L'Oreal Warehouse Sale Toronto

Happy short week Thursday! Just a short post for today to end the work week. I usually head over to the L'Oreal sale a few times a year and the one I attended on Wednesday was the first of 2013. It also happened to be opening day, which I have never gone on. All the Shelves seem stacked pretty well, with unpacking and stacking being done while I was there, close to closing that day.

If you are unfamiliar with these sales, they are invitation only and basically offer L'Oreal branded (umbrell, garnier, lancome, Essie, Redkin and Maybelline just to name a few) cosmetics, perfume, haircare, skincare, etc which are overstock or discontinued at a discounted price. The prices usually very product to product and year by year. My sister found some great deals on lipsticks ($2.00), lip stain ($3.00), Maybelline discontinued eye tattoo pots ($3.00) and a various face and eye cream set.

I am all about the nail polish, of course. They had a better selection this year than they have had in the past, brands included L'Oreal Paris ($2.50), Maybelline Colour Show ($3.00), Lancome, and what I was hoping to pick up, Essie ($6.00)! They had a promo on Essie polishes and treatments, buy 5 get 1 free, not bad. They had some nice liking base treatments and cuticle moisturizers, however none of the polishes really wowed me. I either had them already, ones similar or just plain didn't like them. Such a shame!

So what did I end up getting... Unfortunately, this year I got nothing! The good news is that I can still visit the sale should I want to return before it ends at the end of the month.

Were you invited to the L'Oreal sale this year? What did you pick up?

Peppermint Chip

Today I have a refresh with the pastel mint I showed you last week from China Glaze, Keep Calm, Paint On. I had this idea in my head for the longest time and am glad I was able to get the mani looking the way I wanted it to. I wanted to give my nails the look of mint chocolate chip ice cream, one of my favorites. Keep Calm, Paint On was a perfect base for this and the topper I added, China Glaze Whirled Away was exactly what I needed to add the "chocolate chips" to my mint :)

That being said I did run in to a few issues with Whirled Away. I found that I could get good coverage of glitter on each nail by giving the bottle a good mix and draining as much of the base from the brush as possible while keeping the glitter on. I then dabbed the brush on the nail and brushed where needed to space glitters out. The problem with dabbing is that you still get a good about of the clear base globbed on as well. For me this resulted in some bubbling. Although not prominent on the nail, it still bothers the hell out of me! I only noticed this the day after application when I took a closer look.

Although I am happy with the overall look of this mani, when I use this glitter again I will do some things differently. Below I have listed out some tips to help with applying this polish:

- apply thinner to the bottle before applying to help thin out the base and avoid bubbling

- try to remove as much of the clear base from the brush as possible and ensure there is glitter on the brush before dabbing or brushing the glitter on the nail

- use a toothpick, dotting tool, orange wood stick or whatever you have handy to help with application and placement of the glitter pieces on the nail. The best place to pick up glitter with your stick of choice is the neck of the bottle.

- try to use thin even strokes when brushing out to avoid bubbling and ensure glitter lays flat against the nail.

- add a top coat to smooth out the overall look and avoid gritty glitter. I would suggest a thick high gloss topper, I used a thinner quick dry and it was too thin to really add a thick protective layer over the glitter.

Do you have any tips to help me with application the next time I used Whirled Away?

Keep Calm, Paint On

I am loving the colours from China Glaze's Avant Garden Collection, such a great assortment of bright and pastel shades, my boyfriend even liked them! I initially only picked up three from this collection but I may go back to Sally's and pick up more depending on the selection. There was one in particular, Fancy Pants,  that I think I need in my collection, the others although beautiful are likely too close to some polishes I already own.

 

Today I have one of the pastel shades from the collection, Keep Calm, Paint On, gotta love it for the name alone right? This polish is the lightest green creme I own, I think I originally categorized it as a mint, but it is actually more of a sea foam. I feel it has slightly more blue than yellow, maybe it's my lighting? There is a beautiful white microshimmer that runs throughout, that is not as noticeable on the nail than in the bottle. It does have a nice shimmery reflective quality to the polish, especially with a high gloss top coat.

