My Furry Friends and Thanks

Hi Ladies,

Well, today is the day ... leaving my house at 1, flying away around 3:30 (... making a hopefully shot stop in Jamaica... stop overs suck when you don't like being on planes for long periods of time!) then arriving in Puta Cana by evening :) Life is sweet.

I want to show my full vacation mani and pedi when I get back, currently working on the nail art :) But I will leave you with some pictures of my furry friends. I love how a lot of bloggers show off their pets, so here are mine.

* i wanted to post photos but blogger is being a douche ... sorry about that , I have to finish getting ready, i will post pics when I get back*

First is smokey, she is 10 and we found her when she was only a couple of days old. She is festively plump, but we love her :)

Next is Marley, he is actually my kitty :) I got him for my birthday 3 years ago and he is the cutest little guy and very friendly, he also gets in to a lot of trouble.

He gave me a scare yesterday, he usually goes outside but wasn't home for a whole day! I was scared he was hurt or someone stole him, he always come home for food. luckily he came home at 11 pm! i literally ran to pick him up and cuddle him :) I'm so glad he is home.

Anyways, I just wanted to say that I am very grateful for all of my followers, I was excited when I just had 1! Now I am at 50, I know to many that may not seem like a lot, but it means a lot to me.

Thanks for reading and commenting and wanting to come back for more :)

See you ladies in a week!

Vacation pedicure and naked nails ;)

Hi Ladies :)

Today I have another quick post, I have been super busy lately! Anyways in my last couple of posts I have been mentioning my vacation (which I leave for tomorrow!) I went for a pedicure 2 nights ago... it was meh. I tried out a new salon this time, I went to a great place the last time I went for a pedicure. Although the final product was just okay, they were actually really nice and I would consider giving them a second chance.

Switching gears a bit, my mani has been chipping for the last couple of days but I didn't want to change it because I want to paint my nails for vacation tomorrow. I ended up taking the polish off last night and decided to try some OPI Nail Envy - Maintinance, I purchased this at Winners (score!). Anyways I applied it last night and below you can see my current pedi and lack-there-of mani with some nail envy.

I say current pedi because I plan on adding one more coat of polish to my (I used China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy, at the salon they applied 1 coat of white, 2 coats of FFF), It's not as noticeable in the pics but there are some slight bald spots. I also want to do some nail art or Konad, I haven't fully decided yet but I am thinking black Konad with the Hawaii plate (possibly palm trees, hibiscus flowers).

I will also replicate this on my fingers :) I will decide tomorrow whether or not I will post my Vacation Mani/Pedi, I want to take pics of them on the beach :) lol. Regardless tomorrow will be my last post for a week.

So what to you ladies think of the pedi? What would you rate it on a scale of 1 to 10?

China Glaze : Strawberry Fields

Hi Ladies :)

Today I have China Glazes Strawberry Fields.

This is a lovely pink jelly with a golden glass flecked shimmer. When I first saw this one I knew I had to have it!

The Wear on all of the Summer Days collection from china glaze wore great! Very little tip wear or chipping. I currently own:

- Strawberry Fields

- Grape Juice

- Watermelon Rind

I think out of all 3, Grape Juice has to be my fave, I love the jellyness to it and in the sunshine, omg, it is so great!

I will post the other manis I have done with Grape Juice and Watermelon rind after I get back from my vaction (Leaving tomorrow, WOOOT!)

What is your favorite colour from the Summer days collection?

Claire's Green Confetti

Hi Ladies :)

I have a quick post for you today, I have been going crazy preparing for my vacation this week, I will be chilling in the Dominican Republic, Punta Cana by Sunday :) I can't wait!

Anyways, below is Claire's Green Confetti, it is basically a multi-sized holographic glitter suspended in a green jelly base, very shinny! I think I used 3 or 4 coats with this one, the VNL was not as visible in real life.

Outdoors, sunlight

I Took this picture the day I changed my polish and got that big chip right before the picture was taken!

Indoors, Flash

Indoors, Flash, out of focus to show the glitter!

Both of the indoor shots were taken the day I applied the polish.

What is your favorite glitter polish or colour?

