New Years Mani 2013

Hello all,

For my New Years manicure, I wanted to use something new that sparkled, so I decided to try out my new holographic polish from China Glaze called Gamer Glam. For the accent nail, I wanted to try out the third of my holiday texture polishes from OPI called Emotions.

The holographic effect in this polish is scattered and not as strong as most, but it is still a beautiful polish! I applied this with a regular base coat and used two coats. The texture polish also needed two coats to be fully opaque.

The holographic polish with indirect lighting.

What do you think? Did any of you have a polish from this China Glaze collection?

Pretty Essie Duo Manicure

Hello all,

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, too! I received 12 nail polishes for Christmas this year and I wanted to do a "12 days of Christmas" type of thing with a different polish each day. Unfortunately with my first manicure I thought it was too nice to remove the day after I applied it.

This Essie duo came with Turquoise and Caicos and Jazzy Jubilant, it also came with a glass file, but I haven't used that yet. I applied 2 coats of Turquoise and Caicos on all of my nails. It was very streaky on the first coat, but that was fixed with the second coat. Unfortunately, this polish bubbled up once it dried. I don't know if that's because of the short time between coats and it not being completely dry or if it was just how this polish is, I will have to give it another try later. I applied 2 coats of Jazzy Jubilant to my ring finger. I would love to try and fill out an entire nail with this beautiful glitter. It has good glitter payoff and the different colours in the polish could go with a number of different polishes besides the one it came with.

Overall, I really like this duo and I hope that the polish behaves more the next time I use it. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Christmas Season #4

Hello all and Merry Christmas Eve!

For this manicure I couldn't decide what to do, so I tried out 5 different designs over my favourite red: OPI's In My Santa Suit.

On my thumb I free-handed a reindeer with a striping brush and dotting tool. I made my index finger into a present with a striping brush and ORLY's Luxe. On my middle finger I painted a snowflake using this tutorial. I made some glittery candy cane stripes on my ring finger with a white and silver glitter striping polishes. And I did a gold and silver waterfall design on my pinky finger. 

I had been seeing the reindeer design on a lot of girls' fingers so far this season and I really wanted to try to make my own, too. What do you think?

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you have a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, too!

Christmas Season #3

Hello all,

Sorry for the delay with posting this, I was all tied up with Christmas preparations :). For this manicure, I wanted to try and make a fancy design for my first staff Christmas party.

I love doing candy cane designs this time of year, but I had never attempted the design on a french tip. I used the french tip stamp from Konad's m19 plate with special white polish, then I added the red stripes with a thin striping brush with OPI's In My Santa Suit. To even out the tips, I used my silver glitter striping polish and then I added a snowflake stamp from one of my old unnamed plates.

Here's the manicure under a lamp.

And here's a closeup of  the snowflake on my thumb.

What do you think? I'll be posting the manicure I'm wearing now tomorrow, hopefully :).

Christmas Season #2

Hello all,

I had a recent tragedy with my nails due to Christmas decorating. I was lifting a tub full of decorations and my nail ripped off right across the middle :(.

Sadness :(

At least this was not my swatching hand! In order to cover up the unevenness of this nail, I wanted to use a texture polish and my wonderful boyfriend had just picked up OPI's Holiday 2013 collection's liquid sand mini set, which came with mini bottles of Emotions, It's Frosty Outside, and Kiss Me at Midnight. I decided to try out the latter two polishes in a simple manicure.

I only needed two coats of each polish in order to ensure even coverage and I must say I'm mesmerized by the silver polish in particular! Texture polishes are great with application because they stay where you put them where they are so thick, this makes for easier cleanup :).

I'll be sure to incorporate these polishes between now and New Years again for sure, and hopefully in more creative ways haha.

Thanks for stopping by!

Christmas Season #1

Hello everyone,

I'm happy to share with you my first Christmas-themed manicure of 2013! For this first attempt, I wanted to try out my Christmas colours, mainly a beautiful new red that I just picked up from OPI & Mariah Carey's Holiday 2013 collection called In My Santa Suit. This is a beautiful colour and I plan to use it frequently this season! I was going to incorporate it into a French manicure, but I cracked a nail right across the middle and now I have to cover it up for a while. :(

For this look, I applied 2 coats of In My Santa Suit to all nails except the ring finger, which I applied one coat of Wet n' Wild's White Cream. Then I added the dots using Essie's No Place Like Chrome and the White Cream on the red polish using a large and small sized dotting tool. For the white accent nail, I used No Place Like Chrome and In My Santa Suit for the dots. :)

I was hoping to go for an abstract Christmas/snow type of design. The photo doesn't capture the distinction between the silver and white dots as well as it looks in person. The beauty of the red isn't captured either (time to get a real camera instead of using my phone's camera, haha). It's just such a beautiful shade packed with shimmer and a metallic finish.  

Here's the polish with what little natural light was available on the cloudy day I took these pictures on. :p

What do you think? What Christmas designs have you done so far this year?

Thanks for stopping by!

OPI Pure Lacquer Nail Apps

Hello all,

I'm taking a nail break this week to give them some tlc with a strengthening treatment. I was looking through my folders for some unposted looks and I came across this pretty one, enjoy! :)

This is OPI Pure Lacquer Nail Apps in Zig Zag Stripe:

These nail polish strips were so easy to handle and apply! I was expecting them to be much thicker, but was pleasantly surprised :). I'm also loving how pretty this looks! The only downside was all of the wastage that comes from this method of application. Because of this and the price I would not be using these all of the time, but they're perfect for special occasions! 

Have you used nail polish strips before? What do you think?

Have a happy weekend!