Category Archives: haul!

It’s that time again– here’s the nail polish I’ve hoarded over the past two months! As my collection grows, I find myself buying less and less and being a lot pickier. I’m up to 280 polishes, I believe, but that doesn’t include a box I’d like to get rid of. Maybe a blog sale soon? Who knows! I should probably go through everything and figure out what to do at some point.

Let’s start with the indies because seriously… will you look at these beauts?! First up are the Girly Bits P.S. I Love You Collection, which you’ve already seen swatches of– Hot Shot, A Mother’s Love, and Twitterpated. Pam does holo right, dang, I love these polishes! The little hearts in A Mother’s Love are so cute, too! I also picked up Femme Fatale Suspended Starlight from Llarowe after much stalkage. It’s freaking gorgeous, but you know how I feel about blue polish (hint: it’s the best polish there is!)

Now for non-indies I picked up China Glaze It’s a Trap-eze, which has quickly become one of my all-time favourites. I’m trying to resists buying a back-up and the only reason I haven’t yet is because my local beauty supply shop and Cherry Culture were both sold out. I was also going to resist the other polishes in this collection, but after seeing swatches of China Glaze Creative Fantasy, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. What an incredible purple! I have it paired up with something special right now, so stay tuned to see swatches of that in the next week or so! I’ve been lemming a light blue so I bought OPI No Room For the Blues. Beautiful colour, but when I got home I realized it wasn’t light enough. Still love it, still going to use it, but I need something lighter. NEED. Addict. I know.

Finally, a lone Sally Hansen Insta-Dri. Factory Direct, a warehouse closeout-type store, advertised Insta-Dris in their flyer for something like $1.33 each. RIDICULOUS considering they’re $7-8 ’round these parts. There’s a Factory Direct close to my work, so I popped over there and apparently I wasn’t the only one who thought it was RIDICULOUS because the freaking shelf was cleared out! The nice man helping me said they’d probably get more in, but yeesh. He was saying some lady was in earlier in the week and just cleared the shelf off into her basket. Damn you, fellow polish hoarder! They had one colour left. I doubt I would have picked it up in any other circumstance, but it was $1, so meh. This is Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Purple Haste– a dark purple with blue and purple shimmer.

That’s… it? Whaaaaat! Okay, well don’t worry, I’ll start hoarding for my next installment. Until then, tell me what you’ve hoarded recently! Are you trying to cut back? I’m having a hard time finding affordable nail polish wall racks from companies that will ship to Canada, so I have to cut back just for the space, haha!

It’s time for another nail polish haul! These are all the polishes I purchased or received during the months of November and December 2012. Since it’s snowing here, I don’t have my usual backdrop of my backyard. Ah well!

I won Never Ending Obsession’s birthday giveaway, and she sent me these great neon Color Club polishes in: Yum Gum, Raspberry Rush, I Always Get My Man-Darin, Get Your Lem-On, The Lime Starts Here, Wicked Sweet, and Gimmie A Grape Big Kiss. I Always Get My Man-Darin and Get Your Lem-On have a crazy awesome green sheen to them. I can’t wait to try these out!

Of course I did some online shopping too and got these from Llarowe: Nail Pattern Boldness Texas Tea (freaking love the name Nail Pattern Boldness!), Picture Polish Cosmos, and Jade Twist.

And then some more online shopping on Nail Polish Canada where I picked up Layla Holographic Black Flash, China Glaze Glitter All The Way, and Color Club Port-Folio.

A pal of mine gave me her Butter London Knackered polish. She also gave me the Nails Inc. Caviar topcoat as part of my Christmas gift, which is fantastic! Another pal picked up Inglot 851 for me while she was in New York.

I ordered an Avon polish in Sparkling Sky because the photo in the catalog was really neat… but it’s pretty meh. I did a swap with Stephanie over on Really Quite Awesome, and she was kind enough to send me OPI Jade is the New Black as well as a franken she made called Beach and Surf.

That’s not as bad as I thought this was going to be! I have a couple more coming in the mail (when do I not?!). My husband got me two new nail polish racks for Christmas, but they haven’t arrived yet. I went through my polishes and have just over 300 including a couple topcoat and other backups. Once the polish racks come in, I might prune my collection a bit, we’ll see what I can part with, haha!

