Week of greens day 6!

Sorry for the delayed post everyone, I got really sleepy last night and completely forgot to put this up! I also have to post my St Patrick's Day manicure! So let's move on to yesterday's post!


Sally Hansen Lacquer Shine in Glow!

This is a beautiful lime green with tons of gold shimmer! It's so sparkly it almost looks like a foil, but it's definitely a shimmer! I really love this color, my go to manicure (going back 5 years) was this polish on my ring finger and the rest of my nails painted with a black creme. It was pretty fly if I do say so myself.


One more shot!

I love the name of this color because it really does glow! Unfortunately the line was discontinued a while ago, but if you do see these polishes anywhere, pick them up! They are really beautiful. And I'm pretty sure that Zoya makes a couple of close dupes for this color.

Week of Greens day 5!

Hello again, I'm back with another green polish, one that is widely available and I'm madly in love with it! Aaaw yeah!


Sally Hansen Smooth and Perfect in Sea! (forgive the extra shiny cuticles, I was almost done swatching and my skin was so dry!)

I am in LOVE LOVE with this whole collection. It is 7 pastels (beige, 2 pinks, coral, blue, green, purple) plus a white and they all have this amazing soft shimmer to them. It's very fine and not quite warm, so they sort of glow and it's beautiful.

I saw these polishes popping up on a few blogs and wanted to give them a try, I bought Dune (the beige shade) and fell head over heels. WITH A BEIGE NAIL POLISH. So I slowly bought the whole collection (and bought backups of Dune & Fog [white]).


Bottle shot, look at that shimmer!

The polish has ridge filler in it, so by the 3rd+ coat, your nails are gonna look soooo smooth, my thumbs have some horizontal ridges going on and with this polish they are non-existant. The only downfall is drying is a bit tricky and these are sheerish, requiring 3-5 coats. While I am not usually the kind of girl that tolerates anything that requires more than 2 coats, I completely tolerate it for these. YEAH. They are that pretty.


One more shot!!! (Ignore the smudge!)

These are pretty widely available now, I've seen them at drugstores, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond (the ones that sell bath/beauty products). They run ~$5-$8 but Sally Hansen is on sale all the time. I would recommend this in a heartbeat!!!!

Tune in tomorrow for a slightly old school (5 years or older?!) Sally Hansen! Yeah!

Week of Greens day 4!

Just like I promised, today I'm posting 3 Funky Fingers polishes for you! I'm so nice!

Funky Fingers is pretty much re-packaged Color Club, right? I mean, there are some colors that Color Club doesn't have, but it is nice if CC is harder to find and you happen to have a Five Below near you (where I find mine). Anyway, on to the polish!!

First up, Sold Out Arena!


I'm not a huge fan of foils but I really liked this polish. It looked much better in real life, I didn't feel like I needed more than one coat, and I didn't have too much trouble applying it, and while it looks brushstroke-y it really wasn't.

Next, is a "funky fingers" exclusive (not a cc dupe) Mrs. Mint!

I wish this color looked like the photograph but it is much more pale/yellow based, and the gold shimmer in the bottle was non-existent on the nail. Bummer! I would love a bright jade-y turquoise with tons of gold shimmer, but this was a standard mint creme with a whisper of gold shimmer.

Finally....TINSEL TOWN.

Tinsel Town vs. China Glaze Atlantis, a color which blew our minds when it was released. Well, it blew my mind, look at how gorgeous it is! Anyway, I thought maybe these two would be close, and while they are close-ish, they're not dupes at all.


That's Atlantis on my ring finger and Tinsel Town on the others. Atlantis is darker and more muted, while Tinsel Town is brighter and I think the glitter is a little different. They are both worth owning (of course I would say that) but owning one or the other is a matter of taste/availability.

So there you have it, 3 groovy new Funky Fingers polishes! I hope you liked them, and if you did try checking your local Five Below or consult that wondrous oracle The Google to find out if they are sold elsewhere. Coming up in the next couple of days a pretty new and a kind of old couple of polishes from Sally Hansen, plus what will my St. Patrick's day manicure be?!?! Come back tomorrow, same cupcake time, same cupcake channel!!

Week of Greens day 3!

A quick post with a fast drying nail polish, how lovely!


Wet n Wild Fast Dry in Sagreena the Teenage Witch! 2 coats, no topcoat.

This is a rich metallic kelly green, it's not as dense as Buffy the Violet Slayer, which is a bomb ass color, but this is still beautiful. Plus it is a fast drying nail polish and I've yet to experience bubbling with these polishes, so that is super nice! Well worth the price, and plus the names are so silly!

I'll be back tomorrow, and I think I'll do my THREE new Funky Fingers to make up for today's short post!

