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!!!

Birthday Blog Dump!!!

Hey Y’all!!  What’s up my B!tches???  Hey it’s my birthday, it’s my birthday, gonna party like it’s my birthday!  Drink Bacardi like it’s my birthday!  Yeah, about that, I’m not gonna party but I am not working today and will be eating steak tartar and drinking X.O. beer (cognac infused!!!) at Le Select today instead of not telling anyone one that I work with that it’s my birthday and choking back crybaby tears at my desk all day!  That’s just how I roll!!!

So me and my twin sis will be turning 45 years old today and even though I can pretty much say that my life completely blows, I can at least say “At least I look good for 45!”

Really, Really Good!

So today, I’m just going to bleat about nail polish and nonsense because what is life about if not nail polish and nonsense, which is totally going to be my new band’s name... 

Gareth Pugh for Mac

I know, I know.  This post is long overdue to the point that it’s not even worth mentioning now but I’m going to anyways.  I like this guy’s work because the stuff he makes and what he wears is almost exactly like what me and my friends wore back in high school. I dig the the goth/expressionist/Klaus Nomi vibe he has going on.  I picked up Hyper, a really nice dark blue shimmer which I liked a lot...

But not as much as I liked Ascension because it looked almost completely different every time you looked at in a different light.  For example, when using a flash, it looked like a light purple shimmer.

Photographed in the shade, you can see it’s a light purple, green gold duo chrome...

But in direct sunlight, it looks like a mid-toned silver shimmer.   

They should have named it Enigma as far as I’m concerned.  It may not be the flashiest of polishes but I don’t have another quite like it.

Hidden Treasure 2 from Sally Hansen

I bought this polish strictly to compare it with the first Sally Hanson Complete Salon Manicure named Hidden Treasure.  HD1 certainly lived up to its name by being a great flaky polish with a strong orange and green reflective tone.  HD2 could stay buried.  It’s not a bad polish.  Its blue based pearl finish is nice enough and I had no problems with the formula.  It just doesn’t look super special.

Petra Haden Goes to the Movies

I’m a huge fan of Petra Haden’s unique covers using overdubs of her own voice to take the place of musical instruments.  I loved the sh!t out of Petra Haden Sings: The Who Sell Out and I’m just as excited with her latest release Petra Haden Goes to the Movies.  Her version of the main theme from Psycho is awesome.  Seriously, listen...

Also great on this album is her version of It Might Be You from the film Tootsie.  I had never liked this song until now.  When she sings it, I cry every time.  When I hear the original by Stephen Bishop, I feel nothing!

Essie’s All Tied Up

It’s been so long since I bought this polish that I can’t even remember which collection this polish came from but I can tell you that it is a nice and dependable, mid-toned pink with a subtle gold shimmer in it.  My favourite kind of pink!

 

Hey Look!  Some Nail Art!

I would try nail art more often if I had the time to wait for all the different layers to dry.  I was trying to get the feel of a match burning in the dark...

I used Maybelline’s Black Onyx as the base, and then dotted China Glaze’s Cruisin’ at the end of my nail and multiple coats of Essie’s As Gold as it Gets for some sparkle.  I know I’m no Leonardo of nail art but I like it.

Ski Day

I went on my employers’ annual ski day trip this February and bizarrely, I had a lousy time!  Nobody would talk to me at the house party the night before so I bailed and went back to my hotel room and drew for the rest of the night.  This was the result:

The Bride of Frankenstein

 At least I didn’t waste my time completely!

OPI’s SkyFall

This is just my opinion but Skyfall is the best Bond movie with the second worst theme song ever!  Yes, I said it!  I hate Adele’s Skyfall theme. It’s just so boring. I don’t care it won an Oscar, so did Crash.  If you’re wondering which Bond theme is the worst, the dishonor goes to Jack White & Alicia Keyes’s Another Way to Die from Quantum of Solace.  I imagine that the sound they make is identical to the sound of a bag of cats being tossed into a river and is the only time peanut butter and chocolate did not taste good together.

OPI’s Skyfall polish just might be one of my favorite polishes ever.   

Yes, yes it is a burgundy crème polish that leans towards a brownish tone but I just love it as much as the film’s highrise punch up and that scene is so amazing, it makes me cry too!

The Tears Are Coming!!!

Tom Hiddleston All the Goddamn Time

Yes I’m still bonkers over Captain Jazz Hands.

And last but not least, Thanks to my latest follower Lizelle for giving me a chance!

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!

Essie's Action & Sally Hansen's Bronze Yourself

I couldn't help agree with nail blogger Penelope PitstopYKD when she noted on her blog All Things Nails! that Essie's Action looked exactly like a creamsicle.  There's no better description for it than that so I'm not even going to try except to say that the only thing that keeps me from completely loving it is the large amount of bubbling that I experienced after applying three coats of the stuff.  Perhaps I was too hasty and didn't wait long enough between dry times.  Maybe when I do my toes with this it'll be better!

I don't know where Sally Hansen gets off calling this polish Bronze Yourself when that thing is so clearly orange.  Not that I'm complaining, I think that this colour looks fantastic but it is just not bronze!  Even coverage in two coats, no streaking and a good dry time.  If you can find this anywhere and you like a nice orange shimmer, then this is a good pick for you.

What time is it?  It's Tom Hiddleston Time, all the goddamn time...

It Would Be Nice if Someone, Hell, Anyone, Would Look At Me Like That.

Polish Spamarama!!!

I've got almost enough nail polish right now I can almost wear a different colour everyday for 2 years.  And with that being said, here's some polish spam action...

The magnetic nail polish trend is still hanging in their and yet I still don't have the hang of it.  This one is Gold Nugget from Layla.  It's nice but I'm not seeing the colour gold in here. I still have to practice tons more to master this trend before it's all over!

I so badly wanted Essie's Sexy Divide to be totally awesome but instead it ended up being totally awful. Three coats couldn't stop the the bald spots and the thin formula lead to chips within less than 12 of wear.  beautiful in the bottle, disastrous on my nails.

I don't wear a lot of pink polish but when I do, Maybelline's Timely Rose is my go to polish.  It's not childish or bubble gummy in any way.  It's positively lady like!

It's pretty obvious by now that grey nail polish is never going to go away.  Good!  The more funky neutral colours the better and Essie's School of Hard Rocks is a pretty good one with a thick and even formula that went on with ease and had staying power and a strong shine.

I haven't even worn To Buy or Not to Buy from Essie yet so I had to rely on my sister to model this lavender shimmer for me.  It looks so much nicer on the nail than in the bottle doesn't it?

Someday, I'll pick up a bottle of gun metal nail polish and say that I've really bought enough of these types of colours and place it back on the display.  Since I didn't have that voice in my head telling me to "just put the polish down and back away" I bought L'oreal's VIP Status.  You can see a bit of balding at the top of my index finger but that's mainly the fault of an unbuffed nail base and not the polish.

Hey!  Did I hear someone say they wanted to see a picture of Tom Hiddleston, Michael Sheen and Queen Elizabeth?  No? Well too bad...here it is anyways:

Her Royal Highness Must Have Thought He Was Tony Blair!

Dive Bar by Essie

Dive Bar from Essie is pretty much the polish that I had hoped Illamasqua's Viridian would be but it turned out to be such a dud.  Although it's a bluer polish than Viridian, Dive Bar is its superior in every other way in finish and durability.  I couldn't wear it for more than two days (can' wear blue to work at an accounting firm) but I did take that picture two days after application and it looks great. I could never say that about the quality of Illamasqua's pretty but crummy polish.  DB applied smoothly, dried evenly and actually wasn't that much of a chore to remove.  Lovey colour and a good choice if you don't already have a dark teal shimmer in  your collection.

Navigate Her by Essie

As much as I love green polish, I find myself on the fence with Essie's Navigate Her from the 2012 Navigate Her Spring Collection.  Looking like the most intense pistachio hue I've ever seen, it's a light green creme that was a weird mix when it came to application.  The first coat was extremely thin, the second coat wasn't enough and the third coat was super thick.  Even with that thickness and quantity of coats, you can still see that I had some bald spots, particularly on my pinkie finger at the top of the nail.  On top of that, I don't think this colour suits me.  I don't spend a lot of time bragging about myself but one thing I'm usually confident about is that almost any colour suits me and this one doesn't quite feel right.

Amazon's Flash & As Gold As It Gets

Anyone who knows me well, know that Wonder Woman is one of my favourite things and frankly I think that DC Comics reboot of the classic character is the best that series has been since it's relaunch in the 1980's but I'm not here to talk about that...L'Oreal's Amazon's Flash is one of the dumbest polish names I've heard in a while.  When I read the name out loud, somehow it sounded like a microscopic fingernail was scraping across a chalkboard deep in  the classroom of my brain.  I wasn't wild about the polish either.  Not that I had any issues regarding application or formula:  it's a perfectly acceptable polish but it's just not really anything special.  Yeah, it's a shiny, shimmering gold that would work better as a top coat than as a stand alone polish but I think  the fact that I couldn't be bothered to try to get a better photo than the one I've posted here really demonstrates my my complete and total apathy towards it.  It's like it's the nail polish equivalent of my feelings towards the new Spiderman movie:

On Second Thought, No...This Guy's Ass is So Much More Underwhelming!

Actually, I hate that guy's ass a lot. I vomit a little bit in my mouth every time I look at this picture. I like Essie's As Gold As it Gets a lot more than Amazon's Flash, probably because it wasn't pretending to be anything else but a top coat.

As Gold As It Gets Over Maybelline's Natural Beauty

I intentionally chose a warm toned neutral colour as a way to judge just how sparkly is. I felt that if I applied it over a red or a black polish it would stand out anyways, just based on the unavoidable contrast that would naturally occur and that wouldn't be the best way to judge it.  I really like this combination quite a bit as I liked seeing a little bit of extra flash to an extremely neutral polish colour but if you want more flash, you'll have to apply a second coat.  It also dried much faster than AM so if you find yourself in a pharmacy with AM in one hand and AGAIG in the other, pick up the Essie polish.  It's just the more versatile choice.

Essie's Brand New Bag Collection for Fall 2011: The Minis - Part One

Fall is on its way!  Yay!  Summer is great but Autumn is my favourite season. No more sweating, smog alerts, really smelly garbage, rumbling air conditioners, mosquitoes, open toed shoes, dudes on the bus whose deodorant gave up hours ago, girls in short shorts who should not be wearing short shorts, road construction...Hmmm, now that I come to think of it, I don't like summer all that much after all.  Have any of you noticed how bug repellent completely ruins your mani/pedi by making the polish soften up and take the shine away?  I hate that!

I'm looking forward to cooler days and fantastic fall foliage to photograph (try saying that ten times fast) and of course, fall clothes and makeup.  I have to concede that my recent loss of forty pounds requires that I buy new clothes but somehow, I'm resistant to spending the money on things that I actually need.  I never need polish but I'll always want it!

Lady Like

First up is Lady Like and that's an apt description for a colour like this.  A pinkish beige creme, it's a subtle colour which, most likely, would go with any item in your wardrobe without giving you that mannequin hand look.  That being said, I love the look of mannequin hands!  The application was pretty good.  This is two coats and it didn't streak, nor are there any bald spots.  If this colour is the kind you like, you wouldn't be wasting your money by picking it up.

Carry On

I need another wine coloured nail polish like I need an additional hole in my head or a third nipple!  But I keep buying them anyway because nothing says "Fall" like a deep wine creme polish.  Carry On makes me think of how, once the sun starts to set early, I switch from fruity white wines to deep Merlots & Shirazes.  I like how it's not extremely dark and somehow has a muted tone to the colour but I wouldn't call it an exceptional colour.  There were also a few bald spots as well.  What was exceptional about this polish was that I wore it for four days without a single chip and stayed glossy as well.  So it's a keeper in terms of durability.

So now I'm off to the 2011 Fan Expo Canada with one of my favourite people in the world...

This Guy!

Essie's Brand New Bag Collection for Fall 2011: The Minis - Part Deux!

Essie Resort Collection Minis: Part 2 - The Others

So now after taking a look at the pinks of the set, we move onto the other two colours in Essie's Resort Collection minis,  Fair Game & Da Bush:

Fair Game is a cool toned, deep blue silver colour with a nice amount of shimmer to it.  I really like this colour quite a bit but I see FG as more of a Fall colour as opposed to the bright sometimes, screechy colours that people like to sport in warmer weather.  But then again, one could look at it as an antidote to all of the inevitable neon colours that get foisted upon potential buyers almost every summer.  The formula was pretty good, I had no real application problems and the polish is pigmented enough that it gave complete coverage in two coats. It's definitely a keeper.

Last but not least is Da Bush.  Just the name alone guaranteed that I would have an affinity to this polish as the name Da Bush is almost the same as my last name (with only one difference in letters).  I felt like this was the closest that I'll ever come to having a namesake polish so that had me pretty jazzed.  And I love the colour!  This grungy light green creme really appeals to me but...there were problems with the formula.  I can't say if it was just my bottle or what but the polish was extremely thick and goopy and that made for some irritating dragging and sloppiness on the nail while I was applying it. The thickness also lead to bubbling after applying the second coat, which is evident on my index finger.  I'll wear it again, I just don't think I'll wear it often.

Well I know that summer has just started but so far in Toronto, it's been a bit of a washout!  Even though I'm not great in hot weather, it's been cloudy and raining for the last few weeks so things are not looking to sunny.  Even now the skies are full of clouds!  I haven't even felt the urge to listen to one of my favourite summer songs: The Lovin' Spoonful's Summer In the City:

Rain, Rain Go Away!

Essie Resort Collection Minis: Part 1 - The Pinks

So I picked up The Resort Collection minis from Essie last week and the first thing that stuck me as being a little odd about the collection is that even though it's called "The Resort Collection" the names of the polishes would better suit a safari theme.  I suppose they may have wanted to avoid any confusion with Sephora's Safari Luxe Collection because when polishes sport names like Lion Around, Your Hut Or Mine, Fair Game & Da Bush, it seems obvious that they didn't have Club Med or Atlantis Bahamas in mind for inspiration...

Not Pictured: Lions, Huts, Fair Game But Possibly Some Huts.

But onto the polishes!  The King of the Jungle is not the first thing that crosses the mind when you look at Lion Around, which is a very light somewhat fleshy pink tone with a slight shimmer to it.  It's formula was quite thick but applied well and was opaque in two coats.  This colour fits in well with my current neutral phase that I'm going through.

I like it well enough but not as much as Your Hut Or Mine.  Despite the super cheesy name I think that this is the nicest pink polish I've ever bought.  Like Lion Around, this polish also has a subtle shimmer to it that isn't overbearing at all.  It gives it a little bit of extra shine without it looking frosty and I just wanted to wag my fingers in every ones face just to make sure they could see how pretty it is!

Coming Soon...Part 2 - The Other Colours!