Return of Beauty on the Brain!

Hello my lovely BB's! I'm back and certainly did not forget about you. I'm so sorry I haven't posted in ages. Unfortunately, with school and my job, blogging fell to the wayside and I often did not have time to create the meaningful, informative blogs and reviews you all come here for.

That being said, I certainly did not run out of time for cosmetics and beauty products! Here's just a glance at what I've been up to:

That's a heck of a lot, no? The beauty brain never sleeps, no matter how many exams or work-related meetings come up!

Over the past couple of months, I've accumulated a TON of products to review and incorporate into tutorials for you BBs. Some have been awesome; others were less than stellar. Nevertheless, I'm still look forward to telling you all about my beauty exploits.

There were some incredible stand-out products that I came across. First up are the deep conditioning treatments I've been using in my hair:

Both were purchased at Sally's Beauty Supply and while they both are nice, one definitely works better than the other. So, look for an upcoming Battle of the Brands between these two!

Next, I tested the urban legend of using artist brushes (sold at Michael's Craft Store for painting) to apply my makeup.

Please pardon my dirty brushes! I was just getting ready to do a brush cleaning tutorial!

Did they work? Find out soon in an Ultimate Brush Smack Down!

What else? Oh, yes! I tested a new brush cleanser, so look for a review on it soon.

Also got a new boar bristle brush, which is supposed to smooth frizzy hair and keep the natural oils from building up.


So far, I'm loving it! My hair has never, ever, EVER felt so soft and manageable. If you have coarse, frizzy hair, I would definitely recommend investing in one. I got mine at Sally's Beauty Supply for under $6.00.

Another awesome cosmetic acquisition was this package of facial/makeup remover wipes that I bought at XXI Forever of all places.


They smell sooo nice and I love using them to clean up makeup through out the day or to totally get rid of makeup at night. They are soothing, refreshing, and leave my skin smelling sweet. Great price, too (only $2.80)!

Oh, yes. The holiday season AND my birthday also came and went. Thanks to my amazing family and fantastic friends, I got some super sweet goodies to share with you! First up is this nail polish set from my dad:

Isn't it CUTE?! I love the teal one and the silver glittery one the most, but it's such a great mini set of OPI's most popular colors.

My fantabulous boyfriend somehow managed to get a hold of an Urban Decay Naked palette for me for my birthday. It's my latest makeup addiction:


It's incredible. He's incredible. Be jealous =) HAHA! But in all seriousness, this is an amazing palette, so expect a review and tutorials based around it.

Then, since my mom is pretty much the coolest person ever, she totally out-did herself and managed to snag a bottle of MAC's Mean and Green nail polish from the sold-out Venomous Villains collection for my birthday. The duo-chrome shade didn't photograph perfectly, but here's a quick peek:


I've been wearing it for almost a week straight and have gotten dozens of compliments on it. I will do a post soon with better photography and easier-t0-see color swatches.

And lastly, my good friend Morgan (who's blog you should check out over here if you are interested in writing techniques) got me the makeup Bible for my birthday:


It's so... pretty! All of the looks are beautiful and Jemma is a brilliant makeup artist. So, in honor of this fabulous book, I will be starting a new series called Masterclass Mondays, where I will do one look from the book each week. Look for it soon!

OH! And I just realized I forgot to photograph this with the rest of the group of items, but I got this super-awesome nail polish at Disney World in December:


It's from OPI's Alice in Wonderland collection and is called "Off With Her Red" (Get it? Get it?!). It's a lovely color, so look for a review on it soon.

Honestly, I'm so glad to be back to blogging again. I have so many fantastic blogs planned and I'm really excited to post them for you. Thanks for sticking around with me!

Review: Sinful Colors Nail Polish in See You Soon

Recently, MAC introduced their new Venomous Villains collection which, despite being exceptionally overpriced like most things MAC creates, instantly sold out all over the world. And while I normally avoid all things MAC because they're unaffordable, I couldn't help but fall in love with the nail polishes: Bad Fairy, Mean and Green, and Formidable!. These colors are duochrome, which means they look black in some lighting and then change from one color to a whole other when in more direct light. Formidable!, my particular favorite in the collection, switched from olive to berry depending on the lighting. But at $13 each, I originally overlooked these polishes.

