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 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!

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

Cult Nails Coveted

Hi everyone!

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but I've been super stressed out at work lately, and I really haven't had much time for polish changes! I'm really excited for the end of this month though... I'm looking forward to actually having free time during school instead of coming  home late every night and feeling like a trainwreck!

Anyhow, I noticed that the length of my nails really annoys me when I have them naked and they're a bit on the longer side. In these pictures you can see my current length (pretty much as nubby as ever) which I actually really like. I'm thinking I'll keep my nails around this length. Also, I noticed that my ring finger nails look a bit gross in pictures sometimes when they're longer... so I apologize for any weird looking, flared out nails in the future.

BUT ASIDE FROM ME RAMBLING... today's polish is amazing! I love it! I wasn't really sure if I'd like it at first, but now that I think about it... I love green, and I love Cult Nails Iconic... so why the heck would I not love this polish? It's amazing. It totally reminds me of the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz. WAH-BANG! That was the sound of this polish blasting its way into my top ## picks of this year!

I'm definitely going to covet this baby!

What do y'all think? isn't it gorgeous? Also, what do you think of my new nail length? My nails were feeling extra brittle last time I had them nude, and they were really starting to peel and split. Talk about a nail polish fanatic's nightmare, huh?

Thanks for reading!

Marisa

Cult Nails Deal With It

Hi everyone, hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and Black Friday if you're located in the US!We had our Thanksgiving about a month ago, so all I could do was drool over all of the food posts on twitter while I was at work... lol!

Anyway, a short-ish post for now... today I have one of my biggest lemmings ever that spanned pretty much from when it came out. Deal With It came out in the Cult nails Untamed collection that came out a few months ago for the summer. Long story short, I was obsessively looking at swatches of this collection for a while but was uncertain of getting this shade - mostly because I wasn't sure if it would be flattering on my skintone. After much debating and wiffle-waffling (yes, I use this phrase a lot), I finally decided to get this polish during the last Cult Nails sale.

I'm so glad I did. I love this polish!

Deal With It is an awesome lime green with stunning gold shimmer. I looove the shimmer in this polish so much - I'd love to get my mitts on a bright blue or purple polish like this too! ;)
I didn't really notice it at first, but it does seem to dry a tad on the matte side... I put on some top coat for these photos and it was amazing how glossy and even more beautiful it became. Then again, I'm not really sure if the amazing glossiness just came from the Wicked Fast topcoat I was using... :D

Anyhow, I'm going to stop rambling about this polish now. If you've been undecided on Deal With It like I was... I definitely think you should get it! It's an amazing polish. I'm so glad I caved in!

Thanks for reading! I hope you all have a great weekend, and spent lots of money on polish for the weekend/cyber monday polish sales (since I'm on a strict no buy)!

Marisa

Innisfree 82

Hi everyone!

Sorry that I've been MIA lately, I've been pretty much an uninspired polish wreck. Hopefully that will be over soon though, because I got some EPIC nail mail today! I got my first HAREs and two of my most lemming'ed Cult Nails polishes! WOOHOO!

Hopefully those polishes will be swatched soon for y'all too, but today I have another great polish I wore a while back. I really love this one.

Innisfree 82 is a gorgeous combination of cantaloupe and light green hex glitters and tiny light green glitters suspended in a light yellow based green base. Above I have it laytered over Orly's Jealous Much?

That's all for now! Thank you for reading! I can't wait to share my first HARE polishes with y'all!

Marisa

Zoya Apple

Hi everyone!

I'm currently on vacation in Washington DC area, so today's post is a scheduled one. This means I won't be able to reply to any comments until I return on the 2nd of September! In the meantime, enjoy the ramble-free posting! :D

 Today I have another polish from Zoya's Sunshine collection from 2011. I was pretty excited for this polish since I LOVE green, and I'm not at all disappointed. I actually think I love this shade more than Ivanka!

Thanks for reading!

Marisa

Spring Orly Spam!

Hi everyone!

