Followers

Friday 29 March 2013

Mrs. P's Nail Potions - Follow The Rainbow

Well polish fans and indie addicts, I have created another new favourite look!!  I haven't done a glitter gradient in a while, especially just a glitter gradient over nude nails and not over another base colour.  I'm loving this simple but stunning and super sparkly look that I created using another of my own products, Follow The Rainbow.

There is not actually a whole lot to say about how I created this look.  I simply built layers of the glitter up until I achieved the desired look I was going for.  This polish is quite easy to build up because it is chalk-full of micro holo glitter which spreads nice and even and since the glitter is nice and fine you can fade it out quite nicely.  And the rainbow mix matte hexes are just a bit of fun here and there scattered over the nail beds :)  I topped everything with a coat of Seche Vite dry fast top coat and here are the results.  All photos are taken in direct sunlight.  I was so happy that the sun was out in full force that day so I could truly show off the dazzle of the micro holo glitter in this polish.











And to get a true appreciation for how dazzling this polish really is (even still not as good as in real life) check out my YouTube video of this mani.
So what do you think?  Isn't the holo glitter just fabulous?! :)  If you have Follow The Rainbow I would love to see photos of what you have done with it!

You can find Follow The Rainbow in my etsy shop.  A full-sized bottle of Follow The Rainbow is $9.00 CAD.

And don't forget, if you're in the Edmonton, Alberta, Canada area, you can make an appointment to get a manicure done with this dazzler, or any other nail potion in my collection.  Express manicures are only $10.00 and are effectively just a polish change.  Full manicures with cuticle work and shaping etc. are $15.00 to $20.00 depending on any nail art or embellishments.

If you're in the Edmonton, Alberta, Canada area, you can also book a polish party with me.  Gather your gal pals for an afternoon or evening, I will come to your home with all of my available nail potions and perform express manicures on you and all your guests and have my products out for display and purchase.  As the hostess you get your express manicure for FREE.  You will also receive 15% off any nail potions you purchase that day and you will receive bonus gifts/free product when your friends book and hold their own polish party.  Click on my "Contact Me" page to find out how to get in touch with me to book any of these appointments/events.

Thursday 28 March 2013

Blue/Purple Shifty & Pretty As A Peacock

Hello polish fans and indie addicts!  Today's mani is another done with my own product, Mrs. P's Nail Potions.  I used Blue/Purple Shifty and added Pretty As A Peacock on the accent nails.  All photos in this post were taken in direct sunlight.

Blue/Purple Shifty is one of the potions from the Shifties Collection.  It is a colour shifting polish which shifts between a vibrant royal blue and a bright purple.  It is very shimmery and gorgeous and I did 3 coats for a nice saturated colour.  It is a sheerer formula so it can actually be used as a layering polish over other colours to add some neat colour shifting affects to any mani.  The photos DO NOT do this polish justice!  As you can imagine it is difficult to capture the colour shifting abilities of this polish on camera.


After applying Blue/Purple Shifty I chose to use one coat of Pretty As A Peacock on two accent nails over top of the Blue/Purple Shifty.  I love this combination as the blue and purple of the Shifty play perfectly with the peacock inspired coloured glitters in Pretty As A Peacock.  Pretty As A Peacock is a glitter polish in a clear base with ultra fine gold flakies, small purple and turquoise holo glitters and medium blue holo hexes.  This polish can also be used on it's own in 2 to 3 coats for full opacity depending on the thickness of your coats and makes a fabulous glitter bomb!


It's like these two potions were made for each other, even though I created them at totally different times.  The Shifties were some of the very first potions I created when I started making indie polish almost a year ago and Pretty As A Peacock I created towards then end of 2012 out of my shear love for anything and everything peacock LOL.  Heck peacock was my wedding colours and theme :D  Here's a few more photos.



And to gain a much better appreciation for the glitteriness of Pretty As A Peacock and colour shifting of Blue/Purple Shifty, check out my YouTube video of this mani.
So what is the verdict on this mani?  If you have these potions I would love to see photos of how you would combine these polishes :)
 
You can find both Blue/Purple Shifty and Pretty As A Peacock in my etsy shop as mentioned above.  A full-sized bottle of Blue/Purple Shifty is $9.00 CAD and a full-sized bottle of Pretty As A Peacock is $8.00 CAD.  Blue/Purple Shifty is slightly more expensive due to the colour shifting pigment that is used to create it, which is a little more expensive to purchase than regular pigments.
 
And don't forget, if you're in the Edmonton, Alberta, Canada area, you can make an appointment to get a manicure done with these stunners, or any other nail potion in my collection.  Express manicures are only $10.00 and are effectively just a polish change.  Full manicures with cuticle work and shaping etc. are $15.00 to $20.00 depending on any nail art or embellishments.
 
