My dear Amy sent me a Sephora gift card for my birthday, and I got right to work spending it. I always forget how much I love Buxom. When I shop, I am generally replacing my staples, which include Urban Decay eyeliners (both liquid and pencil), CoverGirl mascara and pencil eyeliner, Too Faced powder foundation and rouge, and Maybelline or Lancome eyeshadows. Sephora had a Buxom value set with a gorgeous lip gloss, and I remembered how much I love their lip gloss, so I bought it!
I am extremely pleased with everything that came in the set. I don’t really care for the color of the lipstick, but it wears really well, and I can use it as a liner. I give this whole set 5 stars. Oh, and the lipgloss? So pretty!
Not so pretty? My nails. I wore a gel polish for too long and my nails suffered for it, and they’ve been breaking and looking nasty. I haven’t had time for a manicure, and I had two presentations to make and respects to pay to a framily member–which I was not about to do with grotty nails–so while I was at the grocery store, I picked up a set of press-ons. Yes, I did that. I did. I was walking down that aisle and I saw some Fing’rs brush-on nail glue and thought, “That might work.”
I bought these Broadway Nail Petites in “Real Life Everyday Style”.
They did work!
I wore the nails for six days with no problems, and was very happy with them. But I was also glad to pick those suckers off on my way home from the service. After spending the afternoon cleaning up the backyard (Hoo decided that the inside of his bed would look better on the outside, and the backyard looked like it had snowed fluff) and making good on a promise to take the boy to the bookstore (for Legos, no less) before getting his hair cut, I headed for the nail salon. My regular place was packed, with people waiting in every chair, so I passed on by and headed for the salon I’d seen close to Thor’s haircuttery.
Have you ever been stabbed with a pair of cuticle trimmers? Now I can tell you that I have, and I can tell you that it is incredibly painful. Have you ever had a nail tech start to well up with tears while working on your feet, not because your callouses are tough as a camel’s, but because she hates her job hours because she never gets to see her kids before they go to bed? Or, have you ever had a nail tech beg you for help getting a new job? I can tell you that I have, and that she was incredibly grateful for all the advice I gave her*.
I had a tandem mani/pedi, which I don’t really like to begin with because that’s not relaxing to me, but it became even less so as the guy doing the mani first cut into the meat of my ring finger as the pedi girl simultaneously cut into the meat of my big toe. Left hand, right foot, suddenly stinging with pain and then worse with the alcohol and whatever that stuff is they brush on to stop the bleeding. Mani guy clipped me again, then, as he was reaching for the alcohol, STABBED me in the thumb with the cuticle trimmers.
Traumatizing.
But you want to know what the saddest part is? The saddest part is that my nails and toenails look better and cleaner of cuticle, and my heels are softer than any salon has ever left them–minus a couple of blood dots. And do you know why that is sad? That is sad because I can never go back there again.
*I have edited this post because it sounded harsh when I read it again. I don’t fault anyone for crying because they can’t see their kids, and I had great compassion for the girl. I have cried at work because I would rather have been with my baby, too. I don’t think you can time-and-place-for emotion like that, and I was glad to offer her some tips on how to find, apply for, and get a job that would help her get home before her children were sound asleep.
The Outside Lane 