Friday, December 31, 2010

New Year's Eve Nail Art + Giveaway Update

Hey everyone!

I hope you all had a great year in 2010 and I wish you all the best for 2011. I was going to do a simple firework design (as you can see on my thumb) for my New Year's Eve manicure but I thought it looked a little too plain so I ended up drawing the "2011" as well. Hope you like it!



Products:
China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat
OPI - Black Onyx (base)
OPI - I Get a Kick Out of Gold (numbers and the gold fireworks)
Color Club - Sultry (outline of numbers and the gold fireworks)
China Glaze - Cheers To You (silver fireworks)
Gold and silver rhinestones from eBay (center of fireworks)
Seche Vite Top Coat


Also, this week is going to be very hectic for me and thus I will be unable to get to the post office. Therefore, I have decided to extend the deadline of my giveaway by one week.
This means that you now have until 11:59pm on the evening of Friday, January 7th, 2011.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Review & Swatches - Wet 'n' Wild Snow Sprite Holiday Palette

Hey!

Today I have another of the Wet 'n' Wild holiday palettes for you! I won't be doing a complete review on this one since I felt the same way about this one as I did the Night Elf palette which I reviewed not too long ago. So you can check out that post here if you want a detailed review.

This palette is called Snow Sprite and it features 6 shades: a dirty beige with a green tint, a spring green with a slight duochrome effect, a dark sparkly forest green, a light blue-silver (which shows up as more silver than blue on my fair skin), a medium blue-silver (this one does come off more blue and it has a slight metallic look to it) and a smoky, dark sparkly blue.





Basically, here's the rundown/a quick review:

- These palettes are inexpensive ($6.99 at the drugstore)
- The quality is rather impressive
- Pigmentation is excellent
- Last all day (with a base underneath)
- Come in a variety of shades
- My only problem is the cheap-feeling packaging but thanks to above points, I'm able to get over that


P.S. I went back to the drugstore to see if I could find these again for a giveaway and I was able to get all 4 of them! So keep an eye out for a giveaway (or possibly multiple giveaways) featuring these palettes!

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Simple Holographic Zebra Print Nails

Hey guys!

I hope everything had a wonderful Christmas! Mine was excellent and you'll be seeing some swatches of some of the goodies I got.

Today's nail design is super simply because I didn't have much time but I wanted to take my poinsettia design off so I came up with this holographic zebra print. Because it's so sparkly this could definitely be used as a New Year's design but I have something a little more extravagant in mind for my New Year's manicure!



Products:
China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat
OPI Designer Series - Coronation (base colour for all nails except ring fingers)
Orly - Goth (base colour on ring fingers)
L.A. Colors Art Deco - Black (black zebra stripes)
L.A. Colors Art Deco - Silver (silver zebra stripes)
L.A. Colors Art Deco - Silver Glitter (on top of silver zebra stripes)
China Glaze - Fairy Dust (on top of everything)
Seche Vite Top Coat

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Christmas Nail Art - Poinsettias

Hey again!

Today I have yet another Christmas manicure for you all. I actually think this is my favourite so far and even though I was planning on doing something else for Christmas Day, I think I'll be leaving this one on!


I even got a shot of my right hand with this design so I thought I would share that as well. Obviously it's not as good/neat as my left hand but I'm coming along and it's getting easier to use my non-dominant hand!



Products:
China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat
OPI - Alpine Snow (base)
Orly - Winter Wonderland (on top of base)
China Glaze - Phat Santa (poinsettias)
OPI - Black Onyx (outline of poinsettias)
MAC - Jade Dragon (leaves)
Gold bouillon beads from eBay (center of poinsettias)
Seche Vite Top Coat

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Christmas Nail Art - Christmas Lights

Hey everyone!

Today I have another Christmas manicure for you. I'm trying to get as many more Christmas designs in as possible so I'm doing as many as I can! This design has been done a hundred times before but I have always liked it so I wanted to give it a try myself.




