FOUND IT! Now you can see Kleancolor Chunky Purple!

So I the post after the skull nails was actually going to be another really cool Born Pretty post, BUT I lost my camera :(.  I looked everywhere for it and at first thought I might have lost it in the real world.  Thankfully I found it 3 days later in my room!  It had fallen behind my bed!

So for the past almost four days I have been wearing H&M Plum and Kleancolor Purple Chunky Holo over it.  I've already reviewed Plum, but Purple Chunky Holo is a multichrome glitter and not a holo.  The glitter is in a light purple base.  In all honesty over dark colours the base wouldn't really make that much of a difference.  Let me just say it is beautiful over plum and the glitter is noticable from a distance.  And I don't know what it was but this wore like iron.  At the end of 4 days it still looked perfect!

Ps. Don't forget about our GIVEAWAY!

Day 1 Sunlight

 Day 3 Indoors

 Day 3 indoors (2 coats of chunky holo)

 Bottle shot

It's my party and I'll watch spend all day doing my nails and watching cartoons if I want to

I am 25 today! Not into it. Being an adult is not cool. So I've spent all day watching Samurai Jack and putting together a fabulous manicure.

2 Kleancolors for this look: Mystic Grass, stamped with Black. I added some striping tape and rhinestones for shazam. Super digging these!

The unicorn stamp is Winstonia W117 and the leopard is M57 from Born Pretty Store.

A rare thumb shot! My thumb cuticles are normally totally gross but they're not too bad lately. Enjoy!

Oh, happy birthday to Canada as well. I guess I can share.

Born Pretty Stamping Plate...and Rhinestones!

Hello friends! It has been a while. While I love the changing weather, unfortunately, it does a number on my cuticles. But I'm back in action to show you a wonderful stamping plate from Born Pretty Store.

The plate may look a bit scratched - most of that is just acetone streaking. It arrived in very good condition. I started this manicure with 2 coats of Sally Hansen Gilty Pleasure and stamped with Kleancolor Black (5).

This was the design that really caught my eye on this plate.

Feathers...sorry about the bubbling. Clearly not the plate's fault.

I find the designs on this plate lend themselves very well to rhinestones. As a glamourous bitch, I do love me some bling. There are also a lot of creative possibilities here for loose glitter, microbeads, gold leaf...anything! As you can see, the images are quite crisp - very impressive for a $3 plate! Some of the smaller circles don't stamp fully, but it looks like hits of sparkle.

If you love nail art like we do, be sure to head to Born Pretty Store and use our coupon code!

*Products sent for honest review.

Peaceful Heart...or, Hearts About to Explode From Dropping Too Much E at That Weird Basement Rave

disclaimer: this is why I don't do swatch posts wow terrible photos

I found a great selection of Kleancolors yesterday for cheap and couldn't resist! I love their glitters. They're really funky without being too outlandish. I'm quite fussy about glitters.

Peaceful Heart is a sparse green holo-ish glitter with blue hearts in a clear base. The formula is a bit thick, but manageable. It is kind of loud and great.

1 coat over OPI Lincoln Park After Dark

2 coats. Dang, what a difference! With a bit of fishing, I was easily able to get hearts on every finger and acceptable glitter coverage. And totally different lighting. Because variety is the spice of life.

 The heart on my ring finger looks a bit squeaky because I tried to twirl it around with a toothpick. It didn't go very well. So, pro tip, don't do that. They are very easy to place with the brush.

Don't forget to check out our anniversary giveaway! How are those essays coming along?

Why wont you photograph Chunky Holo Fuchsia?

So this is the first of the 6 polish I have from the Kleancolor Chunky Holo collection.  I could not get this to photograph the way I wanted to.  Not in my lightbox, not in the sun, not in the shade and not underwater.  But I still got a few decent shots.

Out of all the colours this was also the hardest to pair for some reason.  I had nothing I wanted to pair it with.  But then I remember seeing a swatch on The PolishAholic that used Revlon Royal as a base and this. So I decided to give it a go.  For the base I used Ruby Kissed Blue My Mind. Then 2 coats of the Kleancolor.

Fuchsia is well a translucent fuchsia polish filled with iridescent glitter a la Nubar 2012.  In most lights this looks like embers.  It's really near because it's sparkly but not too much so.  Then when you take it out into the sun that's when she really shines and you see all the colours of her rainbow!  Well mostly red, orange and green.  She's a very limited rainbow.  But pretty still :)

 

I would say this is pretty much what it looks like most of the time in real life and with indoor lighting.  Less green though.

 

Under the sea! By sea I mean bucket of water.

Ps. I am soooooooooo tired right now so sorry for the sleepy review.   Anyways I already know what I want to pair the others with so I'm excite for that!

I don't think this is what one would call a haul but I do think it's post worthy: My first polish purchase in over half a year.

As some of you might remember I haven't bought polish in months for a couple reasons.  Well January first came I I could officially start buying again :)  And I thought I would share my first polish purchase since June.

Kleancolor's Chunky Holo Mini collection!  It includes Chunky Holo Candy, CH Fuchsia, CH Clover, CH Purple and of course my favourite CH Black!  I'm currently wearing Fuchsia over a blue jelly and it looks AMAZING!

