China Glaze Dash of Dazzle Christmas 2013 Set - Swatches and Review

Disclaimer: The products featured in this post were sent to me from the lovely people from Nail Polish Canada for review. Any opinions presented in this post are my own, and are not affected by any outside party.

Holy guacamole! A new post!

Sorry I've been away, I've gotten a new hobby it seems... work! It has been positively hectic at work since my last post. I'm not going to go into details since it'd be a long and confusing ramble (moreso than usual), so we'll skip that little bit and get straight into the good stuff, shall we?

I also apologize in advance if this post seems a bit disjointed at times... I have the 50th anniversary special of Doctor Who playing in the background (for the second time) and it may distract me at some point...

Today's featured polishes were sent to me from the lovely people at Nail Polish Canada! I'm not paid to say this or anything like that, but I'd like to mention that Nail Polish Canada is one of my primary resources for purchasing polish. I think they have different shipping centres in Canada, but my parcels primarily get sent to me from within Vancouver, so they usually the day after they're processed. They're really lovely people - the boxes are stuffed to the brim with packing peanuts and the occasional sweet treat. I can only imagine how magical it would be with all of that beautiful nail polish in one place.. *wipes up drool*. Okay, okay, I'll stop gushing now and get on to the polish!

I now present to you the three piece Dash of Dazzle set from the China Glaze Holiday 2013 collection! Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the polishes together in the boxed set as it got a bit smashed up when I accidentally dropped the parcel after finding it on my doorstep! D'oh!

The Dash of Dazzle set consists of three polishes: So Blue without You, Mingle with Kringle, and Bells will be Blinging.

First up: Mingle with Kringle

Mingle with Kringle is a gold foil. It is so much better in person than my photo can show. the foil particles are actually two toned (that is, not all the same colour), and that really gives this polish depth. It also shines like mad - almost reflective! I've been loving the gold foils that have been released this past year - they give a metallic look without the streakiness that the "mirror" metallics give (that seems like such a long time ago now!). Formula wise, this polish was a tad on the thick side, but the application was still good and I didn't have any major issues with it. I used 2 medium coats for complete coverage.

Bells with be Blinging is a pretty glitter mix that includes small blue glitters, silver hex glitter, and silver bar glitter. You know that I'd not really fond of bar glitter (and actually most glitter polishes), but I find that it actually works pretty well in this polish. The glitter isn't too dense, and isn't hard to apply at all. I have one coat of Bells will be Blinging in the photo above over Color Club Evolution (from the Kaleidoscope collection). It's a nice subtle bling, which suits my style.

And finally, last but not least: Blue without You.

*Swoon* Be still my heart! Blue without You is a GORGEOUS blue foil-y metallic polish. It's so.. glowy and bright and beautiful. It's a sky blue with a tiny hint of teal in it, and did I mention that it's gorgeous? It looks a bit streaky in my photos, but you can't really see that in person at all. It glows! It's beautiful! I love it! Formula was great too! It's not as thick as Mingle with Kringle, so I used 2 thin coats (I prefer thin over medium coats - I have better control that way). My ONLY complaint is that it stained my nails after I swatched this with no base coat. The next time I wear this (the very near future), I'm going to make sure to use a liberal amount of base coat to try to prevent the staining from happening again. This polish is too pretty to not wear again! This is definitely in my "Best of 2013" list!

And there you have it! What do you think? I must confess, when I first saw this in store, I passed by all of the colours thinking that they weren't anything special, but I sure am glad to have the opportunity to change my mind! I can't believe I passed on Blue without You!

That's all for today, but I'm hoping to be able to post more frequently from now on (I can't make any promises since I'm still working full time before I go back to school in January). I have a MASSIVE Rescue Beauty Lounge order that'll be making its way to me sometime in the near future... I know I usually avoid buying RBLs because I feel that they're a tad expensive, but I just HAD to take advantage of their 50% sale and ended up getting a bunch of the polishes I've wanted for a while now. Hopefully that'll be my last order until next time they have this sale (I can't justify buying their polishes at normal price!).

