Smoke and Illusion

Because I'm bored and I was surfing around on Zoya's website, I give to you some cool colors I've never paid attention to before (for the record, these are probably going to be affiliate links):
Anaka (a "glam pink")
Nimue
Suri - not actually new to me per se but now I suddenly want it. Figures. Last night I almost placed a Zoya order and then didn't because I couldn't decide on anything I "needed" to have badly enough. (Then later on I ended up ordering something from Llarowe instead. I really can't afford all this stuff I've neededbeen buying lately!)

I was originally looking for this color (Savita) which I found buried in my Pinterest boards, but apparently it is discontinued. Darn. From there I got to the purple page - I have a lot of stuff from that page already - Jem, Kierra, Carly, Juicy, & more - but I continue to find new (to me) and interesting ones.

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Well, in the "what's actually on my nails" category, the layers and layers of pink glitter did eventually chip, as I suspected they might, so I took that off this morning and put on Black Illusion, the one that's supposed to be a dupe for Zoya Storm Smoke. (Added: I always want to call it "Smoke" for some reason. Hopefully I have found and corrected the places where I did that - except for the entry title which I'm not changing at this point!) I haven't tried SmokeStorm myself, so I can't speak to that, but it does have the scattered holo like the other Zoya Ornates do. You can see it a little in the picture, at least!

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I found this picture that was labeled "stash 2011" and I was trying to figure out if this could possibly have been my entire stash at the time. (I suspect it might be, but only if I had cleaned out some of my really old stuff that I had before this!)

This was obviously after Karen sent me the "Wicked Wonderland" set (which was a blog prize and she assured me that I had indeed legitimately won, but then she probably had considerably fewer readers at the time) but it must be before we did our first swap, because I don't see any of that stuff. Also I recognize the spoils of a couple of online shopping orders around that time, which account for all the Orlys and Essies and the Butter London - I didn't have any of those brands before that. (Most of the Hard Candy's are in the Wicked Wonderland box and I think the Wicked Wonderland polishes were in the little pink Hard Candy bag, I think because I had all the minis in there.) The rest of my collection at the time was mostly drugstore polishes (mostly Revlon and L'Oreal and Sally Hansen), plus some OPIs which I was buying at Kroger's. Also, I was on a big SH Xtreme tear around that time - you can see a bunch of those lying on the bedspread in the middle.

Possible spoilers for Karen, and lots of coats of glitter

Here is Shelby topped with Big City Dazzle, not that you can really tell much about the latter: 

I can't remember at what point in the process I took this picture, but I was in experimenting mode, and after some FIVE coats of BCD, I also later pulled out one of the Color Theory pink glitters that I had never tried, and added a couple of coats of that, on top of the rest. There's so many coats of nail polish in this mani (ten, I think, counting base coat) that it's a wonder it hasn't just peeled off in sheets. So far so good, though, and as far as I can tell all the Color Theory added was some extra shinyness.


I'm really kidding about the spoiler business in the title, because Karen has had the box I sent her for our swap for several days now, and although she's been terrifically busy this week, I gather, still, I assume she's had time to open it by now, and it's "safe" for me to post my picture of what I sent her for my half of our swap:

(I didn't crop this because I thought you might be interested to see what I've been taking my pictures on lately. It's the lid of a plastic box. Hey, it works!)

So this is (L-R across top row & then the bottom):

• Funky Monkey
• OK 1 More Margarita
• Morning, Moneypenny (in its box - this entry has pictures of my bottles and magnets unboxed, if you are curious about the contents)
• Fantasy Makers black mini (which was just a bonus thing; I suspect Karen may already have one but I found it and thought it was cute, so I threw it in)
• Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time
• Hot Mess
• Is that Silva? (in box)

She picked out the Orchid colors, from the pictures I took. She sent me five names, thinking that would be more than enough in case they were out of something, but then my HEB store decided to start its BOGO sale early and I was able to get four of the five for half-price, and they didn't have the fifth one. I mentioned hunting for something for her, a few entries back, and that was the elusive fifth polish, but I went to all of the other stores near me and didn't find it. It was "It's Definitely You Not Me" - which is a very packed-looking glitter that you can see in one of the pictures here. But meanwhile she realized I had mentioned finding the Skyfall magnetics, and I ended up buying those for her instead of worrying about more Orchids. We figured out what I ended up spending over and above the cost of the four Gumdrops she had already bought me, and she is sending me something equivalent. I trust her to come up with something cool. (She offered to send money; I offered to let her send money if coming up with the "something cool" was a problem, but she said it wasn't, and I figured I'd really rather have the surprise!) (Karen and I have known each other for more than 10 years now, I guess, and although we rarely meet in person since we live in distant states from one another, we have shopped together - and made quilts together - over the years, and I figure she knows me well enough to come up with something I'll like.)

