i'm on that mermaid life

Hey everyone! I've got some amazing nails for you today if I do say so myself! (And I do say so.)

Totally wanted to leave these on for the rest of my life.

The base color for this mani is a new-ish one from Essence (it came out in Canada in maybe October or November), called Aquatix Bay, I did three coats for best coverage.
The seashell stamping image is from the Cheeky summer collection, plate CH-38.
I used a Mundo de Unas stamping polish. I think it's called Lilac. They stamp sooooo amazingly.
I added some rhinestones and pearls to continue with the mermaid effect.

Mermaid nails are just the best. I am a mermaid. If you didn't know.

Hope you guys enjoyed these nails as much as I did!
BTW - Any of my polish friends out there in sunny Florida wanna take me to the Iggy Azalea concert in May? I'll be there for vacation with my fam, and at this rate, I'ma be taking my mom to see Iggy Iggs.

piCture pOlish Collab-Fest 2013

Hello everyone and happy Monday! (Even though it is only 1:00 am for me right now...)
Today is piCture pOlish Collab Fest! A day for all of us lucky ladies who had collaboration shades released this year to post them all again for your viewing pleasure. I was going to schedule this post for the afternoon but decided to just go ahead and post it now!

Unfortunately for me, this came at a really awful time for my nails. I am in the middle of final exams, I'm doing more hours at work for the holidays, plus Christmas preparations around my house, PLUS spending the rest of my time doing holiday nails for my friends and family... My nails and hands have taken a serious beating. Worst nails ever!
I had an awful break last week and I tried to hide it by rounding my nails off but I just don't like that look.
So you're getting no new close-ups from me today! But I did manage to take some festive photos and I will include an older one just to show off my purdy polish.

Wouldn't you like to find this under your tree?

Of course I never get sick of seeing my beauty! Siren Song is my pride and joy. It fills me with excitement every time someone posts a picture of them wearing it. I'm ecstatic when my friends buy it, and even some of my friend's moms have bought it! I couldn't be happier about this whole experience and I truly do love wearing my polish.
It's one of those shades I could wear again and again and I am really delighted about that.

I love when people ask me what polish I am wearing and I get to tell them that it is mine!
At first I was always carrying one around to show off. HA! 

You can find Siren Song at picturepolish.com.au or from many of their international stockists.
Be sure to follow PP on Facebook and Instagram because they post lots of great manis!

My pals at Nail Polish Canada are still offering free shipping on any order within Canada! Check that out, Canadian chums.

Have you picked up a bottle of Siren Song? Share photos with me!

sunsational gradient with - wait for it... LEOPARD

Holy crap, this week flew by and I didn't even notice. I thought it had been maybe three days since my last post... But it's been over a week!! CRAP.
I do have a few posts lined up for the next week though. :)

Today's post is yet another gradient leopard. I die for gradients with leopard prints. You probably already know that.

Turquoise. Gradient. Leopard. China Glaze Sunsational Neons. It doesn't get much better.

I did this manicure with four polishes from the Sunsational collection (plus a black, of course.)
This is not a typical sponging-gradient, you just do this by adding layers of the very transparent jelly polishes to build up the color. Check out my last Sunsational-jelly-gradient here for a bit more detail if you need it.

It started with a base of China Glaze - Too Yacht To Handle, the brightest blue.
I first began the jelly-gradient with China Glaze - Keepin' It Teal, the teal jelly (obvi.)
I deepened the tip of the gradient with some China Glaze - Isle See You Later, the blue jelly.
Then I added dots with the light green, China Glaze - Highlight of My Summer, and used black to finish off the print.

For some reason, my camera didn't want to really pick up the gradient. I think the colors are just too bright! Too Yacht To Handle in particular is like BAM and my camera is like NO.

Here's the gradient before the leopard. Mmm, so beachy and summery.

It matches my new phone case! Haha! (Which I scored for just $2 at Michael's, by the way!)

Hope you guys like these nails! See you tomorrow with some Essie swatches...

China Glaze Sunsational Collection - swatches and review!

