Happy things (planners & life)

This bit of my planner is months old, but I liked it and I thought I'd post it anyway:

I guess I should explain. I had a small tumor removed, and I was going to have five radiation treatments, but then they (meaning a committee, or that was the impression I got, at least) decided at the last minute that it was overkill and they cancelled it! I'm very glad this was unneeded, as you might guess. But the funky letters & bright pastels were cheering to me when I was still anticipating having to do it.

Actually this said "radiation week" - the "week" part was on the facing page.

This is in the Lifeplanner, but the letter stickers came out of a Happy Planner "megapack" book - the pastel one. (That book may or may not be discontinued, but I found copies various places when I searched. I think it was a really good deal at $20, not so much at its list price of $50.)


The 2021 Happy Planners came out this past week, and it made me kind of glad I bought what I bought already - I had bought some marked-down 18-month planners that go through the end of 2021. Not that there's anything wrong with the new ones, but I still like the ones I already have - which is the "All the Seasons" vertical book, and two horizontal ones to journal in ("Bookish" to talk about books in, and "LOLquotes" for everything else). Oh, and a skinny classic that I think is called Ink Splash, too. I do really like some of the flower and plant themes in the new planners, especially, but there's nothing that particularly makes me sorry I didn't wait.

Happy Planner always names their planners & notebooks something other than what it says on the cover:

This is "All the Seasons" even though it says "A well planned day" on the front. I am very literalist sometimes, and my instinct is to call it what it says - but I'm sure they have their reasons. Anyway, "a well planned day" is totally not my actual style (in planning or in life, really), but I like the purple cover and the rainbow and the rainbow disks, so oh well, we'll think of the well-planned day thing as a goal, right? And it has adorable seasonal-themed dividers that I really love.

Added: a flip-through of the above planner!

 

NOTD: Merida (and posting update)

As seen on my Instagram, here's Zoya Merida:

For the first time in ages, I did my nails in the car (not while the car's in motion, don't worry!) and I didn't have top-coat with me so that's presumably why you can already see a bit of wear on the tips here. This is two coats. When I got home, instead of adding a clear top-coat like I usually do, I grabbed the bottle of Sparkling Garbage again (because, y'know, sparkly green goodness) and added that as a top-coat. So basically I ended up with that mani I showed as a Throwback Thursday a week or so ago.

I don't know what's going on with this blog - I doubt that I'm really abandoning it completely but I've been posting pictures like this one on Instagram (see link at top) and I'll probably continue to do that as much as I can remember to. (See link up at the top of this post!) I've had a habit for years of talking about different parts of my life in different online places, so if you want to hear more about my ongoing medical issues and what movies I've seen and stuff I'm posting sporadically on Dreamwidth. As far as polish goes, I'm on a sort of unofficial no-buy and apparently buying things is what really gets me posting. I'm sure I'll buy something or other eventually but I have some 750 bottles of polish so it's not like I actually need any more! If I can just wear more of the stuff I have instead, that will be great!! I've been posting practically every day for what, several years now, and frankly I thought that would end a long time ago so maybe this is just a temporary slow-down. I'm pretty unpredictable that way. I have no idea which way I'll jump next.

Oh, yeah, also I made a blog for burbling on about Covet Fashion, so if you're interested I'll probably talk about that over there - at least until the day inevitably comes when I ragequit that game, because it can be pretty frustrating.

NOTD: It's Alive!

I just looked this up to see if it actually had an exclamation point or not, and Scrangie, at least, says yes. (Which tells me how long this polish has been around, because Scrangie hasn't done reviews in several years, I think! Nitpicking add-on: I did remember to check my bottle later, and it actually does not have an exclamation point. I'm leaving it on the title because it feels to me like it really ought to have one.) She says it was from the Haunting Collection, in 2011.

The cashier at McDonald's liked It's Alive, when I drove through to get a mocha earlier! We are actually having cool enough weather that a mocha sounded really good. - Bear in mind that our idea of cool weather is like, the 60s at night. Everybody is suddenly going around in hoodies, it gets kind of comical.

So this is two coats of It's Alive, with NailsInc basecoat underneath, and then Gelous and NailsInc topcoat to get out most of the bumps.