Annnnnnnyway! As always, thank you for reading! and I hope you all have a FANTASTIC (fantastic in all caps!) week!

The polishes in this post can be purchased online at Nail Polish Canada, along with several other polishes and brands. At the moment NPC is offering free shipping to Canadians with no minimum purchase, which is, I'd like to remark, perfect for the holidays!

Marisa

Picture Polish - Freya's Cats

Hi everyone!

Today I have a polish that jumped all the way up to the top of my top 10-20 of 2013 as soon as I took it out of the bubble wrap! Onto the photos!

Freya's Cats is one of the latest releases from Picture Polish in their blogger collaboration collection. It's the same finish as Cosmos (my swatch here) with the scattered, sparkling holographic flake-glitter-bits, but a different shade of blue. This shade of blue happens to be my favourite! Where I would describe Cosmos as a night sky blue-black, Freya's Cats is a saturated, indigo-blue (TARDIS blue, to all of my fellow Whovians). Formula-wise, Freya's Cats is fantastic - I used two coats for the swatches above. In my photos it looks a bit like you can see my nail line, but I can't actually see it in person.

I really adore this colour. My favourite shade of blue is pretty much vibrant, saturated primary blue (with a hint of indigo) like this polish, which just happens to be similar to the colour of the TARDIS. On a semi-related note, one of my dream nail polishes at the moment is inspired by a scene in an episode of Doctor Who. Maybe one day I'll manage to franken it, but for now it's my top secret brainchild.

Anyhow, enough rambling for one day! Thank you all so much for reading, and I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Marisa

Nail Polish Canada needs your help!

Hi everyone! 

I just have a quick shout out on behalf of Nail Polish Canada today. I'm not being compensated for posting this at all, but I would definitely like to support NPC because 1) This is an AMAZING opportunity and 2) I frequently buy polish from them online since their prices are reasonable and they usually offer free shipping to Canadians for a really reasonable minimum purchase or even for no fee at all! Combine this with the fact that I usually get my purchase in 1-2 days since I live in Vancouver! 

Anyhow, onto the announcement. I'll be back again soon (later this week hopefully!) with more swatches of polish!

For immediate release:


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As for who will be crowned the Consumer Champion it now comes down to a vote

“It’s been thrilling to work with so many great customers and bloggers over the past few years. So thank-you all for building NailPolishCanada.com into a company worthy of such an honor. Sam even teared up a little bit as he wrote this sentence pretending to be me.” - Nikki, VP Glitter. 


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Wow! I would LOVE to win a $1000 shopping spree at Nail Polish Canada. I can just imagine what I'd buy... :D

Thank you all for reading! I'll see you again sometime this week! :)

Marisa 

OPI San Francisco Mini Set Swatches

Disclaimer: The products featured in this post were given to me as a gift from Sisi of Color4Nails. I am under no obligation to promote her polish store and do not gain anything from doing so. Any opinions presented in this post are my own.

Hi Everyone!

*Gasp* - another post! So soon... it's a miracle! Well, I found some time to sit down and write a post (who am I kidding? I'm supposed to be wading my way through academic papers right now). I figure you've all seen polishes from this collection about a million times by now, but I'll just swing some of my own quick swatches for you. I recently received the OPI San Francisco Mini set in the mail as a gift from Sisi at Color4Nails (I gave her permission to use some of my swatch pictures on her Facebook page and she wanted to send me a gift, which was very sweet of her). Thanks to her, I was able to try some polishes that I probably wouldn't have purchased on my own (I wasn't too impressed by the promo images of the collection).

Anyhow, I won't bore you too much with my rambling! Onto the polish!

In the Cable Car-pool Lane: A fairly standard dark plum/burgundy. Not an extremely exciting colour for me - I probably wouldn't be able to convince myself to buy this polish if I had seen it on a shelf somewhere since I'd probably have something very close to this in the 600+ bottles of polish that I own. It does have a very nice jelly-esque squishiness to it though. I used 3 coats.

