alexandra black

Category: Beauty

  • Manicure 1.25 – AVON, Tips, Sally Hansen

    I quite randomly decided to start taking pictures of my nails again, so please forgive the low-light questionable quality photos – but then again, I guess it’s kinda real.

    • 2 layers AVON Gel Finish Lavender Sky
    • 1 (and a half) layer Tips Spring 2020 Confetti
    • 1 layer Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Top Coat

    AVON Gel Finish Lavender Sky

    I love this line of AVON. Nearly all of my polishes are 2+ years old, and this one is no exception. I’m not sure how the line looks right now, and I won’t go looking, because nail polish is my huge spending trigger, and I’ve been trying to use as much of the things I own as possible.

    This shade, Lavender Sky, is no exception to the overarching rule of this line – it paints really well. It’s a thinner and runnier formula, so keep that in mind if it’s not your preference. The brush shape is not flat, but it’s not annoyingly thin either and fans out nicely.

    In the photo of the bottle it pulls kind of grey, but on the nails it’s lavender.

    Tips Spring 2020 Confetti

    Tips is an indie Russian brand that I’ve been obsessed with. Unfortunately the only way for me to get this polish was to placate my brother and then have him bring it over when he visits. Currently he can’t visit, so I left him alone, and I don’t know what the new Tips collections look like.

    Confetti is a glitter, as you can see. It’s got some holo specs, it’s got some multicoloured ones, some are multichrome I believe. The shapes are also different. The base is a really pale sheer lavender – which is what inspired me to use Lavender Sky by AVON underneath. I used it without the base of colour before, just two coats of this glitter, and I loved it as is, but this time around I wanted something more substantial.

    Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Top Coat

    And then the top coat I’m still deciding if I like enough to repurchase. It does do exactly what it says it would on the tin – it dries almost instantly. But I kinda feel like it gives the overall nail a brittle sort of look. I don’t know how else to explain it. It’s like it thins out the volume of the application. I think I’m going to try applying either a thicker layer next time, or maybe even two coats.

    Also, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri top coat bottle is red, but the top coat itself is completely transparent.

  • i have enough: perfume

    I like to think of myself as the perfume girlie. Even though scents and I have a very complicated relationship.

    There was a time in my life where I went completely perfume-less for a really long time. There were two scents that I enjoyed, but unfortunately both got ‘stolen’ from me, so I stopped wearing them. It’s a story for another day. Everything else was abhorrent, because it would immediately trigger a migraine. My migraines have thankfully somewhat mellowed out with age — as in, not every single thing on my trigger list affects me daily as it used to — so in recent years I began collecting fragrance again.

    But collector is a loaded word. I would blind buy a lot of things, and mostly inexpensive things, because these would be the only fragrances I could afford. I’m a maximalist, and I like VARIETY in most things, so having a small curated collection is definitely not about me. Which means that instead of having one niche perfume, I have fifteen inexpensive ones.

    And the bottles! Oh, I love the pretty bottles. I keep all my empty perfume bottles in the same cupboard that houses my grandmother’s Bohemia crystal and bone china. But as any perfume aficionada will tell you, a pretty bottle does not a good fragrance make.

    It also took me a while to figure out how the entire base/mid/top note thing works. I would often get enamoured with a top note — and a top note is fleeting — only to discover when I come home that I absolutely hate the base. And ‘hate’ is half the problem. At the worst I would use it to spray right outside my front door, to dissuade my neighbour from the idea that my cats smell. (They don’t. I’ve asked. My neighbour either has hyperosmia, or a grudge against me.) Some of the bases would be a migraine trigger.

    And then there’s some things that I like in theory. Like, I love the idea of vanilla or almond. But I think I’ve only found one execution of either that I find comforting and pleasant. Everything else immediately goes into ‘headache’ territory.

    Coffee is another thing like that. Who doesn’t like the scent of coffee filling a quiet kitchen on a Saturday morning? But I have yet to find a perfume that would imitate that idea for me.

    And, of course, there’s the body chemistry. I recently got a small sample vial of Lacoste’s Pour Femme. I was scenting it day in and day out, not putting it on myself, because I didn’t want to waste it, nor spend any money, and I was absolutely sure that I would rush out to buy the biggest bottle the moment this concoction touched my skin. The notes read well, too. There isn’t a single note in theory that I dislike in there.

    And then I sprayed it on myself finally.

    And thanked the Lord that I didn’t rush out to buy an entire bottle of this, because on me, to me, it was fucking vile. I’m sure I will encounter it on other women and lose my head for it, but on me, to me, it’s disgusting.

    I’m not really sure where this is heading. Well, all of these posts lead to the same conclusion — that of me having enough of pretty much everything. I have a decent amount of perfume these days, and although there are some bottles that have been on my mind for a really long time, I’m okay without them.

    For now.