I really like this - it's not near as yellow-leaning as a lot of the greens you see around at Halloween. I'm glad I bothered to find it!

Brandless

This is my first beauty-related empty from brandless.com. Since I don't have any other empties to talk about right now, I thought I would also just talk some about Brandless in general. (Disclaimer: nobody's paying me to do this! Or even giving me freebies.) (NOTE as of 2020: Brandless is apparently out of business. I'm leaving the links, and the website is not completely dead as I'm writing this, but don't expect any of these links to lead to actual products.)

I think this was the first real beauty product that I had bought from them. I like their tissues (which are not regular paper but are instead made of bamboo and sugarcane grass) but I think this is a more recent addition.

I really like Brandless, which has mostly organic/non-GMO etc. products, and everything is $3. And I like this lemon-verbena sugar scrub - I've already reordered it. It's a smaller portion of sugar scrub than many you see, but for $3 it's still a bargain, I think.

(Here's the back, in case you want to read the ingredients or something!)

I also have sulfate-free shampoo from them that I got just lately, and so far I really like it, too. ($3 for 8 ounces of sulfate-free shampoo is really a bargain - at least, everything I've been buying is considerably more than that.) It doesn't smell as wonderful as that rosemary-scented one from L'Oreal, but you can't have everything, I guess!

They have all kinds of stuff. I've bought spices and flour and brown sugar from them. And maple syrup. They came out with knives a few months ago, and my old breadknife (which I've had for, god knows, twenty years or so) was getting dull so I bought a new one from them and it seems to be really good-quality, especially for $3. The only nail-related item I've seen is nail clippers and files, but they seem to be expanding fast, so who knows what they'll come up with next! I did try their hand soap - I bought the cranberry spice one and it smells really good and works fine.

They have free shipping with a $39 purchase, unless they have specials, or there is also a yearly membership that gives you free shipping. It's regularly $36 but they have fairly frequent specials on that, too, so watch out for that if you're interested.

I should mention that prepared food is kind of hit or miss. I've only tried a few things. The popcorn was okay but kind of bland. Rob really liked the blackberry spread. The applesauce just tastes like normal applesauce, but hey, it's organic!

Oh, and the glazed almonds are totally yummy.

Added: I remembered a nail-related thing I've tried, and that was their cotton rounds, which sucked. The layers wouldn't stick together. I don't know if this is an ongoing problem or I just got a bad batch. (I didn't think to ask for a replacement at the time.)

More planner stickers

My stats say that at least as many people are reading the planner posts as read the nail polish ones, generally. so I'm taking that as permission from the internets to keep posting planner stuff along with makeup etc. on the weekend (I'm defining that as Fri-Sat-Sun and maybe holidays) as I have it. As I said, I don't do the thing where I cover all my pages with stickers every week so don't expect that to show up with any real regularity.

But I pulled out some more stickers that I already had, to talk about today. This is a set that I bought online that I've really liked. It's called Seasons from Carpe Diem.

It has 12 pages, one for each month. I bought these nearly a year ago and I used them this year and I have plenty left to use next year. You can still get these from Amazon but I bought mine from Simon Says Stamp, I'm pretty sure (along with some other crafty stuff).

I feel like if you used all of these at once it would be a bit much, or at least a bit much for my own relatively-minimalist taste.

I kind of got carried away with December, by my standards - this is the month sticker from the set above, the date covers that I talked about before, and some Mrs Grossman ornament stickers that I got somewhere - I actually have no idea where. I have a set of them in several different wintry designs (snowmen, holly, all that stuff) but I don't really remember buying them at all. (Mrs Grossman has been around a long time compared to many modern craft brands - I remember buying stickers when I was in college, which would be circa 1980. I'm pretty sure these are not near that old, though!) Anyway, I put an ornament on each day of December up til Christmas, since I had plenty.

My October pages have a lot of stickers scattered around, too, but not quite as many as December.

I think these are mostly more of the Carpe Diem set (except for the date covers, which are the same brand as the snowflake ones).

This little sheet of stickers came as a bonus with the PBTaco stickers that I showed before:

This is, like, quarter sheet size, so I mislaid it for a while, and then found them again. I am not big on meal plans but I'm sure I'll use most of these, eventually. The fall-themed ones are especially cute.

