A-England Ascalon

Photo heavy post, be forewarned. I took a lot of pictures and I deleted about a third of them. You can thank me any time.
I had to take a lot of pictures because this is amazingly beautiful. For once I actually managed to really capture the color, the holo the everything. And I did it well and I did it a lot. I think this is more a testament to how beautiful this polish is than it is my photography skills, which, if you haven't been noticing or you've been reading this blog in braille, is limited at best.

Ascalon is part of the latest A-England collection called "The Legend". They are mostly holos, which I love. Ascalon is described as

"Forged by magic and guided by our hero's sainted hand, the steely grey of his spire is alive with a swirling heart of lavender fire." On the A-England website here: Ascalon.

Check it out. I pretty much know you're probably adding it to your cart and buying it as soon as you see it. 

This was right after I painted my nails. I think this may not even be dry yet and you can see I hadn't cleaned up yet. This is what you're going to see in every day lighting, at your office, etc. Gorgeous, right? "Steely grey" is right, but look at the sparkle in there. It looks like silver micro-shimmer but it's not. If you look closely you will see flashes of that lavender, which is a flash in the polish. I can't even begin to start drooling on this. I don't know where to start.

A kinda blurry one to show off the sparkle. We're still not really seeing it, though. I was actually on IM with a male friend of mine **waves** who is the soul of patience with my girlie habits. He actually will converse with me about nail polish and encourages me sending him pictures and seems genuinely interested. If not interested then indulgent. If that isn't dedication to male/female relationships I don't know what would be. Regardless, I was taking these to send to him so he could tell me if he liked it or not. He liked it. Not as much as another one I will likely have to wear shortly, but he liked it. So there you go, a male opinion. 

Still just what you will see in ordinary lighting. That's my leg. I was at my desk trying to send pictures of what my nails were doing and not really getting it right. Not bad, you can see that lavender again here, which just adds so much depth. Holo AND flash? I think I just suffered a nail lacquer la petite mort.

If you don't know what that means, look it up. I said it en Francais for a reason.

 Oh. Holy. Jesus. 

Yes.

This is what you really get. Look at that. There are no words. Or at least I don't have any. 

I know, right? Couldn't you just die??

Be forewarned. This is what you will see while driving in the sun shine. Please be careful. Wear gloves if you have to. I would hate to think anyone wrecked because they were hypnotized by an absolute beauty like this. And yes, you will see this much brilliance in some lighting. This is just the camera catching the right angle from the ceiling fan light. Honest. The polish really is this lit from within, this holographically brilliant, this amazing. It really, really is. 

Last of the indoor lighting shots, here is a bottle one. It's not actually this dark...but it is, kinda. This doesn't show the lavender flash, which seems more prominent in the bottle than on the nail but you will see in the sunlight pics that it's really not the case. The lavender flash is definitely there. 

OK. I know. This is terrible, really. I had some kind of schmata on my lens, but I held onto this picture because of the obvious flash on the pinky nail. You can really see it here. This was outside approximately 6 days after the initial manicure, keep that in mind in the future pics. You will see what 6 days of untouched A-England wear looks like. Not a lot! It's enough that I'm planning to change this manicure tonight, but it's not bad!

Very similar picture sans schmata. Nice, right? Minor tip wear, nothing glaring. Right hand looks as good. Look at the brilliance, here. How can you not love it? (I'm looking at you, BMWWU. How can you not love holos? Well, and you too, Ruby Slippers. (Flash freaks her out a little.))

Love the Hollywood smile stars from the sun catching the shimmer particles in the polish. Couldn't have staged that.

The label. I take these as much as a reference for me as anything but I take them so you may as well see them as well. The holo is slightly more pronounced in this picture.

I happened to notice that at this angle the polish showed itself brilliantly so I took the picture that way, and let me tell ya, at 96 degrees, that blacktop is freaking HOT. However the camera didn't get it. This does serve, though. It shoes how densely packed and glowy the particles in this polish are. This is really highly pigmented and the second coat was probably more to just even it out and intensify it, and honestly habit, as anything. One thick coat of this might do you just fine. 

There's that lavender goodness.

**Wipes drool off chin**

I do heartily love this. 

That's all the wear after about 6 days? Hello. What's not to love. In my experience these wear so well. Go check out my post of Iseult if you don't believe it. I thought that would never come off. 

OK, last one. It's just so bloody fascinating. Every color in nature is in there, I swear. I just want to stare at it. 

