Look of the Day!!

Ha! I just got things off my chest with the whole August is still summer, and so is September. And this morning it was so cool outside, and again when I left work this evening. Love it! Okay, it's fall! Well, I know it will go back to boiling hot, but I think this is bearing out my belief that September is the true transition month to full-on fall.

Last Wednesday I switched my new Orange Belen Echandia handbag to my Ignes Petra in soft maize, a wonderful pale yellow, silky soft leather and a soft contrast to the pink I was wearing. Nail noob: lavender nails, using Essie's St. Lucia Lilac---so pretty! Lovely contrast to pale yellow and coordinating with the purple lining. I was in the throes of my "it's summer, not a transition month!" At the time, it felt great, and in retrospect it sounds like an Easter egg look!! The following day, the yellow bag and lilac nails went with chocolate brown.


See more pics of my Ignes Petra in my Purse Forum reveal.

My Barielle nail colors arrived on Thursday, so on Friday: Barielle Polished Princess with a matte topcoat---love!! Um, no NOTD pictures, hmm, I messed up.

Today I had to get back to my new orange love (the BE handbag, in case that's not clear, lol!). But what nails? I had spent the weekend swatching and playing with all my new nail colors, and in the end, I went with a medium gray (Essie's "Chinchilly"), a top with blue and two greys, and the orange bag with an orange wool scarf inside for my overly airconditioned office.

Well, I needed a bit more orange, I thought. But what?? My shawl....and my eyeshadow!! I decided to try out the new matte HIP Duo in Poppy (previously swatched here), but instead of the chocolate brown in the duo, I would use gray!! Ha! How coordinated is that. So, the pale orangey color plus my new "Revolver" from Urban Decay.


Well, I am not terribly happy about posting pics of my face, but hey! You can't really talk about look of the day without showing in addition to the telling. I have an eye shape that is apparently call the "hooded eye." I don't have a clearly defined eyelid. I just learned this a few months back from a Prescriptives makeup person, who told me to apply shadow in the outer crease and not to put it in the crease area at the top of the eye. I've since seen some YouTube videos addressing eye shapes (although not a lot of the YouTube "gurus" have this same eye situation that I do). I don't know if it's age happening or if I have always had this hooded eye.

I applied the orange on my lid, which will only be visible when I close my eyes or lower my lids---soo the impact of this color is minimized. I then used a crease brush to put the gray in the outer corner crease. I lined my eyes with slate gray eye pencil and used black-brown mascara (L'Oreal Telescopic).

So, here I am at the end of a long day. Looking straight ahead, hood and all. You can't really see too much, but my eyes look blue!

My eyes also have a puffy and baggy tendency, especially on Mondays! Here is a view showing more of the shadows. The shadows definitely both had staying power.


How about a nice view of my newbie nails, with the one that broke off this morning!! Eyes closed.


From the pictures, I can tell that I got a little orange above the lid in the inner corner. I like the idea, for my hooded eye shape, of keeping a bright lid color just on the lid so that it's almost a surprise or just a fleeting image. The color is still there, though, to help the blueness pop. Supposedly, anyway! Gray is really my go-to color for highlighting blue eyes, so it's nice insurance if the orange just looks like, say, skin irritation, and doesn't do its job here.

L'Oreal H.I.P. Duo Matte in Poppy

What a cute name! Poppy! Well, this past weekend when I was ruining my finances in ULTA, I noticed they had five of the new Matte L'Oreal H.I.P. Duo eyeshadows in stock. I LOVE matte eyeshadows. I love matte finishes, all the way around, whether on lips, eyeshadows, and the new cool matte nail trend. While the colors were not really doing it for me, and I would prefer to get these shadows on a BOGO (buy one get one) situation, I couldn't resist picking up a duo to try out: Poppy, a combo of a light orangey color and a dark brown. Love a dark matte brown! The orangey color was my choice based on the idea of the complementary colors...orange making blue eyes pop, kind of like how Clinton (of Stacey and Clinton WNTW fame) advises blue-eyed people to wear orange.

