New contest link!

Hello all, I have another awesome contest to point you all towards!

She’s giving away:

“1 MAC Lipstick (winner's choice from normal line)

1 MAC Pigment (winner's choice from normal line)

1 MAC Paint Pot (winner's choice from normal line)”

It’s a great contest (and a pretty cool blog as well!) with tons of ways to enter, so check it out! =) It’s open internationally, and will be open until April, so you have lots of time, but you don’t want to miss out!

And here’s the link for all the rules and to enter:

http://ladycrowx.blogspot.com/2012/02/spring-is-coming-mac-giveaway.html

Good luck!

Togepi Nails!

This has been on my list of nail art to try for a long time, and so tonight I finally did it, with the addition of pokeball nails on each of my pointer fingers, since those nails are both oddly rounded anyways. I’m pretty happy with them, but in case any of you don’t know what a Togepi is, though I hope you’ve seen Pokémon before, here’s a great picture:

This is Togepi, my favourite ever Pokémon. Even in the game I use him most, I think my Togepi on HeartGold is currently a level 60 or something, while the rest are around 40… >_>

But anyways… here’s how I did my nails! I hope you like them, since I’m pretty proud of them despite the messiness!

Left hand

Left thumb

My right hand… a bit messier, but I am right-handed, so I think it can be forgiven…

If you’re wondering, this was almost entirely done with OPI polishes, including:

• Original Nail Envy (base)
• Sephora by OPI in A-ha! Moment (white)
• Sephora by OPI in Blue Grotto (blue, of course)
• OPI in Keys to my Karma (red)
• L.A. Colors black nail striper
• Seche Vite

I’d love to see more awesome Pokémon nail art, or any other nerd-related nails! Thanks for reading!

Another give away to check out

Hello again, everyone, I have another give away to tell you all about. All Things Meve Love is having an international give away in which you could win:

Quo Bliss, Quo Flirt, Orly Prisma Gloss Gold, Orly Prisma Gloss Silver

Looks like a pretty awesome prize to me! You have two more weeks (until March 11th) to enter, so go check it out!

http://allthingsmevelove.blogspot.com/2012/01/100-followers-giveaway.html

<3

Successful French Manicure attempt!

This is my attempt at a classic French manicure using taping to get the tip.

I started with a coat of Nail Envy, then a coat of Sally Hansen in Friendship Fr. (I think), then I used the tape to cover up the part of the nail below the natural white tip, and painted the tips with Sephora by OPI in A-ha! Moment. This is what that looked like (sorry it isn’t cleaned up, I’ll do that later):

This seemed a little harsh, so I added another coat of the Sally Hansen to tone down the harsh white tips, and followed that with a coat of Seche Vite quick dry topcoat. I really like the final outcome:

Pre-clean-up

After clean-up!

As always, I love to read your comments! Thanks for reading!

P.S.: In the sidebar you might notice I made a Facebook page for this blog, I’d be super appreciative if you liked it! Thanks again!

Small, but proper Haul!

So I spent a fair bit of money on beauty products last weekend, though definitely less than buying, say, a Naked palette… Anyways, here are my collected acquisitions from last Saturday and Sunday:

I got the two polishes and remover pen from Trade Secret after work on Saturday, because I didn’t feel like going home just yet, and was cruising around the mall. I thought I’d check in at this store and see if it carried the Seche Vite and if it was the same price as at London Drugs, where I usually buy my Essie polishes and where I’ve seen Seche before.

I didn’t actually intend to purchase anything, but then I found this refillable remover pen, which is great, because you don’t just toss it because it’s empty and it also comes with a second tip. Plus, I have such a hard time cleaning up my nails after polishing them that I thought this would come in handy.

Then I noticed the neon green polish which is from OPI’s Nicki Minaj line and is called “Did It On ‘Em”, which I mentioned to my boyfriend when he called while I was in the store, and he told me I had to get it. Obviously this didn’t help me at all… I already really wanted a neon green polish and no one is telling me not to! What was I supposed to do? So I followed my devil-boyfriend’s advice and got the polish (haha, I’m kidding, he obviously understands my needs, telling me to get this polish, though he did make me spend more money). I really love the colour, and just wish my camera picked up the colour better. Especially in natural light, it’s much more of a neon green and doesn’t have nearly as much green in it!

