Rows and Rows of Polish

This is only about half of the collection

I had some of my polish out so that I could update the blog, and I needed the names of the colours. Dewey took them out of the tray and was organizing them according to colour. He was so proud of himself that he wanted to take a photo. This is his photo.

The funny thing was, when Dewey was done and moved on to something else, Huey came along and organized them according to his idea of how to put the colours together. 

I found it interesting that both boys were into coordinating my polish. 

After they were done playing around, I realized that I didn't like the way I had my polish organized, so I went ahead and reorganized the whole lot.

Guess it was organization day.

Essie Polish

I don't have nearly as many Essie polishes as O.P.I. I have been using O.P.I. for much longer than Essie. I like Essie because it is made in the U.S., so there is less of a carbon footprint. I love the laquers, but the creams can be goopy and hard to apply.

Essie Limo-scene

This is a creamy ivory. It's a little goopy, and a little sheer, but with the right amount of patience, I can get this colour to look right.

Essie Shine of the Times

This is a holographic glitter top coat. I have it on top of Limo-scene. I usually put this on my toes.

Essie Chinchilly

This is one of my favourites. This application is not the best, but it is a wonderful dove grey. I love to wear this in the spring.

Essie Sew Psyched

I was looking for a sage green and thought I had the right colour with this one. Fail. I still like the color, especially for Autumn, but I don't have much that goes with it. 

Essie Mink Muffs

I was looking for a greige when I bought this one. I also failed with this one. I like the creamy brown, it's lovely neutral, but I don't wear it very often.

Essie Wicked

This is a dark blood red. Looks black or burgundy in most lights. I love this one, but as you can see from my ring finger, it's hard to apply. It's also difficult to remove and stains. I bought this in Canada, so it has a special place in my heart, besides how much I love the color. It's close to O.P.I. Lincoln Park After Dark, but with less purple, so I like it even more. 

This is not all my Essies, I have one more post. Stay tuned!

Nails - The rest of my O.P.I. Polish

Just because I went on a blogging sabbatical, does not mean that I was not trying to go through all my polish. I kind of put myself back a bit, because I bought a bunch of new O.P.I. polish.

 Here are the ones I picked up from this fall's San Francisco collection:

O.P.I. A-Piers to be Tan

I LOVE this color. I have a purse in the same color. It's a great, creamy, caramel colour.

O.P.I. I Knead Sourdough

This one's tough - is it red? Burgundy? Brown? The answer is it's all of those. I love it as it makes me think of fall.

O.P.I. Incognito in Sausalito

This is either a very dark teal, or the perfect navy. I love it either way.

Here are some I picked up from the Europe collection (you will see that I'm going through a blue period)

O.P.I. Can't Find my Czechbook

It's not robin-egg, it's not turquoise, but it's lovely. I will be wearing this a lot more in the Spring.

O.P.I. I Don't give a Rotterdam

I love the icy-ness of this color. It's mostly a grey and has tiny glitter in it. An excellent winter color.

O.P.I. I Have a Herring Problem

Trust Me, this is not the same colour. This one is much more of a steel blue. Beautiful.

That's all there is for O.P.I.! Stay tuned for Essie next!

Manicure Monday - Toe Polish

Do you have polish that is perfect for your toes, but that you would never use on your hands?

Here are some polishes that I deem perfect for toes (some are okay for hands too):

Essie Turquoise & Caicos

This is a lovely not bright Turquoise. I say it's the perfect Turquoise and was exactly what I was looking for when I was looking for it. 

Essie Trophy Wife

Definitely a toes only colour. A wonderful teal.

Essie Meet Me at Sunset

One of my favourites. This is a hot, red-orange that always lifts my spirits. Perfect for hands and toes.

O.P.I. Kiss Me On My Tulips

I just bought this one recently and I love, love, LOVE it. First of all, it's new, second, it has Tulips in the title, third, the formula goes on perfectly. This is less transparent than O.P.I. Strawberry Margarita, so the colour is a lot richer and brighter. I would wear this on my hands too, but only in summer, or when I need my mood lifted.

Left: Essie Over the Edge, Right Essie Licorice

Essie Over the Edge is a dark, charcoal, metallic grey. Essie Licorice is black. I would wear both on my hands too. Essie Licorice is the perfect black. Over the Edge is good under glitter polish.

O.P.I. Espresso your Style

This is a wonderful dark chocolate brown. I wear this on hands too, but only in winter, and this year I'm totally over brown, so it will have to sit out this season, I think.

O.P.I. Lincoln Park After Dark

This is a very dark burgundy/purple. I love this colour when I'm in a bad mood, but the formula is really goopy and tough to get smoothe and even, so many coats are needed, and the more coats, the worse it looks. I have to be really concentrating and paying attention to get this polish to look right. It can be done, but it takes effort and I'm lazy sometimes. 

That's it for toes! Now that the cold weather is here, I'm going to try to go without polish on my toes for a while, to give them a rest. We'll see how that goes.

Nails - Do you Lilac it?

O.P.I. Do you Lilac it?

I'm not normally a purple person. I usually stay far, far away from purple, but this is a new favorite!