At any rate, we'll have to see about that. At home, the orangey-ness is not quite as strong. I swatched then with my fingertips, and the feel was super smooth! And, this duo packs a lot of pigment.

Here are some swatches of Poppy:

Shut it Down at NY Fashion Week Tonight!!

Well, on The Rachel Zoe Project, that is!! It's on in less than an hour EST. And, I got a tweet from my man Brad that they would be attending NY Fashion Week!! Makes sense, since they are working on styling the Oscars this time, and they choose Oscar gowns at NY Fashion Week.

Yes, that's right. I'm following Brad and Taylor on Twitter, how awesome is that!! Zoe herself featured them in her own "Follow Friday" on Twitter last Friday.

Follow Rachel Zoe
Follow Taylor
Follow Brad

Summer Ain’t Over ‘Til I Say It’s Over!

I read recently that August was a transitional month from summer to fall. Well, I originally come from the Deep South where summer goes on into September, so I was a little surprised by that statement. In addition, I now live in the eastern United States where summer took a while to get cranked up and going. August has had the hottest temperatures of the summer, so summer is still going strong, I’m afraid.

Of course, I do understand the “transitional” statement---as a lover of fall fashion, I am ready to get my August and September fashion mags at the beginning of the summer. I am no lover of hot weather, and I start my fall planning in July and August. My reaction to the whole transitional thing right now is just that I am not ready to stop wearing my summer handbags and accessories. For me, September is the true transitional month.

How will we know when summer has ended, then? Is it a mere date on a calendar? Here are the new rules I am currently working out:

1. If the temperatures are still in the nineties (Fahrenheit), it’s still summer.
2. It it stays in the seventies (Fahrenheit) during the night, it’s still summer. Seventies are great during the day, but during the night, most uncomfortable.
3. If you’re going about your business buying nail polishes like crazy when suddenly you are stranded in a huge 30-minute thunderstorm that only takes a few seconds to flood everything, it’s summer, totally.
4. If you are not ready to stop wearing turquoise, aqua, orange, cobalt, bright purple, and fuchsia leather handbags, then I’m afraid it’s still summer.

Fashion seems to be cooperating with the freaky weather this year, with so many brights and neons showing up all over the place for fall. Beauty bloggers and Youtubers seem a bit surprised to be reviewing nail polish collections that contain brown, black, berries, and lively neons. Perhaps we can give the neons a go in September before getting into our customary jewel tones, browns, and grays. Maybe by October, we can welcome fall in a timely fashion. At least, those of us on the East Coast….with treasured summer handbag collections.

Nail Noob -- My Picks from Orly Fall 2009!

I was intrigued to read about the Orly Once Upon a Time Collection in the All Lacquered Up and Scrangie nail blogs, and I knew I was going to get some of these polishes. Enchanted Green is a creamy and lovely forest green that seemed dark enough without being too black-green. This one was a definite. Prince Charming seemed a really cool light brown that would make a great neutral for fall, so while All Lacquered Up wasn't feeling it, I was pretty sure I wanted that one. "Mirror Mirror" was a light grey that bore looking into.

On the other hand, the orange-red "Poison Apple" wasn't for me since I am not interested in purchasing reds. The pictures of the dark pink "Happily Ever After" were sooooo pretty, but I just wasn't sure I needed this color. Pixie dust, a light bluish silvery....well, it's hard to describe. It too looked pretty, but again, not necessarily something I thought I wanted.

Yesterday I read Clumps Of Mascara's review and was intrigued to see cute charms on the bottles!! I totally missed them in the pics on the other blogs.

Well, when I got to ULTA late in the day to get my crystal file and look for Essie's "Bright Tights," I was thrilled to see the collection had arrived, along with the cute charms! And, predictably, I caved and got all the colors except for the Poison Apple.


