Review: Soludos

For such a long time I lusted over the Chanel espadrilles and I still do. I wanted a cheaper alternative and somehow I arrived at a brand called Soludos. When I first bought this pair I had never heard of the brand; I thought they were a small company that sold some shoes. But recently, in these past weeks I have seen so many other bloggers talk about Soludos. I was really excited because I bought them for only $20, on sale at Nordstrom. Now even the solid color pairs are more expensive (Also, I was pretty happy thinking I was hipster; having the shoes before other people even discovered them)

To start, if you are looking for durable shoes refrain from buying these. When I first saw them I knew these weren't lasting shoes so it wasn't really a disappointment; I was kind of waiting for them to break. As you can see from the photo above, I've started breaking through the toe area. And if you look at some of the pictures below you can see the fabric start to break away from the base (not sure if that's what it's called). Oh, I guess I failed to capture it, but in some places there are some loose threads. So as far as durability goes, it fails the test, but like I was saying, I expected this. (If you were wondering, I've had these shoes for a couple months now)

Now the reason I bought these shoes was because I was looking to buy some sort of closed toe casual shoe. I had seen espadrilles were gaining some popularity and decided to take the plunge. And as far as how they look, they are average. They definitely don't look super expensive, but they're okay.

Overall my opinion about these shoes are not the greatest. With the money, I would rather buy a cute pair of sandals. And, as far as if I would buy them again: no. If you have the money to spare and want to try out the espadrille style, feel free to buy them. They do come in cute patterns for spring/summer, so I'll give them that.

 

Dove Advanced Hair Series Oxygen Moisture Shampoo & Conditioner

Every time I run out of shampoo and conditioner, I go to the drugstore to find something new. I'm not faithful to any one product or brand because I find that most of them work in the same way.

 

However, this set has redefined the way I look at shampoo and conditioner. In the shower I didn't notice anything spectacular about either product. It was only after drying my hair did I find out how amazing these two products are.

 

I dried my hair and it was super soft. My hair had a weightless feel to it. (mind you that I have a lot of hair, and I always feel its weight) My hair was a little frizzy, but it always is after blow drying.

 

My favorite thing about the set is difficult to explain, but I'll try. I usually take showers at night, blow dry my hair on medium heat, use the cool shot to set my hair, and go to sleep. In the mornings, I always find that my hair has some texture in it; the bad looking texture that looks like extremely limp curls with a big crease near my shoulder. I believe the culprit is my pillow; I think my hair molds to the pillow and curls around it. 

Now, my natural hair is straight, so I hate it when I wake up and it is not that. The very first day after using the shampoo and conditioner, I found that my hair was, in fact, straighter in the morning. I hadn't done anything differently so I knew it was the shampoo and conditioner. But like any good experimenter, you can draw conclusion with one trial. I've been testing this shampoo and conditioner for about a month and my conclusion is that it does leave my hair straighter than usual with other brands. However, that first trial was the only time I was absolutely shocked. The times afterward, my hair was straight but not as straight as the first time.

 

Another conclusion is that I won't use the shampoo and conditioner every day. I don't know; I just found that they didn't work as effectively when you use it every day. (maybe try every other day or once a week)

 

At such an affordable price, I recommend you try these two products out. I believe on their site they are offering $1 off. Also, they have another set in the Advanced Hair Series: Pure Care Dry Oil. I can't wait to try out that line, especially because Dove says it has Macadamia Oil in it. As opposed to the Oxygen Moisture line, which gives your hair volume, the Pure Care Dry Oil line claims to make your hair silky and smooth without weighing the hair down. 



Pastels

With Easter approaching, I decided to pick out some of my favorite pastel polishes. In case you were wondering, the colors are:

Green: Essie Turquoise and Caicos

Lavender: Essie Lilacism

Pink: Revlon Temptress

I was apprehensive about showing this but I thought it might be helpful. I wanted to do something different, so I tried doing some stripes. If you've seen my past blog posts you know I love using tape to make a lot of designs. Well I used thin strips of tape and only one nail came out looking decent. As far as the others, the tape got stuck and broke. The problem was not the time it took because I tried all different times. I think the problem lies in the base color. The one that came out looking decent was with Revlon's Temptress as a base. The other ones with the Essie colors as a base didn't turn out well. This isn't a post to bash the Essie polishes but for the purpose of layering, I don't this these two polishes are good. Lesson to be learned: try out different polishes; consistencies of multiple brands are different. (It's all about trial and error right?)

Oh and here's the result of my attempt with stripes (on my right hand)

As you can see the only nail that came out looking decent is the pink+purple nail. The green+pink nail is okay but not up to my standards. And the purple+green nails are really bad; the tape just broke.

**Also this is my right hand so it is more messy considering I am right handed. These pictures were taken the same day I applied the nail polish. I usually clean up the edges in the shower because the hot water makes the nail polish on the skin remove easily.