NOTD: China Glaze Dress Me Up

Anyone who knows me knows that I love neutrals. And by love I mean hopelessly and completely love them. I have a lot of neutrals in my collection. Two of my favorite polishes of all time are neutrals. In case you haven't guessed: I REALLY love them! Now, this isn't to say I don't love bright colors (I really do love those as well...) but nothing quite tempts me like a gorgeous neutral creme.

The other thing that I have a hard time resisting is polishes based off fandoms I love. Having recently finished the second book in the series, my appreciation for the Hunger Games and, by extension, the China Glaze Hunger Games collection is absolutely immense. So it should come as no surprise to anyone that I own about half of the collection. Hell, the first salon brand polishes I ever bought were from the Hunger Games collection! That was back when I only owned about 5 polishes too!

When Cherry Culture was having the aforementioned sale, I found myself being tempted yet again by the Hunger Games collection. And after seeing swatches of Dress Me Up, I couldn't help but love it. It's a gorgeous creme neutral, somewhere between pink and mauve and a light brown. I decided it was a must needed addition to my collection and immediately added it to my cart.

2 coats, natural light. Excuse the messy-ness/chippy-ness, I didn't get a chance to take pictures until after doing a lot of dishes...And you know, wouldn't be a post if I didn't apologize for the state of my nails

Well, I was a little disappointed by this polish. Yeah, it's a good neutral but it's not nearly as exciting as some of the others in my collection. My friend commented that it looks like something a grandmother would wear, and I can't help but agree with it. The formula is great as expected, but the color is kinda meh. I have a hard time seeing myself reaching for this polish over and over again. It's just not nearly as gorgeous as I would hope to be. I do see it as a great color for work/professional life though. Unfortunately, I'm a college kid who doesn't have to worry about those things.

NOTD: China Glaze Man Hunt

We all know what it feels like to be completely lusting after a polish for months. For me, that polish was (for the longest time) China Glaze Man Hunt. I had been looking for a blue exactly that color forEVER so when I finally saw it, it was true love. When Cherry Culture had a sale on China Glaze nail polishes, and this polish was on the site, I knew now was the time to buy it.

2 coats, with top coat and base coat, natural light. Excuse the length/state of my nails, as always. And how shittily I painted them.

This is the single best blue I have ever seen. It exceeded my expectations. It's totally vibrant and saturated but still a dark color, which isn't something you see very often. The color is GORGEOUS. As it's China Glaze, formula was lovely as always and it was perfectly opaque in two coats. I absolutely love it.

It's not often that I get compliments on nail color, but this color yielded MANY, many from people who weren't into nail polish at all. This included my boyfriend, who occasionally will note my nail color when it's one he really likes. So, if it passed the boyfriend test, it must be a great color!

I highly recommend this color. I think everyone should own it. The picture really doesn't do it justice fully. Go buy it! Right now! It's the GREATEST.

NOTD: Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Gunmetal

I've heard nothing but glowing reviews for ages about the Xtreme Wear line of polishes. From beauty gurus, amateurs, friends...everyone had only good things to say about the line. Now, considering my passion for reasonably priced nail polish, this meant my ownership of my own Xtreme Wears was pretty much inevitable.

When Walgreens had a B2G1 free sale on Xtreme Wear, I knew now was my time. There were a couple shades in the line that I had been eyeing and I have a really hard time saying no to a good deal on nail polish. Gunmetal was the one I designated as my "free" polish. The other two I knew I wanted, but Gunmetal was a color I saw in the store and thought look interested and decided, of the available options, that was the one I liked best for my third. I thought it would be a great color for fall/winter (at the time, it was still summer and waaaay too nice outside for dark colored nails).

Well, ironically, Gunmetal was the first I got around to wearing. I brought the polish with me as one of two choices while visiting home over fall break. I decided to only bring drugstore polishes, lest something go horribly wrong and any of my polishes break in transport. It ended up being the first of the two that I used. My expectations were really low - the color wasn't that exciting and neither was what I expected the finish to be. However, my expectations were beyond exceeded.

Please excuse how bad I am at painting my nails. the sad state of my cuticles and the fact I can't stop myself from biting my nails long enough for them to reach a respectable length. Oh and the ring finger - I don't know what happened there.

I LOVE this color. The color looks sort of duochrome-y on the nails, which isn't portrayed at all in the bottle. It's a really cool color too - a very complex dark grey that for some reason I can not stop looking at. There's elements of blue and green to it that make it a pretty unique color on the nails. Application was great, and it was 2 coats easy (you could probably get away with 1 thick coat if you tried). Although I never really appreciated it before, I'm really glad that Gunmetal is part of my collection now. I think I'll definitely wear it again before the weather gets warm. The color exceeded my expectations immensely.

On Influenster

I heard about this awesome site called Influenster a long time ago from some unknown beauty guru on Youtube. As far as I was concerned, it was a service that sends me free stuff, so sign me up! I looked further into the site until one day, it disappeared and a new influenster appeared.

Now, I've never been the one to care much about getting achievements, but Influenster makes it fun. Your badges are a representation of things you love - be they gaming or be they fashion. The newer site has an even larger array of things you can review and identify as liking which I really like because my life is not filled with only a love of beauty products, it's also filled with a love of electronics. I look forward to seeing where these badges go in the future. 

However, considering the title and nature of this blog, I should talk to you about the girly bits. 

Now, I don't care much for makeup samples, and Influenster doesn't deliver you just that. They deliver you what I like to think of as lifestyle samples - things you can really use. Unlike subscriptions services like Birchbox which send you miniature perfumes each month and a "deluxe sample" of some face product you probably will never use, Influenster sends things that are really useful. Like great hand creams, granola bars, inserts for your shoes, artificial sweeteners...the list goes on. I love this because I feel like these samples are things I really do want to try out and Influenster gives me this ability to do it. 

But the thing I love most about Influenster is the boxes are not filled with high end products. Instead, they're filled with things you can get at the grocery store or drugstore. This means that when I fall in love with the hand cream they send me, I can go out and buy it for a couple bucks instead of $30 like some other boxes. I love this because it's introducing me to things I will love and use frequently.

Overall, highly suggest the site. You have to put in some work if you want to get samples, but I think it's well worth it considering they're samples you'll use and love very easily.