Fffffflamingo!

I've been listening to Leonard Cohen all night now and I feel like packing a backpack with a couple t-shirts, undies, lip balm, scarves and a good camera and leave town on a bus for Montreal. In a good way. Whatever happened to being spontaneous? Life becomes dull once you settle down, get a job, have a cat. I've never traveled anywhere really - specially not with only a backpack. If I had the money for it, I wonder if I'd even do it. I feel safest at home, chilling out. But you don't really experience much doing something like that for the rest of your life. So there, I'd have to do it.

Recommended Leonard Cohen songs: Chelsea Hotel, Bird on a Wire, Take this Waltz, Dance Me To The End of Love, Lover Lover Lover, Hallelujah... and well, everything. Just pick up a few of his tunes, you'll get it.

I recently purchased MAC's Flamingo lipstick from the new Iris Apfel collection. It's quite nice actually - a bright pink/coral shade that's still quite sheer. It's a Lustre finish which I usually quite like. I don't know if it's the winter lips thing but the lipstick was not moisturizing at all on me. My lips looked all flaky and the lipstick clearly accentuated this fact. However, it did look better on freshly scrubbed lips.

I'm quite please with this lipstick but I must say I could have lived without it. It's nice but definitely not remarkable enough to NEED it. If you don't have something similar already, I say go for it. My Dior Addict in Tokyo is a tad more orange than Flamingo but quite similar.

I've got a few posts lined up for this week. Hopefully I get back into the swing of things once again. I missed blogging!

Skincare - my new goal for the year

I readily admit that I was never one for a strict skincare regime. I have mostly used Cetaphil and Spectro Jel for the past few years and Bioderma for makeup removal. No "real" exfoliants or moisturizers, the bare minimum.

I've come to realize that my skin doesn't really bode well with the bare minimum. I therefore decided to give myself the 2012 goal of refining my skincare regime and getting rid of my problem areas on my face. They include acne, blemishes, redness around the cheeks, blackheads and bumpy skin/discoloration. It sounds like a lot but these are all things that I notice when I look very very closely at my skin. And it has begun to bother me. I also have some scars from chicken pox that I would like to see minimized.

So, this new goal has been started by Avene Diacneal. This was an idea I got from Sandra from 15 steps then a beauty blog who constantly raves about this product. It is a combination of retinol and glycolic acid which is supposed to rid your skin of acne and discolorations caused by it. I must say, this was a great product to start my regime with. I use it on my skin every few nights in order to give my skin a bit of a break from the treatment. So far, so good. My skin is much clearer (after having gone through a bit of a purge, I'm assuming from the Diacneal) and much much smoother. In two weeks and a half, I can see a big difference. It has definitely encouraged my skin's cell turnover and has helped my skin have a more unified tone - by this I mean that my dark spots from acne scarring are either gone or slowly making their way out. Even my boyfriend has said that my skin has looked clearer. However, one thing it has not cure is the redness on my cheeks. I'm not sure what this redness is stemming from but it is there and looks like a bad acne rash.

 

My next skincare goal will be to tone the redness on my cheeks. This redness doesn't seem to be rosacea or anything similar but might be from lack of moisturization. The red skin isn't bumpy and doesn't seem to have any acne associated to it. It's just patchy and red. We'll see with time but I'll try to keep my skin as moisturized as possible without being a grease ball. 

I'm looking forward to the new collections coming out soon so you can expect some reviews of that stuff. I'm specially looking forward to the OPI Spring 2012 collection. Should be exciting! 

The Gelish Experience

Did you get my title? It's a twist on a movie title which I will admit I haven't seen yet. But I thought it would make a cool title, so there.

Gelish is quite the ingenious nail lacquer system. It was designed to be able to give yourself "gel nails", much as what you would get at a salon, at home. The "gel" cures on your own nails, giving you a harder, shinier finish than regular nail polish. It claims to stay on your nails for up to three weeks and look just as good as when you applied it.

From experience, the Gelish has lasted two weeks on me. The problem I have been having with the polish is that it sometime peels off at the tips or sides of the nail. And instead of not touching it, well, I touch it. And my manicure is ruined. Also, I find that the more coats the nail polish needs, the more I have experienced some peeling. However, other people I have applied Gelish to have not had any issues whatsoever. My mom did say that she chewed one nail and had to take her manicure off after a couple weeks.

