RLN vs NYC

Hey guys! I'm alive!
I totally disappeared on you again there, I was just too busy and also too tired to get myself on my computer since I returned from New York. I pretty much have been sleeping in all my free time to try to catch up on my zzz's!

But never fear, here I am, with a post about my trip, and of course my haul!
(My polish haul actually wasn't even very big!)

 

First of all, here are the nails I wore for my trip!
I decided to wear gel polish for the trip so I wouldn't have to worry about polish changes, etc.
I did a "rockstar" mani which basically means you pile on a bunch of loose glitter and seal it in with the gel. Pictures cannot do it justice! It is the most sparkly thing ever. I spent a lot of time on the trip explaining to different people how I did them! Haha. I got a ton of compliments.

I also did my friend Vicki's nails for our trip...

More bride and groom nails! You may remember I did these for Vicki when she got engaged. It was necessary to do them again for this trip, of course, because we went to NYC to find her a wedding dress!

Flying in over the city was really cool. There was just so much to look at. Gotta love the window seat!

The city at night was even cooler. We went to the top of the Empire State Building one night and it was mesmerizing!

Of course, there was lots of great food...

I'm drooling. I could seriously eat all of those things right now. YUM. I need more soft pretzels in my life.

Does this room look familiar to you? We went to Kleinfeld! I snapped my picture in the mirror while waiting for Vicki to come out in a gown. I figure I won't be going there for my own wedding dress (if I ever need a wedding dress...) so I had to get a picture of me there. Haha!
I love watching Say Yes To The Dress and it was super cool to be there inside the salon. We even saw a bunch of the consultants from the show! It was awesome.
And... Vicki said yes to the dress!

I said yes to a souvenir t-shirt that says Kleinfeld on it. HA.

Of course, I spent a lot of time in this little slice of heaven... Four floors of Forever 21 in Times Square.
I won't show pictures of all the clothes I bought on the trip but rest assured there were lots of bows and lots of leopard print. I don't know how I stuffed it all into my suitcase on the way home. And there is no room in my closet for all of it.

I regret not buying a Perry the Platypus at the Disney store. So here's a picture to remember him by. He even made noises if you squeezed his foot. Too cute.

Stumbled upon my man Justin Timberlake in the bathroom at the Hard Rock Cafe.

Sephora in Times Square is cray cray. You could barely get up to the nail bar to check it out because there were so many people. And pretty much all the polishes I wanted were sold out. Wahhhh.

All around the nail bar they had these little manicure stations with how-to videos and instructions for different manis! It was cool. I wanted to snap pictures of all of them but I couldn't get close to the other ones! It was nuts.

These babies did not come home with me. But they realllllllllly wanted to. Really really bad.
Oh, Steve Madden, why do you make such beautiful shoes?
They were on sale and everything... But still over $100. I just couldn't do it.
At least I have this picture to remember them by.

Of course, we saw some shows while there, but sadly you can't take pictures inside theatres!
We saw Rock of Ages which was amazing! (I watched the movie on the plane ride home - totally doesn't compare to how cool the Broadway show is.)
And we went to Blue Man Group which was absolutely hysterical and my whole body hurt from laughing afterward! Everyone needs to go to one of their shows. It was fantastic!

The shopping was amazing, of course. I could have shopped there for about 10 more days and still not be sick of it. Are we ready to see my goodies?

You know me and Betsey. Aren't those flats amazing?! And they were on sale. DSW, I love you.
I think I paid just over $50 for the flats and socks together.

Macy's was really good to me, too... I managed to not buy every single piece of Betsey jewelery and settled on those two. I'm in love with the bangle. In LOVE.
Bows and leopard you guys, are you surprised?
And I picked up Butter London - Cake Hole, one of the Macy's exclusive polishes.

I had to let myself get one pair of ridiculous heels, right? Every girl needs neon pink pumps.
They were on sale, too, like $25. Win. I will be wearing these puppies to Vicki's wedding. I bought them on the wedding dress trip so it only makes sense. Justified.

One of the crazy NYC souvenir stores had a bunch of Hello Kitty gear.
I collect the Hello Kitty TY beanies (yeah I'm 5 years old) so a few followed me home.

