Some China Glazes, Essies, Nicoles and More ~or~ Ten Posts Crammed Into One Because I Don't Post Frequently Enough

*EDIT*: WHYYY the EFF is Blogger not posting my photos?!???  I just uploaded the photos three times - I promise they're there, if you click on them it will take you to the pic, but blogger is not showing them in the post for some reason.  It's making me want to pull my hair out,.  I've just spent fifteen minutes trying to fix this, but blogger just won't show them, and I have to go to bed now, so I'm hoping this will just fix itself :( :(  stuff like this makes me want to quit blogging :(

*EDIT #2*: Okay, I think I got it to work.... I just have to paste the photos in HTML form... which I don't know crap about, so if it's all wonky, blame blogger :p

*EDIT #3*: Okay, that didn't work AT ALL.  I so fail at HTML.

*EDIT #4*: Now blogger is going to delete this post altogether?? I had it published, now it's back in my drafts?  WTH?

*EDIT #5*: Yeah.... it is now Sunday evening.  Blogger seems to mysteriously be working again, although it decided to take random photos I was trying to publish earlier and make them tiny little pixels that you can click on to go to a full-size pic.  Which is what it was doing before with all my pics.  Sigh.  I could delete all these edits, but they're entertaining.  At least they will be for me to read later  :p


Good Saturday Evening, all!

Yes, I know this should really be broken up into seperate posts about each colour to maintain everyone's constantly waning interest, but I would actually have to post on a semi-regular basis to do that  :p  Alright, no excuses today - let's just delve right into it, shall we?  Let's!

Forgive my brutal cuticles in all of these, please, by the way.  Winter no likey me hands :(

First off, some crack - China Glaze Medallion topped with Lightning Bolt and Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure.  Not too sure about how this came out...

China Glaze Kaleidoscope Him Out.  Okay, "love" is not a strong enough word for how I feel about this polish.  It's my second favorite blue holo behind DS Glamour.  I lemmed this for soooo long, and finally caved and bought it on ebay - remember I told you I got a good deal on it because no one bid on it due to the fact the seller couldn't spell "kaleidoscope"?  It was listed as "China Glaze hom Out"  XD

Boring old Essie Ballet Slippers.  This is my go to Boring Office-Appropriate Neutral, and has been for some years now.  I can't stand wearing it sheer, though - this is four coats here.

SpaRitual Face Of Destiny.  From the Truth collection.  I don't like this on me at all.  Ugly gramma-ish apricot barf.  Making matters worse: ew, oily skin!  Sorry.  Darn that China Glaze Peppermint cuticle oil!

SpaRitual Eye Of The Beholder.  Again, pardon shiny cutes.  I only have one of the SR Truth collection left to swatch - when I finally get around to it, I'll post them all together.  This colour is okay, a chartreuse-y lime creme, but it doesn't seem horribly unique or exciting to me, although I can't think of a dupe I own...

China Glaze First Mate.  Another one I loved.  Applied great, I loved the shade on me, again I don't know about the uniqeness, but it's a blue so I don't care :)  I'll happily own every blue out there regardless of similarity :)  Okay, that's an exaggeration.  Either way, I loved this on me....

So whyyy did I have to ruin it with this childlike attempt at a gradient?  Seriously.  I love White Cap and everything, it's very gorgeous, but this looks like a smudgy mess.  Like a four-year-old did it.  I should have just left it alone or did a full top coat of White Cap.  I love WC, by the way, and plan on trying it over a lot more things.

My St. Patty's Day mani!  This was China Glaze Emerald Sparkle topped with one coat each of China Glaze Sour Apple and Sinful Green Ocean.  It's a hot green mess, but all I was going for was sparkly and green, so it sufficed :)  God was it horrible to get off, though.  I don't know what it is about the foil method and green polishes, but it all just goes directly underneath my nails when I try to remove it and makes me look like I have dirty green gunk under my nails for days.  Hawt.

