A pink Wednesday franken :)

Hello lacquered lovelies! Yay it's Wednesday :) I'm actually sort of feeling pink polish lately. It fits in with this weird neutral kick I've been finding myself on every couple of days. I KNOW. But it fits today because yayyyy homage to one of the most quotable films ever.

Quick post for today, just a franken I've been meaning to do for ages and never got around to it until now. I really wanted the Lippmann party set when it came out but I just couldn't justify it to myself when really, all I needed from the set was Happy Birthday and then I could just franken the rest for myself... I had a weird obsession with Candyshop so I decided to just try to make something similar. The base to Candyshop is more of a baby pink than the hot pink that I ended up choosing but lighter pinks give me corpse hands and not in a good way, so... I used about half a bottle of clear polish, just over a quarter of Essence Circus Confetti and a bit of Wet n' Wild Party of Five Glitters, then added some Wet n' Wild How I Met Your Magenta. I liked the subtle golden shimmer in it that it added to my jelly base. I wish more jellies had shimmer. I always franken my jellies with a shimmer haha.

It was fairly sheer... I ended up using four coats, but that problem would have been solved with more of HIMYM. I just wanted it to stay all squishy looking. I used topcoat in the pictures but only because I needed it to dry fast. And yes, the bottle is defying gravity again. I don't know why I'm not taking pictures my usual way lately, it's like I'm losing my mind LOL. Now I look at my pictures and think they look dreadful unless I rotate them because I've gotten so used to it.

I wore this to my (horrible and three freaking hours long) night lecture and got three compliments on it in the fifteen minutes before class started. The guy breathing like a pervert next to me felt the need to loudly proclaim that my nails looked like candy. And then he continued to breathe like a pervert and I tried to suppress the urge to punch him in the face. Ahh social delicacy.

That's it for today! What do you lovelies think? Are you wearing pink today? Have you frankened anything recently? I love frankening jellies with glitter because it's the easiest thing ever and is basically idiot-proof... perfect for me!

 Thanks for reading! Have a beautiful day!

OPI Red Dazzle

Hello lacquered lovelies! Happy Monday! I'm going to try posting four times a week instead of my usual six... hopefully it works? This one is for my mommalom, because I think she'd love this one. :) Sorry momma, it won't be in the group of polishes I have to give you when I see you next... sorry!

You know how sometimes you get weird lemmings for no apparent reason? Meet OPI Red Dazzle. I don't even know why. I don't even like red. But I happened across swatches of it one day and fell in love. You can't fight fate, non? And my love Jen obtained a few bottles of it at... oh I don't remember where, I don't remember the names of American stores unless we have them here lol. Sorry! But thank you, grandma Jen, I do love this polish! ;)

A note on the pictures... I didn't take any swatches of this one upside down like I normally do. I don't remember why. I think I just temporarily lost my mind. So I rotated them because I just like them better upside down... but yeah. Look at the bottle. It's like the polish is defying gravity. This was three coats.

I love the glitter in this. Can you see why?

Yes... gold and red glitter. I think that's why I wanted this polish... it reminds me of Gryffindor, even though it's the second to last least likely house I'd be put in (Hufflepuff is least likely, Ravenclaw is most likely, then Slytherin lol). It's hotness. I love how it looks on my ghostly hands too LOL. The contrast is almost alarming! ;)

What do you lovelies think? Have you worn any reds lately?

 Thanks for reading! Have a beautiful day!

Born Pretty plate m56 + Zoya Tao and Cynthia

Hello lacquered lovelies! Happy Friday! Any plans for the weekend? I finally have a day off tomorrow... I've been going non-stop with work and classes since we started and I'm exhausted. I'm going to read the three books I got for research for a paper and get some swatching done!

Today I have a review that is long overdue. I've been so wiped lately that managing to change my nails every two days is an accomplishment... from the girl who used to panic at the idea of wearing the same polish for longer than a day. I know. Weirdness. Anyway, after my last Born Pretty review I was given the chance to do another. Stamping is something you guys always say you'd like to see more of when I do little polls and my stamping posts get more comments (probably of people thinking LOL FAIL or something hahahaha) so I chose a stamping plate.

