2012 Blog Resolutions

Hello everyone! I hope 2011 has treated you as well as it has me! I can't wait to start 2012 off right, and to help do this I've written out a list of resolutions for the new year. As I was writing this list I was thinking of the things that matter most to me and I realized that this blog is more important to me than I ever would have thought. I don't want to get to mushy on you guys, but thank you for your support! A year ago I NEVER would have imagined that complete strangers would be interested in seeing what I paint on my nails, and to help keep bringing you guys quality posts I have a little list of resolutions and goals for the next 365 days!

Ruby Red

Hey guys! I only have a few photos to show you today of a mani I wore while travelling, it was China Glaze Ruby Pumps. I've since given this polish away to my friend Sofia, it was gorgeous and I loved wearing it but I'm not sure if it will get much mileage on my fingernails. I used three coats for my swatches, and I didn't have the bottle easily accessible, sorry!

Christmas Haul

I bet the title of this post got you excited, the question on your mind is probably how much/which nail polishes did I get for Christmas..but the answer is NONE. And I am totally ok with that! Most of the people who give me presents probably wouldn't pick out shades that I would like to wear, and they wouldn't know where to begin shopping, so I am totally okay with not receiving any polishes. Let's have a little look at what I did get though!

Wow, am I ever spoiled! My family gives really great gifts for the most part, they always pick great books to buy me. I've picked up and put back down the Open Veins of Latin America at least five times, but I'm stoked to finally have some Galeano of my own to read. My uncle who has a great taste in music bought me The National CD, do any of you listen to them?

Although very unoriginal my mom gave me this mostly for the excitement of owning my own new $100 bill! Look how beautiful it is, I can't wait till all our bills have a pretty clear stripe. Sorry about my gross stained and unpolished nails, I just finished taking a glitter off and I am giving my nails some chill time. 

Did you guys get any outstanding gifts for Christmas? What about Boxing Day? I went to The Bay and looked at Chanel Peridot again today, but I just can't justify $27 dollars.. not yet at least. 

xoxo Nikki

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you guys have had a lovely day filled with joy and family and good food! I'm actually queuing this post ahead of time so if I get any exciting nail related gifts, stay tuned for that tomorrow. Today I have a polish to show you guys which I'm you've seen swatched to death in the last couple weeks. My mom bought it a little while ago for herself and she was nice enough to let me use it. Introducing..China Glaze Twinkle Lights!

I used three coats of Twinkle Lights for my photos. Keep reading for a few more pics. 

Nicki Minaj Water Marble

Hey guys! Welcome to what is the final post in my mini Nicki Minaj nail art series. Ever since I saw the promo pics for these polishes I wanted to marble the three cremes, unfortunately they didn't have the best formula for marbling! The polishes I have didn't spread out well in the water, Fly was the only one that was manageable which is why some of the nails are repetitive. The colours also bled into eachother which left an interesting colour of green on my right hand, but overall I didn't achieve the look I was going for. That's the thing about water marbling, sometimes you do it really well and other times it just doesn't work out the way you envisioned it!

Christmas Nail Art! (Merry Christmas!)

Merry Christmas! Joyeux Noël! ¡Feliz Navidad С Рождеством! 聖誕快樂!

Hope everyone had a great week! Can't believe Christmas is here already. I haven't posted all week because of the hectic school schedule, but I can officially say that semester is DONE for 2011! Therefore, I am posting now to share with you my happiness that I am finally free, and also to show you my Christmas-y nails. 

For this mani I used CG's Ruby Deer, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On, black and orange polish for the Snowman's decorations. First I applied 3 coats of Ruby Deer and waited that to dry completely. Then, I painted three circles of varying sizes to create the snowman's body. After that, using the black polish I drew his hat, eyes, arms, and coal buttons. And finally the orange was used to create his little carrot nose. Seal the design with topcoat and you're good to go! More pics after the jump

Nicki Minaj Polka Dots

Hey everyone! I am currently sitting at my grandparents house with my family where we're going to spend Christmas, it's nice to be around other people who love the holiday season unlike my mom. Today I'm starting a mini (read: very short) nail art series using only the polishes from the upcoming Nicki Minaj for OPI collection. As I mentioned a little while ago I am still trying out my dotting tools so I thought why not go for a polka dot mani, it's simple and with such bright colours I bet it will look fun.

