They call me mellow yellowwww

Hey all!  I'm back!  Sorry it's later than I said it would be, I had a housewarming party to go to last night that I sort of forgot about...

Anyway, I went out with my friend Jenn yesterday afternoon and we hit up Ulta and Five Below, both of which I've never been to and ohh my gossh.  Let's just say I went a little overboard between the two...:

My nail polish haul

Oh dear.  The Boyfriend is going to think I'm nuts, but I didn't really spend THAT much.  Ulta was having a buy 2 get 1 free on China Glaze (From L to R, Happy Go Lucky, Flyin' High, and Entourage) and I HAD to get the OPI black shatter.  The pink and teal glitter from Five Below were both 99 cents and the silver one (Sally Hansen Celeb City) was like $2 at Ulta.  The 6 on the left were 3 for $5 and they're called Funky Fingers--since they were so cheap I had to try all of them...look how neon!  Love :)

On top of that I got some mascara and sunscreen.  Not as interesting, though.


Anyway, I tried the black shatter on top of a color I used the other day and didn't like, but I'll do a separate post about that later.  Right now I want to talk about yellow.


YELLOW.  I love yellow.  It's by far my favorite color.  I actually forced myself to love it by painting my room yellow in high school because I knew it was associated with happiness, but now it is not a forced love by any means.  Anyway, I'm pretty excited about yellow being "in" this year.  Despite my love for yellow, I've never had a yellow polish, so I picked up China Glaze Happy Go Lucky yesterday and was so excited I had to try it right away:

Inside lighting, no flash

Kitchen lighting, no flash

Inside, flash

Since it's supposed to be sunny today I think I'm going to have to take a picture of this color outdoors.  None of these pics really show the actual color, although it's probably closest to the one with the flash!  It's very macaroni and cheese-ish, haha.

**UPDATE** Here's an outdoor picture!

Yup, this is the color...a few days old, but that's okay

I love it.  It's still strange to look down and see such a bright yellow on my nails, but I like it.  It's a nice cream polish, but you need at least 3 coats for it.  I could've probably done 4, but you know how I feel about that, it's just too many, but you can probably see in the no flash pictures that there are still a few dark spots.  Regardless, it's not that noticeable in person. 

So how do you guys feel about yellow?  Love it, hate it? Let me know and let me know what you think about Happy Go Lucky if you've tried it!

<3 Whit

PS speaking of yellow...did anyone see Lauren Alaina's yellow dress on American Idol the other night?  I searched high and low for who it's by, turns out it's Arden B, I think I'm going to have to buy it like asap.

Ohhh Friday, thank goodness for you.

Hello lovelies.

Just wanted to update real quick.  My thesis is turned in for editing and I'm currently stress free for like, a day!  I painted my nails and toes tonight but I can't get a good pic in this sucky apartment lighting so I'll have to do a big update or two tomorrow! 

I'm also supposed to hit up Ulta and Five Below tomorrow so I'll post my hauls from there, too!

Thanks for the understanding and support while I get destroyed by grad school :)

Catch ya' guys tomorrow :)

Another quick post...

Hey lovelies!

Although I am fully aware that it is Pink Wednesday, I just don't have the time this week to paint my nails again.  :(

I'm super super bummed because it was going to be my first one, but my thesis calls.  I had a big meeting today and I pretty much need to double what I've written by Friday.  But that's for me to worry about!

BUT I am going to post some pictures of of Bare Minerals Powder Eye Liner in Tiger's Eye that I took while I was in TN a few weeks ago for an interview:

Liner and the brush I use

Yes, that IS an eyebrow brush that I use.  I know you can get thin, pointed eye liner brushes but I like the angled brush much better.  It allows me to get it all the way to the inside point of my eye and I can also easily drag it out for a "cat eye" type look.  Sometimes I even use the leftovers to darken my brows a bit.

Here's the color on the back of my hand, it's a pretty dark brown.  You can easily make it look darker by adding a few more coatings of it, though! 

That's the liner on my eye with BE Kudos eye shadow.  I *love* the powdered eye liner.  I know most people prefer liquid or pencil, but if you haven't tried this, go to the store and try it out!  It's pretty good at lasting the whole day but sometimes I have to reapply just to darken it again if I'm going to go out for the evening or something.  However, as with all BE makeup, you can add a little water to it to change the color a bit and get it to last longer.

