Some More Recent Wearings (Wearings?)

Okay, worst title ever, but I have to fire this off pretty quick...

I've been away lately because I've been super-busy, not because I've been sick this time.  Yay!  So that's good, right? 

Okay, yeah, quickly.  Quickly.  I can do things quick.  I think.

Oh yeah, warning in advance: THIS POST CONTAINS FEET!!!!  Just don't bother reading this if a picture of toes is going to make you toss yer cookies or something.  You've been warned.

I'll start off with a mani I can't believe I didn't include before.... my First Snow Of the Year mani:

This is an attempted glitter gradient using Revlon Powder Puff topped with Icing Glamorous, which is a medium-sized holo glitter.  I wanted to do something wintery-looking, because my yard at the time looked like this:

Yes.  Oh yes.  It sucked.  I hate freaking snow.  But I loved the mani :)

Next is a fail:

I don't even know why I'm including this, since it's a horrible picture, but it was a horrible mani, so... This is LA Girls Rock Star Crowd Surfing.  Crowd Surfing is pretty, a light green with gold  and orange flakies, but it's super, super sheer, and I have no idea why I thought it'd be a good idea to try it over white...  Try this over a darker colour, if you have it.  Which you probably already know, if you have it.  I have no business giving people advice with this once, because, as you see, I thought THIS ^^ was a good idea.  Um, yeah, no!

Next, I was gettin experimental:

Do you like this polish?  Do you honestly?

It kind of ate topcoat.... I put on two coats, I swear.  It's like, where did they go...?

The colour is most true-to-life here.  This is actually a nail art pen that I dumped into a regular polish bottle!  It's Jordana Artsy Purple.  It is very pretty, a purple with strong red shimmer, but I have no idea how it manages to make two thick coats of Seche Vite completely disappear.... hmmph....

Next, a crowd favorite:

OPI The Show Must Go On.  This was the last of the Burlesques I acquired.  I freehanded two tips with  OPI Man Of La Mancha on the ring and middle finger, just to see what it looked like - ignore them please :)  This has been shown a million times, so I'm just going to shut up and show the pretty:

In case you didn't know (but you probably do), TSMGO is a really pretty reddish-pink-gold duochrome.  It's similar to MAC Bad Fairy, but a touch lighter pink. 

Okay, foot warning.  FOOT WARNING!!  Didn't you hear me??!?  FOOT WARNINGGGGG!!!!

I hate posting pictures of my feet, and I really, REALLY hate to say this, but you should probably click on the picture to blow it up so you can see the AWESOMENESS that is Inglot 207!!  Seriously.  Just ignore my toes. This is a medium-sized gold holo glitter, and I have two coats of it on here over Orly Luxe.  It.  Is.  Gorgeous!!!  I wore this for days, around lots of people, and I got tons of compliments :)

 

Next, this is an unnamed Love & Beauty polish from Forever 21.  It's a medium forest green shimmer with fine gold foil-y glitter.  It's pretty.  Application was kind of annoying, though. Very thick.

And last, the first in a series of Christmas manis!!!  Yaaaaaaaaaeeeeeey! (Oh come on, they're fun!)

You like?  Ees preety?  I think so :)

This is another Love & Beauty polish, a dark jelly green, topped with Wet N Wild Prancer.  I kinda stole this idea off a Nail Boarder named beclee :)  Prancer is a clear with small and larger hexagonal red glitter.  It's awesome for layering to create a Christmas mani :)  I wish it came in every colour!  As far as the Love & Beauty polish goes, it's application was a lot better than the other one - I had no real problems, aside from a lot of buildup (like, a lot more than the usual amount) on the lip of the bottle from me wiping the excess off the brush.

