I suppose I've taken a little break. And I didn't even realize it! I need to get back on the ball. Honestly, posting just slipped my mind. Which is odd. I'm usually hyper aware! I've got a short and sweet post for you right now, but I'm going to sit here tonight and work on posts for the rest of the week...so I don't miss a day! I also need to work on this week's Inspired by a Book mani. My kind picked a hard book...


Today I've got a look at the Jordana Fabuliner Bold Felt-Tip Liquid Eyeliner! Yeah, it looks like a big fat permanent marker. Kinda of works like one too! :) heheh But this goes on your eyes :)


It's super precise. That tip is very focused and applies very smoothly. I am still practicing with using it on my eyes. I'm just not good with the steady hand. it takes practice, but I'm working on it :)


At $2.99, this is a very nicely priced liner! You can buy them at Walgreens or on their website.

DISCLAIMER: Some products used in this post were provided to me by the company for consideration. This blog is written and edited by me, and the opinions are not influenced in any way and are not compensated. Please read this post for more information.

Confessions of a Sarcastic Mom beauty posts this week:
Sunday: My (very late) August favorites
Monday: Jordana Cosmetics 12-Hour Made to Last Eyeshadow Pencils
Tuesday: A trippy gradient with Zoya holos
Wednesday: Perlier Volcanic Thermal Scrub
Thursday: Inspired by a Book mani series - The God Project

Posts from around the web:
Refined & Polishes shows off for Twinsie Tuesday with Dollish Polish Gym Tan Laundry
Lucy's Stash offers from mosaic nail art
Polish Obsession posted about Colores de Carol polishes
The PolishAholic brings swatches of the new China Glaze Monsters Ball collection
Imperfectly Painted shows off an awesome blue - Avon Mega Watt in Shock

I am now going to work on getting the WONDERFUL mani photos up on the site! I'm creating a page for the top bar where they will ALWAYS BE. If you'd like to provide a mani now, you can very well do so! I can add it to the growing list of ones I've received! :)

Also, I've decided to make this a year-round thing. I'm going to be doing pop-up giveaways - contests - whatever I can every once in a while to keep the awareness up. And, I've decided I'm going to make this giveaway an annual thing. So next year, I hope to have a giveaway just like this one!

Every week I will bring you nail art! Thursdays used to be Fail Art Thursday, but hopefully I'll have less "fail" here! I'm going to do this series (for as long as I can), with nail art inspired by books! The covers of books specifically. I hope to be able to do this EVERY Thursday - and I'm going to try my hardest to make this a weekly feature - there are SO many books I can utilize :)

So what is this week's book? My most favoritist book of all time - The God Project by John Saul. It's by far the book I've read the most. 13 times. Yes, I've read it 13 times. 13 times over the past 25 years or so. What's it about? Medical experimentation on babies in utero. Making the perfect indestructible soldier. It just gives me chills.


This is just one of several covers of this book. I think I have them all. except the foreign cover, which is even named something different. I believe it's called All Fall Down. Anyway hahaha I decided to showcase the gradient in the crib, surrounded by bars. hehe I chose all Zoya polishes - Sooki, Maura, Jancyn, Creamy and Dea, all of which were purchased with my own money.


The gradient looks SUPER AWESOME on the cosmetic sponge :)


So I put down a base of Creamy on my middle and ring fingers, and Dea on my pointer and pinky. I gradiented with Sooki, Maura and Jancyn on my middle and ring fingers. (I'm sorry they are so far apart. I am  far too agitated right now to fix the html to make them closer hahah)


I love it! Altho, I would use less Sooki and Maura if I had to do it over again. Getting the red off my cuticles was murder!


So what do you guys think? I am really looking forward to what I can accomplish with this feature! Is there a book you'd like to see me attempt nail art inspired by? I'll gladly take suggestions! I can even get the book checked out from the library if need be ;)

**DISCLAIMER** I was not paid for this review by anyone. I either purchased these products myself or were given gifts from friend.

Good morning!!!! A little change for this Thursday - a multi-blogger giveaway! I created a group on Facebook for Midwestern Beauty Bloggers and a few of us have joined forced to bring you a great giveaway!

It's Wednesday!! I've got a review of the Perlier Volcanic Thermal Scrub that I received from iFabbo. This scrub is very different than any other scrub I've tried. Most of my scrubs are sugar-based....this one isn't even close haha


It's VERY gel-like. I loved the way it felt, but I prefer more grindy bits. I wasn't fond of the smell. It's not bad, but very vaguely man-ish. I mean, it smells like my husband's body wash. I can put up with it, but wouldn't want to smell like it all the time :)


I use it on my hands a lot (it's really great for cleaning up around the cuticles after polishing hehe), but I decided last night to try using it on my face in the shower - WOW. My skin was so soft afterwards! ..but the smell kinda put me off haha


You can get this from HSN for $25.

