Tronica Leopard

Happy Monday!

Hopefully you are in good spirits for the beginning of this week. For my Canadian readers, are you as happy as me that this is a short week? Plus, I'm a Canada day baby so looking forward to my birthday AND day off ;) To all my American readers, you have the long weekend to look forward to also :) I love long weekends in the summer time. I can't believe this is the last week of June, where did this month go?!

Speaking of time getting away from me, I have been falling behind on posting for my blog. Last week was rough for me for some reason, I felt like I was having a nervous breakdown or something! Nothing too crazy, just really thinking about the future and what I want to accomplish in life. I am glad to say that I am ready to get my life back on track, and without getting in to too much detail, I look forward to many new and exciting changes I my life soon. Wish me luck!

Anyways, on to what you came here to see today, nail polish! This was the mani refresh I meant to post on Friday with China Glaze's Laser Lime.

I recently picked up this NYC polish along with some others a week ago, that's another thing I need to post, my U.S haul. I purchased my first Sinful Colors! For this mani I used NYC's West Village, which is a deep indigo with a purple shimmer which disappeared when I stamped. It was very well pigmented and I highly recommend it for stamping if you have it.

I like the effect it gave on top of Laser Lime, it looked more turquoise and was thin enough to pick up the prismatic sparkle beneath. It really reminded me of China Glaze's DV8... I can dream, right?!

I love this funky leopard combo! I used Bundle Monster stamp BM 221 for this one. I double side stamped my thumb for this one to ensure my full thumb was covered, but I have wide thumbs.

This pattern is perfect for double stamping because the pattern it not symmetrical or repeating. It's not the most original pattern, I have a similar one on a Konad plate, but it was what I was feeling at the time. With all of the nail art plates I have accumulated, I really want to use them as much as I can and try new designs on new plates. I still have much love for these new BM plates! What do you think of this combo?

Hauling Again Part 2... U.S

Hello ladies,

Today I have part 2 of my hauling from the last week of February. As you know I headed to the U.S again the last weekend in February and I wanted to make sure to check out some of the stores I missed on my list he first time around, this included:

Wal Mart

Rite Aid

Big Lots

Other Dollar Tree's

The first stop was Wal Mart.

The Wal Mart in The U.S. carries a lot more brands that the ones in Canada. Nail polish wise some brands that are not in the Canadian stores include:

Love My Nails

Pure Ice

Hard Candy

I really wanted Lava from Hard Candy but it was not included in the display. I did however find Sky, Beetle and others. Nothing really caught my eye so I moved on.

I ended up finding a polish I never thought I would, NYC, Love letters! Such a great layering polish, and for less than $1.

I also saw for the first time the Wet n' Wild quick dries. Only one colour, but this one was on my list, Party of Five Glitters.

The last 2 polishes I picked up were from Pure Ice, Busted and Dreamy.

Busted is comparable to the new Sally Hansen HD polishes or the Orly Cosmics, similar finish and definitley a duochrome. The only drawback? This polish is super sheer, I didn't expect that at all.

Dreamy is a pink jelly with tones of irridecent glitter packed in. I have a feeling this one may be sheer too. I also got a defective bottle, the brush wouldn't stay in properly :( I had to super glue it back which lead to much frustration and spilled glue.

Next I spotted some NYC's and Wet n' Wild fast dries. I picked up NYC's Love letters, an awesome duochrome, shimmery top coat, for 99 cents. I can't believe I actually got my hands on this one. It was the last one at the location I visited.

I also picked up Wet n' Wild Party of Five Glitters, the infamous close dupe for Deborah Lippmann's Happy Birthday and/or Milani's Gems. I had been wanting this polish for a while, but never spotted them in Canada. I went to a local Wal Mart last week and I finally found them, but it was very picked over, maybe only half of the collection was there if that, plus it cost more than the U.S.

Next stop, Ulta :)

Again Ulta is pretty cool, but the last time I checked it out I didn't find anything I really needed. This time I had a coupon for $3.50 off a purchase of $10 or more so I picked up another polish from OPI's texas collection, Houston... We Have a Purple.

I had seen this one and though it was a cool colour, but I found that in some pictures is cleaned more red and was not terribly unique. I decided to pick it up any ways and try it out for myself. I have already worn it as a full mani and the finish is awesome!

Since the polish was $8.50 I purchased a mini location that was on sale for $1.99 in order to get the $3.50 off. My total at Ulta came out to under $8!