I love the Born Pretty plates because they're meant to be Konad dupes. I chose a plate that I've always wanted to order when I'm doing Konad orders and somehow never get around to it... but look.

From here

From here

The watermarks give it away, obviously, but... pretty darn close, right? If you follow me on twitter you might have seen that I did a manicure with the design in the top left corner... I thought it would be fun to do it black and white and... actually, I really hated it LOL. I decided to try another manicure with a different design and I ended up liking this one far more! It was unusually subtle for a stamping mani for me, usually I do crazy colours and animal print...

I started out with two coats of Zoya Tao, then stamped with Zoya Cynthia. Finished it off with Revlon QD topcoat but you can see I didn't wait long enough, I got a bit of smudging :(

You can visit the Born Pretty website to go shopping - my attention was recently caught by the nail foil stickers! Shipping is always free to anywhere in the world, so if you've been hesitating on buying Sally Hansen nail polish strips, maybe check out the BP ones. If Konad plates are too pricey for you, check out their awesome selection of plates. I love the Hello Kitty plate too! You can find the plate I used in today's post here. Links galore! Born Pretty is definitely worth checking out, though! If you've been wanting to try out nail art and are kind of put off by the prices, you can't beat BP :) And who doesn't appreciate free shipping?

 Thanks for reading! Have a beautiful day!

The product in this post was provided to me for review. For more information, see my disclosure tab above.

Pink Wednesday: Revlon Starry Pink

Hello lacquered lovelies! Happy Wednesday! You know what that means! Oh man it's been a long time since I participated in pink Wednesday. It's been lonely eating lunch in the bathroom... okay question about that. Do people actually do that? How unsanitary! I would just hide out in the library for the first few weeks whenever we moved!

So today I have Revlon Starry Pink for you. Like everything I've been showing lately, it came from Jen! There's a reason for that, though - I've been feeling so down lately that I keep using polishes that I've gotten from people I love because it cheers me up whenever I look at it. That makes sense, right? It's like wearing a sweater your parents got you or something. Or something indeed. I actually LOVE Starry Pink. It's gorgeous. I know Blue Mosaic will be my favourite once I actually wear it (there's green glitter in it so I'm sold right away) but SP could run a close second.

Also. I'm going to be saying this a lot lately, but I rotated these pictures because I took them "normally" and hated them and wished I had taken them upside down again. So the bottle is defying gravity. See what I mean? This was three coats and topcoat.

No, there is not black glitter in this. Depending on how you're looking at your nails it just LOOKS black. I spent ages examining it to make sure. Imagine if it did have black glitter? I would die of happiness. I should've tried layering black glitter over it.

That's it from me today! What dyou lovelies think? Have you been lucky enough to find any of these Revlon glitters? Thanks again, Jen! You're the best :)

 Thanks for reading! Have a beautiful day!

Zoya Yara

Hello lacquered lovelies! Happy Monday? GAH I am the worst blogger on the planet lately, I swear. My brain is all over the place and I just haven't been able to force myself to swatch and I've been wearing the same manicure since Saturday and the weather has sucked and I'm still failing at finding halogen lights that aren't yellow and excuses excuses excuses. I suppose it just comes down to not wanting to force myself to post. Or being lazy. Either or.

That being said, of course I've still been wearing nail polish. OF COURSE I HAVE. I'm slowly working through untrieds when I don't come home from work/class too tired to do anything but have a long bath and read about gulags. The life of a history major.

Anyway, here's a pretty I wore last week. Zoya Yara. You guys, words cannot accurately convey how glorious the formula on Yara is. It's flawless. It's perfect. I wish every polish ever had a formula like this. I read about what a kickass formula it had but I was kind of meh on whether I bought it lol. Everyone polishes differently, right? I tend to do thinner coats so I kind of thought "pfffffffffffft" when people said it could have been a one-coater. I was wrong. Even with my thin coat habit, the formula on Zara is a;dsghas;x. I can't obsess about it enough. I used two coats plus topcoat. Also, the colour is GORGEOUS. A lady at work told me it was kind of ugly but what does she know?

