Reviews of Burt's Bees Cuticle Cream and Carmex Skin Care Healing Cream

I ran out of my Lemony Flutter (it expired MONTHS ago to boot), and it has suddenly gone outside of my budget. At ~$22 for a pot and shipping, I simply cannot afford it. So I decided to try something new, something I can get at a store, and something cheaper.

So I bought some Burt's Bees Cuticle Cream at Walgreens a week ago, and decided to keep my nails clean and use it daily to get the most accurate review possible.

First, I gotta say this: To me, my nails feel weakest when they're clean and free of polish. I'm always terrified of them breaking and chipping and peeling. That being said, they chipped and peeled the first couple of days, which I was expecting. What I really was not expecting was for it to stop. My nails feel noticeably stronger after using this for several days on my bare nails. My cuticles are softer and I've noticed a decrease in hangnails and peeling skin. (Apparently Lemony Flutter does nothing after it expires?) After one week, I've noticed a severe improvement in my nails.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 4

Today

As you can see, there's significant improvement with the whites of my nails, with reduced redness in my cuticles.

This stuff has saved my hands. I live in the Midwest, so we've been in the -20's for the past couple days. It's been dry as all get-out and on top of that it feels like my hand is freezing solid when I go outside.

The smell is very strongly lemon, and it lasts quite a while. The smell is stronger than Lemony Flutter, and it smells more like lemon, which I thought impossible. I like it though! The texture is slightly grainy, which I found odd, but it disappears when applied to the skin.

I've applied this at least twice daily. At least once during the day and immediately before bed.

I've also been using Carmex Skin Care Healing Cream on my hands, my mom recommended it. It's perfect for dry hands in dry weather. I love the way it smells and the way it feels. It smells kinda like classic Carmex.

Neither product is very oily, and both soak in very quickly. I'm very pleased with both products.

I DO NOT recommend using both at once, however. The Carmex makes the lemon smell rancid, which is a definite downside, but you can use other lotions, I'm sure.

What are your favorite products?

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Welcoming Winter

I'm cold. We actually hit below-freezing recently, and that was horrible. I really need to get ready and buy myself a coat.

But I'm excited. Snow soon! And then I got this polish from OPI, Heavenly Angel, and it made me think of snow.

The base color is Essie's Bikini So Teeny. On my thumb and middle finger, I sponged two coats of Heavenly Angel. On my ring and pinkie fingers, I added a coat of Pure Ice's Oh Baby!, and on my pointers, I freehanded snowflakes using Sinful Colors Tokyo Pearl. 

My review of Bikini So Teeny: Two-to-three coater. It's difficult to work with, because the second coat streaks the first, lifting it off the nail.

My review of Heavenly Angel: Definitely needs to be sponged on. The flakies aren't thick enough in the base to brush on. 

Blood Drips

It's 46° here. It's the middle of October and it's like we've forgotten about Autumn already :( 

Oh. Right. I live in the midwest now.. 46° is Autumn. 46° is winter temps in Las Vegas...

Whatever, I'm cold.

ANYWAYS, nails! I did blood drips, they seemed simple enough... and they were, but they didn't turn out great. I need practice. 

You can sort of see the wear on my nails after a day. I'm NOT in love with Seche Vite!

Despite my misgivings, they were pretty popular. I used Sinful Colors Snow Me White, and an unnamed LAC red. Keep in mind that if you're going to do blood, that it has a blue base. You don't want it looking pink!

Apologies and Penguins

Wow, I'm a horrible blogger :( I didn't think it'd been THAT long since I posted! Sorry!

Anyways I was looking through and realized I haven't done a post on one of my older manis that I had every intention of sharing. Oops.

It's winter here in central Iowa. That means that, for the most part, it's been really cold.

No, really.

At 32 F, (0 C) I can go outside in a long-sleeved t-shirt and be fine (that's if there's only a slight breeze). That being said, I have recently purchased my first coat. It's puffy. And kinda itchy. But I wear it. And lately, I've been wearing it with my sweatshirt underneath.

So I hope you're understanding approximately how cold it's been recently.

Which explains these nails.

Penguins!!! With bowties!! Because bowties are cool :D

These were so fun to wear! A pain on the cleanup, but fun to wear! And for some reason I didn't take a pic of my right hand... O.o

I really liked the way these turned out :) what would you have done differently?