I’ve got a lot of stress going on in my life right now, job stress mostly, and fun beauty stuff always cheers me up. So this 5 Things is about the stuff I’ve found lately that is just perking up my day!

1. Shrek by OPI nail colors. I am just loving these fun, bright colors! I have Who The Shrek Are You? on my toes and I’m going to do a mani today with What’s With The Catittude?

2. Aromaleigh Victoria’s Revenge Limited Edition Eyeshadows – I was lucky enough to receive samples to review and share with all of you, and boy howdy are they GAWGEOUS! Expect multiple posts soon.

3. The new Badger Balm Lip Tints & Shimmers are so fabulous! These double-ended goodies boast beautiful sheer lip tints with ultra-moisturizing cocoa butter and olive oil. Love them!

4. FLOWERBYKENZO La Cologne is Kenzo’s newest fragrance, a citrus twist on the original FLOWERBYKENZO scent. I like the bitterness of the petitgrain paired with the powdery notes of the original. I’ll be reviewing this in full soon!

5. Fyrinnae’s new Lip Lustre shades are so pretty! I ordered Puppy Love and Ultra Phantom, and of course now I notice there are another FOUR new ones! Gah!! Next order, next order…

I was cruising through Walgreens the other day, and happened upon a display of new Sally Hansen nail polishes, the Complete Salon Manicure Nail Polish. Ooooh!!!

It’s a totally new line with 42 shades that range from super-sheer to deep, with stops in metallic-land and bright-city. Sally Hansen’s website is not up-to-date with the new collection, but so far I’ve managed to find it online at Ulta – check it out!

Until I have a chance to snag a few and give them a test drive, I’ll point you to some reviews by other bloggers. Here’s a review of Yellow Kitty (a great yellow shade), and here’s one of Commander-in-Chic.

I’m particularly interested in Pat on The Black and Gray by Gray. Some of these will definitely be hitting my nail polish collection soon!

Sally Hansen Opulent Cloud nail polish is apparently one of THE HOT colors this season. It’s supposed to be a “does everything for everyone” sort of color, and indeed it is quite nice on the nails!

Its grey, it’s gold, it even has flashes of green! Please pardon my less-than-awesome pictures, my camera doesn’t do closeups well. I just love the color, it’s perfect  for fall. I like that it’s grey, but not exactly. It’s from the HD Hi-Definition Nail Color line of polishes, which are a patented, breakthrough formula with real liquid crystals. The polishes have spectacular color and pure, vivid pigments that provide multi-dimensional color and extraordinary brilliance.

Since I just painted my nails today, I can’t comment on how well it wears. But I’m guessing it’ll be pretty good, like all the other Sally Hansen polishes I’ve tried. I used two coats, as one coat just didn’t seem to be sufficiently opaque. I did have a little issue with the brushstrokes being really obvious, but it isn’t enough to bother me that much.

Overall, Opulent Cloud is two thumbnails up!

I like having a manicure as much as the next girl. I don’t like having to make appointments, or carry cash. (Most walk-in nail places don’t take credit cards, and larger salons require appointments.) Given the opportunity to check out a nail care dvd that would teach me how to do my own manicures, at home, I jumped for it!

Bring It Home Beauty is a company that has produced two dvds: Hair Care Secrets from the Professionals and Natural Nail Care Secrets from the Professionals. I’ll write about the Hair Care dvd in a separate post (it rocks too!).

Natural Nail Care starts with a segment on safety and sanitation. This is followed by step-by-step instructions on doing a plain manicure. Then there is a segment on doing a spa manicure with a scrub and paraffin dip, followed by a segment on men’s manicures. Basic nail polish and french manicure polish are covered, as well as plain and spa pedicures.  Each segment explains what tools and products you’ll need, has a detailed description of each step, and close up shots so you can see what’s going on.

So who needs this dvd and why? If you’re like me, and have had few manicures in your life (I’ve had 3) you probably can’t remember exactly what they did to make your nails look great when you left the salon. There are tutorials online, but I personally think these can’t replace the clear step-by-step instructions and the super-helpful close-up shots of the procedures. The little tips are also invaluable – using an orangewood stick to swipe away polish on the skin, for example. The most valuable step for me was how to repair a broken nail – how often have I grown my nails out a bit only to have one partly tear, grrr! In the past I would end up cutting all my nails short to match the now-short broken one. This dvd shows you how to repair it!

The dvd is $29.95 and can be purchased here.  Save yourself the time and expense (and questionable sanitation!) of salon visits, and do your nails yourself! I really recommend this dvd as a useful tool in your beauty arsenal. Watch it with your best girlfriend and take turns doing each other’s nails – this is my plan!

You may have noticed that the nail category has been expanding this month, from its previous post total of ONE post. That’s because I decided to make October “Claire focuses more on nails” month, so here we are!

I am notoriously hard on my cuticles. I work in retail, which means unpacking shipments of products and banging up my cuticles on cardboard boxes, and also getting paper cuts from paper bags. Regular use of a cuticle care product helps keep them healthy. What makes these particular cuticle care products different from regular lotion or hand cream is that they contain more oils than I’d want for all over my hands, whereas a dab on each finger deeply nourishes and heals the cuticles more than hand cream alone.

My favorite right now is Badger Balm Cuticle Care. Rich in shea butter, beeswax, essential oils and sea buckthorn extract, a little tiny dab suffices for each hand and my cuticles and nails stay happy. I also rub some into my rough heels in the morning before putting my socks on and my feet are less rough and dried out. Go Badger!

