My Pretty Purple

Afternoon, friends!  Tiny word of warning regarding this post: It’s coming at you primarily under the power of lotsandlots of cold meds.  Toooooo many cold meds!  I’ve been terribly sick since the end of last week, and yesterday, after reaching my breaking point with the headaches, the fever and the nausea, I reached for just a few too many medications instead, and promptly fell into a David Lynchian, *mostly* unaccounted-for 24 hours (best summed up by the shipping confirmation I received from Sephora this morning for an order I do not remember placing last night!)  I will attempt to keep this as linear as possible!

This lovely purple lacquer is Enchanted Polish’s mystery pick for April 2017.  It’s very pretty – can’t go wrong with an Enchanted holo; they always do ’em up right – but probably nothing I’d seek out of my own volition. All the same, I will use the heck out of this polish – there’s always room for a pale purple in my nail art endeavors, and this one is just lovely, in the sun, of course, but also in the shade, where you can see just the tiniest touch of rose shimmer streaked throughout the bottle.  Very pretty.

So Bluetiful!

All right, NOW we’re cooking with gas on this mystery polish business!  This lovely speckled specimen is Enchanted Polish’s mystery lacquer for the month of March, and it is stupendous – the kind of polish I was hoping my last turn at the mystery hokey pokey was going to turn up, but regrettably never produced.

Glittery jellies are my nail polish kryptonite, and March 2017, with its navy blue-leaning black glitter, purple, colour-shifting shimmer and fine sprinkling of holographic glitter, is one for the Top 3 list, absolutely.  What a stunner!  I think it looks like a very vibrant robin’s egg.  It’s also quite beautiful way, way up close and personal (shame about that little bubble, perfectly outlined though it may be – with thanks to my new husband-procured Olloclip macro lens, which could pick out a dust mite on a flea on a dog, I swear.  Or, you know, something less gross and buggy!)

Calamity Carol

As in Carol of The Walking Dead.  Although…alluringly alliterative though it may be, is “calamity” really the correct descriptor for Carol Peletier’s very particular brand of post-apocalyptic madness?  Girlfriend’s ice cold, and I kind of love it.  Or I loved it right up until she suddenly – and abruptly, because this is The Walking Dead – began acting completely contrary to her long-established character, running off alone to ruminate on man’s inhumanity to man, when she should have been back in Alexandria terrorizing small, frightened children with her apocalypse cookies and impressively detailed death scenarios.  I totally hate-watch The Walking Dead, so I actually don’t have much of a stake in it one way or another, but I’d like to see Carol get her mojo back next season – every apocalypse needs its rage goddess.

Personal feelings on both the show and the comics aside, I love the idea of The Walking Dead, as evidenced by this TWD-themed polish from Dollish Polish, Look at the Flowers, Lizzie, a mucus-hued favourite.  Straight up, this polish looks like snot – ain’t nothing wrong with that!  Here I topped Look at the Flowers, Lizzie with two sweet flower studs and a couple of badass silver spike strips.  I definitely think Carol – any version, really – would approve.

An Earth Day Epilogue

This very Earthy dry brush mani would have made a fine blogging addition to yesterday’s Earth Day festivities, had I not been otherwise indisposed via computer busted all to crap (technical term, “busted all to crap.”)  I *might* read a lot into it happening on Earth Day, suggest it’s nature fighting back against our impersonal, technologically-dependent lives, except the Big Blue Screen of Death happened over a week ago.  In the meantime, I spun my wheels a little.  Or rather, I spun my wheels a lot. Turns out I’m way more technologically-dependent than I ever suspected!

Although these low tech nails might suggest otherwise – nothing more difficult here than the very forgiving dry brush technique in a handful of lush, jungley greens and aquatic blues.  I’m positively in love with how the tiny bits of holographic glitter catch the light like the surface of tropical, sun-dappled waters.  Happy belated Day, Earth!

Missing Blogger?

