Cream Perfume Company Review & Giveaway! Ends 6/15. (Ended)

My sisters & I LOVE solid perfumes. I kept seeing giveaways from the Cream Perfume Company on various blogs and I decided to contact the company for more information about their products. They sent me all of the above products to review.

I use tons of lotion, especially for my hands. Making concrete REALLY drys them out. I have been using both the Travel Size Coconut Vanille Lotion & the Lavender Body Moisturizer regularly and they are both lovely. Very reasonably priced ($6 for the 2.5 oz size and $12 for the 6 oz), not greasy or heavy, nice scents that aren't overpowering. My favorite is the Coconut Vanilla, especially at this time of the year.

The solid perfumes are a great value for their price, $12 for .35 oz. I really love the wooden containers! I received Apricot Chypre & Organic Lavender Ecume. Like Diana from The Painted Lady Fingers, these seemed to last about three hours or so for me. Here's Diana's amazing review of The Cream Perfume Company's Organic Rose de Rosee & Mimosa Bouquet.

Lavender is the only floral that I truly love. I always find it to be calming and soothing and Cream Perfume Company's version is no exception. My sister Alisa is keeping this one for herself!

Apricot Chypre is nice, but not really for me. My favorite scents usually don't include floral notes, so I would have perhaps enjoyed this scent more without them. I love the apricot and black current at the beginning but not the florals at the end. My dog Wally totally approves of this though! His first sniff.

Taking it all in.

He likes it and decides to sit for a while until he becomes distracted by an evil squirrel that needed chasing.


Overall, I think the quality of these products is very high and a good value for your money! My only wish it that they make some new scents without florals, more fruit and nuts and spices and herbs. Rosemary, basil, orange, and almond are some of my favorites.

The Cream Perfume Company doesn't test on animals and uses ECOCERT certified organic essentials, absolutes and pure plant and fruit extracts. Their moisturizers are 100% vegan, wheat and gluten free, contain no glycol, parabens, sulfates, phthalates, silicones, synthetic additives or synthetic fragrances.

Their products can be purchased at Kaponga.com and they offer free shipping to the U.S. & Canada!

Now for the best part! Two of my U.S. or Canadian readers will win one product of their choice from the Cream Perfume Company!

RULES:
PLEASE READ ALL OF THE RULES BEFORE ENTERING.

• This giveaway is open to U.S & Canada only.
• This giveaway starts today, June 1st, and will end Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 at 11:59PM Central Time.
• We'll select the winner with random.org's random number generator and notify the winner by email on Wednesday, June 16th.
• The winner will have 24 hours to respond. If the winner doesn't reply within 24 hours, that winner will forfeit the prize and an alternate winner will be selected via random.org.

HOW TO ENTER:
I'm going to keep this one super simple. One entry per person.
Go to Kaponga.com and tell us which item you want to win. Think carefully and explore all options because this will be your prize if you are the winner! Use the form below to enter. This works MUCH better than comments, so I've turned them off for this post to avoid confusion.


I was sent products to review. This in no way influences my opinions! For more information, see my disclosure policy.

Thanks for reading!
April

Zoya Underrated Beauties Giveaway! Ends 6/1. (Closed)

I asked Zoya if their staff had any favorite polishes that often get overlooked. They have over 300 colors and I felt sure that there were some gorgeous colors that hadn't gotten much attention. They sent me six colors to show you & I'm also including Pasha and Gaia which I purchased myself. So here we go, eight lovely Zoyas that you don't see very often. Lots of pictures!

First we have Zoya Bailey, shown here with four coats, but it would have been fine with three.

Zoya describes this color perfectly.

Light neutral pink sheer base with cool pink duochrome shimmer and sparkling silver microglitter.

The silver microglitter reminds me of lightly sprinkled sugar. This one looked pretty sheer, so I asked my sister Alisa to swatch it too, since my nails are lightly stained. Here's her photo. Thanks Alisa! Alisa used just two coats.

I ended up liking Zoya Bailey a lot more than I thought I would. It's a nice color, not really my style, but it works GREAT as a layering polish! I'll show it over Zoya Coco later in this post and will show it over other colors soon.


Next up is Zoya Brizia, shown with three coats. I love this one!


Zoya Brizia is a taupey lavender metallic with a silvery blue duochrome effect! I've never seen anything else quite like it and it goes with nicely with most of my wardrobe.


Zoya Coco is one of those colors I would never pick up, since I'm not really drawn to anything in the red family but I ended up really liking this one.

It's a dusty burgundy creme that looks like a dusty reddish brown in low lights. Beautiful color and easy application. This is two coats. Here's Zoya and my dog Wally with some very silly looking fur. What happened that day Wally?


Zoya Flowie is my least favorite because I don't find it very flattering with my skin tone. This is 3 coats.

