Liz Earle Cleanse & polish - review

 Hello my beauties I have an amazing PeArL Of The Day for y'all!
          Cleanse & Polish hot cloth cleanser from Liz Earle.
I haven't ever used any of their products before & actually haven't ever heard much of them until recently. So I've not used many of their items, only the Cleanse & Polish kit. Here's what I got out of it...

 The kit came with a lovely little bag & 2 muslin cloths which I was ecstatic about. I've read so much about muslin in my herbal body book, but never had a clue what it was. It's good stuff although I'm still a little confused about how to wash the cloths. I'm afraid I'll mess them up.
                                         HOW IT WORKS
 You clean your face with the cleanse & polish then use the warm, damp muslin cloth to wipe it off and splash with cool water. I was a bit iffy at first because I was worried the cloth alone wouldn't be enough to get all the make-up and dirt off, it worked very well! I love that cloth. It cleans everything off!

  I didn't notice much of a difference in my skin except that it was extremely dry after the first use. It got better after I kept using though. Unfortunately, I have very dry skin so I do have to use my exfoliating cleanser along with the Liz Earle cleanse and polish.

  With several more uses, I did find that my skin seemed to be glow-y and pores were nice & less noticeable.

 For those of you like me, who wear crazy make-up like turquoise glitter & neon purple eyeshadow this product is very good with removing all make-up, however I felt like the muslin cloth is necessary for the removing. 

 Working together, the muslin cloth & cleanser make a good team for cleaning and removing; not too rough, but gets the job done.

  This soft and creamy cleanser smells nice, it's like a mini-aromatic experience.

                                    THE WRAP-UP
  Overall, I really did enjoy the product. I'd be lying if I said using it was not a very nice experience. I really loved the product. I just hated that it didn't seem to help some of the problems I tend to have with my skin such as dryness, and those once a month little red bumps. Ladies, you know what I mean & for those of you who tend to get small, but several breakouts around that time, you will want a cleanser that will help that as well. I'm just one of those people who like to have an all-in-one type of thing. I like to be able to use one cleanser that does it all rather than paying $20 for a cleanse & polisher then forking over another $13 for an exfoliator & acne cleanser, not to mention the toners, anti-agers on top of it!

 It's a nice product, however I believe I'd be able to really make a decision as to which way I'm leaning had I tried other products by Liz Earle as well. So I love it, I do. I'm just a complicated skin kind of girl.

 You can visit http://www.lizearle.com/ online to shop around and see what they have to offer.


*you can find my honesty pledge at the top of the page*

Much love sweeties,
Kendra

Just a few of the nails we sold this week!

My 101 follower giveaway! Enter to win, it's simple not like most!

Hello my sparkling beauties,

I said I wanted to do a nail set giveaway to show my appreciation for reaching 101 followers. Most of the blog's I've seen usually do a giveaway at 100 so I thought I'd be a little different. (lol) This is my 1st giveaway so please bear with me here! I will make it as simple as possible. Read details below:

The giveaway includes one full set of my hand designed acrylic nails (you choose colors!) I've included a few of the orders we've recieved for nails, not many are posted here & they certainly didn't show up well in the pics, but you can find them in many of my other posts if you care to look. Winner will be contacted as soon as giveaway ends.

To enter my nail set giveaway:

1. You can follow/subscribe to my blog. Leave a comment letting me know how you follow, your e-mail & shipping info incase you win.

2. Tweet about this giveaway (post my link.) Leave me the link to your twitter.

3. Post a link to this blog on facebook.

4. Blog about this giveaway leaving my link or post in your sidebar.

5. In your comment, tell me your color preferences for the nails you would like.

EXTRA ENTRIES:
1. Post my blog link as on myspace. (6 extra entries)
2. Tweet about it more than once (not in same day - 6 extra entries)
3. Post my link on myspace. You can do all of these more than once, but not in same day. (10 extra entries)
4. Blog about this giveaway more than once (not in same day) and post my link. (12 extra entries)

*If you can think of any other unique way of sharing my link/giveaway (has to be one that I have not posted above.) leave it in your comment & you will recieve 16 extra entries! Get creative! The more ideas of ways to share the link (can be ANY) the more entries. For each extra way to share this link that you come up with, you will recieve 16 for each! (make sure you leave the link so I can find it.)*

I will have the deadline posted sometime, not sure when probably in a month.

