Haul + Random Mani

Feeling lazy when it comes to blogging, but I intend to blog regularly from now on.

First up some polishes I bought from American Apparel.

I had a Teambuy coupon that I needed to use up before it expired so I went shopping with my friend a couple of Fridays ago and got two of the new metallic polishes and three creme polishes.  Skipped the glitter polishes even though I thought of buying them, but I already have similar glitters so I passed on them.

The two new metallic polishes are quite different from the others that were first released.  These ones are thinner and need about 3/4 coats for full opacity.  Not great for stamping like the others.  But these ones seem like duo chromes so I guess that makes up for the inability to use 'em for stamping.

My camera captures Violet Panache really really blue, it's actually purple most of the time.  At some angles and lighting it flashes blue.  But my Canon cameras only pick up the blue and I can't be bother to colour correct in a photo editor.  Smoke Dazzle has some pink in it which you can sort of see from the bottle picture.

Next, here's a mani I did with Violet Panache.

I think I did 4 coats of polish and then used a bunch of rhinestones, hexagons, bullion beads, and the circular mirrors.  Three different cameras used for the right hand side and all show the same blue colouring.  The blurry picture on the bottom left hand corner shows what the polish colour usually looks like.  I took it with a Sony camera that's really meant for videos and doesn't have a macro setting for photos.  Really quite nice and I like this better in real life than in pictures.

New Stuff

Bought some new polishes recently from Winners and I won a stamping plate from solongkitty.ca.

 

The Borghese Rapido polishes were in a pack of five and were on clearance so I picked it up since I had a gift card from Winners to use up.  Colours from left to right are Romanzo Pink, Felice Tangerine, Capriccio Blue, Incantato Purple and Fantastico Lime.  The polishes are alright, they don't dry much faster than others.  Plus three coats are needed for them to be opaque.

Here's a closer look at the stamping plate.

It is the Charming Nails Q1 plate.  Super awesome plate and first time I won a giveaway.

I did a Valentine's mani using the birds on the plate, didn't turn out so great, but I'll post it up tomorrow after I take some pics.

It Snowed!

It snowed today!  Light and fluffy snow.  But it didn't stay on the ground and melted all away in the afternoon.  Much better than the rain that we had yesterday.

 

Did this a couple of days ago, seems kind of wintry.  One coat  of Color Club Cold Metal, which was sort of unnecessary since the two coats of Color Club Jingle Jangle covered it up.  Stamped using Konad special polish in white using large plate B with an image that can be found on Konad plate M51.  Jingle Jangle is super sparkly but not noticeable in my pictures.  I really love the blue and purple glitters and I love the name Jingle Jangle too.  It's a bit like nonsense words that you might sing to yourself or something.

I bought Jingle Jangle in Color Club set along with another set from Winners last week.

Beyond the Mistletoe - Sultry Color for a Glittering Holiday and Backstage Pass - Glitter Shades to Rock the Stage.

And here's some others that I bought last week too.

A box of H&M mini polishes, three Gosh polishes - Black Passion, Blue Monday and Gasoline and some polishes from the aerie store - Pink Frost, Champagne Shimmer and Brownie Points.  Bought everything except for the Gosh polishes with a gift card and they were all on sale due to Black Friday sales happening on the Thursday before.  The Gosh polishes were also bought on sale last week but on a separate occasion when I had to stop by Shoppers Drug Mart to pick up something for my mom.

I am pretty sure I am set for a no buy in December, but I can't say I'll absolutely stick to it.  I'm already done my Christmas shopping and whenever I go grocery shopping I always stop by the Winners first.  And always to the polishes first too.  A habit I must break.  Early new year's resolution.

Polka Dot Pumps w/Flowers + AA Haul

I didn't take very many pictures of this, so the pics aren't very good.  After 15mins of taking pictures and they all just end up looking the same, I stop and say, good enough.

Two coats of China Glaze Ruby Pumps, used the polka dots on large plate B along with Konad Special Polish in White.  I added some floral water decals. The decals have little dots too and didn't realize it until after I had put them on my nail.  So that's where the white dots that sort of arch come from.

