I think I like to pretend that I have self control; for instance, I'll say I don't eat much ice cream. The truth is I usually don't
buy ice cream. If I buy ice cream, I'll eat it even if it's midnight.
Speaking of ice cream, Haagen Dazs was on sale a couple weeks ago for $1.75 a pint (!!!), so there were 6 in my freezer for a while there. There's only 3 now. Dulce de Leche is my absolutely favourite ice cream ever.
What I'm getting at, is that when I set up the no-buy for myself after my TransDesign haul, I broke it almost immediately when the opportunity to acquire polishes reared its ugly (read: lovely) multi-coloured-head.
Hopefully this makes you feel better about your recent indulgences!
I'm moving in two weeks to a 2 bedroom apartment, and that means a trip to Ikea... which means I'll be tempted to buy a Helmer (ok, I'll be honest here, I'm probably just going to buy one). Then, with all this extra space to store polish, naturally I'll want to fill it up. Don't those badboys hold 500 bottles?
Well, let's consider this my contribution to this
future problem:
This haul made me so happy!!! Honestly, I was grinning like a kid by the end of the day. I didn't get all of this on Saturday; the Nfu Oh and Stila palette were from prior purchases :3
Nfu Oh #40: I hauled this a while ago from fabuloustreet.com when I had been depressed about not being able to find Hidden Treasure. So I bought this.
Close-up of flakiliciousness
Stila It Girl Palette: Stila had free shipping over Memorial Day weekend and I couldn't resist a $10 palette :p The pans are a little smaller than normal Stila pans, but contain a tiny bit more product. This is the same palette that was found in some $20 Costco bundles, I think.
This just arrived today via UPS, so I've only swatched them.
Left to right: Lamé, Chloe, Kitten
I think I mentioned before that I'm a bridge-and-tunnel girl now, so I hopped on my Port Authority bound bus Saturday around lunch. Ever since I moved here and got my car, I have spent almost no time walking compared to when I lived in cities. I always get awful shin splints after going to NYC because of all the walking you inevitably do. Although, my calves and shins feel fine this time! \o/
What am I babbling about. Why do I babble so much?
I walked down 8th ave to
Beauty 35, which I had checked out on Yelp the day before. Great place! They had Essie, OPI, ORLY, and some cheaper polishes. They also carried NYX makeup, which I would soon learn was all over the city, but I have actually stuck to my make-up no-buy fairly well (ok, I've spent $15 since end of May).
Here, I picked up my first two ORLYs (at $5 each):
The baggie is so adorable too!
Country Club Khaki: I had been wanting this for a while now and I'm THRILLED with it! It's exactly what I wanted from Essie Playa del Platinum (too cool and grey, gave me lobster hands) and OPI Tickle My France-y (too red/pinkish/mauvey). It is just perfection. When I had been wearing Rimmel's Steel Grey, all I could think about is wishing it were lighter and less mauvey. Now I have that! :) I can safely cross off all my other taupey mushroomy colours from my Wish list, because this is what I was hoping for all along. There are such things as happy endings XD
I wore it as a mani for 2 days. I thought I could go all week without changing it because I love it so much, but I failed miserably at that
too.
Gumdrop: I have China Glaze For Audrey. I knew that these were too close to have both, but I bought it anyways. I'm glad I did, though! I swatched them next to one another, and Gumdrop is somehow more flattering on me than FA! I really want to wear this, but I have Country Club Khaki on and I am in love with it right now. AGH!
This one came with a free lip gloss, but since I don't really use gloss, I gave it to my friend L2, who I was meeting up with later.
I saw the new OPI summer collection here, but passed on it. I almost bought Essie Mint Candy Apple because they still had it in stock, but I decided against it too! So yay? I showed some tiny restraint?
Next, I walked down to 32nd street and headed towards Koreatown.
I passed by
Wigs and Plus which had a decent selection of OPI, permanent Essies, the neon Color Club collection, and more NYX makeup. I didn't get anything here, though.
I also popped into
Jack's 99c store to see if they had any polish, but the only thing I found was a wall of ELF products. It was too busy in there for me to figure out if there was more polish, but I picked up an eyeliner brush to test as a clean up brush. I also wanted to get some of that shimmering facial whip, but they didn't seem to have it.
