{ " The Body Shop - Shea Body Butter " }

I apologize for the time span that is occuring between posts... I just can't seem to be able to sit and write any reviews lately... This one has been written over the course of three days, if that says anything.

I have heard so many things about The Body Shop's signature body butters. Most of the things I have heard about them were endless praises. I have been wanting to try one of their body butters for the longest time, but I couldn't get myself to spend $19.00 on a body butter. It just seemed like an insane amount of money to spend on something that was like a lotion. I know it is a good amount of product, but still, that is a lot of money.

Well, I was at Ulta on Tuesday, and I saw one of the little "sample" sized body butters at the checkout. (They really draw you in at the checkout with all those nifty little things to stare at while you're waiting... it really is at trap.) They were $5.00 each, so I grabbed the only scent they had there, which was the Shea body butter.

Let me tell you right now.
I am so tempted to buy a full size, in a different scent, but nonetheless... this product is incredible.

So, let's get a little bit personal here. I have Raynaud's disease in my toes on both feet, and I am developing it in my hands. I have extremely dry feet to begin with, and then I develop ulcers (which are extremely painful, especially when I stub my toes on something), more dry patches, and then when the ulcers break the dry skin around them snags. Sounds gross, but that's just what happens. The ulcers, and soreness in my toes become even more painful when the skin is so dry and cracked.

I'm pretty sure anyone could see the difference, but I can actually feel the difference.

I had not been able to find a moisturizer that takes care of my dry, cracked feet and in turn help with the soreness. 

Well. This moisturizer does exactly what I needed it to do. 

At first when I opened it, I was quite surprised for some reason. It is not whipped, it does not look like a cream, it literally looks like butter. And guess what, it feels like butter too! I dipped my finger in it to use some on my hands, and I was surprised when it wasn't like a cream. You can kind of press down on the top of it, and it just squishes. It's rather amusing. But, anyways you kind of have to dig into it the first time, either that or just rub the top of it quite a bit. I used it on my hands, and at first it felt slightly greasy. I don't normally moisturize my hands, because I have never been able to find a moisturizer that does not make my hands feel uncomfortable, or greasy. The scent was very, very strong though. At first the scent was awful. I put it on before I went somewhere and all I could smell was that. I'm getting used to the scent though, and I'm actually kind of growing to like it, I'm sensing a vanilla undertone.

When I got home I decided to try a little on my feet. So, I smoothed a little bit (literally, all you need is a tiny bit, this stuff is so thick and smooth) onto my toes, heels and the sides of my feet. I then put on some socks and went to bed. In the morning I repeated it. I have been doing this for the last six days, and my feet are no longer dry, and cracked. They are smooth, hydrated, and they don't look half as nasty as they did before, which is a plus. Also, my hands get a little TLC while I'm putting the cream on my feet. 

I don't really think this has any cons, except for the price. I don't think I'll be dishing out $20.00 for one of these body butters anytime soon. I will, however, be keeping my eyes peeled at TJ Maxx, and Marshalls for them, and snatch up whatever ones I find! 

Thanks for reading! 

If anyone wants to buy the Satsuma body butter... Feel free. I'll love you for forever. ;)

{ " Sally Hansen Mega Shine Top Coat " }

Image from Google

So, in my search for a new top coat that was not Seche Vite Dry Fast, which is my absolute favorite, I picked up the Sally Hansen Mega Shine Extended Wear Top Coat at CVS.

I found this top coat at CVS for $7.29. I had read about it a little bit online, and there were mixed reviews. I decided to try it out for myself... and well, I wasn't impressed.

The package tells you to apply a thick layer of this to completely dry nails. WAIT A SECOND. I thought this was a fast drying top coat? Well, evidently it's fast drying once you've applied it to your nails. So, I waited for my nails to dry completely, and then applied a thick coat. This top coat is supposed to be completely dry in only a minute. I did wrap my nails with it as well, to keep shrinking to a minimum. Well... I waited more than a minute, and tapped my nails together to find they were still quite tacky. I didn't really have anymore time to sit around, so I figured I would just be careful. Before I knew it after about 10 minutes of letting them dry, they were still tacky and several nails had dents in them. Not happy with that, seeing as I took about 20 minutes to paint my nails to begin with. I also noticed that the tips started to shrink, and though I wrapped the tips, the polish pulled back and I could see that the very tips of my nails were bare. I went to a party on New Years Even night, after I painted my nails, and by the time I came home my a few of my nails had little chips on them. They were not really shiny anymore either. Which was disappointing seeing as the top coat is called "Mega Shine". I love when my nails are shiny. I have a matte top coat, and I never use it, because it bugs me when my nails aren't shiny. Plus, the bottle is totally impractical. It is silver, so you have absolutely no way of seeing how much product is left in the bottle. Sure, it's pretty, but it's also pretty silly.