Mechanics, because really, I don't know what else I can tell you about it. Look at those pics. That is about all you need to know!

1 coat Poshe Nail Strengthening Treatment Base Coat

1 coat Nailtiques 2 Plus

2 coats Seche Rebuild

2 coats A-England Ascalon

1 coat Poshe Top Coat (Fast drying)

Love love love love love.

Happy Talons!

ManGlaze...How I love ya. Fatty's Got More Blood. Oh yeah.

I kind of went a little bonkers when I changed jobs. The irony being I'm actually making LESS money...but the polish addiction will not be denied so here we are. I sort of...bought every single ManGlaze I could find on Amazon. In case you didn't know, they have a storefront on Amazon now. You can still order direct from them, but it looks to me like they are phasing out their own online store. I don't know that, it's not like I read an announcement or anything, but they aren't carrying their new colors there, which is probably how I missed all 80 that I ordered. And if you've worn ManGlaze, you know they're not the cheapest on the market. All those artists they get to do the labels have to be paid, I suppose.

If you haven't checked out any of my other ManGlaze posts, ManGlaze is a polish company that makes polish for men, really, hence the clever and I'm sure tongue-firmly-in-cheek name. And I'm sure they chuckle masculinely to themselves every time one of us girly bloggers starts raving about how much we just can't get enough ManGlaze. Ha Ha Ha, fellas. Ha Ha Ha. **pointed look**
They market to skater boys and rock stars and the like. The colors tend to be darker and more Rob Navarro than Justin Bieber, thank fuck for that, I say, and always matte. I wasn't a big fan of matte until ManGlaze came bursting into my life. (Hey. If they can be tongue-firmly-in-cheek then so can I.) They changed my mind. I don't honestly know if all mattes are as velvety as these are, and I don't really care. They do it so bloody well, I don't know that I'd try any others.

Oh, who am I kidding. If I found it interesting enough I'd try it and we all know it.

The first one I tried was Fatty's Got More Blood. It's a deep dark red, not burgundy or brown in color but actually...purple. And while I'm pondering that, please consider this a teaser review of sorts. It didn't wear well. That is odd, so very odd, for a ManGlaze and honestly...I think it was the base coat I used. I tried a Diamond Nail Hardening bast coat and it wouldn't freaking dry. I don't blame the Diamond base coat for that, either. It's been in the drawer for an age. Likely it's just got old. So I have some swatches here, but they're not great and they're not of the caliber I like to show you.

See the purple? Yeah. This isn't purple. It's red. It's the color of dried blood and I'm not even joking. However, put a flash on it and you get amethyst.
I'm showing you this, that doesn't even show something similar to the real color of the polish for a reason: when I tell you this isn't burgundy, I mean it. It's a red with a purple base. Proof's in the pudding.

I tried again and is it me? Is that even MORE purple than the first swatch? And yeah, for a couple weeks all I did was beat the crap out of my hands. I don't know how I cut my middle finger there, but it hurt for a long time. Bled, too. Nice.

WHOA there, Hopalong! THAT is the real color. Huh. See what I'm saying? Oh, nice cuticle on the index finger, Tricks. **facepalm**
This is a very accurate shot. It's a pretty black-red dried blood sort of color. There is quite a lot of understated shimmer here, as with all ManGlaze polishes, except Mayo. Maybe is just white, if memory serves.

I think if you zoom in by clicking the picture you will really be able to see the shimmer particles here. It's gorge. It really is.

You can see the beginnings of wear here. I really blame old base coat for this. I will wear it again, we'll find out.

Often colors like this are considered "Fall" or "Winter" colors. I declare shenanigans on that. Wear what you like when you like. If you really love being seasonal with your nail color then do it, but if you're more of a free spirit, which you probably are if you listen to my prattle, then if you are in a "I need to put something that looks like dried blood on my nails because I feel like feeling like I look a little dangerous today" don't have the "But it's JUNE!" follow up thought. Put black on for Easter, who cares?? It's not a tattoo! And if you feel like you really would rather wear the pink of bunnies noses for Christmas than knock yourself out. So yeah. I rocked blood red on my nails in the Summer. Sue me. 

ManGlaze. Gotta love them. 

I don't have shots of this with top coat. It only wore for a few days and by the time I sat down to take these pics, as you can see, I would have had major peeling if I had done that. Like I said, this is a teaser review. I can't even give you mechanics as I don't remember any longer. It was only two weeks ago but I didn't make note. Next time. 

I hope you like it! 

