How to get Barielle nail polishes for $3.75 each (or less) with free shipping today and tomorrow (April 10-11) only

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They have some crazy-awesome colors available, like Falling Star (blue with copper glitter) and Myrza's Meadow (pale lime green with fine holographic glitter). Google "Barielle swatches" to find lots of other ones. I strongly suggest googling anything you see on their website that intrigues you, because their own computer-generated illustrations of the colors are sometimes really inaccurate.

Here's how you get them for $3.75 each:

Holy shit pretty new Avon nail polishes

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Check out these new polishes from Avon (Petal Impressions Collection) as swatched by The Manicured Amateur. They're all shimmery and springy but in a way that hasn't been done a million times before. I think there are probably some Zoya dupes in here, if you have the time to comb through Zoya's millions of colors to compare. I don't. Not today. I also DO NOT need any more fucking nail polish. Someone please remind me every 5 minutes, okay?

By the way, Avon has a shit ton of makeup on sale right now, including those nail polishes (2 for $7) eyebrow pencil I recently reviewed (on sale for $2!). Thanks to sequinsandcitations for alerting me to the sale. As always, I suggest searching for a representative in your area before ordering to help a local Avon lady out. And you can get free shipping on $30 with the code FS30REP.

Project Swatch finds another, BETTER dupe for Essie Butler Please and Nails Inc. Baker Street for $2

I showed you that Sally Hansen's Pacific Blue is close enough to Essie's Butler Please. But Project Swatch found a Sinful Colors polish that is even better and even cheaper. It's glossy! I want it. Why are all the stores that sell Sinful Colors in this town so inconvenient for me to get to?

Do I need this? Special Pregnancy Polish

Here is the latest installment of "Do I Need This?", a series about new and trendy beauty products (or just those that might be unfamiliar and baffling to both of us). I'll offer my experience and opinion about whether or not I think the product under consideration is worth shelling out for. Obviously, you don't need ANY beauty products, so the answer is always going to be no, a little bit. But is it going to change your life (or face)? Is it going to make things easier? Are you going to notice any difference at all if you use it? That's what I'm getting at. You may disagree with my verdict, because we all have different bodies/faces/brains/desires, but I'll try to give you a starting point at least.

Short answer: Fuck no.

Your Claws: L'Oreal Project Runway Nail Color in The Temptress' Power (Swatches)

Disclosure: This post contains an affiliate link.

I just thought I'd post a few swatches of my current favorite nail polish. It's good for days when you want something that's actually really fucking awesome, but also sort of subtle unless you look closely. This is a weird one. It's a fairly sheer, pale orangey base with greenish shimmer. I don't even know how to describe the colors, but it has a duochrome effect, so they change depending on the lighting. I haven't seen anything else quite like it. Check out the photos below.

Your Claws: Near dupe for Essie Butler Please (but better)

In my ridiculous collection of nail polish, I have more blues than almost any other color (in close competition are purples and teals). I kept seeing swatches of Essie's Butler Please from last fall, and I decided I needed it. It was my first Essie. But I was disappointed. It's really thin and streaky. I put it on one hand and was so annoyed that I just took it off. Blah.

But then I noticed that I already have something almost identical! Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Pacific Blue. You can see in the swatches below that it is very close in color, though Butler Please is just slightly darker. And the formula of Pacific Blue is a MILLION times better, and I don't think I'm exaggerating. You can pretty much get away with one coat of the Sally Hansen, and it will be completely opaque. For the Essie, you need to use 3-4 coats minimum, and even then it can be a little uneven and somehow lumpy. The Sally Hansen blue levels itself much better, and you get a perfectly smooth surface. Also, the Sally Hansen polish dries to a shinier finish. The Essie just looks dull. Can I emphasize any more how much fucking better Pacific Blue is?

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Pacific Blue (left) and Essie Butler Please (right)
in natural light.

Free Orly nail polish or treatment at Sally with any $3 purchase

Ummm. That's pretty sweet. You should get the Orly Bonder basecoat. It works fucking wonders.

Your Claws: Beautifully cheap greens from NYX

If you want to get with the Pantone Color of the Year thing (Emerald), here are a couple of fucking gorgeous options. They're NYX Girls Emerald Forest (left), which is a glass-fleck, shimmery green that shifts to gold. It's similar to Zoya Ivanka or Zoya Apple, but I don't own those, so I can't tell you which one it's a dupe for. Or try NYX Girls Mermaid Green (right), which is an unusual green that's slightly on the blue side, but not teal.