I also really like Burt’s Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Creme – which isn’t really a cream, but is also a balm. This one has vitamin e, cocoa butter, and a fabulous lemon scent. If you want a more versatile product, get the Lemon & Vitamin E Bath and Body Oil. I love body oils for after my shower – massage a small amount all over your damp skin and it helps combat dry skin. Rub whatever is left on your hands into your cuticles, and voila! It’s a total body treatment.

L’Occitane also makes a great cuticle cream – this one has 30% shea butter and carrot seed oil. I like it because it’s a true water-based cream, so it won’t leave your fingers oily after use. It’s pricier than the others, but the little tube will last forever, since a tiny dab on each nail will suffice.

I haven’t personally tried it, but I’ve heard good things about Lush’s Lemony Flutter Cuticle Butter.

I’ve been obsessed with orange lately. I think it has to do with the displays in The Limited’s windows right now, which are across the hall from my store in the mall where I work. I have major lust for the outfit pictured here, but of course The Limited doesn’t carry my size.

Never fear, though, I will get my orange fix. I went hunting for orange nail polish, a darker pumpkin-y orange. Do you know how hard this is to find? I found neon orange. I found a lot of red. I found super sparkly glitter orange. But as for true dark or burnt orange, well, I only had luck at Icing By Claire. The color is called Orange U Glad 2 C Me and it’s the perfect dark orange color. It does have shimmer, but not a lot, and it was still a totally flattering color.

The other one I want to investigate is Orly’s Cha Cha Cha from the Manicure Miniatures collection.

Do you know of any other great dark or burnt orange nail colors?

Since I decided to spend more time on my nails, I picked up a base coat and top coat from Sally Hansen to keep my polish looking good. Why Sally? It’s a brand I’m familiar with, I see reviews or mentions in the magazines I read, and it’s been around forever, so they must have something good going on.

It’s easy to think that anything other than your colored nail polish is just a waste of time and money. This may be true if you are just painting your nails for a date, or a weekend or any short amount of time. But if you want your paint job to stick around for more than a day or two, you’ll want to consider using a base and a top coat. The base coat will help prevent darker colors from staining your nails, and smooth out any ridges in your nails. Top coats provide protection for your polish, and often add exta shine. Both will keep your polish looking good, for a longer time.

I bought Sally Hansen Insta-Grip Fast Dry Base Coat, mostly because of the fast dry claim. One coat is all you need, and it does indeed dry fast. Rock on!

For the top coat, I picked Sally Hansen Salon Speed Shine 10-Day Top Coat. It’s fast drying, contains UV protection for your nail color, and boasts a glossy finish. The claim is that your manicure will be dry to the touch in 30 seconds. I find that to be more like 60 or 90 seconds, but it’s still pretty fast. As for the 10-day claim, well, I’m not sure I’m patient enough to keep the same color for 10 days. It’s held up for 5 days just fine.

The combo of the two make for an impressively strong finish. The ultimate test for my paint job is whether it can take the abuse from unpacking a shipment at work, combined with changing our displays. With polish alone, this is guaranteed to make it chip off at the tips. The combo of one coat base coat, three coats polish, one coat top coat survived with only a minimal reduction in shine from the top coat – which I easily remedied by putting a fresh coat on when I got home from work. My manicure still looks great!

If you don’t want a separate bottle for base coat and top coat, you can buy 2-in-1 products, like Sally Hansen Salon Double Life Base & Top Coat. I picked the separate top coat because I wanted one that dried fast.

Incidentally, the polish I was wearing for my “survives shipment” test was from Bourjois’ Mini Collection, Shade 39 from Diner a Paris, a true black shade. I’m totally bummed that it would seem I have to order off eBay to get more because the line isn’t carried in the US. I got mine at Sephora, ages ago. I like mini products, because I usually tire of a color long before I’ll ever use up a full-size bottle. The rest of the shades look so good, I might just have to hit up eBay.

I recently decided I needed to pay more attention to my nails. I’m too busy for manicures, and mostly too cheap to want to pay for them anyway. But I’m enough of a girl to admit that I feel more feminine when my nails are nicely polished and my cuticles aren’t ragged – especially since I wear my nails short. Hence, the proclamation of “I’m going to spend more time doing my nails!”

This rather conveniently ties into a review of some very pretty polishes by Jessica Cosmetics.  The company’s focus is on natural nails, and they have a whole slew of products you could use if you so desired, to take care of your nails. The focus of this post will be on the Custom Nail Colours, specifically the Empowered Collection, created for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. 100% of the net proceeds of each color included in the collection will be donated to the World Cancer Research Fund. Jessica Custom Nail Colours are DBP, toluene, and formaldehyde free.

There are six shades, mostly pales pinks and a white shade. So far, I’ve only had a chance to try Endure, and I like it a lot. It’s pale pink, but my hands are still somewhat tanned from summer, so the contrast is nice. I’m using it with a base and top coat from Sally Hansen and longevity seems good – I’m hard on nails, and it’s not uncommon for me to chip the polish after only one day with other brands. We’re on day three, and so far they look great. Thumbs up!

The Jessica Cosmetics website has some useful information, such as a brief step-by-step description of how to do your own manicure, as well as guides to using the other nail products the brand offers (besides colored polish). You can order all of the products from the website, and there is a salon finder to locate a salon near you that offers the “Jessica System.”

Look for a review of the Sally Hansen products, as well as a review of an at-home manicure instructional DVD, coming up soon!