milan & vanaily

Holiday Cheer: Home Decor

2012-12-05T19:51:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone!

I know it’s been a while since we've been here and this isn’t even a nail post... but with the holiday season around the corner I thought I should share some inspiring DIY holiday ideas. Hopefully you guys will enjoy :)

Christmas is actually my favorite holiday and it's been years since our family last had a Christmas tree. Sad, I know. I'm hoping we'll end up buying one this year but I don't know if we have enough space in our home. In order to compensate for this I did some decorating with a couple things we had around the house and a few ornaments we brought last year.

Keep on scrolling for more ideas and where to shop!

First up, nutcracker men! My mom and I found these two men at our local Winners. I was browsing around and they had a whole little section of nutcracker men ranging from $7.99 to $24.99CAD (might be even less than that). The guy on the left cost me $19.99 and $14.99 for the smaller guy. I was quite pleased with the prices, considering I saw other men for $40 at The Bay. The glittery reindeer you see here were from the Dollarama...which btw you should check out. They have a lot of Christmas items that are pretty decent in quality.

Runner up, we have a long vase that I also picked up from the Dollarama ($3ea, crazy huh?)I ended up filling it with a couple of ornaments I picked up on sale at the Real Canadian Superstore.

Now we have two smaller nutcracker men that I picked up from the Dollarama ($2ea). In between the two men, I used an old fish bowl I had laying around my basement and filled it up with the rest of my christmas ornaments.

Here we have a couple of cards I made. You can find a lot of ideas online, or even try to duplicate some of the cards you like (hey, our family members don't need to know where we find our 'inspiration'). I brought the card & envelope kit from Michaels using a 40% coupon. I highly recommend that you guys check Michael's website for coupons, they often have coupons where you can save 40-50% off 1 regular priced item or 20% your whole purchase.

Lastly we will finish with Frosty. This guy was crocheted together last year, he's a total cutie. Great for decorating the place or to give away as a gift.

Well I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Holiday. Hopefully my pictures have inspired some of you to look around the house and do some decorating of your own! Until next time...
-vee

China Glaze Magnetix - Instant Chemistry

2012-03-29T09:15:00.000-04:00

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For some reason I kind of panicked when I applied this nail polish haha. I guess it’s because I had to apply the polish quickly and hold the magnet. I’ll admit I had a hard time using the magnet to my nails while they were still wet. Be advised that if you hold the magnet too close, the nail polish will actually lift and a tiny bump will form.

This is one of my favourites from the Magnetix Collection because it is relatively subtle. I prefer not to have “loud” nail designs haha. This nail polish dries fast and only needs one coat! Music to my ears – I can’t stand waiting around for my nails to dry. I’m not wearing top coat in these pictures, but I definitely recommend top coat with these magnetic polishes. They tend to wear off easily and are semi-shiny. Thank you to Nail Polish Canada for providing this to us!

Other than a few accidents of holding the magnet too close to my nails or actually bumping my nails into the magnet, the application wasn’t too bad. I held the magnet for about 15 seconds on each nail and kind of wiggled the magnet around...I’m not sure if that the best technique to use.

Do you girls have any magnet techniques to share with us? :D

*This was sent by Nail Polish Canada for review

-m

GIVEAWAY WINNER!

2012-03-01T18:19:00.001-05:00

At long last, we have picked our winner!

*drum roll*

preciouspearl
From: http://preciouspearlmakeup.blogspot.com/

Congrats! Please check your inbox and reply back within two weeks :)

Thanks again everyone for joining our giveaway and for being so patient!

-Milan and Vanaily

An exciting day

2012-02-19T11:54:00.010-05:00

So it's been a long time since I've been excited about nail polish. Over the last few months I've lost my excitement for them because there wasn't anything really new... and nothing really tickled my fancy. It's so much harder to justify buying any more polishes because we already have too much. But yesterday as I was shopping around this is what I came across! (Sorry for the quality these were taken from my iPhone, high-resolution coming soon).

Sephora at Yorkdale opened a little Nail Bar island. I know they usually have their own stand for Sephora by OPI, but none of them did anything for me... it was like "okay, what else is new". But when I saw this nail bar, I felt like a kid in a candy store. I mean... canadian girls TAKE A LOOK AT THE TOP ROW! Sephora is finally carrying Illamasqua in Canada!. I think I was a little overwhelmed, not to mention they were having a promotion so they were going for $14CAD. I might of been to fixated on Illamasqua, but I should mention it looks like Dior expanded their nail line. A couple of them were pretty impressive/expensive at $24CAD.

