More Halloween-ish NOTD + Sephora Play #2

This isn't an utterly fabulous picture and it has visible wear, but oh well:

This is Lynnderella Vampink over Misa Spinning Out Of Control, which is a dark purple. I just wanted a base that wasn't completely black, and I think this did nicely. I wore this manicure mattified for a couple of days, and then on Friday, when this was taken, I put a shiny top-coat on it. It was, naturally, much more showy that way.

Now I'm wearing Bat My Eyes, which I don't have a picture of so far. (It's been raining since yesterday morning, here, and isn't showing any particular signs of stopping yet, although it has slowed down so I guess we're not all going to wash away, at least!) Here are Bat My Eyes swatches from Swatch & Learn, and mine looks more or less exactly like this - minus her lovely oval nails, which I could never hope to achieve. Anyway, it's blackened antique gold, and I adore it and I may not take it off until Halloween is over. (For the record, I put my usual base under both these manicures - Instant Artificials and Bridge the Ridge. On this mani I used Butter London Hardwear top-coat.)


I don't really anticipate getting to take pictures by tomorrow, so I'm just going to tell you what was in the second month of Sephora Play. I'm sure if you're dying to see pictures you can poke around on YouTube or somewhere and find some but I'm not feeling like hunting for any right now. (Oh look, I stumbled across a full set of pics on Nouveau Cheap! so that was easy.) It's mostly Asian or Asian-style beauty products - which Sephora has been pushing all month, actually, so I shouldn't have been surprised. (They've changed their front page now because they appear to be swinging into holiday-gift mode, but here's a K-Beauty page - not that all these brands are Korean. Belif is; I'm not sure about Dr.Jart. Boscia is definitely a Japanese company, and I don't think Fresh or Atelier are Asian at all. (Added: Fresh was founded in Boston, according to its webpage, but I do think Dr Jart is Korean.)

Secrets of Dewy Skin
Sephora Play 02 - October 2015

• Boscia Detoxifying Black Cleanser plus charcoal konjac sponge
• Sephora Pearl sheet mask
• Dr.Jart+ Ceramidin Day Tint
• Fresh Black Tea Age Delay Instant Infusion
• Belif The True Cream Aqua Bomb
• Atelier Cologne - Mandarin Glacial

Both those last two were things I had at least samples of already, but I don't mind having more of either one, I like them both. I have actually never tried a sheet mask but I'm going to try this one. And I'm sure I'll try all the others, too. These days I kind of operate on the principle that you can never have too many skin products!

pre-Halloween manis

I had on Candy Corn Cordial, the Top Shelf polish, and I forgot to take a picture of that. It was kind of your standard orange mixed with your standard holo-glitter, though, if you can envision that. It had a sort of texture to it and I ended up wearing it mattified, because I wasn't all that interested in a glitterbomb at the time. However, I do have a picture of what I put on top of it (after a couple of days when I got bored, as I do):

This is LynB This Is Halloween (which inevitably gives me a Nightmare Before Christmas earworm every time, but there are worse things) over the orange base. I think it probably shifted This Is Halloween toward orange, having that under there.

Then yesterday I started over - oh! and I used my new Up&Up polish remover to get the glitter off and it worked like a charm (this stuff, if you don't know what I'm talking about - I'll probably have more to say about that later on). I was running late (as I do) and went out the door headed for work with Instant Artificials on my nails and a bottle of polish in my hand, and put it on as I went. The polish was Revlon Fall Mood, from the now-discontinued version of Colorstay. Then last night I put Lynnderella Cauldron Drippings on it, as a fade mani. I don't have a picture to tell me what it looks like, but I think I did a pretty decent job of it for once. Cauldron Drippings is Lynnderella, an orange hex-glitter with assorted other stuff mixed in. She says that every bottle is different. (I think this is still available but with a somewhat-different name. Aha, I just looked and it's Which Cauldron Is it? - however, that's sold out on her website at the moment.)

I don't know what I'll wear after this, but I'm trying to be more organized and so I have a list in my planner of things that I want to wear before Halloween. I have a lot of Halloween polish, it's a weakness of mine.  I divided them up and this is what ended up on this week's list: Very Pretty Vampire, Cauldron Drippings (which of course I've already worn but might conceivably do again), Chupacabra, Deadly Nightshade, and Walker Bait. It's highly unlikely that I'll change my polish three or more times this week, but at least I can make an informed decision rather than going, "Shit! I forgot to wear ____!" afterwards, as I usually do.

Skincare items new & old

This is an empty - I'm not sure I've ever posted one of those before, but this is something I've used forever and so I thought I'd mention it.

