Manicure Monday

School starts again today (alas, 'tis no April Fool's joke), but I'm hoping to balance my time a little better this term than last. We'll see how it goes! I took advantage of the relative lack of work this weekend to attempt some nail art; after some false starts, I ended up deciding on a neon watermelon look.

Index, middle, and ring are two coats Wet N Wild Dreamy Poppy dotted with Wet N Wild Black Creme (using the Essence Dotting Tool), and thumb and pinkie are two coats Color Club Wild Cactus with Wet N Wild Caribbean Frost zig-zagged on. My left hand looks better than my right, but even doing it with my non-dominant hand didn't turn out too bad! It's very summery and bright.

Burberry Mallow Pink Lip Glow Review and Swatches

Happy Easter! Here's a real, actual, beauty-related post.

I wanted it, and I got it! Hurray! This was my lone purchase at the Burberry counter at the Bellevue Nordstrom with Larie, as the hordes of people proved to be way too overwhelming for my frail psyche. Also, I didn't want to pay 10% sales tax on anything else! Because I am from Oregon, where we do not pump our own gas or pay sales tax. BUT I DIGRESS. Is it everything I hoped it would be?

Burberry Mallow Pink Lip Glow

Fragrance Friday: Full Bottles

My full bottle collection is rather small, given how often I ramble about perfume on here, and the ones I do have are not particularly representative of my particular favorites. I've tried ... a lot of perfumes in the past year, when I first fell down the smelly rabbit hole (that sounds wrong, sorry), but given my budget and flightiness, have purchased many fewer bottles than I've fallen in love with. Here they are, in order of least to most favorite:

Chanel Chance eau tendre
I got this some year and a half ago, when I ran out of my second bottle of Chanel Chance eau fraiche and wanted something different. I didn't like it as much as the eau fraiche, but it was pleasant enough. Now, I can barely wear it––again, it's pleasant, albeit somewhat synthetic, but I just don't find it happy-making enough to want to wear all that often. It's a nice fruity floral, but those of you who read the blog regularly know that fruity florals are not my favorite kind of perfume. Now that I think about it, I should probably just donate this or see if my brother's girlfriend wants it. Silly to have a perfume that I never wear when others would surely enjoy it!

I am on Vacation!

So this is not a real post. (Surprise?) Here's what I've been up to since finishing finals.

Meeting Larie! Who is even lovelier in person (who knew it was possible?!).

FOTD

Such an original title, I know. I've written roughly 10,000 words of academic prose in the last week, and I am just zonked. Headed up to Seattle tomorrow (technically today, because OH YES I AM STILL AWAKE) with the boy, where we will gallivant and I will meet Larie and swatch some Burberry and hopefully sleep at some point? And then eventually return home and write real posts. It'll be fun. Until then, a teaser for some of the products you'll get to look forward to hearing about on here.

Yep:

Fragrance Friday: Springing Spring

Daphne blooming in our front yard:

Smells like heaven. Floral, sweet, very citrusy. I want it as a perfume. Until I find that, I've been making do with the floral perfumes in my collection, including Parfums de Nicolaï Odalisque (very pollenish and dirty and floral and green and way better than I'd had it as being stored in my memory), Diptyque L'Ombre Dans L'Eau (another green scent, with a gorgeous watery rose), Serge Lutens A La Nuit (supposedly jasmine, but I get a ton of lilac, which is definitely not a bad thing), and L'Artisan La Chasse aux Papillons (fleeting and beautiful). Plus, of course, the gorgeous-beyond-words Carillon pour un Ange.

As a pick-me-up during the day, I've been dabbing on Pacifica California Star Jasmine and French Lilac solid perfumes, which are subtle and so, so pretty. They all go wonderfully with the sunny, warm weather we've been having (when it's not been overcast and/or drizzling, that is). Haus of Gloi's Something Hopeful sugar exfoliant (sakura blossom green tea, mandarin, plum, jasmine) is the ultimate springy bath product, and the sugar and oils are a gentle yet effective exfoliator and moisturizer on my eczema-y arms, and their Litchi Milk Tea pumpkin butter (litchi, black tea, coconut milk) is a calming, sweet fruity tea that I've been putting on as hand cream before bed––pretty and moisturizing!

Has spring hit you yet? What scents are you gravitating towards? Have you smelled daphne/do you know of any good daphne perfumes?

Things You Learn

I'm working on designing an experiment on phonaesthemes and frequency and monitoring and it's all very fascinating stuff (no, seriously, it's great), and I'm using the Corpus of Contemporary American English for frequency counts. It's proven very enlightening. For example, "glowy" only appears 21 times in 450 million words, a frequency of 0.05 words per million, which is tiny. And yet 21 posts (now, 22) on this blog contain that word, which means I've used it at least 21 times just on here!

Apparently, the sources for COCA don't include beauty blogs.

That's all.

30 Days: Day 18

Ugh, end of term is upon us and I am swamped, of course. I'll be pretty much a hermit until March 22nd (and then probably MIA through the 25th, as the boy and I are planning to go up to Seattle and hopefully meet up with Larie!). I have a couple of posts mostly ready to go, but I must apologize for my absence, both from here and online in general. I hope you can forgive me!

I'm going to take a page out of Toya's book, and use up a few of the remaining 30 days to boot, by swatching my entire collection. I've swatched my blush before (also as part of 30 days, lolz), but it's been close to a year since then, and my stash has changed somewhat (and while I took photos of all my lippies and eyeshadow, I didn't swatch them). This will also give me a good opportunity to update my stash list, too! Oh, killing so many birds with this one stone. First up: nudes, corals, and warm lippies! (It was sunny today, so I managed to snap swatches of these, but then my arm was stained and I remembered I still had to design an experiment and read a bunch of articles, so I can't promise that I'll be able to swatch much else before the end of the term!)

Left to right:
Revlon Tutti Frutti: Purchased when I was looking for an orange lippie during the year of tangerine (as 2012 shall forever be known in my mind). I wear it once in a blue moon, and has a tendency to apply unevenly due to the sheerness and texture, but it suffices for what I use it for. Also, as I was swatching this, a great big piece fell off the tip and got all smudgy. Lip Butter packaging fail. (And then it happened again with Sweet Tart, because my makeup likes to frustrate me.)
Hourglass Child: Nude! Somewhat drying, but nice to have on hand.
Smashbox Crowned: Peachy nude, which looks really nice on top of warmer lipsticks (particularly Tutti Frutti, to make it a little less orange).

Hello, Gorgeous: NARS Mascate Review and Swatches

Larie has given this lipstick no end of praise, so after I survived last term, I decided to pick one up for myself, because I don't already have enough reds (never enough!).

Nearly No-Buy Month Review

At the beginning of last month, I declared February to be "nearly no-buy": a semi-rigid ban against any kind of spending, but especially spending of the beauty variety. I was planning to take pictures of everything, but...then I didn't. So this is photo-free!

I did a pretty good job of not buying things (though losing my cell phone meant I had to purchase a new one; fortunately, they gave me an early upgrade, so I only had to pay the activation fee + $0.99 for the phone [HTC One X, it's great!]) until my skin decided to freak the eff out. Eczema and dry patches and acne and itchiness and general horribleness on my face and arms led my apologizing to my bank account and stocking up on sulfate- and silicone-free body and haircare halfway through the month, as well as falling down the rabbit hole of natural (oils) skincare. I ended up spending nearly $100 on various hair and skincare products from the local health food store and a couple of websites (Lotioncrafter and Garden of Wisdom), and will be reviewing it all as I make my way through it! I am hopeful that they will improve my skin situation, which is a feeling I haven't had for awhile.