Slow week

I've been pretty busy lately so the nail art has taken a back seat.  I did however end up doing a second design on the Shellac Asphalt mani:

I used Color Club's I Believe in Amour from the Pardon My French collection.  I felt bad that I was neglecting my dotting tools because I really like them, but I went a little crazy here haha :)

Then we took a little last minute trip over the border where I was thrilled to find that we finally got an Ulta!!!

So of course the first thing I went hunting for were the Layla holos.  The Ulta I went to in Buffalo a few weeks ago didn't have them.  There was a full display at this one and this little mofo is officially the most expensive non-soak off polish I've ever purchased at $15.50 for 4.3ml!  So worth it though.

From L-R:
Layla Flash Black
RCM Love Those Baby Blues
RCM Haute Couture
Pure Ice Pussy Cat
Pure Ice Silver Mercedes

The Pure Ices were from Walmart and they are just backups.  Also in the background you can see I found the stamping set at Big Lots for $6.50 which contained these plates:

The full-image plate is a joke, the designs won't even cover my pinky, but 4 usable plates for $6.50 ain't bad.

So anyways, yeah it's a pretty good bet that Layla Flash Black will be my next manicure.

Now if only Port Huron would get a Chipotle I'd be all set ;)

Later
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Winning at Winners

Ok so Winners has pissed me off with their recent price increases on Color Clubs but I will still shop there because they still have decent deals on stuff.  And my most recent steal was this:

Sorry I didn't realize the lighting was so bad when I took these photos.  This was another Barielle 5 pack but even though I already have 2 of the polishes I did a double take when I saw the price tag - $6.99!  This was clearly mislabeled because I paid $16.99 for the set containing Elle's Spell and when I bought Slate of Affairs it was $4.99 for just the one polish.  This set contains another bottle of Slate of Affairs that I'm hoping I can trade or sell.  It also contains the awesome Decadence, U Concrete Me, Passion Pirouette and Gold Digger.

Next up is Duri Purple Rain for $2, Unnamed Cosmetic Arts for $1 and Jessica Iridescent Eye for $5.99.  The Cosmetic Arts doesn't compare to anything in my collection really and I would say it's most comparable to drywall compound in colour.  The Jessica polish is the famous dupe for Chanel Peridot and it looks amazing in the bottle.

And lastly this is a Color Club nail art set for $8.99.  It comes with quite a few goodies - 3 striping brushes, 1 gem wheel, 2 gem pots and 2 sets of stickers.  I bought it mostly because I love the copper striping brush and the petal shaped gems look like fun.

So over top of my black gel manicure I added a coat of Color Club's Ready To Wear.  You can still see the Vegas Nights glitter through it.  This reminds me of the Nubar Prisms Gem and Jewel - duochromes with fine holo glitter.

And then I broke out the new striping brushes to test them out.  I really love that copper polish!  FYI, this was Day 7 of the black gel manicure.

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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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Too friggen long!

Two last swatches before my nails hit the chopping block:

Color Club's Beyond The Mistletoe.  I'm pretty sure this is 4 coats.  I needed that many in order to hide the mani underneath!  It also took 2 coats of Seche Vite on top and then it literally peeled off in sheets 2 days later.  Well at least it wasn't a pain to remove like glitter normally is.

I also picked up Revlon's Whimsical when Walmart had them on sale last month.  This is 5 coats!!!! If I ever wear this again I will be using it over a solid base.  I did not like this polish much on it's own.  I just finished getting my nails perfectly white again and it seemed like this polish gave the appearance of stained nails underneath.  I like it much better in this photo than I actually liked looking at it on my nails.

So why did I trim my nails down to shorties again?  Well my little niece just turned 2 and it's friggen impossible to cake decorate with those claws.  So here's the reason I cut them:

More Tinkerbell.  I even bought her some Tinkerbell nail polish for her birthday.  Abby likes Aunti P to paint just her 2 index fingers and calls it 'cool'.

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Hauls: the good and the bad and the ugly

So I did a bit of hauling this week.  From L-R:
Maybelline Express Finish in Plum Intense, Snow Bunny and Demin Dash ($2 clearance at Zehrs)
Rimmel in Rags to Riches
I was so excited when I saw those Hard Candy polishes at Walmart for $1.  DO NOT BUY THEM!!!  They are Hard Candy polish bottles, but what's inside them is terrifying.  They smell like a Kleancolor polish that crawled up my dog's asshole and died, seriously.  The brushes are like straw and the polishes just plain suck.  These can't possibly be real Hard Candy polishes, they are nothing like my full size bottles!

