200th Post: Celebrate With Some Polish Pics!

Thought I would take a break from feeling bad about myself to post some polish photos.  Seems like to took me a while to get up to 200 posts but somehow I got there!

Run don't walk to your local Sephora and buy the Chaotic top coat from their Sephora X polish line.  It's now my favourite top coat of all time.  Chaotic is a glitter polish except for the particles are not super shiny and that makes the top coat look like Jackson Pollock rose from the grave just to splatter paint all over your nails.  It's layered over Hampstead Gardens by Nails Inc. and I love it!!!

Jamaica Me Crazy is your typical summertime pink polish but I am always found of a pink that's heavy on the blue.  I remember the formula as being a little bit more durable than Essie usually is.

It's been a while since I've set foot in a Joe Fresh and I still have a few photos from their polish line that I hadn't posted yet, so here they are:

Mallard is a dark green creme that is actually as glossy as it appears in this photo.  I'm not sure if they still make it but if they do, it's a classic fall colour and not a waste at $4.

I'm not as enthusiastic about Mist.  It's a light frosty green tone and it's nice enough but it's nothing to shout about either.  It dries quickly though, so if you are looking for something to quickly do your nails with, this one's a safe bet.

This one has me stumped.  When I found it in the store, none of the bottles had a label that indicated its name.  It's a nice Blurple but it has a few issues with streaking, which you can see in the photo.

Rusty from Gosh is definitely going to be going back on my nails this summer as it's a great bronze shimmer with good wear time.

I think I might have had Essie's Sag Harbour before I started writing this blog, so I guess it was time to post it.  Again, this is a colour that says summer and is exactly the type of colour I like to sport while swimming in the ocean!  God, I want to go back and see my family in Barbados...:(

She's Picture Perfect from Essie is a lilac colour I liked much, much more in the bottle than I like on my nails.  It didn't quite go with my skin tone and you can notice some patchy bald spots that made the application less than stellar.

Anyone one who has checked out this blog knows about my goofy/sad/manic/self-deprecating obsession with actor Tom Hiddleston.  Well, this Wednesday, it got even worse!  I guess I'm going through a mid-life crisis and so while some people buy expensive sports cars or cheat on their spouses, I decided to do something else.  After waiting almost a entire year, and paying for it on installments (because it is that expensive) my Hot Toys Movie Masterpiece 1/6th LOKI finally arrived at my doorstep and man!  Is it something to be seen:

No, I Did Not Happen to Bump Into Tom Hiddleston on the Street While He Happened to be Wearing Full Loki Regalia!  This is s DOLL!!!

If you're not familiar with deluxe figure manufacturers Hot Toys, then you should know that they are arguably the very best at facial reproduction of the a film's original character.  He has wrinkles on his forehead and tiny freckles on his face and neck with what I assume is a brush made with one single hair plucked from the eyelash of an angel.  I have not even begun to take pictures of my 1/6th sized imaginary boyfriend  but would like to do a full length review because this thing is so damn awesome!!!

Mirror Metallics by Essie

Good as Gold

Penny Talk

 I picked up Good as Gold & Penny Talk from Essie's Mirror Metallics collection last week on one of the rare days that I decided "Damn it!  I'm not going to work through lunch!  Not today!"  and shambled down to Toronto Beauty & Barber Supply on Orfus Road.  I was really feeling the blue and/or purple colours and I have more than enough silver polish but  I am totally jazzed with the two that I did end up buying.

Good as Gold is a light gold metallic that is like a neutral but has just enough flash to it to keep it from being a little pedestrian.  Penny Talk is just gorgeous to me, I am completely in love with this colour.  Bronze polishes, as much as I like them, can be kind of unimaginative but I really dig its light tone.  It does resemble a brand new penny but is just a little bit lighter than an actual one cent.

The formula was very good with these polishes.  I've often found that this types of finishes can get terribly sticky very quickly so I'm glad to see that it didn't happen.  Application was smooth and fairly quick drying.  But as it is with matte polishes, you need to buff your nail for a nice smooth surface or every flaw on your nail is going to show through.  Other than that, I think these were awesome!

Capital Colours from China Glaze

Yes, I know it's long overdue and many of us have moved onto brand new collections but I'm still going to put in my two cents on the remaining Hunger Games polishes from China Glaze I picked up a while ago.

Fast Track is a light gold shimmer that became a favourite of mine pretty much after I applied the second coat.  If you're looking for a subtle and simple hue with a good amount of shine that you can sport just about anywhere, then FT is a great choice.  It may need a third of fourth coat if you want to achieve bottle colour but I like it with just two.  I didn't experience any application problems and it dried quickly as well.

 

When summertime comes around, I cannot resist a good metallic polish, particularly a really nice bronze like this one.  When I looked at Harvest Moon in the bottle, I felt very sure that I was going to be having some serious streaking problems but fortunately, none of that happened.  This red toned bronze went on smoothly and I got about 4 days of wear out of it before my tips started peeking out.

