OWWWP: Color Club Ultra-Astral

(Why is Lacey Chabert so orange in this pic, anyway?)

Super-quick Pink Wednesday post.  Two posts in one day, after disappearing for a week or two.  Yep, that's how I roll. 

I present to you Color Club Ultra-Astral, from the Starry Temptress collection.

This is part of a collection of neons with glitter in them, which as you might guess is right up my alley.  This dries fairly matte as with all neons, but applied pretty well.  Somewhat sheer - you do need three coats to avoid VNL.  The glitter effect overall is nice, although somewhat muted.  But have no fear - Color Club thoughtfully provides you with a glitter topcoat in this set that you can slap on top of these if the glitter payoff from the polish alone isn't enough for you, like it wasn't for me:

Oh baby.  That's what I'm talkin about :)  This is after applying the Starry Temptress Topcoat that's included in the set.  It eliminates the yucky matte effect, and adds even more sparkle to the somewhat dull glitter.  You still need topcoat to get the maximum effect out of these, but I do think they look better with the topcoat than without. 

Overall, I love this polish, I love hot pink, and I love how Color Club always finds a way to make their neon collections a little different :)

Til later :)

*EDIT: I just noticed this - two pinks with glitter in a row.  Yeesh.  I'll try to switch it up a bit next week  :S

*EDIT#2: Go Canucks Go :)  Nashville, you goin down.

OPI Pirates Of The Carribbean Collection - Well, The Ones I Picked Out, Anyway

Hello!  So my Pink Wednesday post will just have to wait, because I happened to find these today:

Yup, that's right - I happened across a new, full, unmolested OPI Pirates Of the Carribbean display today at the mall.  After stalking this collection for the last week or so to no avail, I remembered the frenzy surrounding the last OPI Shatter colour and quickly grabbed two of the suckers.  Happy dances were performed on the spot.

I looked over the other colours for quite awhile and was largely unimpressed by the swatches, just as I was online.  I ended up getting three of the colours - the only three that really interested me - and leaving the two pinks (because yawn) and the aqua Mermaid's Tears (because I'm convinced there's a dupe that I most likely already own).  However, after coming home and swatching the ones I did buy, I'm almost wanting to go back and snag the other three.  Although the application wasn't the best I've ever experienced, I love these on me a lot more than I thought I would :)  No outdoor pics 'cuz it's kind of nighttime, sorry.  All of these are without topcoat too, except for the Shatter.

Stranger Tides.  Probably the most unique one out of the collection.  Reminds me of Sew Psyched and Color Club Sheer Disguise, although neither are dupes.  I think this kind of almost "dirty" mint green works on me a lot better than a lot of blue-based mints.  Even mint greens that have a lot of yellow, such as Claire's Dreamcatcher, still make my hands reddish, but this one doesn't seem to :)  If it kind of looks like it in this pic, it lies. Application was a bit annoying - streaky and left bald spots on the first two coats.  This is three.  It dried pretty fast though, which probably accounted for the streakiness.  (Sorry for the crap picture - photographing my right hand is flippin' impossible sometimes -___- #n00b)

Skull & Glossbones.  I loved this one too.  Some pale greys make me just look yellowed and gross, but I like this one on me.  Quite a lot, actually.  It almost looks a little blueish here (or maybe that's just my monitor) but I assure you it's not.  It's a very yellow-toned dove grey - more yellow than Zoya Dove.  Again, application on this one was pretty much the same as Stranger Tides - streaky, bald spots, and cuticle drag if I wasn't careful.  Something told me I wanted this when I first looked at swatches online, and now that I see it on me I'm so glad I decided to just shut up and buy it after standing there with it in my hand in the middle of the store for about an eternity.

