Product Review: Sally Hansen Salon Effects Nail Polish Strips

Lately, I’ve been on a bit of a nails kick. I’ve been playing around with more visible colors and different brands of polish. After I posted a picture on Twitter of my nails in a dark blue from butterLONDON (called Mariner), a friend of mine suggested I try a Minx manicure. I’m a bit too cheap for that, so when I heard Sally Hansen had come out with something similar, I jumped at the chance to try them.

The kit comes in all kinds of bright colors, metallics, and patterns. There are butterflies, zebra stripes, houndstooth, even 2 different colors of fishnet. I chose Laced Up, a black and natural floral lace pattern. Here’s what comes in the box:

There’s a small cuticle stick, 3-textured mini file, the nail polish strips in various sizes, and pretty detailed instructions. The process includes a little bit of prep work, but not that much. The most important part, according to the few other reviews I’ve seen, is the extra swipe of nail polish remover prior to application. Apparently even the smallest bit of oil or cream or what-have-you keeps the strips from adhering properly.

Applying the nail polish strips is relatively simple, even if you aren’t ambidextrous. You just center it over your nail and press down as hard as you can, stretching and smoothing the strip over your nail as you go. Then when you’re done, you file off the extra. And tada! you have this:

The box says these will last up to 10 days, so we’ll see how it goes. I’m pretty rough on my hands, so I don’t anticipate them staying on that long. As a comparison, I applied one of the extras to my big toe for kicks. All in all, I think I really like these. Hopefully they’ll add more solid colors, as the current ones are sort of obnoxious, and not really my style. But I’d definitely get the patterns to add a little kick to manicure routine.

1st Married Valentine’s Day!

Say it with me now: BARF. Haha fooled you! You thought I’d be all, aw, aren’t we so cute? didn’t you? Well, you’re half right, because we totally are. Since I have class on Monday & Tuesday nights, we weren’t going to be able celebrate Valentine’s Day on the 14th. So we celebrated over the weekend. Silly me thought we’d just have dinner on Saturday night, since we hadn’t really celebrated in the past.

As mentioned, we went to dinner Saturday night at Kiran’s, an Indian restaurant we’ve been meaning to try since we moved here. It did not disappoint. K had the lamb tenderloin, and I (being the boring person I am) had the Chicken Tikka Masala. We shared the spiced chocolate cake for dessert, which put our tummies over the edge and into pain. But oh, what a good pain…

On Sunday, we got up and K made these:

Yum!

Oh yes, fresh blueberry pancakes. From scratch! He’s so awesome.

After breakfast, we ran a few quick errands, and then it was off to the Houston Zoo. It’s been pretty cold here (ok, not as cold as, say, the Northeast, but this is TEXAS people!), but on Sunday, it was perfect out – sunny and 70° with a slight breeze. It was really the first nice day we’ve had since before the holidays. Everyone was out, and so were the animals. Check this out:

Check out that wing spread! I can’t believe I got that shot.

Sadly, after the zoo, I had to do homework, but K is such a sweet guy he made dinner (steak – yum!) for us. And after dinner, he surprised me with Just Dance 2. How did I get so lucky to marry such an amazing guy?

January 2011 Birchbox (mini) Review

Sorry for the bad lighting

Obviously, this review is a little late, but January was incredibly busy for me.  Which is sort of interesting, since the theme of January’s box was Reset & Recharge. I was completely unable to do so, but here’s what I can tell you:

1. Ahava Dermud Intensive Nourishing Hand Cream This is a great product. It’s light, it gets absorbed really quickly, and it has a sort of fresh scent. K doesn’t even mind using it, and that is HUGE.

2. Dr. Dennis Gross Alpha Beta Peel I was a little worried about trying this product, because the instructions say not to rinse either between steps, or afterwards. And also because I worry about the strength of the acids used since I have weirdly sensitive skin. There was a little bit of stinging, but nothing unbearable, but I didn’t really see results. This is likely because I only tried it once, and you might need to use it a few times to see a difference.

3. myfaceworks Sheet Mask I never got around to trying this, but if I do, I may post a picture. Possibly.

4. Oscar Blandi Olio di Jasmine Hair Serum The smell of this serum is amazing. And it works without making your hair greasy, even on day 2. I’ll be buying the full size.

Bonus: Zhena’s Gypsy Tea Sadly, I’m not really a tea drinker, but the tea smelled amazing. I keep meaning to try it, but haven’t gotten around to it.

And there you have it. My February box is on its way, and I can’t wait to see it!

 

Snow Day!

Ok, maybe not really a snow day. More like an ice day, but snow day sounds better.

Pretty much all of Houston was shut down today because of what some on twitter are calling Freezaster, Blizzaster, HtownSnowDown, or my favorite, snomg!  Sadly, there wasn’t a flake of snow, but instead a nice coating of ice over pretty much anything. I would have taken a picture of our iced-over bbq, but I prefer to be warm, thank you very much.

