Five Below Nail Polishes…a Definite Thumbs Up!!!

If you’re polished obsessed like I am, you know that it can become expensive. I was in Five Below yesterday and fell in love with a few of their colors, brand name is Funky Fingers, and at 3 for $5, I was beyond willing to give them a shot. I just tried them out, and I literally have ZERO complaints! First, they have a pretty good selection of awesome colors, ranging from more subtle, to super bright. They even have glow in the dark colors! I opted for the following colors ~ Pop Artist (a super hot pink color), 220 Volts (a bright blue shade) and Pep Rally, a multi color, multi shaped accent topper. I’m positive that Pep Rally could also be used on it’s own for a quick, fun mani. These colors all went on extremely easily, and the best part…they were fully opaque in ONE coat!!! Hello easy! I will definitely be buying more colors from the Funky Fingers brand from Five Below, and I would highly recommend it to anyone! I did use Orly Won’t Chip top coat, which in all honesty is not my favorite, I greatly prefer Seshe Vite, but I’m out of it 😦 lol 

If you’ve used any other Funky Fingers colors, or simply have any input on your feelings on the brand please comment below! xo ~ Shannon 

 

Wednesday Wisdom 10/29/14 ~ No More Tears or Eye Makeup

Hey everybody!  Im starting a weekly blog post called “Wisdom Wednesdays”. It’ll feature neat tips snd tricks related to all things beauty and well-being. When ever possible, I will test these out before posting them. Also, please feel free to leave comments letting us know some of your own tips and tricks 🙂

Removing eye makeup with baby shampoo

Some of you may already do this, but I hadn’t learned about this genious trick until recently. To use the baby shampoo method,  I suggest putting a small nickle sized amount of baby shampoo on to a cotton pad (less can be used depending on the amount of eye makeup that you’re wearing), I prefer the exfoliating ones, but standard cotton pads work as well. You don’t need to load the pad up with shampoo as its going to spread out once you start rubbing the pad on your eyelid. Now that you have the shampoo pad ready, simply splash a bit of water on to your closed eye. Rub the prepped pad over your closed eye to quickly and gently remove your eye makeup. For extra attention to mascara removal, simply rub the pad back and forth over your lashes. Once the rest of your eye makeup is removed, fold the pad in half to remove lower liner that’s close to you water line. Voila! No tears or eye irritation. I have a mix of high end and lower end eye makeup and the baby shampoo seems to be just as effective on all qualities. Another great plus to this is that because you use such a small amount of baby shampoo, the litttle travel bottles will be enough for about 2 months of removal and retails for less than $1.50!

Review ~ Sally Hansen Triple Shine Nail Polish

Hey everyone! As I promised in an earlier post where I briefly discussed this newer product from Sally Hansen, here’s my full review on this polish…

I received this bottle of new Sally Hansen Triple Shine Polish from Influenster for free to test it out. Although due to the fact that I have a borderline addiction to nail polish, I probably would’ve purchased a shade, or 20 from this line at some point anyway lol. If you don’t know about Influenster, please see my post titled “My Newest Box of Goody’s (pun intended) From Influenster ~ The Violet VoxBox

So with any new product that I review, whether it be a face product, hair product, bath product, nail polish, etc. I like to give it a bit of use before I evaluate it because then I can really get a feel for how it works, if it irritates my skin, if it lasts like it says it’s going to and so on. This polish was no different. I painted my nails on Saturday and this is the quick pic that I did right after to show it’s immediate look…

Now when I do my nails, I almost always use Seche Vite as my top coat because it’s by far my absolute favorite! If you frequently paint your nails, I highly suggest finding this at a local store, or online, and purchasing it. It’s in the slightly pricier range for polishes, but it works extremely well. It dries quick and I’ve literally had it keep my manicure looking amazing for 12 days, no joke. I finally took it off because I was sick of the nail polish color lol. Ok anyway, back on topic and back to my point! When I tried this Sally Hansen Triple Shine, I opted to use a Sally Hansen top coat (Sally Hansen Insta-Dry) to test out this polish’s true lastability. Not to say that Sally Hansen top coats aren’t wonderful, but I didn’t want to use a more expensive, more effective top coat for my test. I wanted to know if this Triple Shine polish would live up to it’s name on it’s own merit. This is a little blurb directly from the Sally Hansen Triple Shine webpage… Water to workout, day in and day out, nothing will dull these nails. The gloss is protected with the Ultimate Shield Complex, exclusive to Sally Hansen, designed to help polish withstand the wear and tear of everyday living for non-stop shine.