I just looked on Clinique's website, and I don't see this exact product listed - which is not surprising because I've had it for several years. In case you can't see, it's called "extremely gentle eye makeup remover" (they've always done their packaging in all lower-case since I can remember, and I'm pretty sure I remember more or less back to the dawn of Clinique). But now they have one called "naturally gentle eye makeup remover" so I think it's fair to assume that it's a similar product. As I know I've mentioned here before, I don't wear much eye makeup any more, due to way-oversensitive skin & eyes, but I've used this product since I was in college and it was always great.


I talked about the latest Walmart box already, but I hadn't remembered to post this picture, which is my favorite product from those last couple of boxes before that, the Olay 7 eye treatment. I think I've mentioned it in passing but I never got as far as taking a picture:

This is a picture of the box, in fact; the sample actually is in a little pot which I think is .4 oz, but it's really lasted and I adore it, it's great stuff. I had bought an eye cream from Nourish Organic pretty recently, as well, so it'll be a while before I actually need to buy any more. I'm alternating between those two, and I guess by the time I run out of both I'll have a definite opinion on which I should buy next time. Neither one was particularly inexpensive but both seem, well, awesome.

Have you noticed how much I talk about moisturizers these days? I am still searching for the perfect, not-too-expensive moisturizer for my face & neck, and so I decided to try the Sephora-brand one and see how it did. And I already had the sample size of First Aid Beauty repair creme in my Sephora cart, and then I ended up with a small Nest hand creme which I did not even actually need, but it sure smells good.

So with Sephora's usual 3 small samples + premium sample, this is what I ended up with. I think they must have substituted something that was out of stock on the samples, because I'm pretty sure I didn't ask for Dr. Gross facial self-tanner. But oh well. that happens, and I can't actually remember what I did ask for, so no big deal. The Sephora moisturizer is actually in a tube the same size as the Nest tube (I think they're both 1 oz.), and it seems good; my only issue is it's (mildly) scented, and I'm so conditioned by years of Clinique products that putting anything scented on my face seems weird. But I've been using it anyway, and it seems fine. I like the FAB lotion, which is not particularly a surprise - and as I said, I like the scent of the Nest lotion, although for sheer moisturizing power it can't compare with my favorite Crabtree and Evelyn hand lotion. (Honestly, I feel like I'm cheating on Gardener's Hand Therapy by even trying a sample size of something else!)

The premium sample was the Urban Decay one you can see above, which I'm intending to give away. (Unless I change my mind.) The three smaller samples are the Philosophy fragrances - which is actually a two-fer, it has two tiny spray bottles of two different scents - and then the Dr Gross stuff which I mentioned already, and the Fresh black tea lotion. (I wanted to try that one but actually every Fresh product I've looked at is seriously out of my price range, unless I really cave on that point.)

Sephora is killing me lately - meaning I'm spending too much money there, that is - but on the other hand I'm getting to try some good products. I should also mention that I haven't tried the First Aid Beauty repair creme on my face, mostly because I read some reviews about it which said that really it's too much for many people's faces, but it's really awesome for patchy dry skin on the rest of the body. And that's a problem which I do have intermittently, especially in the winter, so that's why I wanted to try it.


In other news, I think my poor 10-year-old Canon camera may have finally bit the dust. At least, I can't get the SD card to seat, and I even bought a new SD card because I thought that was the problem. It had various other issues that I've been working around, and if it's really dead I may just upgrade my iPhone rather than buying a separate new camera, since my iPhone is a 4 - not even a 4s, just a 4 - and is pretty much on its last legs, too. I figure the camera in an iPhone 5, even, is probably as good as than the Canon was anyway, since it was so old.

Walmart box for fall

I just found this little graphic on my computer - apparently I saved it the other night before it disappeared from Twitter (it was popping up, at the time, whenever you used the "wild card" hashtag):

If you know me on Twitter you probably already know that I am a long-time baseball fan, and an Astros fan. Over here I won't bombard you with Astros posts like I sometimes do on Twitter, but I thought I'd at least mention it! (No, I am not going to the game in person. I didn't try to buy tickets while it was still possible and now I'm sort of sorry. But not sorry enough to pay through the nose for tickets. I'll be watching on TV. And tweeting, probably.)

Okay, so, on to the actual subject of this post, the fall Walmart box. The last few boxes I got from them were kind of full of cards and itty-bitty samples, and were confusing and even the bigger samples didn't seem all that great, I thought, and this one was thankfully card-free with better samples. (Well, I think there was one card, that said something about a Twitter hashtag - the same hashtag that you can see on the box. But that was it.)

A disposable razor, wrinkle serum, deodorant,  and Curel "rough skin rescue" lotion are what's visible in this picture - all stuff I will definitely use.