Happy Talons!

Correcting chips walk through

I've had a rough week. No censure, please. Though I did finally get through number 10? 11? In a full series re-read and now I'm all adrift. I read a whole book today. Now what? Latest Margaret Atwood or more pulp? It's about time for my annual Three Musketeers re-read. Hm.

Issues! Issues! Regardless. I do want to post how I fix chips. I know I've done it before, but honestly...are you gonna go looking for it? I can't remember if I gave you pics of the process or not, and honestly, I am not going back and digging for it, either. The Balearic Cool of Model's Own is really perfect for showing this because it is SO vibrant.

I skipped the first step, which is to take polish thinner, not remover!, THINNER, and with a finger or thumb dipped in a small amount smooth out the edges of the chip. I skipped this step because BMWWU did this mani and she always uses some Orly Nail Armor frankenstrengthener she cooks up. I have mixed feelings about Nail Armor. It has done a beautiful job maintaining and strengthening my nails but those little silk fibers in there (and yeah, I know that's an animal product but it's one they will produce on their own in nature and it doesn't harm them. I never said I was vegan, I am anti-animal testing.) stick off and can cause your nails to chip if you don't know how to smooth over the tips of your nails and blend them back into the fold, so to speak. Nail Armor is a very thick formula and pretty opaque on it's own so I find when using that as a base it's not really necessary to blend out the edges of the chip. If you are using a different strengthener or not using one at all (I hate you, incidentally) then you will want to do that.

Here's what the chips looked like:

Fill those in with a dab of your strengthener, whatever it is. Again, in this case it's Orly Nail Armor.

Do I need to tell you that you should have washed your hands first? Washed, dried...this should be common sense, but in case it isn't, before you start wash and thoroughly dry your hands. No lotion, for Pete's sake. Save that for when you're done.

Don't be shy about it. Load it up. We're filling in basically a hole here. You don't have to be terribly neat about this, either. See how I've gone over the edge? This should help create a strong bond to the nail and blend the polish in later. Obviously, you don't want to just leave a ball of Armor there, but you do want it to be enough to fill in so your repair isn't obvious.

OOO. Wow. Yeah, that middle finger is going to need another hit. As you would do two coats on your nails when doing a mani from the beginning, you will also do two here. Use your judgement on if you need another.

After two coats of Nail Armor in the chip. See how that has pretty much smoothed out? We have 4 more coats to go here, but you want this as smooth as you can get it now. If you need to, you can lightly buff out any rough spots, but you shouldn't have to.

Fill in the chip with the color. This happens to be from the last post, Balearic Cool with Indian Ocean over it. See how the cream blue is so vibrant? This was a great color to use for this. Cover up all the base coat you had to put on to fill the chip. Blend it down and smooth so it's not a bump on then end of your nail.

Just another shot at the bottom of the bottle. You can see the blue here, how it's blended in. The color here is deceptive, as is the lighting, I apologize. It's not nearly this sky blue in real life.

Here's the right hand. Remember that more prominent ridge? That's gone now. Careful application will take care of so many sins. Just be patient. If you're in a rush then you should probably take it all off rather than try to make a fix.

Hit it again, smooth it out. This looks like a glob but it wasn't in reality. It's the color and the cream as opposed to shimmer causing an optical illusion.

The right hand with two thick coats.

Now, I must have flaked out somewhere because I didn't take pictures of putting the shimmer top coat over this, but that's really...it's just another coat of paint. Maybe I figured you guys would know enough to understand how that would look.

The end result a few days later. Note that it didn't hold it forever and it won't. It just extends the life of your manicure for a few more days. As you can see, it held better than the index finger!

I hope this is a helpful post to you guys. I always try to pass on what little tricks I've learned and keep the faith that they are giving someone a tip they didn't know.

Coming up tomorrow, the manicure after this! HEE HEE! What a cliff hanger. **roll eyes at self**

Happy Repaired Talons!

Models Own Blues

OK OK. I know. I promised a post last weekend.

I suck.

But here is one now, and I have photos edited for two more so I just have to write them, which I WILL do, plus another post in my head (fat lot of good it does you there, I know) about how I kind of went a little cray-cray on Sephora.com (the work of the devil, I'm convinced) in the aftermath of the whole To Sell in China You Must Animal Test debacle.

You are aware of this, correct?