-----

On Saturday I went shopping and used my second American Apparel Teambuy coupon to buy some more polishes.  Though I think I should have saved it for later.  I was talking to the girls behind the register and they said that some glitter polishes were going to be arriving in stores soon.  They didn't know when exactly, but they said that the polishes looked pretty based on the pictures they had on their computer.  I  didn't see the pictures though as they couldn't swing the computer monitor around for me to see.  Oh well.  On to what I did buy.

Mostly neutrals and the metallic polishes.  Names are already in the picture but here goes:
Top - Make Up and Dance (this is actually quite sheer, wasn't expecting that and also a bit more pink in real life)
Middle - 7th and Alameda and Echo Park, I wasn't going to pick up Echo Park thinking it was close to Factory Grey, but completely different, they didn't have any Factory Grey on the display.
Bottom - Silver Jazz, Gold Flash and Bronze Dash, these were the polishes I wanted to pick up, very good stamping polishes, looks fantastic over black or other dark colours.

And here's a nail wheel swatch of the polishes, two coats each though really the metallic polishes were good with one.

New Polishes + Tiny Hex Glitters

I saw these at my local Winners, decided to pick them up since they were inexpensive.  There was another set with green, orange, purple and white polishes.  The bottles with the black bows are matte polishes while the blue is a creme and the deep red is shimmery.  They don't have individual names or numbers and they're supposed to be one coaters, but two coats is best.

And recently some nail art supplies that I bought off ebay arrived in the mail.  I bought these tiny hexagon glitters along with some larger nail gems and some gold/silver ball chains.  Wasn't really sure what I was gonna do with them, but decided upon an argyle design to use the glitters.

My hands are drrrryyyy.  Indoor heating makes my skin dry and itchy.  Anyway, I used the blue polish from above along with some acrylic paint for the diamond shapes and then used the hex glitters.  So happy that the colour from the glitter doesn't bleed.  I had previously bought a different set at the beginning of the year, but they lost their colour as soon as I put on a top coat.

Haul + Girly Gothy

Went shopping again and because I had a teambuy coupon for American Apparel I bought some new polishes from them. 

Top row: L'Esprit, Dynasty and African Violet - for some reason the African Violet bottle is slightly rounder than the others.

Middle row: Mount Royal and two new shades The Valley Sunshine State

Bottom row: Two more new shades Pink Ladies and Sunset Blvd, lastly Summer Peach.  The colours are actually brighter in real life, but my camera couldn't capture them properly.

Didn't mean to buy this much, but they were in the process of adding new colours to the shelf so I bought more.

-----

This isn't really my style, but I wanted to try out some acrylic skulls.  Looks alright I guess.  I think the skulls could have been more rounded and 3D looking.  I also used some gold beads to make a star.  A spider water decal for the middle finger.  And some stamping using the stars image from BM17.

Colours used KleanColor Black, White and Neon Pink.

Haul + Mixed Mani

My local Winners recently had some new Color Club sets in stock so I bought two of them.  First six polishes are from collection A of the Back to Boho sets.  Colours include Nomadic in Nude, Earthy Angel, New Bohemian, Shabby Drab, Rad Nomad and Red-ical Gypsy.  The set also includes a Stuck On You Basecoat.

The second set I bought was the Foiled collection, didn't see the Back to Boho collection B available.  Colours included in this set are Antiquated, Foil Me Once, Hot Like Lava, Perfect Mol-ten, Lumin-icecent and Cold Metal.

Haven't swatched these or really use 'em much except for one plastic wrap experiment.  However, I did use a couple for the following mani.

Flowers, stripes, polka dots.  For the thumb and pinky I did one coat of Perfect Mol-ten, middle and ring fingers were three coats of New Bohemian and the index finger was two coats of Wet N Wild Mad-Styles.  The nail art was done with acrylic paint.  Just something simple and girly.

Stamped Purple Gradient + Haul

Sponged on Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Lively Lilac and Innisfree PU08, then a layer of Color Club Starry Temptress Top Coat.  Stamped using a Konad Princess Polish in not sure which colour using a full image design from a large plate B.

-----

Wasn't really intending on buying new polishes while out shopping, but I ended up getting these four on separate shopping outings.

The Tip Toe polish was from Old Navy and I only got it 'cause my friend needed something to put her over 20$ so she could use a coupon to save 10$.  My swatch picture makes it look like it's kinda matte, but it's actually shiny.