I'm honestly going to give this two stars. It was shiny at first, which was nice... and maybe it would work if you had an extra 15 minutes to sit and let your nails dry, but I don't!

Unfortunately I'm going to be returning this... I really don't see any sense in keeping it. I wanted a fast drying top coat, not a topcoat that dried in over 15 minutes, and still dented easily. Seche Vite definitely out stands this, so I'll just stick to using that. It's cheaper anyways!

Question!
Have any of you tried "quick dry drops"? I see them from Sally Hansen, but I'm a little bit wary of them... I'd rather use a quick dry topcoat I think! 

I hope this review was helpful for someone!
Live in the moment,

{ " Nail Art - Week Two " }

Everyone have a good laugh right now, because I'm not going to be able to keep this at one nail design a week... It's going to have to be Part One, and Part Two, because I normally paint my nails twice every week.

Please don't mind the little heart on the side of my hand. I was doodling earlier, and it would not come off!

So I did my nails this evening, whilst multitasking, and I decided to do this kind of holiday look. 

It reminds me of the holidays at least! Purple is a celebratory color, isn't it? Eh, I don't know!

Polish used:

- COVERGIRL Outlast Stay Brilliant - Grapevine 310 (Purple)

- SHANY Cosmetics Nail Art Polish - 10 (Black)

- SHANY Cosmetics Nail Art Polish - 11 (Silver Glitter)

- Out the Door Top Coat

I applied two coats of the purple, and let them dry before using the black nail art polish (which has a striping brush) to draw small lines starting almost halfway down my nail, applying a very light amount of pressure to the tip. I varied the length of the lines, and made a couple of them a little bit curved. I let that layer dry for quite a while, before brushing over the black lines with the silver glitter. I put a little bit between the black lines as well. I really love how it came out. Before I put the glitter polish on, my nails looked incomplete. As soon as I added the glitter I knew they were finished! I slapped on my topcoat, and there we have it. 

Hopefully I'll be able to find a good base and top coat soon, so I can keep my manicure for more than one or two days. I have found that wearing rubber gloves while washing the dishes helps prevent chips a little bit. But, it's kind of a pain in the bum! 

Anyways, hope you all liked this week's manicure. :) There will probably be another one up before the end of the week! 

Enjoy your week everyone! Happy New Year! 

{ " nail art - week one " }

I ended up getting an awesome set of nail striper polishes from Shany Cosmetics, for Christmas.
It contains 24 colors, ranging from a neon pink, sparkles, reds, blues, pretty much everything in between. The colors are absolutely gorgeous, and I was so excited to use them.

So, today I decided to try out a simple nail design, and it actually came out pretty decent!
I am disappointed with my index finger on my left hand, because the middle line came out so thick, but like I said, the manicure came out pretty decent.

I was inspired by a manicure by MissJenFABULOUS on YouTube (third manicure in this video - link). She used two neon colors, and then did the black stripe down the middle, and three stripes on either side of the stripe. After I did my first nail I decided that I actually liked it with the lines on one side, rather than both.

I absolutely love the color combination that I chose. I didn't initially think I liked the colors together, and I decided to try it. I never would have put these colors together, but now I'm so glad I did!

The green polish is Orly "Cochella Dweller", and the coppery color (which is much more reddish toned than shown in the photo) is Covergirl Outlast Stay Brilliant "Timeless Rubies". The striping polish I used is by Shany Cosmetics and is number 17 from their Nail Art Set 1 - Beautiful Variety (but, of course any black or charcoal striping polish would work).

I painted one side of each nail with two coats of the green, then painted the other half with the copper color. I then simply painted a line down the middle with the striper, and lightly painted three shorter slightly angled lines on the side with the copper. I also varied the side of the nail I put each color on, but you could do the same on all nails.  I then finished out with my Out the Door fast drying top coat after a few minutes.

I am looking for a new basecoat, so I haven't been using one lately. Does anyone know of any decent basecoats? I was looking into the CND Stickey basecoat, but I can't figure out if you can buy it in any stores. I'm going to take a ride out to Sally Beauty soon, so I'm hoping I can find a decent basecoat there.

Well, that's all for now! I'm hoping to post a new nail art photo each week, but we'll see what happens. I also got some amazing nail stamping plates, so I've been playing around, and practicing with those as well.

