NOTD: SH Mesmerizing Frost

*sigh*

I wanted to start using some of my Dollar Tree haul polishes, and I thought this one would be a good way to start. I won't say I was wrong, but I'll say that I was disappointed, and my quick "fix" didn't help matters any,

Sally Hansen Mesmerizing Frost looks turquoise leaning towards blue with gold shimmer in the bottle. On the nail ... kind of just a weird gold? Hard to explain & also hard to photograph. Anyway, this is another I thought I could build, but it was very thin & sheer after several coats so I thought I'd do something on the tip to disguise the VNL a little ... and for some reason thought that it would be a good idea to reach for my dotting tool.

Unfortunately, this is almost always a bad idea. When I look back at the last 3 times I used dots, I only really like 1 of the designs. And now my record stands at 1/4 because this gets uglier every time I look at it. Nothing exactly wrong, I just don't like it. I used Color Club Black for the dots & then proceeded to cover them with another 2 coats of MF (LOL, it was a MF indeed):


There's nothing exactly wrong with it, I just don't like it. Mom had much better luck, she picked another of the Dollar Tree haul polishes for her current mani, and that Guest NOTD will be coming up a little later.

Thanks for reading.

~Colette

NOTD: OPI Significant Other Color

So, this is my NOTD from back I think on Thursday, that I've been too busy/lazy to edit pics of before now =) This pinkish lavender-green duo-chrome goes on pretty sheer but is buildable, unfortunately I don't remember how many coats this actually is but I want to say probably 4 or maybe 5. OPI Significant Other Color:


I'm behind with more than just this, so I have a lot more stuff to post. Thanks for reading.

~Colette

LXD on SYTYCD

Don't care about dancing? Well then, don't look. Come back later LOL. I happen to find this too cool not to share. The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers was on So You Think You Can Dance last night:



SYTYCD is one of my favorite shows, and this is one of the best pieces I've ever seen on there. I was eating dinner but I didn't take a single bite during this performance LOL.

Too lazy to crop pics right now, so NOTD pics will probably be doubled up tomorrow. Until then, thanks for reading.

~Colette

NOTD: ChG Awakening

OK, righty is making an appearance today because I got a huge ding in my left middle prior to pics. I did polish "surgery" but it's still not fit for public consumption LOL. My right index is actually the one I had to patch but is really not looking too shabby, and I guess all that practice posing & taking pics with opposite hands is still paying off =)

This polish is almost, or maybe, a duo-chrome. It has a lot of different personalities, and I didn't manager to capture them all in pics so you'll have to take my word =) Sometimes it's almost mauve with a lot of gold shimmer, in other lights it totally looks copper. This is China Glaze Awakening :


Kind of nice & basic after all of the water marbling & freehand work I've been doing lately - although still far from boring.

Thanks for reading.

~Colette

Dollar Tree HAULS!

What could possibly be inside of all these bags? Hmmmm:

Oh, yes - POLISH. LOTS of POLISH. The reason why HAULS had to be capitalized in the title LOL. And I'm blaming Brooke for telling me word around the blogs was that Dollar Trees had (finally) restocked on polish. "Oh, well," I thought, "I'll just check out the 1 ... or 2 ..."

Yeah, try FIVE LOL. & yes, I indulged quite a bit, but there were still a lot of colors I wasn't interested in. And so cheap, why resist? Pics are not the best, I went through pretty quickly since there ended up to be so much... & I am postponing NOTD pics in order to put these up, because I think these are more interesting LOL.

I'm not going to go in the order I shopped, I'm going to go from worst to best. Worst was DT #3, which is right near the library - I walked out of that one without any polish at all. Next-worse was DT #5, my last stop - they had a decent selection, but mostly what I'd already seen, with one exception - Maybelline Two Timer Stars:

Next is DT #2, which had a lot of colors but mostly a lot of orangey-reds & pinks that I wasn't tempted by at all. I did find 3 to take home with me:


Sally Hansen: Mauve Lame` Frost, Rasp-Berry, Cognac Creme

Second-best haul came from DT #1, which is like a block from my job. I'd actually been feeling sick a lot of the day, too nauseous to even eat my oatmeal for breakfast, so I wasn't exactly eager to shop but I figured it wouldn't take long to check. Thank goodness I did. A ton of these I'd never even head of before:


Maybelline: Khaki Fringe, Gold Aluminum, Silver Aluminum, Blue Aluminum, Violet Aluminum:


Plum Aluminum, Purple Comet, Brassy, Dee-Wine, Plushed Plum:


New Year's Blues, Blue Chill, Matte Grey:


Now, you may be wondering how that haul came in 2nd place. Well, that's because DT #4, down the strip mall from Sally's, was the real gold mine. I've never spent so much - time or money LOL - in a dollar store.

The thing that sucked - at all the stores - is that they had a boatload of Plushed Plum, and it was all shelved in the front - with the more unique colors that they only had a couple of at the very back of the hanging row. Bastards. But I can be very diligent for polish, I just dive in & start moving stuff around to get what I want. I had to get an employee to go get me a basket to carry all of this:


Maybelline: Blackened Bronze, Blackened Teal, Blackened Maroon:


Purple Rage, Red Aluminum, Bronze Beam, Tassled Taupe:


Matte Blue, Matte Sapphire, Matte Grape, Matte Brownie:


Matte Rose, Matte Stone, Matte Galaxy, Matte Olive:


Sally Hansen (which was a task all it's own, since a lot of these have their names on the back & so not visible in the packaging ... I had to just eyeball them to compare colors) Make-a-Mint Frost, Money Bags Frost, Blue Chip Frost, Brocade Frost:


Burnished Frost, Nutmeg Frost, Glitz Frost, Rhinestone Frost, Elegant Frost:


Exquisite Frost, Rich Frost, Posh Frost, Violet Freeze Frost, Opulent Frost:


Cobalt Frost, Embellish Frost, Bold Frost, Mesmerizing Frost, Baroque Frost:


Edgy Creme, Racy Creme, Vintage Frost, Tough Frost, Divine Frost:


All of this - and I also have a Zoya order in the mail, AND a package from Transdesign. Ummmm. Extremely belated birthday? Very early Christmas? Either way, I think it's time for a no-buy. Not for monetary reasons - every one of these was only a dollar remember. A DOLLAR! But I've got plenty to keep me busy ... well, actually I had plenty to keep me busy before all of this - and to be honest there aren't a lot of colors tempting me from the 2010 collections I've seen promo pics for.

On a final stash-related note, I really am going to try & get my butt in gear & put my spreadsheet on Google Docs by year-end. I've had the thought in my head for a while & today saw Perrypie's list & thought I should get more a move on in that direction.

Anyway, long post I know, but thanks for reading as always =)

~Colette