My Superbowl-Themed Nails

I don't like the Giants and I don't like the Patriots. But both teams have the same colours - red, blue and white - so I couldn't miss either way :). I don't even really like football, tbh - I like it more than baseball, which isn't saying much - but the game turned out to be way more exciting than I anticipated. I actually watched it. Now that's saying something :p

Sorry I haven't posted in forever. I'm aware of how lame this is. My computer still is having problems though and, well, YOU try blogging from your phone. It doesn't work very well. I'm using the Blogger app right now, because the BlogPress app - that I paid for :( - isn't letting me publish anything. It says "it seems like your network is not ready for posting.". Wtf. Why the hell not?

I hate this Blogger app. It sucks. I can't even post a picture in the middle of my post - it appears at the end. How shite is that?!? Truthfully I don't even know if this will publish. But you c here for nails, not bitching and moaning, so here it is.

The red nail is Zoya Sooki topped with OPI Crown Me Already. The blue is Essie Mesmerize topped with the same OPI, and the white nails are Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Whirlwind White topped with LA Girls Glitter Addict Animate and Jostle.

Hope you had a happy Superbowl weekend!

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

I Can't Sleep.... Let's Look At Some Recent NOTD Pics!

 So I really suck at keeping promises.... yeah.... you're probably so sick of hearing me apologize too.  Whatever.  On with the blog.

First of all, let me tell you a story.... Lex isn't very good at staying awake lately.  Which is weird - I have had chronic insomnia since I was a little kid.  I'm used to staying awake whether I want to or not - usually way past the point that I want to.  But these days, I come home, blather on to my bf and dork about on the computer for awhile, make dinner, and then I can barely make it through a DVD episode of Lost before my eyes are starting to close on me....  It's really frustrating.  So tonight, Saturday night, I decided to chug a can of Red Bull in order to not fall asleep in front of my friends during the hockey game.  Hence, this post at 5 in the morning.  And this is after Falling Behind. It's actually 6 in the morning  :(  I love my Red Bull, and it's helped me through some tough times, but lately the stuff has such an adverse, hateful effect on me...  Anyway, the end....  Because of this, I can't sleep and you get this cracked-out-sounding post!  High fives!

In other news, I bought another Helmer, and am in the midst of reorganizing my stash.... trying to figure out what goes in what drawer and what deserves its own drawer and all that....  I thought it'd be more fun, and, I mean, it is kinda fun, but it is kinda just like cleaning.... I need to massively de-dupe, I'm realizing as well  :-/

In other other news, I found all the holiday China Glazes except for... well, like half of them.  My Sally's is ballz.  I still need Peace On Earth, Little Drummer Boy, Frosty, Mommy Kissing Santa and those two golds...  Problem is, no one place has all of them in stock  :(  At least I got my greedy mitts on Party Hearty.  We all know that's the important one :)

So anyway... who wants to look through some old NOTD pics?  yaaay!  Well, they're actually pretty recent...

My sloppy execution of the candy corn mani.  Did this sometime during the week of Halloween....  I used....

An old Sally Hansen Halloween exclusive from a few years back, Orange Pumpkin.  Yes, the point of me taking the pic like that was so I didn't have to type that, but let's move on....  Maybe it was just last year's release, I'm not really sure.  Anyway, I used the yellow and white SH Insta-Dris for the rest (Lightning, and... I don't remember...) Also, I freehanded the lines, because I couldn't find any tip guides.  Or tape.  Don't hate.

Another Halloween mani.  This is Sephora By OPI If You've Got It, Haunt It, with Color Club Tangerine Scream on the ring finger.  IYGIHI was one of the Halloween-exclusive $OPIs, along with Kitty Loves Black and that glow-in-the-dark white, and my fave of the three by far.  It's a black glitter in a base of grey microglitter, and there's some blue and pink in there too.  Gorgeous and unique in my stash.  I can't find Nicole Pitch-Black Glimmer anywhere, and this fulfilled that lemming nicely.

This is a Kiko Cosmetics #270 overtop of $OPI Kitty Loves Black, which was a black with pearly blue microshimmer.  Kiko 270 I've shown on top of $OPI Read My Palm before, but it shows up much better on top of a darker colour like this.  The paillette glitter reflects different colours at different angles - purple, blue, teal and green.  These photos are blurred but you can see some of the colours of the glitter...

It is really quite stunning IRL... very Across The Universe-ish.  I love this polish.  I got it in a swap from Italy - I wonder if there's anything similar on this side of the pond...

This was my anniversary mani, for my 3-year with the BF...