I thought this was cool looking. This was a display outside The Bay for MAC's SHOP collection. It was set up like shopping aisles.

End of the day, this is what I ended up with:
Illamasqua Lament and Phallic. Lament was a color I was interested in for a long time. I mean it's pink, coral and bright! I could not help myself. Although this color is not that unique, there are definitely cheaper alternatives like: essie's cute as a button and wet and wild 437F.

As for Phallic, Milan did a quick swatch for me in-store. It was deep, rich with beautiful shimmer. I was sold, I threw back Milf and Jo'Mina for it.

Lastly I brought YSL's new Volupte Sheer Candy in #2 Dewy Papaya. This one smelt really good. The color is very sheer, but I brought it to wear over my other YSL Volupte lipstick. I'm sure there are many alternatives to this one, any sheer lip product will do...haha. ($38CAD).

-vee

Give-a-way update

2012-02-05T15:57:00.003-05:00

Hello everybody! Just a quick update that we are starting to tally up our give-a-way. We will still accept entrants until February 10th, eastern standard time.

We've been super busy but we plan on picking a winner by end of February. So make sure you check your inboxes!

-m&vee

OPI: Merry Midnight

2011-10-24T08:58:00.003-04:00

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I know I’m about 2 years too late in swatching this. This is from OPI’s 2009 Holiday Wishes Winter collection.

We don’t have anything in our nail polish collection like this...a jelly dark plum with red flakies and blue round glitter?! Man, I need more flakies!!! :(

I’m wearing 4 coats in these pictures. I could’ve stopped at 3 coats though. This polish was super sheer in the first coat, but it builds up quickly. This dries pretty quickly too, so I have no problem with applying 4 coats.

If you girls have any recommendations of some nice nail polishes with flakies, I would love to hear it! (Preferably something I can get in Canada). :D

-m

P.S. Don't forget to join our giveaway (click here to enter)!

Give-a-way time!

2011-08-11T12:30:00.001-04:00

Hello everybody!

My sister and I been so busy lately that we haven't got the chance to update our blog as much as we like. Right now we like to start up a giveaway to show our appreciation! Right now we're going to start off with a small giveaway that includes 4 China Glaze polishes and 1 nerdy pear made by yours truely. We are hoping to add more to this giveaway before it ends. Possibly more toys... depending on what you girls like. We will post updates when we make more additions to the giveaway!

See what we have so far:

How to enter:
+ You must be a follower via Google Friend Connect
+ Leave a comment below with your email address so we can contact you (you get 2 entries for this, since we have not came up with a finalize date yet)

Extra entries:
+ Blog/Youtube/Twitter about this giveaway (two entry for each)
+ Add us to your blogroll :)
+ Any mention of us anywhere will also count, wheither it is makeupalley or what not, just show us a link and we will count it!
+ Follow me on twitter

Stay tuned for more updates and goodies!

P.S: I will add the names of all the polishes once I get home. If I recall properly we have: Flip Flop Fantasy, Light as Air, Happy go Lucky... and I need to check the name of the black one lol.

-M&Vee

Re-post - Chanel: Paradoxal

2011-07-19T09:00:00.000-04:00

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I wore this colour a few pictures ago and though it would be a good idea to update my swatches for this.

If you girls remember, I wore this in my first very first post! :3 This time around, it lasted more than a week with no signs of wear! No chips, tip-wear, nothing! If probably helped that I used the good ol’ “wrap technique”, haha...and for good measure, I also “wrapped” my nails with topcoat. I bet this would’ve lasted more than 7 days, but I wanted to change it.

You can find my full review of this by clicking here.

As much as I love this colour, I still can’t believe I spent $30 on this. Man, I must’ve been nuts.

-m

piCture pOlish: Mudshake

2011-07-11T08:04:00.005-04:00

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At first glance, this colour reminded me of American Apparel’s Mouse . This colour is more of a grey though and has a slight hint of purple in it. I wouldn't say this colour reminds me of mud since it's more on the grey than brown side.

I believe this is also more opaque than Mouse . I’m wearing 2 coats and top coat in these pictures.

