My favorite cuticle cream, Orly's Cuticle Therapy Cremé

I Bought It Affiliate Link



I assure you that I am alive despite my dearth of posts, I'm just working like crazy and OMG right now I really dislike hospital hand foam and excessive hand washing. My hands are dry, dry, dry. Though I've somehow managed not to bring RSV home to my 4 1/2 month old, so there is that.... I've been working a lot the last 10 days or so, hence not much posting here on the blog.

And, my hands are getting very dry.

So, I've just dug through my drawers and my office/beauty room, and have found 3 tubs of magical, magical cream! I had thought I was out, but, no! (This is success people. Also, I probably need a good night of sleep, I'm overly enthusiastic about cuticle cream tonight.)

We all have a beauty product that we stock up on and buy in large quantities. One of those products for me is Orly's Cuticle Cream. The cream is thick, super hydrating, and is often the last thing I apply before bed. In the winter I use it as an ultra-hydrating hand cream to help combat dryness. And it works.

Orly Cuticle Therapy Cremé is a little hard to find in stores, though they do carry it at Sally Beauty, and in the big tub! I buy a new tub of it almost every time I'm at Sally Beauty Supply, which is about once a month since I'm doing a monthly post with them now (the result of this is that I'm spending a good 10 minutes per trip drooling at their wall of polish and trying not to buy all. the. polish.) But, this tub of cream always finds its way into my basket! I slather it all over my cuticles and when I'm really dry it goes all over my hands. Like tonight. I'm so glad I found 3 hidden tubs!


You can buy your own at Amazon or Sally Beauty

I Bought It Affiliate Link

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My Favorite Multi-tasking Beauty Products

I can't be the only one that needs to save time in the morning! I love being able to skip steps in my beauty routine completely, because one products has done the work of two (or more) and saved me time and money. These multi-taskers are also amazing for travel, especially when you're already fighting to fit everything into your 3-1-1 bag for carry-on only.

Here's a peek at a few of my favorite multi-tasking beauty products, you'll find more over in my Amazing Multi-tasking Beauty Products collection on eBay.

1. L'Oreal Advanced Hair Care Color Vibrancy Dual Protect Spray: Love this spray! I think I've gone through 3 bottles already. A few spritz on wet hair and it helps calm frizzies, adds shine, protects from both UV and heat damage and I swear it makes drying my hair faster.

2. Pantene’s Pro-V Ultimate 10 BB Creme: Yes, BB Cream for your hair! It does a ton of things like hydrate, repair damage, calm frizz, add shine and make hair easier to style. I like to use a little on already dry hair as well, just a pea sized amount on the ends of my hair.

3. Pond's Luminous Finish BB+ Cream SPF 15: Are you tired of me talking about this product yet? I know that I mention the Pond's Luminous Finish BB Cream all the time! I love that this product contains just enough hydration for my combination skin, has light coverage and even offers a bit of sunscreen all in one step.

4. Derma-e Skin Hair & Nail Oil: This is a multi-tasking dry skin saver! This is a lightweight oil formulated to work great on pretty much any part of your body. It is just enough hydration for your super dry cuticles but won't overpower your face. It's great for adding shine and smoothing your hair, but if you add a little too much it won't turn you into a greaseball.

5. Orly Cutique: This is a product that every manicure girl should keep around the house! Even if you're religious about wearing base coat under your polish, there are some dark colors than can leach through and still stain your nails. Apply a little Cutique on your nail, rub it in and wait about 30 seconds. When you wash it off, your nails will no longer be stained!

These are just some of the multi-tasking beauty products that I use over and over, you'll find more over in my Amazing Multi-tasking Beauty Products collection on eBay. What are your favorite multi-taskers?

Be sure to check out my collections on eBay and follow me! I'll add more multi-tasking products to the collection, let me know yours!

My eBay Collections were curated as part of my collaboration with eBay #followitfindit and Style Coalition.

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Get the Look: Anne Hathaway at the SAG Awards

As usual, Anne Hathaway was stunning at the SAG Awards! I have some of the info on her look at this show.

Her hair was styled by Fekkai stylist Adir Abergel.

1. Begin with wet hair and apply Fekkai COIFF Bouffant Lifting and Texturizing Spray Gel to roots. Create texture at your ends with Oceanique Tousled Wave Spray

2. Using a comb create a deep part to your preferred side

3. Next, dry hair with a diffuser to work with hair’s natural texture. Gently run fingers through hair and sweep it back from the face to create lift at the roots

4. Finish with a light misting of Sheer Hold Hairspray to keep the effortless look in place all evening


Anne's nails were done by Tom Bachik, who went a bit edgier than expected and used nail art stickers!

