$5 off $25 or more for BeautyPopShop's Back to School Sale!

One of my baby sisters just headed back to college (a little early) for her senior year--miss her already! We've also had a number of college students inquiring about our polish racks lately so I've decided to have a little Back to School sale to celebrate all of you college-bound polish peeps ;) 

Anyone can take advantage of this sale obviously, you don't have to be college-bound!

From now until Sunday at midnight EST you can use the promo code BACK2SCHOOL to get $5 off your purchase of $25 or more before shipping!

This is good on any purchase that totals $25 or more before shipping (polish racks, Sheswai polish, gloss, silicone makeup bags/coin purses, etc.). It cannot be combined with any other promo codes or discounts. It can be used by you as many times as you like until it expires! This promo code can only be used on our website, not our etsy store.

Please feel free to share this with the polish lovers in your life ;)

Hope you guys enjoy this spontaneous little sale!

Review: Honey Bee Holistics Mocha Dream Lotion

I have a fabulous lotion for review today from the lovely Honey Bee Holistics! I first came across Honey Bee Holistics in my earlier days of blogging. I fell in love with the organic ingredients and fabulously effective formulas. I'm a huge fan of the lotions in particular and have even used them on my kids--so you know I must really love the ingredients. For someone with sensitive skin like myself, finding a brand that doesn't irritate my skin is definitely worth noting.

Melissa of Honey Bee Holistics recently sent me her new Mocha Dream Lotion for review and I'm beyond thrilled to share it with you!

This lotion includes the following ingredients: Mountain Spring Water, Organic Coffee Oil, Organic Olive Oil, Local Beeswax, Organic Cocoa Butter, Organic Witch Hazel, Organic Coffee, Organic Vanilla Bean

As you can see, this lotion includes real fair trade coffee oil! I'm 100% all about fair-trade so that's awesome in my opinion. On that not, this lotion does come with a warning: Do not use if you have blood pressure issues or are pregnant as raw caffeine is present

On to the lotion...

I swear these lotions always look and smell good enough to eat to me!

Scent
This lotion actually had a super subtle smell. I couldn't smell the coffee much at all and even the cocoa butter was pretty subtle. It does have a faint vanilla scent to it that is a natural vanilla, not synthetic--I absolutely abhor fake vanilla for some reason haha. 

Consistency
Like Honey Bee Holistics' other lotions I've used in the past, this has a super thick, luxe consistency. It spreads very well though, despite how thick it is and it smooths into your skin well. I wouldn't say it leaves a greasy feel behind, but it isn't a water-thin lotion that evaporates upon contact. I don't mind the feeling of ultra-hydration with thick lotions (heck, I use straight organic shea butter sometimes), but if you really dislike feeling any bit of your lotion once you've smoothed it in then this might not be for you.  

Effectiveness
This is absolutely so beyond hydrating! My skin is instantly supple and lovely to the touch after using this lotion, much like Honey Bee Holistics' other lotions (can you tell I'm a fan?). As far as it's long-term effects as a result of the caffeine, that is yet to be determined, but regardless this is so moisturizing!

Price
This is priced at $5.50 for 1.5 oz jar or $18.25 for 8oz jar.    

Where to Find
You can purchase Honey Bee Holistics products through the etsy store or website.   

Final Thoughts
As you probably already know if you've followed my blog for a while, I'm a huge fan of small/indie business and I love, love natural/organic products. Honey Bee Holistics has been a favorite of mine since I first tried Melissa's products--they're fabulous! The new Mocha Dream Lotion is no exception. It is super moisturizing (perfect for the upcoming fall and winter season), smells delicious but not overpowering, and doesn't include any nasty ingredients that I personally wouldn't want to absorb into my body! Definitely give this a try if you're searching for a new lotion for those fast-approaching colder months ;)

This product was provided by Honey Bee Holistics for review. All opinions are based on my personal experience and are my own.   

"Super Stacked" Nail Polish Rack - BeautyPopShop's Biggest Rack Yet!

If you're a polish collector (or hoarder) you probably have hundreds of bottles of polish. "Super Stacked" nail polish rack was designed to hold over 200+ large bottles of polish (such as OPI) or about 252 smaller bottles of polish (like Zoya). Not only does this rack hold a lot, but it maximizes the amount of wall-space it utilizes by featuring BeautyPopShop's unique double-row shelves! The elevated row in the back makes it easy to store extra polish, while leaving them visible from behind the front row. This polish rack is actually equivalent to double the BeautyPopShop "Queen B" nail polish rack.

The dimensions of the "Super Stacked" polish rack are 26.5" L x 33.5" H x 3.5" W

Here's a great view of the elevated rear row!

As you can see, even though there are 2 rows on each shelf, polishes are still visible in both rows. I love how neat they look like this!

