Sweets for the Sweet

I've just spent the last three days doing absolutely nothing, and while it's been fun, I really think it's time that I tried to get something done...

But not after a quick post here! This is not a nails post, since this must be the THIRD time I've worn All Hail the Queen in a month, considering they keep moving the date of my interview, and there is no new manis to be had. I was going to do a flashback post, but let's save those for when I really don't have time to be doing anything other than studying, shall we?

I made cupcakes this weekend, and I thought I would share some of the pictures with you!

Those cute ones above are all red velvet on the inside. The red food dye is the deal-breaker.

The vanilla ones had a little surprise on the inside. They were pregnant with oreos! SCANDAL!

And they were just as delicious as they looked! Other than nails, baking is one of my greatest passions. Honestly, if I could bake every day (and eat it without gaining an ounce!), I totally would.

Ballin'

But not really. That's just me trying to be much cooler than I actually am.

At this present moment, I'm sitting on the 3rd floor of the pharmacy building, trying so very hard to postpone studying for finals. It needs to happen. It's just way too easy to keep it from happening.

So, tonight I am going to a basketball game. Truth be told, I only wanted to go to see what all this Linsanity business was about. However, I could not bring myself to do Jeremy Lin-themed nails. I've seen people do it before, and it's cute, but...NO. Besides, I always cheer for the home team.

Now, I know what you are going to say: "Silly Kristine, purple is no longer the colour of the Raptors." And, you would be right. BUT it was their colour when I liked them back in the day, and there was no way that I was going to pass up an excuse to wear purple.

This is 2 coats of Zoya's Mira. Pretty much the minute I saw this colour at Trade Secrets, I knew that I had to have it. It's a bit lighter and more red-toned in person. Another big plus was that the name of this polish happens to be a nickname of pretty much my most favourite person ever (bfflsomgwtfbbq).

I did the silver and red dots first using Sally Hansen Celeb City and Caribbean Coral with a dotting tool. I was originally going to do it on all the nails, but decided that it would have been too busy. I was also going to do dots on the thumb, as has become my custom with accent nails, but I decided last minute that stripes would look cool too -- so I broke out the striping brush. I'm kinda wishing I had just gone with one or the other, but it's much too late for that now.

This colour combination is not something that I would probably pick out on my own, but it is interesting nonetheless. I just hope we don't lose too badly tonight. :P

30 days down, 16 to go!
(I figured out just now that I'VE BEEN COUNTING THIS WRONG. In actuality, I shouldn't have been counting the Sundays, but since I have been, you will notice that the days now add up to 46 and not 40...my bad!)

Across The Universe

FINALLY, THE TIME HAS COME for me to swatch my longest-awaited lemming, Deborah Lippmann Across The Universe!

Now, I'm a little bit bummed because the battery on my nice camera is dead, so the pictures are crappier than usual. I could have charged it, but I was way too excited to wait.

Across The Universe has been my biggest lemming since my addiction got into full swing last summer. I couldn't justify spending $20 on a nail polish, but I went on this little website called Kiss and Make-Up NY which was selling them for $18 USD, and since the exchange rate was at par and the shipping was free, I decided to take the plunge! I got it together with All Hail the Queen.

Isn't it lovely? It's a navy jelly base filled with tiny blue glitter mixed in with lighter blue and green hex glitter. I'm also enjoy The Beatles. I feel like I shouldn't use the word fan, because I know there are probably people out there more enthusiastic than I. I am, however, a pretty big fan of the movie Across The Universe (Jim Sturgess, mmmmmm), as well as the song, Across The Universe. LOVE!

The funny thing about this mani was that it almost did not happen. I thought I would be having an interview on Wednesday, so I prudently painted my nails with All Hail the Queen (taupe = professional), but I found out this morning that it had to be rescheduled, so...sparkles it is!

(Sparkles = LESS PROFESSIONAL)

Today has been a pretty exhausting, but absolutely beautiful day. I wish the weather could be like this all the time. LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!

Green and Sober

Or, otherwise known as, it's St. Patrick's Day!

Let me first start off with: I am not, was never, nor will ever be a drinker. The thought of cirrhosis sends a shiver through my liver. Also, the random bowls of mixed nuts have me checking my arms for hives every 5 seconds. The last drink I've had was, in fact, 1/4 of a green beer, exactly one year ago. What a party animal I am!