This is usually how I wear it for day time, although when I'm headed out to go dancing or something, I'll apply a bit more to make it darker.  But you know, the only dancing I do is line dancing, which sounds lame but it actually gets pretty intense, so there's no point in whorin' it out too much 'cause I'm just gonna sweat it off lol.  Haha sorry I'm feelin crude today.

All right, have a good week.  I'm looking forward to Friday when I can actually have time to do things again!  Hope you're all well :)

Whitney

PS I won a giveaway from Tracy @ Beauty Reflections and just got the stuff in the mail today!  I'm SO excited to try it out :) Thanks, girly!

China Glaze Thataway Review!

Hey all.  This is going to be short and sweet 'cause I'm real busy today!

I took a mini break from school to repaint my nails.  I filed them down a bit since my pinky nail is still janky and short, so they're even more nubby than usual!

I decided to go for a fun orange coral shade from China Glaze I bought the other day called Thataway!

Outdoor lighting

I love these types of shimmery orange colors, especially for summer 'cause they look so awesome shining in the sun.  It has a more pink look in certain lighting, but otherwise it's pretty orange:

Inside with flash!

Woo these are terrible photos.  Sorry!  Does anyone have any photo tips?  I mean, I have a 10 megapixel camera and its set on the highest quality and macro setting...I think the change happens when I save them.  Any tips on saving photos?

Anyway, here's a closeup:

Window lighting

Overall I plan on wearing this color for a while because I really like it.  It's flashy without being annoying or inappropriate.  If I was more tan it'd blend to my skintone a little better, but it's all good!

The pictures shown are with 3 coats...it's not a super opaque polish, I can still see the nail line when I'm outside, but I like it all the same!  It went on very smooth, like most other China Glaze polishes.

Wellll that's all I've got for today--gotta run, but let me know if you guys have tried this color and if you liked it!

<3 Whit

Monday Mondayyyy

Hey all.  I just wanted to let you know, in case you haven't figured it out, but I'm in the midst of writing my thesis.  Lame sauce.

Unfortunately for me, my first draft is due Wednesday so I'm pretty much dying of stress at this point.  I'm going to have to hold off on the blogging for today.  I do have some extra pics that I will try and use for a quick post tomorrow, but until tomorrow...or even potentially Wednesday I have to remove myself from the blog world to get work done :(

I did however stop at Sally Beauty Supplies on my way home from school today, took advantage of their buy 2 get 1 free polish sale and picked up a couple new colors I don't have.  So I'll be testing those out AFTER Wednesday, most likely this weekend.

Hope you all are well!  While I'm away for a few days, don't forget to check out the great giveaways some of the other bloggers having going on! And drive some luck this way for me to get my thesis done so I can move on to bigger and prettier thing...like make up and nail polish :) 

<3 Whit

Ughhh Teeth...Rembrandt Teeth Whitener

Good day lovelies!  I'm taking a quick break from my thesis to give you all this update.  In between writing this morning I decided to try this whitening kit my mom gave me a while back.  It's Rembrandt's 2-Hour Whitening kit:

Now let's get something straight.  I hate teeth.  I hate watching people eat.  I hate people touching my teeth.  I hate it when dentists put those stupid giant teeth mold trays in my mouth along with all of their devil pointy tools.  My horrible 5+ year stint with a pallet expander and braces might have something to do with my hatred of teeth.

Despite all the work I've had done, I didn't keep up with that dumb retainer they gave me and now my teeth are all out of whack again and they're the thing I dislike most about myself.  I plan on getting Invisiline or something similar when I have a real job and can pay for it.

Anyway just because my teeth are ugly doesn't mean that I shouldn't try to keep them as white as possible.  I decided to pass up teeth whitening strips and jump head first into something I know I don't like: teeth trays!  I don't know if that's the scientific term, but here's what the kit looks like so you can see what I mean:

Image from Akron Ohio Moms website

It comes with two trays, one for you upper teeth and one for your bottom teeth.  What you do is heat these trays for a few seconds in hot water and then shove them in your mouth for 30 seconds to mold them to your teeth.  Peachy.  Then you cut off those weird tab deals so they sit in your mouth "comfortably."  I say that with quotes because foreign objects that surround your teeth are in no way comfortable, regardless if there are rubbery tabs sticking out of your mouth or not.