Keep reading for more photos!

Nicki Minaj for OPI Comparisons & Layering

Hey everyone! I hope you enjoyed yesterday's swatches of four of the six lacquers from the upcoming Nicki Minaj collection. When the press release for these came out my mind immediately went to the Shrek collection, thinking that we had some dupes on our hands. Today I'm going to show you a few comparisons and I am happy to say I did not find any exact duplicates, so these Nicki Minaj polishes are winners in my book.

Here's a little reminder of the polishes I'm going to be comparing today. I hope you guys are okay with another picture heavy post.. keep reading!

Nicki Minaj for OPI Swatches & Review

The day is finally here everyone, swatches of the most anticipated collection of the year: Nicki Minaj for OPI! I have four of the colours from the six piece collection to show you today and let me warn you ahead of time, this post is going to be extremely picture heavy, but I know most of you won't mind that! I know everyone is anxious to see the swatches so I won't keep you reading!

Keep reading to see detailed descriptions of all four of these colours and a lot more pictures!

Christmas Chevrons

So I had been envisioning these chevrons for a while, and after having them on my nails for less than an hour I'm already removing them. I'm not sure why but these just aren't my favourite nail look..but maybe you guys will like them and have suggestions for next time!

Oh Christmas Lights, Keep Shining On

Good Morning everyone! First of all I'd like to wish a VERY Happy Birthday to my lovely roommate Joyce, I love you! She has an exam today and one tomorrow as well, poor thing :(, but she'll be off to Europe soon!

 I hope you liked seeing my mom's nails yesterday, maybe nice nails is genetic afterall. I've been envisioning these nails for literally two months, and I don't want to say I'm disappointed with how they turned out but they're not quite the same look I was going for. Nevertheless, I think these are awesome and I'm excited to share them with you guys!

For this manicure I used OPI Skull & Glossbones as a base, why did I not pick this polish up before yesterday, it's SO perfect. I made the strings using a black striper from LA Colors Art Deco, and made the lights using two different sizes of dotting tools and OPI Banana Bandanna, The Thrill of Brazil, Suzi Says Feng Shui, Green-wich Village, and China Glaze Papaya Punch. Keep reading for some more pictures!

Guest Starring..

Hello everyone! Yesterday my mom and I went to CosmoProf and we both bought a few too many new polishes and she asked me to give her a holiday manicure. I took inspiration from this post by The Nailasaurus but my mom wanted some seasonal skittles so I gave her a little variety. Check out my mom's new mani!

Aren't they cute? I'm pretty proud. Keep reading for a few more photos as well as a list of polishes used.

Dotting Tools

Today I just wanted to show you my new dotting tools that I can NOT get enough of! I ordered them on ebay and they ended up costing less than $2 CAN, with free shipping. Of course, they took a while to get here coming from China but since I didn't have to pay for shipping I'm not complaining.

Home Sweet Home

Hey everyone, I am finally home! It feels so nice to be back with my family and my puppy and the rest of my polish collection. When I got home I saw that a package had arrived for me containing my dotting tools! I was expecting those to come to my apartment in Montreal but somehow they turned up at my parents house - but at least I finally have them! I was testing them out last night and I didn't want to do anything too difficult, I just wanted to get the hang of the tools so here is a very quick mani I did. I love the way it turned out, these are so much fun and I think they're going to really improve my nail art.