1. He used two coats of L'Oréal Paris Colour Riche Nail in I Will! before applying a few butterfly accents to Anne's middle and ring fingers (left hand) and the ring finger of her right hand.

2. For Anne's toes, Tom added a layer of sparkle to Anne's gold base by using L'Oréal Paris Colour Riche Nail in a limited-edition shade from the Diamonds Collection, Sparklicious.

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Combating Winter: Keep Your Nails Looking Great!

I fully admit that despite the amount of time I spend on my nails each weeks, they're often the first area to show the stress of winter. Today I have some great tips from Nail Beauty Expert Katie Saxton from Custom Nail Solutions.


Diet Right
Take in calcium, iron, protein, and vitamins A, B, C and D and your nails will gradually grow stronger and healthier. Take in a lot of biotin.

Eat the right foods. Try fish, chicken, eggs, cheese, milk and plenty of fruits and vegetables. These are also great foods to keep you healthy overall!


Consistent Nail Maintenance
Scheduling regular manicures is crucial during the winter months if you want healthy nails. You can schedule in-salon manicures, or do them at home. Both work as long as you are doing them regularly.

File, buff and massage the nails. Purchase a buffer, and start at the cuticle and move forward to buff the entire nail bed. The buff will keep your nails from cracking.


Protect Your Nails
Nail strengtheners and hardeners. Think of it as conditioner for your hair. It cuts down on nail chipping most of all!


Cuticle Care
If you don't want to spend money on name brand cuticle products, you can also use olive oil right from your kitchen! Whatever you decide, leave it on for five minutes to fully replenish your nails. Don’t wash your hands completely, allowing your nails to get the richest conditioning possible.

Use lotions to keep your hands moisturized. During the winter months, hands become dryer than we’d like. Use a few times a day and you’ll feel the difference.
Refuse the urge to bite your nails.

Don’t use your nails to pry open jars; find the right tool instead.

Custom Nail Solutions gives you beautiful, natural-looking nails that are custom-made just for you. You can have lovely salon-looking nails on your own schedule and in the comfort of your own home. The concept of Custom Nail Solutions was invented by a cosmetic dentist. The nails are custom fit from a personal impression, using dental putty, taken from each clients individual nail beds which are as unique as your fingerprint.


Custom Nail Solutions

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Manicure 101 Extra Credit: Vitamin Supplements & Nail Growth

Everyone wants to have thick, strong nails that look nice. Who hasn't wondered what vitamins or supplements to add to their diet in order to have stronger, thicker nails that grow faster?

There are a lot of misconceptions out there and little accurate information on this topic available on the internet. I'll go over the most commonly mentioned foods and supplements and let you know why only a few of them are worthwhile in regards to nail growth.

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Manicure 101 (Super) Extra Credit: Nail Anatomy and Composition

Now, is this post absolutely necessary? Umm... probably not. But, I like anatomy posts. I thought I'd share with you where some things are, mostly because I saw pics in my derm textbook and played a little with photoshop... As well, I'll be referring to this post for some upcoming posts, like Thursday's review of vitamins and how they affect your nails.

So, you can see here the nail matrix is underneath your cuticle basically, and this is where the nail is basically made. You can see its extension as the Lunula, the white semi-circle at the base of your nail bed. I think the other things are pretty self-explanatory. The hyponychium is the skin under your nail's free edge and acts just like the cuticle, adhering to the nail to keep things together and prevent infection.

The nail itself is what we're really interested in. The nail is made by the nail matrix, an area under the base of your thumb. This area is alive and needs to be nourished. So, the matrix creates the nail plate itself, slowly pushing it up and down your finger as it grows.


The nail plate is made by the nail matrix as the cells die off, becoming progressively thinned out and broadened. They fill with keratin (a protein) and even lose their nuclei. These cells are embedded within a matrix of more proteins and you'll also find some elements (sulfur, calcium, iron, aluminum, copper, silver, gold, titanium, phosphorus, zinc, and sodium) just kind of hanging around in this area as well.

Obviously things don't look exactly like I've depicted in this image, but I think it gives you a general idea. Dead flat cells, filled with protein. Big structural proteins (red and green) in the background and elements are found somewhere... in there. Yes. I didn't show that the cells are actually cross linked together for more stability. They use cysteine bonds, which contain even more sulfur. Decreased cysteine levels have been found to cause brittle nails that split and chip.

