Drizzle Nails

Recipe for Drizzle Nails:

-Two coats of Essie Lilacism

-A coat of Sally Hansen Disco Ball (sparkle topcoat)
-Put some pink polish on a piece of cardboard and stir it up with a toothpick till it gets tacky and stringy. I used OPI Pink Friday and Mod About You. 

-Drizzle the stringy, tacky polish across your nails

-Clean up excess stringy bits

Fini!

There are tonnes of YouTube tutorials to better explain the process.

I love love love how this looks, only problem is I kept picking off the pink parts!

Happy Hands "I've Made A Huge Mistake" (Arrested Development) Collection!

So here it is.. my indie virginity has been taken, and by none other than the fabulous Arrested Development collection from Happy Hands. I knew right away when I saw these polishes that they needed to be mine. Arrested Development is one of my absolute favourite shows, and all the polishes are so clever and pretty!

I picked up four of the six in the collection, so click the Read More button for some sexy swatches!

Sinful Colors Glass Pink

Today I have on Sinful Colors Glass Pink. I bought this a while back thinking it might be the same as Nicole by OPI Kim-pletely In Love, but it was a little lighter and way too sheer to be a dupe. Here are three coats, still showing quite a bit of nail line. 

Then to make it opaque I had to put at least three more coats on. So here is about six coats of Glass Pink.

This would make a much better layering polish I think, since at six coats it was pretty thick and icky. It looks pretty in the pictures though!

MMMMManicure

I'm calling this my "M" manicure for lack of a better term. I used an unnamed nude from Color Club for the base, the red is China Glaze Ruby Pumps and the black is done with a Finger Paints striping polish.

Leopard Nails

I finally tried out leopard nails for the first time and they turned out so well I figured I just had to be a leopard for Halloween!

I started off with a base of two coats of China Glaze Kalihari Kiss

I used a Colour Club unnamed brown and a black Finger Paints striping polish for the spots. I loved how it turned out! I`ll definitely be doing this again in different colours. 

OPI Skyfall (James Bond) Collection Swatches

Hi everyone! I finally got my hands on some of the Skyfall collection OPI put out for the holiday 2012 season. After I heard some rumours of these polishes maybe being pulled off the shelves due to copyright issues, I figured I`d pick up the ones I liked pronto, just in case. 

This is a 3 pack with Skyfall, Goldeneye and The Spy Who Loved Me. It comes in plastic packaging with Bond Girl Severine on the front sporting an Adele-esque mani with Skyfall and Goldeneye. On the back were some nail art ideas, but I totally forgot to take a picture of those. 

All polishes had pretty much the same formula (really nice) and are pictured without a top coat.

Click Read More for a tonne of swatches and some bonus nail art!

Rando Nail Art

This is turning less into a blog and more into an archive of nails I've done that I can go back and look at later. I'm not really one for writing a lot so I can see some my posts headed in this direction. It's not everyone's cup of tea, I know, but here goes anyways!

So here is some nail art.. some of it works, some of it is downright ugly. Click Read More to see for yourself!

Graphic Nails

Hola todos, today I have a lovely colourful mani done with some striping polishes I felt like playing with! I don't have lots of time to write this post (I'm going out for sushi!) so I'll get right to it. All colours are by Art Club except for the yellow and black which were from Finger Paints. 

Here is a colour block manicure, all artsy fartsy looking:

And here we have stripes! I found the easiest way to do both of these designs was to do the colours first then outline in black afterwards. 

Essie Lilacism?

Hello fellow nail people! Sorry I haven't been around lately, been booked solid at work. At the drugstore, I found two versions of Essie Lilacism. The normal purple one is on the right, and then theres this strange blue version on the left.

Click Read More too see some more pics of this weird accident..

Jelly Sammich!

