Score!

There truly is nothing like sorting through my nail polish collection after a long day at work!

My current project has been categorizing my nail polishes by colour and making up nail wheels. The nail wheel part has been fun, especially since a good part of my collection is currently made up of untrieds due to all the extra time (and cash) I've had compared to during the school year. Swatching the untrieds just gets me excited to actually go out and try them -- it's just too bad one only has ten fingers and ten toes to try them on!

Today's post is for two previous manicures that I thought fit the mood as I am currently curled up in an armchair in front of the TV watching the NHL Entry Draft with my brother. I guess this also doubles as a review for the Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen, since I used it in both of these hockey-themed manis. I did this first one right before I went to a Leafs vs. Canadiens game. The Leafs lost, of course, but I had fun putting this one on.

Two of those in the background -- still currently untrieds! eep!

The background colour is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Blue It! I'm not really too fond of this polish, since the smell on this one is really strong and when I was doing this mani, my eyes were tearing up really bad.

 

You probably can't see from the picture, but the leaf was actually quite blotchy and you could see all the penstrokes from the pen itself. I was quite pleased with how easy it was to write on my nail and have the writing be legible, but I was kind of disappointed at the fact that the product did not actually use real nail polish. The liquid was way too runny and I had to keep my fingers pretty much level so that any drops from the design wouldn't start dripping down the nail, ruining the design.

This one was from quite a bit later, during the Stanley Cup Finals -- I guess you can tell which team I was rooting for...too bad I'm kind of a bad luck charm. I used the same white pen again, trying to go for a white french tip effect (since the box claimed it was "perfect for french manicures"). The base colour is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Going Green, one of my most favourite colours in my entire collection. The blue center in the Canucks logo is Sally Hansen Complete Manicure - Thinking of Blue. There was some major tip-wear with the white pen, and eventually the logo began to dull, again not very pleased with the white pen.

Eventually I just layered one coat of Nicole by OPI - Make a Comet-ment over it to hide the tip wear via distraction. The holo-glitter in this one is gorgeous. I couldn't help staring at my nails in the sunlight, even when I was driving -- NOT A GOOD IDEA -- but beautiful, nonetheless.

Overall, I was pretty disappointed with the performance of the nail art pen. I have the black one as well, but I'm jumping at the chance to use it. I glimpsed a display of LA Colors Art Deco nail art polishes at the dollar store a few weeks ago, I might pop in and opt to buy a couple of those instead.

My brother pretty much just shit a knife just about now, courtesy of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Brian Burke trading away two picks for one, so I'll be off to help him calm himself before he rages to the point of destruction. See ya!

Berrylicious

Hello Summer!!

Even though I've been in "summer" mode for almost two months now, the official start of summer two days ago has put me in more of a summery mood than usual. Recently, I've subconsciously leaned towards cosmetics and creations relating to strawberries:

Delish!

For starters, last weekend, for my uncle's 50th birthday party, I made lemon cupcakes with strawberry jam filling. It's been awhile since I made cupcakes, and I thought maybe adding a summery touch would be a welcome change from the usual chocolate or vanilla that I usually come up with.

Second, I bought a bunch of strawberry-scented cosmetics -- Covergirl fruit slicks were on sale at Wal-Mart for $3.96, a deal I simply could not pass up! It kind of smells like cotton candy, which got me wondering whether or not cotton candy was meant to be strawberry flavoured...

And, last but not least, I finished off my berry-licious last couple of days with a "strawberry" manicure:

Camera Flash

This is China Glaze - Strawberry Fields: this colour is just TO DIE FOR. Bright pink with a golden shimmer, I think this one is definitely going to be in the usual rotation for the year. I was actually debating for an entire day what colour to paint my nails in my summer mission to have different nails for at least every week for this summer. The decision actually came after a quick trip downtown to check out Trade Secrets and see if they still had the bin full of clearance OPI Shrek Collection that I'd passed up last month and was sorely regretting -- Funky Dunkey for $5.99! Sadly, the basket was filled only with rust coloured numbers that looked, well...rusty.
Anyway, on my way home, looking out the window on the subway, I was reminded of that scene in the movie Across the Universe where Jude is staring out the window on the subway singing Across the Universe. And, eventually, I got to singing Strawberry Fields...you get the picture.

Of course, I messed it up at work after not waiting long enough for the polish to dry, and I ended up trying to mask it using a glitter coat, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - In the Spotlight:

No flash, cloudy skies -- but so flashy!

I really liked it, but it had too much of a New Year's Eve sort of vibe to it, so I scrapped it entirely. I'm actually really excited right now because I just re-did my whole manicure with my new Revlon Quick Dry base coat, 2 coats of Strawberry Fields, and a quick coat of my newly purchased Seche Vite. I'm actually pretty impressed with it, as it's only been about 15 minutes and I'm already typing away on my computer, no problem!  It was a steal, too -- $7 at Winners.

Phew! That was a lot to get out in one post. I'm off to enjoy the rest of my day off. Stay tuned for my hockey nails post in honour of tomorrow's NHL entry draft!

P.S. since the theme of this post was "Berrylicious", I thought I would add a manicure from 2 weeks ago:

The scent was not-so-blueberry after all...

 Revlon Scented - Not So Blueberry: beautiful colour! Application was a bit of a problem, but in the end with a topcoat,it all turned out fine. The scent wasn't too bad, either, not exactly as blueberry-like as I had imagined. The scent bothered the pharmacist I usually worked with, though, so it had to go. Smells kind of like Mylan-Metformin, if you're interested. :P

Number One

Hi!

I haven't written a blog since high school, so right now I feel pretty lame, recalling all the dumb things I used to put up on my blog -- codenames and anecdotes about high school life that I thought only my close friends and I read. Clearly I was misinformed (or just super naive) about how public the internet really is. But anyway, here it goes.

I started this blog mainly because I thought about the multitude of my facebook friends that might be getting annoyed by my posting blog-like captions to my nail pictures. So I'm going to post them here instead and maybe provide a link? I haven't really thought this one through enough, except for the fact that I LOVE painting my nails and thought maybe somebody other than myself would get a kick out of it, too. :)

Or, whatever. You don't have to read on. I'll just keep this blog for purposes of polish posterity.

This is the manicure I'm currently rocking, OPI Mermaid's Tears with tips done in Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On. The left side is with Joe fresh's matte topcoat -- a heck of a lot cheaper than the other matte topcoats, and I think it still does the job. On the right may or may not have a normal topcoat, I can't remember. I did it just before I left for work and a couple drops of Sephora Dry Drops (miracle product, btw) seemed to do the trick. I'm going to say no topcoat, since the white tips seem to be rubbing off from peeling off price stickers at work. It's been three days so far, and only minimal chipping since I've washed the dishes quite a bit. YAY!

I LOVE this colour. I've actually been on a little bit of a crazy hunt for a number of different colours, the first being China Glaze Secret Peri-wink-le and the latest being Orly Mint Mojito (swatches to come!). Mermaid's Tears was actually one of those colours that I passed over the first (and second, and third, and fourth) time in the store because I didn't think it was unique enough. I was actually on a wild goose chase for a colour that resembled the green half of the Apo-Fluoxetine 20mg capsule, thanks to a lovely co-worker of mine commenting that she wouldn't mind having that colour on her nails -- I'm not a junkie, if you're wondering, just a pharmacy student. :P

 My wallet's been taking quite a hit recently, so I might have to enforce a "no buy" for awhile. I've been working 9 days straight, though, so once my paycheque comes in, there are no guarantees.