TD HAUL: Holy Multicoloured, Free-flowing Fountain of AWESOME!!! :Q......

On to my haul  :)

First off, I got my first Misa polish, in Love Bite.  Dark vampy black-red creme.  I really like this, but I'm afraid its a dupe for my Essie Wicked.  I will do a comparison as soon as I can.  I want to order some more Misas so this one doesn't look so lonely in my drawer.  Any suggestions for colours?  I was going to order Blue Over A Boy, A Sunny Smile Makes Me Go Wild, and Bikini With A Martini, but I have so many neons now... any suggestions?  Anyone?  I'm limited to what TD has in stock...

Next, I got a whole bunch of Color Clubs:

The Poptastic Collection.  L-R: Almost Famous (medium yellow neon creme), Wham! Pow! (dark tangerine neon - like the colour of a safety vest), Poptastic (bright medium pink), Warhol (fuschia), Pucci-licious (blueish purple), Rebel Debutante (supposed to be Twiggie) and Chelsea Girl (bright ocean blue creme).  This is Color Club's spring 2010 neon contribution - the counterpart to China Glaze's Poolside collection.  Fortunately, the two are very different and contain no dupes.  Almost Famous looks similar to China Glaze Happy Go Lucky from the Up and Away collection, and Warhol, Poptastic and Chelsea Girl also look similar to polishes I already own, I think.... comps coming up later.

These are the ones I picked out from the Rebel Debutante collection.  The colours are absolutely mutant in this pic!  Nothin like real life.  Sorry!  L-R: High Society (light grey creme), Uptown Girl (light dusty purple creme), Best Dressed List (light fawn/chocolate brown creme - I thought this was nude from the picture on TD, oops :S ), and Rebel Debutante (neon mint green).  I passed on Gossip Column (too similar to too many blues I already own, nothing about it really stood out to me as being special), Ms. Socialite (I own enough purple cremes), She's Soo Glam (cuz...meh.  Another mod pink creme), Charity Ball (because, yuck!), and Who Are You Wearing (I don't know why!  I want it now... I hate no-buyer's remorse!)  I haven't tried any of these yet... and now I'm starting to wonder if maybe Gossip Column and She's Soo Glam are as similar to other polishes as I originally thought... blerg...  I might end up picking up the rest of the collection (except for Charity Ball).

More Color Club neons:

L-R: Jackie Oh!, Peppermint Twist (I thought this was going to be mint green, but oh well - its a cool, neon purpleish pink), Psychedelic Scene (This one I ordered without seeing the colour either.  Which I thought was kind of fun, but really is pretty dumb of me.  I thought this was new, but this looks familiar... I'm going to have to check my local beauty supply, I think they had this there.  This is a bright neon orange, like radioactive Kraft Dinner...), Pure Energy (neon blue with blue-green shimmer) and Electro Candy (medium neon pink with blue and purple shimmer).  I just swatched Pure Energy on one finger, and wow its gorgeous.. bright and neon but shimmery... I just picture what all these would look like on toes...

Color Club Take Me To Your Chateau.  Light blue creme.  Lighter and more white than CC's Blue Light.  This is the only one I ordered from Color Club's Pardon My French collection.  I don't know if all the others are sheers, but sheers aren't really my thing, so I passed.  I need to see swatches of this collection though...

Now, onto the China Glazes!  :)

My selection from the Up and Away collection! L-R: Something Sweet (very light pink creme), Peachy Keen (duh, peach creme), Happy Go Lucky (sunshine yellow creme), Re-Fresh Mint (minty green creme), Four Leaf Clover (medium green creme), Flyin High (dusty teal creme) and Light As Air (very light lavender creme).  Looking back, I wish I had picked up Heli-Yum, High Hopes and Sugar High as well  :p  I need help.  I'll consider ordering them with my next TD order... or at least Heli-Yum...