Essie Borrowed and Blue, from their Spring 2011 Wedding collection.  Forgive the chips.  Very, very pale blue, paler than CC Take Me To Your Chateau, maybe a touch less pale than Hard Candy Sky?  I'll have to compare.  Application was a tad more annoying than usual, as it the norm with these super-pale cremes - a bit streaky.

Nicole Iceburg Lotus.  Very pretty foil-y teal shimmer with very noticeable pink flash that I could not capture no matter what I did! :(  Trust me when I say it's there, though!  It's totally visible on the nail.  Scrangie was right, though - this is everything I wanted OPI Austin-tacious Turquoise to be :)  Too bad it's in that... bottle...

Aaargh - Nicole, why do you have to be so frigging awesome lately?!  I can't take another one of your horrible, storage-disrupting, Helmer-drawer-fuglifying bottles!  But look what they're packing inside these horrible hideous bottles!  This is I'm A Pool For Love.  I don't get the name (pool?  It's a blackened glitter :p) but yes, it's gorgeous.  A blackened duochrome glitter that's deep blue and purple most of the time, but goes from purple to gold at extreme angles.  Nicole rocks blackened glitters.  Actually Nicole's been rocking everything lately.  I got a couple more the other day besides these two - Nicole's Nickel (another black glitter!  Not blackened, but acutally black, like the one they had at Christmas! Squee!) and Brilliant Idea (a lime green glitter), and there was a holo glitter and a blue with pink flash I was eyeballing as well... but I'll have to wait until Nicoles go on sale for $6 again at Shopper's Drug Mart, which is when I got these - $11 is just waaaay to much for me to justify spending on such an ugly bottle.

I just decided to go count my Nicoles, on a whim....I own FOURTY-SEVEN freakin Nicoles, people.  47!!!  47 of those heinous freaking things, in my house, in my possession...*shudder*... Yeah... Maybe I won't go buy those other ones when they go on sale  :p  ("But," the voice in my head protests, "you love every single one of those Nicole colours...")

Blah.  I'm still not even remotely caught up on posting pics.  Also, I just got the China Glaze Island Escape collection the other day - swatches of those coming up soon!  Plus, ten more random spam posts like this, probably  :p

See you soon!  I should probably go to bed   :p  For some reason I am really craving a pepperoni stick.  Wish I had some of those.

Oh, oh, PS:  I gave my niece (the BF's best friend's daughter - got that? so not really my niece but you get it)a bottle of ChG Black Mesh, and she posted a pic of her crack mani on Facebook saying how much she loves it :D  And all her friends posted comments saying, "Omg, I love it, where did you find it, I can't find it anywhere" etc. etc., since Black Shatter's been sold out around here since the day it came out.  And my niece is all, "Oh, my aunt got it for me, I'll have to ask her.."  HAHA! :D  Who's the best aunt in the world?!??  :D  I love being the nail polish fairy to a fourteen-year old! :D

Massively Hugely Enormously Massive Haul Post

Okay, so this started out as just a post of what I've hauled this past week, but then I thought, what the hell - I'm going to do a post of every single thing I've bought this year so far.  Wanna stop reading?  I don't blame you :p

I don't know if I should do most recent to oldest, or....?  I guess I'll do it from oldest to most recent.  Keep in mind, those of you thinking I'm some spendaholic freak, that this is for this entire year so far.  Some of these are swaps, as well.  Oh, I'm just going to stop making excuses for myself - you know you're all just as bad as I am ;p

Ready?  Grab some chips and turn the TV to something boring :)

Sephora by OPI Read My Palm and Just A Little Dangerous.  Two I'd been lemming for a while - I only had a mini of RMP.

From Forever 21, Love & Beauty scented polishes in Peppermint and Kiwi, and a regular polish in Lime.  These do smell, although not very good - the scent reminds me of those scented fat felt pens we had when we were kids.

