The Drugstore That Time Forgot.... Plus A Couple Swatches

Sorry, I'm not having a lot of time to post lately - my bf's cousin is in town and staying with us for a week.  She expects to be entertained.  So I'm having to go out and actually do stuff instead of hauling and blogging and sitting on my ass inhaling polish fumes.  Tough life.

So this morning I was killing time waiting for my boyfriend to come out of the Medi-Clinic (he hurt his knee while we were on this BRUTAL hike yesterday.... yes, I actually exercised :p  I know, I know - pics or it didn't happen.  See the end of this post :)  Oh, oh, wait, before I say anything else, I want to mention that I wore Del Sol Rock Star on this hike, and had the direct, scorching hot sun on the damn stuff all freaking day and - nothing.  It didn't change colour.  I was so disappointed, since Ruby Slippers had worked so awesomely :( I SO wanted it to turn that gorgeous aqua green colour that I've seen in pics, but nope - nothing! And then it chipped badly while I was hiking :( So I just got pissed off and took it all off without taking a pic. Which I really should have done to prove that it didn't change at all :p Oh well - I'll probably give it another chance, and I'll show you then. But I mean, I'm not really surprised - Scrangie took down her reviews of Del Sol because a lot of people got "defective" bottles that don't change colour, but the company was hard to deal with when these people wanted refunds or replacements. Oh well. Lesson learned - not all Del Sol polishes are made equal. Buyer beware.

Anyway, where was I... oh yes, I was waiting for the boyfriend to get his knee looked at when I suddenly noticed/remembered that the Dr.'s Office that I have been going to since I was an infant has a drugstore just a few doors down from it.  An ancient, ancient drugstore that had been there since before I was born and I haven't been in since I was about five, when my mom would occasionally bring me in for a fifty-cent can of Coke after my Dr.'s appointments.  It's like, how can I not have gone in here by now?  Especially with the frequency of my doctor's visits  =/

Anyway, I'm building up to nothing here.  I went in, looked around - they didn't have much.  I did manage to find a couple of things, though...

L-R: Old SH Xtreme Wears in Midnight Navy and Down Pour Blue, Old SH Hard As Nails in Radish and Beet Red, and Wet N Wild Shameless and Wild Orchid.  The good part was everything was either a dollar or a dollar-fifty.  They had all been marked down multiple times.  But still, for how old and decrepit this place was, I was kind of expecting their entire store inventory from 1995 or something.

Close up of Xtreme Wears.  They look identical but are slightly different.  Down Pour Blue, on the right, is slightly darker than Midnight Navy, as you can see.  I have a couple of older Xtreme Wears with the white cap like this (Lemonhead, Marine Scene and one other one...)  Why'd they change the colour of the cap three times?  First they were white like this, then silver, now they're black...?  Anyway, they'll both likely end up as frankens :)  I'm thinking I'll add some clear to thin them into jellies, and add silver and dark blue glitter.... yes, I'm always searching for that perfect SSN/CDN franken, lol.  If anyone has a really good recipe, please share it with me.  Please?

Close up of Radish and Beet Red.  Now that I know these old Hard As Nails polishes are being discontinued (as are all SHs except the current Xtreme Wears, CSMs and Insta-Dris, so I'm told) I have a soft spot for them.  I kind of like vintage polishes in general, and vintage SHs are some of the best.  Some of these old bottles don't fit in my Helmer drawers though - they're too tall.  So they spend their whole lives lying on their backs.  Whores.

Close up of Wet N Wilds.  I've wanted Wild Orchid for a while now, but could never find it - weird that I found it in this ancient drugstore.  And Shameless looked interesting - pale blue with a purple flash.  It's not really showing up here, but it has a purple shimmer.  And it had a "New" sticker on the cap.  I've never seen this shade in any stores around here either (I thought it was Rain Check at first), but I'm guessing it's probably not "new" :p

Anyway, moving right along, I have some random polishes from the past couple of days to show you as well.

First, I'd like to introduce you to a dear, dear old friend of mine - Hard Candy Sky  :)

Isn't she gorgeous?  She has a secret shimmer, but it doesn't really show up on the nail....

