Lady Soma Skin & Nail Treatment Review

Hey everyone! Today I've got a skincare product to share with you. I was kindly sent the Lady Soma Luxury Skin & Nail Treatment for review purposes and I've been putting it to the test.

This product contains organic ingredients and no harmful chemicals or preservatives. It is hypoallergenic, gentle, and can be used for all skin types. As some of you may know, I have extremely sensitive skin and eczema on my hands so I'm always careful about what products I use.

Here are some of the key benefits:
-Creates a soft, supple cuticle
-Restores nail strength
-Heals dry or cracked skin
-Contains cocoa, shea, and kokum butter
-May be used on hands and body

First of all, I love the scent of this lotion. It has a light scent, but it's not overpowering. It is a little on the thick side, but to me it feels really luxurious. I personally would use this before bed, as my hands were a little bit greasy for a few minutes while the product absorbed. Hours after use I noticed that my cuticles looked moisturized and my hands still felt soft. I love how moisturizing this stuff is! I will definitely be keeping it on my nightstand as a part of my nightly routine. FYI, you can use this on your hands AND your body!

I also found a little surprise lip balm in my package! This is the Lady Soma Lady Mint Tingle. I actually love the packaging a lot more on this than the lotion. This lip balm feels amazing! It has that same minty tingling feeling as my Burt's Bees but it's way more moisturizing. This balm is definitely going straight in to my purse.

Overall I am super impressed with this brand. Both products I received are fantastic. To get more information on Lady Soma or to pick up one of these awesome products head on over to http://www.ladysoma.com. They've got a bunch of other treatments for face and body as well.

xoxo,
   Brooke

Disclaimer: I received this product for free from Tomoson in exchange for my honest review. 

ILNP Champagne Blush

Hey everyone! As promised I have a picture of all the desserts I made for Passover. The ten plagues manicure was a huge hit, btw. As soon as one person noticed them I was passed around the room to show them off haha. So what you see in the photo is flourless chocolate cake with fresh raspberry sauce, lemon sponge cake with fresh lemon curd, chocolate toffee covered matzo, coconut macaroons, almond walnut thumbprint macaroons, and lemon almond macaroons. Everything was delicious, especially the chocolate cake. Yum.

I'm off for spring break all week and the BF and I are kicking it off today with tickets for The Daily Show! You have to get there super early because the tickets are not guaranteed. I think the whole process is a little silly but I'm sure it will be worth it to see Jon Stewart.

I let the BF pick out my polish again and he chose ILNP Champagne Blush. You can see why, it's absolutely stunning! Champagne Blush is a rose gold holo. 

I mean could you just die? So gorgeous!

If you're looking to try your first holo, I highly recommend Champagne Blush because it is pretty neutral as for as holos go. I hope you all have a great start to the week!

xoxo,

   Brooke

Ten Plagues Passover Manicure

Happy Friday! It's especially happy for me because today is the first day of spring break. I really needed this day off to get the rest of my Passover cooking/baking finished. I kind of went crazy with desserts this year, I'm making five total. Oy! I'll try to include pictures with Monday's post.

In honor of Passover I created a ten plagues mani. If you don't know what the ten plagues are, I labeled them for you under the first photo. I've been seeing so many Easter nails on Instagram, I thought it was time for someone to show Passover a little love!

These should be looked at from right to left, like Hebrew writing! Blood, frogs, lice, flies, pestilence, boils, hail, locusts, darkness slaying of the first born.

Those locusts were tough to draw! I gave it a valiant effort.

I'm so happy with how these came out! That dead cow kind of cracks me up every time I look at it. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend with your loved ones, no matter what you celebrate :)

xoxo,

   Brooke

March Favorites!

Hey everyone! It's time for my monthly favorites. First can we talk about my monthly not favorites? The freakin' weather. Like guys. It was SNOWING hardcore yesterday. Literally snowflakes the size of my face. I'm over it. Moving on...

I surprisingly didn't have a lot of food favorites this month. I did, however, try making microwave cake in a mug for the first time and it was actually really good. Chocolate cake in 70 seconds? Oh yeah, I can get on board with that any day. I followed this recipe http://www.tablefortwoblog.com/the-moistest-chocolate-mug-cake/.

Next up is a fashion favorite. I've been on the hunt for a cute pair of ear jackets and finally found some at Forever 21. I actually only bought the larger pair at first and then regretted not getting the smaller ones so I went back. They were both around $4, which is way less than the $20+ pair I originally wanted to get from BaubleBar. I love that I can use my own studs with these!

