Gouda Gouda Two Shoes

Cheese. Cheese makes everything better.

The last week or so I've become a bit...cheese obsessed. How have I lived 22 years without knowing the beauty of swiss cheese?

So, to coincide with my cheese obsession, I give you OPI Gouda Gouda Two Shoes:

Gouda Gouda Two Shoes is from the Fall 2012 Germany Collection by OPI. It's a warm-toned pink with a golden shimmer running throughout. The shimmer is pretty subtle, showing up more in the bottle than it does on the nail. This was 2 coats with a topcoat. 

The Germany collection was a great mix of colours, and this one was no exception. Gouda Gouda Two Shoes has found its place in my usual work-appropriate rotation. 

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to have some more cheese.

Red Skittles for Canada Day

Today is CANADA DAY, and today I have my Canada Day mani here for you.

Again, my indecision seems to have won in this manicure, but with far less disastrous results.

I'm not really big on red nail polish. In fact, as my collection grew in size, there was a point when I think I had 2 bottles of red polish in a total of about 50. There were a few reasons why I wasn't feeling the reds. Reds are boring. Reds are for old people. Reds stain.

Then, something clicked within. I got my hands on Danke Shiny Red from the OPI Germany Collection in Fall 2012 and I fell in love. Before the winter was out, I'd doubled my red collection. I'd also become enamored with bright red lipsticks. When the OPI Couture de Minnie collection came out earlier this summer, I jumped on it. I decided I would go with the mini set since I'd decided that I couldn't live without the colours in this collection -- my wallet still disagreed, though, so minis it would be.

On my fingers we have Magazine Cover Mouse (index), a liquid sand polish from the Couture de Minnie collection, Nabi Hologram Nail Lacquer in Red (middle), and Innie Minnie Mighty Bow (pinky) also from the Minnie collection. The formulas of the OPIs were impeccable. The Nabi, not so much. The polish dragged in between coats, so it needs to be applied carefully and with a few minutes of drying time in between coats.

On my ring finger, I used a temporary maple leaf tattoo. The tattoo thing has really become one of my favourite techniques. It requires absolutely no skill whatsoever, and it looks amazing. All you have to do is wait for your nail polish to dry completely, and then apply a temporary tattoo as you would to your skin with water and a cosmetic cotton pad. I tried free-handing the maple leaf, but it looked terrible! :P

Anyway, that's all for my Canada Day manicure. I'm proud to be Canadian, and happy to show it all over my nails!

I Less-Than-Three You

When people stop to ask me what colour I'm wearing, you can bet that I'll always have the answer on hand. Which is probably why I expect nothing less of others when I see them wearing a particularly interesting polish. So when a girl walked into the pharmacy wearing an electric blue metallic number, I needed to know.

**number of digits not 100% accurate

Me: That's a nice colour you've got on your nails.
Girl: Oh thanks!
Me: ...so, what is it called?
Girl: Um...I don't know.
Me: ...
(awkward pause)
Me: Have you used this medication before?

Okay, so the exchange may not have happened exactly like that. Maybe. But nevertheless, it sent me into a frenzy, as usual. I needed to know. (It's not completely lost on me how crazy I must sound.) Lucky for me, I am a master googler (google-er?) with a photographic memory specific for nail polish.

I narrowed it down to China Glaze Frostbite, a bright, almost electric blue shimmer. I wanted to use the word "frost", but I don't think this polish is quite the right texture to be calling it that. I associate "frosts" with nightmarish brush strokes, and that didn't happen with this. This is 2 coats -- it applied flawlessly.

The index finger is 2 coats of Sally Hansen White On with a heart drawn in with OPI Danke Shiny Red. Funny thing was, I put in the heart nail because I meant to do what I thought was an Asian peace sign showing off this nail in my funny grad photo, but right before somebody informed me that doing the peace sign with the back of my hand facing outward is actually some sort of offensive gesture, so I quickly decided against it. In the end, the most you see of the heart is the top of it peeking out from under the fake diploma they made me pose with. 

