Nail of the Day: Trophy Wife

I recently acquired Essie's "Trophy Wife" - a shimmery green-blue polish. It looked a lot more green in the bottle than on my nails, where it looked like a rich, sparkling turquoise. This disappointed me slightly, only because I have a dozen turquoise polishes but if you don't, this colour is stunning! Bright enough for summer but rich enough for fall. Not quite green, not quite blue. It's just a beautiful colour. It's application is similar to most of my other Essie polishes (with "Fiji" being the exception), meaning it takes two or three coats until it is opaque and smooth. But if you have the patience to apply those coats, wait for each one to dry, and not accidentally mess them up before you're done - it's worth it! Essie always makes up for their formula in their colours.

These pictures were taken in artificial light thanks to all the thunderstorms we've been having here lately...The polish is a lot more green than shown in the pictures.

Nail Watermarbling

It's been a huge trend in nail art for the last year or so - watermarbling. After reading tutorial after tutorial, I was hesitant to actually try the effect because it seemed so time (and polish) consuming. But, of course, I wasn't just going to sit back and watch everyone have all the fun! Over the last few months I've attempted nail marbling a couple of times but none of them have turned out well-enough for me to keep on for more than a few hours.

The general idea of watermarbling is taking a small bowl of water, dropping in several concentric drops of nail polish, swirling them around with a toothpick and dipping your fingers in. Many of the tutorials online are great at explaining step-by-step but they make it look a heck of a lot easier than it is the first few times you try... This look takes a lot of practice and experimentation to get right I think - unless you're following someone else's steps exactly - colour, pattern, and everything.

A few things I've learned from all of my attempts:
- The water in the bowl should be room-temperature/ luke warm
- I had more luck with creme finishes than with shimmers/glitters
- Paint your nails a base colour (white, nude, or a colour that you're using) before dipping them
- Use scotch tape to surround your nail before you dip them - this drastically reduces the amount of cleanup needed afterwards
- Leave the bottles open and work FAST. I find that the outer circles tend to dry before I'm done the inside circles making it really difficult to make any sort of funky pattern in them
- To save time and polish, I dip my three middle fingers into the polish at the same time (but I do my thumbs and pinkys seperately)

I have a few problems with having water bubbles under the polish making them peel off very easily - even with a layer of Seche Vite top coat. Anyone know any tricks for preventing this?

IKEA is a Student's Best Friend... Unless You Need Delivery

Today's post is sort of a rant. Like many other University students, I've gone home for the summer to stay with my family. In the meantime, my roomates and I have leased a new apartment and we've spent way too much time gushing and planning out every little inch of the tiny new space. We're lucky enough that our landlord allows us to paint our place so we have all the colours picked out, we've scrubbed the whole place spotless (every apartment in Montreal comes old and dirty) and all of our furniture was picked out online. Who would've thought it would be so hard to get it sent to our new home?

A bit of relevant information to this rant: I live with two of my friends. All of us live in different towns across Ontario and we don't have a car available to us in Montreal (who needs a car there, anyway?). So we spend a lot of time online/texting/calling each other to sort out our bills/internet/furniture orders. We needed to order our stuff from IKEA (there's one about 20 minutes from our place in Montreal) and have it brought to our apartment on a day where at least one of us was there. Sounds simple, right? Wrong.

IKEA didn't understand the whole concept of us trying to order our furniture from the Montreal store to send to our Montreal address, from Ontario. They wouldn't accept any of our Ontario phone numbers to call because they were long distance and they told us we had to go into the Montreal store to place an order - we couldn't just order online like everywhere else. Then, when we finally explained how we had a new place in Montreal and we needed it delivered there because we couldn't pick it up from the Montreal store, they finally figured it out. Yay! No, not yay. They would only deliver to our neighbourhood in the morning of weekdays.... as working students living hours away from Montreal - this wouldn't really work. I am now forced to take the day off and, along with my mother, take the train to Montreal to let the delivery men into the apartment, just to get on the train and come right back. I was really hoping to make a weekend of it... At least I won't be doing any heavy lifting.

Sorry for such a long post, I figured that maybe other students who study in a different city may have had a similar issue. It's been a frustrating day.

