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

Spamalot: Some Revlons, OPI Cattitude, a random Princessa... and my ocnailart order!

So, as you know, I like to backlog my NOTDs and then bombard you all with them.  Well, no, actually I don't, but that's what always seems to happen.  So here's some!  Yay!  :p

Ideally, I wanted to group these together into themes and post them as a group.... like all the smelly Revlons together as one post... or all the Shreks as one post.... y'know, like the competent bloggers do?  :p  So they're actually easy to find?  But life isn't always ideal....  Besides, doing things "properly" is for conformists and squares.  Or I'm just lazy.  whatever.  Here we go!

First off, this is *sigh* OPI DS Glamour.  I got this in a swap from a lovely MUA member.  I probably would have had to pay out the a$$ for it on ebay had it not been for her.  This is such a gorgeous sparkly deep blue holo - I found it really hard to get a decent pic of it since the flash on my camera is broken :(

China Glaze Up All Night.  This is actually a deep blue shimmer, although it kinda looks creme-ish here.  You can tell if you enlarge the first pic.  This took two coats to be opaque.  It's lovely :)

Nfu-Oh 51.  Sorry for the blurriness.  This polish is rainbowy flakies in a purple jelly base.  I think enough has been said about it by now  :)  I may even have already posted this.  if so, sorry.  I think this is seriously one of my top three favorite polishes.  It's just so rainbowy :)  I must get my sister one of these.

Orly Cotton Candy.  This is a peachy baby pink creme.  It reminds me of piglets  :D  I loved this when I wore it - so happy and springy.  Looks fantastic with a grey shirt.  But of course, I had to go and ruin it with a tacky konad, which I will show you in my next post  :p

This is LA Girl Dance Studio with Pure Ice Heartbreaker layered overtop.  Ignore my pinkie - I had to ruin it by putting Sinful Nail Junky on as well, and it just looked like too much.  It looked much better with just the Heartbreaker overtop.  A green-shimmer-adder :)

This is Revlon Ocean Breeze, from the new Scented collection.  Ignore the failed konad attempt on the first two fingers - the remover didn't take it all off  >:p  This is a shimmery blue-green aqua.  And good thing it doesn't smell like an actual ocean breeze - I don't know what your ocean smells like, but 'round here it smells like, well, fish :p  What it does smell kind of like is cheap cologne - like an old Revlon Cherish perfume or something.  But it still smells okay, and far better than nail polish!  Plus, I like this colour on me far better than I thought I would.

This is Gumdrop, from the same collection.  An opaque lilac creme, similar to OPI Rumple's Wiggin'.  Oooh, I like the way this one smells the best :)  It just smells sweet, like candy.  I kind of think it smells like Pez.  Sid likes it too, as you can see  :)  I love these pale lavender colours, but I'm not so sure they flatter me... 

This is Beach, also from the same collection.  This is a shimmery yellowy green, similar to Nicole's Make Mine Lime.  And this one smells kind of weird.  Once again, a misleading moniker.  It certainly doesn't smell like the beach.  Which is good, I guess, because I suppose you don't want it to smell like Banana Boat and greasy hot dogs....  Once again, it smells better than nail polish, but weird.  Kind of like air freshener or dryer sheets or something.  But okay, I guess.  I thought the colour was pretty gross on me though, and I liked the smell of the other two better.

This is a Princessa polish, Everglade Sparkle.  It's a green-gold foil, and it's sooo shiny and sparkly!  These Princessa polishes are all super-dense and saturated.  I'm giving this one away in a swap - I'm gonna have to go buy a replacement, stat!  How sweet would this look on mah toes? :)  I'm going to swatch some more of these soon :)  I want to try out Colorado Rapid and New Eve At Vegas.

Last but certainly not least, OPI What's With The Cattitude?  This is a pretty sky-blue creme.  Dupey to others - CC Blue Light and ChG Bahamian Escape come to mind.  But I still love it - it's blue, and pretty.  This was a PITA to apply, however - you can still see some bare spots on my nails, and this is three coats.  It was pretty streak-tacular.  I think I like this colour so much partially because of the name - Sid's eyes are a similar colour to this polish, and he's definitely full of Cattitude:

  See?  "Why you takin a picture?  You got a problem with me biting your foot?"