K got to spend most of his day relaxing, whereas I had a whirlwind morning of calls and NetMeetings trying to put together a review package that needs to go out on Monday. But by early afternoon, I was able to call it a day, and we made these:

Oh yes, those be beignets! Last year when I went to Louisiana for my friend Lindsey’s baby shower, I brought home Cafe Du Monde Beignet mix. Today seemed like a perfect day to fry up some dough and cover it with sugar, so that’s what we did.

It’s Not You, It’s Me

If you run into me somewhere, and I can’t remember your name (even though you’ve been living in our neighborhood for 2 years), please don’t be mad at me. It’s not that you are unimportant to me, or that I truly don’t know your name. I just have a really hard time remembering names and details about people out of context. Especially when I’m tired and stressed out, as I have been recently. Or when I haven’t eaten, or when I’m caught off guard. Or when I’m already overwhelmed and suffering from over-stimulation.

See, I have ADD. Most people don’t really realize it until they’ve spent a lot of time with me because I can hide it decently well for short periods of time. Except for the times noted above, of course. When it’s one of those times, it’s like my mind is a television, and someone else is controlling the remote. I’ll be thinking (and talking about) one thing, and halfway through, my brain just switches. It’s incredibly frustrating when I need to focus on a conversation or work or something like that, and usually, my prescription can handle my day-to-day focusing needs. Lately, though, I’ve been so exhausted and stressed that I really can’t focus for longer than 20 minutes at a time. And I can’t sift through everything in my head to get people’s names out in what would be considered an acceptable amount of time.

K does an exceptionally good job of recognizing when I’m overwhelmed and over-stimulated, bless him. Poor guy has had to deal with me and my bizarre conversational changes for years. But there are days when even he can’t keep up! Today has been one of those days. So, dear neighbor, whose name I know have been able to call forth from the pit of my mind, it isn’t you. It’s 100% me, and I apologize and hope you don’t hate me and think I’m awful. I’m not. I just can’t function.

Industrial Chic – K’s new bar

If your husband is like mine, he has a collection of various liquors and bar accoutrements, and no where to store them. We’ve been looking for some sort of bar table type thing since we moved (3-ish years ago), but haven’t found anything he really liked that also fit our budget.

Last weekend, we went up to Round Top, Texas (population: 77) for an antiques show, not with anything in particular in mind. No, I take that back. I was hoping to find some vintage silhouettes to use to decorate our office. Otherwise, though, we were there primarily just to get out and do something different for the day. There were a lot of great dealers and wonderful artifacts of all sorts. But then, tucked away in the back, we saw them: a dealer who specialized in old industrial tables and fixtures.  Normally, these tables are refinished, or insanely overpriced. And to start with, this particular table was a bit pricey. But the dealer was friendly and willing to strike a deal, et voilá – we are now the proud owners of exactly what K wanted.  Behold:

The patina on the wood is really great, and we won’t have to worry about messing up the finish because it’s a work table.  And now, (mostly because I’m so proud of this picture) here’s a look of how K’s collection looks on it:

Yes, he's rather fond of Scotch

 

Product Review: Clarisonic Mia

One of the worst things about winter is dull flaky skin.  Moving to Texas has helped, since it’s not usually all that cold (or dry) here, but it’s been pretty darn cold lately.  This year, I decided to battle the cold weather blahs by getting a Clarisonic Mia.  I am so glad I did too.  At first, I thought, “huh, that’s a nice massage while I wash my face.  I guess it’s working.”  But then, we went up to Pittsburgh to visit my family.  I left my Mia at home, figuring, eh, 4 days won’t make a difference.  Um, yeah it did.  I could feel the layers of dead skin collecting on my face!  When we got home, it took about 2 days for them all to come off, but the Mia brought back a nice glow to my cheeks. Over Christmas, we were in Georgia visiting K’s family, and again, I left my Mia at home.  Uh, bad idea.  It snowed and my skin was destroyed.  So now I’m back to faithfully scrubbing with my face so I can keep looking human through the winter months.

Overall, I really like the Mia.  It’s a great exfoliator, and it gives you a nice massage while really getting the dirt off your face.  I’ve noticed that I have fewer breakouts, and the zits I do get are much smaller and are gone a lot sooner now.  My husband has noticed that I tend to giggle when I’m washing with it, but that’s just because it tickles my nose.  Maybe I’m just a freak…  Part of me is considering getting the “normal” brush head (it comes with a “gentle” one) and using it in the shower to exfoliate the rest of me.  I don’t think you’re supposed to get it that wet, though…

My only complaints are these: 1) you have to wash your eye area separately b/c the skin around them is too fragile to really handle the Mia; and 2) there’s  no freakin’ stand for it! C’mon Clarisonic, I paid $150 for this thing, the least you can do is throw in a 50¢ piece of plastic to keep it off the countertop!