Nail-mania

I don't know what it is, but ever since I immigrated to Canada I've had a fairly stubborn obsession about growing my nails. Perhaps it's because back in Taiwan, girls my age (I was 8) was not allowed to have even a hint of the white tip, or we get beaten with a stick (true story). So before my fall into the deep dark hole that is make-up, I first fell into the deep dark hole that is nail polish. Here are my current polish collection. I know it's not much compared to other people, but I've thrown away tons too (dried up). I am not a picky polish purchaser, I don't really believe in the more expensive it is, the better it is. It's nail polish, if it stays on I am happy. So I have quite a bit of cheap nail polishes, or polishes bought on sale. The more expensive brands such as OPI (it's expensive in Canada) and Essie are purchased because I could not find cheap dups.

case I place them in


all nail polishes pour out.


Polish sorted by brand/type

These are my base and top coats

I use to not believe in base coats or top coats until I started noticing my nails getting yellowy and changing the colour of the polish I apply. I tired many types of base colour but found the Sally Hansen Strength one works the best, because it does double duty (I also have fairly fragile nails). The Revlon's quick dry top coat is my favourite so far, because I hate waiting for polish to dry (as I've once typed in my status bar on facebook "waiting for nail polish to dry is gayness")

These are just random ones I got from the Japanese 2 dollar store (Daiso)

I believe they are all the same brand(?) the 2 creme colours (white and orange) I use as stamping polish. These have no names so I won't bother going into too much detail.

These are also from Daiso, but because the nails were worn out I don't know if they are the same brand


These are my OPIs

from left to right: Nicole by OPI in Show you care; Sephora by OPI in Metro Chic (I love this); and OPI Shrek collection in What's with the cattitude? (I am wearing right now)

NYX

left to right: Rosted; Carnation; Karnak
These are not my particular favorites, but Karnak was my first nude and Carnation was my first creme colour

NYC

left to right: Classic coral; Glitzy grape glitter
I had also bought a clear coat from NYX with these cuz they were so cheap (99cents) but the clear coat for whatever reason cracks after a day or two (you can see crack lines on the nail, it doesn't chip though) So I threw that out. The colour ones didn't seem to have the same problem.

Rimmel

left to right: Night before; black satin (stamping); Milk chocolate; Hot gossip (stamping); French rose (I also have princess pink, but it's not in the picture, a very similar colour to french rose)
Nail polish is probably the only thing I would buy from Rimmel. Their polish is quite good, the only bad side is that there are not much colour choices. All of these polishes are in the old packaging, I actually really like their new squared packaging.

Revlon

left to right: Strawberry sizzle; Grape shimmer; Minted
I've also started liking Revlon for polish a lot recently. The formula is pretty good (liquidy and doesn't dry too fast. I really like the pastels they have. Planning to get a few more (maybe)

L'oreal

left to right: Waters edge; Chicklette
L'oreal has pretty typical colours (mostly pinks) I bought the pink because I had been looking everywhere for that type of pink. The green I got because I thought it'd be a dup for an Essie that I like, but it's actually slightly greyish then what I had wanted, nonetheless a very pretty colour. I am not too fond of the formula for L'oreal, it becomes goopy farily quickly (compared to Revlon), and that just make application much harder.

Random brands

left to right: Essie in Lilacism (I think I ripped off the lable); Wet and Wild in Sparked; Cover Girl in Candy corn; LA colour Art deco (no colour name, used for stamping)
Essie I got at winners for $6.50 I couldn't believe my luck, but unfortunately the collection was very small and mostly opened and used by other people, so I only got one. The other ones I just got for the colour

Sally Hansen

left to right: Insta-Dri in Brisk blue; Insta-Dri in Mint sprint; Xtreme wear in Rockstar pink; Complete Salon in I pink I can (cute name); Complete Salon in Grass Slipper; Advanced hard as nails in Daybreak (came with polish remover); Hard as nails in Tutu mocha moka; Hard as nails in Take a bow; Hard as nails in Silver bells.
It's pretty evident that I have the most Sally Hansen polish, it's simply because the formula is not terrible (I actually really like the Complete salon ones and Insta-Dri ones) and the price is very acceptable (nothing over 10 dollars). The more expensive ones such as the Complete salon ones I got during a 50% sale at Rexall, so they were under 5 dollars as well. The only thing I can complain about, is the Insta-Dri formula is so pigmented that the colour stays on the nail even after you remove it (although u only need one coat for this formula). I am also not a big fan of the big flat brush it comes with.

