but definetly worth the 1 dollar I paid.

5. Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in Mellow Yellow (27): If you haven't noticed a pattern I love Sally Hansen nail polish. I feel like it doesn't get as much love, and this particular line gets only mentioned for the printed nail polish strips and for the crackle. They have so many colors in the Xtreme Wear line, and Mellow Yellow is that perfect mix of passing for a pastel and passing for a bright color. When I put it on, it made my hands look more tanned. Like that perfect extra boost to be a little darker.

6. Physicians Formula Bronze Booster in Light to Medium: I've learned a lot about bronzers recently and can say this bronzer has become a favorite. I use it mainly to contour and for the next and chest blending area. It has gold shimmer in it and a light floral-ish scent, which really doesn't bother me because it's pleasant. My dislike is the bulky packaging, but hey I won't cry over spilled milk.

7. Physicians Formula Shimmer Strips for Blue Eyes: This was the first PF product I ever bought. I will state that it is all very shimmery and I pretty much only use 4 colors from the palette.  I love using the third shade from the top as an all over color, and its just bronzy and brown enough for me to blend out and go out. As great as it is, I never use the blues in the palette so I won't repurchase the product because paying 11.99 for something I use only 4 of and the bricks are small...yeah I can find something else to use.

So those are my top most used of the month. Has anyone else use these?

Happy Shopping! (specially those shoppin the stash! :) )