L'Occitane Extra-Gentle Lotion Reduces My Resemblance to a Lizard!

I am all for using heavy hand creams and cuticle treatments at night. I love that. But, I have found that trying to make up for a lack of moisture during the day by piling on heavy creams at night does not leave my hands and nails feeling optimally moisturized. However, I HATE using hand cream and then touching anything. I am always running around during the day and I just can't take 10 minutes to wait for my hand cream to absorb. What's a girl supposed to do?

I found the answer recently in the form of L'Occitane Extra-Gentle Lotion for Hands & Body. Sure, everyone knows about the classic L'Occitane hand cream in the pretty tubes. I myself have at least 6 of those and use them at night. I hadn't heard about this fantastic lotion until just a little while ago! This lotion absorbs super fast, leaving no greasy residue. It has shea butter, just like the L'Occitane cream, but in a lighter format that I think works perfectly for day.

My other favorite thing about this lotion is that it comes in a giant 10.1 fl. oz. pump dispenser! I have a weird aversion to taking off the cap of a tube, applying cream and then having to put the cap back on with my freshly cream-covered hands. So I really love the pump!

Ingredients for the ingredient buffs ^.

I got my L'Occitane Extra-Gentle Lotion on Apothica.com.

This product was purchased with funds provided to me by Apothica.com. For more information, please read my Disclosure Policy.

The Polish Bar Eternal Sunshine

Base: one coat CND Stickey

Color: three coats The Polish Bar Eternal Sunshine

Top: one coat Poshe

Application: excellent (out of poor, average, good, excellent)

Today's post features the new love of my life a gorgeous polish from a new to me indie brand! This soft yellow glittery concoction is The Polish Bar Eternal Sunshine! Janice, the lovely lady behind The Polish Bar, recently asked if I'd like to try some of her polishes, and I immediately focused on Eternal Sunshine. I love pale yellow polish when it's done well, and this baby is done really well! Eternal Sunshine is a creamy pale yellow with small purple square glitters, small purple and fuchsia hex glitters, and teeny navy glitters. JUST GORGEOUS!!

Three coats of Eternal Sunshine is absolutely perfect! The yellow base is sheer enough to let the glitters show through, but quite opaque in three coats. It also was completely streak free! If you wanted more of a yellow look, you could layer this over a yellow base, but I'm really loving it as is. I wish Janice would teach mainstream polish companies how to make a non-streaky pale yellow!

Eternal Sunshine just scream spring to me! I can't wait to wear it on one of those warm March days when you can just tell that spring is on the way. It would also help me get through one of those dim February days when I feel like spring will never come.

If you, like me, have thus far been missing out on the amazing polish created by Janice of The Polish Bar, check out her Etsy store. Eternal Sunshine is in stock right now! To stay up to date with the latest news about The Polish Bar, check out The Polish Bar on Facebook. I have two more of her polishes to review, so stay tuned for those.

Product sent for review. For more information, please read my Disclosure Policy.

Never Enough Nails Stash Shots!

I've never done a post about how my collection is organized and stored, but I just bought my 2nd Ikea Helmer and figured I would share some pictures. I have my polishes sorted by color, because I usually have some vague idea of what color I'd like to wear next. Like, I'll be in the mood for a purple. My 12 Helmer drawers are: red, orange/yellow, green, green/blue, blue, purple, purple/gray/taupe/white/black, pink, metallics, multi-colored glitters, Lynnderellas, untrieds. Within each color drawer, I have brands grouped together. At the front of each drawer is OPI, NOPI, and SOPI (simply because I have the most of those usually). Then the orders change depending on the color, but usually next is China Glaze, Zoya, or Essie. Then drugstore brands like Sally Hansen, then indies and random HE brands. The first picture is my red drawer, I was happy to see I have room to grow in that drawer with about 45 reds.

Above is my orange/yellow drawer. I have about 43 oranges and 18 yellows. I say about because I was counting pretty roughly and I was also arranging things after taking these pictures, so I may actually have more!

This is my precious green drawer. As you can see, it's pretty full with 80 greens, so I do have an empty drawer (not pictured) that will be green/blue overflow when that is needed. Below is my also pretty full blue drawer (84 blues). I'll be needing that overflow drawer soon!

Next up is purple and I was not surprised to find out I have more purples than any other color, although not by much. I have 85 purples (pretty close to blue). Not much room here either!

This next drawer will be overflow for purple soon, and also contains grays, taupes, browns, blacks, and whites. I have about 37 of these. I added several more to this drawer after taking these pictures, so it might be closer to 40.

Next up is the pink drawer, with 65 polishes. This drawer probably needs a purge, as I rarely wear pink. I basically refuse to ever give it a second drawer.

Then we have one of my favorite drawers, the metallic drawer! This includes golds, silvers, coppers, etc. This drawer also has glitters that are obviously one metallic color (i.e. a silver glitter in a clear base). I have about 65 metallics. Golds and coppers went at the front, silvers at the back. I tend to wear the warmer metallics more often.

