Nailing It

I follow one of my favorite bloggers, Emily Schuman of Cupcakes and Cashmere, on Twitter. Like her blog, her Tweets are fun and fresh and I often find myself inspired by the little tidbits she shares. Yesterday, she posted a photo of her nails after she had used Sally Hansen’s Salon Effects Nail Strips. I wasn’t familiar with the product, but was immediately intrigued to check out the collection. All you need to do is apply the strips and then file them to fit your nail shape. In reading the reviews, it seems that they last a good week, which is always a bonus! Now I’m dying to try Kitty, Kitty (a leopard print) and Bling It On (pink & glittery goodness) but I have to find the right occasion to rock such killer nails! (It also looks like I’ll be donating to the “How did I spend so much money at Target” fund…once again…)

And then, after yesterday’s discovery, I was delighted this morning when I awoke to find a wondrous email from Chanel in my Inbox: their Summer Nail Collection has arrived! Triple yay!!!

Chanel's Summer Collection includes BEIGE PÉTALE, MIMOSA & MORNING ROSE. Photo courtesy of Chanel.com

Okay, so I’m a nail polish snob and I’ll admit it! I can’t help it. I find that Essie and Chanel work best on my nails and OPI tends to chip the most on me. I also adore the NARS line of polish, but it has been hit or miss with them, as I love my Tokaido Express, but had to return the Orgasm I bought because it was not a good texture and the color was off compared to the hue you see in the bottle.

There is nothing like the rush of wearing a brand new color launched by Chanel (that I’m usually positive no one else is wearing yet). When I worked as an editorial assistant for a magazine right out of college, I would always ask the Essie and Chanel reps for news on their latest releases, hoping to get it before the masses 😉 And while I know it’s a hefty investment — Chanel polish plus shipping is around $30 — you have to order it online because the stores often don’t carry the brand new colors right away. I prefer to own the color I am going to get for a mani/pedi in case I mess up a nail, which I am oh-so-prone to do. Every single time I try out a color at the salon that I don’t own, I ALWAYS end up having to go back for a touch up.

**Bonus fun fact for readers: Chanel is offering free shipping until April 29 with any Chanel.com purchase!! So order away!**

I also like to think of my nail polish bottles as beautiful little accessories. In fact, I’m trying to think of a fun way to display my colors in my new apartment, for a bit of homemade artwork! (I’m considering these shelves in white from Urban Outfitters…)

Here are some of my favorites from the past couple of years:

Chanel Particulière & Feu de Russie, Essie Damsel in a Dress, Chanel Coromandel, Essie Short Shorts and Nars Tokaido Express

As I am always looking for new inspiration, I’d love to know what your favorite nail polish lines and colors are, so please share!!

The Orange Flip Connection

When I think about group dynamics, memories flood my brain from the earliest of ages. I suppose I had never thought of it this way, but from the playground to the conference room, it seems that groupings impact your life from childhood through adulthood. In Clay Shirky’s book Here Comes Everybody (an assigned reading for my class, Social Media), Shirky expores the complexity of groups and the social repercussions of their composition and growth. In the opening of his second chapter he writes:

“Groups of people are complex, in ways that make those groups hard to form and hard to sustain; much of the shape of traditional institutions is a response to those difficulties. New social tools relieve some of those burdens, allowing for new kinds of group-forming, like using simple sharing to anchor the creation of new groups.”

This particular passage sums up his findings on the idea that “sharing anchors community.” And with this idea comes the analysis of online groupings and how they shape the internet. In another passage, he talks about the online tool Flickr and how it has changed the traditional order of group activity from “gather, then share” to “share, then gather.”  I think this concept defines the internet and its blogosphere to a T.

The larger a group gets, the less possibility there is for close contact and intimate interactions between everyone in the group. BUT, there are so many additional connections that can be made as a group grows and evolves. It’s funny, because while so many people feel a strong connection to one of my favorite bloggers, Emily Schuman of Cupcakes and Cashmere, she does note in her FAQs that she simply can’t respond to each and every inquiry sent her way. It’s just not possible, of course. And yet the way she writes feels personal, like she is a close girlfriend of yours, and her musings do in fact bring many people together on so many levels.

*I think that is why I was particularly ecstatic when I mentioned her in a Tweet this week and I got a response. I posted a photo of myself wearing a lipstick she recommended on her blog and thanked her for the idea. To hear from her made me feel like it’s possible to make a simple connection, even in the complex group of style/lifestyle bloggers I am seeking to be a (more substantial) part of.

Cupcakes and Cashmere blogger Emily Schuman modeling Revlon’s Orange Flip Lipstick. (Photo courtesy of CupcakesandCashmere.com)

Revlon’s Orange Flip Lipstick on Me!

Dyanne Lagman, a fellow classmate and blogger of Gold Rushed (and lover of Cupcakes and Cashmere), mentions in her post this week what a great job Emily does of fluidly connecting her blog to her Facebook and Twitter accounts. Ideally, I’d like to get to a point where I can do this as well. My three accounts are not cohesive for Feliz Is Her Name just yet, but it’s something I’d like to do in order to drive more followers to my blog and to garner further exposure.

Mini-Epilogue: Taking this Social Media course has demanded that I constantly think about my presence in the online world and where I fit in; in addition, it requires to me to reflect upon who is influencing me, who I might be influencing and how I am doing so. It’s never as simple as hitting the publish button, it always means so much more…