NOTD: Nubar Night Sparkle and A Rambling Lament

So one of my ebay Nubar orders came in :)  Yay!

L-R: Indigo Illusion, Love Rainbow (not nearly as holo as I thought), Wildlife, Moon Shadow, Night Sparkle, Reclaim.
I've been ordering stuff like a mad woman lately.  I guess that's what happens when you haven't bought anything for yourself since November and you make a crapload more money than you usually make all in one go...  I think I'm done for now, though.  Seriously, this is what I've got lately: I made a TD order with a fellow Vancouver pal from the nailboard, I finalized a swap for some lemmings I can't get in Canada (WnW Party Of Five Glitter, Essie Dive Bar and Jesse's Girl Confetti), and I grabbed the Zoya Intimate set tonight from evilbay for $38 inlcuding shipping (I know right? Good job me! :D) - and that was just tonight! :O  I've also nabbed China Glaze Kaleidoscope Him Out off the bay of evil for a half decent price too ($9 - the cheapest I've seen it on ebay for over a year.. and I think it only fetched such a low price cuz the seller couldn't spell "kaleidoscope" and couldn't take a non-blurry pic :p)  I'm rather happy about that one though - this was one of my first and biggest China Glaze lemmings when I started to get back into np again, around December of 2009... man, I should have just ordered both Kaleidoscope sets (both warm and cool!) off Ebay then - I remember they were going for around $37-$38 each at that time... I mainly just wanted KHO at the time too, and was just going to get the others as an afterthought :)  Man, I can't wait to finally get KHO now :)  Also, I've been eyeing Clairins 230... I haven't bid yet, but I'm thinking about caving and getting Teh Unicorn Pee if I can gets it for under $75 or so...  I'm still undecided though - that is an awful lot for one polish, even if it is like getting five polishes in one... I've wanted it for so long, but I think I'd feel foolish.  But who cares, I want it!  Gaaaah - yeah, undecided.

Holy crap, ramble on forever, lady!  What am I, my boyfriend's mother?

Nubar Night Sparkle:

I don't know why I chose to wear this out of all the new Nubars I got.  It called to me.  Night sky polishes- what can I say?  Easily my favorite one out of this Nubars Sparkles collection - I have a bit of an obsession with night sky polishes. 

Did I mention to you guys there's a Chanel Ciel De Nuit on Ebay right now for $129?  Buy It Now :)

Why am I bringing this up now, you ask? It's simple.  Nubar Night Sparkle makes me drool - this is obvious, but I thought it important for you to know why it makes me drool.

Now, you guys know Ciel De Nuit is my biggest, hugest, Forever Number One Lemming.


It's the Polish that started my Entire Love Of Polishes... back in 1995 (or was it '96?)  It was the winner of a contest put on by Chanel and Seventeen magazine, a reader-designed polish... I fell in love, and bought Maybelline Twinkle Twinkle because of it (which I still own), and then some Wet N Wild black, purple and green... and then some Claire's and Afterthoughts polishes... and then Street Wears.... fifteen years later, here I am....

To this day, despite all the dupes and look-alikes and Essie Starry Starry Nights in the world, this polish still makes me glowy-eyed like no other.  I still want it exactly just as much as I did the day I saw it in the pages of Seventeen magazine.  And that's why, to this day, I've bought every single polish that looks even remotely like it or even vaguely resembles any aspect of it ever since :p

Should I buy the polish on ebay, you guys? :p  :p  Anyone wanna buy it for me?

Okay, I know this post is stupid and whiny, since I'm heartbroken over the price of the Ciel De Nuit on Ebay that I'll never own, but can I talk serious for one second here? I really love Nubar Night Sparkle.  It is the prettiest one I own out of the Nubar Sparkles so far - the other two being Meadow Sparkle and Sky Sparkle, and much less impressive.  The purple ones look okay, but I love blues and they can't be anything compared to this.  This kind of reminds me of Finger Paints Easel-y Entertained, but less purple, and Nicole Such A Go-Glitter... but I don't have that on hand to compare.  Either way, none of these were easy for me to get, but they were all worth it - dark blue glitter in a black base is one of my favorite polish colours ever :)