-----------------------------------------
Meanwhile... this has been a bad week, so that makes it a good time for a kitten.

(It also helps that the Astros are up 2-0. And Texas beat OU! - although the five-minute recap video of that game is probably as much football as I've watched in the last couple of years combined.)

Empties

Things I've used up:

Biossance Squalane + Peptide Eye Gel

I liked this, but it's too expensive ($54, exclusive to Sephora). I'm not buying it again. It didn't work any miracles that I could tell.

This was a sample but I really, really like this - Perricone MD Face Finishing Moisturizer

I don't see that exact product, or perhaps they've just changed the name - here is the similar one at Sephora. (But huh, here it is on Amazon, for way cheaper, too. Wonder if this actually is the older product, and that's why it's cheaper. I may try it for that big of a discount.)

Then we get to the stuff you can buy at the grocery store:

I think I bought this Centrum from Amazon, too - the Women 50+ version. (I hate thinking of myself as a senior citizen, but hey, I should be accustomed to the fact by now that I am over 50.) And the 3-Minute Miracle I could have bought anywhere - I've had this for a while. I am this way with both shampoos and conditioners - I like to have more than one brand and alternate. So it takes me a while to use things up. (3-Minute Miracle is a great deal for the price, for sure. I don't think there's a good deep conditioner that's cheaper than this one.)

A restaurant near me gives out chocolate mints; I really love them and apparently they are not something you can buy just anywhere:

I finally bought this giant bag from candy.com, another one of those obvious websites that I never thought to look for. They are yummy. I bought these before the holidays last year and we put some in with gifts and stuff and it's still taken me all this time to use up what was left. (In fact, there's probably some still left around somewhere.)

Does anybody else shop at Aldi? They have all these weird brands, but most stuff seems to be really good quality and relatively cheap. They don't always keep exactly the same items in stock from one trip to the next, which makes it interesting to go there, kind of like a treasure hunt, some of the time! Anyway, these are the tortilla chips that I liked enough that I wanted to remember them:

They're thick, like the ones that restaurants use for nachos.

(I've been reminded lately how people who live in the Southwest tend to be really obsessive about Mexican food - all the way across from Texas to California. I got in a rather heated debate with somebody on Twitter the other day about whether burritos should come wrapped in foil. Where I live you can't really find them any other way!)

Topic Tuesday: other hobbies

The #topictues question today is: What are your hobbies besides polish? 

I have a lot of interests but I'm not sure what you'd say rises to the level of a hobby. I'm interested in fashion - in sort of an academic way, really, I can't afford the kind of clothes I like to look at, and while I know how to sew, I find sewing clothes frustrating. (Plus I don't have the kind of body that's good for showing off clothes, anyway. I just wear jeans and an assortment of tops.) And then I'm interested in baseball, as you know already if you've been reading here a while. I spend a lot of time at night watching Astros games. I'm interested in politics, but spending too much time on that just makes me stressed. And I like movies - I'm very into the Marvel movies, and I've been catching up with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. lately. Really, I just spend most of my free time messing around on the computer, looking at things related to these various interests - including nail polish, of course. We go to lots of movies, when there's something we want to see. (Naturally, we went to see Ant-Man & the Wasp this weekend, which was very funny and enjoyable, but I'm starting to really look forward to the time when Sunday will be a school-night again and the movies will be a more peaceful place on Sunday nights, because that's when we usually like to go to movies. And I feel like a grouchy old person just for saying that.)

I used to make quilts, back when my mom was around to keep me working on them. So here's an example of something I made:

These wonky teacup blocks are based on a technique by Jan Mullen. I bought a pattern from her but she wrote a book later - here. These were a lot of fun to make.

Clinique gift

See, I told you I had a lot of new stuff, right? There's a lot of nail polish and some stuff that's skincare etc., and this is one of the non-polish days. This is a Clinique gift from back in March - I got it from Dillard's, but I saw the same bag available at another department store later. I heard a radio ad for it, I think, and I had been thinking I needed some good Clinique samples, because I carry moisturizer around in my bag* and the ones in the tubes are easier to carry around than the ones in little pots. (I had a Ren Calming Lotion sample that I've been using for ages and I was sad that it was almost gone.)

