Look my nails match my shoes!

I was looking through my pictures and found a set I took last summer. My friend Anisha made all these polishes for fun! Here's a quick preview of one of them, "BAD" from her Michael Jackson collection. It matches my blue suede heels! I don't know how she did it. It's pretty amazing! 

Stay tuned for more!

Ombre Suede Swatchsicles and Duochrome Pants!!!

So this is my first official post of the year... Just haven't felt that inspired lately. I've also been super busy with school, applying to schools, work, etc., etc. Well here we go! 

Over winter break I worked on some swatchsicles. Here's a pretty ombre/gradient of some mattes/suedes:

I believe the bottom 4 are Nubars I picked up from Winners, and the top 3 are Pure Ice from the velvet collection that came out in US Walmarts. Suedes are fun because adding top coat to them completely changes the look! They also dry ridiculously fast.

I'm never actually done an Ombre... I should try one one day! Random ramble but I love it when you write a sentence and the same word comes up twice in a row...

Next up: 

I promised you Duochrome pants...

BAM! Found these babies over at H&M! Later that day I also saw someone walking down the street in em.

I love finding interesting clothing items in stores...it's very entertaining =D


Till next time, 
<3 Kim

Ninja Polish Eye Candy and OPI LPAD Suede!

Today I decided to combine Suede and Glitter polishes! I was wearing OPI ~ Lincoln Park After Dark Suede for about a week. It's a great polish to wear if you don't have time to wait for the polish to dry! Then I got my Ninja Polish order in the mail. I had some tip wear so I decided to put some glitter on in a sort of half french, half gradient manner.

 

Eye candy is a beautiful glitter and it really goes well with the suede polish. It's more subdued then your typical glitter polishes, but just as sparkly!

Both OPI~ LPAD Suede and Ninja Polish ~Eye Candy are must haves!

Until next time <3

My nails for the "Yule Ball"

The other night I went to a "Yule Ball" (yes, like in Harry Potter) with my bf. Here's what I did for my mani to match my dress!

click photo to enlarge -->>

Base coat = OPI Nail Envy S+P
Base of the nail = China Glaze OMG

Free-handed half moon (I didn't have any of those round stickers) =
OPI Russian Navy Suede
Index + Ring finger tips = OMG

Top Coat = Revlon Quick Dry

Here's a close up of the nails and the pattern on my dress.

We had some SUN today, so here's a sunlight photo!

Here's what it looked like before I used top coat.

**NOTE: Russian Navy Suede is NOT easy to clean up! A brush and acetone can pick up the blue, but then I was left with the silver shimmer stuck to my skin (as you can see here)! To fully clean it up, I had to soak my hands in water and scrub, but that didn't fully work, so I plopped on lots of cuticle oil and let it soak. I also found that at the places on my skin that got covered in top coat, the silver shimmer would just peel off with the top coat, which made it really easy to clean up.

Just thought I'd warn you in case you plan to polish and head out! If anyone knows an easy way to clean up suedes, please let me know =)

Hope you enjoyed!

Don't you step on my BLUE SUEDE.. Polish!

Today I have for you:

 OPI Russian Navy Suede!

I found this one at my new Walmart Supercentre's salon!

I really love the finish of the OPI Suedes, and I think I need them all!

The colour and finish kind of remind me of super blue jeans!

Here's how OPI Russian Navy Suede looks like with top coat.
(Index + Ring Fingers)

Hope you enjoyed =)

Polish... Jetted to My Rescue!

So yesterday I was just having one of those days where everything that could have went wrong, went wrong. I was consistently late, got lost multiple times, got stuck on a bridge for an hour, ended up going to the airport instead of home... but, there were a few positive highlights!

I was successful with some spontaneous dusty hunting after a tip to check out my local walmart from my friend Nishu over at naizysnailaddiction, I met up with Li Lian from  shortwidenails and got my Chatters exclusive OPI, I picked up some new acrylic organizers from Winners, and I picked up a blue flakie. It is my first Anna Sui! Perhaps the full moon had something to do with this crazy day... sooooo anyways, here are my new polishes! Hope you like =)

Let's Get "Dusty"! ~ Kim's Dusty Hunting How-To!

Hello everyone! 

Are you longing for old holographic polishes and other HTFs???

