It’s taken a bit longer to get this review up than is usual, but considering that the product recommends using it for three weeks as least. I was hesitant to try this as I have tried just about every nail strengthener on the market, and most of the home remedies for weak nails as well. All have ended in disappointment. So I didn’t hold much hope for Seche Plus but it was inexpensive, and I love other Seche products. I use Seche Vite and Seche Prep just about every time I do my nails.

About three weeks ago, it came in and I immediately started using it. According to directions, you apply it to clean, bare nails. Then every day for a week you add an extra coat. If it chips or flakes you just clean away the debris with a nail brush and apply another coat on top. At the end of the week, my nails looked a little on the cruddy side. But once I took all the layers off I noticed a significant difference after just one week. I have very brittle nails that tend to split and peel, but just after only one week they were growing longer with no splitting or peeling. I was amazed.

Now, after 3 weeks my nails are longer and stronger than they have ever been naturally in my life. While I do have some broken nails, those are entirely my fault and I have noticed that they broke off cleanly without splitting down into the nail bed like they usually do.  I have also found that with my new healthier nails, my nail polish is less prone to chipping and flaking.

In my considered opinion, this product is definitely worth your time and effort.

I give Seche Plus a rating of  (5/5 sushi rolls)

Note: My mom is trying this now. She has paper thin nails that split and crack far worse than mine. After her 3 weeks I will add here her results.

(And a special thanks to Kita the Spaz for editing.)

I absolutely adore this site. They have so many products and the prices are just awesome. They are based in China so shipping time is a little longer than if you ordered from a store in the US but shipping is free and it is still quite fast. I used to order from then when they were just a small Ebay store and I am so happy to see how they have grown. They carry the 120 pallet as well as tons of nail stamping plates. If you just surf around the site you are sure to find things you will love. Be sure to check out the 6 piece kawaii eyeliner, I will be doing an individual review on these later.

If I had to find one complaint with the shop it would be with the way the prices are listed. If you look at the list page, not the individual item page, the price listed is the price that you would pay if you were going to buy 10 or more of the product which most of us won’t be doing. As an example, if you go to the Eyeliner Gel page (where all non-pencil eyeliners are listed) you will see the price of the 6 piece kawaii eyeliner (listed as “6PCS Black Waterproof Eyeliner Gel Makeup Cute Design”) is priced at $7.53, but if you click on the product page you find 1+ = $8.42, 3+ = $7.95, 5+ = $7.73, and 10+=$7.53. I don’t consider this a big deal, I just keep it in mind when looking at things. It is nice to know that you get discounts when buying multiple items so maybe get together with your friends, especially if 3 or more of you are wanting to buy a higher priced item.  If you and 2 other friends each go in and get you each one of the 120 pallets on the same order you can get them for almost $2 cheaper.

Customer service is VERY fast and very courteous. I cannot begin to tell y’all how friendly they are. They are always very quick to answer questions and take care of any errors. They give a phone number but it is in China so I doubt any of us US  customers will be calling it, but they also have Skype and their email contact is very fast. I have never contacted them by Skype but I have by email and they are very quick to respond.

They also have a Bornprettys Reward Point Program which allows you to save money by leaving reviews and ordering. Currently you gain 2 points for every dollar spent and about 20 points for every review and up to 100 points for a video review uploaded to the site. I have noticed these can add up fast too. After just a few small purchases and a hand full of written product reviews I am already at over 200 point. Each point is worth $0.01 so right now I have over $2 in discounts I can claim. You do not have to claim them right away though, you can save them up and cash in up to $10 worth of points per order. I may use my points to get my practice hand I want for doing nail art on here.

Overall I ♥love♥ this site! I would recommend it to anyone who loves beauty or nail art!

I give Born Pretty Store a rating of  (5/5 sushi rolls)

(I will be doing a lot of reviews on individual products from this store.)

(Check out their facebook contest at http://www.facebook.com/BornPrettyStore2010/posts/153655514703985 )

I never thought to write this before but I will try to remember for now on.

I have not received and of the products I have reviewed or products from shops reviewed for free. Everything was bought by me out of my own money. If I am ever sent a product to review I will state that it was given to me but no matter what I will give a product/shop a fair review. If I do not like a product I will say I do not like it, no mater how I got it.

I have not used Wet N Wild since I was a young teen in the late 80′s-early 90′s so I was rather hesitant to try it again now. When I was younger it was the stuff that teens used because we couldn’t afford better and it wasn’t that good. I mean it worked, but not well. I was pleasantly surprised though when I was convinced to try the MegaLiner Liquid Eyeliner. It went on smoothly and stayed on a long time without smudging. The brush is great for getting a thick line or thin line. The pigmentation is very good. I got the black, the plum, and the turquoise and they went on very opaque. Even without setting with eyeshadow (I set the liner when I am wearing it as makeup but not when I am testing it for review) it did not smudge or flake off. I plan on buying all the other colors and keeping them in my makeup bag. I now look forward to testing other Wet N Wild products now. They have come a long way since when I first used them.