So as I said, I painted my nails on Saturday. Since then I’ve done the normal everyday things like doing dishes, cleaning, showering, etc. I’m a professional photographer, so I can’t exactly claim to have a “get my hands dirty” type of job, so I won’t speak to any sort of wear and tear like that. However, after 5 days and absolutely no touch-ups of any kind, to the polish itself or to my top coat, this is my nails tonight…

I tried to get as close up as I could with my iPhone camera so that you could really see the edges. In the photo, if you look REALLY close, just the very edge of my middle finger nail is showing wear, but seriously, in my opinion, this polish has had no real change in the past 5 days. The shine is still outstanding, and there’s no signs of fading or chipping. And unless someone looks at my nails under a microscope, no one would be able to see any wear to the edges at all.

In my opinion, this polish is an absolute winner!!! Does this mean that I didn’t have any dislikes? No. I’ll actually tell you what I didn’t like about it. It seemed to get a bit goopy fairly quickly while I was painting my nails. This was quickly alleviated by giving it a little shake, not a huge deal. Also, because of the rounded brush design, I found that the top of the bottle can quickly get messy from wiping the excess off of the brush. Now this in a way is a pro and a con…the pro is that with a rounded brush that holds a good amount of polish, you can achieve a great look with less effort. I use the pro method of painting my nails where you don’t go fully to your cuticles or the sides of your nails, so a rounded brush is a huge asset for that! But, as I said, it does cause you to wipe quite a bit off on the edge of your bottle which can become messy. See, pro and con, but for me, all in all, the rounded brush is a “pro”. As far as the polish coloring goes, the shades are very pigmented which means you need a max of 2 coats for ultimate color. Woohoo! I also really liked the smoothness with which this polish goes on. I had no issues with this going on and remaining smooth whatsoever. All in all, this polish absolutely lived up to the hype for me. It comes in 29 shades and is priced around $4.50 here in the US. The shade that I have on in the pictures is Flame On.

Bottom line…                                                                                                                                                        

Would I recommend purchasing Sally Hansen Triple Shine Polish? Absolutely!                                    

Is it a good investment at around $4.50? Yes, without a doubt! It a very inexpensive polish that you can wear all week without touch-ups…buy several! lol                                                                        

My overall grade for this product – A+   I will definitely be purchasing additional shades.

22 Uses for 1 Product! (loose pigment powders)

If you’ve never checked out a tutorial/review/all around fabulous video from Wayne Goss on youtube, then you need to go do that now! He’s an extremely talented famous makeup artist and I love his work. His videos are thorough, fresh (he posts new ones about 3 times a week), informative and usually very funny! I truly enjoy watching him because I learn tons, and he cracks me up.

This particular video is 22 or so different ways to use a diamond or shimmer loose pigment powder, and I would’ve never thought of some of these uses (that’s why he’s a genius and has tons of subscribers to his youtube channel) 🙂

Check him out and let me know what you think!

Here’s his video ~ 

xo Shannon

My Newest Box of Goody’s (pun intended) From Influenster ~ The Violet VoxBox

So as you may have seen in my first review post about the new Goody QuikStyle brush that I belong to an online consumer testing panel called Influenster. I get to try out the newest, coolest products for FREE and give honest feedback on the various items. Yup, it’s a pretty cool gig, and I get to send out 5 invites a month to join, so if you’re interested, email me via my contact link. It’s available to my readers from the US and Canada 🙂

This is my newest VoxBox (box of free goodies) from Influenster…

I reviewed the crazy new invention from the geniuses at Goody called the QuikStyle in an earlier post. Feel free to check it out. This is a new, extremely innovative hair brush that helps to dry your hair as you use it. What?! And as you’ll read in my review, yes, it really does work. Another new Goody product that I tested is their Athletique headband. Their new Athletique line is designed specifically for active ladies who need to keep their hair in place while working out. The line features products that are not only effective, but that dry quickly for those of you who sweat. The headband is fantastic, and with 3 reversible bands, its cute for exercising, or just normal use. There are other products in the Athletique line, so if you’re active, or just looking for cute hair style helpers, check it out. This is me with mine on 🙂 

