Fall Haulin'

I haven't done too much hauling during the last few months, however I do have a few polishes I picked up more recently that are definitely with mentioning. First I'll start off with a random in the collection, Revlon, I'm Electro - Spiderman collection.

I'm Electro is a teal leaning blue with a medium duochrome effect. The duochrome effect is likely to be stronger when this polish is layered over a darker base. Two coats are shown in the swatch below, however, on the nail this would probably need three coats to reach full opacity.

Next are my picks from China Glaze's Apocalypse 2014 Halloween collection. Usually I wait until after Halloween to purchase these, but this year they seemed to be disappearing fast! I picked up these pretties the last week of October, Rest In Pieces, But of Corpse and Don't Let the Dead Bite. Love these names by the way!

Rest in Pieces is a multi-glitter topper. It it made up of various sized and shaped holo copper glitter and matte black hex glitter in a clear base. The formula is awesome, similar to the last few China Glaze glitters I have worn recently. Another blogger ( I can't recall who) reffered to this polish as "glittery hay", and I have to agree! Two coats are shown in my swatches below.

But of Corpse is such a unique polish, it's a yellow based green with tiny black matter glitter pieces that give the final look a textured polish. When dry, this has a satin/matte finish. This one reminds me of zombie flesh. Two coats are shown in the swatch bellow.

Don't Let the Dead Bite is another unique polish. It is a sheer nude crelly (creme based jelly) with muti-sized and shaped red glitter. This is super awesome, it looks as though vampires have literally bitten you to death! Two coats are shown in the swatches below.

So enough of Halloween already, right!? As you can see during my photoshoot we got our first real snow in Toronto! The first few snows are always nice in November and December. It's in January to March where I am sooooo over it! That being said, I'll move on to my holiday picks for 2014. 

Next I have some holiday China Glaze polishes from the new Twinkle collection. Left to right, December to Remember and De-Light.

December to Remember is an interesting shade of blue. It's a beautiful shade on it's own, however the duochrome shift is was makes it special. Two coats are shown in the swatches below.

De-light is a gold glitter topper made up of various sized gold and holo glitter. Two coats are shown in my swatch below.

Orly surprised me this year with their winter Sparkle collection. I was only able to pick up one during my last trip to Sally's, however, I have hoping to pick up at least one more (Mirrorball... Droool) 

Below I have Tinsel, plus a travel size Orly remover which is free with any Orly purchase during the month of November.

Tinsel is made up of long thin green holo bar glitters and red hex and micro glitter. This is a Christmas tree in a bottle! Two coats are shown in my swatch below. Not sure if you'd be able to get this opaque on it's own, but it is an awesome topper.

That is all for now! I have my eye on a few of OPI's from their latest collaboration with Gwen Stefani that I may want to get soon, and of course, if I come across Orly, Mirorball it will be mine!

Simply Gleaming

This week I feel like I have been slacking, not sure why, it's not like I have been too busy to blog, I've actually have more time that usual on my hands. Maybe that's it,m just being lazy. I better not make a habit of it.

Irregardless of my MIA status this week, I don't have to much to share polish wise, so you haven't missed much. I made a half-assed attempt at St. Patrick's day nails that I don't have a photo of. Just a simple shamrock on my ring fingers in white over my previous mani. Didn't celebrate St. Patrick's day either, I guess I never really do though! I did make the most awesome all natural mint shamrock shake ever though for breakfast. Yup, breakfast, it's that natural and nutritional. It was awesome. you may not know this about me but I am quite the foodie, even more so lately since I have become a vegetarian. I  love to cook so exploring new vegetables, food combinations and flavours is so much fun for me. Plus I have always loved to eat!

So wow, that got off topic fast, huh? Back to polish, today I have a lovely textured polish, keeping with my March theme of green and purple, Sinful Colors Purple Gleam. This lovely medium lavender is sprinkled with gold and pink shimmer, in the bottle this reminds me of Pure Ice, Busted. However on the nail, this "Crystal Crush" formula sparkles a mostly matte gold, however the pink does shine through and give some depth. The gold comes off more silver in my photos, and although the texture may appear gritty, in person it is more powdery and soft.

I swatched this when I first got it and thought it was pretty, but actually on the nail, wow!First of all it goes great with my skin tone (currently winter pale). I just love how matte and shimmery it is, very pixie dusty! Most other matte polishes I have tried end up with more of a satin finish after a day of wear due to natural oils on the skin. Purple Gleam has not absorbed any oil what so ever.

