First up, you still have a few hours left to enter the Paris Amour Giveaway!! DO EET!

Moving on, it’s Monday! You know what that means! Today is week two for Hard Candy, with “Mushroom”. This is a colour I would probably never purchase myself, but apparently I will swap for it. I’m quite glad I did. This will be a great polish to fall back on for Fall and even Winter.

Now, I noticed last week that “Beetle” did not offer to chip even once. There was your usual edge wear, but other than that, the polish held up like a champ. My only complaint would be the size of the brush. Boy howdy, their brushes are tiny-sauce…

In a final spot of news, Artfire have finally made a statement regarding their security hole, and have sent emails out to users that may have been affected. Some folk are still waiting for emails with an explanation regarding why their privacy was breached. But hopefully, the worst of it is over, and these problems will not continue. Personally, however, the lack of professionalism from Artfire has killed any chance of me using that site to purchase from artisans again. Quite sad – they’ve lost some fantastic business, and customers over this debacle as well.

Hey guys, no glorious beautiful “real” post from me today. It’s been a busy week at work, and cracking down for the start of the new semester next week has kept me pretty busy. And it ain’t gonna get any easier from here. But I did want to pop in and warn folk about trouble over at Artfire.

Last night, quite a few people noticed that when placing an order, their shipping info was being pre-filled with other people’s information. This morning, people woke up to find random items in their shopping carts which they did not place there. Others still had received email notifications that their order was being processed (or had shipped), when they hadn’t made an order at all. In a word: clusterfuck. So please, stay away from Artfire until they get this horrible security issue resolved.

Edit to Add: One Artfire shopper shares her perspective and experience in this whole mess: [link]

Also, the Paris Amour Giveaway is still open! Be sure to pop over and put in your entry before Monday, August 22nd at 11:59PM EST!

A few months back, I was jonesin’ one of my local CVS stores, and happened across some clearanced hair dye. I took this as a sign that it was an epic hair day, so I picked up the dye and a jar of hair goop what was also on sale: Pantene Restore Beautiful Lengths Replenishing Mask. I had been wanting to do a good hair mask for the past month, so hey, why not?

This hair mask normally retails for $6.29 at CVS, but I do believe it was three dollars less at the time when I bought it. The front label touts that the product “resists breakage for longer hair”. This claim is echoed on the back label, where it reads: “Helps restore moisture and prevent breakage, so you can grow hair longer”.

Once I cracked the jar open and got a good look at the product, I was disappointed. This did not have the thickness of a heavy mask. It didn’t even have the thickness of your average “three minute miracle” conditioner. It looked and felt like your average, run of the mill conditioner. But hey, it smelled nice.

My hair certainly felt softer, and smelled awesome after using this product. I was feeling good about my purchase until I noticed something: Its primary claim was not being met. At all. I still had the same amount of breakage-frizz, and my split ends actually seemed to be getting worse. Replenishing mask, my ass. If you’re so replenishing, why is my hair the same as it was before?

Well… remember what I said about its disappointing consistency? Turn the bottle around again, and you’ll see a footnote for the “makes hair grow longer” claim:

Mask vs. non-conditiong shampoo

What is this I don’t even. Do you see this? Do you see what this jar is telling you? It’s saying that using this product will get you better results than not using a conditioning product at all. At first glance, it claims to be a replenishing mask that prevents breakage. But one you get to the fine print, they claim that it will only perform better than shampoo alone. Which makes me consider this as nothing more than regular conditioner, packaged in a bloody freakin’ jar to look “different”.

Well. At least I can reuse the jar. And it did smell nice. But am I buying this again? Absolutely not. Not only does it not do what it claims to do, it isn’t at all what it claims to be. I’d much rather give my support to companies who don’t resort to lies in order to sell their product.

I take absolutely no credit for this review and demo, because the reviewer is quite obviously a male, and I am perhaps not-as-obviously but still-quite-not male. Now that this confusion is cleared up (were you really confused?)…

I like to haunt Dusty’s youtube channel (and new blog), and his review of the L’Oreal “One Sweep” eyeshadow concept was too beautiful not to share:

Morning coffee and your daily routine, be it class or work, do not really mix. You chug a mug, and rush out the door to meet the day, and then WHAM. The coffee starts working your innards, and you’re trapped in Public Bathroomland. You either A) make use of the onsite facilities, knowing that everyone in proximity will hate you forever, or B) wiggle around in intestinal agony, spending your entire day dreaming of the moment when you finally reach the Holy Land of Poo.

It’s a right horrible ordeal to go through.

But I think it should be noted, right here, right now, that the almost zenlike feeling of finally making it to your personal potty party is really, very worth the wait.

I feel like I could solve some problems now. I feel like I could save some people now. I feel… like I could change the world. I really, honestly, truly could. One poo at a time.

Thank you and God Bless.