New Years Eve!

It's currently the morning of New Years Eve and although I would love to share my exciting plans with you guys, I have none! After working for half the day today, I plan on getting into my comfy clothes and parking my butt onto my couch for the night. Though I do want to share with you all some of the things that I am going to attempt and hoping to achieve for the new year! First off, one of my goals is to make sure I blog at least once a week. Currently I am on winter break from school but starting January 12th, it's back on again. This is always an energy drainer for me but that brings me to my next goal. Secondly, I have one word, ORGANIZATION! This has been one of my biggest things that I have been horribly failing at and have never been too organized in my life, ever, actually. But the end of this year has brought the joy of moving to me, which I don't want to do again for a long time!, so that was a big obstacle for me. Third, well this one requires the boyfriend and I to actually go get our ID cards for our community center but after that, it's getting back into the gym! I had a good few months where I was going to the gym twice a week and eating better than I am right now but then, of course, school started again and I was beyond wiped out and exhausted that I stopped going. Hopefully now that I have a partner-in-crime my butt will be in the gym more even with school going on. Fourth, but of course not the completely last goal..for now, is to stop being lazy and start getting myself going on trying to get myself further into my career. I mean I won't be done with school completely for at least another 4 years but my one program will, hopefully, be done soon and I need to start getting myself out there. This means stop hesitating to send emails out to professors asking them questions about what I am supposed to do and stop expecting things to come my way because, clearly, they still haven't. So far these are some of the goals I have for the year and I'm going to take them one step at a time. This probably means Pinterest because who doesn't love Pinterest and there are so many great pins that are really helpful. NOW, I want to hear from YOU about some of the goals you have for this new year. You can leave them in the comments below, Tweet at me, Instagram me, email me, whatever is easiest for you! See you guys next year!

Pink Pewter

Hey guys! So today I'm coming at you with a post NOT about nail polish but I'm going to assume that's okay with you guys, yeah? Anyways, I have discovered another new love thanks to my lovely best friend Jacquelyn Marie! (You can also find her on Twitter!) It has been a few years that I've thought that no-slip grip headbands had been the only thing that would work for me as far as headbands go. Well I have been proven wrong by headbands by the amazing Pink Pewter. Now I would like to say that for those who have known me for years know that I am not that girly when it comes to accessorizing. I wear some rings sometimes, maybe a necklace every now and then, can't wear any fancy earrings (stretched ear lobes!), and bracelets....yeah well they just won't fit my small wrists.

I now feel the need to start a whole new paragraph on talking about how much I am in love with Pink Pewter. First I'd like to mention the fact that I am pretty cheap when it comes to a lot of things but when it comes to things that I am going to use numerous times and are going to benefit me positively, yes I will spend the money. Pink Pewter headbands are hand beaded and are better than ponytails for your hair along with the fact that there are a handful of different ways that they can be worn. I purchased my Sheridan headband in black from my favorite salon Bii Hair Salon on Friday, November 7th, attempted it on Saturday, and then Monday through Friday of this week, wore it every day. Besides me playing with it a million and one times more than I should have, wherever I placed the headband on my head, it STAYED there literally ALL DAY LONG! Now for any of you who have tried these "no-slip grip" headbands know that doesn't happen ever. I am also not very hair savvy either so sometimes the stretch part did move a bit but I'm pretty sure that's just because I don't know how to do much of anything with my hair besides blow dry, straighten, and tie knots in it (yes you read that right!) Phew! That's a long paragraph! The only problem I seemed to have with the headband was a small conflict with my glasses on the side of my head but other than that, I literally had absolutely no problem with my headband and also got a handful of comments!

Alright now onto the photos I took during the week of me with my lovely headband on!

That now concludes this post and I really hope that you guys enjoyed it! Please visit the Pink Pewter website and if you guys purchase and use the headbands, please let me know! I would love to hear what you guys think about them and I'm hoping they give you a fabulous experience like the one I had! Now I need to go on a spree to expand by Pink Pewter collection, bye! <3

VIP Status by L'Oreal

One of the things that I like about "VIP Status" is that it can look gray in the bottle but in the photos I took and the sunlight outside, it looks more like a light, metallic blue. I don't own too many L'Oreal nail polishes but I do really like this one and just the way it looks in the bottle intrigues you. It also has a nice sparkle to it that I always forget it has but is great in the sunlight outside. Unfortunately I was not able to take any sunlight pictures when I had this color on but next I will do my best to remember!

