The Giving Girl Hair Ties! Review and Giveaway!

Hello everyone! I hope you had a great and relaxing weekend! A few months ago I purchased some elastic hair ties and headbands from The Giving Girl via Copious, since I started using them, I have not looked back! I don't use any other kind of hair ties anymore! 

The owner sent me some super cute hair ties this time, the colors are perfect for fall and winter. I love them and I hope you will too, the owner is super sweet and sent me two sets of each, some to keep and some for this Giveaway!!! All you need to do is enter using the Rafflecopter form at the end of this post! (This Giveaway is valid within the US only).

If you like Twistband, you will love The Giving Girl, they are way more affordable, tons of variety and the quality is great!

They are soft and cute, yet they hold all kinds of hair, mine is thick, curly and abundant and these babies stay in place all day! I wear them on my wrist sometimes and like to mix them up when I do a side ponytail, sometimes I wear more than one in different colors just to give my hair a little touch of fun :) 

I haven't had a chance to wear the new colors yet but wanted to show you some pictures I have wearing the ones I purchased a few months ago.

Both the headband and the hair tie are from The Giving Girl

 Red headband for 4th of July! and do you see the hair tie on my wrist?

Wearing 2 hair ties on my side ponytail, on some random day :)

Check out The Giving Girl on Etsy and Facebook (I hear they are having a sale!) and enter below to win some fabulous hair ties (8 ties total)!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank you for stopping by,

Fiorella :)

Note: While I have purchased from this vendor previously, these specific products were sent to me free of charge for the Giveaway!

ipsy/MyGlam November 2012 bag!

Good evening and thank you for stopping by. This post will be kinda short as tonight is laundry night! haha! Well I got my ipsy/MyGlam bag for November! Overall I am pretty happy with this month's goodies, I am definitely keeping this subscription as it does not disappoint!

Here is what I got:

Pretty huh? Keep reading for the breakdown :)

This month, the bag was a dark brown color, I have found myself using most of the MyGlam bags so this will be a great addition. I usually carry big purses and I found that using these little bags helps keeping my "stuff" in order! I will put my makeup in one, medicine/pills in another, etc, etc :)

Oh yes! Nail polish! This is the first time I hear about this brand, you can check out their website here. The polish I got is called Millionaire, they describe it as "teal & gold tinsels awash in rose-gold microglitter" and it retails for $13! Score! Did I mention this bag is $10 a month including shipping? so yes! definitely getting my $$$ worth once again!

Now, as soon as I saw the polish it reminded me of tokidoki SANDy, which I picked up at Sephora a couple months ago. The tokidoki polish is now discontinued. What do you think? Dupes?

The one on the left is nailtini, the one on the right is tokidoki, 2 coats each... I don't know about you, but they look exactly the same to me!!! Crazy but not a bad thing, I love the polish, it's soooo sparkly! now I just have to swap my tokidoki or something :)

The next product in the bag is an Eyebrow Defining Gel by Chella, you can see the full size product here, it retails for $18, the site doesn't specify what size it is, I don't think the one that came in the bag is full size, but still a pretty good size to try out. Now, my eyebrows are thick and out of control so I am definitely trying this out!  

Next up, marvelous Moxie lipgloss in "Dare Devil", by bareMinerals! One can NEVER have too many lipglosses!!! and the color is so pretty and unlike any of the ones I already have. 

Also, I believe this is my first bareMinerals product! yay! The full size retails for $18, this one looks to be about half that size :)

I got an eye pencil by Starlet Cosmetics, the color is "black, the total absence of light". This is the first time I hear about this brand, the pencil looks ok, and on their site they have other eye pencils that retail for $11, the packaging is different, but you can see them here. Mine is definitely full sized!

Last but not least, eyeshadow!!! "Meet Matt(e)" by theBalm, the color is Matt Batali, it's a matte grey-ish brown! this will be fun for smoky eyes!

I don't believe the shadows are sold individually but theBalm sells a palette for $34.50 with 9 different matte shadows, you can see it here.

What do you think? I think the bag was pretty awesome! Last month's is still the best ipsy/MyGlam bag in my opinion, but this one came pretty darn close! and I can't wait for next month! I have a feeling December's bag is going to be legen.... (wait for it!) ...dary! hahaha bonus points if you know what show I've been watching lately! 