Just looking at these pictures makes me want to wear it again. If you love green you will not regret this one. It's gorgeous. I got this from my love Jen, thanks again giiiiiiirl <33333

What do you guys think? Are you slowly easing into your fall colours? Have you scooped up any polishes from this collection?

 Thanks for reading! Have a beautiful day!

Revlon Facets of Fuchsia

Hello lacquered lovelies! Happy Friday YAY! I'm sorry about my totally erratic posting this week... I feel like I'm so low on time and I'm kind of getting thrown into panic mode. It's only the second week of school but I realized I already have three papers and a journalism story coming up, plus a couple of midterms... it's crazy how fast life piles up sometimes, isn't it? Ah well! What are your plans for the weekend? :)

I also just wanted to say thank you for the reactions to my last post. I waffled on posting it for five days and decided to just do it so I'd stop agonizing over it. The comments, Facebook messages, emails, tweets, DMs, they've all meant so much to me and I really loved hearing how other people were feeling too. I hope in the future I can keep this kind of dialogue up with you guys - I try to be as open as I can be and I hope that you guys feel comfortable being the same way!

OKAY END MUSHY. So today's polish is Revlon Facets of Fuchsia. I got this beauty from my love Jen and it was the first of the Revlon glitters that my roommate said I should try lol. I was really lazy when I wore it and didn't want to use three or four coats, so I layered it over black. I used my trusty one-coater Wet n' Wild black, then two coats of FoF. I initially only used one but I liked the slightly "submerged" look that two gave.

Fun fact: notice that I don't often show polishes layered over black unless the layering is pretty opaque? I always like how dark colours look on me in person but on camera they do weird things to my skin colour. I'm sure you noticed. Just look at the pretty polish, right?

So that's it for today. I'm trying to get back into the swing of posting but I don't want to force myself. I know it might sound difficult to believe but posting every day like I have been for... god, five months now? never felt like a chore to me. I was always excited to sit down and write. Even now, I'm full of ideas and talking to you guys in my head... I just don't have enough time between work and school and homework. If I build my lightbox that will change, promise! Right now blogging is feeling a bit like a chore, at least on an every day schedule. I feel better now that I said my piece on the Nails editorial but it still really brought me down. I guess I've lost my mojo a bit. I'll finally have a full day off next week so maybe I'll try stamping or something to get it back!

Anyway, what do you guys think? Have you scooped any of these glitters up? Thank you once again to Jenalen for sending this to me <3333

 Thanks for reading! Have a beautiful day!

Nubar Peacock Feathers and assorted thoughts

Hello lacquered lovelies! *Coughs* Happy Wednesday... I know it hasn't really been that long but it feels like it's been a while since I last posted. This has actually been my longest break from posting, my last post was what, Friday? I've been meaning to post but I've felt so uninspired and emo... I'll explain why but I'll just get to the part you're all here for, the polish! I'll explain the emo stuff at the end but of course, feel free to skip over it. I just need to get it out but it's certainly not something I expect you all to sit and read.

So last week in the mail I got a package from my beautiful love Diana. All the way from Australia! Thank you so much! I loveeeeeeee you and your gorgeous self and MM looks awesome on you so YOU CANNOT DISCARD IT BECAUSE IT'S SEXY. Along with some cute frankens and some BYS polishes (my firsts!), this polish was included. I've been lemming it FOREVER and I think Diana was insane to give it away... but I'm happy that she gave it to me! She also sent me yummy Aussie chocolates and that weird vegemite stuff, which I've been too afraid to try out because the only thing it says on the tube is that it's a yeast product. Uhhh wtf does that even mean. So yeah.

Nubar Peacock Feathers. You are so beautiful. I got lots of compliments on this one. I also confused a poor guy in one of my classes. He kept staring at my nails (I think because I was LOL) and then he finally just asked WHAT COLOUR IS IT THOUGH. Poor boys. They can't handle the multichromes. This was two coats, no topcoat.

I was pretty rough on my hands yesterday (when I took these pictures). After class I went out and was gone for hours, being rough on my nails like an idiot... so you can see, I didn't use topcoat and I should have. I apologize. But how sexy is this polish? It flashes blue, green and purple... so perfectly named. Also, if you can even remember my last post, you may notice that I filed my nails down. I have a mani to show you from my absence and after looking back on the pictures I HATED the length and decided to file them down.

