Happy Earth Day!

Personally I think every day should be Earth Day but that's just me...anyway yet again I am doing like a million things at once so I put on an old green color, Misa's Toxic Seduction. Love this color! And it was the perfect green to match my green dress.

I can't think of anything new to add, except hey! Check out my past forays into greeeeeeeeen polish.

And if we're going to be talking about checking things out, there's an amazing new blog out called Polish Our Planet, and I only wish I were creative enough to start it and format it the way it is! Polish Earthgirl (who I have just now nicknamed as PE) weaves in great eco-tips with amazing polish pictures.

Oh, and I just applied for an internship this summer for the NRDC. Here's to hoping I get it!

Finally, if you understandably want to stay in this weekend, check out this Best Movies on "Earth" list that We Are Movie Geeks put together. I would add "Wall-E" to that list for families with little kids that aren't interested by former American VP Al Gore, but definitely give Planet Earth a view. It's just absolutely stunning.

Anyway, in celebration of all things green, here are 76 little things to help fight global warming, brought to you by BeatGlobalWarming.Info

*these really all make a difference!*

1. Plan car trips efficiently and combine errands.
2. Turn off lights when you leave the room, and appoint a person to be the “light monitor” at home, school and work. Use natural light instead of electric light whenever possible.
3. Decline a bag when buying only an item or two.
4. Plant trees -- as many as you can. Donate trees at http://www.americanforests.org/planttrees/ And to celebrate an occasion, give trees at http://www.arborday.org/join/TICTIM/index.cfm?trackingid=306
5. Print on both sides of the paper and reuse printed paper for scraps and notes.
6. Use cloth napkins and towels instead of paper.
7. Use electronic checking instead of paper checks.
8. If you have a choice, take the car that gets better gas mileage.
9. Use the Internet to shop, to reduce global warming both by using less gasoline and by making a contribution with your purchases. Go to: http://www.ourenergy-shopping.com/ and a percentage of all your online purchases from more than 700 participating retailers (including Walmart.com and The Gap), will be contributed for green energy credits automatically every time you shop.
10. Read newspapers and magazines online.
11. Insulate your hot water heater and hot water pipes, and turn down the heat on your hot water heater.
12. Set your furnace 3-4 degrees lower and your air conditioner 3-4 degrees higher.
13. Run full loads for your washer, dryer and dishwasher.
14. Replace light bulbs with energy efficient CFL bulbs (compact florescent), and ask businesses that you frequent to change to energy efficient bulbs.
15. Buy paper products made from recycled paper.
16. Charge your cell phone in the car. Unplug chargers when not in use.
17. Activate the energy saving feature on all computers and printers.
18. Share a ride (car pool).
19. Work from home; allow employees to work from home once or twice a month.
20. Return empty printer cartridges to the manufacturer or store -- Staples, Office Depot, etc.
21. Don’t buy disposable products.
22. Fix or mend instead of replacing. Reuse as many things as possible -- recycle everything you can! Insist that recycling is offered at your place of work and home if you rent.
23. Get removed from unwanted mailing lists at www.junkbusters.com
24. Buy carbon offsets at http://www.nativeenergy.com/services.html
25. Use a coffee pot instead of individually wrapped packets for groups.
26. Use glass instead of plastic, paper or Styrofoam cups.
27. Send an E-Card instead of a paper one.
28. Buy bulk instead of individually wrapped products.
29. Buy previously owned books, DVDs, videos etc., and rent a movie instead of buying it.
30. Give away useful products instead of throwing them out.
31. Make your next car at least 35% more fuel efficient than your current one.
32. Take brief showers.
33. Use light dimmers if you have them.
34. Use reusable plastic containers instead of zipper-top plastic bags.
35. Use a lunch box instead of a paper bag.
36. Use a thermos or cup instead of buying throw-away juices or small plastic bottles.
37. Walk a few flights of stairs instead of taking an elevator.
38. Shut doors and air vents in unoccupied rooms.
39. Drive 5-10 miles per hour slower. (N's note: Ok this is SUPER hard for me living in Southern California but I get amazing mileage out of my car even when I'm going at 65, CA's speed limit...and especially when I'm on cruise control, see below)
    