Berry Blue by Barielle

You know when you have one of those days where you're just in the mood to wear a nice, dark, sleek nail polish color? Yeah I definitely had that day when I decided to put on "Berry Blue" by Barielle. I've had this nail polish for a while and it's just been sitting in my helmer sadly being forgotten about so I pulled it out and put it on! I'm pretty happy that I took this one out of hiding to use since it's such a dark blue and looks really nice on especially during the fall season.

Experimental Rocket by Varnish Vixen

One thing I love about Etsy is the fact that I can find great indie nail polishes that become one of my favorites which is exactly what happened with Experimental Rocket by Varnish Vixen. However the sad news is that I can no longer find Varnish Vixen's Etsy page where she used to sell Experimental Rocket along with other nail polishes as well. This is extremely sad because I absolutely love Experimental Rocket and I think it is a great base coat for when you are doing galaxy nails because of the black holographic aspect of the polish.

Pictures just don't seem to do this nail polish justice! And let me tell you, it always looks a lot cooler in the sunlight!

Water Marble: Zoya "Song" & Pure Ice "Silver Mercedes"

My first statement with this post must be "For once water marbling worked for me!" There has been a long, long period of water marbling absolutely hating me and never wanting to work on more than 1 nail. So this time I was glad it worked! It might just be the temperature of the room that I was in but I've been using a room temperature bottle of water and a Dixie bathroom cup. I had three nail polishes picked out but one didn't seem to want to cooperate so I decided to just go with "Song" by Zoya and "Silver Mercedes" by Pure Ice. I don't feel like this is one of my best water marble designs that I've done so far in my nail polish life but I do hope to learn more designs and get better!

Leaden Lilac and Cobalt Chrome

So I decided that after my first run with Sally Hansen's Color Foil nail polish I decided to take the plunge and purchase some more colors. This time I went with Leaden Lilac and Cobalt Chrome which of course are purple and blue. Who would have thunk huh? Although I still dislike how all of my nail imperfections are shown when wearing the Color Foil nail polishes, I can't help but love them.

Leaden Lilac

Cobalt Chrome

Overall I still enjoy the Color Foil polishes and maybe in the meantime I'll start to get rid of those kinks on my nails!

Yes, I am still alive

It's really crazy how fast time flies, how much stuff is going on, and how little I'm able to use the 24-hours per day I get to be productive. But yes, I just want you to all know that I am still kicking over here and between work, school, homework, friends, having no energy, and being lazy way too often, it's unclear how I am still currently sane ;). I am hoping to get all my crazy tasks under control so that I am able to create more posts for you guys. Since it is (or was) back to school season, I'd like to know some of the crazy stories you have about getting back into the swing of things for this fall semester! And GO!

OPI: "The Sky's The Limit"

Back in June the Mustang Collection from OPI came out and I of course picked up the blue color from the collection. Something about a shiny blue nail polish color accompanied by the Ford Mustang logo on the bottle handle..yeah I just HAD to get it! "The Sky's The Limit" could possibly be okay with just one coat but I like to do 2 coats just to be on the safe side. I love the little flecks/sparkle that are in the nail polish and I'm not sure I've seen a mustang yet that is the same color as this polish.

wHet Nail Polish: "Facetious"

In my July Ipsy bag for this month I received yet another nail polish (how exciting right?) and this time it was from wHet nail polish. I've never heard of this brand but that didn't mean I was going to let it go untried! Since I love getting new nail polish and was in need of a new mani, I picked up this one and put it on. The next morning I realized that on the box it says "7 day no chip" so I thought to myself, I SHALL TAKE THE CHALLENGE! And here I am writing a post about it and testing to see if the nail polish really doesn't chip in 7 days. Since it's Sunday, and I'm 2 days late on my post (Oops), I'm starting Day 3 of having the nail polish on. So far I've only noticed normal tip wear since I work with a bunch of paper at work and just a very tiny piece missing on my right middle finger. That very tiny missing piece, however, I do believe could be from my nail just being crappy and not in the best shape. I do love the color since it's blue and we all know I love blue. When putting it on I noticed that it seems more like a jelly-based nail polish so I tried to do thicker layers than I usually do. In the bottle it looks like a lighter blue than it comes out but either way I love the color.