Some tips for having the polish stay on longer is to dehydrate the nail before applying the polish (with the Gelish overpriced stuff, or basic rubbing alcohol) and to make sure you do not "flood" cuticles. This also implies that you should have NO cuticle remainders on your nail bed. This will cause the Gelish to detach from the nail. You also need to buff (enough so that your nail is not shiny) your nail in order for the base coat to stick.

From experience, do NOT peel off the gels off your nails. The gel is usually so stuck to your nail that it will ruin the surface of your nail by peeling off little bits. Don't worry, it doesn't hurt or anything but it will damage your nail, which is totally against what Gelish is made for. The best way to remove the polish is to use pure acetone on a cotton pad the size of your nail, and wrap your nail in tin foil for 10 minutes. The nail polish should easily be gently scraped off with an orange stick after.

The following polish is called Wiggle Fingers Wiggle Thumbs That's the Way the Magic Comes. What an idiotic name. Who the hells wants to spell that every time they talk about the polish? Saying WFWTTTWTMC is even worst. Therefore, it'll be called WIGGLE for the purpose of this blog.

So this is Gelish's WIGGLE. This was two coats. It could have used a third. I unfortunately didn't wear this color because I was starting a new job the next day. Bright blue nails are probably not the best way to start a new job.

This is Hot Rod Red. I really really loved this color. The glossiness was beautiful and the color was really nice to wear with pretty much anything. I got compliments on this manicure from people at my new job! I wouldn't say it pulls too much on orange - it's just a really bright creme red. It is similar to Bullish on OPI .

I tried to take this picture with Billie's tail but it's a bit blurry!

This shows the extremely glossy finish of this polish.

All and all, this is an excellent system if you're the kind of person who likes to stick to the same colors, who has no time to paint your nails every few days or if polish chips easily on you. 

The investment for this is minimal if you're savvy about it. I purchased my lamp on Ebay for a mere $12. Granted, it kind of sucks because I can't fit my thumb in it, but it does the trick, even if it's only an 9W. I will cure my nails in there for about 3 minutes per coat. I highly suggest purchasing the polish itself from Ebay sellers or Amazon.com. They are half the price that what is sold in stores. Sally's is ripping off Canadian customers selling MINI Gelish bottles for twice the price of a regular sized bottle on Amazon. Ridiculous. So do not go there. Patience will help you save a few bucks. 

So that is my Gelish post. I hope I didn't leave anything out. Feel free to comment or contact me with any questions!

Hope you all had wonderful holidays. Mine were exceptionally perfect this year. 

Glam glam?

It's All About the Glam is part of the Kardashian for Nicole by OPI collection. Looking at the swatches online, this was the only polish that really inspired me. Which is weird because white + Annick's cuticles = mangled hands.

This polish is honestly beautiful. It has really small shimmer particles it it that make me think of a brand new blanket of snow. It's so wintry and cheerful. I very much recommend this polish for those of you who are bored with the green/red/gold holiday nail pattern. The formula was running a bit thin so it did take 3 coats to get a decent finish.

I can't comment too much on the wear of this polish because I took it off after a day - I had gotten my UV lamp in the mail and NEEDED to try my Gelish stuff RIGHT AWAY. It was a success that will be documented in a future post.

Work/life has kept me quite busy lately which explain the sporadic post schedule. Hopefully, after the new year, I'll be able to post more and have diversified subjects on this blog. 

I've been trying Avene's Diacneal as a treatment for my bumpy skin. A review will be up for this in a couple months for anyone interested.

I must go back to work! I have a different job now that is much most stimulating than the last. Unfortunately/fortunately, that also means a jam-packed schedule and no slacking off! 

Christmas Nails - if you really think about it...

These aren't OBVIOUS Christmas nails, but they're Christmassy enough for me. This is one coat of Essie's Size Matters with CND Effects in Emerald Shimmer on top.

 

Not the *prettiest* thing I've ever worn. But hey, it's in the spirit of Christmas, which, to completely go against the blogging current, I'm totally not into it this year.  I don't even own decorations at the moment. I just don't see the point - I move every few years and lugging them around, in apartment with ZERO storage space, is just not fun. I'm not a Grinch though - just a cynical young woman who needs some time to build herself a Christmas base. Maybe next year I'll decorate or something.