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!

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

Konad Attempts: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Mainly the Latter Two.

I warned you this was coming.  If you don't want to see ugliness and horror, look away. 

Don't say I didn't warn you.

So let me say again, I really love konad.  It's really fun - it gives you a lot more freedom to be creative than just nail polish on its own, and is easier to get neat-looking results with than nail art pens.

That being said, while its not the most impossible thing on earth to use, it comes close.  It's a bit dificult to get the full-nail designs on properly and without smudging.  It is for me, anyway.  I even consider myself somewhat artistic, and I originally got this set from someone who became frustrated with it and decided not to bother with it at all anymore, thinking that surely I'd have better luck than she did.  Well.... let's just say that I am still getting used to it.

I refuse to give up.  I refuse.  Gorgeous breathtaking detailed konadicures will be MINE.  I swear.  So from now on, anytime I can get a decent pic of a half-decent konad I did, expect to see it with much fanfare :p  After this post, that is.

Oh, and did I mention my BundleMonster plates came in today?  :D :D  How fast was that?!  I didn't get a pic of them, because I know you've all seen them by now, but between my ocnailart order and these, I think I'm set for plates for a while :).  And yes, I heard about the BM plates after I had already placed my ocnailart order.  I'm slow  :p

So here are some of my past FKAs (Failed Konad Attempts):

I think this is one of the first ones I ever attempted.  This is a base of Orly Glitz, with China Glaze Unplugged for the spots, using plate m57.  It was messy-looking, it would have looked MUCH better with a darker, creme brown, and I had to double-stamp some nails, which was clearly a bad idea.  It looked cute enough for my boyfriend to notice, though, so I would classfiy this as simply BAD.  One I must retry.

This one I actually liked.  This is a base of Sally Hansen CSM Thinking Of Blue, stamped with China Glaze Cherish and Emotion.  I used a Fauxnad plate - don't recall which one.  I said before this reminded me of cloisonne.  I thought it came out pretty, epsecially since I was just playing around.  This is the sole GOOD for me.

Alright, here's one of the reasons I felt the need to warn you.  This is just fugly beyond belief.  All of these are perfectly nice polishes on their own, but I piled them all together into this hideous combination.  Plus there's a massive chip on my thumb.  Man, I suck.  This is Essence Pool Party, topped with Pure Ice Heartbreaker on the middle nail and CND Raspberry Sparkle on the ring.  I then stamped on Fauxnad flowers with China Glaze Metallic Muse, and got through two vines stamped with Orly Glitz before I discovered that a.) Glitz is not the best stamping polish, and b.) it looked horrible.  This mani is just a giant mess.  It gets a big heaping UGLY from me, with a hefty side of FAIL.

Remember I told you I effed up Orly Cotton Candy with a tacky konad?  Feast your eyes  :p  Sorry for these pics, too - I was never going to post these, but I figure I've put enough warnings on this post that I don'thave to feel bad.  And I'm also aware the polish looks two different colours in these pics.  Thank my crappy camera and try to ignore it  :p  I used another Fauxnad plate (I get these at the beauty supply place, btw) and an old L'Oreal Steel Colour in French Tip White for the flowers.  This is the best white polish for stamping, I find - whites that are intended for french mani tips.  But I just got Konad's White polish, so I'll have to compare.  And I used an Art Club pen in yellow for the dots, which I clearly suck at.  I wanted this to look cute, but it just looked oh so tacky.  Verdict: UGLY!

And last, and perhaps least, this is what I have on my nails at this very moment.  Why I've left it on so long, I do not know.  Probably because I've been busy and I've been able to get away with it.  This is OPI What's With The Cattitude, with Sally Hansen CSM Thinking Of Blue (yes, again) stamped overtop with the argyle pattern from plate m60. The sad thing is, I would have liked this if I didn't SUCK at konad so bad and could actually do it neatly.  I could not, for the life of me, get the argyle pattern to go on straight, especially on my thumbs, and I smudged the polish while transferring it on almost all my nails.  It was so bloody frustrating.  I'll have to try again, with different polishes, because I really like this pattern.  Verdict: BAD!  But how cute would this look with a baby pink or pale yellow base, and the pattern stamped in ChG Recycle?  I just love pastels and greys together...

Okay, that's it.  You've suffered enough.  I promise I'll do my best to only bring you nice konads from now on  :p  If I collect enough material for another konad FAIL post, I'll consider swapping it away  :p

In other news, like I mentioned, I got my BM plates  :)  Man, they have some cute patterns.  I can't wait to start playing with mine  :D  Also, I saw some new Nicoles the other day at SDM.  I passed at the time because Nicoles are a ripoff, and none of the shades seemeds that unique, but there were three (Nail Ya Azalea, A New Kind Of Blue and Traffic Cone) that sort of caught my eye.  I saw bottle pics on some blog, but I've yet to see swatches...

