Ulta's Love Your Hair Celebration!

I recently decided to give the Ulta Salon near me a try for a hair cut and highlights. I wasn't thrilled with where I was going for hair cuts previously and wanted something new. There is an Ulta about 6 minutes from my house so I figured, why not give them a try? As it turns out, I was SO pleased with my hair cut and highlights. The stylist really took a lot of time to make sure I was going to be happy with the result. I have gotten a ton of compliments on my hair and will definitely return to Ulta in the future (and I'm thinking about taking advantage of the $20 blowout!). So, I wanted to share the following press release about the Ulta Love Your Hair Celebration in case any of you were thinking about going to Ulta for your hair needs!

Now that spring is in full bloom and the warmer, humid weather is around the corner, so are hair dilemmas for women across the country. With help from the experts at ULTA Beauty, this season everyone can have happy, healthy, hair, completely hassle-free!

With over 115 hair care brands, 2900 products and a salon in every store, ULTA Beauty is truly THE destination for all things hair.

·         Love Your Hair, a celebration of fabulous hair which will take place May 11 through May 31 at ULTA Beauty, provides insider tips, deals and steals, as well as demonstrations showcasing the best new tools and innovative products to create your perfect hair look. During Love Your Hair, ULTA Beauty will offer Beauty Steals and events every weekend from brands such as Matrix, Redken, Sexy Hair and TIGI.   

·         THE SALON at ULTA Beauty will also offer a discounted blowout for $20 during Love Your Hair, which includes a wash, blow dry and choice of style.  Select from a super sleek look, tousled style or loose waves.  To learn more or book an appointment, visitwww.ulta.com/treatyourself.

·         Don’t forget to enter the Living Proof Contest at your local ULTA Beauty store and enter to win a chance to meet Jennifer Aniston in ULTA’s exclusive Love Your Hair Sweepstakes! The winner will receive a trip to Los Angeles to meet Jennifer Aniston and get their hair cut at Living Proof Celebrity Hairstylist, Chris McMillan’s salon.

·         No time to visit an ULTA Beauty store?  Shop online!  By visiting www.ulta.com/happyhealthyhair, guests can learn more about solutions for their hair type and shop by recommended regimen.  Choose products based on a variety of universal hair care quandaries, like how to create the perfect curl, the best ways to boost volume for flat hair, combating hard-to-tame frizz and amplifying shine for lackluster locks.

Ulta Celebrates 21 Days of Beauty, Starting this Sunday, March 16!

ULTA’s bi-annual celebration, 21 Days of Beauty, begins Sunday, March 16 and ends Saturday, April 5. This beauty extravaganza is celebrated in more than 500 stores nationwide. ULTA Beauty’s 21 Days of Beauty highlights the hottest spring beauty trends with special beauty product offerings, with makeup and skincare demonstrations from beauty experts – all to help prepare shoppers for a beautiful season! Beauty aficionados can stock up on their makeup, skincare and  nail products from their favorite brands including Amazing Cosmetics, Stila, Smashbox, bareMinerals, Mario Badescu, Philosophy, Tarte, Urban Decay & ck one color, among others.

Each day throughout 21 Days of Beauty, ULTA Beauty will feature:

• Beauty Steals: special pricing and “Buy 1 Get 1 FREE” offers
• Beauty Focus Days:  makeup and skin care specialists from selected brands provide makeup tips, trend updates and skin consultations.  Appointments for complimentary make-up and skin consultations are recommended by simply signing up at your nearest ULTA Beauty store

Brand highlights during 21 Days of Beauty include:

·         BareMinerals All Over Face Color & Blush in Warmth, $10 (reg. $19)

·         Philosophy Purity Wipes, $10 (reg. $15)

·         Stila In The Know Palette, $20 (reg. $39)

·         Tarte Lights Camera Lashes Mascara $10 (reg. $19)

·         butterLONDON nail lacquers 2 for $15 (reg. $15 each)

·         Too Faced Better Than False Lashes Extension System, $20 (reg. $35)

·         Mally Perfect Prep Poreless Primer, $24 (reg. $35)

·         Smashbox Try It Kit, $10 (reg. $19)

·         It Cosmetics No. 50 Serum Collagen Veil Anti-Aging Primer, $20 (reg. $48)

                                         

Have a Merry Christmas Eve with the China Glaze Ulta Exclusives!!

