I finally had a chance to use Essie Naughty Nautical

I have been dying to use Essie Naughty Nautical since I got it in a spree of buying greenish polish, looking at the colour I decided I wanted something a little old-timey. So I decided on stripes, of OPI Alpine Snow and Naughty Nautical. 

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I added the little black bows because I kept thinking about those guys with bow ties. I threw a rhinestone on it to finish it off. I used the dotting tool for the hearts to finish it off.

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Naughty Nautical is really an awesome polish, we went on well and it wasn't very streaky. The first coat was, but with the second it evened out. I loved it. It also had some awesome silver shimmer in it. I couldn't get it to show up on the pictures more than just a tiny bit so I added a pic with the bottle so you can see that pretty shimmer. You can actually see it on my nails too in this pic, so it turned out better than I planed.

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In other news I am in love with this colour, and the formula, and really everything about this polish.

- Anna

Baby Deer Inspired Nails

I have my pictures and all is right in the world again. I got a lot of inspiration from my vacation and I was chomping at the bit to do these nails after seeing a fluffy little baby black-tailed deer.

It was all cute and spotty so I couldn't help myself! I used two coats of China Glaze Desert Sun, which is a rather nice polish. It went on nicely, and as always I liked the China Glaze brush. I thought The colour was perfect for a baby deer and I am actually really happy with it. 

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I used OPI My Vampire Is Buff for the baby spots and the tips. I did the tips the way I did because the black tailed deer have the bottom white and then a strip of black and brown on top - so it just felt right. 

He's so fluffy it pains me

I used a brush and GOSH Nero to make the 'fluffy' lines. It went alright.

I got a free mini top and base coat with on of the Quo polishes I got, so I figured I would try it as a topcoat. Not sure if it was because it was a mini, but it went pretty horrible. I got bubbles in the topcoat as well as it softened the polish too much so even though it had been half an hour since I did my nails I got a black drag on my ring finger. This is why I shouldn't mess with a good thing.

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I did the spots with a dotting tool before I put my top coat on, My Vampire Is Buff is opaque enough that I didn't have to double up on the dots which I was very glad for.

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Over all I am really glad with Desert Sun, it is a lovely colour and really nice to put on too. I feel the need to buy more browns after this.

- Anna




- PS *personal* if anyone wants to see what the Olympic Peninsula looks like I made a small imgur thing of some of the places.

http://imgur.com/a/Ky9Ip

Fish scales, with Quo by ORLY Green Meadow

This is a quick filler I did last week before my vacation, because I forgot my camera at a friends so I can't get my newest nail pics off it. I will get it back ASAP but in the mean time, enjoy .

I decided to have some fun with my stamping plate and nail brushes. I love scales of all types so I decided to use the few greens I had at the time (I got three greens while I was in the US) and do scales.

I used a base of two coats of Green Meadow, and then stamped GOSH Nero over it. I wanted to just mess around so I painted GOSH Holographic Hero at the top to give it a super shine and at the bottom I did a little swipe of  Ruby Wing Green Peace.

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Green Peace is a colour changing polish that changes light when it comes in contact with sunlight, which is pretty cool because the scales looked different depending on if I was outside or not (I didn't get any pictures of the dark green it turns, because I took the picture right away as soon as I got outside and it didn't have time to change. Oops). I enjoyed that a lot. Also I did it once on a friends nail and with two coats it has great coverage and is rather smooth, it has nice formula. 

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On my thumb I used GOSH Miss Minty and a few strokes of Green Meadow with Nero just to try something different, I am still undecided on it. I also have no clue why none of these are shiny, they are not matte topcoat.

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I really do love Green Meadow even if it can be a tiny bit streaky, but not so streaky that you really notice. Overall I was happy with the look and how all the polishes reacted.

- Anna

Vacation nails, with Indie polish!

So I went away for a while and I had to pick nails to go with my clothing, but instead I decided to paint my nail with Dollish Polish - Space the Final Frontier.

I picked it up because it was a Star Trek Polish, on a night where I pretty much bought every Star Trek polish I could find on line, but I was really disappointed with it. Not because it's not pretty, I love how it looks, but because I didn't feel any connection between it and Star Trek. Was it can't have been named for the colour. Because the warp nacelles only have red and blue, so it's not like it was referring to the colours on the ship. The closest I could think that is green is the Romulans. Unless they think it looks like stars, which I am not really feeling either. So don't buy it because it's a Star Trek polish, buy it only for the colour.

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Now that I got my disappointment in it out of the way I want to tell you how lovely it is, and how much I would actually recommend it. It is a pretty duo-chrome of teal-green and purple set into a black base. I used Butter London Stag Do on the tips with striping tape so control the strips. Also that is only two coats of Space the Final Frontier, so it is nice and opaque, although with one coat it looks streaky so it is a two coater for sure. At two coats it is perfection.

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When there is no light reflecting on the sparkles it looks almost like a pure black polish. I tilted just so that I could get a good picture of it. Also I think Stag Do really stands out here, although the bottle had shimmer in it, I never have ever seen it when I put it on my nails unless it's like the highest light ever.

