Degree Motion Sense Deodorant in Fresh Energy Review

I'm going to DC to visit the boyfriend in a week, and since I don't want to pay baggage fees, I'm having to figure out how to bring all my necessities in a quart-sized bag and small makeup pouch.  Fortunately, Target has mini-deodorants, so at least I'll be able to keep from sweating and smelling too bad without having to waste half my allotted space on it.  (I imagine some places don't require you to put your deodorant in your liquid baggie, but I like not to risk it!)  I'd read a review of Degree Motion Sense deodorant on one of my blogs (I don't remember which one, my apologies!) and added it to my to-try list, so I was thrilled that it was one of the small deodorants available at Target.  I've worn it for a few days now, and am thinking it may actually unseat my Secret...

image from Degree

Sinful Colors Nail Polish in I Miss You Review and Swatches

I Miss You is, perhaps, my favorite out of all the Sinfuls I've tried.  Or at least, my favorite at the moment (keeping track of my whims is somewhat difficult).  The formula sucks, in a way similar to All About You––very watery, though it's not as sheer as AAY, and the glitter is more varied.  The thing that appeals to me most about this, though, is the holographic shimmers.  They're mesmerizing, especially in sunlight, and my photos do not do them justice.

Sinful Colors in I Miss You

I Miss You, out of focus to show holographic shimmers

Survey Sunday Vol. 001

Because I know you were just dying for more alliterative-with-days-of-the-week weekly features, here is Survey Sunday.  I borrowed this particular survey from the lovely delicate hummingbird, tweaked somewhat at my whim (it's my blog, I can do those things!).  It's a play on the 7 deadly sins, but without the prescriptive behavior rules!

Greed: What's your cheapest beauty product?
Most of my beauty products are cheap, though it's less because I'm greedy with my money and more because I'm a grad student and just don't have money.  Probably the cheapest of the cheap is the Wet N Wild nail polish I got for $0.69 at Rite Aid awhile back.  That was a good day.

Expensive beauty products make me feel greedier, though; my $35 (though I paid $28!) Too Faced Natural Eye palette is the most expensive thing I have apart from my Clarisonic (I paid half of retail, but the price still makes me grimace...and reminds me that I really need to get around to reviewing it, my bad!).

Lust: What is your current most-wanted beauty product?
I have lots, though none that are incredibly pressing "have to have it NOW" types of things.  I would still love to play with the Urban Decay Naked palette, and right now I've really got a hankering for Korres lip butter in Wild Rose.  Le sigh.

Skincare Saturday: Baking Soda Facial Exfoliator Review

I've heard back from a couple of you that you'd like to see more skincare reviews, especially of the homemade variety.  Lucky for you, I've got quite the arsenal to share.  I'll try and post a review on skincare weekly (Saturdays, naturally), though it may be less frequent than that, so I'm going to have to ask you to bear with me!

First up is a scrub I've used and liked to tide you over until my next skincare posts.

image from Arm & Hammer

Wet N Wild Color Icon Trio in We're Blasting Off (from the Dream Weavers Collection)

I've read a lot about Wet N Wild's limited edition collection, Dream Weavers, over the past few weeks.  They released several new shadow trios for the collection, and they've been somewhat hard to find in some places.  I've happened across a couple displays in the area, and one at Rite Aid had the only trio I was interested in, We're Blasting Off.  It looks very similar to the other trio I have, Silent Treatment, but there are enough differences that I'm glad to have both.  Not least because I got 40% off this palette, making it only $1.79!

DKNY Be Delicious and Kenzo FlowerbyKenzo Mini Reviews

I figured I would start with two of the more popular perfumes in my collection (two arms = two sniffing platforms), DKNY Be Delicious and Flower by Kenzo.

DKNY Be Delicious

image from Sephora

This is one of those fragrances that is a popular entry fragrance, because it's not too complicated and it smells nice.  I definitely wouldn't buy a full bottle of it, just because it's not complex enough to keep me interested, but I have enjoyed using the sample vial I have of it.  It smells like apples, but with a wonderful warmth and floralness.  These definitely aren't normal apples.  As an edt, it's not terribly strong and only lasts a few hours before it needs to be reapplied, but it's a great running-errands type smell: simple and non-fussy and makes you smile when you smell it.  It's classified by Osmoz as a floral chypre and by Sephora as a fresh citrus; I don't really have a strong preference in either direction.  Here's the fragrance pyramid for your reference.

