China Glaze All Aboard Collection for Fall 2014 - My Picks

Hi everyone!

For the majority of this year (and part of last year) I haven't been too impressed by the collections being put out by the mainstream brands. I hardly bought any new polishes from these brands (OPI, China Glaze, etc), and I was starting to wonder if my love of nail polish was diminishing. I'm also not really a Fall person - I really like bright colors, so Summer brights are usually what I gravitate towards.

With that little bit of background, I walked into my nail supply store to see if they had any of the new Fall collections. While most of the promo pictures I've seen online haven't really interested me, I decided to check them out in person before deciding against them. Lucky that I did! I ended up buying 6 shades from the China Glaze All Aboard collection, and 4 from OPI's Nordic collection (These will be up on the blog soon!).

The shades I purchased from the All Aboard collection are as follows (in the same order as shown in the photo below left to right): Lug Your Designer Baggage, Mind the Gap, Conduct Yourself, Nice Caboose!, Choo-Choo Choose You, and All Aboard.

China Glaze Sea Goddess Collection for Spring 2014

Hellllloo everyone! I'm back!

Sorry about the unplanned hiatus! I'll have much more time to blog now (and do my nails for that matter). For the last few months my nails were an absolute mess. It'll take me a while to get them back into shape, so please excuse my gross cuticles and dry hands in the next few posts. Actually, I'm looking for a new lotion that's heavy duty but also good for everyday use that doesn't have an overwhelming smell and absorbs fast... so if you have any recommendations feel free to leave them in the comments! My hands thank you in advance!

Anyway, on to the polish! I went to my polish supply store for the first time in a few months last weekend to see if they had any new, interesting collections. Although I've been on a break from the nail polish world (I think I purchased a record low number of polishes in the past 8 months), I've been keeping tabs on the upcoming releases just in case there were any that I absolutely HAD to have. I came across the China Glaze Sea Goddess collection which I haven't actually heard of yet... I had to google the collection name to figure out if it was actually a recent collection. Of course, my hoarder instinct kicked in and I purchased all 6 polishes even though they didn't have a swatch wheel and I had the idea that they were textured polishes (which I'm not completely sold over). 

This'll be a fairly long post so I'll put it under a cut. Unfortunately I forgot to make a collage thingy so there isn't any pretty picture before the cut (I tried to make it just now, but it's hard on a tablet without a stylus...)

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

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

China Glaze Glitz Bitz 'n Pieces Collection for Spring 2013

Hi everyone!

I hope everyone is having a great start to the new year! I certainly am! Of course I'm dreading going back to school (and job hunting), but I've been having a blast polish wise! I was stalking my local beauty supply for the OPI Mariah Carey collection and I had the best luck yesterday. Not only did they just get the Mariah Carey collection, but they also got this new China Glaze collection! Needless to say, the hoarder in me jumped out and I had to get all 6 polishes in this collection. In my defense it's glitter, which makes it much more reasonable, right?

Anyhow, there are a LOT of photos in this post, so I'll be putting it under a cut... here's some eye candy to hopefully tempt you into taking the plunge!

My Picks: Top 10 of 2012

Hi everyone! Happy New Year's Eve!

I hope you're all having a great day with lots of plans later! I'm working today, so I won't be able to relax as much, but it is my last day before I head back to school for the next semester!

Today's post will be a bit of a picture spam of my top 10 polishes from this past year. I'm already excited to start making a list for next year... I have my eye on some of the polishes from the spring Zoya collection!

Anyhow, let us begin! Here are my favourite polishes that were released this year, in no particular order! I also think that there were a few greens that are honorable mentions since I didn't want my list to be too overwhelmingly green. ;)

China Glaze - Riveting

I absolutely loved this polish when it came out, and I still do. I never thought an orange polish could steal my heart like this one did, but maybe it's the fact that it's gorgeous shiny and also great matte. I find the gold shimmer in this polish addicting.

Zoya - Zuza

I thought this polish was okay in the bottle, but when I put it on... it was just amazing! I love the finish on this and the colour... now only if they made this finish in different colours... It's like a silver-y but not quite foil-y metallic. Love.