On to the SoyJoy bar that you see there in the box. First let me say that I had never tried one of these, and honestly can say with almost certainty that I never would’ve bought them, because I’m not really a soy product person. I try to make healthy snacking choices, but I had never ventured in to the world of soy before. I was skeptical to say the least when I saw this in my VoxBox because in my mind, it was gonna be gross. A bit of an unfair presumption? Yes, but I think that I share the initial feeling that most people would have who have never tried soy products before. The flavor that I received was banana, and I like bananas, so I gave it a somewhat reluctant go. To my surprise, it was actually pretty good! It tasted just like a natural banana, with no weirs aftertaste, and had a texture that, to me, was like a combination of a granola bar, and a Power Bar. That may be a terrible description, but that’s what comes to mind when I think of the texture lol. The Soy Joy bars come in 7 different flavors which can be found here http://us.soyjoy.com/flavors  I’m actually going to try a few other flavors now that I know what to expect. Also, I’ve since heard that if you heat your bar up in the microwave for 10 seconds or so, it tastes like a warm homemade treat 🙂 Am I going to convert all of my snacking to soy products after trying out my Soy Joy bar? No, but I do have a new healthy, tasty snack option that I wouldn’t ever have had if it weren’t for this product coming in my VoxBox from Influenster. I urge you to try one if you have the chance.

The last product in my box was a bottle of the new Sally Hansen Triple Shine polish. This was totally exciting to me because I’m a nail polish fanatic, and maybe slightly an addict lol. I have tons of colors and brands, and change up my manicure and pedicure when ever I have the time to do so. The color that I got was Flame On which is a hot pink shade. I’m not going to go in to too much detail about my likes and dislikes with this new line from Sally Hansen just yet because I’m going to be doing a full review on this polish in about a week. I want to give it some time before I review it so that I can test out its ability to last and remain fresh looking. What I will say right now is that the colors are very pigmented, making it a great polish for a quick 2 coat manicure. The Triple Shine polish goes on smooth, and was very easy to apply because of the rounded design on the brush.  Below is a picture that I posted to my Instagram last night to show the initial results of this nail polish. Again, watch for my full review on this new Sally Hansen Triple Shine polish in about a week.

 

So there you have it, my description and review of my newest Influenster VoxBox. Each time I receive one of these boxes of awesomness, I’ll be sure to share my thoughts on the various products with you all. Have a wonderful Monday!

xo Shannon

 

*Tips & Tricks* ~ Eye Lash Curlers

Before using your eye lash curler, give it a quick blast with your blow dryer. It’ll cause it to give you a much better curl 🙂

The key word is QUICK though because it’ll heat up fast, so ALWAYS feel your curler before using it to make sure that it isn’t actually hot!

Review ~ e.l.f. Studio Mineral Infused Mascara…Great Find or Cheap Waste???

Let me start by saying 2 things before I begin this review…
1. Yes, I’m a huge fan of some of the e.l.f. products, but I have purchased a few that, even at a super low price, we’re not worth the purchase.
2. As you’ll be able to see in the picture below, I have super light, sparse eye lashes. Ugh!

