Icy Sweets

In oh so many different ways, but mostly this way, because hey look, check out what’s been going on for the past 36 solid hours!

I should note that these are totally common weather conditions in my city at this time of year.  Hell, these are sometimes common conditions at the end of April.  But as always (and I am confident I’m not alone in this assessment) I am now done, done, done with the winter.  Effing snow globe life is for the birds (or particularly disturbing episodes of Black Mirror.)

So it’s just as well I’m bound and determined to drag out every single springtime polish I own this week, if only to see if all those cheery shades can course-correct my crap weather-induced bad mood.  Here I started with KB Shimmer’s Sweet Egg-scape, a pastel glitter bomb that I always think reads a bit more Valentine’s Day than Easter, but to each polish creator their own, you know?  And then I topped it with a couple of icy treat nail charms, because we really can’t have anything spring-like around here without covering it in a crisp layer of frost or two inches of frozen slush, now can we?  Whoops, so much for reeling in that bad mood…

Glitter Cakes

Or cake, singular, of the cup-type variety, which is actually a quite large, crystal-studded nail charm from Daily Charme. Nail charms are one of those embellishments I have a hard time getting behind, and not just because even at their tiniest, they’re still rather obtrusive. No, my issues stem from the fact that they’re very “one look”; unless you have mile-long talons that can accommodate a jewelry box worth of studs, charms and crystals, the best you can do is to simply lay the charm on your nail, the end. Lather, rinse, repeat.

And so knowing that, I thought I’d highlight this adorable, but simple, cupcake charm by laying it atop another product I often struggle to find multiple uses for, mega glitter bomb crelly (ugh) and jelly polishes (here KB Shimmer’s Sweet Egg-scape.) I absolutely adore these kind of polishes (they always either look like jam or sprinkled frosting to me) but their utility is limited, particularly those featuring some of your more unique colour combinations. So it was great fun to find a polish that plays off so nicely against the cupcake charm, with Sweet Egg-scape’s pink, silver, red, turquoise and periwinkle glitter picking up the tiny iridescent flashes of the charm’s crystals. Sweet and charming.

Great Egg-spectations

I’m Canadian, and because we are totally obsessed with weather, we have this weirdly random method of measuring wind chill, or the perceived temperature separate and apart from the actual number on the thermometer (also known as “HOLY F&@k, there is NO WAY it’s only -15 out here!”) I believe we might be the only country in the world to measure what effectively boils down to individual tolerances for cold, although it’s always impressively Canadian badass to shrug off what’s already a horrifyingly negative number with a simple, “Yeah, but with the wind chill, it’s really more like -30.”

It’s a weird system, but regrettably not an incorrect one. Today, for instance, the temperature is officially -19 degrees Celsius. But with the almighty wind chill (and believe me, when you live on the edge of a river like I do, the wind is indeed almighty chilly) it’s -30. -30!!! And it absolutely feels like -30, too.

So before I lost all feeling in my hands, I thought I’d paint my nails with a new polish that reminds me that it might be two more long, cold, wind-chilled months until the Spring, but there is light – and warmth – on the horizon. This is Sweet Egg-scape, another pale glitter polish from KB Shimmer’s recently released Spring collection. Like its sister, To Peach His Own, Sweet Egg-scape is super flattering against paler skin tones, its periwinkle, white, turquoise, coral and red glitters adding a speckled hit of colour for perfectly pretty Springtime nails. As always, application was easy, although for the first time ever in Finger Candy mani history, these nails required two coats of Seche Vite to completely smooth out the polish. Sweet Egg-scape seems to have no more, or less, glitter in it than any of KB’s other offerings, so that’s not it, although I will note that Sweet Egg-scape is studded with tons of tiny little turquoise stars, and I think the other types of glitter – hexes, squares, triangles, circles – might be getting stuck on the stars’ points, resulting in some on-the-nail lumpage. Simply take your time to completely brush out each layer (and maybe double up on that topcoat) and you’ll be fine.