Sally Hansen Insta-Gel Nail Strips Starter Kit Review

Ah, Sally, you've done it again. Not only are their Real Polish Strips amazing, but now they've taken them up a notch.

The Sally Hansen Insta-Gel Strips Starter Kit (Shell We Dance) was a bit of an impulse buy for me. I already own everything that I need to do a gel manicure. I hadn't done gels in a while and was intrigued to try the strip concept. I also bought a refill kit in Amazing Lace.

Basically, you put on the strips and put the gel polish on as a top coat.

Pros:

• Easy: The application is easy, a bit time consuming, but not any more time consuming than other manicures. Especially if you include drying time. Plus, you only have one coat of polish to dry, not 4 (base, 2 coats of color and top coat) like you would in a regular gel manicure.
• Cost: $30 for a light and everything you need to get started is a great deal
• No mess: The only mess with this is the backings of the strips. They can end up in really weird places if you're not careful...
• Little room for error: You won't run into the bubbling, too thick, too thin crap that you can run into with gels.
• No dry time

Cons:

• Cost: I know, $30 bucks gets you one application. If you're creative you can probably get two, maybe 3 out of it. 
• Refills: Refills are expensive ($15). They include everything in the kit, except the lamp. They include a gel top coat in every refill, which isn't necessary. 
• Wear time: Mine lasted about two days and started to chip. I filed down all of my nails, so they were really short. After I filed them down, I didn't seem to have nearly as many problems. My nails are fairly weak, so I'm not the best judge of nail wear.

All in all, I think this kit is awesome and prefer it over my OPI Axxium Soak-Off Gels. It's just easier and takes way less time. Plus having patterns is super SWEET!

I'm going to try buying some of the regular strips and sealing them with the top coat. I'll keep you posted! ;)

Influenster VoxBox: Beauty Blogger 2012

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I love being apart of the Influenster VoxBox program. I tired making a video talking about all these products, but I had some major technical difficulties. I recorded it once and the audio didn’t match up. Then I tried recording it with my webcam, but it kept stopping a few seconds into it. Ugh. So, a blog post will have to do!

NYC New York Color IndividualEyes Custom Compact: $4.99

For 5 bucks, you can beat the price. This quad has 4 very pigmented colors. I believe that the color that I got was in Dark Shadows, but I can’t seem to find that name on NYC’s website. It has beautiful greys, perfect for creating a traditional smokey eye. The compact also has a primer and highlighter. The primer is okay, but the highlight is WAY to light for me. I have very fair skin, so if it’s too light for me, it’s probably too light for most people. All in all a great edition to anyone’s collection. Grade: A+

Kiss Ever Pro Lashes Starter Kit: $5.99

Kiss makes some great cheap lashes, but this product was a bit disappointing for me. The lashes were really thick and I had trouble getting them to curve around my lashes. The applicator was nice and a lot better than some. I can’t vouch for the glue, because I was never able to get the lashes on.  Grade: D

Bath and Body Works Mini Candles: $3.50

This is a no brainer. Of course these rock. I got Mahogany Teackwood and I love it. I had to buy this in the full size, 3 wick candle. I also got a couple of other flavors too. Grade: A+

EBoost Effervescent Powders: $expensive

I’m so jacked up on vitamins that I didn’t even try this.

Good Simple Styles Spin Pins: $7.29

I don’t wear my hair up very often, but this would be perfect for anyone who loves wearing her hair up. They’re easy to use, hold well and you can get it in different colors to match your hair. I tried these out and really like them.  I only needed one pin because my hair is fine. I would definitely use these a lot of I wore my hair up. The only downside is the price. Seven bucks seems a little steep for two hair pins.

Not Your Mother’s Kinky Moves Curl Defining Hair Cream: $6

Yep, these definitely aren’t my mother’s kinky moves. What a weird name. That being said, I don’t have curly hair so I thought this would be rather pointless for me. I do want to try some of their other products though.

Vitabath Fragrance Mist: $10

I really liked this. I got Nouveau Rose. The smell is really nice and a nice pick me up. I’m not sure if this product is available at the drug store or not. Kinda sucks if it’s not, but it’s definitely worth the $10.

Election Day

Today is election day. A big deal.

You learn a lot about people by the way that they vote. I am not a perfect voter. There are certain measures on the ballot that I don't care about it. Well, not caring isn't true. But I don't understand them and I'm not interested in understanding them.

I hope that our country can get it together. We're so divided and that scares me. I don't understand some people's ways of thinking and they probably don't understand mine. I can usually see other people's sides of debates, but there are some issues that I just don't understand.