Hey everyone! Happy Thursday.
Today I'm finally showing you swatches of all 12 of the beauties in the China Glaze Sunsational Collection for Summer 2013.

I don't often do this, but I splurged and bought the entire collection. All the colors were just so me...

The collection is split into two halves - the cremes and the jellies.
For those of you not familiar with those terms, cremes are opaque polishes with no shimmer, and jelly polishes are semi-translucent with a "squishy" look to them.

Several early reviews complained a lot about the formulas and that made me sad because I wanted them so desperately and I wanted them to be perfect. Despite the bad reviews I bought them anyway - and I was happily surprised. I'll comment on that as we go.

What I love about the colors in this collection is that they are mega vibrant, but without that extreme neon quality that some polishes have, which tends to look horrific on very fair-skinned ladies like me.
And neons are notoriously hard to photograph but I think I did a pretty good job! 

I'm going to start with the cremes because I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.

piCture pOlish - Tiffany

Hello and welcome to another edition of piCture pOlish Monday!

Today's post features a gorgeous creme polish that I think everyone needs in their polish arsenal. A Tiffany blue!

piCture pOlish - Tiffany
Appropriately named, Tiffany is a Tiffany blue creme. I wish I had a Tiffany's box to pose with! Haha. 
(Now I've said Tiffany too many times and it sounds like a made-up word. Tiffany Tiffany Tiffany.)

This is three thin coats to even out the color completely.
Doesn't it just make your nails look so crisp and clean and pretty? I've always loved wearing colors like this. It's eye-catching, too! I got so many compliments when I wore this color.

Think about how pretty it would be to wear this polish at your wedding as the "something blue!"
I'll have to keep that in mind if I ever go crazy and decide to get married.

piCture pOlish is available at picturepolish.com.au as well as with lots of other network members around the world. Check out the Network list for a full rundown of the places you can find PP!

Stay tuned next week for another gorgeous shade! A glitter... Layered over Tiffany... Yum!

Visit the on-line store - www.picturepolish.com.au

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Product provided for honest review.

ultra random swatch spam

I thought this vacation series might be a good time to look back through swatches that I've never posted and see what is decent enough to post.

I've found twelve (yes, twelve!) totally random swatches that I feel are post-worthy! Some of them are even quite lovely.

I think part of the reason I like doing swatch spam and posting swatches it because it gives me a chance to write down anything special about the polish - like if it was a gift, or if it came from somewhere cool, etc! It's fun for me to be able to read back and see why each polish is special to me.
Let's get to it!

China Glaze - Drawn to You
This is one of those polishes that looks better in pictures than it does in person. The magnetic effect works well, but I'm just not a big fan of the actual color. 2 coats.

Icing - No Name Blue Magnetic
2 coats. This was the first magnetic polish I bought and still the only one I really like! The colors are awesome, the magnet effect really pulls out this purpley shimmer and the squiggle magnet it comes with is my favorite.

H&M - Bella's Choice
My dear pal Line in Denmark sent this beauty to me. A perfect turquoise creme! 2 coater. Definitely could be called "Rebecca's Choice" because I love it!

Cosmetic Arts - All The Trimmings 
This is one weird polish. I picked this up at Winners, just because of how different looking it is. The blue shimmer you see in the photo is not very prominent in person, and it actually has a pink flash. It's thin, 3 coats, and still kinda sheer. Not really attractive... But it was just so weird, I had to have it. 

Pure Ice - Ruffled Sheets
Ew, sorry for this yucky-colored photo. This is one of the newer matte/suede/velvet/whatever polishes from Pure Ice. The wonderful Lori picked this up for me! I've got 6 of 'em. They're nice. You almost can't tell this one is matte because it is so reflective!

Color Club - Feelin' Groovy
Super neon green! Three coats. Dries semi-matte. I think I bought this one in Toronto last year!

Essence - Hello Holo!
This is a Nail Art Special Effects Topper from Essence. Essentially just super blingy silver holo glitter in a clear base. Shown here over Sephora by OPI - Son of a Gun from the Betsey Johnson collection. 
This found its way to me from Caroline at Good Lack Nail!