I have a couple of beauty product favorites this month. The first is the Lush Catastrophe Cosmetic fresh face mask. You can read my detailed review here. Sadly I've used mine up, so I guess I need to go to Lush and buy more!

The second is my mani bomb order from Forever Polished. This was my first time ordering and using mani bombs. You can check out the full haul and read about my first impressions here.

I have to mention the SquareHue 1920s box for March. While the colors were not exactly what I expected, I still loved the collection. If I only I could go back in time and experience the 20s. Sigh.

My favorite nail polish this month was Marc Jacobs Petra, which was given to me by my best friend for my birthday. This has easily become one of my all time favorite colors. If you ever decide to splurge on a MJ polish, I highly recommend Petra.

It was hard to choose a favorite mani of the month. I really liked a lot of the looks I created! After looking through them all I chose this flowers and glitter mani. The green is Zoya Neely and I absolutely love it for spring. I enjoyed my glitter accent so much that I kept it on for another manicure! I'm not lazy or anything. Okay, I'm a little lazy but packed on glitter is a bitch to remove.

I just wanted to end with my favorite moment of March, which is when I bought my domain name. It was a big decision and step forward for me and I'm so happy I decided to go through with it. Yay me!

xoxo,
   Brooke

Lush Catastrophe Cosmetic Review

Hey everyone!

About a month ago I purchased the Catastrophe Cosmetic fresh face mask from Lush. I was looking for something that would help with hormonal breakouts around my nose and chin. This mask has worked wonders for my sensitive skin! It contains nutrient-rich blueberries and other natural ingredients to soothe and cleanse the skin.

I like to put this on right before I get into the shower every other day and it feels so lovely and cooling since I keep it in the fridge. I happen to love the fresh blueberry scent, but if you don't like blueberries this mask may not be for you. I do recommend that you dampen your face with water just a little to help spread the product on. I'll jump in the shower and go through my regular routine before washing the mask off. Make sure you rinse thoroughly because it can leave some blue residue. This mask leaves my face feeling so soft and refreshed, plus I haven't had any breakouts since I started using it. As usual I use my Clinique toner and Aveeno moisturizer with a couple drops of argan oil mixed in to keep my skin from drying out.

As soon as I put this mask on I was like, "Violet you're turning Violet!" Love me some Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

I absolutely recommend trying the Catastrophe Cosmetic fresh face mask. Do keep in mind that because all fresh face masks contain active ingredients they need to be refrigerated at all times and there is a shelf life. There will be an expiration date sticker on the pot. I can't wait to go back to Lush and try some of the other fresh face masks!

xoxo,
   Brooke

Marc Jacobs Gatsby

Happy Mani Monday! This weekend I stopped in Sephora and decided to treat myself to a Marc Jacobs polish since I liked Petra so much. I saw a swatch of MJ Gatsby and knew I had to have it, more for the name than the color (though I do love the color as well). The Great Gatsby is my all time favorite book and I have a weird obsession with the 1920s.

I absolutely adore the shape of these bottles! Please ignore the reflection of my phone in the cap haha whoops.

Gatsby is a metallic champagne pink. As much as I love the color of this polish, the formula was tough to work with. Not sure if it was the brush or what. It wasn't really streaky as you sometimes find with metallics, but the first coat was patchy and I had to work quickly with the second coat because of how fast it dries. Once I applied the two coats and top coat any brush strokes blended out nicely. So although it's a bit tricky to work with, the finished result is pretty.

I may need to get my hands on more Marc Jacobs polishes. The colors and the bottle shape are so lovely! My wallet is crying for me. I hope you all have a great start to the week. Be on the lookout for my March favorites post!

xoxo,

   Brooke

Essie Plumberry

Hey everyone! If you follow me on social media you know that last night I purchased a domain! So instead of manicurediary.blogspot.com I am now manicurediary.com. I am so incredibly excited, it really feels like I'm taking my blog to the next level. I feel so official!

As for my nails, I went for something simple because I got home late from work last night and wanted a quick and easy mani. I've been going through my untrieds and chose Essie Plumberry, which is a creamy berry red with just a hint of pink and orchid. This is such a rich, luscious color and it's an absolute dream to apply in two coats. The formula is perfection. I think I've got a new fave! I did a little glitter accent with Rainbow Honey Stellar Treat. Unfortunately this color was extremely difficult to photograph. No matter what light I was in it came off as being way more pink than it actually is. In real life Plumberry is much deeper and leans more red than pink.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend and I will see you on Monday!

xoxo,

   Brooke