Sparkled Beauty

Today's mani is season appropriate, just a year late lol. This is Finger Paints Aloha Lei from the Poolside Paradise collection (Summer 2014).

I haven't bought many bright nail polish this year, considering how long of a winter we had, so we'll have to go back in time a bit.

I did one and a half coats here to intensify the metallic shimmers in Aloha Lei. Can't say I have enough of that.

I admit the neglected cuticles do not do the colour any justice, but just ignore that and let this bright orange brighten up your (and my) mood. I sure can use some better mood!

Aloha Lei is very close to Color Club Sparkle and Soar (Take Wing collection) or Claire's Little Dipper (Starstruck collection). All LE shades, unfortunately.

How has everyone's summer going so far? Other than wearing bright nail polish, strappy sandals and summer dresses, I don't have many positive thoughts to go on with. Plus our Canadian dollar tanked so bad this week that it hurt the wallet to do any kind of US shopping.

Oh well, at least it is warm out. I won't complain too much, as pretty soon I'm gonna have to complain about the snow all over again lol.

The day after the blizzard for us today!

We got less snow than anticipated, but it rained ice pellets into the night, resulted in icy roads and slow travel this morning.

I am just happy we got to stay in, safe and sound. Squirt had fun playing in the snow with neighbour friends.

Let's get away from all that snow and talk about Finger Paints Underwater Enchantress from the Enchanted Mermaid collection (Summer 2014). I find it suits the collection name the most, based on how it looks :)

If you haven't tried this collection out, all 4 shades are specially textured.

I said "specially" because the texture finish is not in the base but in the glitters themselves. They are lumpy (scaly, the way Finger Paints intended it)!

I applied only two quick thin coats to minimize the lumps so you don't see them much here but trust me about the odd texture issue.

I love the glitter/ shimmer colour combination and the duochrome effect in Underwater Enchantress, but don't we wish Finger Paints went the traditional texture way instead of this? The collection is pretty to look at, but probably from far away only :)

A different NOTD today to change things up, shouldn't we? :)

I have always wanted to try OPI Sheer Tints after they created a wave of nail arts in the Spring, but forgot all about them. Last week, a little $4.99 clearance tag was attached to the display at Lawtons and I grabbed all 4 :)

This is a purple and silver sandwich mani with OPI Don't Violet Me Down.

Described as tinted gelly top coats, OPI Sheer Tints showed up on the nails a lot better than the name suggested. First coat already gave off some light colour and second coat was all I needed to get the colour payoff like a regular nail polish.

The first pic was taken in the shade, and the second one was in sunlight.

With this mani, I alternated a coat of Don't Violet Me Down with a coat of glitters from Finger Paints Copy Cat (bottle shot below) after a  base coat and a layer of base colour - OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls for easy removal.

Since the Sheer Tints act as a top coat already, OPI suggests no top coat to follow, but I did anyway. I got 3 days of wear out of this mani.

One thing to complain about OPI Sheer Tints: the jelly texture was a bit thick and easy to get all goopy and stringy on the nails if I tried to do thicker coats.

As a result, wrapping the tip was not very easy, either I got either a glob of polish or a bald spot/ line near the tip. They are not very visible IRL but are in closeup unfortunately.

Removal was not easy either, since the glitters in Copy Cat were quite chunky. Almost comes with the territory :)

Next thing to try with these Sheer Tints is probably a syrup mani. Any suggestions?

This was the first mani that I did wearing Nail HQ ridge filler as a base coat.

Not that you can see it under the nail polish but it's worth noting that this mani only last a day. It wasn't the nail polish, as they last longer on me before, so chemistry must have been bad between layers :) The ridge filler worked better with other polish I used after this one.

The star of the look is Finger Paints Stargazing Lilac from the Shredded Chrome (Spring) collection. This shade caught my eyes the most at Sally's extra 50% off clearance sale last weekend with its purple and gold glitters.

It sucks that I cannot show you very well how beautiful this mani was IRL. Both pics (with natural light above and flash on the left here) showed more of the base than the glitters.

I used two coats of Stargazing Lilac for glitter density. It layered up beautifully, didn't leave any bald spots and didn't feel gritty compared to most glitters. If you come across this shade (or the collection), make sure to check it out.

