Massively Hugely Enormously Massive Haul Post

Okay, so this started out as just a post of what I've hauled this past week, but then I thought, what the hell - I'm going to do a post of every single thing I've bought this year so far.  Wanna stop reading?  I don't blame you :p

I don't know if I should do most recent to oldest, or....?  I guess I'll do it from oldest to most recent.  Keep in mind, those of you thinking I'm some spendaholic freak, that this is for this entire year so far.  Some of these are swaps, as well.  Oh, I'm just going to stop making excuses for myself - you know you're all just as bad as I am ;p

Ready?  Grab some chips and turn the TV to something boring :)

Sephora by OPI Read My Palm and Just A Little Dangerous.  Two I'd been lemming for a while - I only had a mini of RMP.

From Forever 21, Love & Beauty scented polishes in Peppermint and Kiwi, and a regular polish in Lime.  These do smell, although not very good - the scent reminds me of those scented fat felt pens we had when we were kids.

Boring stuff - Barielle Camo and Mani Extender, found at Winner's for $5 each.  After I bought these, I walked into Eterna Skin Care on Robson and saw Camo for $18!  D:

But oooh, this is exciting - the Dare To Wear Disco Tech collection!  Hee.  I like glitter.  I just noticed that my older polishes from this brand are spelled "Dare 2 Wear".  Huh.

See?  See?  I told you!  This is Hunter Green x2, Billie Purple Haze (awesome neon purple with subtle shimmer, and only a buck!) and some little butterfly decals I found - which are sitting on top of a Hello Kitty fauxnad plate :)

Aren't these adorable?  I got these so I could copy this mani that I saw on Chloe's Nails.  It's so simple, but so adorable - one of my favorite manis of all time :)

Anna Sui 101, 103 and 011.  011 has flakies!

Some old discontinued China Glazes.  L-R: Stone Age, Sunset Glow, Channelesque, FYI and Drama Queen.

More old discontinued China Glazes.  L-R: Subtle, Beatnik, another Channelesque ;p

Now, we move on to our OPI part of the presentation:

OPI Texas collection. L-R: Y'all Come Back Now Ya Hear?, Big Hair..Big Nails, Guy Meets Gal-veston, That's Hot! Pink, Do You Think I'm Tex-y?, Houston We Have A Purple, Austin-tacious Turquoise and You Don't Mess With OPI!  These names get worse with every collection :p

More (yes, more) random OPIs - Skinny Dip'N In Lake Michg'n, Tickle My France-y, Barefoot In Barcelona, Over the Taupe (I needed neutrals, lol), Just Groovy and Simply Smashing.

And dusty finds!  Awesome dusty finds!  L-R:  Mad As A Hatter, Sapphire In The Snow, Smitten With Mittens, Merry Midnight.  I already own all these, but backups, swaps, you know how it goes... :)

And that concludes our OPI portion of the evening, now how about some Daiso finds?

OMGHOLOsqueeeeeeeee!  <--- iz what I did when I found these in the store.  These are the "Rainbow" line of polishes, they are pretty holo, and they are fantastic!  The three in the middle look like they're the same, but they're actually three seperate colours.  But aren't these just the FUGliest bottles you've ever seen?  Daiso has some seriously ugly bottles, man.

Like check THIS out.  These are all very pretty - a chunky silver and holo hex glitter, iridescent hex glitter, a blue that looks really frosty and horrible here but it's actually very silvery and pretty, and the one on the end is called Aurora Lights and it's basically an exact dupe of CND Crimson Sparkle.  But those first two bottles are seriously some of the most ridiculous-looking things I've ever seen in my life...

SEE?!?  Like, seriously?  What the hell is that thing?  A nail polish bottle or the frickin Empire State Building?  I think the folks at the Winmax must've just done this for a laugh  :p

And look at this!

Aren't these cool?  Anyone know how to read Japanese?  :D  The pictures are SO awesome though.  I'm going to pick a couple of pages and try to scan them like Wan does with Nail Up! magazine over at I Love Nail Polish - a fellow Vancouver blogger, btw :)  And that concludes my Daiso finds!  Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

American Apparel polishes in (L-R): African Violet, Cameo Blue, Army Jacket and MacArthur Park.  Now I just need Passport Blue, Dynasty, Echo and a couple more  :p

Some randoms. L-R:  Nox Twilight Disco Darling and Citrus, unnamed LA Colors yellow gold, Claire's Poison Apple and Zoya Jade.

Wet N Wild Teal Of Fortune and Blue Wants To Be A Millionaire?  TOF looks like another Charla dupe, and BWTBAM looks similar to the Justin Beiber Nicole polish Me + Blue, although they're not dupes.

China Glaze mood polishes that - blast it all - have no labels!! :(  Anyone have any idea what these might be?  The one on the left is baby blue with a pinky-gold flash, and the one on the right is slightly darker with blue glitter.

CND Effects - all for a swap :)  Aren't they pretty?  I love these, they're so fun to play with.

And some Essies - Coat Azure, Beach Bum Blu (frosty and horrible - I dunno why I bought it :-/) and French Affair.