Thanks for reading!
Live in the moment,

{ " Hair Growth Update " }

I wouldn't normally do an update in the middle of the month... but, I think this is needed.
My hair has grown an insane amount in the last two weeks. It's actually crazy. I don't think my hair has ever grown this quickly! I'm not quite sure what to owe the growth to, seeing as I've been doing a lot of hair treatments over the last two weeks. And I mean a lot. I have done everything from a coconut oil deep condition, to inversion. Yes, inversion.

Basically I had been putting coconut oil in my hair twice a week, then using a shampoo/conditioner 2-in-1 to wash it out in order to keep the moisture in my hair. Sadly that shampoo/conditioner had sulfates in it, so I won't be using it again, unless it's just to wash out coconut oil! Then, I started putting literally a drop of castor oil in with my conditioner every time I washed my hair (which is every other day, or every three days). You need to only literally put a drop of castor oil, or else it won't rinse out and you'll be left with nasty, oily, sticky hair. Not a fun time.

Then I came across something called the "inversion method". I was quite curious about this. I don't really know how to phrase this properly without offending anyone... but, all of the YouTube videos I watched on inversion were done by women of color. They all said the same thing, "1 Inch of Growth in 7 Days!". Right... who's going to believe that? Well a bunch of them showed their results with videos they uploaded 7 days later, and their hair looked to be 1 inch longer. Most of them even used a measuring tape to show you! They said to heat up some oil, any oil of your choice (I used olive oil and a little bit of cinnamon, which stimulates the scalp), and to massage it into your roots for a minute or two. Then you are to "invert" yourself for up to five minutes. You can only do it once a month, because your brain evidently gets used to it, and knows you're just tricking it into stimulating your scalp. So, everyone said to only do it once a month. I lost track of time a few days, so it was more like ten minutes... There are a lot of like... warnings on the inversion method. So look it up before you try it, read a lot about it, and do it exactly the way they tell you to. Being women of color they did not have to wash their hair afterward, because of their hair type. I on the other hand had to wash my hair out every day, because I couldn't just walk around with greasy hair all day.
I will admit I only did this for five days, and on two days when I was out late grocery shopping it was like torture to have to do my hair. I could have done it in the morning, but I prefer to wash my hair at night then style it in the morning. I think I skipped it on Friday on accident, because by the time I realized what time it was it was like 10:00PM. Then on Sunday I skipped also. So... I didn't do the full seven days, but I didn't believe it would work anyways, so I didn't actually care. Well, today is technically day seven of the inversion method. So it's measuring day.

Unfortunately I lost the photos I took last Monday, so we will have to do with the photo from December 1st a day after I got my hair cut in the first place.

My hair was just a tiny bit longer than chin length. Probably at the most a 1/2" below chin length. Now it's touching my shoulders in the back and on the sides. The front is layered quite a bit, so it looks shorter in places.

I'm pretty sure from these photos that I've gotten at least 3/4" growth. Now, this is over the course of two weeks. I'm not saying the inversion thing did this all. But, it's kind of crazy. The back/sides of my hair is touching my shoulders. Which it was not even close to doing a couple of weeks ago. Even the layers in the back are grown out to the point where I can stand them. I can finally put my hair into a decent ponytail, and all of it stays back except a couple of pieces in the front. It is actually at a length I like, and I didn't have to wait like two months. My bangs have grown out so much that I can't even style them properly anymore. So they kind of just look crazy all the time! I'm trying to keep myself from cutting them, because they're just so annoying! 

That is a lot of growth isn't it? I'm not just going crazy right? o.O Hair grows at an average of 1/2" a month, so I'm pretty sure about 3/4" in two weeks is pretty stinkin' awesome. 

Y'all are going to think I'm crazy. But, I just held a ruler up to where my hair was cut to two weeks ago, and measured to where it is now... and it was over an inch longer. So, I'm giving an inch of growth give or take. Maybe that inversion thing really did work... I suppose I'll be doing that again next month! Sometimes I wish I had my hair dyed so I could measure by how much my roots grew out. Hahaha. Joke. ;) 

I also started taking different vitamins and I have seen a huge difference in my nails, even though I have only been taking them for like four days. Which, maybe that is just wishful thinking, but I don't know. I can actually have them free of polish without them breaking or splitting today. 

So, yes. I just thought I'd do that little update, because it's pretty exciting. I'll probably do another update on February 1st, unless I see an insane amount of growth before then! 

This is going to be so much fun! Documenting my hair growth is actually really fun. It's making me more excited for the day I can be like, "I REACHED ARMPIT LENGTH; HALLELUJAH!" It will be fun sharing my hair growth experiences with you guys (whoever "you guys" may happen to be). Hopefully you learn some tips and tricks along with me, and have fun too! 

