Swatch: Skinfood BL514 (and Rainbow Honey Snake Eyes)

I loooooove swaps :D Elizabeth from didmynails.com sent me this really gorgeous teal that I couldn't even wait to use! It's a 2-coater! Formula is fantabulous!

Look at how deliciously luscious this colour is! And then I added Rainbow Honey Snake Eyes! This is way better than the last time I tried to use this glitter, and it kinda reminds me of Essence Out of my Mind.

I love it. The little red and dark purple glitters glinting out there are awesome.

This combo really reminds me of why I started blogging this in the first place. I look at my nails and just smile =3 Hopefully this means more posts soon!

Do you love teal?

PokeNail Challenge #8: Ground!

I'm forcing myself to do this! As a result I feel like I copped out and did a lame job but maybe this will get me rolling. Also, sometimes simple is better, and I definitely kept it simple this time!

I decided to do good old Sandshrew. Sandshrew and Sandslash were Pokemon I tried to use but never quite worked out with me... but it's really cute. Like, really.

Source

Starting with Zoya Solange, I waited for it to be completely dry and then used my Sharpie to draw on a brick pattern! It worked out pretty well actually! I framed them in black with the sharpie as well which I think helps this pop a little.

Not terrible, huh? Everyone else has either finished or moved on from this challenge but you should still visit all the other ground Pokemon going on in here =3

Swatch: Zoya PixieDust Solange

As promised, finally a full swatch of this gorgeous golden textured polish! I hope this post makes it just more obvious how it just wasn't possible to wait to play with these the second I got them.

Okay! So it was two coats, easy peasy.

 It reminds me of crinkled chocolate foil wrappers <333 eeeeee :D

 Anyone want to buy me Liberty? >_< What do you guys think of the Fall collection coming out soon?

NCC#3 Around the World: CUBA (duh!)

I have been meaning to do the flag! When we were in Cuba, we took a tour of the nearby big city, Havana, which included a museum where they had a room full of flags from their history. It was mostly all variations on a theme of stripes with a red triangle and a star in that...

Kinda neat right? Flags are cool.

Because the outside stripes are blue, I put down two coats of Essence Walk on Air to start. I don't think I have ever really appreciated the beauty of this colour before. I'm lucky I picked it up before Essence changed their bottles around. It's much more rich than my over-lit photos show...

  I freehanded stripes with Ulta Snow White...

And then tried to do the little triangles with China Glaze Winter Berry..

Unfortunately after trying to dab on many coats, it never dried or really changed much from the look of that first photo above (which was one coat). So I cleaned up my nails and tried again.

This time, I used Julep Kate (which worked really well actually!) and January, which required two coats, but dried, unlike the CG.

With Kate again, I freehanded stars. I didn't even use my fancy brushes! I just made sure that there wasn't that much polish on the brush and angled it flatside and poked really gently. It worked out amazingly!

 ... Except for my thumb, but there had to be some learning curve, right ;D

I matted it over with WarPaint Matte topcoat and voila!

Ta daa! What do you think? Flags are such an easy way to represent a country, it's fantastic.

NCC#2: Around the World - Russia

Well it's like a week or two later, sorry about that. I feel kind of super cool about this though, because I get to make a political statement of sorts, like I did with the TG Day of Remembrance way back when <3

As usual, I'm gonna make you guess. Your first hint is Russia.

I started with Ulta Snow White and Essie Pure Pearlfection.

The way this issue was brought to my attention was something circulating on Facebook, namely Buzzfeed's 36 Photos From Russia Everyone Needs To See.

I used China Glaze Winter Berry here, and did a rough half moon shape at the cuticle. For the drips, I put down a glorp of polish and blew so it ran down the nail a bit.

If you do a google search you find a lot of articles, including Huffington Post's assurance that Russia's anti-gay laws will be in effect for the Olympics, and an American athlete's discouragement of a boycott.

I did rings above each blood line. I used Essence Let's Get Lost, Wanna Be Your Sunshine, and Black is Back and Julep Leah and January. If you couldn't guess, these are the colours for the Olympic rings.

Next year's winter games will be steeped in LGBTQ blood, all of whom, incidentally, bleed red just like heterosexual people.

Now, I'm not a political blog or a political person, and I will not be a good source of information but I do want everything I know to be aware there's a problem.

Russia's anti-gay propaganda law allows people to be arrested and detained and then, if you're a foreigner, ejected from the country with a $3000 fine for being "pro-gay" or even suspected of being pro-gay. As opposed to the militant action you might expect, hate groups and neo-Nazis are being given a wink and a nod to intervene in stomping LGBTQ outside of the law.

There's a new law being discussed that will allow the government to remove children from their biological parents should they even be suspected of being "pro-gay". I'm going to be boycotting Sochi 2014. I believe it's how I have a voice in this at all. We, the masses, speak with our money and our attention. My attention is on the minor media outlets covering this, and my money is going to stay away from Russia. Don't let them get away with this. I believe the athletes telling us to not boycott are exhibiting selfish behaviour. It's one thing for them to go, and another for them to tell us we shouldn't use the only voice we have. Flooding Russia with our pro-gay love won't magically change their laws and views, or stop hate groups from acting on hate.

People are being killed, guys. Human rights are being denied. I'd be dead in Russia. That scares me a lot. This isn't a "gay issue", it's a Human Rights one, and don't let anyone convince you that a human can be less than human.

Be informed. Do something. Talk about it.

August NCC#1: Around the World - Vancouver Pride!!

I managed to finish last month's entire challenge :D Hurrah! Apparently flowers are fun! And now it's time for the August theme which is around the world which I'm kicking off with Vancouver Pride, since that was yesterday =3 Also as an excuse to do rainbows and to lead into talking about something really important (probably tomorrow).

I started with Gosh Holographic Hero. I took a picture for you because last time I swatched this I worked really hard to make it perfect and this time I just did two coats and it turned out alright =3

Alright! So there's a start, a base of rainbows =3 Now, in honour of Davie street's permanent rainbow crosswalks, I pulled out my dreaded striping tape.

Side note: What I really wish I could have done is used textured polishes to mimic the coloured concrete but alas, I don't own the Zoya Summer PixieDust collection in full (YET!)

And... (I mean, obviously)...

I used Julep January and Leah and Essences Wake Up!, Wanna Be Your Sunshine, Let's Get Lost and Passion for Fashion. I recommend actually not using the Essences for this if you're gonna try it (at least, not the old formula ones) since they got tacky and, as you can see on the thumb, didn't pull off clean. But, judging by that behaviour, they're gonna be great for sugar spun nails.

On my index finger, I put two coats of Rainbow Honey 20% Cooler.

It needed some topcoat, so that was another opportunity for more rainbows =P I used Piper Polish Spectraflair topcoat.

See there? I had to pull the tape off really carefully and make sure that the tacky bit fell on my skin rather than across all the other colours D: what a nightmare. Not as bad as I thought striping tape would be though. The hardest part was finding the end to get it all unrolling in the first place.

SUNSHINE:

 Both hands turned out pretty good apparently!

Did any of you do Pride nails?

Take a trip around the world!