june haul

Hi guys!
I'm already in Montreal by now, almost on my way to Ottawa - but I've scheduled this post and some others so you don't miss me too much while I am gone!

Obviously I won't be able to reply to comments or many emails, but I promise I will answer all questions and emails when I get back, on the 6th of July.

I'm sorry if the spacing of this post is really bad - I've been having trouble with blogger doing that lately and I can't fix it for my scheduled posts.

This is the last day of June, so I'm going to post this month's haul!
I might be buying some polish tonight in Ottawa, but I'll include that in July's haul. (Or maybe a separate vacation haul!)

As you may know, I was on a low-buy this month to save for my trip.
I did pretty well on my low-buy (minus one purchase...) but I got a lot in swaps or giveaways or just as gifts!
Here we go:

Icing Duality Stick - Force of Love/Magnetic Attraction

Giveaway:
Catrice - Sold Out Forever
LA Colors - Metallic Purple
Nfu-Oh - #60
p2 Color Victim - Attraction
Flormar - 393
Etos Effect Nails - 006
Etos Effect Nails - 010
Etos Effect Nails - 011
Etos Effect Nails - 013
Essence (Metallics) - Steel Me
Essence (Metallics) - Nothing Else Metals
Essence (color&go) - No More Drama
Essence (color&go)  - Choose Me!
Essence (color&go)  - Where Is The Party?
Essence (Multi-Dimension)- All Access
Essence (Sun Club) - Meet Me At The Club
Hema - 18
Hema - Jip en Janneke

Gosh - Holographic (swap!)
Gosh - Fix Basecoat (swap!)
Mash plate m21 (gift!)

Essie - Smooth Sailing
OPI - What's With The Cattitude?

China Glaze - Emotion (gift)
China Glaze - Adore (gift)

Essie - Lapis Of Luxury (gift!)

Essie - Going Incognito (swap!)

Orly - Lollipop (gift!)


(This is where I went wrong... I spent $76 on these 6 polishes. Which is actually a good deal, considering what they are. They haven't arrived yet.)
China Glaze - TTYL
China Glaze - TMI
China Glaze - FYI
China Glaze - GR8
China Glaze - L8R G8R
China Glaze - QT

Color Club Alter Ego - Reveal Your Mystery (set):
Milky White Basecoat
Get A Clue
Give Me A Hint
Revealed
Secret Rendevous
Incognito
Sheer Disguise

OPI - Turquoise Shatter

Swap with Caroline from Shadow's Nails! (I just got this on Tuesday! I'll post more about it when I get back!)
Orly - Halley's Comet
Maybelline - Goody Plum Drop
China Glaze - Custom Kicks
Sinful Colors - Green Ocean
Custom painted Hello Kitty franken bottle!!


So, as you can see, I got a LOT of polish this month, but out of all those things, I only bought 4 single polishes, one Color Club set (12.99) and the OMG's. 
The OMG's ruin the low-buy but it was a deal I couldn't pass up.

Besides stuff for myself I bought around 16 things for swaps. So that ruins it too.
Overall I'm pleased with how I did!

Total # of bottles acquired for myself this month: 46
Total # of bottles I bought for myself: 17

orly - lollipop - swatch and review and lavender comparison

I'm stressing out! I leave in like 16 hours for Montreal and Ottawa!
I am really nervous but also excited. I can't even eat because I'm nervous. (I never used to be like that, but since I got sick, I am the most nervous/anxious person ever!)
I have my bag mostly packed, I'm trying to make sure I don't forget anything!

Today I have a very pretty polish for you. Some people would think it is too plain but I really like shades like this.

This is Orly's Lollipop from last year's Sweet collection.
For some reason, Sally Beauty has started stocking most of these colors again, which is why I got this.

I believe this was 2 coats.
This is a more pinky shade of purple than any other light purples I have.

I didn't do nail swatches but you can see the difference.
Xtreme Wear Lacey Lilac, Joe Fresh Faded Violet, Essence No More Drama, Orly Lollipop.
Lollipop is pink toned, but the first three are very similar. No More Drama is a tiny bit darker than the others.

