Hauly Crap!

Well this post ranks right up there in my top 5 hauls for sure.  I was browsing Kijiji again and found some OPI Gelcolors.

L-R: Alpine Snow, Pompeii Purple, Princesses Rule, Strawberry Margarita and Pink Flamenco.

Bubble Bath, Kyoto Pearl, Bastille My Heart and Louvre Me Louvre Me Not.

Big Apple Red, Bogota Blackberry, OPI Ink, Malaga Wine (missing-top coat).

So 14 OPI Gelcolors for the bargain price of $95!!!  Many of them were unused and the ones that weren't were basically full anyways.  I paid $20 plus tax each for these at the salon supply.  Pretty awesome deal even if there are too many pinks lol.

So the first colour I tried was Louvre Me Louvre Me Not - 3 coats.  I also tried out the OPI Top Coat for the first time but I'm still using the Shellac Base since I've had such good luck with it.

And a flash photo to show the shimmer.

So here's my thoughts on OPI Gelcolor:
The formula is insanely fussy.  I don't recommend this brand for newbies to soak off gels.  It's the thinnest of all the gels I've tried which sucks.  It takes a lot of coats for opacity.  It requires a lot of shaking to mix it properly.  The biggest offender is the shrinkback and pooling.  It's nearly impossible to cap your edges due to the shrinkback.  The pooling made it hard to get a nice clean manicure.  These colours take a lot of care and patience.  The Top Coat was also super thin which surprised me and was full of bubbles but it wasn't that hard to get rid of them.

The good is of course the colour selection.  I love that these are colours from the regular nail polish line.  I suppose if I actually got a chip in it I could quickly cover it with the matching regular nail polish.  I can't comment on the wear time quite yet as I haven't had it on for even a whole week yet but so far so good at 4 days in.  It does feel more flexible and less thick than other gels.

And so just for fun because I've been slacking lately, I decided to holo it up with a coat of OPI DS Sapphire:

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.

Later
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Superhaul

So confession time: I've been in the US for the past 2 weeks visiting my sister.  We were keeping it a secret because she came back with me for a surprise visit.  So now that I'm home I can show you my awesome haul which I'm super excited about since I hauled a lot of soak off gels!

I'll start with the regular polishes first.  From L-R:
Spoiled Ants In My Pants - $2 at CVS
Sinful Colors Cinderella - $2 at CVS
Sally Hansen Princess Cut (Flakie) - $1.50 at Walgreens
Love & Beauty Olive/Gold - I think $2 at Forever 21
Love & Beauty Midnight - Same as above
Love & Beauty No name gold with holo glitter - $.99 at Forever 21

Chameleon Blue Sky - $4 at CVS
Justice Magnetic Blue - $5.50 at Justice
Kleancolor Holo Green - $1.50 random beauty supply
Essie Aruba Blue - $3 at Walmart

Revlon Emerald - $1.51 at Kmart
Revlon Hazy - $1.51 at Kmart
Icing Evergreen - $2 at Icing
Icing Emerald - $2 at Icing
Icing All That Glitters - $2 at Icing

Borghese Limoncello - $2 at CVS
Borghese Carnavale Grape - $2 at CVS
Borghese Stellar Notte - $2 at CVS
Wet n Wild Speak When Spoken To- $2.99 at Walgreens
Wet n Wild The Crown Is Mine - $2.99 at Walgreens

Zoya Yara - Free from Zoya's last promo
Zoya Veruschka - Free from Zoya's last promo
Gelish Good Gossip - $11.95 at Sally Beauty
Gelish Amazon Flirt - $3.99!!!! at Sally Beauty
Sally Hansen Purple Pizazz- 2/$1 at Dollar Tree
Sally Hansen Teeny Greeny Bikini - 2/$1 at Dollar Tree

Sinful Colors Green Ocean - $1.99 at Walgreens
Sally Hansen Black Tie - $2.49 at Rite Aid
Essie A Cut Above - $4.00 at Rite Aid
Sally Hansen White Veil - $5.49 at Rite Aid

Shellac Base Coat (large) - $22.45 from Amazon
Shellac Asphalt - $14.85 from Amazon
Gelish Structure - $11.00 from Ebay
Gelish Vegas Nights (full size) - $12.95 from Amazon

Ez Flow TruGel Lil' Dress
Ez Flow TruGel Racy Red
Ez Flow TruGel Winners Circle
Ez Flow TruGel Frosted Amethyst
$8.95 each from Ebay

The prices on the soak off gels are amazing!  In Canada at the moment all we really have available are Gelish Minis from Sally Beauty and the regular beauty club price is $18.95 for one tiny little .25 oz bottle!  The ones I ordered from Amazon are double the size for half the price!  How is that fair?

Well I was pleasantly surprised when I returned home to find a gel polish for sale in a drug store!  Shoppers Drug Mart to be exact and the brand is Quo by Orly (which I'm hoping are repackaged Orly GelFX).  The downside - the bottles are LESS THAN .25 oz (4.4ml) but the price is $10 which makes it seem cheaper but when you consider Gelish Minis are $18.95 at 9ml, they're more expensive than the minis!  I picked up First Class Ticket (which is really Orly Rage) and am crossing my fingers that this is the same stuff! 

As excited as I am to see these in the drug store, I am certain these will fail and can't wait to find them in the clearance bin.  Why you ask?  Well they offer a starter kit, but no lamp.  That will be a big factor in sales since lamps aren't readily available to the average DIYer.  Plus the base and top coat is an all-in-one which makes me very hesitant to try it.  We're on the right track though with the gel nails, bring em on!