DISCLAIMER: Some products used in this post were provided to me by the company for consideration. This blog is written and edited by me, and the opinions are not influenced in any way and are not compensated. Please read this post for more information.

Hi all! I'm jumping ahead of myself today with this post. I haven't even put up my review of the Zoya Zenith collection (it's coming this week, I promise!), but I've got nail art featuring some of the colors! I'm slightly into gradients right now (I don't want to say "obsessed"), and I'm really working on perfectly them, making them look better, have more interesting color combos...and as I was swatching the Zenith, I got the bright idea for a gradient featuring the scattered holos from this collection (Payton and Dream) along with the scattered holos from last winter's Ornate collection (Blaze and Aurora).


I'm really impressed with how it came out! I always sucked at gradients until I found my groove. I have to paint the polish directly on the makeup sponge and then dab on my nails to get them to work.  I know a lot of people do it a lot of different ways, but that's my way :)


This mani is super trippy! hahaha It's almost a mind trick. It looks out of focus. I started with a base of Aurora, and then gradient-ed down with Blaze, then Payton, then Dream. I had to dab on 2-3 coats of the other three to achieve what I got.


What do you guys think? I think I did a pretty good job! :) My son loved these nails. He told me never to take them off.

DISCLAIMER: Some products used in this post were provided to me by the company for consideration. This blog is written and edited by me, and the opinions are not influenced in any way and are not compensated. Please read this post for more information.

Good morning!!!! I'm up and about (at least for a little while!) and I've got a post coming right at ya! :) I've got three of the new Jordana Cosmetics 12-Hour Made to Last Eyeshadow Pencils! I've often mentioned my love of eyeshadow pencils so it should be no surprise I am quite taken with these :)


As you can see from the photo, I have Eternal White, Continuous Almond and Prolong Purple. To be honest, I was a little concerned when I put these on. They are creamy, very creamy, and I wondered if they would slip or melt or move. BUT they dry fairly quickly, so the creaminess doesn't affect how they place or wear.


You can see on the middle one, Continuous Almond, just how creamy it is! They are not twist-up style pencils, btw. They need to be sharpened.


Look at that creaminess! Seriously. It's almost too much :) And they do last! I can't attest to the 12-hours in the name, but I wore Continuous Almond for 6 with no slipping, crusting or fading! At $3.99 each, there is no reason you won't need all of them! :) You can buy them at Walgreens or on their website.


DISCLAIMER: Some products used in this post were provided to me by the company for consideration. This blog is written and edited by me, and the opinions are not influenced in any way and are not compensated. Please read this post for more information.

DANG I'M LATE!!! This month has just been an absolute mess for me haha I realized this morning that I hadn't put up my August favorites - despite the fact that we're on a downward spiral toward October! It's been an insane month, but I'm still going to share my favorites of last month with you :)

I've just got the one photo here, so I'm gonna go with it :) This is in no particular order, and I will denote if I received the product from a company or if I purchased it myself.

Bioelements Calmitude Hydrating Solution: This amazing spray has kept my face hydrated through the humidity we had last month! It's a cool blast for your face that helps keep your skin soft and supple. I received this product  as a press sample.

Dickinson's Witch Hazel towelettes: I haven't reviewed these on the blog, but I received them in an Influenster box. The smell takes a bit getting used to, but they make my skin feel clean. It's hard to explain haha Whenever I need a quick clean-up, I reach for one.

Jordana Sweet 'n Smooth Lip Balm in Tropical Punch: I like to try to keep stuff on my lips at all times because my lips have a tendency to chap and get dry super easy. I have a LOT of great lip balms, and a lot of them have color to them...but Tropical Punch gives me the softness I need, along with not having much color to it...makes for a great any time. I keep it at my end of the couch, so it's there when I'm watching TV :) I received this product  as a press sample.

Sally Hansen Gel Cuticle Remover: I've tried the blue Sally Hansen stuff, and while it worked out, I wasn't quite impressed. I saw this one for sale at CVS while there was an SH ExtraCare buck promotion going. I decided to give it a try and so far, I'm loving it!