Have a great night and thank you again for stopping by!
Fiorella :)

PS. I have some goodies up for sale here.

Reviewing Avon Suede and Pure Ice Velvet

Hello again! Are you ready for lots of pictures?

I've been intrigued by these creatures for a few weeks, so tonight I decided I needed to go buy them and get to know them :) I am talking about the Avon Suede polishes and the Pure Ice Velvet polishes. 

Suede or Velvet polishes are meant to be worn alone, without top coat, in order to show the "texture" and "finish" they are inspired by. I grabbed a few from each collection, based on what my caught my eye at the store. 

Pure Ice is a brand sold at Walmart, polishes are $1.97 and they just came out with several collections that look like fun. These are my first Pure Ice polishes ever! I found a display fro their Velvet polishes and I grabbed 5, after swatching them I realized that one of them might not be from the Velvet collection but oh well! It was difficult to tell from the display, people move bottles around and the display was not marked with the polishes that belong to each collection. Here are the 5 I picked up:

Temptress, this is a beautiful purple, leaning towards blue, with tiny gold shimmer, this is the one that might not be part of the Velvet collection. I'm still glad I picked it up, it's beautiful!

Draped, it's a strawberry red leaning towards pink, the formula was a bit thin compared to the other ones, would look best after 3 coats, definitely has a "velvet-y" finish.

Grunge, it's a pink/mauve color, very classy, would look great for the office without being boring! I also recommend 3 coats.

Touch Me Softly it's a beautiful magenta based purple, this baby is ready in 2 coats!

Femme Fatale is a "Christmas green" and it is also ready in 2 coats! I was unsure about this color, I thought I would either love it or hate it, and so far I am loving it.

Here are the swatches, this is just 1 coat. You can definitely see the Velvet finish and while a couple of the colors would look best after 3 coats, the formula was great, super easy to work with and I didn't have to dip the brush in the bottle again to grab more polish for one coat. Amazing coverage, especially for the price. Downside? They smell kinda funny, but the smell goes away when they dry, and they dry quickly.

The brush is just the right size to grab the amount of polish you need.

 Here are the Pure Ice colors after 2 coats:

 Close up:

I can speak to the staying power of these polishes as i haven't had a chance to wear them yet, but from what I have seen, I believe they will do just fine. I rarely keep a mani for more than 2 or 3 days :) I am glad I picked up these polishes tonight.

Now, let's talk about the Avon Suede polishes! There is a local Avon store nearby so I was able to go in and look at them, I got all of them except for the Silver one, it just didn't appeal to me. I got 5 suede shades:

 Blue Royale, this color made me think of dark blue jeans, I had to have it!

 Sumptuous Rose, I see coral undertones on this one.

 Fuchsia Feel, it's a dark pink.

Touch Of Taupe, this is a light brown/nude color, it looks almost gold on camera, it's a bit darker in real life, I like this color a lot because it definitely makes me think of Fall/Winter and drinking hot tea or hot chocolate :)

Soft Violet, a cool based purple.

Here are the Avon Suede polishes after 1 coat, the first thing I noticed was how thick the formula was, for most of them. Definitely a lot more streaky than the Pure Ice colors after 1 coat.

The brush is square, I didn't like that, maybe I'm just not used to it and it would be fine after using it a few times. These are my first Avon polishes, I have no clue if all their brushes are square or if this is a new thing, but it was definitely hard to maneuver.

Here are the Avon Suedes after 2 coats, despite the weird brush, they provide great coverage and dry quickly, I love the finish.

 Here are all the swatches together:

 Pretty huh?

Dupes? Not really, the closest thing to a dupe, would be Avon Fuchsia Feel, which looks to me like it would fall right between Pure Ice Grunge and Touch Me Softly.

Overall I feel both brands provide good and comparable results, they are both affordable, Pure Ice $1.97 (.5 fl oz.) at Walmart and Avon Suedes retail for $6 or so but they were on sale for $3.49 (.4 fl oz.)

I think it comes down to availability and color preference. What do you think? Have you tried any of these polishes? Do you like the Suede or Velvet Finish? I think it's a great trend for Fall/Winter and can't wait to actually wear some of these colors! 

Thank you for stopping by,

Fiorella :)