Big City Dazzle, Shelby, and more

(Thursday)
Mini-haul from CVS, all glitters:

1. Deeper Dive (Spoiled) - another 49-cent score on yet another blue-green glitter. I think this one is darker than most of the ones I have already, though.
2. Big City Dazzle  (NYC NY Minute Sparkle Top Coat) - looks like multicolor glitter in a pink base, but it may be hard to tell until I try it (ooh, cute)
3. Fairy Dust (Khroma) - I didn't even know this brand existed. The Kardashians, they are everywhere. But I thought this looked interesting - it's gold, but on the champagne side. A subtle gold, possibly!

I haven't even mentioned the Butter Londons I bought last week when they were having their online sale, I don't think. I got a shipping notice, and they are due here next week, so I think I'll wait until they come to say more about that.

I stuck a picture up on Instagram yesterday - first time I've done that in ages - but I'll share it with you guys as well. Alegra over Blackberry, as discussed in the last entry:

I said yesterday that I was probably going to take this off last night, but I haven't yet, since it still looks pretty good. There's a bit of wear but surprisingly little, considering. If it's still on by tomorrow night I will be extremely surprised, though.

(Friday)
That's gone, and now I am wearing Shelby with a ton of coats of Big City Dazzle (see #2 above) on top of it. Shelby alone was a bit too pale to be flattering on me. (I suspected that, and yet I ordered it anyway because it was just so pretty.) Big City Dazzle has a pink base, I think, so maybe it deepened Shelby just enough to make it look better on me. I dunno, but I do like it better than I did with Shelby alone. Obviously Shelby is one of those colors that's going to be a layering base for me.

(Shelby, as tends to happen with milky cremes, was a bit goopy and streaky, although it looked decent enough after the 2nd coat that I stopped there. I will try to get a picture of the final result later.)

Not so Blackberry

(Tuesday)
Those of you who follow me on Twitter have heard this part already, but for the record: Blackberry is gorgeous. That's Scherer Petites Blackberry, although it doesn't actually look anything like a blackberry whatsoever. It does look like some nail polish I've had in the past (or still have and can't quite place). Anyway, it's a slightly-blackened red, beautiful and glossy and just somehow really eye-catching. I was really expecting it to be considerably darker, looking at the bottle, but I like it just the same. It's still not really what I'd call a summer red, but it's cherry-ish enough that nobody is likely to notice if they're not looking close.

(Wednesday)
Here is a picture, but the photo may be deceiving about the color on my nails - at least, I've looked at it on two different computers and on one it looks much darker than the other. So YMMV and all that (as is always true, let's face it).

You can see some tipwear if you look close, and this is probably coming off tonight because of that. I washed my hair, and that's always hard on my nails - I know that means I'm probably doing it wrong when I wash my hair, but I never have been successful in correcting that!

I have no idea what I'm putting on next. I think I'm saving Sooki for some sort of 4th of July manicure next week, so maybe I'll do a pink or a purple in the meantime. I will of course report back on that.

UPDATE: I picked up Zoya Alegra thinking I would put that on next, and then I thought, well, y'know, it looks awfully close to Blackberry, in a way (although it's much more berry-ish, ironically), and the next thing I knew I was wearing a coat of it on top of Blackberry. And it's quite beautiful. It punches up the berry-ness and adds a metallic sheen without completely covering up that beautiful deep color that I liked so much. I'll probably still end up taking it off later because I didn't put on more top coat and I'm sure the tips will be worn all over again by the end of the day, but it's a lovely combination and I'm glad I tried it.

Zoya BOGO haul, plus Essence

Every time I get a new purple lately I post saying it's the BEST THING EVER, and well, Zoya Mira is not going to be the exception. It's a medium purple cream, slightly dusty, not too dark. It's gorgeous.

(As usual, iPhone picture from the car. It's the only way I usually remember to get pictures at all!)

