OMG WHAT?! A BLOG POST!!? (May haul)

Hello!

Guess who's actually posting!! Me!! For the first time in over a week here's an actual post for you guys! I am such a bad blogger, and I apologize for that. Due to the fact that this is long overdue, I am gonna post about a million pictures and talk a lot... I hope you don't mind an epic post.

I'm gonna do this by posting my collective haul for the month of May with swatches of specific colors (if I have them) under each individual haul picture.

May haul all together.

Starting with my birthday haul (my birthday was 11 days ago) My parents are awesome people and got me mostly everything on my list.

From top row of polishes: 2 that Amanda got me, SH XW Going Green and Plum Power, Nina Ultra Pro Purple-Xing, Nicole Make A Comet-Ment, Finger Paints Give Pink A Chance (my mom picked it out), China Glaze Four Leaf Clover and Cracked Concrete, Orly Snowcone, Gumdrop and It's Up To Blue (another my mom picked out) and Seche Vite. Konad special polishes black and white, Konad stamper (I got a scraper too but its crap and I haven't been using it much, plus its all covered in polish from the 2 times I used it, I've been using an old credit card) and 20 fauxnad plates that all begin with "B" and don't really go in any order. Please excuse the scratched (thanks Konad scraper) and dirty ones...

Funny story about the SV. My mom says she went to Sally's to get my presents and asked the lady there if they had any "sesh-veet" like I had pronounced it to her. The woman looked at her like she was crazy, so my mom showed her my list and then the lady said, "Oh, you mean seck-ay veet-ay!" Seck-ay veet-ay?? Haha, lady you work in a beauty supply store, get your pronunciation right. Its "sesh-veet."

From this haul, I have used most of the polishes, except Plum Power, Gumdrop, and Give Pink A Chance.

Here's a mani I did on May 19th using Orly It's Up To Blue and China Glaze Cracked Concrete (topped with SV) This is on day 2 so excuse the tip wear.

This lasted 3 whole days even thought it chipped quite badly from me moving out of my dorm room. This is the longest I have ever worn a single mani.

This is what can happen to your nails when you move all your crap out of your dorm room:

I had to file all my nails down after the picture due to a few breaks. Back to ultra nubbins for me. :(

And this is my collection all packed up and ready to go home.

My dad was like, "That's all nail polish!? Both boxes?"

Round bottles, organized by color and brand:

Square and odd shaped bottles and art supplies.

And here's a swatch of Snowcone and Gumdrop on my Zoya Intimate collection swatch board.

Gumdrop (at least I think that's Gumdrop... I'm not sure) and Snowcone; I'll talk about whats next to them in a bit...

And here's my first time stamping on myself. I'd done my sister's toes and my mom's nails before this. I know how terrible a job this is... I had a hard time picking this image up. I don't remember what the plate is called but I'm pretty sure its a dupe of a Konad plate image but I'm not sure. This is on 1 coat (!!) of Snowcone (gorgeous color) with Konad black (which is a BITCH to clean up!)

Next is my Target haul I got with the gift card I got for my birthday.

I got a $1 Sally Hansen toe separator which I love, Nicole I'm A Beliber and Nicole's Nickel, SH Barracuda from the new Tracy Reese collection, and Sinful Forget Now (which I am still convinced is a very close dupe of China Glaze Ahoy! because no one has done a really good comparison of the 2...)

Here's a swatch of Nicole's Nickel on my swatch board.

Nicole's Nickel by itself (2 coats) left and 1 coat over black on the right. I wore NN but forgot to take pictures because I will definitely wear it again soon. Its pure awesome-sauce... a completely opaque glitter in like 2 coats. Its the charcoal/silver version of One Less Lonely Glitter and is definitely a top coat eater. It gives an amazing tin foil look and sparkles like crazy. I reccomend picking this one up if you like glitters... it won't disappoint.

I think that might be Barracuda on the far right and not Gumdrop but I'm not positive... Barracuda takes at least 3 coats for opacity, its a little sheer. My sister is wearing it right now and its stayed well on her for 3 days or more. I haven't worn it yet. Its a little lighter and bluer than Gumdrop so they're not dupes but I don't care because I'm obsessed with this kind of color right now...
Incidentally I also got some purple flip flops for $2.50 that exactly match I'm A Beliber so of course I wore that as a pedi and it looked awesome. Amanda has that one and has swatched it on here before if you're interested in seeing it.

