A Beautiful Birthday to Me!

Posted on Mar 21, 2014 in Beauty, Manicures |

Happy Belated Birthday to me!  For my birthday this year, I finally did something I’d been wanting to do for a long time – I got mah hair did.  I had won a gift card to the salon where a friend works that I hadn’t used yet, so I put it towards making a dramatic change to ring in turning 33.  This is the picture my stylist took before and after.  Holy crap, right?!  It helps the dramatic “before and after” that my hair was damp when I came in so she quickly towel dried it, hence the frizz – I swear I didn’t normally go out in public looking like that!  I had an idea of what I wanted when I came in, but Kacie encouraged me to look through the Paul Mitchell color book and I picked out something not quite as in-your-face red as I’d intended.  I’m glad I went this route!  Seriously, I’m very thankful to my stylist Kacie Kersey at Hairlights Salon in Pleasanton, CA for this amazing transformation.  Check out Kacie’s Facebook page and if you’re local, go see her!

Trisha's Hair Transformation by Kacie KerseyBecause I had evening plans after going to the salon on my birthday that involved getting dressed at my step sister’s house, and I hadn’t eaten all day, between getting from the salon to her house and stopping for a snack and eating, I only had about 20 minutes to do my nails!  Luckily I’d already removed the polish the night before, so I only had to paint.  In January when Julep announced that they had a birthstone polish to represent garnets, I got excited and began watching their emails like a hawk waiting for them to announce a February polish to represent amethysts.  I wasn’t disappointed, and because the mail overlords looked kindly on me, my bottle of Julep Rosa – Amethyst for February arrived the day before my birthday.  So, in a mad dash, I ripped apart pieces of sponge, put on my Sally Hansen Satin Glam Go Gold base, and dabbed on the Julep Rosa for the tips.

Not bad for 20 minutes with no cleanup tools available, eh?  Of course I was going for a slightly softer gradient into the glitter tips, but considering I’d actually never tried that technique before, I was pretty happy with the results.  One of these days I’ll get inspired and try again when I have more time on my hands.  I was a little disappointed when I received the Julep Rosa polish and discovered that it was just a glitter.  The pictures I’d seen of the Garnet polish looked like it had some kind of opaque base underneath the glitter, but I found out that wasn’t the case when I painted my swatch on my color wheel.  Good thing I’d found that out the day before.  I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do until a fateful trip to CVS took me past the Sally Hansen display and I found the Satin Glam – a polish I’d never seen before – and got the bright idea to layer the glitter on top of the satin finish gold.  I quite like it, and it matched my newly-minted red hair and new turquoise shirt very nicely.33rd Birthday Manicure - Sally Hansen Go Gold Satin Glam with Julep Rosa tips

All in all, my perfectly Amethyst nails and red hair of my dreams, combined with a hilarious performance by Shawn Wayans and Marlon Wayans (the aforementioned evening plans), I had a pretty swell 33rd birthday.  It only would have been better had my husband not been travelling for work that week, but eh, there will be plenty more to celebrate together.  Even with just my family best friends, it turned out to be a Beautiful Birthday indeed!