What polishes have you picked up lately? Did you get some nice ones for the holidays?

Okay, so I was supposed to post this at the end of September, but I totally forgot. Instead, I’m adding my October haul (if you can call it that) to the bottom. Here we go!

I love seeing mail hauls and all that, so I thought I’d again share with you guys! These are the polishes I picked up in August and September. August was a pretty good month for my wallet, and September was equally as good for my nail polish stash.

I was pretty proud of myself for getting through August with only purchasing one polish (Sally Hansen Insta Dri in Virgorous Violet). My best friend picked up Nails Inc. Special Effects Sprinkles in Pudding Lane for me and I ended up wining a giveaway on the LLarowe Facebook for Jade Coral Rosa, which is a polish that changes colours in the sun. Neat!

But then September came around and it was all downhill from there!

First of all, the new Girly Bits collections were released. Above is her Hallowe’en collection. You’ve seen swatches on my blog already from this collection.

And more Girly Bits polishes from her Calendar Girls collection. I also picked up Razzle Dazzle, which I’m pretty sure was one of her launch colours. I had been eyeing it for months and it was finally time to buy it!

I also did something in September that I normally don’t do– bought a few OPIs! That’s Spotted The Lizard, Swimsuit… Nailed It!, and Every Month is Oktoberfest. Can’t wait to wear Oktoberfest! I’m usually kind of meh about OPI shades lately, but these ones are too gorgeous to pass up.

Finally… oh boy, I was excited about this eBay package! The Scholarly Nail had featured a bunch of vintage Sally Hansen polishes, two of which caught my eye– Dimension and Magnet. She was awesome enough to remember the giant lemming she created in me and alerted me that there was a seller on eBay that had them! SCORE! So of course I picked those two up. While I was browsing, I found that the same seller had a few Sally Hansen Nail Prisms for cheap that I didn’t have in my collection yet (South Sea Pearl and Golden Tourmaline) so I snatched those up! It’s been a while since I bought Nail Prisms!

My October was just like my August purchase-wise– I bought ONE polish. ONE! How did I manage that again? It sure does even things out. It’s a pretty one though, China Glaze Deviantly Daring from their Bohemian Collection. If this pattern continues, I’d better say BYE to all my money in November. I’m predicting a big haul for November since the latest batches of holiday-related polishes should be coming out. Phew. Sorry wallet.

Sorry for the crap lighting in the China Glaze photo– we’ve picked up some gloomy weather plus there’s a tarantula hanging out on my back porch, so I was NOT going outside!

What goodies have you purchased recently, or are looking forward to purchasing?

Time for a monthly haul! How exciting is that? I’ve been getting more and more into indie polishes. I love the different and unique combos these indie polish makers come up with! You’ve already seen a few of these already, but act surprised;)

First up are some new Girly Bits polishes. Girly Bits is my favourite indie brand. I’m not much into giant glitter (nothing wrong with it, just feel meh about it on my own nails), and Pam seems to stay away from just glitter in a bottle. Her polishes always have that extra oomph, that glowy goodness, that holo crazyness, or my favourite– that duo/multi-chrome va-va-voom! Pictured above: Hocus Pocus, January Morning, Jelly Shoes, Arctic Sunrise, Daddy’s Little Girl, Star Spangled, Cu Blue, and Rogue (mini). Some of these were sent to me for review, but I did purchase some as well!

Next up are the piCture pOlish polishes from Blog Fest 2012 that you saw the other day– piCture pOlish Demeter and Orbit! Another awesome indie brand that I’m only just getting into, but after seeing those Blog Fest posts of their other newly released polishes, I sense a piCture pOlish haul sometime soon!

Lastly is Pretty & Polished Sand Art, which is now carried at Llarowe’s store. I was so jazzed to score this one! It has the same type of matte glitter used in Nailventurous Floam, but this is blue, pink, purple, green, yellow… just gorgeous! And finally, a polish you can actually purchase offline in a retail store– Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Lightening. I just needed yellow polish and those Insta-Dris are pretty handy.

That’s it for this month! Did you score some sweet deals? What polishes are you eyeing?

