I have a friend Stacey who just loves the color green.  This is in her honor- I think she reads the blog, so enjoy this news.

Nubar is a company that makes nail polish and while I have personally never tried these polishes, I am going to hunt these down to find them because they are Ahh-mayyy-zing.  Why?  Because they are GREEN.  6 unique greens including a shimmer, a creme, a holo, and duochrome.  This is such a stunner, reminds me of the set of blues that China Glaze released last winter.

Now none of these pictures are mine, see the sources at the end.  I will try to get these polishes though.  The information I've seen on other sites indicate that the polishes are about $7.50 each, which puts it on par with OPI or Essie, but more than China Glaze.

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L to R: Greener, Forest, Earth, Conserve, Reclaim, Wildlife.

Greener is gorgeous - a dark green shimmer. LOVE.
Forest is a creme, dark green - flawless.
Earth is described as a blueish-green and may be more blue in certain lights.  Kind of how earth looks from space.
Conserve is suppose to be a teal shimmer.
Reclaim is the holo (holographic) that has this amazing effect.  If you've never seen a holo polish, this is unique.
Wildlife - a green and copper duochrome.  Duochromes as you can tell are difficult to photograph as a solid color and this looks so cool.



Conserve, Earth, Forest

Greener, Reclaim, Wildlife

Above two pictures are from Scrangie - check out the post to see actual swatches of the polishes.  Bet you can't resist them - oh man, I'm loving them all.

Have any of you tried Lush's solid shampoos? I've been meaning too and when I saw this promotion going on at Lush, I figured this was my shot.

7 items for $15?  It's a little confusing on what to get, but here's what I gathered.  You get:
- 2 small balls of solid shampoo.
- 1 solid conditioner
- 1 liquid shampoo
- 1 liquid conditioner
- 1 hair mask/moisturizer
- 1 hair gel

The liquid shampoo, conditioner, hair mask and gel are travel sizes.  Judging from the regular sizes of the solid shampoos, I'd say the ones you get are about 1/4 of the size, so you should around 20 washes since it's said to last 80, depending on the length of your hair.  There's a number of different types of solid shampoo, so weather your hair is curly, straight, oily, dry, flaky, or a combination of the two, you can get 2 shampoos that will target those needs.

I'm looking forward to trying these products from Lush, and I will let you know how it goes.  You can find this deal online or at Lush stores.

Ahh who doesn't love a nice little discount.  Here's a form to print out to save 25% at L'Occitane.  I've used a few products in the past and the products are super rich and very hydrating. Happy Shopping!

Over the past 8 months or so that this blog has been going, I think I've made several mentions of my homestate of California and likewise a more specific area - the San Francisco Bay Area.   I love this area and although I do not live in San Francisco itself, I have to agree with Mr. Bennett and say that I have left my heart in San Francisco.  It's got a rich variety of neighborhoods, things to do, and of course interesting people.  I don't think Tony Bennett actually had anything to do with this set though, but his iconic song is definitely a part of The City (please don't call it Frisco!)

To celebrate their 15th anniversary, Nars is releasing this special, limited edition "Nars Loves San Francisco" set. Unfortunately it's only available at the San Francisco Shopping Center's Nordstrom, and will cost $75.

I love the box alone!  But what's inside you ask?
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These are classic items that Nars has renamed as San Francisco icons.
Eyeshadow Duo in Haight Ashbury
Single Eyeshadow in Angel Island
Cheek Highlighter in Golden Gate Bridge
Nail Polish in Chinatown

If you're in the Bay Area and love Nars, it's not a bad deal . The eyeshadows are generally pricey, at $22 for the single and $32 for the duos. Add in the highlighter for $25 and $16 for the nail polish; that's a $95 value. Cosmetics unfortunately don't go on sale very often, so saving $20 is always nice.

Sale alert ladies!  Starting tomorrow, June 9th, through Thursday June 11th only, save 25% on your online purchase at Bobbi Brown Cosmetics.  Spend $60 and you also get free shipping.  No code needed, so just head over there for three days only!

This review is way overdue since I finished the cleanser and toner of this BeFine morning sampler a while ago. 

That's the official image of the so called "morning sampler".  It includes the Gentle Cleanser, Firming Toner, and Daily Moisturizer with SPF.  It normally retails (the sampler) for $20, but I got it Ross for about $5.  To be honest, I'm glad I only spent $5 because it wasn't all I thought it would be.  Now don't get me wrong, if it was the only thing around, I would use it because it didn't break me out or make my skin any worse than before, it just wasn't as great as I was hoping.

First off, the cleanser was really the downer for me.  I don't know if it's just the trial size, but the cleanser is incredibly thin and liquid, making the screw top unwieldy to try to close when my hands are wet, but I don't want to spill the product.  I did like the slight minty smell, it's kind of refreshing in the morning.  It felt like there was something thicker in the bottle, but no matter how much i shook it, it always came out liquid and runny.  It's pretty gentle, almost too gentle and I don't think it removes makeup perfectly well. The full 3.4 oz size is normally $15.99.  SKIP.


