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! :)

31 Day Challenge: Day 22

Good morning!

Today's theme is Inspired by a Song.
As you might remember, I have previously done nails inspired by Nicki Minaj's Super Bass video, so I knew I wanted to do another type of video-inspired nails for this challenge.

I landed on this one, my guilty pleasure song:



S&M - Rihanna.
This video is crazy. And probably should be PG-13. Or higher.
There are some interesting patterns and scenes in the video, and I chose to do skittles based on 5 of the patterns you see in the video!

They don't match at all but I love the way they look! Crazy and random, like the video.

Here's what I used:
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Whirlwind White
Wet N Wild - Black Creme
Nail Art Diva - Daffodil (yellow)
Wet N Wild - Tickled Pink (light pink)
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Presto Pink (darker pink)
H&M - Coral Summer (blue)
China Glaze - Recycle (gray)

The lace pattern is Konad m57 and 71 together.
The chains image comes from Bundle Monster BM12.
The zebra image comes from Bundle Monster BM16.

I took some screenshots from the video to show where the nails came from!

The zebra inspiration is easy to see!

So is the blue with X's.

Polka dots are always cute!

If you look closely you'll see that I tried to do the newspaper nail trick but it just didn't work very strongly so I added the chains image to those nails for a better look.

The lace nail doesn't come from one particular scene but there is lots of lace going on in the video!

What do you guys think? Do they suit the video?
:)

31 Day Challenge: Day 21

Good morning everyone, and welcome to the final section of the 31 Day Challenge! If you want a refresher of what exactly this challenge is, head to my Day 1 post.

This final section of themes are all inspired by something or other. Today's theme is Inspired By A Color.

I wasn't quite sure how to go about this one, and then I chatted with a friend about it, who gave me the great idea to make it inspired by a polish color, and use the name to enhance the inspiration!
(That friend, is Sarah from Chalkboard Nails, and she is awesome! Seriously check out her blog. She has been doing this 31 Day Challenge right alongside me and she has blown me away every day!)

I looked at a few polishes, seeing which names could make a good design, and I settled on this one:

H&M - I Love Candy. Yep, another Hello Kitty polish from the lovely Line in Denmark.

This is a 2-coat shimmery purple polish, awesome formula, awesome color!

It's full of pink shimmer. Very nice! The quality of H&M's polishes is shockingly good.

Now, to bring in the inspiration from the name! Candy!

Cute little candies!

Awkward hand position to try and catch the last bits of sun coming in my windows!

I used a very small brush to draw on these candies using polishes from the China Glaze Kicks Collection:
China Glaze - It's Poppin' (pink)
China Glaze - Entourage (green)
China Glaze - Sky High Top (blue)

What would this design have been without some Hello Kitty decals? Haha! Too cute.
These stickers are from Born Pretty.

Thanks, Sarah, for helping me find the right inspiration for this!

31 Day Challenge: Day 20

Good morning, everyone! (Or good afternoon, goodnight, etc!)

The theme for today in the 31 Day Challenge is Water Marble.
I've done water marbles a few times before, and I'm pretty good at it, but I just wasn't feeling inspired for this one so it came out sorta sucky.

Not my best. Haha.
But LOOK at my pinky.  Look at the holo showing up in the marble! That is the weirdest ever because the polish I used for this is one of the "dud" holos. Why does a marbling bring out the holo?

I think marbles look better in bright colors but I just wanted to do neutrals. So it's not the best, but still decent!

The polishes I used are:
OPI - Parlez-Vous OPI?
OPI - Skull and Glossbones
Color Club - Worth the Risque
H&M - Wawawoom

I used Parlez-Vous OPI? as my base color. I love this polish. Love the french name, love the color. Love love love.
I also love that I only paid $3.99 for this.

2 easy coats. Great formula. No complaints.

31 Day Challenge: Day 12

Good afternoon everyone!
Today's theme is Striped Nails and I have a fantastic stripe mani for you today!

I knew I wanted to do some sort of abstract stripes, but I had no idea what colors.
So I looked at my "shelf of untrieds" - the place where I lay all my new polishes before I swatch them and put them away. And I realized that H&M had already picked some colors for me!

I got this set of polishes at H&M in Toronto, I believe this would be considered their fall set. They had all sorts of other cosmetics and accessories with this striped pattern.
So of course I knew it would make a great striped mani!