Price
This polish rack retails for $150.

Where to Buy
You can purchase this polish rack, as well as many other uniquely crafted wooden polish racks, on BeautyPopShop's website HERE.    

BeautyPopShop is a unique online boutique that began with custom designed and built polish racks all created in-house. The wood used for all polish racks is custom-milled for BeautyPopShop by a local mill and is of the highest grade possible. The paint used to finish these racks is low-VOC washable paint. Polish racks are offered in black, white, naked (no finish so the customer can get creative and finish it themselves), and a custom color of the customer's choice. All BeautyPopShop nail polish designs are unique to BeautyPopShop and have been created, tested, and tweaked in-house.

BeautyPopShop caters to both individual polish collectors and professional polish companies, spas, and salons. Custom polish racks can be created upon request. If you'd like to have a custom polish rack built for you, contact BeautyPopShop directly at [email protected] with a description of how many bottles you would like it to hold and any other details you feel are important.

So what do you think? Could this rack help you organize your embarrassingly large polish collection?

Zoya NYFW 2012 Gloss Trio Swatches

Zoya NYFW 2012 Gloss Trio (left to right): Katherine, Paloma, Frida

 If you've been following Zoya then you're probably well aware of the Fall collections they've released released for fall--NYFW 2010 Diva, Designer and Gloss. Inspired by New York Fashion Week's fall colors, these 3 collections scream fall in my opinion. While I generally prefer bright and light colors, I'm always down for a pretty polish ;)

I was originally sent all 3 collections by Zoya for review, but unfortunately my package arrived severely damaged. The polish leakage was so bad that my FedEx delivery guy actually warned me when he delivered it that it was clearly damaged because the smell filled his truck! Of course as soon as he handed it to be I could smell my smashed polish samples--so sad! When I opened it the entire inside (peanuts and all) was covered in what I believe was polishes from the Gloss collection. It was such a mess I ended up getting myself and my kitchen table covered in polish just trying to extract the Gloss trio (which was on top) out so i could take pics to send to Zoya to let them know. There was no way I could dig through the box, unfortunately. I've done this in the past and between broken glass and polish getting everywhere it's just not something I'm interested in repeating ;) Unfortunately, quality control for Zoya only deemed it necessary to re-send the Gloss trio to me so I don't have swatches for the other two collections, but I've seen so many other fabulous swatches if you're dying to see them they're very easy to find!

The NYFW 2012 Gloss Trio consists of 3 polishes (obvious I know haha) that are all ... jelly polishes! I am actually a big fan of jelly polishes and I like sheer polishes if they're meant to be sheer, like these. Zoya designed these to be worn alone or over other polishes. Given the colors, I can see how they'd probably complement quite a few of the colors in the other 2 collections. I've seen other bloggers post combo swatches so definitely check those out if that interests you.

Zoya NYFW 2010 Gloss Swatches

(left to right) Katherine, Paloma, Frida - I've noticed that other images of these bottles has shown them to be much lighter in shade. In person mine were very dark (with the exception of Paloma) in the bottle.

As you can see, these are definitely sheer and super shiny (no top coat was used in these swatches). These were all swatches with 4 coats.

I can see these being very popular for layering or even wearing alone.

Application
When I swatches these, Katherine was a bit patchy with the first 2 coats, but it evened out with the 3rd. It wasn't quite deep in color enough on its own to me with 3 coats so I did a 4th, which really darkened it! 

Paloma applied the best for me. It went on smoothly and evenly from the first coat and would have been find with any number of coats depending on the depth of color you wanted.

Frida was kind of in between these two. The first coat was slightly uneven, but the second completely evened it out. If you wanted to use Friday alone, you could have stuck with 3 in my opinion and gotten a nice color, but 4 really gave it a little extra oomph!

Price
The trio retails for $24 and the individual colors can each be purchased for $8 retail.

Where to Find
These are currently available on Zoya's website HERE.   

Final Thoughts
Shipping debacle aside, I have mixed feelings about these 3 colors. While I love jelly polishes, I wish Zoya had done a bright red jelly in the mix. I would have scooped that up in a second! Of these 3, Paloma is my favorite, followed by Frida. Katherine was the one in the bunch that I really found myself not getting too excited over. I can definitely see how this may be a big hit with those that love purple or deep, dusty colors, but for me personally it just wasn't something I would have chose for myself. 

As far as wearing these, I'm going to have to try layering a few over some of my other polishes and see how I like them! I can see how these would look particularly lovely in a jelly sandwich!

Overall, I do like 2 of the 3 enough to wear alone and over other colors. If you like jelly polishes, which I think is kind of a unique concept for fall, then definitely check these out if you're looking for fall colors.

These polishes were provided for review by Zoya PR. This review is based on my personal experience with them and all opinion s are my own.