Cross boarder haul

What a little road trip I had last month. It was short and super sweet, I purchased ALL the Halloween/Fall themed items lol. Okay, maybe not everything, but enough! Is it crazy to anyone else that Christmas stuff is in stores before October!? I'm not taking about one thing here and there, like full on, set up displayed Christmas trees, lights and whatever else have yous, nuts! I picked up some fantastic scores polish-wise, however no Halloween themed polish really caught my eye.

I found this gem, OPI, Muir Muir on the Wall at Ulta, only $2.49, I could not believe it! That has got to be the cheapest I have ever purchased an OPI for! Muir Muir on the Wall is a vampy duochrome from OPI's 2013 fall collection. It shines mostly pink/red, however, the base appears to be a deep, dusty purple. two coats shown in the swatch below.

Moving along to Big Lots. The last time I was there I stocked up on a bunh of Seohora by OPI polishes that had been marked down to $1.80! To my surprise when I returned this time I found full sized Sephora Formula X polishes! I had been wanting to try these, I have heard so many good things (my sister even got a few mini samples and kept them for herself), but the price tag deterred me. But for $2.50 a bottle I coulnt leave them, the ones that caught my eye anyways! This includes from left to right, In Love, Whimsical.

In Love is a baby pink glitter with an unexpected scattered holo shimmer. Whimsical is a frosty silver glitter with silver shimmer throughout. Two coats are shown for each polish in the swatch below. 

Left to right, Chaotic and Explosive.

Chaotic is your standard black and white matte glitter, one coat is shown in the swatch below. Explosive is a black jelly with holo gold hex glitters of various sizes, two coats are shown in the swatch below. This was a weird one, and I am still note sure how I feel about it. The base is not a true, squishy jelly. If it dried to a high gloss finish I would like it more, but it looks almost matte and gritty. I must say, the gold holo glitter is beautiful.

I also picked up a few Sephora by OPI shades because, ya know, they were under $2. I got Caught With My Khakis Down And Shiny Dancer.

Caught With My Khakis Down is a khaki green neutral creme, two coats are shown in the swatch below.

Shiny Dancer is a gunmetal grey micro glitter with a hint of blue sparkle, two coats are shown in the swatch below.

Bonus - My sister is a makeup consultant at Sephora, did the whole beauty school thing on the side for fun, so it's cool she gets to do that part time. What's even cooler? She gets samples galore from the brands sold at Sephora. She scored this awesome mini glitter from Ciate called Fancy Pants and passed it along to me. Woohoo!

This awesome glitter is made up of pink, periwinkle and white hex glitter of various sizes and black hex glitter. Two coats are shown in the swatch below.

Until the next haul..

Friday I will return to regular scheduled, Halloween programming :)

Oh, It's Real Alright!

Today I have a quick and easy mani refresh with one of my newly acquired (and discontinued) Sephora by OPI top coats. Surprisingly I almost left this polish behind, and it's the first once I choose to wear! Of course, right? My base is China Glaze Kinetic Candy, a lovely, dusty blue pastel. And the topper of choice is Sephora by OPI It's Real 18K Gold Top Coat.

In my photos below I used two coats of the fold flakie top coat, which is made up of real gold fragments. You may also notice that it is very subtle, the gold pieces are very tiny for the most part. I really like the contrast between the soft, diluted blue and bright shiny gold. I''m not really a huge fan of yellow gold, but in small amounts, it works!

I do wish the gold flakies were a bit more dense so that I could achieve the look of two coats in one. Other than that, I am really a fan of this polish. That means a lot considering I had intentions of gifting or selling this polish. Super happy I purchased it an tried it out :) That being said, I would probably not pick it up if it was sold at original price due to the low density of gold pieces per coat of polish.

Zig-zag

Today I have a fun and bright mani refresh to share! The base is Sephora by OPI Havana Dreams. I wanted to do something fun with this colour, I really loved the colour on it's own but wanted to change it up a bit. I originally was thinking of a nautical design! I soon realized that none of my nail art plates have a full nail nautical pattern :(

So I did what I usually do, flip through all my plates until I see something I like, I found a few stripy patterns and thought either would look good stamped with white... Then I remembered I have the perfect complementary blue for stamping, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Brisk Blue. I did a test with each design and the zig zag pattern from Bundle Monster plate BM-201 won me over!