So what you do is take one of those little gel tubes as seen in the photo and spread a thin line of gel in each tray and wear them in intervals.  Twenty minutes of wearing both trays combined with 10 minutes of break time in between results in 2 hours of whitening fun!

And by fun I mean you spend 80 minutes of your day drooling uncontrollably.  Weee!  Needless to say I did this whilst The Boyfriend was out for the day.  Unfortunately for me I've got this weird issue with my jaw where it doesn't really line up properly so forcing my jaw in the direction needed to hold the trays in my mouth was painful and gave me a headache.  I followed the directions pretty well and didn't have any sensitivity side effects, though, which was a plus because I thought for sure I would.

Anyway, here are the before/after pics:

As you can see, there's not a ton of difference.  If you look close you can see the bit of yellow stains I had on my teeth beforehand were removed.  I think in person you can tell a lot better than with pictures.  Beforehand I thought my teeth were a lot yellower than what the picture shows and the after picture shows a decent image of how they look now.  Not a drastic change, but then again I don't drink coffee or anything and brush/floss 2+ times a day so they weren't super yellow to begin with.  My change was not anything drastic like the before and after pictures I've seen online.

Overall, for around ~$20 bucks I don't think it's too bad of a product.  I know some of the other whitening kits are more than double that, and going to the dentist is even more.  If you're an avid coffee or soda drinker, or even a smoker, I think this would be a cheap whitening kit to try out!  It won't get you perfect sparkling white teeth, but it'll definitely lighten them a few shades in just a few hours.

Like I said, I hate teeth and hate teeth trays, but aside from having to wipe my mouth of drool every couple of minutes I was able to keep myself occupied while I had them in so it wasn't a completely awful experience. 

Have you tried these or any other kind of teeth whitener?  Let me know!

Procrastinating Again...

So I made the Nutella mug cake again tonight when I took a break from working on my thesis. 

I also updated the original post I had about it and added pictures this time.  Soooo good.  Go try it!

Om nom nom
<3 Whit

Saturday Update!

Horray I've been on here for a week!

This post is going to be a little different because I'm going to be really, really busy the rest of this weekend but I didn't want to leave you hanging.  SO what I'm going to do is talk about my favorite nail product and then go into some more details on BzzAgent!

Okay, first I'm going to talk about Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream!

Currently this is the only product I use for my cuticles, and I love it.  It comes in a cute little tin you can throw in your purse and has a wonderful lemon scent.  It looks waxy but when you start using it it's actually pretty creamy and moisturizes your cuticles very well.  I like to put it on before bed and usually once or twice throughout the day.  I also use lotion a lot to keep the rest of my hands moisturized, so I think the combination of the two lead to happy, healthy cuticles!

In case you are wondering, I don't usually cut my cuticles.  If I lax on my care and one gets super out of hand I'll occasionally trim it a little shorter with one of these: 

But in general these tools freak me out a little because it's easy to slip and cut your finger all up.  So I don't use it too often and if I do it's only a little bit and then I just moisturize and push them back with a rosewood stick.

So do you guys use Burt's Bees or do you have another cuticle cream that kicks butt?  Let me know so I can try it!

ANnnnnnyway I just wanted to mention BzzAgent briefly again.  I don't have to since I share enough about them, but I was really excited about the Campaign I got recently.  I also made a BzzAgent page if you guys want to find out more about it!  It's a little bit of an intro and how to.  But yeah, BzzAgent is the site I use to try products from!  I just wanted to tell you guys that I got put in to an SC Johnson Campaign and they sent me a crap ton of stuff, similar to what's seen here.  I got scrubbing bubbles shower foam, a toilet bowl stamper cleaner thing (which smells pretty good), pledge, a new glade spring scented candle and a glade plug in.

OM NOM NOM candles!!

I don't know about all of you, but I'm one of those people pretty much addicted to the plug-in Wallflowers from Bath & Body Works...and let me tell you, Glade plug-ins are. Awesome.  They sent me a fresh spring (or spring rain, I can't remember) scented one and the smell literally fills my entire apartment.  I had to move it three times before I found a suitable place for it, haha.  I'm always looking for something I can smell throughout the house (to get rid of that dog smell) and this definitely works.  I don't know if they changed their formula or what 'cause I don't remember them being this strong, but they're definitely my new obsession and I just wanted to share the goodness that are glade plug-ins.