And here's the good haul, from Winners of course.  From L-R:
Color Club Beyond the Mistletoe mini's
Cosmetic Arts All The Trimmings
Seche Vite for $3!

The Cosmetics Arts polish was $5 and I normally wouldn't buy an unknown polish for that much BUT....

Whoa.  How awesome is that?  It's slightly sheer so I decided to wear the Rimmel first.  Something seemed fishy about this polish brand so I went googling and found that it's made by the manufacturer of Color Club, which explains the Studio M bottle as well.  They are also only available at Fred Meyer which I gather is a 'western' version of Meijers (where Studio M is available).

So this is 2 coats of Rimmel's Rags to Riches.  This polish has a brush like the Sally Hansen Salon Manicures - love it!

I stamped it with Wet and Wild Black Creme and Konad plate M71, then freehanded the black tips and added a top coat.  Unfortunately I ended up picking at this...along with my holo glitter gel manicure underneath, wahhhh!

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Hell has frozen over

I never thought I'd ever wear a crackle polish but then again I also said early on that I would never spend $10 on a nail polish either.  This blog is making a liar out of me lol.

This is a coat of Color Club The Great Divide over top of my holo gel mani (haha yeah you gotta wait til Monday for that awesomeness!)  Yeah I hate it, lesson learned.  Problem is that it looked so pretty in the bottle:

So Color Club, can I please have this shade in regular polish?

Anyways I was browsing the polish section at the grocery store yesterday and there was a display that caught my eye.  It was a new Revlon display and the bottles were shaped differently so I ran over to check it out but unfortunately didn't have my camera with me.  Here's the only pic I could find off the internet:

It's Revlon Colorstay nail polish - the display had at least 12 shades and a base and top coat, it also said 'lasts up to 11 days'.  The display seemed to insinuate that it was like a gel manicure without the uv light.  It also indicated that the base and top coat were necessary and sorry, but at $8 a pop I'm not willing to be a guinea pig on this one so we'll have to wait until the reviews start coming.  $24 might not be a big deal to someone who hasn't already invested in a Shellac system.  I'm totally dying to find out if this stuff is any good because the colours were pretty awesome so somebody hurry up and try it please!

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Awesome US haul

Last weekend Mom, the Princess and I took a shopping trip to Michigan again.  We left a bit earlier than normal and the only thing open at that time other than grocery stores was JC Penny.  Funny how I always luck out at the JC Penny salon....

I got all this for $25!!!!  They had B2G1F at the salon plus they were handing out coupons for $10 off a $25 purchase.  2 OPI polishes at regular price in Canada is $25 with tax so this was a steal! From L-R:

Suzi Loves Cowboys
Uh Oh Roll Down the Window
I Brake For Manicures
A Taupe the Space Needle
Designer...De Better
Rainbow Connection

Yes I bought the multi-glitter even though I don't like them.  If you think that's bad...it gets even worse below...

But first here's my awesome Sally's haul:

I was thrilled to find Gelish colours in the clearance section.  I had planned on picking some up anyways since they are cheaper in the US so an extra $4 off was a fantastic surprise.  From L-R:

Gelish Top It Off - $10 (this is $22 in Canada)
Gelish Ooba Ooba Blue - $9 (these are $18 in Canada)
Gelish Ali Baba's Sim Sala Bim - $9
China Glaze Brownstone - $2
China Glaze Concrete Catwalk - $2

And lastly my Meijers haul:

Pumpkin polish light blue glitter with large silver glitter - $.62
Snowman polish green and gold glitter - $2.29 (this polish reeks!)
Studio M Purple Medallion - $2.25 on sale
Studio M Magic Attraction - $2.25
Color Club The Great Divide - $3.99  Say what?  A crackle polish?  Oh yes she did!

Honestly the colour of the polish is what caught my eye - a very dark, almost black blue with green/gold sparkle.  I thought maybe this shade would help me learn to love crackle lol.

The first coat of the crackle I put on the nail wheel and it did not crack.  You can see it just to the left of #1.  I wasn't really happy that the crackle came out so blue instead of the deep dark colour in the bottle.  When I layered it over Designer...De Better it cracked properly (#1).
2. Rainbow Connection
3. Designer...De Better
4. I Brake For Manicures
5. Uh Oh Roll Down the Window
6. Suzi Loves Cowboys
7. A Taupe The Space Needle

And here's what happened when I layered the crackle over my 12 day old gel mani:

Nada.  I tried another swatch over a semi-dry polish and it cracked differently than the one above.  I 'think' this polish only cracks over 'fresh' polish, if that makes any sense.  I could be wrong but I don't understand why it doesn't crack sometimes.