This polish and this design stamped effortlessly. I had issues when I used this plate a few years ago and Bundle Monster was kid enough to send me a new plate, this one works fantastic! I love the final look, almost like abstract waves or water.

Havana Dreams

My boyfriend picked this shade for my latest mani, he is a sucker for blues! Sephora by OPI Havana Dreams was a long sought after polish for me when it was first released, such a pretty, soft, pale blue. I have worn this before, you can see the post here and here. I remember originally having some trouble with application and making a huge mess of it. This time I took my time applying thin coats and allowing time In between coats to speed up the final dry time and avoid any bubbling. Considering I applied this in my dimly lit living room (changing between The Apprentice AND hockey) I am pretty happy overall, my application could have been better but it turned out nicer than my first attempt.

I used a total of three coats for each nail, however, there were a few nails i went back to after the third coat with some touch ups. Although the formula is thin and streaky it does even out pretty well. I used Seche Vite to dry the polish quickly and as always it added the perfect shine!

I really love this shade of blue, and I probably wouldn't have picked it myself to wear on its own since the trouble I had with it the last time, so I am glad that it was picked for me :) I guess some polishes deserve a second chance sometimes. All this particular polish needed was some time and care to apply. That being said, considering how much Sephora by OPI polishes go for, you would think the formula would be spot on. I haven't bought much from them lately, has anyone noticed an improvement in formula lately?

Haulin' - Cross Border Shoping

As a Christmas gift this year my mother treated me and my siblings to a U.S shopping trip! Not only was it a long day if shopping but also some nice time spent with my mother :) although it was a long day everyone had a good time. In Canada after Christmas we have boxing day/week sales, basically retailers want to get rid of their old winter stock for newer spring stock. I've noticed this doesn't really happen in the States, however they do have similar sales going in the weeks following Christmas after the new year, thus is what I picked up beauty wise.

First off my polish! I had been hearing about the dupes and holos Urban Outfitters had been putting out and was lucky enough to find what I was looking for! The only unfortunate part was that there were no deals to be had :( I picked up Sea Dust and Green Holo.

Sea Dust is a dupe for Deborah Lippmann's Mermaid's Dream, or so I have heard. I do not own both to compare, but from what I have seen in the bottles, they are pretty close if not identical. I don't even know where to start on describing this polish! It has a seafoam green shimmer base with teal hex glitter and holo glitter sprinkled throughout, very mermaid indeed!

Green Holo is exactly what the name suggests, and boy is it ever holographic! I have heard others comment that it is more blue than green, bur after I compared it to my other blue holos I still consider it a green shade. I find it may pull a little more blue due to the prismatic effect. Most awkward bottle to showcase a holo by the way lol I tried my bes to capture it.

The bottle shots do not do this polish justice, check out the swatches of both of these Urban Outfitters polishes are below. My camera usually has a hard time photographing holos and these were not a problem, I took these with my lamp light!

Below are swatches for both polishes, two coats each.

Another polish I picked up was from OPI's collaboration with Mariah Carry, which I was not to impressed with colour and name wise. I don't get the whole "liquid sand" texture thing. I picked up the only polish I found interesting, Pink Yet Lavender  I dislike the name lol. The polish however is an awesome pink hex glitter with holo glitter in a clear base.

Next I picked up a lip balm and polish duo from Lip Smackers! I got this at Wall Mart where all Christmas gift sets were reduced to 50% off the original price, I picked this up for $2.50. The polish is a mini and does not have a name but it is awesome! Red hex glitter plus regular and mirco glitter. Which a great combo. The lip balms are Candy Cane Cake and Buttercream Frosting. I love the little tin they come in :) it's zippered and perfect as a on the go makeup bag!

