Boo-gie Bats

Happy Friday! Halloween countdown: 1 week left! There is also only 1 week left to enter my Halloween giveaway here.

I finally pulled out my Bundle Monster holiday plates and created a simple but fun mani with a full nail bat design and Halloween themed glitter!

For this mani I used the following:

Base - Revlon Peach Nectar

Ring and thumb fingers - China Glaze Boo-gie Down

Bundle Monster plate - BM-H08

I applied two coats of Revlon, Peach Nectar over my base coat. Once that was dry I stamped some bats in black polish using Bundle Monster plate BM-H06 on three of my nails. For my ring finger and thumb nails I applied  a generous coat of China Glaze Boo-gie Down, a gorgeous mix of black, white, copper and gold glitters.

Boo-gie down is such an awesome glitter, I love it over the nude base. The colours remind me of sophisticated candy corn with yellow and orange replaced with shiny gold and copper. This is such a subtle and easy mani. I really love bold stamping over a nude base, especially when most nails are stamped, it's not so in your face or tacky.

DONT FORGET TO ENTER MY GIVEAWAY! It runs until the end of the month! You get to pick which set of nails files you like should you prefer a different colour

Post-Holiday Purchases

Since the holidays have ended I have made some last minute, "get 'em while you can" holiday polish purchases. Since it is getting frigid again outside I am literally blogging from my laptop to yours today, photos and all! Let's start off with Essie!

The first swatches I saw for Essie's Encrusted Treasures collection did not win me over, especially the namesake of the collection. I was not even the slightest bit interested. I already posted a mani with Essie's Silver Plater, so you must know I caved lol. Along with On a Silver Platter I picked up Hors D'orves, and Lots of Lux.

Hors D'orves has the same gold shimmer as the previous polish and jam packed with silver hex glitter. Super shiny and blingy. Dries to a glossy shine.

On a Silver Plater is a sheer but buildable gold shimmer combined with various sizes of a deep blue holo hex glitter. I really love the glitter in this polish!  Dries to a glossy shine.

Lots of Lux was a super last minute purchase and I almost didn't pick this one up.

 It was a swatch I saw online that helped me decide I needed it! It appeared to have a duochrome effect. On the nail not so much, but it still is a pretty textured blue. Dries matte, gritty to the touch.

Moving on to some Lux Effect polishes from Essie, Stoke of Brilliance and Jazzy Jubilant.

Stoke of Brilliance is a glitter I had been lusting over but have never pikecked it up. It is a medium blue hex glitter of various sizes in a clear base. Great topper.

Another great topper is Jazzy Jubilant, it is a multicolour hex glitter. I own similar polishes but thought this would be good for layering and jelly sandwiches.

Left to right, Jazzy Jubilant and Stroke of Brilliance.

Marshall's has been growing their brand and selection of polishes. In both Canada and the U.S. I have spotted brand such as Zoya, Orly, Sephora by OPI, Color Club and OPI to name a few! I picked up a dual set of Orly polishes which both happened to be FX glitters, Mermaid Tale and Embrace. I was disappointed this collection was not around for longer, but was super excited to score this double pack for $8.99!

Mermaid Tale is a densely packed green and holo glitter of various sizes in a clear base. 

Embrace is a densely packed pink glitter of various sizes in a light pink jelly base.

I also found an interesting OPI at Marshall's, Serious Sparkle.

I tried looking up swatches but didn't find anything. The closest polish I could find was Save Me from the 2012 OPI Spring Nicki Minaj collection. It is a silvery foil shimmer polish packed with holo string glitter, it reminds me of fireworks! If you have any more information on this polish please let me know!

Another OPI I picked up on sale at CosmoProf, My Favorite Ornament, apart of their Holiday Mariah Carey collaboration.

Is is a textured champagne gold, very neutral and sparkly. It seemed comparable to Zoya's Tomoko which I have been eying. Zoya's aren't that easy (or cheap) to come by for me, so I settled for this beauty instead.

I picked up this next polish for a buck! Platinum Gala is a silver hex glitter of multiple sizes suspended in a clear base. I picked this up at Stitches and it smells horrible lol.

Lastly I have some Christmas gifts that are polish related, a colour changing polish I almost did not notice in my stocking is the first! Claire's "sun changing" nail polish (no name) is a blue glitter polish made up of various sizes of blue hex glitter in a sheer blue base. When in the sun it changes from blue to green! I don't think I have seen these before, interesting bottle shape, that's for sure. You only get 7ml of polish in this bottle (half a standard bottle when compared to China Glaze at 14ml).

And finally, some specialty selected Bundle Monster plates from the holiday collection my brother ordered for me. I love that they give you the option to purchase single plates now, I have a large collection of plates, some that don't even have the protective sticker removed! I picked up BM-H06, BM-H07, BM-H08, BM-H11, BM-H25

I have kind of been all over the place with my posts lately, I feel like I am still trying to get back in to the natural order of things since the holidays! I hope to post more regularly by the end of the week.

HAPPY -belated- NEW YEAR!!

Happy belated 2014, as you may now I am waaaayy behind by a few weeks on my posts but today will be my last catch up post! YAY! Today I have my 2013 New Years Eve mani... Which in hindsight, and after I wrote up the post I realized I took no photos of!! Luckiliy Karen D at Frazzle and Aniploish had the same idea for layering  two awesome Finger Paints polishes together. Read on for a description of the mani and a link to Karen's version.

I used Finger Paints Golden Kisses as my base and topped it with a generous coat of Finger Paints Sugar Cookie for Two, I just love that name :) Both of these polishes are apart of Finger Paints 2013 Holiday collation, Holiday Love Affair. Sugar Cookie for two is a bar glitter base up of matte black and shiny silver and gold glitter pieces suspended in a clear base. The glitter is very dense in this one, only one coat was needed to blend with Golden Kisses underneath. I sealed the mani up with a generous layer of Seche Vite to make everything glossy and smooth. I don;t think I could ever write a post without any pictures so below is another look at Golden Kisses on it's own. Check out Karen's combo of the two here.

Super blingy and shinny to ring in the new year. Since other polish brands have marketed this type of bar glitter as a textured polish, in the bottle it kind of reminds me of a sparkly owl or something lol. The bars of glitter representing the feathers, so weird, but I just keep seeing that!

Bottle shot of Sugar Cookie for Two.

Swatch of Sugar Cookie for Two on the far left.

Since the Golden Kisses was starting to chip under before I layered Sugar Kiss on top it didn't last too long and I started picking at it right away. Still super pretty though. I did some friends manis on New Years Eve as well and layered a sheer nude accent nail with a thin coat of Sugar Cookie for Two, looked super elegant and not so much a textured, hair polish as a nice pop if glitter.

Pumpkin Polish Mani Refesh!

For today's refresh I have my first pumpkin polish! I actually picked this guy up last year in the States at Rite Aid. None of these polishes have any names so I don't really know what to call it! It is nothing like I have seen before and that it why I had to have it. It is a clear polish which is packed with pure black and shiny coppery orange bar glitter. I don't know what it is but I just love pure black glitter of any kind.

I gently blobbed on two "coats" of the polish to get the desired amount of glitter on the nail. The clear base was actually a but thicker that I thought and made it difficult to get a good amount of glitter in the nail. For future use I will add some thinner to make it easier to apply.

I love how random and sporadic the glitter has laid on each nail and how the orange and black really pop against the bright green base.

The black and orange bar glitter reminds me of sprinkles :) I could so see this working as a cupcake colour combo, green icing with black and orange sprinkles, yum yum!