Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you all had a wonderful day! We had the usual family fest at my house, complete with 10+ dishes and enough food to feed the whole neighborhood, which was lovely as always. I like to take any occasion I can get to dress up, so I did my makeup autumnally: Sleek Original khaki in the crease, copper in the outer half, and Tarina Tarantino Fantastical beige in the inner third, with Prestige Intense Olive eyeliner on top and bottom. Lancôme Hypnôse Star (which I love) on my lashes, NARS Deep Throat on my cheeks, and lip balm finished the look!

I opted out of a lippie both because of the bold eye, and because I knew I would be eating a lot and didn't want to bother with reapplication, ha. I indulged in all the delicious foods, aided by a plethora of digestion-related pharmaceuticals (muscle relaxants help a ton, but they relax everything, so I took a pretty epic nap afterwards!); my belly will probably be angry for the next day or so, but it was nice to be able to join in all the yummies.

Since we are now well into the land of holiday beauty deals, here are a few promos that you might not have heard of but that are definitely worth checking out!
–20% off all orders at Meow Cosmetics with code GOBBLE; 20% off and free shipping for orders over $40 with code lightup; I love their powder foundation, particularly the Pampered and Flawless formulations
–30% off at The Body Needs, home to MAC lipstick, pigment, and paint pot samples, today and tomorrow with code SAVE30; 25% off on Saturday and Sunday with code SAVE25; 20% off on Monday with code SAVE20. I'll have reviews and swatches of the rest of the shades I purchased a couple of months ago up on Sunday, but bottom line: if there's a MAC lippie you've been wanting to try, this is an excellent way to sample a ton of colors!
–10% off at Chagrin Valley Soap and Salve with code CYBERCVS13 Friday through Monday; I probably won't have time to post full reviews, but I really like their Rosemary Mint shampoo (volumetastic!), Goat Milk Honey Oatmeal soap (completely got rid of the eczema on my arms!), and plan to pick up a bar of the latter and the Rose Shea, which is just insanely creamy and wonderful. You can see my reviews here and here; this sale is the only one I've seen them have in the 6+ months I've been following, and it would be a great way to try out their sample bars for a slightly discounted price.

Nouveau Cheap has a fantastic round-up of other sales and deals for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, as does Beauty Look Book, if you have extra money lying around ;-)

What did you do for Thanksgiving? Any sales you plan on taking part in?

Manicure Monday

Only two manis (though three polishes!) for your viewing pleasure this week.

Zoya Yummy and Maybelline Beaming Blue
Zoya's polish names are ostensibly all female names, but...Yummy? I certainly hope that's no one's name. I picked it up because I wanted something to layer under Beaming Blue, picked up a few weeks ago, and from the online swatches, it seemed the closest in base color out of Zoya's blues. Happily, it's perfect! Though it doesn't look as wonderful in pictures as in person.

Beaming Blue is much prettier and more
interesting than it looks here. Yummy is pretty
accurate, though!

I did two coats of Yummy on all my non-layered fingers, and 1 coat topped with 1 coat Beaming Blue on the others. It was very pretty! Beaming Blue has a beautiful lavender duochrome, though it still does not outshine Lavishly Lilac (and I of course neglected to photograph it...), and Yummy is interestingly pastel-bright. I see it being ideal in spring!

Chins

Today, I had a rather unpleasant experience at my local Sephora inside JCPenney. So unpleasant it inspired me to send them an email, and I now await their (hopefully very conciliatory) response. I'll write a post about it once it's been resolved one way or the other, but suffice it to say, it made me grouchy. Fortunately, my bad mood did not last long, as I immediately headed north to pick up my new pets: two chinchillas!

I'm still not sure which is which, at least in pictures. Hutch is slightly smaller,
as the males tend to be, and Lou Lou's ears are proportionally larger. But I can't
tell which is which here! Maybe in a few days.

They're about 5 years old, and their former owner is moving and no longer had the time for them. For some reason, she decided I would be a good owner (I mean, I will be, I'm just not sure what made her think so, too), so after getting Lou-Lou spayed, they are now mine! And they are SO CUTE. And SO SOFT. It is amazing. Hutch was originally part of a pair (Starsky and Hutch, natch), but Starsky died young, so Lou Lou was purchased to be his friend.

Givenchy Le Rouge Sensuously Matte in Violine Précieux Review and Swatches

Ever since its release, Givenchy's Le Rouge lipsticks have been heaped with praise. I have coveted, so very much, so when Sephora's VIB sale rolled around, I picked one up, the LE holiday Violine Précieux, described as a "berry rose".

The packaging is, indeed, beautiful. The holiday editions have a gold-and-black leather case, and it is supremely classy, albeit rather ridiculously large. It took me a bit of time to figure out how to open it––you have to hold the little squares on the front and back and pull the lid up, which is harder than it sounds; on the upside, it's not going to come apart in your bag!

Manicure Monday

Betcha didn't think I'd be posting again so soon, didja? I'm so on top of things, guys.

Sinful Colors Ice Dream
I saw this one at the drugstores last winter and passed on it, only to later decide I wanted it and go back to find it gone. So I was very happy to see it again this year, and snatched it right up! It's a very sparkly, very pretty silver shimmer with blue small hexes (I think they're hexes, at least; they're very wee!).

You can build it up to opacity on its own in 3 coats, but I was lazy and just did it over one coat of Wet N Wild Silvivor, which gave almost exactly the same effect. Only one coat of top coat needed, too. Very wintry! Here's hoping we get snow this year so I can wear it and feel like the Ice Queen.

Dior Addict Gloss in 783 Atout Coeur Review and Swatches

OH HI GUYS. I'm not even going to try and give excuses for my long absence––at this point, y'all are probably used to it, eh? Suffice it to say, it involved stomach problems and a conference in San Diego (where I got to see my girl V!). I originally wrote this post as a back-to-school thing, as that was why I purchased this gloss, but since it's been 7 weeks since school started, I probably should change it. But I'm not gonna, because I have grant essays to finish, and, well, whatever. BJB, bringing you timely posts since 2011! Ha. haha. ha.

Some people buy a nice new pair of shoes or a coat at the beginning of a new school year; I buy a new lippie. Before starting my first year of grad school, I bought Clinique High Impact in After Party (which is a beautiful color, but the shimmer is a bit much for my taste, and I've become too lazy to apply it sheerly over balm, as I did back in the day), and last year I picked up Rouge Dior in Rouge Favori, a combo wedding/back-to-school present to myself. This year, I wanted to try the new Dior gloss formula after Larie raved about it, and since it's $29.50 a tube, I decided to get something that I could see myself wearing all the time. For me, that means something pinky-plum without glitter. Fortunately, Dior had just such a shade in 783 Atout Coeur.

Hello, beautiful.