Products:
China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat
China Glaze - Midnight Kiss (base)
L.A. Colors Art Deco - Forest Green (cord)
China Glaze - Grape Juice (purple bulbs)
China Glaze - Dorothy Who? (blue bulbs)
Orly - Star Spangled (red bulbs)
Nicole by OPI - Fresh Squeezed (orange bulbs)
Zoya - Ivanka (green bulbs)
Color Club - Sex Symbol (glitter highlight on bulbs)
Seche Vite Top Coat

Click here to see the next design in my Christmas Nail Art Series!

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Press Release - China Glaze Tronica Collection

Hey!

So if anyone follows China Glaze on Twitter then you're already aware of this collection but if you don't, feast your eyes on this:



China Glaze Tronica Collection will be exclusive to BSG (January/February 2011) and Sally Beauty Supply (March/April 2011) and it's supposed to be reminiscent of the OMG! collection which I have been trying to get my hands on for months except that the majority of the colours are sold for ridiculous prices on eBay.
Anyway, this news excited me beyond belief and I CAN'T WAIT! :D

What does everyone think? Did you like the OMG! collection? Are you excited to see something similar?

Review & Swatches - Hard Candy Walk the Line Liquid Eyeliner

Hey everyone!

Today I have a review for you of the Hard Candy Walk the Line liquid eyeliners. These can be bought at Wal-Mart for about $6 a piece and there are 12 colours available. I have 5 colours for you today and I'll try to pick up the rest of them at another time.

The shades I have for you are:

Licorice - black with multi-colour glitter
Night Sky - silver with multi-colour glitter
Dream Girl - very shimmery gold foil-like colour with silver glitter
Lucky - matte true green
Fuchsia - a metallic purple pink



The packaging is cute which we have all come to expect from the Hard Candy brand. As well, the brushes are very thin so they're easy to control which means it's much easier to be precise. So for anyone who is a little turned off by liquid eyeliners because you're afraid you'll mess up, these brushes are a big help for you and you should find them easier to work with than some of the larger brushes.



Furthermore, you're getting a ton of product with these! I grabbed two other drugstore liquid eyeliners out of my drawer for comparison and here's the scoop:

L'Oreal Linuer Intense - 0.05 fl oz.
Revlon Colorstay Liquid Eyeliner - 0.08 fl oz.
Hard Candy Walk the Liner Liquid Eyeliner - 0.112 fl oz

So you're getting more than double the L'Oreal one and almost double the Revlon one! And since these can all be bought at the drugstore, there prices are quite similar.

Now, as far as these 5 go colours, they're all hit or miss. The glitter ones take absolutely forever to dry which is a huge drawback because if you get it on the rest of your eye, you've basically ruined the rest of your eye makeup. However, if you're patient enough to wait for them to dry, they will last all day long.
Also, as you can see from my swatches, the glitter ones are very sheer and I would have preferred the glitter to be suspended in a more opaque base to really make it pop. However, when you use these on top of an opaque black eyeliner, they look stunning. In the second picture, I used all of them on top of MAC Feline Eye Kohl and you can really see the how beautiful the glitter ones are. Now, if only they would dry!

The non-glitters dried regularly which is great and these bad boys aren't going anywhere throughout the day. Seriously, I had the swatches on my hand for all of 3 minutes and I really had to give 'er to get them off. In fact, in my second picture you can still see some of the residue from Lucky because it was so difficult to get off!


Fuchsia, Lucky, Dream Girl, Night Sky, Licorice


Fuchsia, Lucky, Dream Girl, Night Sky, Licorice (all over black)


Overall, these liners are ok, depending on which colours you get. The glitters are beautiful to look at but their drying time is a real pain in the ass. The non-glitters are super long-lasting and dry much faster. Unfortunately I don't have the regular non-glitter black colour but if it's anything like it's non-glitter friends that I do have, that one would be an excellent black liquid eyeliner, especially considering the amount of product you get.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Christmas Nail Art - Wreaths

Hey guys!

Today I have for you the next nail design in my Christmas series: wreaths! I was truly out of original ideas for a Christmas design and I didn't want to do anything that's already been done before (that I know of, at least) so I racked my brain and finally came up with this design. I was a little skeptical about it because I wasn't sure if it would really end up looking like wreaths but I'm actually pretty pleased with how it turned out!



