Clutch Hits

For a long time, when I thought of clutches I thought of the bland little purses that I used to carry my disposable camera and lipstick to prom. I had a silver one that I used for most of high school that I think my mom still has somewhere. I also remember shawls being a thing, even though nobody ever used them.

Clutches have been in and out of fashion for well over a hundred years. They've always been plain or fancy and made of almost any
material you could imagine. While bags have always tended to be somewhat more plain, clutches have let us embrace
all that is beautiful and/or gaudy.

This is a small collection of some clutches that I love. Thankfully, most of them come with chain straps so you can carry them on your shoulder after a long night after the bar. After tossing back a few, your abilities to hang on to anything become suspect.

unfortunately, the clutches above are well out of my price range. Stores like Charlotte Russe, Wet Seal, Forever 21, etc., all carry adorable clutches for around $20. If you can't find one you like, buy a plain one and decorate it to your heart's content. Don't be afraid to bedazzle/paint/feather/deck it out to whatever you want. There's no wrong way when it comes to clutches.

A Winter Pink Polish

For the past few weeks, I've been on the lookout for a shade I call "winter pink." The best way I can describe it as a pink that doesn't have any orange or coral in it, or a pink similar to a ballet toe show but more deeply saturated. The closest shade I've seen is Julep's Susan, which apparently is discontinued. Julep describes Susan as a "cheery rose pink crème," which is better description than mine. I wanted a pink polish that was happy and cheerful, but not too summery, which pretty much describes most pink polishes.

I was in Walmart's grocery section one day with my mom, and she fishes out a nail polish from behind several packages of bagels. "This is a really pretty color," she told me and handed it to me. It was that pink I'd been hunting for.

The polish is Sinful Color's Soul Mate:

It's cheerful, rosy, but doesn't scream summer. This is the first color I've ever bought from Sinful Colors so I wasn't sure what to expect. Most of what I've heard about the brand has been mostly positive which is always nice. What's really nice about this polish is that it's only $1.98. You read that right, less than two bucks and the line carries an extensive range of colors.

The brush runs sort of narrow and doesn't seem to carry a lot of polish on it. This polish applies streaky and I have three coats on in the picture above. I have to apply it on the thick side to avoid the worst of the streaks. It also chipped fairly easily even with a top coat on but the chips weren't huge. All in all, for a two dollar polish, I'm pretty satisfied. I love the color and it met my expectations for a cheap polish. Walmart and Target both carry a small selection but Rite-Aid and Walgreens have a lot of colors to choose from.

Introducing Pantone's Color of 2013...Emerald

When I woke up this morning and read that Pantone has declared Emerald as the color for 2013, I was elated. Green has rapidly been filling my closet and really, I don't need to add reason to add the rich color of emerald green to my closet.
Well, when I actually read the press release, I realized I was wrong on emerald. According to Pantone, their shade of emerald is more of a...turquoise? Teal? A turquoise that leans more green than blue? A dark mint green? Whatever shade of green emerald is supposed to be, it's not the rich jewel tone I had envisioned. I like it, I'd buy stuff in this color (heck, I already think I have stuff in this color), but how horribly excited am I about this color? Not very much. I do think it's a nice year-round color though. This is the color you're going to see everywhere in 2013, just like orange (ok, Tangerine Tango) was everywhere this year. Orange is one of my favorite colors and I actually got sick of it.

What's really getting to me is that everywhere I go, the swatches are looking different. Above, going off some information I first found, emerald leans towards green with a lot of blue. But when I look at this swatch:

It looks like there's isn't that much blue in it. I'm confused.  This is why I miss my giant 50 pound CRT computer monitor.

I started digging through my nail polish collection, then searching online for a similar color. The closest I've come is Sally Hansen's Fairy Teal, and while it is a teal leaning towards green, it's a shade or two darker than emerald. My other guesses are Zoya's Bevin and Essie's Turquoise & Caicos even though it's too light. At a stretch to match the swatch above, OPI's Jade is the New Black.

When I swatched them, Sally Hansen still looks the closest but needs more green. I think OPI's looks the closest to the large swatch above, and the Essie reminded me why I didn't buy Essie forever; the formula for Turquoise & Caicos is one of the if not the worst polish formula I've ever used. I'm sure there are polishes that are a much closer match but I just don't feel like driving to Ulta right now to track them down.

-Not sure who or what Pantone is? Read my post from 2011 describing the organization dedicated to color (and you can also read about the color of the year for 2011, Honeysuckle).

Best Acne Treatment EVER.

Mario Badescu Buffering Lotion, $17, Ulta (not available online)
You can buy it online through Nordstrom.

