Nails

December Is Mini Mani Month With the $59 Ciaté London Mini Mani Month Set: Hoarders, Watch Out!

December 3rd, 2015 by Karen 9 Comments

ciate mini mani month open 1 — The 24-piece Ciaté London Mini Mani Month Set ($59; a $199 value)

There are so many pretty, pint-sized bottles of nail polish in the utterly adorable Ciaté London Mani Mini Month set, and they’re all leading me to completely fail at my attempt to NOT hoard things.

ciate mini mani month — From the left: Raspberry Collins,Rom Com Rouge, Mini File and Purple Rain-Bow

ciate mini mani month 2 — From the left: Hutch, Pom Pom, Double Bubblegum and Heirloom

There’s a long-running joke among my Filipino friends and I that Filipinos are hoarders, and, well…at least in my family, it’s totally true. Seriously, my folks never get rid of anything! On a trip home a few months ago, I found this one cheesy poster that hung in my room when I was a teenager. Came to find that it had been living in my parents’ garage for more than 20 years!

I tend to hold on to things a long time, too, but I’ve been working on it. I recently read Marie Kondon’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, which has a lot of great tips, but it’s hard to resist the urge to hoard everything under the sun.

Especially when faced with something as hoard-worthy as this 24-piece set…

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The Smith & Cult Holiday Trio in Red and Glitter

November 23rd, 2015 by Karen 22 Comments

smith cult holiday trio 2 — The Smith & Cult Holiday Trio in Red and Glitter ($54, available now at Neiman Marcus stores and online)

I can haz Smith & Cult paw polishes…? Because I’d like a wall of shelves filled with them.

It’s the bottles, man! I could spend hours starting at the bottles…

It’s as if whoever designed the bottle plumbed the depths of my makeup-loving soul for things that make my heart flutter, like the cursive typography, the hefty glass, the oval curves and the Dali-like cap (it looks like it’s melting!).

I love it when beauty products are actually, like, beautiful…and I friggin’ LOVE these bottles.

smith cult shattered sould — Smith & Cult Nailed Lacquer in Shattered Souls

These three fun shades are part of the new $54 Smith & Cult Red and Glitter Holiday Trio available now at Neiman Marcus stores and online. The trio comes with three full-size bottles of Smith & Cult Nailed Lacquer from the brand’s permanent line in poppy red Kundalini Hustle, creamy eggplant Dark Like Me and golden glittery Shattered Souls.

Kundalini Hustle and Dark Like Me are both fully opaque, while Shattered Souls is glitter in a clear base.

As far as bargains go…this isn’t one of those sets. Smith & Cult nail polishes usually sell for $18 each, so $54 for three doesn’t constitute a price break, but I still think you get a nice combination of complementary colors (there’s also another trio available with pastels).

Smith Cult Kundalini Hustle — Smith & Cult Nailed Lacquer in Kundalini Hustle

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The Essie Holiday 2015 Fringe Luxeeffects Collection Nail Polishes for When You Want to Sparkle Like You Mean It!

November 16th, 2015 by Karen 26 Comments

Essie Fringe Luxeeffects 2015 collection — The Essie Holiday 2015 Fringe Luxeeffects Collection nail polishes ($8.50 each, available now online, at salons, drugstores and Ulta)

Like a confetti party for your paws, Essie’s four new Holiday 2015 Luxeeffects nail polishes have So. Much. Glitter.

Glorious gobs of glittering, glistening, lens-flare inducing glitter!

And the glitter comes in different shapes, colors and sizes, all of it suspended in a clear nail polish base, so you won’t be stuck staring at standard-issue sparkle. No, way. There’s gunmetal gray and pink glitter in Fringe Factor, platinum and cobalt in Frilling Me Softly, copper and bronze in Tassel Shaker and maroon sparkly flecks in Fashion Flares.

essie fashion flares — Essiei Fashion Flares

essie tassel shaker — Essie Tassel Shaker

essie fringe factor — Essie Fringe Factor

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The Essie Winter 2015 Collection

October 30th, 2015 by Karen 24 Comments

essie haute tub — Creamy jet black Essie Haute Tub, one of six new $8.50 shades in the Essie Winter 2015 collection, has flecks of amethyst glitter…

Your lift ticket awaits to Chalet Essie! It’s a winter wonderland of chic, but don’t worry about freezing your tush off, because the six new nail polishes in the Essie Winter 2015 collection ($8.50 each) will keep you warm. 🙂

There are three bold shades for babes (and dudes!) who like luxurious nail colors, and three lower-key lacquers for laid back luxe.

essie altitude attitude — Essie Altitude Attitude, a creamy scarlet

I’m wearing two coats of each color in these swatches, and the only one that gave me trubs is Peak Show, the creamy, powdery pink. It went on a little streaky…

The other five took to the slopes like pros! — especially Haute Tub, that beautiful black with amethyst glitter.

SO HOT, that Haute Tub. (Random side note: did you know that pregnant ladies are supposed to avoid hot tubs? Oh, well! Guess that means no trips in my hot tub time machine.)

