St. Patty's Day #2

I decided to do another St. Patty's Day mani and started with 2 coats of OPI's Don't Mess With OPI which I picked up in the US from the Texas collection.

This is my new favourite polish!  It seems pretty similar to Jade Is The New Black which I've seen swatched everywhere and I have no idea why I didn't grab that one when I first saw it.  I am totally loving this colour and it will be used often.

So I wanted to do something a little fun for a change and the initial idea was to make two beer mugs toasting on two fingers but after I did the first one I figured a second beer mug might be too much.

I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Mellow Yellow and Essence in Sundancer for the mug.  Then I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On for the foam and stamped NYC in Flat Iron Green with image plate BM03 for the little Shamrocks.  Topped it all off with Seche Vite for the super shine.

I texted the photo to the Princess of Poo and got a good laugh out of it:

Poo: wtf?
Me: beer dork!
Poo: Oh it just looks like polish glopped on

Yeah I suppose it does but I'm so in love with this green that I don't care!

Later
P

My Kind of Holiday

So I didn't post any valentine's designs because quite frankly, even typing that word makes me want to vomit.  But a holiday that's just an excuse to drink?  Frig yeah!  In fact I'm even contemplating another St. Patty's mani.

This is 3 coats of ELF Mint Cream.  Another coat even wouldn't hurt.  Anyways, I was going for 'simple and elegant' and some might find it boring but I liked it a lot.

I stamped it with NYC Flat Iron Green and BM03.  It's a bit hard to see in the pic but the stamp didn't come through opaque and it almost looked liked the clovers were real...very cool.  I'm always so tempted to 'overdo' it with the simple designs but I managed to keep this one like this and I'm glad I did.

One more thing for today...so yesterday I posted about the Color Club Catwalk Queen set I picked up at Winners.  I was happy with the colours when I bought it so I'm not going to complain to the company or anything BUT...I feel liked I got ripped off when I got home and found that my set was missing the holo polish - Fashion Addict.  And when I got home last night and compared the replacement polish to the rest of my stash I found it was Uptown Girl, which I already own from the Rebel Debutante set.  I also want to mention that when I bought the Catwalk Queen set they had about 4 of them at Winners and they all had exactly the same polishes...so none of them actually contained Fashion Addict.  So I don't think it's actually some random person switching out polishes in the sets.  Not cool Color Club!  They are obviously selling them to Winners at a steep discount while removing the 'hot' polishes.  This is not the first time I've noticed this either...my Untamed Luxury set also has glaringly obvious errors.  I just wanted all the Canadian girls looking for the Color Club's at Winners to be aware of this.

Later
P

Hauliday

So I spent 10 days on vacation in Florida and had a blast.  Found tons of awesome polishes and spent way too much money.  In fact I bought several before I even got on the plane.  We flew out of Flint so I made a pit stop at Meijer's to pick up some Studio M polishes:

L-R: Gel-ous, Sexy Siren, Tru Passion and Ego Trip.  Pics are too dark for some reason.  The first 3 are glitters...Tru Passion looks like a dupe for One Less Lonely Glitter, which is why I grabbed that one first.  Ego Trip was on clearance and it's a dark kinda frosty teal I guess.

These are the randoms I bought. 
Confetti Happy Birthday - dark purple glass flecked (just wanted to try out this brand and nothing else appealed to me) $2 or 3 can't remember
NYC Starry Silver Glitter - silver glitter with larger blue and pink glitter $2 at Target
Nicole by OPI Grant My Wish - kind of coral leaning pink $1.75(!!!) at Target
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Uptempo Plum - black based purple glitter $1.13 at Target
Paint and Peel Crush - Purple creme $2 at Big Lots (just wanted to try this brand as well)

I gotta say I absolutely love Ross!  Not only did I buy a shitload of awesome cheap clothes but they had tons of Color Club sets.  I had 5 in my hand but put 2 of them back LOL.  I picked up the whole Alter Ego collection and one set of Rebel Debutante.  Best part...the price was $7.99 each!  Holy crap!  The CDN dollar is roughly at par right now so these were a freakin steal.  We pay $12.99 at Winners here and I think even that's a bargain.  One of the polishes in the Alter Ego collection looks like a dupe for China Glaze Below Deck so I will have to swatch a comparison on that one.

Much more to come.  If anyone is interested in a specific swatch let me know.

Later
P

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
P

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
P

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
P

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
P