Stickers for Adult Beauty Nerds

Yep, that’s nail polish strips for you – stickers for grown-ups we put on our nails as opposed to inside a photo album.  And because they come in generously-sized, multi-use packs, you can even trade them with your friends – hey, wanna swap your pink heart camos for my polka dotted reindeer?  (Parenthetically, here inside these very parentheses, I friggin’ loved sticker-collecting when I was a kid!  And my collection was THE SHIT – fuzzies and holos and googly eyes and puffies and smelly stickers for DAYS, and all of it housed in an officially licensed Sandy Lion hardcover binder with custom photo pages…and I might have just legitimately drifted off for a few minutes there as I remembered how much I loved that book and my entire sticker collection.) 😉

So it’s no surprise that I love these stickers, too, a lovely gift from the wife of one of my husband’s online gamer buddies (they’re like penpals who communicate through swapped boxes of Canadian and American foodstuffs, and midnight games of Ghost Recon.)  She’s a nail art aficionado like I am, and she’s into these nail polish strips from Color Street that she was kind enough to send along in one of the guys’ boxes.

Here I’m sporting Color Street‘s very Valentine’s Day-appropriate Crush Hour, a glittery pink camo design that, upon closer inspection, is actually made up of overlapping hearts.

These double-ended nail strips are made from nuthin’ but nail polish, so they’re thin, flexible and dead easy to apply – simply peel, pat down and then file off the excess.  And if you’re really careful and your nails are quite short, like mine, you can absolutely get away with using one strip for two nails, as the designs are printed on both ends of the strip.  That leaves some of these fun beauty stickers to swap with friends – now, you were saying something about a trade for a polka dotted reindeer? 😉

Happy Valentine’s Day

Be good to each other, friends, and eat a lot of cinnamon hearts.

I *Heart* Baths!

Actually, I like baths at best.  I don’t have a bathtub large enough to accommodate love.  I think if I had one of those Jacuzzi monstrosities, I’d be all over bath time, but as it is, I just kind of sit there like a large frog in a small, rainbow-coloured puddle.

But I DO *heart* trying out fun bath products, like this assortment of loved-up goodies that made my Valentine’s extra bubbly and sweet.  Solo, however.  Valentine’s Day or no, if there’s not enough space for me in the tub, there definitely ain’t space enough for both Mr. Finger Candy and I!  The comedic possibilities are actually pretty outstanding. 🙂

But back to bath time!  Which included some cute soap petal roses I always bust out for my romantically-themed baths, the last of a bottle of Lush’s Prince Charming shower cream, my favourite candle from Bath & Body Works, Pink Apple Punch, a sweet, Pink Sands-infused apple fragrance that smells like heaven in a three-wick, and two new bath bombs from Lush’s Valentine’s Day collection, heart-shaped Cupid, and heart-studded Lover Lamp.

I have no cool photos of bath art to share with you, though, because neither one of these bath bombs produced anything other than creamy white bubbles.  Even Cupid, the pale pink heart pierced with a hot pink arrow, produced nothing but white fizzy after the hot pink bits broke off.  But speaking of, the one remaining heart clinging to the edge of the Lover Lamp bath bomb was so super cool – definitely not edible, but it looked exactly like a perfect little heart-shaped gumdrop.  I probably wouldn’t purchase either again, because both were really kind of boring!  And I like a lot of pizzazz in my bath bombs.  But as a fun Valentine’s Day treat, these were nice.

Valentine’s Day Chocolates

Dark chocolate (KB Shimmer’s holographic brown, Oh My Ganache) dripping with ooey gooey caramel (Whimsical Ideas by Pam’s Caramellow.)  Or possibly peanut butter.  Pick your Valentine’s Day poison!  Unless of course you’re allergic to peanuts, in which case the peanut butter is actual poison, so perhaps best to stick with the caramel?  Well, no matter how you’re celebrating or what you’re eating, Happy Valentine’s Day, friends!

Sweet Heart

Sweet hearts for your sweetheart!

Queen of Hearts

So I always thought I was the Queen of Halloween.  I’ve always loved dressing up in costumes, decorating my home and hosting terrible parties (my bad Halloween parties – yes, parties, plural – are legendary in their awkwardness, although I can’t say I loved them.  Nobody did!)  I was married on October 31st, for pity’s sake! But this gorgeous, lush pile of beautiful Valentine’s Day goodies suggests that my affections may lie with the 14th of February, and all its confusing, commercial connotations (riddle me this: Why do we give hand OR Hallmark-written sentiments to loved ones in the name of Saint Valentine, who was blind?  Also a martyr and a political prisoner, but how unsexy is that?)

It also took me next to no time to pull together this collection of items, from cute wax tarts, to the absolutely stunning silk floral wreath my mom and dad gave me in a fit of post-Christmas spoilage.  It, along with all of the other silk flower arrangements dotted about my apartment, lead me to think I may have a heretofore unacknowledged romantic streak!  Also a lot of pink, red and white things, most glittery, and right at hand, no less, living amongst me as decorative items, not just seasonal decorative items.