Please ignore the stupid effing flipped picture  >:(  Application was pretty awesome - thin yet opaque formula, nice-sized brush for a mini polish, dried pretty fast....  This was the first one in my Hard Candy set I reached for.  I wanted to save it for a post about the set, but I just had to wear it.  I love this polish.  It has such a soft spot in my heart.  I owned a bottle in 1996, and almost went through the entire thing.  I loved Hard Candy back in the day.  What I would do to get my hands on another full-size bottle of this... I stalk ebay, but never see it...

Ah yes, I wanted to mention this, as well - whenever I'm outside taking NOTD pics, my jealous, mouthy and possibly mentally disturbed cat is doing THIS on my window screen:

"MWOOOOW!  MOWOOOOOOOOW!!  MROOOOOOOOOOOORRRW! MWOWWWW!!"  Scratch, scrape, claw. 

My poor screens  :(  But really, he's an indoor cat - it's not like I can keep him off the windowsills.  I just don't want him to claw giant holes in my screen so that bugs fly in and I have to buy new ones  :p  So, I appease him by showing him what I'm doing, like this:

Sid loves nail polish, as we all know.  The sight of the bottle calms him  :)  Yes, that's what I'm telling myself.  So don't be surprised if you see pics like this every now and then.

Next, this is Lippmann Ruby Red Slippers.  It's pretty, but I didn't love it as much as I thought I would. 

I don't know why.  Maybe I'm just not into the whole Lippmann "deconstructed" look or whatever the hell....  Maybe I don't like the "sequins" she's so fond of.  Maybe I just prefer my China Glaze Ruby Pumps.  I don't know.

I mean, I still like it.  It still is pretty.  I bet it would look good on my toes.  I wonder what it would look like either underneath or overtop of Ruby Pumps.... hmmm....

STOP CLIMBING UP MY SCREEN YOU FREAKING PSYCHOPATH CAT!!!!

And last, my current NOTD: Nox Twilight Poseidon.

This is a very, very pretty blue - along the same lines as SH Xtreme Wear Blue Me Away! but lighter.  It's greener than OPI No Room For The Blues, and slightly lighter than LA Girls Disco Brites Funkadelic.  The closest polish I have to it is H&M U Must Have This, which is maybe a teeny tiny tinge greener... barely, though.  I really should have done a comp pic - sorry.   My stash is organized by brand, though, not colour, so I didn't really go through it all - just pulled out the ones I thought were closest off the top of my head.  I suspect I probably have a couple of other dupes as well, though - this seems highly dupe-able....

Sadly, for such an expensive, dupeable polish, the application was crap.  Thick, draggy, streaky, bubbly.... ugh.  It's a fairly opaque polish, but's it's so thick.  Needs thinner.  Badly.  And I hate polishes that need to be thinned on the first use  :(  And did I mention these were expensive?  London Drugs' regular price for these is $9.99  >:(  The couple of shimmer Nox Twilight polishes I have (the navy blue, the reddish purple and the rose-gold metallic - I don't remember the names.  they all have stupid, generic names) all apply quite nicely, but I'm wary of the couple of cremes I have now (this, the bright neon pink and the pale ballet pink).  I might see if I can return them.  I can't believe I spent so much money on this stupid collection.  I bought most of them on sale for three to five dollars each, but still - I've never even seen the movie  :p  But yeah, if you like this polish, I'd say try to get your hands on H&M U Must Have This instead - the application is much better.

And I'll leave you with a picture of what I was rewarded with at the end of our long, brutal hike yesterday:

Pwetty :)  Go to Vancouver, drive up the Sea-To-Sky highway and hike up the Stawamus Chief to the third peak.  Great assessment of your own fortitude :)

Wanna quickly hear what my week's like?  Today we're going to the beach.  Tomorrow I'm taking the bf's cousin shopping (ugh, but whatever - she'll have to put up with my polish stops, hehe), and tomorrow night we have to go to see the fireworks again ( doesn't sound like a big deal, but literally about half a million people show up to watch these things :p).  Thursday we're packing and leaving for my friend's cabin four hours away, and then I'm gone till Monday.  I'm so taking polish.  I just haven't decided which ones yet  :D  But yeah, busy week.  I'm going to want to shoot myself by the time I'm packing for the cabin.