Across from Ulta is Sally's, which I LOOOVEEE so much more than the Canadian stores I've been to. They are cheaper, usually well stocked and from what I've found even friendlier! They even have better promos, I had missed out on some of these the last time around.

Bubble White was buy one get one free. I have seen reviews of this brand on youtube and it's supposed to work pretty well for cleaning stained nails. It was $1.99 for both.

The first thing I looked for when I walked in the store was the Crackle display... it was out, but totally empty! The sales associate let me know that they put it out 2 days earlier and they went fast! A display that was overly stocked was the Tronica collection. I ran over and scooped up the colours I knew I had wanted since I saw the promo pics, High Def and Techno Teal.

High Def is a light cornflower blue, I also hear that the shade is comparable to 2NITE from the OMG collection.

Techno Teal is a deep blue/green turquoise, this shade is comparable to DV8 from the OMG collection.

Both of these polishes have scatured prismatic glitter. I tested them out on a fake nail and they are pretty opaque in 1 stroke. I need to see if these will work well for Konading.

I'm sill kicking myself for not picking up Laser Lime :( I even checked a Sally's in Toronto last week but they didn't have that specific one. Since they had a promo going on, I picked these up in the States for $3.99 each

Lastly in the Niagara Fashion Outlets, I found a Fragrance store that offered 10 NYX makeup products for $10! Me and my sister got 5 each, my stash included:

Blue Ave. A sheer flakie topcoat with green and orange flakies of different sizes.

Purple Ave x 2. A sheer flakie topcoat with blue flakies.

2 lip glosses, one is a sheer red with gold shimmer, the other is a sheer orange with small pieces of gold glitter.

I picked up 2 of purple ave because they looked different in the store... when I got home they looked the same :( I actually already had one at home, but it looked totally different, weird huh?

I had never used NYX lip glosses before but these are awesome, love the colour and the formula. they have a little brush for application, really happy I picked these up :)

Stores I checked out that didn't have what I was looking for was:

Big Lots - they had Revlon's, but none that appealed to me
Dollar Tree - the one I checked out had nothing

I wanted to check out a Rite Aid and CVS but didn't end up passing by one.

So there you have it! I'm going to try to control myself for a little bit regarding hauling. I have some China Glaze Crackles in mail which should be arriving any day now. I have some cool ideas for those so we will see what happened. Hope you enjoyed my post :)

A Glossy Konadicure

Hello ladies,

Wow, it's been a week since my last blog post! My cold is partly to blame, but I have really been feeling lazy lately... I hate it, I don't really want to do anything. Maybe it's the weather or something, I'm really hoping that spring comes soon :)

Although I haven't posted since last Thursday, my current mani was applied on Friday, so yea, you didn't miss much lol. I wanted to do some sort of Valentines themed mani so I looked at my collection of polishes and picked out some pinks and reds and did some skittle swatches to see what I liked best.

with flash indoors

no flash before appetizers arrived for Valentines :) I love how jelly this polish looks!

A shot my boyfriend took

I ended up going with NYC Glossies Raspberry due to its smooth application, jelly like appearance (although it is not) and shiny glossy finish. I applied 2 coats with it's wider than normal polishes brush. It was perfect! The only bad thing I can say about this polish is that I applied this mid afternoon and still got sheet marks the next day! Weird, maybe it's the formula, I mean, this polish is kind of old. A coat of Seche Vite made it perfect :)

I kept this polish on it's own for Friday and took photos... I had forgotten to insert my memory card in to my camera though so I don't have pictures :( I was very upset about this because I had some sunlight that day too!! Anyways, I still wanted something Valentines-y, but then decided to go will a full nail design from a Konad plate. I never used or really liked this one that much, but I feel like the upward lines really elongate the nails. It also was not to over the top so I applied it to every nail.

What do you ladies think, Valentines day appropriate?

On another note, wish me luck for tomorrow :) I am heading to the States to do some Presidents day sale shopping lol. Me and the boyfriend went last year too, this year we mapped out a bunch of stops along the way to major malls including Ulta (CANNOT WAIT!), Sally's and Big Lots. I hope to come back with a bunch of goodies to show you on Monday!

A Boring Haul and great deals!