Enchanted Forest has a bejeweled butterfly charm. This is, as promised, a dark creamy forest green that is completely on target for the fall's forest green nail color trend. Nailed it! Oops, I didn't realize the bad pun as I started typing that, but I'll leave it, anyway. Not sure if I need any other forest greens---this dark green creme is well-nigh perfection.



"Prince Charming" has a silvery crown charm. Befitting! This color is a light brown, along the putty lines that seem to be popular. It applied smoothly for my sample, and I really love this color for its plain, neutral sensibilities. But wait---how close is this to OPI "You Don't Know Jacques" that I purchased recently?? Oh dear, it's actually pretty close.


The "You Don't Know Jacques" is a bit darker, perhaps, and more on the cool-tone side, with "Price Charming" a little warmer and more yellow-y in tone. The colors are really, really close, though! For someone who doesn't want a lot of one shade, these polishes are close. if you like nuances of putty-brown, however, then they are both really nice. I will not cry over spilled nail polish, or "spilled money on dupe" polish, myself!




The reason I ended up with "Happily" Ever After, truth be told, was that I really like the charm that came with it, a cute, bejeweled shoe, kind of a kitten-heel mule. Precious! I am not into charms, but why not?! I can put them on a purse or keychain or something. Yay! (Boy, taking close-up pics of one's fingers really helps one see problems in the cuticle-health area, lol!!)

This color is totally gorgeous. So creamy, so dark pinky. Even that cute shoe would not justify an ugly or even a "meh" polish. It's pretty, and I do like it....just now I will need to make sure I don't accidentally dupe it.


"Pixie Dust" is accompanied by a bejeweled fairy, or perhaps I should just say pixie. This color is really enchanting! Hard to describe, though. It's a pale greyish blue, or maybe with a little purple in it. Or perhaps the purply tone means it's really a light bluish grey. But the enchantment comes from the shimmer!!


It's a lovely, shimmery polish that I think will be really, really popular. If I end up liking and wearing this polish, I think that would indicate that I should get the rather fabulous-looking and eponymous "Scrangie" from Rescue Beauty Lounge. It's all a matter of what polishes work for my needs, but I am glad I got "Pixie Dust." What to wear it with? Browns for some contrast, maybe??

Hmm, You Tubers and Beauty Bloggers, with what clothes are we supposed to wear our nail colors?? Especially the more fanciful, such as "Pixie Dust?" Nail noobs want to know!!!

Weirdly, I didn't seem to have the "Mirror Mirror" when I got home. I am pretty sure I didn't put it back, and ULTA wrapped the polishes up in the bag and put them in another bag....so I don't think it could have fallen out. Mirror, mirror, where is my mirror, mirror?! I am thinking it just didn't make it into my bag....ack! I will have to track this down.

The Orange Story: If There's a Drought, No Problem, I'll Head to ULTA!

Why is it that every time I'm in ULTA in the evening, just at closing time, the heavens open up unexpectedly and unleash a torrential downpour? The second week in a row that has happened.

Well, this is what I go through to get the perfect orange nail color to go with my new Belen Echandia Hold Me Maxi in glossy pebbled orange. This evening, I was actually in my second ULTA of the night for that very purpose. I stopped by the ULTA I usually go to, and didn't see the Essie "Bright Tights" from the fall collection while there but got some other nice goodies. (I was there to get a fast-drying topcoat---done!, a crystal nail file---done!, and the Essie orange.) As I was leaving, I suddenly thought of running to another ULTA to see if they had this Essie orange color. Why not? I arrived with a little less than an hour to spare at the large "main street" type shopping center, found a parking spot, then walked up to the shopping center and started down the main drag. Of course, ULTA was on the opposite end, which was no problem....at the time!

The ULTA seemed to have more nail polish on display but not necessarily more colors than my usual ULTA. One of the first colors to catch my eye, however, was an OPI orange: "My Back Pocket." Wow!! This orange seemed totally on target!! A true orange---not too red or dark, not too bright, not too melon or peach or pastel. It had not been at my usual ULTA.

