Quilted Chatters

Today I've got a beautiful polish to show you, once again thanks to my awesome friend Michaela.  I've had my eye on OPI Chatters Me Up for quite a while, and when I was at her house the other day (Halloween cookie-baking and nail-painting party) she kindly let me borrow her bottle.  I am now absolutely sure that I need my own bottle of this!  :)

Chatters Me Up is an OPI shade exclusive to Chatters salons in Canada, as far as I know.  It's a wine-coloured polish with a strong pink shimmer that's almost micro-flakies, and it flashes an orangey-bronze in the sunlight.  This is such a complex polish, and unfortunately it was impossible to capture it in all it's glory in pictures, so you'll have to take my word for it! 

I used plate BM-310 and Essie Good As Gold to stamp on this image, the finished look reminds me of a royal quilt, haha!

Chatters Me Up had a great formula, and covered completely in two easy coats.  Doesn't hurt that I love the shape of OPI's brush, it fits my nails perfectly! 

I'm really happy with how this turned out,  I'm actually still wearing it and going on day 3! 

Tomorrow is Halloween, and I have managed to make it to this point without doing a single Halloween manicure!  Remember this post when I was complaining about the likelihood of me spending Halloween at home alone?  Well I've decided to tag along with a group of my friends and we're going to collect food donations instead of getting candy!  I've also finally thought up an awesome costume (my activity on Sunday, haha)  and I will be doing my nails for tomorrow, but they'll be part of my costume and won't resemble anything Halloween-y.  I haven't told anybody (besides my family) what I'm being, and I'm super excited to dress up!  If I get a decent picture, I'll post it here along with my matching nails!  :)

Wishing everyone a safe and happy Halloween, and my thoughts and prayers are with everyone on the east coast!  

Feenix Polish: Falling For You & Feenix Rising

Today I've got two stunning polishes from Suzette, the genius behind Feenix Polish.  I'll just get right to it!

Falling For You is described as "a clear base to which we have lightly added two shimmering pigments in tawny colors.  To that, we have stirred in a mixture of ten different glitters, some of them matte.  The result is a riot of fall colors reminiscent of an October walk in the woods."

My bottle doesn't appear to have any shimmer in the base like the pictures in the listing do, but instead has a scattering of brown micro-glitters throughout; I think I like it better this way though.  The most prominent colours of glitter are red and gold (Gryffindor, anyone?)  I layered one coat of Falling For You over Sheswai Badass, and I must admit that I was very tempted to give each of these two polishes a separate post and call this one "Falling For You, Badass". 

This glitter is very dense, and you can get full coverage in 3 coats.  The base is pretty thick and required dabbing to get even coverage, but the glitter was very well-suspended.  Topped with one coat of Seche Vite for the pictures, though I'd recommend another if you want a perfectly smooth finish.   This polish attracted a lot of attention because it was SO glittery, but the fall colours were very pretty and not obnoxiously glittery at all!  

Feenix Rising is described as "an incredibly beautiful topcoat...which has proven incredibly difficult to photograph.  It is a clear base with four neutral holographic small glitters."  I found the glitters to not be quite holographic, but more iridescent, however the comment on being impossible to photograph was spot-on! 

This polish is SO stunning; my mom said that they looked like these, and she's right!  I tried to take photos of this under my normal lighting conditions, but I was ending up with photos like the first one below, which IN NO WAY looks like the polish does in real life.  Application was the same as for Falling For You, and I used one coat of Seche Vite for the pictures. 

This one is just so reflective, so I went to a shaded area of the house to capture the true depth and beauty of this polish.  Ta-da! 

Now just imagine all of the colours constantly changing (similar to a blue-green-gold colour-shifting flakie polish) and reflecting light, and it looks like mermaid scales on your nails!  I said that I got a lot of compliments on the last one, but this definitely one-upped the fall glitter! 

I tried it over so many different greens, blues, and purples, and they all looked amazing.  I finally decided to layer it over Orly Decoded, to let all of the different colours of the glitter stand out.  Looking at the finished look, you'd never guess I put it over a dark grey even thought the base of the polish was clear! 

So there you have it, two stunning polishes from Feenix Polish!  You can purchase Feenix Polish on Etsy here, and keep in the loop on Facebook here.  I'm absolutely in love with all of the polishes in the shop, I just might have to pick up a couple more... or a lot more.  

Which of these polishes is your favourite?  Are you planning on picking up any of these or her other stunning creations? :)

Disclaimer: The products in this post were sent to me for review and my honest opinion. 

Snow Leopard

I have this awesome friend named Michaela, and she's probably the most crafty and creative person I'll ever have the pleasure of knowing.  She likes doing her nails too and we often talk nail polish, so I was super excited when she decided to get the Bundle Monster 2011 stamping plates.  I have the 2012 set, so last week we got together and borrowed some of each other's plates!

One of the plates I borrowed was BM-221, specially for this leopard print pattern.  I had just recently done a leopard-print mani and wanted this one to look different, so I used my newly-acquired OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls (LOVE) and stamped with Konad black polish. 

My Boyfriend Scales Walls is seriously the most perfect white ever.  For all intents and purposes it serves as a white polish, but it's heaps more flattering than most which look like white-out.  It also wears really well, these pictures were taken after three days of wear and I only had one small chip on my right hand!  

Last weekend we got the first dump of snow on the mountains, so these nails felt appropriate.  I'm really happy with how they turned out, and wouldn't be surprised if I re-created them a couple more times before winter is over!  Also, don't forget to like the new Globe & Nail Facebook page!

