NOTDs: China Glaze Bare If You Dare and OPI Flower-To-Flower, with subsequent FKAs (Failed Konad Attempts)

Hi.  Yes, I'm sorry, I know I said I wouldn't post any more fugleh konads, but I feel like I need to warn the world of what your nails will look like if you purchase a konad system and then, like me, proceed to go crazy with it and madly stamp over every single mani you do  :p  Which annoys me as well, because not only am I fooled into thinking what I just wasted an hour doing to my nails looks good enough to walk around sporting for a while (it does not, most of the time), but it makes me wear a polish colour for much longer than I intended to.  Which, when you have a stash of untrieds as vast as mine, is not the smartest idea.  Okay, enough venting.

Also, I've decided to end my stupid habit of massive spam posting, because frankly, it's annoying.  I'd find it annoying if I was a reader.  I'm going to break the spam into nice little bite-sized chunks of hors d'oeuvre.  Call them spamlets, if you will.  Also, I'm going to try to do them every day.  Because, I mean, I change my polish every day, so why not?  I just need to not be so lazy about posting and not get so distracted doing stuff  (like living my life? :p  I keed, I keed.)

So anyway, today I have for you two polishes I wore recently (well, last week sometime).  Both very spring-y, even though we're into summer now pretty much, but whatever.

This is China Glaze Bare If You Dare.  From the Fiji Fling collection (the one that also included Passion In The Pacific, Beauty and The Beach, etc.).  Outdoor light, no flash.  Cuz the flash on my camera is broken.  Cuz my camera sucks.

This is a medium cantaloupe-peach with gold shimmer.  A very warm-toned, orangey peach.  This is kind of similar to China Glaze Thataway, which is another medium peach with gold shimmer, but BIYD is slightly lighter.  I really liked this - I don't know why I felt in the mood to wear a peach shimmer, but this one is very glowy and warm.  The formula was a bit thin and watery, and the polish a bit sheer, like a lot of the Fiji Fling collection.  This was four thin coats.  I know that sounds like a lot, but they were very thin coats and I didn't need to wait at all for them to dry between coats.  And I was happy with the results.  or so I thought....

Here's the inevitable subsequent FKA.  Whenever I keep a polish on for more than a day lately, I've been compelled by this mad urge to try and "practice" my konad skills.  If I screw up, I'm going to take it off anyway, I rationalize.  But then, even if I do screw up, I look lovingly at my hideously ugly stamped-over nails like they're my own children or something and refuse to remove it for at least another few hours.  Ugh.  I don't even know why I take pictures of these, but I do, so I dunno, some of you might find them good for a laugh.  

Oh yes, and I used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Jumpin' Jade for the vines, a BundleMonster plate, and and Art Club nail art pen in Gold Glitter.  Insta-Dris work awesome for konad - I've yet to find one that didn't.  I went out and bought some of the new Insta-Dri pastels just to use for konading...along with a billion other thigs, as usual....  but that's in the next post.  As usual  :p

And this is OPI Flower-To-Flower, from the new Summer Flutter collection.  I wore this polish and liked it, so I photographed it, but I really don't have too many nice things to say about OPI right now.  I'm sure you all know of what they did to temptalia and the message their legal team sent out to bloggers who write about their products.  So I won't.  I will say three things though:  1.) This is a warm pink with very subtle silver shimmer.  2.) I did really like this.  3.) I wish I didn't  :(

And here's the FKA:

Lolololol!  How tacky is that? XD  But I think therein lies its awesomeness....  I threw a coat of Nfu-Oh 44 overtop (cuz I haz no HT :(  Soon.  Soooooon.....) and then stamped it with Color Club Where's The Soiree? ( a black that works awesome for konading, if you didn't already know.  I get better results with it than WnW Black Creme).  I used konad plate m57.  The result screams Barbie.  Well, it's kinda more Jem than Barbie.  Or tranny hooker.  Depending on your mindframe.

Alright, that's it for now - my friends want to go play frisbee golf :p  A post detailing more of my obnoxious hauling habits is soon to follow :)

Some Quick & Dirty Icing Swatches & Comparisons. Other Swatches Too. And Stuff.