I did locate the Essie "Bright Tights" (they only had one! why is this so elusive?), and I was a bit shocked at how bright and neon it was in real life. I ended up getting both, but the OPI is really the better orange of the two for my purpose.

The new OPI "My Back Pocket":


This gorgeous little leather good is a Belen Echandia Angel Purse in matching leather, a freebie I received with my Hold Me Maxi....generally costing around $200 when ordered on its own!! Below is the interior, with the trademark BE fuchsia silk lining.


Getting back to the nail polish story, lol! The OPI orange seems to go on a bit gloppy, but then, I am a nail newbie so I am not going to assume it's the polish. The brush is nice and wide, which has the potential to work well for for a noob like me. The color is spot on, though!! If I can apply this carefully, I will have my Hold Me Maxi match!!


The Essie "Bright Tights" is very, very sheer and very, very retina-scorching. This color will be great next summer when I want to do something completely neon. It really is not a good match for my BE orange, though. It's on the middle finger in the pic below, and I don't think it is showing up as searingly bright as in real life here.


I figure my orange collection is totally complete, with two creme and two shimmery polishes, which are two China Glaze colors I purchased previously, one to try to coordinate with the Hold Me Maxi, and the other to approximate my cat's gorgeous copper eyes.

Here is a previously posted pic with the China Glaze "True Love," which did not particularly clash but was definitely a darker color than my handbag.


The China Glaze "Cruising" color was my attempt to approximate my cat's copper eyes. Here she is, Gabrielle, a British blue shorthair:


The pic is a little blurry because she is always moving! But the eye color is pretty accurate. And below is my pinky finger displaying "Cruising."


I haven't yet analyzed if I made a good match, but the color is pretty.

Here is my complete 4-polish orange nail color collection, then:


Left to right, the OPI "My Back Pocket", Essie "Bright Tights", China Glaze "Free Love," and China Glaze "Cruising."




And, mattified with my Essie "Matte About You" Matte topcoat:


So, back to the story about the rain, just as I was purchasing my orange colors, the skies opened and poured out a major gullywasher. I waited in the closed store for some time, since I figured the rain shower might be one of those fleeting, sudden rainstorms that ends as abruptly as it begins. After a while, I obtained a plastic bag to put my handbag in, and clinging to the walls of the shops to stay under the puny awnings, I made my way all the way down the length of the shopping center. I figured, my hair was in a pony tail, I was wearing my Keen canvas and rubber sandals, and my clothes and makeup didn't need to stay pristine for any reason.

I was completely soaked, of course, by the time I made it to my car, and I sat in the car for quite some time waiting for the rain to abate. This same thing happened the weekend before at the other ULTA. Lesson learned: it's still summer, as I keep saying, so carry an umbrella and plastic bag for my handbag!! And if there is a drought where you are, you can fly me in and I'll go shopping at closing time at your local ULTA. It seems a guarantee for a rainstorm, at this point!

Nail Noob -- Barielle Haul, Y'all!!

Okay, I've done my Thursday update, now let's get to the HAUL!!! I received my first ever Barielle nail colors!! Yay! I placed my order only early this week, and they arrived Thursday. I had ordered a total of 9 nail polishes, 6 of which were from the new fall 2009 All Laquered Up Collection. One bottle broke in transit, much to my dismay, and two other polishes got some polish on their bottles, so my photo shoot features only 6 of the 8 that made it intact.


I'm also excited by my first Barielle nail care purchase! I ordered the Barielle Love Your Nails Acetone-free Nail Polish Remover Towelettes. The round container with screw top contains 40 towelettes and will be very handy for traveling. I promptly removed my Essie St. Lucia Lilac from all 10 fingernails with one pad, true to Barielle's claim. The pad worked really well!! The fragrance was not too overwhelming, unlike the harsh and not terribly effective nail polish removers from the drugstore. Good stuff!