Next up is my K-Mart haul. I was surprised to find as many good things there as I did.

Wet n Wild Party of Five Glitters, the Lippman Glitter in the Air-esque franken I made using PoFG which is still unnamed, Jordana Pop Art black striper, Milani 3D Holographic Hi-Res, WnW SaGreena the Teenage Witch, and WnW Black Creme (which has obviously been used quite a bit already) Oh and FYI, the pink stickers on some of the polishes mean that they're good for stamping.

Here's a mani I did using WnW Black Creme as a base and 2 "coats" of PoFG. I say "coats" because the method of applying this is dabbing because its so thick and its difficult to get the glitter pieces to go on evenly.

Mysterious dim lighting...

I loved this look a lot so it needed 3 pictures... Its so happy and fun and foily like confetti!!! I love love love it!! Except I don't love my ultra nubbins. :(

And here's a swatch of Hi-Res and SaGreena the Teenage Witch (I may or may not have bought that one just for the name...)

Holllllooo!! Wow, this one was so surprising. I remember seeing swatches of it a while ago but forgot what it looked like. This is soooo freakin' holo amazingness!! Its like the CG OMG collection holos, its a super strong linear holo (only slightly scattered, mostly linear) and I found it at K-Mart for $4!! It was all alone by the Sally Hansen display and I searched and searched for the Milani display and couldn't find one so I still have no clue where this came from... or if K-Mart even really sells it. After Googling swatches of this one I discovered that this is a close dupe of China Glaze Octa-Gone Wild from the coveted Kaleidoscope collection.

I tried to get a better picture to capture the holo in this but failed. I will be wearing this one again so look out for better swatches of it. SaGreena is just a typical emerald green but its kinda thin but I'm okay with it since I only spent 99 cents on it and I love the name. I think it will be great for Christmas.

Last is my Walgreens haul from Friday.

 Wet n Wild Gray's Anatomy, Sinful Pink and SH Crackle Fuchsia Shock.

I initially went wanting to get the purple and pink Sally Hansen crackles and when I went for the first time Friday they had the purple one and I should've grabbed it but didn't have my money with me. I went back later because I was bringing my mom to an appointment (she just had knee surgery so I've been driving her around) and the purple was gone! So I got 2 of the Fuschia Shock (one was a present for my friend who's birthday/graduation party is tomorrow... or I guess today because I'm writing this at midnight) This crackles fairly well, but its kinda picky. It wouldn't crackle over my mani I had on already which had SV on it.

So painted a coat of Gray's Anatomy on my other thumb and then did a coat of the crackle while it was still tacky and it seemed to work better.

 On the left side of my nail its thinner and I made it thicker as I went across. It seems to work better when painted in thicker coats. I just dipped it in the bottle and didn't wipe any off and that seemed to be good amount. Its also kind of sheer when was disappointing but if you do it thick it'll be more opaque.

Oh and here's a pic of that mani I was wearing in those pictures.

3? coats of Zoya Zara and then zebra stripes painted with the Jordana Pop Art striper. I looked at a picture of a mani stamped with the M57 Konad plate and tried to replicate it... :)

And then here's a pic of today's mani using Sinful Pink (seriously its just called "Pink." I found it in a neon display at Walgreens. I'd never seen or heard of it before so I got it. It reminds me of one of the CG Poolside neons...) I also stamped with a plate (I don't know which... not that it matters anyway because I'm probably the only one that has this set of plates and I don't recommend them because there are several duplicate images on more than one plate, a few of the images aren't engraved deep enough and there are no full nail images, just lots of boring flowers) with Konad black. This image would NOT pick up so I did my best. I still obviously need practice.

As you can see, this color FREAKED my camera out, lol. The bottle color here is pretty accurate though. So I attempted to try to photograph this underwater since I'd heard that works with neons but I don't think it made it much better. Its still waaaay too red. But at least you can see the stamp now... the only decent one was my index. This is also with SV by the way since it dries very matte. This was also about 4 coats because it has the typical neon sheerness. I think this color might be a good $1.99 substitute for one of CG Poolside pink-y reds if you're lemming them and haven't picked them up. I don't have any of those CGs so I can't say for sure. This is definitely very very bright, like retina searing bright and screams summer to me.

So there you have it, my May haul. If there's any specific color you'd like to see swatched, feel free to leave a comment and request it.

I hope this wasn't too long and boring and at least some of you read and enjoyed it.

I hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekend and have a great day/night. Thanks for reading!

Fiona