The struggles aren't in vain

Boy oh boy, I'm having a rough go.

I'm so grateful to the wonderful people in my life for supporting me.

Let me come right out and say it - weaning off anti-depressants is not easy. It's draining, frustrating, exhausting, you sweat a lot and you feel like shit. I'm extremely lucky that some people understand the effects. Hugs to yall. I know this isn't beauty/nail polish related but there are other of you out there that love makeup/nail polish, I'm sure of it. You will get through it!

Meanwhile, I picked up this Malvala polish called Pitchpin for $1 at Lawton's. The name Malvala totally reminds me of a character in Asterix called Falbala ...  Anyone? Ah, the damnedness of being French! Nobody ever catches my references!
 
I quite like the mini bottles. I never ever use up a whole bottle of polish so might as well buy some for cheaper that have less in them eh? And the quality of the polish is quite good as well. I remember Lisa Eldridge wearing a Malvala polish in one of her Youtube video - hence why I bought mine.

Cute right? The color is most similar to my last two fingers in the last picture. It's more bronzey than orange really. It seems like it would be a great color for a night out.

Picture of my current favorite mug:

Goodnight! I shall be back with Malvala and CND!

Hawaiian Orchid by OPI plus random spamfest of pictures!

I'm assuming the makers of OPI were thinking of this when they made this polish:

Because basically, all the orchids that came up in my Google search were fuchsia colored.

I actually quite like this polish. I love the pink - it has a blue/purple flash in it that I couldn't capture because apparently, there is no more daylight when I wake up in the mornings. This is three thin coats of the polish. It dried reasonably fast and lasted 3 days without chips on me. For you soft pink lovers, this is for you.

The other day, I was in such a crabby mood that my boyfriend basically ordered me to take a walk and bring the camera. The result was a better mood and pictures!

Yup, these are pretty lame. But it's okay because it was just for the fun of it. But I also haven't used Photoshop or edited them in any way. That probably would've helped.

Also, I'm painting now. I used to be decent as a teen but totally stopped painting when I moved out because I didn't want to bring all my supplies with me to school. I'm still not happy with the colorful one, at all. Hopefully, the painting falls into place.

The other one is finished (not like in the picture), and is now hanging in my bedroom. And I'm quite happy with it! Oops, my slipper is in the picture. Sorry!

I'm off for a little day of adventure. Some traveling, some chimney sweeping and horse races! Should be pretty exciting!

Nina Ultra Pro Take 2: Royal Purple

I have had this polish in my stash of untried for months. I basically only picked it up because it was something like $2 at Sally's and, well, $2 polish usually does it for me. Even if purple is never my first pick.

This was a true surprise. I expected this to be super boring duochromy looking at it in the bottle but it's really nice! This is three thin coats of the polish.

I feel like I've grown bored of blue/purple and pink/blue thing. But duochrome is making a comeback in my nail polish tastes. And glitter as well. This means DANGER.

Pretty eh?

I think this polish may be discontinued though. I'm not sure since I'm in Canada - the Sallys here is weird.

Billie is bathing herself, in her own cat way, as I write this. She says hellos. 

Fall is a-coming

As yes fall, my favorite season. Sure, summer is nice but it is nothing compared to the changing color of leaves, the crunchy noise when you walk in them, the smell of the air in the morning, and, most importantly, my birthday. I love fall.

However, weirdly enough, I'm not a huge fan of "fall colors" in makeup, clothes or nail polish. I get bored of them as soon as I see the magazines with the "jewel tones" section. Barf. Still, I though it seasonal and kind of cool to review another fall polish for Joe Fresh called Pumpkin.

This is two coats of the polish. It is much murkier and yellow toned than in the pictures. However many times I changed the settings to my camera, changed the position of my hand or window I was taking my pictures at - nada, it would still picture as a bright orange. Oh well.

At the bottom of the bottle in this picture, the murky orange color is what this nail polish truly looks like.

No complaints about this polish. It applied well, wasn't streaky, and dare I say, is a very original color. Well done Joe Fresh! - pretty much, as usual at this point. But work on those names please!

Now, nail art - I'm interested. Any suggestions as to where I should start? I don't like rhinestones and Hello Kitty. But anything else and I'm game! Lay-em on me!

I'm up way too late at the moment (painting my nails, go figure) so bedtime for me. Billie is even sleeping - if she's sleeping I HAVE to sleep or else she wakes up again and runs around and makes noise. I gots to hurry!

Below Deck, please.

Lemme tell you, this week has been hell. The only good thing about this week will be that I can wear jeans to work tomorrow.

But at the same time, I think I learned something this week. Things are only as bad as you make them out to be. Even if I had a crap week, looking back on it, I was angry at really silly things. Like my lack of moolah at the moment,  my completely unfulfilling job that makes the moolah not worth it, the cat worries (Billie is getting skinny!!! AHHHHH) and friend drama - in the end, I can only change what I think of these things and how I deal with them. What's the point in dealing with difficult things in a difficult way - better to take things with a grain of salt no? Besides, I'm lucky in a lot of ways - I have first world problems syndrome bigtime. I'm a stressed person by nature I think and I need to learn how to breeeeaaathe.

Blog face back on. 

So today, I will show you the exceptional regularness that is China Glaze's Below Deck. I was so pissed when I got this in the mail because I had also ordered, at the same time, freaking Essie Merino Cool which looks like its doppelganger. FML.

HOWEVER, Below Deck dried WAY darker than it looks in the bottle so it may not be a dupe. We'll see because I'll be posting a comparison soon.

It's pretty. Nothing unique or unseen. People couldn't decide if it was gray or purple. Sometimes I wonder if everyone around is colorblind. I think it's a taupe/mauve. Right?

The wear time suuuucked on this one - one day gave me major chippies. 

Aren't my cuticles doing so much better!? Be warned though, this picture was taken before the start of the week. Stress = cuticle picking/damage. I can't help it! But I do my best for you, moisturizing profusely, faithful 19 readers.

On another note, I'm not doing a "What's in Your Bag" post anytime soon since I'll probably get my legs shoved into a meat grinder à la LipstickRules. How lame people are nowadays eh? Geesh.