Oh, hello imaginary readers! (I feel so popular)
You may be wondering why I've been absent from your lives for a while. well... keep wondering! bah haha!
Seriously though, last week I had a wisdom tooth pulled, and then immediately got incredibly sick. I think it's the flu, but I've never had the flu before so I really don't know... I'm just making shit up at this point.
Anyway, I really wanted to make another little blog, I wanted to do something short & sweet & I realized that maybe some of you have never heard of lip scrubs before, or maybe you have but you spend too much money on them. Well I'm going to quickly tell you how to make your own edible lip scrub.

Now, you may be wondering "what the hell is a lip scrub & why do I want one?"
OK, have you ever had one of those days where your lips are just really dry, maybe you left your chapstick at home, or you've been wandering the Sahara for 7 days, whatever the reason sometimes you get those little flakey, rubbery, gross pieces of dry or dead skin on your lips, and no matter what you do they wont seem to go away. (don't lie to me, I know you've had this happen)
Most people try to kind of chew it off, or wipe their lips with a cloth or napkin, but that never seems to do the trick, and piling on the chapstick doesn't work either 'cause you can't hydrate dead skin.
A lip scrub's sole purpose is to exfoliate your lips, it gently rubs off all those little bits of dead dry skin to reveal the soft new skin underneath.
cool huh?

I've actually seen some DIY lip scrubs out there but they all use Vaseline, which is not edible and just kinda icky.
This is super cheap and easy to do, you most likely have all the things you'll need in your kitchen already.

You will need
. honey
. sugar
. a knife, fork, spoon or other stirring device.
. a plate or bowl, just something to mix in/on
. extra virgin olive oil (optional)
. a small jar or container (optional)

What you do
I personally don't use measurements, I just eyeball what I want the texture and consistency to be. If you want to measure I'd say 2 parts sugar to 1 part honey.

. pour a little bit of honey in a bowl or plate
. pour approximately twice as much sugar on top of your honey, I use little raw sugar packets, usually 1 packet is enough for me.
. stir the sugar and honey together to make a paste. if you feel it's too chunky add more honey, if you feel it's too watery add more sugar. (add just a pinch at a time)
. transfer your mixture to a small jar or container
. add 1 drop of extra virgin olive oil & mix.

and ya done!
Seriously, that's it. now you have your very own, home made, edible lip scrub.
You can use this every day, or just once a week.
I use it once every couple of days.

How to use it you ask? Well just get a little scoop on your finger and gently rub it on your lips, you can just rub it in for 10-15 seconds with your finger, or rub your lips together, either way works. Then rinse it off with some warm water, you could also lick it off if you want to (remember, edible!). After you rinse the scrub off follow up with a moisturizing lip balm or chapstick, I actually like to use vitamin E oil.
Now your lips are incredibly smooth and soft, go kiss someone!

Well I'm going to talk, you can listen if you like.

I recently went to HEB to browse the cosmetic sales, for those of you outside Texas, HEB is a chain of supermarkets exclusive to TX. They're like a larger version of Kroger/ smaller version of WalMart. HEB tends to run really good sales on their cosmetics and beauty supplies, they also carry a small selection of NYX cosmetics. The NYX are never on sale, but HEB is closer to me than any large department stores with an actual makeup counter.

Anyway, on my most recent trip I was digging through the discount bin, because I love a good sale, and I found several Essie nail polishes marked down from $7.50 to $3.00, I had never tried Essie before, but I've been hearing great things, so I decided to go ahead and grab a few to try out.
I ended up just picking 4 colors that appeal to me.
From left to right the colors are Over the Edge, which is a gunmetal silver/black color with a touch of shimmer in it. Devil's Advocate which is a deep almost black plum. Secret Story is a tad deeper than bubblegum pink, and the last color I can't for the life of me find the name of, it is a pink/red color. I suppose it's some shade of fuchsia, unfortunately to picture is not very true to color, as I took it with my phone.

Now on to the review, I am a pretty frugal shopper and I rarely spend more than 4 dollars on a nail polish, but I would be willing to spend the $7-8 on Essie polishes, and here's why, they wear amazingly. My job requires me to work with my hands all day, my nails get smooshed, scraped, and chipped all day every day, I also wash my hands around 10 times a day at work.
The first color I tried out was Devil's Advocate, I put on two coats of the polish, with no base coat and no top coat, then I went to work, for 5 days. and had barely any chipping. The tips did chip, which is to be expected, but the centers & cuticle lines stayed mostly intact. Needless to say I was amazed, the durability of these polishes alone makes them completely worth it. There is a pretty large assortment of colors, and the finish is really nice, the polishes themselves are pretty thick, without being clumpy like some nail polishes can get. I almost never use a topcoat, and in my opinion these polishes don't really need a topcoat.

Now for the downside, two of the colors, Over the Edge & Secret Story came out very very light. To get Over the Edge to be the solid gunmetal color that it looks like in the bottle I actually had to apply 4 coats, Secret story required 3 coats.
Devil's Advocate only needed 2 coats and the unnamed fuchsia only took 1. That was the only flaw I could really find with these nail polishes, which isn't really a big deal. I personally don't like to devote a lot of time to painting my nails, but if you have the time & the patience adding a couple extra coats might not be an issue.

Overall I'm pretty fond of these little guys, I love the color selection, I love the finish and they wear like a dream. If you're not up for spending the full $8.00 I suggest waiting until you see them on sale somewhere & at least giving them the ol' college try.

Hello, this is my blog. It's not very interesting just yet, but I hope it becomes more interesting in the future.
Allow me to introduce myself, I am Arielle. I am a 24 year old female & I live in Texas. I love makeup and I want to share that love with the internet! I'm sure you've seen those 'Beauty Gurus' on Youtube, they're great, but I'm not much like them. I don't always wear a full face of makeup, I don't have a lot of money to spend on tons of products, I haven't tried every variation of mascara on the market. But I am honest and I love to share my opinions on makeup and products that I buy.
This blog is going to be about things I want to share with anyone willing to listen. Specifically I plan to talk about makeup and beauty products, I'll eventually have some reviews for you to peruse, if you so choose (that was completely unintentional).
I might also talk about clothes, shoes, accessories and my big fat ass.