 

Smoke & Ashes was extremely difficult to photograph.  The blue/green/black shimmer was a super thick polish that took extra time to dry and was surprisingly difficult to remove.  Some of the shimmer particular didn't come off without buffing and even after that I still have a few stubborn pieces that I don't think will disappear until the nail grows out.  I like how it looks but I don't like the hassle...

 

Blurred So You Can see the Shine!

Since I found that Smoke & Ashes was such a pain to remove, I don't know what I was thinking when I layered the Luxe & Lush flakie top coat over it.  I'm always going to buy a flakie polish when I see one.  They are in surprisingly short supply in the GTA and I much prefer them to glitter polish. So as much as I like its broken glass look, I had to use nail glue remover to get it off...Yuck!!!

 

Now about the movie...

I went to see the Hunger Games not out of a burning desire to see it but more out of a feeling of obligation.  I've spent too many years complaining about the lack of female action heroines (well, just a lack of good female characters period) and it would have been hypocritical of me not to go see it.  Plus I had a rare amount of spare time during a weekday afternoon, so why not take in a $7 movie?

While it's not one of the best movies I've ever seen, it's far from the worst too and frankly, if I was 12 years old, I would've that it was the very best movie ever made (until The Avengers came out) because Katniss is a smart, compassionate & noble ass-kicker who despite having two love interests, she pays more attention to the fact that people's lives are at stake.  I never got the feeling that she has deep feelings for Peeta, she's just not the kind of person who would leave some weakling in a hole to die all alone. At least it's the anti-Twilight.  If I had a tween daughter, I'd sleep better at night if she was into this as opposed to that sparkle vampire/ugly werewolf claptrap.  At least she might be more understanding of the fact that, guess what?  Life is hard and most of the time it's a huge struggle!

New York Color's Fall 2011Collection: Backstage Brown

It's pretty clear that I wore New York Color's Backstage Brown for at least 3 days before I ended up taking a photo of it and as with Underground Purple, I'm again not really seeing where they're getting the idea that the colour they are seeing is "brown".  Out of the 3 polishes of the Fall 2011 collection, this one is my favourite but I would call it more of a honey colour than I would call it brown.  I guess if it were called "Backstage Honey" that could conjure up some seedy connotations (or if you just have a dirty mind).  The formula is a bit  streaky  but also provided good coverage in two coats and wore well for 3 days before signs of wear began to show.  I would call this an all year round colour and would definately go back to it during the summer months.  And speaking of years, Happy New Year everyone!  I hope than that the next 366 days (it's a leap year) brings you and those you love, a great many good things and good times!

Warm & Fozzie by OPI

I saved the best for last!  Look at the shiny penny beauty that is Warm & Fozzie!  I've got quite a few bronze polishes and I find that although I find they suit my skin tone very well, not many bronzes can really distinguish themselves or stand out.  WAF is different!  Super shiny, shimmery and highly reflective, this polish lasted 4 days without a single dent to it.  It's an extremely warm brown tone and you can clearly see how it reflects a strong red undertone when the light hits it just right.  It doesn't say "Christmas" to me but that's fine by me as I plan to wear it all year long!

Designer, de Better by OPI

Designer, de Better from OPI's Muppets collection is described as a "light metallic bronze" in their publicity but if this a bronze polish both my eyes and my camera need to be checked.  Looking more like a silver than a bronze colour, its foil finish will need three coats and not just two as I applied to get a more smooth finish.  I don't dispute that there's bronze in the polish, check out a close up and you can clearly see that there are bronze flecks in the formula:

But you can also see that the polish itself is pretty thin.  I do really like this polish as it looks like a neutral with a bit of flash to it but I'm not feeling the name. I suppose that it's a reference to Miss Piggy but I don't particularly have a big love of that character.  I like Fozzie, Gonzo and the two geezers who were always so mean to them...Statler & Waldorf!

The Original Grumpy Old Men

 Up Next...Meep-Meep-Meep

Shim - Merry Chic by OPI

Now that Halloween is past, I'm looking forward to Christmas and the first real snow of the season.  Although, I live in Toronto  and the natives think it snows a lot in this city.  It does NOT snow a lot in Toronto.  Been here 10 years and I swear, the snow has never been higher than my knees (I'm 5 foot 7 inches so I'm not short) yet when I head back to my home town of Montreal, the snow can reach up to my waist!   I'm looking forward to the cold!  I know, it's bizarre!

Anyways, this also means that I'm looking forward to Christmas nail polishes!  But until I buy some of this years polishes, I thought I'd revisit some older seasonal colours.  Here's Shim - Merry Chic from OPI's Holiday Wishes Collection from 2009.  It's a light bronze shimmer with warm coloured flakes and a small amount green & blue glitter.  When this came out last year, it seemed that a lot of the polish bloggers didn't really like it.  But I really liked it!  These kind of colours suit me well and the flakes & glitter is subtle, plus it wouldn't look too out of place in a conservative workplace, not that I find myself in conservative workplaces these days.