Sally Hansen Beyond Perfect Protein Nail Color: Hibiscus Harmony

Hi Ladies :)

Today I have a NOTD from my archives, this is one of the discontinued polishes I picked up from the warehouse I mentioned here. This is Sally Hansen's Hibiscus Harmony (HH), I think I got this because of the name lol it sounds so pretty and reminds me of summer vacations. The colour is great too, I would describe it as a bright magenta shimmer with a blue/purple flash. Very interesting.

Indoors, flash

I'm pretty sure that I used between 3 to 4 coats because it was quite thin, but i didn't mind, it was almost jelly-ish in it's finish. I don't remember getting any crazy chipping with this polish, but I did get slight tip wear.

This colour wore well and dried fast, I really loved it more and more the longer I wore it. I even added my hibiscus konad to my ring finger :) I got a lot of compliments on this one.

Indoors, flash

I love the bottle shape on these, although I think these may have been discontinued due to some sort of defect in the bottle, most of the ones I saw where I purchased this could not be closed properly :(.

Do you own any of Sally Hansen's Beyond Perfect Protein Nail colour? If so, what's your favorite colour? I will have to try out more of the one's I have, they are all really very pretty :)

Konaded Toes!

Hello Ladies :)

Today I have a pedi that I have been wearing for most of the summer believe it or not. I'm pretty sure I applied this polish at the end of June and I have just started to get some chips recently!

The colour I chose was China Glaze - Japanese Koi. I picked out this colour at the salon last year for my vacation pedicure, but while on vacation I did experience some chipping. This was due to being at the beach and pool all day lol.

Indoors, flash

I really love this colour for summer, it is a bright neon orange/red, not a straight orange. For my current pedicure I put one coat of a white polish for the base, I believe this is what helped the polish stay on for longer (as neons usually chip faster on me than regular polishes). I stamped my toes (minus the big one) with the zebra pattern in Konad white polish.

My feet are super dry in this pic, but I will be going for a professional pedicure this week, I leave for the Dominican Republic on Friday! I love pedicures, I suck at painting my toes! lol. Expect to see some vacation mani and pedi pictures soon :)

What is your favorite pedicure colour? Do you do your own pedicures, or leave it to the professionals?

Nailene Review - So Natural Nails

Hi Ladies :)

Today I have a review for you for Nailene So natural artificial nails. Since my nails are too long at the moment I decided to try them on my sister!

Completed nails with packaging and left over nails, so many sizes!

Nail Prep
I cut down my sisters nails, filed the tips then gently filed the nail bed so the glue and nail would stick well.

Application
I applied a good amount of the glue to the nail and carefully pushed the fake nail to her actual nail to made sure there was good adhesion and as minimal bubbles as possible.

Indoors, with flash

Indoors, no flash

Post Application
I cut down the nails to a length she was more comfortable with and filed them out.

Decoration
I finished the nails off with some Nailene nail art stickers. Very easy to apply ( I used tweezers) and stuck very well.

Indoors, flash. I love these star stickers!

Indoors, flash. These stickers were put on both ring fingers.

Tips and tricks
One great tip I want to share with you ladies is when applying the nails either to yourself of someone else, put lotion on your hands before you start (NOT the actual nails). The glue will stick less to your fingers and more to the nail when pushing the nail down ( I figured this out half way in to application lol).

One thing I really need to master is getting all the air bubbles out. Some nails came out perfect and some were a little bubbly. My sister didn't want me to used TOO much glue, so I tried to use and much as she would allow, that may have been the issue. But I think a little more practice would make perfect :)

My sister was very pleased and let me know that they feel like her real nails! My mom didn't now they were fake! I will track the longevity of the nails over the next couple of weeks. On Friday we are leaving for the Dominican Republic, so that will be the ultimate test for wear with the water. I will bring some extra nail glue just incase ;)

I have purchased and used these nails in the past to cover up broken nails to help them grow out and I was amazed and how real they felt and how long they stuck for with minimal glue! I have had acrylic nails once in my life and they felt the same! My sister and I would highly recomend these nails :)

What do you think, Have you tried stick on nails before? Would you try them if you haven't before?


* Products were supplied to me. All opinions are mine and are truthful as to how I feel about the products.

NOTD: Claire's Dream Catcher

Indoors, flash

Hey Ladies,

Yesterday I painted my nails using Claire's Dreamcatcher, the infamous Chanel Jade dupe, although I do not own Jade so I cannot confirm if this is true or not. For the most part I like Dream catcher.