Hello Kitty loves New York and so do I!

It is a really, really good thing that there is no Sephora where I live. I would be very poor.
I picked up the Nars Andy Warhol gift set. (Remember the manicure I did that was inspired by it?)
It was kind of an impulse purchase that I probably didn't need but hey, it's mine now.

I decided to finish my Nails Inc Sprinkles collection, so I got Nails Inc - Sugar House Lane.
And I wanted to get all of their Nail Jewelery polishes too but at first I limited myself to just one, Nails Inc - Piccadilly Arcade. And then on the last day I was gonna get the blue and pink too but they were all gone. Perhaps that was a good thing. 

I had to be careful at the Urban Decay counter... I want EVERYTHING. But I forced myself to be good and I only bought some Primer Potion and a crazy pink sparkly lip pencil (Super Saturated High Gloss Lip Color in Big Bang.)

I also picked up some replacement brush heads for my Clarisonic (which is amazing and everyone needs one,) and one of the Pantone Universe polishes, Sephora + Pantone Universe - Parachute Purple.

Look. That's the rest of the polishes I bought. I only came home with NINE POLISHES. I think I deserve an award. 
At CVS I found Milani - Twinkle and Milani - Lavender Fizz to complete my Milani glitter collection. 
At Ricky's I picked up Ruby Wing - Gypsy - I wanted to get a few more of these but the other colors I wanted were gone. And they were like $13 so again it is probably good that I only got one.
The pretty pink you see is Wet n Wild - Can-Can You Hang The Mistletoe from their Party Rocks winter collection which I stumbled upon in Duane Reade.

I can't believe I only bought 9 polishes. 
Like I mentioned before, a lot of the stuff I wanted from Sephora was sold out. 

My polish haul was small, but my clothes haul was not, so it all works out.

I left NYC the day before Vicki and her mom and aunt, and they actually bought me stuff after I left because they found Betsey Johnson land AKA Burlington Coat Factory.  
I feel so loved!!! Check out these beauties:

Bows and leopard and studs!!!!!!! Oh Betsey. Be still my heart. 
Thank you Vicki and Auntie Kim for my beautiful Betseys ♥

And while we are showing off Betsey stuff... here's a picture of my Betsey cosmetic bag which was a pre-vacation present to myself so it totally fits in this vacation post.

I found that baby at Winners for only $19.99.
I now need to stop buying Betsey things for a while. (Yeah, right.)

Now, picture a suitcase full of new clothes from Forever 21 and H&M, and you've got my NYC haul. 
I spent soooooo much money between the shopping and eating and the shows. But it was totally worth it!
I wanted to stay for another month but alas I had to return to work and school and all that jazz. 

I returned to a bit of nail mail, too...

I snagged some Butter London polishes in that sale on Coterie. I think it was $11 for all four. Crazy.
Butter London - Bluey
Butter London - West End Wonderland
Butter London - All Hail The Queen
Butter London - Matte Finish Topcoat

I also got a perk from Klout - Essie - Stylenomics.

(Big thanks to the amazing Jini from MakeUpMom123 for being my US mailbox and sending these babies on to me. She also sent me a million other goodies but I don't wanna show those off and make you jealous. Plus there was a lot of candies which I already ate... Thank you Jini, times a million!!!)

Mini mail! Love me some Pretty & Polished minis. Thank you Chelsea! Swatches of these coming soon!
Pretty & Polished - BCA
Pretty & Polished - You Are Beautiful
Pretty & Polished - Party At Joes!

Me and some friends did a Secret Santa style present swap for Halloween, and there was a goodie box waiting for me from my Secret Pumpkin! 
Check out those cute HK Halloween tattoos! Hehe.  There's also some HK nail stickers and a HK plate! (I'm easy to shop for, aren't I? Bows... Leopard.... Hello Kitty...)
The polishes hiding in that picture are Nubar - Night Sparkle and Nubar - Pixie Dust.
Thank you to my pumpkin Lyncia for my goodies! :)  

OH MY GOODNESS, I think this post is finally over. 

All in all, I had an amazing trip with some amazing people, and I'll never forget all the fun I had in the Big Apple! I can't wait to go back again some day.  

I really hope you guys liked this crazy post!