Stargazing Lilac would have been opaque enough by itself after about 3 coats but I didn't want to have a hard time at removal, so I used a base.

It was OPI My boyfriend Scales Walls, a white cream with grey tint that was quite popular in the Amazing Spiderman collection back in 2012. I didn't realize I missed the edges until the closeup shot. The mani did look flawless" in the pics above, didn't it? :)

Unless you did one thick coat, I'd suggest two coats with this shade. It was the perfect base for Stargazing Lilac.

Hope everyone had a relaxing weekend. We were lucky not losing power nor getting any fallen branches in our yard during Arthur. The wind was pretty scary at times, I am just glad it was over!

Here's hope for better weather this coming weekend, I want to go strawberry picking :) Have a great one!

It might be a little extreme to call something a "favourite of all time", but I am gonna do it today, because it is a fact.

This is my favourite scented polish of all time - Revlon Balsam Fir from the Parfumerie line, on many levels!

The colour is a beautiful and deep forest green, pretty unique in my stash. It is also a one coater!

The scent is that delicious fragrance of the evergreen! I always have a soft spot for scented polishes, and one with my favorite scent is just "toxic" to me, I could wear it all year round.

Mind you, the scent is not overwhelming (nor artificial), even with a top coat, and slowly fades with time, which in this case is a bad thing for me lol. I want Balsam Fir scent to last forever, bringing my hand to my nose like every 5 minutes while I wear it.

Now if you remember my Revlon Parfumerie Canada vs US post, the line is permanent in the US but LE in Canada. I am sorry if you missed out on the line, or on this particular shade. Add Balsam Fir to your US shopping list if you are not sensitive to scents. And if you own it, try it now!

The random glitter accent is Finger Paints Crystal Springs from the Pastel Rain collection this Spring. When I saw the display at Sally, I thought the shades were pretty but only reached for the glitters and passed on the cremes. Typical me huh?

Good news: new shades of Parfumerie are coming out in Canada as we speak to complete the range. We are still one shade short from the line in the US, but who's counting right? :) For details, please check the post I linked above, as I have added some update near the end.

Have a great day, and enjoy the sunshine out there. It was still chilly early morning but I am just glad to see the sun, a rare occasion it is this year.

I sure was in for a big surprise when I swatched Finger Paints Spell Binding from my Boxing Week haul.

In the bottle, it looks like a deep red with multi coloured/ holographic glitters throughout. On the nails, it is matte and textured but still maintains the glittery look. How does that all work? I don't know, but I am super impressed.

Once I realized Spell Binding was a texture, no top coat came near it. The colour was pigmented enough with one coat, but I did need to touch up a few spots where I did not pay enough attention to the texture and applied it hastily.

Nowhere on the bottle notes this special effect the colour has. Turns out, the whole Enchanted Winter collection from Finger Paints are textures with glitters. I figured not all bloggers are smitten with textures, which might be why the collection didn't get featured enough.

I personally couldn't get enough the glittery shine on top of the textured matte base, so I went back for Winter Chill. Couldn't find Sparkle in the Sky, which to me is the best shade among them, a lighter cousin of OPI Alcatraz ... Rocks :(

You definitely have to look at Spell Binding in closeup as it is that beautiful!

Finger Paints got it right with this collection, and have you gone out and grab a few flakies from their latest Kaleidoscope collection? The display is small, only has about 2-3 bottles of each shade.

There will be a BOGO deal on Finger Paints next month (already online if you are in the US, shipping to Canada is not worth the saving), by then the collection would probably be gone for good. I won't recommend waiting :)

So, Halifax is done with another blizzard yesterday. Snow drifts are horrible in my back driveway, so shoveling won't be fun. Oh my (old) back! :)

Oh how I wish Joe Fresh Navy is a little more navy. There is certainly dark blue hint in there but the colour is so dark that it looks almost black in most lighting. The flash did bring out the colour a bit more than IRL, I'm glad.

This is another bottle I picked out from my Kijiji haul. I am so bad at tackling my untried pile, so I try to commit to use a lot of shades from this bunch before moving on to the next pile.

