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!

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 :)

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.

Huge Swap Haul! Things I Couldn't Get In Canada

Okay, I told you about that EPIC swap I did awhile back... I don't want to bore you to tears, but I did want to show you what I got in the swap really quickly.

One of these days I'd like to start doing Youtube videos about stuff like this.  And then I could just link to the video.  I'm probably completely kidding myself thinking anyone would be even remotely interested in watching anything like that, but really, I think I would have so much fun doing it that I wouldn't really care :p  But then I get to thinking about why I'd have so much fun doing something like that, and I start to feel kind of narcissistic and insipid and decide against it again.  But then I watch videos like this and this and especially this and want to do it again.....  ugh.  Anyway, I'll try not to drag this on....

Okay, so this swap was courtesy of the awesome jn_woods.  I don't know if you're a follower, Jen, but if anyone is on MUA and thinking of swapping with her, I highly recommend it - the woman is a CP wizard, people! :)

Okay, so these are in no particular order, since Blogger is not letting me rearrange my photos right now:

This is Love My Nails Glory, Essie Pink Parka and Sinful Innocent, which I think is a dupe for OPI Who The Shrek Are You?  Oops.

Pure Ices in Beware and Strapless.  Both intended for frankening.  I think this is like my fifth bottle of Strapless :p

 This is Zoya Luna, Nova and Collette - obtained for me during Zoya's "LIPPY" sale earlier this year, which of course wasn't available to Canadians >:p

 Hard Candy Mr. Wrong and Lava.  My sister stole the ring from Mr. Wrong.  We have Hard Candy at Walmart here now, but of course, NO NAIL POLISH!  AWESOME!  THANKS WALMART CANADA!  >:p >:p

New York Summer Amaranth and Hot Baby Blue, and Sally Hansen HD Byte and Wavelength.  We eventually got these HDs in Canada, but not at the time I requested them.  I didn't want to wait 2 months till we got them here :p

 This is the Milani.... Hot Metal collection?  Liquid Metal?  Arrrgh.  I fail.  I know Milani had two collections of chromes (and then put out another with metallic reds and oranges....it's like, oooookay), and I got both of them, but I don't recall which was which.... to be fair, I never actually saw the display myself in person  :p  Anyway, I think this one is the Hot Metal collection.  I think.  These all have names with "melt" in them.... and they have been reviewed to death so I'mma move on...

 And here's the other collection.  These have computer-y names... and they look more like Liquid Metal, so I'm gonna guess these are those.  I don't remember all the names of them right now, and I don't want to go look, so.... oh man, this post sucks soooo bad, doesn't it?  :(  Sorry.

 These are Massinis, as you can see :)  They are super-pretty and blingy.  I'm so happy I finally got these, but ........ whyyyyy don't they sell these in Canada?!?  Sad face.

*EDIT - As I was reading this, when I read "as you can see", I looked up at the picture and saw.... that the bottles say "Studio M" on them now.  I IZ SMRT.....  Yeah.  Massini renamed itself Studio M a long time ago... and come to think of it, I may have seen the makeup in a store around here... so maybe we'll see Studio M polishes soon?

These are Essence Color & Go's.  Once again, not in Canada :(  I already had two of these from swaps - Pool Party and Underwater, and now I am the proud owner of Check Me Out, No More Drama, What Do U Think and VIP Appeal.  Stupid names, but whatever.  I read on the board that What Do U Think is a dupe for Chanel Orange Fizz.... really?  I dunno about that, but it's a cute colour.

LA Splash polishes!  The coveted Golden Seahorse, Sparkling Oceanspray and Sparkling Stratosphere.  Once again, never seen in Canada.  I feel like if I search dollar stores hard enough I'd find these one day, but I know it's a lie....

The entire collection of the summer LE Wet N Wilds!  Now, we have WnW in Canada, but we'd never, ever see new collections like this, let alone LE ones.  And I never thought I'd be able to obtain all of them, but I did!  :D 

Okay, I had a couple of more things to show you, like the names of the WnW polishes, not to mention the crown jewels of my swap!  :(  But blogger is NOT letting me upload photos right now.  At all.  I click on them to upload them, and nothing happens.  I realize this post really, really sucks, and I apologize.  Hopefully blogger will stop effing with me soon and I can go back and edit this.  If you're reading this before I have a chance, once again I'm sorry  :(  My next post will be better, i promise!