Cupcakes, Glitter, and Rhinestones, oh my!

At the beginning of the school year, I told myself that I wouldn't let myself get behind on anything: school work, social life, extracurriculars, and this blog. Sixty days later, and I'm 0 for 4 -- especially when it comes to posting on here. 

BUT today is my BIRTHDAY, so as a present to myself, I'm going to try and get caught up. (Or, at the very least, I'm going to post my birthday mani.) It's my last year of school, and it's only fitting that, after 4 consecutive years of birthday midterms, I should have one last birthday midterm to deal with before I get the heck outta here. 

The concept for my birthday mani flip flopped through a number of different concepts, many involving Halloween nail appliques, gold leaf, and glow in the dark nail polish. I tried to combine all the ideas in my head, but when I finally got down to painting in all the base colours, it looked so tacky I could have died...sort of like a skittles mani on acid. So I made an executive decision: to bring on the bling.

Lightbox (more colour accurate)

Flash

Lightbox

I used Nubar Violet Sparkle (3 coats) on the pinky, middle, and index fingers. Violet Sparkle is mixture of densely packed, finely milled glitter in a purple base. The purple leans more to the red side than to the blue, as seen in the lightbox pictures, which are more colour accurate. I do have to warn you, however, that this one is topcoat hungry. I used 2 coats of clear polish + 1 coat of Revlon Quick Dry, and it still feels gritty.

The cupcake was a last minute addition to this ensemble. I love cupcakes, I love to make them, so why wouldn't they be featured in my birthday mani? I painted a french tip on my ring finger with Essie's She's Picture Perfect and used a striping brush to paint on the stripes in Joe Fresh Iris. The icing was painted on using a large dotting tool, and the sprinkles with a small dotting tool.

And just in case there wasn't enough bling already:

I have never actually used rhinestones before, and when I bought these at Walmart I thought that they were simply rhinestone "stickers", so I waited for my 2 coats of Iris to dry before I even opened the package. Lesson learned.

Blurry shot to show off the SPARKLE

I ended up using a wooden cuticle stick dipped in clear polish to help me place the rhinestones, which worked well enough. The sheer number of rhinestones I used was just cray. The second "2" is a little wonky just because I didn't have enough space for it. :S

By the time I finished the "22" on my left thumb, I was in no mood to do it all over again on my right, so instead I stuck with a simpler (but by no means easier) heart design:

Right Thumb

Despite the fact that I didn't end up putting in my most extravagant ideas into my birthday manicure, I'm pretty pleased by how it turned out. It took forever to do, but I would say it was worth it if only just to have awesome nails on this gloomy, rainy day.

Back to work, I guess. :(  Happy Birthday to Me!

Turtle, Turtle

On the third day of my vacation, we met up with a turtle patrol.

No, not these guys. Sadly.

It was a group who was monitoring a leatherback turtle's nest. They invited us to go and see the turtle babies at sunset, but there was a wicked crazy thunderstorm that started around dinnertime and lasted the whole night, so it never happened.

So distraught was I about missing TURTLE BABIES, that this happened:

Yes. I channeled my sadness over missing the turtle babies into a manicure.

The base colour is China Glaze Sexy in The City. I mentioned in my earlier post that the colour reminded me of the ocean, which is where the inspiration really started. (As cute as turtle babies are, my disappointment was rather short lived. I was on VACATION. Sue me.)

The turtles were stamped on using a plate set I bought from Walmart's "As Seen on TV" section. I'm not sure if this Konad rip-off has a name, but it was a pretty good price for 5 plates. The polish I used was Nubar Reclaim. Reclaim was probably not the best polish to use for stamping, but it worked well enough for the design to be seen. I really wanted the holo of the polish to show up more, as you can tell by the multiple failed attempts at capturing it above. It did show more of Reclaim's super awesome holo in real life, but it was definitely toned down from stamping it on top of a darker colour.

Overall, I was pleased with my first stamping attempt using real polish. Although I must say that I enjoy free-hand nail art more, and at this point I feel like I am much better at doing that than I am at lining up nail stamps!

Canada Day, part 2

Good morning, and Happy Canada Day to my fellow Canadians out there!

I'm here to show you what ultimately became of my Canada Day mani. To recap, here are the materials that I used:

The remedy to the lack of Canadian-ness in the last version of my Canada Day mani was to add more RED!

First, I intended to only have the ring finger accent nail, but along the way I decided I wanted a couple of maple leaves in the design. Switched it up a bit by putting them on my middle finger instead of my thumb, like I would usually do.

The middle and ring fingers have 1 coat of Sally Hansen White On. The rest of my fingers have 1 coat of Wet n Wild Red Red with 2 coats of Nubar White Polka Dot.

Like I said before, the leaves and the lettering were pieces of a set of temporary tattoos that I applied to my nail using a wet cotton pad, then covered with 1 coat of Revlon Quick Dry Topcoat.

