BaubleBar Unwrapped! My Experience

Hi everyone! Today I stopped by BaubleBar Unwrapped (twice)! It's a 2 week pop-up shop BaubleBar has set up in celebration of their 2 year anniversary. BaubleBar is an online jewelry site which is amazing. The taste of the stylists there is amazing, everything is beautiful, chic, glitzy, and glamorous. It's also relatively cheap. There are things in the teens, but mostly in the $20-40 range, as well as some items being priced much higher in the $60-70 range and up. They have amazing bracelets, rings, earrings, and necklaces. The pop-up shop is set at 344 W. 14th St. between 8th and 9th avenue, and it is absolutely stunning. It runs from Feb. 1st- Feb. 16th so hurry over if you're in the area and are interested in going. I had a generally good experience, and I'll go through the highs and lows of my time there. But first... pictures!!

* The pop-up shop has just been announced to now be running through February!

Free treat every visitor gets just for giving their email address! Who doesn't love surprises?

 My purchase! Click my YouTube video below the text to see what I got :)

Highs:
- They let me film to my heart's content. It felt a little awkward, but I really wanted to show my blog viewers and YouTube viewers the store and it felt exciting to go to a launch. Today wasn't technically the launch, but it was the 2nd day so it still felt exciting. There were people still staring at me however and I do kind of feel like the girls were looking at me a little also... but then again I guess it is weird to have someone walking around your store with a camera filming all your jewelry

- I really really wanted to make it there in time to be one of the first 50 visitors, because the first 50 visitors would receive a $25 gift card to spend in store, and I WAS!!!! So exciting!! The store opened at 11 AM and I got there round 12:30, maybe 12:15. I didn't think I made it, I felt so downtrodden, but then I went in and was approached by a girl who I thought was stopping me to ask me not to film. I explained why I was filming to her which seemed to take her by surprise, because in her hand was the $25 gift card the whole time and it turns out she just wanted to ask me if I'd like it! Woohoo!

- I bought a really beautiful bracelet. I'm kind of a nerd so yesterday night I went online to see the things that specifically caught my eye to take pictures of them on my phone to keep an eye out for in store, and I found the one I wanted the most! :) I also loved that I got to use my gift card to help pay for it. The bracelet was $32 so I ended up only having to pay $7 :) There was one other item I hoped would be in store, but it wasn't. I wasn't surprised though because it was sold out online so I knew it would be a slim chance but I was hopeful :(

Lows:
- I thought the register girls were nice, but the manager kind of rubbed me the wrong way. She wasn't rude or anything but she breezed over to me very straightforwardly after I asked one of the girls who worked there if she could speak a little on camera about the pop-up shop and Baublebar. The girl went to go get the manager, who I assumed would speak to the camera about it, but instead the manager said she couldn't speak on film today but that if I wanted some text pulled together or something like that she might be able to do it. She did ask if I was from a beauty blog which made me feel a little nervous because, let's be honest, this is my own little beauty venture and it really is a small blog. But I just told her it was my own blog which she seemed to find credible enough. But yeah either way she was very professional and straightforward and told me I could film the girls in action and film whatever I wanted in the store, which I appreciated, but I still don't quite know why she couldn't have spoken to the camera about the shop even for a little bit. I mean come on, it was free exposure! Blah.

- Another person who rubbed me the wrong way was this girl who I initially liked. She was out on the floor and helped me search for a necklace, the item I mentioned that I was interested in earlier. I asked her if they had it in stock and she said they should have, which I found to be one of those things where they might not know what they're talking about and are just assuming, because online only the silver was left in stock, and the store only seemed to have the silver on the floor. However since she said they should have, and did earlier I believed her. She however couldn't find it and walked over to a computer they had in the corner to search it up online, where she found (as I had already known) that it was sold out online and that they probably didn't have it in store. That was okay to me though because she still helped me look for it, which I thought was nice. However when I came back later in the day and approached her, saying "Hi! You helped me earlier in the day -smile-" she simply looked at me like she didn't recognize me at all and looked a little freaked out. I tried to jog her memory... to no avail. It was really awkward. She was kind of shaking her head like "Really...? Have we... met?" That kind of thing.