Week of Greens day 2!

I almost forgot to post this in time! I should be in bed, fast asleep but instead I am uploading and posting nail polish pictures for you all. Aren't I a nice person? :P

Today's polish reminds me of villains, velvet, and emeralds, it's Ulta Professional "Green With Envy"!



This is a nice, neutral black base with LOADS of green shimmer. It looks green most of the time, and when the light hits it, it's BEAUTIFUL. I especially love that the shimmer is GREEN and not olive, or teal like some greenish shimmers can be.


I know this is blurry in the foreground, but look at the shimmer!!!


Bottle shot!!

Just going by the ulta website, this color isn't there. However, the Ulta Salon Formula (which is cheaper + has more colors) has a color called envy which looks super similar and may actually be the same color. I really like the Salon Formula, it's inexpensive, with some nice colors and it applies really well. This applied okay, I think I did 2 coats here, but I don't think it was quite as nice as the salon formula. Either way it's such a beautiful polish, I would definitely say pick this up if you find it!!

Week of Greens day One!

Hey everyone!

So I decided that since St. Patrick's day is coming up and since I don't actually have to pretend to be Irish for one day since I am the rest of the year, I could instead show you some of my favorite green nail polishes! Some new, some old, some might be HTF but they're all awesome! Who doesn't love a good green polish?!

Today's color is...Orly Fresh!

This color was a part of last summer's "Happy Go Lucky" collection, which I completely swooned over, the whole thing was just PERFECT.


4 coats w/top coat

This may have only been 3 coats but I think it was 4 and worth all the hassle. It's an almost neon jelly/creme hybrid, and it smooths out pretty well. I loveloveLOVE the color, it's somewhere between grass green and lime green. And it's looks super amazing with a black crackle over it!



It's very late 90's/matrix/Monster Energy drink! I actually compared my nails to a can of Monster and it's a pretty good match. It's also a match for one of my favorite shirts for one of my favorite bands:



36 Crazyfists is a metal band originally from Kenai, Alaska and they are one of my favorite bands ever. And I wear this shirt all the time because I love them and I love the color/design. And now I can match my nails to my shirt!

So Fresh might be a little hard to find, maybe a Sally's or Ulta might have it, but I'm sure your favorite e-tailer still carries it, and it's well worth picking up.

turkey and black bean skillet

Hello lovely followers, long time no see!

I could make excuses, or I could make it up to you and post a delicious recipe. Sound good? Okay!! I've listed special diets this can apply to as well, the recipe is pretty easy to tweak.

Turkey and Black Bean Skillet
(serves 4-ish)
Special Diets: gluten free, vegan/vegetarian (just double the black beans and take out the turkey, and no cheese for vegans!), kosher (if using kosher meat and don't garnish with cheese)

1 tsp of olive oil
1 medium red onion chopped
5 cloves of garlic diced (you can use more/less to taste)
~1.5 tsps of chili powder (or more to taste)
`.5 tsps of ground coriander
.25 tsps of ground cumin (or leave out if you're like me and you think cumin is too stinky)
1 red pepper chopped
1 package of ground turkey (I used Empire All White Meat)
1 can of black beans, rinsed/drained
salt
water, as needed
~4 c. cooked, warmed, brown rice

Optional garnishes: hot sauce, chopped cilantro & scallions, grated cheese of some kind

1. Cook the onions with a pinch of salt until they soften in a large, non stick skillet on medium heat, you can cook them for longer if you prefer, I cooked mine 7-8 minutes.
2. Add the spices and garlic, cooking for one minute, adding water if the pan starts to look dry.
3. Add the peppers and turkey, and a couple more pinches of salt. Break up the turkey into manageable pieces as it cooks, again, adding a little water if the pan starts to look dry.
5. After ~5-6 minutes, add the beans and cook for an additional 5-7 minutes.
6. Serve over the rice and garnish as needed, or in my case not at all, it was still completely delicious!!

A note on my "pinches of salt" and spice measurements: I highly recommend adding salt in layers (so not all at once, and definitely not only at the end). I tend to cook without measuring, but I also know when to stop for seasoning/salt. So add at least a little salt, in the beginning, and a little bit more in the middle. Then you can wait until the end and see if it needs more. Same with seasoning; I sometimes think I have enough, and then I try/smell it and realize it needs more.


I didn't have the time or energy to take a fancy/nice picture, so this is the best I could do with Picnik and my not so great camera phone. Either way you should take my word that it's more delicious than it looks!

PSA of the Day

If you were compromised in the Great Gawker Hack of 2011, CHECK YOUR SHIT. I never use my capital one card any more, and I don't log into the online banking site, however I recently received a paper statement and logged in today only to find that the last time I apparently logged in was 9/15/11 1:55pm. I was at work, and most certainly did not log in.