Planks A Lot, with Parlez-Vous OPI? on my pinky for comparison.  Slightly greyed-out purple, so of course I had a #$!*% of a time photographing it, trying to get it to not look blue.  As you can see, I failed.  It's a lot more red-toned than it looks here, and with a heather grey cast to it.  This one gets a thumbs-up too, although maybe not as enthusiastically as the first two.  Application was nowhere near as bad as the first two, though - I was able to get it looking decent in two coats.  This drew comparisons to the now-discontinued PVO? when promo pictures were first released, but I don't really think they look alike at all:

Left, Planks A Lot.  Right, Parlez-Vous OPI?  PVO? is much more brown-based.  PAL is like the love child of PVO? and Do You Lilac It?  Which I should've included in the picture, but I fail  :s

And I saved the best for last:

This is Silver Shatter overtop of China Glaze Calypso Blue.  I tried to find an OPI to layer it over, but believe it or not, out of my vast OPI collection I couldn't find a suitable dark blue creme.  So I cheated with China Glaze, who's my true love anyway :)  It cracked nicely, although you do have to take care to apply a thick enough coat.  And no, I didn't layer it over the polishes from the collection. I know I'm a'sposed to, and while I think it looks okay over them and all, I think it's most striking over darker colours :)  Although I'm dying to try it over a white.  And maybe do some striped skittles with it?  Oooh, I can't wait to play around with this.  I have a feeling it'll be on my toes, eventually, too :)

So those are the ones I picked up.  I'm in love with the Silver Shatter, and the other three are definitely each getting worn soon as well.  I think the entire collection goes perfectly with the soft florals and woven fabrics we're seeing everyhere for spring and summer, and the polishes have a pretty, romantic feel to them in my opinion, despite the theme.   Like I said,  the desire to go back and get at least the light pink is growing strong in me....  The Silver Shatter is clearly the star here, though (the salon I went to had three left, of which I bought two, and as I was paying the other one was put aside for someone on the phone.  By the time I left the mall an hour or two later, every display that I had passed by had been stripped of the Shatters!)  I would love to see an entire collection of metallic shatters (what's that, you say?  China Glaze has already announced an upcoming collection of these?  well naturally!  I'll get back to this later when I find out more...)

Now I just need that collection of OPI Shatters to be released, along with the Serena sets, and my OPI lemmings will be fed for awhile :)

Happy Belated Easter! :o)

It's Easter Monday, so it still counts, right?

Hello all.  No, I have not disappeared off the face of the earth.  Yes, as usual I'm behind on posting stuff and have a whole backload of NOTDs to show you, plus my TD haul.  I promise I'll try and get it out there, in the interest of Not Sucking.

But for now, wanna see my cutesy-poo Easter mani?  Suuuure you do :)
Left hand:

Right hand:

Yes, the pictures are watermarked wrong.  It's my MUA label, but you can ignore that, right?  I actually kind of like my right hand better than my left - the chickie looks better, and the bunny came out cuter (I swear his teeth don't look that smudgy in real life...).  Except for the dots.  Those just look stupid.

Polishes I used: Sparitual Reveal Yourself, Joe Fresh Coral, China Glaze Peachy Keen, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Expres-so Yellow, OPI Gargantuan Green Grape, China Glaze For Audrey, Color Club Blue Light, China Glaze Secret Peri-Wink-Le, and Crush Hustle.  I think that's it.  Oh, and Art Club nail art pens in Satin White and Black.  And a dotting tool.

And just for S&Gs, here's a random tape mani I did:

I used OPI DS Magic and Glow.  I love both of these polishes.  Ah, foils :)  Glow looks pretty good on me, for a bronzy gold.  Bronzy golds tend to look much better on me than champagne-y golds.  I have such a weird skin tone :s  I'm pale, yet all the colours that are supposed to look good on pale skin make me look washed out.  Bah.

Anyway, enough grumbling.  I'm gonna go work on the seemingly daunting task of posting the giant backlog of crap I have to show you :) 

Oh yeah, I started a spreadsheet.  Or rather, I started working on the spreadsheet I started over a year ago again  :s  It's not even close to finished.  Not even remotely.  What's on there is a small smidgen of what I own (except for Color Club and Sinfuls!  Those are up to date - yay me! :p)  but in case anyone cares here it is :)

'Til later.

On Wednesdays We Wear Pink: OPI Pink Me I'm Good

I'm sure most of you have heard of Pink Wednesdays by now... if not, and you've never seen the movie Mean Girls and you can't figure it out for yourself, go here for an explanation.  I, personally, love pink, so of course I'm gonna go along with it  ^_^  And everyone knows Mean Girls rules.

So my Pink Wednesdays mani for this week was OPI Pink Me I'm Good.

These aren't the best pics, but it was rainy outside.  I'm so glad I was able to get my hands on it - it was an Ulta exclusive, and we no haz Ulta in Canada.  Yay for swaps! :)

It's a gorgeous pink jelly with chunky gold glitter.  The finish is smooth, though - not gritty like you might think.  And the gold glitter really shows through, even in dim light.

I love it.  It's gorgeous.

That's all I have for right now.  I'm too excited over the hockey game I just watched - yay, Canucks got their first win!!  This is our year, people - that cup is ours!!

Till later :)

Spams, Spams, Everywhere the Spams

This isn't really a full-on spam, just a little bitsy mini spam.  I just wanted to prove to you that even though I've been working a ton and not really allowed to wear anything interesting on my nails (and when I am, I'm not allowed to change it), I am still diligently photographing what I do have on, and obsessively changing it in my spare time every chance I get :p  Yup.  This is me.

I'll start with what I have on tonight - my Freehanded Cloud Mani That Didn't Turn Out As Nearly As Cute As I Pictured It In My Head:

It looks a lot less messy IRL :-/ I swear it acutally looks half-decent - here in macro it just looks smudgy and sloppy. I wanted to do a cloud design but my cloud Konad plate walked away on me :( So I freehanded them by just doing a bunch of dots close together, but I didn't think they looked like clouds (my bf said they just looked like smudgy white blobs) so I outlined them in WnW Black Creme using a toothpick. Like I said, it looks better IRL. The base is SpaRitual Sky's The Limit.

This is the Lippmann Ruby Red Slippers mani I had on for three days straight due to work.  I used two coats of China Glaze Lubu Heels as a base, then followed it with three coats of RRS.  One coat of Gelous, one thick coat of SV, and a coat of Barielle Mani Extender applied 24 hours later, and there you have it - it stayed on for three days on set :)  There was some tipwear, as you can see, but no chips whatsoever!  I couldn't capture on camera how sparkly this was.   I know I've worn and reviewed this before, but I just want to say again how pretty this looked under the bright studio lights... The glittery red was was very noticeable and just popped against the black.  I got compliments on it from girls and guys alike!  .

China Glaze Ahoy!  I had this on for exactly 20 minutes before I got bored of it and had to change :S  It's pretty - like Strawberry Field's darker cousin - but I just wasn't feeling it today for some reason.  Which I don't know why, because as I said, pretty.

My attempt to dupe SH Frock Star.  You know those nail stickers that they charge $9 a box for?  Yes, well, I refuse to pay that for something that similar-looking to polishes I already own.  And yes, I know, this isn't really a dupe, but it was close enough for me.  Glittery and loud.  I used CC Magic Attraction, Milani Gems and Wet N Wild Party Of Five Glitters.  There may also be some Zoya Gaia underneath all that as a base - I really don't remember after all that glitter :p  And yes, I do own the SH Girl Flower nail stickers, but those are a different story - you try duping those.

This is a new Revlon, called Blue Lagoon - a delicate baby blue creme with really noticeable glass-fleck shimmer.  It's part of their Summer collection, which also includes a peach and a yellow with the same glass-fleck shimmer.  I really liked this polish, for a Revlon - application was great, smooth and even in two coats, and the pretty glass-fleck shimmer is just as noticeable on the nail as it is in the bottle.  Very ethereal and icy-looking.

China Glaze Electric Pineapple.  Neither pineapple-coloured, nor electric-looking.  Maybe like a greenish, chartreuse pineapple?  Yeah, sure.  I swatched this on one finger when I reviewed the Island Escape collection, and I said it looked odd - as you can see, I was correct.  It changes from greenish to yellowish depending on whether I'm indoors or out, too.

Another glitterbomb mani.  Sometimes I'm just in the mood for glittah.  And I know I'm not alone *looks around at all of you*  This was H&M Lavender Sky, topped with one coat each of Paris Couture iridescent blue-green glitter (a dollar store glitter, similar to Inglot XL4), Fasino purple hex glitter (another dollar store polish that smells like absolute death) and WnW Party Of Five Glitters.

And this was the mani I did to match my blue-grey dress they put me in at work. This was Orly Pixie Dust, OPI DS Sapphire, some no-name Goldie holo and ChG Fairy Dust. It was a gorgeous match for the dress... and then they ended up putting long white opera gloves on me :p Go figure.  I did take my gloves off quite often, though (as would anyone - gloves are a pain), and every time I did I was like, "Oooh!" :)  Polishes always look so good under the bright, hot studio lights - especially glitters and holos! :)

Alright, that's all for right now! :)  Will be back later!

Oh, and PS:  Would you guys be interested in seeing more stash pics?  Maybe my China Glaze drawer, or my HE drawer?  LMK!

Icing Mood Swing Mood Polishes

 Hello lovelies.  It's been a super-busy week for me - I haven't had a whole lot of time for swatching or posting, or even doing my nails at all.  I wore a mani of Lippmann Ruby Red Slippers over China Glaze Lubu Heels for three days straight (well, it was for work, but still)!  

I have two polishes for you that I recently discovered - Icing has mood polishes now!

I showed you these in a recent haul post, and finally got the chance to try them out recently.  I'll start with the pink one, Romantic/Relaxed.

This is how it looks warm:

It's kind of a weird sandy-gold colour.  Not really the most flattering on me, but the contrast between it and the cool pink shade is striking.

And then it eventually turns pink as it cools:

And eventually it ends up as this:

Kind of cool, right?  Again, I'm not a huge fan of the colours themselves...  The pink shade is pretty, with a noticeable gold shimmer from the warm shade.  It looks pretty cool as it changes....

The other polish, however, Happy/Hopeful, was far and above my favorite:

This is the only picture I got of it, sorry :(  And the bottle walked away on me when I went to take this pic.  The base is a creamy bubblegum pink colour, and it changes to a deep royal purple colour, similar to China Glaze Grape Pop/OPI Funkey Dunkey, etc.  The contrast is even more striking than the pink and yellow one.  This is by far my new favorite mood polish - I like it even better than Claire's Happy/Earthy (my second favorite mood polish now).  I need backups.
*EDIT- Okay, I lied - I found a couple more pics of Happy/Hopeful:

This is what it looks like completely cool - note the Grape Pop/Funkey Dunkey similarity.

This is what you get when it's in that in-between, transitioning from cool to warm stage- a berry-ish purple.  Like Essie Splash Of Grenadine, or OPI Dim Sum Plum, but more purple.

And this is as it's changing - you can see the thumb starting to go pink.  Yes, definitely my new favorite mood polish :)

Alright, that's all for now.  I might make a point of going to Icing soon and seeing if they have any other ones, because I'm really impressed by these!

Till later!

My Essie and Orly Collection

Hello all and happy weekend! As usual I have a whole backlog of stuff that I need to show you, but I'm way behind, so I'm just gonna start with this  :p

I was organizing my polishes into my new Melmer (yay for 50% off Michael's sales!) and I was deciding which three brands were going to get a drawer dedicated to them (My Helmers and Melmers are organized by brand, and most of my brands - except for OPI, China Glaze and Color Club - share drawers).  I decided that Orly, Essie and Zoya - three more of my favorite brands - were the lucky winners of a drawer of their own :)

So I decided that I'd show you my collections of two of these brands, Essie and Orly - I haven't got around to Zoyas yet. 

Here's my Essie drawer:

Okay, I'm going to list them all - you ready?
Back row, L-R: Blanc, Naughty or Nice, Jackie Oh My!, Ballet Slippers, Mademoiselle, Fiji, Cool-lots, the mini is Pop Art Pink.
Row 2: Knockout Pout, Pink Parka, Watermelon, Jag-U-Are, Really Red, After Sex (heh..), mini is Red Nouveau.
Row 3: Van D'Go, Haute As Hello, Tart Deco, The Cove Copper.
Row 4: Funky Limelight (my favorite neon polish of all time), Pretty Edgy, Sew Psyched, Turquoise and Caicos, Mint Candy Apple.
Row 5: Borrowed and Blue, Lapis of Luxury, Mesmerize, Aruba Blue, Midnight Cami.
Row 6: Nice Is Nice, Lilacism, Demure Vixen, Splash Of Grenadine.
Row 7: Wicked, Decadent Diva, Sole Mate, Sexy Divide, It's Genius!
Row 8: Playa Del Platinum, Main Squeeze, Steel-ing The Scene.

I just kind of took a pic of the whole drawer.  You might want to click on it to see better.  This was before I figured out that you probably can't see it too well in a photo like this  :-/  Fail.

Untrieds:

L-R: Limited Addiction, French Affair, Beach Bum Blu (why did I get this just cuz it was on sale? It looks frosty and horrible), Coat Azure, Dive Bar, Going Incognito, Merino Cool and Smokin Hot.  I know, I know, supposedly my untrieds are some of the best ones :-/

I love Essies.  For a fairly pricey mid-range polish, I do have a lot of them, and this is mainly for one reason: wear.  I've said this before and I'll say it again: Essies wear like iron on me (and a lot of other people).  The formula is usually pretty good, if inconsistant - it can be thin or thick or streaky at times, but no matter what the formula and application is like, an Essie polish can always be trusted to last the longest on my nails without chips out of all my brands of polish.  And I probably have about 50 brands in total :O  On average, an Essie will last for three days with no chips and the smallest amount of tipwear of any brand.  They can be trusted to look great no matter what I'm doing with my hands, and hence, they are one of my favorite brands :)  I just wish they'd continue to make awesome colours like Funky Limelight (they have a lot of awesome neons, actually) and Turquoise and Caicos - most of Essie's collections consist of neutral pinks and sheers >:p

Okay, and now my new Orly Drawer-ly:

L-R: Red Carpet, Ruby Passion, Orange Punch, Crush On You, Secret Admirer, Opal Hope, Passion Fruit, Swizzle Stick.

I suck so bad, I cut off Green With Envy :( I don't have another photo, sorry.  Trust me, it's there on the left. L-R: sliver of Green With Envy, Bailamos, Wandering Vine, Enchanted Forest, Royal Navy, La Playa, Star Of Bombay.

L-R: Charged Up, Fantasea, Happily Ever After, Glam.

L-R: Pixie Dust, Mirror Mirror, Love Each Other, Fifty-Four, Goth.

L-R: Rage, Luxe, Glitz, Flagstone Rush.

I loved the Sweet collection.  L-R: Pixy Stix, Cotton Candy, Lemonade, Gumdrop, Snowcone, Lollipop.

L-R: Glitz & Glisten, Naughty Or Nice, Meet Me Under The Mistletoe, Winter Wonderland.

My favorite collection of last year :) L-R: Space Cadet, Lunar Eclipse, Hailey's Comet, Out Of This World, It's Not Rocket Science, Galaxy Girl.

And minis, L-R: Ruby, Last Dance, On The List, Limelite, Starry-Eyed, Sheer Nude, Velvet Rope.

And that's my Orly collection :)  Orlys are another favorite brand of mine, mainly due to the great collections they release.  Sometimes they're not too unique, but I thought they really outdid themselves last year - the Cosmix FX collection was unbelievably awesome, jacked-up price and all.  Rage and Luxe are two of the best metallic foils I own, and the Sweet collection was so much fun to wear - I loved every shade.  Also, I really like Orly's bottle, for a round bottle.  It feels heavy and sturdy, and I looove the rubber grip bottle top :)

Most of the time I organize by colour within brand, but sometimes I just can't bear to split collections up - hence the random organization.  I just think sometimes collections look nicer all together, and some polishes I remember primarily by what collection they were part of.  And the ones I don't, I organize by colour :)  Get it?  No?

Sid, as always, decided to interfere.

Okay, that's it - I have to go watch our President's Trophy-winning hockey team now :D  Be back later!