Hi friends!  To all who have been curious as to where I’ve buggered off to this week, I’ve been baby-sitting my computer.  Sunday it Blue Screen of Deathed.  Monday through Thursday it simply shut down and wouldn’t turn on for the simplest of assessments.  It has now been running for the past 36 hours straight as I reinstall Windows, including over 200 language packs – Serbian Latin, very important to my everyday functioning, obviously.  If I sound extra twitchy, it’s because I am. A watched progress bar never advances and all that.

In the boring meanwhile, thank you for sticking with me. And to all my new readers, welcome!  There’s usually a lot more activity around here, as you will hopefully one day see.  One day…

Chick ‘N’ Mix: A Mini Lush Review

Everybody sing it with me now: “Chicken, chicken, you can’t cluck too much for me…chicken, chicken, why don’t you come down off of that tree?”  No, not familiar with that one?  I suppose that’s not too surprising – I didn’t know about the Chicken song either, a children’s ditty by a singer named Nancy Cassidy, until it was featured in one of Orange is the New Black’s first season episodes, “The Chickening” (that’s the one where the residents of the Litch, starved for decent food, exercise and mental stimulation, embark on a crazed poultry hunt for a wee chicken that appears in the yard one day.)

This chicken, a Chick ‘N’ Mix bath bomb from Lush’s Easter collection, is a little less revered than OITNB’s prized poultry, although I’ve no doubt some of those ladies would shank their own grandmother for an unsupervised bubble bath.  Separated into three parts – chick, shell and adorable little concealed bunny bomb – this gigantic bath ballistic cost a whopping $10.95 Canadian and is really intended for multiple uses, although I just threw total caution to the wind and chucked the whole thing in my tub en masse.

Like just about every other bath bomb I’ve purchased and used this year, the Chick ‘N’ Mix fizzed out in just a little under 30 seconds.  I didn’t have time to fire off a single photo of the bath art either, because there was none – both halves sunk straight to the bottom of the tub and dissolved quite neatly.  Dejected, I tossed the little orange bunny bomb into the mix and thought about how that’s $11.00 I’m never getting back.

This is the part where I try to justify another dud of a Lush purchase by noting that the Chick ‘N’ Mix bath bomb did provide me with some Easter weekend nail art inspiration. But I’m growing tired of limited use items that don’t behave as promised, don’t smell as described, AND put a neat dent in my pocketbook in the process.  That’s not the kind of inspiration I need!  I mean, it’s inspiring me not to want to purchase any more Lush bath bombs, but I’m fairly certain that’s not the inspiration Lush needs now, is it?

Also, this bath bomb was pure nightmare fuel.  Ahhhh, KILL IT!  KILL IT WITH FIRE! Beware the rabid chicken bath bomb, friends, as you really ought not to share your tubby time with critters frothing green gunge at the mouth.  Sage life advice, from me to you. 😉

Easter Weekend

Loveliest of Easter weekends to you, friends.  Being not so religious, as well as hailing from the kind of small, WASP-y family that does things like vacations in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, my Easter weekends typically involve travel and a whole lot of outlet shopping.  Or they did when I was a kid; my mom and dad and I – “us is the flamily” – passing horse-drawn Amish buggies on the road, catching fireflies in the parking lot of the motel, buying ultra preppy oxblood penny loafers at the Bass outlet and scarfing endless plates of incredible fried chicken at the restaurant where the waitress didn’t even blink when I said I wanted mashed potatoes and gravy as all FOUR of my sides. Those were really great vacations. 🙂

But this Easter weekend I’m home, simply enjoying a few days off from what has so far been a rather busy April.  Quite a few social events and a new-ish exercise regimen that keeps me hoppin’ like a bunny.

Speaking of, here are a few items guaranteed to put a spring – and THE Spring – into the Easter Bunny’s bounce.  Remarkably, these are all things I pulled from around my apartment.  I didn’t have to go rummaging in seasonal storage for anything.  So when I was joking a month or so ago that it’s always Easter in my apartment, I guess I really wasn’t joking?!