Indoors, flash

The colour is a faded light green with subtle green/blue shimmer that is not clearly visible in all lighting. I had expected it to be a bit more yellow and not ad faded, but I think it works well with my skin tone.

Window, daylight with flash

Window, daylight

Application was okay, the formula was kind of thin and if not careful you may create some bald patches. Overall application wasn't horrible, I have had worse experiences. I applied 3 thicker coats and 1 last thin coat to even it out. I was surprised with dry time, I did my nails before I went to bed last night, and I thought for sure that since I used so many coats it would smudge in my sleep. It didn't to my surprise! So far the handful of Claire's polishes that I have tried have been good with dry time, even when applied before bed, this makes me want to buy more! (sigh... I already have so many untried Claire's polishes lol)

What do you think of this colour? If you have Chanel Jade do you think it is a dupe?

H&M : Bella's Choice - Update

Hi ladies :)

I STILL have Bella's choice on my nails! I am really impressed with the staying power of this polish, it has been on for 1 full week! I have experienced very minimal if no tip wear on my fingers, but have some chipping on my thumb nails.

I decided last night that I needed a refresher of this mani because I wanted to keep the colour on but change it up a bit.

Window, daylight

This was a bit tricky to capture on camera but I tried my best, I put a coat of hidden treasure over top of Bella's Choice. I really love it :) very mermaid and fish scales looking.

Window, daylight

Window, daylight

What do you guys think? What's the longest your have worn one colour on your nails for?

China Glaze: Lemon Fizz - Nail Fail

Hi Ladies!

I have a nail fail for you today...

Let me start off my saying I love this colour, this is one of the few only yellow polishes I can see myself wearing, BUT the application for this was horrible, so thick and streaky! AND, to make things worse, I had used a new Sally Hansen base coat which bubbled under it! I was so frustrated with this one. I think I wore it for a day and then applied one of my Sally Hansen Prisms over top to try and hide the bubbles... It didn't work very well as you can see in the photos.

I will one day give it another try with my China Glaze base coat and see how application works then with a little bit more thinner. On a positive note I didn't experience any chipping :)

I kinda like how the top coat prism makes the yellow shine, but subtlety, I may try this combo again as well.

How was your application with the the Up and Away Collection? What is your favorite colour?

Random Mani

Hello Ladies!

I was looking though my nail pictures on my computer and came across some random pics I took a while back. I this one is from March, I remember taking this picture in my boyfriend's car lol.

I used a Sally Hansen's pink and China Glazes Secret Peri-wink-le for the ring fingers. I used a top coat of Sally Hansen's holographic glitter. I also topped the ring fingers off with a sequin hearts from Claire's body glitter pack, my sister was sweet enough to think about me when they had a 10 for $10 sale. This was super girly and kiddy, I wore it to my cousins 12th B-day party :)

I'm not sure If I would do this combo again. Last summer when I started obsessing over polish I thought pink was the shit! I needed every shade because in my mind at the time it was perfect lol. Now I find myself looking for more unique shades like green and blue.

When your polish obsession started what was your favorite colour?

China Glaze - Re-fresh Mint

Hey Ladies :)

For some reason blogger has been giving me issues when I try to upload pictures around 6-7pm, so I have decided to try to get my posts out earlier rather than later in the day :)

Today I have a China Glaze polish from the Up and Away sprint collection, I still have not worn all of the colours I got from this collection but the ones I purchased included:

- Lemon Fizz
- Light as Air - haven't tried
- High Hopes - haven't tried

Here I have Re-fresh Mint, I really like the name :)

This polish applied well, way better then Lemon Fizz ( I will discuss that polish in an upcoming post) and I am pretty sure I got away with using 2 coats for this one.

Indoors, flash. This was taken right after the polish was applied

I absolutely love this colour! I'm really loving pastel blues and greens lately.

This mani wore so well that since it wasn't chipping I didn't want to take it off! So I added some no name pink/bronze glitter nail polish on my ring fingers.

Indoors, flash.

 If you view the larger image you can see the small cracks in the polish, but still no chips!

What do you think of this colour? What are some things that you do to make an older mani feel fresh and new again?

Past NOTD: Green With Envy

Evening Ladies :)

I am still in love with my "Bella's Choice" mani, so no new NOTD today. I do however have a past "refreshed" bundle monster manicure to show you.