That's all for today, folks--have a super great weekend!

<3 Whit

Buxom Lips Bambi

Before my review I have a couple of things I'd like to say:First off, THANKS for following!  I appreciate that you guys read this and share your feedback with me :)
Second of all, if you haven't checked them out, some of the other blogs I follow are having some GREAT giveaways!  There's a section on my sidebar specifically for giveaways.

Anyway, onto the lips!

Buxom Lips from Bare Escentuals is by far my favorite lip gloss.  Ever.  I love the color selection and the fact that it's a lip plumper and make your lips a little cold and tingly!  And they all smell great.

Today I'm reviewing one of my favorites: Bambi.

Stock photo from BeautyWorks 'cause the dog got hold of mine and it's no longer pretty

Bambi is part of their Big & Healthy Lip Polish Collection.  It's not a "full color," and by that I mean it's definitely a sheer gloss rather than a lip stick.  It's a lovely pink shade with a peach undertone that looks good on just about everyone.

Nude lips, with no Bambi, = sad lips

Pink and sheer!

Happy lips with Bambi applied

I put a lot on so it would show up in the picture, which is why it looks a little darker around the edges in the second gloss photo.  It usually doesn't spread like that if you only put on one-two coats.  It ends up looking like the first gloss photo most of the time.

It's a very even application and something you can wear everyday since it's light and not too far off from the normal lip color.  I definitely like how it feels more than I care about the color, though!  It doesn't go on too thick and the tingle is great.  It does a decent job of plumping your lips just a little so they looks natural and not swollen. 

One gloss (0.15 oz) costs around $18 on its own, which is a lot for a lip gloss.  However, Bare Escentuals often has 3 or 4 of these glosses in smaller sizes that you can by in a set which is usually a better deal.  They even come in a cute make up bag sometimes!  This is such a good idea especially if you have trouble committing to only one color!   

I hope you enjoyed and I strongly suggest you at least go to the store and sample one of these glosses because they are definitely my favorite!  Let me know if you've tried it and love it as much as I do!

<3 Whitney

PS: Also, I started a twitter for the blog that you can follow at @ElementalStyles.  Annnnnnd if you have a blog and want to be added to my blogroll, send me an e-mail and be sure to add me as well :) Thanks guys!

Borghese Patena Pearl--perfect for a stylish french mani!

Hey everyone!  I noticed a tiny chip in my berry blast today in class and since the professor just kept talking and talking and talking it gave me more time to pick at it until my polish was ruined.  Whoops.

I wanted to do another pink but I'm going to hold off.  Most of my polishes are pinks and I'm trying to expand a little so I'm forcing myself not to buy anymore pinks for a while.

So I decided to go with a super sheer color from Borghese called B130 Patena Pearl F.  I initially bought this nude transparent to give myself a shimmery top coat for my french manicures.  Unfortunately I chipped my pinky nail while ripping off my old stuff (ughhh terrible habit, I know) and my other nails aren't even so I didn't want to give myself a full french mani, so I just stuck with the Patena Pearl for today!

Inside, with flash

I love this color.  By itself, most of the time, it looks nude (see above) but the sheen in various lighting can go from orange/peach to pink to purple, which is why I use it to add a kick to my french manis.  I tried to capture as many pictures in different lightings as I could, so bear with me!

Inside, no flash

  You can start to see the orange/pink shimmer here.

Outside lighting

Look how shiny!

Window lighting, tilted

See how versatile this color is?  Even by this one picture (which I had to take at a downward angle so you could see all the colors) you can see how it looks gold and pink and orange in the same shot.

The pictures I posted are with four coats.  I've never applied four coats in my life (not including top/base) but I wanted to make sure it was enough for you to see in the pictures.  It's very, very transparent, as you can see, so even if I applied 10 coats you'd still see nail line.  What I usually do is apply my french tips and then add two coats of Patena Pearl on top and it looks awesome.

Unfortunately I can't rock transparents as well as I could because my nail beds are super uneven and I have this weird downward curve on both of my middle fingers.  These things, I think, are less noticeable with opaque shades!  Despite the state of my oddly shaped nails, I hope I've convinced you to try this color instead of a normal nude with your french manicures!  Let me know if you try it and how it goes!

<3 Whitney