OPI Liquid Sand - Stay The Night Swatch

Man, I am sort of bummed out that Liquid Sand week is over! I was having fun! Next week I'll be back to usual programming with random swatches. No theme, but I really should soon. I thought about doing a Rainbow Honey week but the thing with most of Dee's polishes is that they're so damn versatile so do I swatch vanilla, do I layer glitters over different colours? It's overwhelming but I'll figure something out. Anyway totally off topic here.

So OPI Stay The Night. Brutally. Awesome. Colour. Now, I am a little colour blind because I've seen the glitter described as pink, but I see red. If I look hard enough, it's a deep pink but to me, I see a beautiful gritty matte black with bits of red glitter. That's me, though! Here is Stay The Night in two coats, with no top coat:



I think with a top coat, you get a completely different look. The same effect of a nice black gritty jelly, with peekaboo bits of red glitter. (Yes I will continue with the red, hehe!)



Now, a few notes here: I wore this one few a few days without top coat. After a day of full wear, I noticed that I was seeing some silver glitter. And after another day, there was significant fading of the red glitter, it was about 50/50 red glitter and silver glitter. The pigment had somehow rubbed off! So my recommendation is that if you're really attached to the red glitter and want to preserve the colours, use a top coat. If you love the vanilla look and don't mind the fading, rock it for a couple of days. I personally like changing my nail polish often so I don't mind!

Hope you enjoyed Stay The Night. I'll be doing a final post tomorrow with all the liquid sands so all the swatches are reconciled in one post for future reference.

OPI Liquid Sand - The Impossible Swatch

Happy hump day! We've reached the point in the normal work week where we're half way through to the weekend! With that said, we're more than half way through the OPI liquid sands from the Mariah Carey collection. Alright, on y va! (Um, that's French for "let's go" for all my non-Canadian readers!)

OPI The Impossible is a coral red with matching grit with hex feature glitter shimmer AND... (my favourite)... STAR GLITTER! Overall, the formula was smooth and I attained full coverage within 2 coats. However, like most bigger shape glitter, there is some fishing involved. It's not that bad, though. All I did was turn the bottle upside down and a lot of the star glitters fell to the top and grabbed onto the brush.



Unlike the previous liquid sands I've shown you (Can't Let Go and Get Your Number), I don't really have a preference of this liquid sand having a top coat, or going vanilla! I think it looks great either way because the star glitter offers enough contrast in colour and shape to make either really work.



Hope you guys dig this one and I'll be finishing LIQUID SAND week with the final one tomorrow. (I'm kind of sad, I will have to come up with another SHARK WEEK to do for this old nail blog, hehe.)

OPI Liquid Sand - Can't Let Go Swatch

I did a walk-around in some drug stores last night after work and found the OPI Mariah Carey collection in London Drugs, as well as mall hair salons this weekend so these should be widely available in Canada now, I assume! Not as cool as Shark Week, but continuing in good fashion... LIQUID SAND WEEK.

Here's OPI Can't Let Go. I love this one. My mum wore this one and said a lot of her customers loved the colour as well. Can't Let Go is a fairly basic purple, slightly cool-based, with matching grit and deep lavender hex glitter, infused with slight shimmer that hides in the sandy matte goodness.



Yummy. I love this one so much that I even have a different view... Here we go again... Aaaaand...



OPI Can't Let Go looks SO good vanilla. I don't recommend using a top coat.

I swatched my liquid sands while I was drinking so I don't have the best photo of Can't Let Go with a top coat. Not my best work, it looks awfully sloppy! (Don't drink and swatch, guys!)



I think the top really pulls away from the whole look and everything blends too much. Can't Let Go becomes boring. I definitely recommend against a top coat for this one because the texture looks so great with the colours.

OPI Liquid Sand - Get Your Number Swatch

It's liquid sand week! After longing for these damn liquid sands, I fiiiinally found them in Vancouver! For real guys, Canada gets everything last, so all you American nail bloggers make me drool all the time. Serious. The liquid sands are all from the Mariah Carey collection but I skipped out on the rest of the collection because nothing was completely stand out for me.