 

Now let's talk about formula and application for a sec, I had heard that this polish was a pain to apply. Before even attempting to polish my nails I added a few drops of thinner to the bottle and rolled it between my hands to gently mix it in with the polish. The polish applies okay to the nail if you are quick, however, I did notice if I went over the same spot twice I did get balding. The formula of the particular polish was kind of weird, thick and lumpy when applying, but I found if you apply a quick thin to medium coat first and give it some time to settle before applying another medium to thick coat you should get even application. I only needed two coats for full coverage. It did bother me that the first coat was streaky, but as long as the second coat fills everything in I will stay calm :)

As in most polish applications, I added a top coat of Seche Vite to even everything out, quickly dry my nails before bed and add a high gloss shine.

Surreal Appeal, For Real?

Hello! Today I have a nice bright colour for the second day of spring!... although it is still cold and snowing here, what the hell? I Can't wait until the weather starts to feel spring-like. Although Surreal Appeal is a pretty shade, it wasn't exactly what I had originally expected. I had seen photos online and the bottles in store and it appeared to be mostly pink with slight coral undertones. It wasn't until I saw an actual swatch in person that I knew I wanted this polish. In the stores lighting it appeared to be a bright coral, similar to my favourite Flip Flop Fantasy, without being neon. I was sold!... Well not exactly in that store lol I went home and purchased it online for a bit cheaper excited for it's arrival!

When I finally received I scrutinized the bottle... This can't be the right polish! I looked at the label, it was indeed labelled correctly, could this have been a slightly off batch? I guess I will never truly know, however the true test comes when it is actually on the nail, and on my nails with my skintone it is pretty pink! However, It's one of those creme shades that tends to look more pink/coral/orange in different lighting, but I still think it pulls more pink/salmon on me, it looks the closest to Flip Flop Fantasy in florescent lighting, my whole office is illuminated by them. And unfortunately this is another polish that was had to capture correctly with my camera and photo editing software, however it does shift depending on the lighting anyways.

The more I wear this the more I love it :) The formula was okay, since it was on the thicker side I added some thinner for easier application. After applying two coats I felt it still needed a final thin one to even everything out. I added a tiny bit more thinner to the polish and it was perfect for one final coat.

Do you own this polish? How does the colour look with your skintone?

Inside Indy Polish - Animeniac

Today I have new installment of Inside Indy Polish. I told you a little about Animeniac last week, but here is a refresher:

The story behind Amimeniac is so awesome, a mother helping her daughter to pursue a dream of creating her own polish and helping her to sell it to us die hard lacquer heads. What a great mom, right? Animeniac polishes are inspired by anime, manga, sci-fi, comics and gaming which is sure to produce some fun and interesting polishes for sure, plus they are big three free!

Below is an interview I had with Aneissa, creater of the polishes for Animeniac, I had the theme song of Animaniacs stuck in my head the whole time composing this post by the way ;)

Favourite polish finish: I love both glitter and cream finishes.

Favourite polish colour: I love Super Heroine and Geek Chic.

Favourite polish trend: The Glitter polish trend, because it gives a variety of options. The possibilities are endless…

Giga Byte Me

Favourite base coat: Our New Static Base Coat.

Favourite top coat: Our New Mezz Top Coat.

What was the first polish you ever mixed/created? Geek Chic. I love the variety of glitter colors and sizes.

Mayham

Why did you decide to start mixing/creating polish? As a creative mind, a lover of nail polish and a lover of Anime, Manga etc. I felt the need to combine the three.

What made you finally start to mass-produce and sell your polish? Everyone would comment on how much they loved my nails whenever I did my nails and they would ask where did I “get” my polish. I realized that there was a real interest especially here in Canada, as well as in the US. Many people have found it hard to get the types of polishes they like in Canada.

