Three Manicures

Oh hey guys! Sorry for my lack of updating.. I've been super busy too lazy to bring down my cable to transfer stuff, LOL... I'm lazy...

Anyways, I've built up three swatches because of that (I've also got some new nail art and make up to show/review, sooo yeah!) and I figured I should probably post them all since I kinda disappeared - I suppose. All in all, what I've got to show you is Strawberry Fields, Watermelon Rind, and Sex In The City from China Glaze, Party Of Five Glitter from Wet 'N' Wild, and a reappearance by Groupie from L.A. Girl.

 [This post is picture heavy! Be warned!] 

First off, I want to say I didn't haul these or buy these all at the same time. I feel like I'm dying a bit more when I do that. I like to spread out my buying ;D Also, excuse the dry cuticles.

This is Strawberry Fields from China Glaze.

 

 I used to totally be against most.. well, girly shades of pink - but I've always been captivated by the swatch wheel of this at my local Sally's Beauty Supply. Unfortunately, nearly everytime I look for this, it's gone, and some incredibly obnoxious fuchsia is sitting there. I got lucky, and was searching behind other pinks and boom! Found it!
Anyyyyways, this polish applied awesome! I only used two coats, but my smile line might've been more hidden if I had gone with another coat. It's a pink with shimmery gold flecks in it that I was so in love with. I wouldn't wear this all the time, but LOVE LOVE LOVE.

Next is a glitter accent mani, featuring Sex In The City from China Glaze, and Party Of Five Glitter from Wet 'N' Wild.

 Awesome! I love blues and I have this bad obsession with those tropical looking teal colours (I have so many). This reminded me of those, but it was definitely more blue than green. I added the glitter because I wanted to make use of my glitter polishes, LOL. I hate removal (even with foil) so I usually only do accents.

SITC was only two coats, by the way. Even more awesome!

Lastly, this is the manicure I still have on. This is Watermelon Rind from China Glaze, and Groupie from L.A. Girl (which you might not know, is my all time favorite purple. Yeah. That's right)

This one was inspired by Donatello the turtle (and the boyfriend who picked green). Honestly? I wasn't 'wowed' by this polish. It looks kickass in the bottle, but I was.. eh. Not too impressed :/ If it weren't for my accent purple nails, this polish would've been off in two days. Application took three coats for opacity.

Anyways, hope you enjoyed those manicures ^_^ I have some more posts, and now that I've actually gotten a bunch of photos on my computer, they'll be up within the week (maybe. I'm so lazy)

-Melanie

GOSH: Blue Monday

Summeeerrr, wooooooo!

... Just had to get that out of my system :)

Now! Here's Blue Monday from a European brand called GOSH.

GOSH is sold in Shopper's Drug Mart across Canada. As far as I know, that's the only place to get it here.

Blue Monday is actually lighter than this - and in the bottle it had these really pretty purple fleckies. Unfortunately, when the polish dries the purple kinda disappears. So, that really sucked. Anyways, figured it would be good with some stamping, so I stamped using Nicole by OPI's Positive  and Bundle Monster plate -212.

Okay, that's all :) Till next time!

-Melanie

China Glaze: Sexy Silhouette

Today I have a very awesome hot pink from China Glaze. This one is called Sexy Silhouette, and I bought it around the same time I bought Blue Iguana and Watermelon Rind (both of which are China Glazes).

Unfortunately, my Nikon Coolpix L110 camera could not correctly capture the sexy hot pink-ness that is Sexy Silhouette, but here is a 'close' attempt.

 Definitely over-exposed. Sadly, my the camera on my Nexus S phone has more accurate colours and proper exposure. It sports only 5 megapixels, yet my Nikon has 12 megapixels.

Um, what?

But I'm off-topic. If you look below, you will see a very accurate photo of Sexy Silhouette. It's so pretty! I love how bright it is - I've been looking for a really nice hot pink, and this is definitely my favorite. This says a lot, since I don't really like pink, anyways.

