Carrie Bradshaw Made Me Do It.: April 2010

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Prom!

Prom is in the air, and I am wicked jealous. I had a very safe, timid sensibility when it came to my own proms. Now that I’m older and more confident, I’m dying for planned events with suits and fancy dresses, spiked punch and slow dances. I tried living vicariously through my little sister, but alas, she already has her senior prom dress (a very cool Etsy find made of men's ties and tulle). Still, it’s fun to imagine what I would wear if I got a second crack at it.

I’ll start by admitting that my current infatuation with tulle would come heavily into play. In fact, if I could just wear the Alice in Wonderland dress I gushed about a few weeks ago, I’d call it day. I finally found pictures of it. It still makes my heartbeat go all funny:

So, a fitted top and crazy tulle skirt it would probably have to be. I've become completely smitten with this dress, and only wish I had an event worth buying a fancy dress for:

Striped Tutu Party Dress No. 2

Of course, this is a tad wacky for prom. I'd be a bit more classic when it came to accessories:

Runner up dress:

Hallo DREAM Dress (actually sold since I favorited it long ago)

Anyone else feeling like the really good formal dress opportunities are wasted on those who are still finding their fashion sense, and are limited by parental budgets? We 'grownups' are totally missing out. What are you wearing to prom, even if it's the one in your imagination?

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Recent Successes.

Haven't had a lot to post about lately- a horrible lack of motivation for dressing and quarters for laundry have left me with some pretty basic wardrobe choices. But now that it's getting warm and fresh and spring again, I'm getting all kinds of motivation.

I've been trying to buy less things, and more carefully choose things of quality over things of impulse (which means now I'm buying quality thing impulsively). My two most recent purchases were this floral Jessica Simpson dress and this Fossil purse that I affectionately think of as The Dream Bag.

The Jessica Simpson dress is pretty much perfect. I saw advertised for a sale on Ideeli.com, but couldn't get to the actual site because of heavy traffic (never seen that happen before or since- go figure). By the time I did, this dress was sold out.

I eventually began scouring the net and found it two other places- one site for roughly twice the price that Ideeli had, and one for its full price. I decided to suck it up and pay double. Oops- that site ran out of my size before I could close the deal.

Proving how stupidly, feverishly in love with this dress I had become, I ended up paying full price for it. It is soft, sweet, and has pockets and tulle (!!!!!) to poof the skirt a bit. I intend to wear it to every wedding, graduation and baby shower I am invited to for the next 10 years or so. I dressed it down with boots and a cardigan today to wear it to work. Bigtime hit.

The bag is everything I love- slouchy, real leather, brown, and has convertible straps. It's pretty much THE every day bag I've wanted for as long as I can remember. When I stumbled on it on Ebay a few weeks ago, I knew I had found the one. I have found an excuse to wear it every day since.

That is how material goods have fueled my emotional gratification the last few days. Next up- the gladiator sandals I splurged on today...

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Bare Escentuals (Minerals) Review - Worth the Money?

am a very pale girl with sensitive skin. That skin had a long love affair with acne. This has put me on very friendly terms with foundation, even now that the bad acne part of my life appears to be fading. I was a liquid foundation girl for years (coverage coverage) until I was turned on to the Mary Kay powder foundation by my friend Jenna. Prior to Mary Kay, I’d flirted with a few mineral makeups with bad results. They were too dark, too cakey, didn’t cover well.

I love Mary Kay powder foundation because it’s light, it looks natural and if I use enough I can get good coverage from it. I go through it faster than most people because I have to use so much to cover blemishes, and because it's powder it tends to get on everything when I’m applying it. But I’ve been very much in love with it for about a year now.

I’ve been up at 3 a.m. and seen Bare Escentuals commercials, of course. I wondered if that foundation could possibly be as good as they say (better than mine??), but never wanted to fork out the money for it. (To clarify for those confused- it seems that Bare Escentuals is the company, Bare Minerals the product. Same thing though.)

Last week I was on Amazon, looking at buying a new pack of Mary Kay makeup on the cheap (I skip the saleswoman, go straight for those trying to unload- I’m bad) and realized the same system could be exploited for Bare Escentuals. Voila- I got a powder foundation and mineral veil for less than $20 including shipping. The prices seem to vary day by day- I got the foundation for $7.99 and the veil for $1.99.

Bare Escentuals Mineral Foundation (fair skin)

Bare Escentuals Mineral Veil

I tried Bare Escentuals today and in my wordly and studied opinion, it ROCKS. I couldn’t take pictures and show you the difference because my camera isn’t stellar, but my skin looks lovely. I have lingering red marks from past acne that you can still faintly see, so the coverage isn’t absolutely perfect, but my skin looks fantastic otherwise. Mary Kay is awesome enough that I’d still use it if it were significantly cheaper, but if I can continue to get Bare Escentuals for so cheap, I’ll be switching. I use significantly less Bare Escentuals than I did Mary Kay to get the same result, so hopefully the fact that the bottles are tiny won't be a huge issue.

Friday, April 2, 2010

Faux Issues.

The hardest part of working a job that's entirely on the computer?

My "smoke breaks" can be used as shopping breaks. Which makes saving money nearly impossible. Even if I do survive the designer discount sites and their daily sales, eventually something pops into my head that I've been craving. A new brown leather purse. A basic, sexy pair of black heels. A new pair of dark skinny jeans. They're basics! I need them! Sigh.

Today I searched for leather bags all over the internet. After years of cheapy faux-bags, I've been craving more classic, structured, high quality bags and promised myself that my next would be leather leather leather. Investment piece. None of that faux stuff. Until I saw this "man made leather" bag in a Google search.

I have now almost convinced myself that fake leather would be fine so long as it looks real enough. Right?

Right?

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Urban as They Come.

Hello blog! I’ve neglected you horrendously.

I have about 47 things I want to post about once I get a second to snap photos and do research, but for now I wanted to pimp out this sweater.

You may remember a little while ago I was growing increasingly infatuated with a shredded, striped, school-girl-esque sweater on Modcloth? After it hit the sale bin it was around $40- not exactly a steal for something that looked like it may disintegrate in my washing machine (and by my washing machine, I mean one of the machines in my building’s basement, of course).

Today I was cruising the Urban Outfitters online sale rack, as I am short on money for the next few weeks but not short on the urge for new clothes.

Lo and behold, for a meager $19.99:

Now, I prefer the more sharp contrast between the white and black to this grey and black, but I also admit that this would be easier to wash (I have the worst luck with washing black and white items). It’s also obviously not tattered and a bit shorter. But I like the vibe of it. I’m hesitating to buy it, however, with the mental image of horizontal stripes over my wide hips. Hm.

Some other cool stuff I stumbled on (read: am considering buying):