Hi ladies,

Today I have for you a haul that I find somewhat boring, but since I am still wearing my houndstooth mani, I decided to share it with you anyways :P

I picked up the above polishes for 50 cents each, these are mostly topcoats. From left to right:

- Sally Hansen No Chip 10 day nail colour - Sensual White (for Konading)

- Maybeline Salon Expert - Top coat (* Note - the yellow really threw me off, but I had picked this up before for franking purposes and found that it worked great when I Konad with black and doesn't smudge :) It also has a great shine and does not show yellow when on the nail. I am wearing it currently over my houndstooth mani)

- N.Y.C - Top Coat

- Sally Hansen - Mega Shine Top Coat

- N.Y.C - Nail Colour Quick Dry, I pick these up whenever I find them, they dry my polish super fast!

- N.Y.C - Double Base and Top Coat, I had picked this up accidentally, the quick dry and the top coat look obviously different in the picture, but in real life they look closer together. I thought I was picking up more of the quick dry! When I got home I realized they were different. I have never tried this one before, but am willing to give it a shot.

Next batch of items, left to right:

- Kiss Acrylic Top coat, I'm sure you can tell I am looking for new top coats, I can't stand Orly's anymore!

- Sally Hansen - Nail Nutrition , I picked this up at the Dollar store for $1.25!

-Sally Hansen - Quick Colour (this SUCKS! please don't buy! I saw a review for this on another site and still wanted to try it out for the gimick, but please, don't waste your money on this unless you like thin, sheer colour and a crappy brush! I may do a quick review to show you the crappiness!)

- N.Y.C - Lengthening Mascara, I found this half off at the superstore :)

All of the above were under a $1.25!

Lastly I have some gloss :)

Maybeline volume XL Seduction Lip Plumper

Sally Hansen - Comfort Shine Lip Glaze - Fresh Watermelon

Sally Hansen - Comfort Shine Lip Glaze - Fresh Strawberry

All of the above were $1.00 each

So there you have it, my little haul from the weekend, see anything you like?

Mood Polish continuation: Top Coats and Quick Driers REVIEW

Hi Ladies,

Today is the continuation of my post from yesterday. I will be discussing the NYC Shiny Top Coat and Quick Dry serum.

complete mani with NYC top coat

NYC Extra Shiny Top Coat - This was my first time using this top coat and I am really impressed! 1 coat gave me a nice high gloss shine and applied nice and smooth. I really love this, I need to find some more and stock up ( I purchased this for 50 cents!).

I am always looking for new topcoats to try and this one was worth the risk. I have tried Sally Hansen (Diamond Strength) and although it works okay for the most part, once you get half way down the bottle you get bubbles. I find this happens more with non-sally brands, so if I do choose to use it, I use Sally Hansen polishes only.

Another one I am currently using is Orly's top coat. Although it works well, I find it dries to fast as I am applying it, sometime I even get brush marks! I need to apply a big goop of it so it doesn't dry as fast. Has any one else had this issue with their top coat?

NYC Quick Dry - I picked this up for 50 cents also and love it, already stocked up. Just a couple of swipes on the nail and you are good to go in a couple of minutes :). I have not tried any other quick dry serums other than this one. The only other quick dry top coat I have tried is Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri, which does the job if I'm in a hurry, but it not my regular topcoat.

What's your favorite topcoat or quick dry solution?

Mood Polish

Hi Ladies,

Today I have Claire's mood polish in calm/wild. I'm sure that most of you already know that this is a shimmery purple when cool and changes to a shimmery pink when warm.

Below is what I used for my mani

1 coat - China Glase Base Coat (Not pictured)
2 coats - Claire's Mood Polish
1 coat - NYC Extra Shiny Top Coat*
1 swipe - NYC Quick Dry*

* I will discuss my new favorite top coat and quick dry serum tomorrow, stay tuned :)

Claire's Mood Polish - I applied 2 coats originally (I applied another coat of the polish and another top coat, it had chipped while I was in the pool a day later, oops!). When applying this polish make sure that you move fast to get the smoothest finish. This polish dries nice and fast to a matte/suede finish. I actually really liked the finish but decided to complete this look with a shiny top coat. I am looking forward to wearing this matte/suede in autumn.

close up of purple, when cold

close up of pink, when warm

close up of colour change, warm to cold

So Far I have had the polish on for 3 and a half days. Unfortunately I think due to the "neon" formula this polish is a quick chipper. Out of the 3 mood polishes I have tried out only one lasted me about a week give or take without chipping. I had used a base of white under the mood polish, I think that helped it to stick better. I will have to try this polish again (obviously! look at that sparkle!), but next time over another colour, possibly blue or purple. I wonder if the warmer colour wold change to a different colour...

What is your favorite mood polish from Claire's?