I would call this a light, peachy brown creme. Easy application. This will probably look great on ladies with much paler or much darker skin tones than mine.


From my least favorite we go to my all time favorite, #1 nail polish, Zoya Gaia! You can read my full post on this beauty here. This is the polish I would keep if I could only have one for the rest of time. Soft white with gold microshimer. This is 4 coats and yes it's totally worth it!


Zoya Pasha is another favorite. You can read my full post about it here. This is 2 coats. I think it looks like iced coffee.


Zoya Raine is another sheer that works as an AMAZING layering polish. This is 4 coats.

This is another one that I thought might be too sheer for my nails. Here it is on my sister Alisa with just 2 coats. Thanks again Alisa!

Zoya Raine is a pink/purple duochrome. You can see Raine layered over Coco later in this post. I tried it later in the week over a green creme and it looked INCREDIBLE!


Last but certainly not least, we have Zoya Sasha. This is another color that I would never pick up but I love it!

Zoya Sasha is a cool toned, blood red creme.

This is 3 coats. I tried it with 4 coats but couldn't tell a difference.


Golly, that was a lot of pictures. This is the longest post I've ever done! Here's a couple of bonus pictures.
This is Brizia with a little Konad. I used Zoya Coco on my pinky and middle fingers and Zoya Sasha on my ring and pointer.


And this is Zoya Coco with one coat of Zoya Raine on the left & one coat of Zoya Bailey on the right. So cool!!! You can really see how lovely both Raine and Bailey are once they are layered over other colors! I'll be showing them over more colors in the next couple of weeks. See what I mean about Bailey's lightly sprinkled sugar effect?


So we have eight lovely, underrated beauties from Zoya! Zoya has kindly offered one lucky winner their choice of any three of these polishes!! You have Bailey, Brizia, Coco, Flowie, Gaia, Pasha, Raine & Sasha to choose from. This prize can only be shipped within the continental US shipping, no P.O. boxes.

RULES:
PLEASE READ ALL OF THE RULES BEFORE ENTERING.

• You must be a follower of our Concrete and Nail Polish blog. If you have a question on how to become a follower contact April at lirpaskoorb@gmail.com.
• This prize can only be shipped within the continental US shipping, no P.O. boxes.
• This giveaway starts today, May 16th, and will end Tuesday, June 1st, 2010 at 11:59PM Central Time.
• We'll select the winner with random.org's random number generator and notify the winner by email on Wednesday, June 2nd.
• The winner will have 24 hours to respond. If the winner doesn't reply within 24 hours, that winner will forfeit the prize and an alternate winner will be selected via random.org.

HOW TO ENTER:
Each person is allowed to enter up to three (3) times as follows:

• Be a follower of our blog and tell me which of the underrated Zoya polishes you would like to win. No entries will count unless this first entry is completed.
• You can earn an optional second entry by posting about this giveaway on your blog. You can do this in a post (it doesn't have to be it's own separate post) or by posting in your sidebar. Just make sure you leave the link in your entry.
• You can earn an optional second entry by tweeting about this giveaway. Leave the link to your twitter status update in your entry.
• You only need to fill out the form once. This works MUCH better than comments, so I've turned them off for this post to avoid confusion.

I received six polishes from Zoya that I reviewed above. Gaia & Pasha were purchased by me at an earlier date. All opinions are my own & were not influenced by Zoya! For more information you can read my disclosure policy.

Thanks for reading!
April

China Glaze Recycle & Konad

I can't believe that I've never posted pictures of China Glaze Recycle! This is one of the polishes that got me hooked last year and is without a doubt in my all-time top five!
I used my second favorite Konad image from plate M60 with Maybelline Blue Aluminum on one of the last truly wintry days we had in Tulsa.

Thanks for reading!
April

Maybelline Khaki Fringe

This color is so exciting! I love all things army green! This is one of the polishes I picked up at my Dollar Tree last week. I bought both of the 2 bottles they had because the color looked so gorgeous. I would describe this as a classic army green loaded with micro shimmer in red, green and gold! I think it's super sexy and goes great with my wardrobe and skin tone. This has leaped into my top five favorites. No problems with the application, formula or brush. I might have to go check the Dollar Trees in town for another back up; I will go through this quickly.
VampyVarnish just did a post on a China Glaze lemming called Out On Safari. I think this may be very similar if not a dupe. The Maybelline may be just a little darker.



Bonus Wally picture!!!! I love his face!


So what do you think ladies? Do we have a winner?

Thanks for reading.
April

Sally Girl - Peabody

This is a very pretty color, but I didn't really like it with my skin tone. You can pick them up for about $1 at Sally Beauty Supply. That is my dog Wally Thor. He makes me happy everyday! Ashley used this color to do her first french manicure. I think it turned out pretty sweet.

Thanks for looking.
-April