Summer Soundtrack: St. Lucia - All Eyes on You

Every week or so I'll post a song for your summer soundtrack. Something upbeat and fun that is perfect for listing to in the car/at the beach/while hanging out with friend. Enjoy!

Review: Sally Hansen Insta-Dry Nail Polish

Sally Hansen Insta-Dry nail polish seemed like a great buy. It was on sale for $4.99 and it claimed to do a full polish with just one coat. I picked it up in Presto Pink and Lively Lilac and couldn't wait to test it out! I found that the colour pay off was true to the bottle, however Lively Lilac was streaky while Presto Pink went on smooth. The polish dries very quickly, though not in the 60 seconds it claims to, more like 2-4 minutes which is still amazing. The Perfectionist Brush that Sally Hansen says is so great was the real downfall for me here. I found the brush large and unwieldly, making it hard to be precise with the application. I like bigger brushes on my polishes (when OPI switched to the new brushes I was in heaven!) but this one is clunky and keeps too much product on it. The polish also transfers. I was doing some course work after painting my nails and noticed that if I ran my finger on the page it left a streak of colour. The polish comes off easy enough, though I did notice it tinted my nails underneath slightly. I'm going to give this another shot, mostly because it does dry so amazingly fast and that's great for a chronic smudger like me! I think I will reapply maybe with a base coat to protect my nails and I will do a follow up review with some pictures.

Going to Italy!!

Picture of the Trevi Fountain taken by me in 2009

Ciao a Tutti!

I'm going on this amazing adventure to study in Florence for 3 weeks (I'm leaving on Saturday). I'm taking a course on Medieval and Renaissance Italian Civilization through my university. Expect lots of packing posts, food posts, a big haul post when I get back and lots more! I'll have my computer with me while I'm gone so posting will continue fairly regularly. Can't wait to share my pictures and stories with you in the coming weeks!

A Presto! 
Alysia

Review: Body Shop Tea Tree Oil line

When I went back to school in September my previously low maintenance skin went a bit haywire. I started getting breakouts in my chin, mostly on the left hand side of my face. Part of the reason for this was that I was sitting at a desk a lot more, which meant that I was resting my chin on my hand. My usual routine of using the Cetaphil cleanser and moisturizer just wasn't cutting it anymore so I decided to test out something that had worked for my sister in the past, the Body Shop's Tea Tree Oil collection.

Tea Tree Skin Clearing Foaming Cleanser was ok to use. It didn't irritate my skin, but it also didn't remove makeup very well. I found after using it my skin felt very tight, like it had no moisture left in it. The smell was very medicinal and strong, though it went away after a few minutes.

Tea Tree Skin Clearing Toner was the product I was most leery of using, as I remember it being super drying. Turns out that despite reformulating the product to make it less drying it still made my skin feel tight and dry. I also found that if I used it too close to my eyes that my eyes would start to sting. As with all Tea Tree line the smell was very medicinal.

Tea Tree Skin Clearing Lotion has a gel consistency. On my dry/combination skin it felt good for about 5 minutes before it sank in, then my skin felt tight and dry. It also had the nasty side effect of making my eyes sting and water like crazy for about 5 minutes after applying. The smell on this product lasted longer than the others, about 20 minutes before it went away.

Tea Tree Blemish Fade Night Lotion after using the above lotion for two weeks my skin was feeling very dry and was getting rough spots. I went back to the Body Shop and the sales girl recommended this for night time use as it has a thicker consistency that the Clearing Lotion. This lotion smelled terrible, almost like tires. While I noticed that is did fade some of the marks left by pimples, it was not very moisturizing at all. This is the only product from the line that I will still use however, just to try and fade the blemish marks left behind on my skin. I will not repurchase this product once its been used up.

Overall I would NOT recommend these products. I used these products for around a month and a half and while I didn't have any serious breakouts, I still got pimples. I think the main part of my breakouts slowing down was the concentrated effort I've made to not rest my chin on my hands. I found them super harsh on my skin. If you have oily skin these might work for you, but not for people with normal/dry/combination skin.

Overall Rating: Would Not Repurchase, Not Recommended.

MAC and Drugstore mini haul

Here's a mini haul of what I purchased today. Went to shoppers this morning because they have the Revlon Lip Butters on sale for $4.99 this weekend. Miss Glamorazzi aka Ingrid recommended the lollipop shade so I picked that up. I already have the peach parfait and sweet tart shades that I purchased earlier.

I also picked up the Sally Hansen insta-dri nail polish in presto pink and lively lilac on sale for $4.99. I'll post pictures and a review soon.

From MAC I picked up their brush cleaner which I had never used before. Confession: I'm terrible at cleaning my brushes regularly. Simply shameful the state I let them get into. I'm going to try to get better though at regular cleanings.

Miss Glamorazzi in her makeup starter kit video raved about MACs lipglass in pink lemonade, so I splurged and picked that up as well. I don't know if I love this yet from the quick test I did but I did it over bare lips and I have very naturally pigmented lips. I'll try it over my peach parfait tomorrow and report back!

Hope you enjoyed my mini haul and see you all again soon!
Alysia