For this post, I wanted to go through the nails I've had on St. Patrick's Days past; three exactly, one for each year I've been old enough to set foot in a bar! :P

2010

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Going Green

2011

Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure - Grass Slipper

2012

China Glaze - Starboard + Metallic Emerald Green acrylic paint

Hope everybody has a good night! :D

China Glaze Starboard

This polish had been a long time lemming of mine, dating back to when my newest wave of nail polish obsession started. I first happened upon the China Glaze Anchors Away Spring 2011 collection display at Chatters. It was right next to the display for the Up & Away collection (Spring 2010), from which I picked up Four Leaf Clover. I don't know why I passed over Starboard, or any of the other colours for that matter. In fact, once this self-imposed ban is over, I might go to Sally's and buy Ahoy, depending on whether or not I decide if it and Strawberry Fields are different enough.

Anyway, that day was in early June 2011. I didn't end up getting my hands on this until December, when I went to Sally's to get myself out of pre-exams depression. I rationalized the purchase by telling myself it was a "perfect Christmas green" and that it would be of much use in my holiday manis.

I ended up using it as a marbling colour. On an accent nail. With three other colours.

Needless to say, it didn't get the attention it deserved. Here, in all it's glory, is Starboard:

No Flash, point-and-shoot

Lamp-light, point-and-shoot

Flash, Nikon D3000

This will probably end up being my St. Patrick's Day mani, which is slightly disappointing since I was really hoping to do some nail art. I have a midterm today and an assignment due Monday, so I don't think it's going to happen.

The formula on this was so-so. I felt like it went on streaky at the beginning, but evened out after the 2nd coat. It could have even used a 3rd coat on some of my nails, but that's just me. Additionally, it chipped the next morning, less than 12 hours after putting it on, which annoyed me. Otherwise, the colour is gorgeous, and I will for sure be using it for next Christmas. ;)

23 days down, 17 to go!

Flashback: Prozac

The delay between posts can totally be blamed on Daylight Savings Time. I'm all for having long summer days and all, but the time change was such a bitch this time. In case you were wondering, we lost. And now I'm back to my normal hating U of T (though secretly harboring a glimmer of may be school pride, or, heartburn).

As part of my green series, I am posting a manicure that I did in the summer, prior to writing the Jurisprudence exam. This is Orly - Mint Mojito.

No, my hand is not really that yellow. I very unskillfully altered the colour of this picture to reflect more closely what colour this polish is. The formula was a little thin, so this is three coats to acceptable opacity.

The story of how I acquired this colour is such a saga, which began with my very first post on this blog. I mentioned that I had completed my quest to find a colour that matched the green half of a Prozac capsule. This was all due to one of my lovely co-workers musing that it would be nice to have a nail polish colour like that, fully aware of the extent of my craziness, knowing that her very statement would send me into a frenzied hunt...

The hunt led me to the internet, of course, where I stumbled upon swatches of this Orly beauty after failing hard with Four Leaf Clover and almost getting there with Mermaid's Tears. Sadness overcame me when I realized that I had never seen Orly being sold anywhere and would likely never see the chance to swatch Mint Mojito. I forgot about it for the next few weeks.

Enter Sally Beauty Supply. The first time I walked through the door, I bubbled with excitement when I saw the rack of Orly polishes. It was meant to be! I asked the lady there if she knew if there were any bottles of my much coveted Mint Mojito from the Summer 2009 collection in stock. Of course, she scoffed at me and said no...as a nail polish noob at the time, I did not understand the concept of "collections" and other "polish fiends". In desperation, I turned to e-Bay.

That's right. Mint Mojito was my very first online purchase, and I do not for a second regret it. Green is my absolute favourite colour. You can never have too many green polishes! 







Smells Like School Spirit

Now, I am willing to bet a moderate-sized amount of money that if you were to ask 10 students who trudged down St. George St. on any given weekday morning if they loved (and the word is loved) U of T, at least 8 of them would hesitate, kick the toe of their shoe against one of the various potholes in the sidewalk/crosswalk/you name it, and give you a very half-hearted, "I guess..." (emphasis on the ellipsis).

I would also be willing to bet a significant amount of money that if you asked 10 students inside a certain glass building on the corner of University Ave. and College St. if they loved U of T, 11 of them would tell you a flat out "NO", and then go on to talk about how much they loved wherever it was that they came from. (Unless, of course, you went to U of T before, in which case you never knew what you were missing and instead you moan about how difficult your life has been up to this point, the robots you interacted with in your x number of years in undergrad, yadda yadda yadda.)