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Julep Summer 2011: Super Bright and Fun for Summer

I had to share the new Julep colors for summer. The presales just started shipping so it's the perfect time to snap up these colors. Aren't they just perfect for a fun summer pedicure?

• Niecy: The perfect pink to bring out on a bright sunny day
• Blake: Screams buttery, delicious bliss (without the dreaded calories)
• Jaime: An electrifying and sandal-wearing blue


Julep Nail Color

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Manicure 101: Cuticle Care, Perfect Cuticles are Easy!

Over the last 4 days I've shared with you all of my steps in creating a great looking manicure at home. The problem? I haven't shown you what I do to maintain it, and I keep saying "Acetone, Acetone, Acetone." Which means that if you've been following my directions from this week your fingers and cuticles are probably cracked and bleeding by now because they are so dry!

So, the key to having great looking nails and cuticles really is moisture. Yes, even when you have on polish, you need to keep moisturizing. I am really not so good at remembering to keep applying moisturizing products to my nails, but I do apply before bed every night and this seems to be often enough for me. My favorite method of moisturizing my cuticles is to apply a cuticle oil such as CND Solar Oil first. The oil step seems to really be key for me, don't skip out on the oil! After the oil has had a few minutes to sink in I apply a thick cuticle cream to "lock" it into my cuticle. My favorite is Orly Cuticle Therapy Cream, but the Kiehl's cuticle cream works great as well. The point is to have a fairly occlusive cream on over the oil.

On days that I'm making an effort to remember my cuticles, I use hydroxy acid moisturizers on my cuticles. Pictured here are products from CND and Poshe (I have the old packaging of both, I stocked up about a year ago and am still using them up). The idea behind these products is pretty simple: they hydrate and the hydroxy acids help to exfoliate. When I'm using these a few times a day I find that my cuticles look amazing, I don't need to use cuticle remover and I can go ages between hang nails.

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Manicure 101: Polish Removal and the Foil Method

For nail polish removal, I love the little pots of remover. I can open them up, stick in a finger and swish it around a bit. I've found that the pure acetone pots have plastic scrubbing bristles and work really well for glitter polish removal. Again, they are super drying, so I don't use them frequently and I always follow up with some intense moisture.

If the polish that you need to remove is particularly tough, you might want to consider using the foil method of nail polish removal.

To do this, you'll want some cotton or craft felt cut into squares about the size of your nails, Acetone and foil squares about 3"x3" or so. Get the cotton/felt wet with the Acetone, place it directly on your nail. Put foil over the whole thing and just encase your nail pretty tightly. The foil is there to hold the cotton/felt tightly to the nail and prevent the Acetone from evaporating away. About 10-15 minutes later (go as short a time as you can because the Acetone is so drying), you can remove the whole thing and the polish will either be gone already or only need a small wipe to take off the remainder.

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Manicure 101: Manicure Clean Up Tips

Now that you've got the polish on, you want it to look perfect, right? I'm frequently asked where I get my nails done or how often I go to the salon. The answer is that I've been twice. Ever. I just know how to clean up a manicure so it looks perfect!

My favorite way to clean up a manicure is with a brush. You can see my well loved and nasty looking mani clean up brush in this picture. It's a really old Sonia Kashuk eye liner brush from Target. I am not sure why I started using it, but this brush is perfect. You'll want a stiff brush so it can be easily directed and can scrub off the polish. I went for an angled brush, but a square or even pointed brush would certainly work. I've heard that the paint brushes from a store like Michael's work well.

First, I pore pure Acetone into a little glass dampen glass. Mine is a from a nail supply, you can find them on-line or at Sally's for less than a dollar. Don't use the cap from your Acetone, you'll want to be able to close your bottle right up to minimize the evaporation. I wet my brush and simply run it along the areas that need to have polish removed. I wipe the brush off on a tissue or piece of felt, redip in the Acetone and repeat until I'm happy with the results.

Note that the Acetone is pretty drying to your nail and skin, so you'll want to moisturize right away when your mani is all dry. Some people have tried doing this using regular nail polish remover, but I've found that it doesn't clean up as nicely.

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Manicure 101: Polish Application

Now to get to the part everyone is really curious about, applying the polish! I've found that the secret to making a manicure last really is the base coat and top coat. I can make a manicure last for 7 days without any chips and barely any tip wear. Considering everything that I do in my daily life, I think that's pretty amazing!

