Nail Fashion: French Manicures Are Upping Their Game

There are a lot of cool nail trends going around right now but my favorite has to be all the cool takes on the French and reverse-French manicure. Whether it's reversing white and nude, adding color, or changing the placement of lines, the French manicure is getting cooler and cooler every season. S/S '14 is no exception, as you can see here:

Photo via elle.com

Photo via stylist.co.uk

And my personal favorite, from Peter Som... 

Photo via refinery29.com

How cool is that? A reverse French mani in mirrored silver/gold with black. I'm obsessed. Lord, let my hands be steady, that I may rock this look on my own time. I also love that this look combines this trend and another popular mani trend on the rise: metallic silver nails. Silver has been seen all over the runways (check out the first photo) and it looks awesome. Stay tuned for more Beauty & the Beach Fashion Week, coming to you tomorrow!

Lazy Girl Beauty: Unkempt Hair Reigns Supreme

It seems that my Fashion Week post was extremely popular so I'm gonna keep them coming with a week of Fashion Week beauty posts! It's Beauty and the Beach Fashion Week!

For my second installment, I wanted to highlight a trend that I as a lazy girl am super excited about: relaxed hair! At many shows, models were sent down the runway with soft, flowing hair full of flyaways and soft texture. Sound awesome? Yeah it is!

Photo via marieclaire.co.uk

Photos via harpersbazaar.com

To get this look, all you need is a hair oil to give it shine and air. Use the oil sparingly, and just let your hair air dry! To do this, I usually warm the oil between my hands and press the oil into the ends of my hair, then distribute the rest through the top two-thirds of my hair. It gives the hair shine without being heavy, plus it's great for your hair an helps prevent split ends! My two favorites are Josie Maran Argan Oil Hair Serum and Ojon Rare Blend Oil (original formula) but I've heard that Garnier Triple Nutrition is a great bargain buy. After that just let your hair air dry and you're good to go!

Things I'm Obsessed With: Rodarte's S/S 14 Cat Eye

In the spirit of Fashion Week, I discovered a runway beauty look recently that I'm absolutely head-over-heels for. It's this cat eye, seen on the Rodarte S/S 14 runway:

Photo via nylonmag.com

It's so simple and subtle but connecting the bottom and top lines gives such a cool look. I love the illusion of an elongated eye that this look gives. It's like the cat eye got an awesome cool girl in a punk band kick and I'm in love with it. Nylon has a great tutorial for how to get the look and recommends a gel eyeliner. I concur, as a gel liner will give you more control and help you paint on the perfect point and connect the lines in all the right ways. This is going to become a staple in my spring beauty routine. Who knows, I might just make this my thing.

Birchbox Update

So it's that time of month again when everyone is receiving their Birchbox! Mine came in the mail yesterday and I was really excited after seeing the preview video and Sneak Peeks on Facebook. Unfortunately, when I opened my box, it looked like this:

I had already removed the Coola sample when I took this picture.

Obviously, I'm disappointed, and this puts a delay on my box review. I will say, the samples I received were the Beauty Protector hair oil, the Smashbox Full Exposure mascara, the Smashbox Full Exposure palette, the Ruby Wing color-changing polish and the Coola BB Tinted Mineral Sunscreen. The hair oil shattered, the palette sample was ruined by the oil, I already have the mascara and really dislike it, and I was able to salvage the last two samples by carefully rinsing off the tiny glass shards.

The Coola BB cream has a very weird texture and a really yellow tint to it. I'm going to try it out at some point, but I don't think this product is going to be a keeper. The Ruby Wing polish is a beautiful shade of bright pink and apparently turns magenta in sunlight. I will fully review these two products along with my replacement box when it arrives. Sorry for the delay, but stay tuned!

My February Julep Maven Un-Boxing!

I know this is a really popular thing for beauty bloggers to do so every month on the day I receive my Birchbox and Julep Maven box, I'll be sharing what I got and my opinions of the products with you! I just received my February Maven box so here we go.

Warning: My hands shake like crazy so pictures are not stellar. Take for instance, this full shot of my box, which is the best of all the ones I took:

Womp womp.

So yeah, sorry for the blurry pictures but I don't have a professional camera, I have an iPhone, so I work with what I've got.

Anyway, on to the unboxing! I received the Bombshell box this month which came with not two but THREE polishes and Julep's new Eye Sheen liquid eyeshadow. I also added on one of the Boho Glam polishes because the color looked so beautiful and I wanted to try out the Stardust finish.