As for the reds, both are incredibly silky smooth…

essie shall we chalet — Essie Shall We Chalet, a creamy ruby

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5 Gnarly Nail Products for Lacquer Lovers

October 8th, 2015 by Karen 20 Comments

It’s always good to have some “good to have around” products, like these five nail products for lacquer lovers. I love them all!

1. Nail Tek Crystal File ($16.50)

I’m not kidding; I’ve had this same Crystal File by Nail Tek ($16.50) since, oh…it to be at least 2002.

This SAME ONE.

I bought it eons ago at a Pure Beauty store at the Embarcadero Center in SF… I still remember the day because I walked in and asked a sales associate to recommend the “best damned nail file” they had, and she recommended this one. And even though it practically killed me at the time to pay however much I paid for it (can’t remember how much it was), I got it anyway because she said it would last forever.

And you know what? She may have been right, because 13 years later, it’s still doin’ fine.

Come Z-Day/zombie apocalypse time, this is the nail file I’m bringing with me on the road, and not just to file my nails — although seriously, what else am I going to do with my downtime?? We won’t have the Internet — but also because it would make a fabulous zombie-fighting emergency shiv.

Some crystal nail files wear down, but the Nail Tek stays gritty. It really smooths the edges of my nails and doesn’t leave them jagged. LOVE. IT.

It’s available now online and at Ulta stores and salons for about $16.50.

2. CND Solar Oil Nail & Cuticle Conditioner ($11.50)

I’m so dedicated to CND Solar Oil ($11.50) that I keep one bottle on my work desk and another bottle on my nightstand by my bed.

‘Tis my jam.

A conditioner for nails and cuticles, it contains sweet almond oil, jojoba oil and rice oil. I swipe it on my cuticles, and then massage it in, a few times throughout the day and then again at night.

It keeps my nails nice and soft and generally less raggedy.

It’s available now online and at salons, drugstores and Ulta for about $11.50.
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10 Things Under $10 at Sephora

June 18th, 2015 by Karen 14 Comments

Sometimes a girl (or guy!) just wants to treat herself to a trip to Sephora, and while she’s there, maybe find herself something that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.

Ya feel me?! I think you do. 🙂

I was there earlier today under the guise of “searching for a Father’s Day gift for my dad,” while also looking for an inexpensive treat for…myself. Here are 10 potential beauty treats for less than $10 each, whoop-whoop!

1. Purely Pure Organic Cotton Facial Pads ($6)

2. Express Dry Shampoo ($9)

3. Instant Nail Polish Remover Wipes ($5)

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Upgrade Your At-Home Manis With the Tweezerman Pushy and Nail Cleaner

June 17th, 2015 by Karen 8 Comments

Seriously, the last thing I ever expected to fall head over heels for was this little tool from Tweezerman. It’s the $18 Tweezerman Pushy and Nail Cleaner, and it’s one of those things that didn’t look like much at first, but it turned out to be really, really handy. Now I use it on the regular.

It’s a dual-ended stainless steel nail tool with a flat spatula-like pusher on one end to push back cuticles, and a small angled scooper on the other end to clean under and around nails. The whole thing is metal and about five inches long.

Sounds simple, right? Well, this particular doodad also does what it does very well. The edges on both ends are smooth, so they don’t scratch your nails, and the shaft is textured in places to make it easy to grip while you’re getting out all the gunk (eww!). It also feels substantial and comfortable in my paw.
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The New Long-Lasting Sally Hansen Poolside Paradise Miracle Gel Nail Polish Collection: This Mirror-Like Shine Makes Lounging by the Pool More Fun

June 15th, 2015 by Karen 7 Comments

My version of a poolside paradise typically includes some combination of the following…

Trashy mags, and US Weekly is a fave.
Strangely, I only read it when I’m at the pool…
Iced tea.
One of those oversized fluffy beach towels that are so big that I can wrap them around my torso twice.
Because I’m not about that tiny towel life. Even when it’s 95 degrees outside, I’m always freezing when I get out of the water.
Sunscreen, obvs.
A bathing suit that stays put even after multiple cannonballs (learned this lesson the hard way).
Cheapie sunglasses, because who wants to stress out over losing or breaking their favorite pair of expensive sunglasses at the pool?
A shiny mani/pedi combo, ideally in bright shades like the ones from the new Sally Hansen Poolside Paradise Collection above, because despite the lack of verifiable scientific evidence to support this, I think they make your cannonballs more cannon-bally.
Seriously, they totally do.

I wore two of these Sally Hansen Miracle Gel polishes last week on my trip to New Orleans (creamy yellow Morning Sunshine on my toes and creamy leafy green Lip Palm on my paws), and they were all it took. Now I consider myself a card-carrying member the Miracle Gel cult.

Wait — do the Miracle Gels actually have a cult??

If they don’t, they totally should. These nail polishes are…

Long-lasting
Playful and bright
Easy to apply
And affordable

All of which add up to “drugstore gem!”

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