Anything else? Let me know!

I love each & every beautiful, sparkly reader of mine!

A giveaway, A short story by me & a little letter to my loves

Hello there, my beautiful sparkle. Yes, you.

I've been very busy today organizing the little work room & inhaling paint while designing several nail sets for the orders we had today. I'm so very excited to have so many orders. A very nice customer was purchasing a few different sets for a young girl who has a pageant coming up & she told me that she would give me credit during the pageant! I could've cried! Really. I love what I do. It's nothing big. We've only had a few orders each week, but to me it's a lot. It makes me feel worthful (that's a word, right?) It gives me something to do & makes me feel like I've got purpose. It's strange, but just these few customers have meant a lot to me. They've all brought a little something to me. & I take my designs seriously. When I'm painting, I put every bit of my heart into it if that even makes sense.

  Of course my writing will always come first, but I think I will be taking my designs to the next level while going to school. I wouldn't put off my writing. I love the experience with the customers & the experience we gain while actually designing. We have a lot of crazy, meaningful times while doing it. I guess that's part of what makes it feel special to me and of course the great feeling of knowing that people are out there wearing my designs on their hands.

   I'll post a few pics of my most recent. I haven't had many people tell me what they think about them here, so if you find them boring you can tell me & I won't keep posting them. lol

  My latest writing assignment was a challenge. I had to write a short story in less than 30 min. I was happy to know that my imagination can stand up pretty good when it comes to a challenge, but the story I wrote was so far from my normal style & genre, but I liked it. It made me think about trying a whole new world of ideas. Please remember that it was written in less than 30 min. so if I decide to post it here, don't be too harsh. lol. It is a children's story, nothing special right now, but I think at least the idea has a lot of potential.

*Also I've reached 101 followers! That could also make me cry! Lol. It's very exciting to me. By the way, if any of you followers haven't, please let me know you're following so I can come visit you too! Since I've got 101, I thought I would do a giveaway! A nail set giveaway of course. lol. The thing is, I need to know if anbody is interested in a giveaway? Would you like that? If so, let me know what colors you would like to see in the giveaway please!

More & more love goes out to you beauties every day. I'll have to make time tomorrow to get to yall's latest post. :( *

Combination-post. Update, & my tip of the day HINT: nipples & tanning!

Hay there my gorgeous sparklies! Just thought I'd let ya in on what's going on  lately because it may be a minute before I get the next post up. I hurt my back. :( very bad today. No clue what I done, but it's killing me. It hurts to move, to breathe, etc. I'm not sure if it was from walking in the un-level yard with heels or what. I had a little pain there earlier but it was nothing. Not even enough to be irritating at all. I've cleaned like crazy this week while we're STILL remodelling. I went to the tanning bed, then to eat & a few other stops on the way home & when I made it to my front door I couldn't go any further!

I just had to stop. Couldn't even open the door! It was just really sudden and excruciating!

 By the time I made it inside I couldn't even get the heels off without groaning like a granny! lol And these heels are not tall at all. I don't wear them when I'm going to be doing a lot of standing or walking. I'm always careful with them. Now it's been several hours, well it started around 9:45 and it's now 5:30 AM & still killing me. I'm only 2o years old so it's not old age!

Speaking of age, I'll be... (gulp) 21 the 26th of this month & I've never dreaded a birthday like I am this one. I only wanted to stay 20. 21 is not special, it's scary as hell! Hopefully it'll be a great one though & I won't even worry about getting old.

 Anyways, I thought I'd show you pics of some of the orders that came in this month! (Look above at the very top.) These are the designs I made & sold! Whoo-hoo! I sure could use my helpers though & are they anywhere to be found when the orders start coming in? No! lol. I'm thinking of finding new people to help out.

*You can't really see the 2nd one very good. I only posted one instead of a full set because the rest weren't made at the time, but it's a really pretty pink & blue. They're so bright I hate that my camera doesn't show very good. I can't figure out how to get it set to show up good. 