It is the perfect creamy lilac. It reminds me of the enormous lilac tree in my parent's front yard. I am absolutely in love.

I was cruising around Ulta yesterday and this one just spoke to me, which is weird, because when I went to Ulta last week and was specifically looking at nail polish, nothing spoke to me. I ended up buying two polishes last night and have two more on my mind to go back and buy.

I must have just been in the mood.

What's up?

I have been updating things over at Tumblr, but I don't quite have the hang of things there, so I'm not ready to make the grand announcement that things have moved. I'm still trying to decide if I even want to move.

I'm still blonde, still growing my hair out, and still going through all my nail polish. I have 4 more colors to go and then I'll be through all my O.P.I. and moved on to my Essie polish.

I just bought two NYX eyeshadows and some new eye shadow brushes. I am in LOVE! I bought a perfect matte pink, ballet slipper pink, and a gorgeous gold glitter. The brushes are perfect.

I'm really looking forward to new fall clothes as I am super bored of my summer wardrobe.

That's all.

How are you?

Fingers and Toes 7-1-13

O.P.I. Chicago Champagne Toast

This one is another Mom color. It's very close to Mauving to Manitoba. A frosty neutral.

O.P.I. Going Ape-ricot

Apricot with so much gold glitter I almost consider this a glitter polish. This one is one of my favourites. A perfect colour for summer.

O.P.I. Louvre Me Louvre Me Not

The true colour of this one didn't come out so hot. I've blogged this one before. This is a really red purple.

O.P.I. Yoga-ta Get this Blue

I've blogged about this one too. This went perfect with Going Ape-ricot on my fingers, I loved the combination.

Perfect for removing Glitter Nail polish

I first read about this on the Nailed It blog. She mentioned that she gets hers at Target, but Target is far away from me, so I looked to see if I could find something similar closer to me.

I looked at my local Sally Beauty Supply, but no luck. The beauty section at my local Smith's Marketplace is pretty good and I get a lot of my nail stuff there. That's where I found this lovely thing.

The brush inside is exactly like the little brush you get from the hospital when you come home with your baby for scrubbing their scalp/washing their hair. It works perfectly when you use acetone for your remover. Follow the instructions; soak your nails for about 10 seconds, scrub on the brush, and *poof*, glitter all gone!

I love this. I can't tell you how much I hate removing glitter polish because of how it shreds my cotton balls. The sandpapery feeling I get trying to rub off the polish and the strings of the cotton balls makes me cringe so much. I have tried the technique with the cotton balls and tin foil that's all over pinterest, and that works like a charm, but it's so time consuming. The acetone evaporates quickly, but I just refill the jar when I need to with my giant bottle of acetone from Sally Beauty Supply - easy peasy, lemon squeezy. This little jar is my new best friend - now I can wear glitter more often!

Unfortunately, it doesn't work so hot for toes (for obvious reasons), so I use the tin foil method on my toes.

Fingers and Toes 6-24-13

O.P.I. Chocolate Shakespeare

This is a great nude, but with sparkle. It used to be my go-to nude, I even have the matching lipstick, but I've grown away from frosted colors. This is a really old color; I've had it for a long time.

O.P.I. Jade is the New Black

I've blogged about this one before. It's a great color. Especially on the toes when you go to yoga and spend a lot of time looking at your toes.

O.P.I. Rosy Future

This is a gorgeous, sheer, iridescent pink. I love this colour because while it's light and delicate, it has a funky edge in that it's iridescent.

O.P.I. Bright Lights Big Color

This is a perfect summer color. It's bright, coral/pink with gold glitter. I like it much better on toes, as I feel it's too pink for me. 

O.P.I. Smokin' in Havana

I forgot that I like this color. It's a bronzy, coppery reddish color. I was hoping for something a little closer to coral when I bought it, so I was disappointed, however, looking at it now I like it so much more. This is one of my older colours too, and I have hardly ever worn it, but I think I'm going to add it into rotation more frequently.

Fingers and Toes 6-16-13

O.P.I. Innie Minnie Mighty Bow

I love Minnie Mouse like no other. From her red and white polka dots to her yellow shoes. When O.P.I. came out with a Minnie line, I had to get the red. It's the perfect Minnie red. O.P.I. nailed the colour on this one.

O.P.I. Mauving to Manitoba

This colour reminds me of my mum. 1) She always wears light frosty champagne type pinks. 2) She grew up in Manitoba. This is probably too much colour for my mum, but it reminds me of her.

Essie The More the Merrier

Saw this one cruising at the grocery store. It's the perfect lime green. I tried it on my fingers, but it didn't work so hot. Perfect for toes though. Especially with nude peep toe platforms

O.P.I. Tutti Fruitti Tonga

Another "Mum" color. She would love this one, it's her signature color. This one's perfect in summer when one is more tan than usual.

78 Bottles on the Wall

O.P.I, Essie and Julep, O.P.I.

I had mentioned how DH thought I had too much nail polish and I scoffed, so I counted and I have 78 bottles. Some of those are mini bottles, but I didn't count my old stash of archives, so I'm sticking with 78.