Well that's it for me, I have a post scheduled for tomorrow, Saturday, and Monday, so keep your eye out for those.
I'll be back home on Wednesday! And I'll fill you all in on the details of my trip.
See you in a week!

OPI - Mad As A Hatter & Absolutely Alice - swatches and review

Hey guys! Today I'm going to show you two of my most precious nail polishes. Haha.

When the OPI Alice in Wonderland collection came out I was just getting into nail polish. I had heard that a drugstore 20 minutes away had the collection and I went to check it out.

I looked everywhere in the store but couldn't find it, and I was about to leave, when I spotted it. On the very bottom shelf of a random display. Almost totally hidden. 
I got the second last bottles of these and sent Kayla Shevonne to get the last ones!

I feel really lucky to have found these because I know how badly some people want them! 
I paid 7.99 for each one and felt really bad about it. If only the past me knew that would become a regular occurrence!

I'll start with Absolutely Alice.

I muffed up the index finger right before I took these pictures and I didn't want to reapply, so you're only going to see three fingers for now.

This is a royal blue glitter with some gold mixed in. The glitter is very fine, smaller than those in the Burlesque glitters. Absolutely Alice beautiful.
I used the screwed up nail as an opportunity for a comparison.

On the right is Milani's Blue Flash from the One Coat Glitter collection. 
This is 2 coats of each. (Alice starts out as a 4-coater but as it thickens you need fewer coats.) 

As you can see, the shades of blue are different, but for those of you lemming Alice, Blue Flash might be a decent substitution.

In the above comparison you can see that the glitter is the same size, and it also shows the amount of gold in Alice pretty well. 

I hate using up this polish, so I've started wearing one coat of Alice over one coat of Blue Flash.

That is the most awkward picture ever, but my thumb has one coat of each while the other 2 fingers are just Alice.
You can barely tell the difference.

However, I hate using the One Coat Glitters because they are so hard to remove. You can't pick them off the way you can with other glitters, and removal with remover or acetone is such a struggle.

This is one of my favorite polishes ever. I think I actually like it more than Mad As A Hatter, which I will show you now.

Mad As A Hatter is hard to explain. It is a whole bunch of different colored glitters. Predominantly silver and purple - from a distance it looks a silvery purple.
But there is much more to it when you look close - green, blue, pink, fuchsia, orange, aqua. And that's probably not all.

This polish goes for a hefty fee on ebay nowadays. 

Strangely, out of the 8 OPI glitters I own, this one has the worst wear. I cannot get a mani to last more than 24 hours. The nails pop off in nail-shaped sheets if you hit them the wrong way.
I'm not at all sure why this one does it more than the others.

It's so lovely. It's a shame I can't get it to last.

If you look closely around the cuticle edge you'll see that there are 2 sizes of silver glitter. I left it messy on purpose so you could see that.
There is silver glitter the same size as the Alice glitter, and then all the colored glitter and some silver glitter is the same as those from the Burlesque collection.

The above photo really shows all the colors! I don't know how to tag the color of this polish in this post. Haha!

I love these 2 polishes. I love them so much that I hate using them. I'm sure you fellow polish-aholics know what I mean!

Just 2 more days until I leave for my first trip! I'm going to schedule some posts for when I'm gone just so you all won't miss me too much ;)

floral nails! inspired by... don cherry

Good morning!
Today I have for you my second themed Monday manicure for Polish-Aholics Anonymous.

This week's theme is floral.
As soon as I found out it was floral, I knew what I was doing. I've had this idea floating in my brain for a while.

The night of the Stanley Cup final, Don Cherry wore a particularly humorous suit.

Enlarge that baby to see it better. (And also to see (the cohost) Ron's face better.)
Hilarious. I knew as I saw this that night I would need to do nails inspired by the suit.
I got this picture from a blog called Don We Now Our Gay Apparel. The name is so perfect. Good blog. Check it out and see more of his funny suits if you're not familiar with Don Cherry and his ridiculousness.

So. Perfect time for a floral theme in Polish-Aholics.

Looking at them now, I'm not totally pleased.
I wanted to try freehand ones but I think stamped ones would have looked nicer! Oh well.