Wow, I can't believe it's Christmas Eve already!! I haven't done any wrapping yet, and I really need to start! I did make my chocolate chip cherry cookies yesterday though, so at least that's done! Today I have the China Glaze Ulta holiday exclusives for your viewing pleasure. China Glaze Fireside Glow and Ultamate Holiday are my two favorite polishes that China Glaze released ALL YEAR. I hope China Glaze and Ulta collaborate again next year, because DANG, these are amazing!!

China Glaze Fireside Glow is a gorgeous copper holo glitter polish in a clear base. I don't own anything remotely like this at all. I love copper colored nail polish and make-up, so Fireside Glow was destined to be a favorite of mine.

Fireside Glow is pretty easy to apply, so problems. It dries super fast since it is just glitter in a clear base. This is three coats and it's perfectly opaque. I think I could have used a second coat of top coat to make this really smooth, but it's not too chunky feeling. These glitter pieces are relatively small and fine, so it doesn't feel too gritty.

My pictures of Ultamate Holiday by itself came out strange. I was moving my hand around because I was afraid I wasn't capturing the holo effect. There was also a LOT of sun when I took these (surprising weather for CT in the winter). The sun really washed out the polish. I think my pictures of Ultamate Holiday atop Glittering Garland are more color-accurate. But I did capture the holo!!

This is also three coats and it's more opaque in person than in these pictures. Again, easy to apply and fast drying. I really love this polish and I'm actually wearing it as a full mani right now!

I have never purchased an Ulta exclusive OPI or China Glaze polish before. I usually find them to be kind of uninspired and/or dupes of existing polishes. China Glaze and Ulta REALLY knocked it out of the park with these two though!! They have changed my mind about these exclusives, and I'm already looking forward to next year's. Holo glitter polishes that I don't already own/have dupes for? YES!!! I am pumped that I found these two, and I encourage you to go to Ulta stat to find them.

I won't be around tomorrow, as I'll be with family all day! I hope you all have a

  Merry Christmas 

and I'll return Monday with a New Year's Eve Sephora by OPI look!

China Glaze Fireside Glow and Ultamate Holiday are available at an Ulta near you for a limited time!

The Ultamate Holiday Polish Look!!

EK (former co-author of this blog) and I wandered into Ulta "on our way home" yesterday, and lo and behold, they had the China Glaze Ulta Exclusives!! They were also having a Buy 2, Get One Free on all China Glaze polish, so naturally, we knew what had to be done. We each bought both of the Ulta exclusives. I couldn't wait to try them out! I also had yet to try China Glaze Glittering Garland, and so, an idea was born!!

The drool-worthy combination you see here is two coats of China Glaze Glittering Garland with China Glaze Ultamate Holiday sponged on the tips. Ultamate Holiday is AMAZING!!! It's a very fine glitter polish with gold holographic glitter! It is easily full-coverage and the glitter is that super fine sugary texture that I love. Ultamate Holiday kind of reminds me of my favorite China Glaze Medallion, if the large pieces of glitter in Medallion were crushed up into tiny bits.

Any self-respecting nail polish/glitter/China Glaze lover NEEDS Ultamate Holiday. I am declaring it a Never Enough Nails Necessity. It is a gorgeous shade of yellow gold and is also holographic. The holo is not as strong as some polishes, but it is definitely there, and eye-catchingly gorgeous.

I took a blurry picture so you could see the holo-ness better! Not too shabby, right? Ugh, I love this combination and I REALLY love Ultamate Holiday. Ek and I actually debated buying this in the store, can you believe that? It didn't look as awesome in the bottle as it does on the nail.

China Glaze Glittering Garland is pretty cool by itself too. A green jelly-ish polish filled with small uneven sized glitter pieces. I can't tell what color the glitter is. Light green? Gold? I don't know, but it looks fabulous on the nail.

This is two coats and the formula was fabulous. I am really impressed with all of the China Glaze Let It Snow polishes I have. I've gotten away from CG lately, but I think they are back with a bang now!!

