It was A Graveyard Smash!

Happy Halloween! I have been excited for this day all month but am definitely sad that this is the last day of October. To celebrate today I have a layering combo with China Glaze It's Alive and Orly Monster Mash! Glitter over glitter :)

Monster Mash is a sheer slime green base jam packed with small circle glitter, fine bar glitter and large hex glitter. All glitter is green holo. I applied one nice thicker blob of polish to each nail and topped that with a coat of Seche Vite. look at that sparkle in the photos below!

Short, sweet and lots of photos today, hope you enjoy your Halloween!

It's Alive!!

Another Halloween polish!! I was hoping to get though all of my untried Halloween polishes this year but it appears I have run out of time... but that only means one more day until Halloween!!! Did you already celebrate over the weekend or do you have plans for Wednesday? I did something over the weekend but I think I'm going to watch some scary movie on Wednesday or something. I plan on carving my pumpkin tomorrow :)

Annnnnyways back to my nails, getting a little carried away with Halloween! Today I am wearing China Glaze It's Alive from last years Halloween collection. It was so hard to find it last year! I ended up spotting it mid November on clearance when I was lucky enough to go accompany a friend to Cosmo Prof. I could not wait until Halloween this year to wear it... and then I almost forgot I had it!

It's Alive is a glittery cousin to the previous years (2010) Zombie Zest, which I also adore. They are both a similar olive green shade, however Zombie Zest is more of a foil flecked polish and It's Alive is a glitter. There appears to be regular small glitter that makes up most of the polish and a decent amount of medium hex glitter which adds some nice texture overall. The base is a sheer olive green jelly to help fill in the glitter. That being said this polish is jam packed with glitter, what you see on my nails is one thick coat! And it dried super fast too. I tried to get some slightly different angles so you could see the different pieces of glitter and the texture it adds.

Since it died so quick I didn't use Seche Vite, although I would recommend a good glossy top coat for this one, it is quite gritty. I chose a regular top coat this time because I plan on creating one more Halloween look for tomorrow which involves some layering.

This is such a great glitter! Lately Halloween polishes have been as glittery as the Christmas collections, which of course is awesome because glitter rocks :)

Halloween Funky French

A simple mani refresh today, I actually had this in mind for a while specifically for Halloween. Only 2 days left by the way ;)

I used a thin striper brush and OPI's Lincoln Park After Dark Matte to create some matte black French tips over OPI's Zom-Body to Love. Although Lincoln Park After Dark isn't a black it is so dark that it appears to be. It is actually a deep vampy purple. You can think of this as a simplified Frankenstein mani that has been popular the last few years.

I used my trusty eyeball to help with the contrast on the tips, you can see them a lot better in the photo below.

I think it's Halloween chic :)

Zom-body to love

Happy Friday, its the last one before halloween! I had been searching for a full sized bottle of this polish all of October last year, so I just knew I had to wear it this year. I found OPI Zom-body To Love during the summer AND on sale, you can read more about that in this post.

Zom-body To Love is a sheer green glow in the dark polish. I had attempted to build up a glow in the dark polish on its own last year and it didn't work out that well so this year I decided to layer it over a similar polish. Lucky me, one I just happened to buy on impulse was a perfect match! Shown in my nails is two coats of Zom-body To Love over Essie Mojito Madness.

It dried to a semi-matte finish so I added a coat of Seche Vite for some gloss. The glow in the dark particles add depth to the colour and if you look close enough in real life it looks as if it adds a little sparkle as well.

So how well does it glow? See for yourself:

It was practically impossible for me to move fast enough after charging the polish to focus perfectly on it with my camera in the dark! I have gotten close in the past but just gave up this time lol. A blurry, glowy photo is close enough :)

Do you own any glow in the dark polishes? Which is your favorite?

Slimy Lime

I have so many great green polishes this year for Halloween, some of my favorites I haven't even had a chance to wear yet. Although Mojito Maddress is new to my collection, I needed it as a base for something I will show you tomorrow.

Mojito Madness is shown here with only one thick coat! I must say it applied pretty well and if I had any issues I wanted to fix up it evened out pretty well. No bubbling either which is a plus, I hate when thick coats produce bubbles.

Like I said in my haul post this polish share is like a dusty Kelly green. I think it's the dustiness that prevents it from being too summery, it's bright, but muted at the same time. Stay tuned to see what I do with this tomorrow!

Sale Haulin'

I was lucky enough to get an exclusive invite to the seasonal L'oreal sale this fall. I think I have mentioned it before but it is basically a warehouse sale that has a bunch of brand name cosmetics, haircare and fragrances. I was excited this year because L'Oreal recently bought out Essie and I hoped that I would find some reasonably priced polishes. I definitely did! Not only were there Essie polishes but L'Oreal and Maybelline as well.
The Essie's seemed to be the best deal at 5 for $24, so I picked some up. Here is what I got, first photo left to right is Camera and Marshmellow:

Camera is a bright neon pink/coral. It is super duper bright! On the nail it dries to a matte finish. Marshmallow is a squishy white jelly, it seems to even out really well for a white AND a jelly! Think of all the layering possibilities!

Next I have Mojito Madness and Navigate Her. Mojito Madness is a soft type of Kelly green that has a dusty quality to it. Navigate Her is more of a light, yellow based green. Both are cremes.

And last but not least As Gold As It Gets, this polish is apart of the Luxe Effects collection. It is is a clear base packed with shiny gold flakies.

One more polish I want to sneak in with this haul that I got the same weekend, but not at the sale is Sally Hanson Salon, Glided Lilly. Glided Lilly is a yellow-gold foil shimmer with a slight bronze/brown duotone shift. I just had to pick this one up when I saw it in store for the first time :)

Below are some swatches of all the polishes (minus Marshmallow which got cut off) in the sun...