I give Wet n Wild MegaLiner Liquid Eyeliner a rating of   (5/5 sushi rolls)

I wasn’t sure about this eyeliner at first but now that I have tried it I really like it. As far as the claim that is enhances your eye color, I’m not sure. I put the black liner for blue eyes on one side and the black liner for green eyes on the other. I didn’t notice a difference and neither did my room mate. My sister said the side with the eyeliner for blue eyes did look bluer (I didn’t tell anyone what was on each eye) and my fiancée noticed a difference too but he thought the green one looked bluer. It does go on very smoothly and lasts a long time. I do not use the brushes that came with it because they are too thick for me but as stated in my first impressions, they do make a good lip brush. The colors are very pigmented and the glitter that is in the black ones stays put and is very subtle. The price on these are great too, aprox. $10.50 for 3 gel/cream liners is awesome and sometimes you can find then for buy 1, get one 50% off so that comes to about $2.62 per liner. You are not likely to find a good quality gel/cream liner for that price anywhere, and if you can, please let me know. Even the ELF cream liners are $3 a piece and while good, I do not find them as creamy or as pigmented as the Physicians Formula ones.

All in all I will definitely be buying more of these. I may not be confident on them enhancing the eye color, but I still love it, and the packaging is awesome.

I give Physicians Formula Shimmer Strips Custom Eye Enhancing Gel CreamLiner a rating of   (4/5 sushi rolls)

My overall view of drugstore.com- meh. If you have a Walgreens, CVS, etc near by, don’t bother. The selection isn’t that great. The customer service is ok. The shipping time was good, although the items I got were available 3 blocks from my house at CVS. I did get free shipping so I guess that is a plus. I don’t think I am likely to order again though unless there is a very good sale.

The one problem I did have is it was difficult to tell what was on sale. I had gotten the Physicians Formula eyeliners from there. I had clicked on them and it said that they were “Buy One, Get One 50% Off”. When I clicked it there was a large list of options so I was going to get the one for blue eyes and the blue eye “glam” set. I tried putting these in my cart and was not getting the sale price. I tried again and again with no luck. Finally I tried other combinations of colors and found that the “glam” colors were not included in the sale but there was no notice saying that. I finally just got the blue and the green sets but I was very disappointed. Had I not wanted to review the site I never would have ordered.

Now, if you do not have a Walgreens, CVS, etc, available to you I guess this is better than nothing although there is a limited selection. They do not have the Wet & Wild palettes (which is what I originally went to find).

I give Drugstore.com a rating of  (2/5 sushi rolls)

I ordered a couple of these (the one for blue eyes and the one for green eyes) and just got them in a couple days ago. from the start I do not like the brush that comes with it. It makes a decent lip brush, but personally I do not like it on my eyes. Using my own brush it does go on smooth and while on me it doesn’t last 24 hours like it says on the package, it does last plenty long enough. I am not noticing a big difference though with enhancing my eye color (I have blue eyes) but the colors are pretty. Maybe if I use them along with eyeshadow  they will make a bigger difference. My first impression is they don’t do much for your eye color but they are a nice gel/cream liner at a good price. Also, I love the packaging.

I just got this in yesterday so this is not a full review, just a first impression.

I got the kind in the dropper bottle because I prefer to keep my products as uncontaminated as possible and be able to use them on other people. The product has the feel of like a thin gel like stuff but it isn’t sticky feeling. It seems to have a water base. If it helps, it seems to have the consistency of a water based lube.

I first tried it with glitter and it did hold the glitter well, I was able to use it as a long lasting glitter liner, so long as I mixed the glitter into a little drop of the gel and put it on that way. I tried the other suggested way, putting the gel on you eye and then brushing the glitter on over it and that didn’t work as well. With the first method there was no fall out that I could see.

It works the same with my pigments. It worked far better when I mixed the pigment into the gel then apply it to my eyes. It makes it almost into like a paint so I look forward to trying this as like a face paint. It stayed on a long time like this too. I still have some pigment on the back of my hand from yesterday. It mostly washed off but there are a few bits clinging for dear life, though I did not scrub my hand, I tried to keep that area as dry as I could. Again though, the area where I brushed on the gel then brushed pigment over the top flaked off after about 2 hours.

Overall so far I like this product. I have sensitive eyes and have had no problem. It is well worth the $4.50 a bottle I think. If you want to check it out you can order it at http://glamourdolleyes.com . After I try it longer I will post a better review and pictures.

