Dopamina

It's finally Friday! Are you guys ready for the weekend? I am. Today I have a mani that I'd been planning for a while, it wasn't quite executed as I would've hoped so I think I'll try it again - but it's a cool idea. I have a Psyc midterm on Tuesday so I thought why not do something related. On that note I present to you, neurotransmitter nails!

As you may have noted from the title of this post, this is Dopamine! If you're wondering how I usually title my posts, I just search my iTunes library for something relevant, I have to confess that a lot of my music on this laptop is Spanish. 

I'm sorry I've been MIA - but I promise I'll have some exciting posts this upcoming week.

New OPI News

Good morning everyone! I just have a few photos to pass along to you guys that OPI has posted on their facebook page in the past few weeks - they just can't stop sharing the new collections! First up we have the Spider-Man collection that I told you about a few weeks ago. 

This collection is supposed to hit the shelves this May! The colours from left to right are Shatter the Scales, Your Web or Mine?, Call Me Gwen-Ever, Into the Night, My Boyfriend Scales Walls, Number One Nemesis and Just Spotted the Lizard.

I can not WAIT to get Just Spotted the Lizard!

This is the most exciting news of all for me, an OPI Vintage Minnie Mouse themed collection for June 2012! What perfect summer pedicure colours. The are from left to right  I'm All Ears, Nothin' Mousie 'bout it, If You Moust You Moust and The Color of Minnie.

I can't even explain to you how much I love the looks of Nothin' Mousie 'bout It.

Woah what is that! A sneak peak of the upcoming Fall 2012 collection which is Germany themed! I love OPI's country themed collections. The names for these are  My Very First Knockwurst, Don't Pretzel My Buttons, Berlin There Done That, Dont Talk Bach to Me, Nein! Nein! Nein! OK Fine!, Schnapps Out of It, Suzi & The 7 Dusseldorfs, Every Month is Oktoberfest, Unfor-greta-bly Blue, Deutsche You Want Me Baby, Danke-Shiny Red & German-icure by OPI.

From these shots I'm looking forward to the first five the most - I am a sucker for pretty cremes.

What do you guys think of ALL this news? I know it's a lot to take in at once. What are some of the shades you're looking forward to most?

I got all these photos from the OPI fan page on Facebook, you should "like" them to be among the first to get the scoop on upcoming collections.

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice!

Hello and happy Saturday! I think after a week of trying to get the perfect manicure to submit to Rebecca Likes Nails' contest, I finally have one I'm willing to submit! If you've been reading my posts for the past week you're probably sick of hearing this, but as a recap the theme is "gradients, animal prints, bows, dots, and Hello Kitty." My friend Anisha, who helped me with the logistics of how to combine so many themes into one manicure, and I have been coming up with tons of ideas to find the perfect submission for the contest. If you're visiting my page for the first time it'd be great if you could check out my other potential submissions: here, here, and here.

I'm so pleased with how this mani turned out! Keep reading for more photos and to see the colours I used to create this look.

Waves of Dots

Hey guys! Today I have a third potential submission to the nail art contest that Rebecca Likes Nails is hosting. This is another design that my friend Anisha came up with, but she has since informed my that I didn't quite execute it properly. I tried to do a polka dot gradient but instead of straight lines think like a sine wave.

While this looks pretty cool it's not quite what I had in mind, story of my nail-art-life recently! 

Keep reading for more photos!

Shades of Blue

Good morning! Today I have another potential entry into Rebecca Likes Nails' nail art contest! Just to remind you, the theme is based upon Rebecca's favourite things: Hello Kitty, gradients, bows, animal print, and dots. I keep trying to fit as many of her favourite things into my manis, and I'm hoping to find a winner to submit!

My genius friend Anisha suggested that instead of trying to combine all five themes on top of each other, like my previous mani, that I put two of them together and make gradient dots! That way it's not so in your face, but it still follows the theme! Anisha also told me that I should try adding ears to my Hello Kitty accent nail. I'm still not sold on the ears.

I've never done gradient polka dots before and I can't get over how nice they look! Although blue is one of the colours I don't wear too often by itself, I had quite a few options and by mixing the colours with white I was able to get a pretty nice gradient.

Keep reading for more photos and to see the colours used.

Hello Pastel Gradient

Hey guys! Sorry I've been MIA this week, I haven't even been that busy I just loved my last mani so much I put off removing it until just the other day. Today I have my first potential entry into Rebecca from Rebecca Likes Nails' nail art contest! I am determined to win the $25 giftcard to Ninja Polish, so I'm going to be trying out a few designs and hopefully you guys can give me some feedback! 
To give you context for the challenge, Rebecca wants to see nails that are all about her favourite things! If you've ever read Rebecca's blog, you'll understand why she chose "gradients, animal print, bows, dots, and Hello Kitty" as the theme for this competition. I had mapped out a few designs in my head, wanting to include all of the themes to maximize my chances of winning, but I'm having trouble coming up with designs that aren't too tacky, for lack of a better word. 