* I saw one of those articles on the Zoe Report or somewhere that was like "Skin Advice for Every Age" and for your 50s, the advice was "Moisturize, moisturize, moisturize," and I thought, oh honey, I've got that one down - which, frankly, is not usually what I am thinking when I read articles like that. But I'm pretty much obsessive about my moisturizing.

And anyway, then I heard the words "Marimekko bag" and I was, like, oh heck, I have to have that. I love Marimekko. It was the last weekend of the promotion at Dillards so I knew I couldn't just wait and go to the mall, so I went home and got on Dillards website and ordered it. And the bag is really adorable, and there is a mirror, too, with the same pattern:

Then (and I know this is slightly backwards) I had to figure out what to buy to get the gift-with-purchase. They were out of Turnaround Cream, which was my first thought, but I remembered that I've been wanting to try the pigment drops, so that's what I got:

I haven't gotten around to messing with this yet but if I have anything to say when I do, I'll get back to y'all on that subject. And here is the rest of the gift part next to it:

1. 7th day scrub cream (rinse-off formula) - 1 oz
2. dramatically different moisturizing lotion+ - 1 oz
3. superprimer - universal face primer - 0.5 oz
4. pop lip colour + primer - Plum Pop - 0.13 oz
5. even better glow light reflecting makeup SPF 15 - Ivory - 0.41 fl oz

The lipstick is a pretty good color for me. I still haven't tried the primer or the foundation - or the scrub cream, which I'm looking forward to because that used to be something I'd buy pretty regularly but I haven't used in several years. I'm guessing the formula has been tinkered with since then, so it'll be interesting to see if I still like it like I used to.

Polish Pickup

Note: I re-read this and decided to move the swatch pictures up closer to the top and move the part where I was being chatty about reorganizing, etc., down below that. So if you want to read that part, scroll down.

Earlier this week, my Polish Pickup polishes arrived - I got two, and this is the first time I've bought from them. (I had to start another new wheel for them!)

Before I get to that, I checked and the next Polish Pickup appears to start on Friday. By the time I post this that will be "tomorrow" - it only stays open a few days and some of the polishes go fast, so go and grab what you like!

This is Tastes Like Purple, from Night Owl Lacquer (is that a synesthesia joke?):

I have that on and I'll put up the mani pictures later on. It's a gorgeous purple, obviously, and it has blue bits and I think flakies as well as other shiny stuff. (Almost all these Polish Pickup polishes - maybe indie polishes in general these days - have 10 zillion things going on - thermals, shifts, holo glitter, scattered holo, etc. Not that that's a bad thing!) Here is somebody else's swatches for comparison.

And the second one I got was The Pie Hole:

This would be one of those funky greens I was talking about (see below), although this one didn't make that wheel because I'd already filled it up before this got here. This one has not quite as much going on, but I still like it a lot. It's basically jade (maybe slightly grayed out) with copper glitter. Very cool.


(I also had a weak moment and ordered several things from Pretty Serious, but part of it is pre-orders so I don't expect that to turn up for several weeks. Because of that I'm going to try not to look too hard at the new Polish Pickup. Except I'm weak and I've already looked and I want that Zombie Claw polish.)


I mentioned last week that I was re-organizing and since I also had a list of what I thought needed to be swatched again (mostly because of really crappy out-of-focus pictures the first time around - really I wouldn't even recommend looking at that link, it gives me a headache), I did several wheels' worth of swatches while I was organizing. I did a whole wheel of pink, one of reds which you've already started seeing, a whole wheel that's mostly "funky greens" that I'll probably try to work in starting soon - maybe tomorrow - since it's more or less seasonally appropriate for March, and then one night over the weekend I sat and watched Age of Ultron and did two purple wheels. So I can't complain about not having anything to post for a while.