Alright, so let's kick it off with OPI Get Your Number. Off the bat, this one probably sports the most sheer formula out of all the liquid sands. I needed to use 3 coats to get a nice opaque coverage. Get Your Number is a nice denim toned blue, with matching grit and holographic glitter. It dries a lot lighter than how the formula applies. My swatch here is dry, but my friend who actually wore the polish had it lighten overnight.

These liquid sands take a while to dry. While they seem to take a while to be dry to the touch, they end up taking longer to be completely dry and most of them do lighten in colour.



I love the texture of the liquid sands. It feels like a softened grip tape. (I know that sounds unappealing but it was fun!)

You get a completely different look when you add a top coat.



Here is OPI Get Your Number with a top coat. A lot of top coat actually. These liquid sands are textured and tend to have more surface area so you will want to be prepared to apply fairly thick, or do a few coats. I wish I used my Seche Vite on this swatch, but I just used a basic Color Club top coat just to demonstrate the shift. As you can see, a top coat will restore the tone of the formula before it dries light.

In my opinion, I love Get Your Number with a top coat moreso than wearing it vanilla.

Cult Nails Deal With It Swatch

I've been kind of bummed out lately, but looking back at this swatch makes me remember how fun my nails were that week. Cult Nails Deal With It is from Coco's Untamed Collection. If you are wondering who Coco is, it's actually Maria's daughter. Cult Nails runs as a family, and they do it well and with so much passion. My polish purges are usually done in bulk because I like to indulge in the free shipping. Normally I like to grab the entire collection but I missed the boat and some shades had already sold out. So Deal With It is the only one I grabbed from the Untamed Collection.

The formula is great, however sheer. It goes on quite smoothly, but I really needed 3 coats for full coverage. The lime green is super vibrant and has a hint of shimmer.



I only wore this for a couple of days because my nails were so distracting, ha! But during the short time I wore it, I noticed that the green was very similar to the SMS colour in iOS Messages on my iPhone!



In other news, my order from Nail Polish Canada came in yesterday and I've already swatched the Ozotic colour I got. It's so fabulous and brilliant, I had to resist so hard not to post it today! Aaaaand tomorrow Rainbow Honey's Sweet Talk collection will be up to order and I told myself I wouldn't buy any more nail polish until I've swatched everything in my current collection but waaaaaah, I love Rainbow Honey so damn much.

DAVIDsTEA Perfect Mug Inspired Nail Art - Peppermint Snowfall

So if you know me well enough, you might know that I am absolutely obsessed with DAVIDsTEA. I usually don't sport any brand names on my clothing, but DAVIDsTEA is what I wear loud and proud on my perfect mug at work. I've been wanting to improve on my nail art these days and didn't know what to do to start... Then I figured out that this will be perfect - the tea that gets me through the day is also going to inspire me to improve my nail art.

So here's my first attempt. (Don't be too hard!)

This is the perfect mug from DAVIDsTEA that I am inspired by; it's called Peppermint Snowfall. I figured I would keep it nice and simple but as someone who has never freehanded any kind of nail art, I found it super challenging! I used a single fine brush that I got from Michael's. The base coat is OPI Mermaid's Dream, and the snowflakes and snow were made using OPI Jade is the New Black, OPI Fly, and a generic white striper I got from Superstore.





Overall, I think I am pretty OK with how it turned out considering it was my first time but there is definitely room for improvement! I'll be doing some more DAVIDsTEA Perfect Mug inspired nails over the next few weeks so just bare with me and my bad nail art skills for now!

Essie Shine of the Times vs. Color Club Snow-Flakes vs. Zoya Chloe Comparison

I've been meaning to post this for a couple of weeks, but here it is: Essie Shine of the Times compared to Color Club Snow-Flakes... And just to mix it up Essie Shine of the Times compared to Color Club Snow-Flakes compared to Zoya Chloe. WILD CARD! Originally I was going to use Finger Paints Flashy, but I completely forgot that I skipped out on it because I already owned a orange/green colour shift flakie. So in its place is Zoya Chloe.