The Firming Toner is a pretty good product.  I liked that it didn't dry out my skin upon application, since toners are notoriously full of alcohol.  This one contains willow bark extract to close pores and tone the skin; witch hazel to smoothe and firm the skin; aloe barbadenisis leaf juice to boost collagen production.  Yeah, I'm not sure what that last one is exactly, but my skin didn't mind it.  The trial size comes packaged with a spray pump, so close your eyes and squirt away! $15.99 for 3.4 oz again.  I'd buy this before the cleanser if you use a toner.

Daily Moisturizer is a serviceable moisturizer that I think works best for normal to slightly oilier skin.  My skin is slightly dry and didn't feel rich enough for me.  It's also got a pretty heavy sunscreen smell that does disappear quickly; it may be off-putting to some. A little will go a long way with this moisturizer as it does spread very easily. $19.99 fo 3 oz.

So if you're going to purchase any of these three, I'd go with the toner, but stay tuned for more BeFine product reviews.  I think I cleared my local Ross out of their selections.

Confession time: have you ever died your hair at home?  I use to.  The very first time I died my hair in college with a Clairol kit; it was a dark brown that totally did nothing to my virgin black hair at the time.  I then went a lighter brown a few days later (probably not the best idea) but it wasn't that good.  I then tried L'oreal Feria a few months later and that was probably the best one home job I did on myself.  There was an unfortunate highlighting incident where one section of my hair was considerably lighter than the rest, but I've realized that I don't have the skills to dye my own hair.  Correction: I don't have the skills to highlight my hair.  If i wanted to do a single color, I'd grab a friend and have her paint the color on, but highlighting is best left to professionals.  Thankfully I now have a friend who is a master stylist and can whip my hair into gorgeous shape.

For those of you a bit more adventurous than me, stylist to the stars Frederic Fekkai has come out with the upscale version of the home hair dye kit.  At $30, it's 3x the price of some other kits, but still a fraction of the price it would cost at the salon.  It includes a pre-color treatment, the color, and a post-color treatment.  Plus you get the Fekkai's "brush and bowl" system.

Brought to life in 20 shades selected by top colorists, each kit has everything needed to deliver long-lasting salon quality hair color at home.

Everything you need to produce salon-quality color at-home includes:

-Pre-color treatment for even results
-Salon quality permanent color, creamy formula with conditioning agents
-Post-Color Mask for extra conditioning and shine
-Professional tools: brush, blowl, gloves
-Tips from Frederic and the expert colorists from the Salons

The Fekkai brush & bowl application technique provides:
- more thorough/even mixing of formula
- better color adhesion
- more controlled, even application
- drip free application

The Frederic Fekkai Hair Color system is available at beauty stores like Sephora, Ulta, Beauty.com, and Fekkai.com

Coming in August to MAC is Love That Look, a collection of 12 eyeshadows and 4 pearlglide eyeliners.  If you missed out on Smoke&Diamonds eyeshadow last year, it's being repromoted!  Holla!  Sorry, that's cheesy, I'll stop now.  I think most of the shades are limited edition, but I don't have the exact information available yet.

Here is the preliminary information i do have:

Eyeshadows:
Grand Entrance
Smoke & Diamonds
Glamour Check
Strike a Pose
Ego
Fashion Groupie
Unbasic White
One-Off
Rated R
Style Snob
Fashion

The four pearlglide eyeliners are Fly by Blu, Black Russian, Molasses, Rave
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I'll update the information when I know for sure which colors are LE.

Nail polish is going dull this fall.  Okay, so it's not exactly what you think.  Dull in this case is not boring - it's just matte!  Zoya is releasing a collection of three polishes with a matte finish.  Now I normally like my nail polish to have a lot of shimmer in them, so it'll be interesting to see what it looks like in person.

The three polishes are:
Loredana: gunmetal gray matte
Dovima: black matte
Posh: wine matte
(Zoya has the word shimmer after their description, but I think that must be a mistake because the collection is MATTE)

Designed to appeal to a multitude of matte color trend lovers; including every metro mod, vintage stylista, retro pin-up, goth beauty, glam rocker, street chic fashionista and color junkie out there, ZOYA MATTEVELVET* shades deliver the new color of fashion. Get all of the color, none of shine with MATTEVELVET*, Zoya’s exclusive blend of matte base and subtle shimmer resulting in utterly wearable and truly stylish nail polish.

*MATTEVELVET nail color by ZOYA is not intended to be worn with a base coat, top coat or speed dryer of any kind. Due to the unique matte formulation, color is not as long-wearing as traditional nail color. A completely clean, dry nail surface yields the best results for matte nail color wear. For best results make sure to always prepare nail with ZOYA Remove + (3-in-1 nail polish remover, nail plate cleaner and new color prep.) prior to applying color.

The MatteVelvet collection for Fall should start to make its appearance in stores in July.  What do you think, will you be jumping on board the matte train?

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LIfe is kicking me in the butt right now.  Just when things seem to be getting better, something happens to bring you down and the happiness factor drops precipitously.  I'm not in a good place right now and honestly, it feels like things will never change even though I think it has to at some point.  So why haven't I been posting?  I offer no good reasons except that I just didn't feel like it.  In order to ramp back up (next week probably), here are a couple of coupon codes to use.

First off, save 20% at Smashbox.com by entering the code FFBS9.

Second, save 20% at Benefit with the code MAKEUP20

Sorry for the late notice, but both codes are only good until the end of today, 5/29.

Okay, here's to hoping things get better next week.  Whatever the case, you'll hopefully just be hearing from me in general!