I didn’t have such an enjoyable time applying this one. The brush was on the flimsy side and the polish was somewhat thick. After the first coat, I had to add a few drops of thinner since it the application wasn’t smooth. I also had to redo a finger because I banged my hand on the table. u___u sigh. How ironic...because says "No mess! No fuss!" on the bottle, haha.

On the plus side, this polish lasted about a week. After 6 days I got 2 small chips but I still didn’t have any tip-wear because I used the “wrap technique”.

All in all, I think I like Mouse more. You can find my swatches and review of Mouse by clicking here. What do you girls think?

-m

OPI: So Many Clowns...So Little Time

2011-06-20T08:56:00.000-04:00

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I have no idea what the name of this nail polish means. On another note, I really like this. I thought it would look strange on tanned hands but it turned out to be quite flattering. This made my nails look so much healthier haha.

I’m wearing 3 coats in these pictures. I didn’t have much a problem with streaks with this nail polish as I do with other sheer nail polishes. This also lasted quite long. I wore this for a week. Although I didn't get tipwear, it did start to "lift" up at the cuticles.

This is the only colour vee and I brought from the Femme Cirque collection...now I’m thinking we should have gotten more.

-m

Essie: Wicked

2011-06-16T11:30:00.000-04:00

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(I like how vampy it looked in this picture...the reflection in my nails look like creepy castles hehe)

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JIMINY JILLICKERS. MY EYES ARE SOO HAPPY. It’s SOO glossy! Oh my, I think I might be drooling as I’m typing about this. How embarrassing.

I might even consider this a jelly. This is 2 coats, no top coat. I definitely recommend top coat with this colour (and every other vampy colour out there). You’ll know why when you realize you have red scratch marks on sheets of paper and on the walls, haha...true story. I plan to add another coat of top coat in a couple of days to revive the lustre. Application and everything was fine.

I brought this colour because I heard it was a dupe of Chanel’s Rouge Noir/Vamp. It looks pretty much the same as Rouge Noir, but Rouge Noir has more of a brown undertone. So I rather just have this and save myself some money and stress. Applying $30 nail polish stresses me out haha. I actually bumped my finger into something as Paradoxal was drying before. I didn’t even have the heart to re-do the finger, so I just put top-coat over it.

-m

OPI: My Private Jet

2011-06-06T09:18:00.001-04:00

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(this is an old photo, but it's the only picture I have that captured the duochrome.)

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This is the new version of My Private Jet, but I like it. I don’t own a bottle of the original.
I’m wearing 3 coats in these pictures. I could’ve stopped at 2 though. This polish lasted pretty long for me...but I did have tipwear after a week of wearing it. Other than that, no chipping, cracking or anything else.

You can only catch the beauty of this polish is in sunlight or bright lights since that’s the only times you can only catch the duochome and everything. Like many other polishes, this doesn’t make me as happy in indoor lighting. This looks black with white flecks in most lighting, actually...it reminds me of a granite kitchen counter, haha. Yup, it’s one mighty fine kitchen counter...

-m

Nubar: Gem

2011-05-27T11:55:00.001-04:00

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Taupe? Check. Holographic? Check. Duochrome? Check.

What more can a girl ask for? Without a doubt, this is my favourite nail polish of all time. The problem I have with a lot of nail polishes is I only like them in the sunlight. This polish however still looks incredible indoors and the glitter flashes all the colours of the rainbow. The base colour flashes bronze and even a dusty mauve/pink.

The formula is quite sheer. I’m wearing 4 coats here. The nail line was still slightly visible at 3 coats and even with 4 coats, I can see through my nails when I hold it up to the light. But I don’t mind. This dries pretty fast too and it was easy to apply. The only downside to this polish is it isn’t very glossy. Eh, nothing top coat can’t fix!

I wore this colour for an entire week and there was only a bit of tip-wear by the end of the week. WIN.

-m

China Glaze: LOL

2011-05-23T09:45:00.002-04:00

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This is one of the few shades of purple I can actually pull off. This is a really nice dusty purple, no?

I’m wearing 3 coats in these pictures I believe. No application troubles here. Another bonus with this nail polish is it is super easy to remove...most nail polishes with glitter are a real pain for me to remove.