Until I started to see them everywhere. And then I thought "Hm. Maybe I should splurge just this once because it's so unique. No other nail polish has looked quite this cool."

Needless to say, by the time I'd fallen in love with Formidable!, all three shades were already sold out EVERYWHERE! People were actually selling their backup bottles on Ebay for $30 a pop! Obviously, I was not going to pay that much for a nail polish (I wince at OPI's prices normally and MAC's were even more expensive. This was just out of control), so I settled with the knowledge that I just wasn't going to get this polish.

However, the other day, I discovered Sinful Colors while browsing the cosmetics section in my local Walgreens. Immediately, I noticed that these colors were also duochrome (yay!) and the price was definitely right: only $1.99! There were only about 5 different colors on the display, but I was instantly drawn to one called See You Soon, which looked black at first, but then moved between blue and aqua. So I bought it :-)

Sinful Colors Professional Polish in See You Soon

When I brought it home, I showed it to my friend Vannesa who took one look at it and said "Wow! That reminds me of OPI's Lincoln Park After Dark." For those of you who don't know, Lincoln Park After Dark (LPAD) was a black-berry polish that looked black in indirect light, but changed into a beautiful wine color. The color has been discontinued, but can still be found online for between $5 and $10.

Size comparison of OPI (shown here in Access 24/7) and Sinful Colors (See You Soon)

A shot of the brush tip for all of you Beauty Brains (can I just call you guys BBs from now on? Let me know :-) )

So far, I absolutely adore my new Sinful Colors polish. It applied very easily, only required two coats, and dried completely within 2 minutes. It's extremely lustrous and has a smooth surface (most sparkly polished feel very rough or textured, which I hate). My only complaint is that the brush isn't full like OPI's, but other than that, the bottle looks exactly the same!

Here it is looking a bit black...

..and then it turns blue!

Overall Verdict:
Get it. Get it now. Before it's gone like the MAC collection polishes. This is such a cool, unique polish that is perfectly on trend for this fall and winter. And if blue or teal aren't your colors, check it out in the reds and purples Sinful Colors had as well.

What do you think of Sinful Colors? Are you a MAC or OPI fan? If you have one of the Venomous Villains polishes, do a comparison for me!

Survey! Would you rather...

#1. Would you rather go out with messy hair and nice make-up, or nice hair and no make-up?
I pretty much always go out of the house with nice makeup and messy hair. Lol.

#2. Would you rather shave your eyebrows or have your eyelashes fall out?
Eek! I don't pencil my eyebrows OR wear fake eyelashes, but I guess for safety reasons I'd rather shave my eyebrows. Eyelashes are super important because they protect your eyes from debris and dust. So, for the purpose of this question, I'd learn to pencil in my eyebrows.

#3. Would you rather be forced to shop at only MAC or Sephora for the rest of your life?
Sephora! MAC is overpriced and kinda snooty. Sephora also carries many different brands of makeup which I feel gives you more variety.

#4. Would you rather wear the lipgloss/lipliner look or 80's perm?
I'm pretty sure I could rock the 80's perm =P Lol.

#5. Would you rather leave the house with an obvious foundation line or overdone blush?
Overdone blush, for sure! That can always be blended out or you can go for the prima ballerina/baby doll look. A foundation line doesn't work on any one.

#6. Would you rather wear MC Hammer pants or biker shorts in public?
Probably MC Hammer pants since those are kinda chic right now (Harem pants, anyone?).

#7. Would you rather have a bad orange-y spray tan or really weird tan lines that can't be covered?
I'm used to weird tan lines because of swim team. One piece bathing suits that have criss-cross straps never line up the same, so I was constantly rocking the octopus arms across my back.

#8. Would you rather have a bad haircut or bad hair color?
Bad hair cut. That can be covered up a number of ways and you can always get extensions. At the same time, with products like Developlus's Color Oops ($12 at Walgreens), you never have to have a bad hair color again!

#9. Would you rather have youtube or twitter taken away forever?
Twitter. It's pointless to me. Youtube, on the other hand, I could not live without.

#10. Would you rather give up using makeup brushes or mascara?
Honestly, mascara. I forget to put it on some days because I'm really fortunate to have naturally long eyelashes. And something just grosses me out about touching my face with my hands, so I always use makeup brushes.

I want to see what you have to say! Leave your answers in the comments, please!