40. Roll to red lights vs. using the gas and braking (it will save your brakes as well), and at any opportunity, use cruise control when driving.
41. Save a piece of the rainforest at http://www.arborday.org/shopping/donations/orderrfr.cfm
42. Install a water filter instead of buying bottled water.
43. Wash clothing in warm instead of hot, and cold instead of warm water.
44. Buy organically grown food and drink coffee made with organically grown beans.
45. Shop at farmers markets and buy food grown locally.
46. Buy reconditioned computers, printers, etc.
47. Walk instead of drive for short distances.
48. Keep your car tires properly inflated.
49. Share this list with everyone you know, by E-mail of course.
50. Buy music online and download it instead of buying the actual disc.
51. Make sure your place of worship is green. Help them start or do more.
52. Keep the lint pipe of your dryer clean.
53. If you need an appliance, buy an “Energy Star” appliance since they are the most efficient.
54. Take digital photos and only print the desired pictures.
55. Send electronic bills instead of paper bills by mail.
56. If your power company offers a green energy option, take it! Ask them to offer it if they don’t!
57. Cut and paste an electronic file instead of printing a paper file.
58. See or read “An Inconvenient Truth;” learn all you can about the climate crisis.
59. Print only the parts of documents you need, not the entire document.
60. Turn off heating and air conditioning units when you’re not home; better yet, use a programmable thermostat to do this for you.
61. Bring your own reusable or recycled bags to the supermarket.
62. Remove a few light bulbs from lights fixtures or banks of lights.
63. Volunteer to head an effort to “go green” at your work, school, place of worship or any organization you belong to.
64. Pray for others to follow your lead. (“When you pray, move your feet” -- African proverb)
65. Send a Native Energy greeting card ($12) as a donation toward clean energy. http://www.nativeenergy.com/cards.html
66. Make sure the gas filter and air filter on your car are clean and keep your car tuned up.
67. Remove any heavy items from your car.
68. Avoid rush hour driving whenever possible; better yet, take public transportation.
69. Have your paycheck deposited directly to your account.
70. Use propane or natural gas for barbeques and camping instead of wood or charcoal.
71. Install an attic fan to ventilate your attic, and then insulate your attic.
72. Install ceiling fans to help with both heating and cooling.
73. Install weather stripping around drafty windows and doors.
74. Turn off decorative lighting at night and ask stores you frequent to do the same.
75. Don’t use wooden chopsticks! Either bring your own (plastic or ceramic) or use a fork.
76. Wrap gifts in newspaper, magazine or other used paper product instead of gift wrap.

Happy Earth Day!!

Happy Easter!

I usually associate pastel colors or lighter colors with Easter, but I couldn't decide on a good color. Then the other day while in a local Rite Aid, I spotted some Borghese colors on clearance for 1/2 off. It's a pretty good deal for Borghese polishes and one that hardly comes around so I snatched up Peonia Blossom, a pale pink frost.

I gotta say....this was not the easiest application (also sorry for the mess around my middle finger). It was thick and kind of gloppy and streaky. I normally think Borghese brushes are fine, even though they are SUPER thick but...for some reason this was not the best experience for me. It also dried incredibly slow, but that might just be because of the goopiness. It's such a gorgeous color though, very ladylike and prim. It was semi-worth the $4 I paid for it, but definitely not worth the $8 retail.

But anyway, happy Easter! I actually had my own Easter miracle today, I was talking with a friend outside his apartment when a hummingbird dropped from the rafters onto the ground. It looked dead and wasn't moving so we scooped it up on a piece of paper and moved it to a grassy area (I wanted to bury it but my friend shot that idea down cuz we didn't have shovels and we'd also probably get in trouble). But then the bird started to beat its wings and flew up and away. It was awesome! This was after like not moving for 5 minutes. Well, some might think that it hardly counts as a miracle but come on, that's so symbolic! Yes? No? Ok, well I choose to believe so.

I also made this amaaaaaaazing carrot cake with cream cheese frosting for Easter. Since we don't have a mixer I have to mix the cake mix (boxed cakes are genius!) by hand and it was exhausting! I whisked the water and eggs together (I just realized now I forgot the vegetable oil) first, and then whisked in the cake mix spoonful by spoonful slowly so I wouldn't get gross chucks. It's exhausting but worth it....at least until I can afford a KitchenAid.

The Origins of Good

Everyone who knows me knows that I'm kind of crazy about saving the world. I actually yelled at my roommate the other day for throwing a candy wrapper out of her car window (well, she was littering!), and it physically hurts me when I see people walking out of grocery stores with a cart full of plastic bags. It also physically hurts me when I don't recycle, and I'm only slightly consoled by the fact that I recently read an article about the book Land of the Lost Souls: My Life on the Streets on how many homeless survive and maybe find meaning from finding empty plastic bottles to recycle. But that's a whole other debate and I'll save this from sounding like an after-school special/Lifetime Original Movie (don't deny it, sometimes they really tug at your heartstrings)

But one area I haven't really gone green with is cosmetics. I'm guilty of throwing out empty plastic bottles, containers, even nail polish bottles when I don't need them for frankening. It's terrible, really, but also hard when you don't even know what you're supposed to recycle

Luckily, one company has really stepped it up. Origins now has a great program aptly called "Back to Origins" where you bring in empty cosmetics packaging of any brand to any one of their retail stores or department store counters and it will be sent to a central location where the bottles, tubes, etc. will be either recycled or used for energy recovery. In return, Origins will reward you with a free sample of any skincare item of your choice. It's really a win-win situation.

