A Cat... and Cracked Tootsies!

Hope your week is just flying by :) Today I have a bright summer pedi to share, but first, Smokey...

I don't even remember how long ago it was that I look this picture of my cat Smokey, but she must have been outside while I was taking some photos for my blog. Look how cute! She is usually tough to photograph because she is so dark and always turns away from the camera. I think this is the best one I have of her, she looks so peaceful.

Anyways on to the polish. like the toe separators? I actually won them in a giveaway a while back. I took these pictures right after I finished applying the polish because I was so happy with the outcome right then and there and knew I had to take a picture even though they were still wet! I used Sephora by OPI, IM Beauty as the base. It is a basic cream yellow, nothing to special. Then I used Chain Glazes Broken Hearted crackle glaze on top.

I love the colour combo and really need to try this on my fingernails soon. It also wore very well, I think I have had this one on for a month now and it is just starting to chip, not bad at all :) The great thing about this look is when you start to get some wear you don't even notice because of the crackle!

I remember having some application issues with the IM Beauty, it it was so long ago now I don't remember how bad it actually was. It may also have been that I was applying it to my toes, and I hate getting in to awkward positions to paint my own toes. Since this lasted so long I got away with not having to do it in a while ;) Next time I will definitely get it professionally done :)

I think I am finally getting used to applying crackle, I need to do more manis with it. My favorite crackle look was on my big toe in the photo above.

What's your favorite colour of crackle polish?

Tronica Leopard

Happy Monday!

Hopefully you are in good spirits for the beginning of this week. For my Canadian readers, are you as happy as me that this is a short week? Plus, I'm a Canada day baby so looking forward to my birthday AND day off ;) To all my American readers, you have the long weekend to look forward to also :) I love long weekends in the summer time. I can't believe this is the last week of June, where did this month go?!

Speaking of time getting away from me, I have been falling behind on posting for my blog. Last week was rough for me for some reason, I felt like I was having a nervous breakdown or something! Nothing too crazy, just really thinking about the future and what I want to accomplish in life. I am glad to say that I am ready to get my life back on track, and without getting in to too much detail, I look forward to many new and exciting changes I my life soon. Wish me luck!

Anyways, on to what you came here to see today, nail polish! This was the mani refresh I meant to post on Friday with China Glaze's Laser Lime.

I recently picked up this NYC polish along with some others a week ago, that's another thing I need to post, my U.S haul. I purchased my first Sinful Colors! For this mani I used NYC's West Village, which is a deep indigo with a purple shimmer which disappeared when I stamped. It was very well pigmented and I highly recommend it for stamping if you have it.

I like the effect it gave on top of Laser Lime, it looked more turquoise and was thin enough to pick up the prismatic sparkle beneath. It really reminded me of China Glaze's DV8... I can dream, right?!

I love this funky leopard combo! I used Bundle Monster stamp BM 221 for this one. I double side stamped my thumb for this one to ensure my full thumb was covered, but I have wide thumbs.

This pattern is perfect for double stamping because the pattern it not symmetrical or repeating. It's not the most original pattern, I have a similar one on a Konad plate, but it was what I was feeling at the time. With all of the nail art plates I have accumulated, I really want to use them as much as I can and try new designs on new plates. I still have much love for these new BM plates! What do you think of this combo?

Tronica - Laser Lime

Today I found a polis I wanted but didn't get when I had the chance. By the time I knew I HAD to have it, it was nowhere to be found :(

Luckily I found this beauty, China Glazes Laser Lime, on eBay, and it wasn't ridiculously priced! I think it go it for $5 something, that's not bad :)

Anyways, you may or may not know that this polish is from the Tronica collection and is a scattered holographic, prismatic polish. I really love the colour, it is a very light yellow leaning green.

Photos do not do this one justice, it is super pretty :) The little prismatic particles sparkle so much in the sunlight.

Pictured on my nails is two coats, I was happy with two but 3 would give total coverage. For me 2 was enough coverage for me, I was going to stamp over it anyways, plus the sparkle distracts from any sheerness.

Before I go, I just want to mention some awards I was given by other bloggers:

Over at A Polish Touch, I received the Stylish Blogger Award. I have re-posted this award times before so anyone who would like to take part, please feel free!

Ruxi over at Une Ruxi a Paris, also gave me the top 10 award!

Thanks ladies, I will re-post the top 10 Award soon.

Nail Prisms Update & Rose Among Thorns Refresh

Quick update on the Sally Hansen Nail Prisms I will be having for sale soon, I will most likely will be putting them up on eBay as this seems like the easiest way to give full access to everyone. If anyone has any other suggestions please let me know.