Woop woop! It’s that time again! I didn’t go too crazy this month, but I did score some nice indie polishes and was given some more Inglot. So let’s get into it!

First up– three polishes from Amy’s Nail Boutique. These are so awesome! I bought the mini-sizes so I could try them out… but I also bought a second set for my best friend. Aw, I’m nice sometimes. Pictured here is Preppy, Lemon Lime, and Pink Lemonade.

I had some good luck on the Llarowe site a few weeks ago and managed to get two Lynnderella polishes– Mercury’s Rainbow and Happy Holo Daze. ONE of them is for me, and ONE of them is for YOU! I’m stocking up for my next giveaway, so I hope you like Mercury’s Rainbow!:) More details to follow! I also hope the drama around Lynnderella recently hasn’t turned you off… figures I get into her polishes as soon as the sh*t hits the fan.

Lastly, I have CM Midnight Impostor, which I was hoping would be a bit bluer. I’m looking for Essie Starry Starry Night dupes, but really, I’m looking for Nail Gear Scandal (from Bonne Belle, a long discontinued polish, but also my favourite polish ever). I also received two more Inglot polishes– the same friend (who also happens to be my husband’s cousin) that brought me back some Inglot from New York went on a trip to Vegas and brought me back some lovely flakies (Inglot 203). On that same trip, my Mother-in-Law bought me Inglot 978, a gorgeous pearly orange. I like vacations;)

And oh my goodness– no Nail Prisms?! I better get my butt in gear for next month and BUY ALL THE NAIL PRISMS!

You know the deal, blah blah half-way through the month I post my goodies. Here’s the latest batch, which ended up being SUPER AWESOME. So I’m a little excited… can you blame me? Look at these lovelies!

First up is Nail-Venturous Floam and Cover Band Sticks ‘n Stones. Ninja Polish announced on their Facebook one Friday night that Floam was going up, so I hung around and tried to get it, but Floam broke the site. I was a little bummed, but ah well. The next morning, I decided to check again. My timing was just right and not only did I get Floam, I got Sticks ‘n Stones, too! I’m so jazzed about these… If I catch some more good timing, I’m definitely stocking up on more Nail-Venturous polishes! Have you tried any of them? What did you think?

And of course I picked up another Sally Hansen Nail Prism, this time in Amber Ruby, on a blog sale. I think I might make it mandatory for each of my monthly nail hauls to have a Nail Prism in it:)

I placed a Sephora order and added a few polishes I’d been eyeing: Sephora Collection My Favorite Jeans, Sephora by OPI Opening Night, and Sephora Collection Moody Woman.

On a Sephora note, I also picked up the Urban Decay eyeshadow in Mushroom and the Sephora Lash Stash. Mushroom is omg one of the best shadows ever! And I’m really digging the Hourglass mascara that came in the Lash Stash. Just as a heads-up if you’re planning to place an order soon!

A pal of mine went to New York and graciously offered to pick up some Inglot for me! I can’t wait to play with these beauties! These are Inglot 341 and Inglot 138.

Just out shopping I picked up a couple other drug store polishes, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Brisk Blue (with the idea of putting Cover Bands Sticks ‘n Stones over it!) and Wet n Wild Jewels for Your Highness. I’d love to get more from that Wet n Wild collection!

What polishes have you picked up lately? Did you have good luck with Ninja Polish? Have you tried any Inglot? Let me know!

Here’s the scoop: mid-way through the month, I post all the new (and new to me) polishes I’ve acquired. I love seeing people’s nail mail, but don’t get as much polish as I used to as I’m trying to cut back on buying polishes (I need to pay for other things and I’ve officially run out of room on my nail racks and the eBay guy I was getting them from no longer sells them. Crisis!)

Well, you’ve already seen these ones– Girly Bits Shift Happens, Girly Bits Street Magic, Girly Bits Cosmic Ocean, and Girly Bits Into the Night. I ordered from Pam over at Girly Bits when her store was last open. I love Clarins 230 and all those other unicorn pee colours, so I had to get Shift Happens… and a few others! Pam lives sort of closeby, so we met super quickly for the polish exchange. She’s very nice!

Revlon Whimsical, Finger Paints Private Collection, Pure Ice Oh Baby, Pure Ice Tease, Pure Ice Rio.

