Zoya Taylor is my nude color and Zoya Alma is the orange sparkly color that disappointed me with its lack of opacity. As one of my fave beauty bloggers says, it’s “sheeritating.” (Amber Katz is totally brill at coining helpful beauty-related phrases.)
I’m almost finished with my Butter London topcoat. I’m thinking about trying out the Zoya one. Have you tried either?
Happy Monday! Today I am wearing a beautiful royal blue from Finger Paints called Artist’s Sapphire. I only have two Finger Paints nail polishes, but both are well-pigmented, non-streaky, and long-lasting. (See Finger Paints Psychedelic Pop here.) Okay, this manicure did have a few chips after trying out a ropes course this weekend, but I think that is to be expected. Usually, I get a full five days from this nail polish, which is why I am surprised that I don’t have more Finger Paints colors. I guess it is because I don’t live close to a Sally Beauty Supply.
So why was I at a ropes course? Well, we went to an event sponsored by our Alma Mater, Regent University. Our alumni association sponsored a Georgia event at Stone Mountain Park. It was pretty fun. We climbed through ropes, rode the train, played mini golf, rode the gondola, climbed part of the mountain, walked the Sky Hike. I don’t have pictures of most of this because we were too busy having fun. However, I do have pictures of me running into an old Quarry site.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to star in a best-selling YA dystopian novel that is turned into a multi-million dollar movie franchise? I have too! Well, I think that running through a granite quarry is the closest I’ll ever get to being a star.
If I get to the top of the hill, I can save the world!
I better get started.
Which way should I turn?
I’m the only girl who can save the world!
Must. Run. Farther.
I made it!
High Kick!
Take that, Capitol/President Snow/W.I.C.K.E.D./all bad people who stand in between me and freedom!!!!
Hello, beautiful people! I didn’t mean to take last week off, but I had a deadline that popped up and took all my time. I’m glad everyone liked the inaugural “Thrifted Thursday: Pink Peplum Dress 7 Ways” post. It is my most viewed post ever! I write this blog as a fun hobby, but it’s still fun to see that people are reading. Anyway, I have more Thrifted Thursdays lined up for the future, and I hope you all will share with me your thrifted finds too.
My nail polish today is OPI’s Sample Sale. Sample Sale is a shimmery candy apple red. I had problems with it bubbling during application, which is a disappointment because I love a good red. Sample Sale is one color from a huge box of minis that I got for Christmas a while ago. The set got bad reviews, but it is still fun to try out so many colors. (Also, mini polishes are great for traveling.) Many reviewers have said that the colors in these minis are inferior to the formula of the regular-sized bottles. So far, I have found that to be true of all of the pink polishes. The oranges and purples have been fine so far. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve tried every color yet, but I’m going to try to this year!
What are you wearing on your nails today? Let me know in the comments! I love to hear about new nail polish colors.
Hello, friends! Did you have a happy Easter? I sure did. We went to church, dyed eggs, ate a delicious meal (ham, mashed potatoes, deviled eggs, green salad, and ice cream with strawberries), watched a movie, and played games. I pretty much had the time of my life!
We watched the new Left Behind movie starring Nicolas Cage on Netflix. This movie got a lot of flack on my Facebook feed, but we liked it. It was entertaining, and ol’ Nic C. is always good. Also, my husband and I thought the special effects were great. Whether or not you believe in the rapture, it’s still a fun Sunday afternoon watch. (Personally, I think people should not be focused on the end times. The important thing is what we celebrate on Easter: Jesus’ death and resurrection, which pays for our sins.)
I had a fresh manicure to match my new-to-me Easter dress for church. It’s a hot pink gingham Lilly Pulitzer I found at Goodwill. I love to shop at thrift stores! Do you? I’m thinking about starting a series about my thrift store finds as I am trying to revitalize my wardrobe. Would you be interested in reading a series like that?
Anyway, back to my mani. The white is French White Creme by Wet ‘n Wild. This white usually wears for about three days. It takes three coats to become opaque, otherwise it is streaky. The pink dots are Psychedelic Pop by Fingerpaints. I really like this color. It is opaque and bright. It also has good wear time. I would definitely recommend it.
Have a happy Monday!
