It occurs to me that I don’t have a nail category! For the debut of this new category, I thought I’d review Nyx Cosmetics’ nail polish, something I recently discovered.

Nyx Cosmetics has a whole slew of colors (as you can see on their website), to fit just about any mood. I was feeling the need for something bright and cheery, since most of August was pretty gloomy in Oregon. I tried Sunset Blvd., a bright mandarin color.

The polish was a good texture – not too runny, not too thick. Two coats was sufficient for nice color, and it dried fairly quickly. It wore really well. I am super-hard on nail polish because of my job. I am always banging up my nails grabbing products from drawers, unpacking shipments, grabbing bags for purchases, etc. so I’m always happy if polish looks good for the five working days between days off (when I have time to change the polish). Nyx polish held up to the five day test and still looked pretty good when I took it off – it had minimal chippage at the ends of my nails, but no major chunks gone. Me likey.

So, yay! A new category! Nail care!

I have definitely been on a perfume kick lately, in terms of what I’ve been spending time reading about online.

Scent I most want to sniff? Pucci Vivara. I want it because the bottle is so pretty, so very Pucci. It sounds good too – almond amaretto, floral sambac jasmine, Narcissus and a touch of orange blossom. I’ll have to brave Saks Fifth Avenue to give it a whiff. Saks intimidates me – I feel like I’m underdressed unless I’m all done up to the nines, and not just slouching around downtown in my usual jeans/summer blouse combo.

I also have a serious desire for Covet (how punny…) after wearing a sample for a few days. SJP herself was at the Macy’s at the mall where I work a few weeks ago and I picked up a sample then. Upon first sniff, it wasn’t for me. Upon second sniff, I was starting to get interested. After a few hours, I was thinking it was pretty good. The notes are wet greens, geranium leaves, Sicilian lemon, lavender, chocolate, honeysuckle, magnolia, muguet, musk, vetiver, bois de cashmere, teakwood, and amber. I get the lavender, the lemon, and the chocolate, and the woods comes later. The perfume is definitely on my wish list now.

Speaking of Cynthia Rowley, I’ve been a fan of the perfume for about a year now. It’s gotten a little hard to find, but you can buy it from her website, and also from beauty.com. It’s a floral, with some citrus (verbena and bergamot) for zest. It has notes of red currant, cyclamen, honeysuckle, freesia, heliotrope, musk, and amber. The basenotes are very light though, just enough to ground the florals. It’s not a groundbreaking perfume at all – I doubt anyone will say “What are you wearing?” when you walk by. But it is sweetly feminine and subtle, a nice carefree scent that’s easy to wear.

Avon has teamed up with fashion designer Cynthia Rowley to create some limited edition products bearing Rowley’s name. While I don’t see anything that grabs me like the Jillian Dempsey face powder did, the colors do look pretty and wearable.

While we’re on the subject of Avon, their mark. line has introduced a new fragrance to the Self Sanctuary products: Honey Jasmine. It sounds really delectable. The White Tea Vanilla was one of my favorite scents, and the body butter formula is quite nice.

Cruising Sephora.fr is enough to practically kill me. They have SO MUCH more stuff than regular ol’ Sephora.com us version. Jealous, jealous, jealous.

Take this, for example. Doesn’t this sound amazing?? If you don’t read French, try Babelfish. Almond flower, heliotrope, almond fruits, kiwi, sandalwood and vanilla? I WANT IT NOW. And the bottle, so cute!! I want the green one too (it’s called Liberty Fizz in English).

How about this? Irresistable, sexy, and feline? Yes, please. There is a whole lineup of these Sephora brand vanilla scents and they all sound good. I’m still jealous over these too. Back in the day, Sephora US had a bunch of delectable shower gels etc. like these. Jealous!

Check out the bottle and description of this one: Muthhela Femme. Doesn’t it look amazing? I also wish Sephora US had Crazylibellule and The Poppies. They are definitely too much fun.

I’m also in admiration of the baby fragrances. I have this thing for perfumes meant (or inspired) by babies. I love them.

Sigh. Oh to be French.