This is still really nice indoors too. If I remember correctly, I didn’t like QT that much indoors. But this one looks great in any lighting. I’m so glad I found this. I’ve been looking for this for quite some time, and after a few emails to stores I was successful in finding it. Well worth the wait. :D

-m

Barielle: Grape Escape

2011-05-17T14:50:00.000-04:00

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Off the bat this reminds of China’s Glaze Grape Pop, but I think it’s a little bit lighter. I’ll do some comparisons of the purple creams I have soon.

This is a really lovely color although it reminds me of the color of eggplants, not so much grapes... lol. I find that Barielle tends to have a nice opaque consistency to their polishes and I’m wearing 3 coats, I could have stopped at 2. I know these polishes are sold in the states, and their website doesn’t ship internationally but good news for Canadian girls, I know I’ve seen these polishes at Winners before. They usually carry a small selection of them in store. Only downfall is that the colors Winners have are usually from older collections so if you’re eyeing something new it might not be there. They usually come out with such a nice variety of colors; I know the little swatches on their website doesn’t really do the colors real justice. Hopefully Barielle decides to ship internationally in the near future.

*This was sent for review

-vee

OPI: Happy Anniversary over Got a Date To-Knight!

2011-05-11T19:20:00.000-04:00

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I ended up wearing this color a wee bit longer by putting a little twist to it. As much as I was tempted to layer OPI’s Pearl of Wisdom I decided, hey why don’t I try Happy Anniversary (they sit beside each other on my rack).

So I layered 1 coat of Happy Anniversary and never looked back. I personally love it... the combination of the jelly polish and the micro shimmer gives it this “glass flecked” look. Quite pretty... so pretty that I think I need to buy more shimmery sheers next time I go polish shopping. It's a nice way to spice up any cremes or jellies you currently have. So if you girls have any recommendations, throw them my way!

-vee

OPI: Got a Date To-Knight!

2011-05-08T15:40:00.000-04:00

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I’ve neglected this color for about a year after buying it. If I recall correctly I first fell for this color when I saw swatches of it on ilovenailpolish’s site. After taking this color home, I was never in the mood to try it out (might of had something to do with this idea that I might need more than 3 coats).

Lately I’ve been into soft shades and other nudes so I decided to give this color a go. I ended up liking this color; I think it’s very subtle and cute. I used around 3-4 coats in these pictures, drying time was okay. Overall nice color, very work appropriate :)

-vee

OPI: Shorts Story & China Glaze: Fairy Dust

2011-05-02T10:35:00.001-04:00

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As promised, here is OPI’s Shorts Story with one coat of China Glaze’s Fairy Dust. A little bit of Fairy Dust makes everything better. :D

-m

OPI: Shorts Story

2011-04-28T10:30:00.000-04:00

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This is the first pink I’ve ever tried. The second pink I ever tried was OPI's I'm India Mood for Love. They’re both blue-toned pinks but I like I'm India Mood for Love more. This colour is a bit too girly for my liking lol.

This polish is quite opaque. I’m wearing 2 coats in these pictures.

I imagine this will look nice with China Glaze’s Fairy Dust so stayed tuned for that. :)

-m

Purple Trim

2011-04-27T16:20:00.000-04:00

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Materials used:
Claires: Calm/Wild
China Glaze: Peri-wink-le blue
China Glaze: Spontaneous

Dotters:from Born Pretty

Vee somehow convinced me that I should let her do this mani on me. This is definitely not my style. This is what I imagine what a dopey cartoon dinosaur would look like haha.

On another note, I found the dotters from Born Pretty to be quite useful. Each dotter comes with 2 different sizes. The dotters were provided to us by Born Pretty and retail for about $4.74 each (it costs a bit less if you buy more than one dotter). If you want to see more of their products, click here.
-m

Nicole by OPI: Canadian Star

2011-04-25T10:00:00.002-04:00

SET YOUR EYES TO STUNNED (warning: this is a picture-heavy post).

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This is from the Justin Bieber One Less Lonely Girl Collection. This is definitely the star of the collection (haha, no pun intended).

This is 4 coats. The formula is somewhat sheer. Even with 4 coats I can still see through my nails when I hold my hands up to the light, but I don’t mind. In this case, I didn’t mind the brush even though it was still hard to evenly distribute the glitter since it was opaque after a few coats. It was also a lot easier for me to apply the polish around the cuticles.

This polish flashes purple, blue and pink and has a really unique finish (I included a close-up of this in the second photo). This seems to be a duochrome shimmer with flakies. The best thing about it is you don’t have to be outdoors to enjoy this colour. It still looks amazing in indoors lighting, but it looks even better in sunlight in real life (its beauty was hard to capture with my camera so hopefully the video gave you all a better idea of what it looks like in real life :3).