The colours I used were OPI's Alpine Snow, Gargantuan Green Grape, Do You Lilac It?, China Glaze's Liquid Leather, Papaya Punch, Hey Sailor, For Audrey and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Lightning.
Another thing to note is that while I'm home I'm able to shoot with my dad's Nikon D90 instead of my little point and shoot, I hope you notice the change in quality! :)

Teenage Dream

Hello everyone! If you're reading this that means it's Thursday and it means today I officially finish my last final exam and will be frantically packing to catch my 7 am flight on Friday! Today I have a polish that very recently joined my collection, and by very recently I mean I bought it on Monday. See, there's this little shop that I know of that still has the entire Burlesque line (minus Sparklicious), the entire Shrek collection, and until yesterday they still had the entire Katy Perry collection, but I bought the last bottle of Teenage Dream. I wanted to treat myself after my double-header exams on Monday but it was hard to decide between What's With the Cattitude and Teenage Dream, but in the end the pretty holo sparkles won me over. This polish is actually unlike anything I've ever seen before, it's a clear base filled with pink microglitter and holo-pink tiny hex glitter. The glitter in this lacquer is unlike anything I've ever seen, there's no better way to describe it than eye catching.

For my swatch I used three coats of Teenage Dream. I was thinking of layering it over a light pink but I really like the effect that's given off by using this polish by itself. You're going to want to keep reading for more pictures!

Here Today... Aragón Friday

Today I have OPI's Here Today Aragón Tomorrow from the Spain collection to show you, and I feel like it's pretty appropriate since I have my last final on Thursday which is Spanish Literature and then on Friday I am GONE back home for the break! This polish..well I can't say I loved it as much as I thought I would. I'm pretty sure I bought it for the name, and it turned out looking black on me all the time. It was so hard to get the green to show and people kept wondering why I had painted my nails such a sad colour, but that's okay. I'm glad another untried is off my list!

I'm trying a new thing by putting this photo in a larger size, do you like it like this? The formula on this was less than desirable, it was pretty runny. I only used two coats for this swatch but there were some uneven patches.  Keep reading for a few more pictures and to see it in some different lights.

Finals make me Sick!

Hello everyone! Happy Friday..it’s not such a happy Friday for me. I just got back from an especially draining Psychology final, but it’s over now and there’s no use dwelling on the past. Well maybe there would be some use if I didn’t have two more finals this Monday.. ;). I have OPI Uh-Oh Roll Down the Window from the recent fall Touring America collection! I was expecting this green to look like, well let’s not beat around the bush, puke (more on that later). To be honest I’m both pleased and disappointed. I am very happy because this colour is a lot more wearable than I thought it would be, but it takes away some of the fun of the name!

For my swatches I used two coats of Uh-Oh and one coat of Seche Vite. I can’t say anything about the wear because I got so stressed out during my exam today that I started peeling it off my fingers.. bad habit, I know. Keep reading for some more photos of this unique green.

Diva of Geneva

Hello everyone, this is a scheduled post because of a lack of time available to me to be writing up posts every day. For this mani, I layered one coat of OPI Diva of Geneva over my pre-existing Parlez-Vous OPI mani. I have never used DoG on my fingers, but I did go through a period of keep it consistently on my toes, haha. Now I regret that, it's way too pretty not to show off!

Parlez-Vous Final Exams?

Hey everyone! I feel bad about not posting much, and when I do post not writing much, but I promise I will make it up to you over the Christmas break (11 days until my freedom). I have been sporting OPI Parlez-Vous OPI on my nails this week. I can't believe I've never put this colour on before, it's classic, simple, and elegant. I don't have enough great things to say!

It's That Time of Year Again..

No not the holidays, not quite yet, it's finals. That word sends shivers down my spine. Unfortunately this means I am going to be taking a bit of a backseat for the next two weeks.

More Quo by ORLY!

Hey everyone! Wow, November has flown by so fast I can't believe it, but I am so excited for December and being finished with this semester! Today I have another polish to show you from Quo by ORLY, a new collaboration between ORLY and Shoppers Drug Mart's beauty brand Quo. I talked about Quo by ORLY in a previous post when I reviewed Filthy Rich, a great gold foil in this post where you can read about the bottle and a few other technical details. The polish I have to show you today is Red Hot, a bright red creme.

For the photos I used two coats of Quo by ORLY Red Hot with no topcoat. The polish itself is pretty shiny, but in the future I would add a coat of Seche. This shade covered well in two coats although there was VNL on a few nails in person, but only if you're looking very closely. Overall, it's a really great staple shade and I think it's a good basic to pick up if you have a Shoppers Drug Mart or Pharmaprix near you and are looking for a slightly cool red with a great formula. 