I have a new beloved, Molinard’s Nirmala Eau de Toilette. backstory – there is a store in the mall I work at called Fragranza. They carry a wide variety of perfumes, elegantly displayed on shelves along the wall. Unlike some mall perfume stores, they haven’t got things packed in like sardines and looking like a flea market. The store is very elegant, with track lighting and a glass counter.

I have never gone in, since the “I’m just looking” approach doesn’t really work when there is a counter between you and the merchandise. But today, they were reorganizing or cleaning or something, because there were testers all over the counter. So I decided to wander in, see what all they had. The lady behind the counter was actually very nice, and was happy to let me gaze at the shelves. She made a few suggestions when I told her what perfumes I like (and own), and one in particular grabbed me.

It was Nirmala. It has top notes of passion fruit, mango, mandarin, and grapefruit. The heart notes are jasmine and fleurs des iles, meaning “island flowers.” The basenotes are blue cedarwood, tonka bean, sandalwood, and vanilla.

It sounds like a typical fruity floral, but it is not. It is extremely sensual, like warm skin and ripe berries, and, well, sex. Not sure how else to put it. This is not a scent for the faint of heart. It definitely has character, and I can see that some days the scent could easily be wearing you instead of the other way ’round.

It’s not expensive at all. You can find it online for as little as $19.99, although I paid more for mine. It’s in a lovely blue glass bottle with a pretty lady on it. It feels very elegant and old-fashioned. I love it.

BTW, poke around on the Molinard website a little. It’s great, very informative. I seriously want the Une Souris Verte spray on cuteness alone.

I am ALL OVER these new palettes from Stila. I can’t decide which one I want, they are all so pretty! While you’re cruising Stila’s website, be sure to take a peek in the vintage section. You might see something there that’s irresistable too, and that section is 20% off right now. The Perfectly Kitten set is a good example.

I haven’t seen them in person yet, but if the color payoff is like their non-matte shadows, these new matte shadows from Urban Decay look great. I want the purple shades…

Sephora has some pretty palettes in their Sephora Collection makeup – I like the eyeshadow palettes customized to best show off your eye color. See the brown one here. For once, I actually like the colors chosen for my eye color.

DuWop has added some more colors to their eyeshadow duos – I particularly like Lemongrass and Macchiato.

This oil-free luminizing powder from Lorac might be an adequate replacement for my beloved Paul & Joe face powder. I can’t wait to see it in person! The P & J powder contains ground pearls, and looks just amazing on the skin – but since Sephora stopped carrying it, I’m out of luck once my treasured compact runs out. Boo hoo! Maybe Lorac will save the day.

Not one to leave perfume behind, I’m intensely interested in Fresh Mangosteen. Of course, at Fresh prices I’ll have to REALLY love it before I’d buy it, but I’m really curious to give it a sniff.

We’ve had some wacky summer weather here in Oregon. We had more rain than we’ve had in a few years, and less heat. I’m not complaining about the heat, but I could use a little more sunshine before summer is gone.

I cheered myself up by checking out some of the new stuff coming out for fall. Isn’t this Lancome mini-palette cute?? It’s a “Destiny Cube” and it’s just too adorable. I think the “Pillow Balm” looks really fun too.

It looks like a more subtle eye combined with a bold lip is going to be hot for fall, although my not-so-favorite nude or pale pink lip is still sticking around too. I look TERRIBLE with pale lips, so that one is definitely NOT for me. I love bold lip colors though, especially Dior lipsticks and Nars glosses.

It’s not part of the fall (yet), but I did pick up a Dior gloss today that I really like. It’s a Dior Addict Ultra Gloss Reflect in shade 777 (Ribbon Mauve). This is the “new” Ultra Gloss, which features a brush applicator instead of a doe-foot, and has more shimmer. Sephora.com has the old names paired with the new if you want to match a color. The new formula tastes better, too. I love my original Ultra Gloss shade 333 Hologram Coral, but I don’t wear it very often because it tastes funny.

I can’t wait as more lines roll out their fall collections. I love new stuff!!