I was bored one night and decided to see what the Icing colours I bought actually looked like on my nails, as well as how similar they were to the colours I thought they looked like.  Turns out I was pretty much right in almost all my predictions - the colours are unique in that they look like muted versions of things I already own.

Observe:

Starting off, we have Icing Casino Green.  All of these swatches are without b/c and t/c.  This was a little thick, but the horrible application is just my lack of skillz I think, not the polish's fault.  See?  Like I said - slightly more muted Rebel Debutante.  It's got a tad more blue in it too, I think.  This was 3 coats of Casino Green, 2 of RD. 

Next, Icing True Blue.  This was much more muted than what I thought was its closest dupe, CC Take Me to Your Chateau.  More greyed out, slightly sheerer, not nearly as stark.  I'd call it a true "powder blue".  I didn't have Joe Powder Blue at the time, but it looks closer to this than anything else - I'll have to compare them.  Application was a teeny bit sheer, but I only did two thin coats.  One or two more coats would have completely eliminated the VNL. 

Last, Icing Sunset.  Pretty orange creme with a bit of coral in it.  This is the one I was a bit off on.  It's much lighter and more orange than H&S, as you can see, and not as peach as TD.  It's like a soft orange, sort of.  This was the easiest to apply out of the three.  This is two coats.

Of course, as I said I was bored that night, so I did some more swatches.

This is a Sally Girl mini in Light Purple.  Sorry about the horrible lighting here, but other than my jaundiced hands (aaah!) this is pretty true to colour.  Most of these Sally Girls don't have names, so if you need a refresher:

It's the fourth one from the left.

This is unique among my many, many purples.  This looked like a lighter, more lilac version of Nina Ultra Pro Sweet Nothings.  It's pinker than OPI Do You Lilac It? and I thought it looked pretty good on me.  Application was great for a little mini with a little eeny weeny puny brush.  I love these Sally Girl polishes.  Next time you're in a Sally's, pick this colour up! It's a dollar!

Next, I swatched some of those super-sparkly foil Princessas I got:

This one is called Champagne Dust, and it's a beigy-leaning-rose gold foil.  Very bright and Minx-like.  I swatched a full mani of this, because it kind of reminded me of Swing Baby from the upcoming China Glaze Vintage Vixen collection.  Until I read that SB has multicoloured microglitter.  which this does not.  But it has beigey-gold microglitter!  It's very pretty.

And this is some more of them:

Tan Gerine (still not getting the name....) is a shimmery cornflower blue with pink and purple microglitter and multisized shimmer particles.  It's so gorgeous, and the flash is very noticeable.  It would probably look best layered over something, as it is a tad sheer.  The rest of these had the same foil finish as Champagne Dust and the previously showcased Everglade Sparkle.  I know no one's ever heard of these, so I'm gonna stop boring you going on and on about them, but California Sunshine is my fave. Colorado Rapid, which I thought would be, had a slightly less reflective and more frosty finish to it, which I didn't like as much.

Next, this is Savvy Red Caviar.  Gorgeous shimmery deep red jelly with red shimmer/glitter.  Very glowy.  Reminded me of these two OPIs immediately, and the colour is similar, but the finish is completely different.  RC has more glitter flecks in its jelly base, whereas the OPIs are straight-up shimmers.  I looooove glowy vampies like this!

Last but not least, I have two Sally Hansen Insta-Dris for you.  Insta-Dris never get any love.  Yes, the brush is a tad unwieldy, but it's not that bad.  And wow, are these opaque!

See?  I would deal with the stupid brush any day of the week for this gorgeousness!  This is Jumpin' Jade - a deep teal with forest green shimmer. This is two coats of Jumpin' Jade, but I could have done one and been just fine.  Not to mention these do dry pretty fast.  I'm guessing this would be awesome for konading.... (pot leaf BM plate anyone? hahaha)

And this is Uptempo Plum.  This is so pretty too.  A deep blackened plum with purple, red, blue and gold microglitter (which you can kinda see in the bottle here).  The glitter has that smooth, suspended quality, like in Savvy Red Caviar.  Gorgeous.  I'm gonna have to wear this one on its own very soon, but like I said I was bored that night, so I decided to try some glitter topcoats overtop:

Ignore my smudging of the index and pinky fingers.  I think I like Fairy Dust the best.  Although I love them all.  Shiny things......

