A Doctor Who Post?

Sorry, I have been away for a while. I've been super busy, I wrote my first full one hour pilot episode for a drama(Someone pick it up now!) And if you know me, you know how crazy that is because I do 99% comedy. So this is a big deal. I have also been watching more Doctor Who again. You know I actually like 12 and I think the last series of the show was better then it has been in the past few years. So in honour of watching Doctor Who I present you with Zoya Oswin...because of Clara. It's funny because I don't really love her that much, but this just seemed appropriate :P

I bought this polish MONTHS ago, but only got it on Sunday. I shipped it to the States when I saw they were having a sale (I don't even remember when or what it was because it was so long ago). My mother then grabbed this and another Zoya I had ordered when she visited family we have there.

Oswin is from Zoya's fall 2014 collection of Ultra Pixie Dusts. This is probably the last Pixie Dust I ever liked. Out of the three UPD's from the collection, it was the only one the was totally matte. The rest looked more like a gritty glitter polish. Oswin is a bold red that has that the sand like texture of the original PD's, but with the addition of medium and small hexagonal glitter. I needed two coats for full coverage. To smooth it out I used two coats in the photo. If you want it TOTALLY smooth you would need one more coat.

If you would like a bottle you can find them on zoya.com. I though they were discontinuing them, but they are still on the site, so who knows. Also you may need a mule if you aren't in the States.

 
So I hope you guys have had a swell few weeks, and didn't miss me too much. But if you did I would understand.

Zoya Tomoko - Let's Compare

So for the past four days most of my food has involved putting kimchi on it. I'm officially obsessed with it, and I am pretty sure you can put it on anything and it will taste fantastic. Kimchi Stew, Fantastic. Kimchi Risotto, exquisite. Kimchi Ice Cream, a taste like none other. Ok well the last one may not work as well, but the others sure do!

Today I have Zoya Tomoko. Now I love textured polishes, and I was admit I was a bit hesitant to buy any at first. Am I glad I ever took the plunge because I love all the ones I have. They look stunning, you can top coat them, and they dry super fast. This was no exception. Tomoko is a fine champagne gold texture polish. In my swatches I used 2 coats, both of which applied easily. If you would like to smooth this out you will need around 2 thick or 3 normal coats of top coat.

No topcoat

 Topcoat

Tomoko, reminded me of Barry M Majesty. Now I knew from the get go that they weren't dupes, but I decided to compare them side by side either way. They are both champagne golds, but Majesty is slightly deeper. The formula on Majesty is a bit thicker than Tomoko, but they were both just as easy to apply. Tomoko is a bit more glitter hungry when topcoated. Finally the biggest difference is while Tomoko is just fine glitter, Majesty is both fine and larger glitter.  Oh and Majesty is a bit harder to take off because of the larger pieces of glitter. One thing they did have in common was since they are both soooooooo jam packed full of glitter I find they look less textured then they actually are.

Neon Pop! Oh, and Varnished Valkyrie turns 2 today!! Huzzah!!

Sorry I haven't been updating often, but I have been having bouts of insomnia and it leaves me feeling drained.  I'm hoping that passes soon.  I have nothing really interesting to share apart from I made the best slow cooker ribs ever.  The end.

Today I have this simple manicure inspired by Silvia Lace Nails: Textured nail art with a subtle splash of neon.  I loved how the colour looked just popping through the black textured polish.  For mine I used Milani's Dude Blue and Zoya's Dahlia.  I kind of changed up the french as you can see.  It's still simple, but a but a bit funky.  And even though the textured polish was layered over polish it still wore like iron.

In celebration of turning 2 don't forget to check out our 2 year anniversary wishlist giveaway!!

Lava Nails: This is the reason I have a bottle of textured polish. That and SCIENCE!

Fact:  I own one bottle of textured polish at the moment.  Zoya Dahlia.  One of the main reason why I bought it was to try this.  I think I would call this a success!

I started off by leaving on the base of Moonlit Dance.  Then with black acrylic paint I messily painted on where the black was going to go.  After that I painted on Dahlia over the black paint using a nail art brush, and adding a tiny bit of black on top of the orange.  This looked much cooler in real life as in some of the black areas I went over them maybe twice.  Then in other areas I went over them around six times.  Not only did I have textures going on because I did more layers in some places more than others it gave it this really neat 3D look!  After I did that I decided to go over the orange with a sheer orange Orly polish(I don't remember the name right now and I can't find it on the bottle(mini)).  I wasn't really loving how shimmery the original orange looked under it.

