Late For Theme Week Part Two: My Misa Stash

This is the last obnoxiously late Theme Week post I'm doing, I promise!  The lameness will subside.  Also I have to make this quick.... was up all night and now I'm falling asleep :S  It's really not that long, though.... cuz my Misa stash isn't all that big :|  But it's still really nice!  (TWSS?)

I will say this about Misa - they are awesome and I love them and there's about a billion more I want, but they have some of the longest, most annoying-to-type-out names out there :p

I love Misa's bottles.  They're so square and... sturdy-looking?

Here's a closer, more personal look at my fledgling collection:

Bikini With A Martini, Cherry Topping, Love Bite, Lather Rinse Repeat.

A Sunny Smile Makes Me Go Wild, Let's Go Green, The Grass Is Greener On My Side, Blue Over A Boy, Pour Me Something Tall and Strong.

Throw Me Something Purple Please, Decadent Drifter, Fountain Of Youth, Whimsical Wish.

Dance Fever, Confection Section, Ghetto Fabulous, Toxic Seduction.

Aaaaaand that's pretty much it.

And how about some of the only Misa swatches I have?  Yes, my Misa stash is largely untried *hangs head in shame*.  I've never even tried Decadent Drifter - can you believe that?? I want to try that, TMSPP and perhaps BWaM on my toes...

Here were my two picks from the Spring 2011 Wishes collection.  First up, Whimsical Wish:

...which I love. I screwed up the middle finger, sorry - pls to ignore. I thought these were going to be frosty and sheer, but they're acutally very opaque with a pretty, glowy shimmer to them!

Usually pale colours like this on me give me corpse hands, but I like this one! It's a pale cream colour with peach and gold shimmer - it winds up looking like a very very pale, creamy peach.  This is a great Boring Office Neutral for me - just enough shimmer to make it really interesting and pretty :)


And here's my other pick, Fountain Of Youth:

Again, I really, really liked this so much more than I thought I was going to.

Again it's a very pale, shimmery mint green with a blue/green iridescent flash. Again, opaque in 2 coats :) I think I might do a full mani of this - I like it so much better than I thought I would!  The shimmer is very fine, but there's enough interesting stuff going on that it doesn't look frosty and horrible.  I love the slight teal iridescence - these seem to me like a modern update on the classic pale shimmer.  A way to wear light, airy colours with a shimmery finish without lookin like your Grandma!  Sure!

And finally, we have Pour Me Something Tall And Strong:

This came out a couple summers back - Summer 2009, I believe...  and it's a meduim squishy blue jelly.

BLUE JELLY, people!  I think from those two words alone you can surmise how I feel about it :p  But it also applied really nicely - this is 3 coats - and it's one of the best blue jellies out there.  If you like jellies, you absolutely 100% need this!  It's darker and more unique than most blue tones out there, but it's still so bright and vibrant!  I ended up topping it with two different coloured flakies, and... wow... I might show you one day... if I ever get my act together  :-/

So before I dismiss you for the May Long Weekend (in Canada) (for some people... I know others just have Monday off), I have two questions for you (yes, again):

1. Am I missing any must-haves Misas?? I've been hesitant to purchase the much-revered Dirty Sexy Money, cuz I own $OPI Ocean Love Potion and it's a dead-on dupe.... but any others? (I already want a bunch of the d/c'ed duochrome ones - Decadent Drifter is the only one I have, but I will get more, muahaha...)

and 2.) Any of these you'd like to see pics of?  It's embarrassing that I have so many untrieds from such a great brand.  I need to work my way through my Misas.  Anyone?

Okay, this post took a lot longer than I thought it would.  I'll be back with some OPI stuff for OPI week, though, I promise!

Oh, yeah, one last little thing....

GO CANUCKS GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Late for Theme Week: My Nicole Stash!

Okay, so you all know the Nail Board is doing theme weeks now, yes?  Well, they are.  And yes, yes, as most of you know, last week was Nicole by OPI's week... but I had stuff to do, and I got sick :(  As I really don't want to have taken all these pics for nothing, and I'm the boss of me, I'm posting it late.  Sorry for being so lame.