Now we have a pretty small drawer, but I think it'll keep filling up. This is the multi-colored glitter drawer. This drawer is for glitters that have too many colors for me to figure out where to put them. Some of these are indies, others are RBL, Wet n Wild, etc. I counted 31 here, but then I think I added more after counting. We'll go with 31!

Next we have my Lynnderella drawer. Don't hate, it's my Helmer, and I wanted them to have their own drawer. The front section is organized by color, starting with red. Behind the makeshift divider are Lynnderellas I haven't tried yet.

The 12th drawer is my untrieds drawer and it was a bit messy looking, so I just didn't feel like taking a picture. I have 34 polishes in there, but I also have some various nail art supplies that I haven't posted on the blog yet and some polish stickers/appliques.

My neutrals, some pale pinks and pale grays all reside in a separate box in my mom's room. There are probably about 50 in that box. I'll have to take pictures of that some day! So all in all, I have something like 690 polishes. Not too bad, I was assuming it was almost 700, so I was right on the money! Let me know if you see any polish in this box that you haven't seen on here and want swatched!

New Spring Color Club Halo Hues Cosmic Fate!!

Base: none
Color: three coats Color Club Cosmic Fate
Top: none
Application: excellent (out of poor, average, good, excellent)

You might not know that Color Club is releasing MOAR HOLOS for the spring!!! Yes, more!!! I have no official information about these, they haven't been officially released yet. But they are available on eBay and Amazon and you can see nail wheel swatches of all them there. I ordered two of them to start (haha, probably getting more), and today I have Color Club Cosmic Fate for your viewing pleasure.

Cosmic Fate is a light peachy holo. What a holo it is too! It was freezing when I took these, but the sun was out in full force, so I had to take one for the team and stand out in the cold taking pictures! I only got Angel Kiss from the fall Halo Hues, but I feel like Cosmic Fate is even more holo, and Angel Kiss was really holo.

This applied fantastically. No bare patches or difficulties of any sort. I do not use base coat with holos, but I've heard the Halo Hues play well with some base coats. I didn't use top coat this time either, but I wore Angel Kiss with NYC Grand Central Station and it didn't dull the holo. I don't get the world's greatest wear time with these, but that applies to most holos and me. I haven't tested Cosmic Fate for wear yet, but I wore Angel Kiss for two days with only one tiny chip. I do not know how this compares to Cherubic (I meant to pick it up and never did) from the 2012 Halo Hues, but it's probably more peach-toned.

Now, I also took a picture inside, near a window (not directly next to the window though). Cosmic Fate is still holo!

The next picture is indoors in pretty low light. Not so holo, but that is typical in low light. Still pretty!

The new Color Club holos are available on eBay now and I'm sure they will hit stores soon. I ordered Kismet too and will swatch it soon!

Nicole by OPI Modern Family Part Three!

Base: one coat Nicole by OPI Base Coat Plus
Color: two coats Nicole by OPI I Do De-Claire!
Top: one coat Poshe
Application: good (out of poor, average, good, excellent)

I apologize for how crazy long it has taken me to swatch the whole Nicole by OPI Modern Family collection!! I do all of my swatching outside in natural light, and the weather in Connecticut has not been nice for swatching. When I did these today, it was FREEZING outside (we're in the middle of an "arctic blast"), so sorry for any cold, red-looking hands. I also apologize for the bubbles my Poshe top coat caused, they are NOT from the polishes. I need a new swatching top coat. First up, we have Nicole by OPI I Do De-Claire!, a frosty pale pink. While I am not one for wearing frosty pale pinks, this didn't bother me too much. The frostiness looks mostly like shimmer, and it's not so pale that it looks white-ish.

If you're looking for this kind of pink with excellent pigmentation, look no further. This is two coats, and it was pretty pigmented after just one coat. The formula was very easy to work with too! I also didn't have too much trouble with visible brushstrokes. With any frosty color, there are likely to be some brushstrokes, but in person, they weren't terribly obvious (I think they're a bit more obvious in my photos).

Base: one coat Nicole by OPI Base Coat Plus
Color: three coats Nicole by OPI Am I Making Myself Claire?
Top: one coat Poshe
Application: good (out of poor, average, good, excellent)

Nicole by OPI Am I Making Myself Claire? is a grayed-out lilac pink creme. I would actually probably say it's a gray with hints of pinky lavender. It's not very flattering on me, but I can definitely see it looking beautiful on someone with the right skin tone. It's a pretty cool mix of a little bit edgy, with the grayness, and pastel.

This is three coats of Am I Making Myself Claire?. The formula was pretty good, especially considering that pale cremes and I often don't get along. It was opaque in three coats. It was maybe a bit streaky on the first coat, but evened out with the second.