These are better pictures! =D

Let's start with the polishes: I received four colors in total, including Kristen and Judi (the Bombshell colors), Love (the special edition polish that all Mavens received) and Cameron (from the Boho Glam box). 

Left to right: Kristen, Judi, Love and Cameron

Kristen is a deep teal with copious amounts of silver glitter infused throughout the polish. Judi is a deep purple creme with a blue undertone. I'm actually obsessed with this color, I swatched it and totally love the deep, moody color. It feels really on-trend. Love is an iridescent pink-tinged gold with red glitter. It manages to not be rose gold, but leans more to a pink toned white-gold color. The iridescent gold makes it a color with real depth. This is another one I can't wait to get on my fingers, and I definitely plan to whip this one out for Valentine's Day! Cameron is my favorite polish from the box, and I already have it on. It's a fantastic lavender with silver glitter. The Stardust finish is a lot like OPI's Liquid Sand, but more glittery (think Bond Girl collection, not Mariah Carey). The color is absolutely beautiful and catches the light so well. This will definitely become a staple in my collection, and I think this will be a great color going in to spring, especially now that pastels are having a moment.

Sorry for the blur

In shadow and in highlight

Finally, the eye shadow. I honestly don't know how much use I'm going to get out of this. Unless I spackle my eyes with primer, I am more than positive that this will slide all over my greasy, greasy eyelids. That being said, the color is beautiful and subtle and the liquid formula is really cool. If you've ever tried MAC's Big Bounce eyeshadows, this feels like those without the bounce. It's truly like a liquid, except it's not runny which is a huge plus. I received the Dusty Taupe Shimmer - it's a really soft taupe with beige and gold shimmer. The color is very wearable, so I'll definitely give it a go before I relegate it to the depths of my Caboodle.

Outside and inside the pot - see the gold?

Swatched on my hand, I love how the gold catches the light.

So that was all for my box this month! This was an incredible value, I was super happy with this box and love almost all of the products I received. I'm gonna give this a 6.5/10 though because the liquid eyeshadow is probably not going to work on my skin and I'm not super into the teal polish. But let's be real, this box is a $56 value so to have paid less than half price for three polishes I absolutely love, I'll take it. Great job this month Julep, keep up the good work!

If you're interested in joining the Julep Maven subscription service, use this referral link to take the Maven quiz and discover your style profile, plus use the offer code FREEBOX to get your introductory box free!

Final rating: 6.5/10

Value: $56.00 (based on full retail price)

Box Value (with 1 add-on): $23.99

Jule Redemption: 750 points (free polish)

Price Paid: $19.99

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Product Spotlight: New Olay Fresh Effects, Spring 2014

I discovered something REALLY cool the other day that I wanted to share with you! As part of the launch of their new product line, Olay Fresh Effects has come out with trial sizes of some of their new products! I think this is a fantastic idea, and I can't believe more companies aren't doing this. I found these little guys in CVS the other day:

It's an adorable half-ounce version of their new moisturizer, Dew Over. There was also a trial size of the reformulated Shine, Shine Go Away! cleanser. The display was marked with "Trial Size" and the minis were placed alongside the full-size version. The trial size is large enough that with once-daily application I could probably get a good two weeks out of it.

The moisturizer itself is nice, but has some definite cons. I like the scent which they've advertised heavily. I guess honeysuckle and white tea are good for your skin? I don't know where that came from, I've never heard anything about that, but they've made a big deal about it. I usually like my products to be unscented to minimize irritants, but whatever. The moisturizer is very lightweight, but the name is deceptive because it's a mattifying product. The moisturizer is gel-based and contains powder mixed into the gel to soak up shine. I'm not a fan of products like this as the powder tends to break me out, so I don't plan to use this much longer, but I could see this being great for oily-skinned ladies with less sensitive skin, or for those of you with combination skin who just need to soak up a little bit of oil.

It was great to be able to purchase a smaller version of the product and not have to commit to the full-size. Once I realized the moisturizer contained powder I immediately stopped using it and I'm glad I don't have to have the full size sitting around going unused. The sample size was pretty expensive at $3.50, but I've learned to expect this from CVS. Overall, the sample was a good size and would allow for extended use to get a real feel for how the product would interact with your skin. It's a little pricey for what's essentially a deluxe sample from Sephora, but worth it if you don't like having unwanted products sitting around but like to try lots of new things. It's something to consider for all of us product junkies!

Tell me in the comments if you've tried these products and what you think of them! Thanks for reading!

xoxo