Here are all the Zoyas that came in the mail yesterday, plus the two Essence colors that I bought at Ulta the other day:

The picture is a little wacky - the lighter polishes (and especially the little sample bottle of Remove+, which you can barely see at all) are wanting to wash away a bit, but at least you can get the idea. I'll put in Zoya links, how about that, so you can see what they actually look like.
(Zoya links are affiliate links, for the record.)
Top row: Zoya Shelby and Perrie
Middle row: Zoya Reagan, Ali, Mira, and the phantom Remove+ bottle
Bottom row: Essence Break Through; Zoya Alegra, Sooki, Dita; Essence Ultimate Pink

The colors included in the Zoya sale seemed to be summer colors from past years - I know Reagan and Shelby were from last year's Beach collection - and I had bought almost all of the Surf collection (the foils) but only bought one of the Beach colors! So that's great as far as I'm concerned, I'm filling in the holes in my collection!

(If you've observed that the second picture was not taken in the car, you're right. But it still sucks. At least Zoya bottles have flat sides, so they don't roll around all over the place. It makes them much easier to arrange.)

Makeup

Today's nails: Essence Ultimate Pink, a bright rose-pink that almost exactly matches my pink work polo. I couldn't have matched it this well if I'd been trying, but I didn't even realize they were the same color until I was getting dressed!

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I mentioned buying makeup base while we were on our trip - that's the one on the far left in the picture below - and that got me to thinking about posting a picture of the makeup I wear. This isn't my makeup stash per se because I don't really have a stash to speak of any more - or not in the sense that I think of when I think of a nail stash, anyway, where I have a range of stuff to choose from. This is it, practically. Besides this, there are a few things that I carry around in my purse or in the car, and a few similar items to these that I will discuss, and then maybe a few old eye shadows and things that I haven't gotten around to tossing out yet. Nowadays I only buy makeup when I run out of something, for the most part.

So what's here is:

1. Maybelline Fit Me, color 110
2. L'Oreal Color Match, color C2
3. L'Oreal Color Match, color C3
4. Smashbox Bionic mascara (sample size)
5. Urban Decay De-slick
6. Benefit Boi-ing concealer
7. Benefit thrrrob blusher
8. Omnia Amethyste cologne
9. (bottom row) Clinique Surge Protector (sample size)
10. Vivienne eye serum
11. Revlon Colorburst in Lollipop
12. Sephora powder puff (which could really use a good washing!)

One reason there's not more here is because I had to quit wearing eye makeup. I guess you'd say I became allergic to it, or at least hyper-sensitive. The bottom line is, it makes me cry continuously when I have it on, so I got to the point where I gave up on wearing it. For years before that I wore at least a little mascara, and often a neutral eyeshadow and sometimes eyeliner too, but all that's gone by the wayside now. I did find the mascara at the top of the picture in my stuff, and so I put it in the picture as an example of the last mascara I did wear, but I haven't touched it in a couple of years so it definitely needs to be discarded. (For the record, I did really like it other than the whole allergy thing.) At one point I bought one of those Sephora sample sets that was all mascara for sensitive eyes, and EVERY SINGLE ONE of them still made me cry. I was hoping to find one or two, at least, that I could wear, but no. So after that I decided I was done with trying. Mascara doesn't make you look any better if it makes your eyes red.

Makeup base: the L'Oreal Color Match is my usual brand. The reason there's two bottles of it here is that after buying C2, which was a hair too light, and then C3, which was a hair too dark, I finally started mixing them together to get my own custom shade. So apparently I'm a C2.5. Walgreen's is always having BOGO-50% off sales on these anyway, so I just buy them two at a time, now. - You can tell looking at that picture that the Maybelline one is even paler than the other two, and it really is considerably paler than even my annoyingly-pale skin. The formula seems to be almost identical to Color Match as far as I can tell. They may ALL end up mixed up together!

Mascara I've covered already. The powder is colorless and I just use it where I tend to be shiny. I try not to overdo - I don't want that old-lady look that you get from too much powder!

I inherited the dark circles under my eyes from my mother - who actually had them even worse than I do, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much. Sometimes I just use extra makeup base as a concealer, but I also have a variety of concealers that I use. (And I have to be extra-careful not to get any of these things into my eyes, or we're back to the crying I was talking about above.) I've used Physician's Formula a lot over the years, and the Benefit ones are good, but the concealer that I'm carrying around in my purse these days is Maybelline Luminous in Ivory. It seems to do a good job. (Most of the print has come off of mine after a few months of bouncing around my purse, but I guess it's this stuff.)