Then, obviously, Trade Secret also had the Seche, which I think was about the same price, and so I got that too, since I’ve been dying for it for so long! I really like it. It dries nice and fast, and is super shiny! The only thing I’ve noticed, is that it can peel independently of the nail colour, which is a little weird, but it’s great unless your polish starts to peel! I also did my sister’s nails with it, and the Seche seems to cover the texture of glitter a lot better than other topcoats!

Did It On ‘Em on the nail wheel, two coats

And on my nails

Then, Sunday, I went downtown, and there was a special thing on at Kiehl’s, I’m not sure why, but the deal was that if you bought two products, you got a $15 gift certificate, which can be used instantly. Oddly enough this counted even for the lip balms, which are $11 each, so I grabbed two for only $7 plus tax, which is a pretty great deal. I’ve wanted to try these balms for a while, since I’ve read great things about them in several places, and they definitely are really nice. I got the coconut and cranberry flavours/scents, and the cranberry is definitely my favourite, though they are both great.

Have you made any good purchases lately? Love these lip balms, or maybe prefer something else? Let me know what you think! =)

Smaller than a mini-haul

Alright, so this time I just have two products to show you guys that I’ve picked up in the last week, so this isn’t really a haul, but anyway…

The first thing I got as a flakey polish, which I have been wanting for a while now. In particular, I got Essie’s Shine of the Times from their Luxeffects line:

It was between this or Seche Vite, however I decided that Seche will not disappear, but I don’t know how long Shine of the Times will be available, and so my decision was made easier.

Shine of the Times looks pretty boring in the bottle, as all flakeys tend to, and also boring when swatched on my nail wheel:

However, when I put it over black polish, like my current mani, you can see all the awesome colours in this polish! There’s a cool range of greens, yellows, and oranges in this one:

While I liked some of the colours in the Finger Paints polishes that I’ve seen on other blogs, I haven’t the faintest clue where or if I could buy those in store, so I settled for what I know I can find. Personally, I’m really happy with it!

The second thing I picked up was the Urban Decay 24/7 Liner in Perversion. I was going to wait until I finished my new Zero pencil, but, as my boyfriend pointed out, what if it’s a limited edition thing and you can’t get it. He helpfully suggested that I buy it now, so that I can be sure I have it. This is why he’s awesome =)

Anyways, if you aren’t aware, Perversion is a dark, dark black liner. This is an improvement on their old black, Zero, that I hadn’t even realised previously needed to be improved on. However, Perversion is fantastic! It’s so pigmented! When you look at it swatched on the back of my hand, both swatched with the same amount of pressure, you can see just how much darker Perversion is to Zero:

I’ll definitely still use Zero, since its not every day someone needs the blackest black liner possible, but its great to have Perversion for when I want a super strong, black line!

So that’s all for now, I’m really pleased with both of these products. What is/are your favourite flakey polishes, or are you dying to try them still? Let me know what you think!

Versatile Blogger Award =)

I was nominated by Victoria at Miss Vee’s Nails for this award! Thanks so much! =)

Accepting this award comes with a few rules:

1. Nominate 15 fellow bloggers.
2. Inform the bloggers of their nomination.
3. Share 7 random facts about yourself.
4. Thank the blogger who nominated you.
5. Add the Versatile Blogger Award picture to your blog post.

The bloggers I will be nominating are:

1. Starless Fashion
2. All That is Gorgeous
3. Cosmetic Proof
4. A Girl and Her Polish
5. The Polished Mommy
6. Polish All the Nails
7. Cherry Sue, Doin' the Do
8. Emerald City Pretty
9. GretalRabbit Writes
10. The World Around Nicole
11. Glitta Gloves
12. Limelight Nails
13. An Amateur's Nail Obsession
14. Art Evolve
15. Nail Project 2012

Sorry, I tried to nominate only bloggers who hadn’t got the award, but ran out, so you get it again!!