My Dusties =)

If so, you may find this post quite useful! I’ve had a few people ask me how I go about “dusty hunting” and finding these gems, so I thought I would share every aspect of what has worked for me =) I kid you not when I say every aspect! This is my exclusive-comprehensive-dusty-hunting-how-to-tell-all!

***WARNING*** This is essentially a novel/textbook excerpt! Feel free to scroll down to the sections of interest, or not bother reading it at all =p

~~ So first off, “Dusty Hunting” is when you go to stores and salons looking for old polishes that are hard to find (HTF). Often times these polishes can no longer be found in stores or online. We call it “dusty” because usually, the polish bottles will actually be covered in a layer of dust, since they probably haven’t been used/touched in a very long time! In my opinion, successful dusty hunting is a mix of luck, communication skills and opportunity.


Now that we know what dusty hunting is, how do we start?

My New Franken!

Hello! Today I want to show you a new franken I just made!

For those who don't already know, a franken is a polish that you make by mixing other polishes, glitter, pigments etc. together to make a polish your own! It's super fun and a great way to create colours you dream of but can't find!

I wanted to experiment with making my own suedes/mattes. So here is my first attempt and I'd classify it as a satin, not entirely matte and not entirely glossy!

Take a look and tell me what you think!

For this polish I was inspired by the OPI Suede collection. I love the way they sparkle when you add top coat, and the glitter really shows in their natural, suede form. You can see a little bit of OPI Lincoln Park After Dark Suede (with top coat) here.

 For this franken I started with a matte/suede base

Revlon "Powder Puff"

then I tinted it teal with

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri "Teal-y Fast"

then I added some sparkle with Sally Hansen Extreme Wear "Celeb City"

~You can see here, that the polish isn't really matte or glossy, it's in between

~Initially, I wasn't sure if mixing matte/suede polish and normal glossy polish would work. 

~The first time I swatched my fraken it separated on the nail, kind of like when you apply a nfu oh holo. It was a disaster! 

~I figured out that the key to applying this glossy-matte franken was to shake it like crazy beforehand!! This way, the 2 type of polish are well mixed together and apply like a dream! It also dries super fast!

The bottles I use for my frankens right now are ones I got from Daiso, a Japanese store. I bought a whole bunch of their holo collection and decanted the small 5ml bottles into larger 15ml ones, and now I use the empty bottles for frankening! 

Most of the empty bottles I've seen at supply stores have the cheap skinny round brush that makes my application even more horrid! A plus side to doing this is that these bottles have a nice flat, thick brush that applies like a dream! (I took these photos without any clean-up. Partly because I'm lazy, and party because I think I did a pretty good job!) 

Here's a close up of the glitter! 

Click to enlarge

Aside*** Since most of the polishes I own have already been swatched to death by other bloggers, I think I will try to post more about my frankens as well as my international + unique polishes that are hard to find on google. I don't do the swatch thing very well so I will entertain you with the various stuff I like and not bore you with my horrid nail art (just got my brushes in from ebay btw!). I want to keeps things interesting!

Subtle with a Chance of Sparkle~~~

Here is the mani I wore last week! It's
Joe Fresh Storm 
with an accent of

OPI Lincoln Park After Dark Suede

(with topcoat).

Joe Fresh is a Canadian Brand of Polish, famous for producing the flakie, Twilight... What I like about these polishes is that they come in 5ml bottles, so I can try a lot of different colours I might not normally buy. They also have a really nice flattented brush that doesn't leave streaks!

Storm is very hard to describe... I'd say it's mainly a neutral brown with purple and grey tones. It resembles the colour of chocolate milk, but a little more purple... and yes, I did compare it to chocolate milk (luckily there was some in the fridge) I just forgot to take a picture...

I wasn't going to do a post about this, but I was intrigued by how different Storm looks in different lighting. I apologize for the messiness and scratches...I took these pictures a few days after I applied the polish. 

Take a look at Storm under various lighting sources and watch how it transforms!

From Brownish...

...to less brownish...

...to more greyish...

...to more purplish!!!

I really like Storm...and I hardly ever wear cremes!

Lincoln Park After Dark Suede is also amazing! I found it dusty hunting and this is the first time I've used it. Here it is without top coat.
Click to enlarge -------->

It is just stunning! It's one of my new favourite polishes!

Look how LPADS sparkles with top coat!

Do you like Lincoln Park... better with or without topcoat???
Do you have any favourite neutral colours???
Do you like suedes or mattes???