Browser Babe

How long does it take you to make a batch/bottle of polish? It depends. We test and retest each formulation to make sure that they are of the highest quality.

What is your favourite hand-crafted polish? Super Heroine and Geek Chic.

Where do you get inspiration for your collections? My polishes are all inspired by Anime, Manga, Comics, Gaming, and Sci-Fi. The colors range from vivid to neutral, and give me a lot of inspiration. The color combinations are endless.

Luck of the Irish!

I hope you all enjoyed your weekend and St. Patrick's Day festivities. I don't usually do much other than wear green and have the occasional alcoholic beverage, if that even counts! This year was no different, not only was I sporting some fun new "wax" textured green skinnies I got from Joe Fresh, but my nails were also green for the occasion.

Of course I stuck with China Glazes Four Leaf Clover, to be honest I am glad it stuck with me! I have been wearing it for a full week and only noticed some slight tip wear and one minor chip on the sixth day of wear! Such a great polish, the only thing I didn't like was editing the photos since the colour comes up more teal when it is actually a bright, vivid green. I didn't find that there was any weird cracking or tension marks in the polish from natural nail bend either that I sometimes get from China Glaze cremes. I may not have experienced this due to the fact that my nails are shorter or that this is a deep vivid shade, but I am impressed with overall wear for sure!

 

On to the actual nail art inspired by St. Patrick's day. I kept it pretty simple but am very happy with the final outcome. I used Red Angel plate RA-116, which has a decent sized shamrock composed of four hearts, so cute! I debated whether using Re-fresh Mint or Keep Calm, Paint on, both by China Glaze, for stamping. I ultimately tested each out and Re-fresh Mint won, being slightly more opaque and stamping crisper. I stamped the shamrocks on my ring fingers only.

To add a splash of gold to the mix I pulled out a Milani Jewel FX polish I had yet to use and applied it to the thumbs for some bling! I used Milani Gold Jewel FX, and was impressed with the density of the glitter and how well it was suspended in the base. I applied it to the nail in a dabbing motion to get as much glitter on the nail as I could and used the brush to help smooth out and relocate some glitters where necessary. The glitter covered well leaving some green poking through, which was exactly what I was going for. It dried fast too! I applied a coat of Seche Vite on to make it shiny and smooth to the touch.

For the Shamrock nails I added a top coat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri which I use over most nail art. As these nails dried the shamrocks actually turned more yellow/green! The image must have fused with the pigment in the darker green polish below, very cool and the perfect shade I was looking for!

Four Leaf Clover!

Happy Friday! I am totally in love with this polish right now, I just cannot get enough of it. China Glaze Four Leaf Clover, apart of the Up and Away collection, is such a vibrant green creme. I had seen it online but had also been forewarned that it does not always photograph accurately. Unfortunately for me I had difficulties as well, I actually colour corrected each photo myself and although I got pretty close to getting the colour 100% correct, I still was unable to capture the vibrancy of it. I think that it was freaks out the camera! After manually colour correcting I think my photos come pretty close.

From what I saw online originally was a basic green creme (it actually photographs more teal), at the time I wasn't interested it in. I actually don't even recall exactly when I finally did end up purchasing it, but it had to have been within the last year. Probably apart of a sale, or promo or something. However it ended up in my stash I am very glad :)

Of course the idea for pulling this polish out was for St. Patrick's day, what a perfect name and shade for the occasion, right!? Four Leaf Clover applied well in two coats. The formula was a bit thick so I added a few drops of thinner to the bottle for easier application.

I just cannot get over how bright this polish is, perfect for spring or summer. It really pops on my newly trimmed nails too, I love bright shades on shorter nails! The weather has not been nice to my skin and nails at all this winter, so I decided to chop them down a bit so they can grow back in nice and strong for Spring :)

Do you have any special polishes of specific colours of polish that you like to wear for St. Party's day? Any special plans?