 Thanks for reading! Have a beautiful day!

If you want to read why I vanished, I'm trying out an "after the jump" thing... hopefully it works. Again, no pressure to read it, I just need to get it off of my chest.

China Glaze HAUNTING collection!

HAUNTING BEAUTY AT YOUR FINGERTIPS

China Glaze Introduces a Daringly Dark Collection of Purely Pigmented Cremes and High Coverage Glitters for Halloween 2011

Los Angeles, CA – (July 2011): Halloween is all about over-the-top style and China Glaze has just what every girl and ghoul needs to complete their costume. Put the finishing touches on any look with the new China Glaze HAUNTING collection – a six-piece set of mysterious colors and effects perfect for All Hallows Eve, including a glow-in-the-dark top coat and a ‘crackling’ top coat for a cobweb effect.

China Glaze captures the spirits lurking in the dark in six sexy, sophisticated shades that are on trend, exciting and will be on every costume crafter’s “must have” list. Whether a look is dark and mysterious or bold and dramatic, China Glaze’s HAUNTING collection pulls together any ensemble and will undoubtedly make heads turn – just like China Glaze’s celebrity followers (Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Nicole Ritchie and Dita Von Teese, to name a few)! Colors in this collection include:

-          Haunting: Shadowy black with shimmering silver glitter

-          Crimson: Deep purple crème with a hint of blood red

-          Near Dark: Rich mossy green crème

-          It’s Alive: Vibrant green glitter

-          Ghoulish Glow: Glow-in-the-Dark top coat

-          Black Mesh: Crackle Glaze top coat for a cobweb-like crackle effect

The China Glaze HAUNTING collection will be available as open stock colors, 18 piece counter display, and as part of a special “buy 3, get 1 free” set featuring China Glaze Fast Forward Top Coat.

China Glaze is free of DBP, toluene and added formaldehyde.

China Glaze nail lacquers are available through salons and professional beauty supply stores nationwide. For more information, visit www.chinaglaze.com or follow China Glaze on twitter: http://twitter.com/ChinaGlaze

China Glaze is a division of American International Industries

About American International Industries

For nearly 40 years, AII has been the leading manufacturer and worldwide distributor of innovative, quality beauty and skin care products for men and women. Our product lines include Ardell, Andrea, Body Drench, Bye Bye Blemish, Checi, China Glaze, Clean + Easy, Clubman/Pinaud, Duo, European Secrets, EzFlow, Fright Night, Gena, GiGi, Gypsy Lash, IBD, Jeris-Lustray, No Tweeze/Micro Tweeze, ‘N Rage, Prolinc, RAW, Seche, SuperNail, Surgi-Care, Waterworks, Winning Nails, Woltra, Woody’s and Youthair. For more information visit our website: www.aiibeauty.com

What do you lovelies think? It's Alive must be mine. Pure hotness. And I love when they include FF in the sets - it's one of my favourite topcoats and I actually LOVE the way it smells! I can't wait to find this!

OPI Have You Seen My Limo?

Hello lacquered lovelies! Happy Friday yayyyy! Any plans for the weekend? I work every day starting tonight but hopefully that will only be this weekend and next weekend... not my brightest idea. It means I literally have no free day to study and catch up on reading, etc!

Today I have a lovely polish that was sent to me by my beautiful friend Amanda. She's so sweet, I love talking to her. :) I was talking on twitter about how much I wanted this polish because... I dunno, you'll see why in a second, it's my kind of colour LOL, and she sent it to me, along with a couple other pretties that I'll be using soon, hopefully! Thank you so much, sweetie, you're the best!

This is OPI Have You Seen My Limo? from the 2007 Holiday in Hollywood collection. It's this weird deep purple base with shimmer that flashes red and a minty green that makes it look almost duochromey. I know this is a weird picture but I thought this was the one that best represented all the aspects of the polish that my camera could capture. :) This was three coats.

That's all for today! I had a fun night talking with Diana, Liz and Jen for a while on MSN and my stomach still hurts from laughing over emotes haha. I hope you had a great week! :)

 Thanks for reading! Have a beautiful day!

