My manicure, and into the trash we go! February edition.

My gosh this month has gone by quickly. My birthday is in just over two weeks, and it's hard to believe how fast time has flown. I guess that's the way of the world. I decided to go ahead and sort through my empties and expirees even though it's not quite March yet. February has been a pretty good month as far as it goes for using up old products and trying out samples. March is looking to be promising as well.

Before I get to that I have a rare thing to share with you - a manicure! That's right, I actually got pictures before it was completely destroyed. I decided to do a post Valentine's day scramble. I used elf flat candy apple red, dark metallic red, light pink (the top coat picked up some of the dark metallic red and bled over onto light pink but it looked pretty), gold and ox blood. I was really happy with the quality of the elf polishes, and pretty surprised by the results. They dried pretty quickly, applied OK and lasted quite long. The only issue I had was light pink didn't apply well. I think I must have had oil on my nails or something because it just did not apply evenly. It seemed to repel the polish in some spots. I fixed that issue before the final manicure though. Dark metallic red was my favorite color among these. I don't normally wear red, but I was very happy with this particular manicure.

 After several days, I touched up a few chips. Unfortunately the next day then I noticed my polish had cracked. I had used Ciate London gelology top coat, and I'm thinking I applied the top coat to thickly or something about that top coat with regular polish made it crack. I really am not sure. I decided to top over the works with 365 Days of Color's Come Little Children, which is a red and black glitter. Yes I used red glitter over red nail polish. Perfect contrast of colors, and I loved how this looked. Especially over the gold accent.

So there's that. Before I get to my empties for the month, let me show you what is expiring this month. Only two beauties this time.

My ipsy Nyx eyeshadow is the first to expire, but I've gotten pretty good use out of it. I mostly used up the lighter shade, as it made for a good base color. The darkest color I didn't use much. I've just started to use eye shadow over my eyeliner to keep it in place, so that's how I've been using it mostly.

My treStique mini matte lip crayon in Nantucket Nude also is expiring. I really wasn't crazy about this product so no big loss. I actually did almost use it up even though I didn't like it. The color just isn't something I would have picked out for myself, and the matte formula definitely did not mix with my chronically chapped lips.

So out with the old, and in with the new... I will be adding my tarte lip creme to my bag this month. It expires.. next month, I believe, but I've actually almost used it up, too!

.... and here is my empties for the month. Pretty decent pile. I also tried out some Purina dry food with Winslow this month.. and some other cat food, but I'll stick with more beauty things here mostly.

Firstly, for Christmas I received a whole bunch of CST brand bars of soap. These bars are pretty awesome. They're huge at 12 ounces, so one bar lasted us about a month, in comparison to the one bar a week we're used to with cheaper soaps. This month we used Egyptian Cotton. It left my skin feeling very soft. I will definitely recommend this brand. The cool thing about these soaps is they come in very nice little boxes which I am definitely keeping to reuse for something or other.

Next is Arm & Hammer Ultra Max antiperspirant deodorant. This seemed to last me a good long time - I want to say about 6 months. Pretty standard deodorant, nothing special or unique about it. Not liking some of those nasty chemicals in it, now that I look at the ingredients, but I guess you will have that.

Sensetive+ BB cream from Dr. G I got from Ipsy. Pretty standard BB cream - but why is it called sensetive? That really bothers me. This is supposed to be 10 free, provide protection, etc. I like that it gives you a place to write in when you opened the container, so you know when it expires. Not that I did that - the sample was small enough I used it up before it had a chance to expire.

Carmex hydrating lotion I won.. so long ago in a giveaway. This actually may have expired already, I'm not positive since I don't see an expiration date on the container.  The vanilla scent was nice, and there are some healthier ingredients in this but still, some not so good ones I would assume since they are chemical names. I don't recall noticing any fantastic improvement with this. Again, pretty standard lotion and nothing too special.

3D Creat White strips, I got a free sample of.. I believe from Walmart perhaps? I found the bottom strip wouldn't stay on my teeth so I tossed it. The top one I noticed was actually hurting my teeth after maybe a minute so I tossed it as well. I'm guessing I didn't get any benefit from having the product on for so little time but I do recall my teeth hurt for hours after using this. Never again. I will definitely NOT recommend this. Ever.

Hey Honey Honey Silk Facial Serum was another Ipsy product I received. It's not tested on animals, and I really liked that it made use of natural products aka honey. I want to say I did notice improvement in the softness of my skin with this, and I did like it.

PinchMe.com sent me a sample of SlimFast 100 calorie snack bites, and I gotta say these were pretty awful. They just tasted like fake chocolate chemical crap (probably because that's what they are.....) I immediately regretted eating those 100 calories.

I also received a sample of Burt's Bees Protein powder. I added my sample to a fruit smoothie and it was absolutely awesome. It tasted so delicious. I made the same smoothie another time without the protein powder and it wasn't anywhere nearly as good. Unfortunately the protein powder is too expensive for me, because this is one of those few samples I would actually purchase if I could. I highly recommend this for a healthier choice for extra protein.

This month I received two facial masks from Ipsy. I've just used the one. I used #stay gogeous botanic fiber facial mask from bioBelle. I noticed my skin felt softer after use. It seemed to fit my face pretty well, unlike some other face masks. I like that it is paraben, GMO free, made with natural ingredients (even if it is made in China.) Again however, lots of chemical names on this little package.

Lastly, I used up my Living Proof restore hair mask treatment, which I had gotten for free from Ipsy using rewards points. Pretty standard hair mask, with a short time of 5 minutes to sit. This was a small sample but it was enough to use a couple of times. I definitely wouldn't pay the $11 I see this is selling for on Walmart's web site. Gosh. I expected this to be higher cost but didn't think it would be that much for something you only use 2 or 3 times. I was going to say I would purchase this product, but not for that price. I may just try a good old mayo mask again since it's so cheap to make mayo at home.

I guess that's another wrap up for this month. I'll be back around eventually to completely review my February Ipsy bag and of course to give a sneak peek at my March bag. Here's to another good month :)