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I didn't have my normal lights because I was on vacation, but on day three of this polish I got this picture where you can actually see the purple for once. Pretty.

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I like this out of focus picture because it shows how well the polish shines in the light! It is very pretty, although I am not 100% fan of the brush that comes with this polish. It was okay, but it's not the super easy to use type of brush I like. I would recommend this polish for it's colour and it's formula, but not for having anything to do with Star Trek. Although I am still in love with it.

Edit: Just wanted to add the Star trek Polish dries a little tiny bit matte, not super matte, but less than if you have a good top coat on it. So you would probably want to throw a top coat on for sure.

- Anna

Happy Canada Day!

Since I teach ESL I often feel like Canada Day is the most special day of the year, it's when we celebrate what it is to be Canadian and it's when immigrants get to see some fun traditions.

Also who can complain about beer and fireworks!

I didn't want to do just the Canadian flag since I feel that there is so much more to it. So I picked to do one white cross to represent the English speakers of Canada and a red one for the French. Why you might ask!?

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"In the First Crusade Bohemund I, a Norman lord, had red crosses cut from his mantles and distributed to the 10,000 crusaders, who wore them as a distinctive badge on their garments.

In subsequent crusades, each nation was distinguished by a cross of a different colour. France long had a red cross on its banners while England used a white cross. In the course of history, red and white alternated as the national colours of France and England.

Red and white were approved as Canada's official colours in the proclamation of her coat of arms in 1921.
In 1957, the colour of the maple leaves on the shield of the Royal Arms of Canada was changed from green on a white ground to red on a white ground in recognition of Canada's official colours." - Canadian Heretage website.

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I freehanded the stripes which is why they are a little wokey, but I am over-all happy with how it turned out. I used OPI Alpine Snow for the white, two coats for the base, and used a brush to pain on the stripes and the leaf. On my pointer I used two coats of OPI Kennebunk-Port for my red background and was totally pleased at how well Alpine snow painted over red.

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Any way, I am posting this instead of my vacation nails (I totally bought 9 new polishes while I was away) and I will put them up when I get a chance.

Happy Canada Day everyone!!

- Anna

Fun with OPI deutsch you want me baby and GOSH Galaxy

Okay ,so I went on vacation and forgot to post here, so I am in the hotel and posting what I did to my nails last week while my niece was here. She had never seen striping tape before so I decided to show her using OPI deutsch you want me baby (which I bought purely because my grampy is German, and it reminded me of when we spoke in German together when I was young, so I have never worn it since I bought it) and GOSH Galaxy, because SPACE!

I wasn't sure that they went good together, but sometimes I just like to try things to see how it will end up.

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It was weird, but I liked it. Although my thumb finally caught on something and I had to cut it down to nothing when it tore in half.

OPI deutsch you want me baby is actually wonderful, sometimes with OPI shimmers you get a really streaky look, but this didn't have that at all, it just went on and was a lovely bright shiny orange. I know the picture doesn't look orange, but it is really. I used two coats, but I only needed that because I did them really thin. The formula was great in this one, and now I want to use it again.

Shade 

I wanted to add in a shade picture because I think Galaxy is amazing and I wanted to show just how different it looks when it is shining to when it isn't. It's an almost bronze base with tons of glitter in it. Mostly you will see the gold, silver and blue in it, but there is green, pink and purple in there too. It is an amazing mix of colours that manages to pull it all off when put together.

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I feel like this one matches the real life colour the best, I found it grew on me a lot in the two days I wore it, and I feel that these are both lovely polishes.

Okay back to relaxing for me, I will post my vacation nails when I get back!

- Anna

Fanchromatic Nails - Rebel Heart

This is another one of the polishes I bought from Fanchromatics nails, it's name is Rebel Heart. It is one of the best glitter polishes I have ever seen. I am already in love with Fanchromatics after trying two polishes.

Rebel heart is an amazing red-orange shimmer, it had both gold and red micro-flakes, and two sizes of gold hexes and mini gold circles.

I did no cleanup before taking pictures so don't let that take away from the pure love that is Rebel Heart.

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When I first saw pictures online I thought it just looked okay and bought it purely because it was Star Trek themed. I have never been so wrong about a polish.

On my thumb and ring I put it over OPI Kennebunk-Port, because I thought it would need something under it. I think it is a good idea, just so that you can use only one or two coats of Rebel Heart, but I honestly don't really see that much of Kennebunk-Port under it, since it is a very cherry red colour.

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I dabbed Rebel Heart over GOSH Nero on the rest of my fingers, just to test how it would cover on black. I Think it worked wonderfully, although I ended up liking it better on the second test when I did a much thinner coat. 

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Rebel Heart is named after the Star Trek character Kira Nerys who fought as a rebel during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. She was later a Major on DS9 where she worked as the first officer with a Federation Commander. She has strength, and so much passion to fight for what she believes in, I think this polish fits her better than anything.

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This is just a test to see how smooth other polishes would go over and just to see what a thin back coat looks like. I really like it both ways, the polish applies super easy just like the other one I got. 100% would recommend, and I already personally regret that I only got a mini-bottle. I will for sure buy a full bottle when this runs out. 

- Anna