My favorite basecoat is Orly Bonder, though I have great results with CND Stickey as well. Stickey is a little cheaper, so I've just ordered a big 2.3 ounce bottle of it and will be using it for most of my manis. My only issue with Stickey is that it seems to tint lighter colored manis a little green on my hands (I took a ton of pics and the Stickey keeps showing up as blue, but it really is a green color, similar to the other flavor of Scope mouth wash), this is likely because I'm so fair. I'll be saving my Bonder for light manicures to avoid this issue. Otherwise I get equal wear with regardless of which basecoat I use. So, Stickey for mid tone or darker polishes, Bonder for light colored polishes. My wear is equal, it's the color issue that's really at play here.

Next is of course, color. I've shown Chanel's Morning Rose, but that's only because it had just arrived when I took these pics, so it was in the big pile of polish on my desk. My favorite polish brands:
• OPI: I get the best wear out of OPI and they do have a lot of fun colors. The Sephora OPI polishes are the same formula, though they are a little more expensive. I'm not certain if the Nicole by OPI polishes are the same formula, but in general they apply just as well on me (and I prefer the Nicole brush) and they also have a great color range.
• Essie: Now owned by L'Oreal, Essie can be found in your local Walmart, Drugstore and in salons. If you want a light pink/nude color, look to an Essie. They also do pigmented creme polishes very well, often only 1 or 2 coats are needed.
• China Glaze
• Chanel: I love the colors and the shimmer, but typically the wear is only for a 2 or 3 day manicure. I usually change so often that I don't care.
• MAC: Similar to Chanel, they have some great colors but horrible wear. I get 1-2 days max.
• Sally Hansen: I admit that I'm only including them on this list for completeness. I know their Salon range wears for 7-10 days, but I really haven't tried them myself.
• Zoya: Usually a 4-5 manicure for me, the wear is a little worse than the OPI/Essie/China Glaze brands, but they also have some great colors and are free of 5 different chemicals.

My favorite top coats are Seche Vite or Poshe. I have Seche Vite right now as I bought a big pro sized bottle and just refill my bottles. Both are thicker than other brands, and apply over wet polish pretty easily. Super shiny and dry to the touch about 10 minutes after application!

So, I've created this little graphic to show you how I apply polish, though I'm planning to create a video for this post as well. You can click on the image to enlarge it if you want.

So, the cuticle is at the purple semicircle. Not pictured here is my first step, which is wrapping the tip of my nail in basecoat, polish or top coat. Simply run the brush along the tip of the nail. Try not to get it all over your skin, but if it is there don't worry, you'll clean it up later.

Next to apply polish to the nail itself. I place the end of my brush in the middle of the nail, a few millimeters from the cuticle (look at the light blue line, that's roughly where I place the brush). I push/wiggle the brush right up to the cuticle (the yellow squiggle), and let the brush fill in the nail right up to the cuticle. I do like about a millimeter of space there, but if it gets on the cuticle that's fine. Then I pull the brush along the nail (green arrow).

Usually I have enough polish on the brush that there will be some extra off to either side. I use this polish to help me repeat the process off to the sides. I cover the entire nail in 3 strokes, though I sometimes need 4 for my thumb. I do not reload the brush in between stroke on each nail, this results in too much polish. I do my entire left hand, then right hand and then just repeat. I rarely wait between coats, since the Seche Vite will dry all of the layers together.


All of the products pictured/featured here were bought by me. I've repurchased them so many times that it is somewhat crazy.

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Manicure 101: Preparation

Obviously, the first step has to be preparation of the cuticle area and your nail. Here you can see the products that I use to get ready for a manicure.

Sally Hansen Instant Cuticle Remover: There are a lot of products like this on the market, but they all seem to be either much, much too strong or to do absolutely nothing. This product from Sally Hansen strikes the perfect middle ground Simply apply a small bead on your cuticle bed and it does its job while you push back cuticles and run your nail over the cuticle. Simply rinse off to find perfect cuticles!

Cuticle Trimmer: I think mine is from Revlon, but this tool costs about $2 and it is money well spent. While you shouldn't cut your cuticles themselves (they help protect you quite and bit and cutting them is just asking for an infection), I like to use this along the sides of my nails in case of a hang nail.

Emery board: Yes, I know. There are a lot of people that swear by the crystal or glass nail files instead. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I have found that those files take forever to work and don't cut down on the issues I have with splitting nails. I like to use one that is coarse and either fine or medium on the other side. This one is from Sally's Beauty Supply.