- I thought it was really cool that the store let you have a second treat in exchange for merely snapping a picture and posting it on a social media site with the hashtag "BBUnwrapped" and mentioning Baublebar in the caption/tweet/post. However, I couldn't use my camera to do it, since they wanted it instantaneously, and I also wasn't told I could do it at home and come in, show them the post and then pick up my free treat then. So I cam back later in the day with a friend who had a smartphone (as my parents think data plans are unnecessary and too expensive and so I still do not have a smartphone). It was then that I asked the girl who helped me how the process worked and she just seemed so different then earlier in the day, much unfriendlier and a little freaked out by me, kind of like I made her nervous just being there... I didn't mean to weird her out jeez I just wanted to say hi and tell her she helped me earlier :( I figured it was a nice introduction and it would show her I remembered her, but I guess she didn't remember me. Either way, I ended up getting my second treat after my friend instagrammed a pic of me but it was rather awkward. The girl from this morning who gave a girl a second treat didn't say to take a picture of anything specific, but later in the day I was told by this girl that it should be a picture of the treat I received earlier, so I had to pull it out of the pouch and everything. Either way it was worth it to get my hands on that mystery little second treat! The girl handed it to me and I got the hell out of there. When I got outside I opened it (on camera which you'll see in my video) and was so. disappointed. Inside was this pair of earrings, but it wasn't pretty at all and I really felt it was a clash with the store's elegance and sophistication and natural style. The treat I got in the morning was so much prettier, a classy necklace that I wasn't in love with, but liked and felt was a nice solid piece. This was just... bad. gaudy. tacky. I felt like they got it from a 25 cent vending machine :( I felt like I've probably gotten that pair of earrings before, in fact, from a 25 cent vending machine in my childhood. Anyway when I logged onto instagram to check out pictures other girls had instagrammed with the BBUnwrapped hashtag, I felt so let down. Some girls had received really cute things like gold stud earrings that looked adorable and expensive, and I felt I got something really tacky and on the total opposite end of what I could have gotten. :( And I made the trek back and everything just for that second treat. So that really disappointed me.

Moral of the story: I know my lows seem to outweigh my highs of the experience, but I really did think the store was absolutely beautiful, and if I had had more money to spend I would have had an absolute blast there. I wouldn't change a thing about the layout except moving the treat table to the front of the store instead of the back. Everything was decorated beautifully and was the height of decadence and sophistication without making me feel intimidated. It was really a lovely store, and I thought the promotions they did in terms of free treats and extra freebies for the first 50 people for Saturday and Sunday was absolutely fantastic. I give them a total thumbs up for that, and also think that them having people all hashtag one unified hashtag to social media was really smart in terms of driving traffic to their brand and to the pop up store, and that the treats were a great really generous way for them to achieve that goal.

So I hope you all enjoyed my words on this experience! Thanks for reading everyone. Please check out my video below, especially if you're interested in the trinket I bought! It's an absolute stunner. It's coming soon so hold tight if you don't see it in the post as of right now.

My Brandy Melville Collection

Hi everyone. Today I have a very special post, as I'm finally sharing my Brandy Melville collection with you all. I first found the store in Soho around a year ago and I've been addicted ever since. It's my very favorite store. However I have had a good number of disappointing moments with it, and I feel the prices on some items have gotten to be overpriced. Despite all this, it's still a great value and the style is fantastic. It's like an amazing hybrid of all my favorite stores (Urban Outfitters, Free People, Forever 21, Tobi.com, ShopNastyGal) and way cheaper then some of them (ahem ahem Free People).

All my Brandy Melville jewelry (displayed below) was priced from $5-$8.

 If you can believe it, the cross looks even worse now. It's such a cheap piece of jewelry. I was ecstatic when I first found it in the store for only $6, but this picture was taken after 2 weeks since my buying it and I had worn it maybe two or three times. The metal or whatever material they put to coat it is so cheap. It's a completely different color now, it's rusted and the coloring has come off. Also, that bracelet is so cheap, there are 5 gold skulls on it which I thought was very cool, but all the skulls slide to the underside of your bracelet no matter what. So they're never visible when you have the bracelet on it just looks like a plain black band.

 I had to deliberately position these skulls this way so you could see what they were supposed to look like.

 My summer goods: shorts, tops, 1 skirt, 1 dress (I know, I need more!)

My winter goods: sweaters galore!