                       MY TIP FOR TODAY:
Tanning... Ya'll who are so kind enough to keep up with my crazy blog know by now about my tanning. Well once before I posted a weird-o little tip that I came up with while tanning. Ya know how you get all peel-y and things kind of crack and peel and dry up? lol Ok, I'm talking about nipples. Don't act like I'm the only one who's had this happen either. lol

  Well, I hated how the tanning would cause that & I don't really care to have a nipple tan, so I kinda wanted to use something that protected some parts & kept them from peeling at the same time. So while I was laying there digging through my purse I figure since chap stick works for your lips, it must for nipples too. I decided to use chap stick! Lol. It worked too!

 I've been using it ever since. Before I tan and after. Lotion just doesn't seem to help that part but I can thank Burt's Bee's and Soft Lips for their chap stick which I turned into nipple stick! haha lol.

Anyways tell me what ya think about these designs! I didn't have time to upload all the pics of the ones we had ordered this week, let me know if you want to see. I just finished one set tonight & it's one of my fav's! I love the black & blue too.

Good-night (well good morning to most of you.) for now. I had to take a short break while typing to run for a shower while my back wasn't hurting as bad. I couldn't just skip showering after sweating in the tanning bed. Now that you know about my sweat I should probably go before I reveal too much more! lol

  So there's the tip. Hope you liked it!

 Sorry for the combination-post. I hope you come back to see more crazy tips & stuff.

BEAUTY GIVEAWAY!

Yes that is correct. I'm linking you to another wonderful beauty giveaway! This one is my favorite so far. http://www.valentinekisses.com/ is hosting this one.

Go check it out and enter!

Tips of the day - For perfect nails even if you're not creative

 I promised to keep my wonderful tips coming! I hope you like this little series. There's really no specific topic on what tips will be posted day to day, but I'll do my best.  This one's for you ladies like me who change your nail polish every 2 days (really it's helpful to anyone who polishes their nails.) Here are some of my most helpful tips I use when painting & preparing mine...

1. If you don't have a steady hand and you end up with more nail polish on your skin than nail try this: Use an oil around your nail bed before painting and trimming cuticles. I use cuticle oil or a really good lotion like Gold Bond Ultimate Healing. The oil or lotion will make the mistakes easy to wipe right off with no problem. It also helps to keep you from tearing skin & bleeding when trimming cuticles.

2. If you use a thick layer of polish or the polish is a little sticky it tends to not dry for hours therfore anything you touch leaves dent in the polish or causes it to kinda just scrape off. Try running them under very cold water & it should help the drying process drastically.

3. Nail polish and especially acryllic nails can be very tough to remove and removing acryllics can be extremely painful. I've done some very serious damage to my nails by trying to pry off acryllics. Try using pure acetone remover instead of the dilluted stuff. It works much better! I however, can not use any type of remover because I have regular migraines and one of the absolute worst things for migraine sufferers like myself is smelling the scent of remover. If it regular remover doesn't affect you, pure acetone shouldn't either. If you're like me, then I give you my empathy & wish I had a solution, but the only solution I have is using my knife which by the way is a beautiful irridescant purpl-y pink! to "cut" the polish off. Yea, I do not reccommend trying that because it can be dangerous! I've gotten pretty good at it.

 If you ladies (or men) know a solution to getting off polish without knives or remover, please do let me know!

4. I don't know anybody else who does this besides me because I'm a freak about my colors being totally un-like any others so I make my own. If you do this too, you probably get other colors mixed in your polishes from the polish getting on the brush. After using, rinse your brushes in polish remover or use warm water & dish detergent. I use the latter thanks to migraines. It hasn't failed me yet, but you have to do it before the polish dries to the brush!

5. For frayed polish brushes, run under warm water and mold it with your fingers to lay the hairy brush thingys down. Then you can use regular clear tape to wrap the brush up tightly and let it stay wrapped in the tape for a day or so. You can put the brush back in the bottle while the tape is around it, just don't forget it's there!

6. If you're into doing nail art, you may already know this one, but tooth picks and safety pins are great & in-expensive tools to use. I rarely do the tiny nail arts unless it's for a customer & I use shish-ka-bobs. They are those very long tooth pick looking tools you use for cooking. They work great!

