October Birchbox

First of all, with Birchbox, it's a seriously a hit or miss sort of deal. I've been getting Birchbox since August, and some of the stuff I've gotten was great, other of it was meh, which brings me to my October box:

Most of this box was meh. I enjoyed the chapstick because you can always use chapstick, but I wasn't impressed with the lipstain, it reminded me of strawberry jello. I was indifferent about the other products, HOWEVER, I NEED TO RAVE ABOUT DEVA CURL.

I have CRAZY UNRULY CURLY HAIR AND I HATE IT. It frizzes, it never looks good down, I feel like it looks like a fro, and I've done so much in my life to try to fix my awful hair such as bleach it, dye it, Brazilian blowout it, and use keratin treatment on it. They were all temporary fixes.

I had heard about Deva, but I'm cheap, and didn't want to spend money on something I had never tried. So I was super excited when birchbox decided I should get a sample of their three-step curly hair treatment.

I tried the sample before fiance and I went to the Texas Renaissance Faire. Texas is hot and humid, and the Renaissance faire is all outdoors, so it was the perfect chance to prove it's worth.

It was amazing. It was a hot and sunny day, and my hair stayed perfect curled and bouncy until I got sweaty and threw it in a ponytail. I took a cute picture of my fiance and me, and I got tons of compliments when I posted in on facebook about how awesome my hair was.

I gave it a second try when I went to the aforementioned rock concert with my fiance. It was an outdoor festival, tons of people, tons of jumping up and down, and tons of body sweat. My hair stayed wonderful, and again, I took a picture because I'm desperately in need of cute couple pictures for my Holiday card I haven't made yet, and got more compliments on my hair.

Then I gave it a third try [the sample was huge] when I went to a professional development with co-workers, who had never seen my hair down [I rock the messy bun look], and they started playing with my hair and telling me how great it looked down and how it was like Barbie hair.

SOLD.

I bought the full-size trip of shampoo, conditioner, and gel. I'm not a fan of the smell of the shampoo or conditioner, they're not bad, I just don't like them, but I LOVE THE SMELL OF THE GEL, IT'S LIKE GREEN APPLE JOLLY RANCHERS.

I wore my hair down today, the first time all year, and we've been in school since August, and my students told me I looked like a princess.

Totally worth the fifty bucks I spent, a lot cheaper than a keratin treatment, and photo friendly. If you have crazy curly hair that you can't stand and do anything and everything in your power to get rid of it, TRY THESE PRODUCTS, YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT.
[and here's a nifty link to it: http://www.birchbox.com/shop/devacurl-3-step-system/

Julep: Halloween Secret Store

First, of all, let me preface this by saying, I LOVE HALLOWEEN, AND I LOVE FALL!!! Unfortunately, living in Texas, there's NO SUCH THING as fall.

But anyhow, if I'm going to blow my money on makeup at any time during the year it's from Halloween to Christmas because those holidays are my favorite time of year. I love the colors, I love the sparkles!!! I especially love Halloween, I have a million pairs of Halloween earrings, and I literally wear them up to Halloween, which my pre-k students love.

So needless to say, the October secret store, got me excited!

I forget the name of the packages I spent all my money on, but here's the nail polish colors I indulged on:

from left to right: Glenda [a silver cackle], Tracy, Karen, Amity, and Cleopatra.

Glenda, is your typical silver cackle, I admit, I haven't tried it yet. I've never actually done cackle nail polish before, I used to have a bottle of black cackle, but en route from NJ to Texas, the bottle had an unfortunate accident in my car, but I definitely like silver better than black.

Tracy reminds me of Van Gogh's Starry Night. The picture doesn't do it justice. It's a deep blue color with glitter. It goes on nice and thick, and reminds me of stars in the sky, not that you really see many stars in Texas.

I LOVE KAREN, I painted my nails with it this week, and one of my pre-k students told me that it looked like pumpkin pie. It's a nice smooth, pumpkin colored nailpolish. It's also thick enough that I needed only one coat. My pre-k kids love it, therefore it gets two thumbs up, a pat on the back, and a stamp of approval.

I wrote Amity about two weeks ago. It's a pale silver white color. The color is so light that it took me several coatings to even see the color on my nails. I love silver, but there are better silver polishes to use that I don't need to use one hundred coats of it to show.

I have not tried Cleopatra, but the black latex intrigues me. Perhaps I should try that with Glenda. I do love black nailpolish, and considering it's called black latex, I'm sure it's a very thick black nailpolish. I shall let you know when I try it.

With one of my nailpolish packages, I got this:

A silk skull scarf. I've tried it on, it will be a nice accessory for a Halloween outfit I can wear to school next year.

and this:

Halloween nail decals. Mind you, I am way to lazy to actually figure out how to put these my nails. I spent all day chasing four year olds, when it comes to being home, I want to do nothing that involves using my brain such as figuring out how to use nail decals. But they are very cute.

This was one of my add-ons:

A pomegranate sugar scrub. I love sugar scrubs. This one smells very nice. But it doesn't meet my sugar scrub expectations. The sugar itself, isn't thick enough, and it doesn't blend well on wet skin in the shower, and it doesn't leave my skin silky like the Victoria's Secret or Philosophy ones do, but it was only three bucks, and I do like the smell.

On the Halloween nailpolish note, I picked these up for 99 cents with my Walgreens card:

First of all, I LOVE SINFUL COLORS, they're only two bucks, and I find their nail polish is better quality than some of the more expensive stuff like Sephora brand. I have almost every color of theirs, and I always buy colors I don't have.

From l to r: Call You Later, Faceted, Black Magic, Glow in the Dark, and Citrine.

I've tried Black Magic on my toes. I didn't really like it. It's supposed to be black with orange sparkles, but I found the orange sparkles got lost in translation from the bottle to my toes, and it was mostly black and not very glittery, which is a sad face :( It's also very hard to get off your toes!

I used Glow in the Dark on the dollar  skeleton gloves I bought from Kroger to make the bones glow in the dark, and it worked beautifully, and my pre-k students thought that was the coolest thing ever.

I currently have Citrine on my toes and I love it. It's bright and screams fall to me and reminds me of foliage in NJ and pumpkins. It also goes on smoothly, and I found I only needed one coat of it.

I'll let you know about the others when I try them.