Pretty Awesome

This is 2 coats of Zoya Yara.  My kind of colour for sure, nice army green with gold flecks.

Then I found the new Sally Hansen Diamond Strength polishes and had to pick up White Veil.  This is one coat over Yara.  I really like this glitter.

It was also my birthday on the weekend and since I don't like cake, look what my family made for me:

You know you're a serious polish addict when....

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It's a blue day

This is 2 coats of Zoya Breezi.  It's the first Zoya creme I've tried and I'm not a fan of that tiny brush in a creme polish.  I do like the colour though.

I added one coat of Sinful Colors Pearl Harbor on top.  This was really hard to photograph but I liked the look.

I stamped this with an image from BM207 and China Glaze's Little Drummer Boy.  It seems like the design is too big for my nails.  It turned out great on the thumb though.  Canada Day nails coming up tomorrow!

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Short week

I've only got two posts for this week unfortunately.  I lost a bunch of photos and I've been having a rough time with my nails lately.  As of right now they are super short.  I know I don't ever post just swatches, but that's all you're getting today sorry.

This is 3 coats of Zoya Apple.  Thought I would love it but something about it is a little off for me.  I'm not sure what it is.  One thing I will say about these Zoya 'sparkle' type polishes though...I absolutely love that they give you all the bling without the pain in the ass removal of a glitter!

And I know that blogs have been spammed to death with Nfu Oh 61 lately but I just had to wear it last week.  I actually bought 2 bottles of this and I'm so glad I did because it's amazing.

I only did 2 coats here but it definitely needed a third.  No base coat, but the second photo has a top coat.  It did dull the holo.  Also once I put a third coat over it, it was still dull.  No top coat and no sandwiching is the way to go with this polish.  It's a very strange formula, that's for sure.  I found that you have to be quick about it or it takes the layer underneath with it.  It dries faster than a matte polish too.  What worked best for me was a thin layer followed by two thick quick ones.  Next time I'll try it with my base coat.

Funny thing I saw the other day...I go to the grocery store by my work once a week and I always stalk the polish section for clearance.  A few months ago I'd picked up a Wet and Wild polish in a new display that apparently was already months old but I never thought much of it.  Well last week I saw they put a brand new display out - Nicole by OPI Gossip Girl collection....uh, okay.  I actually laughed my ass off when I saw it.  This isn't a discount store so I have no idea why they seem to be holding onto their polish displays until they feel like putting them out.  Weird.

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Pea Soup

That is seriously what Zoya Mitzi should have been called.  This is 2 coats and could have definitely used another but like everyone says, it's a bitch to work with.  It's virtually impossible to apply this polish without ending up with ridges.  I didn't care much about the reviews and thought I would love this anyways since it's matte and it's green, but no, I hate it.  Pain in the ass to apply and it totally looks like pea soup...ick.  I sandwiched a layer of topcoat in between but it didn't seem to matter as I had some chipping the next day.

I was eager to play some more with my dotting tools so I pulled out Zoya's Phoebe to dot.  This reminds me of freckles on an alien lol.  I added a layer of Essie's Matte About You hoping that it would smooth it out a bit and I found it added a bit of a smoother matte effect.

I hated it and didn't have time to change it so after 24 hours I added a coat of Nfu Oh 40.  I am soooo gonna bomb this blog with flakies now!  Sadly this peeled the very next morning because I used Seche Vite for the topcoat.

Sooo have you guys ever noticed (or maybe it's just me) that your nails always look best when you're driving?

Even on a crappy cloudy day they sparkle more than any indoor photo I've taken.  My nails are seriously going to cause a car accident one day!

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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!

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Well hello Ivanka!

I knew this polish would be awesome.  Green is one of my favorite colours.  This is the first Zoya I tried and the formula was surprisingly thin.  This is 3 coats of Zoya Ivanka with a base coat of Sally Hansen Nail Quencher (discontinued but found at Len's Mill Store for $2) and a top coat of NYC Quick Dry ($2 or less at Walmart or Rexall).

This polish totally reminded me of the Sally Hansen HD polishes.  It's not really glitter but more like a glass fleck finish.  It would be great for layering as well...I will definitely be trying this one out over black.  The photo makes it look kind of gritty but it's not at all, it's very smooth.  It's hard to photograph and in most lights it actually looks like a foil, but regardless it's awesome and screams 'look at my nails!'

I'm not a flashy person in the least so it's a bit weird for me.  I think this is a polish that needs to be left alone.  No konad for me this time.

So speaking of konad, I have decided I'm going to try something a little different.  I never had intentions of starting this blog and just posting swatches because there are tons of those sites, most of them aren't even really colour accurate, and I use my blackberry for a camera haha.  So what I'm going to attempt is to take each of my konad plates and do manicures with every single design, plate by plate.  I will warn you now though that there will probably be some fugly and tacky nails ahead.  I will try my very best to keep them classy.  I think I have about 7 konad plates at the moment and my Bundle Monster plates should be here shortly so that's enough for a whole years worth of designs at least.

I almost forgot to mention that even though I got my Zoya's through a promo, you can buy these polishes in Canada for around $9 (if I recall correctly) at Trade Secrets.  I have seen these at some salons as well.

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Feeling unoriginal...

The more nail polish blogs I find, the more I find that my ideas aren't exactly original...but I guess there's only so much you can do in a little space without it coming off as completely tacky.  So here's an old manicure I did last year and it seems like everyone has done this exact manicure within the last month or so...

Yeah grey creme and sparkles.   I got quite a few compliments on it...classy and simple.  I used 2 coats of Revlon Silver topped with one coat of Revlon Belle.  I picked up this polish in a 5 pack at Winners for around $12.  I find Revlon polishes to be very thin but they have some great colours.

Here's another apparently unoriginal design I did.  I saw on another blog this morning that someone did almost the exact same design with almost the same colours.  I have a backlog of previous mani's that I will post over time but I didn't really want people to think I was just copying exactly what everyone else was doing because then what's the point of having my own blog?

Excuse me while I shit my pants here but the mailman just walked in with my Zoya order!  And holy crap these things are gorgeous!  I took part in the 3 free promo from Zoya because I have a sister in the US - total cost to me was $11US.  Sorry Yes I Can Can, but Ivanka will be my bitch for tonight! 

Sorry about that LOL.  I wasn't expecting it to get here in under a week! So anyways, for the above mani I used OPI DS Signature ($8 at Winners), Sally Hansen Celeb City (fantastic stamping polish btw, found at Walmart for about $3), and some random black creme polish.  Top coat is definitely Seche Vite ($9 at Sally Beauty Supply) on this one.  I texted this one to the Princess of Poo who replied 'Love it!' but I didn't keep this on long as it's too 'porn star' for me.  And another angle because I really like the design:

So now I will leave you with a parting shot of my new toys.  Say hello to Ivanka, Charla and Crystal...

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