I'll try to post, I really really promise I will.  Try, that is.

NOTD: China Glaze Orange-Pacific

Good morning. Well, it's morning to me....

Today, I have China Glaze Orange-Pacific to show you, from the Surf 2007 collection. First of all, I'd just like to say the name kind of bothers me. Orange Pacific? How does the Pacific Ocean in any way evoke thoughts of orange? And what's with the hyphenation? I know it's probably just to go along with the rest of their collection's names (Blk-Bila-Bong, White-Kwik-Silvr, etc.... which are dumb names as well.  The spelling? I know, I judge the names so harshly, don't I? Makeup in general - but especially polish - always has the most ridiculous names. If you want more proof, read this blog :) but I still think it kind of makes most people go, "Huh?" Then again, most people don't even read the names. You ask an average person what the name of the polish they're wearing is, or even the brand, nine times outta ten they have no clue... okay, I'm starting to rant again.

Anywho, I'll forgive China Glaze for the name, because this is bright shimmery juicy orange goodness!

Orange-Pacific is a very bright orange packed full of smooth gold, red and orange microglitter, giving it that shiny foil-like glass-fleck finish that the rest of the collection has. It's so very bright and shimmery - it has that "glowy" quality to it.

I love it. Orange Marmalade from the Summer Days collection is similar, but much lighter and the microglitter/ glass-fleck doesn't have the same density. This one has a lot more gold in it, from what I can see. The finish is pretty much the same, though, so if you can't find Orange-Pacific anymore (this collection is older - all of mine have older labels on the bottom) you might try Orange Marmalade for a lighter version.

Perhaps because of the old, toxic formula, the application on this was a dream - thin, yet extremely pigmented. Two coats would have been all I needed, but I'm a habitual three-coater. And the wear has been pretty good, although I've only had it on 24 hours - I dented my thumb a tiny bit when it was drying, and there's some very minor tipwear, but all in all, no complaints here :)

Okay, that's all for right now. I realize I still have all that stuff to show you, but I have yet to take pics of it, so..... I suck :p And I've been going out and doing summer stuff as much as I possibly can, so it's eating even more into my blogging time. I'm trying not to be a frail, pallid nerd sitting in front of my computer all summer :p I'm probably not fooling anyone, though. Did I mention how much I suck at frisbee golf? :p

Hope you guys are enjoying the summer too! When you're out doing stuff, having a bright, happy, summery colour on your nails just makes it all the more fun, now don't it? :)

EDIT THREE DAYS LATER: Someone on the NB much smarter than I informed me that Orange-Pacific is supposed to be a play on Ocean Pacific.  You know, OP, the surf brand?  Like all the other names?  Duh.  And it dawned on me soon afterwards that maybe the misspelling is to avoid legal action from the actual surf companies since they obviously didn't have a deal directly with them while making this collection.  I still don't get the hyphenation, though  :p

NOTD: Nubar Gem

Hi all! Did you have a good weekend? Mine was.... okay. My no-buy is going rather well so far - :D yay me! :D - but I'm getting paid on Wednesday, which means I'm going to have to pick up the Vintage Vixen colours I want (the entire second set, plus Ingrid). I'm really chomping at the bit for the Orly Cosmix collection as well as the ChG Awakening one for Halloween. I need all of those Orlys :p Oh, and that MAC Venomous Villains collection, as well! Not only am I a sucker for Disney-themed nail polishes (yes, I know, Disney is evil, but dammit I love those movies :p), but they sound so, so awesome from the promo descriptions....

Anyway, this is what I had on my nails all weekend - Nubar Gem. I just recently acquired some Nubars in a swap :) so this brand is fairly new to me. I had it on aaaaallllll weeekend, so please excuse the chips. The wear was actually pretty good considering I was doing stuff with my hands - cooking, digging through things, ripping things open, splashing around in water... major tipwear, but that's because my nails are so short that I have a really hard time wrapping my tips, so I just skip it... This pictures really are quite hideous, but I wanted to tell you about this polish, cuz it really is so pretty...