Here's what Origins has to say: "We believe that the more we collect from consumers, the more we can keep cosmetic packaging out of landfills. And we hope this program will encourage other companies into following our example."

I sincerely hope that this program becomes more widely adopted by other countries and companies as well! Sadly this program is so far only for the United States, as it mentions that it excludes Canada and Puerto Rico (which kind of technically is also US terriroty, but who am I to argue with semantics?). Even sadder, this also excludes Origins counters in the US located in Nordstrom's, which I don't understand....hopefully this will change.

To check out the whole program details and more abut Origins and the environment, click here.

Happy Recycling!

Early Morning Hotness: Shades by Barielle

Note: I had meant to post this last night/early morning, at around 1AM but my internet died =(

Barielle, the fab salon line that people (myself included) go gaga over their basecoats for, recently released a drugstore line. And I use the term "recently" loosely because I've been MIA lately (I might take it easy this quarter and only take 16 units instead of 20/21 units per quarter like I have been for the past year...understandably, I was a bit burnt out). All Lacquered Up already released the shades for their upcoming collection, but make sure you head over to a CVS and snatch up any of the older ones before they're gone!

Luckily, I was able to snag Date Night and Sneak-A-Peek. They are, without a doubt, the standouts:


Sneak-A-Peek is a gorgeous light dove grey with subtle silver shimmer. I don't have a lot of greys but I will admit this looked really nice against my tanner skin.


Date Night is just....amazing. I know green and blue are colors that people are really hesitant to try, but I'll be the first to encourage anyone to get this shade. It's the perfect dark green to compliment any skin color, with gorgeous olive shimmer to really make it stand out. I was afraid that the color wouldn't work for me because olive tones draw out the yellow in my skin (I really look terrible in olive green) but luckily on the nail it's different than how it looks in the bottle. It works a bit like camouflage... sometimes it looks darker, sometimes it looks lighter. The picture here, luckily, is the best representation of how it looks most of the time.

I've already gotten ansty with my purple nails. It's time to change them to silver and sleep =)

This is No April Fool's Joke!

Yup....I'm wearing purple polish. For the first time EVER other than swatches...and even those are limited. It's very strange since I don't really have purple clothes. Normally I don't really match my clothes with my polish but I have been wearing black and white the past two days to make my purple neon polish stand out. I think I might...actually....like purple polish now.

Ignore the weird reflections too, I was scrambling to get this pic in full sun so I had to do some funky angles.

I actually have a one hour gap between classes and dashed home just to post this, but stay tuned...today will be a polish-productive day.

Dejavuuu

Ugh Twitter makes me so stabby sometimes....I was gonna post this on Twitter but it exceeded the character limit. So annoying.

Anyway, you know those corny Disney commercials on TV that are like "Oh, get ____ before it goes back into the Disney vault...forever!" or "For the first time, released from the Disney vault..." Ok I mean I like Disney (my friends can vouch that I will valiantly break out into song if Mulan's "I'll Make a Man Out of You" comes on), but WTF is this "elusive" Disney vault? Actually since Disney controls the world they probably do have a literal giant vault guarded by lasers and everything.

Well, it looks like Chanel is taking a cue from Disney because they recently (aka today) sent out an e-mail about their "Dejavu Collection" that is launching on their website. Pretty much, it's a lot of their discontinued items that they're "rereleasing" (probably residual overstocks). Here's the link:

Dejavu Collection

The cool thing is that it's constantly being updated. Currently for polish they only have Rouge Noir priced at $23, but they say to check back often, as more Chanel favorites become available.

New Link: Nail Juice

So I think I've mentioned how slow I've been lately in terms of everything polish...I have like a gazillion pictures and reviews backed up on my camera and computer, I'm behind on like every single amaaaaaazing nail blog out there in the universe but I'm slowly catching up. Spring break is going to be heavenly for me...6 days of bliss with my new Kindle, blogging, polishing, and generally not having a care in the world before I have to get back to school =/.