Fact: Lava- Molten rock above the earths surface, expelled by volcano.  Magma- Molten rock below the earths surface!

Ummmmm...SCIENCE!

Halo-Graphic... Plus Blaze?

So in my last post I showed you Zoya Blaze, a gorgeous raspberry polish, and in the post before that I showed you some of the Color Club Halo Hues - Today I'm showing you a little of both.

I don't have a vast amount of time to do fun nail art as much as I'd like to, simply due to my work schedule, so what's a girl to do with a day off??  Fun mani time!

So first I'm going to show you Color Club Halo-Graphic alone.  Like the other Halo Hues, I found this to be a great polish with great coverage and a good formula.  No dragging, no dulling, no bald spots, YAY!

Isn't she pretty???  I am kind of in love.

So, once Blaze started getting tip wear that was BEYOND not okay, I decided to try a fun and easy tape mani with Halo-Graphic, just to kind of upgrade my mani.  I love love LOVE how this came out and I will totally be doing this again, it was so much fun!

BTW, these photos were taken on DAY FOUR of wear for the complete manicure.  FOUR DAYS OF A HOLO WITH ONLY TIP WEAR?  What is this insanity?  Colour me impressed.

Zoya Blaze - My Dilemma

Now you guys know all about my love/hate relationship with Zoya.  They make awesome colours, they apply well, but they don't tend to wear well on me.  I end up with tip wear or chipping SO MUCH FASTER than with most other brands.

But the pretty colours....

So Blaze, from their 2012 holiday collection, wasn't really on my radar.  It was pretty, but nothing I was going to pay $10 for.  In fact, I felt that way about the whole collection.  And then I found a few of them in a hair salon's bargain bin(Seriously, this salon sometimes has the BEST STUFF in that bin!), priced at $2 a polish.  And being that I have no self-control... They came home with me.

So Blaze is a raspberry polish(some say red, some say pink.. I say it's in between the two) with a scattered holo effect that makes it look really beautiful and deep in the right lights.  It was really flattering on my skin tone and really pretty without being over-the-top.

I have on three coats, though you could get away with two.  This picture was taken about.. 8 hours into wearing it? And there's already tip wear happening.  I'm not so nuts about that.  That shouldn't be a thing.  Come on, Zoya.

Did you guys pick up any of the Zoya Holiday 2012 polishes?

Auditio-nails

So I have an audition today!  Hopefully I wont bomb it.  Anyways here are the nails I have on.  I just wanted something that had a bit of oomph to it, but wasn't wicked distracting.

I used Zoya Julieanne and  2mm gold square studs from the Born Pretty Store.

ETA: Audition was eh.  I didn't bomb it but it was improv based, and my improv is hella rusty and I could feel it.  Oh well, another time :)

The best part of Halloween?

Candies, of course!

Well, actually not.  I don't eat most candy being that I am apparently some sort of alien.  Really just chocolate and like caramel and things of that nature.  I am learning to like gummies but I can't chew them without feeling queasy so methinks the battle will be long ad arduous so I may just stop fighting and not eat candy.

But candy is pretty awesome on nails, as evidenced by the adorable manicure that I did last week after I applied my lovely white base!  I added some Ghoulish Glow on top to make it a little more fun but forgot to take photos in the dark.  C'est la vie!

So here is a cute little candy manicure!  I used about a million polishes and I can't remember them all but off the top of my head:

Urban Outfitters Bandeau
Zoya Charla
Zoya Ivanka
Cult Nails Annalicious
OPI Fly
OPI Did It On Em
Color Club Almost Famous
Color Club Fly With Me
OPI Pompeii Purple
OPI Too Hot Pink To Hold Em
OPI Y'all Come Back Ya Hear
OPI The Show Must Go On
Revlon Royal
Orly Glitz and Glamour (which is the gold bits and also the best warm gold ever)

Oh The Horror!!! My Attempt At Gradient Nails.

So I don't ever think I've posted a gradient manicure here because quite frankly up until now they have all looked like complete, and utter shit.

This is the first gradient I have not taken it off within a few minutes of putting it on.  I also wore it out (and was complimented on it).