Cheesy, yes, but that's what I was going for :)

I used (what else) OPI Happy Anniversary! and layered various heart polishes overtop.  I actually kind of went crazy with the heart polishes.  I pulled out every one I own and started slopping them on, flinging hearts this way and that....  There's a couple of Nicole ones (Love Your Life, Have A Heart, Honey-dew You Love Me, Spring Romance) a Claire's one (Love Struck), some random no-name dollar store ones...  Yeah.  It doesn't look the greatest, I'm aware - the repeated application of the thick heart polishes turned the finish of Happy Anniversary all gungey and gross-looking.... but it served its purpose.  Boyfriend liked it :)

And last, but not least....  I have a random no-name dollar store polish for you!! (don't you hate those? :p)  I've been combing Asian dollar stores recently.  Being in Vancouver, I walk past a ton of them all the time, and decided to start exploring some.  Well, look how glad I am that I did!

I found this gorgeous grey holo polish in one such store.  It was $2, has no name and comes in a fugly-ass twisty bottle.  But look how prettyyyyyy! *_*

I love me some holo.  And this has got good holo :)  I also picked up kind of a rusty-reddish looking one that also looks kind of holo, so hopefully that one'll turn out to be as nice as this one!  I scored a bunch of stuff at that store and stores like this recently, and I'm going to have an upcoming post dedicated to my dollar store finds. Most of them are random Hong Kong and Korean brand polishes, they're cheap, and they're all kinds of awesome :)  I'll also include where I found them all, in case anyone's in Vancouver.  (And in case you're interested, I found this particular one at that Daiso-type dollar store in Tinseltown by Stadium Station  :)  Or what used to be Tinseltown.  I don't know if it's still called Tinseltown.  But you guys know where I mean, right?  I'm sure it'd probably be at Daiso, too, since this place seemed to have pretty much the same stock as them...)

Well, I have run out of pics for you right now.  But do not fret - I shall return with more stuff I promised I'd do.  Seriously.  I will.

(No, I'm still not tired yet.  FML  :p)

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!

Some Spam While I Wait For The Evil, Sadistic UPS Truck.....

Okay, I have to put this up quickly because my TD order should be here any minute....  The UPS page says "Out For Delivery"  and I'm sitting here waiting and watching for the truck.... I know, I need a life.  Whatevs.  Come on, truck.....  I'm going insane.  They're doing this to me on purpose, I swear....

Anywho, here's some more spam while we're waiting.... yes, I said we... You're waiting with me  :p

Lippmann Razzle Dazzle.  Really quite pretty.  From the Lippmann All That Jazz set, came with Some Enchanted Evening and Lady Sings The Blues.

Obligatory Blogger-flipped photo  :(

I liked this a lot more than I expected to.  It was kind of what I wanted WnW Night Prowl to be....

This is Kiko Cosmetics 270 over Sephora by OPI Read My Palm.  I know it looks like crap here - I couldn't photograph it properly for the life of me.  But trust me when I say it's an awesome glitter topcoat - it's comprised of tons of multicoloured pailettes that shimmer and reflect tons of different colours depending on the light and base colour....  I know they look yellow here, but overtop of this colour they mainly reflected blue and green... It looked very mermaid-like...

Aaargh.  This photo is blurry and bad, but your can sort of see the blue it reflects IRL...  It looked gorgeous, anyway.  I received this in a swap, but you can order Kiko Cosmetics through their website, I believe.  It frustrates me that I can't show you this topcoat properly though, so.... moving on.....

This was a recent KOTD.  It's the Barielle Blackened Bleu from the other day stamped with China Glaze Sci-Fi, and a konad plate..... I can never remember the names of the plates.  I fail at life.  Sorry.  But I did like the way this looked.

And this is my current KOTD.... current up until about ten minutes ago, that is, when I took it off in anticipation of my TD order arriving.... which still hasn't shown up, btw..... I'm seriously starting to get cold sweats....

It's like a "Still-Trying-To-Squeeze-Some-Use-Out-Of-My-Summer-Polishes" mani.  I'm kind of in love with it.  The base is an awesome polish from Claire's....

And yeah, its definitely hot :)  It's like a neon orangey-pinkish red.... ish.  It shifts between these three colours, depending on the light.  But it's definitely neon.  So bright and unique.  I don't own another neon like it, and I own a lot of neons.  This is probably the closest thing to a neon red that I have.... much closer than, say, China Glaze Rose Among Thorns, or something.  But it's beautiful.  And the application was seriously awesome - pigmented and not thick or gooey at all.  I did three coats but two would have been fine.  Three was easy to apply though - this polish is pretty thin.

Oh yeah, and I stamped overtop with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Expres-so Yellow... my favorite polishes for konad :)  Other than the Chromes and Romatiques of course.  Seriously, though, I've picked up so many of these just for konading - I find they work better than the actual Konad polishes!  I tried doing this mani with the yellow Konad polish, but it just would NOT transfer to the nail at all, and the bit that did transfer barely showed up.  So I tried again with this and got much better results :)  If you're looking for some good colours to konad with, I highly recommend picking up a couple of these - especially the primary colours and the pastels.

Okay, the UPS guy still hasn't come by.... If he doesn't come today, I'll have to wait until Monday to get my order!  The page still says "In transit" though.....  I'm going to quietly have a meltdown in the corner.  Hopefully I'll be back later.