NOTD: Color Club Snakeskin - a poor man's Chanel Graphite

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On to the nail stuff!

Oh Color Club, you've impressed me many times now and this time is no different. Let's look at Snakeskin today.

This one's from the Color Club Fall 2010 Untamed Luxury Diamond Collection and it's so unusual, I just love it.  The colour is hard to describe, it's a metallic olive, gunmetal colour with gold micro glitter, it's pretty complex; even thought it's not a duochrome, it does change colour a bit in different light settings.

Sun shots

This was 2 coats and the formula is great on it.  I like how in the sunshine is looks more silver and yet in the shade it flashes more gold.

Shade pics

I must say that I've used this one a couple of times already and like it each time. 

In case you're wondering why I called this one a poor man's Chanel Graphite, it's because I came across a comparison done on ALU's blog and if you look at her photos she compares Snakeskin to Graphite. Even though they may not be the same as far as texture goes, they definitely are the same shade.  I personally prefer the fact that Snakeskin looks smooth rather than gritty like Graphite does. Which do you prefer?

Till next time!

NOTD: Sally Hansen Project Runway + Inglot 203 = Flaked out zebra mani

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On to the nail stuff!

Lately I've been doing layering of different nail polishes on top of one another and today's is just that, I call it a flaked out zebra mani.  I was actually watching the new season of Project Runway, so I decided to swatch my newly acquired Sally Hansen Project Runway and before I knew it, this is what happened.  It's Inglot 203 on top of Sally Hansen Project Runway and both of those were stamped with Wet n Wild Black Creme.

Ever start a mani with something in mind and then halfway through something else inspires you to make a change and it all ends up looking totally different than you initially intended but also totally awesome?! Maybe I'm just in love with this 'cause it involves flakies! 

Photos in the shade to show flakie goodness

 I just love the blue flash Inglot 203 has, even though it's mostly green. See this mani without the stamping HERE.

For those who missed it, the Inglot 203 was part of my Polish polish haul, see it HERE I'm still trying to make my way through swatching all the polishes I bought, but I must say they've all been really great so far and I might have to make some new Polish friends in order to do some swapping.  If you are one, contact me, we should talk!

Till next time!

NOTD: Color Club Take Me Your Chateau + Color Club Broken Tokens + fauxnad

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On to the nail stuff!

I hope you're all ready to see the evolution of a mani.  A while ago, a friend gave me Color Club Take Me To Your Chateau and it's been untried so I decided to try it.  It's from the Color Club Spring 2010 Pardon My French collection.

It's a light blue creme and it goes on like a dream, almost a one coater. I should have tried this one earlier.  

The next day, I decided to give Color Club's Broken Tokens a try.  For those of you who want to give crackle/shatter nail polishes a try, this one is awesome! The formula is actually great on it and you can go over the same spot more than one time if needed, which I've heard from other girls can't be done with many of these types of polishes.

Finally I've been inspired by another MUA'er who did konad over crackle, so here's my feeble attempt at doing the same.  I will have to try this one again sometime, when I'm not in a rush and can put more thought into what design to use with what colours. I used Wet 'n Wild Black Creme for stamping.

The design I used is from Large Plate B shown below, but I also used a flower from the same plate to fill in the spaces I thought needed it. I've looked it up and if you want the real thing, find Konad plates m51 for the flower & m69 for the swirl design.

If you'd like to see this whole plate, I did a review HERE

Till next time!

Sally Hansen haul + Billie Cosmetics glitters

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On to the nail stuff!

Today it rained in Toronto and that created silly traffic prior to rush hour traffic.  This of course means that I was stuck in that silliness for more than I cared for.  So what did I do? Go to my fave dusty to see what I can find and here's what I found!


L-R-> Sally Hansen Showtime, Sally Hansen Nail Prisms Emerald Amethist, Sally Hansen Nail Prisms (unnamed), Sally Hansen Rhodiolite Chrome, Sally Hansen Dahlia (missing label on front), Claw Polish Poison, Sally Hansen Project Runway, Sally Hansen Night Hydrangea

All retail therapy, it's it a great thing?! Of course it is and since I got these here beauties, I decided to stop in at a Dollar Giant and I got the beauties below.

L-R-> Feeling Blue, Black Glitter, Anxiety, Jovile

Any of you out there like glitter, and live in Canada (or Toronto) then you should give Billie Cosmetics a try.  I'm not normally much into glitters, but I guess we all go through stages and right now I picked up these 4 and I'm actually excited about them.

