NOTD: Lilac Pastelle Fauxnad

The base is Lilac Pastelle, yet another Revlon pastel I have trouble with. It takes at least four-five coats to be opaque. And it's much too pink to be called lilac. Anyway, I used China Glaze Hyper Haute to stamp. Even for those of you who hate the Tronicas, they are great for stamping. I used one of the floral images from Born Pretty's Hello Kitty image plate (M71). Lately, I've been obsessed with off-center fauxnads. So I placed two or three flowers randomly over each nail.

I also added tiny purple rhinestones on a few of the flowers. I found these rhinestones at the grocery store, of all places, but they're the perfect size.

St Patrick's Day: NOTD 3

I wanted to do a leprechaun for St Patrick's Day. This one definitely didn't turn out as well as I had pictured it in my mind. I like how his hat looks, and the beard seems okay, but it kinda goes downhill from there. Anyway, here it is:

I did the hat with these dots from Dollar Nail Art. I used Elf Innocent for his skin, a mix of SH Xtreme Wear in Sun Kissed and So Sexy Red for the beard, clothes are Xtreme Wear Emerald City, shoes are Xtreme Wear Black Out, and China Glaze Midnight Kiss for his belt. The background is Elf Mint Cream.

March Greens: Layering Lime Lights

Today's green is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Lime Lights. This is an iridescent pale green. My index finger shows three coats and it's still incredibly sheer, so this one is made for layering. 

Left to Right: 3 coats Lime Lights; LL over SH Xtreme Wear in Green With Envy, LL over China Glaze Jolly Holly, LL over SH Xtreme Wear in Black Out.

I love how this polish adds a little unexpected shimmer to lighter cremes and totally transforms black.

St Patrick's Day: NOTD 1

Here's the first in my series of St Patrick's Day nail art. I'm not sure how many I'll end up doing. It all depends on how many ideas I can come up with.

The green is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Emerald City and the gold is China Glaze Midnight Kiss. The heart rhinestones are from Born Pretty. The tiny balls I found at Dollarama, but the colour bleeds out of them. Born Pretty has similar balls, which I plan on reviewing soon.

Heart Rhinestones (Click image to go to Born Pretty Store)

March Greens: Zombie Zest

I want to share some green polishes leading up to St Patrick's Day. The first is China Glaze Zombie Zest from their 2010 Halloween collection. (It's only about four months late.) My sister found this on clearance a couple weeks ago, along with Ick-a-Body, and picked them up for me.

China Glaze Zombie Zest 3 Coats Indoor Light

My first thought when I saw this colour in the bottle was that it looks like slime. The base is a murky olive green, somewhat sheer but buildable. And it's packed with golden green shimmer. Definitely not my every day type of colour, but I absolutely love it for the one or two days I'll wear it each October. 

This went on smoothly and dried pretty quickly. The only downside was the major case of lobster hands it gave me. Zombie Zest is discontinued but still available on Amazon.com and some other etailers.

China Glaze Towel Boy Toy

This polish was on my lemming list for ages. I'm not really sure why I waited so long to buy it, but I just got this a few weeks ago in my Head2Toe Beauty order. From the Summer 2010 Poolside collection, this is China Glaze Towel Boy Toy. I used four coats for this, but you could probably cut back on that by starting with a white base. 

I am absolutely in love with this colour. It's a bright, shimmery blue. Since it's a neon, this one dried super fast to a matte finish.

I also tried this one with a top coat for a shiny finish. And it brings this colour completely over the top! Check it out after the jump.

Christmas NOTD 8: Snowflakes & Snowmen

I had a few requests to do either snowmen or snowflakes. So I have two versions to share--stamping and freehand.

First up, SH Pacific Blue as a base with SH Celeb City stamped on using m37 for the snowmen and BM14 for snowflakes. Then I sponged on SH Disco Ball. 

I also did freehand on my sister's nails. This is over China Glaze For Audrey. After painting on the designs with white polish, I used loose iridescent glitter. Clearly, I need to practice freehand nail art.

Christmas NOTD 7: Christmas Trees

 I decided to do Christmas tree nails, but rather than stamp or freehand the trees, today's nails are just inspired by Christmas trees. I used China Glaze Jolly Holly as the base and stamped on Color Club Worth the Risque using image plate BM11 for tinsel.

 

 And since Wendy suggested I do a glow-in-the-dark Christmas mani, I used Sally Hansen Glow in the Dark for the lights. I couldn't get a picture that showed the dots glowing but how cool is this bottle shot?

Last, I used clear polish to add rhinestone ornaments. It turned the silver holo a bit yellow, but I'm not sure if that's better or worse.

I completely forgot to take a photo of Jolly Holly alone until I was done my left hand but luckily I got a picture of my right hand (at a bad angle, sorry). I don't wear green nail polish very often but this colour is gorgeous. Dark green full of green shimmer with just a bit of golden shimmer as well. It's a perfect Christmas green.

Christmas NOTD 4: China Glaze GR8

I've been trying to use Christmas colours for my nails this month, but I just bought a bunch of holographic polishes that I want to try out. So, today's nails are a compromise of the two. Here's China Glaze GR8 from the OMG collection. Gold is a Christmas colour, right? The holo effect in these pictures is pretty subtle, but in bright light, this polish really comes to life.

Christmas NOTD 2: China Glaze Mistletoe Kisses

I know most of you have seen this colour a million times in the past few weeks, but it really is gorgeous so I had to show it here. As soon as I saw the China Glaze holiday collection, there were two colours that I knew I must have. The first was Mistletoe Kisses. It's silvery-green glitter in green base. I'm not usually a big green fan, but this is a perfect polish for Christmas. This is three coats (though I probably could have got away with two).