ELF Eyeliner Brush:The eyeliner brush failed miserably as a cleanup brush. It was too thick and not stiff enough *giggles*. I tried to trim it, but I still couldn't get it to work for me. Oh well, just a $1 and worth a shot, right? It's not in the pic because I already threw it out XD
I should have picked up the concealer brush instead, which may have worked better because it has a tapered, flat head. Next time I'm in the city, I'll pick that up. I'm glad I found somewhere with ELF products (my Target doesn't have them yet) so I don't have to pay for shipping or buy a ton of cheap products to get free shipping.
Anyway, my reason for going to K-town was to check out
The Face Shop. I'd seen it before when I used to live nearby, but I was not interested in beauty back then. I really wanted to get that hyped white mud nose pack from The Face Shop, but they didn't have it in stock. :(
By the way, it's been really hot and gross and muggy the last couple weeks on the east coast, and Saturday was pretty awful to be walking around. I sweat profusely around my hairline and on my upper lip, so I felt really self conscious in The Face Shop with two perfect Korean store attendants watching me like a hawk while I wiped away sweat on my brow with a crumpled paper towel. At least my eye makeup was looking good (imo. haha).
Since the $6 white mud nose pack was out of stock, the girl offered me a $13 alternative. Don't worry, I stuck to my guns. Instead, I picked up a Mung Bean foaming face wash, a layering nail polish, and some polish remover.
Mung Beans Herb Day Cleansing Foam: $8 for a huge tube (170 ml) and is very creamy and foamy. It leaves my skin more "squeaky" clean compared to my current face wash. There's a bit of a clean scent, kind of plant-y, but nothing offensive.
Nail polish remover in pink: This was $2.50 (I think) for 100 ml, which I think is a good deal. It smells DIVINE! Honestly, I don't know how it smells so good!! It's strawberry scented and not gross in any way at all. The blue one is bubblegum scented, I think, but I prefer strawberry. Really glad I picked this up!!
Nail colour in GR501: This was $5.50 which kind of shocked me, because the polish section only had a sticker that said $2-5.50, and I honestly thought this would be one of the $2 ones. I was naive and too sweaty to ask -_- I bought this mostly to layer on top of For Audrey (and now Gumdrop) to try and emulate Chanel Nouvelle Vague. I'll have to make a post on that later.
The girl gave me a couple free samples and I gave one of them to L2. Two of the samples were the white mud nose pack ALTERNATIVE she tried to sell me, but I haven't tried it yet. We'll see!
After my sweaty The Face Shop encounter, I went over to LUSH, at the Herald Square location I wanted to buy Lemony Flutter.
Ok let me just say that I hate walking by, much less entering, LUSH because of the strong scents. I get a headache and find the smells invasive.
My plan was to grab the butter and get out of there ASAP. I went inside, tried a little sample and stupidly tried to smell it. Obviously, you can't smell jack in that store. I was then accosted by a girl who proceeded to tell me an entire lemon went into that tub!!!! I have no idea if that is true, and I couldn't care less. Why does she think that's a selling point? I'm here to get soft cuticles, not consume a lemon in the process.
Anyways, she asked if I was interested in it or just "touching up" (which I thought was kind of rude) but I said I came in here to explicitly buy this one thing, and just wanted to check it out before taking it to the register.
BTW I was wearing OPI Jade is the New Black topped with Nfu Oh #40 flakie, and topped yet again with Essie Matte About You. I forgot to take a picture :(
She noticed and complimented me on the mani, but sounded very confused. "It's glittery but matte O_o", she said. "Yes, I put a matte top coat on top", I replied. Little did she know, her kissing up was a waste of time, because I was going to buy this ludicrously expensive butter regardless! Hah!
Seriously, this tub was $14.95!! Is this just Manhattan pricing? On the LUSH website it's only $12.95. Lame.
Thank's Nic...
My little dent so far. I used some on my heels last night.
Lemony Flutter: I've only used it for three days and I've never used a cuticle cream before. It smells very lemony, but on the herbal side. There's 46g of product in the tub.
Anyways, I made a beeline to the cash (Which in NYC is like 5 steps in any store) and bought the dang thing. Some irritating ladies were chatting near the cash with huge shopping bags sticking out behind their arms. I had to push a lady to get out of there. I don't feel bad about it.
Note that I was breathing through my mouth the entire 3 minutes I was in the store.