There are a number of inexplicable reasons for the results of the first thought experiment, and a truckload of perfectly good and solid reasons why the hypothesis of the second experiment is true -- in fact, it's not even a thought experiment anymore...it's 110% tested and true.

But, this reverses once each year in March, when every man, woman, and child-like individual in said glass building (or, at least the ones who have a pulse and actually have a social life) suddenly gets their school spirit on and believes for just a few hours that they are #1. (Not second rate, like the stuff they've been learning over the last few years has caused them to feel.)

Ladies and Gentlemen, today is the OPA Cup.

This is me and my friend, Susan, who I am going to blog about on another day, since I have managed to turn her over to the dark (nail polish) side. I would post another picture that conveys that the OPA cup is indeed a hockey game, between U of T and Waterloo, but all the ones that I have either don't have me in it (since I took them all), or involve shirtless men who may or may not approve of me posting the pictures up here. :P

In preparation, I did a manicure, of course:

Left hand, with flash

Left Hand, no flash

Right Hand, no flash

This actually is my first manicure using my Konad kit. The stars are from the M3 plate, using Konad Special White Polish on top of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Cherry Red. The ring fingers are painted with a base of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Thinking of Blue, and the Blues logo is painted on with acrylic paints. I felt as though Konad was a lot easier than I thought it would be, but then again I wasn't taking care to align any designs perfectly, and I messed up my right middle finger, so it's hard to tell. Additionally, acrylic paints are the best!! You can make a mistake and it just washes off. Sally Hansen Nail Art pens do the same, but they are less flexible in terms of design, and they also go for $5 each, so...

Also, is anyone else impressed by how I can seemingly draw maple leaves better with my left hand than with my right?

So, I guess that's all for now. Come tomorrow night at this time, I'll be back to my hating on U of T self, so I'd better enjoy it while it lasts. I know that last year Waterloo thrashed us like they're probably going to do to us in the future with their knowledge and general preparedness for LIFE, but...here's to hoping. Go U of T! :D

17 days down, 23 to go!

Flashback: Nubar Reclaim

There were a number of past manis that were vying for top billing today. A pink one because it's Wednesday (MEAN GIRLS FTW), a periwinkle one in honour of my brand new periwinkle highlighter that I bought today, and this one:

I thought I would deliver a little more on this failed "green series", so it won out eventually. It's also the most awesome holo polish in my collection (observe linear holo awesomeness in picture). I don't have a shade picture, but I think the flash picture says more than words can about how amazing Nubar Reclaim is.

I got this polish off a seller on e-Bay back in July and wore it to the first day of school in September. I remember wanting something that would be as visually interesting as nail art without any of the effort. Bingo! I got a ton of compliments while wearing this, including one about my nails being like $20 bills!

For those who had any doubts about what a Canadian 20 looks like...(note shiny holo strip and green colour)

The formula was fantastic, going on in two smooth coats. Nubar never disappoints. Most of, if not all, of my distracting manicures (e.g. catching a glimpse of your nails in mid-sentence and focusing your attention on them instead) have been Nubar manicures. The wear was also pretty awesome, going for 10 days with only minimal tip wear.

Green. Holo. What more could a girl ask for?

14 days down, 26 to go!

Destination: Procrastination...on Memory Lane!

Surprise, surprise...

I was busy trying to not do any more studying, when I stumbled onto my old wordpress.com blog by chance. It's that apparently God-awful blog that I referred to in my first post. It was more like a poorly written and public diary that I wrote in almost daily to chronicle life events as they happened. Oh. And of course, my masterpiece story that I wrote about my friends and I back when I had time to do stuff like that.

(What's that you say? I spend just as much time doing nothing now as I did back then? You're probably right.)

Anyway...I was thinking about this story, see, and I caught myself fantasizing about that much simpler time, when I spent the greater part of a day thinking about ways to entertain the masses. (And by masses I mean the handful of people who would occasionally visit my Windows Live Space, as it was called back then.) It's hard for me to believe that the last post I made there was in June 2007, almost five years ago now - aaaaaaannnnd it's freaking me out how fast time is going and how ridiculously close I am to entering the real world. That shit crazy.

I don't remember when it was that Windows Live closed down their spaces, but I remember getting the memo pretty late in the game, when it was only days away from deleting everyone's little corner of the internet. When I first heard about it, I didn't really give it another thought -- life had moved on, there was nothing to see there. Something made me go back, though. I couldn't let it go.