Frostbite is definitely one of my favourite blue polishes in my collection, and I've worn it a couple of times since getting my hands on it last fall. I love it when polishes that I have come with a great story attached to how I got it or when I wore it, and Frostbite is definitely no exception.

OPI Shanghai Shimmer

It's been a hectic few weeks for me, so I've fallen behind even more with posting, and even just painting my nails regularly has fallen by the wayside a bit. I actually had 2 separate manicures in the past 2 weeks which were never properly photographed. I have a couple of minutes to wind down before I head to bed, so I've lit my Slatkin & Co. Gingerbread 3-wick candle and I'm ready to BLOG.

Anyway, I had a job interview (the first of many...hopefully) on Monday, so I had to tone it down a couple of notches from the usual. I don't want these people to think that I'm crayyy just because I have some wild nail polish on.  I'll post swatches of my work appropriate nail colour soon, if I can ever get around to photographing them. 

Instead I'm posting swatches of a similar shade that I wore one week in September, to a bunch of important school meetings. This is OPI Shanghai Shimmer.

I would describe Shanghai Shimmer as a light berry-toned colour with a subtle green flash. If it weren't for the green shimmer running throughout, this would be a total grandma colour. It sort of reminded me of China Glaze Chiaroscuro, which is a colour I've been passing over for ages and ages...I continually pick it up and note its unique combination of colour and shimmer, and I always put it back down after a second thought. I don't think they're dupes though. Shanghai Shimmer is probably more pink, though I can't compare them directly so I might be wrong...

As you can see from the bottle shot, the green shimmer is most evident in the bottle. I bought this particular shade at a Publix in Fort Myers, FL, literally minutes before heading to the airport. It was the shimmer that got me. I mean, LOOK.

But the shimmer gets lost a bit when it gets to the nail. It's definitely there, but it's not as in your face as it could be. You can see from the flash shots how gorge the shimmer is in bright light.

Just looking at these swatches makes me feel like putting this colour on again, for my next interview on Monday. It's just too pretty! 

You probably won't be seeing me here again for awhile, but one can hope. I'm working (sorta) hard on becoming employed once I leave school this year, so the blog has slid down considerably on the priorities list. 

Wish me luck, guys! (Please?)

Something A Little Less Epic

Hello!

I feel like I haven't posted anything in ages, since I've scheduled the last 10 or so posts from before school started. On paper I'm up to my eyeballs in things to do, but there's still some part of me that's in denial and still chillin' on vacation mode. 

This is my last year in school, and that coupled with my extracurriculars, I often stay up late (ish) to get some extra work in. I just wasn't feeling it tonight. Falling asleep on top of my keyboard every 5 seconds, making some useful additions to my drug chart.

I should hope Angioedemafgfffffffffffffffffffffffffg is rare. It sounds terrible.

Anyway, the point of it all is that I was ready to head off to bed, despite the fact that I'd promised myself that I would come on here and get caught up on my posting. How sad it is, that I'm behind not only on schoolwork but on this too? Crazy. I'm even falling asleep as I write this.  bnhhgggggggggggggggggggggggg

What brought me here was this post on my friend's awesome blog. Which is 8261024842804 times more well written than mine. So in response, I'm bringing you something much less epic than Pikachu nails.

This is OPI Danke-shiny Red. I don't usually do reds, but I had a meeting coming up and I couldn't show up with the lined paper nails I had on right before this.

Danke-Shiny Red is a true red with shimmer that makes it almost feel metallic. This was one of those impulse buys, mostly due to the name. It was just too cute.

So there you have it. A post. A single post. With something very non-remarkable.

It's probably safe to assume that the days of nail art and epic ideas are behind us. It's going to be solid colour city over here for the next few weeks. YOU'RE WELCOME, bare rap battle nail.

Good night.  vbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb

Peacock Feather, Take 2!

After about half a day or so of wearing Peacock, I realized that maybe there was another colour that might be more complimentary to the accent nail. Enter OPI Just Spotted The Lizard from the Amazing Spiderman Collection.

Apparently, it's a dupe for Chanel Peridot, but that was a colour I didn't really care for so I opted to get the mini bottle of Just Spotted The Lizard from a beauty supply store in Toronto, just in case I wasn't enamored with the colour after spending $10 on a full sized bottle.

Just Spotted The Lizard is a gold/green duochrome which was much more pronounced in the bottle than on the nail. Rest assured, however, that it is there.

If you hadn't already noticed, I tried really hard to capture any semblance of this duochrome nature. At extreme angles, the golden polish shows a light green, even green-blue colour. Most of the time, it appeared as a golden/olive colour.

I liked it, but I didn't love it. It was meh. Pretty, but...meh.

Joe Fresh Peacock

Now I'm going to warn you all beforehand. There is an accent nail in this swatch, and you're going to be seeing it more than once. Let's call it the evolution of a manicure.

This is the earliest incarnation, using Joe Fresh Peacock.

 Peacock was the first polish from Joe Fresh that caught my eye. Navy blue base filled with light blue shimmer that turns pink at the most extreme of angles. Unfortunately, the duochrome doesn't translate onto the nail, but if you try really hard you might be able to coax it out. This was 2 coats of Peacock with no topcoat.

As for the peacock feather nail...it was something I'd been wanting to do for ages now. Peacock feathers absolutely FASCINATE me. The colours are so very pretty and the feathers are just so...ethereal. I have a peacock feather hairclip that I've been staring at for days now. I always wondered: do they breed peacocks specifically for making jewelry and home decor? Or is everything synthetic...?

Anyway, the ring finger has 2 coats of Essie Navigate Her. The peacock feather is drawn on mainly using a Sephora by OPI nail art pen that I got for $3.00 on clearance earlier this summer. The green one is called Read Between The Lines. The olive streaks are brushed on using a striping brush in Zoya Yara. As for the "eye", it consists of dots made using a dotting tool in OPI Just Spotted The Lizard, China Glaze Custom Kicks, and Essence Walk on Air.

I was very pleased with the results of my free-handing of the peacock feather, especially with all the comments I've been receiving. Accent nails have been a huge thing for me this summer, and these are some of the best I've done so far. Yay!

Countdown to The Olympics #1: It's Today!

It's today! It's today!

Let's keep this short, shall we? I'm off to work soon, having PVR-ed the opening ceremonies to watch later on today. This is my final Olympics manicure:

Abstract Olympic rings! I used the same colours mentioned in my first olympic manicure, plus a coat of China Glaze White Cap for some golden shimmer. I've already received a bunch of compliments from complete strangers at work and while going about my day, though I'm not sure if they know that the lines are supposed to be parts of the rings. I used a thin paintbrush to make the curved lines.

Hope you all enjoy tonight's festivities, wherever you are!

I Have a Herring Problem

After a long absence, OPI makes an appearance on NAILblog!

I actually have an "exam" tomorrow, so I really shouldn't even be here. But note that exam was in quotation marks, and that every day after 9:30 or so, I go completely crazy and lose focus, so...

This is OPI's I Have a Herring Problem from the Holland Spring 2012 collection.

I Have a Herring Problem is a dusty, medium blue with unique gold fleck-like micro-shimmer. What a mouthful! This was my first lemming from this collection, having seen pictures online, and I have to say that although this is a VERY beautiful colour, I'm a little disappointed. The pictures I saw leaned more green. I'm now under the impression that the pictures I've seen of Butter London Victoriana are also falsely green-leaning, as I've seen beautiful teal-y swatches of that, only to see it compared to this colour, and it comes pretty close.

Hrrrmmmmphhh!

Anyway, I'm not overly disappointed, as this is a very nice colour, after all. The pictures above are with 3 coats, as the formula is a little sheer. I'm almost positive that this is a dead on dupe for Zoya Skylar, which, no doubt probably has a better formula...I'm not sure why I decided to get the OPI. It was most likely the name.

Study time, again! Yay!

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!

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.