Swatches for the OPI and Lip Smackers Glitter are below

At Sephora I got an Urban Decay 24 hour eyeliner set, I originally just wanted one, but the kit cost only $4 more and you get 6 different colours! I also spotted this today at Shoppers for $47!!

I tested them out on my hand, I found the colored pencils to be more pigmented and last longer when wiped off. I can see myself having fun with these! I am not one to wear a lot of makeup, but eyeliner has always been a must for me.

I scrubbed at the swatches pretty hard before the next photo:

Next makeup item I could not resist picking up, Blinged Palet, which is a Sephora branded eyeshadow, lip gloss and blush pallet. This is perfect for me, like I said I don't wear much makeup but when I do I prefer neutrals, the gloss and blush were a plus! This was on sale for $15.

The last beauty item I picked up is from the Body Shop, a Chocomania gift set consisting of Chocomainia scented body butter, body scrub, body wash and lip butter. If you haven't smelled this scent before it is the perfect chocolate scent. I have smelled other chocolate scented, perfume, lotion, etc and this is the only one I can stand. It smells like cocoa and almonds, not too sweet and fake like others :) I snagged this kit for only $10!

That is it for now other then a few bottles of Seche Vite I got on sale at CosmoProf, but you know what that looks like lol. Until next time :)

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?

Copper Rain

Hello ladies,

So this is what I did with my Havana Nights mani. I wanted to cover up any imperfections caused by my base coat so I decided to try one of my new Sephora by OPI glitters, Traffic Stopper Copper. omg, love! This glitter is awesome, it has teeny, tiny little specs of copper gliter and larger hexagonal glitter. Sephora also has two other polishes similar to this one, Flurry Up ( Silver) and Only Gold For Me (Gold). I am lucky enough to own all three :)

I love the look these glitters give, it's always random and I really love the look of copper with the light blue. After I application I gave one final coat of Seche Vite to speed up the drying of so many layers and it just blended everything together perfectly :)

The blue looks so perfect and milky against the shiny copper pieces. The weather has been so gray and rainy lately, hence the title of this post, and probably why I chose the colour combo in the first place. Just looking at my nails while walking outside just reminds me of some blingy rain.

I really love this mani and I am still wearing it today (I applied it on Saturday morning). It took a beating over the weekend too since I was helping my boyfriend paint his house. It still looks pretty good though, I have maybe one tiny chip. This next photo is most colour accurate, both were taken with natural light from an overcast and gloomy rainy day.

I may change it tonight or tomorrow though, not sure if I want to add to it or just take it off and try something else. I also just recieved my polishes from the Zoya exchange and my new BM plates, they were sent to the States then I had to wait for someone in my family to pick them up and bring them to me, thats why I got them so late. Look forward to some fun posts of those coming soon :)

Love/Hate Relationship

Hello ladies,

Today I have a polish that I LOOOOVED the first time I saw it. Such a beautiful light almost pastel blue, and I love my blues! I had debated for a while whether I should get OPI's What's with the Cattitude? or this beauty, Sepora by OPI's Havana Dreams. Havana Dreams was from Sephora's summer collection last year, Havana Nights, and although What's With the Cattitude? was not a complete dupe for it, I figured that I wouldn't need both.

I had heard many negative comments on this polish based on formula, but I figured it couldn't be that bad... unfortunately I was wrong. Now, I applied this polish 3-4 days ago, so I am definitely calm now, but during application I was really frustrated.

The formula is thin and watery and took 3 coats to be opaque and even. Then, to make things worse I accidentally smudged a few fingers :( On top of that I had some issues that weren't the polishes fault, I think my base coat had some dried up bits from the spout on the brush, so that caused some unevenness and bumping.


I was literally ready to just give up and take everything off at that point.

If I didn't have Seche Vite I don't know if I would have kept this mani on. I was so upset at the time I was ready to bring it right back to Sephora. The colour is beautiful though, such a shame that the formula had to suck. I don't think I'll bring it back based on the colour alone, I will just have to deal with the crappy formula and be very careful with application.

Stay tuned for tomorrows post to see how I made this mani awesome :)

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!