The five colors are Coral, Berry, Mustard, Purple, and Petrol.
I'm going to show you swatches of them alone, before I show you the lovely stripes.

This is Coral and it is just lovely. It is more of a true pink than a coral, though. The formula is great, it covers in 2 coats, and dries really quickly.
I swatched this one last week, and I ended up having to quickly run an errand with this polish fresh on one hand, no top coat. It did not get one dent or scratch! I was totally impressed.

This is Berry which is a nice berry color (obviously) that also covers in 2 easy coats.

Aaaaand this is Mustard which I also swatched before I cut my nails. I'm going to let your imagination run with a color description for this one. It is such a yucky color, I have considered throwing it away. But it ended up working well in my stripey mani, so I'll let it hang out in the little package with the other polishes.

This is Purple, what an original name. This one has harder to capture, this second picture is more accurate:

This is similar to other deep purples I have, but more of a true purple.
Again, 2 easy coats.

Petrol is yet another 2-coater with a great formula. A blue-teal shade, not quite like any others that I have, I don't think. I've worn this as a pedi and it did stain a bit, but it lasted well!

Not only is the formula great on these polishes, but the brush is really awesome too. I found that the brush held enough product in it to paint all 5 nails on one hand, without flooding or letting off too much on the first few nails. Not many brushes allow this! I really liked it.
My complaint is the bottles. Having such thin bottles makes it very easy to tip them over, especially when you try to wipe off the brush on the lip of the bottle.

Time for the stripey mani!! I've included a bunch of pictures because I really like it.

Cute, right? And so perfect for fall!

And see how the ugly Mustard polish actually looks nice next to the others?

Not only is it cute, but it was easy to do. I used Berry as my base coat, and used a striper brush to add uneven, random stripes of the other colors.
It doesn't need to be perfect or even, the uneven look is the point!

The polish colors all match the packaging colors really well, except for Mustard. I don't know which was wrong, the package or the polish. I actually think I like the Mustard color better than the one on the package, at least when you see all the colors together.

What do you guys think? Successful stripey fall mani?

And don't forget! Tomorrow is my birthday, which means my giveaway closes tonight! Someone is going to win a bottle of GOSH Holographic tomorrow!
Make sure to enter, today is your last chance!

31 Day Challenge: Day 11

Hi guys! Today's post is the first post in a very long time with very short nails.
Don't worry, my nails grow fast, but for now they are nubs!
(I don't really mind them, though.)

Today's theme is Polka Dot Nails.
I already did polka dots on the Black and White day, not realizing I would have to do more a few days later!
Those were uneven polka dots, so today I wanted to do more evenly spaced polka dots.

Before I show you the mani, let me show you the polishes I used.

Hello, babies!

These adorable polishes were sent to me by my saucy Danish friend Line.
The same girl who sent me the Gosh Holographic for my giveaway! (Which ends tomorrow night, by the way!)

These are just the cutest. And so perfectly "me." Hello Kitty and animal print!
There is a third that is purple, but it is in a different bottle, and I'll show you that one another time.
Thank you so much Line! I love them so much!

I'm thinking they meant to spell that "Coral" but either way, I'm not really sure what coral has to do with blue polish. (H&M must have poor English translators. Corall Summer? Pink Paradies? Wawawoom?)

Pink Summer is a lovely creme pink, not very unique but very pretty. The formula is good - a bit thick but not unmanageable. Almost covers in one coat but you need two for perfect opacity.

 
I wish these came in every color.

Corall Summer is an aqua blue creme, again not very unique. The formula on this one is less thick, and it needs 2 coats to cover.

Don't you love how the bows match the opposite bottles? And the lids? So cute!

Now, if you're not sick of my short nails yet, I'll show you my dots mani!

Tiny dots! Very tedious.

After finishing this mani, I really feel like I have done this before, but I don't think I have! I looked through my posts with the "dots" tag and I can't find anything.

Even if I potentially did it before, I still love it! Haha.
I did this mani with a small dotting tool, which seriously helps get the dots even. If you love polka dot manis but hate trying to make them even, invest in some dotting tools! You can get them really cheap on ebay.

See those two black dots on my middle finger? They came off my Seche Vite brush. Annoying!!

I think I might have just remembered why these look so familiar, I did the same color combo before in a crackle mani. Maybe that's it...

I wonder how long my nails will be by the end of this 31 day challenge! We'll have to wait and see...