How are we all today? I'm relaxing a bit but still kinda stressed since I have training for my new job coming up next week. I reallllly need to go find my notes so I can review some of the more important protocol bits (I'll be working in a lab). I made a TON of orders in the past few days. Cult Nails is having a sale where all of their polishes are $7 ($3 off each) and Maria has announced that some of the polishes (including my beloved Feelin' Froggy) are going to be discontinued. I know I said I'd be really sad if she dc'ed Feelin' Froggy, but I think I feel better since it was on sale and I was able to grab a back up bottle! I also finally caved in and bought a bunch of soaps from KBShimmer. I'm planning on purchasing a sugar scrub from them too, but I figure I'll wait until I get all of my mini soaps and smell them all instead of purchasing such a big tub blind. :P I'm also super excited that Nail Polish Canada is going to get the Zoya Fall collection in tomorrow. Right now they're having a free shipping for Canadian Orders over $25, so you bet I'm going to grab some. I'm most excited for Evvie (since I love the name), but I'm going to pick up a bunch of other colours too. I love Nail Polish Canada as they're based really close to me, so I get my orders within a day or 2 of shipping. :D

Oops, that was a lot of ramble. Sorry guys. Lol!

Annyhow, today I have some Orly polishes from the Spring for you! These have been sitting in my swatch folder for a while, but I have no idea why I haven't posted them yet since they're great Spring colours! Let the spam commence!

 Faint of Heart: Grey-Taupe creme.

Jealous Much?: Pretty mint creme. I used this in my Mint Oreo chip NOTD a while ago. If I remember correctly, I thought the dry time on this polish was fairly long.

Prelude to a Kiss: Pretty soft peach for Spring. I love this colour.

You're Blushing: Pretty mauve-y grey-y polish.


That's all for today! Thanks for reading!

Marisa

Butter London Trustafarian & Dodgy Barnett (Fall/Winter 2012 Collection)

Hi everyone!

I am super excited to bring you two polishes from the Butter London Fall/Winter Collection 2012! I hadn't even HEARD of this collection before, but while I was in a polish store in my area they had these polishes out already! One look and I HAD to have them (in true hoarder style). I think there are three other polishes in the collection, including a brick orange-red, a black glitter, and a primarily magenta pink and blue glitter polish in a clear base.

Today I have Trustafarian and Dodgy Barnett to share with you all!

 First up, we have Dodgy Barnett:

I'm a little bit disappointed with my pictures of Dodgy Barnett - colourwise they're fine, but the holo definitely didn't appear in my pictures as much as they do in person. The shade picture is about right (there isn't much holo if any at all) but the sun pictures are a bit sad. In the sun, this polish is really similar to the not-so-bling-holo version of Colour Club's Worth the Risque. If you have that polish, you don't really NEED this one. For a good indication of the holo-ness, the blurry shot shows the holo the most (bit I do this it's a smidgen more obvious than that).

Trustafarian:

Trustafarian is a pistachio green holo. My pictures of this are a bit more holo-accurate. I love this colour. I don't have many holos, but I do own China Glaze's L8tr G8tr, which is kind of similar... L8tr G8tr is more lime green, whereas Trustafarian is a more subdued green with a touch of murkiness.

Overall, these polishes both required 3 coats for opacity. I had no trouble with streaking or balding (like the Nfu Oh holos without aquabase... shudder) and these dried glossy (not matte like some holos). I would categorize these polishes as being in between the crazy linear holographics like the China Glaze OMGs and the Nfu Ohs and the scattered linear polishes (China Glaze Kaleidoscopes). The finish and type of holo in these is really similar to the Color Club holographic polishes - they don't look holographic in shade or low light settings indoors, but in the sun they sure are pretty.

For me, I'm not too picky about how holo-y my holographic polishes are - I like the diversity in finish since I wear whatever I feel like. I tend not to like the more matte holos (don't like the texture), so these are good for me. :D

Overall, I'm pretty happy with these polishes. Dodgy Barnett is similar to Worth the Risque (the version I have) so I probably could do without it, but I really love Trustafarian. I'm excited to see Butter London releasing some holographic polishes, since it seemed like most companies were shying away from holos... hopefully this means that more holo polishes -can- be made (even if these aren't like the OMGs). I hope this means Butter London (at least) can make more polishes like this in different shades. If they do, I'd definitely buy them. I hoard nail polish right? :P

Thank you for reading! Have a great day!

Marisa

Cult Nails Feelin' Froggy

Hi everyone! Long time no post!