Billie Cosmetics Anxiety

I've read that the above might be a dupe to China Glaze Atlantis, which might have a dupe in Color Club Nail Junkie (which I have, so I shall comp them).

Billie Cosmetics Jovile

Billie Cosmetics Black Glitter

Billie Cosmetics Feeling Blue

Till next time!

NOTD: Essie Huckle Buckle

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TOTD (Thought of the Day)

The other day I was feeling kinda 'meh'.  I decided to go to Costco and as I was (in the parking lot) putting on some lip stuff in my car, the man beside me rolled down the window of his car and yelled out "There's no point in improving perfection, is there?!" I chuckled, said thank you and he drove away.  About 10 minutes later, while at the check out, both of the check out girls decided to compliment me also, one liked my hair and the other my nails.  I must say, little things like saying kind words (in the form of a compliment) can really brighten up your day. We should compliment one another more often! 


On to the nail stuff!


Ok, so because of a friend of mine, I decided to actually give Essie a try and today I swatched one of my buys, Essie Huckle Buckle.  Here it is in the bottle and it looks interesting, right?

Shade pics

It's a shade that changes colour a bit, depending on the lighting.  It's sort of a periwinkle blue but on the grey side and it seems to have s pink/purple shimmer to it.  So far so good.  But then try to put in on.  Gah! I'm not impressed with the formula on this at all! It's so super sheer that I kept on putting in on and on, I did 4 coats! 

 Sun pics

In the close up you can really see that the shimmer is in fact pink/blue, not purple at all and although it's pretty, this is not a polish for me.  Um hello Essie, if I wanted a funky top coat that i had to layer over something to get the full effect, I'd buy one.

I want to know is it this sheer because it's an older formula? I know this one's from the Essie Summer 2007 Buckle Up collection, so maybe this is before they knew how to make polishes with good formula?

If any of you have gotten great results by layering this over something, let me know please, otherwise this one's going right to the swap pile.

Till next time!

Mini Haul + blog roll

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On to the nail stuff!

Since my short time on MUA, I keep on reading tips from other girls and probably the most prevalent is to moisturize the cuticles.  I already use lotion on my hands and have a recently acquired cuticle cream, but the girls always talk about Lemmony Flutter from LUSH.  

Now I've never been to LUSH before, nor have I tried any of their products, but when a good friend asked me to go to one with her, I happily obliged. LUSH is a company that carries handmade cosmetic products and what an experience it is to visit one of their stores! They pamper you and let you try as many products as you want.

Unlike my friend, I didn't buy anything at the LUSH store, but I was happy to walk away with some samples, especially this Lemmony Flutter I keep hearing about.

My haul (samples + Essie)

In the photo above I also included 2 Essie nail polishes, my very first Essie polishes, ever - Huckle Buckle & Sexy Divide.  I've so far not wanted to get any of these because I keep hearing about how thin the formula is and I dislike that.  In this case, my friend and I walked into Nail Depot (in Pickering) and got them on clearance, because this store decided to no longer carry Essie, so if any of you like this brand, go get it there cheap!

Full Cuticle + Nail Creme & sample Lemony Flutter

Above is my current cuticle cream, Sally Hansen Diamond Cuticle + Nail Creme and a sample of LUSH Lemony Flutter, we'll see which one wins.

BLOG ROLL!

I know I've been slacking when it comes to updating what blogs I've come across, but I must say, keeping a blog like this is proving to be time consuming, which means that sometimes I'll have to play catch up.  This is one of those times.  I've got 2 weeks worth of blogs for you guys! Click any of the links below to check them out.

I'm also still compiling a list of Redhead Blogs (preferably nail related), so if any of you know of some, please let me know! Thankies!

Week 2 -> July 11-17, 2011

Kittypolishnbags

Lakierowe Wywiadówki

Lindsey's Lacquer

Sasse's Stamping Stampede

The Phalanges Files

Turtlechick's Nails N Tales

Week 3 -> July 18-24, 2011

Concrete and Nail Polish

Failure to Thrive

Laura's Lacquers

Musings of a Wax Woman

Noelie's Nails

Polished Casual

the Polished Crow

There's one more blog I'd like to add to this list, although it's not nail polish related, this is for other girls out there who could use help with their own blog.  It's helped me with some technical stuff already, so I really want to pass on the info to help someone else.  Check out:

Spice Up Your Blog

Till next time!