Surprisingly, I hadn't owned Navy already. The quality and application are consistent with other Joe Fresh shades I tried.

Decided to jazz up Navy with some green flakies in Finger Paints Flecked, with Claire's matte top coat. I always prefer a mattified flakie look, and this one turned out not bad at all. Love all my Finger Paints flakie top coats.

It's only Tuesday and I can't wait for the weekend. I was so busy on Saturday running Squirt to 3 different recreational classes, even the whole day staying in on Sunday couldn't make up for it. And the shocking reality is I haven't been to my beloved Shoppers location for more than 2 weeks. That never happened before, unless I was away for vacation!!!

The weather has been going nuts here too. As I described in yesterday's post, 3C/37F in the weekend and then we got 22C/ 72F on Monday. How do you dress for that, lol?

It's a shame I waited so long to wear China Glaze Some Like It Haute from the Eye Candy holiday collection last year. It is glam, it is beautiful and it is glittery but it is dark, that might be why.

I started out with a blue/ teal colour on my nails (see below) but didn't feel like it was what I wanted. Not feeling crackles anymore, so a glitter top coat it was. Saw Some Like It Haute and thought it might be cool to see it over a coloured base.

And here we are, Some Like It Haute over blue :)

I was so glad that the idea worked out well. Some Like It Haute was sheer enough to allow the base colour to show through - Finger Paints Add & Abstract.

The dark base in Some Like It Haute changed the brighter blue in Add & Abstract into a dusty dark blue, which I really liked underneath different colours of glitters.

If they make a nail polish like this combo (if no one has done that already), I would buy it for the convenience. I'm bad at relating colours for dupes and stuff, all I know is this combination rocks.

Check out the glittery glow in this shot. The shade looks like it has multi coloured glitters in the bottle. On the nails, it looks mostly silver in the charcoal base. The random shine on the chunkier glitters, depending on the lighting source, makes it a really interesting colour.

Maybe next time, I'll try a purple or plum base with Some Like It Haute. I like a good glitter top coat, and dark base is just season appropriate. I'm trying to transition into Fall, still break out and try a bright one here and there, but I'm trying :)

On a personal note, I'm going through one of those roller coasters of emotions. Had a really bad night on Sunday, cried it out on twitter, felt like giving up. It was better yesterday, I lightened up a little, then was treated a crazy lobster dinner with all the jazz. Maybe I just need a good red lipstick then all is good in the world :)

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.

After more than a month being away, I was itching checking out deals around town. This is a bunch of purchases I did since I came back from vacation, hope they are helpful for some of you who are looking for the same things.

First stop was Lawtons as I love their clearance sale. I kinda miss it when I was away :)

Found all 4 bottles from Nicole by OPI Holiday Glitters collection which I passed when it first came out due to the high price tag. Gladly bought them now at half price.

From L-R: Snow-man of my dreams, Glitter in my Stocking, Orna-ment for Each Other and My Sleigh's in the Shop, CAD4.97 each.

Also found the 2 highly coveted shades for cheap - Revlon Topspeed in Mistletoe, CAD1.62 and L'Oreal Owl's Night, CAD2.97. There are OPI Grand Slam duos and China Glaze holiday sets on clearance too, if you are looking for those.

The luck didn't end there, as I found these Twilight Beauty's pack full of products, red-tagged for CAD9.99.

Product combinations are different in every pack, 6 products each ranging from face palette, eyeshadows, mascara, lip stain to nail polish.

By the look of it, each pack values at least $60, the nail polish itself already costs $7. Good steal, no?
I want to do a giveaway for one of these packs but only with enough interest, let me know.

Didn't want to miss Sally's Boxing Day sale, I went to the one near the bf's parents'. All red-tagged items were extra 50% off that day. Prices mentioned below are the tag price, before the extra discount.

I scored Orly's Birds of a Feather trio, with Sweet Peacock, Lucky Duck and Fowl Play, and a peacock feather bag, CAD7.99.