Here's a breakdown of the Theme Weeks from nbthemeweek's notepad:
A NEW THEME STARTS EACH MONDAY!
WEEK 1 (OVER): Sally Hansen
WEEK 2 (OVER): Nars, Zoya, Revlon, Etude, Model's Own, Ulta3, New York Summer
WEEK 3 (OVER): Dupe Week!
WEEK 4 (OVER): Dior, Misa, L'oreal, Face Shop, Barry M, BYS, Wet N Wild, Milani, Nicole By OPI
WEEK 5 (May 16) : OPI
WEEK 6 (May 23) : Frankens, Finger Paints, American Apparel, Sephora By OPI, Accessorize, TINS, Joe Fresh, Chi Chi, Mavala, Lancome
WEEK 7 (May 30) : Urban Decay, Island Girl, Confetti, Ulta, Toma, Essence, Diamond Cosmetics, Glitter Gal, Canmake
WEEK 8 (June 6) : China Glaze
WEEK 9 (June 13) : Lippmann, Color Club, BBC, Nails Inc, Chelsea, Pa, Australis, Golden Rose, Anna Sui
WEEK 10: Spa Ritual, Rimmel, IsaDora, Goldies, H&M's, MAC, Boot's No. 7, NYC, LA Colors, LA Girls
WEEK 11 (June 27): Illamasqua, Collistar, Nfu Oh, Borghese, Maybelline, Ozotic
WEEK 12 (July 4) : Chanel, Rescue Beauty Lounge, Nubar, Cover Girl, Gosh, Elantro, Koh, Icing, Claires, Hot Topic, Bloom
WEEK 13 (July 11) : Random Week- Any brands you have not included in the other weeks!
WEEK 14 (July 18) : Essie
WEEK 15 (July 25) : Orly
WEEK 16 (August 1) : Creative Nail Design (CND), Pro10, Hard Candy, Pure Ice, MNY, P2, Catrice, Skin Food

So as you can see, I missed out on Sally Ho and Zoya already :(  Which, boo.  But I also have a large collection of Nicoles, so I have to post this late!  And I like my Misas, too, so I'm gonna do a seperate post about them.  It'll be much smaller - I have way more Nicoles than Misas, unfortunately.

So enough ado... Oh, and some of these photos are watermarked wrong.  They're my photos, I assure you (like I'd steal such crappy photos XD), so just ignore that, mmm'kay?

As I said before, I have an embarrassing amount of Nicoles. Way too many. I don't know how I ended up with so many. Well, okay, I do, but it's like I blinked and they bred and multiplied on their stand or something...

See? This is just some of them o___O I have to keep them in a stand because it p!sses me off to no end trying to stuff them in a drawer. They take up so much space and don't fit nicely into anything - aargh! Has there ever been as colossal a FAIL as the NOPI bottle? If only they had designed a decent bottle! Imagine how differently we'd look at the line!
I don't want to own so many - I hate that fugly effin bottle as much as any of you - but they've just put so many awesome colours out in the past year or two and I am WEAK when it comes to awesome colours :p Honestly though, out of the bajillion Nicoles I own, I don't think there's a single one I would get rid of... at least I think there isn't :S What do you guys think - could I stand to lose any of these here? Any of them have lots of dupes, or anyone just not like one for any particular reason? If anyone has any suggestions for purging, I'm more than open to them! :)
Here's they all are - I'mma do my best to name them all for you:

Nail Ya Azalea, Mango Maven, Traffic Cone, You're An Angel, Yellow It's Me, Lemon-Lime Twist.

Hint Of Mint, Make Mine Lime, Diva Into The Pool, Iceburg Lotus, Fell From The Tree.

A New Kind Of Blue, Sky's The Limit, Virtuous Violet, Di-Vine Is Divine, Black Cat-Cha Later, I'm A Pool For Love (which probably belongs with the blackened glitters below, but you'll ignore that, won't you?)

Razzle Dazzler Matte (the only matte one I own - I didn't like the rest of them), Wink Of Twink, Imagine If... (okay, these two look like dupes to me - I could probably get rid of one of them, no?), Glitz and Glisten, Gone Wishin' (is this a dupe for Sinful Frenzy or $OPI Too Good For Him? anyone know?), You're A Star.

The four Gossip Girl polishes: Party In The Penthouse, Scandal Secrets & Sparkle, Too Rich For You, Nicole...Spotted!, and a random Oy Oy Oyster.

