Aurora Borealis

Today I have another Zoya polish on my nails, it is from on of my latest hauls which I will post about soon. When I first saw the swatches for Zoya's winter collection, which this polish was apart of, I really liked Aurora but didn't really know what to expect. When I saw swatches in person at a local Trade Secrets I was wowed. Lots of glittery photos ahead!

 

 

Aurora is a deep plum jelly that I find is way more pigmented and saturated with colour than the designer jellies they released late last year. It also is heavily sprinkled with flecks of holographic shimmer? Glitter? I don't know sat to call it but it sure is pretty.

I used two layers in the photos below. Since the base is a jelly, the glitter adds depth beneath each layer that my boyfriend even commented on! He also loved it by the way. In indoor, direct lighting and sunlight the glitter sparkles strongly and gives off a somewhat scattered linear holo effect. It is so beautiful!! In indirect lighting and overcast settings the glitter appears to be silver yet it still seems to glow, in this lighting you can also see the true shape of the holographic particles. The layers also make it appear as though they are frozen within the polish, super cool!

I wish Zoya had a whole collection with this finish, three colours are not enough!! I would LOVE to see a blue and green version :) So many possibilities!

THE Perfect Winter Shade

Today I have one of the very first additions in to my Zoya polish collection, why it has taken me so long to wear it I will never know! Zoya's Crystal was one of the most sought after Zoya's for me, it jus just so unique, and pretty, and blue! That being said I am pretty sure OPI released a close to identical polish a little while before Zoya, however it was a Europe exclusive if I am not mistaken, making it a limited edition hard to find. I'm so glad I have a bottle of Crystal!

 

Crystal is a bright medium blue foil with flecks of gold scattered throughout, other than the fact that OPI had a similar polish this is a very unique polish in both colour and texture/finish.

I found this polish to be thinner than most of the other Zoya's I own so I used three coats total for full opacity.

HOT China Glaze Coupon for Sallys!! LIMITED TIME!!

It is very rare that I receive any exclusive or valuable coupons directly from Sally's, However, this morning I received an AWESOME coupon that is good until February 28th for $2 off any bottle of China Glaze with a maximum of two polishes per offer. Pretty sweet right? Just print off the coupon below! I was at Sally's over the weekend and spotted the new spring collection, if you were waiting for those now is your chance to scoop them up for a great price! Happy shopping :)

Happy Belated Valentines!

I fell a tad bit behind again on Thursday and Friday, but better late than never, right? Today I have the Valentines mani I wore on Valentines day. I was super in the spirit of Valentines this year, I even went out and got my family each a little something complete in heart covered packaging, a pink bow and old school valentine cards. I left them out before I left the house Thursday morning as a surprise when they woke up!

Did you have anything planned on Thursday or over the weekend? I made dinner for my boyfriend, I also baked him a little something special and got him some chocolate, because you know, chocolate rocks! On to the nail art. I had so many ideas of what I wanted to to for valentines and when it actually came time to sit down and so it it was hard to make a final decision.

Using American Apparel's Coney Island as a base, I cut made a heart shaped template out of tape and stuck it to the middle of each nail so I could paint a heart on each nail. To fill in each heart I used Revlon Girly, which by the way I love so much more than I thought i would. Unfortunately the slight base colour was not enough of a contract with the pink base, so to make the heart shape stand out I used a dotting tool dipped in white acrylic paint to outline the heart. This was my first time using acrylic paint for nail art and I will absolutely be using it again! For dotting it was great because it doesn't dry up as quickly as polish and it has a nice thin consistency :)

Whether you celebrated with friends, family, significant other or not even at all I hope you had a good day :)

Spotted!! For All My Canadian Readers - Polish at Dollarama!

First off Happy Valentines. I fingured out some nail art to do last night but have just been so busy lately that I just did not have the time to post it up. I will have to get it up tomorrow untill then check out this post for some spotted polish, maybe a last minute gift for your valentine? ;)

So I was in Dollarama the other day and I wandered in to their beauty section and came across some stuff I have never seen before, have a look at the photo below.

I only had my iPhone on me so the photos aren't amazing, but I did get some closeups! Check out these Diamond Strength Sally Hansens. At first I didn't even really remember this line having such bright shades, these colours are actually apart of the limited edition line released around September of last year, so they are fairly new and LE! These all look to be flecky, foily duochromes, however I think this location was missing one or two shades from the full collection.

I also noticed a few bottles of the Complete Salon polishes of well, one looked to be a sheer/pearly white that I cannot recall the name of and the other that you probably cannot see in this photo since it was all the way in the back is Oxblood. Both lines were selling for $2 each.