Here I'll list a few of the disappointing mishaps I've had with Brandy Melville:

1) Their quality of clothing. Yes, it's extremely soft (I mean seriously, soft. When my hands touched the cloth for the first time I gasped. But what that means is extremely delicate handling. These clothes are a pain in the butt to wash. The customer service rep told me "the best way to wash the clothing would be in the washer with like colors, settings set to delicate and cold water and dry in low heat setting.  :)" 

However, despite following these instructions extremely carefully, I have still found some of the tanks have gotten stretched in the straps and just kind of become longer and more shapeless looking. The worst thing that happened was the experience I had with my Brandy Melville Jeannie Vest, which was my holy grail, absolute love, denim vest that I considered both a find and a steal. I got it in November for around $42 (now they've hiked the price up to $65). I put it in the wash (and part of me was hesitating when I did this too because I so loved it and couldn't help wondering if something would go wrong) and when I came downstairs to check on it (and the other clothes I put in- I only wash my Brandy clothes with other Brandy clothes) I found it was all ripped up. There were so many new rips in it and holes and I could not believe what I was seeing. It was like a key was in the wash and just kept ripping through my vest. However, every other piece of clothing was entirely intact, and I searched the machine frantically for anything I might have left in my pockets- there was nothing.

My vest after the wash

I was so incredibly upset by what happened to my vest, and I felt literally cheated out of my money. My favorite piece of clothing ever had just been ruined, and by no fault of my own. I was so upset I contacted the company and sent them a respectful email, asking them how the situation could have happened and expressing to them that I felt I deserved compensation or to have my vest replaced. I included the photograph above ^. The company never responded to my message.

2) Brandy Melville is not upfront- After the debacle with my vest, someone close to me wanted to cheer me up and surprised me by sending me a new vest in the mail. They had ordered it off the website. I was very surprised when I opened the vest, and was extremely overwhelmed with my friend's generosity. However, I was more surprised when I saw the size on the vest said large. I checked the order form and yup, it said large as well. I called him up to thank him but then also told him it was in the wrong size and how could he order large? But I also said it was just as well because I could never have accepted such a pricey and generous gift. However he was very upset and told me that on the site when he went to buy the vest, there was absolutely no sizing options available to him. There was no size drop down menu to click or anything. I told him this couldn't be true, as I had just been looking at the vest, wondering if I should replace it myself, a week or two earlier. I checked and he was right! There were no longer any sizing options available, whereas before indeed there was a standard Small, Medium, Large. However, despite there no longer being any sizes available to pick from, you could still add to your cart. You simply checked your quantity and could click add to cart. My friend told me that since I had informed him it was mostly a one-size fits all store that he figured it was a one-size vest. However, that was never the case for this piece of clothing, because even back in November there were sizes, and I bought a Small. And this time around, a week or two earlier I had checked the site out and there were sizes as well. I couldn't understand what had happened. I checked back days later and there was still no sizing option.  Finally, week or two later and the sizes were up again. I came to realize that Brandy took the sizing off because they only had one size left and probably a low inventory- so everyone who clicked Add to Cart assuming it was one-size fits all, got a Large. 

I hate to speculate, but since no customer service representative responded to my message in any manner, I am forced to come to my own logical conclusion. I succeeded in getting a free shipping tag for the vest (which expired after 7 days so obviously it's not exactly like the company was doing everything possible to guarantee I get my friend's money back or return the item free of cost). I messaged back and forth with a customer service rep, quite clearly explaining the situation. This is what she said to me:

Hello Katherine,

We apologize for the trouble. Go ahead and send us back the vest and include a note stating that we sent you the correct size. We are going to make an exception this time and accept your return, but for future orders please be aware of sizing options if they are available and make sure you select the correct one. We will send you a call tag right now, you will have 7 days to return the item back to us.

Have a beautiful day!

-Brandy 

I was furious to see the words "we are going to make an exception this time... but for future orders please be aware of sizing options if they are available and make sure you select the correct one." Um... are you kidding me? There was no sizing option, and there SHOULD HAVE BEEN. I really hated that the whole predicament got turned around on me by the rep.

3) Prices have risen- some of the sweaters have gotten pretty pricey nowadays, although I am willing to pay $40-50 for a great looking thick sweater. But still, certain items have just sky rocketed that I would've felt was a steal before.