Okay, that's all. Expect a lot more Christmas manis coming up soon.  Plus I got a bunch of new RBLs, some Inglots (inlcuding the above 207) and Illamasqua Jo'mina, and a huge Cherryculture order that I haven't even dug into yet!  So many untrieds!  Talk to you all later :)

Random Spamdom: Orly, OPI Burlesque Glitters, Bourjois and RBL

I might already have a post with that title.  Oh well.

Hello everyone :)  It's the weekend!  How are you all?  As for me, I got sick last night - again.  Not three hours after I wrote that post  :(  Man, it sucked, but now I'm feeling better, albeit once again heavily medicated.  So don't mind me sounding like an idiot again.  I appreciate you guys claiming you're not judging me, btw  :)  It makes me feel slightly better about these idiot posts... or at least like I still have any business  posting at all anymore, lol.

Anyway, I need to catch up on all these NOTD pics I have floating around.... Cuz , see, even though I seem like I'm not posting, I'm still planning on posting....  which involves taking pics usually every day.  I really am.  I swear.  Okay, sometimes I forget.   Most days I don't have time when it's light out, so they're crappy indoor pics...  How do you guys take your NOTD pics indoor?  Do you have an Ott light or any sort of super-bright light that you use?  I can always use photography tips, as you can see  :s

So here we go...

First off, we have RBL Under The Stars.  I got this in a swap during the summer, and while I do like it and think it's pretty, I couldn't help but be a little disappointed by it.  I wish the subtle blue glitter showed up better against the base.  Or I expected it to have more of a shimmer as well, or.... agh, I don't know.  I'm hard to please.  RBLs apply beautifully, and for that reason I liked wearing it, but it's not my favorite night sky polish...

This is Bourjois So Laque! in Bleu Violet.  Okay, I LOVED this - I had heard bad things about these polishes, that they were streaky and thick, yet runny, and a pain in the ass to apply.  So I was kind of peeved that I'd spent $10 on it... but WOW!  SO shiny, so smooth, such a pretty cobalt blue colour.... I was thinking the "Violet" part would show up under different light but it stayed cobalt blue under all lights.  And it wasn't hard to apply at all.  I don't really care for the stubby, rounded little brush though.  And this was really the only colour that stood out to me - the rest were all pinks, reds, nude or black  :p  Boo!  Oh yeah, and the art on my ring finger was for the Cauncks vs. Leafs game I was watching :)  The green is CND Green Scene, I believe, which is a gorgeous, opaque green similar to Essie Pretty Edgy.

Now, a couple more Burlesque glitters for you:

This is OPI Simmer & Shimmer.  Sorry about the chips - I used the aforementioned Guaranteed Flake-Off Combo with this mani - partially on purpose so I wouldn't have to go through any sort of removal process :)  I love this one too.  Not that there's a single Burlesque glitter that I didn't love... but this one's blue.  Blue is mah favorite :)  I got lots of compliments on this polish.  Everyone seemed to love it....

Everyone bows to its beauty :)

And this one is Sparkle-icious, my fave of the glitters, and maybe of the whole collection.  I'm such a sucker for interesting, multi-coloured glitters.  I felt like AA and MAAH and Lippmann's new glitters were made just for me.  And this one is by far the most interesting of the six OPI Burlesque glitters - it's the only one that has a pretty even mix of all three colours, rather than one dominant colour with other accents.  You can see a pretty even mix of fuschia, gold and blue in there.  A lot of people wonder what would be a good base colour for this polish.  Personally, I like it on its own - I used three coats here, and it was more than enough to be opaque.  I suppose you could layer it over a burgundy, a dark fuschia, a blue, a gold, a black, a white...  But I like it on its own :)

This is a gorgeous no-name polish I got at an asian dollar store :)  The band is Winmax New York - anyone ever heard of them?  Didn't think so.  Anway, it's a gorgeous shimmery blurple, or rather its a dark purple base with lots of blue and a tad bit of red microglitter.  Very complex and very pretty.  In the bottle it looked like a dark shimmery purple, but on the nail it turned into a lapiz-lazuli coloured blue shimmer.  Which was fine by me - I prefer blues to purples :)

Side indoor shot.