I also grabbed Orly Oui, CAD4.49, Finger Paints Comet's Collar, Silver Crackle and Red Crackle, CAD3.99 each. I scored a Caboodle black lace train case, CAD29.99, but already put it away, so no pic. It was really cute though :)

Last week I was lucky to be able to locate the Finger Paints Special Effects, with the help of the person behind Sally's twitter account. I got 4 - Twisted, Asylum, Motley and Flecked, passed on Flashy as I already have Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure and the likes. We do pay more in Canada, CAD6.29 each (with card, compared to $4.99 in the US).

Took advantage of this month's promo for a free China Glaze (excluding the Eye Candy shades) with a purchase of Seche Vite top coat (CAD9 with card). I picked White Cap as it is a fun layer shade. Looking back, this turns out to be an all white haul interestingly lol.

And lastly, if you haven't heard about the biggest sale at the Body Shop, you do now.

Holiday scents - Cranberry Joy, Candied Ginger and Spiced Vanilla (single products and gift sets) are 70% off (except the body butters being reduced from CAD18 to CAD10).

Online seems to have better stocks than in stores, but shipping is CAD7.95/ order or free with orders of CAD75 or more.

This is the Shower, Scrub and Moisture collection (I picked Cranberry Joy), reg. CAD25, now CAD7.50. Inside the hex tin box are a full sized shower gel, mini body butter and scrub, and a soap.

Was lucky to find this Body and Lip care collection in Candied Ginger (no sign of the other 2 scents of this), CAD45 down to CAD13.50.

I prefer this set than the above set, as it comes with all full sized products - shower gel, body butter, scrub and lip balm.

Like I said above, the body butter is not 70% off (CAD10 right now), so paying CAD13.50 for the set is a steal.

There is a Deluxe Gift box that is an upgrade from this set, adding a full sized shimmer lotion, a soap and a bath lily, CAD60 down to CAD18 but only the website has it. I couldn't find it in stores.

Note that your receipt will come with a coupon for $10 off your next purchase of $40 or more. Never saw this with TBS before :)

No pic of my Shoppers haul as all I bought were the L'Oreal Infallible eyeshadows, as backups and gifts. CAD6.99 is the best price I have seen on these so stock up, if you haven't already. The 6 new shades from the L'Or collection are a little hard to find right now unfortunately, it took me 3 locations to find them. Hope you can take advantage of this sale before it's over. Happy Monday!

With the Finger Paints haul I posted about yesterday, I thought it'd be the right time to retake pictures of my Finger Paints stash to show you. It is certainly a bit bigger than what it was 2 months ago when I first brought them out of the box to take pics, lol.

First, the red family. Sally had these on sale a while back, and some are back on sale now.

First row, from L-R: Magenta Mood, Pink Crayon and Signed by the Artist.
Second row: Mixed Media Maroon, Art Appreciation Apricot, Museum of Modern Mauve and Camarel Cape.

It's always surprising to see how many shades in the red family companies could come up with. The bf would say they look the same to him, lol, but we know better, don't we?

Second batch, first row: Evergreen Dream, Snowman's Scarft and Sparkling Snow (from the holiday collection last year).
Second row: Decked with Dazzle, Icy Iris and Cobalt Cardigan.

I bought the holiday bottles just for the holiday spirit at the time lol. It's not like I didn't already have enough green, red or silver to represent Xmas, but they were too pretty. To me, it is a lot harder to resist a good colour of nail polish than a shade of eyeshadow. Gasp, I know. I used to be an eyeshadow addict. Guess I changed, lol.

And the last batch: Hue Left a Message?, Hue Rang?, Easel-y Entertained and You Hue!. What's up with "Hue" in the names, lol?

Undeniable, they are too pretty to pass up. I could have grabbed a few more from the display if I didn't manage to control myself.

It took me a while to reach out to a new brand like Finger Paints, as I used to go to Sally just for China Glaze. And I'm glad I did. It is a good brand with good range of colours, good colour payoff and wear. Do you like Finger Paints?

On another note, I won tickets to the advance screening of SATC2 tonight, how exciting, lol. My girl friend isn't available, so the bf has to fill in the spot. For our time zone, it's at 9pm (I think they wanted the screening happens at the same time across the country), not the best time but I can't complain. It is not warm here at all since yesterday, so it's gonna be a chilly night :-)

I was very late going to Sally this month. I wanted the new Finger Paints at the end of April while the B2G1F sale was still on, but my Sally didn't want to put them out until May 1. Then I had to wait for my 15% off coupon (as I sure spent enough last month to qualify for one) which was sent to me late, so I didn't go until last Sunday.