The tattoos were a lot easier to apply than I had expected, but I do have a few tips for easy application:

1. Cut as close as you can to the actual tattoo when you're cutting it out of the sheet: the leaves on my right middle finger are pretty spaced out because I left a fair bit of the white border around the 2 pieces I cut out. When I laid them side by side, they were a lot more spaced out than I wanted them to be.






2. Try as much as is possible to cut the tattoo to the size of your nail or smaller: if it is bigger, you'll have some of it stuck to your skin instead, or hanging off the nail. You'll have to do some pulling to take the excess off, which runs the risk of ruining your design.
3. When applying pressure, try to apply pressure evenly across the curvature of your nail: in the above picture, there is a crack in the letter due to one of the edges lifting off with the side of the paper backing that I didn't apply pressure to.
4. When applying pressure, try not to move the tattoo around on the nail: although the tattoo sticks on pretty well from the start, it's really easy to push it around as the paper slips off, so be careful!

Needless to say, I'm in love. I stepped out shortly after doing this mani to Wal-Mart and the cashier would not stop gushing over how much she loved my nails! She was really sweet, and I was ultra flattered. This is one mani that I'm really proud of. Here's another picture:

Hope everyone enjoys the long weekend! :D

Just Peachy

This post begins with a story...as many of my posts do.

Way back when my nail polish obsession was growing into its current full blown addiction, I took my first big shopping trip down to Buffalo. It was one of the first summers where the mighty loonie was slightly larger than the American dollar and we were going to take full advantage of it, goddammit! My excitement stemmed primarily from being able to get my hands on nail polish brands that, to my knowledge at the time, were not readily available in Canada. I dreamt of finding Hidden Treasure, bucketloads of Nubar, and Orly Mint Mojito. I now know that this expectation was highly unrealistic.

I passed over Color Club Revvvolution (mistake, since it is now a huge lemming of mine), and spent most of my time fawning over Orly polishes, since I was still unaware of the Sally Beauty Supply that was situated a 10 minute walk away from my home. I walked away with a couple of China Glazes, finally, one of which I was convinced was Peachy Keen. It wasn't until we were on the ride back across the border that I realized what I had picked up was not Peachy Keen...just another (not peach) orange that had been sitting in Peachy Keen's place. Brain fart on account of nail polish excitement overload.

Fast forward about 2 years. On a walk through Wal-Mart in search of outdoor decorations for a barbecue, I pass by a display of these new Sally Hansen Smooth and Perfect polishes, on sale. Sale and Nail Polish: two things I can't turn away from. I picked up Air and Sorbet. Air was something I grabbed instantly, but Sorbet must have been picked up and put down about three times. I had spent the last 2 years convincing myself that anything resembling peach or Peachy Keen would not look good on me.

I know it's nowhere near as orange as Peachy Keen, but I enjoyed it all the same. I wore it for about 3 days, until its nearness to my own skin tone made me reconsider. I spent most of elementary school referring to the peach pencil crayon as "skin colour", only deciding near the end that I was nowhere near peachy in skin tone, being of Filipino descent...until now.

I applied 3 coats of this polish, and even after those 3 relatively thick coats, there were still bald spots on my nails. You can't see them here, but they were there alright. Also, I don't know if it was just the way I applied it, but there were so many air bubbles, even though I didn't shake the bottle prior to application. Could it be what makes this polish more "breathable" as Sally Hansen claims it to be? I don't really see the point, though, since most people either put on a base or top coat, so there's that extra layer there that might not be as breathable, defeating the purpose.

This was also the first time I tried Nubar Diamont top coat. It came in a set with my polka dots polishes, so I thought I would give it a try this time. I was quite impressed by the glassy shine it gave my manicure, much like Seche Vite. There is still a not-so-pleasant smell, but it is much less than that of Seche Vite, for sure. I've been reading on other blogs that there was a formula change for Diamont, but I can't tell if this is the good or the bad version. It dried to the touch very quickly, but the first time I put it on, my manicure dented after I went to eat lunch about 20 minutes after, which didn't happen when I used Seche, so...? Either way, I'm still impressed with Diamont and will probably end up using it from time to time in addition to my current favourite, Revlon Quick Dry.

The weather in Toronto has been amazing for the last week or so, and I'm really hoping it will hold out until the weekend so I can enjoy some more of it!

Black, White, and Purple

I think I use this blog more for late night down time after a stressful test more than anything else! I decided to do my nails again tonight after completing my exam this morning -- halfway done!

I posted awhile back about finally getting my hands on Color Club's Pucci-Licious as the perfect pedicure colour. I posted a horrendous toenail picture, which I am usually against. It was a horrible, colour-inaccurate picture and I would like to apologize now for the fact that you had to see my big toe for no reason.

This was one of the first nearly-colour accurate pictures that I've been able to capture of this colour -- a bright, almost neon blurple. It is a less blue in real life, but believe me, it usually photographs completely blue, so the fact that any purple at all showed is kind of a miracle. It dries matte like a neon as well. I actually had bigger plans for this mani, after stumbling upon some new Nubars at Winners over the weekend:

This is one coat each of Nubar Black Polka Dot and Nubar White Polka Dot. Each contains small round glitter with large hex glitter in black, and white respectively. The little white pieces are actually iridescent. You can't really tell from the pictures, but the ring finger and the index finger are lacking in bigger white polka dots. I would fix it, but...let's get real. I'm much too lazy for something like that.