Outdoor shot.  Ignore the hideous tips I tried to sponge on with Hard Candy Frigid (and my poor pinkie cuticle) - my sponging technique obviously needs some vast improvement.  You can see the true colour here.

And this is the much-more-gorgeous-than-I-expected Orly Glitz & Glamour, from the holiday collection.  This lonely little gold wasn't getting any attention, but I've always had a soft spot for gold polishes, so I thought I'd try it out and see if it deserved any.  A warrm, buttery, caramel-gold foil - I thinks it's so glowy and pretty.  I have no idea how it compares to some other warmer golds that I own - that Milani one, Zoya Goldie, the OPI Burlesque one, Misa Ghetto Fabulous.... and a couple of others.  It looks most similar to the Milani and the OPI, in my opinion, rather than some of the smoother golds because of the tiny glitter flake particles that make up the foil finish... but I'll have to do a nail wheel comparison soon to prove it to myself.

Alright, that's it for now.  My Cherry Culture order came in today :D  so expect a post about that soon!

P.S: I'm having a reeeeeally hard time deciding what to wear on my nails lately  :p

SickPost: I'm Sorry, I've Been Very Ill For A Long Time... But Here's Some Glitter! :D

Yeah, so, I've been very sick  Again.  I've mentioned getting sick before, and it happens to me on a regular basis, and it has for a very long time, and I'm not going to bore you with details...  But this is why this post is going to suck.  It's going to suck a lot.  I'm just warning you in advance....

Okay, fine, I'm gonna bore you with a teeny bit of detail.  Without giving you more information than you want to know, what happens when I get sick is I'm basically in a lot of pain and I need to be administered medicines.  Various amounts of various medicines.  Sometimes repeatedly, until I can sleep.  And sometimes the effects of these medicines last WAY beyond the amount of time I want them to.  I go to sleep and wake up and still feel loopy as hell.  Which is what's happening here.

So, I think to myself, what better time than NOW to do a blog post?!  xp

I'm aware you're probably judging me right now.  That's okay.  I accept your disapproving grimaces of pity.  It's just, for some reason, even when I'm sick or careening around the room on medication or half-awake and barely able to creak open an eyelid, I always want to take out my pretties and look at them, play with them, swatch them...  It's a strange complusion, I know, but it gives me peace of mind, and cheers me up after two long days of being sick and in pain.

So, I took some photos, and.....

Oh balls.  I just realized there's frigging snow on the ground outside my house.  Like, enough that it's actually stuck to the streets a bit.  When the eff did it snow?!? Buggerbuggerbugger.....

Anyway, I took some photos a few minutes ago.  I'm not well enough to actually get out of bed, and it's dark out anyway, so these photos are Lextard-style today!  Well, sort of.  Like, her style except for I'm only using one finger, because  - hey, guess what- I discovered the magical formula for making any nail polish - and I mean any - peel or pop off one one solid sheet!  Yay!  So half my glitter skittles popped off, and I was just glad I had one left of each colour to take a pic of.  These were going to be some glorious, sparkly glitter skittles pics, but in the end I was grateful for one-nail pics  :p 

In case anyone wants to know - to make your polish pop off in one big sheet, use one coat Witchcraft Protein Nail Hardener, one coat American Classics Yellow Stopper (sold at Sally's, by the same people who make Gelous), however many coats of polish (multiple thick coats of glitters recommended), and one thick coat of Seche Vite.  Wait to dry.  Wash your hands with warm water.  Voila  :(  I don't know if its any one of these products, but the combination of them all together never fails  :(

Anyway...

This is Sid, keeping me company and being nosy.... and the ice-pak that was also keeping me company :(  As you can see, he's going "What happened to your pinky and middle fingers...?"  "Oh, you used that combo again?  What are you, a noob?"