First Date at the Golden Gate: A kind of reddy-burnt orange shade. Like In the Cable Car-pool Lane, it has the squishy look of a jelly with the more opaque formula of a creme. I used 3 coats for this swatch.

Peace, Love, and OPI: Silvery sage-blue-purple duochrome that reminds me of the northern lights. Undoubtedly one of the most buzzed about polishes from the San Fran collection. Initially I had only planned to pick up this polish from the collection, and I'm not too disappointed. I knew from prior swatches that it was going to be frosty, but the duochrome is actually really strong in this polish and kind of makes up for it. Streaks aside, I was pleasantly surprised that the formula isn't too thin - I used 3 thin coats for my swatch here.

Muir, Muir on the Wall: The dark horse in the collection for me. I would have completely passed this one over if it weren't for this mini set. When I swatched this polish I pretty much fell in love with it then and there, and ran out to buy a full size bottle. I can't even describe this one, but the important thing is that it has this beautiful red-coppery slightly duochrome shimmer that is absolutely gorgeous. I love it.

So, what do y'all think? I'm glad I got to try Muir, Muir on the Wall, since I probably wouldn't have known about how awesome it is if I didn't! It's seriously one of those colors I pass by on the shelf/counter and don't look at more closely. Thank you Sisi for your generosity!

As always, thank you for reading! I hope you all have a great week!

Marisa

My picks from the China Glaze Autumn Nights Collections

Hi everyone, long time no see!

Sorry I've been away so long - the usual combination of work and family drama have been added stress lately. I didn't realize how long I've been on the periphery of the nail polish world until I went to my supply store the other day... I didn't realize until then that I hadn't checked out the store since the end of April!

I managed to hold off the polish hoarder in me enough to spend a reasonable amount of polish. I avoided buying the whole collection and limited myself to only a few shades, which I managed to swatch (instead of leaving them on my swatching desk for later). Anyhow, enough of my chittering! Onto the polish! Please click read more after the cut to see my swatches of these polishes!

Left to right: Tongue & Chic, Queen B, Red-y & Willing, Rendezvous with You, Strike up a Cosmo, Goldie but Goodie, and Gossip over Gimlets.

Picture Polish Sea Jewel and Whimsy

Hi everyone! Long time no see!

Today I have some amazing polishes to show y'all! As you may have noticed, my posts have become a bit less frequent since I'm working full time and usually end up staying a few hours extra each day too.

Anyway, onto the polish!

Picture Polish Whimsy (with Neverland Nail Blog) and Sea Jewel (with Wacky Laki)

These two polishes are from a group of three that were released Monday as the newest additions to the Picture Polish Blogger collaboration line. I was lucky enough that Nail Polish Canada actually had these in stock Monday night, and my parcel was delivered Wednesday afternoon (with lollipops!). The only collaboration polish from this release that I didn't purchase was Frosting. It is a cute glitter combination, but I wasn't sure I'd wear it very often (I don't actually find myself reaching for chunky glitter very often. Isn't this strange? At least it lets me save money that would otherwise be spent on indies!).

Out of the two polishes I ordered, I was the most excited about Whimsy, a bright light blue with gold shimmer. I got Sea Jewel (a teal-y green loaded with silver glitter) on a whim - I liked the base colour but was unsure about the glitter in the polish itself. After seeing (and wearing!) these polishes in person, I'm super glad I got both!

Now, enough rambling and the pictures!

Sea Jewel

Created with Wacky Laki

*Swoon* My pictures don't do this polish justice. The formula on this polish is good - I used 3 coats to achieve opacity. I was skeptical about the glitter at first - in the bottle the polish can look a bit 'flat' (kind of like a lot of non-shiny glitter in a base) - but after I put it on it was stunning! Light really just bounces off the glitter in the polish, and the size of the silver glitter in the polish itself allows for each glitter particle to reflect the light back to your eye, creating an effect reminiscent of the glimmer of sunlight on waves in the ocean. I'll stop rambling now, but my final word on this polish is that it is so gosh darn pretty. Love it!

