Essie - First Purchases!

Being honest here - the only reason I know about Essie is because of Pinterest.  The wonders of Pinterest have enlightened me about soooo many things!  Especially beauty/style/nails, all that stuff.

I haven't gotten around to purchasing any Essie products until recently.  Because, well... they're spendy.  

Essie is carried at different beauty retailers like Ulta, Rite-Aid, our local Fred Meyer, but they're always eight dollars for a tiny little bottle.  I love beauty products including nail polish, but I find it difficult to regularly drop almost 10 dollars on one bottle.

That's where Amazon comes in!  Even with shipping Essie polishes go for around 6 dollars through these sellers.  I find that worth it.

Here are the few that I picked up

Come Here! - Resort 2013

A darker coral that leans towards red - super bright & gorgeous

Cab-ana - Resort 2013

This is a beautiful bright blue that reminds me of the ocean!

Barefoot and Topless - Spring 2011

A pink-toned nude that really looks a lot better in person! I think it would be flattering on many skin tones.

A Crewed Interest - Spring 2012

A very light sort of 'creamsicle' color. I could not get a clear picture of it! And my nails looks quite shabby here... oops!

Overall I really enjoy the quality of Essie nail polishes and they have an awesome range of colors to choose from.  I will definitely be picking up more.  Obviously I'm not a nail expert, but I wanted to share these with you anyway (:

What are your favorite colors from Essie?

Thanks for reading...  I really, really appreciate all your comments & interest!

May IPSY Bag!

The time has come again, and I just received my May ipsy glam bag in the mail.  I peeked earlier on my online account to check out the products and I could not wait.  This month's bag is an all around winner. Yay!

Here's the little travel bag.  I like the chevron and the colors are perfect for spring.

I am a fan of Zoya so when I saw a full size bottle was included in this months bag I was ecstatic!  The color I received is Gie Gie which is a soft pink with lots of shimmer.

I have never heard of Juice Beauty before this month's bag, but I was interested to try it.  The lip gloss I received is in the color Champagne.  Juice is an organic brand, and as you may be able to tell from the picture the gloss has an unusual texture (chunky?).  However, it goes on smooth and isn't sticky at all.  There's not much in the way for color with this one but it gives a pretty shine to the lips.

The next product I received was St. Tropez Instant Glow body lotion.  Its a self tanning lotion that is meant for one-night use.  When testing this out I was shocked how dark the product is!  It's so brown it's almost black, but it goes on much lighter.  We'll see in time what the quality of the tan is.  I've been itching to try St. Tropez for awhile now, especially with warm weather coming.

This is one of those products I was sooooo thrilled to receive (:  I've wanted to try Macadamia forever since many people in the beauty community rave about their products.  However even sample sizes are pretty steep.  Can't wait to give this oil a go!

You can definitely see my finger print from my panicky swatching. Every bag has one disappointing item and this was it for me.  I received this Yaby concealer in the shade Honey which is about 10x too dark for my skin!  The texture is soft and it seems like it would be a good concealer, but I would look completely ridiculous to wear this out in public.  Oh well!

So that's is for this month's ispy!  

What are your thoughts on these products? 

How to Relax

All of us have things going on in our lives that make us want to pull our hair out at one point or another.  Those times where we feel like we're just going and going... the world is working against us... we can never catch a break.

As a college student I feel that often these days.  When I visited with my doctor today to for migraine medication, he said that "high achievers" like me often suffer from headaches and anxiety.

Well.  Good to know! (;

So how do you unwind from all this craziness?  Here's a few things I like to do when I'm overwhelmed.

Read a book - For fun!

What I'm reading right now

If you're a student this probably sounds like the last thing you'd like to do in your spare time.  Honestly though I have found reading to be one of the best anti-stress medicines.  It keeps your mind sharp, but also gives you a chance to escape to someone else's reality without breaking your bank or having to leave the comfort of your couch.  Pretty perfect.

Take a bath

Uh yeah... I wish this was my bathrom.

Maybe you left bath-taking behind with your toddlerhood but this is a tried and true relaxation favorite of mine.  At the slightest sign of stress in my life I hop in the bath.  That's really no exaggeration!  To compound these tips you can also read a book in the bath, which I did just the other night (:

Also...  Epsom salt

Adding Epsom to your  bath is another bonus.  I like using lavender scented salts that I pick up at Rite-Aid for a pretty cheap price.  It's a good alternative to pricey bath salts that don't really do anything for you.  Epsom salts are proven to help relieve stress, anxiety and muscle aches&pains.

Wear a face mask

I'm not sure how effective these actually are, I just love doing them.  They give me a little boost of refreshment after a long day.  These two are what I've been using lately.

Use a little heat

Oh look... the half ripped tag is still on.