Also, in depressing news:

1. I have a feeling Canadians might never see Hidden Treasure.
2. I'm scared we might not even see the new Sally Hansen HDs (DVD, Byte, etc.)
3. Sinfuls seem to have the same CRAP selection at all London Drugs' stores.  I've been to three now and they have the same ones at all of them.  And I visibly cringe whenever I see the $5.99 - Low Price Everyday! sticker displayed beneath them  :(  I want Bali Mist (the only one I don't already own that looks even half-interesting) but paying that much for them makes me feel like such a fool when there are things like Cherryculture in the universe...

On the other, not-as-depressing hand, I found some polishes that are "Twilight" brand...?  That's what they said on the bottle, and they had some weird metal disc on the side of the bottle.  It looked really cool.  Still, I've never seen Twilight, and although the first book was given to me when they very first came out and came highy recommended, I was only able to get through about a chapter and a half of it before gagging and gifting it to my boyfriend's 12-year-old niece.  So I have no idea if these have anything to do with the movie, nor do I particularly care.  There were a couple that looked interesting, a pink with gold shimmer, a shimmery beige, an opaque-looking baby pink creme, and a blackened-blue shimmer... but my boyfriend was doing the huffy slouch dance, and I didn't have time to look at the price before I was ushered out of London Drugs  :p  I'm already planning when I can sneak back to the mall by myself and pick them up, muahahaha....

I find myself getting bored with the existing polish supply in this city.  I SO wish drugstores in Canada got collections in at the same rate as the US, and I SO wish we had Dollar Tree here  :( 

Anyway, I sound so mopey.  Time to go play with my BM plates and cheer myself up!

I'll try to swatch some of the new Icing polishes for you next... I haven't seen those on any blogs yet.  Also, I want to swatch my Princessas!  :)  In the meantime, what new polishes has everyone got lately that they're really excited about?  I need inspiration!

Massive Haul Post, part deux

Yep.  I lied.  again.  I didn't post the next day.  I suck at this.  This being life.  I'm sorry.

Also, I want to let everyone know that I have an order from ocnailart coming with some konad plates and white, yellow and blue polish, and an order from Amazon with - yup, you guessed it - BundleMonster plates coming in!!!  And I'm very excited  :)  Hehe  :)  Just wanted to share that.  And yes, I am aware no one cares but me. 

Also, can I say one thing?  Sally Hansen Hidden F*cking Treasure.  It's making me want to blow up every drugstore in the city and boycott the nail board forever.  Okay, not really, not at all actually, but what is with the freaking obsession?  It looks like Nfu-Oh 38 pretty much exactly, as well as the Maybelline Shimmer Girl that I also own.  It's just a basic flakie in a clear base.  People posting photos of it every two seconds with it layered over every polish ever made is fueling this massive frenzied nationwide search.  I do not get it.  I am so waiting until it finally comes to Canada, when nobody cares about it anymore, and just buying it then.  If I absolutely can't stand it, I'll try to swap for it, but I have a feeling I'll be able to stand it.  Jeez!

Okay, now that that's off my chest, on with it!  I'll try to keep my descriptions brief, cuz I'm fairly sure at this point that there's going to have to be a part three to this, as well  :p  This is pretty much everything I've bought in the past couple months.

So I'll start off by continuing my swap goodies.  This is Zoya Erika, Lindsay and South Beach Ice.  Thanks stellalooovesyou!  Erika is a pale pink with gold shimmer, Lindsay is a glass-fleck pink shimmer, and SBI is a mint glitter.

Pure Ices!  Yay!  I love this brand, and we can't get them in Canada, obviously.  And I don't ever waste time going into Walmarts when I'm in the US, because we have Walmarts at home that I can hate.  So I'm so glad I was able to swap for all the ones I want!  Thank you so much thekarend - she also included CC Wild At Heart, and the Essence Pool Party I instantly liked :)  L-R: French Kiss, Heartbreaker, Strapless, Busted and Once Again.  My notes: Strapless I got because it looks exactly like a dense blue Claire's glitter polish I had in 1996... I tried Heartbreaker over SH Grape Going, and it's not a RBL Scrangie dupe like I heard... French Kiss may be similar to Essie Mesmerize, although I hope not - must compare...

Milani holos - I can't remember the names.  One is Hi-Res and one is Hi-Def, and I can't recall which is which...

Now some stuff I got at the beauty supply:

More China Glaze holos now that I'm getting more konad plates :)  L-R: TTYL, FYI, LOL. 

D/C'ed China Glazes.  My BS has a discounted/discontinued China Glaze section, and it is like CRACK - I can't get enough, I must compulsively comb through it for at least twenty minutes everytime I'm there.  And I get the urge to drop in all the time just to see what they have, as it changes all the time.  This particular time I found (l-r) Channelesque, Rainstorm, No Tan Lines and Vampy.  Notes: Vampy and Stroll look very, very similar to me... I heard Rainstorm is painfully, excruciatingly sheer.... like 9-coats-until-it-looks-decent-sheer.