Flakie polishes were all the rage at the end of 2011 headed into 2012, but I personally am still not over them. I love flakies because they lay flat and the colour shift is so damn cool. I wish people would stop calling some glitters "flakies", when they are really just ripped up shards of glitters. Anyway, here we go:



So just judging by the bottles at first glance, it's hard to tell the difference between Essie Shine of the Times and Color Snow Flakes. If you look closely, however, you'll be able to tell right away how dense Shine of the Times is. The reflecting colours are reflecting as a whole cohesive polish, rather than in bits like you can see in Color Club Snow-Flakes and Zoya Chloe.



Here is one coat of each flakie polish over top of Quo by Orly Little Black Dress. From left to right: Essie Shine of the Times, Color Club Snow-Flakes, Zoya Chloe and Essie Shine of the Times. As you can see, Shine of the Times is significantly denser. Lot of different sized flakies, big and small. Our wild card Zoya Chloe is the same density as Color Club Snow-Flakes, however, you can see already that it has a small amount of a different colour-shift flakie. Amongst the orange/green flakies, there is a small amount of green/blue.



Now here's two coats of each flakie polish over top of Quo by Orly Little Black Dress. From left to right: Essie Shine of the Times, Color Club Snow-Flakes, Zoya Chloe and Essie Shine of the Times. Huge difference. You are seeing full coverage of the nail for Essie Shine of the Times. It is dominating. The two coats of Snow-Flakes and Chloe come close to the density of one coat of Shine of the Times, but even then, it's obvious that Shine of the Times is density king in this group.



Here is a comparison of the colour shift between Shine of the Times, Snow-Flakes and Chloe. The only difference is Zoya Chloe, which contains a very small amount of green/blue flakies. I think I prefer to have the flakies match, unless we're talking about my unicorn, Cult Nails Clairvoant aka Unicorn Puke, or Finger Paints Twisted, which both are rainbow coloured flakies.



Lastly, this comparison would not be complete without matte-ifying everything. Using a matte top coat over flakie polish is very popular because it brings out the colours and shapes significantly. As you can see, Shine of the Times is almost on an entirely different playing field than Snow-Flakes and Chloe. If I was going to go for full coverage, I would stick with Shine of the Times. If you are looking to preserve your base colour, but would still like an extra glimmer of something, Snow-Flakes and Chloe can kick it up a notch.

Ciate Rainbow Caviar Set Swatch and Review

It was my birthday this weekend and pondered the question every lacquerista ponders during their birthday, "so, uh, birthday nails?"... Then I gazed at my massive pile of untried polishes and sets and the choice was clear: Ciate's Rainbow Caviar. It's PERFECT! One of my best friends picked this up for me for Christmas and I was THRILLED! They look like cupcakes and it makes sense!

So, here we go. (Also, it's the first time I've tried using a black background and I think I like it! Hope you do too.)



Here's the packaging it came in and it's so gorgeous. The photo is awesome! It's a little silly because the beads are definitely not supposed to be used on the face whatsoever but it's such an awesome photo and definitely close to some of the candy ideas I've had floating in my mind for photoshoots.

The set comes with: 1 bottle of rainbow "caviar" micro beads, 1 bottle of "Strawberry Milkshake" paint pot nail lacquer, 1 funnel, instructions, and the plastic casing the bottles are stored in can be used as a bead catching tray.

The formula on Ciate Strawberry Milkshake is very smooth and dries fast. I don't think I've worked with a formula quite like this. It's very milky! You get a very good foundation with 1 coat, but I used 2 for full coverage.

As for the caviar part, it is suggested to work with one nail at a time. Paint one coat, let dry, and on the second coat, while it's still wet, sprinkle the caviar microbeads with the tray underneath to catch the excess. This part was surprisingly very fun. You're then instructed to "Press gently to secure the beads" and this part for me was kind of tedious. Maybe my fingers get sweaty or something when I am painting my nails, but when I pressed down (even gently), I would pick some of the beads up. It wasn't too bad though, I didn't get many bald spots on my caviar highlight nail.



I used Seche Vite top coat on the Strawberry Milkshake nails but left the caviar highlight nail without top coat. It is recommend that if top coat is a must, to only use it on the tips. Just as an experiment, I used top coat afterwards and it looked awful. The colours were lost and the nail felt weighted. Definitely do not use top coat.