Okay, I'm going to cut myself off right here.  I have some more swatches and comparisons to post, but they can wait for now.  I have a billion swaps going at once right now (again!  I know I said I was gonna cut back on swapping, but there's so many things I want and can't get!  HT!  Damone Roberts!  Zoya's LIPPY sale!  Not to mention I managed to swap for some RBLs, which I'm SUPER-excited about!!  I can't wait for them to get here!  Screw it, I'm swapping all I want!) and I'm expecting my Zoyas from the exchange soon too!  Yay!  So lots of stuff to post soon!  :)

I'll be back later with more sub-par swatchery  :p

Konad Attempts: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Mainly the Latter Two.

I warned you this was coming.  If you don't want to see ugliness and horror, look away. 

Don't say I didn't warn you.

So let me say again, I really love konad.  It's really fun - it gives you a lot more freedom to be creative than just nail polish on its own, and is easier to get neat-looking results with than nail art pens.

That being said, while its not the most impossible thing on earth to use, it comes close.  It's a bit dificult to get the full-nail designs on properly and without smudging.  It is for me, anyway.  I even consider myself somewhat artistic, and I originally got this set from someone who became frustrated with it and decided not to bother with it at all anymore, thinking that surely I'd have better luck than she did.  Well.... let's just say that I am still getting used to it.

I refuse to give up.  I refuse.  Gorgeous breathtaking detailed konadicures will be MINE.  I swear.  So from now on, anytime I can get a decent pic of a half-decent konad I did, expect to see it with much fanfare :p  After this post, that is.

Oh, and did I mention my BundleMonster plates came in today?  :D :D  How fast was that?!  I didn't get a pic of them, because I know you've all seen them by now, but between my ocnailart order and these, I think I'm set for plates for a while :).  And yes, I heard about the BM plates after I had already placed my ocnailart order.  I'm slow  :p

So here are some of my past FKAs (Failed Konad Attempts):

I think this is one of the first ones I ever attempted.  This is a base of Orly Glitz, with China Glaze Unplugged for the spots, using plate m57.  It was messy-looking, it would have looked MUCH better with a darker, creme brown, and I had to double-stamp some nails, which was clearly a bad idea.  It looked cute enough for my boyfriend to notice, though, so I would classfiy this as simply BAD.  One I must retry.

This one I actually liked.  This is a base of Sally Hansen CSM Thinking Of Blue, stamped with China Glaze Cherish and Emotion.  I used a Fauxnad plate - don't recall which one.  I said before this reminded me of cloisonne.  I thought it came out pretty, epsecially since I was just playing around.  This is the sole GOOD for me.

Alright, here's one of the reasons I felt the need to warn you.  This is just fugly beyond belief.  All of these are perfectly nice polishes on their own, but I piled them all together into this hideous combination.  Plus there's a massive chip on my thumb.  Man, I suck.  This is Essence Pool Party, topped with Pure Ice Heartbreaker on the middle nail and CND Raspberry Sparkle on the ring.  I then stamped on Fauxnad flowers with China Glaze Metallic Muse, and got through two vines stamped with Orly Glitz before I discovered that a.) Glitz is not the best stamping polish, and b.) it looked horrible.  This mani is just a giant mess.  It gets a big heaping UGLY from me, with a hefty side of FAIL.

Remember I told you I effed up Orly Cotton Candy with a tacky konad?  Feast your eyes  :p  Sorry for these pics, too - I was never going to post these, but I figure I've put enough warnings on this post that I don'thave to feel bad.  And I'm also aware the polish looks two different colours in these pics.  Thank my crappy camera and try to ignore it  :p  I used another Fauxnad plate (I get these at the beauty supply place, btw) and an old L'Oreal Steel Colour in French Tip White for the flowers.  This is the best white polish for stamping, I find - whites that are intended for french mani tips.  But I just got Konad's White polish, so I'll have to compare.  And I used an Art Club pen in yellow for the dots, which I clearly suck at.  I wanted this to look cute, but it just looked oh so tacky.  Verdict: UGLY!