Whimsy

Created with Neverland Nail Blog

Isn't she a beauty? The formula on this polish is good too. I used 3 coats for opacity. I'd definitely give this polish a minute or two between coats to avoid any streaking (which is possible if you're a bit heavy handed on the application like me). Just to warn you again, my photos don't do this polish justice. I was a bit worried at first that the gold shimmer would be either really subtle or elusive (by elusive I'm thinking about a polish like Meep-Meep-Meep from the OPI Muppet collection a while back that had the prettiest glitters in it that all happened to sink down and disappear into the polish when it was dry). I'm happy to report that the glitter in this polish are neither elusive or subtle. This polish is gorgeous. Easily makes my top 10 list of most amazing polishes ever. Another bonus: the gold fleck/shimmer/glitter in this polish is also duochrome. If you look at your nails from different angles, gold will be the primary colour, but at increasingly extreme angles the shimmer/glitter will turn a subtle teal-y green.

So, what do y'all think? I'm very happy with these polishes. I'm sure Sea Jewel and Whimsy will make it to my top 10-20 list of polishes from 2013 at the end of the year, and I'm certain they've both found their way onto my top 10-20 list of all time favourite polishes. This polishes can be purchased directly from Picture Polish, or from their distributors such as Harlow & Co and Nail Polish Canada in Canada, and Llarowe in the United States.

Thanks for reading! I hope you all have a great weekend! :D

Marisa

China Glaze Bump & Grind

Hi everyone! Happy June!

Today I have another interesting textured polish to show y'all. Textured polishes have been growing on me lately, although I still can't wear them for extended periods of time without going crazy. Bump and Grind is one of my favourite polishes from the CG textured collection. This collection features a textured finish that reminds me of stucco on houses.

What do you think? Have the idea of textured polishes growing on you too? I actually think I may buy some of the Zoya pixie dust polishes now too...

Hope you all have a fantastic week!

Marisa

OPI Honey Ryder

Hi everyone!

A quickie post for today, I'm going through a bunch of the photos I haven't posted yet as my nails are undergoing a major TLC session. Having to wear gloves and working with my hands everyday is really taking a took on my nails! Hopefully I'll be able to get them back into shape soon!

For the time being, here's a great polish that I wasn't too sure about at first. I really like it now though!

Very pretty. I think this one would look great with some top coat too! When my nails are back in shape again I'll definitely be trying that! The only problem I had was that after I wore this for a few days I started to get tired of the rough gritty texture this polish has. I'm most likely going to end up alternating textured polishes with normal ones. I have a slight texture phobia (it's the subject of my only re-occuring nightmare), so I think I'll avoid wearing similar liquid sand and textured polishes for extended periods of time.

That's all for today. Sorry for the incoherent post! Today was the first day I've gotten off work on time (instead of working an extra unpaid hour or two), but my brain feels like mush. Hopefully It'll just keep getting better, and I can start mustering more energy after work... a little bit at a time!

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you all have a great Thursday! :D

Marisa

Pure Ice - French Kiss

Hi everyone!

Sorry I haven't posted as much as I said I was going to in the previous post. I started working on my own last week and it has been really crazy. Pretty much every weekday since last Monday I've been working 9am to 6-7pm. I'm hoping that eventually I'll get adjusted to working and be able to get things done faster.

Besides all of the havoc work has done on my social life (I pretty much only have time to eat, shower and sleep when I get home), my nails have definitely suffered. I haven't had much time or energy to take care of them, and constantly wearing gloves (I work in a research laboratory) is pretty harsh on my hands. I did my nails one day and after a day of work I had huge chips pretty much everywhere. I'm definitely gulty of not doing my nails as frequently as I wish I could.

Anyhow, away from the rambling... today's polish is a pretty shade of cobalt blue that is pretty close to a huge lemming of mine (RBL's IKB:2012; according to online comparisons).

Pictured above is 2 coats of Pure Ice's French Kiss polish, with Cult Nails' Wicked Fast top coat.