I used:
Sally Hansen Insta Dri - Whirlwind White
Wet N Wild Wild Shine - Tickled Pink
OPI - Dim Sum Plum
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Going Green

You might have noticed that my nails are really short.
I broke one last week.
But it's okay - I planned on cutting them down before I go away, so I don't have to worry about breaking them while hauling luggage back and forth or something.

In other news, the Canada Post mail strike is over! Mail should be resumed tomorrow. Hopefully I'll have a bunch of nail mail to show you guys soon!

before i was good at nail art: from the vault part 1

Before I start this post I want to talk a little about my Head and Shoulders hair stripping attempt, because I got a lot of questions about it.
It did take a good bit of the color out of my hair. But not enough, and my red did not come out the way it should have. (It should be fire engine but instead it is more like a very deep auburn.)
I put it on wet hair, lathered it, and left it on for 20 minutes.
It did remove a lot of the color. If you are looking to lighten/fade your color, this could be a good thing to try. (Obviously only on dyed hair.)
But if you need to lighten more than 2 or 3 shades, you're going to want to see a professional.
(And I am going to see a professional, my friend Kathryn, to fix it. Hi Kathryn!)

Anyway.
I have a semi-hilarious post for you today.

I decided it would be funny do a mega post of the crappy/occasionally good designs I did when I was just getting the hang of nail art.
So I got all the pictures ready, watermarked them even though I'm sure I didn't need to because no one will want to steal them, and here they are for you!
(I watermarked these ages ago with my old watermark - I've been saving this post for sometime when I really had nothing else to post. Haha.)

Without further ado, here are 13 pictures from my early adventures in nail art.

my first drippy manicure!

Hey guys!
Nail art post today! I need to start trying to do more of these.

I am currently sitting on the couch, with my hair covered in Head and Shoulders, and a shower cap, and a towel, trying to semi-strip or fade my hair color. This is an awkward feeling. It is bubbling.
I just need to lighten my hair a few shades before I dye it back to my usual red.
I feel silly.
(If this sounds weird to you, Head and Shoulders is really strong and bad for colored hair so a lot of people use it when they want to lighten their color.)

Anyway.
I was wearing this lovely color a few days ago:

Essie - Lapis of Luxury. Such a pretty periwinkle blue.
My friend Emma gave this to me! Hi Emma!!
:)

I really wanted to do some art but I could NOT figure out what I wanted to do.
And I stood around staring at my polishes trying to figure out what to do.
I found the color I wanted to use with it - Color Club - Uptown Girl. I knew the colors would look awesome together because they're both muted shades.

After seriously about 20 minutes of pondering, I decided to try a drippy mani!

It didn't turn out as perfect as I had hoped. It's decent but not great.

You might notice the giant piece of hair or bristle or whatever it is on my ring finger.
It came from the brush on a brand new bottle of Seche Vite.
I saw it go onto my nail and said "NOOOOOO," but I knew I couldn't get it off without ruining the manicure.

I did this with my dotting tools, I used a bunch of different sizes to create the different drips.

I really liked this and I want to try it again.
I'm considering a neon green and pink one as my Katy Perry manicure! Maybe with the colors from Starry Temptress! Ooh, I like where that is going. Haha!

I've had this Head and Shoulders on my hair for 15 minutes now... I wonder how long I should leave it...
Wish me luck!

back on crack: china glaze - fault line

Hey guys!
Because of all the hype over the new China Glaze Crackle Metals I decided to post a crackle mani from a few weeks ago.

I don't think I'm going to get all the Crackle Metals. I want the gold one but that's about it, I think.
I feel like if I bought them all, they would probably only get used once.
I bought all the first set of CG Crackles (besides the black) and I have only used 2 of them on a regular basis. Out of the other three, 2 of them got used once, and one not at all.
How many crackles can you need?

This manicure was the first and only time I've used the purple crackle, China Glaze - Fault Line.

This is over OPI - Mermaids Tears.
These crackles dry matte, and I really hated the look of this one matte. So I added Seche Vite!

Much nicer! But flash likes to make this look nothing like what it actually looks like.

That's better. I really liked this combo.

I like the shade of the purple but I wish it cracked a little more.

The color of this one is similar to Senorita Bonita.