If not. Here is the thing as I understand it. China is now requiring any foreign imported cosmetics to be animal tested before they can be marketed there. This is impacting many major brands, probably many major brands you and I have had faith in as safe for us bunnyhuggers. Estee Lauder falling into this trap is HUGE and I mean...HUGE. I don't know if you all know this but Estee Lauder makes like...everything. Bumble and Bumble, La Mer, Clinique, MAC, most perfumes...pick something. HUGE. Urban Decay is also falling victim to this law. Their PR departments are going berserk trying to convince us they are still OK because hey, we're not actually torturing animals OURSELVES. Buy from us! 

I've really struggled with this and finally decided that Chinese bunnies are still bunnies. Still bunnies being tortured and made to suffer for something as, let's be honest with ourselves, banal as makeup. Can't do it. So...my moisturizer was almost gone, but I did not head to the makeup counter, I went to www.sheaterra.com and ordered something that is cheaper and, honestly, probably better for my skin. I didn't get the rooibos and vitamin E cream that I know really does magical things with my skin because they were out of it. The lovely souls at Shea Terra sent me an email offering me other options that were in stock and that had roughly the same set of promises. Let me know if you want to know what I think of Tamanu. That's what I chose. Of COURSE all this stuff smells approximately like ass on a hot day, but that does not last and what you are left with is the most amazing baby smooth skin ever. And it looks better, too. Highly recommend the Egyptian carrot seed oil if you have really super dry skin like me. 

So, the moral of this babble is that after doing some struggling with the whole "But MAC doesn't bunny test....Urban Decay still isn't bunny testing....BUT BUNNIES ARE SUFFERING FOR THEIR GREED!" argument with myself, I went searching for other options. There are some great British brands, like the one I'm eventually showing you today, and I got on a little expensive mission to try some of them. I have a list! I have a list of vegan/cruelty free companies I am going to try and I will be sure to share those results with you. I have at least one bottle of Ciate coming and some Nails Inc, and another new brand called The New Black. Those come in sets so you can do ombre manis, which I don't give a flying fu----udge about. Woo. You painted each of your nails a different color. You're...five. Of course, this could be a reflection of my being a cynical old beeyatch. Regardless, I'm not impressed with your mad painting skilz on that one. It looks like you got drunk one night or something. That does NOT mean, however, that I'm averse to wearing the colors the normal way. I did not realize this, but you can also get Julep on Sephora, which is an idea I like a LOT better than a subscription sort of annoyance so I will likely be trying one or two of those in time as well. As I do more research into this I will try more brands. There is some stuff out there I've been curious about for awhile so maybe now is the time to divert my polish dollar on to smaller and more bunny friendly companies. I did contact one I was interested in, promising that I wouldn't start a campaign against them if they aren't cruelty free, I simply won't promote them and I have heard exactly nothing, which I take as an "Aw shucks, we torture bunnies" admission, but like I said, they'll remain nameless.

I have been busy while I've been not blogging. I don't forget you, I just can't always stand to be on a computer. I sometimes read other blogs...how do you think I find some of this stuff? There are some fun trends I would love to try out there. Sponging? Looks cool. Now a sponge ombre I'd do! That's more than one color on each nail in a gradient succession and looks awesome. I found one post about cruelty free and how pretentious it is that still has my blood boiling. The argument is that the bunnies are already dead because in the US each thing only needs to be tested once so you aren't saving anything. Really? Really. So we should encourage it? I suppose by that logic we should no longer control the war machine because the soldiers who have fought and died are already dead, right? 

Really kind of pissed me off. 

So on that note! 

I give you Models Own Balearic Cool with Indian Ocean:

OK, yeah. These are in the bottles. I somehow, through all this process - I say that because I have a post demonstrating how I repair chips coming up and it was with this manicure - I never took a shot of me holding Indian Ocean, that sparkly goodness on the left. I confess, Indian Ocean was the whole reason I looked into Models Own and I am SO glad I did. 

Look at that thing. I mean...I'm drooling on it. Enlarge the picture to really see it. I dare ya. (website to order: www.modelsownit.com) Balearic Cool, on the other hand, while gorgeous, was absolutely impossible to accurately photograph. Flash, no flash, sunlight, electric light...I tried everything I could think of. It's darker and richer than this. It's not sky blue as it's going to appear in every single picture that I took of it. Maybe another blogger had better luck, I don't know. 

So...BMWWU says "I know. Let's layer these". OK!

This is natural sunlight on the black top of my driveway. Some idiot in a minivan nearly wrecked watching me do this. WTF? My driveway and I live in the sticks. Run along! Run along!