Some glitters.  L-R: Cloud Nine (white with mulit glitter), Solar Flare (large chunky gold hex glitter.  I love this - I used to have a L'Oreal polish like this when I was in tenth grade, and I used to layer it over dark red and forest green, and it looked freakin awesome... anyone recall what that L'Oreal polish would have been?  It was in a bottle shaped similar to the Maybelline bottles... it would have been out around 1998 or 99...) and Atlantis (teal blue jelly base with silver and multi holo glitter).  There are a lot more of these to come.  My next TD order, that I really ought to wait until next Wednesday to place but am having to stop myself from placing tonight, is going to be almost ALL ChG glitters... I am ashamed to say I want almost every single one of them.  I intend to order the ones I want the most next Wed (if not sooner  :p)  Most of these I want directly because of Lextard's Flickr page... man I love her Flickr, and taste in polish :)

And last but not least:

A couple Essies :) Van D'Go, Funky Limelight and Mint Candy Apple.  Wow, what a colour combo.  And Funky Limelight is not appearing very funky in this pic at all.  It looks like such a nice, soft, lemony yellow in this pic...  It is not.  It's a bright, screaming highlighter yellow  :)  Probably similar to China Glaze Celtic Sun, but I'll never get enough highlighter colours.  Also, I thought Van D'Go looked similar to Peachy Keen, and MCA to Re-Fresh Mint, so I swatched them and was pleased to discover I was wrong on both counts.

Index to pinky: Essie Van D'Go, ChG Peachy Keen (I smudged the tip- sorry), ChG Re-Fresh Mint, Essie Mint Candy Apple.  As you can see, Van D'Go is much lighter than PK - PK is more apricot, more orange than Van D'Go.  I prefer Van D'Go on me.  And MCA is more blue than R-FM, which is much more of a "true" mint green.

I also thought Color Club Almost Famous and China Glaze Happy Go Lucky looked alike.  So:

Don't even ask me how I took this pic.  It wasn't easy.  Also, I don't know why stupid effing Blogger is rotating all my photos, but I can't fix this one and its making me want to throw my laptop at the wall so I give up, I'm just going to leave it.  And I know the polish job is horrid.  You'll forgive me cuz you love me, right?.....right?... :p  Top is CC Almost Famous, bottom is ChG Happy Go Lucky.  As you can see, they are very, very similar, with AF being a *touch* more golden than HGL.  HGL also applied better, and was much less streaky, although they were both pretty good as far as yellows go.  They're both very opaque and even.  This is just two coats of each.

And now I leave you with some random skittles:

From pinky to index: Color Club Chelsea Girl, Pure Energy (oooh!), Rebel Debutante (sorry again for the polish job - I have a massive ugly dent in my right middle finger.  I probably just need to cut all my nails off.  Not to mention I actually am aware of how scary my cuticles look, and how badly I am in need of cuticle oil :p) and Pucci-licious.  I quite like Pucci-licious, even though I find myself getting bored of purples.  I own so many.  And I don't even really like purple that much.  But so many just look so good on the nail  :p  Rebel Debutante is also quite nice.  Not nearly as mint as I thought, or neon for that matter.  It's definitely a bright, though.  I wouldn't call it lime, though - maybe a bright pastel spring green?  Grass green?  Gahhhh.  My brain is turning to mush from polish fumes  :s

I'm going to decide which of these is going on my nails now.... I still have Color Club Power Play on my toes, too.  That's going to need an updating...  If I'm still awake, I'll try to post a pic.  If not, till tomorrow!  Oooh, the Olympics are starting tomorrow, right outside my door!  Exciting... I wonder how bad millions of people flooding into the city will make traffic?  :p 

NOTD, yesterday and today - V-Day Theme Week Continues...

This is gonna be really quick, because I have much more important things to write about  :p  Do I say that all the time, or what?

V-Day Mani week, Day 2:  I wanted something red, to contrast the pink Nicole I had on the day before, so I reached into my drawer of reds and debated for awhile...  I'm scared of reds, though.  I love anything loud and bright, but traditional red nails just scream Grandma or Scary Beautician With Smelly Perfume to me... so I'm always looking for a fresh twist on red... or what I think is "fresh" anyway...

