Saturday, December 31, 2011

Introducing Butter London Spring 2012 Collection


From left to right, Bossy Boots, Disco Biscuit, Knackered, Slapper and Trout Pout. The only one I know for sure I NEED is Knackered. Slapper and Trout Prout I may need, but will have to see first. Also, the formula and consistency of Knackered worries me. It looks like it might be similar to No More Waitey Kaity which we all knew was a colossal nightmare formula wise!

I am not sure when the official release date will be, but they are all available for purchase now exclusively on Nordstroms Website here! 






Friday, December 30, 2011

Bath & Body Works Candles - Take Two!

So I showed all you guys my BBW haul from boxing day. I regretted not getting a few more candles, so I ran back and picked up a few more! As it turns out, I was completely and totally out of all other candles, so I feel less guilty about it now! If you will recall, last time I picked out these 1.6 oz candles:


Caramel Apple, Sticky Toffee Pudding, French Carmel Cake, Homemade Cookies, Apple Crumble and Frosted Cupcake. This time I purchased Salty Caramel, Cranberry Woods, Cranberry Cider, Twisted Peppermint, Mint Chocolate and Spiced Apple Toddy.


Now I am still in the middle of a burn test with the candles, (as you can see the cupcake one is more used than not used! I will update with my results then. I will say they really don't let off a lot of SCENT. That being said, they are tiny candles so I was not expecting a big noticeable difference!

They are STILL 3 for 5.00 (or 3 for 4.50 if like me you bought the yellow tote bag!) so I would run and get some if you haven't already! I am trying to convince myself not to go back and get another 3 or 6 as there were at least 3 more I really wanted! They have at least 20 different scents!

Now the thing I hate is the storage concern. How do you store them so they are out of site, yet easily accessable and dont look all cluttered? Well I got quite a few gifts from Sephora over the holidays which equalled quite a few Sephora gift boxes. (I actually went into Sephora and asked for an extra box as I wanted 4 and only got 3!) Sephora gift boxes not only are free, but they are a hard cardboard coated cardboard with a MAGNET closure! And they look great on a shelf! 




And then, sitting nice and closed on the shelf, the clutter is GONE! I also have all my soaps (think lush, soap factory, etc) in one, my lush bubble bars in another, and I have a fourth (needed it for symmetry) that will find a use I AM SURE!!

Julep Hayden (AKA Julep Amanda)

Julep Hayden is also known as Amanda. Why they changed the name - I dont know! But I have had a few people ask for swatches and until today I only had Amanda (and people were weird about wanting to see the one CALLED Hayden. I just got it from a girlfriend ( I sent her some Juleps, she sent me some of hers) so without further ado, here is Julep Hayden!



Not much else to say about it. Quite opaque in one coat, same normal Julep formula. Really doesn't lean pink or yellow. Just a bright peachy orange!

Julep Mystery Boxes - Retail Value NOT What Promised!

OK. Julep was selling mystery boxes right before Christmas. The boxes were priced at 19.99 and were said to be valued at $60-$200. I bought a box for the fun of it, KNOWING I was getting the smallest box possible! I KNOW my own luck, so I was completely and one hundred percent ready and waiting for my 60.00 box. So you all know, there were NO 60.00 boxes.

I DID get the smallest box possible, but it was not even close to 60.00 value.




So far looks exciting, doesn't it?


The Lip Gloss is in the colour called Arousal. I will never use it, my mom already has it, so someone is getting it as a gift!


Close up of the colours!



And to show the difference in size from the full size scrubs and lotions to the ones in the box, here is the comparison!



Now as to pricing. Remember - This is the SMALLEST box you could get. No one got a box smaller than this!


TOTAL RETAIL OF THE 
SMALLEST BOX 
POSSIBLE - 93.00

Now, I didn't get the largest box possible, but many people posted pictures online. I "borrowed" and by borrowed I mean stole a picture of the largest box that has yet to be seen off of the Julep Facebook Page. Her name was Debbie! Lucky girl!!!


TOTAL RETAIL OF THE 
LARGEST BOX 
POSSIBLE - 218.00
(plus the pot of glitter!)

So, my big question, is why the heck are so many people grumbling and complaining on the facebook page for what they got? "Julep, you suck! You lied to us! You gave us MORE than we bargained for" ??? REALLY???

Thursday, December 29, 2011

HEAD TO HEAD MATCH - Girly Bits Shift Happens VS Clarins 230

I was SOOO excited to get Shift Happens, especially after I heard it was a Clarins 230 dupe. Its, not but its really really close!!! Clarins 230 is more red/purple and Shift Happens is more Orange/Yellow. But they are REALLY REALLY close!

First up the bottle pics. Now the bottle pictures look MUCH more different than the polishes actually are once swatched and dried!