So here they are.  These swatches really suck, and I'm sorry for subjecting you to this, but I really want to post something and I don't feel like editing any of my other photsos right now:

This is Nicole by OPI Glitz And Glisten.  It's a medium purple-based pink dense microglitter.  From what I've seen online of this shade, it was apparently released as part of the Nicole Target holiday exclusives?  Then why was I able to buy it in a 2-pack at Shopper's Drug Mart with some other purple shade (whose name I forgot already... but I think was also part of the Target LE's)?  And why did they only give Canada these two colours, and not Pitch-Black Glimmer, or Fell From The Tree, or that blue glitter.... bitchbitchbitch.  Anyway, I did like this one.  Kind of like a microglitter version of Zoya Nova. 

This is one of my recent Asian dollar store finds!  Sorry about the chips.  It's an aqua jelly base with silver, aqua and holo microglitter.  This was actually a striping polish that I decanted into a plain bottle - I need to go back and get another one, because the stiper polish only half-filled the empty bottle, and it's a pain to get the polish out....plus, it was only $2 :)  And it's pretty.  Reminds me a little bit of Atlantis, although they are not the same at all.

This is Icing Party Hardy... not to be confused with the kickass China Glaze of the same name.  God, this pic sucks.  I'm sorry.  This is a dense raspberry microglitter, the micro-equivalent of Zoya Astra.  Very shiny and sparkly.  I actually liked the colour of this one better than Nicole Glitz and Glisten - it's less purple, redder, more vibrant.  And it seemed to dry shinier after applying topcoat than the Nicole.  Icing has some great polishes, and this is one of three I've picked up lately - the other two being a holo glitter and a blue/purple glitter, which I'll show you in a second...

This is the worst picture in the entire world of Finger Paints Easel-y Entertained.... which is a beautiful blurple/cobalt microglitter that I'm defacing with this horrible pic....  I'm not sure why I put it up, and I'm not going to go into any more detail, other than you should get this if you don't own it already.  Wow, how much of a fail is this post....? Anyway, almost done...

And this is Icing Bedazzled, the other new Icing I've gotten lately.  Really pretty, dense blue and purple microglitter.  Dense enough to be worn alone.  I'd been itching to wear it over black, but I tried it over a dark blurple and it kind of completely covered up the base.  I know you probably think you've seen a billion blue & purple glitter polishes by now, but this one is so much finer and denser than any other that I've seen.  Check it out, next time you're near an Icing.  This place consistantly churns out great polishes.

And I consistantly churn out awkward, stumbly, subpar, thrown-together blog entries  :S  I promise I have more for you guys.  I have a Cherry Culture order waiting for me at the PO tomorrow! :D :D :D  and I am expecting a SWEET package with my RBL sale orders and some other goodies in it!! :D :D :D  So I'm super-excited for that!  Plus I have a billion NOTDs, some of which I really like, and my post about dollar store finds....  I'mma post it all soon.  Seriously.   Thanks for reading my over-medicated ramblings  :p

I Can't Sleep.... Let's Look At Some Recent NOTD Pics!

 So I really suck at keeping promises.... yeah.... you're probably so sick of hearing me apologize too.  Whatever.  On with the blog.

First of all, let me tell you a story.... Lex isn't very good at staying awake lately.  Which is weird - I have had chronic insomnia since I was a little kid.  I'm used to staying awake whether I want to or not - usually way past the point that I want to.  But these days, I come home, blather on to my bf and dork about on the computer for awhile, make dinner, and then I can barely make it through a DVD episode of Lost before my eyes are starting to close on me....  It's really frustrating.  So tonight, Saturday night, I decided to chug a can of Red Bull in order to not fall asleep in front of my friends during the hockey game.  Hence, this post at 5 in the morning.  And this is after Falling Behind. It's actually 6 in the morning  :(  I love my Red Bull, and it's helped me through some tough times, but lately the stuff has such an adverse, hateful effect on me...  Anyway, the end....  Because of this, I can't sleep and you get this cracked-out-sounding post!  High fives!