I hate how there are so many greens with this name, but this is Sally Hansen's Green With Envy (Xtreme Wear).

Window, daylight

I can't remember how long I had this light green/yellow cream on for, but Im thinking at least 4 or 5 days. This was my first BM (Bundle Monster) experience. I decided to try something simple first, I went with the lotus flower on my ring fingers in Konad's green princess polish. The design transfered quite well.

Indoors, flash

I really liked this colour more that I thought I would, only 2 smooth coats were applied and it came out great. I didn't experience much tip wear and it lasted for a long time!

What's your favorite SH Xtreme Wear? If you don't own any which colour would you like to try?

NOTD : H&M Bella's Choice, Plus - ELF Polishes

Evening Ladies :) I would have had this post up way ealier but blogger wasn't letting me upload my pictures... moving on...

So you saw my hauls yesterday and one thing I totally forgot to include was (crappy) cell pics of the warehouse where I got the polish for 50 cents. Unfortunately, I am having problems getting the pics off my new phone, I hope to have them up soon.

Also, my sister ordered some makeup from ELF so I decided to try out their polish, this came last night:

ELF - Passion Pink, Fire Coral, Desert Haze, Mod Mauve

On to my NOTD, I got this beauty from H&M last night. I loved it when I saw it on the blogs a while back, but for some reason in person it didn't "wow" me as much, but have been the lighting. I decided to buy it anyway, and I am really glad I did! During application I was already in love!

I cut my nails short!
Window, daylight

Now, the actual application was another story all together, it was a pain to apply; streaky, thick (even after adding thinner) and the brush sucked. But having completed it in only 2 coats and the final colour was worth it. It took longer than usual to clean up because of the brush, but next time I will see if more thinner will help with application. Another plus was that it dried pretty fast, I applied this after 10pm last night and was in bed before 12 :) no sheet marks!

What do you think of the colour? Canadian Readers - will you be buying any of the H&M polishes now that they are available?

July Hauls - Part 2

Continuing on from where I left off :)

Haul 4:

I popped in to Sally's last week and saw that some of the China Glazes were marked down... REALLY!? I didn't know that sally had markdowns on nail polish! Anyways I saw two or three and asked the sales lady if they had anymore, I was surprised to hear that they did in the back of the store! Trying to hide the deals from us ;)

Anyways I picked up:

Orly - La Playa (loooove the name), this came with a mini of top 2 bottom, both for under $3!

China Glaze Emerald Sparkle for $1.99! I'm pretty sure it's the good formula too!

China Glaze Golden Enchantment $2:79

I also picked up Orly's butterflies which I am still currently wearing, such a great colour :)

Haul 5:

I have a Fragrance/cosmetics warehouse right by my house, I usually will go for walks and stop by to see if they have any good nail polish. For the last year or so they have had Sally Hansen, Maybeline, Colrama, L'oreal and Cover Girl polishes 2 for a $1!

I may do a post later about my finds over the last year, but honestly, I don't know where to start! I have found sooo many cool polishes. My faves have been the maybeline colorama flakies, L'oreal Flakies, Xtreeme wear Sally Hansens, and the much sought after Sally Hansen Prisms. All of my prisms have come from this place, for 50 cents each!

Below are the polishes I chose to purchase the last time I visited

SH Diamond Strength-Twinkle Twinkle, SH Nail Prism-Coral Amber, SH Hard As Nails-Baby Blue Icing, SH Chrome-Amber Chrome,SH Crystal nail makeup-Pure Crystal, SH Xtreme Wear-Carnival, SH Xtreme Wear-Golden Nugget

One more thing before I leave you for the day, I was shopping tonight after work and I popped in to H&M to look at bikinis, they had none :( but what I did find was a huge makeup section, has this always been there?

Obviously the one thing I was interested was the Nail polish, they had a whole rack of it! Finally Bella's Choice! I thought I would never have it!

H&M -Bella's Choice and Blew Me Away

I wonder if all Canadian H&M's have these in, if you live in the Toronto area check out Yorkdale. I was at Promenade on the weekend and didn't see any there.

So what do you think of my hauls? Too much? Too little?! lol What were your favorite polishes?