Later
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Superpost

I took a few days off last week to spend with my sister from Delaware who was here for a visit.  While she was here I took her shopping in Toronto and visited some places I've never been to before.

I was actually on a quest for Shellac and I did find some but no way in hell was I paying $30 for a .3oz bottle!  I did end up finding some pretty awesome polishes though at Pacific Mall.

From L-R: NYX Girls Enchanted Forest and Under The Moon, Essie Shine of the Times, Ruby Kisses HD Midnight Stars, Kleancolor Midnight Seduction and Afternoon Picnic. 

The NYX's and Essies were 15% off already cheap prices at Pacific Mall - It came to $12 for all 3.  The Ruby Kisses was from a random beauty supply outlet for $2.50.  The Kleancolors were 2/$5 at Dixie Mall.

I have to share a quick photo of our dinner in Toronto because it was amazing and a first experience for my boyfriend and my sister - Korean BBQ.

This was the aftermath.  The table has a hot grill situated in the middle and they bring you plates of raw marinated meats, rice, soup, kimchi and various pickled veggies.  And then you cook it all on the grill in the middle, similar to a fondue.  It's also all you can eat but you just ask them for refills of your favourite meats and veggies.  Toronto is one of the only places around that has these restaurants so if you ever get there, I highly recommend trying this out.  This is meat lovers heaven.

When I got home from Toronto I added a coat of NYX Girls Under The Moon over my blue Gelish manicure.  This photo is day 14(!) of my manicure.  Yes the growth looks terrible but still not a chip in sight!  This is the longest I have worn a soak off gel so far.  Honestly, I bet I could have gotten away with another week!

So on Monday I had to take my sister back to the Buffalo airport and of course I just had to stop at Ulta ;)

So the China Glaze haul consisted of: The Let It Snow set including Blue Years Eve and Snowglobe ($7 at Sallys), Fireside Glow, Lighthouse, Ingrid and VIII.  I also hauled some soak off gels at Ulta but they will be in my Christmas post since they were technically my gift from my boyfriend.

A new brand for me Petites, I found at Rite Aid and I bought 2 - Craze and Daze.  Then there's China Glaze Blonde Bombshell and Nubar Meadow Sparkle.  Funny thing I noticed about my collection after I bought these - over 500 polishes and not a single gold glitter!  The last item is a glitter set I found at JoAnns for $7 that I thought would be amazing for scrubbing into soak off gels because....

They're all holographic!  Can't wait to try the light blue one.

And here's one last shot of something I did for my 2 year old niece last week:

I painted this in her new room directly over her crib.  It's probably 3 feet high, just used plain old acrylic paints and took around 3 hours total.  Hope she likes Tinkerbell until she's 18 :)

Hope you all enjoy your holidays!

Later
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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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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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Bling bling

This is 2 coats of Kleancolor in Midnight Queen.  There's a barely visible pink sparkle in this one.

And when I stopped by Zellers last week look what I found:

I had my Mom look for these when she was in the US last week and she couldn't find them so I was shocked to see them here.  They were in a display along with the pink glitter and Carbonite!  L-R: Facets of Fuschia, Blue Mosaic and the OPI is not from Zellers, I found it in a salon at the same mall for $5 - it's Skull and Glossbones.

So I slapped Blue Mosaic on right away:

Just one coat over Midnight Queen.  I didn't expect it to be that glitter-packed.  I was also surprised at the large green hex glitter in it.  It doesn't come through very well in the photos.

So it's not that I didn't like this mani, but I ended up taking it off the same night because I picked up the Shellac set that I purchased off Kijiji.  I was so excited to use it and I'll show you the results in tomorrow's post but here are the colours that came with it:

L-R: Romantique, Tutti Frutti, Cream Puff, Negligee and Red Baroness.  My plan is to use these as a base to strengthen my nails and also help my Mom and Sister to grow theirs out.  I totally plan on polishing over them so no worries about me disappearing here :)

Anyways, I was so excited I made a pit stop at Sally's on the way home to pick up a colour more suited to me haha.

I picked up Gelish Ooca Coocha Bing Bang Bam - Alakazy Alakazam (yeah uh that's the actual name of it, ugh) which is a teal layering glitter and the other is Bella's Vampire, a vampy wine colour.  These polishes are mini at 0.3ml and they sell for $18.95 with a Sally's card!!!  OUCH!  But the awesome chick at Sally's gave me a coupon for $15 off my purchase plus she gave me another one to use for later!  I could seriously kiss her!

Later
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Another franken and yet another haul

I was going for a navy blue holo here which looked perfect in the bottle but when I put it on my nails it was more like a medium blue-grey.  I'm afraid if I add any more polish to darken it then the holo effect will disappear completely.  Anyways this is 3 coats of my franken.

Then I stamped it with Pure Ice Silver Mercedes and BM20.

Now for an awesome glittery haul:

Kleancolors from L-R:
Starry Blue
Black Out
Blue-eyed Girl
Chunky Copper
Born to the Purple
Green With Envy - seriously sick and tired of this polish name!

L-R:
Chunky Holo Purple
Metallic Green
Midnight Queen - looks promising for layering
Metallic Aqua
Metallic Red

The chunky holos don't quite thrill me but I bought one since everyone seems to be going gaga over them.  The metallics I bought for stamping.  These were about $29 shipped to Canada in total, so a little more than $2.50/bottle and no tax.  Pretty decent.  I don't want to post where I ordered them from because I'm having a minor customer service issue that hasn't been resolved yet but I'm sure most of you can take an educated guess ;)

Ahhh and now my polish count is well over 400!  Think it's time to slow down.

Later
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