7 random facts about me:

1. I only need 3 stars to be a Starbucks gold member, and only 73 points to get the big Beauty Insider reward at Sephora (aka, I spend a lot of money on coffee and makeup).
2. My “Catching Fire” and “Mockingjay” books have arrived from England, so nothing productive will get done this week.
3. Some of my pricier weaknesses include: UK Cosmo (about $6.50 a month), Lindor chocolates, poutine from La Belle Patate, Starbucks coffee, Essie and OPI polishes.
4. My favourite perfumes are Paris Hilton and Curious, but I would really like to get a classier, more respectable perfume sometime soon. Chloe, perhaps?
5. My favourite colour is neon green
6. Despite having close to 40 pairs of shoes and sandals, I usually end up wearing the same 5 or so on anything like a regular basis, since heels hurt my feet so bad.
7. I have jewellery and/or clothes relating to almost all of my nerdy obsessions (Pokémon, Doctor Who, Torchwood, Portal, and Harry Potter), but nothing for Lord of the Rings or Assassin’s Creed. Granted, I technically haven’t played AC yet, so maybe that can be forgiven.

So that’s that! I also have a couple products I’ve acquired recently to post about, and I’ll probably do them both in the same post, because I think that makes more sense than two very short posts. That should be up in a couple of days.

Thanks for reading!!

<3

Valentine’s Day Nail Art!

I had been planning to do Valentine’s Day nails for a couple weeks before the day, but it wasn’t until Ashesela’s blog post with this nail design, did I really know what I wanted to do, so this look is mainly inspired by hers.

For this look, I used a lot of polishes, as well as my brushes and nail dotter:

I started out taking step-by-step pictures, but once I got to the actual nail art itself, that sort of goes downhill. Sorry. To start, as usual, I painted on a coat of OPI Original Nail Envy.

Next, I put on two coats of Fiji by Essie. (I apologize for the messy cuticles, I’ll clean it up later.)

Then, one coat of L.A. Color Craze in Star Light to add some sparkle:

This picture’s really just for fun, since it shows off the colours in the holo glitter so nicely!:

Then I added the nail art. I did the hearts and middle stripes in Bubble gum pink by ELF, and the darker pink and white stripes were done with my L.A. Color Nail Deco stripers. The white dots, which are barely visible in these pictures, were done with my dotter and Sephora by OPI in A-ha! Moment.

Left Hand:

Right hand:

I’m really impressed that I managed to draw on my right hand almost as well as my left hand, since I’m right handed! I really couldn’t be much happier with the outcome. I wonder if I keep up doing nail art on both hands if I’ll start becoming ambidextrous! Haha!

The following pictures are with topcoat. I also added another coat of the holo glitter to my thumbs:

So that’s what my nails look like for this Valentine’s day! I did them a few days early because tonight I’m going out until very late, so there will be no time when I get home, and tomorrow, I’m going out with my boyfriend, because we agreed it makes more sense for us to go out the day before actual Valentine’s day, since the restaurant we want to go to doesn’t serve it’s full menu for V-day, which is a little annoying, plus the restaurants will likely be less busy in general tomorrow. I’m excited!

Did any of you do awesome Valentine’s day nails? I’d love to see your art, or hear about your plans for Valentine’s day whether you’re single or not, since anyone can have cool plans!

Thanks for reading!

Butter London polish Update/Review

Hello again! I thought I’d write up a quick post of my opinion of the Butter London polishes that I got a little while ago, and also show you the swatches of the colour HRH on my nails.

HRH:

The tips are a little messy because of the touch-ups I did, its a lot less visible when you aren’t looking at it under a flash…

I really like this polish and this particular colour. It’s very shiny, even without a topcoat, and the colour is so beautiful and rich. The polish goes on smooth, and is opaque in 2 coats, which is great. I’ve been wearing it for three days now and have had a lot of wear at the tip, which I’ve just touched up for this picture, but until tonight I wasn’t wearing a topcoat, so such wear is to be expected.