So in this design I have tried to incorporate a pastel gradient, polka dots, Hello Kitty and of course her bow! I used OPI Pink Friday for the accent nail and for the pink in the gradient, OPI Do You Lilac It? for the purple in the gradient, China Glaze For Audrey for the blue in the gradient, OPI Alpine Snow for the polka dots and Hello Kitty's face, Quo by ORLY Red Hot for her pretty little bow, China Glaze Liquid Leather for the black features, and one tiny drop of Love & Beauty yellow.
Keep reading for some more photos.

La Vie en Rose

Hello everyone! I am so excited to show you today's mani because it might very well be one of my favourites ever! Now I know it's not very original, and I would love to credit one source for my inspiration but there are a trillion manis just like this and I can't narrow it down. I really wanted to do something that was girly and pretty, and I don't mean pretty as in "oh that's cool," more like "wow, how feminine and sweet!"

How can you go wrong with roses and polka dots?

For this mani I used China Glaze Secret Peri-winkle as the base colour for most of my nails, and Illamasqua Load as the base on the accent nails and for the polka dots. I then used my dotting tools to create pretty pink roses using OPI Kiss Me on my Tulips, OPI Pink Friday, and OPI Green-wich Village for the leaves.

Keep reading for more photos!

Zoya Promo

Hey everyone! I'm sure you've all heard by now, but if some of you don't know, Zoya has yet another promo going on!

I got this picture from the official Zoya Blog, click here to check it out.

This is a really great promo, buy 3 and get 3 free! It doesn't seem like there are any colour restrictions, so I'm assuming it includes the recent Fleck and Tru collections if you are still wanting some of those colours. For the three polishes plus shipping it should come to 30.95, or about $5.15 per polish after shipping. Maybe if you feel you don't need six new Zoyas you could let a friend in on the code and each get three. 

Zoya unfortunately still only ships to the Continental US, so for us international ladies getting their great promos is pretty difficult without an American connection to pass them on. 

This promo code ends Wednesday March 14th and midnight Eastern. 

I Will Hold on Hope

Hey everyone! I have a pretty cool mani to show you today! Although I'm not overly thrilled with how it turned out, it was fun to do.

I did this mani with inspiration coming from a music video, Mumford & Sons' "The Cave." While working at American Eagle this past summer this was my favourite song on the store playlist and the video always caught my eye. Yesterday as I was looking over the submissions page for Sarah from Chalkboard Nails' Dotting Tool contest I came across this pretty entry from ZigZagNails. I put two and two together and voila!

If you should ever be looking for inspiration for nail art I suggest you pop on over to that page. There were some awesome submissions and I love recreating other peoples' manis and adding my own touch!

Here is a screenshot from the video which you can find here. 

Keep reading for more photos!

Waxing and Waning

Hey everyone! This is turning out to be such a great weekend so far, I hope it means that this horrible week is behind us and spring will bring new and lovely things! Today I have my very first half-moon mani attempt for you guys. My friend Elizabeth was nice enough to track down reinforcements and give them to me just so I could try this! I used two of the new Spring 2012 Quo by ORLY polishes that I previously swatched for you guys: Tease and Steel Heart.

Unfortunately I suffered some Seche Vite shrinking on my tips - please don't blame these polishes for the apparent tip wear. My lines aren't perfect but for a first time, not bad! When I showed up to university with this mani my eloquent and well spoken friend said "what's with that emo shit?" Isn't she lovely? 

Keep reading for some more photos!

Steel my Heart

Okay, so that's not quite the name of this polish, it's actually called Steel Heart, but I think my idea is cuter! This is another from Quo by ORLY's Spring 2012 collection that is available now in Pharmaprix and Shopper's Drug Marts across Canada! I was pleasantly surprised by this colour to be honest with you guys, I thought it was going to be a weird streaky mess á la Orly Steel Your Heart (maybe that's where I subconsciously got the idea for my name) or China Glaze Hook and Line. Fortunately for me, it was nothing like those at all and was a pleasure to work with and wear!

I'm only showing you three fingers because I had a stamping attempt disaster on the other one. As you can see this is a steel-y grey polish that manages not to be frosty and overly brushstroke prone! How awesome is that? Keep reading for a few more pictures.

Spring Teaser

Hey everyone! Today I have a beautiful polish from Quo by ORLY's Spring 2012 collection that was supposed to hit shelves of Shopper's Drug Marts and Pharmaprix across the country last week. The shade I have to show you guys today is called Tease and it is a beautiful pinky coral pastel creme. I can honestly say I don't have anything like this in my collection, it's not pink enough to be close to any of my OPIs and at first glance I thought it might bare some resemblance to OPI Hot & Spicy but it's no where near as coral as that one. Since I can't find the right words to describe this polish, let's get going with the pictures.

My photos with flash are a little more colour accurate, it's a little more pink and less bright than it appears in this picture. I really love this polish, but the formula wasn't the best to work with. This was three coats, but for such a nice colour payoff I'm okay with it. One complaint I have is that my brush had a few uneven bristles, but my other Quo by ORLY polishes have great brushes so it's likely that it's just a fluke! Keep reading for some more pictures.

Fishing for Compliments

Hello everyone! I hope you guys had a great weekend. I'm just so happy that Spring is right around the corner! Today I have some nails that scream spring in my opinion! I got my inspiration from this beautiful manicure that Sarah from Chalkboard Nails did recently. I couldn't believe that she could get such nice lines without using tape, and drawing the design with the polish brush, but it's true!

I still can't get over how pretty this manicure is! The colours I used were OPI Do You Lilac It?, Fly, Did It On 'Em, China Glaze Four Leaf Clover, and Quo by ORLY Filthy Rich. I like the colours I chose, and I feel like while the gold may not have been the most obvious choice it's a cool enough gold to pull it off. 

My nails looked so good with this on that I couldn't help myself and I took quite a few pictures. Keep reading if you dare!

Stamping in the Nude

Hello everyone! Today I bring to you the final post in my mini series about Konad plate m85 which I received for review from Nail Polish Canada. I have previously posted two manicures that I did using this plate, so go back and check those out if you haven't yet!
Today I am showing you a new colour in my polish collection as well as the two final full nail patterns from the Konad plate. I used Zoya Avery as a base for this manicure which I got during the New Years promo that Zoya had in January. I love this colour, it's so nice with my skin tone and I can only imagine how perfect it will be this summer when the sun comes out and I stop resembling Dracula.

So you're probably looking at this and wondering why I did such a poor job on two of my fingers. I don't want to lead you guys on and make you think that these patterns were particularly easy to work with because quite frankly, they weren't. It's not that they were unmanageable, and look at the payoff on my pinky and index fingers, it's just that it took a lot of patience to actually pick up all the minuscule details. 

Here, once again, is a photo of the plate itself, m85. 

This plate is available for purchase from Nail Polish Canada by following this link! They have a wide selection of Konad plates on the website and the best part is that they ship the Konad plates for free within Canada. 

For more photos of my mani and some information about this plate please keep reading!

More Konad m85

Hey everyone! As I promised I'm back today with another post on Konad plate m85, which was kindly sent to me for review. I actually did this mani a few weeks back right when I was coming down with the flu. It's too bad I was stuck in bed that week because this is super pretty. 

To achieve this look I stamped with Quo by ORLY Filthy Rich over OPI Fly. So far in my experience with Quo by ORLY polishes they have worked well for stamping, and this gold foil is no exception. What to say about this design, I'm confused as to what it is. It's very pretty don't get me wrong, but is it just swirls? It's not trying to make a bigger picture is it? I am totally missing it if so.

Here's the same photo I showed you in the last post. This is Konad plate m85. 

This plate is available for purchase from Nail Polish Canada right here, and it retails for $8.75 with free shipping in Canada! To see some more pictures of my mani please keep reading.

Holographic Bubbles

Hey everyone! I'm back from my week long hiatus, I'm sorry but I had a hectic week. It's not even that I hadn't been painting my nails, but I was sent a new Konad plate from Nail Polish Canada and I've been torn between posting all the manis I did in one big comprehensive review or a separate post for each one. I've decided to go with the latter because I have a LOT of photos! Just as a side note - I have (hopefully) disabled the word recognition requirement on posting comments, I had no idea it was even there! I hope it hasn't been deterring you guys from commenting, but if it has it is now long gone!

You may remember my review of Ozotic 509 from a little while ago. Before removing that beautiful, beautiful polish I grabbed the Konad plate, which is m85, and stamped over the silver holo with black using the circle design - I think it looks like bubbles!

I used Ozotic 509 as the base colour and stamped with China Glaze Liquid Leather. I think this design is super cute and it's not too busy. The lines stamped pretty well, I don't claim to be a master Konad-er so there are a few flaws in my mani but for the most part I had no problem picking up the details of the design.

Here is the best pic I could get of the plate. I'm so happy it features four full nail designs, I'm not huge on the plates that have mostly part nail or tip designs. You can purchase this plate, m85, from Nail Polish Canada right here! It retails for $8.75, and all their Konad plates ship for free within Canada!

Keep reading for more photos of both this plate and my holo mani.