What do you think of this?  Do you like this different winter leopard print look?  :)

Badass

I've got to admit, I was biased towards this colour before I even wore it just because of the name.  I'm wearing this polish right now and have already had multiple opportunities to tell people who like my nails that it's Badass.  Win. 

This is two perfect coats of Sheswai Badass, with one coat of Seche Vite.  Badass is a vampy red-toned brown with a stunning dark red shimmer that gives the polish that glowing look. 

I picked this up on sale at Winners, hooray sales!  It's my first Sheswai polish and I'm extremely impressed with the formula, it's the definition of perfect!  The brush fit my nails perfectly, and the polish covered completely in one coat but I added another for depth.  

I actually put on Badass to use as a base for an indie polish (post to come soon!) but I just had to give this polish it's own post, it's so beautiful!

I LOVE this polish, I think it's a great colour for fall.  Do you like it?  Do you have any Sheswai polishes? Do you get biased towards polishes because of their names?   :)

Also, don't forget to like the new Globe & Nail Facebook page!

Shiny Funky French

First, I have some exciting (and long overdue) news: Globe & Nail now has a Facebook page!  It'll be a great way for me to connect more with all my followers (and blogging idols!) and I'm really glad that I finally got one going!   If you have Facebook, head on over there and like my page!  :)

Today I'm paying homage to the blog that started my obsession with nail polish, Chloe's Nails.  This has got to be one of her most iconic and re-created manicures, I've seen it everywhere!

I started with Sally Hansen Black Out, followed by a coat of Seche Vite and then Essie Matte About You.  I taped off most of my nail and painted the tips with more Seche, and then added a strip of black striping tape.  I was worried about how the tape would hold up without a topcoat, but I took these pictures after a day of wear and the tape hadn't come off yet!

Yea, sorry about the bubbly pinky.  That bugged me too. 

So how do you think I did with re-creating this famous manicure?  I really enjoyed wearing it and I certainly got a lot of compliments! (Many of which were proceeded by "What happened to the pinky?" Grrr)

Don't forget to head on over and like the Globe & Nail Facebook page to keep up to date with all my nail-painting madness!  :) 

Aphrodite Lacquers: Printemps a Paris Collection

Of course I'm mid-photo-crisis when I receive two Aphrodite Lacquers from Rebecca's delightfully seasonally-inappropriate Printemps a Paris collection.  I managed to perfectly capture the lovely colour and depth of these polishes, but you'll have to excuse my oompa-loompa fingers for the time being. 

First I have Terre (translated to Earth,) a pastel-green base (which my friends affectionately described as "frog" when they saw it) with emerald-green and yellow small hex glitters, and hidden green shimmer that comes out to play when the light hits it just right.  I'm not normally a fan of shimmer and glitter in the same polish, but Rebecca nailed it (no pun intended) with the barely-there shimmer that just adds another dimension to the polishes. 

I've used four coats for the pictures, with one coat of Seche Vite; I was very pleased with how smooth this was!  You know when you put top coat over a glitter after doing your mani at night, and then you wake up in the morning and it's all sunk and the glitter is super gritty again?  No problem with that here; these pictures were taken the morning after, with only one coat of top coat! 

The first coat required careful applicaiton, but the next three were super easy.  Great glitter suspension, and no dabbing required.  The jelly base is quite sheer, but if you don't have much free edge or a very visible nail line, you could easily get away with three coats like Stephanie did here. 

The second polish Rebecca sent me definitely does double-duty in terms of being seasonally-appropriate, this is Nuages, (translated to Clouds).  It's a white jelly base (love!) with silver, blue, and gunmetal glitters and a blue hidden shimmer.  

This polish fits in with the springtime collection because of the soft colours, but it's also reminiscent of a snowy winter scene, and I think this also makes a great winter polish for someone who doesn't like the normal dark colours that make up winter collections. 

This one is also four coats, but there is no top coat in the pictures; you can see that it's still very shiny by itself but I'd recommend a quick-drying top coat to help speed up the drying.  In terms of application, everything that I said about Terre applies here.  This one was a tad more sheer so I still had minimal VNL at 4 coats, but I didn't mind it very much with the white base. 

The only negative thing I have to say about this collection is that being a French speaker, in the names of the polishes there are some grammar and spelling issues, along with a lack of accents.  However, this has absolutely nothing to do with Rebecca's polish-making abilities, and I've been smitten with this collection from the get-go.  Anything with French, France, or Paris in the name, and I can't help but be biased towards it.  ;) 

You can find Aphrodite Lacquers always fully-stocked on Etsy, and keep up to date on Facebook. 

Will you be picking up any of the polishes from the Printemps a Paris collection?  Do you let the seasons influence your polish colour choices?

Disclaimer: The products in this post were sent to me for review and my honest opinion. 

Globe & Nail on StumbleUpon

I'm working on a post with some indie polishes from Aphrodite Lacquers to be posted later today, but for now I have a little favor to ask all of you.  If you're as addicted to StumbleUpon as I am (or even if you just have an account) I'd really appreciate if you could take a second to open my blog in this link, and click the thumbs-up "I like it!" button in the top left corner.  I'm  trying to spread the word about my blog, and the more it gets "liked", the more Stumblers will get directed to my blog!

Thank you so much, you guys are the best!  See you later with a polish post!  :)