If you're in the Edmonton, Alberta, Canada area, you can also book a polish party with me.  Gather your gal pals for an afternoon or evening, I will come to your home with all of my available nail potions and perform express manicures on you and all your guests and have my products out for display and purchase.  As the hostess you get your express manicure for FREE.  You will also receive 15% off any nail potions you purchase that day and you will receive bonus gifts/free product when your friends book and hold their own polish party.  Click on my "Contact Me" page to find out how to get in touch with me to book any of these appointments/events.

Monday 25 March 2013

Firestarter


Good afternoon all!  Today I bring you a look at a very special mood potion I have created.  I debuted it at a private little trunk show put on by The Local Social on Friday, March 22, 2013.  The following day I debuted it in my etsy shop.  This new mood potion I am talking about is called Firestarter.  Firestarter is a scattered holo jelly thermal that goes from orange when cold to yellow when hot.  It's super bright and cheery and the scattered holo is dazzling in direct sunlight and even under certain artificial light.  There is also a slight hidden golden shimmer when it is yellow.  Words cannot describe this mood potion well enough.  You have to see it to believe it!  And pics don't do it justice but they give a decent idea.

As mentioned above, Firestarter is orange when cold.  These photos are my own swatches on my own nails.  I used three generous coats of Firestarter and one coat of Seche Vite dry fast top coat.  I could have stopped at two coats of Firestarter but I went for a third for a really saturated colour.





With a change in your body temperature, as you get warmer, Firestarter turns yellow.  For photo purposes I used hot water to assist in the colour change.




As I was taking photos and the water on my nails dried, the colour was changing back to the cold colour rather quickly and the following photos were the result of that.



I then wanted to show the colour change from one extreme to the other on the nails so I got my hands completely cold and then dipped the tips of my nails in hot water.

directly after dipping the tips in hot water
a few minutes after dipping the tips in hot water, the heat began to spread to the rest of the nail bed
The next day the sun was out in all its glory so I decided to get some full sunlight shots to show off the gorgeous scattered holo as much as I could.  As you can imagine, holo is hard to capture on camera and these photos again don't do the holo aspect of this polish justice but you get a pretty good idea.  I also did not use any water or anything to change the colour of the polish, I took photos just as the polish was on me at that moment, which was mostly yellow as my hands were fairly warm but the tips remained a little bit orange still as the free edge was still exposed to the air and my nails are fairly long and the tips extend passed my fingertips.



slightly blurred photo to show off the holo

Check out my video of Firestarter!

 

So what does everyone think of Firestarter?

You can find Firestarter in my etsy shop as mentioned above (specialty mood potion).  A full-sized bottle is $10.00 CAD.  Firestarter is slightly more expensive than my other mood potions but that is due to the holo component as thermal pigments are expensive and holo pigment is event more expensive so I had to bring the price up a little bit from the rest of my mood potions.  However, if you enjoy my other mood potions then Firestarter will surely NOT DISAPPOINT!  I think it's my new personal fave and I can't stop watching my nails, especially in the sunlight :) LOL

And don't forget, if you're in the Edmonton, Alberta, Canada area, you can make an appointment to get a manicure done with this stunner, or any other nail potion in my collection.  Express manicures are only $10.00 and are effectively just a polish change.  Full manicures with cuticle work and shaping etc. are $15.00 to $20.00 depending on any nail art or embellishments.

If you're in the Edmonton, Alberta, Canada are, you can also book a polish party with me.  Gather your gal pals for an afternoon or evening, I will come to your home with all of my available nail potions and perform express manicures on you and all your guests and have my products out for display and purchase.  As the hostess you get your express manicure for FREE.  You will also receive 15% off any nail potions you purchase that day and you will receive bonus gifts/free product when your friends book and hold their own polish party.  Click on my "Contact Me" page to find out how to get in touch with me to book any of these appointments/events.

Tuesday 12 March 2013

Hair Makeover

Hello all!  I know it's been a while and I apologize.  It's been crazy busy around here.  While my husband was home from work we were running around like crazy getting furniture and accessories to finally decorate our master bedroom and bathroom.  We got everything except for paint!  That's next time he's home LOL.  So all of that coupled with the kids we were super busy and I had no time to put together a blog post, although I've been wanting to do this post for almost a couple of weeks now!  And then when he left for work of course I'm a single parent and everything is on me so that eliminates my free time as it is but I've also spent a TON of time lately looking into and booking events to showcase my Nail Potion line so that's taken up all of my free time that I do have while I'm home with the kids on my own and I would otherwise paint my nails or do a blog post.  But today I'm taking a break from looking at events etc. to finally do this post that I've been DYING to do! (pun totally intended and you'll understand later ;) LOL)

