Emileeeeeeee!

Guys where I am is always so hot, and it's horrible. I feel sticky all the time :( I hate summer and I hate the sun. I really do. But you know what I do love? Singer/songwriter MIKA! This post has nothing to do with him, minus the fact that the polish sort of has the same name as one of his songs! Close enough!


Today's polish is brought to us by the Born Pretty Store. Now none of these polishes have individual names, just numbers. But the way it works is each girl has 3 polishes accociated with her name. So you can also get Emily in a red and peaches and cream colour.

Let's talk about the obvious first. The bottle. I can't deny it, it is super cute and the bottle alone makes it a great addition to any collectors stash. My one problem with the bottle is because Emily is so tall the brush is super short. Not only that, but at certain angles Emily's torso hides the nail you are trying to paint, which was a bit annoying for me, but I imaging it would bother people a bit more who didn't paint their nails as often.

The colour is beautiful. It's a shimmery pink/silver, that also looks like it has a bit of blue! Application was great, I used 3 coats for the sake of the photograph, but if I wasn't photographing it, I would use 2 coats. Now this formula is promoted as a safe for children polish that has no smell.  I'm going to be honest with you, I have no idea if that is true. The writing on the box it came in isn't in English so I couldn't tell you if it was actually safe for kids. But I will say it had a smell, a really strong one. It reminded me of Kleancolour polishes, which if you have ever smelt, you know they smell like poison. Polishes like the peel off one which were also promoted as non toxic pretty much had no smell to them. This was the total opposite.

While the polish itself may not be to everyone's liking, it is for sure something pretty that you can add to you display :) And it's currently on sale now here for $4.99 USD! And don't forget out 10% off coupon code EAL91 works on the whole site!

Ps. Here's the Mika song! Although I prefer the French version of the song "Elle me Dit"

I never thought I'd land in pictures with a face like mine - Audrey Hepburn

Today I have some Audrey Hepburn decals for you guys. When I saw these on the Born Pretty Store website I feel in love with them. For me I think it was because the dress had this water colour thing going on. And I can not get enough water colour! It also had words on the sheet, but they were all misspelt. I think I can still use the "Beauliful" one if I just put a line across the l, but I don't think "Angd on eaoth" can be saved.

Application was easy, just cut out what you want to use, dip it in water for about 20 seconds(I did it while holding onto it with tweezers), and then carefully slide off and place it on your nails. I did notice these seemed to be a bit more fragile than other decals I have used in the past, so just be careful. Also I found the smaller decals(a la pinky nail) didn't translate as well on to the nail because a lot of the details were lost. Over all though I like these, and you can never go wrong with nail decals! And then to jazz it all up a bit I did a dark purple accent nail as well as dark purple borders.

If you would like a set, head on over here and you can get them on sale for only $1.99 USD! And don't forget to use our 10% discount code (EAL91)! Because saving money is cool! And you can use it on the whole site!

*Product sent for honest review

It is NEVER too early for Halloween!

Well today is the last day in the Wiki Challenge, and I am on time! Huzzah! This week the wiki article was Horror Icon, which I was super excited about. Halloween reminds me of autumn and I love anything that reminds me of that. Also Halloween is an excuse to binge watch horror films, which I love as well.

I was actually a bit stumped when I was trying to think of something to do. I had ideas, but they were all of horror icons I had already done manicures with and I wanted something new. So I decided to go with The Mummy. The funny thing is I have never seen a mummy movie, ever. No real reason why I haven't, just never really been interested I guess. But I have tinkered with the idea of doing mummy nails before, but ended up doing something else. So this seemed like the perfect chance!

For this I started with a base of black. Then I just added a drop of brown acrylic paint to some white paint to make the off white bandages. To finish I added more brown and sponged that on top and added red eyes. I love how it turned out and it was SUPER easy to to.

Hopefully I will be able to do some new challenges soon. Because even though I am late some times or I miss weeks they are still great ways to come up with new stuff!

This is definitely not a-peeling: Peel off polish attempt #2

Well we can't say I didn't try. Today I have another peel off polish for you from Born Pretty Store it's by a brand called Témix. In the bottle it is beautiful. It's a goldish green that reminds me of Chanel Peridot but with holographic glitter.

Like it's counterpart from yesterday also dried quickly, but it also dried super bumpy. I'm not sure if it was air bubbles or fine pieces of glitter. To me it felt quite rough, which leads me to think they were fine pieces of glitter from previous layers. The formula was also brush stroke-y, but I was expecting it with this type of colour. Despite that it was not obvious at all once it dried.

This time around I used a base coat, and for one nail(which I forgot to photograph) peeled horizontally as someone suggested on Instagram. Overall the results were the same as yesterdays polish, and peeled the base coat and my nails. It's most noticeable on my ring finger.

It's safe to say I think I will be staying away from peel off polish. But if you do want to try this, you can get it here for $12.51 USD. And if not Born Pretty has zillions of other nail products that are fantastic! Remember to use Varnished Valkyrie's 10% discount code 'EAL91'!

*Product sent for honest review

This is not a-peeling: Peel off polish attempt #1

So today I have my first peel off polish from The Born Pretty Store. And I'm going to be totally honest, if I didn't have another one(different brand) to review I think this would be my last.