Cold & Freezie

Hey guys! Sorry I've been terrible lately about posting, it's crunch time at school, I'm sure you guys are familiar with the end of the semester. This week I've had one of the few OPI Muppets polishes that caught my eye on my nails, and that is Warm & Fozzie! Ironically enough, Montreal got our first snowfall this week which was more Cold & Freezie than Warm & Fozzie, but for now it has all melted away again.

As you can see there's quite a bit of tip wear, it was really hard to wrap my tips well due to the strange consistency of this polish but that's neither here nor there. Warm & Fozzie is a really pretty greeny-coppery-reddy brown, and there is a small duochrome effect in certain lights. What you see in the bottle there is mostly a reflection of my red camera, sorry for being such a tease. This was one of the only colours that interested me from OPI's Holiday collection but I'm not actually as in love with it as I thought I would be. Shown on my nails is two coats and one coat of Seche Vite.

Bling Zebra

I can't say enough about this mani, it is so gorgeous! I had no idea what to do for my 19th birthday nails and this is what I finally came up with. I wanted something that would be class and not too out there, but definitely eye catching. I loosely followed this idea by Kayla Shevonne and I drew inspiration from her source too, That's So Fresh. Without further adieu, I present to you my bling zebra nails!

To achieve this fabulous look I first put on two coats of OPI Alpine Snow, I then stamped with Konad plate m57 and Quo by ORLY Filthy Rich. Then I brushed on OPI Crown Me Already in a few different locations but not covering the entire nail, trying to make it look like veins sort of. I finished it off by stamping again with Konad plate m57 but this time using China Glaze Liquid Leather to get the stand out zebra print. What do you guys think? This is one of my favourite manis I have ever done..I still haven't taken it off! I love the idea of stamping twice, it leads to some very fun combinations. Keep reading for more pictures!

Stamping with Filthy Rich

Hey everyone! I know I'm posting this a day after my birthday, but this is not actually the mani I wore on my birthday, it's not quite fabulous enough for that :P. After konading over top of Quo by ORLY Filthy Rich I wanted to turn the tables and try to stamp with it. As it applied and covered pretty well in only one coat I assumed it would make a great stamping polish, and I was right!

 This is one coat of China Glaze Liquid Leather as a base stamped with konad m57 using Quo by ORLY Filthy Rich. Nothing too special about this mani, I only had it on for one day and I hoped it would help me inspire a good birthday mani, but you'll have to wait until my next post to see that one.

Stamping over Filthy Rich

Hey everyone! Look at that, the week is almost over, and tomorrow is my 19th birthday! I can't believe I'm going to be entering my final year of being a teenager, it's so surreal, and what's stressing me out the most is that I can't figure out what to do with my nails for the big day! Do you have any ideas? Please let me know in the comments if you do, I will be wearing a green/teal dress and I was thinking something with gold, silver and black but I am open to anything!
Anyways, onto today's post. I'm not one to wear a plain gold foil on my nails for too long but I really wanted to see how well the Quo by ORLY polish I was sent for review wore. What better way to freshen up a mani than some classic stamping? This is the ever popular Konad plate m57 with China Glaze Liquid Leather over Quo by ORLY Filthy Rich.

Could this be any prettier? It's such a classic look..I love it and will definitely recreate this mani. Keep reading for more pictures.

Introducing Quo by ORLY

Hello everyone! Today I am really excited because I get to show you one of the polishes from the recent collaboration between Canadian makeup company Quo and American nail giant ORLY to give us up North a greater variety and a better quality option in our drugstore polishes. Available exclusively at Shoppers Drug Mart and Pharmaprix locations in Canada the new Quo by ORLY lacquers retail for $10.00 CAN but can sometimes be found on sale for $7.00 CAN. Filthy Rich is a lovely gold foil that I was sent for review by PR and it is included in the Quo by ORLY Holiday Sampler set (more on that later).