And last, and perhaps least, this is what I have on my nails at this very moment.  Why I've left it on so long, I do not know.  Probably because I've been busy and I've been able to get away with it.  This is OPI What's With The Cattitude, with Sally Hansen CSM Thinking Of Blue (yes, again) stamped overtop with the argyle pattern from plate m60. The sad thing is, I would have liked this if I didn't SUCK at konad so bad and could actually do it neatly.  I could not, for the life of me, get the argyle pattern to go on straight, especially on my thumbs, and I smudged the polish while transferring it on almost all my nails.  It was so bloody frustrating.  I'll have to try again, with different polishes, because I really like this pattern.  Verdict: BAD!  But how cute would this look with a baby pink or pale yellow base, and the pattern stamped in ChG Recycle?  I just love pastels and greys together...

Okay, that's it.  You've suffered enough.  I promise I'll do my best to only bring you nice konads from now on  :p  If I collect enough material for another konad FAIL post, I'll consider swapping it away  :p

In other news, like I mentioned, I got my BM plates  :)  Man, they have some cute patterns.  I can't wait to start playing with mine  :D  Also, I saw some new Nicoles the other day at SDM.  I passed at the time because Nicoles are a ripoff, and none of the shades seemeds that unique, but there were three (Nail Ya Azalea, A New Kind Of Blue and Traffic Cone) that sort of caught my eye.  I saw bottle pics on some blog, but I've yet to see swatches...

Also, in depressing news:

1. I have a feeling Canadians might never see Hidden Treasure.
2. I'm scared we might not even see the new Sally Hansen HDs (DVD, Byte, etc.)
3. Sinfuls seem to have the same CRAP selection at all London Drugs' stores.  I've been to three now and they have the same ones at all of them.  And I visibly cringe whenever I see the $5.99 - Low Price Everyday! sticker displayed beneath them  :(  I want Bali Mist (the only one I don't already own that looks even half-interesting) but paying that much for them makes me feel like such a fool when there are things like Cherryculture in the universe...

On the other, not-as-depressing hand, I found some polishes that are "Twilight" brand...?  That's what they said on the bottle, and they had some weird metal disc on the side of the bottle.  It looked really cool.  Still, I've never seen Twilight, and although the first book was given to me when they very first came out and came highy recommended, I was only able to get through about a chapter and a half of it before gagging and gifting it to my boyfriend's 12-year-old niece.  So I have no idea if these have anything to do with the movie, nor do I particularly care.  There were a couple that looked interesting, a pink with gold shimmer, a shimmery beige, an opaque-looking baby pink creme, and a blackened-blue shimmer... but my boyfriend was doing the huffy slouch dance, and I didn't have time to look at the price before I was ushered out of London Drugs  :p  I'm already planning when I can sneak back to the mall by myself and pick them up, muahahaha....

I find myself getting bored with the existing polish supply in this city.  I SO wish drugstores in Canada got collections in at the same rate as the US, and I SO wish we had Dollar Tree here  :( 

Anyway, I sound so mopey.  Time to go play with my BM plates and cheer myself up!

I'll try to swatch some of the new Icing polishes for you next... I haven't seen those on any blogs yet.  Also, I want to swatch my Princessas!  :)  In the meantime, what new polishes has everyone got lately that they're really excited about?  I need inspiration!

Spamalot: Some Revlons, OPI Cattitude, a random Princessa... and my ocnailart order!

So, as you know, I like to backlog my NOTDs and then bombard you all with them.  Well, no, actually I don't, but that's what always seems to happen.  So here's some!  Yay!  :p

Ideally, I wanted to group these together into themes and post them as a group.... like all the smelly Revlons together as one post... or all the Shreks as one post.... y'know, like the competent bloggers do?  :p  So they're actually easy to find?  But life isn't always ideal....  Besides, doing things "properly" is for conformists and squares.  Or I'm just lazy.  whatever.  Here we go!

First off, this is *sigh* OPI DS Glamour.  I got this in a swap from a lovely MUA member.  I probably would have had to pay out the a$$ for it on ebay had it not been for her.  This is such a gorgeous sparkly deep blue holo - I found it really hard to get a decent pic of it since the flash on my camera is broken :(

China Glaze Up All Night.  This is actually a deep blue shimmer, although it kinda looks creme-ish here.  You can tell if you enlarge the first pic.  This took two coats to be opaque.  It's lovely :)

Nfu-Oh 51.  Sorry for the blurriness.  This polish is rainbowy flakies in a purple jelly base.  I think enough has been said about it by now  :)  I may even have already posted this.  if so, sorry.  I think this is seriously one of my top three favorite polishes.  It's just so rainbowy :)  I must get my sister one of these.

