Preening like a Peacock

Good morning!

Today I have another beauty from my trip to Canada.
I've fallen madly in love with this color and you'll soon see why.

 Joe Fresh Peacock, three coats, no top coat

Peacock is a gorgeous deep metallic blue with a slight duochrome.
The formula was lovely and it was well pigmented. I'm really impressed with how quickly these dry.
Peacock is a stunner and quite shiny before topcoat.

I'm so happy to have finally have this. I don't have enough colors like this in my stash.
I have one more to bring you but I'm waiting for the weather to improve. Late winter/early spring in Oregon is bizarre. Yesterday, it alternated from freezing rain, snow and weak sun. I desperately need some sun to sow off my last Joe Fresh!!!

While I wait for sun and wear my rain boots, sunglasses and parka; I shall be bringing you more from my Canadian haul as well as some other fun finds here at home.
Thanks for coming by and I hope the weather is better wherever you may be!

Art of nail

Good morning!

Today I have some of my most recent nail art. I'm still playing with water marbling. Sponging is still my favorite method and you'll soon see why.
Let's take a look then!

Tape Manicure

Base is Revlon Royal

Duochrome diagonal is Sally Girl It's So Me 

Holo Glitter is Finger Paints Sapphire Shimmer

Seriously. Royal is so perfect. I love how this came out and I adore duochrome layers like this. Sweet!

I never use Scotch tape, I always use blue painter's tape. I had bad results with Scotch tape. It may be due to the fact that I only buy it at Dollar Tree and it's only marginally okay at holding paper together. Plus, I have three giant rolls of blue tape thanks to my mom.

Sponged Manicure

Base is one coat Maybelline Jungle Green

Sponged with Savina Black Pearl,

Hard Candy Beetle,

A tiny bit of Orly Winter Wonderland and 

Nicole It's All About The Glam

I was a little bummed that Winter Wonderland didn't quite give me the look I wanted. I did a little on my pinkie and ring then switched to the Nicole and did it over all fingers.

Nonetheless, I love how complex and textured this is. Sponging with duochromes and multichromes is the best!

My latest water marble

Two coats Gelous

My other "base" was Sally Hansen Lavender Cloud.

Sinful Colors Dream On and Sally Hansen Black Tie

all topped with Sally Hansen Glass Slipper

What I did her was start with a base of Gelous. I dropped in Lavender Cloud and Dream On and did alternate nails. Then I started again with drops of Lavender Cloud and Black Tie.

I jut wanted to see how it would look without painting my nails with a base color. It was a tiny bit sheer but nothing bothersome. All colors worked great for this method although Lavender Cloud could get a little sticky and stringy. Will definitely do again.

There ya have it! I've been having so much fun working on my nail art techniques. Do come by again because I have to share with you a recent discovery for nail polish shopping in my area!

Have a lovely day!

Quack Daddy

Good morning!

Today I have something from my trip to Vancouver, B.C. It was so fun to shop there. Where I stayed was actually in Burnaby and my hotel was pretty much attached to the Metropolis at Metrotown mall. That place was just tremendous. I've been to some giant malls before but nothing quite like this. I spent an entire day just wandering through.
I had asked all the lovely Canadian ladies for suggestions of places to shop and the amazing Halifax of Sparkled Beauty gave me a great list!

One of her suggestions was Loblaws/Superstore for Joe Fresh. I vaguely recalled seeing Loblaws when I was in Toronto several years ago but I had never gone there. I was researching locations before I left and I thought I was going to have to trek to get to a Superstore. Not so! It was 600 meters away from my hotel. (For those of us not conversant in metrics, it was less than a mile. INSIDE the mall.)
Anyway. I found the location and I had three lovely bottles of polish in my little mitts. Evidently, they are pretty much always on sale 3 for 10 CAD which was awesome for me!

On to the pics then!

 Mallard, three coats

What a lovely green creme!

O Hai, you can see my reflection on my nails.

I HAD to have this. I am always in need of good green cremes. I could not resist on that basis but more importantly because of the name. Mallard will definitely be used for Duck Day manicures!

