I don't know how I feel about you... I think I just fell out of like.

So just a quick post because I've been a bad blogger this year :P

1)  I don't think I have mentioned it here(or I may have just mentioned it in passing), but we have an Instagram now.  So everyone should go and follow us over there because that's the cool thing to do.  Everyone's doing it.

2)  This man.  All I did was use some white and then I used the saran wrap technique and blotted on Essence Ultimate Pink and Milani Dude blue.  I finally ended with a square neon pink stud from The Born Pretty Store.  I don't know if I like it.  I liked it when I originally finished it, but I kinda just fell out of like.  There's nothing wrong with it, I just had a really short like affair.

What do you think about this mani?  Are you in like with it?

*The colour of the pink stud was REALLY hard to capture in some of these.  In real life it is probably closer to the second picture.

Also if you would like to buy these studs you can get them here. And you can also use our 10% Born Pretty Discount code EAL91.

*Some products were sent for review.

Nightmare Before Christmas Nails: You can't tell me you didn't see this coming!

So with all the polishes inspired by The Nightmare Before Christmas I decided to do a Nightmare Before Christmas manicure.  Again I haven't seen this movie in forever but I remember the gist of it.

First I did 2 coats of Claws Polish Voodoo, a red jelly full of red shimmer *drools*.  Then when that was good a dry I taped off triangles and painted the rest black.  With a striper I added some white stripes with acrylic paint.  Finally I finished with a rhinestone at the tip of the triangle.

See what I did there?

It's the pattern on Jack Skellingtons suit AND a Santa hat!

Note:  Remember how I said my internet was all wacky and not working.  Well my internet has been semi fixed.  It's now sort of working.  Do you know how long these photos took me to upload?  Almost 10 minutes.  What is this 1997?  I can't deal with this.  And email is even worse.  I don't wanna get into this.  *weeps*.

You want me to pay how much for glitter?

I'll pass.

First off let me say I have no problem getting high end polishes.  I have quite a few, and I love them all.  But when I get more expensive brands they have to have a little something more to them.  They need to give me a reason to want to pay that much for them.  Dior has these new limited edition sparkling powders available through their website and Nordstrom.  The pack contains a fixing base, as well as black and gold glitter.  It comes to a total of $48USD.  Now I love Dior.  One of my favourite polishes I own is Dior, but as pretty as this looks, I could not pay that much for what essentially clear polish and loose glitter.

I had a 1.5oz bottle of Martha Stewart glitter in Onyx.  A sparkling black glitter I had been sitting on for almost 2 years.  I think I paid $5 for it at the time.  Used my essence Black is Back and just dumped the glitter on top of the wet polish(over a piece of paper).  I used a nail art brush to easily get rid of the excess.  When I was done I carefully poured the glitter back in the jar.  And while application was messy(and I'm assuming more messy than the Dior one because you apply those with brushes), I was easy to clean up.  It was super pretty, especially in person.  It would be great for a fun, yet more classy night out.  The only thing I would do differently next time would be to put the glitter over a layer of topcoat.  In the end Ii may not be EXACTLY the same, but it's good enough for me!

You can get a bottle of the Martha Stewart glitter on Amazon, and I'm sure you can find it in any craft store that sells Martha Stewart craft products.

Any thoughts out there?

 Outdoors(cloudy)

Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na Batman? Ft. Essence Black is Back

Happy Mothers Day guys!  I hope you all had a splendid day no mater how you spent it!

Before we move on to Batman I want to start by talking a bit about Essence Black is Back.  First of all those of you wondering where black had gone fear not it is back.  Second, I have been in search of a new black for a while as my OPI Onyx is lacking.  So I decided to give this a go.  It was cheap, what the hell.  Formula was...ehhhhh...ok but it started to coagulate.  I used 1 medium coat and 1 thin coat and it bubble quite a bit(which is my biggest complaint) but they were small enough for the top coat to cover it.  Long story short I'm still on the hunt for the perfect black.  Suggestions?