All in all, Sexy Silhouette is definitely that - sexy. It applies smoothly (add white underneath for extra umph!) and removes great (no staining! yay!), but it's definitely not for your mom! (Or at least, my mom. But then again, she only wears washed out pastel pink, ugh)

Till next time!

-Melanie

Sally Hansen HD: Spectrum over Icing's Black Magic

Hi guys! I have another from the Sally Hansen HD collection. This one is called Spectrum, and instead of putting it on my bare (with the exception of a topcoat) nail, I put it over a coat of black to really make it pop!

Here's a photo of it after 9 DAYS of wear.

Flash - sometime late at night...

I think chipping is okay after a week, honestly. I actually started hating the colour because I wore it for too long x) Anyways, this picture ^ is a small liar. It's much, muuuuuuch more teal than this.

Let's break it down.

Base coat + 1 coat of Black Magic + 2 coats of Spectrum + Seche Vite = 9 days.

Overall, wear was pretty good and the colour was fabulous. I'm not sure how it would hold up without the black underneath though...

I just bought some new China Glaze today, so I'll be swatching those soon. BUT next post will be Nicole By OPI's Loyalty To Royalty.

See you soon!

-Melanie

China Glaze : Jamaican Out

Hi guys ^^

This one is Jamaican Out from China Glaze. I bought it during the 'Buy two get one free' at Sally's Beauty Supply.

Okay, here we go!

 Jamaican Out is a super pretty orange-y/peach-y/kinda-tangerine-y colour. (I'm so terrible, LOL) Shown above was two coats with a top coat. So, two coats = very visible smile line in the shade. Perhaps three coats may have done the trick? But I was feeling sick and lazy at the time, so only two.

This photo was taken after around 4 days of wear without tips. Most of the visible tip was due to me accidently grinding my nails on the new glass grinder we got at school. It works really well - my nails found that out :/

Overall, it's a pretty color, but eh... I'm not really feelin' it.

Oh, by the way - Happy Star Wars day! May the 4th be with you.

-Melanie

Sally Hansen HD: DVD over Sinful Colours: Black On Black

Look at me! Posting two days in a row ^_^

It makes it easier for me to post more frequently if I write about other products I use (I paint my nails every week...)

Anyways, I tried Sally Hansen DVD from the HD collection before on it's own, and that was a disaster. Not opaque, took forever to dry, and it just drove me insane - but the colour WAS SO PRETTY.

So, thanks to seeing a post @ Beauty by Kayla Shevonne, I decided to layer it over black.

This is base coat + two coats of Sinful Color's Black On Black + one coat of Sally Hansen DVD + Seche Vite.

Picture time!

OOOH! LOOK HOW PRETTY IT IS! <3

And you see that gap? Cleaaaaan cuticles, baby! Awwe yeah, first time cleaning it like that - it was a pain in the butt, haha - and my nails look so tiny!

I also bought a bottle of Laser from the HD collection, so I'll have to try this out soon as well! :3

Byeee!

-Melanie

China Glaze: Atlantis & some Orange

I'm gonna rock up two mani's in this post, since I've been on a bad break (y'know, I've never been great with set dates for posting. I just kinda post when I"m not feeling too lazy... Plus it's the boyfriend's birthday soon, and I've been working hard on his present ^^)

Anyways, first up, I wore Candy Corn from Cover Girl. This polish is maybe two years(?) old,  so I don't know if it's still sold. Two coats of that, and I topped it with one coat of Orange Twinkle from The Face Shop.

 I have some weird tendency to get bored of manis pretty quick (this one, a day, no joke!) and to add some pizazz I threw on a coat of my Essie Matte About You topcoat, to give this plastic feel. I got tons of compliments, super awesome!