(I feel like superhero movies are a good thing to put on while doing something like this that's going to divide your attention, because for the most part I've already seen them multiple times and don't really feel the need to look at the screen constantly. However, Age of Ultron is pretty much the exception on that because I saw it once in the theater and never have seen it since. I remembered the basic plot and not much else. But the Thor Ragnarok and Black Panther movies both refer back to it so I decided it was time to rent it - not buy. I'm still not that into it. It's watchable but it's never going to be one of my favorites.) (Those two, above? Maybe are my new Marvel favorites.)

Red Red

This is WildShine Red Red (very imaginative name there):

This is a slightly pink-leaning red. I like it more than I thought I would looking at it in the bottle. It also seems to be basically a one-coater.

As I think I mentioned last week, my husband and I made kind of a pact a while back not to go overboard on Valentine's Day any more - particularly not on flowers. (I like roses but when I get a bouquet of them nowadays all I see is that big chunk of money going down the drain.) I guess he realized that I meant it because what I got this year came from Dollar Tree, I think - but honestly, I'm fine with that.

He got me Turtles and 99-cent nail polish and a fancy card, I got him a giant heart-shaped peanut butter cup. When you've been married for 30 years, I guess you know what each other like, (I don't actually need any more red nail polish but I didn't tell him that. Even with the fancy card, I probably spent more than he did. The peanut butter cup was all of $10.)

Assorted empties

NOTE: my apologies if you tried to read this earlier, I apparently posted this without half re-reading for typos. I think most of them are fixed now!!

I've had this forever, and it's an excellent product and I don't know why it took me so long to use it up. I think I just kept (accidentally) shoving it in a corner somewhere and forgetting I had it. I don't know if you can read this label - the light is weird - but this is Clinique Turnaround Overnight, and apparently this one is so old they've changed the name, a bit - mine says "radiance moisturizer" and the new ones say "revitalizing" instead. (Is that the buzzword of the moment?)

I didn't even notice when I put these two together that they both have "BB" in their names - I just put them together because they were similar heights. So we have Dr Jart+ Beauty Balm and Bumble and Bumble Hairdresser's Invisible Oil. I love a lot of Dr Jart products and I love the feel of this balm, but it's not the most flattering color on me. And then I ordered this Invisible Oil when I actually meant to order the Invisible Oil PRIMER, and boy was I shocked, because this is less than an ounce, whereas the primer is a big 8-oz thing. I should have just returned it, but no, I kept it. And actually I've started putting it right on my hair recently (added: meaning I put it on my ends at night, only), which is something that I would never have dreamed of doing a few years ago. But still, I don't love it the way I love the primer.

I wanted to be sure to remember this soap from Bath & Body Works, which I've been using in my kitchen, because I bought two different scents in this same kind of bottle and I like this one better:

I think the other one is (mint with) lemongrass, and it's fine, too, I just like this one best. So for later when I'm scratching my head trying to remember what the one was I liked better was, I have it written down. (I guess this is the current version of it. Or maybe this, because mine didn't foam.)

NOTD for Parade Day

The Astros' parade is today, as I think I mentioned yesterday, and I can't go but I'm still wearing my orange mani and I'll be wearing my "Houston Strong" Astros shirt as well. (I don't actually live in Houston proper - and in fact I've never lived inside the Houston city limits, ever - but I've lived somewhere in the general vicinity of Houston for the vast majority of my life so for purposes like this I consider myself a Houstonian.)

Here's what's probably the last orange manicure of 2017 - after this I'm sure I'll go on to other fallish colors. This is Jade V.I.P. over Square Hue Nani:

Nani is just a red-orange creme; and then the Jade "Special Glitz" polishes (which I have in several colors) are microglitters with a lot of sparkly stuff. They're not super-super sparkly, which is kind of nice, really. Sparkly enough to look nice, without being all "Hey, look at me!" - if you know what I mean.

Moisturizer and blush from Walgreens

A couple of things I bought at Walgreens the other day:

I'd never heard of this stuff - or I looked at it and my eyes just skipped right over it, I suppose is more likely. But my dermatologist recommended CeraVe Itch Relief and I bought that a while back, and it does seem to work well, so I guess my brain started picking up that brand-name a little bit - I still wasn't thinking of it as something you put on your face, though. But then Rank & Style had this product as #1 on their list of moisturizers for sensitive skin, and that was what made me really notice it. I maybe paid a bit more for it at Walgreens than I would have somewhere else, but I was so floored - it's SIXTEEN OUNCES. Every other moisturizer I've bought has been maybe six or eight ounces at the most, and a lot of them (Origins! La Fresh!) are 1.7 ounces. Which is why I found 16 ounces to be such a shock, and went running out to buy it right away. I figured if I didn't like it on my face I can always use it for a body lotion! But I do like it, it turns out.