The main place that I hold tension is in my shoulders/neck which gives me lots of little headaches throughout a typical day.  My mom used to run an independent business with her friend selling heatable sewn bags of feed corn (!?) called Heatable Huggables that got me hooked on using heat for my achy joints and such.  Now I use this neck pillow which I love.  It has aromatherapy too.

Treat yourself!

Sometimes you just need a little retail therapy.  If you're like me your obsessed with saving your money, but remember that money is made for spending.  Every once in awhile it's okay to indulge! 

What are your favorite ways to relax?

This Weekend - Zoo Trip

Tyler and I just finished an eventful weekend!  We went to visit his family in his hometown for a couple of days, and visited the Oregon Zoo while we were there.  The zoo is one of my favorite places to go.  I love animals, and its such a fun environment (:

Here are a few pics from our trip.  Unfortunately the majority of my Saturday was taken up by another migraine, but we made the most of the time we got!

How was your weekend?

I loved my orange lip Friday!  Revlon Lip Butter in Tutti Frutti.

Sunset along the Columbia River

Mt. Hood in the distance

Goat

Two giraffe

Seal -- He was staring in this one spot FOREVER... !?

Very comfy bear (:

Tyler and I <3

Plum Crazy!

Hello all!  Ever have one of those days where you find yourself infatuated with a certain shade, tone, color scheme?

I'm there today.  When I was younger (about 8-11) my obsession was purple.  Everything I owned needed to be any shade of purple if possible.  It was everywhere in my life for years, but slowly faded out as I reached junior high age.

Today it came back in full force.  And I'm loving it!

It made an appearance on my lips in Maybelline Colorsensational Vivids - 900 Hot Plum, which I reviewed here...

On my nails in Revlon Nail Enamel - 917 Plum Seduction (my cuticles are obviously NOT tip-top shape right now!)...

And my accessories in this infinity scarf I purchased from Rue 21.  If you aren't familiar with their stores, they offer extremely inexpensive options for clothing, jewelry, accessories, shoes etc.  I've found that I really enjoy their scarfs, and at around $8 apiece you can't really beat it!  The quality is acceptable so I find it worth it.

Hope you all are having a wonderful day <3

OOTD Shirtdress

Wednesday is one of my late-start days that I enjoy so much.  Nothing to do until noon!  However, today was an exception to that because I scheduled an appointment with the dentist.

Kind of a waste of time.

Funny story (or at the least just ridiculous), in the past three or so years I've slowly had my wisdom teeth grow in.  In compliance with my dentist's policy, I had each tooth removed separately only after they started causing me pain.  So much fun.  

So as I remembered it, I had my top two removed as well as the bottom right.  Strangely my bottom right extraction site started to reopen two years after my surgery.  I was so concernred!  This is extremely abnormal so long after extraction.

Today, I made the hour long round-trip freeway commute to the dentist.  I explained the problem to the assistnant and when he took a look he said (kind of confused) "well this is a whole other tooth!".

I had gotten my teeth mixed up ): this one was the one yet to grow in.  So after a five-minute tops appointment he sent me on my merry way with my next check up in November.

Anyway, now that I've got that off my chest, here is what I'm wearing today (:

Outfit: 

dress: Charlotte Russe

flats: Charlotte Russe

necklace: gift from Tyler (its a small diamond heart)

Check out Jacy's recent dress OOTD here!

It's hot here and for once not windy so I snagged that opportunity to wear this dress!  It's lightweight and kind of breezy.  The print is minimal - black & white floral, but I love the pop of color with the turquoise belt.

The weather has put me in the mood for keeping it simple, and sometimes you don't need a lot of pieces to look and feel your best!

What's your favorite warm weather look?

See you soon dears...

Revlon Lash Potion First Thoughts

Okay... I got sucked in.

A few weeks ago I saw an advertisement for the new Revlon Lash Potion mascara and I could not resist picking some up.  I think I was more drawn in with the whole Emma Stone ad than I actually was curious about the quality of the product.  Well, it was a little of both I guess.

Anyway.

I picked up the non-waterproof version in 002 Black.  40% off all Revlon cosmetics at Rite Aid right now. Yeah!!

Simple but beautiful & fun packaging

I can honestly say that I was really impressed with this mascara!  My lashes are blonde, long, but extremely sparse so they clump SUPER easily.  Lately I've been using Maybelline The Falsies or Megaplush and I really like both of those formulas/brushes they are just very wet.

Lash Potion is a dryer formula right off the bat which I like.  Also the brush picks up every sparse lash I have, separates, and gives length.  I don't think the volume is amazing, but the fact that it's nonclumping gives it an A+ in my book!  I would say I'm far more impressed with this mascara initially than I have been with Benefit They're Real.  Which is supposed to be the holy grail of mascaras... (to some).

