mega nail fail

Scheduled post #2.

I do not know why I have chosen to show you this mega fail of mine. Maybe you will get to laugh at it like I did!

My friend Leslie did this manicure, which was a Robin Moses mani, and I saw Leslie's post, and fell in love.
I watched the video tutorial... followed along... and this happened.

...Sometimes I fail. Really hard.

You might think they look good... but go look at Leslie's. It's perfect.
Apparently you all should be following her and not me!

I hope you guys had a laugh. I did!
Tonight I'll be seeing Katy Perry... I wonder what mani I'll be wearing!

I have one more scheduled post for you on Monday, and it's a good one! Keep an eye out for that.
I'll be back to normal posting on Wednesday. :)

june haul

Hi guys!
I'm already in Montreal by now, almost on my way to Ottawa - but I've scheduled this post and some others so you don't miss me too much while I am gone!

Obviously I won't be able to reply to comments or many emails, but I promise I will answer all questions and emails when I get back, on the 6th of July.

I'm sorry if the spacing of this post is really bad - I've been having trouble with blogger doing that lately and I can't fix it for my scheduled posts.

This is the last day of June, so I'm going to post this month's haul!
I might be buying some polish tonight in Ottawa, but I'll include that in July's haul. (Or maybe a separate vacation haul!)

As you may know, I was on a low-buy this month to save for my trip.
I did pretty well on my low-buy (minus one purchase...) but I got a lot in swaps or giveaways or just as gifts!
Here we go:

Icing Duality Stick - Force of Love/Magnetic Attraction

Giveaway:
Catrice - Sold Out Forever
LA Colors - Metallic Purple
Nfu-Oh - #60
p2 Color Victim - Attraction
Flormar - 393
Etos Effect Nails - 006
Etos Effect Nails - 010
Etos Effect Nails - 011
Etos Effect Nails - 013
Essence (Metallics) - Steel Me
Essence (Metallics) - Nothing Else Metals
Essence (color&go) - No More Drama
Essence (color&go)  - Choose Me!
Essence (color&go)  - Where Is The Party?
Essence (Multi-Dimension)- All Access
Essence (Sun Club) - Meet Me At The Club
Hema - 18
Hema - Jip en Janneke

Gosh - Holographic (swap!)
Gosh - Fix Basecoat (swap!)
Mash plate m21 (gift!)

Essie - Smooth Sailing
OPI - What's With The Cattitude?

China Glaze - Emotion (gift)
China Glaze - Adore (gift)

Essie - Lapis Of Luxury (gift!)

Essie - Going Incognito (swap!)

Orly - Lollipop (gift!)


(This is where I went wrong... I spent $76 on these 6 polishes. Which is actually a good deal, considering what they are. They haven't arrived yet.)
China Glaze - TTYL
China Glaze - TMI
China Glaze - FYI
China Glaze - GR8
China Glaze - L8R G8R
China Glaze - QT

Color Club Alter Ego - Reveal Your Mystery (set):
Milky White Basecoat
Get A Clue
Give Me A Hint
Revealed
Secret Rendevous
Incognito
Sheer Disguise

OPI - Turquoise Shatter

Swap with Caroline from Shadow's Nails! (I just got this on Tuesday! I'll post more about it when I get back!)
Orly - Halley's Comet
Maybelline - Goody Plum Drop
China Glaze - Custom Kicks
Sinful Colors - Green Ocean
Custom painted Hello Kitty franken bottle!!


So, as you can see, I got a LOT of polish this month, but out of all those things, I only bought 4 single polishes, one Color Club set (12.99) and the OMG's. 
The OMG's ruin the low-buy but it was a deal I couldn't pass up.

Besides stuff for myself I bought around 16 things for swaps. So that ruins it too.
Overall I'm pleased with how I did!

Total # of bottles acquired for myself this month: 46
Total # of bottles I bought for myself: 17

orly - lollipop - swatch and review and lavender comparison

I'm stressing out! I leave in like 16 hours for Montreal and Ottawa!
I am really nervous but also excited. I can't even eat because I'm nervous. (I never used to be like that, but since I got sick, I am the most nervous/anxious person ever!)
I have my bag mostly packed, I'm trying to make sure I don't forget anything!

Today I have a very pretty polish for you. Some people would think it is too plain but I really like shades like this.

This is Orly's Lollipop from last year's Sweet collection.
For some reason, Sally Beauty has started stocking most of these colors again, which is why I got this.

I believe this was 2 coats.
This is a more pinky shade of purple than any other light purples I have.

I didn't do nail swatches but you can see the difference.
Xtreme Wear Lacey Lilac, Joe Fresh Faded Violet, Essence No More Drama, Orly Lollipop.
Lollipop is pink toned, but the first three are very similar. No More Drama is a tiny bit darker than the others.

Well that's it for me, I have a post scheduled for tomorrow, Saturday, and Monday, so keep your eye out for those.
I'll be back home on Wednesday! And I'll fill you all in on the details of my trip.
See you in a week!

OPI - Mad As A Hatter & Absolutely Alice - swatches and review

Hey guys! Today I'm going to show you two of my most precious nail polishes. Haha.

When the OPI Alice in Wonderland collection came out I was just getting into nail polish. I had heard that a drugstore 20 minutes away had the collection and I went to check it out.

I looked everywhere in the store but couldn't find it, and I was about to leave, when I spotted it. On the very bottom shelf of a random display. Almost totally hidden. 
I got the second last bottles of these and sent Kayla Shevonne to get the last ones!

I feel really lucky to have found these because I know how badly some people want them! 
I paid 7.99 for each one and felt really bad about it. If only the past me knew that would become a regular occurrence!

I'll start with Absolutely Alice.

I muffed up the index finger right before I took these pictures and I didn't want to reapply, so you're only going to see three fingers for now.

This is a royal blue glitter with some gold mixed in. The glitter is very fine, smaller than those in the Burlesque glitters. Absolutely Alice beautiful.
I used the screwed up nail as an opportunity for a comparison.

On the right is Milani's Blue Flash from the One Coat Glitter collection. 
This is 2 coats of each. (Alice starts out as a 4-coater but as it thickens you need fewer coats.) 

As you can see, the shades of blue are different, but for those of you lemming Alice, Blue Flash might be a decent substitution.

In the above comparison you can see that the glitter is the same size, and it also shows the amount of gold in Alice pretty well. 

I hate using up this polish, so I've started wearing one coat of Alice over one coat of Blue Flash.

That is the most awkward picture ever, but my thumb has one coat of each while the other 2 fingers are just Alice.
You can barely tell the difference.

However, I hate using the One Coat Glitters because they are so hard to remove. You can't pick them off the way you can with other glitters, and removal with remover or acetone is such a struggle.

This is one of my favorite polishes ever. I think I actually like it more than Mad As A Hatter, which I will show you now.

Mad As A Hatter is hard to explain. It is a whole bunch of different colored glitters. Predominantly silver and purple - from a distance it looks a silvery purple.
But there is much more to it when you look close - green, blue, pink, fuchsia, orange, aqua. And that's probably not all.

This polish goes for a hefty fee on ebay nowadays. 

Strangely, out of the 8 OPI glitters I own, this one has the worst wear. I cannot get a mani to last more than 24 hours. The nails pop off in nail-shaped sheets if you hit them the wrong way.
I'm not at all sure why this one does it more than the others.

It's so lovely. It's a shame I can't get it to last.

If you look closely around the cuticle edge you'll see that there are 2 sizes of silver glitter. I left it messy on purpose so you could see that.
There is silver glitter the same size as the Alice glitter, and then all the colored glitter and some silver glitter is the same as those from the Burlesque collection.

The above photo really shows all the colors! I don't know how to tag the color of this polish in this post. Haha!

I love these 2 polishes. I love them so much that I hate using them. I'm sure you fellow polish-aholics know what I mean!

Just 2 more days until I leave for my first trip! I'm going to schedule some posts for when I'm gone just so you all won't miss me too much ;)

floral nails! inspired by... don cherry

Good morning!
Today I have for you my second themed Monday manicure for Polish-Aholics Anonymous.

This week's theme is floral.
As soon as I found out it was floral, I knew what I was doing. I've had this idea floating in my brain for a while.

The night of the Stanley Cup final, Don Cherry wore a particularly humorous suit.

Enlarge that baby to see it better. (And also to see (the cohost) Ron's face better.)
Hilarious. I knew as I saw this that night I would need to do nails inspired by the suit.
I got this picture from a blog called Don We Now Our Gay Apparel. The name is so perfect. Good blog. Check it out and see more of his funny suits if you're not familiar with Don Cherry and his ridiculousness.

So. Perfect time for a floral theme in Polish-Aholics.

Looking at them now, I'm not totally pleased.
I wanted to try freehand ones but I think stamped ones would have looked nicer! Oh well.

I used:
Sally Hansen Insta Dri - Whirlwind White
Wet N Wild Wild Shine - Tickled Pink
OPI - Dim Sum Plum
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Going Green

You might have noticed that my nails are really short.
I broke one last week.
But it's okay - I planned on cutting them down before I go away, so I don't have to worry about breaking them while hauling luggage back and forth or something.

In other news, the Canada Post mail strike is over! Mail should be resumed tomorrow. Hopefully I'll have a bunch of nail mail to show you guys soon!