Products:
China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat
China Glaze - Midnight Kiss (gold background)
China Glaze - Jolly Holly (wreath)
OPI - Alpine Snow (base colour for bows and other wreath decorations)
China Glaze - Ruby Pumps (bows and other wreath decorations)
Seche Vite Top Coat

Click here to see the next design in my Christmas Nail Art Series!

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Swatches - My China Glaze Collection: Part 1 (Neutrals)

Hey everyone!

Anyone who has been following my blog for a while knows that I have been working on swatching all of my nail polish onto nail wheels for quite some time now. Well, I finally finished that project so I'm going to start showing you swatch pictures of all of my collection. I'll do this brand by brand to make it easier to navigate. My wheels are organized by colour so that should also make it a little easier.

I'm going to start with China Glaze and the first wheel is my neutral wheel which has blacks, greys, whites, silvers and browns/golds.



Keep reading the see up-close pictures and the names of each of the colours!

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Review & Swatches - Wet 'n' Wild Night Elf Holiday Palette

Hey!

Today I'll be showing you swatches of one of four of the new Wet 'n' Wild holiday palettes and this one is called Night Elf. It features 6 shades: a shimmery beige, a shimmery taupe, a brown-green duochrome, a frosty silver, a sparkly red and a glittery black.



I have to say, I'm SUPER impressed with this palette! I can't believe that this was only $6.99 at the drugstore because the eyeshadow quality is amazing! All of the colours are really pigmented and as long as you wear a base underneath, they last long as well.

The palette also comes with an eyeliner pencil which wasn't as impressive. It's a little tough and it doesn't wear all that well. However, you can throw the eyeliner away if you want because even without it the palette is well worth what it costs. Also, I'm sorry but I completely forgot to swatch the eyeliner when swatching the shadows so I don't have a picture of that. I promise that when I swatch the rest of the palettes I'll make sure to include the liners as well.

The plastic packaging does feel a little cheap but that's something I can get over when the product is good.

Overall, I've gotta say that I really didn't expect that Wet 'n' Wild would ever step their game up like this and I'm very impressed with the results. The price is unbelievable for the quality of product you're getting so if you're able to get your hands on any of these holiday palettes, I 100% recommend it!

Kudos Wet 'n' Wild!

Friday, December 17, 2010

Update - My Semester is Over! Regular Posting to Resume Tomorrow!

Hey everyone!

I'm very happy to report that I wrote my final exam of the semester this evening and that now I'm a free woman! :D It was quite a tough end-of-semester for me; I wrote 5 papers and 1 exam in a little over two weeks and I'm mentally exhausted. However, my regular posting will resume tomorrow and I have a number of posts lined up already. I'm so excited to start playing with makeup and nail polish because I have been too deprived in the last two weeks!

Here's just a few of the posts you can expect to see from me in the coming week or so:

• Review & Swatches of the Wet 'n' Wild Holiday palettes
• How to easily remove stubborn glitter polish
• Review & Swatches of my NYX lipliners
• Pictures of all of my nail polish wheels (yes, I FINALLY finished swatching each and every nail polish that I own)
• More Christmas nail art (of course!)

+ much more!


Oh and don't forget to enter my holiday giveaway! It ends on December 31st and there's going to be 3 winners chosen so there's plenty of chances to win some great prizes!

ps. Thanks to many of you who stood up for me recently when there was an issue about a well known youtuber possibly using my nail art design without crediting me for it. I appreciate it and I'm looking further into the matter.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Christmas Nail Art - Candy Canes with Holly

Hey!

How is everyone doing? I'm still stressin' over final exams and final papers but I'll be done everything Friday evening so I promise I'll get back to regular posting; I have a lot of posts lined up!

In the meantime I'm still carrying on with my Christmas Nail Art Series and the next design is a simple candy cane one with some holly added to spice it up.




(I couldn't decide which angle worked best so I just decided to post both photos.)