Reminder: 3 Zoya Polishes for $10 with code ZOYA2013

Or 3 free bottles of polish when you pay $10 s&h. However you want to look at it. Good until Jan. 13. (Previous post.)

Two Fucking Awesome Nail Polish Deals

• BOGO free Orly at Sally Beauty
• 3 free Zoya polishes when you pay $10 shipping and handling (starting Monday, Jan. 7)

More info, including the coupon codes, provided by the awesome Nouveau Cheap.

Nail polish storage: Melmer

I finally got a "Melmer," as the nail polish people call the 3 Drawer Organizer Cube from Michaels. It's the perfect size for storing bottles of polish. I just finished assembling mine, and now I am dying to transfer everything into it, but someone is sleeping in my bedroom, so I can't just yet. Fuck. Here's what my collection looks like now:

Anyway, all of the craft storage is 50% off right now at Michaels, so it's a good time to nab one of these babies, if you're a hoarder like me. Really, you should never pay full price for one, since Michaels almost always has coupons for 40-50% off one item. Check in their weekly ads.

The Project Swatch Online Shopping Guide

For makeup, nail polish, skincare, and other cosmetics. Useful! Not every site I've used is on here, but since I haven't got around to making my own list, this might be helpful for your post-Xmas deal seeking.

Your Claws: Cheap Gold Flake Look

So, the thing this winter seems to be topcoat with flakes of real gold leaf in it. There's one from OPI, one from Zoya, one from Sephora by OPI, etc. They're pretty, but I'm never going to spend $30 on a bottle on nail polish. I'm probably never going to spend $15 on one. So I found a way to get a similar look for much cheaper.

Your Claws: Studio M also sold at RiteAid

FYI! I didn't know that! But here's some cool Studio M holiday glitter polish from RiteAid. And here are the colors I have (not my photos though).

Your Claws: Cuticle Cleaning Brush

I got the e.l.f. $1 concealer brush, because I'd read that it was what a bunch of nail polish bloggers used to clean up around their cuticles after painting their nails. I didn't have much confidence in my abilities, but it turns out that this is really fucking easy to do.

You just dip this little brush in some nail polish remover and swipe it back and forth around your cuticles. It makes everything neat and pretty. And you don't really need a steady hand, because you can just sort of use the cuticle as a guide. My non-dominant hand looks better, but the other one is pretty damned good too. Lots of bloggers use 100% acetone to do this, which might be faster, but I just used regular remover, and it was good enough.

Here's my attempt at one of those pretty nail photos. Um, not great, but it'll do.

While you're at it, you should really pick up this Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear polish in The Real Teal. It's one of my favorites, ever. Look at the shimmer!

You can get it at most drugstores/grocery stores/big box department stores (is that how we categorize Target etc.?) for around $3.

EXPIRED: 4 Zoya polishes for $4 each with free shipping

Select 4 polishes from the Designer, Diva, or Gloss collections and enter code FPX9C to get two free and free shipping. It's a flash sale, so it won't last long.

Big fucking makeup clearance sale at CVS (50-75% off)

All of the things I got today were under $2.50 each. In fact, only two things were over $2 (the Revlon eyeliner and the Sally Hansen nail polish). Look at this shit:

THIS IS IMPORTANT: These things may not be marked down on the shelf. In fact, not a single one of the things I bought was labeled as clearance. And some things are marked down at some stores but not others. So you're going to have to take stuff to the scanner box thingy and check the price if you want to avoid surprises.

Your Claws: $2 dupe for Zoya Feifei or OPI On Her Majesty's SecretService

It’s Sinful Colors Winter Wonder (picture from Polished Cousins).

I don’t have this one myself, but I’m going to keep an eye out, because I’ve read raves about these polishes. Maybe Rite Aid or Walgreens?

Your Claws: Cheap and awesome duochrome

Just painted my nails with Spoiled by Wet N Wild in “Good Karma”. Check out this photo at LUUX.com. It’s a beautiful duochrome/multichrome polish. I guess it’s the latter, because it shifts from green to teal to blue. It’s really amazing. More range than most of those China Glaze duochromes that came out this fall, even. And a good formula: 2-3 coats.

And it’s $2! But I would recommend opening the bottle and checking out the brush in the store. Spoiled brushes can be shitty. Make sure you find one without any extra-long or stray bristles.

How to restore old nail polish.

Don’t throw out your old goopy polishes, and don’t inhale!

How to restore old nail polish.