First French

Hello!

This is my boring french-tip post. Since I'm going back to work tomorrow I figured I'd do something appropriate.

I had never done a french tip before so I just slapped on some white and cleaned it up with polish remover and a q-tip. Picking off the fluff was annoying but they turned out ok-ish.



The sad part is that is that I chipped the corner of my index finger nail on a door frame seconds after I took this photo. UUGGGGHHHH... It's still hanging on so I slapped on some nail hardener to try and make it last. I think it's wishful thinking. *sigh*

I'm sure I'll have shorter nails by the end of the night.

Rescue Beauty Lounge 48 hour SALE!

PerryPie posted a sale from Rescue Beauty Lounge. It just so happens Square Pants, a colour I've been wanting very badly is being discontinued. If anyone gets that sale pack and doesn't want Square Pants, maybe we can trade!!

Help a girl out and spread the word?

Skulda will trade for Square Pants!

Wet n Wild & Claire's

Wet n Wild Wild Shine - "Wild Orchid"

Claire's - "True Blue"


I'm posting these images to show how different Claire's "True Blue" looks when dry.
You can also see the differences in sheen when compared to the Wet n Wild. From what I have tried, Claire's polishes tend to dry matte. Well... not matte... more of a rubbery texture. A topcoat fixes this.


As you can see the medium blue dries to a much darker blue.


I ended up removing the blue from my ring fingers because the blue was too dark to goof around with. So I just made them the same as the rest of my nails.


This was me attempting to get a close-up of the holo glitter, but it ended up blurring. Sorry about that!



I love the colour of this polish, but I found the formula was really watery. I had to use 4-6 coats to get it opaque. I'm a bit of a light coat person, so I'll ty and use thicker coats when applying this next time.

Holy Smokes!

More awesome giveaways!
Us nail polish people really know how to celebrate! I can't wait to have a giveaway of my own.

Go check out PerryPie's 100 follower giveaway.
Konadomania is having a 300+ Follower giveaway with Konad supplies!
Lacquered Lizard is having a 50 Follwer Giveaway! Check it out!


Good luck to anyone who enters.

Goodies, and Candy Claws!

Hello everyone!

This morning I woke up to a lovely surprise! A knock on my door dragged me out of bed and I was greeted by the mailman. He brought me two of my interwebs orders!

The first box I opened was from Wicked Soaps. I was really happy to finally get this in my hands. I ordered a jar of Ginger Pumpkin Body Butter Creme and a Pumpkin Cheesecake Lip Luster. And oh man, I had to fight with all my strength not to dip my fingers in that body butter and eat it! The smell and texture is AMAZING! And the Lip Luster? It makes your lips glisten with delicious goodness! I will definitely be raiding her stash again soon, but next time for body oil... maybe Dirty Dreaded Hippy!

In the second box was a fairly random purchase I will admit. I frequent the site Handmade Guru and a small company called Flutterby Beauty was being showcased. I was looking at their site and I came across their perfume oils, and there are TONS of scents to choose from. One caught my eyes - Starry Night (Winter Limited Edition): "Crisp air with faint wood and a wisp of smoke from fires in the distance on a clear night." Now honestly, with a description like that, could you refuse? I couldn't. I love the smell of campfires, and that smell of winter in the air. When I got the bottle I was a tad disappointed, it didn't smell like campfires. But it does smell lovely. It smells more like baking during the holidays and a nice musky clove spice.

The nice thing about Flutterby Beauty is that they included a nice little fabric bag with a couple of samples inside. I received a little jar of Blood Orange Patchouli Moisturizing Body Cream (sooo good), and a little twist-stick of California Gold Solid Lotion Bar. What was cute about the solid lotion bar was that it reminded me a of a tiny deodorant stick. (Don't ask why I thought deodorant was cute)

Anyways, on with my nails!

My husband and I did a lot of house cleaning today and my mani was ruined. So I striped the chipped and pealing varnish of my nails and began looking through my nail polish collection. I was in the mood for something crazy because I am on a week long vacation off work. First I chose my colours: Claire's - "Red Carpet", Wet n Wild Wild Shine - "Wild Orchid", OPI - "Absolutely Alice" from the Alice in Wonderland collection.

I was just going to alternate the colours from nail to nail, but my husband wanted me to try striping my nails with all three colours. I was apprehensive at first, I have never tried free-handing any art on my nails. Yeah, I'm pretty boring. ;) But despite my apprehension I decided "what the hel" and gave it a whirl. Here is how it turned out:

L'Oreal, Revlon, Wet n Wild

Got some new polishes the other day!