I settled on China Glaze Rose Among Thorns.  Wow.  Pretty.  And bright!  This is a neon cerise colour.  Slightly sheer - even after three coats I could still detect a hint of smile line.  But it's beautiful and vivid - reminds me of maraschino cherries.  I'd call this a neon red.  I love neon red.  And it doesn't dry to that yucky matte finish like all other neons.  It was pretty shiny - this is without any TC.

But I'm never satisfied.  So I decided to jazz it up a little more:

I added two coats of CND Gold Sparkle to it.  I liked the results (Gold Sparkle actually has a few gold FLAKIES in it!  Flakies!  For hurtin people like me [canadians] who are having a hard time getting their paws on Nfu Oh's... okay well, this doesn't even BEGIN to substitute, but still...) but I immediately wished I had added Raspberry Sparkle instead... it would have looked a lot more Valentine's-y (yes, I am using that as a real word now) with the pink sparkles over the red....  It's not showing up the greastest in either of these pics, either way...

By the way, I found this awesome article over at The Edge Of Sanity - it lists a bunch of the CND Colours and Effects and how they look over each other.  A lot of bloggers have said they "aren't totally in love" with the whole concept, and neither am I, but I will definitely be looking into it more, mainly because 1. I like layering and the idea of "the ultimate layering polish line" specifically designed for that purpose is attractive to me, and 2. They have the entire line at my local beauty supply for $6 each.  :p

And finally, this is what I did to my nails before I went to sleep.  I'm counting this as V-Day Mani week, Day 3:

Orly Opal Hope.  I regret to inform you all that I must take off this beautiful polish, even though it is oh-so-lovely and I love its tiny gold and pink sparkles and green and gold duochrome so....  No, it must come off, for there is a fresh TD order that just arrived with my name on it and all the pretty new colours are fighting for space on my nails...  post coming soon...  :p

V-Day Mani Week: Nicole by OPI You're An Angel

I was wanting to do a whole week of red and pink nails to celebrate Valentine's Day... which is weird because traditionally, I hate Valentine's Day.  In or out of love, single or not, this day has always sucked for me.  Except the past two years, in which my boyfriend has made the day exceptionally fun and enoyable by doing "anti V-Day" things with me  :)  Anyway, like someone said on the MUA boards, one of the best things about Valentine's Day?  Gaudy mani's!  :)  I wish I owned some Konad, so I could really get into the whole hearts and flowers theme, but I don't (yet..) so I'm bringing you the most Valentine's-y colours out of my collection  :)  Well, not all of them, since I'm kicking this off kind of late, but some.

Today I decided to test out one of the new Nicole polishes I bought the other day.  It's shimmery and pink and seemed V-day appropriate:

This is Nicole You're An Angel.  Of course my crappy sub-camera refuses to capture the real colour of this polish.  It's a deeper pink than it appears in these pics - not too much deeper, a medium pink, but not as peachy as it looks here.  It has a generous amount of gold and dark pink shimmer in it, and it looks very much like a lighter, more candy-pink version of China Glaze's Strawberry Fields.  You can't really see all the gold shimmer, but where all the white, shiny blobs are on my nails - that's shimmery gold IRL  :p  

 Preeeeetty.......  I was pleasantly surprised by this polish.  I did not expect to like it nearly as much as I did.  I mean, of course I thought I would like it, since I bought it and all, but its much brighter and makes a lot more of an impact than I thought it would.  This would be gorgeous on toes for summer.  So pretty and feminine.  They had a red polish with a similar gold shimmer finish, and it makes me almost want to go back and pick that up too...

That's V-Day polish number one.  I'll be back with more tomorrow.  My TD order is supposed to be here Thursday - can't wait!!!  I'm already planning my next order  :)

NOTD, New Nicole spring 2010 collection

Well, I think I've realized that a no-buy just isn't realistic for me  :p  So I've decided to change it to a low-buy.  I was very sick last night, btw, and I still feel really out of it from all the icky medication I took.... :p so I'm going to keep this brief, or at least try to, lest I come off sounding like even more of a babbling idiot than usual...