Within this week or early next week I will be swatching or sourcing images of the polishes I will have for sale, names will also become available. Here in Canada we currently have a postal strike, so as soon as that is over the polishes will be for sale!

Now on to a mani refresh with China Glazes A Rose Among Thorns. I used one of my new Bundle Monster plates, BM 203 and stamped with China Glazes Midnight Kiss, a gold foil.

I was still to hard to capture the true colour of A Rose Among Thorns, but the gold really brought out the warm tones in the colour and made it appear more coral :)

Below is a photo with my camera flash that is a little overexposed. You can see the orange popping out of this one!

And one last photo with natural sunlight.

I love this combo and the pattern. The gold China Glaze looked really cool on the nail, if you zoom in on the closer photos, it looks like little flecks of the gold make up the pattern on the nail. It's hard to explain but looks really cool :) I wish I had a bikini with this colour combo and pattern

Would you like to own Sally Hansen Nail Prisms?

Hello ladies,

I had an issue lastnight trying to upload photos, but I do have a question for you today. I would like to know how many of you would be interested in owning some holographic and/or duo/multichrome polishes from Sally Hansen's Nail Prism line?

I recently came across some bottles and was wondering if you would be interested in purchasing them? I would sell them for a reasonable price, I was thinking around $5 a bottle and most likely through eBay, Do you think that's reasonable? I will list the polishes I currently have if enough of you are interested. Let me know any feedback you may have :)

I personally love all of the Nail Prism's I own, they are so freakin cool! The halos are awesome and linear :) and the"duo-chromes" really are a rainbow in a bottle, way more than a flash of 2 colours.

I also came across a Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear holographic polish! It is a silver holo named Showtime and I haven't seen too much of it on other blogs, what I have seen doesn't do this polish justice AT ALL. I wonder when it was released?! I bought a bunch for myself and to share with you if you are interested. I plan on frankening with them :)

So please let me know your thoughts, don't be shy, I want to help others get their hands on polish they want.... or need in their life ;) I'm open to suggestions.

Playing with New BM Plates

Today I have a post I forgot to publish last week! It's a mani refresh with one of my new BM plates. I wanted to add a little something to Color Club's Pucci-licious to freshen it up a bit, but not too much because I would be taking it off the next day.

I decided to add the chain link fence/fishnet pattern from BM 209 to random nails.

Above is my rarely shown right hand with pink and middle finger stamped. And below is my left hand with my pinky and index finger stamped. I used a Sally Hansen purple chrome.

I am really loving the new BM plates, the intricacy of the images and overall quality are really impressive. And that issue I had written about before (defective image in one of my plates) was resolved, no questions asked, they sent me a brand new plate right away! I hope they come out with another collection soon :)

Pink-ish Wednesday

Finally, I'm wearing something close though to a pink for Wednesday! Today I have a neon from China Glaze, A Rose Among Thorns.

This polish is described as a red neon, but I find depending on your lighting source this colour varies from red, bright pink and orange!

I used 3 coats over a milky base of ridge filler, although next time I may use 2 coats of the ridge fuller for more coverage of the neon.

Although you can't really tell from the photos, this polish is bright! Like, super, burning your eyes bright.

I don't really have too much to say about it, it is what it is lol. I plan on doing nail art over it, so that will be coming up soon.

What do you think of this polish or neons in general? I wish that they were a little bit more opaque and not so chippy. On the bright side, this polish applied very smoothly and dried quick betweek coats to a matte finish. I'm not sure if it was all the coats I used, but when I applied Seche Vite over it, it took a little bit longer to dry than it normally would.

Flakies!

Today I have a mani refresh with Sally Hanson's Hidden Treasure, and boy was it hard to capture on camera!

I layerd 1 thick coat over China's Glazes Blue Iguana from yesterday post.

I tried so many different ways to capture this combo accurately. First I have my desk lamp below.

Next I tried daylight, which happened to be overcast that day.

And lastly I tried in a bowl of water!

I think to truly appreciate these photos, you have to click to enlarge them and see the flakie goodness! I really loved the effect HT added to Blue Iguana, it helped to distract from the sheerness lol

One last thing I forgot to include in the last post was the removal process of this polish. Obviously HT make removal a little difficult, BUT Blue Iguana stained my nails pretty bad :( I used pure acetone to take this polish off of my nails and colouring from the skin around. I knew I should have used 2 coats of my base coat :(

One tip I'd like to share with you for stained nails that I just discovered is to use cuticle remover on your nail. Just put enough on to cover you nail, let it sit for a couple of seconds then gently scrub or scrape the nail with an orange wood stick and it should to remove the dye.