Next up I decided to add a bit of flair.  I took inspiration from a little game on my iPhone I have been playing for the past few days.  Draw Something.  For those of you who don't know what the game is you get 3 words and you need to choose one and draw it for the person you are playing with.  Each word is worth more or less points depending on how hard it is to draw.  Now there are people who play and are unnaturally amazing.

I suck.

But because I suck my pictures turn into magical, hilarious doodles.  I want to frame every one of them. Or draw them on my nails.  This right here is Batman.

These are my nails.

Nailed it.

These were going to be my Valentine's Day nails. Nails the boy will like (Somewhat mature content...don't worry no n0odz)

When it comes down to it I do my nails for me.  If people notice them that's great.  But in the end if they make me feel great that's perfect.

These nails were half for me and half for someone else.  The words on my nails(if you seek amy) are from a Britney Song by the same name.  It's also a double entendre(you see now why the nails aren't just for me?).

I actually wanted to do these around Valentines Day because I'm a class act.  And let be honest no one is really surprised I would do this?  Something fun and a bit cheeky :P

More about the actual nails now.  I started with a white base and the sponged on pink, blue and yellow.  Which when sponged over each other can create orange, purple and green.  Then I topped it off with China Glaze Fairy Dust.  I wrote the lyrics with a roller ball pen.  I know people have tried using sharpies(which I haven) and said they smear but I have yet to have this problem with roller ball pens.

Winner for our giveaway should be announced tomorrow!

I'm going to call this art.

So I have an appointment with those Mac Geniuses tonight and we'll see what going on with my laptop.  Until then I am relegated to taking iPhone photos, uploading them to tumblr, and then uploading them to photo bucket where I attempt to tag them.  Like some neanderthal.  Also the compute I'm using right now is so-so.  I gets the job done but as far as photo quality on this computer I can't actually tell if photos look good or not.

If they decided to keep my laptop hostage I will still try and post.  But unless it is a proper review for something that was sent to us I won't be taking photos with a real camera.

Well yesterday I really wanted to do some nail art but I had no clue what I wanted to do(as usual).  My brain immediately was drawn to these colours(I would name them but all the bottle are in another room and I don't have it in me to get them atm).  In the end I ended up blobbing them together.  My only problem was it bubbled a bit but it's not that noticeable so I'm not going to complain.

Easy nail art.  My favourite!

Literary Lacquers - Bionic Mmmm-Detector & My Secret Garden: Time to dust off those teal and erotic fiction tags.

So Amy the lovely lady, and brains behind Literary Lacquers was kind enough to send some bottles for me to review.  Before I get started let's just talk about what Literary Lacquers is(just in case the name itself didn't clue you in :P).  All of her polishes are based on books!  Which I think is an brilliant idea.  She will never run out of collections.  Also let's be honest it's a great way to make your fingers look pretty and at the same time maybe you find a book to read that you otherwise might not have found!

Today I'm starting out with 2 colours from Literary Lacquers collection inspired by erotic fiction.

First off is Bionic Mmmm-Detector.  Inspired by Nicholson Bakers novella Vox.  Which is written completely as one one phone sex conversation between strangers.  The polish is a black jelly base filled with tiny blue, aqua and teal glitter.  And it's also laced with fine silver shimmer which gives it an extra pop.  Now as someone who does not wear teal(at all), I feel found myself liking it a lot! I used 3 coats on every finger MINUS my ring finger.  I used one coat of Bionic over a single coat of of L'oreal After hours(a dark blue almost black crelly.)  There wasn't a huge difference but it tended to bring out a BIT more of the blue and it did take away slightly from the overall effect.  But nothing to cry over.

 Two coats of topcoat used.  Although one coat would be fine.

The next one My Secret Garden is inspired by Nancy Fridays book of the same name.  Which is "Hundreds of real women responded to Nancy Friday's call for details of their own most private fantasies. My Secret Garden is the daring compilation of those fantasies."  The polish is a glitter top coat filled with pink, blue, green, and light purple matte glitter and filled with smaller iridescent glitter.  I layered it over Essence Oh My Glitter! and OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls.  I used one thick coat on each.  I loved how they looked on both the lighter and darker colours.  My suggestion would be if you want the iridescent glitter to be more visible layer it over something darker.  More subtle(but just as pretty) layer it over something lighter.  This polish is like spring in a bottle :)  I suggest everyone buy it and then wear it to church for Easter.