Zoya Carter: I wore Carter for 4 days straight. LOVE it. Didn't even get a chip either, despite not having top coat. It's a gorgeous texture, and I forsee it being one of my most used polishes. I received this product  as a press sample.

Catrice London's Weather Forecast: I received this is a swap with  a friend and just never blogged about it - it's weird because I use it all the time. It seems I use it for a nail art base like every time I turn around! I believe it's discontinued now, and I'll be sad when I run out :(

So there you have it! See any products you love? What are your favorites this month?

DISCLAIMER: Some products used in this post were provided to me by the company for consideration. This blog is written and edited by me, and the opinions are not influenced in any way and are not compensated. Please read this post for more information.

So I have this polish in my head. It's, you know, THE polish. I came up with what would be my perfect polish...an orange jelly with teal glitter. Yes, that's my dream. I can't seem to find a polish like that, tho, so I decided to make it myself with a jelly sandwich!


..and this is the end result! Unfortunately, this is a photo of my nails from my phone. As I've mentioned, I've been stuck in bed with Sciatica all week long. I painted my nails Saturday night, before all this happened. I've had the same nails since. Which means, this is a photo of my nails at 6 days of wear, Only the one slight clip there on my ring finger. I think it's holding up very well!!

SO I've got some amazing things coming up for you guys - the Zoya Zenith collection, some new Rainbow Honey polishes - and I won the Neon Collision collection from Salon Perfect! I'm hoping to get back to work this weekend on this blog and get some posts ready! It's really difficult to get stuff done when you're not sitting at your own computer - but I'm gonna try! :)

Do you guys have a dream polish that hasn't been made? I'd LOVE to hear about it! :)

I'm so upset right now. The Blogger phone app DELETED this post! I posted this on Wednesday, and it's now Friday. I can HOPE it ends up ok. I'm just SICK. I'm going to try to recreate it the best I can, but I wanna smash that Blogger app nine ways to Sunday...


You can get this from HSN for $24.50.

DISCLAIMER: Some products used in this post were provided to me by the company for consideration. This blog is written and edited by me, and the opinions are not influenced in any way and are not compensated. Please read this post for more information.

   

Confessions of a Sarcastic Mom beauty posts this week:
Sunday: Bioelements Oil Controlling Mattifier and the Zoya Cashmere Collection
Monday: Indigo Bananas Maui Wowee
Tuesday: Square stuff rhinestones from Born Pretty Store
Wednesday: Indigo Bananas Dream A Little Dream
Thursday: Nail art with Suds n Stickers guides and Inspired by a Book mani - Why I'm Afraid of Bees
Friday: #hepicksmypolish Blue glitter gradient

Posts from around the web:
Polish Obsession shows off some cute nail art!
Glitter Gloss Garbage shares some homemade lip scrub recipes! (an older post, but worth it!)
Beauty Judy gives us a look at a new nail polish line - Chrome Girl!
Baroque Fool has some awesome Darth Maul nails!

Oh my oh my!! Check out this new Zoya collection coming out!

So I've decided to take part in this new challenge - #hepicksmypolish. Each month (or a few times per month) I'm going to have my husband, son or maybe even my puppy, choose a nail polish for me to feature here. This was originally the brainchild of Sparkle Queen as a monthly thing :) Maybe I'll get adventurous and have them EACH pick out a polish and do some nail art, who knows. For this post, I had my husband pick a polish for me to use, and he, of course, picked his favorite color - blue. He's used to me saying, "Hey, go to that box and pick out one for me to to wear." Nine times out of 10 he picks a blue. I've come to expect it from him! This time, tho, he didn't stop with one polish, he chose three...


He chose China Glaze First Mate, and two WnW glitters - Caught on Sapphire and Bling It On, all of which were purchased by me. I decided a glitter gradient was exactly what I needed :)


I started with a base of First Mate, then sponged about halfway up my nail with Bling It On. I finished it off by sponging the tips with Caught on Sapphire.


What do ya think? I'm meh about it. Lots of bling, no action ;) Check out the other bloggers working on this monthly challenge below!

**DISCLAIMER** I was not paid for this review by anyone. I either purchased these products myself or were given gifts from friend.

Every week I will bring you nail art! Thursdays used to be Fail Art Thursday, but hopefully I'll have less "fail" here! I'm going to do this series (for as long as I can), with nail art inspired by books! The covers of books specifically. I hope to be able to do this EVERY Thursday - and I'm going to try my hardest to make this a weekly feature - there are SO many books I can utilize :)

So what is this week's book? I let my son pick again, so...another Goosebumps book! He picked Why I'm Afraid of Bees this time around, so I knew I had to use my textured polishes that I received for review from Milani Cosmetics for this venture! The bee on the cover of the book is definitely textured! haha


I'm actually chalking this one up to a failure. It just doesn't look good! haha I used Shady Gray and and Yellow Mark for this mani. For the ring and middle fingers, I tried sponging on, in kind of a gradient style, the stripes on the kid-bee's belly. Eh.