The base for this holo glitter is sort of a beige-pink duochrome. The glitter is very dense and has a very pronounced prismatic effect. Making this polish a holo. I luuuuuuurve me some holo.

Yeah, I love this polish. It's definitely a winner. Usually I'm not the hugest fan of neutral coloured polishes, and at first I thought this would just be another beige holo like ChG FYI, but the duochrome base and the density of the holo glitter make it very unique. I also received Spark in the swap, and that's more like FYI - the glitter is not the same. They got the glitter just perfect in these Prism polishes -had they decided to put this glitter in a charcoal-coloured base, we would have easily had an original MPJ dupe. I want the rest of these Nubar Prisms - I have only Gem and Jewel. And I need the Sparkle collection. And the duochromes. Man, how did I not own any Nubars before?!

I'll be back later with my "My New Favorite Things" post.  Things of course all being polishes  :p

Some More Spam

Hiya.  No, I'm not dead.  I know I've not been posting much, and I'm sorry.  Does anyone really mind though?  Probably just me.  I like writing these posts more than you all like reading them  :p

I posted this earlier on the NB (well, I cut out a lot of it), so if you frequent it, you might have seen most of this already.  Also, I have to warn you - this post contains feet.  You all know how I feel about feet, but I really like this pedi and I've gotten tons of compliments on it, so I feel I have to show you. If that's something that's going to really bother you and give you nightmares, look away now! :p

So here's some of my most recent manis.  Sorry for the general lack of quality, ragged cutes, etc.

Essie Pretty Edgy. I had to nubbinize my tips for work (wasn't happy about it at first, but I kind of like they way they look now...)  Sorry about the dry cuticles.  Also, this pic isn't very colour-accurate.  It looks dusty here, like OPI Jade Is The New Black, but it's actually much lighter and brighter.

Sorry for the HORRIBLE pic. This is Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure overtop of NYC Little Italy, which is a nice, opaque, non-streaky white.  And cheap :)  HT looks great over white - just like an opal.  I was straining and contorting at all different angles to try and capture the different colours reflecting off of it - it would only really show up on camera in low light...

Ulta For Bitten, from the Glam Goth collection. Sorry for the chips - this is how well it held up through a punk/metal concert. Not too bad :)  I love this whole entire collection, but this one is my fave, I think.  I'd say Tainted Love was, but I have Project Runway already so it wasn't anything too special to me.... but I'm so glad they made a dupe that isn't super-exclusive and htf  :p

For Bitten topped with Chanel Illusion D'Or.  Was trying to disguise the chips.  Didn't work.  Blogger is flipping my photos, and I don't know why, and I can't do anything about it  =/  I just spent five minutes trying to fix it, and I can't.  grrr.  You have no idea how much it's bothering me.

Okay, it's time.....

Foot warning! Foot warning! Foot warning!

My current pedi. Basically I just went nuts with some nail art pens. And apparently no one actually paints their own toes 'round here. Everyone asks me where I got it done, and when I say I did it myself, I hear "Oh, it must be nice to have so much time on your hands!" xp Or, "I wish I was talented enough to do that!" It's like, well, can you draw the letter "I"? :p Anyway, I used ChG FFF, an Art Club pen in Orange, SH Insta-Dri Expres-so Yellow (whatta stupid name...), an Art Club pen in Mint, SH Insta-Dri Brisk Blue, and a tiny thin stripe of CC Puccilicious. It draws a lot of stares :)

A kind of crappy pic of SH Silver Lining. This is soooo pretty, and unique among my silvers - it has tiny blue, pink and purple microglitter in it. Which you can't really see here. But trust me, it's there.