It's kind of hard to tell these apart here - sorry for the crappy pic. Blues In The Night, Party At 3am!, Midnight Madness, Drama In The Dark, Turn Out The Lights. I love Nicole's blackened glitters :)

Let's Get Star-ted, Honey-Dew You Love Me, Have A Heart, Spring Romance, Step 2 The Beat of My ?. I love shaped glitter too :)

Some Biebers (I think they're Biebers..) Count On Me (this is so pretty for layering), Brilliant Idea, Nicole's Nickel, Me + Blue. I had a purple glitter one but I swapped it away... and I think I want it back :S

And these are my favorites:

Season's Gray-tings (my favorite Nicole!), Sensational Scarlet, Such A Go-Glitter (my second-favorite Nicole!), Spark My Mistletoe, Bring On The Tinsel, Pitch-Black Glimmer. The last holiday collection was awesome... I was told they were LE Target exclusives, so I went crazy trying to aquire them before they went OOS... only to have them show up in Shopper's Drug Mart four months later >__< They still have them, too.

Let's just look at Season's Gray-tings one last time....

Gorgeous.  Look at that holo.  Would you believe this is untried?  Yes, my favorite Nicole is untried *ducks to avoid flying garbage*.

But before I end this late, mostly pointless post, I do have some pics of Nicoles I have actually worn...

Yellow It's Me.  A yellow with noticeable pink shimmer - now how many of those can you say you own?

Bring On The Tinsel (over Orly Wandering Vine), from last Christmas.  Red, yellow, blue, green and silver glitter.  

Really crappy swatch of Glitz and Glisten.  This was only available in Canada in a 2-pack with some eggplant creme colour...  I was not amused.  You're probably not amused by this pic. or else you are.  Either way, I'm sorry :(

Too Rich For You.  Blackened blue shimmer.  I love blackened blues.

You're An Angel.  Pink with rosy gold (glass fleck?)shimmer.

Such A Go-Glitter.  Deep blue, full-coverage glitter, with the occasional fleck of gold.  Okay, this is a really blurry, horrible pic, but OMG LOVE!  Reminds me a bit of Nubar Night Sparkle.

Lemon-Lime Twist.  Kind of a chartreuse shimmer.

Iceburg Lotus.  Stupid name, but I'll forgive it because it's a teal with pink and purple shimmer!  How awesome is that?! Nicole is really on to something here with the contrasting shimmers :)

I'm a Pool For Love.  Again, the name is beyond idiotic (pool?...uh... it's a blackened glitter...) but this has duochromatic glitter in a black base, so again, I don't care.  The glitter shifts from blue to purple depending on the light.  Not the best pic, as usual, but trust me when I say if you like blackened glitters like I do, it'll be worth it to pick this one up.

Okay, that's it for my Nicole post!  Like I said before, waaaaaaaayyyyy too many of the little saggy bewb bottles.  But Nicole has been killing it lately in my opinion - every collection they've put out since last summer (the collection with Traffic Cone, Nail Ya Azalea and A New Kind Of Blue - yeah, that collection and every one since) has been absolute love.  Which kind of sucks, because up here in Canada Nicoles are expensive - $11 regular price, and I'm not really wanting to acquire any more of them!  But if they keep putting out collections as spectacular as these, I might have to   >___<

Okay, as promised, I'll be back later with my Late Misa Post!  Oh yeah, and being as this week is OPI week, and even though I've already done a post with my OPI collection, I guess I'll do something to do with that too  :p  'Till later!

My Essie and Orly Collection

Hello all and happy weekend! As usual I have a whole backlog of stuff that I need to show you, but I'm way behind, so I'm just gonna start with this  :p

I was organizing my polishes into my new Melmer (yay for 50% off Michael's sales!) and I was deciding which three brands were going to get a drawer dedicated to them (My Helmers and Melmers are organized by brand, and most of my brands - except for OPI, China Glaze and Color Club - share drawers).  I decided that Orly, Essie and Zoya - three more of my favorite brands - were the lucky winners of a drawer of their own :)

So I decided that I'd show you my collections of two of these brands, Essie and Orly - I haven't got around to Zoyas yet. 