A huge part of me is really glad that my past self didn't just sit back and let the old blog fade into oblivion; partly because the original computer where I had written my old story is now long gone, but mostly because it preserved a little slice of time that I will look upon more fondly despite it's cringe-worthy writing style. Maybe I'll cut my brother a little more slack -- seems like everybody was kind of a douche in high school.

Also, I like how much nicer the wordpress design is. :P

13 days down, 27 to go!

Green Tips and SPAM

So that green series that I was planning to do obviously didn't pan out...thanks All Hail the Queen! This was supposed to be the first in the planned series, so here it is, better late than never:

This is China Glaze Four Leaf Clover with Revlon Sparkle on top in a gradient-esque manner. I got the idea from Fuck Yeah Nail Art on tumblr -- can't for the life of me remember the person who originated it, but it was there.

If you own Four Leaf Clover and have ever tried to photograph it, you know that it's pretty much the most difficult colour to capture ever. It's a vibrant medium blue-leaning green. All the camera sees is blue. It's definitely more green and bright in person. Here's the closest I could get it without digitally tweaking the colour:

 I'm kind of digging how the little silver square glitter in Revlon Sparkle turned gold when layered over top of Four Leaf Clover. I think it has something to do with the fact that I applied it while Four Leaf Clover was still not completely dry. Sparkle also has larger silver hex glitter that have a mirror-like effect, which really adds another dimension, I think. I didn't have to struggle too hard to get the hex pieces on there, as you sometimes have to with the larger hex glitter polishes.

Four Leaf Clover is actually the first China Glaze polish that I bought, in a quest to find the perfect teal colour. And I'm going to admit that I bought that 3pc Revlon mini set (with Waterfall and some green colour) for Sparkle.

And now, for the SPAM part! Ready?

12 days down, 28 to go!

So Much Fawn to Be Done!

I just spent this whole afternoon doing absolutely NOTHING and it was absolutely WONDERFUL! It should really be a crime to have examinations on a Saturday. A CRIME. Going to school Monday to Friday, and working on Sunday, Saturday is my day.

(Yes, I know I have Wednesdays off, but how can you really have it "off" if you have a bazillion different things to do...and yes, I know that I still technically have a bazillion minus one things to do, and that not doing anything today really is not helping...)

SO, anyway, in an attempt to be more professional so my standardized patient would judge me hard for having galaxies on my nails, behold Sally Hansen Complete Salon So Much Fawn.

These pictures were taken on the third day of wear, which I think is pretty awesome but not unexpected from a Sally Hansen Complete Salon colour. I also impressed my pants off by taking of my last mani and putting this on in 25 minutes!

I'm feeling green for next week, how about you?

Flashback: Zoya Faye

Happy Leap Day! (I know the date on the post is March 1st, but I wrote this minutes before midnight, so it still counts!) Did you know that we have leap years because the actual length of a year on Earth is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds? I learned a bunch of stuff that I found interesting from the following video:



Interesting, huh? Today also marks the 1 week mark on my Lent no-buy and it's been going great so far, except for the fact that I seem to always have the thought of what colours I would like to get lingering somewhere in my head. Sign of a true addict. In any case I'll get back to swatching my untrieds soon -- I wanted to keep the galaxy nails for as long as possible.

I have another flashback post instead, of the very first Zoya polish that I bought. I actually bought this together with Zoya Reva, but I wanted this one more, and since it was a buy one get one free sale, I consider Reva to be the one I got for free (though it is no less of a beauty). I bought this at the beginning of last summer. This is Zoya Faye.

I didn't have a chance to wear it until the beginning of the school year, of course, since my ever growing untrieds pile tends to hide beauties like this from sight for months at a time. Faye is a sort of rosy purple colour with gold shimmer. The picture makes it look a lot more purple than in real life. In fact, in some lights it turns an almost copper shade. Excuse the mess, this was done in the middle of doing a pile of readings for Therapeutics, which is actually the reason why I decided to wear this colour. Faye is actually the name of one of my PICs (partners in crime) for this awful, awful course (not content wise, just...ugh-wise) and I thought it would be great to kickstart the year with a little manicured tribute. It was also the reason that I even contemplated getting Zoya Cho, even though it is a yellowed-out neutral that would clash with my skin tone -- I've put it out of mind for now, but you never know...I might want to go for the complete set. ;)

I hope to get some new swatches up soon!