That is definitely more than one colour for hands and one colour for toes for one month. I have decided I'm not going to necessarily change my polish daily, but I will go through every colour and not repeat until I've used every bottle. This is my challenge for the summer.

As you can see, the bulk of my collection is O.P.I. The rest of my collection is either Essie or Julep. I have a few random bottles, but I'm pretty brand loyal, and O.P.I. has never steered me wrong.

I saw an organizational video on Pinterest for using bins under your bathroom cabinet that I found very helpful. I have a whole cabinet dedicated to nails (mostly - ignore the hot rollers) in my guest bathroom. This is where I store all my toys.

Storage in the cabinet

Barbie Pink

O.P.I. Strawberry Margarita

I'm not a big into pink person, but sometimes you just need a hot pink pick-me-up. This is the only colour that I have like this.

What’s been going on

Weight: 168

I gained a bit due to a caffeine binge, went off caffeine, went through withdrawals, lost a little, and feel better now. I’m trying to stay off the Dr. Pepper until Labour Day, and am hoping to stop drinking soda all together by the end of the summer.

I went on a nail polish buying fast for May and bought no new nail polish. As a reward, I bought 4 new colours – one Essie and three O.P.I. I bought the O.P.I. at my favourite place, ULTA, where I am a ‘member’. Turns out there was a buy two get one free deal going on, so I got 3 colours for $20.00! That made me very, very happy. I'm back on the fast and hope to continue through the summer.

I got a free sample of Sexy Hair’s Argan Oil with my purchase at ULTA. It smells incredible and I love it. It works great. I’ve been a Moroccan oil follower for years, so I’m wondering what the difference is. I’m getting my hair done tonight, so I’m going to ask Tristann. (She used to be a Big Sexy rep, and she is the one that turned me on to Moroccan oil, so she will know)

The centre where ULTA is located just had an H&M open up and are building a Gap and Old Navy. I am saving up my pennies over the summer and will reward myself with a shopping day if I’m a good girl.

I jumped on the BB Cream bandwagon, and after a few internet searches and magazine articles I have gained more of an understanding of how to use the product. I must say, I am very pleased.

I haven’t been to Yoga since the middle of April. Life keeps getting in the way and this is making me sad.

I got my craft room cleaned up and organized so I have room to create. I am so excited and hope to be able to work on some awesome projects over the summer.

DH was upset at me for spending $28.00 on nail polish exclaiming that I had more nail polish than I could use in a month. I haven’t counted, but I’m pretty sure I don’t have more than 60 bottles of nail polish. (60 equals one colour for toes, one for hands for 30 days in the month.) My response, however, was “challenge accepted. I will change my nail polish every day for a month and go through every colour I have.”  After we had this argument, life happened, and I went without colour for 3 days, so I haven’t started the challenge yet. We’ll see if I can put my money where my mouth is. I should be able to considering what a big mouth (literally and figuratively) I have.

I have been blonde for more than six months and I still love it. Six months is usually my limit when it comes to hair. I think the fact that I’m growing it out is helping with my tolerance level since even though I am keeping the colour, the style keeps changing.

That’s all for me. What’s going on with you?

White Manicure

O.P.I. Alpine Snow

I'm still trying to perfect the white manicure. It still looks like Liquid Paper. I read a technique in Glamour magazine about using a matte topcoat in the middle of the coats, but it still looked streaky and not smooth. I haven't given up the fight!

Mother's Day Manicure

O.P.I. Alpine Snow, White Glitter Born Pretty Store

I was able to take time and actually do my nails on Mother's Day. That was a nice pressie from my boys! This looked a lot better in person on the first day, but as it wore off, not so much. Also, even though I used topcoat, my nails felt like they were covered in sandpaper. I got rid of this mani long before it chipped, which is not common for me.

Oahu Toes

Cookies, Milk, Netbook on the lanai with a view of the Ala Wai Canal

Here is my pedicure while I was in Oahu with my brother. This is also a view of what I did every night while there. It was most lovely, and my niece and nephew are adorable!

Essie Licorice, nail decals, Waikiki beach, flip flop blisters

Hawaii Nails

O.P.I. I Theodora You, Nail decals

I went to Oahu to help my brother and sister-in-law with their kids while they attended a wedding. It was wonderful. Since I was invited to the wedding, I wanted to have something lovely on my nails. This was it.

Blue and Gold

This was my manicure for the Blue and Gold banquet. The Blue and Gold banquet is the "birthday party" for the Cub Scouts and I'm a Cubmaster. This was my tribute. No one noticed.

O.P.I. Yoga-ta Get This Blue, Gold Glitter from Born Pretty Store

O.P.I. Yoga-ta Get This Blue, Blue Glitter from Julep
My thumb was my favorite

Julep - Glenn

This gorgeous red I got from my Julep Valentine's mystery box. What a color! I love everything red and this is the perfect deep cranberry red.

Did I mention that I love it? This will definitely be another one of my go-to reds!

O.P.I. Yoga-ta Get This Blue

I don't have many blues in my collection, but I wanted a Navy and found a good one here.

It's not quite as dark as I would like, and has a bit of sparkle to it and I would have wished for a creme, but it looks great with a matte top coat!