Zoya Willa & Thea + Zoya Matte Topcoat

Happy Mani Monday! Anyone else have off from work today? It is going to be so lovely to have a four day week. If you didn't have off today I hope your week goes by fast!

So I've been wanting to do matte nails for a while and I finally decided to create a matte look today. I used Zoya Willa, an awesome true black, as the base and used the Zoya Matte Topcoat over it. I love their Matte Topcoat! It dries super quick and creates and awesome matte look. I finished off the mani with kind of a glittery sideways half moon using Zoya Thea. Thea is one of their Magical PixieDusts (aka crazy awesome glitter) and it is a deep amethyst with a bit of orchid. My little trick to keep the lines crisp is to use those hole reinforcement stickers for hole-punched paper. I'm sure everyone's got a pack of 'em laying around!

I'm really enjoying the matte look and hope to try some other matte manicures in the future.

xoxo,
   Brooke

Birthday Mani!

Happy birthday to me! Today I turned 24 (eek!) and wanted to do a very special mani to celebrate.

I've known for a while that I wanted to use Zoya Brooke, my namesake, for my birthday nails. It is such an awesome shade of slightly frosty pink with a little red, violet, and fuchsia mixed in. The formula is also a winner. On my ring finger is the most adorable little cupcake, which was actually way easier to make than I thought it would be. I did some glitter placement (similar to my NYE mani) to make the 24 on my middle finger.

I took a whole bunch of pictures in different lighting so in some pictures my nails look more glossy than others. I would say that in real life they definitely look very glossy and a tiny bit frosty.

Aaaaaaand my sad right hand. Haha I kinda like it!

I had so much fun creating this mani! I hope you all have an easy Friday and a great weekend. I'll see you on Monday!

xoxo,

   Brooke

Zoya Lael & Julep Brooke

Happy Mani Monday! I had the best weekend, despite the bitter cold on Saturday. BF took me out for an awesome birthday dinner and I received some amazing gifts. He's a keeper ;)

We went to Scarpetta and had a fantastic meal. We arrived on time for our 6:30 reservation and 20 minutes later we were still waiting to be seated. A manager came over with two glasses of Prosecco and apologized for the wait! We finally sat down at 7:00 and ordered two appetizers; the Tuna 'Susci,' which was basically an inside out tuna roll with marinated vegetables rolled up inside, and the Braised Short Ribs of Beef with vegetable and farro risotto. The waitress brought us an extra appetizer, again apologizing for the wait to be seated. The customer service at this place is really outstanding, especially considering that we didn't even complain about waiting! For dinner we both had the famous Spaghetti and it did not disappoint. It was served steaming hot and perfectly al dente. Yum! Of course we had to order dessert (I mean duh you know I love my sweets). BF had the chocolate cake and I had the warm banana bread. Everything was absolutely delicious. Oh, and the bread basket was on point. I highly recommend that you put Scarpetta on your restaurant list.

As promised, here are some pictures of the food.

The appetizers

The amazing spaghetti

Dessert!

The BF really spoiled me with gifts this year! He got me the Rouge Louboutin nail polish (which I rocked over the weekend), Julep's 2014 Gem Collection, a Rebecca Minkoff Mini M.A.C. in black with gold hardware, and a beautiful opal Hamsa necklace from Israel!

 Love the packaging for this collection. You can see all of the names of the colors here.

My very special Rouge Louboutin!

Rebecca Minkoff Mini M.A.C. in black with gold hardware.

Opal Hamsa necklace on a sterling silver chain.

Onto my nails for Manicure Monday! I have been dying to put on Julep Brooke (my namesake!) that I bought from someone a while back. I used Zoya Lael, a beautiful rich purple with a creme finish. In my search for a dark purple creme, I realized that Lael is the only one I own! I guess I need to look for a few more. I topped it with Julep Brooke, a gorgeous, glittery, flakey purple topper that is everything I hoped it would be. I can't wait to try it over other colors!

If the sun comes out to play this week I'll take some pictures of this beauty in the sunlight. It is so hard to capture those flakies in artificial light! I hope everyone has a wonderful week.

xoxo,

   Brooke

Rouge Louboutin

Happy Friday! I am sooooo happy that the weekend is here. This week went by so slowly I didn't think it would ever end! The BF is taking me out for an early birthday dinner on Saturday (my birthday is January 15th). We're going to Scarpetta, which was founded by Scott Conant. We are both huge fans of Chopped so we thought it would be fun to go. I'll be sure to take pictures!

A couple weeks ago BF gave me one of my birthday presents early. Are your ready for this? ROUGE LOUBOUTIN!!! Eeeeeeek!

(Photo is from the Louboutin website)

Okay so I know $50 for one bottle of nail polish seems insane, but level with me here readers. In my opinion I feel like these bottles are works of art. I have it on display right now! I can't say that for my 100+ bottles of polish sitting in boxes. Aside from the gorgeous packaging, the formula is absolutely divine. Like better than any formula I've ever tried. The whole experience is just luxurious.

