February 26, 2012

40 Days and 40 Nights


It's official. I have gone on a no-buy. This also coincides with Lent, so it's for reals this time.

(NOTE: This picture, which I have made myself, is in no way representing any dislike for Butter London. I LOVE BUTTER LONDON. It just happened to be the only lone bottle pic on my computer.)

I let people know about my attempt on Thursday, ending the statment with "and it's been going well so far". Of course, I got a good laughing at by the others, since Lent had only started the day before. I came really close to breaking today, as I took a detour to Winners after church today and they had this cute little OPI set with a jewelry case, Manicurist of Seville, and Black Cherry Chutney, which I've been lemming for awhile. I'm feeling pretty proud of myself for turning it down, but I keep reminding myself that there are 35 days to go...

So you heard it here first. I am for reals serious not going to buy any new nail polishes until Easter.

Wish me luck!

February 24, 2012

Flashback: Half-Moons and Moonshine

I've decided that in between current nail art/swatching, I will try and post some past stuff of mine as well that is already floating around on facebook in picture-only form. I would like to liken (does that make sense?) this to that show Behind the Music, except this is more like BEHIND THE MANI...

Yes. I know I'm pretty lame.

So, anwyay....


First off, let me make it clear that I am not usually a fan of black nail polish. It looks nice, I agree, but it's just so...dark. I did this mani for our lovely 20's themed semi-formal, and I did my research!


Apparently it was all the rage during the late 1920s and during the 1930s to file your nails real round and then do half-moons. I was originally going to do it up like the picture, with clear moons, red on the middle, and pearly white tips, but I tried it out on a nail wheel and it looked positively bizarre. Plus it didn't go with my champagne-and-black dress, so I formulated a new plan. What you see above is one coat of Revlon Crème Brulée with 2 coats of Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme on top. The black was a total last minute thing -- I thought it turned out pretty chic, don't you?

The half moons, of course, were painted with the aid of trusty hole punch reinforcements. I actually went the extra step and painted in the edges of the circle near he cuticles where the reinforcement didn't make a tight seal with the nail. The thing I remember most about doing this mani was filing my squared nails into a rounded shape. There was like, a mountain of "nail dust" on my desk when I was finished.

I also distinctly remember the night that followed:


I think this is a pretty unattractive picture of me, but it shows off my nails quite well, no? Oh okay. Maybe it calls attention to the unpreparedness of the photo's subjects. But I think it's a beauty nonetheless.

February 21, 2012

Out of This World

PROCRASTINATION is the devil.

A very fun, and relaxed devil.

I was supposed to have my CV ready on top of my writing assignments done and taken care of by now, but instead I spent the last hour and a half doing this:


It's based off cutepolish's galaxy nails tutorial. The best person in the world, my friend Susan, has been dying to try this out. Let me tell you. That youtube girl makes it seem so freaking easy. But this took FOREVER to do, and I like to fancy myself at least a notch over beginner on the nail art expertise scale. I don't quite like how some of it turned out, especially the stars and the "fluffiness" of the nebulae, but nothing that a coat of fine holographic glitter can't fix!


Holographic goodness above!! And below:


Here's my right hand, which I actually like better in some respects, especially in the "fluffiness" department:


On my desk right now is a multitude of nail polishes which just didn't make the cut. The ones I used were: Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme, Wet 'n' Wild Tickled Pink, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On, Sally Hansen Complete Salon Thinking of Blue, and Color Club Almost Famous, with a thin coat of Nicole By OPI Make a Comet-ment on top.

I also got a brand new bottle of Revlon Quick Dry Topcoat, which is currently my favourite top coat of all time, since it dries just as fast as Seche Vite, with a far less offensive odour. I ordered a box from work and what better way to crack open a new bottle than with this gorgeous mani?

Bye for now, wish on me some productivity!

February 19, 2012

Butter London All Hail The Queen

Hellooooo!

I was planning to start a series of greens on Friday since I LOVE GREEN and St. Patrick's Day is one month away, but...this happened:


This beauty, this lovely, taupe-y creation is Butter London's All Hail The Queen (or McQueen, which, personally, I thought was much cooler)

I already had China Glaze Four Leaf Clover out and ready to go when I saw the late evening sunlight hitting the holographic particles in All Hail The Queen just right and I decided that one does not spend twice the usual amount they usually spend on a nail polish to let it sit for weeks before swatching it. I told my friend today that this was the first of many signs that I was growing up; choosing a neutral over a bright green would have never happened a few years ago.