It says the manicure lasts for 48 hours but I personally could not handle having it on for more than a day. It was really pretty and fun to look at but I just kept picking at it! I think the Ciate caviar sets are great for perhaps an all-day party. I am sure that it's quite possible to get 48 hours and maybe for some, even more but I would rather not have the little beads lost, especially if you have pets or kids around the house.

Anyway, I had quite the birthday find! I FINALLY found the liquid sand polishes from OPI's Mariah Carey collection! I already swatched them but I've got more to post from the pipe this week so perhaps I'll post em next week.

Color Club Snow-Flakes Swatch

I am eating some sponge cake and oolong tea and it is absolutely glorious. We know how to do Fridays around here. Or, at least I do.

Ending the week by ending my swatches of Color Club's Winter Affair! Here's the last one, a flakie polish called Snow-Flakes. There are a lot of variations of flakies in regards to colours, colour combinations but this one is pretty much exactly like Essie's Shine of the Times in that the colour shift is primary orange/red to yellow/green. The flakes are mostly a fair size, not small specks. The main difference between Shine of the Times and Snow-Flakes is the density. My personal preference is to have a sparser amount of flakies so the base colour is still highlighted underneath so Snow-Flakes is great for my use! If you are looking for a really dense flakie, stick with Essie's Shine of the Times... That is, if you can find one!


Snow-Flakes over one coat of OPI In The Spot-Light Pink

Snow-Flakes over one coat of Quo by Orly Little Black Dress

Snow-Flakes over one coat of Quo by Orly Little Black Dress

Snow-Flakes over one coat of Quo by Orly Little Black Dress, matte-ified by using one coat of Gosh "Matt Effect" Top Coat
I actually ended up doing a comparison of Shine of the Times vs. Snow-Flakes so I'll be posting that next week. As for tonight? I am kicking off my birthday weekend with some good friends, good tacos, and good stupid movies (is that a thing? Oh well, it is now.)

Color Club Gift of Sparkle Swatch

Color Club's Gift of Sparkle is a warm purple (we haven't seen that yet on this blog!) packed with holographic glitter and red and purple micro-glitters keeping a consistent tone. Gift of Sparkle is an easy two-coater. Like with most thick glitter formulas, the first first coat is a bit sheer, lacking personality but another coat sticks onto the first coat really well and kicks it up to a high notch. Again, I found no issues with the formula, but I've been known to work with a lot of Rainbow Honey lacquers and OPI's Teenage Dream is one of my favourite nail polishes and it takes THICKEST FORMULA PRIZE ftw.



I think this color is very pretty. I love anything holographic so I'm a fan!

I'm officially done season 2 of Community and it looks like this is when Community takes a turn and everything just becomes a parody, instead of using original content. Not sure if I will like that any better, though. In other news, Arrow is back and some Oliver Queen doing salmon ladder pull-ups sounds good to me. (Mwahahaha.)

Color Club Glitter Wonderland Swatch

I've been having fun so far, trying to get into the habit of having a nail blog. Sometimes I want to update more than every few days but then I realize that I would run out of material! Anyway, the swatches are fun and all, going through my bin of nail polish but I feel like I am not really being creative in any way. I started a new project last night that I am pretty stoked on! All the photos are done already, but I think I am going to finish up the Color Club Winter Affair collection before I reveal it! I'm excited! (Albeit what I've done so far sort of sucks but it's a start towards doing something more interesting!)

So, let's get on with the swatch of the day... Here's Color Club's Glitter Wonderland. It kind of reminds me of American Apparel's Violet Panache but definitely not as shimmery/foil-y. Kind of inappropriately named, I think since there's no glitter in this! The formula was good. Two coats and you're done. I guess I should say it (and then I'll probably say it again) but the formula on this entire Winter Affair collection sample I have is so great. No issues. I've seen other nail bloggers call it thick and goopy, but maybe it has to do with the scented versions of this collection? My Winter Affair collection from Winners was unscented and I've had no problems with it.



I wish that my sample of Winter Affair had some of the other colours. There were already 3 dark purple or vamp shades, but there is a blue and gold as well. Oh well.