My favourite way to wear OPI Absolutely Alice

Hello lacquered lovelies! Happy Thursday :) How has your week been? Classes started yesterday. I only have one class on Wednesdays and Fridays, so as I'm writing this I've only actually been to one of my five classes. It was a history class and it seems like it will be interesting, though it's material I've studied before and know a lot about because I'm a nerd lol. I have journalism and two more history classes tomorrow. My fifth class is a stupid night history class :( It wasn't a night class when I signed up for it but apparently something came up with the professor... night classes SUCK. A three hour lecture is ungodly no matter who the professor is. Anyway!

I also just wanted to mention that I added a FAQ section to my blog. I tried to hit the questions I get most often but I seem to be fairly evenly divided on getting questions about polish and about me as a, like, person. You can read it here if you want to. You can find out fascinating tidbits like where I'm from and what my favourite topcoat is. Also what camera I use, which is a question I've been getting a lot lately!

Today I have a post that might upset some people LOL. OPI Absolutely Alice is a gorgeous polish that is becoming more HTF (oh, how I long for the days when I got it for $8 including shipping on evilbay) and it's lovely on its own but sometimes I like to... spruce it up a bit. I wear AA more than MAAH, for some reason, probably because I can get AA pretty much entirely opaque in two coats but MAAH can take three or four depending on how crappy I'm polishing that day LOL. Here's one picture, I bet some of you will see what I do to it right away!

Yis. Black glitter. That's two coats of AA and one coat of NOPI Pitch Black Glimmer. No topcoat because I like my glitters gritty, you know this! :D

Again without topcoat. But complete with finger smudges all up on that bottle... my apologies!

Shade:

And since I know a lot of you are curious... this is what it looks like with topcoat.

I don't say this often, but I think it's actually better with topcoat. I love the depth topcoat brings out!

So there we go! What do you guys think? Do you ever feel like polishes that have kind of become "classics" need a little update when you wear them sometimes? What's your favourite way to spice up an old favourite?

 Thanks for reading! Have a beautiful day!

Cutest bottle ever. Fing'rs Blue Glitter

Hello lacquered lovelies! Happy hump day! I know that I should be wearing pink today but I just... not keen. Not feeling pink. I'm sorry! I have something awesome instead. Classes start today too, boo!

So in my exciting package from Jen, there was this ADORABLE nail polish. I know a bit about Fing'rs but I'm not sure how I didn't know that their polishes come in freaking cute bear shaped bottles? Is it all of them? I don't even know. This one is Blue Glitter. My love Diana told me that Blue Glitter is actually a SSN dupe. I passed this information onto Jen and she had no idea either LOL, so luck was with us? There's a thread on MUA about it too. I might have just spent about an hour looking at Starry Starry Night swatches and I must say that these are pretty freaking similar. I think the base of the Essie is darker and I'm not entirely sure how the glitter in it is but the Fing'rs dries pretty smooth and it's a squishy jelly and I love it. Less talk more pictures, yes? Three coats.

If you look at swatch pictures of SSN (here) they look veryyyy similar, especially if you look at how the glitter gets all up on there.

Don't you love when you have a dupe to something you really want and you didn't even realize it? I think a lot of lacquerheads kind of want SSN just because it's so HTF and rare. I'm kind of one of those LOL. But my desire for it is different in that it's not something I actively stalk all the time etc. It's more something I'd be stoked to get if the opportunity came up... for a reasonable price. OKAY.

What do you lovelies think? What are you lemming currently?

 Thanks for reading! Have a beautiful day!

NOTD: Maybelline Cool Couture

Hello lacquered lovelies! How was your weekend? To all my North American friends, how was your long weekend? I hope you had a lovely time with people you care about. :)

Before I get started today, I want to say sorry about my seriously erratic posting schedule right now. I have SO many swatches sitting on my computer but I haven't gone through and edited, watermarked etc. I've been lazy. Last week was really busy, one roommate moved out, the other came back on Saturday (YAYYYYYY <3), I was working quite a bit... it was just one of those weeks, you know? Classes start tomorrow but I'm one of those people that has an easier time planning things with a concrete schedule. Last week's schedule was not concrete lol. It was all over the place, coming in to cover a shift, that sort of thing. So I'm sorry and I promise to be back and all up in your readers with a vengeance!