*I hope you liked the tips! Let me know if I left anything out & if you aren't very fond of them, you can tell me. I have more coming from many different topics so keep a peek out! A hint for one upcoming tip: easy way to keep from over eating, meal replacement.*

 I'll be back soon and I hope you sparkly little rock-stars have the most amazing, sparkly day ever! (You didn't think I'd leave the entire post without mentioning sparkly, did ya?) lol

My super cheapie finds!! $1 Nail polishes - $5 dresses!

So, you already know that I'm a cheapie, lol but I'm not quite sure you were aware of just how cheap I really am. (Not the kind of cheap you probably just thought!) I thought I'd let you in on a little secret...

 I have gotten to know my favorite stores well. So when I come across a dress or top that I really love, I can look at the price tag & know the exact week that it will be on sale! I even know how to make it even around christmas time when the sales are big & you can go in the very next day and it's gone. It sounds easy, but learning all this for every store takes skill, my love.

So, when I found this dress at Wet Seal, which by the way is my favorite store, I knew I could either buy it that day & fork over $20.00 for it or wait until my "predicted date" and pay $10.00 or take it even further & wait a little longer, but not so long that it's off the shelf for good, and end up getting it for $5-8. And whaddaya know? I got it for $5.00! You can't see the dress well in this photo, but there are little sparkle-chunks all over! Yall know how much I love my sparkles! (My prom dress even sparkled just like this dress.)

Here's better pics below and this dress can also be worn as a top!

(You can kinda see the sparkles here)

The week before that, I did the same & got a purple dress for $8.00 which was regularly 25.00! Am I good or what? lol

I always seem to find a way to "get it cheaper." lol I also use my "skills" for make-up and nail polish. Like Ice has a new purple and blue sparkle polish, but being the cheapie I am, I found one exactly the same by Bon Bon's for only 1.00. & I said WTF?! Bon Bon's used to only be 97 cents now they've gone up a dollar! I know that's a perfect price, but I have to process everything before I actually make a purchase. I'm tellin' ya, I'll wait a month debating on buying something just to be sure it's worth it.

Here's a full pic of the dress. A lot shorter than what I'm used to! See the zebra SPARKLY bag? Uhh huhh!

Anyways, on to my other product that I thought I just had to share...

                                                                  If you are a nail painter like me, then you know how important it is to use a top coat. Yea it took me years to get used to it. To me, it was just a waste of money, but when you use sparkles a lot and with many other polishes, it just doesn't look very nice without a clear top coat and it doesn't stay on as well. To me, those $8.00 clear top coats are one of the biggest wastes of money. I use this one by N.Y.C. I just picked this up tonight. It's $1.00 at wal-mart! There's absolutely no difference in this dollar top coat and the high priced ones. I get "extra shiny." So if you're like me and change nail polish daily, then you should really try this brand before forking over your money. You can try it on in-store so you know if you like it. It saves me a lotta money!                               

 By the way, you can't tell at all how great this polish looks. I made it myself. For some reason my pics do not show up the nail polishes well at all. I can't figure out which setting is best for it to show up. I see all these nice ladie's blogging about their polishes, but I don't know how they get such great pics. If you have any suggestions, please do let me know. :)

*Much love, darlin's*
-Kendra

My PeArL of the day - for a cleaner pedicure

 I've been sick lately and under a lot of stress so today, I decided to give myself a much needed pedicure. While I was mixing my own nail polish to create a new color, I thought of my PeArL of the day...

 Before you paint your nails, use olive oil, vegetable oil, or a great foot lotion (I use Gold Bond's ultimate healing, as I posted on previously) Use the oil or lotion thickly all over toes or nails, then you paint them. When you are finished painting nails, use your fingers to clean the polish up. The greasy texture of the oil or lotion will make it wipe right off instead of sticking and staining skin.

 This keeps the polish from staining your skin around your nails and nail beds. You can spend hours on a pedicure only to have it ruined by polish that gets on the skin around your nails. And with the unsteady-ness of my hands, I had to find a fix for this!

 I've used this solution for years and swear by it! Nothing cleans up a pedi better.