And here's the rest of my swatches:

1. Pumpkin polish
2. Snowman polish
3. Studio M Purple Medallion
4. Studio M Magic Attraction
5. China Glaze Concrete Catwalk
6. China Glaze Brownstone

Every time I do nail wheel swatches I'm always amazed at the China Glaze formula.  Everything was 2 coats except for the China Glaze's which were only one.

Anyways, it would have been nice if I'd found more clearance pumpkin polishes but I'm not going to complain after that haul :)

Oh and one last note to anyone in the US who is looking for Revlon Carbonite - I saw them at Big Lots for $1!

Later
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Knowing when to stop

I think I've finally hit my breaking point with polish hoarding.  I took my usual first-of-the-month trip to Sally and got some pretty sweet deals:

All of this for $21!  Yes that's $3 per polish!  The Orly set was $8.99 and came with a free purse plus I love all 3 colours.  Um yeah I paid $8.99 several weeks ago for just ONE of the Orly mineral effects polishes!  The China Glaze set was $6.99.  I really wanted Twinkle Lights and there were none left on the shelf display.  In fact the shelf display was pretty much bare at noon on the first of the month - wtf?  Anyways China Glaze polishes are $6 at Sally's so why would I buy just one if you can get two more for an extra $1?  And that last little lonely polish?  Color Club!  That was a welcome surprise at Sally's.  It was $6.29 but I had a coupon and I don't own any Color Clubs with the cute little flower on the lid.  Plus it's scented like mint :)

So why, according to my post title, do I have a problem with such an amazing haul?

Green polishes are my weakness.  I love green and they really don't make enough varieties of green.  I would have picked both of those greens in those sets I bought anyways, but when I swatched them I kinda said 'oh shit, I really need to stop buying polish'.

1. China Glaze Holly-day
2. Joe Mallard
3. OPI Don't Mess With OPI
4. Orly Lucky Duck
5. OPI Jade Is The New Black

None of them are exact dupes however the China Glaze and Joe are pretty damn close and so are Lucky Duck and JITNB.  But to the average person they probably all look the same.  I really don't need all 5 of these.

But enough of that, I made some frankens!

I took my ugly coral coloured prism and tinted them fuchsia and dark dusty rose.  They did not translate well when swatched but look perfect in the bottle...sigh.  The one on the far right I'm most excited about.  I really wanted a dark brown creme with blue shimmer and I got it almost spot-on.  I used Revlon Chocolate Truffle and Sally Hansen Marine Scene with a bit of Revlon Beach.  The shimmer turned more teal than blue but that's okay because I love it.

See how the holo's didn't turn out the same?  Weird.  I think they're reversed there as well.  The brown is the first franken I've made that I've actually considered giving a name.  I don't know why I don't name my frankens but this is the first one that I'm totally in love with.

This was 2 coats over my current gel mani which has now reached Day 9.

Then I stamped with Kleancolor Metallic Jungle and plate BM209.  It didn't show up enough so I grabbed the Color Club Foiled Collection and my dotting tool and went to town on it.  It would have turned out better if my stamping was straight but I was too lazy to fix it this time.

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Hauls and a new brand for me

I haven't posted my hauls lately but I've picked up a few new polishes.  One thing I was particularly excited about was that I found Barielle polishes in Canada!  Mind you they were at Winners and a very limited selection but they were only $5!  There was actually only one polish that I absolutely had to have:

This is 2 coats of Barielle Slate of Affairs.  Nice formula and I love the shimmer in it but the colour doesn't look great on me for some reason.  It's funny because these murky dusty colours are usually my favourite, and especially the cremes with subtle shimmer, so I don't know why I don't like this one.

So something I'd been meaning to try for awhile was multi-coloured stamping.  Here I used BM210 with Color Club's Cold Metal (dark blue), Foil Me Once (pink) and Perfect Mol-ten (green).  Unfortunately sucky photo once again and you can't really see the different colours but it's really not all that noticeable on the nail anyways.

So here's the rest of the haul from the last few weeks:

Color Club Foiled and Bohemian Collections - Winners $12.99

Sally Hansen Diamond Strength - Brooding Blue and Temperamental Purple (3/$5 at Len's Mill)
Nina Ultra Pro - Ink-Ling and Mossy Britches ($3 on sale at Sally's)
Icing Chrome - Light Pink ($2 bargain bin)
Icing Mood - Sultry/Moody ($2 bargain bin)
Orly - Androgynie ($6.99 at Winners)
Barielle - Slate of Affairs ($5 at Winners)
NailWOW Polish Strips ($2.50 at Liquidation World/Big Lots)

I was pretty happy to see the new Orly collection at Winners as well.  They also had them in little gift sets with 3 polishes for $15 and a free gift.  The thing that sucks most about Winners is that every one has different stock.  I got the Orly and the Barielle at 2 different stores and neither had both.  I really do need to cool it with the spending though.  I couldn't possibly get through all the polish I currently own even if I changed my polish every day for the rest of my life.  Scary huh?