For this photo I used three coats of Filthy Rich topped off with one coat of Seche Vite. This is a really pretty gold foil and it's a great basic to have in your polish collection, as soon as I get back home to the rest of my collection I want to compare it to Sally Hansen Salon Manicure Gilty Pleasure. This colour probably has some dupes floating around in the polish word, a unique gold foil is hard to come across, but this is definitely easy to get at your local Shoppers or Pharmaprix and it's good quality. Keep reading for more pictures and a thorough review of my very first Quo by ORLY lacquer.

Gettin' Miss Piggy With It!

Hey guys! I hope you're all having a better weekend than me, I was up all night with food poisoning and I just woke up. There goes my productive Saturday...who am I kidding. It probably wouldn't have happened anyways. This past Monday I put on this manicure and told myself no matter how much the glitter chipped that I had to keep it on until Friday after my last midterm, to my surprise the glitter didn't chip at all! I planned on doing an accent nail of Crown Me Already but I had already put some GMPWI! to show you guys how the glitter builds up and I decided to just roll with it.

On my other fingers I had five or six thin coats of Gettin' Miss Piggy With It! and to get the look on my ring finger I layered 2 coats of GMPWI! followed by one coat of Crown Me Already, then another of GMPWI! and finished it off with one more of Crown Me Already. I really loved the way this nail looked and I wish I had a few more of the Muppets glitters to try this out, but maybe some of you guys can do that if it interests you and leave me a link in the comments! Keep reading for some more photos.

Suzi Says Hello New Followers!

Hey everyone! We've gotten so many new followers in the past week and so many pageviews, I'd like to say hi to everyone and thank you so much! Today I'm showing you OPI's Suzi Says Feng Shui from the Spring 2010 Hong Kong collection (which in my opinion was full of winners!) This is a dusty but bold blue that screams "I am not a Fall polish" to me, but I couldn't resist trying it. It went on smoothly in two coats and it was glossy by itself, which lead me to think five hours of dry time would be sufficient, and I ended up with these horrendous sheet marks on my ring finger.

Sunlight..really highlights imperfections. This blue is very pretty and I can't wait to use it in some nail art and compare it to the blue that will come out with OPI's Nicki Minaj collaboration. I originally put this colour on because I wanted it to match my psychology textbook, but it turns out this colour was more unique than I had previously imagined. Keep reading if you dare for picture spam of me trying to find a colour-twin. 

Could Have Been..

Hey everyone, this is a mani that I think had a lot of potential but I just didn't have the skills and patience to execute it properly :(. I used China Glaze Custom Kicks (a summer staple for me), as well as China Glaze Liquid Leather (my go-to black) and OPI Alpine Snow. The stripes were done using Revlon Metallic and a toothpick, which proved not to be the best way to get nice even stripes. Le sigh..

Transcontinental Tape Mani

Hey everyone, welcome to another day of my previously done nail art series. I did this mani right before leaving for South America this summer and a lovely Colombian couple on the plane complimented me on it and told me that she would pay someone to do this to her nails, haha! I used China Glaze Liquid Leather, China Glaze Custom Kicks and Revlon Metallic.

Let Me In to Pottermore Already!

Is anyone else getting frustrated? I know I know I should have gotten into the Beta but I was in South America with no internet for most of the time! I guess I'll have to wait like the rest of the millions of fans :P Anyone else impatiently awaiting access to Pottermore? Here's a mani that I did this summer when I went to the midnight 3D premiere of Harry Potter 7 Part II with my best friend! That was a great night, and thank god I got these pics taken that day because my camera got stolen the next day at the Calgary Stampede and I lost all my photos that I took at the screening of the movie :(. At least I have the memories..and some pics of some interesting nail art to show you in the third installment of my retroactive blogging!

My thumb is a golden snitch, the Deathly Hallows symbol is on my index finger, my middle finger is for Gryffindor and my ring finger (not coincidentally people!) is for Slytherin and the love of my life Draco Malfoy, and my pink has a feebly done lightning bolt. I don't remember all of the colours I used but I know a few were OPI Bogotá Blackberry, China Glaze Emerald Fitzgerald, China Glaze Liquid Leather, Sally Hansen Gilty Pleasure, Revlon Metallic and Art Deco nail art brush in White. Look at that, maybe I did remember them all.