Orly Cotton Candy.  This is a peachy baby pink creme.  It reminds me of piglets  :D  I loved this when I wore it - so happy and springy.  Looks fantastic with a grey shirt.  But of course, I had to go and ruin it with a tacky konad, which I will show you in my next post  :p

This is LA Girl Dance Studio with Pure Ice Heartbreaker layered overtop.  Ignore my pinkie - I had to ruin it by putting Sinful Nail Junky on as well, and it just looked like too much.  It looked much better with just the Heartbreaker overtop.  A green-shimmer-adder :)

This is Revlon Ocean Breeze, from the new Scented collection.  Ignore the failed konad attempt on the first two fingers - the remover didn't take it all off  >:p  This is a shimmery blue-green aqua.  And good thing it doesn't smell like an actual ocean breeze - I don't know what your ocean smells like, but 'round here it smells like, well, fish :p  What it does smell kind of like is cheap cologne - like an old Revlon Cherish perfume or something.  But it still smells okay, and far better than nail polish!  Plus, I like this colour on me far better than I thought I would.

This is Gumdrop, from the same collection.  An opaque lilac creme, similar to OPI Rumple's Wiggin'.  Oooh, I like the way this one smells the best :)  It just smells sweet, like candy.  I kind of think it smells like Pez.  Sid likes it too, as you can see  :)  I love these pale lavender colours, but I'm not so sure they flatter me... 

This is Beach, also from the same collection.  This is a shimmery yellowy green, similar to Nicole's Make Mine Lime.  And this one smells kind of weird.  Once again, a misleading moniker.  It certainly doesn't smell like the beach.  Which is good, I guess, because I suppose you don't want it to smell like Banana Boat and greasy hot dogs....  Once again, it smells better than nail polish, but weird.  Kind of like air freshener or dryer sheets or something.  But okay, I guess.  I thought the colour was pretty gross on me though, and I liked the smell of the other two better.

This is a Princessa polish, Everglade Sparkle.  It's a green-gold foil, and it's sooo shiny and sparkly!  These Princessa polishes are all super-dense and saturated.  I'm giving this one away in a swap - I'm gonna have to go buy a replacement, stat!  How sweet would this look on mah toes? :)  I'm going to swatch some more of these soon :)  I want to try out Colorado Rapid and New Eve At Vegas.

Last but certainly not least, OPI What's With The Cattitude?  This is a pretty sky-blue creme.  Dupey to others - CC Blue Light and ChG Bahamian Escape come to mind.  But I still love it - it's blue, and pretty.  This was a PITA to apply, however - you can still see some bare spots on my nails, and this is three coats.  It was pretty streak-tacular.  I think I like this colour so much partially because of the name - Sid's eyes are a similar colour to this polish, and he's definitely full of Cattitude:

  See?  "Why you takin a picture?  You got a problem with me biting your foot?"

Hehe...  Oh!  Look what came in the mail yesterday!

It's my konad order from ocnailart!  Squeeee!  I was missing a plate (m73.  the cloud one.  the one I wanted most, of course) but Kathleen assured me she'd send it right away.  Such a nice lady :)  I got Konad polish in White and Yellow, Princess Polish in Blue, and plates m60, m69, m70, m63, m64, and m78, as well as the missing one.  I don't know if that's the order they're in in the above pic here, so once again, sorry  :p 

I love konad, I love the concept of it and how it looks when it's done nicely, but here's the reality: I suck at it.  I suck so badly at konad.  And it's so tragic, because I really like it and want to be good at it.  And I'm going to keep trying, no matter how many trips down the river on the FAILboat it's gonna take  :p  So my next post will be a small collection of my konad attempts, the good, the bad and the ugly.  In fact, that's my title right there  :p

Alright, I'm off to go figure out what my next mani shall be... I'm really into spring colours, like pastel cremes lately.  Oh, and I have Essie Funky Limelight on my toes right now, and it is teh awesome!  Feet = gross, but I'll have to stomach it and take a pic when I can, cuz it looks really cute as a pedi colour and awesome in the sunlight!

Okay that's it for now.  til later!  xo