On a different shopping trip I stopped by a Loblaws while killing time before heading to dinner and picked up a few joe polishes.  I picked up Seashell 'cause I thought it would be a perfect match to a dress that I was going to wear to a wedding and got Slate and Iris 'cause I liked the colours and it was three polishes for 10$.

A Bit More Hauling

Some crackle polishes that I bought off eBay way back in May finally arrived in the mail.

There were 40 colours to choose from, but I went for colours that I would wear often.  I quite liked them except for the fact that the colour turns darker after putting on a top coat.  You can’t really tell from the picture above, but in my mani pic below it is definitely noticeable.  However I still went ahead and bought a couple more.  You can get crackles from this brand at the born pretty store, but there’s not much selection there.

Here is the mani I did with L006

Base colour was three coats of Ardene - Malibu Splash.

On my nail you can see that with the top coat parts are light while other areas are darker.  I’m not really sure why that happens.  On the nail wheel you can definitely see the difference.  Looks better without shiny top coat, but I worry that everything would just chip off when washing dishes or showering.  Since it dries matte, maybe a matte top coat wouldn't change it.

Here's a polish I picked up from H&M.

My first H&M polish, Blue Wave - sheer blue with I think blue, pink and purple shimmer.  Quite pretty.

And now for a random photo.

Just a picture of blurry Instax photos of my recent hauls.  You can also see the additional Wet N Wild Craze polishes, they were still around when I went to buy some new hangers.

Blossoms and Mini Haul

Something springy for a pretty crappy day today, but it was quite nice yesterday, though a bit chilly. Base colour is Color Club - Ready to Wear, and the branches were painted on with a no brand/name brown polish, Etude House - GR605 for the greenery and a pink franken for the blossoms.


Went to Zellers the other day and saw that they finally had the Wet n Wild Fast Dry polishes. I had already bought Party of Five Glitters and Gray's Anatomy in January from Walmart so I just picked up one - Hannah Pinktana. Also picked up the NYC IndividualEyes eyeshadow palette for brown eyes. Just something new and inexpensive to try out.

Also took the picture of the above items in a cruddy lightbox I made over the weekend. Got the Idea from here. I made a fairly small one, but I can take pictures of manicures in it, but I still prefer using natural light.

Feb/March Gmarket Haul

My Gmarket order finally arrived yesterday. It used to take a bit longer to arrive when the packages would go through Vancouver first, but now they go through PIA. So tons closer and it doesn't sit in customs as long. Originally it was two different orders (the bags and the cosmetics), but I combined the orders together to have them shipped all at once.


I didn't do a big haul. The medium size Korea Post box and it's contents displayed after I took everything out of their individual boxes.



This bag was kinda smelly when I got it out of its packaging. Actually both bags kinda smelled. The construction is ok, no loose threads or exposed seams, but the fabric is meh. There's also a slight metallic sheen to it, but you can't see it in the pictures. The bag can be worn two ways. Top left with the strap or hand held like the picture in the top right. Overall the bag is alright, I didn't pay a lot for it, but it did look nicer on the site. (Item: 204162755)



This bag I was lemming after I saw it on colorlover's blog and video. She's got a ton more pics of the bag. It's really sturdy and boxy. That's what I liked about it. And it can also be worn two ways, short strap or long strap. Two compartments with two pockets. I like this bag a lot more than the other one. (172603594)



Holika Holika haul:

1) The things I purchased (middle right pic)
2) Everything else (bottom left pic) are the freebies that came with it.

I wanted to try out their BB creams, so I got two of them, the rolling one (195150896) and the aqua jelly one (191189904). The pore cover (202748721) was to bump up my order for free domestic shipping. I've only tried out the rolling one and I like it. I've only used it once so I can't say much about it. But it is hard to wash off. The rolley sponge can be cleaned, but it stays stained.

The large freebie bottle is a Pudding Bubble - Bubble Peeling Facial Cleanser. When I tried it on my dry dry hand my dead skin cells gathered up and was indeed gross. But when I tried it on my face last night nothing happened. Maybe I'll try it on it's own tonight. I had already washed my face and thought maybe the Pudding Bubble was an exfoliator, but it didn't do anything.