The display was missing a few shades, so I skimmed through quickly and picked these 3.

From L-R: Finger Paints Hue Left a Message?, Hue Rang? and Easel-y Entertained (CAD4.99 each, before the 15% discount). And with that, I was supposed to get a summery colourful clutch as GWP but they were all out of it, so sad. They gave me this Kimberly clutch that was the promo clutch for Coloresse purchases.

The very last bottle on the right is Pink Crayon from the discounted bunch. Sally in the US had some Finger Paints on clearance for $1.99, but in Canada, they were CAD2.79.

So the rule of thumb with Sally is to go there as soon as you can at the beginning of the month. Stock would be the best then, and any GWP promos like this one with Finger Paints would still be available.

It was so gorgeous out yesterday and I had a great day because of it. Yay for the first day of Spring, even though we will have to come back to regular spring weather after this :-)

I had to get up early in the morning to "beat the clock". The campground we wanted to try out this summer had this promotion yesterday where you can get great discount if you can call in as early as 7am. Because of that, I was a little sleepy during the day.

To celebrate the nice weather, we went to a very nice park near where I live. It's right on the water, has a playground and lots of green space for kids to run around. It felt so great just to sit in the sun and watch the kiddo play.

I picked Finger Paints Caramel Cape for the weekend. It's quite a fun colour, with smooth application and opacity.

So far, I am loving Finger Paints' quality, just wish that Sally could keep the price low so that I don't feel too bad to haul some more :-)

This is Caramel Cape matte. I was curious to see how it looks with Matte Magic on top. Didn't turn out too bad, I think. Love the option of changing the look of the polish with the top coats.

We went for Korean food last night. Found a small section of Korean dishes off the menu of a Japanese sushi place - quite interesting, so we decided to try it out. It didn't beat the Korean BBQ we had in Toronto, but made due for now. I had hot stone bibimbap, quite good. Everything was sizzling, fun! Loved that the pot was still hot by the time I finished the food.

So it was a quiet Saturday, but I do have a little haul coming up soon :-) Can't help it, the stuff was on sale, lol.

My Sally ran out of China Glaze Lemon Fizz last weekend, I got Orly Lemonade from the new Sweet collection (with the little gloss hanging on the side) for CAD4.99 (on sale), hoping for dupes. Found out that they aren't close.

The positive side of the trip is I didn't walk away with 1 polish. Found a few Finger Paints in a clearance basket. And they were CAD1.50 each. SCORE!

Most of the shades are in the red family and I didn't own any of them, which explains 6's, lol.

I got:
First row, from L-R: Magenta Mood (fine glitters), Mixed Media Maroon (shimmer), Museum of Modern Mauve (shimmer).

Second row: Art Appreciation Apricot, Signed By the Artist, You Hue! (all duochrome, by the look in the bottles).

They look similar in the picture, so stay tuned as I go through them and swatch.

A few notes (important!):
- China Glaze is officially CAD5.49 a bottle now at Sally everywhere (I checked).
The good news is they are on sale this month (March): 2 for CAD8, including the Up & Away collection. Go now!

The States unfortunately doesn't get the same good sale. Their flyer said 2 for $10. Interesting!

- A few people have found China Glaze Up & Away (the whole collection) at Winners for CAD5.99 a pop. A second source, if you don't have access to Sally's.

- Don't forget your Sally card reward (15% off coupon if you spent over CAD35 the month before) for extra saving.

My very first ... Finger Paints is on my nails this weekend.

I was so happy when I got Evergreen Dream as part of the Sally sale haul last month. I never owned any Finger Paints before, and this gorgeous green shade has been a very sought after colour within the brand. What could be better than this?

As I have been switching slowly to darker nail colours, Evergreen Dream fit right in. It's a beautfiul shimmery dark green, looks really shiny on my nails. I think I can get away without a top coat if I wanted to.

I'd love to have the brush a little wider to work the 3-stroke technique. The polish dried quite quickly which made it harder to do more than 3 strokes on one nail, so we have to be quick with this one.