Cult Nails - Coveted

You guys have heard me yapping on about this one before. It's a green version of Iconic and since I love both, of course this is going to be on my list. I'm that predictable haha. :P

A England - Dragon

Dragon! It's so aptly named... it's really the colour I can see dragons as being! and holographic! Oh man, I can't believe I don't even have St. George yet... obviously I feel behind in my polish buying! :P  To sum it up, green + holo = win.

Cult Nails - Evil Queen

I don't know what to say about this one. I love the look of red polish but it was really hard for me to find a red that would match my skintone. Of course then I got this polish and it was amazing, the colour is great and the formula is fantastic. This is now my go-to red!

Cult Nails - Feeling Froggy

This one is on my list being it's green and amazing. I was at IKEA one day and saw a sofa in this really pretty dusty sage green and I knew I HAD to have a polish in that colour. Fast forward a week later when I get my Cult Nails Fairy Tale collection pre-order and this polish is there staring up at me! It's almost perfect I think. The only test left is to wear it on my nails and go to IKEA again to compare. 

Cult Nails - Flushed

This is amaaaaaaaaaaaaazing. I love the shade, I love the shimmer... no more words necessary. I fell in love with Flushed as soon as I unwrapped the bottle.

Sephora + Pantone Universe - Purple Parachute

I originally purchased this one thinking that it'd be my go-to bottle so I could conserve my precious Scrangie. In the bottle it looks almost exactly the same as that famous Rescue Beauty Lounge polish... and it doesn't break the bank. I almost danced in the store. Of course then I went home and did the comparison and found that it's just a bit different... the shimmer isn't as blatantly obvious on the nail as it is in Scrangie. I was a bit disappointed at first, but after I put it on for the first time I fell in love. Now I think I love it even more than Scrangie. Scrangie has a little problem with being a bit sheer, but this baby has all the opacity, and I think I might even prefer the more subtle shimmer. 

Cult Nails - Charlatan

I love how versatile this polish is. It's a topcoat, so you can wear it over whatever base colour you fancy and it'll give this stunning pink-blue duochrome. It's amazing. I've worn it over so many polishes and I'm constantly in awe of how amazing it is. I haven't done a formal post about this polish yet since whenever I wear it I have the misfortune of not having enough time to take proper pictures, but here are some pictures from my phone that I've posted on twitter at one time or another.  Pictured below are Charlatan over Devious Nature (pink) and Vicious (purple).

OPI - Goldeneye (or Sally Hansen Gilded Lily)

I think I've gushed about this polish in the post I did, but here's a summary of how gorgeous it is: it's like having solid gold on your nails. It's fantastic. I did a comparison a few posts ago to SH's Gilded Lily and they're dupes (hence the or... part in the polish title). I still love it though. My only complaint would be that it takes a few layers of polish to get it to opacity, but that allows you to also wear it layered over another polish. 

 

Whew. That was a lot of typing lol. That's all from me on this last day of the year! See y'all in 2013 and I hope you have a great New Year! 

Lots of love, and thank y'all so much for supporting my wee blog! I really really appreciate it even though my posting is so sporadic! 

Marisa

Essie: Leading Lady

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend!

I kind of feel like this weekend went by wayyy too fast... I'm not ready to go back to work! Most my time this weekend was spent on fiddling around with lightbulbs and lighting for blog pictures. I really dislike the blue tinge that daylight bulbs give off, so I've been trying to find something more suitable. I'm still in the process of tweaking things around, but hopefully I'll be able to find a good set up eventually.

Anyhow, today's polish is a very pretty polish from Essie's winter collection. I usually don't buy many Essie polishes (mostly because I find them a tad boring and expensive), but I gave in and bought this polish when I saw it at my local drugstore.

 
I really like this polish. This is actually my first polish of this kind since I've put off buying China Glaze's Ruby Slippers. The only thing I do't like about this polish is the fact that it dries a bit gritty... but that's typical of most glitters.

What do y'all think? I'm off to change my polish and fiddle around with my lamp a little bit more!
Thanks for reading!

Marisa

Vacation Parcels!

Hi everyone!

First of all.. TGIF! Today marks the end of my first full week (last week was a 4 days week since labour day was a holiday) at my new job. I'm writing this in advance since I won't be able to type up posts the day of on weekdays since I get home pretty late. It kind of sucks how there isn't enough light (and I feel too pooped) to swatch for the blog after work, so all of my swatching has to be done on weekends. I'm sure a lot of polish bloggers have to do the same, but it's just a bit unusual for me since I'm used to being in school and getting back relatively early.

