Some Valentine's Day Manis

Hey all. 

So how's your day?  I'm mad because I've been waiting on a couple packages in the mail and they STILL aren't here yet, and I'm a tad worried because I know for a fact our new mail carrier doesn't like us for no reason at all  :(  It's a long story, but basically I'm worried he's going to "lose" my package just to spite me.  Sigh.  I could totally see him doing that.  Like I said, long story.  Bottom line - you better not mess with my effin Zoyas, bro, or we'll have a problem....

Ahem.... Anyway, I have some V-Day manis for you.  Just a couple.  I don't really celebrate Valentine's Day - the whole concept of the day just makes me feel bitter and irritated and I just choose to try not to acknowledge its existence - but I do like pink.  And hearts.  So whatever, Valentine's Day manis, yaaaay :)  In the past I've had some really awful, depressing V-days, but this year me and my BF did nothing all day except hang out together, and it was nice.  Everything I could ask for :)  So I don't really have a reason to sound bitter towards V-day this year, at all.

Anyway, it's an excuse to wear my heart glitter polishes and not look tacky.

First, pink sparkly Barbie monstrosity:

This was 2 coats of SpaRitual Knowledge Is Power, 1 coat each Misa Confection Section and HT, and 1 very annoying, thick, goopy coat of the Fasino glitter heart polish I'm holding. Did I mention it was goopy?  Like trying to paint Vaseline on your nails.  Chipped already on my middle, prolly due to the billion coats - I know the SpaRitual would never do that on it's own. I don't know what I was thinking. I wanted something pink and girly and disgustingly Valentine's-y after I wore RBL Concrete Jungle, but this was just OTT - it looks like what you'd get if you ate a billion pink Peeps coated in crystallized sugar and then vomited. At least I got the disgusting part right :p  I should have gotten pics of Knowledge Is Power by itself, because I really like the colour, but I suck.

Next, this is Orly Cotton Candy, from last year's Sweet collection (all of which I love).  It's a peachy-pink creme - like the colour of a piglet :)  I think it's much more flattering on me than light, blue-based pinks.  Application was great with this, very smooth.

Aaaaaand Valentines-ified.  I used Claire's Love Struck and Nicole Have A Heart.  I like these heart polishes - they're really cute, and even cuter if you do different-coloured hearts on each nail - but they don't lie completely flat against the nail, and to be honest it drives me crazy.  I'm constantly sitting there trying to smooth the edges down :(  Maybe I need to use a thicker coat of Seche.

And last but not least, yesterday's mani:

Kissy lips! :D  This is cute too, but I didn't end up loving it as much as I thought I would.  In my head it seemed like it'd be so adorable, but IRL you can't really tell what's on my nails unless I put my hand right in front of your eyeball.  DBF said  from far away my nails just look like I'd been digging through corpses or something.  Ew.  The polishes I used were Saly Hansen Insta-Dri Whirlwind White for the base (dries fast, yes, but sooo streaky), and the for the lips I used SH Insta-Dri Pronto Petal and Speedy Sunburst, China Glaze Phat Santa, Essie Red Nouveau, and CND Dark Ruby.  All of which work great for konading, btw :)

 Alright, that's it for today.  Happy belated V-day, and all that.  :)
Oh and here's hoping I get my packages soon despite my mailman having an irrational psychotic hate for me :p

New SpaRituals! Truth Collection: Reveal Yourself Swatches & Comps

Happy Groundhog Day!  Has that movie been on TV nonstop for the past three days in your area as well?

I'm a little down today, so I'm gonna keep the incessant chatter to a minimum.  I went out and hauled a bit the other day, and got some new pretties... even though there's still all that stuff I'm waiting on in the mail - urrgh.  Today's mail brought me Maybelline Blazes Of Blue though - yay!  Although is this a flaky?  It looks like a plain ol' glitter to me, but I've been told it's a flaky....

So anyway, part of my haul yesterday was a new SpaRitual collection, called simply "Truth" (not to be confused with the Zoya collection of the same name.)  I love SpaRitual polishes (made by the same company as Orly) - the formula is great and the wear is amazing, almost as good as Essie.  Their cremes are amazing and this collection is all cremes :) 

L-R: Circle of Life (oooh! pretty!), Face Of Destiny, Enlightened Soul, Eye Of the Beholder, Knowledge Is Power, and Reveal Yourself.  The minis are pretty good - 5 mL isn't a bad size, and for some reason my beauty supply stocks more mini SRs than it does full-size :-/  so I make do with them. 

This is an incomplete post for two reasons: one, I do not have pics of the rest of my haul, and two, I did not manage to swatch all of these SpaRituals :-/  I did get pics of Reveal Yourself; however, when I put it on I thought it looked so similar to a bunch of light pinks I already own that I had to do a comparison.  And then the sun went down :(  So this is all I have.

SpaRitual Reveal Yourself (indoors).  A light baby pink creme, cool-toned and leaning blue.

Outdoors.  It's pretty and I like it, but other than neons, opaque baby pinks like this are my favorite kind of pinks :)  Application was awesome - SpaRituals apply really well, and this was very opaque.  This is two coats here - one was a tad streaky, and two smoothed everything out.  It may look a bit brushstrokey, but the marks disappear once dry.  Drying time is better than average, I'd say - my SR hand was dry a few minutes before my comp hand.

It looks soooo similar to others I own (or so I thought).  The first one that came to mind was OPI's Mod About You, but I think I gave this away to my sister (what is wrong with me...?) so I didn't have that one on hand to swatch (I always end up giving away polishes that I can easily obtain... I'll have to swap for this one or pick it up next time I'm at the beauty supply... I actually meant to pick it up when I hauled yesterday, but forgot..)

So these are the ones I used for the comparison:

L-R: Maybelline Bubble Pink, Color Club Vintage Couture, China Glaze Something Sweet, SR Reveal Yourself and NYC 108A (I got this in the US a looooong time ago - I dunno if it's even still available.  I know that's lame.  Sorry.)

Pinky to thumb: (I know they're reversed in order from the pic above but just ignore that - I wasn't gonna retake the pic :p) NYC 108A, SR Reveal Yourself, ChG Something Sweet, CC Vintage Couture and Maybelline Bubble Pink.  The NYC isn't even close - too dark.  Something Sweet is paler and more muted, and Bubble Pink is more yellow-toned, and both these two and Vintage Couture are all warmer in tone than RY - RY is the coolest out of the lot.  Overall I'd have to say Vintage Couture is pretty close, although they're not exact dupes.  And the SpaRitual had the best application and wear out of all of them :)  I've had it on for more than 24 hours and there's no chips or visible tipwear at all.

Sorry I don't have Mod About You to compare...  I promise I will do swatches of the rest of these, though.  I really want to.  Even if you just get crappy-lit, not-the-most-accurate indoor photos (I need an Ott light... soon... badly).  I took nail wheel swatches.  Wanna see my nail wheel swatches?  Yeah, I thought not  :p

So I'll be back later with more of these.  Promise.