Tribal is the New Patchwork

Hello everyone, today I have another post in my series of summer mani nail art that I had. This was my attempt at tribal nails, but without getting too complicated. Thank god I didn't put too much time into these because I remember taking them off the next day, haha! I used OPI Jade is the New Black - probably one of the first colours that I remember being head over heels in love for, it may be responsible for my entire nail lacquer addiction! The black stripes were done with an Art Deco nail art polish in Black.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone, I hope you've had a great day and that there are tons of kids trick-or-treating at your houses like there are currently at mine! I, unfortunately, didn't get to dress up this year due to two midterms and a 4-hour lab this week but I did get to do something lovely on my nails! Instead of me dressing up in a costume, it's like my nails are wearing their own Hello Kitty costume, haha! I followed this tutorial by Kayla Shevonne for the thumb and ring finger kittens but I was inspired by this mani by MaD Manis for the flowers on the other fingers.

Keep reading kittens! :3

Hey guys! Today I'd like to show off a mani I did this summer when I had a lot more free time, and the rest of my nail polish stash with me! It is inspired directly from this tutorial by the brilliant and talented Kayla Shevonne, a fellow Canadian nail blogger. She's one of my inspirations in the lacquer world and I have since tried a few more of her easy to follow tutorials!

I know - major lobster hands here! The colours I used for my spin on the patchwork mani were OPI Funky Dunkey, OPI Gargantuan Green Grape, China Glaze Custom Kicks and an Art Deco nail art brush in black. 

A Lot of First Times Around Here Lately

A few days ago I showed you a double first for me: my first full water marble mani and my first time using a Zoya polish! I'm excited to tell you guys today that I had another first this week: my first time using a Color Club lacquer! (boy is it ever difficult to resist writing the "u" in color..Canadianisms) I chose Masquerading for my debut Color Club mani and it is even more beautiful on the nail! I definitely didn't have anything like this in my stash before.

This is two coats of Masquerading, but if I had been more careful I could've gotten away with only one. You know what this means...good stamping polish! I have no complaints about the application, the formula was really nice, but I do have complaints about the wear. I put this colour on Wednesday evening and this was what it looked like when I went to take pictures on Friday afternoon..major tip wear even though I wrapped my tips. I'm not sure if it has anything to do with the fact that I didn't wrap my topcoat on my tips, but I'm not too upset because I wasn't planning on wearing this for a long time!

My First Full Water Marble Mani

How are you guys today? I'm spectacular because I get to show you all a first for me, never before had I devoted an entire mani to water marbling. An accent nail here and there was all I had to show for my technique until this mani, and I'm so glad I went all the way with it! It looked great and I got a lot of compliments throughout the week. 

Here are my two best shots showing off both hands. The colours I used were OPI Alpine Snow, OPI Ski Teal We Drop and Zoya Ashley (the first time a Zoya polish has ever touched my nails!) over one coat of OPI Alpine Snow. It's not my favourite colour combination but I don't have too many cremes with me in Montreal right now. I feel like it looks like I was trying to go for Christmas colours, but perhaps by a misjudgment in colour I grabbed teal and purple instead of red and green. Photo spam after the jump!

A Brownie for Suzi

Today OPI released the artists renditions of their Spring 2012 Collection and the theme appears to be: Holland! This is very exciting for me because the collections that OPI bases around countries tend to turn out awesome (Spain and France anyone?) and it looks like they're on the road to recovery after a dismal display with the Texas Summer collection and the mediocre Touring America Collection for fall.

I got this photo from the official OPI Facebook page. Here are the names of the colours in this order: Gouda Gouda Two Shoes, Wooden Shoes Like to Know It, I Don't Give a Rotterdam, A Roll In The Hague, Petal Faster Suzi, Dutch Ya Just Love OPI, Thanks a WindMillion, Red Lights Ahead...Where?, Kiss Me On My Tulips, Vampsterdam, I Have a Herring Problem, & Did You Hear About Van Gogh?