Now I have to say that this doesn't really have a consistency like the Origins and La Fresh moisturizers I've had. I thought at first it felt like a night cream, compared to those two which are extremely light-feeling. But it seems to sink in just fine so I don't really see why you can't wear it in the daytime as well. Some of that is just personal preference, of course, so YMMV and all that.


And then Walgreen's had CoverGirl stuff x% off (I've already forgotten how much exactly) and my eye was caught by this:

Apparently this color is Deep Mauve. It's definitely darker than the MAC blush I've been wearing (which is really a little too pale, honestly) but it doesn't seem excessively dark, either. If I end up using this I will probably have to be careful to put it on lightly, but it's a beautiful color. I'll get back to you about how I end up liking it.

Princess Penny (+ orange polish & baseball)

This is KL Polish Princess Penny. I forget what Kathleen said it was named after... something involving Mary-Kate and Ashley? Again, I'm totally the wrong age.

Anyway, this is a really pretty bright copper-penny color, and I'm dying to try it. I don't think it will pass for Astros orange, though, and oh yeah, THE ASTROS ARE IN THE WORLD SERIES!! (Sorry, I can only resist for so long.) So I'm sworn to wear bright orange, or something that can pass for bright orange, until at least this weekend. (If the Astros sweep the Dodgers, it'll be over Saturday. Or, uh, y'know, the other way around, I suppose. I'm not that ready to stop wearing orange, thanks. Either way it goes until November 1 at the longest.)

Right now I'm wearing sort of a gumbo of oranges - I keep adding more stuff. I started with Nani, added a flakie top-coat, and then yesterday added Jade VIP, which is orange microglitter. Then it was chipping last night so I added Revlon Fall Mood (which is an old Colorstay polish) which isn't properly orange either but I sort of dry-brushed it around on top of the existing mani so that it covered up the chipped parts but it still reads as orange. If I'd thought of it in time I guess I could have done that with Princess Penny instead, but oh well. Anyway, I'll do something new tomorrow or Tuesday, I'm sure. I've still got a couple of orange things I haven't used, so we'll see what I can come up with.

Back to Princess Penny: it's available here, or in the box set - I got an e-mail saying the box set was nearly sold out though. (I don't know why they're telling me, actually - it's not like I'm going to go buy another one!)

Clave

This is SquareHue Clave, from the Salsa collection:

I have to be honest and tell you I don't even remember ordering this. (I have the SquareHue subscription where you pick two out of the three polishes, each month, or you can choose to skip the month. What you can't do is only pick one, which is what I'm always wanting to do.) This is a charcoal crelly, I'm sure I'll wear it, but I can't think why I thought I really wanted (much less needed) it.

I also haven't been able so far to find the wheel I was using when I took this picture to confirm, but I think the swatch above Clave is SquareHue Y2K, which is a more metallic charcoal. Clave is darker - almost black - and has a nice depth to it.

I went to look up what "clave" meant in a salsa context, and it turns out that while it literally means "key" in Spanish, what it means in music is a type of percussion instrument, and a type of rhythm - it's easier to show you than to tell you, really:

This piece is called Rumba Clave, and both performers are playing claves - it means those dowel-like things, which you see often in salsa music. (There is a really long Clave article on Wikipedia, clearly lovingly written by somebody, but it's somewhat over my head - I was a music major long ago and I get some of it, but music theory is what drove me into changing my major in the first place, and that's exactly what that article is long on.) One thing about it, this year of SquareHue is teaching me things about dance music that I probably never would have known, otherwise. The only context I knew for "Clave" was in the Mortal Instruments books, which is not at all the same thing.

NOTD: Destiny naked

(I started to channel Simply Nailogical and say "without taco" but I think that's getting a little too obscure - if you can call a YouTuber with several million followers obscure.. I also had "sans top-coat" in the title at one point. But I decided "naked" is both slightly dramatic and perfectly true.)