The blusher pictured is my old box of Thrrrob, which is almost empty, and I looked for it at Sephora last winter when it started to run out, and didn't find it, and was on the verge of panic when I figured out that Benefit still had it on their website. Whew. So I do have a new one now, as well. I have trouble with both lipstick and blusher; what I've figured out over the years looks best on me is something poised right between purple and pink, and it can be a hard color to find. My very favorite ever was another Benefit color - I think it was called I Lotus'd You Looking, but it was LE and is long-gone. Thrrrob is the best substitute I've found, and I've looked at a lot of brands. The lipstick in the picture is Revlon Lollipop, which is slightly too pink, but I've found if I put it on really lightly, it looks really good. I do have some other things: a pink WnW lip balm that I really like, and a Benefit super-glossy lipstick that I'll have to see if I can find the name of. Lipstick is probably the one makeup thing where I still experiment around from time to time.

As far as the things there that aren't really makeup - moisturizer and cologne - the only colognes I own these days are this Omnia purse spray, which I've had for several years, and a bottle of Clinique Happy, ditto. I don't wear a lot of cologne these days but I do like both of these.

Moisturizers - I love my Vivienne eye serum but given that they're one of those annoying companies that sell from carts in the mall, I'm not entirely sure I'm going to buy any more when this finally runs out. It was very expensive, too, although I've had it for a good while and it's still going strong. As far as a more general moisturizer, I've been using the good old yellow Clinique stuff since I was a teenager (when it was a brand-new thing), and I also like their Moisture Surge, which is what's in the picture. I've also used Neutrogena off and on. I've always had oily skin and it's just now starting to dry out enough - bear in mind that I'm 53 - that moisturizer is becoming a bigger issue. I used to buy a small bottle of Clinique and it would last me several years. Nowadays I have to buy the big pump one - but it still lasts me a while.

Not blueberry, and an Ulta trip

(Wednesday)
I like Not So Blueberry much better than I expected, partly because it's, well, not so blue at all. It's a blue-leaning medium-purple microglitter that reads more like a foil, really. I guess calling it blue-violet would be pretty reasonable, although it's on the violet end of that, even. It looks like it would be sheer, but two coats would have been plenty, if I had been patient enough to let it dry. I messed up the finish and added a third coat to compensate - although in my defense, it took quite a long time to dry. (It's probably extra-humid here at the moment, although, y'know, I live in Houston, where it's always humid. We've had pretty damp weather for this time of year, just the same.)

I don't have pictures yet, and probably won't post them when I do, come to think of it, since I might as well leave Karen a bit of a surprise, even though she knows exactly what she's getting, for the most part - but I've spent a fair bit of time this week finding the items for our swap. First of all, my HEB store had a BOGO sale going on on their Orchid brand, so I got four bottles for the price of two. Then I went running around to several other locations to see if I could find one elusive color, which I never did find. (Karen did not ask me to do this, you understand; I just got intrigued by the hunt.) Then Karen realized that I had said that my HEB store had the Skyfall Magnetics and she asked me to see if I could get some for her, so I went back to the first store again, which is the one that's right down the road from me. When I did, I realized why they had the BOGO coupon sale when none of the other locations had had it: it was actually supposed to be this week's sale, not last week's. For some reason, they had started it early. Which I'm terribly glad about because I would have been very frustrated if I had bought those Orchids only to have them go on sale immediately afterwards!

(Friday)
Yesterday I ventured into Ulta, which I don't do much because it tends to overwhelm me. So many choices! I snapped a rather blurry picture of the Butter London display, and a much better picture of the CK one:

Calvin Klein makeup was all the rage when I was a teenager/young adult, so it makes me rather nostalgic. I had some and I wish I could find pictures to show you - I tried googling and so far have found nothing. But I don't remember them selling nail polish back then. It's possible they did, though.

All I ended up buying at Ulta was a couple of Essence polishes, a pink and a purple, and some shampoo for fine hair that was marked down. (My hair has always been fine, and seems like it's gotten even more so since it started turning gray. Getting old(er) sucks, y'all.)