Smoothing Block: Again from Sally's Beauty, I like to smooth out my ridges just a little so I can avoid needing a separate ridge filler. The blocks come with 4 sides, #1 is a fine/medium nail file and #4 really buffs your nails to a shiny finish. I only use #2 and #3. The goal is to lightly smooth out the ridges without overly thinning out the nail, but you want to leave behind a little rough surface so that your polish has something to grab on to. If you over buff the polish will peel off very quickly. So, #2 and #3 only!

Orange Stick: In case you're not a fan of using your fingernails to push back the cuticle. I don't always use these, it truly depends on whether I feel like hunting one down in my polish stash.

Nail Clippers: I have 2 of these, a "normal" one, and one that is pointed. The regular nail clippers are to clip down my nails before filing. I like to have pretty short nails, longer ones harbor bacteria under then tip which is bad for infection control at work. So, I like to keep them about 2 mm past my nail bed. The pointed nail clipper I rarely use, but it is for those instances that I have a hang nail my Cuticle Trimmer can't take care of.

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Manicure 101 Week

In case you haven't noticed, I've become a bit more candid about my nail polish obsession over the last few months. I fully admit that I was once a very active member of a nail polish forum (Makeup Alley), and I'm still a semi-active lurker and sometimes poster over there.

The picture above is the closet in my office. See all of those drawers on the left? That was my polish collection a few months ago. It recently spilled over onto the right side of my closet... it might have more than a few hundred colors. Yes, I'm obsessed and am willing to admit it. And I really do need that many colors, I can totally tell apart dark purple #1 from dark purple #5 and of course dark purple #12. So there.

Anyways, I've gotten a lot of questions about how I do my manicures and make my nails look good. I do have a large post that contained my manicure routine, but it's pretty long and things have changed a bit.

So, this week I'll break things down step by step. Posts to watch for:
• Preparation
• Cuticle Care
• Applying Color
• Clean up

And, if people are really nice, I may even make a few videos to show each step of the process!

Edit to add: It really isn't so much of a week any more. I keep finding topics to include and I've spilled over well into next week too. Let me know if there is a topic you'd particularly like covered!

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Orly's Summer 2011 Collection: Pinup

Orly has announced their Summer 2011 collection, Pinup. The collection is "inspired by the unapologetic glitz and free-spirited attitude of the most iconic pinup girls, the collection exudes a vivacious, dolled-up femininity that laces any look with sheer confidence."

Honestly, I don't know of any pinup girls that wear colors like this (I think of a red creme for a pinup girl). But, I still love these colors! Perfect colors for the summer.

Va Va Voom: Pink Neon Crème
Here Comes Trouble: Sparkle Green
Coquette Cutie: Coral Crème
Bubbly Bombshell: Purple Glitter

Orly

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Orly Out of This World Nail Polish

3 Coats to Opaque, this polish is pretty much just a purple glitter on me. The duochrome you see in the bottle flashes in low light, but I couldn't capture it in a picture.

Orly

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Poshe Topcoats and Basecoats: Can They Fit into Your Manicure Routine?

I'm sure a lot of you know by now that I love nail polish and nail products. I admit that I'm frequently on the nail board over at Makeup Alley (though I comment a lot less now than I once did), and I have a huge nail polish collection.

I am pretty picky about what products I use. I expect to do a manicure quickly (I can get from polish removal to the end in under 10 minutes), I want my manicure to dry in under 10-15 minutes (at least to the point that I can do basic things, I don't expect to put on gloves), I want nice shine and I want 5-6 days of wear despite the rough things I do with my hands.

I have posted my manicure routine before, though that was a few years ago and I'm always up for revisiting products or tweaking my routine. So, while I had tried Poshe before, problems with shrinkage persisted and it wasn't a regular product of mine. They recently asked me to give it another try, this time paired with their base coat.

So, I set out on a massive trial process. I've been using the two products exclusively in combination with other brands. I've used them with OPI, Essie, China Glaze and Zoya nail polishes. I've added or deleted my Barielle treatment products. How did it go?

It went pretty well actually. I'm not sure if it was because I was using the top coat previously with other base coats, but when used with the Poshe Base Coat, I have no shrinkage issues. I have great shine from the Poshe (equal to Seche Vite, which is fantastic). I can type on my computer or do other basic things about 10 minutes after completing application. Application itself goes well and I think the Poshe is a bit less viscous than SV, which I know a lot of people will appreciate.

