Colors By Llarowe - Mojito

Hi everyone, I hope you're all having a great Easter weekend!

Sorry for not posting more recently... I bought all of the Picture Polish Limited Edition polishes and had them swatched, but none of the pictures really turned out well and I wasn't really in the mood to swatch them again. I'll redo them, but it might take me a while.

The great thing is that all of my exams are done! Huzzah! I couldn't resist ordering Borealis (another LE Picture Polish shade) from Harlow & Co when I just happened to be browsing during a restock, so I ended up purchasing my first Colors By Llarowe polishes at the same time. I know that CbL is a pretty wanted brand at the moment, but I'd never had the desire to enter the crazy restock madness that always seems to accompany it. Luckily, there were a few shades that were still on the Harlow & Co website that appealed to me. We've had rain for most of the week, and I was away and unable to open my package, but today when the sun came out I finally decided to do some swatching.

I am SO GLAD I bought there polishes (I ended up getting Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Dirty Diana, Smooth Criminal and Mojito). Of course I reached for Mojito first!

Almost done raving now, just a short description of the polish and I'll let you have a look!

Mojito is a beautiful light spearmint-y green with a slightly subtle linear holo. But slightly subtle I mean not as holo as the Color Club Halo Hues and maybe as holo as the China Glaze Hologlam ones (or maybe more, I haven't really compared). I actually really like subtle holos, so I love this one to bits. Actually, I think this is one of my favourite green holos ever.

Okay, done raving. Here are a bunch of photos I hope will make up for all of the jabbering! :)

Artificial Light

Sunlight

Sunlight

Sunlight

Sunlight

Sunlight

Artificial Light

What do y'all think? Gosh, I am such a sucker for greens.

As always, thank you so much for reading! I hope I'll be able to get my game on and reswatch those Picture Polish shades soon!

Marisa

NOTD: Sparitual Imagination over Peace, Love, and OPI

Hi everyone!

I hope you're all having a great January so far! Today I have a recent NOTD to share with y'all. When I first saw Sparitual Imagination I thought it was duochrome goodness in a bottle. I was hoping it would be opaque, but it was more like duochrome glitter suspended in a clear base. I decided to laŷer it over OPI's Peace, Love, and OPI for a sparkly, duochromey manicure.

My pictures definitely don't do this one justice! It's much more sparkly and duochromey in person.
That's all for today!Thank y'all for reading, and I hope you have a great week!


- Marisa

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 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:


Nail Polish Canada (almost) the best e-tailer in Canada


NailPolishCanada.com is close to being named the best e-commerce company in Canada as part of Canada Post’s E-Commerce Awards and needs your help.

NailPolishCanada.com was selected as a finalist for best e-tailers in Canada by a panel of judges including executives at Facebook and Google (So yes Dad, nail polish is a “thing”!).

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. 


To encourage everybody to show their support and vote, NailPolishCanada.com is offering up to $2000 in prizes!


How it works


Vote for NPC

You can vote every day. Voting runs from August 28th to September 20th 12:00PM.
You must record your vote to enter & win at Nail Polish Canada’s vote page here.

Voting & prizes are open to Canadian and U.S. residents.

Daily Draw
There is a daily thank-you draw for everybody who voted that day for awesome prizes!


Bonus: If Nail Polish Canada Wins the Vote


This is the kicker, if NailPolishCanada.com wins Consumer Champion then we’re having a huge giveaway with two winners!


Grand Prize #1: 24 bottles of Enchanted Nail Polish
Grand Prize #2: $1000 shopping spree at Nail Polish Canada

Both prizes are awarded separately and every day you voted for us as Consumer Champion is one entry to win. 


Prizes are only open to Canadian and U.S. residents. See http://www.nailpolishcanada.com/vote for full details.

For further info please contact joy@nailpolishcanada.com

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