This is as close to a perfect swatch of this manicure that I was going to get. It's still washed out but not as badly as some of them. 

Yes, one small chip there, which will be fixed in a later post! 

The rest of it, as you see, is flawless. This was several days old. The Indian Ocean adds a depth and character which softens what is essentially an electric neon gigolo blue. It's very sheer so it didn't really do more than tone down the Balearic Cool while adding mouthwatering pink and purple shimmer. I wanted to try Indian Ocean on every single blue I owned after this. I didn't...but I did have that urge. 

Stunning. 

I don't remember how she did this. I might not have been paying attention at all. I know it was two or three coats of Balearic cool and one coat of Indian Ocean. I don't know that you could get Indian Ocean to be opaque on it's own, I'm not sure you would really want to. It's like bacon: it makes everything better. 

This wore great until it didn't. I did repair it once, which held it for about 2 more days and then it was polishapocaplypse. 

It came off in sheets. 

I have a pic of the other hand but it's not loading it for some reason. Bloody picture problems. Let's see if we can get the kind of funny one I took of the big sheets of polish peeling off. 
 

NO!

Love it. What a POS. Do other bloggers have these problems?

This wore roughly a week. I was getting tired of it, actually. It's very pretty but I'm used to wearing polish for about 4 days and then it peels or chips and I remove it. I'm typing this with bare nails now. I'm trying to choose a color...my nails are in good shape now...hm. 

Regardless. 

Models Own. Great colors, great wear, trendy, pretty, easy to apply...what is not to love? OK...maybe the price and WOOO the shipping from Britain. Make sure you make it worthwhile for yourself. I wound up ordering a ton of polish to be able to justify the shipping but they do give you a discounted price when you buy their sets. I bought two plus some other random ones. I also got a free black eyeliner for my first order. I haven't tried that yet, but after the polish I have high hopes. 

Sorry I've been so wordy lately. I'd love to tell you I'll cut it out but I probably won't. 

Happy Talons! 

ETA: Picasa seems to be behaving right now. Here is what the sheets of polish coming off looked like:

 

Check it out! It's...CHUNKS! When this stuff decides to go, it does not pussy foot around. It goes. The up side to that is that it could take it a week to do it. When you're working in an office handling a ton of paper, typing and then coming home and cleaning and doing dishes a week is a damned God send. I think I'm a Models Own believer.

GAH!

I will have a couple of posts up this weekend. I had to sacrifice my Sunday to work but I have Friday off instead which rocks. It's now Friday...but I do have a lot to show you. I am wearing a really gorgeous look that BMWWU cooked up with Models Own, which has done SO well. OMG. I have to show you. I'm fighting the repair the latest small chips or re-do battle right now. Plus, I have a whole post put together on how I do repairs and this was a good polish to show you because it repaired really nicely. I'm just having trouble, as usual, getting the pictures to upload. It's always a picture problem with me. Hate that. But my phone just WILL NOT do it! I'm trying to email them to myself.

I'm not gone again. Just having some more technical difficulties.

I have some fun stuff to try. I kinda went nuts and bought all of last years ManGlazes. I also have the entire China Glaze magnetic collection coming, which...it's very cool and I love the look but everyone and their mother has a magnetic collection now. I have also immediately hit the Rescue Beauty Lounge Georgia on my Mind collection, which is still available for pre-order, but today is the last day. If you're not already a VIP there I don't know that you can get in on it, but it's amazing and I can't wait to see it. It should be available for everyone in a few weeks. Ji Baek at RBL has the best inspirations. I would consider her a true artist.