Hehe...  Oh!  Look what came in the mail yesterday!

It's my konad order from ocnailart!  Squeeee!  I was missing a plate (m73.  the cloud one.  the one I wanted most, of course) but Kathleen assured me she'd send it right away.  Such a nice lady :)  I got Konad polish in White and Yellow, Princess Polish in Blue, and plates m60, m69, m70, m63, m64, and m78, as well as the missing one.  I don't know if that's the order they're in in the above pic here, so once again, sorry  :p 

I love konad, I love the concept of it and how it looks when it's done nicely, but here's the reality: I suck at it.  I suck so badly at konad.  And it's so tragic, because I really like it and want to be good at it.  And I'm going to keep trying, no matter how many trips down the river on the FAILboat it's gonna take  :p  So my next post will be a small collection of my konad attempts, the good, the bad and the ugly.  In fact, that's my title right there  :p

Alright, I'm off to go figure out what my next mani shall be... I'm really into spring colours, like pastel cremes lately.  Oh, and I have Essie Funky Limelight on my toes right now, and it is teh awesome!  Feet = gross, but I'll have to stomach it and take a pic when I can, cuz it looks really cute as a pedi colour and awesome in the sunlight!

Okay that's it for now.  til later!  xo

Massive Haul Post, part three - The Final Chapter (for a week or so)

The fact that I had to split this up into three parts is sad and somewhat frightening  :p  I went buckwild this one week.  This is the result.

Alright, here we go.  First of all, I have all the stuff I got at the beauty supply store.

Starting off, I picked up the CND "The Look" set.  I think I got a pretty good deal, too, since I've seen this sold online for $18.  I tried to get a pic of the Vivienne Westwood-designed box - it's so cute and really does make me think of candy.  It came with a little booklet with pics of CND polishes in action on the spring runways.  You've probably already seen the polishes by now - Sweet and Sugar Sparkle.  Sweet is an opaque, warm-toned pink that to me looks very similar to OPI Elephantastic Pink, and Sugar Sparkle is white, irreguar shaped flake glitter in a pearly base - it almost looks like a white flakie polish.  I can't wait to try these.

Next is something that I have no idea why I bought.  CND's new Shellac polish in Tutti Fruitti.  The SA talked me into buying it, and I was so excited, only to get home and realize that - duh - I don't own the UV light that is an integral part of the polish application.  Brilliant, Lex.  So I have no idea what I'm going to do with this.  Bringing it to a salon with me so they can put it on seems like such a waste of money, and going in and asking to use their UV lamp would make me feel like an idiot.  Honestly, I don't really know why they sold it to me.  Maybe they assume I own a salon cuz I buy so much polish  XD  Also, now that I look at the brochure and see all the shades again, I wish I'd gotten Fedora instead.  D'oh.

Some boring essentials - a fresh bottle of SV and more CND Ridge Out.  Until I can get Barielle Hydrating Ridge Filler, this will do - it's works and it's so much easier for me to get.  And six bucks ain't a bad price.  I'm halfway through my first bottle.  Even though I don't have ridges, sometimes the surface of my nails gets scratched and peels, and this provides a nice, even, milky white base - especially handy for pastel cremes.

Some OPIs - Got The Blues For Red, Mrs. O'Leary's BBQ, and La Paz-itively Hot - Matte.  All NB recommendations  :)

Color Club Volt Of Light, Tangerine Scream, and What A Shock!  This completes my Electro Candy collection, except for the purple one. 

More discontinued China Glazes! :)  L-R: Orchid Shadow (dusty lilac with gold shimmer), Rapture (hot fuschia pink with holo glitter), China Rain (peachy pink with gold shimmer and glitter) and Go Crazy Red (awesome shimmery red with a gold flash).  These are so pretty.  I wonder why some of these randomly have the silver caps like the OMGs....