May Book Haul

Beginning Note: While upon writing this post I later realized that my May book haul list is actually NOT short and I clearly forgot about the plethora of books I purchased. I first must say that the Amazon selling your highly expensive and hardly used textbooks to them is a GREAT idea! For those college students, we all know how much we spend on books a semester and when you sell them back you only get about 25%, maybe, back of what you paid for the book. I've sold my books back to Amazon twice now and both times received a really good amount of money back for my books, even ones that are a little more beat-up and used than others. This is what I obviously chose to spend my money on ;) so my list a lot longer than the initial post, therefore proceed all the way through to the bottom, and you'll get my whole list!

Even though it's pretty much a month late, my May book haul! It is a pretty short list of books that I had received in the month of May but either way, they're still more books to add to my expanding collection! I usually look on Instagram, Twitter, through different book blogs, and on my Amazon recommendation list to find new books to buy and read. For May it included Delirium by Lauren Oliver, If I Stay by Gayle Forman, and Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige. So far I have read and finished If I Stay and Dorothy Must Die and in my personal opinion I found that I liked both books. I decided that I would read If I Stay after seeing the preview in the movie theater when I went to see Maleficent (which by the way was a great movie!) and again when seeing The Fault In Our Stars (another amazingly and tear jerking movie and even better book, seriously GO SEE IT!). It was a short read for me taking only about 24 hours to finish between sleeping and working and I did enjoy it. The movie comes out sometime this summer and I'm anxious for it to come out to be able to see the book come to life in movie format.

Dorothy Must Die is obviously about Oz's Dorothy but we see her in a completely different light and I had to apologize to my grandpa before starting to read it since he absolutely loved The Wizard of Oz (as in if it was on TV you were going to sit and watch it in silence). I've seen mixed reviews about this book but I personally liked it and it was definitely very interesting to see Oz and the characters in a different light than how we all know them as from the movie. Regardless, I liked the book and now I wish I had magic coming from my fingertips.

So I take it that if you have come this far, you must have read the beginning note! Which I do apologize for! I tell you guys, sometimes I think I might be slowly losing my mind. Anyways onto the good stuff! As I stated in the beginning of this post, Amazon's textbook buy-back option is great and I actually get most of my money back for my textbooks from the school semester. One can never have too many books so one of my first orders included the following: Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins, Matched by Ally Condie, Cinder by Marissa Meyer, To All The Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han, and Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell.

Currently I have not gotten to read any of these books yet (2 months later) but I am trying to spend the summer busting through my to-read books on my shelf! Sadly I am down to 28 books which includes single books as well as the next book in any of the series that I haven't finished yet so there's actually more than 28! The second shipment in the month of May from my Amazon buy-back money included the following: Alice in Zombieland by Gena Showalter, Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, Alienated by Melissa Landers, Asylum by Madeleine Roux, and Faking Normal by Courtney Stevens.

I have also not gotten to any of these EITHER (which I highly dislike) but I will get to them! I am determined! Though at the time I was currently reading Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black, which I highly recommend, and was trying to reread The Mortal Instruments series before the last book came out at the end of May. Which that brings me to my last book from the month of May! City of Heavenly Fire by the amazing Cassandra Clare and my-oh-my the feels! It only took me about a week to finish the book, mostly because I was impatient and bought the e-book before my physical book came in, and I was pretty pleased with how the series ended. I was thankful that I didn't cry a million buckets of tears and though it was a sad but happy ending, it did leave me with some questions that I wondered about but hopefully those will be answered in her upcoming The Dark Artifices which the first book, Lady Midnight comes out in 2015!

I hope that you have enjoyed my quite lengthy May Book Haul post and if you have any book suggestions or would like to gossip about City of Heavenly Fire, leave a comment below! I do however ask that if you post any questions/comments about CoHF, please let me know you would like to talk about it and you can click the little email button at the bottom of this post and send me an email! I will respond as quickly as possible! Thanks again guys, you're all awesome!

Sally Hansen Color Foil & OPI Mariah Pure Top Coat

This past weekend I stepped into an Ulta (more like 2) and I was surprised to have found Mariah Carey's Pure, 18K White Gold and Silver top coat at one for only $9.95! It went for $30 beforehand which I thought to myself was a ridiculous amount to spend on a nail polish. This was such a steal there was no way that I was going to pass it up especially when I only saw one package/bottle left! I also snagged up one of the Sally Hansen Color Foil polishes that I knew I had to have when I saw a picture of them. I ended up just purchasing one, Titanium Flush, to test it out instead of spending my money on the same type of nail polish that I don't like.