If you want to see China Glaze Ultamate Holiday alone (who doesn't?), I will have swatches of it and the other Ulta Exclusive, Fireside Glow, very soon.

Unfortunately, the Ulta exclusives are no longer available on Ulta.com, so you will have to go hunt Ultamate Holiday down at an Ulta near you. But really, I recommend getting the two Ulta exclusives and then getting Glittering Garland as your freebie, because they make a wonderful combination!!

Favorite Hair Product Ever!

As you all know by now, I have a deep, undying love of nail polish, make-up, and beauty products in general. You would think that I would be into hair products too and that I would have some vague idea of how to make my hair look nice. Yea, no... I don't do anything to my hair. My hair is straight. Like completely straight, no matter what I do to it. I can use any shampoo or conditioner and it still looks the same. I can use volumizing products and hair spray, and it basically still looks the same. If I use a curling iron/curlers, it looks bouncy and curly for all of 10 minutes. So, basically, I don't bother to do much with my hair because it looks the same no matter what I do.



HOWEVER, last year I was a member of Beauty Fix, one of those programs where you pay monthly and they send you a box full of beauty products. Some products were full size and others were large sample size. One of the full-size products I received was Jonathan Product IB Revitalizer Overnight Oil Treatment Spray. It took me quite awhile to even get around to trying this product. I thought hair oil was seriously unnecessary. When I finally did get around to trying this, I was SO impressed!!! I couldn't believe how shiny and soft my hair looked after using this.



I do not use this oil overnight, for fear of serious breakouts on my face in the morning. I coat my hair in this oil about an hour or so before I'm going to shower. The spray application makes it easy to coat all of your hair pretty quickly. I put my hair up in a bun when it is all coated and wait at least an hour. Then, I shampoo and condition as usual. My hair comes out looking super shiny and my ends look like they've actually had a haircut recently! I am like a hair salon's worst customer, I NEVER get haircuts as often as I should. But this hair oil makes my hair look like I kind of care about my hair. It even makes my hair color look better, but that might be because of the increased shine.

Now I know this is a nail blog, but I do like to post other products when I think they are outstanding. This hair oil is outstanding. I will never be without it again. It definitely receives a 10/10!

Jonathan Product IB Revitalizer Overnight Oil Treatment Spray is available online at Ulta.

Ulta For Bitten

Ulta For Bitten, two coats, with flash

* This post is dedicated to Jamie the Amazing Shmittens *

I have another Ulta polish for you today- For Bitten. For Bitten is a very pretty black jelly polish with tons of red shimmer crammed in. The shimmer particles are pretty large, almost like bits of glitter and even though the base of the polish is black, you can always see the red shimmer. I hate those black-based glitter polishes where the black base hides all of the glitter. Luckily, this is not For Bitten's problem.

Ulta For Bitten, two coats, no flash

For Bitten's problem is lack of wear time. Just like the other Ulta polish I reviewed, Total Eclipse, For Bitten started chipping on the second day of wear. I used China Glaze Fast Forward top coat, which dries quickly, but really does not prevent chipping at all. Maybe these Ulta polishes would be better with a different top coat. However, as it is right now, I find that they don't wear well.

Ulta For Bitten, two coats, with flash

Overall, I like Ulta's formula in terms of application and I also like their color choices. I just wish these polishes lasted longer on the nail.

Ulta polishes are available at an Ulta near you or online at Ulta.

Polish of the Week: Ulta Total Eclipse

I have a couple of Ulta polishes to review for you over the next few days. I'm starting with a really cool super dark grey called Total Eclipse. It looks almost black in some lights, but is way more flattering than harsh black polish. This picture does not do the polish justice, as it was raining and cloudy when I took it.

This is my first experience with Ulta's own brand of polish and it was a pretty good one! I love this color and the formula was easy to work with. This is three coats, but you could easily do two. I am not the biggest fan of Ulta's wear time. This polish seemed to chip quickly, about one day after application.

I'll definitely try to get a better picture of Total Eclipse when I post the next Ulta polish!

Ulta polish retails for $7.50, but they always have sales and deals on it. Right now, Ulta polish is buy one get one free on Ulta.com.