Almost done the second season of Community. I watched the highly acclaimed Dungeons and Dragons episode... Really disappointed because it was so great stylistically and there were reeally great moments in the roleplaying, but then 40% of the jokes in the episodes were fat jokes. The first couple times might be OK and funny, but to keep repeating it? The "fat nerd" joke is not unique and not original.

Color Club Winter Affair Swatch

Color Club's Winter Affair is a very vampy polish. Goes on dark and sports a plum shimmer in the right light. Didn't expect to see something like this in a holiday collection! Probably best for sexy parties, or new years', instead of family gatherings and opening presents in pajamas. This one reminds me of an old Wet N Wild shade I wore all the time when I was a kid, from the Halloween collection. Ha!

Formula was great. Full coverage in 2 coats. Swatch is shown without top coat.



Alright so TV... I have completed all of season 1 of Community. I had no idea that it was over 20 episodes. I thought I was clear after 10. Nope. Although I still don't enjoy the show, I have come to terms that I think it's mediocre. Nothing I would recommend to anyone. Season 2 so far has been more tolerable than season 1. I hear season 3 takes a major nosedive so we'll see what I think of the change.

Color Club Ho Ho Holly Swatch

Yay Friday! I'm going to blab about TV but I'll talk about nail polish first!

Color Club's Ho Ho Holly is an amazing foil nail polish. I am going to go as far and say that it is my favourite out of the Winter Affair collection. It is super vibrant, super reflective, super pigmented and there was no pain whatsoever to apply the formula. Full smooth coverage at 2 coats. My swatch is shown without a top coat. When the light isn't as intense as the light in my lightbox, the gold shimmer that you can spot in the bottle is a bit more prominent.



So, I've been watching a LOT of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Like, a lot. A lot meaning that I've essentially powered through all 8 seasons within 2 weeks, with the chance to re-watch a lot of favourites (which there seems to be a lot of)... I started watching It's Always Sunny based on a recommendation so I figured that trying another recommendation isn't such a bad idea. Everyone I know loves this show called "Community". It hits only 0.1 away from It's Always Sunny's 8.9 out of 10 rating on IMDB so I thought it wouldn't be too bad.

I have watched up until episode 9 and I've laughed maybe twice. I am not sure what I'm missing. I wish I liked this show. I want to like this show... But I don't.

The main character is an asshole who literally gets everything he wants. There is no comedy here for me because I can't sympathize for someone who has everything his way. What's funny about that? He falls for a very boring blonde girl who has ZERO personality and no expression in her face. Their relationship is entirely high school drama. The only two redeemable characters in the student main cast is Abed and Troy, and usually their time to shine is in the last 20 seconds of the show during the rolling credits. The contrast between the last 20 seconds and the main show is so high that it seems like two different writers make up the bits.

Overall the show is supposed to take a stab at community college but it doesn't reflect what happens at all in college; instead it's closer to a high school setting. Community feels like watching the Disney Channel for adults. If a comedy is meant to be as slapstick and absurd, it's not working as a live action comedy. Community would be better off as an animated show. I understand that there is far more flexibility in placing the characters in a college due to age restrictions - you can poke fun at careers, there can be drinking - but it's not working for me because the relationships of the characters are so unrealistic and boring.

I will watch the rest of the series because I really do feel like I am missing something. Again, Abed and Troy are the only shining beacons of the show and even then, Abed feels like a more put together Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory.

Sigh, I want to like this goddamn show!

Color Club Berry and Bright Swatch

Originally I spotted these foils from Color Club's Winter Affair from Winners in mini format for $7 but I went to another location during my "I guess I'll stroll around the mall before Christmas shopping Hell happens" sessions after work. I bought the minis for my boyfriend's sister... Then I ended up finding some full-sized bottles with most of the Winter Affair collection for $15 at another location. Always a steal at Winners for Color Club collections.

Berry and Bright is a red foil that applies on thick and smooth. It's possibly a one coater, but I try to apply as thin as I can for one coat and then cake it on for a second. Here's two coats without any top coat, definitely got full coverage. One of my favourite reds I think, definitely my first red foil. Maybe that's why!

