Lacquer Lundi

Last week, I sang the praises of biotin (which I purchase at Shoppers Drug Mart, a Canadian chain drug store). In the comments I was asked if biotin grows hair as well as nails. Well, let me tell ya! For me, the amount of hair that I have has not increased, but the speed at which my existing hair grows has gone crazy. My hair grew like wildfire to begin with, but biotin has increased it even more. Typically I get my hair cut every five weeks and prior to biotin, the last week before the salon was annoying due to grown out bangs hanging in my eyes. Now, since taking biotin, my bangs are annoying after three weeks. Unfortunately, this accelerated hair growth is not confined to my head and I have to shave my legs more often. But, my nails look wonderful, so I take the good, with the bad.


Now on to the pretties:

New York Color in a Minute - Little Italy
- purchased at Rexall (chain drug store) for $1.36 CDN

I was looking for a nice soft white polish and Little Italy seemed like a good bet. I'm usually a wacky polish colour gal, but occasionally I like the clean, bright look of white nail polish.

Little Italy was a bit troublesome. It flowed on well, but it is streaky. I applied three coats in an attempt to even out the colour, but if you click on the photo, it's obvious that there are still some streaks. I can't get too upset about this though as this is fairly typical of white nail polish.

I wore this polish for two days and it did get a reasonable amount of tip wear.



China Glaze - Shower Together
- purchased at Sally Beauty Supply for $3.99 CDN

Shower Together, from China Glaze's Ecollection, is such a beautiful colour - a medium greyed-out teal blue. I have a lot of this colour in my wardrobe, so I was drawn to this polish to use as a "fashion accessory."

This polish applied well, although it did require three coats to be opaque. However, it did not wear particularly well. After less than 24 hours, I had considerable tip wear and a few small chips.

I really had higher hopes for a polish this pretty.



Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear - Violet Sparks
- purchased at Rexall (chain drug store) for $1.53 CDN

I have a few sheer polishes in my stash that I'm not particularly fond of in the bottle. However, I like to give them a whirl on the nail because sometimes they surprise me. This is one of those polishes.

Violet Sparks applied nicely, although it is quite transparent. I opted to go for four coats to build up the opacity to a degree that I could live with (I do not like visible nail lines).

It was worth the extra effort because this polish is so soft and pretty on the nail. It's a soft pinkish-purple colour with a darker lavender flash and silver shimmer. It's perfect for a conservative work place or a job interview, but interesting enough not to be boring.


Orly - Glam
- purchased at Sally Beauty Supply for $5.99 CDN

Glam is hot. It is a deep, rich wine-red base with sparkling scarlet glitter. If I was vampire, this is the polish I would wear on a nightly basis.

It applied smoothly and covered well (two coats gave me a nice opaque coverage). It wore okay - minor tip wear, which is good, but several small chips, which is not so good. However, this polish is sexy enough to save for special nights out on the town.