The past few months my breakouts have been horrible. I'm used to the occasional hormonal pimple (or three) which usually last a day or two and disappear. Not so much anymore. I've been getting these deep, horrible cystic pimples that hurt, are huge, and never go away. I've tried a variety of acne treatments and nothing was working. While on one of my bi-monthy trips to Ulta I was sporting one of these monsters right under my eye. I couldn't conceal this thing to save my life so I was actually trying to find a new concealer to try to hide it. I came across the Mario Badescu section in Ulta and saw that the Buffering Lotion was meant for cystic acne. So I put a few drops on my pimple and went home. This pimple which had not responded to anything had dropped probably 80% in redness and size. I literally dropped everything, drove the hour back to the Ulta in South Charleston, and picked up a bottle. I'm still having pimples but with this lotion they're gone in two-three days and aren't getting anywhere near as big and red as they were. If you're having troubles with your acne not responding to anything, give this stuff a try.

The One That (Almost) Got Away, Part II

Almost two years ago, I wrote about my frustrations trying to get my hands on a bottle of Chanel Jade polish.  It's currently going for $300 on Ebay right now, just so you know. Sigh.  To make a long story short, I spent $50 trying to find a dupe of Jade instead of trying to just buy the original Jade. Jade is what helped start my Chanel polish addiction and probably my polish obsession in general.

While there have been a ton of polishes I've crazy over, they weren't quite Jade obsessions. I think the two closest ones that came close to a Jade obsession were Chanel's Peridot, which I did spend a lot of time trying to find dupes and Chanel's Skyline which I just went ahead and bought because I had already heard there were no dupes available.



Peridot is probably my most worn polish of this year. I'm giving serious thought to buying a back up bottle because I know once my bottle is gone I'll be heartbroken. Skyline combines my love of Chanel polish and flying (it was from an air travel themed collection) so it was an absolute must-have for me. I'm wearing Skyline right now and it's amazing:



There's more to this story. Most of my Jade-Level obsessions begin with just a brief mention or small picture of a polish on a blog that I just can't get out of my head.  Sometime at the end of October, I came across an ever so small picture and mention of the Dior Le Grand Bal holiday collection. What first caught my eye were the insanely beautiful bottles:

How cute would these look on your vanity? While I loved the bottles, I wasn't sure about the actual polish and even though I'm a total sucker for limited edition pretty packaging I was very iffy on spending the money on the collection. However, three weeks ago while at the Sephora in the Charleston Town Center, I came across Lady, a frosty pearl white. It was pretty enough in the bottle so I swatched it there in the store. I put on two coats, took one look at the nail I swatched, grabbed a bottle and checked out. Then I started seeing the swatches online of the other colors and every single one of them said to pick up Diva, described as a red-based black with gold and purple shimmer. I've been eyeing similar colors for a while, so to me adorable bottle + polish I was already going to buy = Get out my AMEX.

What I didn't realize was Diva is sold out. Everywhere. Makeup counters AND online. Sephora is only carrying the Lady shade, and the usual places such as Nordstrom or Bloomingdales are sold out most of the colors. It's hard to find on Ebay and is going for $50+ and going pretty quickly even at that price.  It's like people are actually hoarding this polish. With the exception of Jade, I have never seen such a hard to find nail polish. It took me two hours last night to try to find Diva in stock. I finally did, at Saks Fifth Avenue.  I'm also going to be honest, I'm not sure if it's actually still in stock. I can get to the page I used last night to make my purchase, but when you try to search for the polish on the Saks website it doesn't come up.  I tried to google the page I found last night, but all it does is bring up the reviews page which says the product is unavailable.  If you're wanting to buy Diva you can give it a try but I won't make any guarantees that it's still in stock.

If you're interested in buying several of the colors, Bergdorf Goodman is selling a collection that includes Diva, Lady, and Marilyn for $70.  If I hadn't already bought Lady I probably would have purchased this set.

I know all this work seems silly for just nail polish, but I don't want to still be thinking about it and wishing I had gotten it years later, like Chanel's Jade.

WeAreMarshall

WeAreMarshall by wvfashionologist on Polyvore

BGP: Cover Girl Lash Blash Fusion Mascara

BGP: Cover Girl Lash Blash Fusion Mascara by wvfashionologist featuring covergirl mascara

During week two in Charlotte, I discovered I had forgotten to bring mascara.  There was a Food Lion a quick walk from my hotel so I headed out to grab some.  Obviously the mascara selection was rather small but they did have some Cover Girl products.  Cover Girl's Lash Blast Fusion is yet another mascara I've heard nothing but good things about so I didn't think twice about purchasing it.  Bad idea.  This stuff is the worst mascara I've ever used.  It's easier to point out what went right with the mascara than what went wrong.  It had a nice color.  Everything else was bad: it didn't lengthen, it clumped, and it's most serious crime was that it flaked off my lashes and all over my cheeks by lunchtime.  If I were working out on an airport tarmac in the middle of August, I would understand the underperformance.  But sitting in an office working with a computer for eight hours?  It shouldn't have happened.