Thanks for reading, 

{ " GARNIER Moisture Rescue Refreshing Gel-Cream " }

So, about two weeks ago I purchased the Garnier Moisture Rescue Refreshing-Gel cream, because I was in need of a new moisturizer, and I was curious to try this. I had been using my Pond's Moisturizer for quite some time, and I loved it. 

This did not do the trick. 

First of all, for those of you who might not have gotten it from the title, it is a gel. There is nothing cream about it. It is a straight up gel. In fact, I almost spilled it the first time I opened it! 

It is apparently formulated for dry skin. I was pretty sure I had "normal" skin, but evidently I don't... I ended up with some dry patches on my skin after using this as my moisturizer for about a week. Now I have a nice dry patch between my eyebrows, and my nose started to look dry. Which is a bummer, seeing as I had "normal to dry" skin before. So, this definitely is not very moisturizing, which I was warned about before I bought this. It also left my skin feeling kind of stiff. Almost as if it was drying my skin out. Do you know that feeling after you wash your face? Before you put your moisturizer on again your face feels dry and kind of stiff. Well, that is how this moisturizer makes my skin feel. The first time I put it on it burned like... whoa. It scared me to be honest. I didn't expect it to burn. Like my face felt hot, and turned all red. Which was a little bit frightening. It did the same thing the second time I used it too. I'm not sure if it was just an ingredient that irritated my skin at first, or if it was just the new product. But, it was bad. 

About three days after using it I developed a bunch of pimples (that's a weird word) on my forehead, one on my cheek, and one beside my nose. That was frustrating, because not to "brag" I never ever breakout. I have clear skin for the most part - unless I use a product that has gluten in it, and might come in contact with my face. So, the fact that I suddenly broke out after using this product for a little while, led me to believe it was from this product. I continued to use it, but wiped my blemishes with an alcohol swab after putting on the moisturizer. The blemishes eventually went away, and haven't come back. I'm guessing it's just my skin's reaction to a new product. 

It smells clean. It isn't super perfumed, but it does have a scent to it. Maybe a little bit flowery? The scent goes away as soon as it sinks into the skin though.

This gel is very refreshing when first put onto the skin. It feels very cooling, and certainly wakes you up if you use it early in the morning! It feels really nice when you first smooth it onto your skin, but it takes a little bit to soak in completely. It didn't really leave a soft finish on my skin, smooth, but not soft. 

I won't purchase this product again, but I'll use it up, seeing as I can't return it. I would recommend this to someone with normal, or even combination skin, but I don't like it for my own skin. It certainly is not for dry skin, in my opinion. 

I'm pretty sure that was all over the place... but, hopefully you get the gist.

{ " Desert Essence Coconut Hair Defrizzer & Heat Protector " }

Desert Essence sent me their Coconut Defrizzer & Heat Protector spray to try, and I was so excited to finally receive it! It is gluten-free which is a plus for me, and well... you can't go wrong with coconut!

This is the third Desert Essence product I have tried, and well... I only just received it today.

But, I love it already! First thing I did was smell it. 

Of course. Because, if something doesn't smell good, it's not going in my hair. 

It smells amazing. Just like coconut. It actually smells almost identical to a different coconut based hair product I have. I love the smell, so that wasn't a problem. 

It is 100% Vegan, Wheat, Gluten, and Silicone free. I'm also very excited that it is silicone free, because silicone just makes your hair feel healthy and soft, but just sits on the outside of the hair shaft. 

You can use it on dry hair, or wet hair. I will probably end up spraying it into my wet hair each time I wash my hair, because it is a heat protector too. But, just being curious I sprayed it on my dry hair. My hair was super staticky (#finehairproblems) the first thing I noticed was that it immediately took away the static! I sprayed a small amount in, and my hair felt like silk, and was suddenly no longer sticking to my face. It was kind of amazing to be honest. I had been dealing with staticky (I'm now aware that that evidently is not a real word...) hair all day, so the fact that this tamed it was awesome. I have issues with dry, and staticky hair in the winter, because of my hair being so fine. I'm probably going to have to stop using my volumizing shampoo and conditioner, because it won't weigh my hair down as much as it needs to in the winter. 

Anyways, back to the actual product. It didn't make my hair oily, greasy, or weighed down feeling. It just made it feel so beautiful. Do you ever get that when you feel your hair, and it just feels beautiful? Well, that's what my hair felt like after using this spray. It just felt amazing. It even looks more silky! 

So far I love this, even though I've only used it once, I love it. 

I can't wait to use it further, and give a more in-depth review on it!

Keep your eyes peeled for a review! 

Thanks for reading!