Last weekend I had an opportunity to go to Augusta on business. I was delighted to go because one of my college friends lives there. I spent Friday night at her place and painted my nails a dark purple called Just A Little Dangerous from Sephora by OPI from her nail collection. It is a dark purple creme, and it was very smooth.The wear time is good too. Unfortunately, Sephora and OPI have parted ways, but you can still find bottles of Sephora by OPI at TJ Maxx sometimes.
While I was in Augusta, I had lunch at the fabulous Boll Weevil. This cute hole-in-the-wall is known for their generously-proportioned cake, but I thought their fresh salad was delightful as well.
The Boll Weevil is conveniently located near the Augusta Riverwalk. Since it was a perfect spring day, I popped some allergy medicine and took a nice stroll. The pollen there was kicked up into mini-tornadoes by the wind, but I bravely soldiered through my walk with the help of my friends, the bees.
Gorgeous, right? I also did a little shopping. I accidentally spent too much at Ulta. I bought 3 lipsticks/glosses despite the fact that I have enough lippies to last me until I retire. I guess it’s like buying shoes. Shoes are easier to buy than pants, so shoe-hoarding happens. Anyway, I’ll share my lippie haul at a later date. Have you ever been to Augusta? What did you do this weekend? Let me know in the comments.
Anyway, since both Easter and St. Patrick’s day coming up, I decided to do a pastel mani with a green base. The green color here is Orly Green with Envy. I thought it would be a creamy pastel, but it is actually a weird sheer green. It took four coats to get this opacity. I do not recommend this color not only because of its sheerness but also because of its short wear time. I dotted two other Orly colors onto my nails, Lollipop & Snowcone (lavendar and sky blue, respectively). They have an even worse wear time than Green with Envy, so I don’t recommend them either. I have tried them with both the Orly bonder base and an OPI base. There was no difference in wear time when I used the same brand’s basecoat with these polishes. It could just be the pastels though. These are the only Orly polishes I have ever tried. I also used two Colorstay polishes from Revlon. These polishes have a decent wear time for drugstore nail lacquer, but the brushes on all of the Colorstay polishes are cut unevenly (including ones I did not picture in this post). This makes creating a nice manicure nearly impossible. The colors I used are Provence & Coastal Surf (gray-lavendar and french blue). Have you ever tried these brands? Did you get the same results I did?
From L-R: Lollipop, Provence, Green with Envy, Coastal Surf, Snowcone
Well, I have some news for people who refuse to love math and celebrate Pi Day. Today is also White Day! No, white day is not a day where we celebrate white people. It is a holiday made up by confectioners in Asia to sell more candy. No, seriously, it is. I don’t know which countries celebrate it other than Korea and Japan. However, both countries make the girls give the boys they like candy on Valentine’s Day. A month later on White Day, the boys respond in turn. We don’t usually celebrate White Day at our house, but we decided to try it this year. My husband surprised me by taking the day off to do fun things with me all day! So far I have gotten two bouquets of flowers, seen a movie, gone shopping, and eaten pie. Pretty good day, right? What have you been up to today? Let me know in the comments!
It’s 2:00 am right now. What am I doing up? Well, I was busy working all day, so I didn’t get to watch the Downton Abbey series finale until late tonight. Did you watch it? I wore my cloche, pearls, and cameo while drinking tea with milk to salute it farewell. I’m going to miss this show. It is like an old friend is moving away. I’m very attached to my shows, you know. What did you think? I really think they pandered to the American audience with all the happy endings, which made me, an American, very happy! I love to see a series end happily! Did you watch the Downton finale? Let me know what you thought in the comments. I don’t want to post any spoilers, but I’d love to talk about the deets in the comments.
Happy Leap Day! Today is a special day that acknowledges that science cannot dictate that which it studies. Nature does what she wants! Nature is not beholden to humankind!
I’m celebrating Leap Day by watching the movie Leap Year while wearing green and gold on my nails. Apparently, it is tradition for women to ask the men for their hand in marriage on a leap year in Ireland, so the green on my nails is for Ireland and the gold for wedding rings.
I have never watched this movie before, so I have no clue whether it is any good. However, it is on Netflix and does have Matthew Goode in it, so it can tide Downton Abbey fans over while we wait for the season finale to be aired. I would like to note that this movie was released in 2010, which was not a leap year. Someone really missed the mark on that one.