 

It's funny because I actually felt a tad bad buying these after not buying any for such a long time :P  And before you start think I'm going to go crazy and buy everything you should know I'm probably the pickiest nail blogger you will ever find.  I rarely buy on a whim and I usually spend time mulling over what I want to buy before I actually hand over the cash.   I'm weird, what else can I say :P

ETA:  When I bought this I also bought something else that will be used in a flash giveaway eventually :D

Quickie post + PRIDE NAILS 2012!

So I have been conspicuously absent recently, and this will probably continue for another week and a half/two weeks.  You see, my family and I are moving shortly, and packing up our house is a busy, busy process.  Also I am still kind of in denial because I love my childhood home and moving is stupid.

BUT ANYWAY, enough of my wet-blanket-ness.  As you saw, Kas and I love Pride, and we attended two Prides this year.  In NYC I didn't do anything too exciting with my nails as they needed a bit of TLC.  So I waited til Toronto to really have fun with them.

I started with my favourite disco-ball sparkle nails: one thin coat of OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvellous with another coat of OPI Crown Me Already, but this time to add a bit of rainbow sparkle with a thin coat of Wet N Wild Kaleidoscope.

After that, I took a thin brush and used it to write HAPPY on my left hand and PRIDE on my right.  I blended the colours in each letter a little(though not as much as I would've liked, but hey, first shot) so I could have a fuller rainbow and not leave anything out.

For the lettering I used: Essie Too Too Hot, Finger Paints Outta Sight Orange, Kleancolor Neon Yellow, China Glaze I'm With The Lifeguard, OPI Dating a Royal, and Urban Outfitters Bandeau.

So what do you guys think?  Did any of you do Pride nails?

Guest Blogger No.2! - The One With The Butterfly...And The Girl Who Answers Emails ;)

Hello fellow nail art enthusiasts, I am Kelsie from kelsiesnailfiles and I am so excited to be doing this guest post here at Varnished Valkyrie! I am fairly new to the nail art and blogging world so I love making new friends (especially Canadian ones!) and getting the opportunity to showcase some of my work on other blogs :)

First of all I want to say that I have been a follower of Varnished Valkyrie for a little while now and I adore it! I think that having two contributors to a blog is a fantastic idea! Kas and George each have a unique style so it keeps things fresh and interesting.. it also sets them apart from other blogs (in a very good way). Thank you ladies for having me here, it really is a pleasure. 

Now, on to the nail art.. This mani was loosely inspired by a stamping manicure that I stumbled upon a while back, which you can see here (http://nailartandthings.blogspot.ca/2012/04/spring-morning.html). Before I decided to purchase my own stamping set, and long before i started blogging, I used to attempt to freehand a lot of stamping manicures that I found online. Today is no exception... I couldn't get my hands on that plate with the two butterfly halves, so I decided to wing it! 

I used Sally Hansen Salon Manicure Midnight in NY as my base (I only just noticed how perfect that is because Kas and George are probably lounging in NY right about now lol)

I freehanded the butterflies and added the dots using KleanColor neons in blue, pink, and amethyst.

Once again I'd like to say a big thank you to Kas and George for having me here! :)

Our 100th post! Have some cake and body painting!

HAPPY 100 POSTS!

So I knew this post was coming when I had it done about 10 days ago, but when I noticed we were close to 100 posts yesterday, I thought that maybe I'd do it then to make it kind of special.  So yeah, happy 100 post-iversary, Valkyries!  We're so glad to have you all with us and we thank you for following!

So this started when my good friend from school, Matti, asked me to be a part of an art project he's doing, where he blends music and painting to create human canvasses of people he meets/knows/loves.  I thought it sounded cool and I was really excited to be a part of it.  I was an art model in college(and occasionally still am) and it was always a TON of fun and a great challenge for both mind and body.  Until you can say you've fainted, naked, in front of a roomful of strangers, you haven't really had a rough day at work :P

So for Matti's project he has you pick out 10 songs or pieces of music and 5 colours that you feel represent you and then he hits play and starts painting.  I chose bright pink, leaf green, sunshine yellow, bright turquoise, and a royal blue.  He posts a blog about each experience afterward, so here's mine!. (If you look closely in the "before" picture, you can see my spectraflair holo nails!)

As he painted, the colours started to blend together and we had purple, orange, and all sorts of other bright, happy things.  Matti thought I looked like a tropical fish, and I have to say I kind of agree.  And no, he didn't watch the Gotye(is that how you spell it?) video first,

So enough talk, let's get to the pictures!

The inspiration:

The polishes I used:

L-R:  Essie Good To Go top coat, China Glaze Surfin' For Boys, Finger Paints Outta Sight Orange, Kleancolor Neon Yellow, OPI Did It On Em, China Glaze I'm With The Lifeguard, OPI Green-Wich Village, OPI Fly, Orly Royal Navy, Urban Outfitters Bandeau, and OPI Pompeii Purple.

Instagram pic - Left Hand.  Any of you on instagram?  

Feel free to leave your name or follow me @likeyoursilence.

Left Hand: Indoor lighting.

Left hand: Outdoor, natural light. 

Right Hand: Both pictures show outdoor lighting.  

For some reason my middle finger photographed horribly.  I promise it looks good IRL!

Happy 100 posts :)  To celebrate(or, you know, because I've had tickets for months...) I'm going to a Parlotones concert!  Can't wait :D