NOTD: Color Club Pretty In Platinum + flower 'nad design

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On to the nail stuff!


Today I wanted to show you something that you'll probably see throughout my blog, my nails being nubbinized once in a while. (For those who don't know, in nail world speak to nubbinize it to cut down and go from long-ish nails to short-ish nails.) 


I know some girls only cut their nails when they have a break because they want to keep their nails as long as they can for as long as possible. I'm not really that girl.  My nails (and hair) seem to grow pretty fast and I find myself cutting them a bit every 2 weeks or so, just so that I don't have to contort my hands in funny ways in order to be able to type on my laptop etc

Before

After

The mani in this post is a fail for me, I wasn't happy with the final outcome, so it's why I'm not really posting it other than to show length difference in my nails.  I wanted to use a light colour for the base, in this case Color Club Pretty In Platinum, then I used the same flower design twice, just with different colours.

I used Wet 'n Wild Black Creme & Sally Hansen Brushed Gold nail polishes to do the design from the Large Plate B I reviewed HERE I think it's still available on eBay. 

EDIT: thanks to a friend on here, I found out that the original design is on the Konad M65 plate, for those of you who do not want dupes, but the real thing, I found this image of it online.

Till next time!

KOTD: Argyle mani with Color Club Pretty In Platinum & Revlon Grape 660

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On to the nail stuff!

Today I felt like I needed a change, so I nubbinized. Yep, I did it on purpose, 'cause I needed my nails to be shorter.  I get annoyed when typing becomes an acrobatic act and I have to contort my hands in strange poses to ensure touching the correct keys, don't you?

I started with applying Color Club's Pretty In Platinum and I really want to love this colour, but I find it looks odd on me by itself, so I decided to stamp a design over it, I used Revlon Grape 660.  

Sun pics

The formula on the Color Club is great, it covered nicely in 2 coats and dried fast.  I'm actually impressed with the Revlon too. Although I don't own many Revlon nail polishes, this one is surprisingly great and a one coater; it's why I decided to test it as a stamping polish and it definitely performed. 


For those of you looking for stamping polishes, I recommend this Revlon.

Shade pics

For those of you who are in Toronto and are looking to find Color Club polishes in stores (in case you've missed the post about it), you can find them HERE 

I'm pretty sure that there's a Konad plate for the design that I used today, but I used the Large Plate I bought off of eBay. If you'd like to see the whole thing, I reviewed it HERE but for those who have seen it, the design I used was this one:

Oh and speaking of the Large Plate, girls in Toronto, I've seen what I think was Large Plate A for only $29 at Pacific Mall, the store was called Phoenix, but I didn't get the stall #. If any of you are interested, let me know and I'll update.

Till next time!

NOTD + Mini Korean Nail Polish haul - Missha, For UB & Takoko

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On to the nail stuff!

This post is for all those girls who secretly want to go dusty hunting but never do it.  Just go! I say don't be afraid to walk into a place to see what they have; we're females, we love to shop, so just do it, and try brands you've never heard of!

Yesterday while getting a bubble tea, I wandered into a small store that looked like it carried some cosmetics, I saw them in the window display.  It had no English words on it so I wasn't sure what it was that they were selling, be it services or products or what.  But why not walk in and check it out?! Well, they sold products and I walked away with a small haul of Korean nail polishes.

L-R-> Missha Crystal Nail Polish, For UB Nail Polish, Takoko Nail Polish

I've seen swatched of Missha on MUA before but never the other two brands, anyone out there know them? See a swatch of Missha JBL01 HERE.

Missha JBL01

L-R-> For UB 54, 64, 53

L-R-> Takoko 367, 307, 398

I'm stoked at this little find and can't wait to swatch them.  Again, anyone know any info on any of them, it'd be appreciated, I can't seem to find any out there.

EDIT:

Ok, so I couldn't wait to swatch one or two of these and I wanted to post one, it's For UB 54.  It's a metallic green with a gold shimmer through it.

For UB 54 bottle

The formula was nice for an unknown nail polish for me, I'm still trying to find some information out there about it.  I applied 3 thin coats, but I don't think it needed that many.

The photos below are in the shade,I tried to show the green/gold flash

 This photo is in the sun and seems to show the most duo of this polish

I'm pretty impressed with this one. Because I doubt that I'll be getting a Chanel polish any time soon, this one will have to be good enough for me. Don't you think it's a good enough polish to satisfy a lemming?

Till next time!