Boring stuff - Barielle Camo and Mani Extender, found at Winner's for $5 each.  After I bought these, I walked into Eterna Skin Care on Robson and saw Camo for $18!  D:

But oooh, this is exciting - the Dare To Wear Disco Tech collection!  Hee.  I like glitter.  I just noticed that my older polishes from this brand are spelled "Dare 2 Wear".  Huh.

See?  See?  I told you!  This is Hunter Green x2, Billie Purple Haze (awesome neon purple with subtle shimmer, and only a buck!) and some little butterfly decals I found - which are sitting on top of a Hello Kitty fauxnad plate :)

Aren't these adorable?  I got these so I could copy this mani that I saw on Chloe's Nails.  It's so simple, but so adorable - one of my favorite manis of all time :)

Anna Sui 101, 103 and 011.  011 has flakies!

Some old discontinued China Glazes.  L-R: Stone Age, Sunset Glow, Channelesque, FYI and Drama Queen.

More old discontinued China Glazes.  L-R: Subtle, Beatnik, another Channelesque ;p

Now, we move on to our OPI part of the presentation:

OPI Texas collection. L-R: Y'all Come Back Now Ya Hear?, Big Hair..Big Nails, Guy Meets Gal-veston, That's Hot! Pink, Do You Think I'm Tex-y?, Houston We Have A Purple, Austin-tacious Turquoise and You Don't Mess With OPI!  These names get worse with every collection :p

More (yes, more) random OPIs - Skinny Dip'N In Lake Michg'n, Tickle My France-y, Barefoot In Barcelona, Over the Taupe (I needed neutrals, lol), Just Groovy and Simply Smashing.

And dusty finds!  Awesome dusty finds!  L-R:  Mad As A Hatter, Sapphire In The Snow, Smitten With Mittens, Merry Midnight.  I already own all these, but backups, swaps, you know how it goes... :)

And that concludes our OPI portion of the evening, now how about some Daiso finds?

OMGHOLOsqueeeeeeeee!  <--- iz what I did when I found these in the store.  These are the "Rainbow" line of polishes, they are pretty holo, and they are fantastic!  The three in the middle look like they're the same, but they're actually three seperate colours.  But aren't these just the FUGliest bottles you've ever seen?  Daiso has some seriously ugly bottles, man.

Like check THIS out.  These are all very pretty - a chunky silver and holo hex glitter, iridescent hex glitter, a blue that looks really frosty and horrible here but it's actually very silvery and pretty, and the one on the end is called Aurora Lights and it's basically an exact dupe of CND Crimson Sparkle.  But those first two bottles are seriously some of the most ridiculous-looking things I've ever seen in my life...

SEE?!?  Like, seriously?  What the hell is that thing?  A nail polish bottle or the frickin Empire State Building?  I think the folks at the Winmax must've just done this for a laugh  :p

And look at this!

Aren't these cool?  Anyone know how to read Japanese?  :D  The pictures are SO awesome though.  I'm going to pick a couple of pages and try to scan them like Wan does with Nail Up! magazine over at I Love Nail Polish - a fellow Vancouver blogger, btw :)  And that concludes my Daiso finds!  Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

American Apparel polishes in (L-R): African Violet, Cameo Blue, Army Jacket and MacArthur Park.  Now I just need Passport Blue, Dynasty, Echo and a couple more  :p

Some randoms. L-R:  Nox Twilight Disco Darling and Citrus, unnamed LA Colors yellow gold, Claire's Poison Apple and Zoya Jade.

Wet N Wild Teal Of Fortune and Blue Wants To Be A Millionaire?  TOF looks like another Charla dupe, and BWTBAM looks similar to the Justin Beiber Nicole polish Me + Blue, although they're not dupes.

China Glaze mood polishes that - blast it all - have no labels!! :(  Anyone have any idea what these might be?  The one on the left is baby blue with a pinky-gold flash, and the one on the right is slightly darker with blue glitter.