More Dare 2 Wears :)  Love these.  L-R: Mint 2 Blue Opal, Tropical Kiwi 2 Metallic Green, another Green 2 Gold Opal (I already have one of these so this'll go as a swap extra), Ashy Gold 2 24K Gold, and one that has no label on the bottom (grrr!) but is a inky blackened greyish green with dark blue and aqua glitter.  It looks so unique.  It might be completely fugly.  I have no idea.  I don't have anymore nail wheels for swatching  :(  Must get more.

Last from the beauty supply place, I got some Princessas for a MUA member who wanted me to CP her some.  Most of these are very shiny, colour saturated, sparkly foils.

Sour Apple, Everglade Sparkle and Champagne Dust.  SA is a glittery sheer with pink duochrome, and the other two have the sparkly foil finish.  CD looks, to me, an awful lot like China Glaze Swing Baby from the upcoming fall 2010 Vintage Vixen collection (which I cannot wait for, btw - yes, I am aware I just got Poolside, lol).

Tan Gerine (huh? it's blue, you weirdos), Tahitian Afternoon and California Sunshine.  TG is a frosty baby blue with pink, blue, green and purple microglitter and purple-pink shimmer, and the other two are foils.

Colorodo Rapid, Silver Hurricane and New Eve At Vegas (again, huh?).  NEAV is a black jelly with irregular silver and holo glitter - so pretty!  Once again, the other two are foils.  Princessa's got some hilarious names - first Stary Stary Night (seriously!) and now these two.  *snort.  These will be going to a lovely MUAer is return for SH HT (yeah, I know, I know, shut up) and hopefully an Illamasqua! :)

Next is stuff from my mall haul:

These are more smelly Revlons: Grape Ice, Bubblegum, Cotton Candy and Orange Pop.  I have them all now except for Peach Smoothie, which I saw on lextard's blog and could tell immediately it would look hideous on me.  I may end up getting it anyway, but hopefully I'll be able to stop myself  :p  I can't wait to try these, though - I really like the idea of nail polish that actually smells half decent :)

Sephora by OPI It's Bouquet With Me.  Wanted this ever since it first came out, passed on it once, and it was sold out ever since.  Until last week  :)  I'm such a sucker for glitter, and I love $OPI's other glitters, so this was a no-brainer.  These polishes are just so hideously expensive though, for what they are.

More Icing polishes.  I think this set is older - it may have been a spring one.  These are all pastel cremes, with no visible shimmer to them.  These sets are really such an awesome deal - you get five good shades for a really low price, and the wear for the money is exceptionally good.  I love Icing's polishes  :)

These are new, I think.  This is True Blue, Casino Green and Sunset.  They're cremes.  This pic is not really capturing the colour - only True Blue is true to life.  TB looks similar to CC Take Me To Your Chateau, except a bit more muted and greyed-out.  Casino Green is much brighter than in this pic, more like muted CC Rebel Debutante, and Sunset is much brighter and closer to a muted OPI Hot & Spicy.  Icing has a bunch of "dupe" sets out right now - they have an OPI Alice In Wonderland dupe set (just like Finger Paints) with an AA and MAaH wannabe glitter and a couple reds.  It looked interesting, and I may pick it up next time just so I can review it :)

Hey!  Look what London Drugs sells now!  (for the ripoff price of six bucks, boooo!)  Still, I'm friggin ecstatic to see Sinfuls in Canada, finally!  now if they would just get a better selection  :p  I will be checking every London Drugs I'm remotely near from now on though to check their selection of Sinfuls  :)  This is Pinky Glitter and Cloud 9 - pink glitter and tangerine with gold shimmer.

