Sparkled Beauty

This is a huge collective haul from different places at different points of time. I was waiting on things to come in the mail to post them all together :)

I jumped on the W7 bandwagon in a heart beat as soon as I saw all 3 shades I wanted were in stock on Nail Polish Direct.

I didn't know much about this UK brand other than the fact that they made cheaper Nails Inc Sprinkles alternatives, only £1.95 a piece vs $11.

From L-R: Mosaic (dupe of Nails Inc. Pudding Lane), Salt n Pepper (close to Nails Inc. Sugar House Lane) and Lava Flow.

The brand only has these 3 shades with this type of glitter mix so far that I know of.

W7 is also known for some cool duochrome shades, I took full advantage of the cheap shipping - £2.95 for 9 bottles.

First row: Metallic Mercury, Metallic Jupiter and Metallic Neptune

Second row: Metallic Mars, Metallic Venus, Metallic Saturn and Diamond top coat (free with purchase of 5 W7 nail polish).

Shipping took a bit more than 2 weeks. My Metallic Saturn came without a name sticker, I tried to email and FB them with no answer. This turned me away from ordering more from them (was lemming some Barry M), so be warned.

With Shoppers' very first BOGO event on nail polish about 2 weeks ago, I got:

- Quo Center of Attention (from a LE display)

- Nicole by OPI Back to Reality... TV (Kardashian Kolor 2012 collection), Coral Denominator (One Less Lonely Girl collection, supposed to be a Canada exclusive originally), and A Million Sparkles (a 2012 shade).

I was glad to see Shoppers starting to offer some great sales like this. The key point to success is to pick the location with good stock level.

From the Cult Nails birthday sale near beginning of the month for $7 a bottle (reg. $10), I got:

- Annalicious, Feelin' Froggy, Manipulative (all are to be discontinued soon), and

- I Got Distracted. I've been eyeing this one for a while now, glad to finally own it.

Shipping for 4 bottles was $8 to Canada. I am already looking into another order, cause Cult Nails is coming out with the colour changing top coats, hard to resist.

Killed 2 long time lemmings via Ninja Polish: Floam and Sticks 'n Stones, $9 each.

These weren't on sale or anything, but they were really really hard to catch whenever they were back in stock on the site. They sold like hot cakes, I was just lucky that day.

Floam was originally from Nail Venturous but now is bottled under Ninja Polish brand, I'm not sure what the story is, doesn't really matter though.

Canada shipping starts at $3.50 for the first bottle, then $1 for each additional bottle.

I heard about Candy Lacquer over at a few nail blogs and loved the shades they offered. The day their etsy store opened, great shades were sold out within 5 minutes. Craziness!

I missed out on the great LE shades, only got Honey Bee, City Girl and Argyle, $8 each. These are glitters with interesting shapes and combination, definitely stand out to me.

Canada shipping was $5 + $1 for each additional bottle. A little higher than I wanted, but it was worth it to splurge on these.

A CP from the US, thanks to a blogger friend, for some shades that I couldn't get here at the time.

- Revlon Moon Candy in Supernova and Cosmic. These have showed up at our Walmart now :)

- Sinful Colors in Why Not, Dressed to Kill, Let's Meet, Leap Flog and Cinderella.
This wish list was before the drama that Sinful had with nail bloggers. I'm glad to have these colours now, but probably won't buy anymore until I hear some good settlement.

I did really well at Sally this month. These are from 2 different trips - one when I first heard the China Glaze Summer Neons collection was on clearance for $3.29, and one when clearance items were extra 50% off (last weekend).

First row: Beach Cruise-R, Under the Boardwalk, Ride the Waves

Second row: Hang Ten-Toes, Love's a Beach, Surfin' for Boys, and Orange You Hot.

Still missing the green and yellow :(

Other random shades on clearance, also at Sally.

First row: Finger Paints Go Van Gogh; and Late Night Rendezvous (Summer in the City collection)

Second row: Orly Forever Crimson; Sterling Silver Rose; After Party and Dayglow (Feel the Vibe collection).

No sign of the great bright shades from Feel the Vibe nor the Orly Glam Fx :( If you can find them, you'd be one of the luckiest people in the world.

This last bunch was a surprise, as I thought they were long gone. Crackle fever might be over, but I couldn't resist the shimmers, especially when they were $1.50 each.

So here are China Glaze Glam-more, Luminous Lavender, Gleam Me Up and Jade-D.

It's always a good idea to call your store before heading over, as I found Sally's sale isn't necessarily the same across provinces. I had one fail trip where a sale hosted at my friend's store was not at mine.

Layla is on 30% off at Lawtons this week, the best sale I have seen on it so far. The price came out to be around $11 after discount.

Lawtons only has the shades from the first release, so I only got Flash Black and Ultra Violet (which, by taking picture, I realized that I grabbed a tester of, lol).

The OPI Spiderman collection was on clearance, $3.49 a piece. I got Number One Nemesis and My Boyfriend Scales Walls.

Phewww, that is all, for now :) Hope this is a fun read for you on a Monday.

Guess what? I went to bed last night, and woke up a year older. The magic of birthday, just like that and you are no longer as young as you thought :)

Don't know if you remember my birthday nails last year, I still love the idea but want to do something different this year. A little darker and more subtle, and I think I love this just as much.

I wanted a purple base that shines through the glitters, so I used Orly Purple Velvet. It is matte, but it doesn't really matter in this case.

The star glitters I chose was Cult Nails Captivated, totally birthday worthy. It has a light orange base, which lightens the purple base a little and makes it look more like a plum/ maroon shade, with the orange flakes floating around. Loving it!

On the accent finger is OPI Save Me, another awesome glitter shade. Multi coloured bar glitters and fine silver shimmers, just look at it in the bottle!