Don't You Hate it When..

... your picture perfect mani gets ruined when shaving in a dim lighten shower when you accidentally take a chunk out of it with your razer?! I hate that feeling, and I loved this mani :( I made an attempt to fix it right away, and although the dent wasn't 100% unnoticeable it was acceptable.

colour not accurate by the way lol, just a quick shot after my shower!

 Does this ever happen to you?

On a side note I made an order for some China Glaze Hologlams today!! I am so excited for these! I feel like it has been forever since they first released any info on it last year. I only picked up 4 for now, but I hope to get between 2-4 more hopefully when they are finally released at Sally's. Let the stalking begin continue!

Mimosas Anyone?

I am soooo happy I purchased this polish! China Glaze Mani's Before Mimosas is a beautiful pastel coral, very unique to my collection. I usually get so excited about coral shades when I see them online, but when I actually go out and buy and wear them they tend to mostly pull too pink on me :( I'm sure lighting, cameras and different skin tones are a factor, I am just glad to finally have the perfect coral for me shade :)

 

 

The photos above are the most accurate I could capture, they are with my camera flash. The images below are not as accurate on the nail, however they do show off the shimmer nicely. The colour that shows up in the bottle below is actually more accurate.

Mani's Before Mimosas is a coral cream with a slight gold shimmer, this is actually more visible in the bottle than on the nail, but this may also help the overall colour to lean more orange and coral. The formula was thick so I added some thinner to help smooth it out. After that it applied fine.

In my photos I only used two coats and made some slight touch ups to a few nails that looked a bit uneven from the thicker application (not shown, on my other hand). That being said, it evened out very well with a layer of topcoat.

February Haulin' in the U.S + Dollarama Polishes

Another haul for you guys today, this is the polish I purchased during the month of February. It's not too large, which is good, I'm actually trying to narrow down exactly what I am buying lately, I also need to clear some out soon and when I have the time I will be putting together a blog sale!

I will start off with a purchase I made a while back but finally received in Feb, my three for $10 Zoya polishes. These took a while for me to receive them because they only ship to the States, so I usually ship to family there and they bring them back to Toronto when they can :) The polishes I receive include Storm, Aurora and Skylar.

Storm is a black jelly polish sprinkled with holographic glitter flakes/particles. Unfortunately the sun has not been around lately so I can not show you just yet how glittery and great this polish is. Hopefully the sun will be out when I wear it for the first time!

 

Next is Aurora, which is apart of the same collection as Storm. Same idea but with a purple/magenta base and more saturated with glitter. This is so much better in person than I had imagined! For more on this polish, see this post.

 

And lastly I have Skylar, a springy sky blue with a gold glass fleck- like glitter that runs throughout. I had been wanting a polish like this for a while, OPI has a similar polish as well, I Have A Herring Problem, not 100% sure if they are dupes or not since I don't own the OPI, however comparisons I have seen on line lead me to believe they are pretty darn close.

Swatches of each polish are below.

lamp light

Natural Daylight

Next grouping of polish is from Sally's, would you believe I spend just over $10 for all four polishes?! One of the perks of my newly acquired pro card plus procard promotions! First up are the three from the latest spring collection, Avant Garden, Keep Calm, Paint On, Dandy Lyin' Around and Mimosas Before Mani's. Love these names :)

Keep Calm, Paint On is probably the lightest mint polish I own. The base is a creme and a silver shimmer runs throughout. From swatching this on my nail wheel I could tell the formula was a bit thick but manageable.

Dandy Lyin' Around is an interesting white polish, I have a fondness for white shimmer/glitters. The base seems to be a pretty stark white creme but the special part is the fleck-like white/gold shimmer that is present throughout. I wonder how this compares to Kwik-Sil-ver which is now discontinued.

