How-To-Rock-It: Color Blocking

Color blocking has been in for a while now, but it still remains a hard look to pull off.

Designer: Gucci

To pull off color blocking there are a few things that you need to remember: less is more, opposing or complementary colors, little texture. and harsh lines.

To explain, when I say "less is more" I mean that color blocking tends to look better when there are only a few different colors.

Jessica Alba

When there are too many different colors in your outfit, it looks much too busy. Stick to only having three different colors. If you do not want to have a full color blocking outfit, you can have one piece that is "pre-color blocked":

From Lulus

Another hard thing to know is what colors to wear when you are color blocking. You do not want your colors to be clashing, but sometimes that look can work for you if it is done right.

The orange and blue are not quite opposites, but are far apart.

When choosing colors, you either want colors in the same family(ex. pink and red), or you want them to be farther apart (ex. orange and purple)

How To: Keep Nail Polish From Chipping

Every girl loves her nail polish, but it can be discouraging if your perfect nails that you spent an hour on, chip after one day. In this post, you will learn hot to prevent chipped nails for about at week!

1. Use a Top Coat and a Base Coat

Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat

Using a Top and and Base Coat before and after painting your nails is crucial if you want longer lasting nails. A base coat provides something for the nail polish to stick to and also keeps your nails from getting those unattractive yellow stains. A top coat seals in your nail polish and will add a beautiful shine. The topcoat will also keep your nail polish from rubbing off and getting all over the place. Some top coats are eye fast dry and will cut down on annoying drying time. If you don't want to buy a top and base coat, you can use just a clear nail polish, although it will not work as well it will work well enough.
Try (Top Coats): Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat, Sally Hansen No Chip Acrylic Top Coat
Try (Base Coats): Sally Hansen Insta-Grip Fast Dry Base Coat

2. Prep Your Nails
You need to remember to properly prep your nails before apply polish if you want them to stay chip free.
Step 1: Remove Nail Polish

DON'T PICK OF YOUR NAIL POLISH! Doing this can weaken your nails and make them more prone to breakage.
To remove your nail polish, you can either you are pure acetone nail polish remove or not. Pure acetone removers work faster, but acetone is bad for you. Up&Up has a nail polish remover that is only $0.97! It may not be the best in the world, but it gets the got done well.

There are many different kinds of this nail polish remover.

Step Two: Fix Peeling Nail Layers

Nail Layers that are Peeling

If the tips of your nails look like the middle finger in the picture above, they you have peeling nail layers. These blemishes on your nails make for uneven nail polish application and therefore chipping, so you need to smooth them out. Thankfully, this is very easy to do. Just take a nail file and buff the ridge until it is smoothed off.
Also, trim your nails to your desired length.

Step Three: Buff Nails

Block Nail Buffer

Many brands make block nail buffers that have different levels of abrasion on the different sizes to insure a prefect buff on your nails. However, if you do not feel like investing the dollar to get one, you can just lightly use a nail file. With either of the options, just buff your nails lightly to make them slightly rough.

Step Four: Remover Again!
It is important to use nail polish remover on your nails again right before you apply the nail polish to make sure that they are clean and ready for polish!

3. Thin Coats!
When painting your nails, remember that lots of thin coats of nail polish chip less than a few thick ones.

4. Seal the Tip
To completely seal in your nail polish and prevent chips, make sure to paint nail polish on the ends of your nails, because chipping takes place right at the tip. I usually cap my nails for the base coat, first coat of polish, not for the second coat, and then for the top coat. This can also be called "capping" your nail polish.


Gel Nails:
If you do not want any chance of chipping, you can try to use gel nails. Gel nails last about two week without any chips. You can get gel nails done at a nail salon or you can do them at home. Gel nails apply like a regular nail polish, but dry under a UV lamp so that they do not chip and do not having any drying time other than the time under the lamp. Gel nails are very expensive at a nail salon, and are cost a lot to get started at home, but after that you start saving money. There are lots of videos on YouTube about doing gel nails at home that you can watch if you are interested in learning more about them. For a starter kit with everything you need (even the UV lamp!) try at starter kit by SensatioNail.

The SensatioNail starter kit has enough products for 10 manicures,  $60 at CVS

You can also buy individual gel nail polishes. Another gel nail polish brand (that does not have a starter kit that I know of) is Gelish.

If you are not interested in buying all of the different colors of nail polish to have gel nails, you can use Seche Ultra-V.

This topcoat can go over regular nail polishes and then is set under a UV lamp to prevent chipping.

How To: Save Money On High End Makeup

If you are like me, then you can't get enough of looking at all of the products that you want so badly whenever you go into a makeup store or to a makeup counter. However, if you again are like me, you cringe whenever you look at the price tag.

Never fear! There are lots of ways to get high end makeup (and clothes) for cheap.

1. All Cosmetics Wholesale

Link: www.allcosmeticswholesale.com
All cosmetics wholesale is a website where you can get high end and drugstore makeup at crazily low prices. Everything is 100% authentic, so you can be sure that you are getting what you asked for. They even have discontinued products from brands like Mac. Those products are not less money, they are often times more, but if you are completely in love with a discontinued product, you might still be able to get it. Products tend to stay the same on this website so you can get the same products multiple times if you run out.

2. Hautelook

Link: www.hautelook.com
Haute look is another website that you can get reduced priced products on. On
Hautelook, they have flash sales which can last one hour to maybe a week. These sales can be up to 75percent off!
On Hautelook, they do not only have makeup. Mostly it is clothes, but they do have makeup at least twice a week. Along with cloths they also have furniture and vacations. Most of the makeup brands that they have are not commonly known, but about once a month they will have a brand like Stila, Urban Decay, or Crown Brushes. I once got an Urban Decay Book of Shadows VI for $30, 55% off!

3. Sephora Beauty Insider

At Sephora, you can get a card which will let you get one point for every dollar that you spend. When you collect 100 points, you get a free sample. If you save up to 500 points, you get a set of samples. This is a great way to try out new products, because it can really hurt your bank account if you buy a high end product and you do not like it. Also, the points will never expire. You can even get beauty insider exclusive products. You also get emails from Sephora about new products. In addition to all that, you will get a free birthday gift on your birthday!

4. Ulta rewards

At Ulta, you can sign up for their rewards program. For different amounts of money that you spend, you get into a different level of rewards. Every quarter, you will get a voucher for one of the free products on a list. Also, you get a catalog in the mail about every month with new products in it and a coupon for a certain amount of money off your purchase. Although the free products from the rewards in the lower end are high end, the catalogue has information about lots of deals.