Friday's Post - Mani Refresh

Hey Ladies,

I meant to post this on Friday, but unfortunately I got busy and it slipped my mind :( sorry!

I was on at work on Friday admiring my nails then I really took a good look at them and thought I've been wearing this polish since Sunday... and no chips!

... Well ... maybe not NO chips, I have the tiniest, little scratch of a chip on my right middle finger, but other than that... wow! I have VERY slight tip wear but I am still wearing Poseidon from the NOX Twilight line. This polish wears so awesome!

I wish there were more colours in this collection that I liked. I hope that NOX comes out with other polishes that are available for purchase in Canada soon :) And also reduce the price a bit ... and include some more bright jelly/creams lol

On Friday Night I decided to add some free hand nail art. It looks better in real life, I swear! I made some black swoops with a striper brush and and in between each swoop I added some silver glitter. It was more of a boredom thing lol I removed everything on Sunday afternoon and applied some new polish (which I am loving by the way ;) you'll see tomorrow.)

What do you do to refresh a mani?

Long Weekend Haul!

Hi Ladies,

Before I get to the polish today I wanted to share with you the Sunshine award I was given from Megan of Kitschy Suburbia. How Sweet of her, I have never received any of these blog awards before so it is special to me :)

Here are the guidelines:

1. Save the image above and post it on your own blog.

2. Pass the award on to 12 fellow bloggers.

3. Link the nominees.

4. Let nominees know they have won this award by commenting on their blog.

5. Share the love and link to the person you received this award from.

I don't know if I can just pick 12 bloggers, I will need to think about them. Expect to see who I nominate coming up in a future post. Thanks again Megan :)

On to the polish!

I have a small haul full of huge savings lol. Lets start with OPI - Greenwitch Village and NYC Clear Top Coat

I decided to take Tuesday day off this week for an extended long LONG weekend. On Tuesday I relaxed with my boyfriend and we did some minor polish shopping, I was looking for some deals and I soooooo found them!

The OPI I found at Trade Secrets on sale for $5, so far the cheapest OPI I have ever purchased. The NYC top coat I got at Rexall while I picked up the other polishes below. I love the shiny gloss this adds to my polish so I picked another bottle up. I'm not sure it this was on sale, but I got it for $1.60.

Now, these are the real stars of my shopping trip :) I almost didn't even go to Rexall, it was just something to do lol. I found the new Sally Hansen HD full display, hidden almost but on sale for $3.99 each. I was happy with that, I had been picking up and putting these polishes down for weeks now because of the price (usually between $6 - $9 each). So my boyfriend helped pick out the shades and we took a look around the rest of the store.

Then it hit me! I also had coupons for $1 off! Sweet! so I got each polish for $2.99, how awesome it that!

I'm thinking of layering one of these over the NOX twilight polish I posted yesterday, I think I'm leaning towards the purple one :)

Which is your favorite find from my mini haul?

Blue Jelly Beans

Hi ladies,

Blue jelly beans is what I think of every time I look at my nails while wearing this polish. It has such a great jelly-ish finish with being opaque in only 2 coats :) If there is only one good thing to come out of the Twilight series, it was defiantly this polish! I'm taking about Poseidon by NOX for Twlilight.

If you remember, this was the polish that my (AMAZING!) boyfriend got for me, he loves his blues :)

Application was okay, I had to add a bit of thinner. The first coat applied a bit streaky but the second one evened it out. The brush was okay, nothing special.

The colour is a beautiful sky blue that makes me think its a jelly, but not really... its hard to describe. Hopefully you can see what I mean from my photos.

So far I have been wearing this shade for 4 days and I have only had one chip on my left pointer finger on the 4th day. I don't think I am ready to take this one off yet, its too pretty! It's too bright, and shiny and squishy!

I'm not sure where you can find these in the States, but in Canada the only place I have been able to find them is at Rexall for $9.99. They had a sale a while back for $2 off, but for some reason during the promo the one closest to me did not get them in stock yet :( You can also purchase these online from their site for $6.99 USD, I'm not sure how much shipping is.

Do I think it's worth the price? For what you are paying you are getting a decent sized bottle of polish, the quality isn't 100% on the one I picked up, but a little thinner could fix that up. It only takes two coats to achieve full opacity on this shade so the bottle should be able to last you a pretty long time.

The other colours in the collection don't really do anything for me, the only other one I'm thinking of picking up would be Citrus, but I'm waiting for another sale ;)

What do you ladies think of the Twilight collection? Have you picked any of these polishes up yet?

Black Lace

Hi ladies,

today I have a mani refresh to share with you. I got a little bored with Revlon - Peach Petal after a couple of days and decided to remove it. But, before removing the polish I wanted to practice some Konading.

I think it was last month that Asami over at Nails By Asami came up with this great black lace french tip look using some 3D nail stickers. I decided I wanted to replicate this look with my lace Konad pattern, so I tried it out, I liked it so much as an accent nail on my ring fingers that I kept it for another day!

All I did was stamp the lace image on the tips of my nails, use a Nailene black french tip pen to draw in a skinny line above it, seal with a top coat and I was done! I had bought the Nailene pen on sale a while back, this was my first time using it and it worked great and dried fast!