Anyways, enough about my polishes...Here are some wear pictures.

let's start with some swatch colours
Sally Hansen Complete Salon in I pink I can

this was SUPER bright, I took it off the next day cuz it was wayy too bright for my liking.

Sephora by OPI in Metro Chic

this was a bit darker then what I had expected, but I still like it a lot

NYX in Carnation and Rosted

The pale yellow on the index is the Carnation, the other fingers are Rosted ontop of Carnation. This was a bitch to dry, and I ruined it while sleeping, so I took it off in a couple of days as well

Sally Hansen Xtreme wear in Rockstar pink

I only applied to the tips to get a French mani look and drew on the flower to cover up a very poorly done job (I free handed lol)

now for some Konad nails. I have 7 image plates, and I like playing with them quite a bit.


French mani look again, I am not going to list out the colours I used, but before I did this I had the Cover Girl's Candy corn on and it left a nasty stain (very obvious on my index)
closer look at the konad


Another French tip look (can you tell I like this?) The tip colour is NYX in Carnation. This was done with a sponge

The purply stamp is the LA colours art deco and the red one is Rimmel's Hot gossip

French tip yet again (haha) tip colour is Sally Hansen's Complete salon in I pink I can (the pink) and Essie's Lilacism (the lavender colour)

stamped with Nicloe by OPI in Show you care

Moving away from the French tip look. Base colour is Essie's Lilacism, stamped with random white polish from Daiso and Rimmel's Black satin

a bank teller commented on my nails when I had this on. She wanted to know how I did it haha.
closer look at the konad

this was 5 days after I applied the colour so there's a bit of tip wear.

Base colour is Revlon's Minted, stamped with Sally Hansen's Complete salon in I pink I can

I thought this looked a lot like wall paper, so I had it on for 3 or 4 days and took it off (LOL)
closer look

The black dots are air bubbles, I am not sure how it came about...I think it's the Revlon quick dry top coat...but it's not obvious enough for me to care.

And this is what I have on my nails currently as I am typing this (really long) blog. Base colour is OPI's Shrek collection in What's with the cattitude, stamped with Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri in Brisk blue.

It took me FOREVER to get this picture, I had to turn off the flash or else it'd look like this

so in an effort to get the true blueness of the polish I took pictures after pictures (because I keep shaking my hand...and the image was just not very clear without flash). So I finally pulled out my tiny tripod and got the first picture you see. I think that's closer to what the naked eye sees, the colour in the picture with flash is just too bright.
closer look again

I simply adore this little Japanese girl image, she is sooo adorable!! This is my newest plate and my favourite one so far.

Well I hope someone actually read through my blog and found it interesting...If you did please leave me a comment (I always like to see that people appreciate my hard work). Until next time live well and shop LOTS!

Would you rather....

So today I was browsing youtube and my usual subscriptions and saw this video from xteeener, and the would you rather questions were quite interesting that I wanted to reply, but not do a video haha so I thought I'd blog about it instead...



1. would you rather go out with messy hair and nice make up or nice hair and no make up?
I would go with nice hair and no make up. I actually do sometimes get lazy and go out without make up, but hair is a must for me. A lot of times my bangs are able to hide my face so I don't have to feel naked haha

2. would you rather shave your eyebrows or have your lashes fall out?
I would cry if I have my eyebrows shaved...I think I would rather have my lashes fall out, just because that's a less noticeable thing


3. would you rather be force to shop at only MAC or Sephora for the rest of your life?
I love NARS and there's no NARS at MAC...I think that says it all

4. would you rather wear lip gloss lip liner look or 80's perm?
I actually don't know how to answer this question since I don't wear much lip products (haha) and I do have a perm (not a 80's one though)...I suppose if I have to pick it'd be the lip thing, again hair is too obviously ugly, and it's more permanent than the lip thing

5. would you rather leave the house with an obvious foundation line or over-done blush?
I think over done blush is wayyy better then the foundation thing, sometimes people do over-done blush as an affect.

