Magnetic tips

From the 5-pack of Barielle polishes I found at Winners, this is 2 coats of Brown Sparkles.  Not really brown nor really sparkly.  More like champagne foil I'd say.

So I swatched a quick comparison.  From L-R:

Pinky is Barielle Brown Sparkles
Next is OPI Designer...De Better
Middle is Color Club Antiquated
Index is is Barielle Brown Sparkles

All very similar but no exact dupes.  It's definitely closest to the OPI.

So here's something I wanted to try for awhile...magnetic french.  I used LCN's Iron Magic with the diagonal stripe magnet.  It's almost like those funky konad french tips and I don't have to try and line it up straight.  I may try this again with better colours.

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Erasable Nail Art

The best part of soak off gel manicures is that it lets me do erasable nail art!

So over top of my purple SOG franken, I taped it off and added a coat of Orly's Rococo-a-go-go.  I could have simply perfected my tape lines with a brush and some non-acetone remover but I knew it wouldn't matter when I stamped over it anyways.

To stamp I used the same polish with plate BM21.  I didn't like this at all.  It was missing something and I was too braindead at the time to think of something.  So I erased it with non-acetone remover and started over.  No more walking out of the house with nail fails for me!

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New brand for me

Winners has recently had some Duri polishes.  I'll admit I haven't heard much about this brand and didn't want to spend the $7 they were asking for them.  And neither did anyone else apparently which is why I found them in the clearance section for $3 :)

This is Duri's Blueberry Daiquiri and I think it's only one coat.  Yes it's one of those 'so dark it looks black but really isn't' polishes.  The formula on this was really nice I recall too.

I added one coat of Nicole by OPI's Honeydew You Love Me?  Simple, but I wore it for a couple of days anyways.

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2 Fluo Joe's

So Joe has a new collection out and I've already shown you Starry, the holo.  The collection also includes some new fluorescent colours and I picked up 2 of them.

This is 2 coats of Fluo Blue.  Doesn't seem very fluorescent to me, in fact, I think I have another similar colour...

On the thumb only is Sally Hansen Insta-dri in Brisk Blue.  Not an exact dupe, but pretty damn close.

And then we've got 3 coats of Lime Juice which looks more fluorescent than the blue one, but still not really.  This polish was a bit sheer so the 3 coats are very thick.  Which is why this happened:

I was too impatient to let it dry and stamped it while it was still wet.  I used China Glaze Lemon Fizz and plate BM04.

So since I ruined it why not swatch a comp of the closest colour I have.  The middle and pinky have 2 coats of NOPI's One Time Lime from the Justin Bieber collection.  The Joe polish is definitely lighter and yellower.

One thing Joe does really well is creme polishes.  I wish that the green had been more of a creme, but it's still a nice colour.  I probably would have worn that mani for a few days if I hadn't ruined it.  Hmm, need to work on patience...

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Back to stamping

So I guess I've been neglecting the nail art lately and it's time to get back into it.  Ideas are running low and my stamping tends to be all fails as of late.

I started with a very thick coat of GOSH's Fossil Grey.  It is very hard to photograph accurately but this definitely looks like granite on my fingertips.  I like it.

I stamped it with GOSH's Rusty and image plate BM01.  I was going for subtle here and it came out just a little too subtle for my liking.  My problem with stamping is that I'm too impatient to test it first.  It's not absolutely terrible, but I didn't keep this one on.

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Soak off Franken

I was not at all satisfied with Red Carpet Manicure's Violetta Darling.  I really wanted a nice lavender creme but unfortunately colour options are limited with soak off gels.  So why not franken one?

I'm holding Violetta Darling for colour comparison even though I didn't actually use it in my franken.  This is exactly the colour that I wish Violetta Darling was.  I took a piece of tinfoil and added several drops off Shellac Cream Puff, then mixed in about 4 drops of Gelish Bella's Vampire and 2 drops of Red Carpet Manicure Midnight Affair.  I used one of my nail art brushes to apply it.  I think since this attempt was successful, I may just try and franken that entire bottle of Violetta Darling to darken it up.

And as some of you already know, the new collection from Joe includes a holo polish and here she is - Starry.  Just one thin coat over my gel manicure.  It's not a holo glitter but a very fine holo flake.  I don't actually have anything comparable to it believe it or not.  Awesome to see our great Canadian brand coming out with unique polishes.

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Score! Part 2

When the Princess told me there was a girl on her local 'mommy swap' selling OPI's for $3 I never imagined that they were full unopened black label polishes!  Apparently this girl used to own a salon and has just now gotten around to selling off her old stock.

First up is Vanilla-zuela - 2002 South American collection.

This is 3 coats and I won't wear it like this again.  The name suits the colour very well though.  At one coat, this is the perfect french manicure base, which is what I'll be using it for.

#2 is Purple-opolis, 2004 Greek Isles collection.

This is 2 coats and the photo is completely inaccurate colour-wise.  It's definitely a pinkish purple.  I doubt I'll wear this one again but I can't complain for the price I paid.

Next up is My Throne For A Cranberry Scone, 2003 British collection.

This colour is also off a bit in the photo.  I found it very similar to L'Oreal Fanatic Fuschia   I loved that colour when it wore it but it stained horribly.  This one did not :)

The oldest polish in the bunch St. Louis Sorbet, 1997 Route 66 collection.

This is 2 coats and also a bit inaccurate.  I would call this a coral-leaning dusty pink with a gold shimmer.  It came across very coral in the photos but it's actually more dusty pink to me.  I liked this one quite a bit.

And of course I saved the best for last, Midnight Blue Glitter, 2004 Tuxedo collection.

This is 3 coats and although this photo says otherwise, the name is not really accurate.

It's actually a sheer charcoal base with silver and blue glitter.  The blue glitter is really only visible in certain lights.  It's definitely a unique polish and I love it.

Overall I'm still really happy with this haul.  You can't beat $3 for unopened old school OPI's.  The Princess did good!

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Glittery Green

Something I've noticed about getting compliments on my nails:  People only comment when you have crazy shit or bling on your nails.  Every time I wear glitter I get compliments without fail.  The pink holographic gel manicure I did?  I can't even tell you how many compliments I got.  And it seems I've been on a bit of a glitter kick lately...

This is 3 coats of Nubar Meadow Sparkle.  It could have definitely used another coat or two but I had other ideas.

I added one coat of OPI's Fresh Frog of Bel Air on top.  Then I decided this was a great time to give Gelous another shot, so I added a coat and topped it with Seche Vite.  The verdict?  Same results as last time - still a bit gritty.  So I can now say for sure that Gelous = fail.  I wonder if Sally's takes returns on products you're not satisfied with?

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Score!

Last weekend I struck nail polish gold...well as far as I'm concerned anyways.

To start with I finally found a Shoppers Drug Mart with the new Essence display.  They also had some GOSH polishes on clearance.  This little haul was only $20.

From L-R: Gosh: Fossil Grey and Rusty,  Essence: Luxury Secret, High Spirits, Where is the Party?, Gleam in Blue, Glamorous Life, Lovely Secret, You Belong to Me and Break Through.

But the real score of the day came from Winners:

They had a small selection at this particular Winners and I was about to walk away with only Essie's Dive Bar in my hand when I spotted a Barielle 5-pack and was totally expecting the contents to be the same neutral colours I've seen at other stores.  I had another 'holy shit' moment when I spotted Elle's Spell in the pack!  This was on my list of most wanted polishes and honestly never thought I'd find it.  And here in Canada is the last place I thought I'd find a brand new bottle of it.

So I ran home and slapped on China Glaze Poinsettia as a base (bad choice as you'll see).

Then I added 2 coats of Elle's Spell and topped it with Seche Vite.  I really wanted this to be darker, but I think I just made a poor choice of base colour.

And so the next day I added a coat of Essie's Matte About You.  I love the polish but the China Glaze base gives off too much of an orange glow.  Also...ugh, gotta love that Seche Vite shrinkage.

Anyways, as a last addition to my score post:  My sister found a girl in her local 'mommy swap' who was selling OPI's.  When she told me the names of the polishes I started freaking out because they are all old school black label polishes.  She's selling them so cheap that I told her to take them all so I can't wait to get my hands on them now.

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Going full girly

Why stop now right?

I stamped with Konad plate m84 using Billie French White.  As a side note, this was Day12 of my manicure!  Almost zero regrowth!  For a minute I thought maybe I'd see how long I could get away with it but I really couldn't stand having it on any longer.  If it was any colour other than pink...

And here's what I slapped on in between gel manicures.  It's Nubar Avant-Garde.  It's very rusty but generally a pretty boring colour.  I would have stamped it the next day if it hadn't chipped in less than 24 hours, but that's not surprising with a matte polish.

I'm feeling pretty blah lately about nail art and nail polish in general.  The new and upcoming China Glaze collections are completely disappointing to me, the new OPI collection is nothing special either.  I'm honestly getting tired of seeing amazing promo photos only to be incredibly disappointed by swatches.  We're seeing an oversaturation of magnetics much like the crackles last year, which I absolutely hated.  I do like the magnetic polishes but we're getting the all same colours from all the different brands.  I want something different dammit!  Can't anyone help?

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New Konad Review

Something you won't see very often here are sponsored product reviews.  A company really has to interest me in order to get a reply to their email.  Michelle from http://www.nailpolishcanada.com/ contacted me and asked me to review one of the new Konad plates.  I had actually been on their website before which I found through another blog and had planned on placing an order through them eventually because they carry Nubar and Butter London which are hard to find in Canada.

So she sent me Konad plate m84:

Not my usual style but I was more interested in the bow design since I don't have one in any of my 75+ image plates.  Having bought nothing but knock off plates lately I had forgotten about the amazing quality of the original Konad plates.  Great clean and precision-cut images.

I stamped the images using Wet and Wild Black Creme except the pinky finger.  These Konad plates typically have finer lines and so nothing beats the Konad polish for picking up all the details.  Konad Dark Purple was used on the pinky and you can really tell the difference.

Before I stamped the second hand I decided to do a quick and dirty swatch of my newest acquisition - Cosmetic Arts unnamed polish (why don't these bottles have names on them??!!).  A quick Google search tells me this is called Silver Belles.  But you can see that this bottle obviously contains Color Club's coveted Worth the Risque.  For anyone who doesn't already know - Color Club/Studio M/Cosmetic Arts = Forsythe, and they often share colours between them. In any case, a good score at Winners for $3.

And back to the Konad plate using Konad Polish in Dark Purple.  Nice crisp, clean stamping.  I think I'll get some use out of a few of the images.

As I said before, this plate was sent to me for review by Nail Polish Canada and it was shipped to me in a standard #10 envelope and took 8 days to arrive.  I have not yet placed an actual paid order with them but I hope to do so in the future.  Their Konad plates are reasonably priced and so are most of their polishes. 

If they carried soak off gels I probably would have ordered from them already. Now if I could get more of you Canadian girls into doing your own soak offs then maybe retailers would make them more available to us!

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I have no excuse

Maybe I'm getting soft in my old age or maybe I'm losing my mind.  Either way, when I started my next SOG I knew two things for sure:  1. I was going to use my holo glitter again, and 2. I was going to scrub it into the whole nail.

I had 6 colours to choose from but I couldn't stop myself from dipping into that damn pink.

I should probably do a tutorial on the glitter scrub method but it's actually very simple.  Since you have a tacky layer on your gel after curing, it's very easy to just take a bit of glitter on a brush and scrub it into the sticky layer.  Just make sure to scrub it in firmly so that there is no loose glitter leftover and apply your topcoat.  I always apply a second topcoat when doing a glitter scrub just to make extra sure it's smooth.  I also keep a separate bottle of topcoat that I use just for glitters because it's almost impossible to not get glitter in it.

So after I came to my senses and realized what I'd done, I figured I needed to add black to it so it would look a little more mean and much less girly.  I used Showcase plate B79 and Wet and Wild's Black Creme to stamp with.

Wonder if I can make it through 2 whole weeks of holographic glittery pink?

Fuck. me.

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