CND Effects - all for a swap :)  Aren't they pretty?  I love these, they're so fun to play with.

And some Essies - Coat Azure, Beach Bum Blu (frosty and horrible - I dunno why I bought it :-/) and French Affair.

And last, I know no one cares, but some non-nail-polish stuff that I got for cheap:

I got my makeup done by a Smashbox artist at SDM, and since I had a gift card I bought two products - the Halo powder and Peony cream cheek colour duo, and the MU artist ended up throwing in all this stuff for free!  She threw in a full-size lipgloss, lip pencil and concealer for free, as well as a travel-size mascara and a billion other little samples.  I was blown away!  Usually they're just trying to get you to spend money and even when you do, make you feel like you're not spending enough, but she was extremely generous!  Thanks Smashbox!  Oh, and the In Bloom eyeshadow palette I bought at Sephora a few weeks back - happened to grab the last one :)

I started composing this post about a week and a half ago, so I've bought a couple of things since then.  I'll take some photos and get an updated haul post up as soon as I can :)  I've been working lots lately, which I really need.

Crappy Monday :)

Some Random Swatches

Hello all.  This time, I didn't post much because I was having troubles with my camera - I oculdn't upload pics onto my computer for the longest time :(  Now that I can, I'm all backlogged again.  Boo.  I'll probably end up doing two or even three posts.  Then again, I probably shouldn't get ahead of myself  :p

Anyway, here's some recent NsOTD from the past week or so....

OPI Tickle My France-y.  I was working on a certain show about the adolescence of a certain superhero who wears a cape and flies, and needed a very neutral, office-appropriate polish.  This was recommended to me on the Nail Board.  Forgive the chips - it was a long day :p  I'm not sure how this looks on my skintone, either... it is a pretty, soft-looking neutral, but I'm just not drawn to "blah" shades like this....  I kept wanting to jazz it up with a black konad pattern of some sort.

Zoya Pinta.  One of the Zoyas I ordered recently.  This is a gorgeous and very pigmented (two coats here) dark blue-ish eggplant creme.  Yes, it is similar to OPI Sapphire In The Snow, but this one is much easier to find, and I honestly like the application way better.

This is Winmax Diamond Nail Enamel in Black.  Another one of the polishes I got at Daiso.  This one has a TON of silver, pink and blue shimmer.  It's a black polish where the shimmer is actually very. very visible - it almost gives it a metallic sheen.  Like hematite, but with tiny blue and pink flecks.  I don't have another black like this - it's absolutely gorgeous.

Wet N Wild Grey's Anatomy over black.  Gorgeous, gorgeous silver-purple-green duochrome.  I couldn't get the best pics of this - oh well.  I heard this is a dupe to Lippmann Wicked Game, which I'd been lemming for a while.  I think it's hilarious that the only dupe that exists to this $18 polish costs $1.79 :D  Anyway, we just started seeing this collection in Canada, but I'm glad I swapped for this one and Party Of Five Glitter - every display I've seen has been stripped clean of all the ones I wanted already :(  I'll show you the ones I did get in the haul post I'm gonna do next.

SpaRitual Enlightened Soul.  From the SpaRitual Truth collection (remember that mini 4pack and the two others I got back in January? or February? Or two posts ago?  Three out of six of them are now tried :-/ ).  Anyway, this is a standard taxicab yellow creme.  I was hoping for spectacular application, as it's what I usually get and have come to expect from SR, but no.  As you can see from the second, outdoor pic (which is the more colour-accurate pic, btw), it's streaky as fuh :(  But that didn't really matter because...

I was planning on putting China Glaze Crushed Candy overtop of it anyway :D

Did I mention I got the Crackle Glazes?  CUZ I DID :D :D  It took a bit of scouting, an inside tip and my BF almost killing me as I dragged him around looking for this tiny nail supply store, but I FOUNDZ DEM!  Sorry for the caps, but I LOVE crack polish and these are so freaking awesome!