Products:
China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat
China Glaze - Ruby Pumps (glittery red base)
L.A. Colors Art Deco - White (white stripes)
China Glaze - Jolly Holly (holly leaves)
Red rhinestones from eBay (holly berries)
Seche Vite Top Coat

Click here to see the next design in my Christmas Nail Art Series!

Thursday, December 09, 2010

Christmas Nail Art - Wrapped Gifts

Hey everyone. :)

Today I have the next design in my Christmas series and it's inspired by a design that MissChievous on youtube did not long ago. I did change it up a bit to make it my own but it's largely inspired by her design (which can be seen ).



Products:
China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat
OPI - Ali's Big Break (base colour for all nails except the ring finger)
China Glaze - Watermelon Rind (base colour on ring finger)
L.A. Colors Art Deco - Silver (silver ribbon)
L.A. Colors Art Deco - Silver Glitter (on top of silver ribbon)
L.A. Colors Art Deco - Gold Rush (gold ribbon)
L.A. Colors Art Deco - Gold Glitter (on top of gold ribbon)
Flower shaped rhinestones from eBay (meant to emulate the look of bows)
Seche Vite Top Coat

Click here to see the next design in my Christmas Nail Art Series!

Sunday, December 05, 2010

Christmas Nail Art - Santa's Belly

Hey!

Today in the midst of researching and writing papers I was able to complete the next design in my Christmas series: Santa's big ol' belly! Except my nails aren't very wide so they don't do justice to the roundness of Santa's belly so I think this would be a great design for someone with wider nail beds.

Anyways, here it is:



Products:
China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat
China Glaze - Ruby Deer (Santa's suit)
OPI - Alpine Snow (white fur on Santa's suit)
L.A. Colors Art Deco - Black (belt)
Color Club - Sultry (belt buckle)
Black rhinestones from eBay (suit buttons)
Seche Vite Top Coat

Click here to see the next design in my Christmas Nail Art Series!

Friday, December 03, 2010

200 Follower Mega Holiday Giveaway! - CLOSED

Hey guys!

I have been waiting a few days to reach 200 followers in order to finally post this so when I logged in today and saw that I had reached it, I was so excited!

My first giveaway went amazingly well so I decided to do another but when I was picking out the prizes, I got a little carried away. So, this giveaway will have 3 winners, all of whom will be receiving some pretty awesome prizes (at least I think so)!

The rules:
1.) Be a follower of my blog.
2.) This is an international giveaway.
3.) Leave a comment below with your GFC name and your email address.
4.) A blog post about my giveaway will give you 2 extra entries (include a link to your blog in your comment).
6.) If your blog is used solely for giveaways, I will not give you the extra entries for your blog post about my giveaway since I don't really see this as fair to the other participants.
7.) Adding my blog to your blog roll will give you 1 extra entry (include a link to your blog in your comment).
8.) will give you 1 extra entry (post your twitter username in your comment so I know who you are when you follow).
9.) So, altogether, you can have 5 entries to this giveaway! And just so you know, my last giveaway winner won because she had extra entries!
10.) Participants must be 18 years of age or older or have permission from a parent or guardian.
11.) Giveaway ends midnight of December 31st January 7th.
12.) I will use random.org to choose the winner.

The prizes:
Once again, I chose to include a mix of makeup and nail polish prizes since that's really what my blog is about. Plus, this time all of the prizes are holiday items.

1st Place Prize:



• Nicole by OPI - Tinsel Tips Holiday Set
(Includes 3 mini nail polishes from the new holiday collection in the colours Spark My Mistletoe, Stuck in the Chimney and Kiss Me at Midnight as well as a strip of nail rhinestones to add some sparkle to your nail design)

• Quo (which is a Canadian brand) - Diamonds are Forever Holiday Compact
(Includes 6 eyeshadows and 2 blushes, inside of compact is pictures below)

2nd Place Prize:



• Quo (which is a Canadian brand) - Diamonds are Forever Holiday Compact
(Includes 6 eyeshadows and 2 blushes)

And here is a photo of the inside of the compact:



3rd Place Prize:



• Fingerpaints - Peace Love & Joy Set
(Includes a top coat and nail polish in the colour Mistletoe Mischief)

• Set of 2 holiday nail files
(One has a candy cane design and the other has a gingerbread man design)


Good luck everyone! :D

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Christmas Nail Art - Snowflakes

Hey everyone!

