ready, set, go!!

It's that time of year again, fellow polish*haulics! It's August 2nd, which means the start of Allure magazine's famous annual August giveaways! Woo hoo! *does the happy dance in her chair!* :D

What's that you say? You've never heard of it before now? Get thee here for the goodies!  Meanwhile, I'll explain...

Starting at noon E.S.T. on the first weekday in August (today, peeps!) there are tons of loot up for grabs to those quick & lucky enough to grab them. Then until 5 or 6 PM, each hour on the hour a specified number of that hour's product are given away. The catch is filling out the form & getting it submitted as fast as humanly possible. A Secret Weapon!
So the 1 PM one starts exactly at 1 PM & prizes are often gone in 30 seconds or less depending on the amount being given away & the desireability of the prize. (i.e. The 30 bottles of designer parfum are near impossible to get while the 500 cans of Herbal Essence hairspray are more obtainable.) The kicker...you won't know what you've won until it shows up on your doorstep! Sound like fun to you? It is!!!


{Long story to follow...sorry! ;) }


You could say that the Allure August Freestuff Giveaway is responsible for tipping my like of polish to love of polish and by way of that, introducing me to the world of nail polish blogs. 
You see, I've always had fun with painting my nails but tended to stick to putting it on my toes because it chipped off my fingers before I knew it & on my toes it would stay forever! I felt like I was wasting my time on my hands. 
Then...last August, Orly was giving away a bunch of Enchanted Forest & being a lover of all things green, I knew I had to have it! Unfortunately, I got the days mixed up and forgot to be in front of my computer to try to grab one. I posted in my favorite freebie forum to see where I could buy it, and someone mentioned it was like OPI's Here Today...Aragon Tomorrow. Not being familiar with the brands, I got the OPI & Orly greens confused in my head while out shopping. I bought the OPI at Trade Secret thinking it looked a lot darker than I remembered. It was almost black, not the pretty forest green I remembered and it cost $8!(the most I'd ever paid for polish), not the $6 I thought it would be. I went home dejected & went online to find out why. Enter Google, Ebay, and my introduction to the nail polish blogosphere. And that, as they say, was that!
If you're still here, thanks for listening to my rambling story & I hope that you enjoy the Allure giveaway as much as I do. 
Good luck to you all!