And last, I know no one cares, but some non-nail-polish stuff that I got for cheap:

I got my makeup done by a Smashbox artist at SDM, and since I had a gift card I bought two products - the Halo powder and Peony cream cheek colour duo, and the MU artist ended up throwing in all this stuff for free!  She threw in a full-size lipgloss, lip pencil and concealer for free, as well as a travel-size mascara and a billion other little samples.  I was blown away!  Usually they're just trying to get you to spend money and even when you do, make you feel like you're not spending enough, but she was extremely generous!  Thanks Smashbox!  Oh, and the In Bloom eyeshadow palette I bought at Sephora a few weeks back - happened to grab the last one :)

I started composing this post about a week and a half ago, so I've bought a couple of things since then.  I'll take some photos and get an updated haul post up as soon as I can :)  I've been working lots lately, which I really need.

Crappy Monday :)

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

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!

Some Quick & Dirty Icing Swatches & Comparisons. Other Swatches Too. And Stuff.

I was bored one night and decided to see what the Icing colours I bought actually looked like on my nails, as well as how similar they were to the colours I thought they looked like.  Turns out I was pretty much right in almost all my predictions - the colours are unique in that they look like muted versions of things I already own.

Observe:

Starting off, we have Icing Casino Green.  All of these swatches are without b/c and t/c.  This was a little thick, but the horrible application is just my lack of skillz I think, not the polish's fault.  See?  Like I said - slightly more muted Rebel Debutante.  It's got a tad more blue in it too, I think.  This was 3 coats of Casino Green, 2 of RD. 

Next, Icing True Blue.  This was much more muted than what I thought was its closest dupe, CC Take Me to Your Chateau.  More greyed out, slightly sheerer, not nearly as stark.  I'd call it a true "powder blue".  I didn't have Joe Powder Blue at the time, but it looks closer to this than anything else - I'll have to compare them.  Application was a teeny bit sheer, but I only did two thin coats.  One or two more coats would have completely eliminated the VNL. 

Last, Icing Sunset.  Pretty orange creme with a bit of coral in it.  This is the one I was a bit off on.  It's much lighter and more orange than H&S, as you can see, and not as peach as TD.  It's like a soft orange, sort of.  This was the easiest to apply out of the three.  This is two coats.

Of course, as I said I was bored that night, so I did some more swatches.

This is a Sally Girl mini in Light Purple.  Sorry about the horrible lighting here, but other than my jaundiced hands (aaah!) this is pretty true to colour.  Most of these Sally Girls don't have names, so if you need a refresher:

It's the fourth one from the left.

This is unique among my many, many purples.  This looked like a lighter, more lilac version of Nina Ultra Pro Sweet Nothings.  It's pinker than OPI Do You Lilac It? and I thought it looked pretty good on me.  Application was great for a little mini with a little eeny weeny puny brush.  I love these Sally Girl polishes.  Next time you're in a Sally's, pick this colour up! It's a dollar!

Next, I swatched some of those super-sparkly foil Princessas I got:

This one is called Champagne Dust, and it's a beigy-leaning-rose gold foil.  Very bright and Minx-like.  I swatched a full mani of this, because it kind of reminded me of Swing Baby from the upcoming China Glaze Vintage Vixen collection.  Until I read that SB has multicoloured microglitter.  which this does not.  But it has beigey-gold microglitter!  It's very pretty.

And this is some more of them:

Tan Gerine (still not getting the name....) is a shimmery cornflower blue with pink and purple microglitter and multisized shimmer particles.  It's so gorgeous, and the flash is very noticeable.  It would probably look best layered over something, as it is a tad sheer.  The rest of these had the same foil finish as Champagne Dust and the previously showcased Everglade Sparkle.  I know no one's ever heard of these, so I'm gonna stop boring you going on and on about them, but California Sunshine is my fave. Colorado Rapid, which I thought would be, had a slightly less reflective and more frosty finish to it, which I didn't like as much.

Next, this is Savvy Red Caviar.  Gorgeous shimmery deep red jelly with red shimmer/glitter.  Very glowy.  Reminded me of these two OPIs immediately, and the colour is similar, but the finish is completely different.  RC has more glitter flecks in its jelly base, whereas the OPIs are straight-up shimmers.  I looooove glowy vampies like this!

Last but not least, I have two Sally Hansen Insta-Dris for you.  Insta-Dris never get any love.  Yes, the brush is a tad unwieldy, but it's not that bad.  And wow, are these opaque!

See?  I would deal with the stupid brush any day of the week for this gorgeousness!  This is Jumpin' Jade - a deep teal with forest green shimmer. This is two coats of Jumpin' Jade, but I could have done one and been just fine.  Not to mention these do dry pretty fast.  I'm guessing this would be awesome for konading.... (pot leaf BM plate anyone? hahaha)

And this is Uptempo Plum.  This is so pretty too.  A deep blackened plum with purple, red, blue and gold microglitter (which you can kinda see in the bottle here).  The glitter has that smooth, suspended quality, like in Savvy Red Caviar.  Gorgeous.  I'm gonna have to wear this one on its own very soon, but like I said I was bored that night, so I decided to try some glitter topcoats overtop:

Ignore my smudging of the index and pinky fingers.  I think I like Fairy Dust the best.  Although I love them all.  Shiny things......

Okay, I'm going to cut myself off right here.  I have some more swatches and comparisons to post, but they can wait for now.  I have a billion swaps going at once right now (again!  I know I said I was gonna cut back on swapping, but there's so many things I want and can't get!  HT!  Damone Roberts!  Zoya's LIPPY sale!  Not to mention I managed to swap for some RBLs, which I'm SUPER-excited about!!  I can't wait for them to get here!  Screw it, I'm swapping all I want!) and I'm expecting my Zoyas from the exchange soon too!  Yay!  So lots of stuff to post soon!  :)

I'll be back later with more sub-par swatchery  :p