My favourite speckled egg wreath makes another appearance here, alongside, on the left, some very cute little cracked egg votive candles, a neat stack of Peeps-scented wax tarts from Yankee Candle, an actual Peeps-shaped wax tart from The Bathing Garden in Keep Your Temper, and KB Shimmer’s Where My Peeps At, which is pure Easter in a bottle.

Then over on the right we have a gigantic, three-part Chick ‘N’ Mix bath bomb from Lush (there’s a cute little bicarbonate bunny inside the huge chick), a speckled wax robin’s egg from The Bathing Garden in Blackberry Fudge, a clutch of pastel Reflections markers, a wee little ceramic cupcake perfect for hiding tiny treasures, another Peeps-shaped wax tart from The Bathing Garden in Looking Glass, two frosted sugar cookies from London, Ontario bakery A Couple of Squares and a large glass jar filled with a half dozen hand-painted cardboard eggs.  Hoppy Easter!

Springtime Polish Picks

As I did for Valentine’s Day, I thought it would be a fun exercise to go through my lacquer collection and pull some Springy polish picks, with a few Easter gems thrown in for good measure.  A couple of these polishes are from actual Spring/Easter collections, but most just remind me of this time of year – cold, steely skies, crocuses and daffodils just beginning to poke through the snow, pastel eggs nestled in crinkly plastic Easter grass.

Starting off with the most obvious pairing, we have KB Shimmer’s Where My Peeps At and Smitten Polish’s Not Your Mama’s Easter Grass.  I think this combination looks like jellybeans nestled in chick fuzz nestled in plastic Easter grass.

Next we have another KB Shimmer pick, Full Bloom Ahead, paired with Different Dimension’s Luminosity. Full Bloom Ahead is one of my favourite polishes, and also one of the first indies I ever bought.  I think it looks like Spring flowers caught in an unseasonably late snowstorm.  Luminosity is just dang pretty.

Next we have yet another KB Shimmer pick – this time Make My Gray – paired with ILNP’s Mega.  I like the way the holographic rainbows in Mega’s depths mimic the steely grey glitters in Make My Gray.

Finally, we have the very eggy combo of Delush Polish’s 50 Shades of Yay paired with Glam Polish’s Ladies Choice.  50 Shades of Yay is one of my favourite, but rarely worn, polishes.  I think it looks like delicious rainbow Peeps cake (the delicious part being the cake; Peeps are the work of the devil, adorable though they are!)

Treating Myself: A Bathing Garden Haul

I’ve noted in the past that despite all indications to the contrary here on this nail and beauty blog where I talk about such things all the ding dang time, I’m not much of a product person. I never use intensive hair treatments, I rarely slap on a mask and body moisturizer is an only-if-I-remember-I-actually-own-any kind of thing.  Come to think of it, I’ve been using the same brand and make of face wash for the past 22 years (Clean & Clear Deep Action Cream Cleanser, in case you were wondering.)

But with an upcoming milestone birthday (the one accompanied by all those obnoxious black balloons) and the gentle nudging of some dear blogger friends (lovely people, but terrible enablers with their gorgeously photographed blog posts!) and a completely bare beauty cupboard, I thought it was high time to treat myself to some beautiful bath and body care, Bathing Garden-style.

The Bathing Garden, an indie bath, body care and home fragrance vendor popular with the waxie set, does steady, year-round business turning out rotating themed collections of beautifully crafted scented wax and other bath and beauty products.  I have ogled their hoard-worthy wares for years.  Alas, with shipping restricted to the United States, this Canuck has been crap out of luck.  No Bathing Garden for me, eh?

No Bathing Garden, that is, until one of those dear blogger enfriendablers (rolls right off the tongue, don’t it?) allowed me to piggyback on her order, a random enough act of kindness before she also picked up the outrageous shipping as a sweet little pre-birthday treat.  I was so touched.  There are some truly lovely people online.  If your Internet activity centres around Twitter or Reddit or YouTube comment boards, that statement will absolutely not compute, but kindness on the Internet can occasionally happen!

Anyway, enough with feeling all hashtag-blessed. 😉  Onward haul, right?!  Let’s do this thing.