PS: I realize how obnoxious this post is for how bad these pics are.  And I apologize.  Better ones to come :S

NOTD: Revlon Perplex

Hello and good afternoon :)  This is my NOTD, Revlon Perplex.  I would trumpet my wearing of this awesome and coveted polish more, but I don't want to hurt or offend my fellow Canadians who are unable to purchase this.  This is the celebrated dupe of Chanel's Paradoxal.  Obviously, I was forced to swap for this, as - did I mention this? - this is NOT available in Canada, for some unfathomable reason.  Do I sound bitter?  Hmm, why would that be?  Seriously, though, I just don't see why they couldn't sell this in Canada.  I mean, how to they decide these things?

Anyway, please excuse the laughable mile of gap I left between the polish and my cuticle :S  I've been making a pathetic attempt to shape my nails square (which for some reason, my nails just do not want to do - they refuse to deviate from their natural oval shape even just a bit), and in an even more pathetic attempt to highlight that, I tried to square out the cuticle line... yeah, I went a bit overboard.  It looks silly, I know.  Just ignore it :p

So here's Revlon Perplex:

My previous favorite dark mushroomy colour like this was OPI's You Don't Know Jacques, and this would completely replace it as my favorite mushroomy of all time, were it not for one thing:

Check out my middle finger!  It goes through an entire day of wear just fine, then I go to sleep and wake up and I have these stupid creasey thingies on my nails :(  GRRRRevlon!  Revlon is always, always, ALWAYS such a fail on me!  Remember this post I wrote back in the dark days of my blog, when my photos were beyond crappy (even more so than now, if you can imagine that) and no one read it? (Of course you don't, cuz... no one read it.  Derr.)  I said I was never buying Revlon again.  The Top Speeds are okay, I think, although I've never really worn any of those beyond swatching them on one nail (hmm... maybe my next project? swatching all the Top Speeds?), but this is just a normal Revlon, thus the suckage.  The colour really is fabulous though.

It's the purple shimmer.  I'm in love with the purple shimmer. It's just so visible!  It's like YDKJ with an extra layer of gorgeousness added!  I definitely will wear this again, when I want a nice neutral with a bit of added dimension (like an Essie Demure Vixen).  I'll have to try it with a coat of Gelous under my Seche Vite, instead of with SV alone.  The creases aren't visible IRL, but it's enough to bother me.

Anyway, that's all for now.  If TD will ever put up those darn China Glaze Crackle Glaze polishes, I'll have another haul to post about :p  Also, waiting on my FB Zoyas still and Ebay Nubars.  Anyone else still waiting on their Zoyas?

Another Spam Post

I told you I had a ton of backed-up NOTDs to post, so I'm getting it over with.  I hope you don't mind.  I'd just really like to get caught up to date with these so I can start just posting my NOTD almost every day...  yeah, good luck with that, Lex...

Anywho, these are sort of in order from oldest to most recent...

This is Hard Candy Frigid.  Droool, old Hard Candy.... please excuse the hideous tipwear.  This polish was pretty sheer, but buildable... I think I used four coats here though.

A konad I did with plate m57, Color Club Warhol and L'Oreal French Tip White.  Tacky, but I kind of loved it...

Barielle Elle's Spell over Essie Limited Addiciton.

Indoor shot.  Look at those flakies!

The gold flakies in this flash to green at certain angles.  I loved this.  It's absolutely gorgeous.  Wish Barielle was more widely available here :(

Another konad - fauxnad actually - using the L'Oreal French Tip White and Illamasqua Jo'mina.  Jo'mina isn't as blue-toned as it looks here - it's acutally much warmer.

Claire's Venomous.  I couldn't really get a decent picture of it, but this one shows most of its tones.  I didn't really find it to be as close of a dupe for Orly Space Cadet as I'd read.... the base in this is much more green. 

This was something I'd lemmed for a long time, but I was kind of disappointed in when I finally tried it on: OPI Sand-erella.  This is sort of HTF, so I feel bad saying it disappointed me... but I dunno, it just looked frosty under most lights.  I didn't really get too much of the holo sparkle you see in the bottle in the 2nd pic.