What do you ladies think? I love the girly peach/pink colour with the dark black lace accent. I will defiantly be trying the lace french on it's own very soon, it is easy to do, and looks so intricate yet delicate.

NOTD - Revlon Peach Petal

Hello Ladies,

Happy Friday :) I'm soooo looking forward to the long weekend, plus I took Tuesday off too, so it's an extra long weekend for me!

Today my polish is Revlon Peach Petal, I purchased this along with Minted and Gum Drop a while back from the Superstore when they had a promo if you buy 3. It was so long ago I forget what the price was! Anyways, moving on, these were the first Revlon polishes I have ever purchased so I didn't know what to expect.

Colour

The colour is a pretty light peachy pink, this can change deppending on your lighting from more peach or more pink. I really like it with my skin tone.

Application and Formula

The formula was kinda weird on this one compared to the other polishes I have used, it was thin yet thick, if that makes any sense. It was harder to apply because I feel that after polishing one had I had to close the bottle and roll it a bit so it wasn't so thick applying on the other hand.

It took 3 coats to build up the colour you see in the pictures. Unfortunately, looking at my nails now I am considering an additional coat, you can't tell in the pictures but the polish isn't that even on my nails.

The Brush

The brush was a little smaller than I am used to and I felt like I needed to do more than 3 swipes for full coverage. I am really loving the OPI brushes lately ... and OPI polish in general :)

Overall Thoughts

I really do love this colour, it is very light and girly but I don't like now many coats it takes to build it up plus additional clean up. I had applied Gum Drop ( a lovely light lavender) earlier this week to my toes and the formula for that polish was slightly better, I will have to try my other Revlon polishes before I give my thoughts on the brand as a whole. It sucks that their formula isn't the best because they are starting to come out with some great shades and they are readily available to a lot of people.

What do you think about Revlon polishes? Which one is your favorite

Del Sol Color Changing Polish & Sally Hansen French Manicure Pen Review

Hi ladies, This post is waaaaaayy over due. For those of you who live in Canada, I bought these polishes/products when Rexall had their 50% off all polish sale (I think this was in May or June), this is also when I created this mani lol.

First I will start with the French Manicure pen.

Pros

- easy to use

- does not rub off

- does not bleed with topcoat

- fast drying

Cons

- the tip of the one purchased was bent (this made application more challenging)

- multiple coats are needed

- bald spots may occur if not enough time is allowed between coats

Here are some pictures I took after application

This was free hand, it came out pretty decent for my first try. As you can see it can get a little lumpy if you go over the same spot more than once before the polish fully dries.

Next I applied Del Sol's Ruby Slipper (sorry, forgot to take a photo of this polish)

This polish was easy to apply, the glitter was dense in the polish, I applied 2 coats on the tips alone (no smudging of the white tips occurred).

To finish off the look I added a top coat and that was it!

Ta-da! the finished look ... indoors.

I'm sure that you have heard about Del Sol polish, it changes colour with UV light. As you can see in the pictures in normal lighting the polish had a clear base with silver glitter.

In Canada I have seen these polishes at Shoppers Drug Mart and Rexall for $10 Canadian ( I picked mine up for $5 on sale). Recently on my trip to the Dominican Republic I saw these in the Punta Cana airport, they sold for $10 U.S each. The demonstration I received of the "colour change" was not impressive... it didn't change at all! After I had bought my polish I wanted to learn more and found out that these polishes are sometime defective. Had I have known this I probably would not have purchased it, but lucky for me mine did work :)

Here is what my mani looked like in the sun, the clear base turns a pinkish red and the silver sparkles shine though.

What do you think about the Sally Hansesn Nail pen and Del Sol colour changing polish? would you purchase these?

Taming the Dragon PLUS a Halloween Inspired Franken

Hi Ladies,

Yesterday I mentioned that although I love the over all idea of China Glaze - Flying Dragon, it isn't as great as it could be. I think that the polish would be better as a jelly. Some of you encouraged be to try it, so I did.

Original and my attempt at franking

Now, my results are not that great, basically I just mixed some clear polish with Flying Dragon. What I ended up with was slightly better than the original for the following reasons:

- better consistency (only draw black, needs to be built up, more coats )

- doesn't dry as fast when applying (less likely to get bald spots)

- slight jelly

- dries to a semi-shine finish, not matte

- not as bumpy

Take a look at the images below and you will see what I mean. I plan on trying to add on to this, any suggestions for making a jelly?

Left is original Flying Dragon, Right is altered polish.

You Can see that the original dries to a bumpy matte finish, where as the altered one is slightly shiny and smooth. I added a swipe if top coat to both swatches at the tip to compare.

I got so excited yesterday that I wanted to try creating another mix! I decided to use a black polish, clear, and some craft sparkles. What I ended up with reminds me of the "missing shade" to complete the soon-to-come China Glaze Halloween (Awakening) Collection. This is perfect as I LOOOOOVE Halloween, I am excited for it now and it is still 2 months away lol. Anyways, I can't wait for the new China Glaze collection either :)

Final product and materials used (minus clear polish)

My polish came out to a jelly black/red/brown with red chunky glitter, I call it Coagulated Blood :)

look at the sparkly, chunky, jelly goodness :)

What do you think of my first publicly shown franken attempts?