It's not horrible - it just looks weird hahah I think a better way would have been just paining stripes on, rather than trying to sponge.


So what do you guys think? I am really looking forward to what I can accomplish with this feature! Is there a book you'd like to see me attempt nail art inspired by? I'll gladly take suggestions! I can even get the book checked out from the library if need be ;)

DISCLAIMER: Some products used in this post were provided to me by the company for consideration. This blog is written and edited by me, and the opinions are not influenced in any way and are not compensated. Please read this post for more information.

Today's morning post is a quickie nail art post - using some nice polishes and guides sent to me from Suds n Stickers! Man, I love these guides. They make nail art so easy for me! I'm walking around with nifty looking nails like I never could before :)


This is kind of a reverse accent nail! hahah The design is on all but one :) For this look I chose a base of Color Club Chelsea Girl, which I won from Erika over at Polish Fixation. I applied the guides, which are like figures 8s and painted China Glaze High Hopes around the outside of the guides. Then I added polish over the dots in this middle with Zoya Creamy. I purchased High Hopes and Creamy with my own money.


I only let them set for about a minute. Then I carefully peels off the guides. My photos are shown without top coat - mostly because I was afraid top coat would smear the polish and it wouldn't look as good!

What do you guys think? Check out the Suds n Stickers Facebook page for more info! I have some of their new designs that I'm dying to try...so expect more soon! :)

DISCLAIMER: Some products used in this post were provided to me by the company for consideration. This blog is written and edited by me, and the opinions are not influenced in any way and are not compensated. Please read this post for more information.

Yay for Wednesday!! Right? Right! Today, the date, is a very serious day in US history. Such a sad, sad day. One that many people will never, ever forget. But even with the somberness that today brings,I do have a post for you. It's another gorgeous duochrome from Indigo Bananas :) This one is called Dream A Little Dream.


With hints of violet, pink and orange, this is one cool color! I tried in vain to get the color shift, but it wasn't easy - and I'm not even sure if I got it, actually hahah Pictured is 3 thin coats.


So back when I was a kid, there was this movie with "The Coreys" - Haim and Feldman. It was called Dream A Little Dream. It's one of those body switch movies where an old person and a young person switch. Anyway, this polish just makes me think of it and the song (which is of course now stuck in my head all the time when I see the bottle!)


The pictures on the above right shows the orange shift like woah! This polish is on sale at the Indigo Bananas' Etsy shop for $12 for a full-sized bottle and $7.25 for a mini.

DISCLAIMER: Some products used in this post were provided to me by the company for consideration. This blog is written and edited by me, and the opinions are not influenced in any way and are not compensated. Please read this post for more information.

A quickie for you this morning!! I used some square stud rhinestones and tried to make a pinwheel-type design! hahah I dunno if it really came across or not...


Does anyone get it...? :) The base is the gorgeous Ninja Polish Pacific Coral!!

DISCLAIMER: Some products used in this post were provided to me by the company for consideration. This blog is written and edited by me, and the opinions are not influenced in any way and are not compensated. Please read this post for more information.

*phew* My niece has been peacefully sleeping on my shoulder for much of the morning, and I didn't want to wake her! haha But she's awake and into everything in my living room right now, so I'm writing this in between chasing her around :) Today's post is a gorgeous blue - Indigo Bananas Maui Wowee, a blue-purple duochrome holo!


Check that out!! How lovely is that shift? This applied in 3 thin coats. I don't use any special base with my holos. I'll just let you have a few gorgeous photos... The one above and the next two were taken in direct sunlight.


Capturing the blue to purple shift isn't very easy in the sunlight. On the Indigo Bananas Etsy page, this color is noted as shifting from aqua, sky blue, blue and purple. WOW! No wonder it's "wowee," right? :) The next two photos were taken inside with indirect sunlight. The shift pops a little more this way :)


This polish is on sale at the Indigo Bananas' Etsy shop for $12 for a full-sized bottle and $7.25 for a mini.

DISCLAIMER: Some products used in this post were provided to me by the company for consideration. This blog is written and edited by me, and the opinions are not influenced in any way and are not compensated. Please read this post for more information.