I want to start off by apologizing again for my lack of posting. It's final exam time now and although I only have 1 final, I have 4 final papers to write so that has been eating up my time like crazy.

Nonetheless, I was still able to get started on my Christmas series tonight and here is the first in that line of nail designs:



Products:
China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat
China Glaze - Dorothy Who? (base colour)
OPI - Alpine Snow (snowflakes, snow)
Color Club - Sex Symbol (glitter highlight)
Seche Vite Top Coat

Click here to see the next design in my Christmas Nail Art Series!

Friday, November 26, 2010

Giveaway Winner Announced!

Hey guys!

First of all I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who participated in my giveaway. It was a huge success and it has motivated me to do this a lot more often. In fact, I'll be posting a new giveaway in the next few days so keep a look out for it!

Anyway, without further adieu, the winner of my giveaway is ....

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Giveaway Closed!

Alright everyone, my giveaway is now officially closed!
I will be posting the winner sometime tomorrow so keep and eye out for that post.

Good luck everyone! :)

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Retro Polka Dot Manicure

Hey everyone!

Today I have a retro inspired manicure for you. It was inspired by a random photo I found on google that I really liked so I tried to replicate it.

Here's my inspiration:



And here's my manicure:



Products:
China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat
OPI - Alpine Snow (base coat)
China Glaze - Recycle (dark stripes) mixed with OPI - Alpine Snow (lighter stripes)
OPI - Black Onyx (black dots)
OPI - Elephantastic Pink (pink dots)
Seche Vite Top Coat


ps. My giveaway ends in just about 24 hours so remember to enter if you haven't already!

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Update - Giveaway, Where I've Been, What's to Come, Etc ...

Hey guys!

I decided to do a quick update post to let you know what's on the go with me, where I've been, etc, etc.

First off, just a reminder that my giveaway ends on November 25th at midnight so if you haven't already entered, be sure to do so!


This one took quite a long time because I wanted the detailing to be perfect and so a lot of time was spent on just editing and cleaning up lines.

Also, the glitter was an afterthought and I wish I would have thought about it before I started the design of the faces. It took much longer to try and get around the face designs with the glitter than it would have had I just used the glitter on top of the black base. However, when I finished, it just seemed like it was missing something so I added the glitter to make it look more like night time and that the jack-o-lanterns are shining through!

Products:
• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat
• China Glaze - Liquid Leather (base)
• L.A. Colors Art Deco - White (base for face details)
• Orly - Crush On You (lighter orange)
• OPI - Brights Power (darker orange highlight)
• Color Club - Si Vous Please! (glitter top coat over black base)
• Seche Vite Top Coat

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Haul Saturdays - Volume 17

Welcome to Volume 17 of Haul Saturdays - a weekly post chronicling whatever beauty related purchases I made throughout that week.


Winners:
• Color Club - Glitter Vixen Set

Wal-Mart:
• Nicole by OPI - Hint of Mint and Wavy Navy

Lawton's Drug Mart:
• LA Splash - Splash Proof Eyeshadow Sealer/Base (review coming soon)

Shopper's Drug Mart:
• Benefit - Her Name Was Glowla Kit (review and swatches coming soon)

Friday, October 22, 2010

Press Release - OPI & Serena Williams Collaboration

Yes, another OPI collaboration set to release in 2011. This time it's with tennis star Serena Williams and the name of the collection is Glam Slam.
To co-ordinate with her tournaments, sets of polishes from the collection will be released one at a time in January, May, June and August. 

The information for the first set of polishes has been released and it will include the black shatter top coat I posted about in the OPI/Katy Perry collaboration as well as a bright green colour called Simple Smashing.



I'm excited to see what the rest of this collection will look like!


Next up: Nicole by OPI teams up with ... Justin Bieber? facepalm.

Source: lacquerized
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