Alright. Today I have something pretty unusual for me, actually. I'm posting on the polish I'm wearing as I type this. I don't know why I don't do this more often but I simply couldn't resign this one to the folder of death that is my unposted swatches right now. I got this from my Jen and it's not the first polish she sent me that I chose to wear, but it's the first I'm showing. I put this on, intending to swatch it, and liked it so much that I actually didn't want to take it off, so I said "bleh" to swatching and kept it on instead. I NEVER do that.

Maybelline Cool Couture is one of those new LE fall polishes. Maybelline displays are so hit and miss here that I was thrilled when Jen scooped a couple of them up for me! Cool Couture is a really dark grey (still obviously grey though, not black, thankfully) with this awesome teal shimmer. I'm in love. Gorgeous formula too, I probably could have gotten away with one generous coat but this is two. With topcoat! I KNOW.

I used a sunlight picture to show the shimmer, but the base isn't that light... more like this. This one's in the shade. "Normal" angle too. I like the other one better but that's just me!

There you go! What do you think? Have you scooped any of these little beauties up? What's your favourite fall polish right now?

 Thanks for reading! Have a beautiful day!

Something that made my week :)

Hello lacquered lovelies! Happy Saturday woooo! Do you have any plans? One of my favourite people ever is moving back in with me today and I'm thrilled. I've missed her like crazy!

I have a quick post today about something that made my week. You guys all know how much I love Jen. She's like my long lost sister. I think Jen, Liz and I are actually triplets. Except Liz is already a triplet and I'm a twin so... either way, I think it's legit. Anyway, I got a package from Jen this week that had me crying like a pansy when I cut it open. She's one of the sweetest, most generous people I've ever met, and her package was full of awesome things and weird things that only we understand. I was sitting on the floor in my living room crying and laughing and talking out loud haha. I was just having one of those weeks, feeling like I was kind of on the edge of a breakdown, as my poor parents witnessed, about what I'm doing with my life and why I'm even working toward this degree when I can't do anything with it lol. That problem hasn't changed but you know, I'll take it as it comes and I know my friends will be there for me, as Jen has been many times already. ENOUGH MUSHY MORE PICS KBYE

Okay SERIOUSLY. I think I've mentioned it on here before but I am the biggest sucker for cute packaging. It's pathetic. The instant I saw this I was like I'M GOING TO WEAR THE SHIT OUT OF THIS. And I did. I layered it because I wasn't sure how opaque it would be but it was gorgeous. Lots of compliments on it and looking at it reminded me of my Jen! :D

The erasers and the Las Vegas spoon make my life. There was also a love letter (obviously) but THAT'S PRIVATE. ;)

ETA: I have no idea what that weird raccoon/lemur thing is. I honestly have no idea. But it's got crazy eyes that go with Degen Jr.'s (yeahhhhhh I now have my own Degen... some day I will steal the real thing) and it makes me smile whenever I look at its googly eyes lol.

So, I know I said it a million times, but thank you so much, Jen. If I quit blogging tomorrow I'd be okay because of the great friends, like you, that I've made. I also need someone to wear onesies and platform sneakers with so... <333333

 Thanks for reading! Have a beautiful day!

Nubar Raspberry Truffle

Hello lacquered lovelies! Sorry about the irregular posting this week - I've had a kind of crazy few days. Lots of work, lots of prep to get ready for my roomie to move in, etc. I'm still not feeling great either and the weather has been bad. One of those weeks! On the bright side, I want to show you a package I got this week that really made my day... I'll do it tomorrow!

Today I have a quick post. I'm all over the place with my polish tastes lately. I'll be feeling a fall vampy one day and a neon glitterfest the next. This is one from one of my vampy days, Nubar Raspberry Truffle. Two easy coats. I got this one in a blogsale, it was a spur-of-the-moment decision but I'm glad I grabbed it!

Yum! That's it from me today. What kinds of colours have you been rocking lately? Are you wearing teal today?

 Thanks for reading! Have a beautiful day!