And yes this is actually different from the 3 previous photos.  The white is China Glaze White Ice and the pink is CG Free fall.  In person they both looked horrific.  They are old polishes that would not dry and made application hard.  And since I actually wanted to wear this after a couple photos I removed it.

 Now I don't read any enough erotic fiction although I'm pretty sure I know a thing or two about the types of thing that go on in some of the stories ;).  So I personally can't say if I like any of these book or the other books in her collection.  But I do know after this I probably will go out a grab a couple from this list.

You can find these polishes and more over at Literary Lacquers Etsy shop here.   The polishes(15ml bottles) retail for $10USD.  And follow Literary Lacquers on facebook.  Oh also once the page hits 1000 followers(Currently at around 950) there will be a big giveaway! Anyways, stay tuned for more Literary Lacquers!

*Products were sent for honest review.

The Valentine Nightmare

And yes I do realize that this may be someone else's dream.  But it is my nightmare.  It's not even a Valentines nightmare.  It's just a general nightmare at the moment.  I have no money, I'm selfish and I want to be able to sit in a unventilated room with my nail polish, without the worry it causing whatever rooted itself inside of me to keep it's tail and grow gills(THAT'S WHAT ☠POLISH☠ DOSE TO BABIES! FACT(that I made up)!)  One day in the future maybe.  But for sure not now.

As you could probably tell I'm not one for Valentines day.  My idea of romance is chicken wings with a side of Guinness.  I'm not a hearts and roses kind of girl.  So I really didn't know what to do.  I did a scientifically romantic one last year.  I'm pretty sure that was the only Valentine nail idea floating around in my head in general, because I had nothing this year.  I decided to do this because when you get down to the nitty-gritty of it this is a possible valentines day gift!

By the way if you still haven't figured out what this is it's a bunch of sperm Michael Phelpsing their way to an egg.

All I used for this was Essence Ultimate Pink,  OPI Lincoln Park After Dark Suede, and some microbeads and acrylic paint.

I have one more v-day mani.  It's less graphic and more distasteful.

 

 

ETA:

Candy Nails - See! I can be flippin cute (｡◕‿◕｡)!

Well look who's sporting a simple, super cute, fun, non threatening mani.  Me.  My nails are fuc*ing adorable.  I even have a pink background!  What more can I say?

This is what more I can say(????????).  These are actually inspired by the Cover for Robbie Williams new single Candy from his upcoming album Take The Crown.  The song kind of makes you want to skip around with a giant smile of your face. Well it makes me want to.

It was SUPER easy to do(like 90% of the nail art I attempt to do).  3 coats of Essie's Moonstruck and then dotted my nails with dots of varying sizes using Essie's Fishnet Stockings, Essence's Ultimate Pink, and CND's Rose Bud.

Boom.  Done.  Nail art master.

 Essie - Moonstruck, CND - Rose Bud,  Essence - Ultimate Pink and Essie - Fishnet Stockings

The cover for Robbie Williams single Candy

And did you think after going on and on about the song I wouldn't post it?

 :D

My one and only summer manicure: One Girl's Go At Saran Wrap, Pool Nails And Her Quest To Have The Longest Title For A Nail Blog Post Ever. Just Beacause. It's also a less weird thing to do than covering you nails with 50+ coats of polish. Remember that? I do. It was well worth it. I wonder if I could have written my post in the title? So I don't really like summer...

So I don't really like summer. I don't like heat, humidity, and the sun in general.  In my ideal world summer would not exist... and winter also wouldn't exist (minus on Christmas eve and ONE day in January but they would have to be one of those postcard snow fall days). 

Anyways the other day I saw Criminal Nails post.  She did pool nails using Saran Wrap. I decided I needed to do this.  Which is a surprise seeing as I go swimming in a pool maybe once every year(I actually like swimming just not what it does to my skin and hair). But it looked so neat.