In other news, I bought another Helmer, and am in the midst of reorganizing my stash.... trying to figure out what goes in what drawer and what deserves its own drawer and all that....  I thought it'd be more fun, and, I mean, it is kinda fun, but it is kinda just like cleaning.... I need to massively de-dupe, I'm realizing as well  :-/

In other other news, I found all the holiday China Glazes except for... well, like half of them.  My Sally's is ballz.  I still need Peace On Earth, Little Drummer Boy, Frosty, Mommy Kissing Santa and those two golds...  Problem is, no one place has all of them in stock  :(  At least I got my greedy mitts on Party Hearty.  We all know that's the important one :)

So anyway... who wants to look through some old NOTD pics?  yaaay!  Well, they're actually pretty recent...

My sloppy execution of the candy corn mani.  Did this sometime during the week of Halloween....  I used....

An old Sally Hansen Halloween exclusive from a few years back, Orange Pumpkin.  Yes, the point of me taking the pic like that was so I didn't have to type that, but let's move on....  Maybe it was just last year's release, I'm not really sure.  Anyway, I used the yellow and white SH Insta-Dris for the rest (Lightning, and... I don't remember...) Also, I freehanded the lines, because I couldn't find any tip guides.  Or tape.  Don't hate.

Another Halloween mani.  This is Sephora By OPI If You've Got It, Haunt It, with Color Club Tangerine Scream on the ring finger.  IYGIHI was one of the Halloween-exclusive $OPIs, along with Kitty Loves Black and that glow-in-the-dark white, and my fave of the three by far.  It's a black glitter in a base of grey microglitter, and there's some blue and pink in there too.  Gorgeous and unique in my stash.  I can't find Nicole Pitch-Black Glimmer anywhere, and this fulfilled that lemming nicely.

This is a Kiko Cosmetics #270 overtop of $OPI Kitty Loves Black, which was a black with pearly blue microshimmer.  Kiko 270 I've shown on top of $OPI Read My Palm before, but it shows up much better on top of a darker colour like this.  The paillette glitter reflects different colours at different angles - purple, blue, teal and green.  These photos are blurred but you can see some of the colours of the glitter...

It is really quite stunning IRL... very Across The Universe-ish.  I love this polish.  I got it in a swap from Italy - I wonder if there's anything similar on this side of the pond...

This was my anniversary mani, for my 3-year with the BF...

Cheesy, yes, but that's what I was going for :)

I used (what else) OPI Happy Anniversary! and layered various heart polishes overtop.  I actually kind of went crazy with the heart polishes.  I pulled out every one I own and started slopping them on, flinging hearts this way and that....  There's a couple of Nicole ones (Love Your Life, Have A Heart, Honey-dew You Love Me, Spring Romance) a Claire's one (Love Struck), some random no-name dollar store ones...  Yeah.  It doesn't look the greatest, I'm aware - the repeated application of the thick heart polishes turned the finish of Happy Anniversary all gungey and gross-looking.... but it served its purpose.  Boyfriend liked it :)

And last, but not least....  I have a random no-name dollar store polish for you!! (don't you hate those? :p)  I've been combing Asian dollar stores recently.  Being in Vancouver, I walk past a ton of them all the time, and decided to start exploring some.  Well, look how glad I am that I did!