Sweet!  The Essie Resort collection I've been lemming so badly!  L-R: Lapis of Luxury, Turquoise & Caicos (which I showed you the other day), Playa Del Platinum and Splash Of Grenadine.  T&C is an instant favorite of mine, and I have a feeling I'll be wearing these this summer more than once.  I'm thinking of putting LOL on my toes, or even PDP - someone on the NB said they had this as their pedi and loved it.  I just love the Mediterranean feel of these colours  :)

And then of course I can't stay away from the Essie discount bin at Trade Secret  :)  This time, I found Decadent Diva and Cool-Lots.  I've had better finds.  What colour is DD exactly?  Is it a shimmery... brown?  Burgundy?  Plum?  I can't tell.  And Cool-Lots, what was I thinking?  It's SHEER!  Sure it has pretty gold shimmer, but it's so SHEER!  Maybe one day I'll find use for it, though, in case I ever actually have to look professional, god forbid  :p

Next, some boring, non-np related stuff.  Wet N Wild eyeshadow palette in Lust, and Maybelline Eyestudio palettes in Sapphire Siren and Irresistibly Ivy. I'm not going to go into detail, since this is a nail polish blog, but I've just recently started buying and wearing makeup again, particularly eyeshadow and lipgloss.  I know drugstore eyeshadows are usually a no-go, but I was sucked in by the pretty ad for these.  And the WnW palette got really good reviews on MUA, which I trust entirely too much these days  :p  I don't know - I still feel overdone and a little silly whenever I wear eyeshadow, though.

ANYWAY, back to the good stuff.

Wet N Wild Craze polishes in Morbid, Glitz, Rustic and Blackmail.  Morbid looks similar to Misa Toxic Seduction - black with teal green shimmer, and Blackmail looks like it was trying to copy ChG Fortune Teller, as it's a black with orange/copper glitter, but sadly it doesn't show up on the nail too well.

More drugstore finds: Wet N Wild Rain Check and Sparked, I finally caved and bought Rimmel Camouflage, and Cover Girl Ruby Twinkle.

And lastly, some random dollar store finds.

Two more Billies in Feeling Blue and Jovile.  Is that even a word?

Two more LA Girl Disco Brites - Phenomenon is a super-dark blackened purple jelly, and Freak is a blue-toned fushcia creme.

Some awesome awesomeness in a weird bottle with no identifiable brand or shade names.  A blue jelly with holo and hex glitter, a sparkly, glittery pink and a super shimmery orange-red with gold flash.  These smell more awful than anything you could ever imagine, as well.  They don't even smell like nail polish.  More like rotting corpse.  I don't even want to know what's in them.  Still, they are awesome, and I kind of like the ink well-style bottle.

And lastly, some more random awesomeness.  Aili Sha unnamed holo bar glitter (squee!), a pale lilac shimmer Paris Couture, some brand called Profound shimmery gold peach, and a silver with a kickass name.

Can you guess why I bought this polish?  :)

And check out the holo bar glitter!  Nice find!

So that wraps up my hauls, finally!  I haven't bought any nail polish (or anything else non-essential for that matter) since.  Okay fine, I did pick up NYX Graffiti when I was at the grocery store today, just cuz it's a long-time lemming, but other than that, I'm good for now!  I'm just going to sit here and patiently wait for my konad and BM plates to arrive, do my Zoya swap, swap the Princessas and try to wear all the polishes I've bought just recently!  I might break my no-buy for new collections if I see them, and I've already put aside $ for my Nouvelle Vague and Illusion D'Or, but other than that, I'm done! 

Oh, and I have to replace my Ruby Pumps - I gave it to my mom today for Mother's Day.  She loved her new purse full of NP that I gave her  :)  It included RP, OPI Yoga-ta Get This Blue and Blue My Mind, and Orly Plum Noir.  When she was here she was admiring my OPI What's With The Cattitude, but only for the name and cuz it matches Sid's eyes :)  She said she'd probably never wear a light blue, but it was pretty anyway.  Which means if I just gave it to her she probably would.  My mom is much more adventurous now that she's retired  :)

So I hope you all had a good Mother's Day as well, and I will be back soon with some recent NOTD's and my latest polish cataloguing project (attempt).  Love, peace and chicken grease.