This is the colour that I thought it would be, seeing the pictures on other people's blogs, but I think the colour in the second picture is the most accurate. It turned out darker than I thought it would, but I like it better. I think if it were any lighter it would be Unattractive Mannequinhandsville.

The formula was gorgeous: this is three thin coats. Two would have been enough, but there was a bald spot on my pinky (human error-related) and I decided to add an extra coat to all the nails to make it as smooth as possible.


You can see a beautiful pink-ish shimmer which occasionally makes an appearance in the bottle, less so on the nails. Just look at that subtle holographic goodness. Compliments from three patients today. Three.


Thanks to our friend here, as well as theme nails I am planning to do for the Toronto-Waterloo hockey game, I don't think the green series is going to happen as planned. But that's okay. Because it would have been a crime to let this polish go unworn & I will DEFINITELY be wearing this again -- go-to professional polish, anybody?

In other news, my first attempt at making a franken seems to be a bust as of this point. I put black glitter in it and the base has gone completely black, with the glitter particles going see-through. Womp womp. :(

Finally, I would like to thank (or get angry at, depending on how you view the purchase of this and a Lippmann) Vicky, for giving me the link to Kiss and Make-Up NY, where I got this stunner for $14.

February 18, 2012

Surprise!

It sure did feel nice to do NOTHING today! It's officially the start of Reading Week, and although this time I'll actually have to be reading, I decided to take this weekend off. And fitting it was, that my Konad stamping kit and my very first high-end polishes came in the mail yesterday.


Beauty! I've been lemming Across the Universe for AGES, but I've never had the "courage" to just go out and do it. I recently stumbled on the fact that I actually got a raise, so I figured it was time. :D

I'm really excited to use these this Reading Week. I was going to start a month of greens for St. Patrick's Day, but...more on that later.

February 14, 2012

Forever Alone...?

Happy Valentine's Day! Quick (or maybe not-so-quick) mani that I did this evening as a wind-down from my midterm this morning:



It's 2 coats of Wet 'N' Wild Tickled Pink, with one coat of Essie Pure Pearlfection, and hearts and lips drawn on with American Apparel Angeline and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Cherry Red. The shimmer that the Pure Pearlfection adds can be seen in the picture below. Brilliant.


And the piece de resistance...


Even Forever Alone guy needs some love. Just trying to keep it real this Valentine's Day! :P

February 11, 2012

No Post on Sundays (Alternate Title: I don't pay for pink)

But there is one on Saturday!

The title is actually referring to the fact that we don't get mail on the weekend and thus my wait for the Deborah Lippmann that I ordered as a post-exam treat will have to continue. Not to mention the Konad kit that I won in the Daily Varnish giveaway! Hooray! (Though not really, because they're not here yet.)

Yesterday, after my lengthy rant about a certain store at a certain rather large shopping mall to you, and another, much shorter one to the girl at the counter of a smaller branch of this same store at the TD Center, I got these babies! (In addition to the 2 I got from Forever 21 and a clearance limited edition L'Oreal)


L to R: Love & Beauty Dark Purple, Love & Beauty Royal, OPI I Have a Herring Problem, OPI Dutch Ya Just Love OPI?, L'Oreal Owl's Night
You can't see it in this crap picture, but the 2 on the left have a pretty awesome duochrome shimmer in the bottle that more or less (it's always that GD gold shimmer!) translates onto the nail in the swatches I did on my nail wheels. I'm pretty sure Dark Purple is dupe-y for OPI Ink, which I'm pretty excited about since it came at a third of the price. At the store yesterday it really came down to Dutch Ya Just Love OPI? or Pedal Faster, Suzi!, which was originally the one I wanted, but apparently old (relatively good and reasonable) habits die hard and I was unable to "pay for the pink". I could have easily bought the minis, but...PURPLE.

This week is going to be pretty rough if I don't get off of here soon. I think after Valentine's Day I might start off with a whole month of greens for St. Patrick's Day. I LOVE GREEN!

February 10, 2012

Working Hard, or Heart-ly Working?