Starting off with the body care, you might be asking yourself what a not-a-product person is going to do with so much, uh, product.  Well, I’m going to use it!  Because I’m also one of those “if you’ve got it, use it” kind of people – it irks me when beauty products sit unused in drawers for years.  That’s not going to be a problem with these goodies, though – I’ve already used up nice handfuls of both the sugar scrub and the lotion, and I’ve only had these items in my possession for a few days!  Thank goodness reinforcements are now on the way. 😉

The scrubs I chose were both from the soon-to-be-rotated-out Circus Collection, Poppet’s Coaster Ride (actually a scrub/soap hybrid), a blend of strawberry peach jam, raspberry cake bites and lemon curd (ugh, I want to eat that, it sounds so delicious; it also helps not one bit that the lemon curd side actually looks like lemon curd!) and Clowning Around, a carny-approved blend of toffee apples, cotton candy, popcorn and layer cake.

I’m so in love with these scrubs, they’re beyond gorgeous.  And that’s just the labels!  The scrubs themselves feature a beautifully plush texture – like slightly damp Magic Sand – buff on gently and rinse away cleanly, leaving behind no oily residue.  Best of all, despite sporting such lush, vibrant hues, they don’t stain your hide 12 different shades of turquoise!  Victory!  Clowning Around, the sugar scrub, was $8.00 US for an 8 oz. jar and Poppet’s Coaster Ride, the split parfait, was $12.50 for an 8 oz. jar.

Suds and saturation came in the form of two more picks from the Circus Collection and one from the recently-retired Valentine’s Day Collection, Candy Carousel lotion, a sugary sweet blend of candy floss, apples and cake, Fried Candy Donut whipped soap, a lip-smackingly delectable wildberry bakery blend, and Coconut Crystal Cake whipped soap, which, to paraphrase my friend Julie, smells like a coconut if it didn’t know whether to be dessert or suntan lotion.

I haven’t cracked into the whipped soaps just yet, so I can’t speak to their sudsing power or their scrubbing bubbles, but the texture, which you can see in the above photos, is just divine – thick and rich, like buttercream frosting whipped into stiff peaks (there we go with that “do I eat it or wash with it?” thing again!) Coconut Crystal Cake’s delicate fragrance is unfortunately somewhat obscured by the soap blend used here; Fried Candy Donut’s robust berry bakery holds up much better.  I really wouldn’t kick either out of bed, though.  Each soap was $8.00 per 4 oz. jar.

The light lotion, here in Candy Carousel, looks deceptively thin and maybe even a bit watery.  Looks aren’t everything, though, as beneath the surface lies a powerhouse moisturizer that soaks in quickly and dries down to a soft, touchable finish.  This lotion was $8.50 for a 4 oz. container.

Ah, but did you really think I was going to stop with body care and 799 words? 😉 Not when there’s wax to be had, and certainly not when it’s this beautiful!  Because this, this is what lured me in to The Bathing Garden in the first place – the gorgeous little details on these clamshells, to say nothing of the deliciously complex scent blends.  These feel like such sweet little luxuries, I love them.

From left to right we once again have Poppet’s Coaster Ride, the wax version of the lemonberry curd scent featured in the parfait, Fried Candy Donut, also once again, which smells even more scrumptious in a scented wax, and Raspberry Hearts, a soft raspberry-vanilla that smells exactly like this skate shop I used to frequent as a teenager because that’s where all the cute and floppy boys hung out.  Each clamshell was $3.75.  And worth every penny when they’re as gorgeous as this:

In addition to their fantastic clamshells, The Bathing Garden also offers a number of their scents in adorable little shapes.  Many of these shapes are pressed into service as super generous samples (more on that shortly) but a number are available for purchase. And in my world, if there’s something donut-shaped on offer, you just don’t say no!

From left to right we have two frosted donuts in Fried Candy Donut ($1.25 per .8 oz. tart), a glitter-embedded bundt in one of Julie’s favourite scents, Victorian Midway, a sweet, pumpkin-apple cake blend ($2.00 per 1.5 – 2 oz. tart) and a wee little dipped caramel apple in Nights at the Circus, a dupe of one of my mother’s favourite scents, Bath & Body Works’ Winter Candy Apple ($2.50 per 1.8 oz. tart.)  I will never be able to melt any of these because they are just too darn cute.

