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!

Some China Glazes, Essies, Nicoles and More ~or~ Ten Posts Crammed Into One Because I Don't Post Frequently Enough

*EDIT*: WHYYY the EFF is Blogger not posting my photos?!???  I just uploaded the photos three times - I promise they're there, if you click on them it will take you to the pic, but blogger is not showing them in the post for some reason.  It's making me want to pull my hair out,.  I've just spent fifteen minutes trying to fix this, but blogger just won't show them, and I have to go to bed now, so I'm hoping this will just fix itself :( :(  stuff like this makes me want to quit blogging :(

*EDIT #2*: Okay, I think I got it to work.... I just have to paste the photos in HTML form... which I don't know crap about, so if it's all wonky, blame blogger :p

*EDIT #3*: Okay, that didn't work AT ALL.  I so fail at HTML.

*EDIT #4*: Now blogger is going to delete this post altogether?? I had it published, now it's back in my drafts?  WTH?

*EDIT #5*: Yeah.... it is now Sunday evening.  Blogger seems to mysteriously be working again, although it decided to take random photos I was trying to publish earlier and make them tiny little pixels that you can click on to go to a full-size pic.  Which is what it was doing before with all my pics.  Sigh.  I could delete all these edits, but they're entertaining.  At least they will be for me to read later  :p


Good Saturday Evening, all!

Yes, I know this should really be broken up into seperate posts about each colour to maintain everyone's constantly waning interest, but I would actually have to post on a semi-regular basis to do that  :p  Alright, no excuses today - let's just delve right into it, shall we?  Let's!

Forgive my brutal cuticles in all of these, please, by the way.  Winter no likey me hands :(

First off, some crack - China Glaze Medallion topped with Lightning Bolt and Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure.  Not too sure about how this came out...

China Glaze Kaleidoscope Him Out.  Okay, "love" is not a strong enough word for how I feel about this polish.  It's my second favorite blue holo behind DS Glamour.  I lemmed this for soooo long, and finally caved and bought it on ebay - remember I told you I got a good deal on it because no one bid on it due to the fact the seller couldn't spell "kaleidoscope"?  It was listed as "China Glaze hom Out"  XD

Boring old Essie Ballet Slippers.  This is my go to Boring Office-Appropriate Neutral, and has been for some years now.  I can't stand wearing it sheer, though - this is four coats here.

SpaRitual Face Of Destiny.  From the Truth collection.  I don't like this on me at all.  Ugly gramma-ish apricot barf.  Making matters worse: ew, oily skin!  Sorry.  Darn that China Glaze Peppermint cuticle oil!

SpaRitual Eye Of The Beholder.  Again, pardon shiny cutes.  I only have one of the SR Truth collection left to swatch - when I finally get around to it, I'll post them all together.  This colour is okay, a chartreuse-y lime creme, but it doesn't seem horribly unique or exciting to me, although I can't think of a dupe I own...

China Glaze First Mate.  Another one I loved.  Applied great, I loved the shade on me, again I don't know about the uniqeness, but it's a blue so I don't care :)  I'll happily own every blue out there regardless of similarity :)  Okay, that's an exaggeration.  Either way, I loved this on me....

So whyyy did I have to ruin it with this childlike attempt at a gradient?  Seriously.  I love White Cap and everything, it's very gorgeous, but this looks like a smudgy mess.  Like a four-year-old did it.  I should have just left it alone or did a full top coat of White Cap.  I love WC, by the way, and plan on trying it over a lot more things.

My St. Patty's Day mani!  This was China Glaze Emerald Sparkle topped with one coat each of China Glaze Sour Apple and Sinful Green Ocean.  It's a hot green mess, but all I was going for was sparkly and green, so it sufficed :)  God was it horrible to get off, though.  I don't know what it is about the foil method and green polishes, but it all just goes directly underneath my nails when I try to remove it and makes me look like I have dirty green gunk under my nails for days.  Hawt.

Essie Borrowed and Blue, from their Spring 2011 Wedding collection.  Forgive the chips.  Very, very pale blue, paler than CC Take Me To Your Chateau, maybe a touch less pale than Hard Candy Sky?  I'll have to compare.  Application was a tad more annoying than usual, as it the norm with these super-pale cremes - a bit streaky.

Nicole Iceburg Lotus.  Very pretty foil-y teal shimmer with very noticeable pink flash that I could not capture no matter what I did! :(  Trust me when I say it's there, though!  It's totally visible on the nail.  Scrangie was right, though - this is everything I wanted OPI Austin-tacious Turquoise to be :)  Too bad it's in that... bottle...