OK. Here's were I hopped on a subway and headed to Soho. I pretty much always forget how disgusting it gets in the subway stations in the summer. Talk about non-existant air ventilation! I got off at Prince St and headed north to
Ricky's for the first time!
I was actually quite disappointed. They had the new OPI collection and the new Essie collection (I had to back away slowly from Demure Vixen), but everything was at retail. Essie $8, OPI $10. I didn't know how much their house brand Mattese was, but none of the colours called out to me anyways. I did notice they carried a lot of treatments, including Barielle. I briefly though about looking for and buying the manicure extender, then I remembered that I can barely make it 48 hours without changin my polish, so long-wear time is not really an issue for me at this time. -_-
They also sell Stila here, which is cool. Although, Stila is having so many dang sales online lately (for example, that $10 trio!) that I can't imagine paying retail for it.
I walked down Broadway and made a small effort to find clothes, but my mind was still on polish.
I popped into Rite-aid and a few Duane Reades to see if on some tiny off-chance Hidden Treasure was there. It wasn't (none of them even had the display up), but I did pick up one of the limited edition NYC blushable cream sticks in Pink Flash for $4. I like it. That's the other $4/$15 spent on makeup.
NYC blushable cream stick in Pink Flash
I went to
Eve Beauty Source, where I had gotten my bottle of thinner before (it has petrolium distillate as the main ingredient, which is different than my Seche Restore... I thought this was causing my thinned polishes to cause my nails to flake.. I'm still not sure), but they didn't have anything new here either.
I went to the
American Apparel to see how much their polish was. I had been eyeing California Trooper and Butter from swatches online. Turns out, they're $6 each, or 3 for $15. Obviously, I sprung decided to get an extra colour and "save" some money.
Office: I had read reviews about this being streaky, but I have a low resistance to mints, I think. Glad I got this though, its dustier than China Glaze Re-Fresh Mint. I've also read its close to Essie Mint Candy Apple, so double bonus that I didn't buy it earlier!
Butter: Paler than China Glaze Lemon Fizz. I just put this on tonight, and had a hard time with two fingers... but I was rushing it. I mattified it and put gloss tips... I need some practice with doing tips!
I just realized something bad about these bottles - you can't roll them!! So you have to shake them and bubblify them? :(
California Trooper: Love the colour, but I'm not sure if I love it on me. To be determined!
The bottles are really great, I like them.
The store itself, I hate. I got the polishes and left, without bothering to even glance at any of their hipster clothes. I was happy getting the polishes, though! I thought about getting Mouse, but I'm glad I didn't because it is much greyer than this perfect Country Club Khaki! Ahahahahah. I don't think I need to get any more colours from AA now. I can go back to regularly ignoring this store.
At this point, I was supposed to meet up with L2. We were headed to the Skinny Cow free bra fitting event. We got free ice cream, a tote bag, some champagne, and a bra fitting, obviously. It came with a mail-in card for a free bra from Warners/Olga. L2 is really skinny though, so they didn't even offer a bra in her band size on the mail-in card! Haha.
We decided to head to St Marks Place to grab some sushi for dinner. You can't go wrong with St Marks Place. If it weren't so disgustingly hot and humid, I would have forced her to get poutine with me at Pommes Frites.
You can take the girl out of Canada, but you can't take the poutine-craving out of her.
While walking up and down the area looking for a suitable sushi place, we stumbled upon a
little japanese grocery store. We stared at the cosmetics section for a while. I wanted to get a japanese mascara, but they were priced at $14-18! We both managed to resist, and instead I bought a selection of my favourite snacks. I already ate one of the candies, so it didn't make it into the group shot! (I also got some sticky rice to make Thai Sticky Rice w/ Mango, but you guys don't want to see a bag of rice.)
We had a long, tasty and cheap dinner at
Je-Bon Sushi and Noodle House then I took the 9pm bus back to my lil' NJ-abode.
I was hugging my haul and cackling the entire way home.
But yeah... about that no-buy! ... I'll try to stick to it this time. I didn't go into Sephora to see Illamasqua Milf in person (I was scared I was going to buy it), but that's kind of the last polish (at this MOMENT) that I wish I had. A grassier mint green, rather than blue. BB Couture's Laguna Lagoon looks like a good alternative. I'm not even sure if this colour is flattering on me, though. Let's hope it's not, and I can really hang on to this no-buy...