After calling customer service and the fraud assistance number I have been assured that:

1. No information was changed.

2. No new cards were ordered.

3. No attempts were made to access my account.

The Identity Theft Assistance Center is a pretty good resource, that link gives a list of member banks' fraud department phone numbers.

So in closing, do not forget about the accounts you think are unimportant. It is easier than you think for someone to take advantage of you if they have the right information.

Seche Rebuild: Before and After

Hello friends!!

I was twittering with Jeanette of The Swatchaholic about how much I LOVE Seche Rebuild. Last year, after reading this post on Vampy Varnish I decided to give it a try, and boy am I glad I did!!! I had/have similar problems as Kelly where I could never grow my nails out because they peeled so much, so I decided to give this a try. AND IT WORKED!

This was my nails before SR, at the approximate length I always had to keep them. I could maybe grow them out a little longer, but that was it:


(Sinful Nail Junkie over Sinful Mint Apple btw pic taken 8/2010)

This is my nails 2 months ago. Soon after this picture was taken I cut all my nails down to nubbins after I broke a nail bad. I like to do that anyway to refresh my nails, but I can let them grow MUCH longer now:


(Orly flirty, totally bomb color amirite!?)

As far as the ingredient go, it does not contain toluene, but it does contain formaldehyde. I have no problem with it but I know others do. Another thing I like is that you can wear it on it's own, and it dries very shiny, cloudy off white, so a couple of coats totally hide stained nails (and doesn't look awful), but you can also use it as a base coat! It's the only base coat I use, and I don't notice any excessive chipping or wear issues whatsoever.

For the past 7 months, I've been working at a job where I sit at a computer all day, and I still have great results! So if you have nails that peel I definitely recommend Seche Rebuild, it's amazing! I never thought I could have longer nails but now I can, I feel so fancy!

love and cupcakes,
Ms Meghan

Better Off Red

Hello friends! I have so many pictures (and even swatches!) waiting to be published, I need to stop being such a bum! But I wanted to throw up a post with some of my fave red lip products, in response to this post on Jezebel. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it's a lovely lipstick, BUT I cannot wear Revlon lip products. I was reminded of this the hard way a few months ago when I wore Colorburst Lipstick in Candy Pink and Colorburst Lipgloss in Strawberry together for a few days. I got THE WORST case of blisterlips, aka had an allergic reaction. Not pleasant.

SO. The reds in my collection. For skin tone notes: I am ~NC20ish, fair f2 in smashbox high definition foundation, and I use Urban Decay's Halo tinted moisturizer. I would say I am pasty with beige/golden undertones, and while I have fairly pigmented lips, all the products swatched show up at least a little bit. Note the second: I left out anything I own that was LE and no longer available. In the title picture there's a MUFE gloss in red that doesn't appear to be available anymore, unless the Moulin Rouge Glossy Full Couleur is the same. Now, onto the makeup!


So this is (top to bottom) MAC Brave Red lipstick, Cover Girl Outlast Lipstain in 440, and Nars Shanghai Express. SE was my first RED lipstick but I actually never wear it because it's too dark, muddy and kind of chalky. The Outlast lipstain is hit or miss for me, but Brave Red is my go-to NUMBAH ONE red lipstick. It's cremesheen, so it's smooth, applies nice and opaque (but not heavy) and has a lovely sheen.


T-B: Cover Girl Natureluxe Gloss Balm in Anemone, Tarte Natural Lip Stain Pencil in Lust and Lipfusion gloss in Sexy. I bought the CG balm because I needed an spf lip product (it's only 15 but better than nothing) that wouldn't wash me out. It is a nice, light texture but I'm mostly indifferent to it. Now the Tart and the Lipfusion? LOVE. Tarte really gives your lips a shiny gloss and a "just ate a popsicle tint" and Lipfusion WORKS and is very shiny and the red shimmer makes your lips look cushy and so fine.


Top to bottom: Lipfusion again, Urban Decay 5150 lipstick and Lip Junkie in Red Light.
I wanted the 5150 to rep some red shimmer, it's a pinkish corally red with tons of white/pink microshimmer and is also fairly sheer. It's very pretty, and nice if you want something not so intense. But if intense is your game, you need some Red Light in your life friends. It is a crazy deep pink-toned red (but not too pink, it's supah red!) and oh so shiny and minty. I just love it, and it gets beaucoup compliments.

So my top recs:
Lipfusion gloss in Sexy
Tarte lip stain pencil in Lust
Urban Decay Lip Junkie in Red Light
MAC Brave Red Lipstick

What reds do you love? Do let me know in the comments!

love and cupcakes,
Ms Meghan