I have a lot of photos to share with you. I kinda got a little camera crazy with this one. The first few photos were taken in my bathroom and the rest were taken under my desk lamp. By the way, I used one coat of polish for this mani.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and I will see you on Monday!

xoxo,
   Brooke

Julep Margit & Chatoya

Happy Mani Monday! Over the weekend I received my Julep box for January and knew right away which two colors I wanted to wear for the beginning of the week.

I started with Margit, which Julep describes as a mushroom with rose shimmer. I can see the color shift when I look at the bottle, but it seems to disappear on the nail. I still love this shade and the formula was so easy to work with that I got away with one coat. I used Chatoya, a platinum glitter, as a topper for my ring finger nails. It is super sparkly and fun as an accent!

I hope everyone had a good start to the week! (Especially you teachers like me who are coming back after a long break. You can do it!)

xoxo,

   Brooke

Julep Chrysalis Collection January 2015 Unboxing

Hey everyone! Hope you have all been having a great weekend. Sadly my two week winter break is coming to end, which means going back to work. I hate how fast time flies!

Today I have a Julep unboxing for you all. This is the January 2015 Chrysalis Collection. Here are all of the papers that came with it. I love that quote in the top right corner because I'm a huge Harry Potter fan! "We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all the power inside ourselves." -J.K. Rowling

Here are all of the products I received in my box. The polish colors from left to right are Zelda, Shelly, Margit, and Chatoya. Zelda and Chatoya are from previous collections.

In the orange bag is one of the three Metamorphic Top Coats, which came free if you took your box and confirmed through an email that you wanted one. I got Bjork, which has a blue hue. Tilda has a green hue and Tyra has a purple hue. I am really excited to try this over a dark polish!

The next product in my box is the Luxe Lip in Sheer Fig. This gloss is meant to be a lip conditioner and has a cooling metal tip to stimulate circulation. Now I don't know about all that, but I will say that the metal tip feels amazing. I like the formula of the gloss. I didn't find it to be sticky or thick. The only thing I'm not a fan of is the smell, but I can get over that.

The holographic chevron stickers were one of my add ons, in addition to Shelly and Chatoya. Sadly the sheet only has 20 stickers on it, but they're really pretty and I'll just use them for accent nails. I love that they put instructions with the stickers!

The Glycolic Hand Scrub was the free gift for taking three add ons, which I am super excited about because I had been using a very small sample and love it so much that I rarely bust it out. Now I have a full size!

Julep also threw in a little box of Junior Mints, which I thought was a nice touch. Overall I am absolutely thrilled with this month's box! I even got it earlier than the estimated arrival date.

xoxo,
   Brooke

2014 Favorites!

Happy 2015! How was everyone's NYE and New Years Day? The BF and I stayed in and watched the ball drop on TV with a bottle of wine.

I decided to do a big 2014 favorites instead of just December. I'm going to start with favorite foods. I chose my all time favorite savory and all time favorite sweet dishes I had last year. This was a very difficult selection process for me because I obviously love food and I'm a huge foodie, but here we go.

First up is my favorite savory dish of 2014. I went to the Culinary Institute of America in early November with the BF because, as I mentioned, I am a total foodie and I had been wanting to try one of their restaurants. The butternut squash soup definitely topped my list of favorite foods that I ate this year. It was so darn good!

Now sweet was really tough because I am a total dessert person. On my recent trip to Marco Island I had a key lime cheesecake with strawberry sauce and fresh strawberries. It was the lightest, fluffiest, most wonderful cheesecake I've ever tasted. Hands down best dessert of 2014.

Let's briefly talk about my favorite book of the year. I am a total book worm and I'm constantly reading something. During my vacation I brought Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling to read on the beach. This book literally had me laughing out loud. Highly recommend!

I bought a bunch of cute clothes this year, but my favorite fashion item that I got was a pair of Steve Madden combat boots. I have been wearing these things to death. They are so cute and comfy and they go with almost anything!

My favorite skincare product of 2014 was the Aveeno Eczema Therapy hand cream. This stuff was and still is a life saver for the mild eczema I get on my hands. It's not greasy at all and absorbs quickly so I can go about my day after using it.

My favorite makeup product surprisingly ended up being a lipstick. This is the Maybelline creamy matte lipstick in Touch of Spice. Great color, great formula, great packaging. Just all around wonderful!

Now what we've all been waiting for...my favorite manicures of 2014! I decided to choose twelve total, one for each month (even though I've been blogging for less than that).

Lastly I wanted to share my favorite moments of 2014. Looking back I really had an awesome year! I got a real teaching job as a kindergarten and first grade art teacher and I am absolutely loving it. The BF and I spent lots of time together! We went to the Top of the Rock and saw amazing views of NYC. We went to the Cherry Blossom Festival in DC. I took him to his first concert ever (bonus, we saw Beyonce and Jay Z!). We went to the Culinary Institute of America and had some amazing food. I got to go to Florida twice in two months, once with the fam and most recently with the BF. 

What is really incredible to me is that I started this blog in 2014. I have really been enjoying it and I'm looking forward to continuing this journey with you all!

xoxo,
   Brooke