As for Chancer, I can’t deny that I absolutely adore the colour, which is super sparkly and deep, but I can’t say I feel the same about it’s formulation. I don’t know what’s different between HRH and Chancer, besides the fine glitter in the latter, but somehow, while HRH has great staying power and is pretty chip resistant, Chancer tended to chip a lot on my nails. I wore it for about 5 days, and I pretty much had to touch up a chip somewhere every night. I’m really disappointed, because the colour is fantastic, but I’m glad I didn’t pay full price, since this particular colour certainly isn’t worth the $17 price tag, at least in my opinion.

Have you tried Butter London? Have you had a bad experience with their polish, or maybe with another brand that’s supposed to be high-quality?

January Favourites!

I somehow managed to forget for this long that it was actually February, and that I need to get on it if I’m planning to do a favourites post for January (which I obviously am)! But I’m here now, so let’s get started.
As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, my staple favourites don’t change too often, but there’s always one or two things every month. I will point out that this month may be a bit shorter than other months because I had forbidden myself from getting any new products during the month if I wanted to get the Naked palette in February, and I managed to stick to that. That said, here are January’s favourites:

1. Nars Blush in Orgasm:
   I got this for Christmas, after wanting it for a good month or two. I was really happy that I didn’t have to spend $30 to try this out, but after using it for a little over a month, I’m completely in love!
   
   The colour is very pretty and soft, if you don’t use too much, and if you want a more intense look, it’s also quite buildable. It doesn’t even bother me that it’s shimmery, like I thought it might, because its pretty subtle in a thin layer. If you want to see my swatch go here.
   
   
2. Revlon Eyelash Curler:
   
   While I said I couldn’t by any makeup during January, I figured tools aren’t the same as makeup, and I really needed a new curler, since my old one kept falling apart. The top, aka the part that presses down on your lashes into the rubber pad, kept popping off the arms, and I eventually lost it. I replaced it with this Revlon one, which is supposed to be “super curling” something to that effect. I’m not sure I see that much of a difference between it and my old one, but I do like the black and red/pink colouring, as well as the soft handle grips.
   
   
3. Burt’s Bees Nourishing Milk & Honey Body Lotion:
   This is the second of the samples that I got in my January Glymm box, but I’m really in love with this lotion. I’m about 87% sure that I’ll repurchase the full-size of this product sometime in the near future.
   
   If you missed my description from my Glymm post, this lotion is very moisturizing, and has a soft, sweet smell, not too strong, like a lot of my other favourite lotions, so it’s nice to have as a change. It’s also made almost entirely from natural ingredients, which is nice, if not all that important to me.
   
   
4. Jason Vitamin E Age Renewal Moisturizing Crème:
   
   This cream, which I don’t use for anti-aging effects, is super moisturizing and very soothing. Its great for very dry skin, and I’ve also used it on my lips for extra hydration, since they tend to get extremely chapped when I’m sick, which I was for a large part of January… which brings me to my next favourite for the month…
   
   (A couple non-cosmetic related favourites:)
   
   
5. Vitamin C and Buckley’s Complete Liquid Gels:
   
   When I’m sick, I tend to load myself up on Vitamin C supplements whenever I take my other medicine, just for a boost. Also, these Buckley’s pills are fantastic! They are probably the best cold medication I’ve found, as they do almost everything. Plus, since they are in pill form, rather than liquid form, they don’t taste like anything!
   
   
6. Nongshim Bowl Noodle Soup in Kimchi:
   
   I am so addicted to these it’s insane. At least I chose something cheap to be addicted to, though! These are only about 90 cents, as long as I buy them from a supermarket, preferably an Asian supermarket, which there are plenty of in my area. These are really spicy, and soooooo good, but also so bad for you! They are full of empty calories, and pretty much nothing good for you. But since when are addictions healthy?
   
   
7. Hunger Games:
   
   
   My final favourite for this month is Suzanne Collins’s book “The Hunger Games,” and I am currently waiting on either my holds at the library, or my order to come in. The covers shown above are the ones that I ordered from abebooks.com, and are the Adult British softcover versions. I like them even more than the American covers, and way more than the children/teen British versions. They’re shipping (for free!) from the UK, so it will probably be 2 weeks before they get here. I’m so excited to read the second two books, and also to see the movie when it comes out in March. I’m really glad my little sister forced me to read this series!

So, what were your favourites last month? Any comments on any of my picks? Let me know what you think!