(I just noticed that the video I linked above has 13,000 comments. That's insane.)

I notice I've posted two different NOTD pictures of Zoya Destiny but both of them are with top-coat. Pixie Dust polishes are meant to be worn without, but the fact is that I probably wear them with some sort of top-coat more than I do without. (Sometimes it's just a shiny top-coat like Seche Vite, or a matte one; sometimes it's some kind of shimmery top-coat that builds on what's underneath it.)

Destiny with jelly on top

Destiny with top-coat

Aaand now Destiny without anything at all on top:

It's more pink-leaning by itself, although I'm not sure if you can pick up on that here. I wore it like this yesterday and then I put Y'all Come Back Ya Hear on it again because my beloved Astros are orange, not coral. Not that the color of my nail polish has helped them at all - they've lost three games in a row, now. Just the same, I am sticking with orange polish as long as they're still in it, so may I still be wearing it at Halloween.

Baseball eventually makes you superstitious. It's weird that way.


Added: just for the heck of it, here's the same video I linked to at the top, showing Christine dressing up her cats (and her boyfriend, and herself). It amuses me, and it does have some slight references to the whole "taco" thing.

NOTD: Destiny layers

So I was talking about doing some kind of Astros manicure - their colors are orange and navy. (If you think that sounds loud, try their "rainbow" uniforms.*) I toyed with the idea of doing some sort of orange & blue nail art, but I had pulled Zoya Destiny - which is a Pixie Dust - out of a box earlier in the week and I got inspired by that. It's sort of a bright coral - it reads as orange, mostly, but it's got definite pink leanings in there somewhere too, which makes it better for me. So I decided I would do some sort of layering thing with that. Something like Nani on top of Destiny, is what I was thinking, but then when I tried it Nani was too opaque and covered up the Pixie Dust sparkle too well. Luckily I had pulled out a bunch of fall colors this week and so I had OPI Y'all Come Back Ya Hear handy (from the Texas collection, naturally) and it's a "sorbet" so it was perfect for this.

This is Superfood basecoat, two fairly light coats of Destiny - I just wanted it opaque - and then I think just one coat of the OPI and a coat of Gelous - and then I woke up this morning and decided it wasn't shiny enough and added a coat of Seche Vite. This picture is a little washed-out, it's actually nice and bright.

(And the Astros won, so woo! They play again this afternoon and then go to NYC for more.)


* That is Ron Paul in that picture, yes. He was not secretly a pro baseball player, but before he became (relatively) famous, he was a local congressman for years and years. His district was suburban Houston, so he is wearing that uniform for a reason. (The rainbow jersey is still very popular, actually. Watch one of the playoff games in Houston and you'll undoubtedly see some people wearing them. Not many people go whole hog with the stirrups and all, though.) (Added: it looks like the picture that I linked to is gone, so if this doesn't make any sense to you, that's why!)

Empty

I started to call this something like "recent empties" but I'm not sure some of these actually qualify. Sometimes I take the picture, throw the container away, and then don't necessarily get around to posting it for a while. I think that's true of this first one, at least:

I had two of these because it was a BOGO sale or something, and I'm still working my way through the second one. I don't use dry shampoo a whole lot, but when I do, this one is my favorite. Everybody always talks about Batiste but Batiste makes my head itch, for some reason - I guess there's something in it I'm sensitive to. Clean Freak here doesn't have that problem and it works and it's relatively cheap - I guess I'd call it my Holy Grail of dry shampoos for that combination of qualities. (I unearthed a post from almost two years ago where I talk about this same product - not the same can, though! - and complain about it not lasting very long. But I think I was just using way too much; I haven't had that problem lately.)

The next picture are both samples - I don't always talk about every sample I use up, only if I have something to say about them. First there's a John Frieda sea-salt spray, and the thing I have to say about sea-salt spray in general is that I've had samples of quite a few and at least one full-size bottle (which was Verb) and I liked all of them, but as far as I can tell they're all about the same. So the moral of the story, I guess, is don't think you have to buy the expensive brands of sea-salt spray in order to get properly beachy waves. This one was fine, but I think pretty much every hair-care company has one of these now, don't they? John Frieda is probably a good moderately-priced option and seems to be in every grocery store and drug store these days.

