Author Archives: Mary S.

China Glaze Neon & On & On Swatches & Review

China Glaze Neon & On & On Swatches & ReviewIf you’re ever feeling down in the dumps, one way to squeeze out a smile is to paint your nails with a bright neon nail polish. It never fails to work for me!

Recently, I bought 6 shades from the China Glaze Sunsational Collection – all the cremes. And I’ve been wearing a bunch lately.

The first manicure I wore was China Glaze Neon & On & On! It’s a very bright Barbie pink. Although I’m not crazy about pinks, when it comes to neon nail polish, it’s one of my favourite kinds to sport.

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OPI Peace & Love & OPI Swatches & Review

OPI Peace & Love & OPI Swatches & ReviewLike a lot of other nailphiles, I was really excited to see what OPI Peace & Love & OPI looked like on the nail.

It’s from the OPI San Francisco Collection that’s coming out on August 7.

It’s an interesting duochrome (although at times I thought I saw a third colour, which would make this a multichrome).

I wish that the sun came out when I was wearing this manicure, but Mr. Sun was shy, so I only have natural-light and flash photos to share with you.

I tried really hard to capture the duochrome by posing at weird angles. Hopefully you’ll be able to see the colour shift okay.

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Jo Malone Ginger Biscuit Review & Pictures

Jo Malone Ginger Biscuit Review & PicturesThe limited-edition Jo Malone Ginger Biscuit cologne is my very first grown-up fragrance, and I’m really excited to tell you all about it!

Before this, I only had celebrity perfumes in my collection. There’s nothing wrong with them. (My signature everyday fragrance is actually Britney Spears Fantasy.) But I feel really privileged to have a Jo Malone perfume in my rotation.

Although Jo Malone fragrances come in such elegant packaging, when I wore this incredibly intoxicating scent, I was overjoyed that it made me feel like I had rubbed a ginger cookie all over my body. It’s the kid in me – I love smelling edible! (I think I was a frosted cupcake in my previous life.) 😉

I only heard about Jo Malone fragrances recently when I hung out with two amazing fellow Canadian bloggers of My Numerous Diversions and Sparkled Beauty. (However, apparently there’s a lot of chatter about Jo Malone in beauty circles, and you can even layer the scents to customize the perfume experience. This brand totally flew under my radar until now!)

We went to eat Thai food and, in true beauty-blogger form, we hit up the stores. (My wallet was shivering a bit. But I did pull it aside a few days prior to the event and prepare it for the atrocities that might follow.) 😉

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MAC Heroine Lipstick Swatches & Review

MAC Heroine Lipstick Pictures Fashion Sets CollectionMAC Heroine Lipstick from the Fashion Sets Collection I did a Haul of Shame post about recently literally sold out in a few hours on the MAC website and very quickly at MAC stores and counters.

This is a shade that I’ve never worn before. As a new ‘lipstick convert’, I tend to wear more traditional shades like neutrals, but I have dabbled in (and loved) the super bright pinks and corals.

Although I’m very confident about wearing virtually any shade on my fingernails, when it comes to my lips, I was pretty self-conscious.

Wearing those louder shades on my lips made me curious about experimenting with other colours that I had previously ignored because I didn’t have the confidence to pull them off.

Purple is a shade I adore on others because it makes a big statement, and because, well, purple is one of my favourite colours.

(Green is my number-one favourite colour, hehe, if you couldn’t already tell from the many times I’ve gushed about green nail polish! But, I can’t say that I ever want to sport green lipstick unless it’s Hallowe’en. I’m not quite ready to go that far, even if I love goths who wear crazy lip shades!)

So you can imagine how nervous I was about MAC Heroine Lipstick. I’m happy to report that after this, I’m no longer too shy to sport purples. I really love how it’s an interesting and different shade – unexpected, actually! (At least it is on me.)

It makes a statement, but it’s not too crazy that it’s inappropriate for daytime wear. I just love it, and I think it suits my personality. Plus I seem to get lots of compliments when I wear it. That doesn’t hurt! 😉

I’m curious now to see how far I can stray from the ‘lipstick norm’.

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OPI First Date at the Golden Gate Swatches & Review

OPI First Date at the Golden Gate Swatches & ReviewLast week, Monday to Friday, I showcased 5 OPI San Francisco nail polishes, which will go on sale August 7th. Well, the train isn’t stopping – chooo chooooooo! 😉 I’ll continue to show you the rest of the shades in upcoming posts.

Since some people expressed interest in seeing the reds, and one reader actually met her fiance at the Golden Gate Bridge (How romantic!), I decided to push my review of OPI First Date at the Golden Gate up my list of blogging priorities.

OPI First Date at the Golden Gate is a beautiful, classic red that’s slightly muted. You can’t go wrong with this staple shade.

And even though red isn’t my favourite colour to wear on my tips, I must say that from time to time, I crave it like something fierce. In a strange way, red nail polish is like a ‘novelty’ to me since I don’t wear it often. So when I do wear it, it feels really special.

I recommend checking out this red creme because the formula is absolute perfection! The parts you see where I accidentally got some on my cuticles was entirely my own fault. (And, yes, I wore my manicure like that. The little imperfections didn’t detract from the joy of wearing it.)

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OPI Couture de Minnie Collection Press Release & Promo Pictures

OPI Couture de Minnie Collection Press Release & Promo PicturesEarlier today, I shared swatches and my review of Illamasqua Speckle.

This is a quick second post for today because I received the official press release for the OPI Couture de Minnie Collection coming out in June! Wanted to share it with all of you ASAP!

It consists of 5 nail polishes in girly red and pink shades.

Unlike the previous limited-edition OPI Vintage Minnie Mouse Collection, this time around, Ms. Mouse shows us her fashionable side.

The sketches of her all glammed up make me giggle because she’s pulling the ‘model face’.

The ones I’m most excited about are Magazine Cover Mouse (a new Liquid Sand!) and Minnie Style (red and white glitter).

Do you think you’ll be picking up any of these nail polishes?

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Illamasqua Speckle Swatches & Review

Illamasqua Speckle Swatches & ReviewThis review on Illamasqua Speckle was a long time coming! I wore this a while ago. You probably remember seeing it on my Instagram account.

It’s fine time I cropped the photos and brought this post to life like Frankenstein’s Monster!

Whenever I wear an Illamasqua nail polish, it always feels like such an experience because the bottle is so luxurious.

Illamasqua Speckle is a really cute lacquer because it reminds me of Easter eggs (the kind where it’s chocolate inside, but the outside has a thin layer of candy).

When I wore this to work, a co-worker said she liked it because it looked like a dinosaur egg. 🙂

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