Finally more Cosline polishes (128281127) , same seller as last time, along with another VOV It Girls polish. And the VOV CastleDew foundation (134288297) that really held up my order because it was not sent along with the polishes. Just a backup for one that's almost finished, polishes was just cause. Why not.

Korean Polish Haul

Recently made an order on Gmarket and picked up me some new nail stamping things and quite a bit of polish. Ordered at the end of January, but because of the Lunar New Year I didn't get my packages until today.



I saw these ENAS rubber nail stamps and thought they were quite interesting and decided to try them out. I bought two kits from the only seller that I could find, (주)오케이아하. There are individual stamps that you can buy too, but I wanted to try out the kits before deciding to buy more. Price wise they're the same as Konad plates. I haven't played with them much yet, but so far it's pretty hit or miss for me. Need more practice.



A box full of Cosline polishes. I thought these were mini polishes when I bought them, but they're actually about 14mL or 15mL full size polishes. I haven't done much with them other than swatch them on a nail wheel, but they seem pretty ok. They were really cheap too about 9$ for 10 polishes (not including shipping).



Finally the last of my Korean polish haul - these little Hello Kitty polishes. I'm not exactly sure how much polish is inside the bottles, but they're smaller than the Cosline polishes. Also only swatched them on a nail wheel. Polishes are ok, but the brushes kind of suck.

Lots of new polishes to play with and will need to find some way to store them.

Copied! + New Glitter Polishes

Copied this nail look from 달빛샤워의 Coffee Break that I saw on Tumblr via kireinails - rainbow sponge. I was bored of the goldfishes and decided to do this. Can't help changing my nails up every few days. The purple, blue and green pretty much dominate and the pink is completely missing, nails aren't long enough.

Colours used: Innisfree - NBL04, joe - Powder Blue, joe - Mint, Innisfree - NYE05, frankened coral, joe - Kiss and Wet N Wild - Hallucinate.

-----


Picked up some glitter polishes from a random dollar store that I'd never been to before. In the bottle they seem about the same. Differences - CR has more small glitters, thicker clear base and smells bad, SHE has hexagonal glitters and more of the red and blue glitters and doesn't really smell.

American Apparel Haul + Mani

Here's a recent haul from American Apparel. First time trying them and I really like them. Polishes I got were in order from the top left to bottom right - Cameo Blue, Malibu Green, Factory Grey, Office, Palm Springs, Rose Bowl, Poppy and Rouge.


It's been snowy here recently so I thought I would do a wintry manicure. Did one coat with Factory Grey and then sponged on Cameo Blue. Used Konad special polish in black with plate HB33 for the silhouette of the town. For the snowflakes and the stars I used plates HB23 and HB39 and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Whirlwind White for stamping. Then I topped everything with a NYC glow in the dark polish thinking that it would make the snowflakes and stars glow, but the whole nail ended up being glow in the dark. The NYC polish also dulled the colours down giving them a more dusty feel.


Here are plates that I used.

A Couple of Hauls

I bought a few stamping plates from Beauties Factory a month ago and they finally arrived. Most are wintry/Christmas-y plates so I will try to get to them quickly. Kinda disappointed that that some of the larger images aren't really that big. Hopefully they will cover my entire nail without having to double stamp. The fake nails were a freebie.



Hair accessories and polish haul from Ardene. Really like bows so I got a few bow hair pins. They're cute and will help to keep my bangs out of my face. And the polish is called Barely There.

More Color Club Sets

On Friday I picked up a couple of sets of Color Club polish from my local Winners. I thought I had missed the boat on these, but they were just late to arrive there. I bought the Untamed Luxury set and also the All About Color set. I already have the Wild At Heart set that I bought at a different Winners previously

The names of the polish were listed on the back of the box, but I don't know which name corresponds to which polish. I'll just have to look it up later. Names listed are - 892 Soft as Cashmere. 894 Jewel of a Girl, 890 Wild Orchid, 901 Snakeskin, 898 Red Velvet, 899 Untamed Luxury and 895 Ready to Royal. Favourite of the bunch is probably what I think is 894 - Jewel of a Girl, it's grey with silver shimmer/glitter.

The All About Color set has no names listed. Sad. Mostly pretty girl-y colours. Favourite of the bunch = the blue one.

----

Also sad, whilst shopping yesterday I chipped three nails so now I gots the nubbins.