Next up, here's Atlantis from China Glaze. I heard this polish is back from a while away (as in discontinued), but my local Sally's Beauty Supply had a Treasures collection (no Anchors Away, boo hoo!) and there were some oldies there. This was the last Atlantis bottle, and right away I was like OH SO PRETTY!

Look at the holo sparkles! LOOK AT THEM!! Holo sparkles in a lovely more-green-than-blue teal gel! I'm constantly getting distracted by them when I do anything, it's absolutely ridiculous. This is two coats of Atlantis & two coats of Seche Vite to make it nice and smooth ^_^

Did you pick up any of the treasures?

-Melanie

Sally Hansen : Problem Child

I went to Walmart the other day, and like always - checked the nail polish section. There was a new display of Sally Hansen polishes from the Pro Manicure? line, and surprise, surprise! I managed to pick one up.

Now, I've never been a fan of how freakin' WIDE these brushes are. They're much too large for my nails and I always end up smudging it all over my cuticles (mmm, delicious).

Despite this, I couldn't resist this purple. Here's Problem Child by Sally Hansen.

(Note: this is after 3 days of use)

This polish is a deep, dark purple that looks smokey and quite vampy in the shade (or indoors, really), but when it catches the sunlight it's a rich purple and the peach-y, rust flakes really pop out. This ^ was only two coats + base + Seche Vite.

I'm thinking of a new top coat - any suggestions?

-Melanie

Two Swatches !

Sorry for my lack of posts this week - Valentine's Day certainly kept me busy (^_^) and I because of the tiles I work with in glass art, my nails get wrecked... pretty fast.

Anyways, here's two manicures I did for Valentine's day.

First off is a bright red from Rimmel London. This one is called 310 Red Carpet, and from what I've seen they don't make it anymore.

 As you can see above, I attempted to add some flair to this mani and added on a sticker. They were nifty, but I must've applied them too fast because it got all yucky after I applied my Seche Vite.

Note: these pictures were taken about three days after wear. No major chipping, and only two coats ^_^

Here's the second one I did, simpler this time. This is Claire's Mood Changing Polish in Calm/Wild. It's a really shimmery pink-when-warm/purple-when-cold polish. It does not change by mood, it changes based on your body temperature. It looks really cool with longer nails! Anyways, this polish USED to work for me. I always use three coats, but this time I got a maaaaaajor chip (I blame you, Seche Vite!) so I took it off pretty quickly.

Hope you had a great Valentine's day!

-Melanie

Fake Nails : Fireworks

I posted these over at my DeviantArt account a day or two ago - but I figured they belonged here as well!

Done with two coats of Icing - Dark Magic (matte), then a coat of China Glaze - Fairy Dust. To top it off, i made fireworks with white & pink polish with my nail pens.

What do you think? It was my first time really using the pens, and as super awesome as they are they tend to... Leak?  Even when not touching it, polish is still coming out of the needle. Very tricky to work with.

I haven't decided what I'm doing with these bad boys yet, for now they're sitting on some foam in my room, haha.

Do you paint fake nails? Do you use them?

-Melanie

China Glaze : Frostbite

Semester one is OVER! No more gym for me! Haha, such a great thing - over the semester I broke three nails halfway down the nail bed, salvaged them with nail glue, but my middle finger-nail kept breaking, grrr. I ended up chopping them all down *cries* and making them the same length. These things are like nubs, it makes me really sad, I want my nails back!

To make up for my little nubs, I painted my nails with a truly BAM! RIGHT IN YOUR FACE blue. It's called Frostbite, from China Glaze.

 Two coats for even coverage, but three coats to make it super awesome!

Like always, I topped it off with Seche Vite to make it super glossy. I've had this manicure on for 4 days now, and there hasn't been any chipping (but 5 coats of polish does that!), but there's been natural tip wear. I've gotten tons of compliments on it, too. I'm definitely in love, love, LOVE with this polish.

Revlon + NYC + Seche Vite

I decided I needed to finally use my Galaxy topcoat from Revlon, and figured it would look best over a dark blue.

So. here's two coats of NYC 115 : Skin Tight Denim Creme with two coats of Galaxy by Revlon, underneath one coat of Seche Vite.

 ^ Excuse the cuticle drag ^

Galaxy is a super awesome (discontinued, I think?) topcoat from Revlon. It's got holographic hexagonal glitter (though it's a bit tough getting those out evenly) and rainbow glitter. My NYC is like three years old, but it was surprisingly not thick and goopy but rather... runny. Still applied nicely though.

So far , only my thumb has chipped badly (and that's really my fault since I was picking at tape...) Otherwise, 6 coats of polish later (Base + Colour x2 + Top x2 + SV) and boom! I've had this manicure for practically a week!

-Melanie.

China Glaze : Vertical Rush

Hey ! I haven't had time to post since I've been swamped with studying for my math provincial & my socials exam (which I still haven't had yet! Eek!)

Before the major cramming started, I went to Sally's Beauty Supply and purchased 3 China Glaze polishes: Ruby Pumps, Vertical Rush & Frostbite.
Today, I'm showing you China Glaze's Vertical Rush, which supposedly is from the Tis' The Season To Be Naughty And Nice Christmas collection. Actually, the girls put it on the display for that, but that was wrong... It's actually from the Ski collection.

Sorry for how completely *inaccurate* these photos are. Actually, this is more of a red wine kinda colour. I really liked it, but it didn't really win me over.

  And not trying to sound obnoxious, BUT WHAT IS THAT CHIP ? ^ My polish has never really done this before - but then I started using Seche Vite... I could be wrong. Or maybe they reacted differently. Either way, I only kept this colour on for 4 days until it got that stupid chip and I switched it.
Sadly , this was the only polish from this collection I managed to pick up :/.

-Melanie.

Go Ahead, Meet Me Under The Mistletoe.

Alright, I was going to post up the nifty matte purple I was wearing from Icing by Claire's, but the pictures all turned out completely awful and I was unable to capture the colour correctly... boo!

Instead, from the 'Tis The Season collection here's Meet Me Under The Mistletoe by Orly.

Firstly, excuse the *ahem* bad clean up job & terrible looking cuticles.

Now! This polish took 3 coats to get fully opaque, and it was definitely the $4 I paid for it at London Drugs. It's a deep green that hints at being teal, full of glassy flecks. I love the way green nails look against my skin, so this colour has won me over.

-Melanie.

Ruby Pumps !

Oh hey there! Did you guys have a great New Years? Mine was alcohol-free as usual. I don't like the taste.

Anyways, here's something special ~ Ruby Pumps from China Glaze.

After seeing this so many times online, I decided I should pick myself up a bottle. So I went over to Sally's Beauty Supply while they were having a buy 2 get 1 free sale... and got myself this beautiful red (as well as one from the Christmas collection & Frostbite) ~ got a small discount too, since I have a SC.

I couldn't even capture how beautiful this red is. It was a whole lot darker and more stunning than in the picture. This is pretty much my go-to red, from now on. It took only three coats, and was only kind of rough because of the silver-y/red glitter. Removal was pretty good too.

-Melanie.

Double Sally Hansen.

Back from my vacation! It's been hectic the past couple days - but I got some excellent shots of the polishes I wore! First up is this lilac polish from Sally Hansen's Hard As Nails line, #35 Applause.

Normally I hate the colour lilac. Pastels in general, usually (I like my colours bright and vivid, thanks) - but this colour... I'm really likin' it so far. It's a lilac that kinda goes darker in not-so-great lighting, and pink sometimes.

This is actually a one-coater, but I always put two for good measure. So, including base coat & my new Seche Vite top coat, that's only 4 coats. Cool beans!

 Next is the one I wore on my entire trip to Las Vegas [no chipping, just tip wear - 5 day trip!] on top of my base and under my Seche Vite top coat. It's from Sally Hansen's Salon Manicure line, #340 Black Platinum.