Okay, I wrote all of this post, except this paragraph, 6 hours ago. And I spent that time in the hospital with my mom. We were convinced she fractured her ankle and it took 6 hours for them to tell her it wasn't broken and to put a bandage on it. Sigh.
I was going to make this post a bit more interesting, but now I'm too annoyed. Haha!

german giveaway swatch spam part 2

Hiiii. More exciting international swatches for you today.
I'll get right to it. I'll start with one of my faves.

Essence - Choose Me!
This wasn't one that I won, it is one that Martina included because she saw it on my wishlist, which was the cutest thing.
It's just so pretty and sparkly and teal and turquoise and green and blue and glass-flecked. Love.

This swatch is 3 coats, with the pinky being one coat over 1 coat of Orly - Bailamos.
This is one of my favorite polishes ever now. This is a small bottle, so thankfully I have a big bottle of Orly - Halley's Comet coming from Shadow, and they're dupes. (Along with Zoya - Charla and OPI - Catch Me In Your Net, which I don't have.)
I'll never run out!

This next polish was also one included from my wishlist.
Take that, wishlist!

Essence - Where Is The Party?
Cool purple shimmery greenish grayish duochrome.

The bottle shows a whole lot of colors but they're not all visible on the nail.

2 coats.

And the last of my Essence Color&Go's:

Essence - No More Drama.
This is a nice lavender creme, it's a bit darker than other similar colors I have. 2 coats.

Time for magnetic polishes!

I was really excited to try these out.
You hold a magnet over the polish while it's still wet, and it creates patterns in the polish.

Essence Metallics - Steel Me.
On this hand, I used the magnet that comes with them, and I tried different patterns on all my nails.
The vertical and horizontal work the best as you can see. I tried diagonal on my ring and pinky fingers but barely got any results.
For this one, the first coat was a bit sheer, so I let that dry normally and then used the magnet on the second coat.

Essence Metallics - Nothing Else Metals.
This one is a chrome finish and therefore it was a bit hard to capture the magnetic patterns.

On this one I tried different magnets from my fridge... and you'll notice that one worked a little too well...

The polish actually jumped from my nail to the magnet. Haha!

These were really neat polishes to try out and I'm happy to have them in my collection!

Last but not least...

Nfu-Oh - #60.
My very first Nfu-Oh! The bottles are just so pretty.

The flakes show more colors in the bottle than they do on the nail.

They mostly show a deep red-orange on the nail.

But they do go a bit golden/greenish on certain angles.

Originally I thought this was going to be a lot like Joe Fresh - Twilight but they aren't too similar.
Since swatching my Twilight I swapped it out, but I did have it on a nail wheel before that so I was able to compare these two.

They look more similar in the bottle than they do on the nail.
Twilight's base is a bit thicker - 3 coats vs 4/5 coats.

That's all for me today! I will have the last 6 polishes from the giveaway to show you whenever we get a bit of sun, so the potential holos can show their stuff!

hello kitty shoes. and hello kitty mani.

Hi guys! Later than usual post from me today - I knew I wanted to post this manicure today before I even have it done! Haha.
But first... the shoes.

A few weeks ago, Sarah from Samarium's Swatches bought these shoes and showed them off on Polish-Aholics Anonymous.
And thus began my quest to own them. 
I pretty much exclusively wear Vans, except in the winter when I break out the boots. I even have Vans flip flops for summer.

I knew I wouldn't have a chance at waiting to go to Buffalo and go to Journey's to get them, because they would be gone by then.
And Vans only ships to the states. I thought my quest was over. And then I remembered my mom's friend who is living in Texas for a year.

I emailed her. Asked her to please let me send them to her and have her bring them home next time she was coming back. And she said yes. And she said she was coming home 3 weeks from that day. 
It was perfect!

Even the box is cute.

Even the tissue paper is cute.

And stickers, too!

When I opened them I knew I had to do matching nails. But would I have the right pink?
(Of course I did.)

China Glaze - Rich And Famous. One of my favorite pinks.

2 coats!
And then the stamping started, with my Hello Kitty fauxnad plate and Wet N Wild Black Creme.

Perfection!

Love it.

So much.

I pretty much don't have anything else to say about this mani!

Happy feet.

Happy nails.

:)