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

Peacock Feathers Revisited..

Hi everyone!

TGIF! I'm glad the weekend is here even though a lot of things went a bit wrong today.

Before I go any further, I'd just like to point out this article which has caused a rather large ripple in the Nail Polish/Beauty blogging community. Don't worry, I'm too exhausted to rant about it, but I feel that Mary has described it perfectly. I guess all I can say is that I started my blog because I became infatuated with nail polish as a hobby, and since no one that I knew felt the same way, I decided to start it online to share my thoughts with like minded people. I've never received free products from companies for review, and I never expected to. I'm thankful for each of my followers, because you all make me feel appreciated, especially since I never expected anyone to want to read my ramblings when I first started out!

Anyway, enough rambling now.. I'm not particularly happy with the pictures I initially took of Nubar's Peacock Feathers, so I took more the last time I wore it. I'm particularly happy with how some of the photos turned out, but I apologize in advance for my messy cuticles -I'm still learning!

Okay. That's all of the Peacock Feathers spam..

Now, I just have a random picture for y'all.. I saw this when I was in a gift shop at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum and immediately thought that this would make an EPIC nail polish colour! Of course, a polish like this is probably impossible or at least very, very difficult.. but I'd like to share with you all anyway!

This is a Bismuth crystal, grown in Germany!

Oh yeah! This is a quick picture of what we've received in the past month.

 

-Marisa

Mid Vacation Update

Hi everyone!

I just realized I completely missed a day while I was scheduling posts.. so I'm writing this now to make up for it!

I'm picking up a huge haul of nail polish here, so I'm going to share some pictures of it with you!

And a few more close up shots of all of the Zoyas..

When I get back I'll put the names down. There are also more OPI polishes, but I didn't manage to get any pictures of them.

Okay, well I'm going to go off now.. I need to pack since we're going to NYC tomorrow. I'll be gone for 2 days, but you'll probably hear from me if I can manage to get some free wifi somewhere.

Hope you're all enjoying the last few days of Summer!

-Marisa

Mega Haul!

Howdy all,

I'm feeling a bit tired today, so I think I won't say too much, and let the pictures do most of the talking!

Starting with the China Glaze..

Left to Right: Flyin High, Lemon Fizz, Light as Air, Something Sweet

, Sugar High, Heli-Yum, Flip Flop Fantasy

Left to Right: First Mate, Starboard, Ahoy!, White Cap

Left to Right: Color Club Wild at Heart, Grape Juice, Electric Lilac, Grape Pop, Spontaneous

Left to Right: Lubu Heels, Liquid Leather, Snow, Fairy Dust, CC Vivid Topcoat, CC Starry Temptress Topcoat, Matte Magic

Color Club Electrocandy Collection (names escaping me at the moment)

Misa Paradise Shore collection Left to Right: Krystal Water, Mega Margarita, Under my Sunbrella, Endless Keys, Summer Love

Some Miscellanious things I've picked up over the last few days.. OPI Mermaid's Tears, OPI DS Mystery, CG Party Hearty

China Glaze Polish Snake

My current, modest collection.

That's all for now, I haven't gotten around to choosing a polish to wear yet, but I'm focusing on taking off what I have now first!

Ciao for now,

-Marisa

Mini Haul!

Howdy all,

Today I'd like to share with you my 'mini haul' over the past two days!
First up.. the polish!

Essie Going Incognito, OPI Steady as she rose, China Glaze Little Drummer Boy

Billie Cosmetics Jovile (maroon) and Anxiety (turquoise-blue)

Color Club Age of Aquarius, Zoya Gloria and Crystal

I found the Zoya polishes at a small place called Spa Boutique on W4th avenue near Alma. It's fairly small shop, but I thought the service was great, and it seems like they're fairly up to date with their collections. they currently have a few bottles left of the Zoya Fire and Ice collection (no Valerie, which made me sad) and I was told that they're expecting the Intimate collection sometime soon (no news on the Summertime/Sunshine collection yet).

I picked up the Color Club and the OPI while I was scoping out Secret Beauty Supply, which is on Kingsway and Knight street. They have a large collection of nail polish, including an up to date selection of OPI, an assortment of Color Club sets (including Starry Temptress, Wicked Sweet, Alter Ego which are $22.99/set), and a fair number of China Glaze polishes (including the newest Island Escape collection).

The Billie cosmetics nail polish were from a dollar store I stopped by on my way home from the Beauty Supply store.. at $1.25 each, how can you resist? Anxiety reminds me somewhat of China Glaze Atlantis, and Jovile's base colour kind of reminds me of OPI's DS Extravagance.

I also picked up a bunch of Avojuice lotion at the Beauty Supply store. The small sample sized lotions came in a pack of 6 and were $6.95 for the pack, and the full sized lotion was $5.50. The small sample sized bottles were also sold individually for $1.50 each. I haven't tried all of them yet, but I think the Winter Huckleberry smells delicious!

Now for the polish!
Today I have Zoya Gloria on my left hand, and Crystal on my right hand.

Zoya - Gloria (3 coats)

Zoya - Crystal (3 coats)

Sorry about the mark on the middle finger, it's from a chipped nail.
These are my first ever Zoya nail polishes, and I'm impressed! I can't wait for the Summertime/Sunshine collections.. I need to find some store that actually sell Zoya in Vancouver.. I wish I lived in the States.. I have so many empty/messed up bottles of nail polish I could have exchanged.. but oh well. I've already gone through the collection swatches that have been posted online and picked out some of the ones I want to get.. I'm tempted to get Mira, which is a purple creme, just because it's the name of my cousin's baby girl. :)

The Zoya polishes retail for $9 at Spa Boutique.

Secret Beauty Supply requires a membership to purchase items, which can be purchased for $10 and is valid for 10 months. If you do not wish to buy a membership, you can still buy products, but for a 30% price increase.

Note: the China Glaze crackle line (white, black, teal, pink, grey and purple) are sold out at Secret Beauty Supply and will not be available until June)

Well, that's all for today. Do you know of any stores in Vancouver that sell Zoya nail polish? What colours would you recommend?

Ciao for now,

-Marisa