Wear seemed to be a little bit of an issue. I can't add in a Barielle product, it cuts wear to 2 days. But with the Poshe top coat and base coat all manicures pretty much last 5-6 days without a chip in sight. (One exception is Zoya, which seems to only last 2 days or so, but I seem to have Zoya issues. I'm taking the advice of my friend Michelle over at All Lacquered Up who thinks Zoya does best with its own top and base coats. I'm trialling that now.)

Overall, I was pretty happy with the Poshe products. Great wear, nice shine, no more issues with shrinkage. All that and it's pretty fast drying. What more could a girl ask for?



Poshe Fast Drying Basecoat & Topcoat

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Product I'm Dramatically Overusing: Poshe Cuticle Care

Did you ever become so obsessed with a product that you want to using it, about 10x more each day than you probably should? But you really just do not care that you're overdoing it? Because you're addicted to the product?

Well, that's me right now with this cuticle cream from Poshe. It contains alpha hydroxy acids which help exfoliate your cuticles over time, keeping them in shape. Not a replacement for a cuticle remover, more of a maintenance product. And yes, you can overdo it with the AHAs, as evidenced by the slight stinging I had yesterday after my 10th application (I washed my hands and was fine, probably more like 2-3 applications a day max is reasonable.) I told you I was addicted to this stuff!

Well, with reasonable use of this product, I have flawless, hydrated cuticles. No more ragged edges, no painful hang nails.

And if you're thinking, didn't Christine write about a similar product before? Yes, I did. I admit that I fell off of the Cuticle Eraser band wagon after a year or so. Why? Suddenly all of my tubes separated into white clumps and oil. It was gross. The Poshe is more hydrating, creamier and I've had no separation issues. I prefer the Poshe over Cuticle Eraser.

Poshe AHA Cuticle Care

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Essie's Good to Go: The Fastest Drying Top Coat I've Tried

That's right, it's definitely the fastest. You probably know about my nail polish obsession (I have hundreds, I'm very particular about what products I use and I'm sometimes found over on the MUA Nail Board). So, you know that I've definitely tried nearly every top coat/base coat/treatment product for nails!

While Essie makes many of my favorite nail colors, I have to admit that I'd pretty much only tried their non-yellowing top coat, the ridge filling base coat and left it at that. I'd discovered Stickey and Bonder basecoats and fallen in love with my Seche Vite by then. But, recently I decided to give a few more Essie treatment products a shot.

With my love of a quick drying mani, the first product I picked was the Good To Go. Essie promises that it is the "Fastest Drying Top Coat" and while I haven't timed it against every other product on the market, it is most definitely the fastest I've tried!

I'm one of those people that applies their polish coats without waiting for them to dry. I do my base, 2-3 color then top coat. This top coat dries all of these layers within about 5 minutes. They aren't 100% dry, but definitely dry enough to go and do things like empty the dishwasher. That's twice as fast as my Seche Vite!

The shine is a little bit less than Seche Vite, but is still pretty comparable to other top coats. When I did a head to head comparison for wear against Seche Vite I did have a little bit more tip wear at day 5 with the Essie, but both hands developed major chips on day 6 requiring a polish change. So, not much difference!

I think for such a dramatic difference in drying time this is a great product to pick up!

Essie.com

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Artemis Woman Heel Smoother: The Lazy Girl's Pedicure!

Almost exactly a year ago I told you about my new found love for the Artemis Woman Heel Smoother. This is a great product that I'm still loving and thought needed to be mentioned again with my "pretend" month of pedicures.

In the last year I've cut back a bit on my use of the heel smoother (I'm not using it about every 3 weeks or so), mostly because it can be very easily overused. It's very easy to use, I sit down in the shower and use the tips on my heels, any rough spots but mainly on the cuticle area. It makes quick work of smoothing my skin with very little effort. Truly, I do have to be careful to not over do it, as I just end up prone to blisters if I'm not paying attention! I love that my Heel Smoother is waterproof as well, making it very easy to use in the shower and rinse off afterwards.

Artemis Woman Heel Smoother


Great News! I have 1 Artemis Woman Heel Smoother to giveaway! I've decided to make this a short contest, so enter now!

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Polish of the Day: Essie Risky Business

According to Essie this is a "glam red meets shimmery tangerine," which to me looks like a bright orange-red but definitely tangerine! In person this polish color is even more beautiful than the picture suggests (although this picture is very true to life for the color on me). If you are afraid of joining in on the Orange Nail Trend, this is a more universally flattering and subtle way to do it!

This shade does look quite a bit lighter in direct sunlight (as you can see in the inset above), but then you can see the same color shimmer!

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