And in the shade.

The Right Amount of Evil...

Another Halloween collection polish today, this time have Orly's Right Amount of Evil. This polish is composed of an orange jelly base sprinkled with duochrome shimmer which shifts from magenta pink to golden orange and jam packed with super fine bar glitter and large hex holo glitter. There is a lot going on in this polish!

Originally I had thought that the glitter in this polish was an orange holo, similar to it's green cousin, Monster Mash. Another difference in the two is the duochrome microshimmer, Monster Mash has a sheer green jelly base. The shimmer is a nice addition but I think I would have preferred a plain orange base. Same with the hex glitter, orange holo glitter would look better when layered over a darker colour in my opinion. I had actually planned to do this but the pink shimmer was too prominent and the glitter was not orange enough for me, it didn't remind me much of Halloween which is what I was going for.

I used a peelable base coat (see this post for more info) to remove the glitter easily when I decide to change my polish. Over the base I applied two thick coats of polish to active the look in my photos. I used the blobbling method of applying glitter polish to get a nice thick even coat. For high shine and to accelerate drying time I finished this mani off with a coat of Seche Vite.

Pumpkin Polish Mani Refesh!

For today's refresh I have my first pumpkin polish! I actually picked this guy up last year in the States at Rite Aid. None of these polishes have any names so I don't really know what to call it! It is nothing like I have seen before and that it why I had to have it. It is a clear polish which is packed with pure black and shiny coppery orange bar glitter. I don't know what it is but I just love pure black glitter of any kind.

I gently blobbed on two "coats" of the polish to get the desired amount of glitter on the nail. The clear base was actually a but thicker that I thought and made it difficult to get a good amount of glitter in the nail. For future use I will add some thinner to make it easier to apply.

I love how random and sporadic the glitter has laid on each nail and how the orange and black really pop against the bright green base.

The black and orange bar glitter reminds me of sprinkles :) I could so see this working as a cupcake colour combo, green icing with black and orange sprinkles, yum yum!

Fright Night!

Happy Friday! It feels so good to have the work week almost over with and the weekend just about to begin. This weekend is the second last before Halloween and I will definitely be participating in some Halloween fun within the next couple of days. I will also be showcasing some more Halloween inspired nails, check out what I have today:

This is actually my submission for the Bundle Monster Fight Night Halloween nail art contest this year! For some reason I thought that you could start voting today, but voting actually ends tomorrow, so I really need your help :(. Have a look at what other Halloween nail art was submitted and vote for your favorites! You can vote once per device per day for as many of your favorites as you'd like!

There are some great prizes to be won including the latest set of Bundle Monster plates so I'd appreciate you helping me out if you can :) Thanks in advanced!

If you have any questions about what I used to achieve this look let me know in the comments section below.

Have a great weekend, I look forward to sharing some more Halloween nails next week!

Witchy Green

I have a polish from Orly's spring collection today which actually looks more like a summer polish! So why am I wearing a summer polish when it is clearly fall? Because it is an awesome Halloween green!

Orly Fresh is a bright neon green, nothing else really to it. In my photos I only used one medium to thick coat because I wanted to layer some fun stuff over it. If I were to wear it on it's own I would apply two thin coats.

The formula was awesome for a neon, it applied smoothly and opaque in one quick swipe. As most neons it dried to a satin finish.

Indoors it its a nice bright grass green but in the sunlight it is super bright!

I hope to have more Halloween nails coming your way soon including a refresh with Orly's Fresh. I wish October were longer! I have so many Halloween nail art ideas and polishes, yet so little time to do it all :(

Mini Zoya Haul

I have another mini haul from Zoya again. I had mentioned this purchase last month, I took part in one of the many promos they have been having and picked up the three new jelly polishes, Paloma, Frida and Katherine. They came packaged very nicely :)

I loved the colours online, but when I received the spoons I realized they definitely were very sheer. After much thought I decided to pick them up anyway, sure they will need to be built up with many coats, but think of the many layering possibilities! Such great shades for fall too. I wish I had gotten these a wee bit earlier because I can see the whole month of October being Halloween inspired colours for polishes and nail art, I just love Halloween.

Here are all three at one coat, left to right Frida, Katherine and Paloma.

indoor, lamp lighting

And here they are at two coats, same order.

indoor, lamp lighting

outdoor, overcast

The formula is very syrupy but evened it's self out well. I used two thick coats on the swatch wheel and did not get any bubbling, so that is a plus. I'll have to wear these as a full mani to see how they wear and build up on the nail.

Did you pick up this collection? How many coats do you prefer and which is your favorite?

Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice

I'm still catching up on some manis from last week, life has still been hectic for me lately. Last Monday was Thanksgiving in Canada, and what better polish to wear than Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear, Pumpkin Spice! Last year this polish was THE polish everyone needed for Halloween, and to be honest I wasn't one of those people that wanted it.

I have polishes that are similar like China Glaze Ick A-body and Wet n' Wild Cougar Attack and didn't feel I needed another one. A while after Halloween last year, actually closer to Christmas, I found this lone polish on clearance for 50% off. I figured I would pick it up to see what all the hype was about. I am soooo glad I did! I wouldn't say this isn't close to the other two polishes I mentioned, but it is definitely not the same.

The base is a murky brown jelly that builds up to very dark, but not quite black and is sprinkled with orange glitter which just glows in any lighting. Since it is a jelly it takes a few coats to build up but it is totally worth it, the depth is awesome. The shine is amazing as well!

I used three coats on my nails and so far it is wearing pretty well. I always worry with the wear of jellies, they tend to show more wear at the tips, but so far so good. I really love it and don't want to take it off or change it up yet, such a great polish for the month of October :)