In the spirit of Halloween

Normally I'd be lazy and post this up weeks (or months) after I took pictures of it, but since it goes along with Halloween (today), I was not lazy for once and decided I will post it right now. And surprisingly while I am still wearing this set of nails haha. The Christmas nails got ruined (I scratched off part of the polish on the thumb and dented another finger by accident)...and me being some what of a compulsive neat freak, I decided to take that off and do a new one. I was thinking of using other colours, and decided to go with black and pink, and then thought the colour went with Halloween, so I pulled out a Halloween konad plate and konaded the nails too. I was hoping more of the skull showed up...but I guess there's not enough black space for me to stamp on the whole image.

What was used:
black - Rimmel Wear 10 in Black Satin
pink - Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in I Pink I can
white - Winmax Nail Art in White (got it at Daiso)

for base coat I used 1 layer of Sally Hansen Maximum growth and 1 layer of Sally Hansen Age Correct No Chip Base + Top coat. For top coat I used Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat.

Konad - image plate m13

Left hand:



right hand:


I am not very good at picture taking with my left hand so I only took one photo. This nail took me a LOOONG while to do. What was particularly hard was the pink and white edge lines, I used a nail brush, but it was still really hard to keep it steady, and it sucks even more that I can't do it in one pass (for the pink lines). And this was also a bitch to dry, because it was a total of 5 coats on all the fingers except for the ring finger (that was 7 coats)I hope this one lasts a while, cuz I actually like the this one :) I love the colour combo.

That's it for today, Happy |Halloween everyone :) Until next time live well and shop LOTS!

A Splash of Grenadine

I know I know, I promise I would continue on with the mascara posts after this nail blog. I am just so excited by the colour that I must share with everyone (at lest the people that read my blog)

So after mauling over this Essie polish for months and months, my friend got sick of me telling her how pretty the colour is and how I cannot find a dub for it and told me to just buy it. At $9.50 a pop my wallet was bleeding after I purchased this (along with the $12 Matte about you top coat, also Essie). But I honestly could not find anything that's even remotely similar. I am not sure how to describe this colour, it's a mix of pink and purple, leaning maybe towards the pink more so than the purple. I am normally not attracted to pink, bright nail polishes, but for whatever reason this one just caught my eye, and I had to have it.

here I put the Matte about you top coat on the ring and pinky finger.


closer look. I like how the matte polish looks, this is my first try with matte polishes, it always intrigued me. I was contemplating if I should get the matte top coat or a matte colour polish (Nicole by OPI came out with a collection, I know OPI also has a suede collection, but I've never seen them). I ended up getting the top coat, because than I can turn all my polishes matte!


this is a blurry picture, but you can see the more obvious difference between the glossy fingers and the matte fingers (it was taken without flash and under yellow light, that's why the picture is so yellow)


and of course I had to do some konading. I've applied the matte top coat to all the fingers. This is the zebra print from plate m57


closer look. I was going for the not too obvious look, so I went with a light pink, that kind of shows up and kind of not. I was hoping the glossy-ness of the stamp polish would have more contrast than this, but I guess it didn't turn out half bad.

and yes there are 2 different pinks in there. The lighter one (index) is L'oreal's "Chicklette" and the darker one is Sally Hansen's "I Pink I Can"

And if you are wondering, yes my nail polish collection has grew unexpectedly, the container I store them in is running out of room...

That's it for now. I promise I will get the mascara posts up as soon as possible. School has started and the work load this semester is a bit heavier than I anticipated, plus one of the teachers doesn't like giving detail instruction, which forces me to guess what the hell she wants (which stresses me out even more). Anyways! Until next time, live well and shop LOTS!

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!