So I confess, I went to the drugstore specifically to pick up Essie Wicked - for some reason, I don't own any vampy, blood red-blacks, which is strange because that's always been one of my fave polish colours, ever since the whole Chanel Vamp era when I was in seventh grade  :)  I have Misa Love Bite on the way from TD, but I can't wait that long... besides, I've heard that Wicked is one of the best red-blacks out there, so I may as well pick it up.  I don't own very many Essies, and I'd like to change that....

So I picked these up:

Essie Wicked and Essie Watermelon.  Wicked is just what the name says - dark, opaque in one coat blood-red, burgundy creme, and Watermelon is a bright coral pink creme that's a lot darker than I thought.  It's almost red.  I don't know what I think of it yet, but it looks almost out of place among the pinks on my nail wheel...

Where was I...?  Right... I was about to go pay when I noticed two new collection displays by the register.  One was a new Sally Hansen HDcollection (was it the Tracy Reece one?  I can't remember... I wasn't terribly impressed by any of the shades I saw though...  They looked nice and bright, but unoriginal) and the other was a new Nicole by OPI collection.  Nicole polishes are okay - I haven't had any major problems with them, and they occasionally have colours that I can't find anywhere else.  So out of the 13 colours they had, I picked out the three that I liked most:

Nicole by OPI in You're An Angel, Lemon-Lime Twist and Make Mine Lime. 

You're An Angel is a sparkly pink shimmer with gold glitter - similar to China Glaze Strawberry Fields, but lighter pink.  (Excuse the white fluffy blob in the top right corner.  That's my kitten, Sid Vicious.) 

Lemon-Lime Twist is a shimmery chartreuse colour, with almost a metallic sheen to it. 

Make Mine Lime is a sparkly lime green shimmer.  Reminds me of Sour Apple Jolly Ranchers, or something.  I'm looking to expand my collection of greens, and I was looking for a shimmery, frosty green like this.  I also want a dark green creme, and a shimmery forest green... What I would absolutely love as well would be a green/gold duochrome... years ago I had a Revlon StreetWear polish that was a green/gold duochrome shimmer... there's gotta be something out there like that. 

And quickly, here's what I did to my nails for Superbowl Sunday, even though I only got to watch half the game:

OPI Bling Dynasty.  Pretty gold polish.  Shiny even without a topcoat.  And hey, just happens to match the Saints' colours  :) 

This is being posted a day late.  I forgot to hit "Publish Post" last night before I fell asleep.  Oops  :p  I have more stuff to show you, but it will have to go in the next post.  Did anyone else watch the Superbowl?  I'm glad the Saints won.  And the Who sounded horrible.  Later  xo

Second NOTD: Color Club Revvvolution

Yep, I changed my polish.  Again.  Right after I got home.  I wanted something more edgy and noticeable. 

This fit the bill:

Color Club Revvvolution.  Okay, I freakin' LOOOOVE this polish.  Look at it.  Lookatit!  How could you not love such a sparkly black holo?!  First of all, who else even makes a black holo?  OPI's My Private Jet is the only other one I can think of, and good luck finding that.  This is a gorgeous colour and a great formula. It went on like a dream and the prismatic effect is breathtaking. Lots of rainbow microglitter in this holo. Drying time seemed superfast as well. I can't stop staring at my nails- from far away it looks like a dark grey, but the second any light hits it there's a very noticeable rainbow reflection from the holo glitter. Soooo pretty! Don't even bother with MPJ, just get this instead!

Yeah, I'm in love with these Color Club collections.  Catwalk Queen and Femme Fatale.  I know they're last spring's collections, but they're just so darn wearable.  I have such hight hopes for CC's new spring 2010 collections.  Scrangie has posted swatches of the Rebel Debutante collection on her site, which I had been eagerly awaiting, and I'm glad I ordered the four I did.  I also ordered the PopTastic collection, which she has said she shas swatches of soon, as well as a new glitter collection (!!).  What??  Another one?!  I haven't even gone through my Glitter Vixens yet!  (*shakes with excitement*)

I love Revvvolution, but I have so many beautiful polishes I want to try out, I find myself wanting to remove it already  :p  I wonder what it would look like with a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust overtop...?

Oh yes, and if you were wondering how my makeup app went, I think the Lise Watier makeup artist, Kat, did a great job.  Lise Watier is, I'm proud to say, a Canadian owned and manufactured company, based out of Montreal.  Which accounts for all the francais names I can't pronounce  :p  The colours were really pretty - I especially like the lipstick she used on me.  I have a really hard time finding lippy shades that don't make me look like one giant pair of lips.  I don't really want to take a pic to show you, because a. I don't want this blog to be full of pictures of my stupid face, and b. my camera's broken, and I know the pretty shadow is not going to show up on my iPhone camera.  So I'll just tell you that on my eyes, she used #117 Ecru Mat as a base, #118 Aubergine in the lashline and crease, and loose powder in Folie D'Opale blended all over the lid and in the corners as a highlighter.  On my lips, she used lipstick in Biscotti.  I'd like to pick that up, or a MAC dupe, preferably.  I've loved my MAC Lipstick ever since sixth or seventh grade  :)  My first one ever was Twig.  I bought it with my best friend when we were twelve.  We shared it  :p  Which sounds gross now but was so not a big deal back then.... yuck....

Side note:  Random thought:  I can't believe I don't own Essie Wicked.  I need to go buy that, as soon as I allow myself....  also maybe Sexy Divide?  And Watermelon?

Another REALLY quick NOTD: Color Club Front Row Diva

(*yawn) I stayed up waaaaay too late last night.  I pretty much missed most of the hockey game this morning  :(  Boooooo.  Oh well.

I rolled out of bed (well, okay, sat up in bed and grabbed my laptop :p) about half an hour ago, and I need to leave soon to get my free makeover  :)  :)  So I wanted something understated and professional-looking on my nails.  Why?  I don't know.  Because I put waaay too much thought into what nail polish to wear.  Anyway, I was going to go with one of my new colours, like the OPI Bubble Bath that's so famous, or Significant Other Color.  Then I wanted something grey-toned, like China Glaze Recycle.  But then I wanted something sort of pretty but not pink, so I decided to try this out:

Color Club Front Row Diva, from the Catwalk Queen collection.  A pearl grey with a subtle shimmer.  This is definitely a "pearl" frost - it's not creme, and its shimmer is very very soft.  Someone else said somewhere its a "true pearl" finish, and looking at my nails I couldn't agree more.  Two coats got it to opacity, but for some reason I got tiny bubbles on my left index finger that just wouldn't go away no matter how many times I redid it.  Hmmph.  Annoying  :p

Anyway, this strikes me as a very "professional", office-appropriate colour.  It's very understated - compare it to the Claire's neon mint green I was wearing yesterday!  I don't know - honestly this colour bores me a little.  If I worked somewhere where I would have to worry about my polish being office-approppriate, I would probably be excited by this colour.  But I work in the film and television industry, so what do I know  :p  It's a very pretty soft pearl grey, and I don't own anything else like it, but I probably won't reach for it again unless I want to look professional with a touch of girly.

Yay - free makeover time!  I'll let you know how it goes.  I'm so horrible at choosing makeup and deciding which colours work on me and which don't.  Having someone do it for me will be sweet  :)  I wonder if my boyfriend will even notice...  :p  I'll try to post later.

I Have A Serious Polish Addiction - Mini Haul 02-05-10 - Claire's pastels

I know, I know... I said no-buy until my TD order comes in...  but then I saw this article at Getcha Nails Did.  Oh.  God.  *choke* sputter*  Neon pastels!?!  Hmm, there was that dress I was debating about returning to H&M... now if I return it I can buy these!  DONE!

Aren't they nice?!  They don't have individual names.  Which is weak.  The bottom of the box says, "Pastels".  So I guess this is Pastel Pink, Peach, Yellow, Green, Blue and Purple, from left to right.  (really?  thanks lex.  that was very informative... :p)  So pretty... like sherbet colours.  A tad pricey, at $15 for six mini bottles... after tax they were around $17.  Yikes.  But, so pretty......

I was most taken with the peach, the mint green and the pale blue.  But that's just cuz I'm really into peach and mint green right now and a blue will always call my name.  I couldn't decide which one to try first after I got home... I swatched them all on one of my new nail wheels (wheee!) and found that the light blue is almost an exact dupe of Color Club's Blue Light, and the purple is very similar to China Glaze's Secret Peri-wink-le, except SP-W-L is a creme and the Claire's polish is a satin frost.  Do you want to see?  I know pics of my nail wheels are lame and not as good as acutal nail swatches, but I'll show you later anyway, if I can.

Anyway, I settled on the mint green:

*drools uncontrollably* (slurp) This is a lot more neon than is showing up in this pic.  It's like a neon mint.  Which is a dumb description but the only one I can think of.  It's not too minty or too lime - a perfect balance between the two shades.  And BRIGHT.  I would almost classify this as a neon - without that icky dull matte finish that all neon polishes are cursed with!  Perfect!  This is two coats in the pic - I didn't even use any Seche yet!  The first coat was streaky and a PItA to apply, but all smoothed out with the second coat.  I gave it a long time to dry in between the two coats though.

Yeah... I seriously have a problem.  A nail polish addiction.  I have collected many, many things over the years, with varying degrees of ridiculousness, and this definitely nears the top of the list.  One of our friends poked his head into our bedroom to say "Bye" to me the other day after the hockey game (I was sitting on my bed typing on my laptop), saw this:

and was just like, "Holy sh*t, is that all nail polish?"  And I sheepishly was like, "Yes, I have an addiction, I know, I'm just sorting them to put them all away" (gestures to helmer).  Yeah.  It's sick.  My collection has quadrupled since Christmas.  And I had about 30 to start with that I'd just collected over the years.

Okay, so I'm TOTALLY serious now - NO-BUY until after TD order arrives!!  Unless its like a golden diamond nail polish with rainbows flowing out of it carried on the backs of unicorns that paints out money and will solve all my lifelong problems <-- quote from my boyfriend.  Like he's one to talk about obsessions.  This is his DVD collection that lives in our spare room:

Yeah.  Words are not needed.

So what are you doing this weekend, world?  I'm probably playing poker tonight, as usual.  Tomorrow there's a hockey game at like eleven am (!) (stupid east-coast schedule :p) and then there's UFC 106 that night at seven.  And I have to go to my drugstore to get my free makeover  :)  And then Sunday is the Superbowl.  I could care less about football - I'd be hard-pressed to name more than two players on any given team, sometimes not even that many - but for some reason I always watch the Superbowl.  Always have.  And its an excuse to procure and devour yummy snacks and appies  :)  Saints, Colts, whatever - pass the crab dip  :)

So I've got a busy weekend.  Rest assured though, nails will be did and photographed.  I'll probably even put something different on them before I go play poker.  I wish I owned Color Club's All In  :p  I'm thinking something bright and distracting for when I'm playing cards tonight, some kind of dark colbalt blue for tomorrow, possibly with glitter, and then some kind of home-concocted dupe for $OPI Go With The Flow-er for Superbowl Sunday... maybe that's when I'll do the Orly Swizzle Stick with CND Gold Sparkle...?  Maybe more of a coral colour with Gold Sparkle?  Maybe a peach like the Claire's one, or China Glaze Thataway with CND Gold Shimmer layered overtop?  Maybe its time to break out the Color Club Glitter Vixens?  Maybe just Bling Dynasty or JITNB from the OPI HK collection?  Maybe a chance to finally wear Absolutely Alice?  Aaaaah!  So many choices! 

Till later ;p  xo