Sally Hansen's Titanium Flush (with flash)

OPI's Mariah Pure 18K White Gold and Silver Top Coat(with flash)

On the bottle it specifically says that for better results to not use a base or top coat. Figures that I didn't listen the first time so I applied my typical base coat and then went in to start applying my first coat. I found out really quick that they mean business when they meant no base or top coats! You could just see how much the nail polish wasn't staying in place and moving which at that point I threw my hands up and took off everything on my nails! Since I quickly removed my base coat I don't think I got ALL my base coat off on my right hand and my left thumb since I noticed the polish didn't go on as smoothly had it had my left hand after removing the base coat.

After letting the first coat dry a little, which didn't take that long, I went ahead and put on a second coat of Titanium Flush. I could see it pull slightly during my second coat but it wasn't too bad as it was with a base coat. I skipped the top coat on my nails except for my accent nail (dun dun dunnnn!) where I put on 2 coats of OPI's Mariah Carey Pure, 18K White Gold and Silver top coat. One coat was simply not enough since it looked spotty considering it's not a solid color nail polish but rather a clear one sprinkled with 18K White Gold and Silver. Have I mentioned at how I have WHITE GOLD AND SILVER on my nails? It's just not something that happens every day nor is it something you would think of doing to white gold and silver. Nonetheless, I do really like the top coat and thankfully found it at a steal of a price! NOW I want to add that I didn't get around to taking photographs after painting my nails but the next day. However, there was wear and tear already not even 24 hours afterwards (which I'll get to in a bit) so I touched up my nails..and then noticed that the polish became a lighter pink?? So now you'll be able to see what 2 coats, no touch up looks like after 2 days, and then what a touch up, 24 hours later with 4 total coats looks like and hopefully you can see the difference.

So now I'll state my overall opinions, yes? I'll start off with OPI's Mariah Pure top coat: My opinion on this polish is that I love it and think that for having specks of white gold and silver, doing 2 coats of it covers pretty well. However if it wasn't for the awesome steal price of $9.95 that I found it for this weekend, I most likely wouldn't have bought it otherwise because I feel that $30 for a top coat is a little much, even if it does have those 18K white gold and silver specks in it.

 

Now onto Sally Hansen's Color Foil: Overall I feel that this nail polish is decent, something different, though in my opinion it is basically like OPI's Gwen Stefani Chrome nail polish Push and Shove which I have a post on already here. It does show everything that is wrong with your nail in detail that you otherwise wouldn't see as you can tell from the pictures above. I do like the foil type feeling since I haven't seen it before Push and Shove came out. One of the things that I definitely didn't like was the fact that I didn't even have the nail polish on for 24 hours and it had already started to wear and tear on me, minus the top coated nail, which didn't impress me. I have yet to try putting a top coat on over the color foil yet so if you have tried, let me know what you thought in the comments below! Another thing that I found odd about this color foil nail polish is the fact that when I went to start doing a touch up to take photos with, it had made my nail color go from the darker pink it was the day before to this lighter pink which you can see in the photos above. Soon on my Instagram (@kristinalynn15) I will be posting a comparison photo of my left, light pink, and right, darker pink hands to show you the difference between 4 and 2 coats within 24 hours.

 

Thank you guys for sticking with this whole post, you are amazing! I hope that my experience and commentary with these two nail polishes helps out any future purchases or future lets-skip-this-one choices. If you have tried these out and would like to let me know how you did or didn't like them, leave a post in the comments below and I'll be sure to read and respond as soon as possible!

China Glaze: So Blue Without You

My favorite is blue which I do believe I've highly stated that before; I just can't help it! When I'm strolling through my drawers full of nail polish for some reason I usually gravitate towards the blues, purples, and pinks. This time I reached for China Glaze "So Blue Without You" since as I grabbed it I noticed that it's been quite a long while since I've used this one. It's a blue that is bright, yes, but I also like that it has a little shimmer quality to it. It reminds me of a sky blue with some metallic/shimmer thrown in there to make it different from a regular sky blue color.

Calgon Prize

About a month ago I decided to take my chances and enter a giveaway done by Nski Beauty and for once my luck helped me win! I was excited to have won this amazing package full of Calgon products! I got a lovely array of things which included: bath beads, bubble bath, bar of soap, body mist, body cream, and body wash all in Lavender Vanilla. I've already used the bubble bath and my oh my was is SO relaxing! And the best part of all of this is that you can easily buy these products at Walmart and all at a good cost. I would definitely recommend these products and the Lavender Vanilla scent along with their many other fragrances which you can find here.