For those who know me, you know I order from this site often.  It has it’s good and bad sides but I feel the good far out weighs the bad.

Ok, bad side first. The first complaint I had about the site seems to have cleared up. Since Christmas it seems it was taking almost a month for orders to get sent out but that seems to be clearing up (See EDIT for new info). My last 2 orders were shipped within a few days of ordering. I will keep y’all updated on this. My second complaint is pretty minor, there is a big inconsistencies in quality. I understand there is going to be a difference between a $1 eyeliner and a $3 eyeliner, but there is big differences between products of the same type and price. Some of the colors of the $1 eyeliners are creamy and go on beautifully and others tear up my eyes. All of the mascaras I have gotten dry out way too fast. The packaging on the Studio Line items make it look like there is a lot more product that what their is and so is very wasteful and makes it hard to judge exactly how much you are getting. And finally, most the images are not true to color of the items you get.

Ok, I know that looks like a lot of negatives, but if you can look past that, there is a lot of good with ELF. First off, a lot of the items are only $1 and there is a flat shipping rate of $6.95, no matter how much you buy. With every order you can get a free 1 year subscription to a magazine, whichever one is currently being sponsored.  Usually the order has to be $20-$30 to get the free subscription, but as far as I know that is before any rebates (more on that later). Right now I get Vogue, OK, Lucky, Rachel Ray, Readers Digest, and Better Homes & Gardens, all for free. I get a few others but I don’t remember what they are, they go to my friends as I don’t read them.

Next, if you are on their email list you get tons of rebates. There is always at least 1 sale going on. I usually wait until they do 50% off sales, which usually seem to happen at least once a month. Sometimes it is 50% one of the lines (Essentials, Studio, Minerals, Body & Bath) or a selection of items (recently was Achelle’s Summer Picks, which I am expecting in on the 20th of this month and should be my first haul post here unless one of my other orders gets here first), other times the rebates are “Buy $X and get X number of this product free, like right now if you buy $25 and use the coupon code MINTEN (expires 5/23/2011) you get your choice of 10 of their mineral eyeshadows for free. At Christmas time the sales get even better. This last year I got 50% off PLUS free shipping on any order over $10. I believe that was on their Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale but if I remember correctly it lasted well into December. Another perk you get with every order is if you refer 3 new friends each order you get a little surprise thrown in.

Their customer service is wonderful. I have gotten some damaged or under-filled  products a few times and a few liquid eyeliners that had gone bad before I got them but when I contacted customer service they were quick to replace the product and were very polite about it.

Lastly, most of their products are excellent quality. I have used e.l.f. Mineral Eyeshadow Primer on one eye and Urban Decay Primer Potion on the other and honestly, on my lids, there didn’t seem to be much of a difference. The biggest difference between the two, the ELF one is $3 , the UDPP is $19. I will have more on this in a primer review I have planned. Their Brightening Eye Color and Waterproof Eyeliner Pen are awesome! I use these almost daily in some way. I also love their $1 eye brushes. Some of them are actually better than some of the higher dollar brushes I have. There are many many more products that are well worth more than what they sell them for than what I want to list here, they will come later in individual product reviews and swatches.

The few complaints I have with the site are easily overcome by looking up peoples swatches so you can get a better idea of the color, order far in advance if you need something before a certain date (of you can buy some of the products from Target and different dollar stores), be sure to check out other peoples reviews on the products before you buy, and, if you get a product you don’t like, contact customer support and see if you can exchange it for something else.

I give ELF a rating of  (5/5 sushi rolls)

(Future site reviews will include drugstore.com, bornprettystore.com, sephora.com and others)

****EDIT***

My most recent ELF order was due in on 5-20-2011, instead it got here today, 5-17-2011! This order was placed on 5-11-2011. It really seems the shipping time has cleared up. Maybe they hired more packers or updated their system.

1. Where have you been that could best be described as a winter wonderland? Hmmm well, when I was a kid, the town I lived in for a little while was a winter wonderland. When winter came they changed the street names to Christmas-y and wintery names and  there were decorations and snow sculptures everywhere and there was a giant hill right near the town square that was perfect for sledding.

2. In what way might you describe this as the winter of your discontent? I’ m not sure I would. I’m not fond of winter as an adult. It was fun as a child but now, meh.

3. What was the last wintergreen-flavored thing you tasted? I had some wintergreen gum recently

4. Is there anyone in your life who could be nicknamed Old Man Winter? I guess my dad. He seems to enjoy winter.

5. Now that the holidays have passed, is there anything good about the winter that remains? I guess I look forward to one more good snow so my friends kids can come build me a big snowman in my front yard.