february haul

Hi there! Happy Leap Day!
Time for the monthly haul of shame. Prepare yourselves... In a good way!

I did so good this month. So good.
Check it out, mom, I did good!

Here's what I got this month:

I got some suedes on clearance for $5 a piece:
OPI - You Don't Know Jacques Suede
OPI - Russian Navy Suede
OPI - Suzi Skis in the Pyrenees Suede
OPI - OPI Ink. Suede

I bought 2 polishes from my favorite Spaniard Ruth:
Flormar Supershine Miracle Colors - U16
Essence - It's Purple-icious!

I bought a franken from Amy at I'm Feeling Nail-Venturous:
Nail-Venturous - Floam

I got a 1-cent Julep box:
Julep - Marisa (which already has a new home lined up with my friend Marissa so this doesn't count)
Julep - Oscar

I got one cool polish from my friend Lori:
Funky Fingers - Teal Scales

Whitney from Elemental Styles sent me two of her franken polishes which she sells on Etsy:
Elemental Styles - Can I Buy You A Zinc?
Elemental Styles - Iron Man-ia

I bought 2 polishes on random shopping outings:
Sally Hansen - Glass Slipper
Color Club - Do You Want A Piece?

There is just one more section to this haul, it is a fairly big one, but a very cost-effective one:

China Glaze - Dance Baby, Optical Illusion, Liquid Crystal, Prism, Drawn To You
CND Effects - Gold Pearl, Copper Pearl, Lavender Pearl, Copper Shimmer, Violet Shimmer, Emerald Shimmer, Ice Blue Shimmer

How much did I spend on all those babies?
$31. That's right. Thirty-one dollars. The CND's were on clearance for $1 each (so I bought every shade they had) and the China Glaze were $3.99 with the exception of the magnetic which was $4.99.
I don't feel guilty about that haul at all!

That's a total of 25 polishes. Which is like, the best I've done since starting this blog, probably.

BUT! That's not all.
I sold some of my polishes this month.
Yes. I sold some. I sold 40, to be exact. And it felt good!
I realized I had a lot of stuff that could use a better home and some lovely local ladies were happy to take some polish off my hands.

Which means, for the month, I am at a total of -15.
Take that, polish addiction! Go me!

Now that I have de-stashed quite a bit, between selling and throwing away old stuff from my childhood, I think it's time to do my collection post. I'll work on that this week!

chic glitter triangles

Good morning all! Today I have a really simple and chic mani to show you, using two of my favorite polishes.

I saw this mani on a french blog called Pshiiit and I knew I had to try it because I fell in love with the little glitter triangles.
I don't have the polishes from the original post so I had to improvise and I really like the contrast in the colors I chose.

The base color is Color Club - Nomadic In Nude, and I painted on the triangles in Orly - Bubbly Bombshell with the help of some tape.

Bubbly Bombshell is one of my favorite glitters in my stash. The color is so happy and bright!

I really liked wearing this mani because it was easy but looked really great. I wish my triangles had been a little neater but that's hard when you're working with glitter!

This post reminds me of my "As Seen On" series that I did last summer while I was on vacation.
I'm going away again twice this year - in April and in May - should I do another As Seen On series? If you guys enjoyed those posts, I'll start brainstorming which ones to do this time around! (And if you've done a mani you think I should recreate, send it to me!)

Finger Paints Flakie Swatches

Hey guys! A few weeks ago, I picked up four of the five Finger Paints Special Effects Flakies. 
I swatched them pretty quickly after receiving them but totally forgot about the pictures until now!
So I'll show you the swatches today.
I swatched the four of these on a wheel so that you could see them next to each other.

Asylum, Flecked, Motley, Twisted

This is two coats of each flakie polish over black.

Finger Paints - Asylum - red/orange and blue flakies
Finger Paints - Flecked - green flakies
Finger Paints - Motley - green/turquoise/blue flakies
Finger Paints - Twisted - red, orange, blue, green and turquoise flakies
(The fifth polish which I did not get is called Flashy and that one is orange/green flakies, and is quite similar to Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure, which I have already.)

As with most flakies, these are all duochromatic, so when you look at them on different angles, the colors change. You can see that when you look back and forth between the above photos.

Now let's see close ups of each one!

Finger Paints - Asylum
This is a really unique combo, I haven't seen these colors in a flakie polish before. The blue and deep red-orange contrast nicely. If you look along the edge of the nail you can see how the colors flash to a lighter yellow-orange and a deeper blue.

Finger Paints - Flecked
Flecked is all a bright emerald green flakie that flashes to a bright turquoise. Love this one. Reminds me a little of the color you would see in some Nfu-Oh flakies.

Finger Paints - Motley
This one is my favorite of the group. The flakies are shades of turquoise which get darker on different angles.

Finger Paints - Twisted
This one is basically all the other colors in one, which is a really interesting effect!

I decided to show you three other flakies in my collection over black to see how they compare to the Finger Paints.

Cult Nails - Unicorn Puke, Nfu-Oh - 50, Sally Hansen - Hidden Treasure

Unicorn Puke is another mixture of every flakie color imaginable, the Nfu-Oh is strong green (with a dark blue flash) and Hidden treasure is a deep red-orange that flashes green.
50 is similar to Flecked but the color change in the Nfu-Oh is stronger and darker.
Hidden Treasure is not like the others I have shown but as I mentioned above, the fifth Finger Paints one which I do not have (Flashy) is a less-dense version of this.

Check this out...

Finger Paints - Twisted and Cult Nails - Unicorn Puke are basically dupes over black!
UniPuke is obviously different where it has the purple tinted base but over black, it's pretty hard to tell these ones apart.

I wore Twisted over Essence - Just Rock It!

This was a really satisfying combo because the flakies really stood out on the deep blue.

Finger Paints really knocked this collection out of the park because they actually listened to what the customers want, and brought us some awesome flakies at a really good price!
(Now if only companies would listen to the cries for more holographic polishes...)

topbox feature on yours truly!

Hey everyone! I just have a link to share with you today.

Have you heard of TopBox.ca? It's a great beauty subscription service for us Canadians.
For only $10 a month you get great high-end beauty samples right to your door.
(They even have full size Deborah Lippmann polishes in their boxes sometimes!)

The lovely people at TopBox asked if they could do a little feature about me on their blog, and of course I said yes!
Click here to see the questions they asked me, as well as a big ol' photo of yours truly. (It feels silly to see my face on their page!!! Hehehe.)

Hope you enjoy it!

Barielle Spam #1

Hey everyone!
I recently got to try a new-to-me brand, Barielle, because these awesome 5-pack sets showed up at Winners here in Canada. (5 for $16.99!)
I ended up being able to get all the shades I had my eye on which made me totally pumped.
I'm going to show you five of them today (and the other five whenever I manage to swatch them.)

I'll start with my absolute favorite!

Barielle - Do Unto Others
This is a totally cute and happy shade of bright turquoise. Just perfect.

This applied great in 2 coats and I totally love it. I've heard it stains pretty badly though which sucks but I will deal with it anyway because of the color payoff.
Love love love.
I tried dupe-hunting in my stash but couldn't find anything identical.

Barielle - Decadence 
Another win! Shimmery teal. I think this was three coats. Not streaky and draggy like some similar shimmers.

At first I thought this was super unique in my collection but then I remembered Orly's Bailamos. That's a bit more blue but they are definitely in the same vein.

Barielle - Swizzle Stix
This is a cute light blue jelly-creme. You know, one of those polishes that can't decide if it is creme or jelly. It's in between.

Very "squishy" looking but without the visible nail line. Me likey. Not a unique shade, but cute none the less.

Barielle - Slate of Affairs 
This is a pretty slate blue color, sort of periwinkle looking, with bright blue shimmer. 3 coats for full coverage.

It reminds me of H&M's Peppermint Fusion but darker. Big fan.

Last but not least, a flakie!

Barielle - Buddha-ful
I love the name of this polish, it's so cute! This is a pretty interesting polish, it's a nude jelly packed with green flakies. Three coats are shown here to build the base color.
Because of the milky base it can be difficult to find the correct polish to layer it over.

Above it is pictured over black, Slate of Affairs, and Do Unto Others.
I absolutely love it over Do Unto Others but the milky base makes it sort of cloudy on the darker shades. If you apply it really evenly it can look nice but I prefer it on brighter, lighter colors.

That's all for my Barielle swatches for today! As I said, I have 5 more coming at you in the future.
Do you have any Barielle? Got any recommendations for me?

Pretty and Polished - Elvis' Pink Cadillac

Afternoon everyone! Today I have an "indie polish" to show you, from one of  my favorite people, Chelsea of Pretty and Polished!
Chelsea is a total sweetie and she makes some great polishes that she sells in her Etsy store.
Her polishes are really taking off so start stalking her shop!

Pretty and Polished - Elvis' Pink Cadillac
This is one of my favorite P&P polishes - a light pink jelly base with small and large black glitter! It's a really unique look.

This is three coats to build the pink base and I love the depth it gives with the different layers of submerged glitter.
But you can also layer it over a light pink to do less coats. (It looks great over OPI's Pink Friday!)

Pretty and Polished's prices are really reasonable - $8 for a full size and $4.50 for a mini.
This one is not in stock right now but it should be back soon!

I have two more P&P shades to show you in the future so keep an eye out for those!