I expected this to be thick for some reason. It was not, it applied very smoothly. I could have managed in two coats but I usually prefer three. Dry time was reasonably quick.

Mallard was a great introduction to Joe Fresh for me and now I can't wait to go back to Canada and get more!

Good thing Vancouver is an eight hour drive...

I really loved Vancouver and I can't wait to visit again. I will have a post soon with some of the pictures I took and some stories. It was a wonderful visit! 

Thanks again to Halifax for the suggestions and the help offered. You are always so wonderful!

Gimme candy

Good morning!

Today I have another LE Hard Candy glitter polish from the holidays. This was one of the minis released for $1. It was much better than the gift set!

Blue glitter jelly 

Three coats, no top coat

Three coats with top coat

The consistency was a snotch thick as is customary with a lot of glitters. This one has very fine glitter giving more a glass fleck finish with a hint of silver.

This does not dry as matte as the others I showed you. It is rather sheer so for those who can't handle VNL, I recommend using it as a layering polish.

I often say that I love a bargain and I've often shared some of the crazy deals I scored. This one currently holds the title of least amount paid. I fully expected to pay $1 for this. Instead, it rang up at 25 cents!

Insane! 

Before I go, I wanted to mention two things. I'm on Pinterest and I added a button if you'd care to follow my boards. I've also begun watermarking my photos since I've been sharing them on Pinterest. It's mainly because I want to differentiate between my own work and the items I find and pin to my boards. 

That will do it for today, guys. I'm off to the library since it stopped snowing and then it's time to visit the fam.

Thank you for coming by and have a wonderful day! 

I will give you the stars

Good day!

Today I have something that's totally different for me.
I'm quite clear that I don't really care for pink. I prefer bright and neon pink though I have two rosy, ladylike pinks. I just find most shades of pink to be too precious. That said, I do love glitter and I love original shades.
Thus, I bring you Revlon Starry Pink.

Three coats, no top coat

I know it's been seen before but this is a really great nail polish. I love that it's a milky, jelly pink rather than a straight pastel. This has all of the elements to catch my attention and force me to bring it home. Starry Pink applies beautifully and dries very fast. It's not terribly gritty and it does not drink top coat.

Revlon is really making me happy with their latest color selection and they've been doing a great job with formula.

Of course, I had to do something a little different with this. As much as I love on its own, I wanted to play it off something else. So I did an accent mani.

Ring finger is Sally Hansen Wedding Crasher, three coats.

Starry Pink, three coats on all others

It's a simple look but quite lovely. This also reminds me that I need to do a proper swatch of Wedding Crasher. Oy...

That will do it for today, I'm off to spend time with family. My niece and nephew are visiting from Kansas and my mom is going to be making a giant, yummy dinner!

Thanks for coming by and have a wonderful day! 

Layering Quickie Post

Good day!

In going through all of my pictures, I found a layered look I had done from a few months ago. It looked pretty snazzy so I decided to share it with you today.

Here is the original look:

Ring finger is Golden Rose Paris Holographic #113 

All others are Diamond Cosmetics Chainmail Charm

(The original CC that is.)

I layered Essie Shine of the Times over #113

and Love & Beauty Blue/Green

Why did I layer over two awesome holos? As you can clearly see, this was just a refresher. I wore the original holo combo for a day and had some minor tip wear. I wanted to see what a flakie and a sheer duochrome would do over a holo. The flakie is nice but both end up obscuring the holo. Lesson learned.

It still looked pretty snazzy.

That does it for now, guys. I'm off to go workout and get some new reads from the library today.

 Hope you have a lovely day!

You're my candy baby...

Good day!

I'm trying to catch up some more on my massive backlog. It's pretty scary just how much stuff I've photographed and edited but have never posted!

Let's vámonos, my friends...

I managed to pick up this Hard Candy gift set shortly after the holidays. I love a bargain and I love glitter!
All of these mini polishes have no names so bear with my generic color names. On another note, I did not swatch the gold and silver in this because they were very underwhelming and themselves pretty generic.