Julep's Best Pedi-Creme Ever

As part of my monthly Maven box from Julep, I got a tube of the "Best Pedi-Creme Ever" and I had a chance to try it yesterday. After viciously attacking my callused feet with a pumice stone, I applied the cream and I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting but I was pleasantly surprised!

The cream was very, very light and smelled very fresh (a mix of mint, aloe, and cucumber-like scents) but the scent wasn't overpowering or even obtrusive - a HUGE plus for me because I'm allergic to a lot of scents. The formula felt very oily and greasy when I first put it on but it absorbed in a few minutes and I saw a noticeable difference in the skin on my feet. They were a lot smoother and more supple.

Overall, I was happy with this product (and the fact that I only paid a penny for it added to that too!). It's a really nice foot cream.

Nail of the Day: Julep's Susie

If you read my previous post, you know that yesterday I received my Julep Maven introductory box and it contained two new polishes: Susie and Niecy. Today I tried Susie, described by Julep as a "delicious mint green creme." It turned out to be a lot more white/blue based than green and in most light almost looks like a robin's egg blue, not a mint green. It is white-based so, like most other white-based polishes, the first coat goes on very streaky. Two coats turned out to be adequate though. The brush was slightly awkward to work with. The bottle and stem are so long that a lot of polish drips down the stem as you're painting, resulting in big globs of polish that pool on your nails. The colour is really pretty but not the colour I expected.

Julep Maven: Introductory Box

As many nail-obsessed bloggers have been talking about, Julep, an up and coming nailpolish and nail & hand care company have launched a monthly subscription service called "Julep Mavens". When you register, you fill out a short quiz to determine your personal style and then for $20 a month you receive a personalized Maven box. Each one has 2 or 3 Julep nail polishes as well as beauty samples. Every month you have the option of skipping the month, trying a different style for the month, sending your box to a friend or adding on any extra polishes or products you'd like. Julep Mavens also get 20% all purchases from Julep and free shipping! A portion of proceeds also go to supporting women through the Powered by Girlfriends program.When I registered a couple of weeks ago they had a special offer allowing you to receive your first Julep box for only $0.01! I almost felt silly putting it on my credit card... Well, my first box just arrived!

When I signed up, I was told that my style was "Classic with a Twist" (pretty accurate if you ask me!) and my Maven box came with two nail polishes and a pedicure cream. They even threw in some cute toe seperators for free! Niecy is described as "A bright pink creme for sunny days" and Susie is a "delicious mint green creme."

I was a bit apprehensive to get my Julep nail polishes because I had been reading a lot of negative reviews about the bottle and the formula. I skipped my box for June because I hadn't had the chance to try the product yet but if the colours are ok, I will most definitely be renewing for July! I haven't had the chance to swatch the colours on my own nails but I swatched them on the nail wheels I use to keep track of all my colours and I was very pleasantly surprised! In 2 coats they were opaque and smooth. The colour descriptions were spot-on. The pink is bright and creamy, though I already have a bunch just like it in my collection. The mint green was very blue-based which was not evident in the pictures online but I prefer it to a pure mint green. The polishes are very nice and I love the skinny bottles, they look very chic (although they may be more problematic if I was painting my whole hand...). They retail online for $14 and I don't think they would be worth that much, though I am on a budget. In the Maven box, two polishes and a beauty product for 20$ is reasonable, in my opinion. Very excited for my next one!

Nail of the Day: Just Spotted the Lizard

I, among with a couple other nail polish lovers, was disappointed in the new OPI Spiderman collection, it's no secret (Why is there no red? Seriously?!) and the only colour that appealed to me was Just Spotted the Lizard, a shifting combination of metallic gold/green/blue/orange. It applied very well, almost a one coater with the only irksome thing being how streaky it was (although that is the price of a metallic polish). In the sun it shone a light metallic green (very, very pretty!) and in the shade/artificial light it was a burnished orangey-gold colour, again, very pretty. It is said to be an exact dupe for Chanel's Peridot but without having both, I can't say for myself.

The colour was very VERY hard to capture on camera - too many bright metallic colours, always shifting around. This is the best I could do, unfortunately. It is such an interesting colour!

OPI: Just Spotted the Lizard