Wet n Wild Wild Shine - "Wild Orchid"

L'Oreal Resist & Shine Titanium - #734

Revlon Glimmer Gloss - Banana Blaze

So far I've only tried the L'Oreal #734

It is a very dark polish with a copper/red luminescence to it. These photos were taken indoors and the colour isn't true to life. In most lights it looks almost black with the coppery red shining in the middle. I think I will try and take some natural light photos tomorrow when the sun is out.

The formula was fairly thick compared to most polish, so it was a little difficult to manage. A bonus with it being thick was that it went on almost completey opaque with one coat, but I used two coats for good measure. One thing I did not like about it was the brush. It was very flat on the end so it was difficult to not smear it on my cuticles on my pinky finger. I'm sure with some practice I could apply it just fine.

Overall the polish looks wonderful, and unlike with most thick polishes it didn't bubble.

The Manicured Manatee Contest

Today I found another contest on Manicured Manatee's Blog.
After reading the hilarious story that sounded ALL TOO FAMILIAR... she posted a contest at the end with a cool prize! So go read the posting, enter, and enjoy!

I love her blog's name! It reminds me of my favourite sea creature, the narwhal. I actually posted my avatar on many sites as a narwhal. Hehehe!

Email Response

The other day I was cruising my favourite nail polish blogs and I saw a post by Brooke at Getcha Nails Did with swatches of the new Diamond Cosmetics nail varnishes. I went to the site to browse the polish and I noticed the "Sorry we can not ship internationally on orders less than $250.00" in tiny font. *crai*

So I emailed customer service about it, maybe Canada is an acception! (*grin* riiiiight)
I received an email response the very next day, and that is rare for most companies.

"Hi Skulda,
It is true that we do not ship any orders of less than $250.00 internationally. This is because nail polish is classified as a "Dangerous Good." There is a $50.00 Dangerous Goods fee per parcel in addition to international shipping fees.

We do have a distributor in Canada. Below is her contact information. If you have any questions please let me know.
Studio Cosmetics
Attn: Karen Bray1949 Normandeau Rd.
St. Lazare, Quebec J7T 2E6
Canada
450-424-8615
Karen(at)studio-cosmetics.com

Thank you,
Marissa Antinelli
Diamond Cosmetics, Inc."

I was very happy with the response. It made me wonder why so many US polish companies do not have this "Dangerous Goods" charge. I'm not questioning the charge, it makes perfect sense. *sigh* I did order some polish from California last week, I sure hope it arrives ok. Maybe there are some acceptions to the rule. *crosses her fingers and prays to the nail polish Gods* ;)

Rescue Beauty Lounge

I have seen a lot of nail blogs cover Rescue Beauty Lounge, so I went and took a peek. I literally squealed with glee when I saw the following colours: Bikini Bottom, Square Pants , Starfish-Patrick. I probably would have thrown those in my cart imediately but when I noticed the $18 USD price tag my heart sank. Looks like I will have to wait until I have some extra cash before I order those.


UPDATE: I threw those colours into my shopping cart just to see how much it would cost to get those bad boys on my nails. The shipping for three polishes to Canada (international) was a massive $34.50. For shipping alone. Three nail polish bottles ended up costing more than $92 total. I left that shopping cart in cyberspace and ran for the hills.

I checked with an American friend and the shipping was less than $10. Huh?

There has to be an easier way for this Canuck to get that polish.

I love handmade products!

A wonderful site for showcasing handmade products is Handmade Guru. They sell boxes of wonderful homemade product samples for only the cost of shipping.

They have giveaways every once and a while and this is the current giveaway:
Simply Melt Away wickless soy candles in a scent of your choice.
Click here for link to the site!

New polish coming in the mail!

Well, it isn't new, but it's new to me! I decided to try a BB Couture polish so I ordered "Dragon's Breath".
I can't wait for it to arrive!

First Entry

Greetings to anyone who stumbles across my blog!

Since this is my first entry I will introduce myself.

I will be known as 'Skulda' to you, and who is Skulda? Well, she is a character I play on World of Warcraft. Yes. I am a nerd. Skulda is one of the 'Forsaken', the undead race of the Horde. All undead have what appear to be claws on their hands and toes.

So if you haven't figured it out already, I really like nail polish. I decided after pouring over so many nail polish blogs that maybe I would make one too. I do not have very much money so you will not see me post multitudes of swatches week after week, but I will post images here and there of my nails and the colours I apply to them. I will also mention that I am not a professional nail artist. I'm more of a noob who it trying to improve on my self-done manicures.

So! What brought me to posting today? I was browsing around the interwebs looking at nail blogs when I came across this article on alllacqueredup.com. I think I'd liked to get this whole collection. I'm normally not one for pastels, but I think these are adorable! What do you think?