6. would you rather wear MC hammer pants or biker shorts in public?
I think biker shorts...that's less vomit inducing then MC hammer pants (IMO)

7. would you rather have a bad orangey spray tan or a weird tan line you cannot cover?
I am ganna have to go with the tan line...cuz I already have weird tan lines that I can't cover (this is what happens when I get lazy with sunscreen)... I cannot stand orangey spray tan...and once again that would be wayyy more obvious

8. would you rather have a bad hair cut or bad hair colour?
Bad hair colour, then I can just colour it again. I had orange hair one point cuz my stylist grabbed the wrong formula, and gave me orange hair. I waited a week and coloured it burgundy red, my hair was still fine. Bad hair cuts are a no in my book

9. would you rather have youtube or tweeter taken away forever?
This is an easy question for me, tweeter I don't use it at all haha. Plus without youtube where am I going to find make up tutorials?

10. would you rather give up using make up brushes or mascara?
This is another no brainer for me. I would rather give up using brushes, I can as easily using my fingers or qutips, where as mascara is irreplaceable (plus I am a mascara whore haha)

well that's it...thought I'd share. This is a tag video/blog, but I don't like tagging and plus not many people read my blog XD so I won't bother with that.

Getting out of the house and into bumsville

I think this blog is becoming less of a beauty blog and more of a "look what I did/buy" blog haha. Mind you I haven't been buying much make up items lately (trying to save up some money!!) so been blogging less about make-up. What I have though, are an almost complete collection of pictures of my mascara, so hopefully I will be able to post that up soon.

On to the topic at hand. This past weekend I tagged along with my friend and went to the Powell Street Festival located in Oppenheimer Park. This is actually my first experience at a festival in Vancouver aside from the Chinatown Festival that I am required to go due to work (but don't really like it). The Powell Street Festival is basically a Japanese festival. I didn't really like the location, it's basically within the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, and full of bums (hence bumsville). I wasn't expecting anything grand from it, but I was pleasantly surprised! There were actually a lot of people there, and the food was not bad at all. There were only a few vendors, but there's a lot of hand made stuff. I love these crafty things, so it was very enjoyable for me.




and look! people actually rode bikes! It's great! This year they had a green theme so everything was "let's save the trees!" they had people standing at the garbage areas making sure people are separating the recycling from the trash. on their website they also note that the food and drinks they are selling on site are in either compostable or recyclable containers.




just look at that crowd, it's insane! Well not really, but definitely more than I had expected


and they set up a stage for people to perform, though I found it funny that a lot of the performances were done by white people. When we just arrived it was a Taiko drum performance, and there were a bunch of white ladies knocking on drums, it was quite odd.


they had a lot of these giant paper cranes tied on trees. Not the best looking cranes but you don't see them that giant!


naturally I drift towards the food area...yummmmm




Red bean pastry! I love these things! They were made right there and then, it was still really hot when it got on my hand. These were a bit on the pricey side @ $1.50 each, but I haven't had one that good since I was back in Taiwan.



Takoyaki!! SOOOO GOOODDD!!! as you can see I complete forgot to take a picture of it when I got it and immediately started eating. It wasn't until my friend reminded me that we needed to take a picture that I took this half eaten one. The batter was really yum, it was soft and melts in the mouth while being very flavorful, and there's a big chunk of octopus in every ball soo chewy!


I saw these girls sitting around and though I'd take a picture of them cuz they are all in their yutakas (I want one!)


here are some pictures of a random store!




these hand made cards are so cute and pretty! :)



these are paper sculptures! They are soo delicate, I would love to learn how to make these!



blown glass jewelry/accessories. I love the little bird key chain, but it was a bit pricey for my dinky salary (2 for $15) But I am kind of regretting not getting one, they are sooo cute



I think these are made from wool, they are just decorations, but so cute!



tiny kimonos for barbie! they are soo adorable! These are hand made too



just some t-shirts from the festival, the first one is kinda funny if you know Chinese LOL


another hand made booth, seems like all the stuff they sell are hand made.





they even have balloon fishing! I originally thought it was fishing fish, like in Taiwan, but was a bit disappointed when I found out it was just balloons.

Well! That's it for pictures. If I have someone to go with I might make this a stable :)

Until next time, live well and shop LOTS!!