I was excited to see that the brush does not feature plastic bristles.  I don't really get along with most like that.

Hope this review was helpful in deciding whether or not you'd like to try Lash Potion as well... Companies sometimes throw so many new products at you at once it's hard to choose which ones are winners for you!

What are your thoughts on the Lash Potion mascara?

Have a wonderful day loves <3

Liebster Award!

So, I've been neglecting blogging lately... SO sorry!!  

Today I logged on and found a wonderful surprise waiting for me. Steph has nominated me for a Liebster Award (: as well as my sister.  Truly, this made my day!

I've seen posts about the award floating around on different blog sites but I didn't expect to be nominated myself.  If you haven't heard, the Liebster is a sort of honorary award passed around to bloggers with under 200 followers.  

Here are the rules (which I stole from Steph's post!)

Liebster Rules

1. Each blogger should answer the questions the tagger has set for you.

2. Choose 11 new bloggers to pass the award onto and link them in your post.

3. Create 11 new questions for the chosen bloggers.

4. Go back to their page and tell them about the award.

5. Each blogger should post 11 random facts about themselves.

6. No tag backs!

Here are my nominees

Helena from Seaside Beauty

Katie from Katie Louise: Beauty & Fashion Blog

Renaaye from Miss. Renaaye.

Jac from Don't Touch My Tutu

Lizzie from ssycophant

Catherine from Chic. Classy. Cheap

Aynur from Filthy Fashion

Sarah from Sarah-Lou xoxo

Candance from just a dream.

Lex from Lex's Wonderland

April from Rustic Love

I tried my hardest to find those who hadn't already been nominated for this award, but if I got some repeats -- oops!  These blogs are some of my favorites and those who I think really deserve some recognition.  These ladies are all awesome in their own ways <3

11 Random Facts About Me

1. My mom found my name in a romance novel called The Wolf and the Dove.  The main character's name was Aislinn. Mine is Aislyn.
2. I was born and raised in a small town called Mossyrock.
3. I've had two pets in my lifetime -- a hamster named Nibbles and a dog named Oreo.
4. My family consists of my parents, Dave and Wendy, and my twin sister, Jacy. That's it (:
5. I have never been outside of the United States, or farther east than North Dakota.
6. Growing up I was a huge Harry Potter fan but was too embarrassed to tell anyone until college.
7. My boyfriend and I met during my first quarter at my current university in philosophy class.  He purposefully signed up as my partner for a presentation so he could get to know me -- so precious.
8. One of my obsessions is OTTERS (:
9. I just got a smartphone a few weeks ago for the first time. 
10. I didn't wear makeup regularly until I was 17.
11. Most summers during my teen years you could find me at the lake with my sister and our best friend. I miss those times often <3

My Answers

1. What inspired you/why are you writing a blog? I was inspired to write a blog after becoming interested with popular beauty bloggers/YouTubers specifically Zoella and Sprinkle of Glitter. They both got their start with blogs, and I thought it would be a great way to join the beauty community.
2. What is your favorite past time?  My favorite past time is probably reading.  I don't do it often anymore, but I used to be obsessed with reading.  I'm talking sit down and read a book cover-to-cover in a single day, most days.  Unfortunately I have been slacking on reading lately, I think it's great thing to make habit of!
3. What is your one true wish (come on, don't be embarrassed)? My one true wish is to be HAPPY when I "grow up".
4. What can you never help splurging (cash or otherwise) on? Makeup. It's an addiction.
5. What is your favourite Season/weather? Either spring or summer.  They're full of beautiful things.
6. What is your biggest obsession? My biggest obsession probably be makeup right now. Could you have guessed (;
7. Are you a sweet or savory? Definitely sweet. I think every tooth in my mouth is a sweet tooth.
8. What is your favorite book genre? For the past few years I've been loving this kind of court room mystery type of genre.  Jodi Picoult follows this format, she's awesome.  Check her out if you get the chance!
9. How would you describe yourself? I would describe myself as a college kid with a lot of learning to do and too many decisions to make.
10. How would you describe your look? My looks is whatever makes me happy that day! (:
11. What is your favourite color? My favorite color is any variation of pink.

Questions for YOU! 

1. What has been your best experience as a blogger?
2. If you could go one place in the world you have never been, where would it be & why?
3. What's the first good memory that comes to mind when you think of your childhood?
4. Favorite drug-store makeup brand/product?
5. What are your interests outside of your blog/blogging?
6. Favorite food?
7. Who do you admire most?
8. What was your best vacation?
9. Favorite clothing store?
10. What famous/iconic person would you love to meet (dead or alive)?
11. Favorite genre of music?

I can't wait to see all your posts,  I'm so looking forward to it (: Hope you have a wonderful weekend!