My Cult Nails Fairytale collection is here! Finally! They actually came yesterday but I only had time to swatch them today. I gotta say, this collection is awesome.

A few days ago, I went to Ikea for the midnight madness sale, and I saw this sofa that was the prettiest colour green EVER. It was like a green that wasn't too blue or too yellow - and slightly murky-ish. It was so pretty, I immediately wanted to have a nail polish that colour. I wrote down the name of the colour, but typical of me... I lost it that night. I was so obsessed with that colour I even wanted to try to franken it (and whenever I franken, it's like a bomb explodes... I make a mess everywhere ;) )

Anyhow, long story short, I found the prettiest colour ever, and then when I open my Cult Nails package... THERE IT IS! What a coincidence huh?! Feelin' Froggy is almost exactly the colour I saw at Ikea! It's even better than I thought it would be!

Alas, my pictures don't really accurately depict the colour of this polish... sob. Surprisingly, I don't think I really have a colour like this in my stash. I think Mojito Madness is close, but it's too light and a bit more yellow (I think). If you love greens like me, you have to see Feelin' Froggy in person. It's amazing. I keep staring at my nails. I've already decided that I'm wearing this for my vacation in August, and I need at least another bottle for a back up. If Maria ever discontinues this polish (knock on wood!), I'm going to cry. So Maria, if you're reading this rambling message... please don't. I'll be sad. LOL.

I am going absolutely crazy for this colour. What do y'all think? I'm absolutely sure this one just bounced to the top of my top polish list. :D

Thank you for reading!

PS: Someday I will have that awesome sofa. Or at least something from Ikea in that colour. I'm obsessed with this green!

Marisa

NOTD: Gradients

Hi everyone! Happy Wednesday!

Today I'm going to show you what's currently on my nails... I've been pretty uninspired lately so up until yesterday my nails were naked. I guess it's because I'm expecting a lot of nail mail. I'm really excited for anything I purchase online to come, especially nail polish. I don't want to do a really awesome mani now and have the mail come later and end up having to take it all off so I can try the new goodies. Does that even make sense? lol. Right now I'm waiting for some jewellery supplies I ordered from Etsy, my Cult Nails $5 sale order (I bought Nevermore, Feel Me Up, Scandalous, Seductive, Enticing and Manipulative), I also gave in and ordered Picture Polish's Mask-a-rade and Monroe from Llarowe during her birthday sale, and I preordered the Fairy Tales collection from Cult Nails as soon as the preorder was live. Yeah,  I'm excited. :D

Anyhow, onto the nails. I was feeling pretty uninspired until I saw this post by Ivana at Ivana Thinks Pink. I was instantly smitten with the look and I wanted to do something like it right away. I used this awesome awesome awesome tutorial for gradients by Sam at the Nailasaurus, so if you like the look... make sure you go have a look through it, and have a gander through her other posts as well! Her manicures are amazing!

So I actually have 2 NOTDs to show y'all since I did 2 different gradients for each hand. I was initially thinking about putting a coat of Milani Gems on each nail (to get a look like Ivana's mani), but the glitter on my trial run (on my thumb) came up more clumpy and dense than what I wanted. Instead I used a thin coat of Essie's As Gold as it Gets on each nail.

 

Yes, my nails are a different shape on my left hand. I have them more rounded since I usually don't use them for swatching (I'm left handed so it's easier to swatch on the right), and I usually like to cut them into nubs. I'm not really a fan of square shaped nubs, so they're rounded. I wasn't planning on posting any pictures of my left hand, but I liked how it turned out, so here they are! Also, my left hand doesn't have the reversed gradients like on my right hand... I didn't reverse the colours on my ring finger because I thought that the light green would really clash with my skintone.

Also, the pictures of my right hand don't quite accurately portray the colour... it's much more red-y magenta.

For my left hand, I used:
Dark Green: Essie - Going Incognito
Light Green: China Glaze - Gaga for Green
Gold Flakies: Essie - As Gold as it Gets

Right hand:
Magenta: China Glaze - Under the Boardwalk
Purple: China Glaze - Grape Pop
Gold Flakies: Essie - As Gold as it Gets

I'm really happy with how this turned out. I think I'm getting a hang of the gradient technique, so I can't wait to try it again with other colours.

Thanks for reading! I hope you all enjoy the rest of your week!

Marisa