I Also hit MAC. Now...if you've been reading me for awhile you know that I have a love/hate relationship with MAC. They have this very irritating tendency to put out a ton of amazing limited edition colors. I have to respect that unlike so many who will slap "Limited Edition" on stuff they have 60 million bottles of and have no intention of not making again for the next ten years just to get us suckers to buy it, MAC actually will have only a limited amount of these colors. However, as someone who has had her little polish dreams crushed under the wheels of gorgeous swatches of things she would never get on ebay because honestly, $1000 for a bottle of Essie is ridiculous, I have SWORN never to show you stuff you can't readily pick up somewhere and I usually try to tell you where. For example, the ManGlaze and China Glaze (I seem to have a "Glaze" theme happening there) were hit on Amazon. I pick up some stuff on Apothica. My BB Coutures come from OverallBeauty.com (and Kim is a doll, I recommend checking that site out, she has been partnering with some of the foreign companies that we all love, also with Cult, and she's got some great stuff. I just haven't hit that in awhile. I'm running out of BB Couture space for one, and I found Glitter Gal to be incredibly gorgeous but Shite for wear so I haven't hit any more of those, but she's got other new brands out there. Partly I haven't done the research to check cruelty free status on them and partly I've been broke. After the RBL haul on Georgia...the no-buy is BACK. ON. OMG.) and of course I occasionally will hit up some of the discount sites as well. If something is hard to get I try to tell you where I do get them because I've been stymied on that one before. Before I went totally cruelty free I got obsessed with these gorge swatches of Nfu-Oh I was seeing everywhere but you think those beeyas would tell you where to get them? Ha. I had to find them myself. I don't know that Nfu-Ohs are not cruelty free, but I don't know that they are. If I question it, I won't buy it. Generally if they aren't telling you they are then they're not. If you are not cruelty free driven I will tell you if you ask me privately but I won't advertise it. Know what I mean? That's your choice and I won't hinder you but I won't advertise stuff that's not if I can help it. My point was...polish hounds can be somewhat protective of their sources. Not all of them are, of course, but when I ask a direct question, especially in a blog environment where the whole idea is to share, and am told "I'm not gonna tell you, neener neener neeeeeenerrrrr" I can get a little irritated. If you see something you love and you have to get it and you have to know how I got it, please contact me.

How did I get off on this tangent?

MAC. Right. So...in some circles, MAC is questionable on the whole cruelty free thing. It's made by Estee Lauder (sorry to all you girls who won't wear Estee Lauder because it's what your Mom wears/wore. You're not edgy. You're buying into the marketing. Same company. So is Stila, by the way. And I love all of them. I don't wear a lot of MAC, I find the lipglass to be sticky and thick and I just never really got into the shadows and stuff.) and Lauder is such a big company, as you can see, that it's hard to avoid them. They also make most of the perfumes on the market, or at least quite a few of the really big ones. If you've been reading me you know that a friend of mine is a make up artist with them and she assures me that there are no animal products in their stuff. I know that is not the same thing as cruelty free, but she believes that they are. I believe we do the best we can. I mostly wear Illamasqua these days but I like the skin care so I am hoping for the best there.

So, that said.

MAC. Again. I will get on point, I promise. Their nail colors come and go like rain. It's very hard for me to keep my promise to you as readers that I won't post stuff you can't get when two days after I post it they're gone and frankly, I can't afford to stay on top of their very fast release schedule. They release collections like my dog goes through those little t-bone treats. Fast. Uber fast. You have to visit their site about once a week or so to stay on top. They're labor intensive. They do do some nice colors, though. Mostly creams, almost always. And FUN. They are so much FUN. I snapped up the Wonder Woman collection, but I can't show it to you because it's gone! That was last year, but you get my point.

So...I do have some fun stuff to show you that I'll be testing out. I have a couple new brands I want to look into, see if they are bunny safe and then save up and try some. The blog isn't big enough for me to get samples, and you know what? I'm OK with that. I write it for myself and if you guys like it too, then that's a huge bonus. I hope I'm giving you good information and helpful advice.

So...once I get pics to upload one way or another (considering beating my phone into submission, frankly. It's been acting up. Does your smart phone spontaneously reboot itself? Mine does. I hate it! It's due to be replaced in a few months, yee haw.) I will have a review for you, a post showing you how I repair chips with pics. I've done a post on it but I don't think it had pics and this color is so vibrant it's very easy to see. And some new colors. I also still want to show you the trends and what you have in your stash right now that may well work for you without having to spend some bucks. I want to do that because who couldn't stand to save a little bit?

So that's what is up with me. Sorry for the talky post, but I hope it's been a good read.

Happy Talons!

ETA:

YIKES! OK. I should check my brands more often, I guess. I have seen all kinds of Yes, Estee Lauder does, No, Estee Lauder does not...I was going on what my friend had been told as their representative...I think I'm going back to my beloved Shea Terra Organics for skin care. I like it and it's a little cheaper.

Check this link and help the animals, peeps...MAC is no longer safe. Damn. I opened all those polishes or I'd return them.

Logical Harmony

Really great blog, as well. Check it out and I will as well. We will all try to stay informed. It makes a difference.

I just found out as well, that Wet and Wild, the ubiquitous drug store brand, and cheap!, has the bunny seal of approval so when I need a cheap pick me up, expect to see some W&W on here!