ANYWAY, onto the meat of today's post! I'm not going to do much talking for the rest of this post since I'll most likely be revisiting all of these products in their own posts sooner or later. These items all arrived while I was away on the East Coast, so I had the pleasure of opening all of these up when I got back home!


I got two sample sets (each set includes 6 soaps of your choice, so I have 12 in total) of soaps from KBShimmer. I normally don't like handmade soap, but I thought these were too cute to pass up on, and so I'm "testing" them for gift quality *cough cough* and also taking the opportunity to figure out what smell I'd like for a tub of KBShimmer body scrub. I'm a sucker for body scrubs.

Top to bottom, left to right: Pink Sugar, Raspberry Vanilla, Rosemary Mint, Oatmeal Milk and Honey, Bamboo Sugarcane, Paradise, Kaleidosoap, Gardeners, Lilac, Chai Tea, Blue Hawaii and Southern Belle.

My Cult Nails Birthday Sale Order (only the new polishes!) I also got 2 bottles of Wicked Fast and a back up of Feelin' Froggy. I really wish I got a bottle of Deal with it, but I guess I'm just going to have to wait till the next sale!

 
 Innisfree nail polish. This is a Korean brand that I saw late one night while I was browsing nail polish blogs. Obviously I shouldn't read polish blogs late at night because I ordered these babies a few minutes after I saw them. No regrets though, since these are gorgeous.

I also received my Llarowe order of 2 Girly Bits polishes... I didn't manage to take pictures of them though, before I used them up for frankening. You'll be hearing about this in a later post! 

Before I go, I wanted to mention that I really appreciate all of the FANTABULOUS comments left on my scheduled posts while I was away! Thank you so, so much! <3

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

Marisa

OPI Every Month is Oktoberfest with Pam's Girly Bits Shift Happens

Hi everyone! I'm back!

Well, I should be back by now haha. I'm still scheduling this in advance, since I know that I'm probably going to be too pooped to type out a long post. Not sure if I'm going to buy any polish while I'm in the States, so we may or may not have a haul post coming along.

Besides, today's polish is gorgeous and deserves a post, instead of a long time in my archives folder lol.

First up, I have pictures of EMIO on its own...

And to make an awesome mani, I layered a coat of Girly Bits' Shift Happens on top, which really made this mani incredible.

I like EMIO, but with Shift happens overtop... it just makes it so much better!

Thanks for reading! Our (ir)regular live posting will return shortly!

Marisa

Picture Polish Monroe

Hi everyone!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, I've been feeling really unmotivated (so much that I haven't changed my nail polish in over a week! eek!)

Since I haven't changed my polish in a while, I have no new NOTDs to show y'all... so this post is coming from the vault-ish!

This picture might be a tad old, but the polish is still gorgeous. Unfortunately it's discontinued now, but you may be able to pick up a bottle somewhere... I'm not really sure how many are left or if it's all sold out now. Still very pretty though. I picked this up at Llarowe's birthday sale along with Mask-a-rade, since I couldn't decide on which one to get. I'm very glad I got both though, since they are both stunning!

Monroe is a a beautiful blood red jelly-ish with tiny sparkling holo particles suspended in it. The holo bits are really small, and make a gorgeous scattered look in the sun. This being jelly-ish, it dries super glossy and smooth (not to mention squishy looking!).

I was initially worried that this would be one of those red bordering on black polishes, but this turned out to be the perfect shade of red.... no too dark but not too bright either.

That's all for today! Thank you for reading and I'll try to do something to my nails today (along with work on my term paper haha)!

Marisa

Cult Nails Evil Queen

Hi everyone! Happy long weekend for all of my fellow Canadians out there!

Today I have a short-ish post featuring another polish from the Cult Nails Fairy Tale collection! Today I have Evil Queen, a gorgeous tomato red creme.

I was thinking this might be my least favourite out of the entire collection, mostly because it seemed like it was going to be one of those reds that really clash with my skin. Surprisingly, this doesn't really clash with my skin as much as I thought I would, and this creme is so glossy and amazing to apply that it has quickly jumped to the top of my list of favourite red polishes.