This is Zoya Erika.  This polish is really pretty, but I don't know how crazy I am about this colour on me - what do you think?

Milani Hi-Def.  This is really pretty, and my favorite of this line after Cyberspace (the blue one) - it's sort of a pea green colour, and very holo.  I didn't use a topcoat here, as not to diminish the holo.  Sorry about the blurry 2nd pic, btw, but the way my thumb looks in the first pic is how this polish looks 99% of the time :)

Last, we have Claire's Bright Skies.

Blue.  Jelly.  Holo glitter.

Do I really have to tell you what I think of this polish?  I think you can figure it out :)

Blurry to show the glittah!

Alright, that's all for now, I guess... I had another picture of Bright Skies, but Blogger isn't letting me upload it, and I just sat here for 10 minutes trying... so now I'm all bad-tempered.  Also, I've been sick for the past two days and haven't eaten ANYTHING - literally, nothing.  And I like food.  A lot :(  So I'm going to go try and eat a meal.  Wish me luck!  If Blogger stops being poopy I'll edit that pic in later.

Oh yes, my NOTD is Revlon Perplex, and I am in LURVE.  Whyyyyyy can't we get this in Canada??  Pics of this to come :)

CRACK

Hello.  I know, one post every two weeks is ballz.  I fail for life :( 

Also, do you guys think I should change my blog design?  I just kind of went with the default back when I set this thing up, aside from my banner, and never really gave it another thought...  I'm so challenged when it comes to this stuff though, sadly.  Like, I would love to put a picture of my own up as my banner, but I have no idea how... maybe Blogger makes it easy for you?  I haven't actually checked :p  Wow, I sound like a complete idiot... why am I writing this here anyway....?

Oh, oh, oh - guess what I got???

Yay!  The OPI Katy Perry collection!  L-R: Black Shatter, Teenage Dream, Last Friday Night, Not Like the Movies, and The One That Got Away.  I was despairing at first, cuz these were all sold out on Transdesign, but then I found them at a local salon!  The first salon I went to had a full display, so I bought two Black Shatters, but then as I was shopping throughout the day I noticed more and more displays with empty slots.  By the end of the day, every KP display I passed had empty BS slots, and I noticed Teenage Dream was disappearing fast, too.  So I had a minor freak-out and then proceeded to motor my way around the huge mall I was in looking for TD, Not Like the Movies and Last Friday Night.  Not only did I find one, I found a salon that had a Buy 3 Get 1 Free deal - and they let me use it on the KPs! :) So I got The One That Got Away as well - wasn't really lemming it, but I figured why not.  I don't want the name to become annoyingly ironic.

Anyway, as you can guess, I'm obsessed with Black Shatter and have been putting it overtop of everything lately.  Here's a couple of my BS manis (heh) - I haven't photographed them all because we just plain haz no sun right now, not to mention it's freakin cold outside, but I did get pics of a few:

This is the first mani I did with BS - I wanted maximum impact, so I skittled neons.  Base, thumb to pinky: Color Club Psychedelic Scene, Misa A Sunny Smile Makes Me Go Wild, Color Club Limelight, Misa Lather Rinse Repeat, Color Club Bizerk Turq.

I actually like how my right hand turned out a lot better, for once.  The base polishes are all the same as above, except I swapped out Psychedelic Scene for Illamasqua Jo'mina on my index finger.  People were pretty amazed by this - I got lots of compliments from random people :)

The trick to Black Shatter is to apply one coat, as thickly and in as few strokes as you can.  The thinner you apply it, the smaller the cracks will be - I like the wider cracks that one thick coat gives you.  Try not to overlap your brushstrokes.  I don't think I quite have the hang of it yet...

Here it is overtop of Hard Candy Lava, with some SH Hidden Treasure added for extra lava-y-ness (yes, I really just said that).  I didn't really like the way this came out, though - it looks pretty here, but the HT tinted the base and make it look orange, and under the black it just looked Halloweeny to me in most lights.

And finally, what I have on today: Black Crack (I mean Shatter, whatever) overtop of Anna Sui 080.