I gave these 6 polishes a try and share my own swatches below. These are the "Nail Noob" ("Nail Dufus" seems a bit too harsh on myself!) version of swatches. If you want to see the super-gorgeous pictures from the expert beauty bloggers, try these out from All Lacquered Up and Scrangie.


First up is "Putt-E-On-Me." This is a light brown putty color, so pretty!! This polish will be a great neutral this fall, definitely.

"Get Mauve-ing" is a lovely rose color, a mauve dusted down with some brownishness. Another great neutral like the putty brown, but with some color.

I was really excited about "Slate-of-affairs" since it seemed an unusual shade of slate blue. I was a bit concerned that it was seeming more purply when I first brushed it on, but the second coating brought out the color more, seen here on my pinky finger! It's blue, but with a neutral sensibility!


Wow! This light yellowy-green metallic is SO pretty!! I know forest green is the nail color trend for fall, but "Polished Princess" will be just as lovely. In fact, I am leaning toward wearing this one first. It seems just as fun for summer as for fall----my personal vision for fall really embraces the putty, grey, dusty mauve and slate blue colors offered, not so much the metallic yellow-green. I think this color will be an excellent "transition" nail color, because I am certainly not ready to go all dusty and greyed out!


I am SO GLAD I rustled up some nice codes so I could get the 6 ALU colors AND add some other Barielle shades. "Date Night" is a fantastic forest green that shows green and not the black-green that a lot of forest greens do (this concern was important to me when choosing a leather handbag in forest green). This dark emerald-y green RAWKS!!

"Secret Encounter"---love that name!---is a metallic magenta. This color is dark but still packs a gorgeous magenta punch!!


I slopped some of the bright yellow creme "Lemondrops" on as well as the dark grey creme "You-Concrete-Me." Those bottles had gotten some of the spilt polish on them so did not make the "photo shoot." The dark grey is excellent, and I really look forward to wearing that in the fall, definitely. I ordered the yellow because I did not yet have yellow in my nail polish selection, and this yellow will be bright and fun. Summer is not over yet; August has been the hottest month this summer, and I don't think I will lack an opportunity to try this out. Maybe with my canary yellow patent clutch....hmm...

As a complete Nail Newbie, I appreciate the formula on these polishes and the way they apply. The formula is thin but not drippy and runny (stressful when you don't know what you are doing! Having some control is a good thing!). I think I will be able to swipe on two thin coats and not have a gloppy mess, especially on my left hand (I am left-handed). I also am psyched to have some polish remover that is not so harsh and actually works really well.

Time will tell, but I am thrilled with my Barielle polishes and remover and can't wait to see how well these work for me!! Thanks to Michelle of All Lacquered Up for collaborating with Barielle and creating a fantastic array of fall colors! Congratulations on this major achvement!!

Thursday Update

Nail Noob - - YAY! My Barielle nail colors are here! Already! Unfortunately, one bottle arrived broken...oh noes! That is kind of disappointing, and I will have to contact Barielle and see if they can send me a replacement. The broken bottle was Lava Rock, which was the extra ALU color I added to the 5 that I could not do without. (I would gladly own the whole ALU set, of course, but my budget is a bit limited).

Project Runway -- Thank heavens PR is finally back. Oh, Tim Gunn, how I have missed you!! And this group of designers seems to be a big improvement so far over the last batch. Lifetime has, thankfully, not changed the tried-and-true Project Runway formula....same soundtrack, format, everything. I am TiVoing the 11:30 EST showing. So don't tell me what happens, lol! Hmm, let me turn my Twitterfox updates off so a spoiler does not pop up and ruin things. There. Better! Anyway, the one major change is the kind of commercial I am forced to sit through (yes, I misplaced my TV clicker again!). Bizarre shows on this channel....