Finally, let’s close this beast of a bathing beauty bonanza out with what we all came here to see – the free stuff! Of which, I don’t believe it can be denied, The Bathing Garden goes way, way above and beyond in providing. They are crazy generous, often providing dozens of samples, in addition to full size products.  And this bounty – save one or two extras my friend snuck into the package – represents just my choice of items!  We split the freebies (and the three full size samples) roughly 50/50.  Perhaps I should upgrade that to wicked generous.  So what freebies did I score?

In the top left-hand corner we have a beautiful little bunny tart studded with glittery hearts in Tea with the Queen of Hearts and a wee chocolate gateau in Eat Me.

In the top right-hand corner we have a pair of bedazzled and undoubtedly surgically enhanced lips in Kiss Me Silly and two swirly, twirly hard candies in Big Top Lemonade (top) and Tunnel of Love (bottom.)

In the bottom left-hand corner we have, from left to right, a microbead-embedded Peep in Looking Glass, a speckled robin’s egg in Blackberry Fudge (actually a little gift from Julie), a pale-and-pastel Peep in Keep Your Temper, a grape-hued Easter egg in Lavender Vanilla Custard, an absolutely delectable little mica-dusted egg in Caterpillar Mischief (it came in that cute little chick cup!) and a ruby red Easter egg in Strawberry Nonsense.

Finally, in the bottom right-hand corner we have the body care items I chose, a full size body lotion in Cranberry Fig (I’m hoping the scent on this one blooms a bit, because right now all I smell is lotion) and a sample size scrub in Lemon Cheesecake (another one of those scents and consistencies that is seriously testing my “is this food?” boundaries.)

Phew!  So there we have it, my first Bathing Garden order.  Also, as of this afternoon, not my last – I went back for seconds on a few new favourites, and stocked up on a sweet stack of those wonderfully scrubby scrubs.  I’ll be sure to share that gorgeous bounty with you when it arrives, though hopefully this time in fewer than 1450 words!  And I hope you enjoyed this little peek into my conspicuous consumerism! 😉

Over and Over: A Mini Lush Review

So I dropped this Over and Over bath bomb into my tub the other day, and immediately began composing mildly snarky puns in my head about how over and over, Lush has been disappointing me with the longevity – or lack thereof – of their bath bombs.  Of the four or five I’ve tried so far this year, all have been ultra fast fizzers, petering away to nothing in well under a minute.  This bath bomb initially seemed to suffer from the completely opposite problem – after dropping it into my tub, it just kind of floated there, occasionally emitting a weak stream of pale yellow honeycomb bubbles.  For the next two minutes.  I seriously thought the thing was broken.  Or maybe that was just my back as I crouched over the tub with my camera (like a beauty blogging moron, guys!)

Then the orange shell covering the top half of the bath bomb melted away, and the Over and Over ballistic erupted into a cheery, frothy mess of hot pink and sunshine yellow bubbles.  For the next two minutes. Seriously, this bath bomb just kept going and going and going…it was the Energizer Bunny of bath products! Definitely enough to get me to eat my words on the subject of lasting power.  Don’t discount your bath bomb before it’s fizzed, and all that jazz.  It also made for some very, very pretty bath art.

Ah, but the smell…it was terrible!  Lush says lime and fennel, I say that closet at your grandparents’ house that smells like expired medicine, old Sears catalogs and unidentifiable cleaning products.  It was pretty nasty.  I actually climbed out of the tub and stepped straight beneath the shower in an attempt to wash off the ick. And given that the Over and Over bath bomb also stained the ever living crap out of the sides of my tub, necessitating a post-soak scrub-down of all ceramic surfaces – and all for the low, low price of $8.95 Canadian – I can’t imagine that this is a bath product I’ll be reaching for again, pretty though it was.