Winter Holly all the Way

Well, after a long hiatus I have a few of the new China Glaze Holiday Collection polishes.  I have on Winter Holly with accent nails of Glitter all the Way.  Both polishes are three coats, I probably could have done an extra coat of WH, but you can't really tell in person. 

When I saw GatW all I could think of is Mardi Gras.  It is such a perfect combination of colors. Yes, I know it has red in it, but you can barely see it and it just screams Mardi Gras to me. 

 And the expected blurry shot to show the sparkle.  I am pretty happy with the polishes actually.  I think I would put a base of a deep forest green under WH, just to help it's opacity.

 

I only got a few polishes from this collection, since nothing much was screaming out to me.  The few polishes I did decide to pick up have been fantastic though.

Goody Quickstyles Brush

Okay, this is the second post from my Holiday Voxbox from Influenster, and I have to say this is the item I am most excited about.  I was horribly doubtful about this brush, yet highly intrigued when I first saw it in stores.  When I opened my box and saw it inside I was beyond excited to try it out.  The Goody Quickstyle brush has little terrycloth bits in between the bristles to help dry your hair when you get out of the shower.

Holy crap, this is my new favourite brush.  You have to use with with a blow drier, which is something I loathe doing.  Blow drying my long, thick hair takes a good thirty minutes, so I don't tend to do it often.  This time after my shower I tied it up and let it air dry a little.  When I took it down I first brushed it with the brush alone, which did nothing.  The bristles soak up water, but they are not miracle workers.  The amount of water left in my hair was just too much for them.  I brought out the drier and began using the brush.  Amazingly enough my hair because visibly drier very fast.  It ended up taking me only about 10 minutes to dry my entire head.  The little holes in the side of the brush impressed me as well.  They let air flow easily through the brush, also helping with the drying.

I am so happy to own this brush, it will definitely become a part of my hair routine.  I have told everyone I know how wonderful it is and really can't be more annoying about it.  This is by far the best thing I have received in my box and I can't wait to use it again.

-products sent for review from influenster.com-

Kiss Nail Strips

I was selected by Influenster to receive a Holiday Voxbox this December, so a few of the upcoming posts may not have to do with nails.  Fortunately, this one does!  In my box was a package of Kiss Nail Dress nail strips.  I can't say I love the pattern I got, but it did get some compliments, so other people must have.

 They applied like most any other strip; by sticking to the nail and then filing the excess off.  I found the excess much harder to file than other sets of strips I have used in the past.  I was afraid I was filing my nail at some points because it was so thick and hard to break.

I applied strips on my accent nails in a french tip -esque style, which is something I enjoy doing with nail strips.  I have to say, these strips are NOT meant for this.  The edges did not lay flat and the ends peeled up within hours of application.  Note, the packaging does not say anything about using them in this manner, but I wanted to give them a test since other strips have no problem with this application.

 The nails that had full strips stayed on quite well.  They lasted through a day at work and I only had one casualty.  I am betting this was because of the large amounts of oil the nails were exposed to when filling the olive bar, so I am not counting it against them.  Otherwise I think they would have stayed on for quite a few more days if I had not peeled them off so soon.

The peeling process was not the best, but also not the worst.  If I had waited a little longer than two days to take them off the glue might have been a little less sticky.  But since the design was far too loud for my taste, I had to get them off.  Taking them off I felt a little tug on my nails, which was concerning, and some residual glue stayed behind.  A quick swipe of remover took the left over glue right off though.

My only complaint about the nails is that they lost some of the design after about two days and I was left with the brown bottom layer.  The fact that all the color wasn't lost was definitely a plus though.  They were a little thick, but with some time I think I could have gotten used to them.

-products in this post were sent for review from influenster.com-