I have two finals left but guys, seriously check out Nail Juice. It's a love-at-first site (hah! pun! get it?) Not only is it tech-savvy and available in other languages!! But also, Steph has an amazing and handy finishes description bar on the right hand side, something that I've always wanted to get around to but have obviously been too lazy to actually do. So thank you Steph, because now everyone can just use that as a reference! It's wonderful.

Ok, study break is over. Two more finals to go!

Funky at Indian Wells

Ok so you guys probably remember that I LOVE tennis. So it kills me that every year, the Indian Wells Classic is during my winter quarter finals week. Every year without fail! Gah. Indian Wells is only a little over an hour of my way so it's really a tragedy that I've been unable to go for the past three years.

Anyway, here's a picture of Gwen Stefani at Indian Wells watching Roger Federer play (she's a fan) with her baby Zuma =) You can't see Zuma's cute face in this one but you can see Gwen's AWESOME funky french nails- red with silver tips. Loveee.


I'm also so excited that Federer and his girlfriend (pictured above sitting next to Gwen) are having a baby! For sure in like 17 years that kid is gonna be a serious tennis competitor...I hope!

For Funsies

I'm not a super-makeupy girl by any means. Nail polish is probably the only consistent cosmetic item I use. The most I do is eyeliner & mascara. But, I am a huge mascara junkie. My bff gave me Diorshow Iconic or Christmas and can I just tell everyone....it's freaking amazing! It gives my lashes length, definition and volume AND holds up decently through a nice cry (I'm a total crybaby and I hate waterproof mascara). The only downside is that for me, it's kind of hard to take off.

Anyway, I was at CVS the other day and Loreal Double Extend Beauty Tubes macsara (I know, ridiculously long name) was on sale. The whole "tubing mascara" thing has really intrigued me so I decided to buy it. I was excited so I tried it as soon as I got out of the store in my car. The mascara part was all dried and cloggy and it didn't even coat the brush. I was puzzled but I walked back in and exchanged it for a new one. I didn't test the new one til I got home but lo and behold! It had the same problem. Since it was the weekend I e-mailed Loreal to see if it was just a bad batch. Their Customer Service was pretty quick in replying on Monday and asked if I still had the product and if I did, they'd send me a pre-paid mailing envelope to return it. I unfortunately already returned it to CVS, and told them as such. Here was their response:

Thank you for visiting L'Oréal Paris on the Web and for responding to our e-mail.
Our company makes every effort to provide the highest quality products for our consumers, and we want to know whenever a product is not completely satisfactory. If ever you are less than satisfied with one of our products, please save the items because we are eager to investigate any possible problems.
Thank you for making us aware of this problem. We hope you will continue to use our products with complete confidence and satisfaction.

So, really just another reaon to love Loreal: good CS. Anyway, since the mascara had a base/primer part before the mascara part, I figured why not, one eyelash is coated in white primer anyway so I put Dior Iconic over it and...well, I'll just let the results do the talking:

Please ignore my panda-eyes and frizzy hair

So....welcome to my first real off-topic post lol. I will try to not do too many of these stand-alone OT posts.

RIP NYC Glossies

Oh the cruelties of the cosmetics world: discontinuation. I adored the NYC Glossies...they weren't perfect but they were comparatively better than the NYC regular line. And for $2, they were a pretty good deal.

But alas, they have been discontinued and replaced by NYC: In A New York Color Minute which is way too long and so I'm shorthanding it to NYC Minute. It's drastically smaller than the Glossies were but I will say that a) the cap is easier to handle and b) the coverage on the two I bought were amazing!

Also, NYC Minute has a color called Chinatown, which remarkably looks similar to an old NYC Glossies fave....oh and I'm sorry, I got my NYC Minute blues mixed up. The color in the next three photos are of NYC Minute Chinatown, NOT West Village (this is what happens when you don't get any sleep)
Yup, the bottle is much smaller....3.4 mL less which is quite a significant amount considering the price has stayed the same.


Here is Chinatown and Midnight on my nail....can you tell which is which?

NYC Glossies Midnight is on my index & middle finger, NYC Minute Chinatown is on my ring and pinky finger

Here's the REAL West Village, the other blue. Where Chinatown/Midnight was a darkened navy, West Village is a true dark blue. Love it!

I was actually really impressed with the pigmentation. It only required one coat to be opaque, but they are shown here with two coats each and are at their best. Even though I will shed a small tear for the Glossies, I will admit that the Minute line in terms of application and stuff is a definite UPGRADE.

I've been super busy with school, LSAT classes and looking for an internship. Finals are next week too, so expect posts to be trickling in haha.