Photos after the jump.

NOTD: Shower Together

I started off with two coats of China Glaze Shower Together, then went through my blue/green polishes and with a dotting tool, added random dots. I used China Glaze Watermelon Rind and Dorothy Who?; OPI What's With the Cattitude?; Elf Mint Cream; Zoya Charla; Xtreme Wear Pacific Blue, Blue Me Away, Ivy League, and Green With Envy; and a Sally Girl polish without a name. Obviously any blue or green dots works as well.

Shower Together is a bit greener than this pic and slightly darker.

This is what a month's worth of nail polish hauling looks like (part one)

I knew I bought a fair amount of nail polishes each month.  But I didn't realize just how many I do buy. Normally, I buy a couple at a time and write about them right away. After waiting a month to combine all my mini-hauls into one post, though, there's no way to deny that it might just be too many. I know what you're thinking, I didn't think that was possible either. Judge for yourself. Here's what one month of hauling looks like:

 The photos aren't all color-accurate and some are a bit blurry but I'll do swatches and reviews on each separately. Now, where to begin? Maybe I should start by defending my purchases. Doesn't seem to be much of a point to that, though. If you're reading this, chances are you have a collection to rival mine or at the very least, you appreciate nail polish. So I won't exactly defend it. I'll just say that most of these polishes were on sale. And we all know a sale makes just about anything justified.

First up is one of my very favourite polishes ever (and that is saying quite a bit). From the Cosmic FX collection: Orly's Space Cadet. I know everyone has seen this polish a million times already on just about every blog out there. Well, there's a reason for that. It is absolutely amazing. Sometimes it looks purple, sometimes green, even gold. I only chose one polish from the Cosmic FX collection (possibly the hardest makeup decision I have ever made) but I think after going back and forth, I made the right choice.

Onto the rest of my Orlys now. Believe it or not, I only started buying from this brand in the past couple months. My sister started the love affair when she bought me Viridian Vinyl for my birthday. Since then, it has definitely become one of my favourite brands. Here is (left to right) Love Each Other, Prince Charming, Act Your Shoe Size, and Moonlit Madness.

Can you believe until a week ago I never owned an OPI? Sure, they have amazing colours and some of the names are adorable but they're expensive and there's only one store near me that has them. And even there the selection is limited. Anyway, they had the Burlesque collection and all the glitters were calling my name. So I allowed myself just one. A couple were similar to others I had, though far from exact dupes. Finally I settled on Extra-va-vaganza! because the orange glitter seemed perfect for fall and since it was a better deal if you bought two, I also picked up What's With the Cattitude?. First off, I didn't have any pale blue cremes but more importantly, I have such a crush on Puss in Boots. That first scene where Shrek meets him and Puss takes off his hat and looks up with those big, innocent cat eyes absolutely melts my heart. How cute is this?

But I don't really know what a pastel blue creme has to do with it. Does anyone know?

Another brand I've been getting into lately is China Glaze. (I've pretty much gone through the drugstore selection and am moving up in the world of nail polish, much to the chagrin of my wallet.) Here's Shower Together, Avalanche, and Watermelon Rind.

I've got quite a few more to share, so I'll break this up into a couple posts. For now, I'm going to watch Mad Men, then bed. Good night.

I'm Michelle and I have a problem...

I think I'm addicted to nail polish. There's just something about using a new colour for the first time. Or the feeling you get when you finally find something you've been searching for. More than once that has caused me to come home with a bag full of polishes when I go to the store for something unrelated. Well, today I actually went for nail polish, but not nearly as many as I ended up buying. After seeing the new Xtreme Wear limited edition colours, I couldn't stop thinking about them. I want to wait for a sale, so I only bought two for now. But while I was at Pharma Plus, I saw the new Sally Hansen HD display. And I had a tough time choosing just one. 

Left to right: Sally Hansen HD Laser, Xtreme Wear Concrete and Purple Gala, Hidden Treasure

Hidden Treasure! I don't think there's anyone left who isn't in love with this one. My sister found two bottles at Zellers a while ago so we each have one but when she spotted this today, I knew I'd regret not buying it. I'm trying to decide if I should save it as backup in case more lines don't realize how coveted flakies are right now. Or should I pass it on to someone still lemming it?

I also went into Sally Beauty for polish thinner and ended up buying a China Glaze. Fairy Dust (the name is perfect!) is a holographic glitter. I can't wait to try it over black, and any other colour.

And since I can't be near a Walmart without checking out their nail polish selection:

I picked up Wet n Wild Caribbean Frost, French White Creme, Blue Moon, and Tickled Pink. I originally had about twice as many in my basket but managed to narrow it down since I had near-dupes for the others. For $1.57, these wear pretty well and there's a decent selection of colours. I also got some Rimmel Recover foundation for five cents each (that's right, $0.05!). Between two of us, we cleared out the display. I love finding makeup on clearance and you just can't beat that price. The same foundation was on clearance for eight bucks at the drugstore.

NOTD: Dorothy Who?

China Glaze's Dorothy Who? Three coats. Top photo is with flash; bottom is without flash, artificial light. 

I love this nail polish. It's a bright, medium-dark blue jelly base with tons of silver and blue glitter. 

Part of me wants to wear this colour every day. But I know if I did, it would lose some of its specialness so I have to restrain myself.