Orly - Sweet Collection [Picture Heavy]

Hello everyone!  I hope everyone had a great weekend.  It was the perfect weather to try out these babies, the Sweet Collection by Orly.  It was released in April of 2010 but was sent to me to review recently.  As always my opinions are my own.

Lemonade - pastel yellow creme.  3 coats.

Lollipop - Light purple creme.  3 coats.

Cotton Candy - Pink creme.  It looks to me like there is a slight orange tone to it, but not enough to be noticeable.  I used 3 coats.

Pixy Stix - Medium pink creme.  This one had some orange tone to it too.  I'd say it was just shy of a coral.  It reminded me of the pink a flamingo can get with plenty of shrimp in it's diet.  But I'm weird.  2 coats.

Gumdrop - Light turquoise creme.  It had enough blue in it to not be a mint green, but it was close.  Great application, 2 perfect coats.

Snowcone - Light blue creme.  Orly describes it as a baby blue, but I feel like it is richer that a baby blue.  2 coats.

My favourites in this collection were Pixy Stix, Gumdrop, and Snowcone.  They weren't your typical pastel colours that we have all seen a million times and they applied wonderfully.  The others were your staple pastels and had some minor streaks that were remedied by applying the polish with the brush as parallel to the nail as possible.

The free lip gloss that came with each bottle.

Lemonade, Lollipop, Cotton Candy, Pixy Stix, Gumdrop, and Snowcone.

The lip gloss had the fuzzy brush that reminds me of a pussy willow.

RIP little fly that got stuck in my polish outside.  A rare casualty of swatching outdoors.  I tried to save it, but I won't go into details about it... :(

[These polishes were sent to me by the PR company to review.]

Miss Sporty - 60

Today I will be showing you Miss Sporty #60.

The lovely Anček and Kvacka from Rainbows and Blues sent me this beauty along with quite a few others from Slovenia.  I'll show the entire bundle soon!

Natural Light

Flash

Direct Sun. (clicky for close-up)

LOOK AT THE CUTE BOTTLE!!

I'm still wearing this polish.  It's a beautiful blue-turquoise with a green shimmer.  It even had a wide brush in the little bottle for better application. *glee*  It was a little sheer but 4 thin coats later it's magic.  So worth it!  I love this polish and the cute little gumball bottle is comes in!

Now for a little whine session.

I trimmed my nails down (as you can see) because my index and thumb nails tend to warp when they get longer.  I'm not sure why, maybe I clench my fists in my sleep and it shapes them weird... but anyways.  I trimmed and filed them down.  It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't do such a poor job on my right hand.  I cut my index finger and thumb too short.  :(   Guess I'm all whiny because I loved the length I had going for me and now it will take longer to grow my nails out because of my blunder.  I wish I was ambidextrous.

 

world's smallest violin

I think I'm going to put silk wraps on my problem fingers to see if that reinforcement prevents them from warping.  Anyone have trouble with this?

China Glaze - Atlantis

Hey everyone!

This is the manicure I wore on Mister and Misses Skulda had their first wedding anniversary!

We were married June 26th, Frigga's Day 2009.

Atlantis was a lemming of mine for a while and I finally broke down and bought it last month.

Natural Light

Even in natural light is it so full of win!

Direct Sun

Pardon the "lobster hand" and slight blurriness, but look at the chunky holo glitter!!

Bottle Butt!

Ahhhh... more blingy goodness.  Sooooo worth the money.

The hubby and I went out for delicious sushi and I tried hot sake for the first time.  Yeow!  It's good stuff!  When we got married I wore China Glaze DV8 on my toes.  I wore the same pedi with Atlanis for our anniversary and they matched pretty good.  My Mom bought the DV8 never hearing of China Glaze before to match my wedding dress.  I had never heard of China Glaze either, it it remained my first China Glaze for a long time until I finally came across all you lovely bloggers.

Random Awesome song:

I love Agalloch.  They are easily one of my favourite bands.
The name of the song is kind of related to the polish.  ;P

First Spa Boutique Haul

This is my first haul from SpaBoutique.ca, a Canadian nail polish distributor that sells some difficult-for-Canadians-to-find polishes. It's the "Canadian Head to Toe Beauty Store". *hehe*  Free shipping (in Canada) over $75 and they include free samples with every order.

Seche Base (ridge filler), Seche Restore (BEHIND), SpaRitual - Flashback, SpaRitual - Optical Illusion

Orly - Goth, China Glaze - Atlantis, China Glaze - Emerald Sparkle, China Glaze - Meteor Shower

Mmmmm Sparkly!

ICING - Dark & Stormy and Nfu-Oh 52 - 100 Followers

All fingers are painted with Icing's Dark & Stormy 3 coats and my ring fingers have 2 coats D&S and two coats of Nfu-Oh 52. Please forgive the wear 'n' tear and... lack of cuticle moisturizing.  This mani was 3 days old.

Natural Light

Flash

My attempt at showing the Nfu-Oh 52 on my ring finger.  Matches well, don't you think?

P.S.  I now have 100 followers.  I never thought I could ever have that many.  Due to financial strain my first giveaway will have to wait a bit longer as I have several wonderful ladies to complete swaps with.  I'm trying to be as thoughtful with my lack of funds as possible.