Next I found some of those double ended Revlon polish "wands"? Lol I really don't really know what to call these things. I think the idea is cool but not for the retail price point they usually sell at. As you can see these are priced at $3 each, they looked mostly to be crackle/base duos, however I did spot a few of the neon/base duos as well.

Last but not least just a random polish brand I thought I would include, Colour Shock. there was an assortment of colours including glitters and neons. These were selling for $1 each.

Have you seen these in your local dollaramas? Any other brands/collections of polish?

Cotton Candy - I NEED YOUR HELP: Valentines Nail Art

Only one day left until Valentines and I am sporting a baby pink in anticipation :) This is Coney Island by American Apparel. I had originally thought this would have been a lighter shade of pink, pastel perhaps, but it is actually more vibrant. That's not to say it's a bright bubble gum pink, it's just not as stark.

The formula was ok, only two coats were needed for opacity and it was not streaky at all. It was a tad thick but nothing unmanageable. I accidentally added Seche Clear as a top coat to my left hand only lol I was wondering why my Seche Vite was suddenly so thin! I quickly applied a proper top coat of Seche Vite for gloss and a quick dry.

I am still deciding what kind of nail art I'd like to do over top this polish for Valentines, and ideas?

Blue Valentine

Today I have a heart filled mani refresh! I loved wearing Water You Waiting For on it's own but wanted to change it up a bit ad fill my craving for heart nails. I used Red Angel plate RA-114 which is a full nail heart pattern. It stamped pretty well considering I have been having issues with my Red Angel plates. I decided to leave my ring fingers without any design, kind of a reverse accent nail thing going on here.

 

 

 

Very valentines inspired with blue in place of girly pinks and reds. I like the contrast. The polish I used for stamping is Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Whirlwind White, my go to white stamping polish :)

Just a short and sweet post today, hope you enjoyed the many photos!

A Blue Glitterbomb!

This polish is just wow! So much more than I thought it would be and I already though it would have been awesome! China Glaze Water You Waiting For is a bright blue glitter sprinkled with additional green and blurple/cornflower glitter. I can't really tell how many types of glitter make up the polish, but there is some texture which is likely due to several glitter shapes/sizes. I can make out hex blurple/cornflower glitter, but am unsure about additional sizes and shapes, even within that colour. I have many, many photos for today's post to show the awesomeness that is this polish.

I layered two coats of this gorgeous glitter over Color Club Gift of Sparkle for full coverage. The formula was good, not too thick, not too thin. I haven't tried this one on it's own yet so I can't comment on opacity without layering over another polish.

I just cannot get enough if this polish, I added a layer of Seche Vite and left it at that. It's not gritty at all, but if you like your glitters glossy you may prefer to add another layer of top coat. I am tempted to but I know it will make removal even more of a pain.

Scent of a Foil

Today I have one of my latest polish purchases on my nails, if you recall from this post I picked up a few Color Club polishes from their holiday 2012 collection at Sally's last month. I decided to wear the blue foil Gift of Sparkle.

Gift of sparkle is a medium blue foil that applied perfectly in one coat. Yup, that's right, these photos only show one coat only! In the bottle the polish appears to have some silver running throughout, however, in the nail it appears to look more similar to a blue shimmer. The formula was a bit thick but nothing unmanageable, the actual colour it's self is also deeply saturated.

Gift of Sparkle is scented, the name of the polish doesn't give a hint to the scent, and after sniffing and sniffing I can't come up with what it is either. During my initial swatches I remember it being quite sweet and overbearing, but worn as a mani it is not that bad. I just wish I knew what the scent is supposed to be! I even searched online, other bloggers were stumped as well. Do you own this polish, what do you think it smells like?

Love is in the Air!

So I have been feeling heart patterns and designs lately, I hadn't done any since this mani, but it's weird since I never really think to do heart manis in general. Maybe from now until February 14th I will ensure any nail art I do has hearts in it! What do you think about hearts, yay or nay?

I decided to freehand a heart pattern on each nail. As a base I used my previous mani of Zoya Rica. For the hearts I used Sally Hanson Salon (square bottle), Hearts on Fire which is a bright red jelly. I used a dotting tool to draw out each heart and created a pattern with them on each nail. It is not as hard or time consuming as one would think, the only challenge was working with my non-dominant hand, but once I did a few nails it got a lot easier.

 

This mani was super hard to capture on camera as you can see in the photo directly above, the similar shades and jelly finish of the red polish were freaking my camera out! I personally like the contrast between the red hearts and gold shimmer base in Rica. I was originally just going to apply the hearts to my ring and thumb fingers like I did last year here, but since the shades of polish were similar I decided to do all the nails instead since the colour choice made the overall design mote subtle.