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.