China Glaze Deviantly Daring

I bought this polish recently on a whim. I was at Sally's getting myself a new white and a nail buffer when I saw a promotion where I could receive a ridge filling base coat if I purchase two China Glaze polishes. I'm almost always lemming a handful of polishes that I don't NEED but have been eyeing, so I took this as an opportunity to grab a couple. I picked it up along with Swing Baby (my current pedi, ugh I'm in love) despite having plenty of variations of it, or ways of recreating it through layering.

Anyway, after that little ramble, I quite like it! It's a foily turquoise duochrome that lends greener in some light and bluer in others. I found that in natural light it seemed more blue, and in fluorescent lights at work you could see more of the green.

 The application was just lovely, the pictures below are two coats.

Fluorescent lighting

Natural light, indirect sunlight

Fluorescent lighting

Natural light, indirect sunlight

Natural light, indirect sunlight

It's quite lovely and I'm happy to have picked it up. Now the problem will be choosing which of my many shimmery blue/turquoise polishes to use.

Easter Nails - Pastel Stripes

Happy Easter! For today I did a fun pastel rainbow using some colours I rarely even look at any other time of the year. I didn't bother using tape to make these lines perfect, handmade Easter eggs rarely are! Well, mine aren't anyway.

Pink: Revlon Peach Petal
Yellow: China Glaze Lemon Fizz
Green: OPI Gargantuan Green Grape
Blue: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Blue-Away
Purple: OPI Planks A Lot

Because these shades are so light I needed three coats of each (except the Blue, but I did it anyway), which was simple enough but fairly time consuming. When looked at in the shade they really POP, it's fabulous! There's definitely a part of me that has a soft spot for rainbows. Don't tell anyone.

xox

Clover Fields: A St-Patrick's Day Manicure

'Ello 'ello folks! While I'm still waiting on the decision to be made on a new camera, I thought I'd bring you some phone pics of  my current polish. It's a fun little St-Patrick's day manicure inspired by fields of clovers. I wanted to have the textured look to give it a bit more depth instead of settling for a solid colour, since when you look out into a field you don't see a flat shade green.

This is after about four of days of growth and a bit of tip wear. I achieved this effect by dragging the colours through each other while they were still wet, similar to what I did here. I started with OPI Green-wich Village and blended in some Don't Mess With OPI.

Happy St-Patrick's Day everyone!

Christmas Holly

Although I haven't been posting this holiday season, I assure you my nails have been festive. I'm growing increasingly aggravated with my camera and I find photographing my manicures quite frustrating... so I haven't been wanting to attempt it. This one coming up is actually from my phone. Sorry for the negativity but I'm trying! :)

I used Orly Luxe, American Apparel and China Glaze With Love!

Merry Christmas!!!

OPI Stranger Tides & China Glaze For Audrey

Here we have another phone camera shot. This was taken sometime early summer (maybe late spring) and was honestly one of my favourite manis of the summer. It was just so beachy, it reminded me of sand and the sky. I was really feeling softer colours and pastels for a few months there, which I normally find incredibly boring so I assume that's part of why I didn't bother blogging any of it.

I like that they're alternating but that the difference between the two colours isn't overly dramatic. Creme finishes are by far my favourite so overall this mani was a 100% clear winner in my books.

Halloween Frankensteins

In case you weren't aware, I love the holidays - especially Thanksgiving, Halloween and Christmas. From the 1st of January I spend my time patiently waiting until September when I can start being excited about all the things I love about this time of year. Without fail, come mid-July I start dreaming of Fall and have to suppress it because eventually there will be snow on all the things and I will regret having spent my summer wishing it was Autumn.

That being said, I didn't really contribute much in terms of Halloween manicures to my blog last year so to make amends I am bringing you yet another set before the haunting season passes.

These are my Frankies. It was my first time trying them and I don't think they turned out too horribly. I was doing them at dear boyfriend's house and I don't exactly have the ideal set-up like I would at my house. The lighting is poor, I have to sit on his bed, the table is far away, etc. That being said, I'd much rather spend time with him than achieve the perfect manicure, so this is the result. 

I do wish I had been a little more patient before putting the top coat on, it dragged the eyes around a bit but the wind from hurricane Sandy was making me nervous and I wanted to get home before any rain started.