 Orange jelly glitter

three coats

Last picture with top coat

Surprisingly, all of these glitters dried matte. They are all quite sheer as well. The orange was my favorite less because of the glitter and more because of the color itself. I love a good orange. It does have a nice shimmer but it's just not as blingy as it appeared in bottle.

 Green jelly glitter, three coats

Final picture with topcoat

I do like this green and the glitter is much better. This would strictly be a layering polish for me. I love jellies and I have a better acceptance of VNL but the yellow base of this was very unattractive applied as is.

 Isn't this weird that the glitter showed up better in less light?

 Purple jelly glitter, three coats.

I wanted this to be my favorite. It really let me down. It looks gritty and lumpy and it's not very opaque. It improves slightly with top coat. This too will be a layering polish over something with a similar base color but I will not wear it on its own. 

Overall, this set was rather disappointing. I like a matte finish but this was just so odd. I don't understand how glitter gets muddied and subdued in a jelly base either. I will be able to use them and find joy in what they can offer. I did not care for the formula on these either. I appreciate that they dry fast but they seemed to begin drying with every brush stroke. Weird. 

I am just dismayed. Glad I got this set on sale!

Did any of you pick up this set? Anyone else have the same sadness?

That's it for today, guys. Hope everyone has a pleasant day!

Smooth like marble

Good morning!

I'm back from British Columbia and boy, did I get some goodies! But I've not had an opportunity to swatch my new lovelies thanks to the random snow day we had yesterday.
However, I have been working on my water marbling skills and that is what I wanted to share today.

Index is WNW Black Creme and Essie Lollipop

Middle is Sinful Fashion Neon and Neon Melon

Ring is Sinful Fashion Neon and Rise & Shine

Pinkie is Sinful Mint Apple and Sinful Summer Peach

Not too shabby considering I've water marbled ONCE. I tried a tip that claimed marbling with colors from the same brand worked best. Not exactly. I think the key is time. You have to move fast. Drop your polishes, swirl and dip. One tip that does work well is to apply a petroleum based product around your cuticle, under the nail and around the top half of the finger. It does make for an easier clean up. Granted, I didn't spend a lot of time doing so but I was just testing things out.

Next I did this:

Milani Black Cherry

and 

Sinful Sugar, Sugar

This is a really gorgeous combination and ridiculous to capture in my photo. It's a snotch more subtle but quite elegant.

I'm pretty pleased with how my technique is improving. I need to work on the swirling part a bit more to add some more interest but otherwise, it's pretty damned snazzy.

That does it for today guys. I have some chores to do and then it's bowling night!

Stay tuned as I plan on swatching my Canada haul as well as a music inspired mani I've been designing.

See you soon!

Decadence before austerity

Good morning!

I'm spending the day getting ready for a weekend trip to Vancouver, B.C. but I took a few to do my nails and do something kind of fun.
I really love the paint splatter manicures and I love the purple, green and gold colors of Mardi Gras. So, I had to incorporate them all.

Base is Orly Glitz

ChG Grape Pop and Ulta That Jungle Look splatters

I've been practicing the splatter technique for awhile and this time I finally cracked it. My right hand turned out a little better than the left. It is very messy and a little hard to clean up. But it was a lot of fun to do.

I will keep working on my technique and have some fun with color combos.

Thank you for coming by and taking a look. I'm off to finish preparing for my trip and I'm so excited to do some nail polish shopping! See you all next week!

Pure Ice press release: Breakups, celebrity style

Good morning!
I'm bringing you the latest press release from Pure Ice!

"I thought I had a sign a Seal like Heidi Klum, 

Like Jay and B

Like Chris and Rih..."

 - Q-tip F/ Kanye West We Fight We Love (remix)

Hollywood's way of surrending to the reality of the worst break-ups is by the way of a sunny manicure.
Take off the wedding ring and put on the yellow nail polish just just like Seal did.  Sad to say, but it's really over.

Put some yellow in your life when you want:
- clarity for decision-making
- relief from 'burnout', panic, nervousness, exhaustion
- sharper memory and concentration skills
- protection from depression during dull weather

Excuse Me by Pure Ice is the perfect pick me up to mend heartbreak by attracting that next sweet honey bee into your life.

Buy here

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