Base: one coat Nicole by OPI Base Coat Plus
Color: two coats Nicole by OPI Basking In Gloria
Top: one coat Poshe
Application: excellent (out of poor, average, good, excellent)

Nicole by OPI Basking In Gloria is a really pretty red-violet shimmer. Might I say that it seems a tad unfair that Gloria gets a gorgeous red-violet and a pretty purple in this collection and Claire gets saddled with a frosty pale pink and a pale gray-lilac creme? Is Claire really that boring? Anyway..... I do like Basking In Gloria a lot! It has enough violet in it for me to love it more than I would normally love a red.

This is just two coats of Basking In Gloria, so the pigmentation is very nice! I had no troubles with the formula, it was nice and smooth! Lovely!

Base: one coat Nicole by OPI Base Coat Plus
Color: three coats Nicole by OPI My Jay or the Highway!
Top: one coat Poshe
Application: average (out of poor, average, good, excellent)

I'm glad I don't have a job that makes me wear neutral cremes all day long. I don't know how some people do it! Nicole by OPI My Jay or the Highway! is a light taupe creme. It wasn't super flattering on me and it's not really dark enough for me to consider it to be an edgy taupe. Just a pale, work-appropriate neutral taupe.

This is three coats of My Jay or the Highway! and it was streaky for the first two coats. I needed the third to even it out. I also thought the formula was not as smooth as the others, maybe a tad thicker too.

Base: one coat Nicole by OPI Base Coat Plus
Color: three coats Nicole by OPI Luke of the Draw
Top: one coat Poshe
Application: good (out of poor, average, good, excellent)

Now that's what I'm talkin about!!!! Nicole by OPI Luke of the Draw is my obvious favorite in this post. Luke of the Draw is a black jelly packed with different sizes of silver glitter. The jelly base looks opaque, but also lets the glitter show through nicely. This is one of those polishes that didn't photograph well in the sun, so I took shade pictures. The sun made it look too sheer.

Luke of the Draw was mostly opaque in three coats. Being that the base is a jelly, it had a tiny bit of VNL, but it wasn't bothersome to me. The formula was good and easy to control, no problems getting lots of glitter out.

Of these five, my favorite is definitely Luke of the Draw!! If you're looking for a nice red-violet, Basking In Gloria is a great choice too. If you missed my other two posts about the Nicole by OPI Modern Family collection, check them out here and here. My top 3 for the collection are Alex By the Books, A Like-Haley Story and Luke of the Draw!

Nicole by OPI Nail Lacquers and Nail Treatments contain no DBP, Toluene, or Formaldehyde. Nicole by OPI formulas are long-lasting, fast-drying, and salon-quality.

Modern Family lacquers are available now for $7.99 each at retailers including select Walmart, Target, CVS, Rite Aid, Kmart, Kroger, ULTA, H-E-B, Meijer and Duane Reade locations. In Canada, this line will be available for $10.99 each at Shoppers Drug Mart, Walmart Canada, Jean Coutu, Loblaw, and London Drug.

For more information, visit nicolebyopi.com. Follow Nicole by OPI on Twitter @NicoleByOPI and become a Facebook fan!

Products sent for review. For more information, please read my Disclosure Policy.

Lynnderella Party of a Dress is a Party On My Nails!

Base: one coat CND Stickey

Color: two coats Essie Sexy Divide, two coats Lynnderella A Party of a Dress

Top: one coat Poshe

Application: excellent (out of poor, average, good, excellent)

When I'm having a rough week, I like to put something really gorgeous on my nails. Then, whenever I've had enough, I just look down at my nails and smile. Lynnderella A Party of a Dress is definitely a fantastic polish for this purpose. A nice mixture of fuchsia glitter, pink holographic glitter pieces, and tiny blue holo glitter, A Party of a Dress also contained an excellent surprise for me. One of the pink holo pieces that came out in this mani was a large pink flower! I didn't even know there were flowers in this polish! It came out on the brush and I was like "what is that??" and then "OMG A HOLO FLOWER!" haha.

I used two coats of A Party of a Dress over Essie Sexy Divide for this mani. This polish was very easy to apply. The glitter is plentiful and flows on to the nail with normal brushstrokes. That big flower came right out on it's own with no fishing, I didn't even know there were flowers to fish for! I think A Party of a Dress is going to look amazing over pink, purple, blue, black and even white. I have so many untried polishes, but part of me wants to take this off and wear it right away again (like I did with Lynnderella Salad Days).

Lynnderella A Party of a Dress is available online at Lynnderella's eBay store. I know I still have several untried Lynns from Season's Glitterings (and I even have one untried from both EHR and SSSS!!!), but I can't wait to order the Groundhog's Day polishes. I want Chocolove Cherry, The Key to Her Heart, S.W.A.K., Parfait d'Amour, Sugared Violet and Blue Rouge!