First of all this is bottle is tiny, well actually it contains the same amount as a mini Essie but because the bottle is plastic it is WAY lighter. The colour I chose was #18 and this time round I did not wear a base coat. It comes sealed in a plastic wrap, but mine leaked a bit. Lucky fr me there wasn't much that was lost. The colour is a beautiful pink leaning lavender and the polish smells like school glue. When I fist applied it it looked streaky. Fine. A second coat will fix that right? Wrong. Three? Nope. Although it's not noticeable in the pictures, in real life it is wicked streaky. That being said it did dry super fast.

 

I decided to put top coat on two of my fingers(Index and middle), which actually made the polish turn a bit pinker. When I eventually peeled it off the polish without top coat peeled away much easier, whereas the one with, peeled off in chunks. The one thing that really disappointed me was they took layers off my actual nail, and left them feeling blah when I peeled them off. I decided to take most of it off with remover to prevent further damage, but because this isn't normal polish it was hard to do. Next time I will try this with normal base coat, maybe that will help.

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Can you see how the index and middle finger in the second picture are slightly pinker with top coat? Or is that just me :P  

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As you can see my index and pinky finger took a beating :( The index is a bit harder to see because of the light, but you can sort if see it. The line that looks like the light reflecting kind of bends to the side. That's just below where the peeling happened.

If you think you can work your magic and make these work you can head on over here to get them on sale for $1.99 USD at the Born Pretty Store. And remember to use the code EAL91 to get 10% off.

*Product sent for honest review.

Le meilleur des mondes possibles!

So my nails are getting out of hand. I stabbed the boy for the first time ever. I contemplated cutting them for half a second and then I though "No." Although they may need a trim, but only because my thumb nail is broken really low down on both sides after I was trying to lift something heavy and it slipped.

Enough nail talk, lets talk about my nails some more! Today I have the Wiki Challenge done ON TIME. I actually have a few ones from weeks gone by, but haven't uploaded them. This week we got to choose a random article from Wikipedia. I got "Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs," a "written-out" jazz-in-concert hall composition written by Leonard Bernstein for a jazz ensemble. My only idea for this was to do music nails, but what I had in mind I had already done before. So I started to look for more insperation, when I thought "Leonard Bernstein -> Composed Candide based on the book by Voltair -> I have the book -> It has neat art -> I must put it on my nails." So that is how I got to my Inspiration for these Candide nails! I suggest you give it a read if you have yet to!

These nails are inspired by the four of the main characters listed on the inside of the front cover. For my base I used Zoya Jacqueline and everything else is acrylic paint. Then finished with Essie's Matte About You. Kudos to people who do nail art like this all the time. This took me FOREVER. Literally FOREVER.

Inside of the book where I took my characters from. You can see I used Candide, Cunégonde, Dr. Pangloss and Old Women.

This is another copy of the book I have. I found it at a used book sale. It's from 1930!

Rocks. Don't worry this post is interesting. I swear it's not an essay on rocks.

1) Today is Jason Orange's 45 birthday *claps hands* (I had a nap and then never finished this post. So his birthday was yesterday. But I will have a drink to celebrate tonight. That's mainly just an excuse for an extra drink :P)

2) I have been meaning to post this for a while but because of my lack of light box was hesitant.  But I bit the bullet and did a bit of improvising.

Today I have to wraps from Incoco's Modern marble collection. Application was like all the other Incoco products I have tried in the past, super easy, and they stay on really well. They are by far the best real polish appliquées I have ever tried.

First I have Set in Stone, A chic design of white and blackberry marble.

Then I have Masterpiece, A shimmery marble pattern of blues and pinks.

Overall I just thought the designs were just ok. Don't get me wrong they look really nice and the quality is top notch, but they just seem a bit lacking. Their inspiration was from marble and stone, and I just feel like these were lacking a bit of dimension. I feel like had they made this a stone collection and had maybe marble, amethist, opal, jade and made them look just like the stones they were inspired by it would be AMAZING.

If you would like a set, these retail for 8.99 USD over at Incoco's website.

*Products sent for honest review.

I need an affirmation

Hopefully I will have a light box this weekend because I hate taking so many pictures now.

Today I have some Take That nails for you guys. I haven't done any in a while! I know how you all missed them. My friend and I were actually going to go and see them, but Jason left so what was the point. That being said we did see them in Cinemas. Overall it was a fantastic show, but you can't really beat a bunch of middle aged men dancing. These nails were inspired by the live version of the song Affirmation from their last album Progress. Watch the video below. I was telling my friend their costumes reminded me of a cult. Just something I though of.

Also fun titbit: I don't think Gary Barlow sweats. Moist at points, but never a full blown sweat. Witchcraft.

Oh Canada!

Today is Canada Day! Which means it's time for a Canadian manicure! I say that like I do something every year, when in reality this is a first. And I wont lie, it's mainly because I find the maple leaf complicated to draw. It's easy, but even easier to mess up. So I was thrilled that I had a maple leaf stamp to use from The Born Pretty Store.

Honestly though, the manicure is just ok. I used Barry M Blood Orange for the solid red, and I used Essie Fishnet stockings for the stamping, as Blood Orange was horrible to stamp with. Then I just added OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls to the red nails. I also used that as a base for the stamping. The red was streaking all over the place 1)Because that red has a tendency to bleed and streak and 2)I had JUST thinned out my top coat, and it's more watery consistency did not help the cause :/

What do you think? Have I failed the country I love so much?

PS. I feel so bad I'm running a couple days late with a review post, but I have no light box which is making photos harder to take. Hopefully in the next couple of days I will have one. It will make taking photos soooooooo much easier!

PS. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROBYN!