Just checkin in

So I'm still in Florida until Thursday and I can't upload any photos from here but I wanted to check in and let you know how freakin crazy I've gone down here in the US.  I just keeping finding amazing deals on polish everywhere and I went more than just a little overboard.  The current count is 48 bottles plus 3 Color Club Collections and a Sally Salon Effects! 

I am mostly excited though to tell you that I just picked up 4 bottles from the Tronica collection! Can't wait to get them home and show you guys!  See you next week.

Later
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A couple of quickies

Nothing special but I thought I'd post my current mani before I leave.  This is 3 coats of Zoya Charla stamped with m36 in Orly Luxe.  I don't think the Zoyas I have are suitable for stamping but I was bored after doing my Mom and my sisters nails.

So here are the nails I did for my sister, the Princess of Poo.  Be warned that the state of her nails is pretty scary.

This is 2 coats of OPI Yodel Me On My Cell, stamped with plate m40 in Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On and topped with a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust.  Although you wouldn't know it from my posting history so far, Fairy Dust is probably my fave polish of all time.  Fairy Dust can pretty much make any mani look awesome and it's great if you just want to add a little kick to a simple polish.

So now I'm off.  Pretty good chance I will be coming back with short nails too.  I'm almost ready to trim them right down with all these chips.  See you in two weeks!

Later
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Horror show aka M32 finale

I have no idea what I was thinking when I did this.  The colour looked so pretty in the bottle - it's Color Club's Oh Naturale from the Pardon My French Collection.

Peach is now added to the list of colours I dislike.  This is 3 coats and it's still a bit sheer.  I hated it so I added the orange glitter that also came in the same set - Turn The Other Chic.

I liked it only slightly better.  Something to note is that the glitters from my Color Club collections are super goopy!  So anyways, in a desperate attempt to finish off my m32 series and feeling totally uninspired by the last image here's what came next:

I'm a little late for Halloween but I couldn't think of a single colour suitable for stamping with this mani.  Plus the image was giving me plenty of trouble.  I used Wet and Wild's Black Creme to stamp.  And well, I've said before that I'm gonna post all the horrible ones so there ya go.  I'm feeling lately like there's been more bad than good but hey, it's all trial and error right?

So I really hate to do this but I have to take a short hiatus.  I'm going to visit my parents in Florida for a couple of weeks so I won't be blogging.  On the upside though...you can bet your ass I will be coming home with lots of awesome polish so get ready for a ginormous haul post in early March!  And I will have one more post for tomorrow before I leave.

Later
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Meh

How did we ever manage to survive before internet?  Damn that was a rough 4 days with my internet down!  Anyways, here's my friday haul from Rexall:

Yeah they're all blue and I didn't even realize it until I got to the cash register.  Grand total: $12!  The 2 Nicole's are Party in the Penthouse and Nicole...Spotted!, both from the Gossip Girl collection.  The NYC's are East Village and Pier 17.  They were sold out of top coat when I got there :(

So on to my second last m32 mani.  This is one coat of Studio M in Decidedly Devious which is a blue based black.  This brand I believe is only available in the US at Meijer grocery stores, which is only in about 4 states I think.  I make several trips to Michigan every year and Meijer is definitely one of my fave places to stop.  This polish gave me a bit of trouble and I had some bubbling but I love that it was only one coat.

Then I taped 'er up diagonally and did a coat of OPI Significant Other Color which is a fantastic layering polish.  It's a sheer pink in the bottle that flashes green.

Then I used konad plate m32 and (again) cut out part of the image, using only the larger flower on the top of the plate. 

This was hard to photograph but I chose this photo because you can see the colour difference on my pinky from the OPI polish...it goes from green to bronzish.  I just have to add that I hated this mani and it came off in less than 24 hours.

So one more image to go before we throw m32 back into the drawer of neglected polish.

Later
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Getting the hang of it now

Ok so just a quick short update to let you guys know a couple of things.

I'm finally getting around to fixing my blog design and I've added a page under the header for 'where to buy' certain brands of polish in Canada.  I appreciate any feedback or updates since my list really only pertains to Ontario at the moment.  Hopefully those of you who come to visit Canada will find it useful as well.

And since I'm on the topic of purchasing polish in Canada: Rexall/PharmaPlus has a 4 day sale starting today on N.Y.C. polish for buy one get one free.  They retail for $2.29 so it's like $1.15 each!  Good time to stock up on Top Coat!  My local Rexall usually has a clearance section too so I will hopefully score some goodies today.

So because I hate to make a post without any photos here is an older photo I took of a manicure I couldn't stop staring at:

It's two coats of China Glaze's Watermelon Rind with one coat of Sally Hansen HD in DVD on top.  The pic is terrible but it was awesome.

Later
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M32, eh?

So I've been a bad little Canadian girl.  Over 2 weeks of blogging and I haven't even introduced my little friend Joe.

Joe is a Canadian brand found at your local Superstore/Loblaws/Zehrs (pretty much any grocery store that sells PC products) for $4 each or 3/$10.  Smaller than the average bottle at 6ml, but I'm not complaining because the polish is pretty decent and I usually buy them in threes anyways.  This colour is called Fig and it photographs darker and greyer than the actual purple colour.  Some of the photos make it look like a shimmer as well but it's definitely a creme.  This is two coats.  It could be a thick one coater. 

Just a mini rant here: I broke/chipped 2 nails last week!  This weather makes my nails so friggen brittle no matter how much hand cream I use!

So on to plate m32 and the dreaded butterfly design in the middle.  This was the design I was looking forward to the least and ended up pleasantly surprised!

And once again I cut out part of the design to stamp.  I only used one butterfly and aligned the design along the side of my nails like so:

The stamp colour I used is Color Club's Take Me To Your Chateau from the Pardon my french collection.  I continue to be impressed by Colour Club.  This light blue works better for stamping than most of the white polishes I own!

I topped this off with some light blue Dollarama gems to match and a coat of Seche Vite.  I think I'll actually wear this one for a couple of days.

Later
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M32 mani #4

So I didn't take a whole lot of photos of this one and it's not great either.

This is 3 coats of OPI DS Sapphire stamped with plate m32 in China Glaze's Little Drummer Boy.  I was really just looking for an excuse to use my heart shaped gems from Dollarama...so there we have it.  I'm not looking forward to using those last 2 designs on this image plate.

So Friday at lunch I went to my local Winners and they had a crapload of Color Club collections for $12.99.  I picked up two of them: Pardon My French and Untamed Luxury.  And this dumbass only took a photo of one of them because I was distracted by something on the packaging.

Well I've seen swatches of 'Untamed Luxury' and as you can tell from the first photo there is definitely no blue in that set.  So I went a'googling and it looks like the polish names on the back of this set are way off!  In fact I think only 2 or 3 of them are actually correct!  Not sure what happened there but I thought it was weird enough to share.  Anyways, the colours I got are a great addition to my collection.

So I may be taking a little trip to Florida in the next few weeks and I'm dying to check out Ulta and find all the brands we can't get here in Canada.  And if I'm super lucky maybe I can score a bottle of Perplex!  Wish me luck!

Later
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Princess of Poo v. M32

So the Princess arrived on Saturday and of course wanted a manicure.  I brought over 3 of my Color Club collections since they are easier to transport than all my shoeboxes full of polish.  And of course she picks Wild At Heart, a purple holo.  No surprise there.  I did 2 coats and stamped the flower design on the right (minus the stems) in Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Celeb City.

Then I used pink flower gems from one of my Dollarama nail wheels and topped it off with NYC Quick Dry.

She's going to need some work on those nails but I'm sure she'll be coming back for more so we will be seeing more of these nails on this blog in the coming weeks.  I also did a manicure on the Holy Mother of Shit but I'm not posting her nails until she learns to stop biting them!

Later
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M32 FAIL!

The first of many I'm sure.  I'm going to share them all, no matter how messed up or fugly they are.  Well this one was more of a polish fail but I'll get to the good part first.

I recently picked up a few Sally Hansen Salon Manicure polishes and I decided to try one out finally.  I'd never purchased them before because quite frankly - um, $8 for a Sally Hansen drugstore polish?  Yeah right.  So I snagged Bittersweet a week or so ago at Zehrs for under $5.  So when I unscrewed the cap and saw the huge flat brush I thought 'oh shit'.  Then I swept it across my pinky nail in one stroke.  And I was in awe.  Perfect coverage in one stroke, no flooding of my cuticles and there was absolutely no clean up needed at all!  Holy friggen crap this shit rocks and I need more!  I painted a second coat because I did have some bare spots but look at the shine on it...

I obviously need a bit of clean up there, but this was nothing compared to my pre-clean up nails normally.  I am crossing my fingers that the others apply as amazingly as this one did.

So I know I said I hate pink but I think it looks great with dark brown so I pulled out my Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Pink Aluminum ($2 at Len's Mill) and planned on stamping the bottom flower pattern here on m32.

I have another one of these polishes and it works fantastic for stamping, but Pink Aluminum was very thin and this was the result:

Total fail and I couldn't even get the remnants off with a light swipe of remover.  So I figured since Pink Aluminum is so thin that it would be great for marbling.  This was my third attempt at marbling and I alternated clear polish with the pink because the Salon Manicure polish didn't work.

I obviously can't aim worth shit.  Practice makes perfect I guess.  I topped it with Seche Vite to make it super shiny.  I'm not sure how I feel about it to be honest.  Tomorrow the Princess of Poo arrives with my 1 year old niece who loves pink so I will let her decide whether this mani stays or goes.

Later
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M32 take two

So this is design #2 from plate m32.  I used a basecoat and 2 coats of Nicole by OPI Virtuous Violet Matte ($9 at Shoppers Drug Mart).  I have two of these polishes and they are awesome shimmery mattes.

I used the design shown on the bottom of my plate.  This design is an 'L' shape but I only stamped the longer part of the 'L' diagonally across the middle of my nail.  On my stamper you'll notice that I marked it with magic marker along the seam.  It really helps to align the stamp on the image plate and then on the nail.

The initial idea was to use my clear top coat on the tips diagonally but because I used such a light colour it was barely visible as you can see (or not see) below:

I used Sally Hansen 10 Day No Chip polish (discontinued) in Black Berry to stamp.  I also decided to use it on the tips since I wasn't satisfied with the results of the clear coat.  I sooo wish I could get my hands on another bottle of this polish because no other black I've owned has ever compared and this baby is half empty now!  I did the tips freehand again and curved them along with the stamped image.

And as a bonus there's a shot of my NYC Top Coat that I couldn't find a picture of previously.

Yeah that's all I got for now.  Lots of things going on but I'm sick of bitching and I don't want this blog to become a daily rant.  So I'm venturing out into the snow on my lunch hour today and we'll see if I can score some little bottles of temporary happiness :)

Later
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My 2 cents on 2 top coats

So everyone in the nail polish world raves about Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat.  For anyone who doesn't already know, Seche Vite (pronounced sesh veet) literally translates from french to english as 'dry fast'.  The only place I've seen this available in Canada is at Sally Beauty and it sells for about $9 at regular price.

I picked a bottle for around $6 when it was on sale.  I was previously using an old L'Oreal Quick Dry that wasn't really all that quick.  So I've used the Seche Vite about 7-8 times now and pretty much had the same results every time.

1. This stuff reeks so bad my dog has to leave the room.

2. It goes on so thickly that I usually get little raised ridges of clear polish near my cuticles.

3. It does not extend the wear of my polish at all, in fact it shortens it because...

4. It peels!  Now before you all tell me I'm using it wrong, trust me, I'm not.  I've tried this over wet, semi-dry and fully dry polish.  I've tried thin and thicker layers and it peels every single time.  Now when I say that it peels, I mean the clear coat layer actually peels right off my coloured polish!  Never in my life have I seen anything like that!  It doesn't matter what basecoat or brands of polish I'm using underneath.  I get the same results every time and usually it starts after about 24 hours.

There are two positives to this top coat however - it dries fast and it's super glossy.  Due to the above points, the negatives outweigh the positives and this top coat is not worth my money or my time.  Oh and one last point on the Seche Vite...apparently from what I've read once you get halfway through your bottle it's too 'goopy' to use and so you NEED to buy their thinning product in order to finish the bottle!  To me that's absolutely ridiculous that you need to purchase another product in order to use it fully.  If this is such a common problem, then the company should either provide you with a bit of thinner when you purchase it or fix the formula to begin with.

But no worries, don't waste your money because I've found a better top coat.  It's N.Y.C. In A New York Minute Quick Dry Top Coat.  You can buy it at pretty much any pharmacy, Walmart, Zellers etc. for $2 or less.  In comparison to the Seche Vite it's not as 'glossy' but it definitely dries faster!  For 4x the price this one's an easy choice for me!  Sorry I couldn't find you a picture of it.  Honestly, I'm not even going to bother testing out Poshe or Out The Door etc. because none of the others could possibly compare at $2/bottle.

I suppose I should reiterate that this is only my humble opinion and I'm just a simple nail polish junkie who purchased all these products with her own hard earned cash.  I'm also a bargain hunter so I hate paying top dollar for products that you can get much cheaper that will work just as well.  And as for branding, well don't even get me started on that but I will guarantee that you will never ever see a Chanel polish on these hands!

Anyways, I couldn't stand the gold tips on the mani I did on the weekend, so I did a fresh one last night...my m32 series will continue tomorrow.

Later
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