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!

OWWWP: Color Club Ultra-Astral

(Why is Lacey Chabert so orange in this pic, anyway?)

Super-quick Pink Wednesday post.  Two posts in one day, after disappearing for a week or two.  Yep, that's how I roll. 

I present to you Color Club Ultra-Astral, from the Starry Temptress collection.

This is part of a collection of neons with glitter in them, which as you might guess is right up my alley.  This dries fairly matte as with all neons, but applied pretty well.  Somewhat sheer - you do need three coats to avoid VNL.  The glitter effect overall is nice, although somewhat muted.  But have no fear - Color Club thoughtfully provides you with a glitter topcoat in this set that you can slap on top of these if the glitter payoff from the polish alone isn't enough for you, like it wasn't for me:

Oh baby.  That's what I'm talkin about :)  This is after applying the Starry Temptress Topcoat that's included in the set.  It eliminates the yucky matte effect, and adds even more sparkle to the somewhat dull glitter.  You still need topcoat to get the maximum effect out of these, but I do think they look better with the topcoat than without. 

Overall, I love this polish, I love hot pink, and I love how Color Club always finds a way to make their neon collections a little different :)

Til later :)

*EDIT: I just noticed this - two pinks with glitter in a row.  Yeesh.  I'll try to switch it up a bit next week  :S

*EDIT#2: Go Canucks Go :)  Nashville, you goin down.

OPI Pirates Of The Carribbean Collection - Well, The Ones I Picked Out, Anyway

Hello!  So my Pink Wednesday post will just have to wait, because I happened to find these today:

Yup, that's right - I happened across a new, full, unmolested OPI Pirates Of the Carribbean display today at the mall.  After stalking this collection for the last week or so to no avail, I remembered the frenzy surrounding the last OPI Shatter colour and quickly grabbed two of the suckers.  Happy dances were performed on the spot.

I looked over the other colours for quite awhile and was largely unimpressed by the swatches, just as I was online.  I ended up getting three of the colours - the only three that really interested me - and leaving the two pinks (because yawn) and the aqua Mermaid's Tears (because I'm convinced there's a dupe that I most likely already own).  However, after coming home and swatching the ones I did buy, I'm almost wanting to go back and snag the other three.  Although the application wasn't the best I've ever experienced, I love these on me a lot more than I thought I would :)  No outdoor pics 'cuz it's kind of nighttime, sorry.  All of these are without topcoat too, except for the Shatter.

Stranger Tides.  Probably the most unique one out of the collection.  Reminds me of Sew Psyched and Color Club Sheer Disguise, although neither are dupes.  I think this kind of almost "dirty" mint green works on me a lot better than a lot of blue-based mints.  Even mint greens that have a lot of yellow, such as Claire's Dreamcatcher, still make my hands reddish, but this one doesn't seem to :)  If it kind of looks like it in this pic, it lies. Application was a bit annoying - streaky and left bald spots on the first two coats.  This is three.  It dried pretty fast though, which probably accounted for the streakiness.  (Sorry for the crap picture - photographing my right hand is flippin' impossible sometimes -___- #n00b)

Skull & Glossbones.  I loved this one too.  Some pale greys make me just look yellowed and gross, but I like this one on me.  Quite a lot, actually.  It almost looks a little blueish here (or maybe that's just my monitor) but I assure you it's not.  It's a very yellow-toned dove grey - more yellow than Zoya Dove.  Again, application on this one was pretty much the same as Stranger Tides - streaky, bald spots, and cuticle drag if I wasn't careful.  Something told me I wanted this when I first looked at swatches online, and now that I see it on me I'm so glad I decided to just shut up and buy it after standing there with it in my hand in the middle of the store for about an eternity.

Planks A Lot, with Parlez-Vous OPI? on my pinky for comparison.  Slightly greyed-out purple, so of course I had a #$!*% of a time photographing it, trying to get it to not look blue.  As you can see, I failed.  It's a lot more red-toned than it looks here, and with a heather grey cast to it.  This one gets a thumbs-up too, although maybe not as enthusiastically as the first two.  Application was nowhere near as bad as the first two, though - I was able to get it looking decent in two coats.  This drew comparisons to the now-discontinued PVO? when promo pictures were first released, but I don't really think they look alike at all:

Left, Planks A Lot.  Right, Parlez-Vous OPI?  PVO? is much more brown-based.  PAL is like the love child of PVO? and Do You Lilac It?  Which I should've included in the picture, but I fail  :s

And I saved the best for last:

This is Silver Shatter overtop of China Glaze Calypso Blue.  I tried to find an OPI to layer it over, but believe it or not, out of my vast OPI collection I couldn't find a suitable dark blue creme.  So I cheated with China Glaze, who's my true love anyway :)  It cracked nicely, although you do have to take care to apply a thick enough coat.  And no, I didn't layer it over the polishes from the collection. I know I'm a'sposed to, and while I think it looks okay over them and all, I think it's most striking over darker colours :)  Although I'm dying to try it over a white.  And maybe do some striped skittles with it?  Oooh, I can't wait to play around with this.  I have a feeling it'll be on my toes, eventually, too :)

So those are the ones I picked up.  I'm in love with the Silver Shatter, and the other three are definitely each getting worn soon as well.  I think the entire collection goes perfectly with the soft florals and woven fabrics we're seeing everyhere for spring and summer, and the polishes have a pretty, romantic feel to them in my opinion, despite the theme.   Like I said,  the desire to go back and get at least the light pink is growing strong in me....  The Silver Shatter is clearly the star here, though (the salon I went to had three left, of which I bought two, and as I was paying the other one was put aside for someone on the phone.  By the time I left the mall an hour or two later, every display that I had passed by had been stripped of the Shatters!)  I would love to see an entire collection of metallic shatters (what's that, you say?  China Glaze has already announced an upcoming collection of these?  well naturally!  I'll get back to this later when I find out more...)

Now I just need that collection of OPI Shatters to be released, along with the Serena sets, and my OPI lemmings will be fed for awhile :)

Happy Belated Easter! :o)

It's Easter Monday, so it still counts, right?

Hello all.  No, I have not disappeared off the face of the earth.  Yes, as usual I'm behind on posting stuff and have a whole backload of NOTDs to show you, plus my TD haul.  I promise I'll try and get it out there, in the interest of Not Sucking.

But for now, wanna see my cutesy-poo Easter mani?  Suuuure you do :)
Left hand:

Right hand:

Yes, the pictures are watermarked wrong.  It's my MUA label, but you can ignore that, right?  I actually kind of like my right hand better than my left - the chickie looks better, and the bunny came out cuter (I swear his teeth don't look that smudgy in real life...).  Except for the dots.  Those just look stupid.

Polishes I used: Sparitual Reveal Yourself, Joe Fresh Coral, China Glaze Peachy Keen, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Expres-so Yellow, OPI Gargantuan Green Grape, China Glaze For Audrey, Color Club Blue Light, China Glaze Secret Peri-Wink-Le, and Crush Hustle.  I think that's it.  Oh, and Art Club nail art pens in Satin White and Black.  And a dotting tool.

And just for S&Gs, here's a random tape mani I did:

I used OPI DS Magic and Glow.  I love both of these polishes.  Ah, foils :)  Glow looks pretty good on me, for a bronzy gold.  Bronzy golds tend to look much better on me than champagne-y golds.  I have such a weird skin tone :s  I'm pale, yet all the colours that are supposed to look good on pale skin make me look washed out.  Bah.

Anyway, enough grumbling.  I'm gonna go work on the seemingly daunting task of posting the giant backlog of crap I have to show you :) 

Oh yeah, I started a spreadsheet.  Or rather, I started working on the spreadsheet I started over a year ago again  :s  It's not even close to finished.  Not even remotely.  What's on there is a small smidgen of what I own (except for Color Club and Sinfuls!  Those are up to date - yay me! :p)  but in case anyone cares here it is :)

'Til later.

On Wednesdays We Wear Pink: OPI Pink Me I'm Good

I'm sure most of you have heard of Pink Wednesdays by now... if not, and you've never seen the movie Mean Girls and you can't figure it out for yourself, go here for an explanation.  I, personally, love pink, so of course I'm gonna go along with it  ^_^  And everyone knows Mean Girls rules.

So my Pink Wednesdays mani for this week was OPI Pink Me I'm Good.

These aren't the best pics, but it was rainy outside.  I'm so glad I was able to get my hands on it - it was an Ulta exclusive, and we no haz Ulta in Canada.  Yay for swaps! :)

It's a gorgeous pink jelly with chunky gold glitter.  The finish is smooth, though - not gritty like you might think.  And the gold glitter really shows through, even in dim light.

I love it.  It's gorgeous.

That's all I have for right now.  I'm too excited over the hockey game I just watched - yay, Canucks got their first win!!  This is our year, people - that cup is ours!!

Till later :)