 This polish was a three-coater, and I absolutely fell in love with it! It's not quite black so it doesn't offend my mom, and it's like a gun-metal type dark grey that felt really chic on my nails. It's like instead of vampy black nails, it's a chic metallic look. Love, love, love!

Hopefully this double swatching makes up for the lack of posts during my vacation ~

-Melanie.

Two fakes!

I feel bad for not posting here for while - it's all been rain, rain, rain... I haven't been pleased with any of the pictures of my nails :/.

In lieu of that sad occurrence, and to make up for the last couple days, here's some fakes I designed for a couple friends...

They're simple (and the bottom one is a wee bit uneven... damn shaky hands) and practical. Seeing as we're all students, I didn't think 3D nail art would last very long.

The green is from Sinful Colours (I forgot which colour though) and it's a very, very deep green. I refuse to use it on my real nails, because that sucker needs more than 3 coats to be fully opaque.

The blue is from Wet & Wild and it's around a year old, haha. It's a beautiful frosty blue that I really adore. The white stripe was done with one of the Kiss nail art bottles I have, & the holo sparkly tips are with Twilight Nox: Disco Darling. So beautiful. It's really stunning in the sun.

Anyways, I leave on a quick trip to Vegas on Tuesday - that means sun! I'll see if I can get some pictures of the nails I'll have on (not sure what I'll use yet).

-Melanie.

Deathly Hallows NaiL

Sorry for my mini hiatus guys. I went to go see Harry Potter on the weekend (amazing!) and since I've been deemed Slytherin by many, many personality quizzes, I went as a Slytherin. For the event, I painted my nails with a beautiful frosty dark green from Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear called Emerald City.

[It's a lot darker in person (and in better lighting!)]

If you're a Harry Potter fan, you'll notice the nifty Deathly Hallows symbol I used my striper to paint on :]. Actually, this mani was kinda rushed - and this picture was taken after about a week! My goodness. No major chipping at the tips, they chipped more along the back of the nail bed where stuff would get caught in it ( I should have better clean ups...)

Here's the Slytherin scarf I wore (along with my Hufflepuff one). This picture is about a year old... before I discovered the magic of concealer, haha.

Did you guys see Harry Potter opening week? Did it meet to your standards? Did you cry (like me)?

-Melanie

Twilight Nox: Disco Darling

Today we miraculously had sun! Since I haven't changed my manicure yet, I managed to get a picture of Twilight's Nox Beauty in Disco Darling. It's a silver sparkly polish with holo glitters.

 (Click the picture to really see more holo-y goodness!)
Isn't she a stunner? It's sparkles are a whole lot more sparkly when it's really bright - but... Well, in my computer room it's not - and to be honest, I don't want to take pictures on my driveway, haha.

I should've used another coat to make it fully opaque, but it's pretty good right now. This is without topcoat (gasp!) so it's ...not rough enough to catch on pantyhose or leggings, but it's not exactly smooth.

I got mine for around $7.99 at London Drugs, but it's on sale over there for about $2.99.

-Melanie.

Twilight Nox: Debutante

Today I have from the... Slightly ashamed to say, Twilight Nox nail polish line. This one is called Debutante. Despite my concerns of it being sheer, this baby needed only two coats! Shabam!

Debutante's colour really reminds me of white champagne. It's kind of a metallic peach, but then in other lights it can look light pink and gold! I'm really diggin' this, even when it's very pale on my hands. I also happened to do that manicure type style where you paint the ring finger a different colour? Yeah, it's great for when you have those gritty glitters like I used, but it honestly... looks weird. It keeps me interested in my nails, but it's very strange. I used Twilight Nox's Disco Darling, but no pictures. The sun didn't really come out, and to be truthful, Disco Darling looks ugly in the shade. Ugh. Maybe pictures later?

I got this polish when it was on sale at London drugs for around $2.99!

-Melanie