I only needed two coats for full opacity. The formula was pretty good, however the longer it took me to apply the polish the thicker it got. I think after the first coat I closed the bottle and gave it a gentle roll to mix the contents to a more uniform consistency. It didn't take too long to dry, but probably a bit longer than usual since I didn't apply the standard quick dry top coat to finish it off.

I am very happy with this textured, glittered beauty, especially for the price. These cost about a dollar more than your standard Sinful Color, but I believe I got these on sale or something so they may have come out to regular price. I regret not picking up a few more of these when I last saw them. Orange Crush and Blue Persuasion are on my "to find" list! Next time I am in the State's I will totally snatch them up if Rite Aid still carries them.

Leather Loose

Lately it has been taking me for ever to pick and choose a polish to wear! However, the other day I pretty much chose the first polish I saw, an untried on my desk that has a very interesting finish, Sinful Colors Leather Loose.

In the bottle it appears to be a deep brown with golden shimmer. On the, nail first swipe, the base is closer to burgundy in colour. After a second coat the base appears the same shade as the bottle and is fully opaque. Since the polish has a matte finish I did not add a top coat. The first coat was a bit tricky, however if you move quickly it should apply evenly.

The matte finish is super cool, the shimmer adds a bit of a suede texture to the finish. The one thing I never really liked about suede or matte polishes is that over time with wear, maybe a few days, the matte finish usually begins to turn in to a wax or shinier finish. This also happens with the use of lotion. Kind of annoying since it ruins the finish. This may be the reason why I wasn't so in love with this polish. As soon as it dried and I saw the finish I thought it was awesome, but after a day of regular activity with my hands (washing dishes, preparing food, shower, etc) it just didn't have the super matte finish as it did after first application.

Polish Picks for Late Fall!

Finally, a short list of my fave polishes for fall! I meant to get this up earlier, however in September I was extending the wear of my summer polishes, and October was all about Halloween! November is the perfect month to rock some vampy fall shades before December when everything is snow and Christmas! Wow, where did this year go, it's almost December again!

I have so many fall polishes I love but I have narrowed it down to six different finishes with corresponding polishes for what I am loving this year. In no particular order here are my fall picks for 2013. You can click the link in the polish name to see the full posts I have on these polishes.

Creme - OPI, Skull and Glossbones

I love this light grey neural for fall. It has a great formula and looks simple and chic. A great base for glitter or nail art.

Shimmer - Revlon, Perplex

The taupe base in Perplex is another neutral, but the purple shimmer flash adds that something special. Another simply chic shade.

Texture - OPI, Get Your Number

A nice bright blue for fall, this Liquid Sands polish really reflects the cold weather we have been having lately! Full post to come soon on this shade.

Duochrome OPI, Peace Love and OPI

The duochrome flash from teal to purple is so sparkly in the bright sunlight and super cool looking in overcast skies.

Glitter - China Glaze, Emerald Sparkled

Usually used more as a festive shade for Winter, this glitter is so deep and sparkly, perfect for late fall.

Matte - Zoya, Dovima

The perfect matte black with a hint of shimmer. This goes great with the leather clothing trend this fall.

MEGA Haul from Cherry Culture

This just may be my biggest haul to date! Cherry Culture had a huge promo last month with a coupon code for 40% off your full purchase! Not only do they already carry China Glaze for a great price, but an additional 40% off, that is just nuts! To make things even better (...or worse depending on how you look at it) they offer free shipping in the U.S with a purchase of $40 or more. Calculating the total I spent divided by the number of polishes I purchased I ended up spending under $2.50 a polish! I purchased only China Glaze polishes with the exception of one LA Colors duo which I have left to the end of this post, i needed one more item in my cart to equal $40 lol.

I was very impressed with Cherry Culture's customer service and shipment time. The bottles were also safely packed, very well I may add, and delivered without any polish fatalities. I think there was one bottle that had a tiny leak, but it was just around the inside of the bottle, no polish was lost, not a big deal to me. One out of 17 bottle is not bad ;)

I will start off with what I was anticipating the most, the Monster Ball collection! I picked up the full collection for this year, excluding Goulish Glow since I own enough glow-in-the dark polishes already. Pictured below is Fang-Tastic and Boo-gie Down, these are the two glitter toppers in the collection.

Fang-Tastic is a multi glitter in magenta, green and blue. Not your typical Halloween shade, however I think this will work well for jelly sandwiches. Two coats are shown on the nail wheel below.