And so let’s see what sorts of beautiful things I’m loving on in the days leading up to Valentine’s, shall we?  On the left we have, from left to right, a Sex Bomb bath ballistic from Lush, berry-shaped wax melts from Rosegirls in Strawberry Jam, a blossom-shaped wax melt from Vintage Chic Scents in Jackie O (a delicious, creamy vanilla), a pink piped heart from Rosegirls in Cotton Candy Frosting, a gorgeous pair of wax lips (the actual non-edible kind) from The Bathing Garden in The Sweetest Thing, a green-berry kind of scent, and my magnetic, kissing kitties salt and pepper shakers.  I purchased the salt and pepper shakers at the same place my parents bought this gorgeous wreath, a store in my city by the name of Marie Antoinette.  It might be the most beautiful shop I’ve ever been in in my life, packed to the rafters (literally; lush bouquets and other decorative baubles hang from every available surface) with a gorgeous collection of carefully curated items. When I shop there (about once a month, following a delicious donut breakfast with my mom at Suzy Q Donuts across the street) I’m hard pressed not to walk away with the entire store.

And over on the right we have, from left to right, a Sparkling Red Slippers bubble bar from Lush, a Lover Lamp bath bomb from Lush (it smells like citrus cinnamon hearts), my favourite candle, Voluspa’s French Bourbon Vanille, nestled in a glittery stand from Bath & Body Works, a couple of loved-up iced sugar cookies from A Couple of Squares (shoutout to London, Ontario now), a neat stack of soap rosebuds, another faux floral arrangement, and finally, a wee ceramic gateau, hinged to conceal a small space for hiding tiny treasures, another darling find from Marie Antoinette.  I’m in love with it all!

Clash of Colours

With Valentine’s Day less than a week away, I thought it would be fun to sort through my nail polish collection and pull my favourites in the supposedly clashing combo of pink and red.  I don’t go in for all that clashing malarkey – pink and red is one of my favourite colour combinations, hard at work in my wardrobe, my makeup and even my home decorating (“Lotta pink in here, huh?” sneered a plumber last year.  I wanted to ask him if his masculinity was quite finished being threatened by a colour, but instead I just smiled and paid him for a job very well done.)

Anyhow, lots of pink and red around here, a palette preference that apparently carries over into my nail polish collection, because I own an absolute ton of pink and red lacquers (as well as every variant in between, from cotton candy, to coral, to wine.)  We’d be here until Valentine’s Day itself were I to show you every one of my pink and red polishes, and so instead I’m whittling the list down to 10 favourites from KB Shimmer, Picture Polish, Emily de Molly and Whimsical Ideas by Pam.  There’s a little something for everyone here, from lush, berry-hued cremes, to fiery glitter bombs speckled with tiny hearts, so go on ahead and fall in love.

First up we have two of my oldest lacquers, Picture Polish’s raspberry and gold shimmer, Electric Dream, and O’Hara, a candy apple red spiked with tiny holographic shards.

Next we have two polishes from Whimsical Ideas by Pam, primary red creme, Starbucks Holiday Cup, and Tutu Sweet, a vibrant bubblegum pink stuffed with silvery-white and hot pink matte glitter.

Here in the middle we find two picks from Emily de Molly that are representing the Valentine’s season in both name and appearance, glittery melted popsicle, The Unloved (index and ring fingers), and Heart Street, a very retro mix of red, orange, purple and pink heart glitters in a fiery red base (middle and pinkie fingers.)

Finally, we have four polishes from KB Shimmer.  This makes sense, as KB’s terrific polishes make up the bulk of my collection.  The first pairing is raspberry pink creme, Grin and Gerbera It, and Such a Vlad-Ass, a cool, vampy blood red.

And finally-finally, we have the second KB pairing, candy sweet pastel glitter, Sweet Egg-scape, and maybe the most perfect red creme to grace my fingertips in the past four years, Chilly Pepper.

Sex Bomb: A Mini Lush Review

This bath bomb, part of Lush’s all-the-time regular collection, is one of those popular ones I see dupes or imitations of all the dang time.  It’s easy to see why on looks alone – the Sex Bomb is a beautiful little bath ballistic, perfect for a special Valentine’s Day bath, all lush pinks and purples, with a tiny rosebud centre.

Except the second I let go of this bath bomb, it dropped straight to the bottom of the tub, where it fizzed out into soft rose bathwater in about 30 seconds flat, no pink and purple bath art whatsoever.  I also did not care for the Sex Bomb’s fragrance, a super strong jasmine that has lingered in my bathroom for the past three days. And I really didn’t care for THIS, the sweet little rosebud centre, which is made of soap paper, which is neither soap, nor paper, but rather some sort of horrid gelatinous substance in between.  It’s disgusting and only partially breaks down, floating about your tub like bits of wet tissue.

Ah, but it did make for some pretty swell nail art inspiration, even if I completely whiffed the colours.  I think I was just looking for an excuse to use this beautiful purple holo from Enchanted Polish – one of their monthly picks from 2015 – and it’s been an eternity since I’ve done some floral nail art, so I won’t complain too, too much over spilled sexy bomb water. 😉

Gradient Petals

Sure, we’ll call these many-pink’d dots petals.  Rose petals, if you want to get technical, even. 🙂

Tumble Into Love

I’ve no need for 856 “collectible” plastic coffee tumblers, so I don’t actually possess the item in question, but these nails were inspired by a cute coffee tumbler that Starbucks is selling right now for Valentine’s Day.  Cute, but I honestly don’t know where people put these things.  Do they use them?  Do they use them for something other than drinking coffee? Because I use one of the two tumblers I do have to hold my laundry Loonies.  The other developed some sort of interior creeping fungus that, if released, will probably attain sentience and destroy a mid-sized metropolitan centre.  But I keep it around because it has romantic sentimental value, earth-razing fungus notwithstanding (I desperately want to make a joke about the current state of American politics here, but as always, I aim to keep it civil, if not entirely topical.)