Thanks for reading :)

July Hauls! Part 1

This is Part 1 of my most recent July Hauls

Haul 1:

I got these 2 china glazes from Amazon.com. I am signed up with Swag Bucks and basically you earn points and when you have enough you can "buy" things with them. I choose the amazon gift cards because this means I get polish for free :) Anyways If anyone wants a referral let me know, so far i have gotten 4 or 5 polishes within this year.

Back to the polish :) this is Bahamian Escape and Caribbean blue

Haul 2:

Birthday Haul! My birthday is July 1st, Canada day :) my brother and sister were nice enough to put a little gift basket together of polishes that I let them know I wanted ;)

China Glaze: High Hopes, Turned Up Turquoise, Flip Flop Fantasy (my back up! love this colour) by the way, if you couldn't already tell, totally not colour accurate, sorry!

OPI: La paz-itively Hot, Russian Navy, Catch me in Your Net

They also got me a nail polish remover pump (its huge!) and a pink nail soaker :)

Unfortunately for me the OPI's I had requested were matte and suede, these were just the regular polishes. The salon supplier where these were bought will not do returns or exchanges so if anyone is interested I am open to swapping for them.

Haul 3:

My wonderful boyfriend took me shopping for my Birthday on July 2nd this is what I got:

$OPI: Caribbean Cocktail, Only Gold For Me

I also found the new Claire's mood polishes, check them out here if you haven't already.

Thats it for now, stay tuned for part 2 coming up soon!

Claire's mood polish

Hi ladies :)

*Note: to view my review of the NEW mood polishes, click here.

Today I have one of the older mood polishes to share. I know that they have been seen before, but I really had fun with this one, I did not expect to love this colour so much!

Window, daylight

I think that I used 3 coats of the polish with 1-2 coats of white under. I would highly recommend doing this as I find it lasts a lot longer. I had tried out the blue/teal mood polish previously and had chipping within the first couple of hours of application!

I had just gotten my bundle monster plates when I did this mani and wanted to try them out, this is what I came up with.

Indoors, flash. You can see a slight funky french

I love the star design :) it works as a full nail design, but since it is a full image and does not cut off it covered all my nails perfectly, including my thumbs.

What is your favorite Claire's mood changing polish so far? Have you bought any backups?

Claire's Dreamsicle

Hello ladies :)

Today I have Dreamsicle from Claire's to share with you.

Indoors, flash

This is an orange/peach jelly which is also very sheer. I can't remember how many coats of polish I used for this one. Unfortunately, because of all of the coats this made the polish bubbly. Next time I use this colour I will have to be sure to be more patient and use thinner coats. Overall application was not that great but the end result (excluding the bubbles) I really did end up liking.

I just got this new china glaze and liked the contrast
between the orange and the blue :)

I ended up using a bundle monster design to cover up the bubbles underneath, I liked this better in real life more than how it came out in the pictures. The pattern was more subtle and the white was more faded. I would like to try this one out again, I really liked the colour.

What are your thoughts on my manicure?

Orly and Nailene

Hi Ladies! below is my current NOTD, I saw this colour on another blog and had to have it! This is Orly - butterflies a bright pink jelly. I'm pretty sure I used 4 coats for this but I didn't mind, I don't have many jellies but I want more!

outdoors, sunlight

indoors, flash

For the flower I used Nailine's Bedazzle nail art stickers in super star. These stickers are so easy to use and are great for creating a subtle look like I did, or adding more for a bold look. I really liked how these applied and the varity of designs that they have, you definatly cannot tell that these are stickers. The super star stickers I have also include 3d pearls and jewels which I cannot wait to try!

Below are the products that Nailene supplied for me to try out, they include 3 sets of fake nails (can't wait to try the nail studio one, so pretty and classy), professional nail glue and the nail art stickers.

Hopefully I will have a post coming up with a review of one of the sets of the nails on my sister as my nails are too long at the moment to use them.

I'd like to thank Nailene again for the great products :)

* Products were supplied to me. All opinions are mine and are truthful as to how I feel about the products.

Nautical Nails

Hi ladies!

Today I have an unnamed blue polish from Ardene, its a pretty blue. I didn't expect this polish to be anything special but it surprised me, it had a great consistency, application and wear! my only complaint would have to be the brush, it wasn't horrible, but it could have been better.

Indoors, window, natural light

I decided to stamp an anchor using my bundle monster plate on my left and right ring fingers. I love the nautical look! Next time I might try this polish with the bundle monster stripes.

indoors, flash

indoors, flash