Let me just talk for a second about Anna Sui 080:

She is absolutely gorgeous.  These are sad, crappy, really horrible indoor photos taken at night inside my house with dim energy-saving light bulbs, so they don't even begin to show how pretty this is.  It's larger holo and iridescent hex glitter with tiny pink glitter sprinkled throughout.  It's fantastic.  It's probably my favorite AS polish that I own.  It's one of my favorite glitter polishes, period (and we know what a glitter hoor I am!)  As soon as I put this on, I decided I needed a backup.  Pretty, pretty things like this always get discontinued   :(

Anyway, I almost didn't want to ruin it with Black Shatter (no one wants to be BS'd over, heh...heh... 'kay, I'll stop), but I did anyway and I like the way it came out:

It still sparkles beneath the cracks, and I really like the way my thumb turned out.

Did manage to get one, sort-of-lit picture.  But yeah, I like it.  I think I'm going to try it over either Color Club Magic Attraction or Blue Light next :)

I have a metric crapload of NOTDs to post, so I'll be doing that next.  I'm waiting on my Zoyas in the mail still (the Order Status still says Shipping, and there's no tracking number yet), and I ordered a bunch of Nubars from evilbay (most of which are duochromes! Squees!) - I can't wait for those! :D  I'm waiting to make a TD order until the China Glaze Crackle Glaze collection comes out (yes, more crack in multiple colours.  You can surmise what I think of those :p), which is making me extremely nervous - they better still have Anchors Away fully stocked by the time that happens!

Anyway, 'tsall for now!  Bye :)

NOTD: GOSH Holographic

Hey y'all... no, this isn't the New Year Start-Off Post I promised, but it'll have to do...  I've been doing so much crap and running around lately :(  Blah.  Plus I'm working the weirdo freaky on-set hours next week (Hellcats this time) so you probably won't hear from me for a few days then... not that that's unusual....

Anywho, who watched Jersey Shore tonight? /guiltily raises hand.  I hate myself for being so addicted to this show :p

Okay, enough,  Here's a couple of the worst pics in the world of GOSH Holographic:

Ain't she purdy?  It was kind of a streaky PItA to apply, but all was smooth after four(!) coats.  I used so much of the bottle though :(  Also, this is with no topcoat.  Topcoat diminishes the holo.  Hence the chip on my index finger :(  Please to ignore.

Now, as far as your silver holos go, this is very holo.  Very very holo.  Holo-er than ChG OMG, I'd say, although I can't find my pic of that at the mo...  I don't own Nfu-Oh 61 (yet) but I hear this is very similar to this.  What I DO have to compare it to is (equally crappy pics of) OPI SRO (Standing Room Only) Silver:

As you can see, I'd say SRO is a tiny bit more scattered - less linear and smooth than Holographic.  I honestly don't know which one I like better...  They are both gorgeous, though.  And obnoxiously hard to find :(  I brought in my bottle of Holographic to Shopper's Drug Mart, where they sell the rest of GOSH's line (everything except Holographic and Rainbow.  the two coolest ones. The eff?) and asked the SA if she knew the deal with the availability, and apparently we might start seeing Holographic in Canada?  Don't quote me on that, though - some SA's have no idea what they're talking about...  I had a lady at a salon downtown tell me that Zoya folded as a company and doesn't make polishes anymore XD I just bit my tongue.

Oh, what the hale - here's a bonus polish that I love, but hate on me:

Essie Mint Candy Apple.  So pretty, but:

Do.  Not.  Want.  Clearly not the best with my skintone :(  Which is sad, because I love mint green, I love blue-tinged cool colours, and Essie's formula wears like no other on me.  But this polish and me were clearly not meant to be...  *wipes tear.  And yet, I can't bear to swap it away.  Le sigh.

That's all for now, guise.  Back later with more.

PS: We're filming a wedding scene over the three days next week on Hellcats, I think.  Wonder what np I should wear? :p

Happy New Year, Everyone! Some Pretty Polishes I've Acquired Recently

Hey y'all!  Alright, I know I never did a post with all my Christmas manis, but no one wants to see that by now anyway....  I'm gonna do a New Year Start Off post with some stuff like that in it.  I promise.  I really will  :p

But yeah, lately almost everything I've been wearing is untried and newly acquired, so I'll just show you some of those for right now.  I know I didn't do haul posts when I got some of this stuff, because, well.... I dunno...  I've been feeling lately like haul posts are sort of obnoxious.  Well, coming from me they seem that way, anyway....  Since it seems like that's all I do is haul polish sometimes...  I dunno.  I get really excited when I have a new collection, or a new couple of polishes that I've been really lemming, or an unexpected treasure that I've found without even looking for it... but does anyone else?  Yeah.  More on this later.

