True Match

I was really intending to talk about some nail polish or other today, but I just found out that True Match is finally making my foundation color and I am so excited I have to talk about that instead. I've discussed it before, here, I know - I have been wearing True Match practically since it first came out, and it didn't take me long to figure out that C2 was too light for me and C3 was too dark. So I have been buying two bottles at a time and mixing them together for, like, ten years (ok, maybe not quite, but it's five years, at the very least, going from that link above) and guess what, as part of the color expansion they are actually making C2.5!!

I was aware that every company who makes foundation is now madly expanding their ranges in order to follow Rihanna's lead (go, Rihanna, go!). True Match had been making these halfway-between shades in some other colors already, but since they already had more colors than most (they had 30 shades from the start), when I saw "new colors!" I didn't automatically think that would include mine. But, hey, awesome! I can buy foundation one bottle at a time, now! (And I am incredibly lazy about stuff like this, normally, so it tells you how much I like this foundation that I kept on doing it.)

Note: picture ganked from Walmart, because that was the first place I saw this, and here's the link back to that page. Nothing here is affiliate links.


Come to think of it, I could have bought Rihanna's foundation for what I paid for those Clinique BIY drops, and I only thought about that because I had this picture of the box:

I took that not because I was intending to talk about the drops again (I've played with them a little, and I'm sure I'll get around to discussing that eventually) but because I was looking at the flower pattern on the box. Another thing I know I've discussed previously is that I've been using Clinique products for 40 years or possibly a little more (man, does it pain me to say that) and I'm pretty sure they've been using that same flower pattern - or at least an extremely similar one - forever, too. I was hit by a surprising wave of nostalgia when I looked at that box, and that was why I took a picture of it before I tossed it.

Mindy, Charmed + Havana Heat

First of all, in case anybody missed it and is interested, Kathleen Lights' Havana Heat collection dropped. Not your typical summer collection (which is refreshing as hell, really) - very bright, but not neon. I can't see myself buying a bunch of these because there's too many warm colors - I might want the pink and the blue. (Not that the green is particularly warm, but it seems too similar to things I already have.) (Scroll down to the bottom for videos on this!)

Here is the only polish I've got from KL's spring (Ethereal Gardens) collection, Charmed:

This reads as purple but I think it actually is pink with blue shimmer. It's super-pretty.

And then I have Mindy, from the Winter Glamourland collection:

A deep berry creme.

I tried Charmed on top of Mindy, and it seems to have definite possibilities:

Here's Kathleen's chit-chat video:

aaand the "commercial" featuring her family:

Several Topic Tuesdays

Today's #topictues is "the last polish you purchased" but that's something I have already showed you guys (Generally Hazzardous) so I'm going to go back and talk about some other topics from the backlist of topics I skipped in past months. (Back on the topic of what I've bought: I hadn't considered this, but I haven't bought any polish in a month or so. I've been doing that, lately. I buy a bunch of stuff all at once, and then I go, "oh, this is ridiculous" and I contain myself for a while. I've gone as long as three months at a time without buying anything. So I guess I can expect another binge in August or so. Just in time for the Nordstrom sale!)

Here's a few more where I don't have very long answers:

• first polish you would buy if you lost your entire collection (this was a topic from early May) - I can't think of anything specific. I would probably go somewhere nearby - Walgreen's or H-E-B or someplace - and just pick from what they had in stock. I certainly don't think I would want to wait for mail order.
• what brand you would choose if you could only have one (no indies) (from March) - definitely Zoya - reasonable prices if you wait for sales & promos, a big back-list and a lot of fun finishes
• most-used polishes (other than base & top-coat) (this one is from April) - I think it would have to be China Glaze Travel In Colour. I love shifty top-coats. I've worn a number of different ones in recent years: Bubblegum Punk, for a while, and for the last year or so it's been Zoya Leia. But I think Travel In Colour is probably the all-time champion. (I'm going on the assumption that "other than top-coat" in this topic is referring to something like Seche Vite and not a top-coat with color in it.) I can't think of one single polish that I've worn as much as I've worn the different color top-coats. Another candidate would be Zoya Chloe and other similar flakies. I love to layer, have you noticed?

Generally Hazzardous:

Hands Up

This is Sinful Colors Hands Up:

This is a Vanessa Hudgens polish, as I understand it, which kind of cracks me up because I mostly know her only as somebody who was a legendarily bad dresser some years ago. (To be fair, I hear that these days she has a stylist and things are much improved on that score. Whenever I see pictures of her these days she looks really cute.) I think the idea here is that this is a festival-season collection, right? The hot-pink color and the polish name both make sense in that context. I need to remember to wear this soon!

Added: manicure here

Empties

I haven't done an empties post in a while, so here's the things that had piled up in the folder:

For some reason Clinique lipsticks always break on me. So this is another broken one - it isn't actually something that I've used up. (I put the broken-off part in a jar so I can use it with a brush. I do like this color - it's Rose Pop. I don't know what the deal is with them breaking, though.)

This is a hair treatment that I bought at Sally Beauty to try. It made my hair feel really good.

I'm not sure where I got this little bottle of Truth Serum - my guess would be either Sephora Play or one of those big Sephora gift sets. This is one of my favorite serums, but it's expensive - $72 for 50ml. I have another, slightly larger (half-ounce) bottle that I don't think I ever remembered to show - it was from this set. I think I may have bought that when the VIB sale was going on.

Here's another hair mask sample that probably also came from Sephora Play

Again, really liked this but it's awfully expensive.

And then, something completely different: I discovered by accident a while back that nuts.com was a thing, and I tried them out:

This one is chocolate pecan clusters, but I also got a couple of other things (I've forgotten exactly what now), and everything was awesome. They're not cheap but they're good quality.

(Fun artwork!)

Enchanted over Jan 2016

So I was wearing January 2016, as I showed the other day, and it was chipping a bit, and I had a flakie top-coat I hadn't tried out yet, so here it is: Starrily Enchanted. It's not really surprising, because I have had a thing for flakies from way way back, but I love this.

Throwing Copper

Here is Pretty Serious Throwing Copper:

This is a taupe-ish brown with copper shimmer.

"When the drama comes crashing down, you'll still be a pillar of the town with this polish that will sear the iris of your old bad eyes. Waitresses will be all over you, and you alone will be the top of the list for everyone's white, discussion."

If that makes no sense to you, go here and look at the list of songs. (Kaz and I were obviously listening to the same stuff in the mid-90s - I knew what this was talking about immediately.)