There were a couple more items hiding at the very front:

Mouthwash - which I don't usually use but my husband does - and hair stuff, which I'll try out for sure, even though I don't really need any more volume in my hair these days. (It's John Frieda and the bottle color matches up, so I assume it's from this line.)

And here's one more shot of all the products out of the box:

I've used the Curel and the Roc serum so far, and both seem good, as far as I can tell from a few uses.

Here's the razor out of the box:

Heck, one razor is probably worth what this box cost.

Copper NOTD + new polishes

I got more compliments on this manicure than I've gotten in ages:

It's InstaDri Chop Chop Copper - which was an LE color from a couple of years ago - over Square Hue Y2K, which just came in the Square Hue box pictured below. Y2K is an almost-black - I guess it's dark charcoal gray, although in some lights it almost looked green. I actually intended to put a different copper polish over this, but I couldn't find the one I was thinking of, so I used this instead. And it's great. Chop Chop Copper is pretty thin, and I used 3 (very light) coats and the darkness of Y2K still shows through - which is good, that's what I wanted.

So Y2K came from (naturally) Square Hue's 90s collection.

The three polishes are Vogue (for 1990), Desert Storm (for 1991), and of course Y2K for 1999:

Desert Storm isn't exactly up my alley, but the other two are strong shimmers and so I'm happy. (I would say that I'll use it as a underlayer, except that's exactly what I said about the tan color from the Milan collection a year ago, and I'm not sure I've ever used it at all. Or who knows, maybe I'll go crazy and actually just paint my nails sand-color. For me, that would be a trip.)

(And if anybody has actually been keeping track here, yes, this is the first Square Hue you've seen since the 1900s collection back in January. I cancelled it and managed to stay away for, what, 8 whole months?)

Anyway, the only thing I've actually gone out and ordered lately was one orange holo glitter from an indie called Top Shelf. Because, well, orange holo glitter is exactly what we all need for Halloween, right? And I got some pretty nice goodies along with it:

Oh, the orange holo glitter is called Candy Cane Cordial, I forgot to mention that part. And then she also sent some cuticle oil, and some earrings, or maybe they're supposed to be wine charms, I'm not sure. (They don't match, but that doesn't necessarily answer the question, since earrings don't necessarily match these days either.) The cuticle oil is peach-scented, which I wasn't quite sure about, but it smells good - it's very light and more like a real peach than like some chemical pseudo-peach thing. (Was there actually some awful chemical peach scent you could get in the early 70s, maybe? Most of you are probably too young to have any hope of answering that - but my scent-memory says absolutely yes.) Anyway, big thumbs up on Top Shelf - I have swatched the actual polish on a nail wheel but forgot to take a picture of that. I'll of course be wearing the polish very soon anyway.

(And the usual disclaimer applies, or rather no disclaimer is necessary, because I paid full retail price for the polish and I'm assuming that being a blogger with a couple of dozen readers on a good day is not enough to warrant extra freebies just for the fact of being a blogger - which I didn't disclose in any case. My guess is that everybody gets some, although I didn't ask and so I obviously can't promise on that score.)

NOTD: Bubblegum Punk and Scrangie 2.0

I haven't done a NOTD post in ages. My nails actually are bare right now but they mostly have not been, I just haven't been talking about it much. Mostly I've been wearing the two new RBLs that I bought a while back. I wore Scrangie 2.0 once and I've worn Bubblegum Punk several times, a couple over other things and once by itself. I'm not in love with it by itself - I like it better over something. And here it is over... well, something:

I wore it once over purple (some SOPI, I think it was Just A Little Dangerous) and once over Here Today Aragon Tomorrow. They were both dark colors and this appears to be the purple but honestly it was kind of hard to tell the difference. B'gum Punk is translucent but it also has a ton of holo-ness in it, enough that it pretty much obscures the actual color that's under it. You can tell light or dark but that's about it. I tried taking pictures of the mani where I had it by itself and the pictures all sucked. I can tell you that I did three coats and it was not anything near opaque. It would look almost pearly white and almost opaque one second and almost clear the next. (In fact my co-worker who always notices my nails said "You have on clear nail polish!" and I was horrified - 3 coats of $20 nail polish should not look clear! But I don't really think it did. Not that I actually paid $20 for it, in any case, but still.)

Scrangie did in fact have the oil-slick look as advertised - it was almost as hard to pin down to a color as the one above.

It really is sort of a fall-ish color, I still say that - you just can't quite say what color. It looks sort of bronze/brown or green most of the time. It's very cool.

(I don't know what I'm going to wear next. I have a new orange that I might go ahead and wear, even though it's not that close to Halloween yet. Or it may be something else, I'm not sure yet!)