Speaking of hauling, also, there's about a BILLION collections coming out very soon that I think I'm gonna need.  First and foremost, there's everything crackle.  Katy Perry, Serena Williams, and the China Glaze crackle collections - I'm gonna need ALL of those.  Seriously.  I need me some crack. I am so excited to wear these that I can't even describe it :D  Then there's the Tronica collection (which I'm kind of on the fence about, since I own all the OMGs except BFF, but I know me and I know I'll end up caving :S), the couple of polishes I want from the Anchors Away collection, and then there's the new Zoya Intimate collection that Scrangie posted - um, drool!  Not to mention I'm sure Orly and Color Club will be putting out spring collections soon, although we haven't heard anything official yet.  So, my wallet is going to be absolutely wailing in agony and I'm gonna have a lot of stuff to post :p

So yeah, here's some stuff I've been wearing lately!

This is Joe Fresh Coral.  I tried putting some CND Gold Sparkle Effect overtop of the ring and pinky, but then decided against it as I could barely see it :(  You know me.  Always gotta be OTT.  Can't just leave a perfectly pretty polish alone and appreciate it by itself....

So since my first attempt was a fail, I was even more determined to make it more flashy and glittery (and tacky :p).  The result was this :p

It is actually kind of pretty.  It reminds me of a goldfish.... I used Inglot 203, one of their blue-green flaky polishes (Inglot flakies are awesome), and then topped that with a coat of Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure, just to see what it would look like.

And now for something completely different....

This is Ardene Grape Times.  This was my post-NYE mani (I'll show you my NYE mani in my New Year's Start Off post.  It's pretty much what you'd expect :p)  THIS, however, is absolutely gorgeous for a tween-store polish...

It's a deep, dark, delicious grape jelly....  mmmm, grape jelly....  But seriously, that's what it is.

It reminds me of watercolour.  Too many coats and it looks blackish indoors, so I just did one coat here. 

But apparently, I've really been into layering lately, so...

I did this.  I added one coat of Sinful Let Me Go, which is a beautiful sheer purple blue-green duochrome.  It looks light purple in the bottle with a strong blue flash, but on the nail it's very blue-green. I received it as a swap extra - I didn't even know it existed- but as soon as I saw it I knew it would look gorgeous over black or darker colours. 

Of course, since it's a duochrome I had to take a million pictures of it...

See the greenish-blue hue to it?

Picture with flash.  I don't use flash very often...

And last and most definitely not least....  lookie what THIS Canadian got her grubby mitts on!

This is the Ulta-exclusive OPI Gift Of Gold  :D  The ONLY reason I own this little beauty is because I whined and pleaded with my aunt (who lives in GA) to please please please CP me this for Christmas!  And she did!  Not only did she get me this, but she also got me Elle's Spell!  And some LA Splash glitters! :D  (Both of which I can't get in Canada), so if by any chance you actually clicked on the link to my blog I gave you, and on the even more remote chance you've actually read this far, Hi Aunt Bonnie!  Thank you for the gorgeous polishes! :D

I wasn't a Nail Boarder when OPI's last Ulta-exlusives came out, Dazzled By Gold and Pink Me I'm Good, so I had no idea those even existed until they were lone gone and super hard-to-find.  So I will make do with this :)

Super close-up so you can see the tiny red microglitter sprinkled in there with all that gold.  Please excuse my horrible, horrible dry cuticles - they are really bad :( This is super-shiny and blingy.  It actually is a really great Christmas polish, but I would totally wear this year-round.  I want this on my toes next, I think (currently China Glaze Cheers To You is still on them).

See how pretty?  Please forgive the chips as well.  This is two days of wear.

Okay, that's all for now.  I'll be back later with my promised posts!