Hola! I'm really excited about today's nails, it marks my first ever successful JELLY SANDWICH! I'm going away for the weekend and don't want to bring much with me (last trip I brought nine polishes..). I wanted something awesome that I wouldn't get tired of and want to change after a day, so I attempted a glitter jelly sandwich. I love how this turned out! The glitter went really matte and I think it's a fun look to wear.

Here are two coats of OPI Alpine Snow with a thin layer of Nicole by OPI Rainbow In The S-Kylie. The glitter was too dense for the look I was going for so I had to be really careful with the application. Probably the only time I'll ever complain about too much glitter in a polish!

And here it is jellified on the other hand! I covered it with two coats of OPI Bubble Bath. I think it looks a little more pink in real life. I'd love to try this with a sheer lavender jelly instead of pink next time, but I'm not sure that I have one in my stash.

For an accent nail I tried a neon splatter mani that I saw on The PolishAholic's blog. I was originally going to do that on every finger, but my straw was too big and I ended up huffing and puffing like crazy with hardly any result. So here it is as an accent nail, I used some China Glaze neons for it.

 I broke my middle fingernail on the bottom of the pool yesterday, bleh. 

Hope everyone has a great weekend, I know I will!

NOTD - Disco Dolls

Yesterday was my one year anniversary with my boyfriend, so we went for dinner to celebrate! These are my anniversary sparkle nails with Disco Dolls, a part of the Kardashian Collection from Nicole by OPI. It's a gold-bronze glitter base with a bit of multi-colored hex glitter thrown in for extra pizzazz. This is two coats of Disco Dolls and two coats of Seche Vite. Even with two coats of top coat, I could still feel the texture of the glitter, but that didn't bother me too much. My boyfriend and I had an amazing night and he loved the nails!

Stamping Crazy!

What better to do on a crummy weekend afternoon than play with my new stamping plate?! I did a below average job on the base color for these and didn't clean up much because I just wanted to try every pattern on the plate! This stamping business definitely takes practice, as you can see the designs aren't perfect. But it's a technique I hope to be perfecting in no time, wish me luck :)

Here are zebra stripes in China Glaze Surfin' For Boys over top of my neon orange franken (swatched here). 

Cool geometric pattern stamped with Maybelline Color Show Iced Queen over Sally Hansen Evening Fog.

I think this is called a paisley pattern? Stamped in OPI Fly over OPI Do You Lilac It?

Cute bows and other assorted patterns stamped in OPI Alpine Snow over OPI Fly.

NOTD - Revlon Whimsical

Today I'm wearing Revlon Whimsical over two coats of OPI Go On Green, finished with a coat of NYC Matte Me Crazy. Whimsical is a light blue with blue and pink glitter, it kind of reminds me of a baby shower! I love this Revlon dupe of Deborah Lippmann Glitter In The Air, but just wish it wasn't so sheer. Another con is that the glitter was very sparse, and I had to do two coats to get all the glitter I wanted on the nail.

China Glaze Summer Neons + Neon Franken!

Happy Friday! Yesterday I found a three-pack of China Glaze neons at the usual place I go for nail polish. This is a longer post with lots of pictures after the jump.

Maybelline Color Show vs OPI

Yesterday I went to Walmart and picked up some Color Show polishes for $3 CND each. They reminded me of some OPIs I already own so I decided to do a comparison and see if these cheap polishes were duplicates of the more expensive ones from OPI.

Here are two coats of OPI Do You Lilac It? and Color Show Iced Queen. Both periwinkle purpley colors, the OPI is just a shade lighter but pretty streaky to apply. Iced Queen was easier to apply and I think my favourite color of the two. 

I dunno what I was thinking with this one, these colors aren't even close. OPI Did It On 'Em leans a lot more towards yellow and Color Show Go Go Green is a medium grassy green. Either way, the Color Show polish wins for me just because Did It On 'Em is a nightmare to apply. It manages to be too thick but also pools at the cuticles. Bummer cause I love that kind of ugly-pretty color.

Last is OPI Dating A Royal and Color Show Sapphire Siren. These are a lot less similar than I thought they would be, actually. Both have great formulas and covered fine in two coats. 

Conclusion: Color Show polishes are great. Good formula, good colors. I feel like Dating A Royal and Do You Lilac It? are worth the extra money for the unique colors, but Did It On 'Em was a regret for me.

In other news, look what came in the mail today!

I ordered this online and I'm really not even sure what brand of stamping plate this is, but it was cheap and works just fine for me. I'm gonna have so much fun with this, so stay tuned for some nail stamping manicures!

OPI Pinks Comparison

Today I borrowed a polish from my best friend to do a bright pink manicure. OPI If You Moust You Moust from the vintage Minnie Mouse collection is the one I picked and I love it. Before I bought it for myself, I decided to check if I had any dupes of it. So here it is:

 And here is a comparison shot between some other pink OPI polishes I have. On my index finger is Strawberry Margarita, the middle is Elephantastic Pink and the ring finger is If You Moust You Moust.

Good news, no duplicates here! Elephantastic Pink is a shade lighter than both, and Strawberry Margarita is more of a hot pink, while If You Moust You Moust leans more towards lilac. I've heard that Shorts Story also by OPI is pretty much identical, but I don't have that one in my collection to compare. Bottom line: I can justify getting another polish!

NOTD - Neon French

Hello, and happy Wednesday! It's a lovely summery day today so I changed my one colour polish job to something a little more bright and exciting.

Here's two coats of OPI Thanks a WindMillion...

And here it is with neon french tips done with Sinful Colors Fusion Neon! 

I also used NYC's Matte Me Crazy top coat to jazz it up a little.

Seche Vite Review

We've all heard the praises and raves about Seche Vite. Many a nail blogger lists this salon-quality product as their go-to top coat. I had previously been getting by on drugstore brands like Sally Hansen Insta-Dri or anything else I happened come across, but yesterday I saw Seche Vite on sale at Winners for $7 CND. I picked it up, tried it right away and oh my gosh. It is every bit as wonderful as everyone says. It gives such a perfect glossy finish and totally looks like I just came back from the salon. The only con of this product is that it smells like the salon, too. It's a very strong chemical smell, but I hardly mind since it's so awesome in every other way.

Here is Seche Vite top coat over Crush Matte Indigo. This polish was a cheap impulse buy that I got from Boathouse for $2. I quite like the colour though, it's unique in my collection. I sported this mani for three days with absolutely no signs of wear because of this great top coat. So great. I'll stop gushing now and get to the pictures:

You can almost see my reflection in this one!

NOTD - Revlon Scandalous

This is Revlon's Scandalous, previously released as Facets of Fuschia. This is pretty much a dupe of Deborah Lippmann's Bad Romance but so much cheaper - I picked this up at Walmart for about $5 CND. I loooove this polish so much and I keep coming back to it even though it's not at all summery. It's a pain to remove but a beauty to apply, this is only two coats.

Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Swatches

I found this great cosmetic warehouse in Barrie, Ontario that was selling all sorts of polish for two dollars! So of course I picked up tonnes of new polishes. Here are some Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure polishes that I got.

All colours are shown without a base or top coat since the main selling point of this polish is that it's a five in one (base coat, strengthener, growth treatment, color and top coat). I was impressed that there was no staining with the dark colors and the built-in top coat worked just fine.

This is three coats of Greige Gardens. I love this polish, it's a purple-grey shade that applies beautifully. After two coats it was opaque but there were still some bald patches so I added a third to even things out.

This is Evening Fog, it kind of reminds me of the colour of paper mache. The formula is pretty much the same as Greige Gardens. I used three coats for this one as well.

 Here is three coats of Fedora. I had high hopes for this because in the bottle there was this gorgeous gold shimmer. Unfortunately it didn't translate onto the nail, even in the sun it's almost invisible.

Sequin Scandal is another one that is just so much prettier in the bottle. The formula on this one was perfect though, two coats did it for me.