Are these the funniest names ever? I can't believe they didn't include anything about legal marijuana use..that's one of my first thoughts (and definitely a popular stereotype). Maybe they're not allowed to make drug allusions (but a joke about the Red Light District is ok?) Well I made up my own name, hence the title of this post. :)

Right now I'm left wanting I Don't Give a Rotterdam, Petal Faster Suzi, Dutch Ya Just Love OPI, Thanks a WindMillion, Vampsterdam and I Have a Herring Problem, but I can't wait to see what these polishes actually look like as OPI's bottle drawings are known to be more than a bit off sometimes! Spring 2012 is going to be brilliant for OPI with the bright and daring Nicki collab and the pretty and feminine Dutch collection! My roommate who is from the Netherlands approves of the quirky names too. 

Not Cozu-melting for this Polish

The weekend goes by way to fast lately, doesn't it? Today I have a colour to show you ladies that I had wanted for a long time and I purchased at Cosmo Prof a few months ago..but I can't say I'm loving it! This is OPI's Cozu-melted in the Sun, a light pink shimmer that I think would make an awesome lip colour but I'm not crazy about it on my nails.

I don't even think I have a reason for not liking this polish, except that it's not that flattering on me. Application was great, opaque in two easy coats, I've had it on for three days now and there are no signs of wear, it's a really solid polish as I've come to expect from OPI..I just don't love the colour! 

Nicki Minaj for OPI

Hey Ladies, Happy Saturday!
Yesterday there was some interesting news dropped in the polish world, Nicki Minaj's OPI collection was shown for the first time and will hit shelves this January. Let's take a look at the colours...

This is the official word from OPI, this picture was taken from their Facebook page. They want to "clear some things up" and show fans the real colours to be expected with this collection. What does that mean, clear things up? Keep reading..

Steady as She Rose? Lilac? Lily? Lavender?

Hello and Happy Tuesday everyone! This is a queued post because I have a crazy midterm on Wednesday and I need to use every single minute to study. After all the glitzy shimmery and sparkly polishes I have had on lately it felt good to be back to a creme formula. Oh cremes - you always know how to even yourselves out perfectly... except this one. This is OPI Steady as She Rose from the Pirates of the Caribbean collection. Application was decent, it had a really hard time evening itself out on my nails so some of the ones on my right hand look a little odd, but a coat of seche and some Konad always works wonders.

SaSR is a .. well .. I'm not really sure what colour to describe it as. It's an extremely pale dusty creme that can look light purple in most lights, but once in a while I see it from the right angle and with the right lighting and I go, "oh, so THAT'S why it's called rose" and it all makes sense. It's very muted, dusty, greyed looking and really pretty and delicate. You could definitely pull this off at an office, and I think it would make a really great base colour for a lot of nail art, even a purple or pink themed splatter mani or water marble. Keep reading after the jump if you want to see what I did with this mani :)

Midtown Magic

Hi everyone! It's Monday, a fresh week meaning a fresh manicure! Today's post is on China Glaze's Midtown Magic from the Metro Collection. I recently saw the entire collection being sold at Winners for 7 dollars each, it made me so mad because this happened after I bought three at full price from Chatters! Oh well, what's done has been done. Anyway! Midtown Magic is a beautiful rich brown with tiny golden and bronze fleck throughout. It's the perfect color for autumn, especially with the great earth-tones and changing leaves that comes with this season. Autumn is great, except for the fact that it's getting chillier, as well as the fact that it gets darker and darker each day. However, the moon has been incredibly bright and gorgeous to look at through the window, can't complain about that! Ok, enough rambling, here's CG Midtown Magic!

3 coats Midtown Magic

More pictures after the jump!

Felix Felicis

It's starting to feel just like fall in Montréal, that's one of the things I love most about this city is that it doesn't skip autumn. There are red and orange and yellow maple leaves all over, and Mont Royal looks absolutely beautiful, like it's out of a pretty movie. To go with the season I decided to put on one of my untrieds that I was very excited about. I bought OPI Rising Star last May, I remember because I had just gotten back to Calgary and I went to Cosmoprof and it was there on a discount rack, but none of the other Burlesque polishes were left. That's okay, I have a few others from the collection but I didn't manage to get my hands on this one while it was in stores, so you can imagine how excited I was. As soon as I put it on I knew it was meant to be, this polish is amazing! It glides on perfectly, as expected from OPI, and is like a warm copper toned gold part foil part glass fleck shimmer that lights up an entire room. 