I'm not even sure where the John Frieda stuff came from (a Wal-mart box, maybe?) but the Boscia black cleanser came from a Play box, I'm pretty sure about that one. And I liked it enough that I bought a full-size one shortly afterwards. It isn't cheap, but you only have to use a little bit so it lasts a long time. It's really not meant for my now "mature" (dry) skin type and I don't use it daily, so I still haven't used up that 5-ounce bottle in over a year. But I think I would have liked it even more - and used it more often - when I was younger and my skin was much oilier.

Then there's this Clinique, which is also a sample size. I used the "yellow moisturizer" from Clinique (meaning this one, the Dramatically Different Moisturing Lotion) for years and years - I know I've talked about this before. Again, my skin type has changed, and when I had oilier skin, this was totally my Holy Grail moisturizer, because it's lightweight, it doesn't break your skin out, all of those earlier-in-life kind of concerns. And it's not cheap but it's sort of moderately priced. For years, I would time my yellow-lotion purchases with Clinique Bonus Time at one store or another, and the bonus item I really wanted was this item right here, the yellow moisturizer in a tube, so I could carry it around with me.

They've changed the formula recently but I've had a sample of the new one and it seemed fine, too. I've mostly switched to other brands these days but I would still recommend this as a lightweight moisturizer.

And then I think this is also something I've talked about before, the L'Oreal sulfate-free shampoo line:

This is the one I just used up - it is the frizz-defying formula but before that I had the color-care formula. I wasn't coloring my hair for a while there and I didn't need it, but actually I loved the color-care one partly because it smelled so good. I bought a new one lately, and I found an ad for it in my September Vogue so I'm showing it here so you can see. I guess it's rosemary that I think smells so good.

(Regarding that issue of Vogue, 125th-anniversary "commemorative" edition or not, the only way I can read those giant issues like that one is to tear the pages out of them as I go. Which is why these ads lay so nice and flat!)

Nani

Here is Square Hue Nani (in Astros colors, which is why I picked this to show today):

I said before that I was going to try to do some sort of Astros mani, but I did Enchanted Polish Fairy a few days ago and it seemed like too soon to take it off again. Maybe in a couple of days. The Astros won Thursday so they're going at least 4 games, and hopefully more. Anyway, I did wear this once when it first came, even if I can't find a picture to prove it, and it's just red-orange enough to be flattering on me. I liked it a lot, in fact.

NOTD: Just Breathe

Well, first of all, here's the earworm that I get from this name:

Which is quite a welcome earworm - although honestly, at this point, almost anything that stops the non-stop loop of "Despacito" that's been going on in my head is very welcome. But this is a song I've always liked. (Not that I dislike "Despacito," really, either, I just want it out of my head for a while, thanks.)

Yeah, so anyway, I liked the idea of breathable polishes - it just sounds healthier, y'know? But I hadn't tried the Orly Breathable polishes because they're kind of expensive, until I was poking around at Walgreen's a couple of days ago and it turned out they had some colors marked down to $4-something. Then I got to the counter and they actually rang up for $2-something instead, which is awesome and makes me tempted to go back and pick out another color or two.

So the color I bought is (take a wild guess!) Just Breathe:

Since it's breathable - meaning, your nails can take in oxygen right through the polish - you don't wear a base-coat or a top-coat. It went on very watery on the first coat but deepened up nicely on the second. It's still not really opaque - a third coat might do it - but I figured since this was the intent I'd try it out. I expected it to be chipping within 5 minutes but it's holding up decently well, really, and I like this slightly-dusty purple color.

I honestly can't see wanting to wear this all the time, but for giving your nails a break (or if you want to be halal) this is a nice option. I know of at least one other brand with a breathable formula (Inglot) but this is the first one to be widely available, I believe.

(Wear update at the 3-day mark: better than I expected. There's some noticeable wear, but it's not bad, and after 3 days, that happens to me a lot, even if I'm wearing conventional polish plus base-coat and top-coat like I normally do.)