I'm disappointed that I couldn't show you how great these 2 shades are. If you have them and haven't worn them yet, do it now.

Glitter galore, isn't it? What did you wear for your birthday nails (or what do you plan to wear, if it's coming up)? I need some new ideas.

Hope everyone had a great weekend. It was rainy here but I guess the grass and flowers needed that. It feels a little odd posting a NOTD on Monday. I did "gift" myself with stuff over the last week or two, mostly clothing, jewelry and purses. And nail polish, of course. A birthday at this age only means one thing - a very proper excuse to shop lol.

It also feels odd that this is my first birthday spent being single. Bitter sweet. Squirt and I are going out for dinner tonight, playing low key.

Have a great day, everyone! Happy birthday for all the Leo out there.

Yes, I am on the dark side now, on my nails that is. This is the season of extremes, I wear either blinding neon colours or really vampy dark shades.

This Cult Nails Mind Control, a colour I passed when it first came out, thinking I don't normally wear shades this dark. But the enabling power of nail blogs pushed me to obtaining it during the $5 sale at Cult Nails.

This is 2 coats, good opacity and beautiful shimmer on top of a very dark purple, almost black. Certainly not a boring shade.

My pics might not show it very well, but Mind Control really has the super power of doing something to my head. Like I said, I went from not wanting to purchase it to wearing it all weekend.

Like all other Cult Nails colours I tried, Mind Control applied easily and wore well on my nails. I like the fact that the brand has been very consistent with quality and good customer service. Despite the fact that there has been so many etsy indie nail polish makers, Cult Nails remains unique in what they do.

I added a coat of Cult Nails Captivated on the accent nails, and was really happy with the combination.

Captivated has always been one of my favorites from Cult Nails. To be honest, it is hard not to favorite any of their shades, lol. I have a backup or two of it, and still don't want to use it too often, fearing it'll run out. You gotta admit, it is fierce and beautiful right?

Hope the sun is shining where you are. We are blessed with a week of warm and sunny weather. Squirt is going to the beach tomorrow, and I'm jealous.

Morning! My calendar said Spring has arrived, and it does feel like Spring. Knowing how quick the weather can change here, I just hope the sun stays around for a bit longer.

I have another Cult Nails shade to showcase today, the shade that drew me in the first time I saw it: Living Water.

Like its sister My Kind of Cool Aid, Living Water is an awesome polish. This proves that whatever Maria was and is doing with the formula, she got it right. I might repeat myself here, but despite the round cap that some of you might dislike, application was really easy.

I know Living Water looks a little like black in this first pic, but the close up pics below would show you that it is not. And don't forget to click the pics to enlarge for better view.

It is a dark base, packed with blue and silver fine glitters that are actually visible on the nails.

I wanted to experiment the colour in different finishes, so the ring finger was matte, and the rest were glossy. And I love both looks.

Obviously, the glossy top coat would bring out the shine even more, the blue flash is just mesmorizing. But the matte look was not anything less exciting, and it is a lot better IRL. The glitters seem to flow on the surface and shine really well too. I know my description sucks, you will appreciate the beauty of Living Water better when you see it in person.

And it is again, once more. Love the white ink on the label (instead of black as in MKoKA), as it shows the beautiful font of the words, not being hidden by the really dark background of the colour. Attention to details, we say?

Wear wise, Living Water couldn't beat MKoKA's 4-day record, but it lasted a good 3 days on me. The matte top coat seemed to compromise the wear a little, I'm not sure, but my ring finger chipped first.

So it's 2 wins so far with Cult Nails, and I have no doubt there will be more down the road as the brand expands. I'm hearing Maria might bring in a few frankens from fellow bloggers, wouldn't it be cool?

I do have a haul coming up soon, but I'm hoping to be able to grab a few more things tonight and put them all together in one post. Hope you will tune in tomorrow :)

Welcome to the Cult! Lol, sounds serious?

This is the very first creation of Maria over at Cult Nails. She's a blogger with a dream came true - creating her own nail polish line on her own, with fabulous colours and long wear that you can hardly believe.

Here you are: Cult Nails My Kind of Cool Aid. A dusty/ greyish lilac that stole my heart the moment I saw it. It is subtle enough for work but has very pretty shimmer that moves it far away from "boring".

I follow Maria's story about creating this colour and I know how much work had been put into it. Totally understand the $10 price tag on it too. It's very rare that I would pay this much for a nail polish, I have to admit, so I was gonna put it on my wish list (maybe for my birthday, or Christmas) together with the other 2 colours that she created a little after MKoKA.

One day, Maria announced that there was a fourth colour with this first collection, and she would offer it free for the first 50 people that get the first 3 (plus the current customers who already ordered the 3). And that just got me right there and then, and here we are :)

Isn't it a perfect and pretty colour? I couldn't get over it. One of the easiest application I have ever had with this one. 2 coats, and I was done with smooth and shiny colour on my nails. Take my words that the shimmer is there even if my camera can't show it.

If you haven't seen enough of this colour on nail blogs, now you do on mine lol.

And the proof of long wear: this is the end of day 4! Click to enlarge the pic and see for yourself. By this time, I already added some glitters on my ring finger, for a refresh touch. But all I had was tiniest tip wear on my ring and index fingers. No chips at all.

I have heard a few bloggers wore MKoKA for a week with the same pristine condition. Sold!

I received the other 3 colours last night and they are so pretty, all of them. I was very happy to pay the price for them, and can't wait to see more colours that Maria comes up with.

See all 4 magic colours on the site. The polish are B3 Free and cruelty free, if anybody concerns, shipped in recycled packaging and stuffed with cotton balls instead of packing materials. Bonus points!

It seems to be sunny today, and I'm taking Squirt to see Mega Mind with the Toonie matinee going on during this Spring break of hers. Have a good day!