Pictures:

That basically sums up my list of complaints and dislikes. I end this blog post with my Brandy Melville video (which perhaps brought some of you to look at this post)! In it is a live video of me showing every single one of my Brandy pieces and linking prices and names if you happen to see anything you like. Please enjoy!

I got my brows threaded!- Review of Himalayan Eyebrow Threading Salon (Manhattan Location)

Hi everyone! Today I'm coming to you with a super exciting post! I took the plunge and got my eyebrows threaded. I have had such a nightmare of an eyebrow journey... it started since puberty I suppose. Naturally I have pretty full brows, and when I was younger (think teens) I had no idea what to do with them. I kind of just let them be scary and unshaped and a mess. Then I started tweezing (oy) and that turned into a nightmare. Ladies and gentlemen, we had a serious case of overplucking.

Awkward. [Excuse the poor quality]

I definitely stopped plucking my brows so horrifically thin towards the end of freshman year of college, but because I just did not like the shape of my natural brows, I started literally plucking off the ends so I could reshape them the way I wanted to. My ends curve downwards a lot and I just prefer more of a straight brow. Still with an arch but just not so... down. 

Anyway, so finally when I literally looked like I had half eyebrows and had friends ask me what was happening to my eyebrows after a day at the pool when I realized in horror that the ends had basically washed off, I realized eventually I would have to start growing them back. I got the motivation a couple months ago when my cousin came to my grandma's house with well-shaped brows and told me she had got hers threaded. I decided I would grow out my brows, and get them threaded too. So I did! I had a few pitstops in the way, such as graduation pictures in which I just had to pluck strays, so they would have been somewhat fuller by now had I completely left them alone, but after 2 months I figured the time was right. I have my graduation next week along with 2 Senior events, so I wanted nice brows for the occasion.

My brows before: The ends are still there-ish (my better brow, with the other one I take the end completely off) but the brow shape leaves something to be desired

I did a good job of filling them in didn't I? :)

When I looked for a place to get them done, I decided not to go to my cousin's place, because even though her brows looked nice I wanted a place that was revered for getting them just right. I found my place on Yelp.

This place got great reviews, especially referencing Pinky. I went a week ago and Pinky wasn't there, so I decided to come this week instead and hope for Pinky. Ironically if she was there, she's not the one who did my brows! (Though I didn't ask this time- I felt foolish? I don't know.) I got Shazia instead, which I wasn't too bothered about because she's also said to do good work (though not referenced as much as Pinky!). I showed her what I wanted and told her I knew my brows were still pretty sparse so if she could to just come as close as possible to the picture. She was very sweet and said she'd try. Speaking of sweet, every person there was really nice, and not in that fake salon way where they all kiss your ass- they were really nice and pleasant, the ladies and the cool asian guy at the register. He was a nice dude! He told me he was surprised to hear it was my first time and that my brows were really nice! :D I was quite pleased, as I spend a lot of time filling in my brows, but I divulged this fact to him and told him he would see when the makeup came off haha. In terms of aesthetic, the place isn't exactly ritzy. It's shared with a jewelry store and I think a couple other floors within a building. I walked right past it the first time around the block- the only sign indicating it is this, right next to the jewelry store door:

The place is on the second floor, really easy to see once you get up there. Anyway, getting back to my actual threading experience, here are the pictures I showed her:

I knew it was quite a stretch, considering the state of my brows. 

This is what I gave her to work with:

Ay. Not pretty. Also, even though theyre quite thick and full they're still somehow sparse. Right?! See what I mean? [Also sorry for the quality and lighting- I was in a bathroom at school when I took these pics, w/o flash]

Anyway, I told her how nervous I was and asked whether it would hurt and she told me no not much, and that plucking mustache hairs hurt but brow hairs wasn't too bad. Haha. She was very nice and humored me when I gasped "WAIT NO! I'M NOT READY YET! PLEASE!!" and smiled and let me breathe. Then I said okay and she threaded 1 stray hair in a quick and agile motion and told me "This is what it feels like. It's not so bad right?" And it really wasn't. So I told her okay and gamely laid back and closed my eyes while she began the process. In the beginning it was alright- not too bad at all. But when she got to the underside of the brows BOY DID THAT HURT!!! It really did. It wasn't as painful as I was scared it would be, as I had heard horror stories from some friends and my cousin warned me to take painkillers beforehand. I think next time I will, but still it wasn't like 10 minutes in the chambers of Hell. It was just painful. But nothing anyone couldn't handle. It was just definitely painful. Haha! So she showed me one brow when it was done and I quite liked it! She explained to me that since I had some sparse hairs that still hadn't grown back from overplucking that she couldn't make it a straight line like she would want but to let it grow and when I came back she would fix it up :) I thanked her and told her I understood and agreed. She moved onto the next brow. For a portion of the time I helped her by holding my mobile lid down and keeping the skin above my brow taut. It's really not a big deal, I for some reason thought this would be some technical challenge that would throw me into a state of incompetence and disarray. Basically, I'm dramatic.