So, yesterday, I was trying very hard to be productive, and I was pretty successful for the most part. School is literally going to be the death of me, so sometimes the distractions are more than welcome. Despite the relative productivity, yesterday was really no exception to the "you will get distracted" rule:

This was staring at me:



Yes, I know that the bottle is pictured right on top of my drug interactions notes, and no, that's not how I study, with a nail polish bottle on top of my papers, but it was photographed there merely for the insert some hipster talk here. It's a nail polish called Love, from Barielle. LOVE! How could I leave it forever alone on the periphery of my notes?

So I did this with my dotting tools, while listening to the drug interactions podcast lecture, in addition to sending out my minutes -- multitasking!




I was so productive that my body felt obligated to stay up until 1:30 in the morning to do some proper procrastination activities before bed. (I beat my Fruit Ninja score again! 595!)

I would like to think of this addition to my manicure as an exercise in pseudso-self-control. I could have easily done my whole hand, but instead I just did my ring finger (big hearts in Wet 'n' Wild Tickled Pink). That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

Anyway, I was sort of upset yesterday -- not verge of tears upset, but like, disappointed upset. I went to Trade Secrets on Wednesday fully expecting to pick up my lemming from the OPI Holland Collection, but the lady at the store told me that they weren't expecting them in until the end of the month and even if they did have them they weren't allowed to put them out until later. Which was totally fine, because I expected that the US release date may not be the same as the Canadian release date. That is, until I checked the Trade Secrets beauty blog last night, with a post titled somewhere along the lines of "OPI Holland Collection Lands in Stores Today!" dated on Wednesday! I don't know what her deal was, or if maybe the blog is just lying, but it made me a little angry how I walked all the way there and was told that they were not going to be in for awhile, when they could have very well just been right behind the counter.

TGSBS = Thank God for Sally Beauty Supply: those ladies know what they're talking about.

February 09, 2012

Lazy = Elle's Spell

My last mani, if you hadn't noticed, was done in matte - my very first matte manicure lasting more than a couple of hours, (which was usually the amount of time it took me to realize that it would look better glossy.) It accumulated pen marks and shadows of black ink rapidly after my midterm on Monday, which I did not enjoy. I don't think that I will be wearing anything matte for awhile.

Anyway, I meant to do another Valentine's Day themed mani, but it was almost midnight and I was pretty exhausted and still suffering from itis after this delicious baby:


YUM! In any case, I didn't feel like breaking out the stripers and brushes, so I decided to just go with a one-colour manicure that would still be vaguely related to Valentine's Day. Here is Barielle Elle's Spell:





Red = Valentine's Day. Flakies = Awesome.

This one was a little sheer, and I'm sure I would have some visible nail line if I had a visible nail line right now. This was 3 coats.

Anyway, that's all for now. Off to school for me!

February 05, 2012

Valentine's Day Scrabble

Back in the summer, I read an article in the Lifestyle section of the Toronto Star about a "Nerd Wedding". They met as students working at the Science Center and they had the periodic table as the seating chart at their wedding. Needless to say, I was pretty jealous. There were those girls who wore those "I <3 Nerds" shirts back in the day, but I am willing to bet that not one of them was as serious about nerd love as I was.

Now I bet you're wondering what all this has to do with my NOTD. Well, the groom in that "Nerd Wedding" proposed to his bride by spelling out "WILL YOU MARRY ME" during a game of Scrabble. (So JELLY, by the way. This is number 2 on my list of dream proposals, right after "you can be sin2x, I'll be cos2x, and together, we will be one)

So now that you are sufficiently convinced that I am a crazy person, on to the nails:



The base colour is Joe Fresh Caramel. If you ask me if I bought it just for the purposes of this manicure, I will vehemently deny it each time. The thumbs have Sally Hansen Sweet Sunrise as the base and the hearts were painted on with a small paintbrush in American Apparel Angeline.

LOVE! Thanks for reading!

February 01, 2012

Nubar Treasure

I've had this awesome shade in my posession since my birthday in October, and only now have I had a chance to try it out! This is Nubar Treasure:




I couldn't stop taking pictures of it.



Inside, and outside...



And back inside again, to show the colour shift:


Isn't it just amazing? It's not the most holographic of my holos, but it's PURPLE. I actually got distracted by these nails during a conversation today, which isn't the first time that's happened with a Nubar polish. (Indigo Illusion, anybody?)

Now that it's February, I've begun my inner countdown to the day when I'm going to start picking up my spring collection faves. 7 days, can't wait!