And then, I read from a few nail blogs that mattified Evergreen Dream is a close dupe of Zoya Veruschka which I don't have. So I tried it out with China Glaze Matte Magic to see for myself.

I think the colour transferred well into a matte look, and got a little darker. I like the colour matte but prefer the shiny look a bit more. What do you think?

I'm thankful for matte top coats (whatever brands out there), as I could get 2 different looks out of each polish, which means we can double our stash without buying more :-)

Have a relaxing weekend everyone!

So on Saturday, we went shopping with my girl friend. It has been forever since I shopped with somebody else other than the bf and Squirt. Too bad my friend wasn't much into beauty products, so I went to Sally while she headed to Suzy Shier for some work clothes.

There wasn't any new China Glaze collection, unfortunately, but I did find very good deals on a few clearance items.

First row, from L-R: Orly Shining Star (a gorgeous gold top coat), Finger Paints Evergreen Dream, Sparkling Snow and Snowman's Scarf - all from the holiday collection. Too bad Icy Iris wasn't there. Still, CAD1.99 each was amazing.

I found the two bottles in the second row at Superstore. They were from the Sally Hansen Canada-exclusive collection - Burnt Sienna and Purple Heart, 50% off - CAD3 each. Another amazing collection, in my opinion. So, I was nail-polish happy :-)

I also got some clothes at Suzy Shier and Old Navy (taking advantage of the extra 50% sale on clearance items), so it was a good weekend. Hope yours was too.

The very first thing I wanted to do when I got back to Halifax was to check out my Sally. It might sound silly to some of you, but I had a mission to hunt down China Glaze Dorothy Who?, as the whole Wizard collection is disappearing at Sally stores. I was lucky to get 3 bottles from it (see the previous Boxing Week haul post) but missing the most pretty shade.

And I was jumping in joy when I saw the little blue bottle on the display of the collection at my Sally. It was the only Dorothy Who? left there, and it was mine. Omg!!!

The rest of the haul was from the clearance table. My Sally had BOGO on discounted items, and I had the first $5 coupon to use, so I got:
- Biolinks Firming Creme Masks (CAD5.59 for the 2) - don't know this stuff is any good :-)
- 2 nail file & buff blocks (CAD.59)
- Savvy Scarlet - a beautiful red (CAD2.79)
- Finger Paints Caramel Cape and Cobalt Cardigan (CAD4.99 for 2)
- Palladio herbal blush in Cappuccino and Wine (CAD5.29 for 2), herbal shadow in Raisin (plum) and Black Onyx (shimmery black), CAD4.19.

Another stop at the mall for Claire's. They had gift items for 75% off but the area was almost picked over. The 10 for $10 corner, however, got my attention, as I spotted nail polishes for me and Christmas items for Squirt.

The colours were very pretty, either shimmery or glittery. Just my kind of polish! Especially when they were only CAD1 each (reg. CAD5). Don't understand why they ended up in the clearance bin :-)

First row, from L-R: Yel (blue with holo micro glitters), Lime Shine (green with gold micro glitters), Meg Peg (purple with silver micro glitters) and Rock (purple giltters in clear base)

Second row: Flame (hot pink with micro silver glitters), Crush (orange with multi-coloured glitters) and Briar Rose (shimmery magenta).

Yesterday I went to a La Senza that had huge selections of sale items (the 10 for $30 panties, $19.99 push-up bras, $16.50-19.50 sleepwear, etc.) and was very "obliged" to get a few things, lol. Victoria's Secret Beauty Rush and Secret Garden items were 10 for $30 too and makeup 5 for $10, but selection wasn't that great, so I passed. Today, the store in the mall had more items to choose from, and some bottles of Honey-do, Appletini, Love Spell, etc. went home with me.

Remember the news about Victoria's Secret is coming to Canada that I blogged about last September? The lady told me we'll be having a VS store around here soon, and therefore La Senza is clearing out VS products, hence the best sale price I have seen on these items. I don't know whether the price is going to get any lower, but selection will be limited for sure. Not knowing what the new VS store will offer, I stocked up, just to be safe.

Hope the first day back to work or school isn't treating everyone too badly :-) I was flooded with emails at work but made it through the day ok.