Boo-gie Down is an awesome Halloween topper with shades of gold, copper orange, black and white glitter in various shapes and sizes. I'd love to try this over a nude creme! Two coats are shown on the nail wheel below.

These next three shades from this collection can be built to opacity, the first two are Howl You Doin? and Bat My Eyes.

Howl You Doin'? Is such a complex shade. I have noticed a lot of other bloggers refer to this one as a Merry Midnight(OPI)/Fowl Play (Orly) dupe, however I don't think this is a dupe for either. It may be close in theory, but it is unique in my collection. I will do a comparison of all three polishes soon. This shade is made up of a deep grape jelly and scattered purpley-blue glitter and irregularly shaped shards of glitter. To me these appear golden, however the base of the polish alters them to red. Two coats are pictured in the swatch below.

Bat My Eyes was the shade I was most looking forward to. It is made up of a murky grey/olive base with varying sizes of green based gold hex glitter and orange holo bar glitter. Two coats are pictured in the swatch below.

Last but not least from the Monsters Ball collection, Bump in the Night.

When I first heard about this polish I was so not interested! I wasn't a huge fan of the textured polish trend started late last year, however, as I type this post I am sporting an OPI liquid sand lol. These trends usually seem to grow on me after a while. I've already written about this polish in a previous post, click here for more info. One coat gives full coverage, however I added a second for more texture in my swatch below. I LOVE this! The name rocks too :)

Swatches:

Next up is the rest of my order seen in my rainbow nail wheel at the top of this post. Lets start with my favourite colour ever, blue! Left to right, Midnight Mission, Ride the Waves and Splish Splash.

Ride the Waves and Splish Splash are apart of the Summer Neons collection from 2012. although they may look similar in the bottle they are quite different in formula and appearance on the nail.  Ride the Waves is a deep blue jelly while Splish Splash has a medium blue base with a faint microshimmer. Since they are considered neons they dry to a matte finish, below is two coats with no top coat.

Midnight Mission is a deep denim blue with silver shimmer, this is apart of the Vintage Vixen collection. Below (on the right) is one coat. Great formula on this one!

Next up are some purples and a grey! Immortal (swatch pictured above), No Plain Jane and Harmony.

Imortal is a medium grey with glass flecks and blue microshimmer. This is apart of the Wicked collection, Halloween 2012. Two coats were used in my swatch (above, with the blues).

No Plain Jane is a purple based duochrome which shifts to a gold/beige. The effect is not super strong, but it does add some nice depth. The formula was a bit sheer in my swatch below, I needed three coats. On a side note, the Bohemian collection, was one that included silver caps which are usually coated in silver paint. This particular cap is a silver coloured plastic, I actually prefer this!

Harmony is apart of the Romatique collection, it is he perfect purple foil. It appears more pink in the photos, but it is actually a medium purple. I originally purchased this for stamping, but I think it would be the perfect base for No Plain Jane. What a happy coincidence! One coat is shown in the swatch below. An easy one coater, perfect formula.

Argo apart of the Hunger Games collection is swatched in the photo above on the far left. I must have lost the bottle photo, too much polish! Argo is a green olive polish with a goldish shimmer. I love these kinds of shades! This one reminds me of OPI, At Your Quebec and Call, however it is not a dupe. Two coats were used for the swatch above.

More Shades ahead! From left to right Kinetic Candy, Gaga Green and Entourage. Kinetic Candy and Gaga Green are from the Electropop collection.

Kinetic Candy is a soft blue pastel creme, a little bit brighter than the photo suggests. My swatch shows one coat. 

Gaga Green is a light green creme, sligtly deeper than the photo suggests. My swatch shows one coat. 

Entourage is from the Kicks collection, it is slightly brighter than Gaga Green and has a yellow gold shimmer. My swatch shows two coats. 

Last up are L.A. Colors Flash Pop duo in Mad Duo and China Glaze Riveting.

Mad Duo is a combo of two mini polishes, one is a pink holo based glitter comprised of various sized glitters and the other is a bright orange based coral. My swatches below are show one coat of each polish. I have also included a photo of how the polish is packaged, similar to the Revlon duos. I like that you can remove them from the middle division piece for easier application

Riviting is an orange based red shimmer, not a typical colour for me, but I just love the orange glow in this polish! Two coats are shown in my swatch below.

So there you have it, possible my largest haul to date, but for the price I paid I simply could not leave them! It took me forever to post this due to all the photos and information I wanted to include, I'm glad it's finally up and over with :)

Any comparisons you'd like to see? Let me know in the comments section below.