Swatch: OPI The Spy Who Loved Me

Hey guys, I wanna apologize for the lack of posts lately and just warn you that there probably won't be more very often for the next while. I'm in transition right now, I just finished my undergraduate and I'm going on vacation next week without internet. Afterward I have to look for a job, move out... basically start life. Erratic posts like this one will happen because I am willing to procrastinate EVERYTHING with nail polish so I hope you'll stick around (and maybe move over to bloglovin? I'd hate to lose you all).Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Anyway, I have today one of the bond girls from that mini set that OPI discontinued. The Spy Who Loved Me is a gorgeous rich red with gold shimmer. Because the red is a little jelly-ish, the gold shimmer is just red but still gorgeous. The first photo is one coat which looks pinkish (like Essence Glamorous Life?) but it really deepens with a second coat.

You can really see the gold come out in that last photo.

Talk to you guys soon <3

Swatch: Glitzology Partly Cloudy

Hi guys! I'm actually really impressed with the pictures I took today! I love the colours <3

I started with Essence You Belong To Me, which is unfortunately running out and getting gloopy. Gonna need some thinner in it soon but it's a lovely pastel blue and I will have to replace it. Hopefully essence still has it in their new bottles =3.

ANYWAY, then I put Glitzology Partly Cloudy over top. I looooooooooove Stacy's glitters! Look at all those shapes!

Then I matted it! Because purty! (After replaying my wrecked pinky finger with Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet...)

Eeeeee <3

You guys should go like her on Facebook and check out her wares on Etsy <3 She likes to have sales quite a bit ;)

Swatch: Julep Parker

It's been a while since I've touched a Julep, hasn't it? I stopped getting boxes, and the mystery boxes kept being lame and then went up in price by $5. This is from the trick or treat box, where it sounded like everyone would be getting a scarf or bracelet or ring and I bought in thinking I had a chance at the scarf. When they fixed their language in a comment halfway down the page on their ad photo I cut my losses. I got a really cool glitter out of it, and Parker, and then I found out I could get the scarf online for $2. Lols, Julep, F--- you =D

Anyway. Parker is a neon-y orange that reminds me of cantaloupe flesh I think. The first two coats left some pretty bad bald spots in the lighting I was using but the third coat worked out. It was definitely opaque in two though, in spots. I also like the formula.

At first I thought it made me look really lobstered but it's kinda grown on me now.

I'm going out to a party with these so I decided they needed a little extra. I added Rainbow Honey Frozen Flame (one of my all-time favourites <3)

Good combo? Bad combo? Tell me what you think =3

Swatch: Zoya Pixie Dust Dahlia

I had a nice sunny day for these photos =D Actually I did them for me (and a friend) about an hour before my last Psychology exam EVER. I also believe this may be my favourite Pixie Dust of the entire lot from the first wave of Zoyas. Now I just need to save my money to get my hands on the summer collection =D

Onward!

Ugh, LOVE. Dahlia is definitely my favourite.

These lasted two full days before I picked them off. I was actually pretty worried about that since I had decided I wasn't going to acetone them off like I have been for the rest. They came off pretty easily though when I was ready and I am so glad I bought it.

Are you guys over the textured look yet? I think I only have one more.

NCC#2: Pastels

This is most definitely a nail fail and I'm just gonna show you and be done with it =P

I started with Zoya Pixie Dust Nyx and then tried to do some swirly design on it with Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet. Dotting tools don't work well for painting on a textured surface, surprise >_>;

 I think at this point I tried to matte-seal it with Julep topcoat, but it just lost everything cool. As you may notice on the thumb, I also started out trying to stamp and it didn't really transfer properly and only got worse from there on the other nails so I gave up.

Well, be honest, how does my disaster look? =P

Baking! Cheese and garlic scones

So I have the best boyfriend ever. I walked over to his house the other day and he was just pulling one of my favourite things out of the oven: Cheese and Garlic Scones! Sorry, ladies, he's taken.

So the recipes he used are on the internets, and it's actually really easy =D I'm just gonna leave you the links I think.

Cheese-garlic scone recipe
Self-rising flour recipe

Obviously instead of large cakes and wedges Branden opted for lumps. =3

Now these are quite garlicky, and might not be for everybody. They actually last in Branden's house because half his family thinks they're TOO garlicky :D Happy Day!

If you try these, let me know what you think!

Omgnailstrips.com Review!