So as many of you already know, my bestie Kate Slemko is an amazing hair dresser.  She works at a salon in downtown Edmonton called Salon Front (website: http://www.salonfront.com/, Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/SalonFront).  It's an awesome salon and I absolutely love their big atrium area where you get your hair done.  The natural light just comes streaming in through the wall to wall windows and it's so bright and cheery, especially in the winter months where we just don't see enough of the day/sunlight.  Kate has been doing my hair for a little bit now and majority of the time she's been doing my hair it's been long and I was dying it myself with a washout box dye (deep, dark purple or dark brown/auburn during the time she's been doing my hair).

This is how we started out, it was a deep purple and long and layered with no bangs. 


I then went more auburn to lighten it up a bit for the warmer months.


I then went back to bangs, just before engagement and wedding photos as I've always thought I do look better with bangs and I feel that it's more photo friendly when my whole forehead isn't overly exposed LOL.


I wanted to throw these photos in because after a year and a half since my wedding I'm still amazed at the FANTABULOUS job Kate did on my wedding du!!!  I also changed from the auburn color to just a basic brown for wedding photos.


Oh and speaking of wedding hair, Kate also did my hair for my brother's wedding the weekend before mine where I was a bridesmaid.  You can't totally tell but the one side that is up is french braided and then she curled the crap out of the rest!




And shortly after my wedding I became pregnant so I let my hair grow out even more so it was easy to deal with when the baby came along.  I grew out the bangs a big so I could pull them back if I needed them out of the way and we made really long layers so that I could also pull those back out of my way if I needed to when the baby came along.


Having the long and not so super special or stylish hair was great while I was a new mommy.  It was easy to deal with and I could keep it out of my way and out of my face very easily.  However, as Devereux got older and more grabby and developed his death grip I was losing a lot of hair not only because of the hormone changes all new moms go through but because Devereux was pulling it out!!  ARGH!  It was just way to easy for him to grab, even when it was in a pony tail, cuz it was so long.  Then I also started feeling shlumpy and not so stylish so I decided I needed a huge change and needed to do something to make me feel special, stylish, funky, and like my old self again.

This is what ensued...



I COPPED IT ALL OFF!!!!!! (not the first time I've done this, although it had been years since the last time)  Kate did the most amazing asymmetrical angled bob!  I was in love instantly!  And I loved the variety it gave me for being able to style it.  I can super poof it or even make it all flippy and textured.  Heck I can even curl it a bit if I really have time LOL










Next it was time to deal with the colour.  I was getting more and more time as Devereux got older so maintenance wasn't as much of an issue as before and with the new cut I felt like I needed to amp it up another notch with a fabulous colour.

GO RED!!! (again not the first time but it's been even longer since I've been a red head than since I chopped all my hair off before)





And now for the SUPER DUPER UBER fun and shocking part.  Kate and I had been talking about giving the colour some dimension for the last few hair appointments.  I've always loved high/lowlights to give colour some dimension and I was finally ready to spend the cashola and change my one solid colour (although a fabulous colour) into a multidimensional masterpiece!!  I wanted to have some fun with it and do something I had never done before.  We kept the same red base and added...



Actually before we could add some colours Kate had to bleach some sections.  And this is why...


She put some Special FX colours in.  I believe they were Napalm Orange (pretty much exactly how it sounds from the name, basically a neon orange), High Octane (a deeper, darker but still basically neon orange) and Cherry Bomb (another deep, rich neonish colour but kind of a pinkish red).  Then she put some black streaks in to balance out the bright and give it another dimension and then touched up my base red and I got to sit like that for a while.  Then I had to sit for another while under the heat.


It was not a quick process, I'll tell you that much but it was OH SO WORTH IT!  Plus it was great visiting time with my bestie without the distractions of my kidlets or anything else cuz she didn't book any other appointments while I was processing.

Once the colour process was done she gave me a good trim as I was more than due and we changed the style up just a tad.  And here is the end result!!!






All I have to say is...

BEST HAIR EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you are in the Edmonton area and you are looking for a fabulous hair transformation then you definitely need to look up Kate Slemko at Salon Front!!  If you're not really looking for a major transformation but just a good hair dresser or stylist then Kate is also your best bet.  I honestly don't think there is anything she cannot do!  I swear you won't be disappointed and I'm not just saying that because she is my bestie.  I think this post proves how good she is on a number of different levels!!!

THANX BABE!  MUCH LOVE! ox's

Hope you guys enjoyed this post.  I certainly enjoyed going through the process to make this post happen and it was nice to do a post that was completely different from any of my other posts thus far :)