When it was all over I was excited to look in the mirror. But when I did to be honest I was very unhappy :( The brows don't really match each other, and they look worse then I did when I came in, although more groomed individually. But in looking at my face as a whole it makes my face look worse. The dude at the register looked kind of shocked when he saw me afterwards, having said my brows look so nice before. But he quickly tried to knock that expression of his face... it did kind of amplify my inner feelings though, seeing that even he was surprised.

Ugh, sorry about the horrible red bump! Threading irritates your skin, but it goes away after a couple days.

 Left Eye

Right Eye

Face pics (prepare yourself, I think it looks a bit weird):

 Pre-threading, and post-threading^. In a weird way I feel like the pre-threading compliments my face more... even though it is a mess. Afterwards the brows look so different to me... I know they're supposed to be sisters, not twins but I don't know, hoped they would be more complementary to one another

 How it looks without filling in (it's bumpy near my brows and even on my Forehead... not sure if the threading aggravated my face or what, it's weird that there are bumps all the way up top, I think a couple could just be blemishes but some are caused by the threading)

How it measures up to the pictures I showed her:

1

 Before threading, after, and Hilary Duff's brow inspiration

 Before threading, after, and Katy Perry's brow inspiration

Me vs. Katy! Mine definitely look more similar to Hilary's then hers, but I don't think they're totally opposites. Hers are also, more delicate and more angled outwards. I love them so much...wish mine looked like that! This is why I just plucked the ends off, because it gave me the freedom to draw my brows that way. Obviously hers and Hilarys are extended with pencil and filled in, because they go out so far and you can't really even see the hairs there, which means it's drawn on skin. So I don't know... But I shouldn't go back to my old plucking habits! I don't think anyway. Should I? :x

Bottom Line: In terms of my experience at Himalayan Eyebrow Threading Salon, I'm not thrilled with how they look on their own. It did hurt but she was fairly gentle.  The cost of threading was $7 and I left a $1 tip. Not sure if most people tip, but I did! They also gave me a coupon to get $2 off any $10 service. The place is no muss, no fuss, no extras, but it gets the job done. I'm not really that happy.

Website: http://www.himalayansalon.com/

Update: I have sustained serious skin irritation from the threading... these bumps are really inflamed, and they hurt a lot :( I have to buy witch hazel to clean them, aloe vera to heal them, and anti-bacterial ointment because the inflammations means they could be infected.

Next Day Update: The bumps have gotten even worse. Now they're like angry red weals, completely covering in between my eyebrows and all over my forehead... I don't know why they do that. Why do they thread between your brows? It's not like I had a unibrow, I didn't even think I had hair there. I don't feel like they threaded as high up as the bumps go but I had my eyes close. It's either a horrible reaction because I have sensitive skin or it's an allergic reaction to something they used. I just spent the last twenty minutes crying over this because it hurts so much and it's painful and itchy and really really sensitive, and I look like a freak. I spent my whole day today with my head down and it feels so awful not to be able to even look around like a normal person. I bought witch hazel and aloe vera and neosporin and treated it like the websites say, and I'm seeing the dermatologist tomorrow. In a week I have a whole bunch of Senior events coming up and my Graduation Ceremony... I'm so scared it won't get better by then. It's really bad. :'(

I know I look pretty bad here but I'm feeling horrible at the moment and not exactly trying to focus on looking cute (as it's literally impossible). :(

I just wanted to warn everyone about the possible effects of threading, which you should be wary of especially if you have sensitive skin. Also I'm not sure if it's Himalayan's fault or what but I'm not going back there again. I don't think I'll ever thread my brows again, it just doesn't seem like something that's good for me.