Essie - Play Date
Hello, right hand! This is a lovely purple creme with a great formula. 2 coater.  

Nabi Magnetic - 05 Purple
A nice purple magnetic! 2 coats. Very vibrant. I got this polish from the wonderful Laurie @ Dressed Up Digits!

China Glaze - Riveting 
This was probably the most well-liked polish from the Hunger Games collection from China Glaze, but me, I hate it. Ha! I just do not like orange. Yuck. But if you do like orange then this is a must have, apparently. 

BB Couture - Junk In The Trunk
I have no idea why I have never posted about this polish or the one to follow. I believe they are the first polishes that I bought online, after seeing such beautiful swatches on blogs. I remember I felt a little crazy for spending $10 plus shipping on polishes but I knew I had to have these.
And then I swatched them, didn't even wear them, and didn't love the photos, and never even posted them! Shame on me, seriously. I'm going to actually wear these polishes ASAP because they deserve it.
Junk In The Trunk is a beautiful shimmery blue, and as far as I can remember, the formula is great! Isn't it purdy? The next one is even better...

BB Couture - Man Bug
So pretty. Probably one of the prettiest polishes I own, actually. It's so me! Turquoise with glittery shimmer. I have no idea why I don't wear this all the time.
It's a bit sheer, needs three coats. And as you can see I applied it a little thick back in the day when I did this swatch... Haha. I will wear this again and take even more beautiful photos!

I'll be home tomorrow! :)

four layers of crack

I was really looking forward to the China Glaze Glitter Crackles that came out earlier this year but then they ended up being pretty disappointing.

I didn't buy them at first... But then they went on clearance and I bought all four. (It was a weak moment.)

I tried doing a manicure with one of them and did not like the result, so in frustration I layered the rest on top. And it actually turned out pretty cool!

I like how you can see some cracks still and how it is hard to tell that there are actually 4 layers on there. Haha! It made an interesting effect.

You totally can't see the different polishes in this manicure but I will list them here anyway:
China Glaze - Glam-More (fuchsia)
China Glaze - Jade-D (green)
China Glaze - Gleam Me Up (blue)
China Glaze - Luminous Lavender (purple)

What made the glitter crackles so disappointing is that the glitter is really sparse. You don't get an opaque coat of glitter so it is hard to even notice that it is a crackle and not just a coat of regular glitter.

This was what the manicure started out as. Just the blue crackle over the base color. It was barely visible and so not impressive.

Here's a swatch of the base color on its own because I don't think I've shown it before!

Zoya - Wednesday is a very nice turquoise creme that covers well in 2 coats but holy crap, she likes to stain. It doesn't look like a typical stainy color, but watch out!

Perhaps once the glitter crackles are used a few times and thicken up, they will give more satisfying results.
Or maybe they'd look better over dark colors. I'll give them another chance sometime.

What do you think of this quadruple-crack mani? It's pretty strange, but I dig it.

31dc2012 - day 20

Holy crap, it's Day 20 already!

I was not looking forward to this day... It's a tough one!
The theme for today is Water Marble!

When I try to water marble, I always expect it is going to be fantastic. But then I kinda suck a little. And then I get discouraged. But my results do end up decent, usually. It just frustrates me in the process. Haha!

Here's what I came up with:

Tada!
I went for marbled accent nails instead of a full-blown marble mani. I'm really liking the look of a few marbled nails against some solid ones. (I've always drooled over this manicure from The Nail Network, which is where my inspiration came from.)

I didn't get the best photos of this manicure, I had planned on taking more but then an exploding pen situation at my job kinda screwed that up... Haha. Let's just say my nails are a little more blue now than they were a few hours ago...

I added some dots to my thumb for a little bit more 'oomph'!
I really like how the thumb looks and I might have to do an entire manicure with that sort of pattern very soon!

The pink I used is one of my go-to polishes, China Glaze - Dance Baby.
The turquoise color (which didn't show up too much in my marble) is Zoya - Wednesday.
The blue polish is Barry M - Turquoise. (Yes, it is called turquoise but it is blue.)
The purple is China Glaze - Gothic Lolita, another of my faves.