I'm really hoping that these were enough to squash my lemming for Lynnderella's Connect the Dots. I've fallen off the wagon pretty hard this time around, having successfully completed my no-buy. And I'm going to be going on vacation to the US pretty soon, which is a pretty bad sign for my wallet, and my nail polish drawer. :S (or :D, depending on how you look at it) I think inventory has to be done on my collection pretty soon.

Until then, I will live in blissful ignorance and denial about my addiction, so I can finish the last of my exams and be done with this school year. Summer needs to start. NOW.

Flashback: Nubar Reclaim

There were a number of past manis that were vying for top billing today. A pink one because it's Wednesday (MEAN GIRLS FTW), a periwinkle one in honour of my brand new periwinkle highlighter that I bought today, and this one:

I thought I would deliver a little more on this failed "green series", so it won out eventually. It's also the most awesome holo polish in my collection (observe linear holo awesomeness in picture). I don't have a shade picture, but I think the flash picture says more than words can about how amazing Nubar Reclaim is.

I got this polish off a seller on e-Bay back in July and wore it to the first day of school in September. I remember wanting something that would be as visually interesting as nail art without any of the effort. Bingo! I got a ton of compliments while wearing this, including one about my nails being like $20 bills!

For those who had any doubts about what a Canadian 20 looks like...(note shiny holo strip and green colour)

The formula was fantastic, going on in two smooth coats. Nubar never disappoints. Most of, if not all, of my distracting manicures (e.g. catching a glimpse of your nails in mid-sentence and focusing your attention on them instead) have been Nubar manicures. The wear was also pretty awesome, going for 10 days with only minimal tip wear.

Green. Holo. What more could a girl ask for?

14 days down, 26 to go!

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!

2012

Helloooooo!

Due to an extreme need to procrastinate despite my impending doom on Wednesday and Thursday (and the rest of the semester, I guess), I have decided to make a post on my relatively inactive and most likely UNREAD nail blog.

But that's okay. We -- and by we, I mean the voices in my head and I -- have fun anyway.

Yesterday, I welcomed the New Year wth this blinged out combination. Glitter is not usually my cup of tea, since it takes about a billion years to remove it, but this year I decided to give that foil method a try. I figured now was a good a time as any, considering that I had about 6 layers of glitter and polish caked onto my nail -- 2 of Revlon Glitz & Glam, 1 of Nubar 2010, and 2 of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear In the Spotlight + base and top coats -- and I really wasn't about to spend the rest of my night picking it off in order to look somewhat less...TWELVE before school started up again. I really wish I'd taken pictures, but this will have to do:

In all seriousness, though, that foil method worked like you would not believe. All that glitter came off in one swipe. It kind of felt like my fingers were baking, though. I can't decide if that was due to the foil trapping all the heat from my fingers in, or if it was due to the acetone. I'll have to do some further experimentation.

Anyway, onto today's mani...

This was the first mani of 2012 and I kind of wanted to make it special but not too special as to require actual effort on my part. According to Grade 4-me, by the year 2012, we were supposed to have flying cars and computers which required only the power of our thoughts to type instead of tediously clacking away at a keyboard. Of course, Grade 4-me was also the President of the Snow Fort Building Club (I had my own office!) and the Running-and-Jumping-into-a-Brick-Wall-for-Funsies Club (which was rightfully shut down after a friend of mine broke the club record and then subsequently scraped off the entire side of her arm, no big). Grade 4-me was also not allowed to wear nail polish, which kind of explains Grade 7-me, and I guess University-me as well -- you know, like those kids who weren't allowed to eat sugar and then go bat shit crazy all of a sudden when they finally get a taste.

Luckily for us, something that has been invented prior to the year 2012 was magnetic nail polish:

Ta-daaaah! So impressed, I was. This is Nails Inc. Trafalgar Square, a magnetic polish that I bought at Sephora following my defeat of midterm season in November. This is my first magnetic polish, and I have to say that despite my concerns about how user-friendly magnetic polish may or may not be, I was pretty pleased by how easy it was to make my nails look this bad-ass. The outer cap comes off the bottle, leaving the smaller cap attached to the brush on the inside, which is - so I've heard - a huge advantage in terms of ease in magnetic polishes. The ring finger is a bit messed up because I put too thick a coat onto it and the magnet in the lid actually started to lift some of the polish off in droplets. Lesson learned.

Trafalgar Square has also, however, stolen the prestigious title of Most Expensive polish in my stash from Inglot 318, a light green $14 baby that I bought in Grade 8 (with the only $14 I had to my name, being 13 and all...) only to find that it was more yellow than green and totally did NOT go with my skin tone. Trafalgar Square was $18 + tax at Sephora and I really do not plan on topping that price tag anytime soon.

So that was a pretty long post. And there's probably nobody here to read it. But that's really okay, because I had a BLAST writing it.

-K