Ok, on to the review! When it comes to mascara, I’ve tried everything from very expensive brands to your more standard drug store types. Because I have such light, and quite frankly crappy lashes, when ever I see a commercial for “the next great mascara”, I try that brand and exact version. I don’t have a favorite go to mascara, so I’m always trying new ones. Now yes, I know that you can buy fake lashes, but honestly, I don’t have the patience for that lol.
So during one of my way too frequent trips to Target the other day, I found myself at the e.l.f. section because I needed some refills. I hadn’t ever tried one of their mascaras before because I was never out while browsing through their selection. I spotted their Mineral Infused Mascara and decided to try it because I had just about run out of my tube of Benefit mascara. I know, a $23 mascara to a $3 mascara…I told you I don’t discriminate! lol
Well today was the first time that I tried my newest e.l.f. purchase, and I literally may have found a permanent mascara brand & type! The first thing that I noticed was that when I pulled the wand out, it wasn’t overly smothered in mascara. The reason I point that out is because I often find that when I use a new tube of mascara, it seems to coat the brush way too much for the first couple of weeks, causing me to have to wipe some off in to the tube. The next thing that I noticed was that there didn’t seem to be any clumps or blobs of mascara anywhere on the brush, another plus! Then I used it…
OMG I LOVED IT!!! I had no big clumps on my lashes, they were all evenly coated, and even better, they weren’t all stuck together! I have not ever loved a mascara this much for my type of lashes, honestly. I’ve tried many brands, many types, many different style brushes and nothing that I’ve used thus far has even come close to my new found $3 favorite!
I will note that I don’t ever wear mascara on my bottom lashes, so I can’t speak for that aspect of mascara wearing and this product, but I don’t think that it would be any different.

Bottom line…
Would I recommend e.l.f. Studio Mineral Infused Mascara? Without hesitation!
Is it a good investment at $3.00? Absolutely! Umm at $3.00 I’m gonna go buy a case of it just in case they stop selling it! lol
My overall grade for this product – A+ by far!

Here is my before & after pic-

A couple shots of the product-

This last pic is the info taken from the e.l.f. website regarding ingredients and such.

*Favorite Product* ~ Burt’s Bees Beeswax Lip Balm

Original Burt’s Bees Beeswax Lip Balm has been an absolute favorite product of mine since the very first time that I used it 9 years ago. I love the minty taste, the cooling effect that it has on your lips, the smooth, non greasy feel, the lasting moisturizing properties and the fact that it’s 100% natural.

I have tried the other lip balms in the Burt’s Bees line (there are many!), but this remains my favorite, and the only lip balm/chap stick type product that I use. I literally always have a spare tube at home, as well as a spare tube in my car, in case I lose my mind and walk out of the house without my primary one. A bit obsessed and/or addicted? Maybe, but this stuff works!

If you’ve some how never used this product before, I highly suggest that you march your little butt out and get you some because I think that it’s amazing! 🙂

Review~Goody QuikStyle…Ingenious Idea or Just a Weird Looking Brush???

 

So let me first start by saying that I received this crazy new Goody brush for free for testing purposes. I belong to a free consumer testing site called Influenster which allows me to try out new products and give my opinion on them. If you’re interested in this program, contact me and I’ll send you an invite, I get 5 a month. I know that they do have a Canadian program, but I’m not sure about other countries.

Ok, having said that, I most likely would not have just walked in to a store, saw this brush and purchased it because I use a round brush when blow drying my hair. This new QuikStyle brush comes in paddle form (shown below) and a semi round version, no full round brush style is available as of now 😦

On to the review!

When I looked at this brush, my first thought was “I hope my hair doesn’t get tangled up in it” followed by “I wonder if this crazy thing actually works?”. Guess what…my hair didn’t get tangled up in it, and yes, it actually works! Wooohooo!!!

The microfiber nubby things (I know, very technical explanation) help draw water out of your hair while you brush, therefore cutting down on your blow drying time. Now as a disclaimer, I do have pretty fine hair, so I can’t really speak for this brush’s effectiveness on thick hair, however several Influensters (fellow testers) who do have thick hair have said that it’s very effective for them as well. I would say that with my medium length fine hair, the QuikStyle reduces my blow drying time by about 5 minutes. By helping to cut down on blow drying time, this brush not only speeds up your styling, but in my opinion, can ultimately save your hair from unnecessary damage caused from extensive heat exposure. When you’re done drying your hair,just lay your QuikStyle brush flat to dry.

Bottom line…                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Would I recommend getting a Goody QuikStyle brush? YES                                                                                                                  

Is it a good investment at around $12.00? YES                                                                                                                                        

My overall grade for this product – B+ *Note…if Goody comes out with a fully round version of the QuikStyle, my grade would without a doubt be an A. Although this brush does cut down on my drying time, I have to use a round brush on the bottom of my hair to style it how I like to, which is the only downfall to this amazing, ingenious, innovative Goody product.