Blue Iguana

Today I have a polish from China Glazes latest Summer Collection, Blue Iguana. My first pick originally from the promo photos was electric pineapple. It originally appeared to be a light, bright cream neon, but in person it was actually closer to a yellow leaning green.

Anyways, back to Blue Iguana, this polish is a sheer, blue shimmer that in some lights has a light duochrome of purple. In some lighting it even appears to be almost foily. It has flecks similar to the Sally Hansen HD polishes in my own opinion.

This colour is very pretty on the nails, although I feel that it is a bit too sheer for my liking. In the photos I have posted I used 3 coats.

It has this glow to it in low light that is really cool, you can kinda see it in the photo above. In the sunlight this polish glistened.

Overall I feel like I had a love hate relationship while wearing this polish. It is a beautiful sea blue with a lot of dimension, but I don't like how sheer it is. I think this polish would be good for creating a gradient or layering with.

After a couple of days of wear, I actually layered another polish on top, I's show you the awseome combo tomorrow.

Holo Leaves

Happy Friday!!

Today I have my Nubar Reclaim mani with some simple nail art on top. I used the original BM plates for this one, BM 29. When I first saw this polish I knew that this design would go perfect with it!

I'm not sure if it was because I applied the top coat on this one, but I did notice the holo wasn't as prominent, it may have just been that the stamp was on top though.

I was debating what colour I should use for stamping and thought that black would stand out the most. My boyfriend originally said white would be good, but later enjoyed the black. I think if I could find the right gold to stamp with it might look good too, I'll have to try that out next time, maybe with a dark, creme green.

Since these are the old BM plates, the mages were a little small for my fingers, both width and height wise. I did manage to center them pretty well for the larger nails (pointer and middle). For my thumb I stamped 3 times, but you couldn't tell :) I forgot to include a photo.

These last 2 photos were taken close to when I removed it, see the little tip wear, thats ALL I got! ONE FREAKEN COAT of polish lasted me a week! I really need to get some more Nubar!

I enjoyed this mani, it was fun and very durable. I only wish that bundle monster had created their full nail images larger in the first place, there are some really nice designs. If they did a re-release of them, only larger, would you consider re-purchasing them?

Have a great weekend :)

Holo-rific!

Today I have my first ever Nubar polish, which also happens to be the first true linear holographic I have ever worn as a full mani! I have worn other scattered prismatic polishes in the past, I even own some linear holographic/prismatic polishes, but this is the first time I ever experienced it actually on m nails! Super exciting!

So, if you haven't already seen from the photo above, this is Nubar Reclaim. I got it off of Amazon with my Swagbucks money which = free for me :) This colour is the perfect green halo, not too yellow, not too blue. It has a rainbow of prismatic particles that reflect so beautifully in direct sunlight, but as you can see below under my desk lamp it is still quite pretty :)

Outdoors in the sun is where it really shines and that it why I decided to wear it, the weather is FINALLY summer-like and the sun is out a lot more these days :) Also, as soon as I got this polish in the mail I knew I had to try it out ASAP!

I don't know if you had noticed in my previous posts, but I have been referring to holographic polishes or "holos" as halos for the longest time. lol, I know, weird right. Where did I get halos from? I have no idea, but no one ever corrected me!

Ohh, the photo above is so aweome :) And it's only ONE coat! Just one. This polish is awesome! It applied so perfectly, I love the formula, the brush, the handle, EVERYTHING! The only thing I found kind of odd was the lable of the amount in the bottle ( 0.5 fl oz / 15 ml) when compared to lets say a China Glaze label (0.5 fl oz/ 14 ml) ... ummm ok?

Anyways, other than that little confusion I have nothing but love for this polish and I want more! but when do I ever not want more? The wear on this was FANTASTIC for only one coat, just a base and no topcoat originally ( and in these pics). Although I added topcoat to my left pinky to see if it dulled the holo effect and I don think it really did. I wore this polish for just under a week and had very minor tip wear. After a couple of days of wear I did some BM stamping and added a top coat over that, that may have helped it last a bit longer.

Yes, more pictures, there are lots in this post to make up for the lack of post yesterday, I totally forgot about it.

I feel like these pictures didn't capture the prismatic effect that much, I took these photos around 6 or 7ish as the sun was getting ready to start setting. I find when it is earlier in the day the effect is stronger. The effect is also present in indoor lighting also if you're wondering.