This is a really pretty polish. I love cobalt blues, so does this really surprise you? The formula was good, I used two medium coats (although I would say that this was almost a one coater). I've heard on the grapevine that the RBL has a really crappy formula, so while it is said that French Kiss isn't exactly a dupe for the RBL, I think it's definitely good enough for me. Price wise, the Pure Ice is definitely better (at $1.98 a bottle, compared to $20/bottle RBL) and the RBL is discontinued anyway.

Definitely satisfies my lemming, although I don't know if this will stop me from buying other cobalt blue shades (I'm currently eying one from Barielle).

That's all for today! Thank you so much for reading!

Marisa

Color Club: Eternal Beauty

Hi everyone, I'm back!

Sorry for not posting in a while, I've been really busy and stressed out about all of the final projects and exams I've had over the past few weeks! My last exam was Sunday, so now I'm freeeeee.

I can't wait to show you all of the new polish I've purchased, starting with today!

Talk about starting off with a bang! Today I'm featuring a spectacular holographic polish by Color Club. This is Eternal Beauty, and it most definitely is a beauty!

Isn't it fabulous? Eternal Beauty is a blue-violet linear holographic polish. The holo in this polish is amazing! I really hope Color Club makes more holographic polishes like the Halo Hues. I'm particularly lemming more vibrant holographic shades like this one.

I can't really explain how much I love this polish. I didn't have any problems with application at all, and the holographic effect and colour is to die for.

I'll stop going on like a whiny record about this polish now. I can't wait to show you all of the other polishes that I've accumulated during my hiatus!

As always, thank you so much for reading!

Marisa

China Glaze Hologlam Collection Part 2

Hi everyone!

I know, I know... I said I was going to post this soon after the first part of this collection, but mother nature has been annoying (as I mentioned in a previous post) and of course it was a beautiful day right after I posted said post. I managed to get all of the polishes swatched, but then of course my computer decides to be all stupid and not connect to the wireless. Long story short, I've gotten it fixed and I'm back! (EDIT: I started writing this a few days ago actually, and I thought my laptop was fixed at the time. It broke again when I was about halfway into this post).

So, here are the last 6 polishes! 5 of these 6 swatches were done in the aforementioned beautiful day and one was done when I swatched the last batch of holos. You can tell which one this was since all of the recent swatches don't include my index finger (I had an accident with that one and a bit of the corner came off). For some of these polishes I have more than 2 photos, so this is going to be another long one beyond the cut!

Picture Polish Cosmos

Hi everyone!

I know I haven't posted the last 6 China Glaze Hologlams yet, but mother nature hasn't been very kind to me. It has been raining pretty much non-stop all week long with absolutely no sun. I'll swatch the rest of the polishes as soon as the sun comes out, I promise!

Anyhow, moving on... the polish I'm posting about today is gorgeous! I definitely should have gotten this polish when it first came out, because it would have made my top 10 (or was it 20 that I did... I can't remember) of 2012. I'm probably going to have two lists for this year... an overall favourite polish list and the top ## of the polishes released in 2013. More on that when the time comes!

I love this polish so much. It reminds me of camping out in the wilderness away from civilization and staring at the millions of stars that you can only see in a really dark place. The glitter in this polish has a kind of coarse holographic feel to it, which makes it interesting in direct sunlight too. To be honest, I prefer the night sky look this polish has indoors and in indirect light more than the scattered holo. I haven't seen Essie's Starry Starry Night in person before, but this polish totally quashes my lemming for it. Oh, by the way, the formula is great too. Applies like butter. It's amazing.

Hmm, what do y'all think? I know there are a bunch of other polishes out there that have this same finish, but I don't know how much I'd like them compared to this polish. This one actually sends me back to memory lane thinking about some of the camping trips I had with my family and I think that's the reason I really love this polish (and it's pretty!).

That's all for today everyone! Thank you for reading! :D

Marisa

Psst.

Hi everyone!

I'm sure you've all heard about the impending retirement of Google reader. There's a really cool app-ish thing called Bloglovin out there that also lets you keep up to date with all of your favourite blogs. I pretty much just started using this, but it seems pretty handy so far.