I am a big Project Runway fan. I have a love-hate relationship with the show, actually. I adore the show, but I also spend a lot of time bemoaning all the ways the producers try to ruin a reality show that has the potential to rise far above the drivel of the typical reality show! We are off to a good start though. I didn't mind the first challenge....there will be plenty of time for crazy innovation challenges, I am sure! I am not a big fan of Lindsay Lohan, either, but I thought she did very well as the guest judge. She has definitely worn her share of fashion, and her comments were quite intelligent.

Blogging -- Well, so far the blog is shaping up pretty well. I haven't completely quit yet. The "Euridice Beauty" component seems to be emerging much more than the other topics about which I plan to blog. Beauty, make-up and cosmetics are what I am currently obsessing over, so there you are!

I recently discovered YouTube beauty tutorials and instantly became addicted. I had made a New Year's resolution to start wearing make-up again, and I kept it for 2 or 3 weeks in January. Well, it's never too late! I'm now wearing make-up daily and using the idea of eye makeup as an outlet for self-expression. So far, my laziness and unwillingness to get up in the morning have not stifled this new-found creativity. But of course I am out shopping like crazy!!! The instant nail polish collection is only the most recent aspect of my beauty obsession.

NOTD Tuesday

Today (Tuesday) I changed my bright orange nails up a bit by applying Essie's Matte About You.

Above is my bright, dark orange shiny nail polish (China Glaze "Free Love") with my Belen Echandia Hold Me Maxi in Orange Pebbled Glossy (my orange inspiration!).

Below, my mattified version after using the Essie matte topcoat!

Isn't it cool how the glossy pebbling of the leather really resembles the surface of an orange??! Wednesday I anticipate switching bags and nail colors, thinking more along the lines of lavender!!!

Shut it Down! It's Rachel Zoe Season 2

I was looking forward to season 2 of the Rachel Zoe project, and since my TiVo has been busily recording the re-runs I just blithely took for granted that the new show would record. I look up at 10:04 and notice....the little red light is not on!! Ohhhh nooooo! I missed the first 4 minutes, but it was an awesome show full of fashion suspense and ooh-and-ahh moments. I was psyched that there was plenty of Brad ("oh my god is that my boyfriend?") and not too much of the tiresome Taylor whining. Fun!! This show was the Golden Globes, and next week it's the Oscars!! Fun!

Squeeeee! Ordered my Barielle All Laquered Up Fall 09 Colors!

Well, that's rather a long title, but I like to be very clear what my posts are about. Ha! I'm just a little excited because I placed my first Barielle order ever and used some great codes to boot!

With YouTube tutorials and beauty blogs galore, learning about beauty products and cosmetics is easier than it's ever been. Especially cool is when a blogger or YouTuber becomes really successful and gets the opportunity to develop or collaborate on their own products.

The first nail-specific blog I've come across, "All Lacquered Up," is an awesome source of information. Michelle's reviews and swatches in this blog were immensely helpful for discovering and researching which nail polishes I would like to try. When I came upon the Barielle fall-autumn 2009 collection on which Michelle collaborated with "Celebrity Manicurist Elle, Creative Director for the Shades by Barielle line," I was so impressed. Wow! How fun to read about the inspiration for the colors and the whole development process. Most important, I was blown away by the gorgeous colors!! I quickly made plans to buy 5 of them, if possible.

Fast-forwarding a few days later to today, I placed my order for the following colors: Putt-E-On-Me (putty creme), Lava-Rock (black with red pearlized), Polished-Princess (yellowy green metallic), Slate-Of-Affairs (slate blue creme), U-Concrete-Me (medium gray creme), Get-Mauve-ing
(greyish mauve creme). I also threw in Lemondrops (bright yellow), Secret Encounter (metallic magenta), and Date Night (metallic green).

Currently Barielle has a buy 2 get one free special. $50 orders have free shipping (which is why I added more colors).

I used a 15% one-time code I obtained by signing up to be a member, but when Googling for any additional codes, I came across yet another great beauty site to explore, Body and Soul, which in its discussion of this very collection threw in two more codes I used! FREE10 brought 10% and the PDF "The Perfect Manicure Guide" in the tiny link at the bottom left contained another 10% code. Yay!