I've made it big, guys! A couple weeks ago I was contacted by a representative from OMG Nail Strips, a website whose goal is to offer the largest collection of nail strip designs for a lower price. The prices certainly are lower too! $5 plus free shipping. Anyway, I picked two designs and I have the first one today. I promise this is my honest review.

It's called the white floral strip or something and it's pretty much the perfect thing for spring =3

 All the instructions are on the packaging and its very straightforward.

 You start by matching the sizes to your cuticles, and then peeling them off.

 You stick it on (make sure you peel off both sides! and tug and press until it all lays flat. To get rid of the excess, I folded it over my nail edge and then used my nail file to file it off in a clean cut.

 Voila!

 It was super easy! I topped it off with a coat of Seche because it says to do so and removal involves warm water. I'll keep you guys updated on whether it lasts 7 days like the package says!

So overall, a favourable review. These were really easy, quick and had a nice shallow learning curve. This is my first time applying them and you can see that they came out perfect for all intents and purposes. Close up, I did tug a little bit much and tore some little rips into the design (you can kind of see it in the last picture on the index finger) but that's user error and it won't happen again.

The only thing about these is I have tiny little fingers, and my three middle fingers are all about the same size. So one of them got a strip that was too large and I had to figure out how to wear it down and clean it up. Luckily they're made of real nail polish, or something similar enough that a q-tip with some acetone cleaned it up easy.

I don't think I pressed down on the edges enough so make sure you do that and in a couple hours I'll probably add another coat of Seche just to make sure those edges stay down. I recommend not trying to get super close to your cuticle when you stick it down. Also - and I think I would have this problem with any strips - my nails are really curved so smoothing everything out was probably a bit more work for me than someone with flat nails.

That's it! I think if you guys are looking into getting into these, they are a great place to start and by being about half the price of the more expensive brands (that go for $8-$12, from what I've seen) they won't set you back much if you find you don't like them.

Hopefully they'll come out with smaller ones =P

Visit omgnailstrips at their website or on Facebook! Tell them I sent you even =D

Update:

So I didn't even let these last a day. I'm the first to admit that I'm the worst picker, and as soon as I put Vaseline on my cuticles (as I normally do), the edges started peeling up. I tried to remove the worst of it but it all became kind of uneven so my advice is to stick to cuticle oil or something less pervasive than Vaseline petroleum jelly. My eczema has been acting up which is why I used it.

On the plus side, when you are ready to remove this, it comes up pretty easily and in large chunks or whole pieces. I didn't even need to use the hot water =) With this in mind, I think I would save my nail strips for special occasions when I want to match a specific outfit for a day or two. Perhaps it would last better with a gel topcoat, or even if my Seche hadn't shrunk at the tips!

What do you think, guys? Would you buy these?

Swatch: Zoya Pixie Dust Nyx

Hi everyone! It's been kind of a rollercoaster with me the last couple weeks what with exams and all so the blog has taken a backburner. I'm going to try to have posts for the week I'm gone like I mentioned but I really haven't been feeling the inspiration to get my nails together. I also still have to write a review (my first company requested review!) which I will get to for sure.

As for today, I have another of the Zoya Pixie Dusts. I'm sure everyone's over these by now but I'm still going. Nyx is the smoky blue of the collection and I did three coats.

The first three photos are with natural light from my window and the last is under my desklamp.

When I put this on last night I noticed that in my dull room light it really looked a lot like the grey one, London, though from the photos you would never think that. I might have to do a comparison or something.

Which Pixies did you pick up? Are you lusting the summer collection like I am?

Books.

I haven't been doing my nails lately. It's exam-cram again (for the last time! AAHH) and instead of being in a mode to study, since my laptop charger broke, I've found a real craving to escape to books about non-traditional love (which isn't really related to studying/not-being-able-to-study, but we're not going to talk about that here).

So. If anybody's interested in the books that shaped my attitude on love and relationships, here is a list of the ones that were important enough for me to buy.

In no particular order

Kushiel's Dart, Kushiel's Chosen, Kushiel's Avatar
Jacqueline Carey

Source

This story features a world in which the religion worships a group of characters who engender all forms of love, with emphasis on "Blessed Elua" who is depicted with arms open and hands upturned and the tagline, "Love As Thou Wilt".

The story itself features a courtesan trained to be a spy who ends up stumbling upon a deep game of treachery against the Crown. The story is fantastic, but it's the relationships that keep me reading, and that underlying whisper, "Love As Thou Wilt". 