This post is also a bit of a shameless plug for my blog... Okay, not really shameless, because I am a bit ashamed of myself for doing this... but if you're on Bloglovin, feel free to follow my blog! If you do (or already do) I give you a virtual hug or high-five, if that's what you prefer. I'd also give you all cookies, but my virtual baking skills need some work (see Exhibit A, below).

Exhibit A: A virtual cookie. Made by yours truly. Those are supposed to be chocolate chips, by the way.

So, if you would like to, feel free to follow Lively Lacquer on Bloglovin!
Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Thank you for reading this post even though it doesn't feature nail polish! I promise you there's a post tomorrow (not the rest of the CG holos - sorry, there has been absolutely NO sun here for the past week!). In the meantime, here are some cute pictures of Sophie (my cat) and Yuki (my dog).

Thank you for reading! We'll be back to our (ir)regular posting starting tomorrow!

Marisa

China Glaze Hologlam Collection Part 1

Hi everyone!

OH MY GOD, HOLOGRAPHIC POLISHES. I wasn't actually planning on purchasing the entire Hologlam collection initially. When these went on sale online, I was flabbergasted to see that they were $12.50 a bottle on Nail Polish Canada. That combined with the word on the e-street that these weren't as amazing as the OMG holos... well, you can see what I was thinking. I decided I would get maybe 2 shades max, but I decided to check out my local beauty supply (Secret Nail for those in the lower mainland) and I found these for $5.50 each! Long story short, I was all like, OMG NEED ALL NOW and ended up getting the lot of them. I actually got them for $5.50 each and a 15% discount on top - the only downside to this is that to purchase at these prices you need to get a membership, which is $10 and lasts for a year and is renewable. If you buy as much polish as I do from this place, it's really worth it.

Anyway, babbling aside, here are first 6 polishes (that I managed to swatch before my camera died) from this collection!

Cult Nails Afterglow

Hi Everyone! I'm alive! Sorry for being away for so long, I've been really swamped these past few weeks with midterms, interviews, presentations... you know, school stuff. I lot of unexpected things happened too that really had me planning every day down to the minute.

I don't have any more interviews scheduled (kind-of thank goodness!), so I'm going to take this time to schedule some posts. I actually have a lot of really cool polishes that I've been dying to wear but haven't been able to because I haven't had time to change nail polish plus with all of the job interviews I've been just wearing OPI's Steady as She Rose pretty much non-stop. It's a great colour, don't get me wrong... but I've really been missing those brights!

Anyhow, I'll quit yammering about how crazy my life has been and get on to today's polish. I don't know why, but I left this polish in my untried for so long that it's now out of stock on the Cult Nails website. If I remember correctly, this collection was limited edition, so I don't know if this polish will come back into stock again. I certainly hope so, for the sake of everyone who hasn't gotten a bottle (and me, maybe for a back up!). It's fabulous. Crazy fabulous. I love it.

Just look at those pink sparkles. I dare you to click on the image and look at it full size. Amaaazing. I don't normally gravitate towards this colour (bronze isn't really my thing) but those pink sparkles make this polish unlike any other bronze-y polish I've seen before. I love this pink and bronze combination a lot. If I recall correctly, this polish was a bit on the sheer side - I think I used 3-4 thin coats. Worth every single one. This is right up there with Feeling Froggy as one of my all time favourite Cult Nails polishes ever.

What do y'all think?

Thank you so much for reading!

Marisa

Pastel Hearts

Hi everyone, Happy Valentine's Day!

I just have a quick post today since I have a bunch of midterms coming up and I really need to get around to studying for them instead of procrastinating! :P

If you follow me on Instagram (my username is livelylacquer), you'd know I'm kind of cheating out on a v-day manicure. I actually did this mani a few weeks ago. I actually had a great idea for a heart manicure in my brain, but when I tried to actually do it... well, it didn't turn out so well. I might try it again in the future, when I feel more patient.

Anyway, on to the manicure! For this look I used all of the colours found in the China Glaze Avant Garden Pastel Petals set (see my swatches here) and a quick pastel yellow mix using a drop of Cult Nails' Feel me up and OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls.