I got free shipping and the extra colors for about $38 total!! I know I don't have any readers yet, but if you stumble across this: get these colors---and use these codes---while they are hot!!

Squeeee!

Look of the day!

Part of my quest to see the value for money I get from the frivolous things I buy is to track what I'm using from day to day, then divide by the price paid. And, it's fun!

Face of the Day: Prescriptives Traceless, Physicians Formula Baked Oatmeal medium on lid and dark in outer crease, Stylie Style (sp?) light blue eye pencil, L'Oreal Telescopic mascara in brown black. And don't forget the Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Sunblock!

Nails of the Day: China Glaze "Free Love" bright metallic orange.

Fragrance of the Day: A layering of Mandarin Basilic then Herba Fresca, both from Guerlain Aqua Allegoria.

Handbag of the Day: Belen Echandia (BE) Hold Me Maxi in orange pebbled glossy with fuchsia lining (with matching Angel Purse holding lip colors and nail polish).

Second handbag is Ignes Carla in cobalt as my laptop bag!

Jewelry: 100 inch freshwater pearl rope, doubled up.

Nail Noob -- Essie's Matte About You

I’ve recently decided to teach myself to paint my nails properly and have decent-looking nails. Not spectacular nails---I’m not kidding myself since I’m starting from ground zero---but decent, not-embarrassed-to-actually-go-out-in-public painted nails.

I’m not crazy about my hands. I never cracked my knuckles but ended up with big wrinkly knuckles, much to my disgust. Some of my nails have weird shapes, especially the middle finger of my left hand, which seems a bit deformed from grasping my pencil in a strange, left-handed sort of way. The pencil pushes against the right side of the nail, making a weird shape and callus.

I attempted to paint my nails earlier in life, without great success. My mother discouraged nail color, and I just decided to agree with her that nail color was on the tacky side and give up on it.

But the colors I’m seeing for polishes are so amazing! Greens! Purples! Blues! Browns and grays! I love color! The topper for me is the new trend for MATTE nails. How cool is that?! Sure, painting the nails with bright colors is kind of unnatural, but what a great way to express one’s self and accessorize at the same time. What wouldn’t be better than to match my nails to my beloved handbags. For serious!

Which gets me to the point I want to make. After carefully trying to paint my nails a beautiful electric blue from Lancôme (Indigo Paris ) I realized that I had botched it up, and all of the nail surfaces were…botched-looking. What the?! Well, I pulled out the new Essie Matte About You and put it on my thumb and index finger, and wow!! Perfection! A cool and gorgeous matte blue, but also smoothed over with no more botchy, grainy lumpiness showing.

Wow, awesome matte finish AND a saver of hard nail work! Two goopy painted thumbnails up for this product! I got mine at Ulta.

To blog...or not to blog?

A while back, maybe a couple of years ago, I decided I wanted to do travel writing of some kind. I set up a blog and called it “Travels with Euridice.” I was going to write up my travels and blog about travel-related matters. Predictably, I didn’t actually get around to doing it.

More recently I’ve thought I would like to write or blog, but about what? I could write a blog about several different areas of interest. If someone actually reads it, well, fine! If not, it’s still a great exercise to improve my writing or to just entertain myself. It doesn’t have to be perfect or even remotely interesting.

What to call it? Well, ‘travels with Euridice’ could be literal….you know, my travels. I do love to travel and plan trips. ‘Travels with Euridice’ could also be figurative, traveling with Euridice through different topics and experiences. Traveling through life, even!

So, I think I will write up my thoughts on the following areas: travel, beauty (I recently started wearing makeup again, and am suddenly obsessed with learning everything about beauty in order to have a successful go at it), fashion (I am a handbag addict, love shoes, and have a basic interest in fashion in general), art and culture (love museums! Love early music!), and….well, this is enough to start with. It’s like, everything I love to shop for, that’s what I’ll write about!!

Let’s start traveling.

testing!