I did a swap with Jenna Froggy over on I’m Still Thinking. We’ve swapped before and she knows I love those Pure Ice polishes you Americans can get at Wal-Mart but that us Canadians are out of luck on. She sent me three from my wishlist, plus the Revlon and Finger Paints as nice extras. Thanks again Jenna!

The Lynnderella is Be Mining For a Heart of Gold, which I won from a customer appreciation giveaway on Llarowe’s Facebook. This is my first Lynnderella, and while I’ll be posting swatches and a proper writeup when I have time to play with it, let me just say on first sight these polishes are NOT underrated! I also found Max Factor Fantasy Fire on a blog sale for a reasonable price so I scooped it up. Told you I love that unicorn pee!

And finally, I was going to include these in my May haul since I got these after the 15th, but I hadn’t posted this yet, so what the heck– here they are! I found some cheap Sally Hansen Nail Prisms in a blog sale. Was really stoked to get Garnet Lapis since that one is usually pricey. So here they are, more Nail Prisms for my collection– Garnet Lapis, Cinnabar Opal, and Cinnabar.

That’s it for the month! What polishes have you picked up recently?

I’ve saved up enough polishes to post a haul for you guys! Keep in mind I didn’t buy these all at once, they’re just the new (to me) polishes I’ve accumulated since my last haul post on Feb. 15. In posting these hauls, I’m trying to keep my nail polish buying low… or at least manage to get some good deals on these things. I was getting a bit out of hand there, haha!

First up, I used the rest of my Groupon for the local beauty supply shop and purchased OPI Warm and Fozzie, OPI Last Friday Night, OPI Dive of Geneva, and China Glaze Some Like it Haute. I was going to get the Sally Hansen Gems dupe of Some Like it Haute, but the China Glaze was $8, and that’s about how much I pay for Sally Hansen at the drug store, sadly. The OPI was buy two get one free, but my free polish went to my mom (one of the blue crackles).

Here’s some blog sale finds– Sally Hansen Nail Prisms in Burgundy Orchid and Pink Rose Diamond, Pure Ice in Heart Breaker and Busted, Sinful Colors Daddy’s Girl, and Maybelline Colorama #20 Give me the Chills. I think I’ve finally decided to collect all the Nail Prisms. This will take a while… but I’m starting with the shades that are unlike anything else in my collection and Burgundy Orchid definitely falls into that category!

Lastly are two polishes I bought on etailer sites– A-England St. George and Essie Shine of the Times. I picked up Essence Walk on Air at Shoppers Drug Mart. One of the bigger ones with the Beauty Boutique had a whole display of Essence products– this is the first time I’ve ever seen them in stores. Like I said earlier though, I’m trying to be good, so I only bought one nail polish (and it was under $2). The display also had eyeshadow, liners, face powders, etc. I’ll have to remember to bring my camera with me next time so I can grab a shot for you!

What are some polishes you’ve picked up lately that you’re absolutely loving?

I’ve been surprisingly good at not buying polishes lately. But, I did end up getting an order from LLarowe, using my Groupon for a local beauty supply shop, and winning a giveaway over on nailXchange, so I have a nice nail haul today!

From the beauty supply shop, I picked up three of the new China Glaze Magnetix polishes (my mom bought two of them for us to share– awww;)) in Pull Me Close, Instant Chemistry, and You Move Me. I also picked up OPI in Fly and found an OPI mini in Unriped by the counter. I just saw this in nailXchange’s blog and recognized it in the basket right away!

Here’s what I ordered on Llarowe: Cool from the Mari Moon collection, and Apolo, Dionisio, and Zeus from their holo line. I just placed another Llarowe order yesterday when I saw that they had A England’s St. George in.

And like I mentioned, I won a giveaway of some amazing Sally Hansen Nail Prisms– Diamond, Fire Opal, Emerald Amethyst, and Maybelline Colorama in Ruby Rays (a Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure dupe).

Hope you enjoyed seeing my new polishes! Are you guys into haul posts like this? I love seeing other people’s nail mail and hauls, so if it’s something you guys enjoy too, I can keep it up once I accumulate enough polishes to make it post-worthy (which shouldn’t take very long…)