And now the real test: the Swatches. As you can tell, the Shift Happens is much more orange. It really lacks the purple/blue and instead has the orange/yellow in it. Gorgeous and very similar, I think if you missed out on Clarins 230 this one will be a great substitute. Also, the dry time and formula on Shift Happens is in my opinion far superior to that of 230. I have not tried one dud yet of all the polishes Girly Bits makes. All of them have a superb formula honestly better than that of most other brands I have tried.





Girly Bits New Offerings

It took me some time, but I FINALLY got really great colour accurate photos of these polishes!!!



Into The Night is a black base with a jelly-ish feel and is LOADED with microshimmer, holo glitter, and pretty much every single shade of glitter you can think of!


Rogue came about when a friend of Pam's (Red Rogue) asked her to create a red jelly with holo glitter. Now not quite what she ended up with, but its GORGEOUS! This is a red jelly base as requested but it is loaded with pink and violet glitter and with red micro bar glitter.


Cosmic Ocean is beyond worlds. This is an AMAZING and totally intense green/blue duochrome. The colours are stunning, the shifting is beyond easy to see, and the formula is to die for! YOU TOTALLY NEED THIS POLISH!!!


January Morning is a polish I dont feel comfortable describing. It has such an intense and personal meaning to Pam, I dont want to summarize or reword. So here is HER description of the colours.

In January of 2010 my Dad passed away after bravely facing Alzheimer's disease. My immediate family consists of myself and my husband, and our three girls, my brother and his son, and my Mom. My dad was in a long term care facility after he had a mild heart attack and we were no longer able to care for him at home due to mobility and toileting issues. Between my Mom, my brother and my self, someone was with my Dad every single day for the better part of the day, and when we knew the time had come for him, -it was a Tuesday- we camped out at the LTCF with him 24 hours a day until he passed on the Sunday. The staff was excellent to us, feeding us, and giving us our privacy. I personally took over my Dad's care for that time, and the staff was very respectful of that and even let us take his bed and all our belongings into the common room, with a TV and couches etc and more space so our little family could camp out in relative comfort. On Saturday morning, as the sun rose, we opened the curtains in the huge bay window and let the sun wash over him. It seemed to breathe some life and energy into him, as that day was the best day he had had in a while. He was more responsive, and comfortable than we had seen him in weeks. My brother took a gorgeous photo of that sunrise, which we later used on Dad's memorial card, as it was the last sunrise he saw. He passed at almost 4 am Sunday, and we left for home at 7 am. When we stepped outside, we realized it had been snowing all night, and on the drive home everything was completely covered in the MOST beautiful crystallized snow I have EVER seen. Every tree branch, telephone wire and fence post was just gleaming with these diamonds. When we arrived home, I touched the porch railing expecting it to be hard and frozen since it looked like diamonds. It was so soft and melted immediately. I will never forget it, it was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I had never seen anything like that, nor have I seen it again. My 18 year old daughter came up with the idea for the colour, asking me to make a polish that looked as sparkly as the snow did the day that Grandpa died. And of course the name popped into my head immediately. I had no intention of it having a double meaning, but of course Morning could be interpreted as Mourning. And also my Mom`s initials are JM.


Shift Happens is the one touted to be a dupe of Clarins 230. Its not. Its very close, but not quite exact. I will do intense comparisons in the next post to compare the two!


And the swatches:



Now I am sorry to do this to Pam, but I totally stole her photo. I do not own a white polish (though I now have to go buy one thanks to her) and really wanted to show you January Morning the way it SHOULD be worn. So taken off the Girly Bits website, I now present you January Morning as it SHOULD be:


Cult Nails LIMITED EDITION - Blackout & Tied Up

I love Cult Nails. I think I have made that really clear over the course of this blog. I am SOOO EXCITED to show you these beauties. These were limited edition polishes that came up for sale for Black Friday. They were limited to one per person. I was so stressed and worried in the days leading up to the sale as to how fast they would sell out and if I would be able to purchase them or not! But I did. So all is right in the world.




Black out is a dark blackened grey. Swatched, it looks like a faded, light, smoky black. I love it! As many greys as I have in my stash, this one is completely unique. It was a stunning gorgeous formula, applied smoothly and thinly. It was thinner than most but not runny and drippy. Just a perfect thin formula that made ti perfect at two coats.

Tied Up screamed out to me the minute I saw it. It totally and completely looked like Lippmanns I Know What Boys Like. I thought it was a dead on dupe. Apparently I am totally crazy. Once in better light, it is clearly blue and not a periwinkle. The formula on this one was not AS amazing as Blackout, but still very good and what I come to expect from Maria's polishes. In keeping with her polishes, this one too is a two coater!



I did pull out My Lippmann colour just to see HOW crazy I am. They are very similar, but the Lippmann is certainly purple tinged (as a true periwinkle) while Tied Up is a perfect blue crème.



As you can see, they are quite similar, but the Lippmann is about two shades darker, and is certainly a true periwinkle whereas the Cult Nails one is  a true blue.


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