From the moment I saw swatches of this colour online I knew exactly what pattern I wanted to stamp over top. I'll show you which stamp I used tomorrow :)

A Blurple Purple

Today I have a polish from last years summer collection from Color Club, Pucci-licious.

The Poptastic collection included many bright and neon colours for summer. This was actually the first Color Club collection I had purchased and it was mostly just for this polish and Twiggy. Almost all of the colours in this collection are awesome for stamping! Color Club has excellent pigmentation and formula, especially in this collection.

Anyways, on to Pucci-licious. This polish is a beautiful blue toned purple or "blurple" that is just so chic! I really love it and am pretty sure this was only 1 coat! It was super hard to photograph, I would say it is darker in real life.

This was also one of the fist Color Club lemmings I had when I first started collecting. I'm not sure where these polishes can be purchased in Canada, so if you are Canadian please let me know. I picked up this collection (among many others since!) from Winners for $12.99 each. Single polishes however, I have only been able to find in specific beauty supplies that want almost $6 a bottle! Online I know these retail somewhere between $2-$3, correct? The full collection packs from Winners of 7 polishes come out to just under $2 a bottle :)

I really like this colour and can't wait to start wearing some of the neons from this years summer collection. It seems that the days I apply polish on are gloomy and rainy, so I don't feel like wearing neons... then a couple days later the sun is out. The weather has been messed up lately lol.

My Lifesaver & a Comparison

Today I have a new Nicole by OPI polish I purchase recently from the Justin Bieber collection, My Lifesaver. Although the colour is close to some other polishes I have, since it was on sale I decided to give it a try.

For this particular polish, there is a label on the handle that states " New Perfect Stroke Brush". This brush size is similar to the OPI pro-wide brush, but it had a more curved bottom. Mine, however, was cut from and not a perfect curve. But I figured I would do the best with what I had.

Application was frustrating, the formula was thick and it seemed like the bristle on the brush were thick too because I was betting crazy brushstrokes on my nails. This may have been due to the formula, but even after using some thinner it was still hard to manipulate.

I ultimately ended up using 2 thick coats, and the end result was alright. Below is this most colour accurate photo in my post.

Back to the actual colour now for a sec because it is really pretty. I would descibe it as a light but bright green based turquoise. The first colour in my stash I wantd to compare it to was For Audrey my China Glaze.

As you can see below they are not identical, but pretty close. My Lifesaver is lighter and more green based, where For Audry is slightly darker and more blue based. This first photo was taken with no flash.

The photo below was taken my my window with overcast skies.

This last one was taken with my cameras flash, this is how they look the closest, but you can still tell there is a slight difference between the two.

What do you think? Do you have a favorite out of the two?

Smells Like Summer - New Polishes

I found these polishes at just the right time! It started getting hot here in Toronto and I knew I needed to get some more summer neons. I took a peek in to Winners one day and found a mini collections of neons I didn't care about. The next day in the some mall I took another peek not expecting to find anything new BUT I saw 2 new Color Club collections, Wicked Sweet and Alter Ego. I quickly snatched them up and left with both!

A couple days later I changed my mind about Alter Ego, the only polish I liked was the namesake so I figured it wasn't worth owning the whole collection. Plus, when I looked up this collection on other blogs they noted that application was not the best for Color Club.

Wicked Sweet, however, may just be my favorite full collection for Color Club! Upon opening the package it smelled so tropical and the colours are awesome!

Below is Get Your Lem-on, The Lime Starts Here, and I Always Get My Man-darin.

Get Your Lem-on is a bright neon yellow with a fine, subtle blue/green shimmer. It smells like lemons.
The Lime Starts Here is a nice yellow toned, bright neon green. It smells like limes.
I Always Get My Man-darin is a yellow orange neon. It smells like oranges.

Next up is Yum Gum, Raspberry Rush and Give Me a Grape Big Kiss.

Yum Gum is a neon baby pink and smells so yummy, just like bubble gum :)
Raspberry Rush is a red toned pink neon, and it smells so good, just like raspberry candy! One of my favorite scents.
Give Me a Grape Big Kiss is a red based purple neon. I really love this colour and the scent, perfectly purple grape :)

And lastly I have Wicked Sweet.

This polish reminds me of China Glaze's Towel Boy Toy which I showed you on my toes recently. It has a neon blue base with light blue shimmer. I also believe that Colour Club had something similar in their summer collection last year. I honestly don't care though, if it's anything like Towel Boy Toy I am happy to have it as a back up, plus it smells like candy!

What's your favorite from this collection?