I read these books in a time when I was battling feelings for two people and came to the realization that my feelings for both/all are valid and as long as there is trust and communication, problems of jealousy and possessiveness can be worked through.

The DarkAngel, A Gathering of Gargoyles, The Pearl of the Soul of the World
Meredith Ann Pierce

Source

Sooo I kind of hate this image because it's very... Damsel in Distress Kidnapped by Beautiful Powerful Smooth Cruel Male Entity. I think it's the falling off shoe that is really pissing me off a lot because it's so... gendered? I don't even know.
So this is another story that defies expectations and has an amazing mythology. It's technically sci-fi, and it took me FOREVER to figure out why so I'm not going to give it away because it was pretty satisfying to piece the puzzle. As for the story itself, this slave-girl gets carried off by a vampyre, a creature with a dozen night-black wings to play handmaiden to his thirteen wives, whose blood he's drunk and souls he's stolen. At fourteen wives, he will drink their souls (which he wears in vials around his neck) and truly become a monster and lose his beauty, a reflection of the last remnant of his goodness.
SPOILER
So the more interested part to this is the progression of the story through the trilogy. Aeriel is whisked away from one slavery to another after her mistress is taken by this part-human creature. She is told she must kill him, and instead manages to save him and return him to human form. In A Gathering of Gargoyles, she goes on a journey to re-establish the lost guardians of the plains, and the former-vampyre Irrylath, instead of falling madly in love with her and living happily ever after, ignores her and resents her. Aeriel turns away and does magical things rather than moping about it like a princess. At the end of The Pearl of The Soul of the World, he realizes her worth and that he has treated her ill, at which point she basically tells him she is so over it and has better things to do before riding off into the Solstar-set with her best friend. BAM.
As an eighth grader looking for adventure and dealing with abandonment issues, this story was extremely empowering. I recommend it to anybody.

Wizard

John Varley

Source

This is possibly one of the weirdest freaking stories that have ever been written. It's the second of a trilogy, but can be read and enjoyed all by itself which I quite recommend as the other stories are not quite as satisfying and actually confused me more than a little bit.
The feature of this story are the aliens on an artificial "planet" shaped like a wheel. They are centaur-shaped with an interesting mating system (explained in excruciatingly hilarious detail in the book). The reason this is related to the rest of this set though is that the Titanides have a love that is too great for one. That love is too great for one. It gets interesting, to say the least.

A Companion to Wolves

Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear

Source

This is one of those stories about humans pair-bonding with a hyper-intelligent creature to fight some evil. In this story, men bond with giant wolves to battle trolls that threaten their settlements. It's got a Viking type setting, and it is only men that bond, though the female wolves are the pack leaders. As a result, there's some interesting socio-sexual dynamic where the men bonded to the females have to deal with being MEN while dealing with some of the problems girls go through in a male-dominated society. I highly recommend this book, though I'd give it trigger warnings for explicit non-traditional sexual situations.

OMG APPARENTLY THERE'S MORE: Wishlisted - A Tempering of Men and An Apprentive to Elves

Shadow Man

Melissa Scott

Source

This is actually a really rare book no longer in print and I was really lucky to have found it online for about $20. You kind of have to read it with an educational slant to really get what's going on. I actually read this book for a Gender Studies class. It elicits a lot of discussion about how labeling gender and sexual orientation is quite arbitrary and the restriction on oneself by even a self-described label can prevent some wonderful experiences.

The PokeNail Challenge #6: Normal

You knew something was coming out of yesterday's swatch, didn't you?

You may also have noticed that I have been reeeeally lazy and unmotivated in my Pokemon Challenge.

THAT'S ALL GONNA CHANGE. (And you can probably guess who I'm doing already, because purple.) I originally wanted to do Tauros, because he's totally badass and I loved having one in the earlier days/games but alas, I didn't really want him on my nails after all. Wasn't feeling the browns, among other things...

That leaves a littler critter <3 Starting with Nyx Techno, I took up my acrylics and dotting tool and got to work...

 White acrylic, then red acrylic, then blue Sharpie =D
(You might notice the watermark dropped off... a bug in the program.)

I wish I had better photos!! That's my favourite and cutest Rattata card btw, and it's the Rocket's Rattata! It's in the top 1% of Rattatas! (points for you if you get that reference xD)

Lookit our menagerie!