More coming up about the new stuff I've gotten in my next post! :)

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

New SpaRituals! Truth Collection: Reveal Yourself Swatches & Comps

Happy Groundhog Day!  Has that movie been on TV nonstop for the past three days in your area as well?

I'm a little down today, so I'm gonna keep the incessant chatter to a minimum.  I went out and hauled a bit the other day, and got some new pretties... even though there's still all that stuff I'm waiting on in the mail - urrgh.  Today's mail brought me Maybelline Blazes Of Blue though - yay!  Although is this a flaky?  It looks like a plain ol' glitter to me, but I've been told it's a flaky....

So anyway, part of my haul yesterday was a new SpaRitual collection, called simply "Truth" (not to be confused with the Zoya collection of the same name.)  I love SpaRitual polishes (made by the same company as Orly) - the formula is great and the wear is amazing, almost as good as Essie.  Their cremes are amazing and this collection is all cremes :) 

L-R: Circle of Life (oooh! pretty!), Face Of Destiny, Enlightened Soul, Eye Of the Beholder, Knowledge Is Power, and Reveal Yourself.  The minis are pretty good - 5 mL isn't a bad size, and for some reason my beauty supply stocks more mini SRs than it does full-size :-/  so I make do with them. 

This is an incomplete post for two reasons: one, I do not have pics of the rest of my haul, and two, I did not manage to swatch all of these SpaRituals :-/  I did get pics of Reveal Yourself; however, when I put it on I thought it looked so similar to a bunch of light pinks I already own that I had to do a comparison.  And then the sun went down :(  So this is all I have.

SpaRitual Reveal Yourself (indoors).  A light baby pink creme, cool-toned and leaning blue.

Outdoors.  It's pretty and I like it, but other than neons, opaque baby pinks like this are my favorite kind of pinks :)  Application was awesome - SpaRituals apply really well, and this was very opaque.  This is two coats here - one was a tad streaky, and two smoothed everything out.  It may look a bit brushstrokey, but the marks disappear once dry.  Drying time is better than average, I'd say - my SR hand was dry a few minutes before my comp hand.

It looks soooo similar to others I own (or so I thought).  The first one that came to mind was OPI's Mod About You, but I think I gave this away to my sister (what is wrong with me...?) so I didn't have that one on hand to swatch (I always end up giving away polishes that I can easily obtain... I'll have to swap for this one or pick it up next time I'm at the beauty supply... I actually meant to pick it up when I hauled yesterday, but forgot..)

So these are the ones I used for the comparison:

L-R: Maybelline Bubble Pink, Color Club Vintage Couture, China Glaze Something Sweet, SR Reveal Yourself and NYC 108A (I got this in the US a looooong time ago - I dunno if it's even still available.  I know that's lame.  Sorry.)

Pinky to thumb: (I know they're reversed in order from the pic above but just ignore that - I wasn't gonna retake the pic :p) NYC 108A, SR Reveal Yourself, ChG Something Sweet, CC Vintage Couture and Maybelline Bubble Pink.  The NYC isn't even close - too dark.  Something Sweet is paler and more muted, and Bubble Pink is more yellow-toned, and both these two and Vintage Couture are all warmer in tone than RY - RY is the coolest out of the lot.  Overall I'd have to say Vintage Couture is pretty close, although they're not exact dupes.  And the SpaRitual had the best application and wear out of all of them :)  I've had it on for more than 24 hours and there's no chips or visible tipwear at all.

Sorry I don't have Mod About You to compare...  I promise I will do swatches of the rest of these, though.  I really want to.  Even if you just get crappy-lit, not-the-most-accurate indoor photos (I need an Ott light... soon... badly).  I took nail wheel swatches.  Wanna see my nail wheel swatches?  Yeah, I thought not  :p

So I'll be back later with more of these.  Promise.