Unfortunately, I may or may not have waited a little too long to finally take swatch pictures and there is extreme growth here. I was waiting for some sunshine to properly capture the GLOW of this polish but no such luck. This polish reminds me of Felix Felicis from Harry Potter. I think this is exactly what it would look like, some people imagine it as more of a yellow gold but I don't want my lucky potion being a dull yellow gold, I want this warm lively one! Maybe I should put it back on for my Organic Chem midterm on Wednesday...hmmm..

Tag Post - Then and Now

Hey guys! I saw this tag post floating around on a few of my favourite blogs lately and I decided to join in, because I was looking through my photos the other day and I found some awfully hilarious nail fails. The point of this tag post is to post a picture of your nails when you first started taking pictures of them, and one now!

OKAY? These claws? Did I think I was some sort of cat? Yikes..This is some China Glaze colour that's actually really nice, I should try it on some more tamed nails. Keep reading after the jump.

Fan-freaking-tastic Facets of Fuchsia

Funny story, the other day I drop by Pharmaprix and I notice the beautiful new Revlon collection. Well I'm not one to love glitter in a clear base, and baby pink and silver just wasn't doing it for me, but when I laid eyes upon Facets of Fuchsia I just knew that we were going to get along great. I immediately texted Mandy and told her I had just grabbed a bottle, and she replied that she had too! The same day! We decided to both post our swatches and reviews so you can get two opinions and see how it wears on two different people, and also it's a pretty enough polish that you PROBABLY won't mind seeing it twice. Without further adieu, I bring to you Revlon's Facets of Fuchsia, a mix of magenta-esque hex and fine glitter in a black jelly base.

This is three coats of FoF with (one or two, I don't remember) coats of Seche Vite. Since it's a jelly the first two coats look super thin, but it builds up really nicely. I think if you wanted to use less polish you could layer one or two coats over a coat of a black creme, but where's the fun in that? I love the effect that you get where you can see glitter trapped under a coat of jelly. The formula was easy to work with and I can't say enough great things about this polish. As for its dupe-ability, I have read and seen swatches comparing it to Deborah Lippmann's Bad Romance, and they are definitely very similar! Unfortunately I don't own BR (or any Lippmann polishes - yet!) so I can't do a comparison, but with the Revlon ringing in at anywhere between $3 and $6, it's not a bad option. Check out some photo spam after the jump!

Spotted: Fantasy Makers

Hello everyone! Just stopping in to let you know about what I spotted this past weekend at the Pharmaprix across from the Provigo Mont-Royal: Fantasy Makers! They had four different polishes, some eye shadow palettes and fun stuff like that, but what intrigued me most was the loose holo glitter they had! I thought I was looking into a bottle of Nfu-Oh 61, it was crazy! I googled it and saw that a few people had frankened with it before, but I didn't pick any up because I have a pretty tight beauty budget this month. Anyways, I snuck a photo for you guys from my blackberry (I've got to stop doing that or they're going to ban me from Pharmaprix).

Also, the post I have queued up for you tomorrow is awesome. Don't miss it. 

Love always, Nikki!

Illamasqua Does it Better

Remember the heart nails that appeared in an Illamasqua press release a few months ago? I sure do, and I thought to do something to spice up this mani but it didn't really turn out like I had hoped. Keep reading after the break!

Feeling Blue

I grabbed this colour from my untrieds (read: before I was actually interested in nail polish) and decided to put it on for my ex-roommate's 19th birthday dinner. Big mistake. My friends kind of look to me for inspiration for nails lately and this streaky, frosty, cheap mess was NOT appropriate for going out! This is Rimmel in Chill, I don't even think I've seen a bottle of polish that looks like this in years. I was definitely not pleased with it, although it partly is my fault for even buying such a frosty colour in the first place. Did I really think I would like it?