I found this gorgeous grey holo polish in one such store.  It was $2, has no name and comes in a fugly-ass twisty bottle.  But look how prettyyyyyy! *_*

I love me some holo.  And this has got good holo :)  I also picked up kind of a rusty-reddish looking one that also looks kind of holo, so hopefully that one'll turn out to be as nice as this one!  I scored a bunch of stuff at that store and stores like this recently, and I'm going to have an upcoming post dedicated to my dollar store finds. Most of them are random Hong Kong and Korean brand polishes, they're cheap, and they're all kinds of awesome :)  I'll also include where I found them all, in case anyone's in Vancouver.  (And in case you're interested, I found this particular one at that Daiso-type dollar store in Tinseltown by Stadium Station  :)  Or what used to be Tinseltown.  I don't know if it's still called Tinseltown.  But you guys know where I mean, right?  I'm sure it'd probably be at Daiso, too, since this place seemed to have pretty much the same stock as them...)

Well, I have run out of pics for you right now.  But do not fret - I shall return with more stuff I promised I'd do.  Seriously.  I will.

(No, I'm still not tired yet.  FML  :p)

Some Burlesque Swatches: Let Me Entertain You and Extra-Va-Vaganza, Plus A Whole Buncha Bonus Swatches

Alright.  I'm doing it again.  It's been awhile, so I'm throwing up a whole bunch of swatches at once.  Because really, I've been hauling so much lately that i have absolutely no excuse for not posting something every single day, even if it's just stash photos or haul photos or just my NOTD :p  So here you go - here's what's been on my nails the past week or two.

Sorry about the watermark - I already posted this on MUA, so if you already saw these phots there, sorry :p  And I didn't have time to go back and change the watermark on all of them, so just try to ignore it :s  Also, sorry about my dry-azz cuticles :(

Okay, I'll start with some of the other stuff.  Why?  Just cuz I want to :p

Sparitual Chill. OMG, what a gorgeous creamy bluey-purpley! Do these Sparituals wear like iron on anyone else, or is it just me? Cuz if they all wear this well, I think I love...

Claire's Mood Polish in Mellow/Crazy. This is it cold...

...and this is warm. I may have jazzed it up with some random glitter topcoat, by the looks of it here, but I honestly don't remember... I thought this was new, but its really just a lighter, more boring version of Calm/Wild...

See how similar? Does anyone else have Mellow/Crazy?

Alright, here's those Burlesque polishes I promised you:

OPI Let Me Entertain You. Ooh, blue shimmer! I loved this one a lot more than I thought I would.

OPI Extra-Va-Vaganza. yeah, I loved this one exactly as much as I thought I would :) I mean, how can you not?

I will swatch the rest of these Burlesques as I wear them - I promise!  I have all of them now :S :S  I'm saving my favorite, Sparkle-icious, for last....

Milani Just Browsing. Your standard silvery, shimmery white. Kind of like OPI Kyoto Pearl.

China Glaze Stroll. <33333333333

Okay, and I really loved this one too:

Color Club Untamed Luxury topped with HT. UL is such a gorgeous polish - turquoise blue jelly base packed with aqua glitter...

...and topped with HT, it just looks so... mermaid-y....

Remember that 5-pack of blackened glitters Icing had a while back? This was my favorite one from that pack. The gold glitter stands out really, really well against the black base. Love :)

Massini Purple Medallion.... or, I mean Studio M, whatever.

And saved for last, my recent favorite:

This is Color Club Wild And Willing. I think I put it over With Abandon, which is a black with very subtle gold shimmer/microglitter, but it doesn't matter - you'll get the same basic effect over any black...

Red...

Gold...

...and green :) Lovin would be easy if your colours were like my dreeeeeams.... yeah, never mind. It's kind of like a more intense Space Cadet, in my opinion.... if you can picture such a thing :)

Alright, that's all for now.  I have soooo much haulage to show you guys... Japanese dollar store polishes, MAC Jade Dragon, new Anna Sui and Bourjois, new WnW blackened glitters, and some really sweet frankens I made!  Yes, I, Lex, The Queen of FrankenSuckFail, made not one successful franken - but three! :D  And one's that SSN franken I've been meaning to make forever - turned out great! :D  Oooh, I can't wait to show you!

I'm tired now, though, and off to bed - I'll post my NOTD tomorrow too, I promise.