$42 for 1 oz, $60 for 1.7 oz, $75 for 3.4 oz, available from Sephora, department stores, and Amazon (the latter is cheaper)

Wet N Wild Wild Shine Lip Lacquer in 922 Enamored and 923 Rapture Review and Swatches

I picked these up last week when Rite Aid had their 40% off Wet N Wild sale in the hopes that they could be HG material for me and the mother.  They're normally $2.99 each, and are quite generously sized for a shiny, slim lipstick, at 0.11 oz (compare to the Jordana Easyshines' 0.07 oz, and the normal lipstick average of 0.14).  I got two: Enamored, a light frosty pink, and Rapture, a shiny berry-red.  I'd hoped they would be on the sheerer side of things, since I find those much easier to wear than more opaque lipsticks.  Following are my thoughts.

923 Rapture (on the left) and 922 Enamored (on the right)

one swipe of Enamored (top) and Rapture (bottom) in sunlight

Fragrance Friday, or: Amy Sniffing Her Way Through Her Collection of Perfume Sample Vials and Then Talking About It

Another weekly feature!  Yaaaay.

I have a lot of perfume vials in my collection, having received them as free samples with many orders and purchases.  I love getting perfume samples, and gravitate towards them when choosing my free Sephora samples.  I discovered my winter fragrance that way (Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb)!  Though who knows if that will remain my winter fragrance...

Anyways.  One of the other bonuses of getting samples is that you can figure out what scents you don't like, with the ability to try them in different circumstances and weather (I find perfumes smell very different on me after I've been sweating than when I'm cold, and sample vials give me the flexibility to experiment). In this new ongoing series (zomg I know you're so excited like wow), I'll be giving snapshots of my perfumes.  As I've mentioned before, I'm really bad at describing fragrance notes, but I will do my best to do a couple of sentences on how it smells to me, as well as provide links to the fragrance pyramid for each perfume.  Keep in mind that all opinions are my own, and perfumes smell different on different people!  What I hate, you may love, and vice versa.

Before I get to the reviews, here's a quick tutorial on the basics of perfumes.  
First up, perfume oils.  These are what make perfumes smell, and the concentration of oils is what distinguishes the different formulas from each other.  Perfume (extract) is the most strongly scented, longest-lasting option (and therefore the most expensive).  According to Wikipedia, even perfume extract isn't 100% fragrance oils, and is rather generally around 20%.  The strongest commonly-available concentration is in Eau de Parfum (edp), which has ~15% aromatic oils.  Eau de Toilette (edt) comes next, around 10%, and Eau de Cologne is around 5%.  Body splashes and the like are generally 1-3%.

Besides being classified by concentration, fragrances are also grouped by family.  From Osmoz's fragrance families for women, we have:

Citrus: composed mainly of citrus notes, often with floral or chypre notes mixed in, citrus fragrances are generally light and fresh
Chypre: based on oak moss, bergamot, and patchouli, chypre fragrances contain floral and fruity notes as well (my beloved Chance eau fraiche is a chypre);
Floral: the most widely used category in fragrance, floral notes combine well with all of the other families
Oriental: characterized by amber, musk, and woody warmth, orientals often feature exotic spices and floral notes

There are 4 big groups of male fragrance families as well, but I'll leave it up to you to explore those.  Each of the families above can be broken down into further subcategories, which I will deal with when they apply to a particular fragrance.  I highly recommend going to Osmoz and playing around, because there is an impressive wealth of information there that is very useful when getting into fragrances.

Fragrance pyramids are a way of visually representing the components of a perfume.  Top notes are what you smell right after spraying the perfume, and they're the first to fade.  Light florals, citrus, and green notes are often used as top notes.  Middle notes are heavier than top notes, and they combine with the top notes to form what you smell for most of the time wearing a perfume.  They include bolder florals, citrus notes, and lighter woods.  Base notes are the heaviest, and the last to fade.  They include amber, musk, woody notes, and are the platform upon which the top and middle notes stand.  All of the notes interact with each other, and the combination of notes is nearly as important as the notes themselves.


Okay then!  Questions?  Comments?  I'll link back to this post for my future reviews, in case you ever need a refresh of the infos.  I don't know how long this series will take me (depends on if I go on an obsessive streak with it or not), but I hope you find the posts at least a bit interesting and informative!
End tutorial/rambling


This is where the links to the reviews will go!  Yay!

Recommendation Thursday: Nail Care

For a summary of Recommendation Thursday, see here.  For tips on nail care, see here!

There are a lot of product areas to talk about with nail care, but I'll just go in the same order as I did for Tip Tuesday to make it easy on us.  First topic, then, is nail treatments, and boy, is it a doozy.  Future Recommendation Thursdays will focus on smaller topics (for example, "pink blush" or "lengthening mascara"), because you do not want to know how much time it took me to sift through all this information!

Sinful Colors Nail Polish in All About You Review and Swatches

All About You is the sheerest, wateriest of all the Sinful shades I got.  It's a gold and copper foil (when built up enough) that shimmers and glows in the light.  It reminds me of a candle (but without the risk of getting burnt!).

All About You