OPI Man With The Golden Gun Swatch

I couldn't really bring myself to spending $30 on a single nail polish (although I've been guilty to spend just a tad lower for a Deborah Lippmann) but I loved receiving this as a gift. I think I must have squealed the loudest for this one when I opened it on Christmas day. My friend knows where my heart lies, obviously! (And she baked me a matcha cheesecake to boot, goddamn! - sometimes I have it really good.)

I think I have some sort of hoarding problem but I can't bring myself to throwing away the box:



Gah everything is so pretty!

Is it pretty on your nails? YES. I thought it would disappoint me but the gold leaf bits are super glitzy. I love them. Another friend of mine warned me that the formula was "goopy" but I found it easy to work with. My swatch has 2 coats. I think you could layer it easily, depending on how much gold you want.

As for the base colour, I used Little Black Dress from Quo by Orly, which is Shoppers Drug Mart's in-house brand. Short review is: it sucks. I hate the formula. The first coat is super streaky and does not like to be brushed over more than once. I'm thankful that the second coat provides adequate coverage else I'd throw it away. Not my favourite black. I'd rather use Black Satin by Rimmel or OPI's Black Onyx before using this one.





I'm not sure if you can tell but the last photo is after a week of wear. A WEEK. Not sure what to give credit to... The polishes I used, or the ultra thick Seche Vite top coat. You can see the slightest tip wear but asides that, this one lasted quite a while!

Oh yeah, the AAAARGH necklace is made by Swank. My best friend gave it to before before she went back to London.

Cult Nails Behind Closed Doors Collection Swatches

I've posted all of these already but I just wanted to keep em all in one place! I got all these during the pre-sale and some of the colours are already sold out. You can find some of the remaining ones at Cult Nails' online shop. Unfortunately there was a price increase that was effective on January 1st but Cult Nails has proven to be high quality, provide unique and innovative colours and trends and have awesome customer service. Especially with the big boom of indie polishes and needing to stay afloat - I think the price is justified!


All the pretty bottles!

Flushed

Disciplined

Afterglow

Coveted

Bitten

Cult Nails Flushed Swatch

I guess I've been settled into work now but I still wish I was on vacation. I've been hooked on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and I sort of just want to veg out on the couch and watch it. Perhaps I was too busy over the holidays? Ah well.

So I've finally completed swatching Cult Nails' Behind Closed Doors collection. I say "swatching" but I actually wore all these colours for several days and the durability was awesome. With a thick coat of Seche Vite, I had barely any tip wear. I'll make another post so I can put all the colours together in one happy place!

Flushed is a bold purple with a cool bias. It's more of a cooler purple than a warm toned one. Application was flawless within 2 coats and there was no fuss. There is a subtle shimmer (of course, Cult Nails ALWAYS has a shimmer) of pink. Awesome stuff. Maybe I'll use this for my Justin Bieber joke nails when I get around to them? I found some hilarious temporary tattoos at Zellers (godspeed) and think they'd be pretty funny to use on a highlight nail or something.

Cult Nails Coveted Swatch

Yay 2013. I actually don't care too much for New Years... Traditionally it's always been the worst day of the year for me but I made an extra effort to keep it low key and good times were actually had. I got to hang out with my BFF from London and we didn't even countdown. It was actually glorious.

Anyway I am just looking forward to continuing to post all my nail things on the blog and hopefully improve on my application skills, as well as general nail care. I've always been really bad at maintaining my nails, especially the health so I am going to try to work on that. Not a new years resolution, but something I've been trying to do for the last couple of months, especially after that huge break a couple of months ago! Almost recovered!

Here's Cult Nails' Coveted. I have to admit that I really looked forward to it at first but when I applied it, the formula along with containing those giant glitter shards was really irritating! I don't like it when nail polish is advertised as a "flakie" when it's really just "giant shards of glitter". The 'flakie' glitter can best be compared to China Glaze's Luxe and Lush and Revlon's Moon Candy. It's a complete mess. If you are lucky, you can make it look great, and even the surface with a thick application of Seche Vite, but asides that, this was not a pleasure to apply.



I'll have to compare this to Cult Nails' Iconic as well because this is advertised as its green sister. Hopefully it's much better for application!