Del Sol Electrick! stamped with CC Wild At Heart and konad plate m57.  This changed to seafoam green in the sun, although the change wasn't as dramatic as I would have liked:

See?  You can hardly even tell it changed.  The bottle changed more than my nails  =/

And my current NOTD:

China Glaze Custom Kicks. Which my camera also couldn't capture. Which also looks better IRL. It's a lot more green than here - it's like a brighter Flyin' High with secret gold shimmer. Or a less-bright TuT. Or a more muted, less-frosty Passion In The Pacific. You get the idea. You can kind of see the secret shimmer in the bottle in the first pic, below the "g"....

Bonus Sid pic:

Anyone want a slightly oversized swap extra? lolz

Okay, that's all I have for now.  I need to show you a few of my favorite things that I've gotten lately - inlcuding Kiko Cosmetics polishes, Ozotic Pro polishes, LA Colours Intense sets, a couple of older China Glaze collections, some really old China Glazes, some htf OPIs, new-to-Canada Sally Hansens, new-to-everyone Revlons, and some old Hard Candys!  Including SKY!  Yes, I now own Hard Candy's old Sky! :D  Yes it's a mini, but who the eff cares?!?  It's only, like, my favorite polish that I owned as a teenager! :D  I was a rabid Hard Candy fan back in the day, and recently I was lucky enough to find someone nice enough to swap me an old mini set from the early 2000's!  I can't express in type here how excited I am about this - I just tried three times - so I'll save it for the actual post  :p

Real Quick....

Yes, I'm still alive.  Barely.  Having the same usual problems with my health.  But no one wants to hear about that, cuz that's lame.... However I do apologize for not posting  :(  Do know that I would if I could.  If anyone really wants to know the gory details, you can always email me and I'd be glad to bore you to death with the details.... but I'm only saying this because I know no one's gonna :)

I have sooooo much stuff to show you guys.  I can't do it all right now, but here's a little something to make me feel better about this blog.  Some stuff I've been wearing lately:

Anna Sui 203.  Reddish-purple grapey jelly base with pink and gold microglitter and holo hex glitter.  And it has that damn rose smell that you either love or hate.  I hate.  It smells like my Nana's bathroom, as I said on the nail board  :p  But I love the colour.  So unique.  I know of nothing else like this!  I can't wait to try my other Anna Sui jelly glitters :)

This is Zoya Tallulah.  Received in the Zoya exchange, thanks to Karen D. :)  Medium sky-blue with a slight pinkish-purple shimmer.  Sort of like Color Club Electro Candy, which is one of my all-time favorite blues.  This is very pretty, if not all that unique....

And this is Tallulah konaded :)  Of course.  I used plate m57 and China Glaze Millenium.  Not terribly original, but I had just watched Avatar, and that's what this kind of reminded me of...  I ended up wearing this tacky mani for waaaaay too long, though  :p

And last but not least, here's my busted-ass Canada Day mani  :p  I used China Glaze Ruby Pumps, and OPI Ghostess With The Mostess (WOW does that polish ever glow in the dark!) with SH Hidden Treasure on top.  I then stamped with a maple leaf  design from one of the BundleMonster plates (don't recall the number) using L'Oreal French Tip White and Essie Red Nouveau (which works great for konading if you need a red, fyi).  There was a lot going on here, for such a boring mani.  I'm sure everyone else's Canada Day manis probably blew mine out of the water  :p  I almost didn't even do one.  I haven't really done much celebrating of anything, as of late.  I know, I know, I sound like such a downer  :p  Blaaaaaaah - that's what being sick does to me.

Anyway, that's all I can do right now.  I promise I'll post more.  I have lots of stuff to show you - lots and lots and lotsa stuff!  So much stuff.  Neverending stuff.  Must stay well so I can post!

Sigh.... I'm trying to pack up about 50 or so polishes for this EPIC swap I'm doing, and Sid just decided to adopt my mailing box as a bed for himself.  Do you ever get really annoyed at your cats because they are seriously in your way and holding up your progress, yet at the same time are too cute to move or disturb?  Isn't that part of what makes cats extra annoying?  :p  Anyway, if you're reading this Jen, please excuse the white cat hair that will probably be stuck all over the inside of your package.

Till later.