Here's my Essie drawer:

Okay, I'm going to list them all - you ready?
Back row, L-R: Blanc, Naughty or Nice, Jackie Oh My!, Ballet Slippers, Mademoiselle, Fiji, Cool-lots, the mini is Pop Art Pink.
Row 2: Knockout Pout, Pink Parka, Watermelon, Jag-U-Are, Really Red, After Sex (heh..), mini is Red Nouveau.
Row 3: Van D'Go, Haute As Hello, Tart Deco, The Cove Copper.
Row 4: Funky Limelight (my favorite neon polish of all time), Pretty Edgy, Sew Psyched, Turquoise and Caicos, Mint Candy Apple.
Row 5: Borrowed and Blue, Lapis of Luxury, Mesmerize, Aruba Blue, Midnight Cami.
Row 6: Nice Is Nice, Lilacism, Demure Vixen, Splash Of Grenadine.
Row 7: Wicked, Decadent Diva, Sole Mate, Sexy Divide, It's Genius!
Row 8: Playa Del Platinum, Main Squeeze, Steel-ing The Scene.

I just kind of took a pic of the whole drawer.  You might want to click on it to see better.  This was before I figured out that you probably can't see it too well in a photo like this  :-/  Fail.

Untrieds:

L-R: Limited Addiction, French Affair, Beach Bum Blu (why did I get this just cuz it was on sale? It looks frosty and horrible), Coat Azure, Dive Bar, Going Incognito, Merino Cool and Smokin Hot.  I know, I know, supposedly my untrieds are some of the best ones :-/

I love Essies.  For a fairly pricey mid-range polish, I do have a lot of them, and this is mainly for one reason: wear.  I've said this before and I'll say it again: Essies wear like iron on me (and a lot of other people).  The formula is usually pretty good, if inconsistant - it can be thin or thick or streaky at times, but no matter what the formula and application is like, an Essie polish can always be trusted to last the longest on my nails without chips out of all my brands of polish.  And I probably have about 50 brands in total :O  On average, an Essie will last for three days with no chips and the smallest amount of tipwear of any brand.  They can be trusted to look great no matter what I'm doing with my hands, and hence, they are one of my favorite brands :)  I just wish they'd continue to make awesome colours like Funky Limelight (they have a lot of awesome neons, actually) and Turquoise and Caicos - most of Essie's collections consist of neutral pinks and sheers >:p

Okay, and now my new Orly Drawer-ly:

L-R: Red Carpet, Ruby Passion, Orange Punch, Crush On You, Secret Admirer, Opal Hope, Passion Fruit, Swizzle Stick.

I suck so bad, I cut off Green With Envy :( I don't have another photo, sorry.  Trust me, it's there on the left. L-R: sliver of Green With Envy, Bailamos, Wandering Vine, Enchanted Forest, Royal Navy, La Playa, Star Of Bombay.

L-R: Charged Up, Fantasea, Happily Ever After, Glam.

L-R: Pixie Dust, Mirror Mirror, Love Each Other, Fifty-Four, Goth.

L-R: Rage, Luxe, Glitz, Flagstone Rush.

I loved the Sweet collection.  L-R: Pixy Stix, Cotton Candy, Lemonade, Gumdrop, Snowcone, Lollipop.

L-R: Glitz & Glisten, Naughty Or Nice, Meet Me Under The Mistletoe, Winter Wonderland.

My favorite collection of last year :) L-R: Space Cadet, Lunar Eclipse, Hailey's Comet, Out Of This World, It's Not Rocket Science, Galaxy Girl.

And minis, L-R: Ruby, Last Dance, On The List, Limelite, Starry-Eyed, Sheer Nude, Velvet Rope.

And that's my Orly collection :)  Orlys are another favorite brand of mine, mainly due to the great collections they release.  Sometimes they're not too unique, but I thought they really outdid themselves last year - the Cosmix FX collection was unbelievably awesome, jacked-up price and all.  Rage and Luxe are two of the best metallic foils I own, and the Sweet collection was so much fun to wear - I loved every shade.  Also, I really like Orly's bottle, for a round bottle.  It feels heavy and sturdy, and I looove the rubber grip bottle top :)

Most of the time I organize by colour within brand, but sometimes I just can't bear to split collections up - hence the random organization.  I just think sometimes collections look nicer all together, and some polishes I remember primarily by what collection they were part of.  And the ones I don't, I organize by colour :)  Get it?  No?

Sid, as always, decided to interfere.

Okay, that's it - I have to go watch our President's Trophy-winning hockey team now :D  Be back later!