Some OPIs - Midnight In Moscow, Royal Rajah Ruby and Breathe Life.  I wanted a deep shimmery vamp, and couldn't decide between MIM and RRR - so I got both :p  It's bad, I'm getting seriously addicted to OPIs as well - it's almost like I'm just starting to collect them now either because the colour's interesting or it's popular on blogs or MUA, regardless of whether I will ever realistically actually wear it  :p  Yeah.  Must get life.  I will wear these, though - and Breathe Life is very pretty, too, and goes to help fund lung cancer research, which might help all my smoker friends and boyfriend one day, so good for me.

More OPIs.  I didn't get these at the BS, but on sale at the salon where I found the Shreks.  L-R: RRR and MIM again, I don't know why I included them in this pic, but I did, so just deal with it, Brisbane Bronze, Malaga Wine (yes, I got the leopard print change purse, or whatever it was, with these - I gave it to my sister), Dutch Tulips (finally! lemming this for way too long), and The "It" Color.  This pic does not capture the colour of DT at all - it's a deep pinkish-red... or is it reddish-pink...?  I don't know.  Does anyone know?

What else did I get....

Dollar store haul!  LA Girl Disco Brites in Deejay, Disco Ball, Disco Inferno, Dance Studio and Turntable, another cheapo Billie in Electric Yellow and another cheapo Paris Couture with mint stars!  The Disco Brites are supposed to be black-light reflective.  Oooooh... the Marilyn Manson-listening, poetry-writing 13-year-old goth me is intrigued, but I unfortunately probably sold my blacklight at a garage sale sometime in my teens, so I have no way of testing that claim....

These are the new Joe Fresh polishes I got a Superstore.  Most of these (well, probably all) are going to thekarend - she is conducting my Zoya swapping business for me :) and these are to cover the $3.50/bottle charge.  L-R: Grape, Mint, Peacock, Powder Blue, Faded Violet, Fig and Prune.  They're all cremes except for Grape and Peacock, which are shimmers.  I also have another Mint, Peacock and Powder Blue that I'm keeping for myself.  I haven't tried these yet, but Peacock looks very similar to ChG Rodeo Fanatic to me...

And then, look what we finally got in Canada:

Yay.  More than two months after the States got them.  Such a buncha stupid bllsht, mutter mutter mutter...  Anyway, Pink Sophistication and Bubble Gum.  Yes.  My Maybelline Sweet collection now looks like this:

So pwetty!  I have all the ones I wanted - all except Sweet Clementine and Candy Coated.  L-R: Sweetie Pie, Minty, Pink Sophitication, Bubble Gum, Goody Plum Drop and Pie In The Sky.  Looking at this honestly makes me want candy, just like the Orly Sweets.  Then again I probably just want candy all the time.

Some Wet N Wilds - Blazed, Eggplant Frost and Sunny Side Up.  I'm looking everywhere for this new WnW Summer collection everyone on the NB is talking about, but like everything else, it'll probably arrive in Canada ten billion years after the fact...

And last for right now, the dreaded Insta-Dris - Uptempo Plum and Jumpin Jade.  I told you I was gonna buy these.  I can't resist the colours!  I'm still gonna buy Brisk Blue and Blue Blaze, as well, one of these days...  I can't wait to try these!  UP is a dark plummy purple with purple and gold glitter, and JJ is a deep shimmery forest green.  These will look awesome on my shorties  :) 

Here's a short story (pardon the pun, ugh) - my nails are super-ultra-mega-hyper-uber short right now, as well as my cuticles trashed... why, you ask?  Cuz I went on a long, hairy camping trip this past weekend  :p  Why am I going camping at this time of year, when it's still cold and rainy in Vancouver and so NOT camping weather yet?  Well, originally it was my friend's idea for his birthday celebration, but then he had to go away for work, but my friends are all hardy Canadian idiot boys so they still wanted to go, so we did.  We were gone for four days, and although I did make an attempt at a mani that would stay on for the duration (Orly Luxe topped with three or four coats of ChG Medallion), it peeled off within a few hours of me arriving there  :(  I then proceeded to repeatedly wash my hands and then get them dirty again, manage to break, tear or rip off every one of my nails (even though they weren't even that long), and completely suck all the moisture out of my cuticles and hands doing routine camping things.  Camping is so fun, and I love it, and if you looked at the Facebook pictures you could tell we had a blast, but I must admit a tiny part of me was mourning my nails all weekend and cringing at the sight of them nekkid and broken and looking forward to getting home just so I could start repairing the damage and give them some TLC.  I'm such a lame ass :p

Man, I'm so glad that no one that knows me in real life reads my blog.  My friends would all think I was certifiably nuts  :p 

Anyway, I still have more haul to show you!  (Insert eye roll here)

It's coming up soon, as soon as I have the patience to wait ten thousand years for Blogger to upload the photos  :p  Soon!  I promise!