Last from the spring collection is Mimosa's Before Mani's, this a coral/orange leaning pink creme which has a gold shimmer running throughout. I love my corals and was excited to see a new pastel one available. Sometimes my skintone makes them look more pink than i'd like, so I'll have to wait and see if it looks the way I want it to on the nail.

Another polish I purchased from Sally's is Mosaic Madness, apart of the Glitz and Glamor collection. This consists of multiple shapes and sizes of black and blur glitter in a clear base. Black glitter, my favorite!! I would so totally buy more in the collection, but don't necessarily need them. Hopefully they will go on sale sometime soon and I can pick up some more :) I love these new glitters coming out lately, you can tell the big polish companies are starting to get inspiration from the Indy ones which is awesome ;)

 

Swatches of each China Glaze polish are below.

Lastly I would like to include the polishes I mentioned back in February at the Dollarama, I only picked up three, Tender Teal, All Aglow, and Blue Frosting. These are all apart of the Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Limited Edition collection released back in mid-September 2012.

Tender Teal is a blue glass fleck foil. In the bottle it appears to be slightly duochrome but not so much on the nail. Two coats are shown below, more opaque than I originally expected.

 

All Aglow is a purple glass fleck foil, in the bottle this also appears to be a duochrome (purple to gold) but it is not to visible in most lighting conditions unfortunately. This is also another opaque polish in two coats.

 

Lastly my favorite, Blue Frosting. This one looked pretty duochrome in the bottle and it doesn't disappoint! Sure on it's own it is pretty sheer, but over a darker colour is where the magic really happens! It visibly shifts to From blue, teal, purple and pink, plus it has the foil/fleck finish. This is a very cool topper!

 

Swatches of each Sally Hansen are below, two coats each if I remember correctly :)

 

That is all for now :) Have you picked up any of the new spring collection polishes?

Animeniac Polish Review

I was contacted by a new to me polish brand a few weeks back about reviewing their polish. I am all about trying new brands, especially Indy plus it's Canadian! The story behind Amimeniac is so awesome, a mother helping her daughter to pursue a dream of creating her own polish and helping her to sell it to us die hard lacquer heads. What a great mom, right? Animeniac polishes are inspired by anime, manga, sci-fi, comics and gaming which is sure to produce some fun and interesting polishes for sure, plus they are big three free! I will have more on Animeniac in a future post, but today I have some swatches.

I was provided with four polishes, three samples and one full bottle. Today I will focus more on the samples and save the full bottle for a full mani and wear test later on.

The three polishes I will be talking about today are Mayham, Midas Touch and Browser Babe.

Mayham is composed of many irregular pieces and shapes of rainbow glitter. Very fun! Originally it wasn't my favorite, but after I tried it out on the nail I was in love! I can't choose which I like it over better, black or white? The layering combinations with this one are endless. Swatches on the nail follow at the end of the post. The formula of the clear base was pretty thin, which I prefer for glitter polishes because they are easier to apply on the nail, however I did find it a bit difficult to get a good amount of glitter on the brush for application, lots of shaking and fishing for glitter. Not sure if it was because it was in a smaller bottle? The brush was fine. I applied to the nail in a dabbing motion.

 

 

Next up is Midas Touch, this is a gold flakie glitter, super pretty. It reminded me immediately of a another polish in my stash, NYX Glided Gold, however when compared side by side, they are not considered dupes. This polish applied the eat out of the three I am showing you today. It has a thin formula and was easy to apply. It is really saturated with gold flakes and would look great layered over any polish.

 

Lastly I have Browser Babe, another polish topper with large blue and magenta hex glitter. The glitter in this one was a bit more difficult to fish out, however lager glitters generally are. I applied this to the nail in a dabbing motion it help better control placement of the glitter on the nail.

 

Below are swatches of each polish layered over black and white.

indoor, lamp lighting

outdoors, overcast

indoor, lamp lighting

Outdoors, overcast

To see what other polishes are available and to learn more about the brand and see the full selection of polishes available please visit the official site.