today's nails: china glaze for audrey.

clearly i am longing either for spring or for a tiffany's box...

{ bought this @ sally beauty supply // $6 }

i'm my own valentine this year -- and look what a good one i am, letting myself buy two new essie polishes on the way home from work! :)

on the left we've got lapis of luxury, a really pretty wedgwood-blue color; on the right, a crewed interest, an almost perfect peach. just looking at them makes me feel like spring!

(erm, i may have also been a really good valentine and let myself take advantage of the butter london sale today: get a "snog" lacquer free with a $40 purchase. it's on the way to my house with "victoriana" and "tea with the queen." put snog in your cart, use the code "XOXO" at checkout. yay!)

(eta: and i maybe also was a really, really good valentine and got a free red polish from zoya -- you can get this deal with any purchase; i spent $4 on a little 2 oz. polish remover and got the polish free!)

{ bought these @ walgreens // $8 each }

got a package from lush in the mail on friday with various goodies, including the rub rub rub shower scrub.

this is seriously my new favorite thing. i can't even explain the consistency, but it's just so much fun to use, and it actually gets off quite a bit of dead skin in the shower.

thumbs up from me! and it smells like super fresh and amazing -- yessss.

{ bought this @ lush online // $20 }

i had really high hopes for this month's birchbox -- january's box was great, and birchbox had been retweeting people's excitement over getting a beauty blender this month.

but, alas, i think my box was my least favorite so far, and i've been a subscriber for over a year.

no beauty blender -- instead, i got two makeup remover wipes (eh), a teensy-tiny face cream sample (eh), a pre-powdered "travel puff" (eh), and stick-on eyeliner strips (serious eh). not interested in the products, and not great value for the 10 bucks this time. (the music downloads/nail file didn't thrill me either -- have seen that band live/have nail files.)

a truly mediocre showing, especially when others got beauty blenders and jouer tinted moisturizer samples. if i didn't have a year-long subscription already, this might have been my last box. get it together next month, birchbox! :(

{ bought from birchbox // $10 a month }

today's nails: butter london wallis.

a glittery golden olive green that makes me think of old hollywood, the emerald city, and, of course, the duchess of windsor.

{ bought this @ ebay // $14 }

the gorgeous hardback editions of the penguin classics series are my newest collectibles. here's pride and prejudice -- you can't go wrong with austen!

these are all over the place, and although i got this one as a gift, i know it came from tj maxx.

be on the lookout in the book section next time you're there if you like these!

{ received as a gift }

i know it's kind of cliché by this point, but my biggest style inspiration of the year has been the duchess of cambridge.

her conservative-yet-chic outfits are totally the kind i'd like to rock, and i love that they don't cost megabucks.

i mean, how gorgeous is this grey herringbone coatdress? and the hair!

{ photo by dan kitwood/getty images }