AHHHHH. My eyes are very happy with this one. This is the funkiest colour I’ve ever tried (I’m not usually too adventurous with my nail polishes), but I’m really glad I did.

*This was sent for review

-m

Nicole by OPI: Studio Mama

2011-04-22T10:35:00.002-04:00

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I had such high hopes for this color. I kind of wanted it a little more jelly like, but it ended up like a whiter version of OPI's Mod About You. I still like the color overall, but I was very disappointed with the application of this polish. I found that the new brush is a little too stiff; making it difficult to avoid streaking and bald spots... so you really need to work with a light hand to minimize that effect. (4 coats here)

I've gotten quite a few compliments when I wore this color, and I do like it as a color. I'm thinking next time I'm going to try to add a few drops of thinner, maybe even try out another brush if it comes to that.

*This was sent for review
-vee

Nicole by OPI: Top of My World & I Pink I Love Him

2011-04-20T20:15:00.002-04:00

Nicole by OPI: Top of My World

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Nicole by OPI: I Pink I Love Him

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Both of these are from the Justin Bieber One Less Lonely Girl Collection.

Sigh. These are clear nail polishes with sparse glitter. I’m wearing 3 coats for both of these swatches. I also found it hard to apply this with the brush too. When I was applying this, the brush sweeped off a lot of the glitter and made it really difficult to distribute the glitter evenly. I guess I should’ve applied this with a lighter hand.

I’m not too impressed with these two polishes. Top of My World just kind makes of my nails look lumpy.

I guess these would be a lot better layered over something else so I’m really indifferent about these. Ho hum.

*These were sent for review

-m

Battle of the Top Coats!

2011-04-18T17:50:00.001-04:00

5th Place:Seche Vite

Don't get me wrong, this polish dries at lightning speed BUT I have three major issues with it. First off, it contains toluene which is a carcinogen, and also the chemical is known to affect the developing fetus. I would not recommend regular use, and I would suggest staying away from it all together. (I only noticed it contained toluene after purchasing it… and I tried it a few times out of curiosity.) My second issue: shrinkage, ruins a perfectly good manicure. Third, it has the tendency to make your polish chip more quickly. Wait… make it 4 issues, it smells horrible too.

4th Place:

I found this one a bit disappointing. It’s not as glossy as I would like, and drying time is just whatever. I don’t have much to say about this one because I haven’t used it too much.

3rd Place:

Drying time is okay, if you work in thinner coats it’s much more decent. One thing I do like is the high-gloss shine it has once it’s dry. It works great with heavy glitter polishes, I’m not sure how to describe it but some glitter polishes look best when wet, and this top coat gives is that effect. Also works great with neon and matte polishes. I should make note that this polish thickens up pretty quickly, you’ll need to thin it regularly, especially once you pass the half way point.

2nd Place:

I quite like this one… I actually used up the whole bottle. The formula is much thinner than other top coats making it very easy to apply without the brush drying out. It also delivers a decent amount of shine to polishes that are already glossy, I wouldn’t recommend it over neon or other matte/satin polishes because the overall look isn’t as glossy say if you were to apply OPI’s top coat over it. Overall, very happy with this one I will buy again.

1st place: Dazzle Dry

My favourite by far… this one really surprised me and knocked my expectations out of the park. So many things I like about this top coat. First, it dries super fast, like Seche Vite fast! Second, very glossy; third, doesn’t have a smell to it. Definitely my go-to top coat! I don’t think I’ve seen this being sold in Canada, but I hope to see this top coat more widely available. It’s seriously great.

-vee

China Glaze: TMI

2011-04-16T12:40:00.000-04:00

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Bottle Close-up

woooooo!

So sparkly. I mentioned a while ago that Milan and I came across a store that had a few bottles left. Of course we brought all the colors they had, lol!

This is 3 coats here. At first I was afraid I'd run into application troubles because apparently holos are known for bald spots? Well I don't know about that but the polish was very smooth and I didn't have and troubles at all. I guess all I can recommend is that you work relatively quick,if you work too slow then you might run into trouble.

Sigh. These holos are so pretty. I hope we find more soon. I need to get my hands on 2NITE. ahh.

-vee