They're pretty cute though, I must admit. They're distracting while I'm at work, with their sneaky little faces bouncing off the keys as I type. It feels like I'm wearing 10 little fingers puppets (and yes, I did give it a shot on my right hand but they're looking especially ghoulish and not very presentable). 

I used OPI Greenwich Village as the base, So Easy Stripe Rite in black for the hair, stitches and mouth, Rimmel French Tip White for the eyes and Konad Black for the pupils.  

My pinky nail is definitely the favourite of the bunch, what do you think? I like his beady little eyes. 

Hocus Pocus Series Part 3: Winifred Sanderson

This is actually the second version of this manicure, and not at all what I had originally planned. Alas, the first one was a mess so I decided to re-do it today. I am now sporting a sort of funky french. My index finger turned out the best. The sun wasn't shining so the photos are not as crisp as they could be.

Winifred's dress is purple (though in the movie it mostly looks blue), green and has gold embellishments.

I thought this was going to be my favourite of them all but it really didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. I don't have a steady hand so it's hard to get straight freehand lines.

I used Rimmel Black Satin, NFU Oh 56, Kleancolor Blue Eyed Girl and So Easy Stripe Rite gold glitter.

Four years ago for Halloween my best friend and I went dressed up as Winifred and Sarah Sanderson. It was hands down the best costume I've had to-date.

Hmm. I guess we went a little sexier than the characters in the movie.

So there you have it! This was a fun way to pass some manicure time, and I have a couple more up my sleeve before Halloween.

Glamour shot. P.S. I'm actually posing with my costume!

Autumn Acid Wash

Hello ladies (and the occasional gent), I'm bringing you another fall/autumn manicure inspired by (obviously) the changing leaves at this glorious time of year. I used a technique that I saw on Pinterest that was called "acid washing." It's a very fun, grungy approach to fall manicures.

Basically you layer multiple colours, using whatever your heart desires - but the more contrast the better, and it's recommended to use a dark colour either on the bottom, on the top or both. You then dip a paint brush in acetone and drag it down your nail, exposing some of the colours beneath the surface. 

This is the tutorial I used. I had a hard time the first few attempts, I ended up taking off way too much polish and exposing the bare nail underneath. It definitely took some time to get a handle on this one.

Polish used: Joe Fresh Pumpkin, China Glaze Hey Sailor, Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow, American Apparel MacArthur Park  and American Apparel Raccoon.

Hm! Almost the same colours as my Autumn Water Marble!

I'm kind of on a posting roll here, excellent! A shout out to Dominique, my co-worker's sister - thanks for sharing my blog on your facebook page. She's an excellent photographer, you should check out her website - www.3stems.com.

American Apparel Mac Arthur Park

It had been a while since I'd purchased an AA polish (or even bothered looking, really) so I peeked into the shop while walking through the Rideau Centre the other day and couldn't help but pick up a few. I've always had my eye on this one so I finally bit the bullet.

I'm of the opinion that everyone needs a classic "ugly" colour, in this case - Olive green. I'm not talking Olive like a nice dusty medium green, I'm talking that "grandma's couch" kind of yellowy green. Like pea soup. And olives :P

Sounds flattering, right?

Well it IS. I loved this colour on me.

Fluorescent lighting, colour appears slightly lighter here. 

Something about it just worked, despite the fact that I've really been craving brights lately. The application was a little complicated though. It was really opaque, I could have gotten away with one coat had there not been a couple of patches here and there, yet at the same time I found it runny and hard to control. It made clean up a nightmare; really pigmented + really floody = frustrated Lisa.

After hearing time and again about the wonders of using an angled brush (specifically MAC's) for clean up I threw in the towel and decided it was time to give it a shot. Since I already owned one that I barely ever used it wasn't worth much thought. I was previously using a square-tipped brush, fairly thin, and thought it was doing a good enough job but - move over square tip, there's a new sheriff in town. I'm never, ever going back. It was precise, effective, easy to use... <3 angled brush!

I guess next time I won't be so stubborn and trust the popular opinion.

As luck would have it, olives were part of the dinner menu tonight and I was able to snap this with my phone:

BAM. Dead match.

NOTD: Santa Baby Dotticure

Another Christmas mani for you! I've been even more into vintage lately than I normally am, so naturally red nails and polka dots have been very appealing to me.