All in all I've seen waaaaaaay better but for me this is pretty go.

*Hands myself an award for effort*

I used Orly's It's Not Rocket Science and Zoya's Julieanne.

Zoya FeiFei: In which Zoya is redeemed.

So you all know about my love/hate(more hate) relationship with Zoya polishes.  Much like Lippmann, Zoyas chip on me in HOURS.  Like, just so fast.  It's rage inducing to paint your nails a gorgeous new colour only to have to take it all off before you're able to wear it out of the house.  I very rarely buy Zoyas because I never wanted to have to buy a separate base and top coat just to use them.  I think brands like Zoya can afford to step up their game and make polishes that work with other top and base coats.  Come on, guys.  It's not hard.

BUT recently I decided to go for it and I swapped for the Zoya Colour Lock system,  so I decided to get myself a new Zoya to test it out.  I decided on FeiFei really easily, it was just so interesting that I knew I needed it, even if it never left my house.  FeiFei is a true chameleon, one of the nicest polishes I've ever seen.  A grey(I THINK) base with lots of blue, purple, green, and gold.  Every time it hit the light I got a different colour.  I love this so much.

So the big question, how did the base a top coat fare?  Well... Better than usual, but nothing terribly amazing.  I wore it for three days, had a very small chip on day two and a larger chip on my thumb on day three.  I tried the "system" with Charla and Mimi in recent days as well to similar results.  So Zoya with it's special and fancy "Colour Lock" system lasts for less time on average than A England with whatever I have lying around.  Sure, I'm impressed, but only because anything longer than two hours with Zoya on is practially a miracle for me.

Natural low light.  LOOK AT THOSE COLOURS DO YOU SEE ALL THE COLOURS?????

Zoya - Sloan: Why is your shimmery face in the discount bin? :( (+ classy rhinestones!)

So I think if you were to ask too choose what season I love when it comes to nail polish I would have to say fall.  When I think of fall I think of deep, rich, warm colours.  This polish is no exception.

I found this beauty in a discount bin!  At first I though "It's ok.............................LOOK AT THE PRICE...SCORE!".  When I originally bought it 1)I was just starting to get into polish so I never really looked at it. 2)Blind to it's shimmery beauty due to my naive, polish virgin eyes.  I did not see the truth!  But brothers and sisters I am here to show you the truth! The truth that is Zoya Sloan! Can I get an Amen!

Zoya Sloan is 2 coats of deep plum goodness.  Filled with some amazing pink and purple shimmer.  The formula was great.  This actually bubbled the last time I wore it.  But I'm pretty sure I used really thick coats, and didn't give it enough drying time in between.

Love this.  But I will pretty much go for anything vampy.  And to class it up a bit (Ha!) I added a single rhinestone to each finger.  A bit of bling yet not overdone.

 Why does this look berry? It's just another mystery of the universe. Plain and simple.

NYC Pride '12, Toronto Pride '11, and a condom haul! (Yes you read that correctly)

These are the nails I did for NYC Pride this year and Toronto Pride last year.  I did my nails again this year for TO but it turned out underwhelming so I'm not going to post them.  Also I never recorded what colours I used.  If you want to know I can probably guess for the NYC one but the one from last year might be a bit harder.

For NYC pride I actually did a string mani.  Well sort of. I used the same technique but instead of making it all neat I kind of just strung it everywhere :)  I also used a bunch of fine holographic glitter over the white before I added colour.

 

Left Hand

 Right Hand

For last years Toronto Pride I just used lots of colours and dots.  And of course I topped it all off with holo glitter!

Left Hand

Right Hand

Now the condom haul.  So at Pride if you're going to get one thing for free.  It's going to be condoms.

 

These are the condoms I got in Toronto.  Those black packages each have 2 in them.  So there is 7 there in total.

FACT: Those were being thrown out during the parade.  I actually had another pack but the lady next to me said "You have enough" and stuck her hand out.  You can never have enough!!!  I gave her a pack.  It's not my fault you can't catch.

Speaking of not having enough condoms.  This is what I got in NYC at their Pride market.  26 of these were in a single bag they handed me. TWENTY SIX! And my bag wasn't special.  EVERY BAG was loaded with condoms.  I ended up with 32 condoms (not all shown here)!