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O Canadupe?

I don't usually do comparison posts because my camera really sucks but when I saw this polish in the store I just knew I had to do one.

As far as I know, this is the second dupe from Joe.  The first one, Peacock, was a dupe for China Glaze's Rodeo Fanatic.  And now we have our second one, Khaki, a dupe for Essie's Sew Psyched.

The Essie is on my ring finger (third from left) and the others are all Joe.  2 coats on each finger.

Joe Khaki even has the same subtle shimmer as Sew Psyched.  If there is any difference at all I would say that Joe Khaki is just a hint more yellow.

So of course I can't just wear a plain old polish on it's own not matter how awesome it is.  I stamped this with Color Club's Love Em Leave Em and Konad plate m71.

So there you have it, clearly a dupe.  I hope to see more of these from Joe in the future.

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Fishnet stamping

So I'm still rocking the Shellac/Gelish combo but I removed the stamping.  I added one coat of China Glaze Ruby Pumps and although I couldn't quite capture it here, it looks amazing!  The green sparkle underneath adds crazy depth to it and I love it.  What I don't love is that this solitary coat of Ruby Pumps ate top coat like you wouldn't believe!

So I added a stamp to it.  I used image plate BM209.  I also tried 4 different black polishes with this image and the only one that actually picked up the whole image properly was my good old Konad Black.  I guess sometimes there is really no substitute.  I was having a love/hate relationship with this mani.  Sometimes when I looked at it I was reminded of Spiderman and then I didn't love it so much.

So just to avoid any confusion I figured a heart shaped stamp would confirm that this was definitely NOT a Spiderman manicure.  I used Color Club's Antiquated from the new Foiled collection and konad plate m18.  Maybe I should have saved this one for Valentine's Day?

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Sinful Colors Stella

This is only one coat.  I was surprised find it dried matte, sort of similar to the OPI Suedes but not quite as matte.  Very much unlike anything in my collection.

And of course the obligatory stamping fail.  Color Club's Take Me To Your Chateau and plate BM11.  I was in a hurry when I did this so I didn't take enough care to get it straight.  It's topped with Seche Vite but it came off right away anyways.

Then I did some frankening:

The first one is Sinful Colors Let's Talk mixed with a bit of Sally Hansen Celeb City and it looks amazing but wasn't quite properly captured here.  The middle is a black glitter mixed with some iridescent glitter...I added too much black glitter though.  The right one is Studio M's Ego Trip mixed with a dash of creme white, a dash of Sinful Colors Nail Junkie and a healthy dose of  Sally Hansen HD in Lite.  I like this one a lot.

Next up is an old frosty peach polish I had.  Mixed in some Studio M Get The Blues and some Sally Hansen HD in DVD.  The last polish I was going for a  more yellowish mint green with a golden shimmer.  I used some creme white polish, a dash of Billie Lime and a really good dose of Sally Hansen HD in Lite.  It seems to me that they turn out better when I have exactly what I want in mind.

Oh and Wienerfest was a bust, it rained :(

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A girly mani

This is 2 coats of China Glaze's Light as Air which came in the spring mini set I picked up at Winners 2 weeks ago.  As much as I love the colours and selection that China Glaze has, I'm not overly impressed with their formulas.  I find there are better formulated polishes for much cheaper.  This colour however, looked familiar to me, so I did a comparison.

Turns out I was wrong.  The nail on the right is 3 coats of Secret Rendezvous from Color Club's Alter Ego Collection.  Sorry the pic was pre-cleanup because I removed it right after.  Secret Rendezvous is a very sheer polish and not what I'm used to seeing from Color Club.  But having said that, the Color Club definitely looks and feels like a higher quality polish in comparison to the China Glaze.

I applied a little China Glaze Fairy Dust down one side of the nail and then stamped with konad plate m15 in Revlon's No Shrinking Violet.  A little too girly for my tastes but some of you might like it.

Heh I'm counting down the days until my sister gets here with my new polishes...4 days to go!  I placed a last minute order for some Nfu Oh's so I'm crossing my fingers that it gets to her in time!

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