In  other news, I'm on a temporary ban on nail polish buying, unless Lac Attack decides to restock some of her polishes (I NEED Hell on Heels). I'm waiting for my jewellery supplies shipment to come in, and as soon as it does I'll make sure to finalize & open shop on Etsy (I'll have an announcement and link when I'm ready for that to happen!).

Thanks for reading everyone! Hope y'all have a good week. :)

Marisa

Essie: As Gold as it Gets

Hi everyone!

Just a super fast post today, I managed to somehow catch a cold or something so I've been feeling super sick lately. I also have a huge number of pictures that need to be posted sometime, so the next few posts will be of swatches that have been getting dusty in the archives!

Today I have a polish that I have been lemming like crazy ever since I saw swatches of it! I know a lot of people are crazy about Shine of the Times, but I actually think that As Gold as it Gets is my favourite polish from the Luxeffects collection!


Without further ado, here are the pictures!

The above photos are one coat of As Gold as it Gets over Color Club's Red-ical Gypsy from the Back to Boho collection.

The above photos are one coat of As Gold as it Gets over Color Club's Artsy Craftsy.


That's all for today! I can't wait to try some more layering combinations with this polish! Next up is probably over a nice navy... mmm. :D


-Marisa

Something festive!

Hi everyone!

Today's post is a festive mani I did for my sweater party a few days ago!

I actually just realized that I haven't actually worn many of the Zoya polishes I got in the summer (bad me!), so hopefully the next time I don't know what to wear, those will be in my mind somewhere!

Today's post features Zoya's Ivanka and Kimmy!

Unfortunately, the colour of this picture is a bit more blue tinged. Ivanka (the green) is a super shiny, awesome money green colour )so less blue than it appears in this photo) and Kimmy is a firey golden-red which actually is really stunning in person. The only downside to this mani was that Kimmy managed to stain the crap out of my ring finger even though I used basecoat. Still very pretty though.

On my other hand I had the reverse, so I had Ivanka as an accent finger. None of my pictures really turned out though.. so sorry about that!

Happy holidays everyone!

Marisa

OPI - Guy meets Gal-veston

Hi everyone,

I've been doing some prep for some scheduled posts while I'm away (we're leaving on the 25th), and yesterday was my swatching day. I was going to post a lot earlier, but I finally got around to editing all of the future post pictures (there were a lot) and now I'm too tired to talk much.

Today I have OPI's Guy meets Gal-veston from the Texas collection for y'all! This is the only polish I picked up, but I've always been meaning to get more.

Guy meet's Gal-veston is a yellow based red sorbet (i.e. jelly) finish polish. This was 3 coats. There is a little bit on visible nail line in the picture, but it isn't really as noticeable in person.

I really love jelly polishes.. I love their squishy look and smooth feel, so because of that I may go out sometime and pick up some of the other "sorbets" from the Texas collection.

Hmm, I'll also include this picture I snapped of a moth.. it landed on my lamp while I was reading and it looked like it really belonged there! I love the detail in the picture, so I purposely left it really huge.. I think it's super pretty, but Jen thinks it's gross. :P

That's all for now everyone, thank for reading! <3

-Marisa

OPI - Color to Diner for

Good evening everyone!

Just a short-ish post today, my plans for tomorrow are mostly to study like crazy (I'll be banned from technology, so I won't be tweeting tomorrow unfortunately). I'm really looking forward to my exam being over.. and then I can get along to doing the million things I have to do before I leave on my vacation (like type out a bunch of scheduled posts!)

Anyhow, onto the polish. Today's featured polish is Color to Diner for, from the new OPI Touring America collection! Out of all of the colours, I only picked up this one and Honk if You Love OPI.

Sorry the photo is so blue tinged, the colour itself is pretty accurate (on my monitor, for the lighting). The shimmer isn't really apparent indoors, but when you go outside in the sunlight it kind of pops out of nowhere.

Here's a close-up of the shimmer.. Isn't it gorgeous? I'm kinda bummed that I didn't get a good picture of this in the sunlight, but I'll put that on my to-do list.

Anyhow, I'm totally stoked about my upcoming trip to the East Coast, I also have a bunch of parcels I'm hoping will be delivered soon.. The Cult Nails Hypnotic Collection for one, and a package from Beauty Joint (more yay!)

Hope y'all enjoy today's post,

Marisa