Selling Out

In these times, there are a number of things that I am not a fan of.

I'm a huge fan of SNL. The Kardashians, not so much. Apparently, these days, it takes a whole lot of not having any talent to make it to the big time. 

Which is why, when the Kardashians released their nail polish line, I wanted nothing to do with it. It relieved me somewhat that when I saw the promotional pics nothing stood out to me as a colour that I wanted or didn't already have. But then came the bloggers' swatches.

I did a pretty good job restraining myself. It was my final exam period, so the sight of the Kardashians lounging around on their nail polish display definitely didn't improve while I was busting my ass studying from 9 in the morning until 12 at night. Plus, the $9.99 price tag helped. (Plus tax!) 

Then, I went to New York after school ended, and spent a heck of a lot of time perusing the aisles at Walgreens and Duane Reade. Like seriously, A LOT OF TIME. SEVERAL TIMES A DAY. Not really sure what was with that, but most of it had to do with us being thirsty all the time. And, well, one thing lead to another...

I gave in and bought Kim-pletely In Love from Nicole by OPI. Apparently Kim Kardashian wore this on her wedding day. And, she probably got divorced before the polish had a chance to chip. This pale pink has some blue shimmer in it, plus some surprising pink-reddish shimmer that came out to play in the sun while I was driving. It took 4 coats to achieve this kind of opacity, and there's still some VNL, but it wasn't so noticeable from afar.

All things considered, I really liked this colour. It was pretty, it was feminine...it was work appropriate. I'm still trying to get over the fact that I have essentially given the Kardashians some of my money. (Less of my money, because I got it for $8 while the dollar was at par.) But I don't like to think about it, because the polish was gorgeous. 

As far as I can tell, this was my first and only Kardashian polish. Hopefully.

Spotted

Been pretty MIA lately, due to final exams, but here is my current mani!

From left to right, the colours I used were: Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Green With Envy, Wet 'n' Wild Candy-licious, Sally Hansen Complete Salon Yellow Kitty, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Lacey Lilac, and Nicole by OPI "Baby" Blue. The dots were done up in Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On using a medium-sized dotting tool.

I've just been thinking about life a lot recently, considering that this upcoming summer will essentially be my last summer as a student. I feel like I go into reminisce mode almost daily, if not several times a day. For instance, I haven't touched my bottle of Green With Envy since the day that I painted my nails for Phrosh Week back in 1st year, and here I am painting my nails with it on the last day of 3rd year. Feels a little bit ridiculous how fast time flew by.

It's going to be a pretty busy next couple of weeks, but I will for sure try and post at least once a week. That's going to be a challenge in itself, considering I am NOT READY for my first exam this coming Monday. Oh well. Get it done.

On a lighter note, tomorrow is EASTER SUNDAY, which will mark the end of my no-buy!

39 days down, 1 to go!

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!

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!