I hate when people vote along party lines. NEVER EVER should someone vote based on the party that they belong to. That is giving your voice to a party. A party doesn't always have your best interests in mind. It always has the party's best interest in mind.

Do your research. You can mail in your ballot. Here in Washington State, you ballot is mailed to you. It's such an amazing system. You have so many tools at your disposal to figure out how you want to vote. You have the internet, TV, newspapers and friends and family. You can ask people how they voted and why. You can take your time, understand and cast your vote. I love it. I was able to vote on the issues I already knew how I felt, and research ones I didn't understand.

Don't wait. Don't be stupid. Vote. There is no excuse in this day in age, not to vote. 

Revlon ColorStay Whipped Foundation

I'm not entirely sure why I purchased this foundation, but I did and I'm glad I tried it. I'm a huge fan of Revlon's products. I'm not particularly fond on the ColorStay liquid foundation. I absolutely love the Revlon PhotoReady. I'm beginning to think it makes me break out, because when I took a break from it, I stopped breaking out so much. I had a ton of little bumps on my chin area.

I wanted to give this whipped foundation because I wanted a 24 foundation that wasn't as trying at the original ColorStay. I was a bit surprised when this whipped foundation had the consistency of jello.  Whipped makes me think of whipped cream. What about you?

My first impression wasn't all that great. It went on really cakey and would recommend trying a different brush. The sigma F82 is a great brush for liquid, but I don't think it worked particularly well for this one. I would definitely recommend primer also. This foundation was settling in my pores and looked really cakey around my face. It did make me look completely flawless in low light, but in the sunlight/natural light I had frosting face. ICK.

This foundation would be best if put on with light layers with a damp sponge or maybe a stippling brush. I would also recommend this for someone who will be taking pictures, maybe senior portraits, engagement photos and the like. Overall I think my first reaction was very critical. If I had just exfoliated, applied a primer and used a different brush it probably would have looked great. But that's a lot of work for foundation for a daily basis. I love just applying my PhotoReady with my fingers! 

Fifty Shades of Grey Review

I'm not much of a literary genius. No, I read for entertainment and don't usually read between the lines. I always found it really annoying when high school English teachers would ask what you thought objects, people and actions meant.

I heard about Fifty Shades of Grey earlier this year when it started showing up on my Facebook newsfeed. I read some reviews on it and when I heard it had some connection to Twilight I said there was no way I pick it up.

I read Twilight in 2008 after I a few friends were raving about it. I thought it had to be amazing. The last book that I picked up because of a whole bunch of hype was the Harry Potter series. I'm not normally a huge fan of fantasy/sci-fi, but I loved Harry Potter and thought Twilight might be similar. Boy, I was so wrong. Twilight was poorly written, characters lacked development and personality, and had vampires. Really vampires. Who on earth wants to be around vampires. Vampires suck blood. Gross.

To me, FSoG is Twilight on Viagra. I didn't have much interest in reading it, but now that I work for a company that seen our sales sky-rocket from FSoG, I thought it would be important to read.

Anastasia has no self-confidence and not really any personality. The story doesn't develop into much and the mystery around Mr. Grey starts to get really old. Just tell me already. The story doesn't need to be over 200 pages. I stalled after reading about 150 pages. I didn't touch the book for about 2 weeks and then we a friend mentioned how it might end, I was intrigued again.

I also find this book a tad bit scary. The kinky sex doesn't bother me nearly as much as the humiliation and dominance. If this relationship between these two adults didn't involve a contract wouldn't this be considered an abusive relationship. He's extremely jealous, tracks her phone, follows her to Georgia, threatens to beat her and actually hits her. This is something I have a hard time wrapping my head around.

Drives me nuts when every person in a book is hot or extremely good-looking. Was there anyone in this book that wasn't perfect!?

Oh, and the fact that this book takes place in the U.S. with all the main characters from the U.S. and the author is from Great Britain. When I first started reading the book, I thought their language was extremely proper and very English. When I learned the author was from Britain, it made more sense. Shows her laziness or lack of knowledge of American culture. The author obviously had a thesaurus on hand as well.

This book doesn't offer much, but it has been interesting to learn about a BDSM relationship. I knew BDSM existed, but I didn't know much about what went on. I think there have been positives for a lot of women who are spicing up their sex lives and trying new things.

In the end, I understand the hype, but this book isn't great. It might be worth reading for the learning, but other than that, you're not missing much.