Essie Mini-Haul

over the edge - butler please - stroke of brilliance

If there's one brand I'm always on the fence about, it's Essie. They have without a doubt the most accessibility and variety, but on average have very poor formula. With a good base and top coat though, I figure that most of the time I can battle the poor formula for the gorgeous color. I got the inspiration for this post from Essie (of essiebutton) and her favorite nail varnishes post. I realized after watching her video of her favorites that a. I was in love with this bright blue and b. I had none in my rather large nail varnish collection. SO when I stepped into Target, this was the first thing I beelined for, after basking in the already holiday decorated card section. Butler Please is described as an "indulgent bright blue" and I completely agree. The one thing I stray away from with this nail polish is that the formula was very hard to work with which I found a bit surprising. The color seemed easy to work with from the bottle. It took a while to dry, needed two coats, and a third would have worked even better. It was necessary to have a drying fast top coat or my nails would have been ruined.

Over the Edge is a true dark gray with white shimmers running throughout it. The color is truly unique and reminds me of Urban Decay's Gunmetal eyeshadow. It is described as a "dramatic metallic midnight silver." This will be perfect for the holiday season, especially with a nice red dress or LBD. Stroke of Brilliance is a glittery blue top coat, perfect on it's own or over the top of another. I think it'd look fab over both Butler Please and Over the Edge. I have such a love/hate relationship with glitter nail polishes but I think my obsession might have been sparked again... I hate the taking off process, but love the long wear time and the look.

Essie has a reasonable price at about $8 a bottle, though I don't exactly think it's always worth it. I'd really like to try some more of their new collection!

What are your favorite drugstore polishes? Do you bother with high end nail care?

x

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winter-ish wishlist

baroque metallic skirt - 3.1 phillip lim leather tote - bobbi brown moisturizer - aesop parsley seed masque - diptyque candle - obsessive compulsive cosmetics lip tar - monica vader jewelry

Another wishlist to get me blogging again.. I'm obsessed with baroque, though not sure it really suits me. I am always drawn to the leather tote and I'm not really sure why. I really want to try some extra moisturizing skincare items soon, as winter is getting so cold on my poor dry skin. Everyone and their mothers has talked about diptyque candles but here I am, just saying that I need to smell them soon. I love the lip tars from obsessive compulsive cosmetics lip tar. I threw in this lovely little ring that I felt would go very well with a nice jumper and a cuppa tea.

A week off from blogging due to a death in my family was well needed. Excuse the absence, I plan to be back soon.

xx

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Instagrammed #5

001. Post-Two Door Cinema Club grossness.

002. Bloody nails! Post on this here

003. Noah Gunderson with Motopony.

004. Excited for Christmas, freezing for TDCC.

005. The hottie from St. Lucia.

006. Boo headache :(

Halloween Nails

Essie 'Grow Faster'

Essie 'Head Mistress'

Revlon 'Quick Dry Top Coat'

Thought I'd pop a post up before I head to Seattle for yet another concert. This time it's Two Door Cinema Club, which I'm rather excited about but also excited for the sunday after because that means I will have so much more free time. This month has been both really exciting and exhausting. Nearly no time to myself, getting sick, trying to continue school work and the blog has amounted to a very exhausted Blair. But no worries, everything will alas be back on track soon.

I felt very excited for Halloween has it's coming up quick, so I threw on some nails inspired by it. It's quite a simple step by step process. Start with a base coat, follow up with a stripe of red at the end of the nail and then gloop on a few blood like looking stripes down to the bottom. End with a top coat and let it dry. This took me all in all probably 15 or less minutes to do. Super simple.

Do you love Halloween? Hate it? Let me know in the comments below.

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Skin Rescue Masks

Origins Out of Trouble Mask

Known for being a 10 minute mask to rescue problem skin, this mask does exactly that. On my dehydrated-dry skin, it becomes a bit tight after washing off but with a spot of moisturizer, all is well. My skin feels noticeably clearer the next day and I’m always incredibly amazed by that fact. This mask was designed to, “sop up oily-shine, slough off sticky, dead cells and sweep away irksome debris.” I tend to use this mask for 5-7 minutes instead of the full 10 because I don’t need as much sopping of oils (as I lack them). With my skin type, it gets a pleasant kick from the calming Camphor and tough Salicylic Acid.

REN Clearcalm 3 Acne Treatment Mask

The claim to fame for this mask is that it is the ultimate acne-fighting mask. My first reaction was that it felt quite soothing, and a bit like a thick layer of moisturizer. My skin felt very dry again after this one, but nothing a little moisturizer (and Argan oil) couldn’t fix up. Some of the ingredients include: Sulfur, licorice extract, zinc gluconate, willow bark extract, calcium carbonate, kaolin, and essential oils. One of the things that drew me to REN was their natural yet also pharmaceutical way of reinventing skin, if that makes sense. Some brands such as Origins strike me as all natural, but this seems to combine the two in the perfect manner.

Origins Clear Improvement

I see the most opening of my pores with this mask, so I find it’s a great way to let later products sink in as much as possible. I apply all of my masks with an old foundation brush and find this one works easiest using this technique. The Charcoal in it acts like a magnet to draw out the nasties that clog your pores. White China Clay absorbs the environmental toxins and lecithin dissolves impurities.

I’m in the market for some Ultra Moisturizing Masks. Any ideas? Leave in the comments below.

Xx

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short jacket / long skirt

leather jacket: urban outfitters

shirt: urban outfitters

skirt: topshop

shoes: urban outfitters

handbag: aldo

Wow, this suddenly seems like a post that was directly sponsored by urban outfitters but I promise you it wasn't. I begged my mom to take this pictures before the storm came, but we still got rained on. Anyways, I ventured into top shop and managed to only come out with this skirt (might be because I had no more money for anything else). I'm really in love with it. Hopefully my maxi dress comes in the mail soon (cough top shop shipping sucks cough). 

Hope you've all had a good start to the week.

xx

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Instagrammed #4

001. Reunited with best camp friend Kate.

002. First stormy day in a while, see this outfit in tomorrow's post.

003. Swimming Rama from Thai Tom's in Seattle.

004. My newest obsession.

005. Obsessed with this.

006. No zoom, this was how close I was. Macklemore was incredible!

007. Traditional kissy face with best friends.