Aaargh - Nicole, why do you have to be so frigging awesome lately?!  I can't take another one of your horrible, storage-disrupting, Helmer-drawer-fuglifying bottles!  But look what they're packing inside these horrible hideous bottles!  This is I'm A Pool For Love.  I don't get the name (pool?  It's a blackened glitter :p) but yes, it's gorgeous.  A blackened duochrome glitter that's deep blue and purple most of the time, but goes from purple to gold at extreme angles.  Nicole rocks blackened glitters.  Actually Nicole's been rocking everything lately.  I got a couple more the other day besides these two - Nicole's Nickel (another black glitter!  Not blackened, but acutally black, like the one they had at Christmas! Squee!) and Brilliant Idea (a lime green glitter), and there was a holo glitter and a blue with pink flash I was eyeballing as well... but I'll have to wait until Nicoles go on sale for $6 again at Shopper's Drug Mart, which is when I got these - $11 is just waaaay to much for me to justify spending on such an ugly bottle.

I just decided to go count my Nicoles, on a whim....I own FOURTY-SEVEN freakin Nicoles, people.  47!!!  47 of those heinous freaking things, in my house, in my possession...*shudder*... Yeah... Maybe I won't go buy those other ones when they go on sale  :p  ("But," the voice in my head protests, "you love every single one of those Nicole colours...")

Blah.  I'm still not even remotely caught up on posting pics.  Also, I just got the China Glaze Island Escape collection the other day - swatches of those coming up soon!  Plus, ten more random spam posts like this, probably  :p

See you soon!  I should probably go to bed   :p  For some reason I am really craving a pepperoni stick.  Wish I had some of those.

Oh, oh, PS:  I gave my niece (the BF's best friend's daughter - got that? so not really my niece but you get it)a bottle of ChG Black Mesh, and she posted a pic of her crack mani on Facebook saying how much she loves it :D  And all her friends posted comments saying, "Omg, I love it, where did you find it, I can't find it anywhere" etc. etc., since Black Shatter's been sold out around here since the day it came out.  And my niece is all, "Oh, my aunt got it for me, I'll have to ask her.."  HAHA! :D  Who's the best aunt in the world?!??  :D  I love being the nail polish fairy to a fourteen-year old! :D

Some Random Swatches

Hello all.  This time, I didn't post much because I was having troubles with my camera - I oculdn't upload pics onto my computer for the longest time :(  Now that I can, I'm all backlogged again.  Boo.  I'll probably end up doing two or even three posts.  Then again, I probably shouldn't get ahead of myself  :p

Anyway, here's some recent NsOTD from the past week or so....

OPI Tickle My France-y.  I was working on a certain show about the adolescence of a certain superhero who wears a cape and flies, and needed a very neutral, office-appropriate polish.  This was recommended to me on the Nail Board.  Forgive the chips - it was a long day :p  I'm not sure how this looks on my skintone, either... it is a pretty, soft-looking neutral, but I'm just not drawn to "blah" shades like this....  I kept wanting to jazz it up with a black konad pattern of some sort.

Zoya Pinta.  One of the Zoyas I ordered recently.  This is a gorgeous and very pigmented (two coats here) dark blue-ish eggplant creme.  Yes, it is similar to OPI Sapphire In The Snow, but this one is much easier to find, and I honestly like the application way better.

This is Winmax Diamond Nail Enamel in Black.  Another one of the polishes I got at Daiso.  This one has a TON of silver, pink and blue shimmer.  It's a black polish where the shimmer is actually very. very visible - it almost gives it a metallic sheen.  Like hematite, but with tiny blue and pink flecks.  I don't have another black like this - it's absolutely gorgeous.

Wet N Wild Grey's Anatomy over black.  Gorgeous, gorgeous silver-purple-green duochrome.  I couldn't get the best pics of this - oh well.  I heard this is a dupe to Lippmann Wicked Game, which I'd been lemming for a while.  I think it's hilarious that the only dupe that exists to this $18 polish costs $1.79 :D  Anyway, we just started seeing this collection in Canada, but I'm glad I swapped for this one and Party Of Five Glitter - every display I've seen has been stripped clean of all the ones I wanted already :(  I'll show you the ones I did get in the haul post I'm gonna do next.

SpaRitual Enlightened Soul.  From the SpaRitual Truth collection (remember that mini 4pack and the two others I got back in January? or February? Or two posts ago?  Three out of six of them are now tried :-/ ).  Anyway, this is a standard taxicab yellow creme.  I was hoping for spectacular application, as it's what I usually get and have come to expect from SR, but no.  As you can see from the second, outdoor pic (which is the more colour-accurate pic, btw), it's streaky as fuh :(  But that didn't really matter because...

I was planning on putting China Glaze Crushed Candy overtop of it anyway :D

Did I mention I got the Crackle Glazes?  CUZ I DID :D :D  It took a bit of scouting, an inside tip and my BF almost killing me as I dragged him around looking for this tiny nail supply store, but I FOUNDZ DEM!  Sorry for the caps, but I LOVE crack polish and these are so freaking awesome!

More coming up about the new stuff I've gotten in my next post! :)

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.

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.