My mani today is from Zoya’s PixieDust line. I really love how the texture brings out the sparkles. The emerald color is called Chita, and the gold color is Solange. Both are two of my favorites in my vast collection. They both have really good wear time of three to four days with no chipping. I wear Solange a lot in the summer while pretending I am lounging in a cabana.
How are you celebrating Leap Day? Are you wearing green and gold? Are you watching Leap Year? Are you going to ask your boyfriend to marry you? (Get it, girl!) Let me know in the comments.!
Happy Monday everyone! Sorry that I didn’t post my V-Day mani last week. It was a hectic week. We had a really good Valentine’s Day though.
Last week I painted hearts on all of my nails like I did on my ring finger for this week. I guess you can’t see it that well in the pic. Sorry, I just take pictures on my phone, so they’re not exactly high quality.
The red color is my first bottle of OPI nail polish. It’s called The Thrill of Brazil. It has a wide opening on the top and has that noxious smell of nail polishes made before the 5-Free movement. The black and white confetti topcoat is called Yin and Yang. The brand, Poparazzi, is sold only at CVS. So far, I’ve found that the Poparazzi topcoats have good coverage but leave a chunky texture which needs a clear coat on top. The pink heart is Access 24/7 from Sephora by OPI. This pink is supposed to be darker than Techno Girl (used in my Grease-inspired mani), but are basically the same color when painted on my nails. This is odd since they came together in a pack of mini polishes. Here they are side-by-side:
So what did you do for Valentine’s Day? We take turns being in charge of Valentine’s Day. When we were dating, Jono told me how much pressure guys feel on Valentine’s Day to buy the perfect presents and plan the perfect day. As a former commitment-phobe, I had only thought of Valentine’s Day in terms of the copious amounts of chocolate I would get from my girl friends and the Galentine’s Day we would spend together (which was before the term “Galentine’s Day” was even coined!). I hadn’t realized that V-Day could be loaded with so much gender inequality (a serious term for something not really that serious). Anyway, I told him I would be in charge of our first Valentine’s Day, and ever since then we have taken turns planning our V-Days.
I decided to make this year’s V-Day low-key since we have been spectacularly busy lately. I spent all of Valentine’s weekend making Jono’s favorite things to eat for Sunday. We had to lead worship at church on Sunday morning, so I tried to make as much as possible ahead of time. I made a dinner of homemade beef, feta, and mushrooms pizza with key lime pie for dessert. I also made homemade soft pretzels with homemade mustard sauce as a snack. I made the mistake of taking Jono to the mall to pick out a video game. The mall was packed. We couldn’t believe how many people wanted to go shopping on Valentine’s Day. I honestly thought everyone would be out at dinner or the movies.
What did you do for Valentine’s Day? Did you eat pizza or go to the mall too? Did you at least paint adorable hearts on your toes? No one will see them there!
That’s me in the long gray hoodie.
Happy Lunar New Year! It’s a special day to eat tteokkuk (rice cake soup) and japjae (rice noodles) for good luck and long life!
Yum!
My Mani Monday nails have red and gold sparkles to celebrate.
The base coat is Zoya Taylor, which is a beautiful, cool beige color. I never thought I could pull of a nude nail, but I didn’t know about Zoya’s wide selection of both cool and warm skin-colored tones. You should check them out if you have been having a hard time finding your perfect nude. They have a lot of darker tones too. Just be forewarned that this particular color does stain my nails yellow.
The red glitter is Be-claus I Said So, and the gold one is Only Gold for Me. These both came in a set with Are You Glistenin’?, which I have worn the last two weeks. (I almost added it to this week’s mani, but I thought you might be tired of it.) Interesting tidbit: I wore Only Gold for Me at our wedding.
We actually celebrated Seollal (Korean New Year) on Saturday at a local Korean church. They made food and had fun demonstrations. They had the children bow to their elders, and then the elders would give them money and advice. I’m not sure why they made me bow with the teenagers, but I now I’m a dollar richer. Ha!
I know that I have readers from all over the world. Did any of you celebrate Lunar New Year today? Let me know in the comments!
새해 복많이 받으세요!
Life in Theme 