Base: China Glaze Dandy Lyin' Around
Hearts: CG Fade into Hue, Keep Calm Paint On, Life is Rosy, Tart-y for the Party, Pink-ie Promise and a pastel yellow.

I freehanded the hearts in random places on the nail with a nail art brush and then sealed it all up with a coat of Cult Nails' Wicked Fast topcoat.

I'm fairly happy with how it turned out! I kind of wish that the hearts were a bit more even, but then again it is my art skills that we're talking about haha. What do you think? Do y'all have any cool plans for Valentine's Day? I have a hot date with my lecture notes LOL.

Thank you all for reading! Hope y'all enjoy the rest of your week! <3

Marisa

A NOTD: Rainbow Gradient-y Stamp-icure!

Hi everyone, Happy Thursday!

Today I have a NOTD that I did a little while ago to show y'all. If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen this one, but here are some more pictures!

Sorry from the backwards stamping on the middle finger - I must have turned the stamper around accidentally before stamping it onto my nail.

For my gradient I used:

Red: Cult Nails Evil Queen
Orange: Zoya Arizona
Yellow: Cult Nails Feel me up
Green: Essie Mojito Madness (I feel like a mojito now, yum)
Blue: Nails Inc Baker Street
Purple: Cult Nails Vicious

I used 2 coats of OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls as the base, and then sponged the gradient on. I didn't have any cosmetic sponges (it's on my shopping list), so I used a different kind of sponge that had perforations that were a bit larger (don't worry, not one of those yellow dish washing sponges with the scotch brite sides lolol).

I stamped overtop the gradient with BM plate bm-322 and Cult Nails Nevermore.

I had actually originally wanted to stamp the gradient over the white, but it didn't work out so well (will try again in the future!)

Anyhow, that's all for today! Thank you so much for reading, and I hope y'all have a great (polish-filled) weekend!

Marisa

China Glaze Avant Garden Collection Part II - Pastel Petals Swatches

Hi everyone!

Yesterday I showed you the Blooming Brights, but today I'm happy to bring you the Pastel Petals set from the China Glaze Avant Garden collection for Spring 2013!

I'm actually a really big sucker for pastel shades, even though I don't wear them as often as I should. The only thing I don't like about pastels is that most of the time the formula will kind of suck or be streaky and annoying... I probably don't use them that often because when I don't have time to do my nails but need a polish change, I tend to just pull out my easy to apply favourites. There's nothing I hate more than trying to quickly do my nails with a polish that's crazy amounts of thick and goopy (and requires more than 3 coats!).

Anyway, I digress. Onto the polish, shall we? This collection is made up to 3 shimmers and 3 cremes. :D

China Glaze Avant Garden Collection Part I - Blooming Brights Swatches

Hi everyone!

Today I have my first Spring collection purchase to show y'all. My beauty supply store had these in early, so of course the hoarder in me bought them all. Spring is one of my favourite seasons, the only thing I could do without is the rain!

Anyhow, today I'm going to feature the first half of the collection - the Blooming Brights!

My New Years Manicure

*Sneaks in*

Hi everyone! Sorry for the CRAZY late post! I've gotten sucked into school... I'm having a hard time adjusting to cramming things into my brain again - I don't think my brain really wants to cooperate this time around!

The good news is that after my long lab today I finally feel up to post something! I'll be posting the Mariah Carey Liquid Sand polishes sometime in the near future (planning on re-swatching some of them first!).

Anyhow, today I have my New Year Manicure to show y'all. Please excuse the excess glitter/sad cuticles, but I'm really happy with how this turned out.

  

I started out with a coat of base coat, China Glaze's Purr-fect Plum with OPI's Goldeneye sponged at the tips, and finished it all off with my favourite top coat ever, Cult Nails' Wicked Fast. 

All things considering, this is pretty on trend for this winter. I was going to do something different for the pinky and ring nails, but it didn't really work out in my opinion so I redid them to match the other fingers.

Anyhow, that's all for today! I really need to get updating some of the other pages (so many new lemmings!), so I'm off for now!

Thank you for reading! :D

Marisa