Well there you have it, a cutesy marble mani that I enjoyed wearing until a stupid pen decided to explode all over my hands. Blargh.

I have made it past one of the most daunting days... But now we are entering the hardest section of the challenge! Uh oh!
I'll have to put on my thinking cap...

flip flop inspiration

Good morning lovers!

I've got more nail art to show you guys today! I'm so happy to be doing nail art again on a regular basis and I love all your amazing comments, it's great to know you guys appreciate what I'm doing. Thank you! I will try my best to keep posting as much art as possible! (And holy crap I have a lot of swatching to do too!)

Today's mani was inspired by a pair of flip flops!

Love! This color combo is kinda kooky but I really enjoyed wearing these nails.
As I said, they were inspired by flip flops! Here's a pic of the mani and the inspiration together:

We had these Billabong flip flops at the store I work in, and I knew they would make an awesome manicure. We sold out of my size before I could snatch a pair for myself, but I snapped a picture on my iPhone with them to make sure I could show you guys how good it matches!
(I was pretty impressed that I managed to match the colors so well, despite not having the flip flops for reference at home when I was doing my nails.)

The striped nails started with a base of Orly - Dayglow.
Dayglow was the white polish included in Orly's summer collection. It has blue shimmer in it but that doesn't really translate to the nail. I like the formula of the polish, it covers in 2 coats and it doesn't look chalky like some white polishes do.

I stamped the chevron image from Bundle Monster BM-201 on top of the white with Sally Hansen Insta Dri - Lickety-Split Lime. I love bright Insta Dri shades for stamping! They work really well.

The accent nail is Barielle - Do Unto Others, a great turquoise creme that covers in 2 coats. It does have a tendency to leave behind some blue stains though, so make sure to wear basecoat.
This reminds me, I have some Barielle swatches to post! Maybe tomorrow.

What do you guys think? Do you find inspiration in random things like flip flops?
Hope you have a great day!

Glitter Gal Duochrome Collection - Hell-Bent Blue & Distored Platinum

Hey guys! Here today for your viewing pleasure are the last two shades from the wonderful DuoChrome Collection from Glitter Gal.

To refresh your memory, this is a 6-piece collection consisting of sheer duochrome polishes that are at their best when worn over black or other dark colors. You can wear them alone too if you like the subtle look.
These polishes are 15mL, in GGal's fancy new bottles, and they even come in their own boxes.
The polishes are "5-free" - meaning they contain none of the big five chemicals found in some cosmetics.

I totally adore these last two polishes so prepare for greatness!

Glitter Gal - Hell-Bent Blue
A wonderful shades-of-blue duochrome. Shown here is two coats over black.

Blue, turquoisey-blue, purpley-blue, all kinds of blue.

I love when you can see the purple around the edges. It's gorgeous!

Yum. Blue fans rejoice.

And last but certainly not least...

Glitter Gal - Distorted Platinum
My flash photos of this one are kinda weird looking, but believe me, this polish is one of the best in the collection. It is my second favorite of all!

I'm not sure what color you would call this one primarily, it shows a strong silvery-teal and purple. You can pretty much always see both colors on the nail.

Looooooook. OMG.

Holy hell, I love that last photo.
It's like pink and purple and turquoise and silvery and... just awesome. Right?

There you have it, guys! If you missed the other 2 posts, here are some links for you:
Warped Teal & Twisted Jealousy
Buckled Bronze & Contorted Mauve

As I've said, these new polishes from GGal are 15mL and retail for $17.50 AUD/$17.95 USD and you can buy them from Glitter Gal directly or on Ninja Polish!

Hopefully soon I'll be able to show you guys more polish from Glitter Gal... I cannot wait to get my hands on the upcoming glitter called Rebecca! (DUH!)
And they have some seriously cute lookin' neons coming, too.
And... More holos!!! Glitter Gal is seriously winning all around!
Check 'em out on Facebook for some preview photos of all the new stuff.

Product provided for honest review.