Happy Birthday to meeee, Part I
My kids know me so well…they forced their scent-averse father to take them to Bath & Body Works to pick out a birthday present for me.
They picked out White Citrus – they did so good! It’s not the type of scent that I would normally pick for myself, but I like it a lot. It actually reminds me of my mother. She preferred citrus scents. Her favorite was Love’s Baby Soft Lemon. (Did that just bring you back to the 80s or what?) If she was still alive, this is the scent she would be wearing…
My husband’s present to me is winding its way through the postal system…I can’t wait to share it!
I also received this handpainted Garden Gnome from Dr. Delta. Notice the anatomically accurate lumpectomy scar. I shall christen him him “Lumpy.”
I Love “Love”
I love, LOVE, love “Love”.
The finish is so dreamy, like gold lamé, flecked with fuchsia glitter.
“Love” is my new favorite polish!
I wish I had more fingers…
Valentine’s Toes
Super bowl, shmooper bowl…aren’t my toes cute?
I took a cue from Lily and picked a handful of pinks for my toes…Clockwise from the top: OPI “Animal-istic” (from their Muppets Collection), Sally Hansen “Hot Magenta”, Revlon Top Speed “Candy”, Sally Hansen “Strobe Flash” (top coat), Sally Hansen “Posh Plum” and China Glaze “Caribbean Temptation”.
I wish it was sandals weather already…
Also…taking pictures of your toes is hard when you’re 6’1. I had to almost get into a pretzel shape.
Hooker eyes?
Break it to me gently…hooker eyes?
Actually, if I was going out instead of going to my BFF’s house to watch TV, I would be pretty happy with the results. The Julep Ink Gel was very easy to get straight lines with, using the included angled brush. It gunked up a little on top of the Eye Sheen – I’m going to need a lot of practice with that stuff. I failed applying it with my fingertips – a Q-tip worked better.
I can’t see going through all this every morning before work, but it would be worth it if I was going out.
February Julep Maven Box
It’s that time of month…the time of the month when I ask my husband if I got a box in the mail before I even tell him “Hello.”
It’s Maven Box time.
This month’s goodies are called “The Dramatic Collection.” In addition to polishes, the boxes came with a customizable shade of eye sheens – a liquidy pot of eye shadow. I haven’t had luck with these types of shadows before, but I’m willing to try again. Even though my quiz results revealed that I am an “It Girl”, I selected the “Modern Beauty” box for the second month in a row. I couldn’t resist the Ink Gel eyeliner. I’ve been searching for a good liquid eyeliner – one that doesn’t make me look like a hooker or a goth teenager. I hope this is the one.
As a special treat, all of the boxes contain an extra shade of polish – “Love”, a full-coverage gold, pearl & fuchsia microglitter. I’ve been overdosing on microglitter lately, plus, FUCHSIA!
I’m going to hooker myself up now…wish me luck!
Not a Julep Maven? CLICK HERE to join! Your first box is free with code FREEBOX!
The Bath & Body Works Golden Ratio
Bath & Body Works is the ubiquitous center of my beauty routine. Shower gel, body spray and body cream is the holy trinity of my morning and evening ritual. At any given time in the past 20-25 years, I’d have between 3 and 15 different scents going through a rotation, with 90% of those coming from Bath & Body Works. Why?
Sadly, it boils down to quantity over quality. Sure, Bath & Body Works provides good quality product, but its quality would only be mediocre if we were paying full price for it. Has anyone reading this ever paid full price for a product from Bath & Body Works? I may have bought one bottle of lotion as a gift at full price within the last decade. Like many retailers, Bath & Body Works is built upon a model in which the sale price (usually ‘Buy 3, Get 3 Free’) is the putative price. Once a quarter, the store has a big blow-out sale to clear inventory, which is how we hoarders get hooked, often on discontinued scents, the heartbreak of which I’ll discuss in a later post.
After decades of filling my vanity table, drawers and cabinets with as many Bath & Body Works products as I can fit, I’ve discovered the Golden Ratio. 1 Body Spray = 2 Lotions or Body Creams = 4 Shower Gels. It’s that simple. If you are as OCD as I am and want your body products to run out at about the same time, it’s 1 – 2 – 4. The tricky part is price. If you’re trying a new scent, it doesn’t make sense to buy all 6 products in the same scent. (I almost bought 6 Forever Red products until I had the foresight to spray myself first – I had a headache before I could get the bottles in my bag.) I like to buy a spray, body cream and shower gel in a new scent and “stockpile” proven scents for the other 3 products. This can sometimes be annoying when you find a discontinued scent that you like – Paris in Bloom for example. The scent is no longer available and I’m almost out of shower gel…but I have plenty of body spray.
The Golden Ratio also works for Victoria’s Secret products, but I don’t buy those as often. The scents are over-ripe and the product quality is lower.
Future posts will cover some of my favorite scents…leave YOUR favorite scents in the comments!
Glinda’s Bubble
Since I will probably be repainting my fingernails within a day or so (Maven Box!!!), I took a quick pic of my paint job from last Friday. Yup, this paint job is 4 days old and still looks good.
I used Julep “Brenda” – 2 coats. In the bottle it looks like white opalescent shimmer, but it looks like opalescent rose gold on my nails. It reminds me of Glinda’s bubble from The Wizard of Oz, just slightly less pink. I love how it gives the appearance of a french manicure. This may become my favorite “don’t have time to repaint for 2 weeks” paint job.
Did I just invent the “Petticure”?
Yes, I totally just invented the “petticure”.
Dottie is a very docile rat terrier, so I decided to start with her instead of tackling the Boxer. I figured speed is important when it comes to pet nails, so I used Revlon Top Speed in “Currant.”
My son, Logan, helped keep her calm and held the bottle of polish for me…and then he went into my room and grabbed the nail dryer. I thought the noise would freak Dottie out, but she was okay with it. I wish I had been able to get a picture, but my husband was on the phone…maybe next time.
No Rules for Lily
Like most 5 year olds, my daughter Lily doesn’t follow “rules” – she has her own style. She chose Revlon’s Break-up (their version of Crackle) as the basecoats. Half her fingernails used the basecoat “Fatal”, but she wanted the crackle topcoat “Attraction” as a basecoat. It actually worked okay and didn’t crackle. She then picked two of her own glitters as a second coat. (Santa brought her a cheapo Color Concepts set, so they have no names. I’ll call them fuchsia glitter and turquoise glitter.)
Again, they turned out very cute…is it the fuchsia?
Next project…figuring out how to paint the dog’s nails…
Of Fuchsia and Gnomes
I’m sharing this old Instagram picture of a garden gnome on my car for no reason.
Carry on…