My base was the turquoise by Essence, You Belong To Me.  Then I got a piece of Saran Wrap, scrunched it up and dipped it in a bit of Sally Hansen's pacific blue.  Then like you would when you are sponging.  I sponged/blotted it on. Easy as pie.  Alternatively after putting on your base coat you can cover it will a full coat of you second colour (like Criminal Nails did) and then blot it while the second coat of polish is still wet.

I thought it came out very summery.  It reminded me of a pool when the sun was shining through the water (What's that?  Do I hear heat rash?).  I really loved how this turned out.  I think I'll give it a go with other colour combos!  I'm also going to say these are Olympic pool nails.  There, now it's more topical.

 Love the bit of light on these last two nail shots.  Looks it really look like a sparkling pool.

 I covered part of a broken laptop protector and now I can throw polish and whatnot over it and replace the paper when it gets too dirty.  It's also nice and flat.

Essence - You Belong To Me: Pick A Colour! Any Colour!

Well I almost didn't post this.  When I was taking photos they all looked baby blue!  So I gave up.  When I was uploading a bunch of photos I was looking back at this and I realized they weren't nearly a bad.  So for your entertainment.  Here it is!

First off I hate the name.  I just hate it.  But I do like the colour.  YBTM is a light turquoise/green.  Hidden inside it is a fine shimmer.  I used 3 coats although I could have used 2.  Application was a tad goopy even after I used thinner in it. This is one of those colours that I need to be in the right mood to wear. Tomorrow I'll show you how I spiced it up! And I'll tell you why I hate what most people consider excellent weather.

Oh and check this photo out! I found it on my computer from about 3 months ago but never posted.  It's YBTM and Sinful Colors Nail Junkie on top of it.  It matched my dress to a T!

 

 Probably the most accurate shot as far as colour goes.

 This is how most of the photos I took looked.  leaning more towards blue.

Essence All Access

Another of my beautiful polishes from Irune!

Canada only just got Essence, but we only have a few shades, so this was really nice to get!  It's a beautiful dark green with blue tones and a blue shimmer that's only visible in certain lights.  I tried to get a blur going on a couple of shots for you guys so you can see the blue tones.

I wasn't sure how I'd feel about this one, because I don't wear a lot of these sorts of shades, but I might have to make an exception for this one, because it's shockingly nice with my skin and really classy.  I would love to have a dress in this colour.

Tried to get a blur going, it only worked a little :P

Do you guys wear a lot of greens like this?  

Any other nice ones I should look for?

Take That Part 2

This post was inevitable.  And in case you didn't know I have a mild love for Take That.

I got my inspiration from Take That Presents:  The Circus Live.

This is my right hand.  I'm surprised by how much I like it. 

 

My right hand is based on the Clown Medley.  At first I did colourful french manis in the colours of their hats.  But it didn't look all that interesting to be honest.  So I did it again and used the colours of their hats but used dots instead.  And my thumb is their jacket/pants. The horizontal lines look kind of shaky.  I find they are much harder to do than vertical for some reason.

 

Mark, Jason, Gary, Howard :D, (Robbie had yet to rejoin the band at this point).  Now you can fill out the Take That question in our giveaway!

If you want to know what colours I use feel free to ask.  I would put them but I don't remember all of the right now.

So I'm going to go now.  I had too much to drink last night.  But I'll leave you with the the Clown Medley, and a BIG yay for all our new followers.  Almost 200! Anyhoo...I sleep now.

How many coats of polish do you think this took???

5?  10?  15?  30?  If you guess those you were wrong.  Actually if you guessed anything that wasn't 53 you were wrong.  Yes that is 53 coats of polish (and would the base coat sort of count as 54?)

I was seriously bored, schoolwork was done, it was too late to go out and start anything so I had nothing better to do with my time than to do this.  To be honest I had actually thought of trying this before.  Just layering as much polish as I could just for the heck of it.

 

What I'm trying to say is if you have a dream.  Just go for it.

                                     

Most useful post ever.  You're welcome.

Don't worry real posts coming soon.

ETA:  This took over 2 hours to do and I actually stopped because the polish started to make me feel ill.  I had it on for just over 3 hours and it was super easy to remove because it NEVER dried.  I used a tissue to take most of it off.  And there's everything from creams to full on chunky glitters in there.