The base colour was Sally Hansen Red Carpet (which I'm going to need a back up of, I'm running low) and for the dots I used Sally Hansen Green With Envy and Rimmel  110 French White Tip Pro. If you've never done a dotticure before you don't have to go out and buy a dotting tool, all I used was the tip of a bobby pin and it worked out great.

I hate posing with polish bottles

One of my mom's Christmas presents

I'm basically in love with this look. I didn't use any base coat (shhh!!) so I hope it doesn't chip soon, I want this to last until at least mid-week. That will give me time to think up something to hopefully top this one, but that might prove to be tricky. 

Hopefully you're not sick of Christmas music yet. This is my favourite, classic version of Santa Baby by Madonna.

Think of all the fun I've missed

Think of all the fellas that I haven't kissed

Recent NOTD: OPI Zom-body To Love + Splatter

I layered OPI's Zom-body To Love over OPI Gargantuan Green Grape, which I don't think was really necessary at the end of the day because Zombody seems to have turned out pretty opaque after a few coats. Did I mention it's glow-in-the-dark? WIN.
To make it more Halloweeny I threw some black splatters over it with the method I used in this tutorial using Wet n Wild Black Creme.

My glow in the dark photo capturing skills are definitely sub par, but for once I actually managed to get something to appear so that's good enough for me. However, I didn't get a chance to take any pictures of the manicure during the day but the flash actually did the colour justice.

Left hand

Right hand

GLOWING

Not too shabby, huh?

Apologies and past NOTD - Hard Candy Beetle

First off, allow me to state that I should be renaming this blog to "Lisa's Blog of Neglect" because, if you hadn't noticed, I haven't actually posted since September. To all my followers: Thank you for sticking around, I promise I will keep up to date as much as I can from here on end.

That being said, it's not as though I haven't been photographing my nails to show you (eventually), so tonight is the night where I'm going to flood the internet with past NOTDs. Expect about five posts (including this one) to trickle through as the hours pass. I would put them all in one post but I feel that separating them will not only make cataloging them a lot easier, but also finding them again will be too.

This polish comes to me with a wonderful story. I frequent a nail polish board and a lovely lady named Tyra had posted a photo of her nails sporting Beetle by Hard Candy. I love, love, love that polish and was unable to get it in Canada (ridiculous) and it was driving me batty. She messaged me saying that she was willing to go to Walmart and buy it for me, free of charge and  no expectations of me sending her something in return! Of course I absolutely had to send her something for her generosity and kindness, but if that's not good karma I don't know what is.

What a sweet lady! I didn't get the chance to photograph it at the start of wearing it, but I managed to take some pictures a few days in. Very noticeable tipwear, but I hope you'll at least get an idea of why I wanted it so badly.

This is such a spectacular multi-chrome! You've got purple, you've got gold, you've got copper, sometimes you've got some green, sometimes you've got some pink, and sometimes you've got brown. Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant. 

The world never ceases to amaze me, and on occasion it's in a good way. Thank you Tyra! 

NOTD: Mattified Flaky Goodness

Being a pretty avid MUA NBer makes me want to change my polish rather frequently. And I mean like, all the time. I'm usually planning 3 manicures ahead, and when I land on a new polish there's usually no stopping me. Nothing about this changed when a friend brought me two OPI's yesterday. However right now I am out of acetone, which is definitely required for removing my current manicure (try taking flakies off without it ... not pleasant).

So I had to improvise. What could I do to my mani before being able to buy more acetone on Thursday? I've been seeing a lot of really nice dark matte colours lately and felt inspired. Essie's Matte About You it is! I love the effect it created. It brings out the duochrome quality of the polish quite a bit more than with a shiny top coat, which almost distracts from the colours playing within the flakies.

Green

Blue/Green duochrome

So much blue now!

Close up. Please excuse the shoddy clean up job.

The flakies almost seem more defined now that they're matte. I like it! 

NOTD: Nfu Oh 56 over WnW Black Creme

I can't believe I've waited so long to use this polish. I bought it back in July along with Nfu Oh 45 but never ended up wearing it, poor thing. As per a conversation with Ali I had this weekend, I decided to give it a go over black. Wet n Wild makes the best black creme around in my opinion. It's almost perfectly opaque in one coat without being thick or sticky, dries quickly, and is inexpensive. That right there is a huge win in my books. It can be found in almost any drug store that sells polish too, making it very accessible on top of it all.

I love this mani, it reminds me of dragon scales or something equally mystical and fun. I used one coat of the Nfu Oh over 1 coat of the WnW. The flakies in this polish make for a really pretty green duochrome that flashes blue. The base of the polish isn't clear though, it's made up of tiny little green shimmers which I wasn't actually expecting when I ordered it.

What do you think? I did something else with this mani that I've only done once before. The top coat I used is called Gelous by a brand called Amercian Classics. It's a thick top (or base) coat that doesn't get gobbled up into glitter/flakies the same way normal stuff does. It leaves a really smooth, even coat on top which is not something I often get from top coats and glitters. That being said, it takes forever to dry, so i recommend throwing a quick dry on top of it once it's started to dry a bit.

I get mine at Sally Beauty, and I'm not sure if there's anywhere else around town that sells it, I haven't looked into it at all.
Phew, long post. Hope you enjoyed! Happy back-to-school season everyone.

OPI Catch Me In Your Net over Rimmel Star Trek

So I tried taking pictures of my polish glowing in the dark last night and it didn't work. My camera didn't pick up the glow at all, it was really quite frustrating. I was bored today before work and this magnificent polish was sitting on my desk looking at me, just begging to be worn. I didn't have the time to redo my mani altogether but what goes better with turquoise than navy blue? Not much, let me tell you that. Don't believe me? Give 'er a scroll.

Ali gifted me this polish, I nearly died. Here I thought I was getting to swatch it for one mani but alas - she said I could keep it. It's from OPI's Summer Flutter collection in 2010, I *just* missed grabbing it. It's a dead center dupe for Zoya Charla, but I don't have access to the full Zoya line here so that doesn't make much difference to me. The polish itself is a turquoise glittery foil. Beautiful <3

 

 

I couldn't stop staring at my nails while I was driving today! Bad Lisa, bad.

NOTD: Pride Nails with Black Shatter

Yesterday was Ottawa's Pride parade! I didn't get a chance to actually go, but I did help a local organization prep beforehand by... body painting the parade participants! How much fun is that?
I did this mani the night before (Saturday night) and I've gotta tell you, it's a lot more difficult when you're downing something stronger than your average grape juice ;)

I accomplished this look by applying a base coat of white as undies, then layering the neons into a rainbow so they just slightly overlap and blend. I'm a little disappointed that the pink turned more red/orange, but I've gotten a bazillion compliments on them so I guess it's no harm done.

I originally wanted to do an animal print on top instead of the shatter but the rainbow didn't blend as nicely as I'd hoped and the shatter covered more imperfections. Forgive the quality of the clean-up in this photo, intoxication leads to sloppiness. My lesson has been learned. :P

Kinda neat huh? Reminds me a lot of this mani I did a few months ago.

The colours I used were China Glaze Rose Among Thorns, China Glaze Sun Worshipper, China Glaze  Celtic Sun, Claire's Lime Yours, Claire's Marine Blue and OPI Black Shatter.

Recent NOTD: Chanel Le Vernis Peridot

Me oh my has August ever been a slow month for posting. I think I mentioned in my previous post that I've been spending a great deal of time with dear boyfriend, therefore have been spending more time away from my computer than normal.

Last week, after a great deal of patience and waiting and phone calls, I finally acquired the infamous Peridot. It's rather funny, because I was recently telling a friend that Chanel nail polish is ridiculous, and that paying such a premium wouldn't be worth it seeing as I change my polish so frequently. Then along came Peridot, and with that came a very pronounced foot-in-mouth sentiment. It was Scrangie's post that did it. Aren't her pictures fabulous?! The last pic is what really sold me. So off I went to Murale to place a hold on this beauty (in July) and eventually she found her way into my arms.

I couldn't help but take pictures of it in all sorts of different lighting and scenarios, even with someone else's camera! 

Photo courtesy of Ali

Photo courtesy of Ali

So what do you think? Worth it? I had it on for 6 whole days and not a single chip occurred, just a bit of tip wear.
I've gotten a slew of compliments on this one, I don't regret my decision one bit.