Thank you for reading.  <3

BB Couture - Impact Driver [Picture Heavy]

A few weeks ago I won a little giveaway from Kim at Overall Beauty's Facebook page.  She wanted to give away a bottle of Impact Driver and I was more than happy to be the fastest commenter.  ^.^

I finally tried it on today and I must say that this was the exact polish I needed on my fingers.  I've been craving a colour like this for a few days now and it only just occurred to me that I had it in my stash.

Flash & Natural Light

Sun Set

Look at the light pink sheen in the bottle!!!

I'm just fawning over it now...

Shade

Bottom Shot!

I can't tell you guys how much I needed this polish right now.  I've been a little depressed all week- not sure if it was the weather or what.  I had one some sort of false 'happy' colours that just weren't working for me.  I can't wear something that doesn't suit my mood.  When I put this on not only did I think 'well it's kind of drab like me' but as it was gliding across my nail it started making me happy.  This polish was a dream to apply.  If I wasn't such a thin coater it would have been flawless in two coats.  I did three for good measure.

It's a grey- blue with glass fleck and a very subtle pink shimmer.  (don't worry guys, it's virtually invisible on the nail)

No base coat.  No top coat.  Thats right girls, I'm going (mostly) naked with this polish.  BB Couture boosts a 4 in 1 (base, colour, strengthener, topcoat) a in one and I'm using it to it's full advantage.  It dried to a lovely stain sheen (between matte and gloss) but if I ever get a matte TC I want to try it on this too.

So ladies... the above polish is why I haven't shown you Who the Shrek Are You? yet.

Na-na-na-na-naaaaa-na!

Get your bottle here!

OPI - Ogre the Top Blue

 

Flash

 

Natural Light

Bottom Shot

I'm sorry, ladies.  I had trouble capturing this colour.  It's actually slightly darker than it is showing here.  In fact... indoors in some lights it even looks like a medium teal.  This blue looks more light blue and it's actually closer to a medium blue.  

It's application was fine.  Three coats and no problems.

Again, my apologies for not being able to capture it properly.

Milani - Cyberspace (Holographic)

 

Flash

Natural Light

 

Sun

Closer

(I hope the pictures expand!)

OPI - What's With the Cattitude?

 Good morning ladies!

 Above: With Flash

Below: Natural Light

 

 

Bottom shot!

I have good and bad things to say  about this polish.

Application was a PITA. It took 4 coats and epic cure time under Seche Vite.  If it wasn't for the protective coat of Seche Vite I would have dents and sheet marks in this beauty.

Now for the GOOD.

This polish wear was amazing.  By morning it was solid. 4 mornings later... NO TIP WEAR... no chips... no cracks... perfect like the first day I wore it.

Now as someone who has not really owned a real pastel other than Banana Bandanna *cough* I'm totally happy I bought these.

Tomorrow I will be snapping pics of the Paper Chasing that will (hopefully) be traveling the world thanks to the genius idea by Annie of NAILSTAH!

Easter Mani Fails [Picture Heavy]

Ok, this isn't going to be a pretty posting. Not fishing for complements, I guess I'm looking for some advice. I attempted my first water marble mani tonight and it was all going great until I put on my topcoat. What I thought were just water droplets on the tops of my nails were actually little tiny bubbles under my marble. When I applied my Seche Vite the bubbles popped exposing the undercoat and basically ruining what I thought was a great first try, and an okay Easter mani. (I don't have many pastels)


You can kind of see the little holes in the colouring exposing a pale undercoat.
I used "Sheer" Your Toys by OPI as my undercoat since I don't have a good white base. I used OPI's Plugged-In Plum, Suzi Says Feng Shui, and Jade is the New Black as my marbling colours.

Close-ups of the bubbling on my thumbs.

(NOTE: The bubbles were not in the water before I dipped my fingers in. I was watching out for that. These bubbles happened after the marble pattern was already on my nail.)

So I stripped it all off and thought. "Hey, I'll use those Milani Holos I won from Euridice's giveaway and just skittle them." Well, it turned out better in my head.

It doesn't look terrible, but I just wasn't that into it. Maybe the colour order was off... I don't know. Maybe I was just too disappointed in my water marble. So I stripped it all off and I'm going naked tomorrow. *big sigh*

Any tips on the water marbling would be awesome. Has anyone had trouble marbling? Any colours you enjoy marbling or doing skittles with?

And yes... I'm still doing polish reviews this weekend. u.u

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Blue It

So this is the mani I did for my little brother's 25th birthday on Sunday. But he ended up getting too drunk the night before and he cancelled the dinner. *sigh*



I think the only thing I liked about this polish was the colour. It was thick, the brush was uneven and skinny, it actually flooded my cuticles on my right hand which shocked me because the formula was so gloppy. Maybe my hands were shaking. I don't have a clue why the camera was making my skin look red, maybe the contrast with blue and skin tone, I'm normally quite pale. You might even see some tipwear on the ends of my nails. Two hours after my mani I had tipwear. I wasn't even at work! Oh well. It was a -$3 polish so I guess I can't complain too much.

On a side note, I'm getting irritated with my new comment hosting thing. I got it so I could respond directly to comments, and people could see my response, but the coding seems to turn itself off all the time. If anyone has any suggestions that would rock. If my comments aren't working ($%$^@$^!!) send me an email.

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.