Gradient with Glitter and Textured Chevron Nail Art!

Hey everyone! Today I have some gradient and chevron nail art to share!

Yesterday we went on a field trip to a hospital to talk to some genetic counsellors and it was really interesting. Interesting in the sense that after a month and a half of being in a genetics course I am seriously considering a career in genetics, or possibly even genetic counselling. Not so interesting in the sense that over the weekend our teacher emailed us the two PowerPoints we went through at the hospital and the fact that we didn't get to see the cytogenetics lab because the cytogeneticist was on holiday. Oh well, it was still much nicer than a busy three hour genetics lab!

Today nothing overly interesting has happened, though I did wake up twenty minutes before I had to leave for school. These are the days that I throw on a hoodie and a cardigan on top for warmth and don't even bother with a shirt haha. I'm very glad that my boyfriend woke up earlier and made us our morning teas in travel cups so I'm not still exhausted! Anyways, onto the nails!

For the gradient nails I started with two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and a coat of top coat (because I wasn't sure what I was going to do yet so I wanted my nails dry so I couldn't mess them up)! I then sponged two layers of Essie Turquoise & Caicos and Essie Mod Square on my nails from a wet makeup sponge, and added a coat of topcoat to smooth out the gradient a little more. I do think it being wet helps to create a smoother gradient, and it doesn't soak up the polish as much so you save polish! I finished off with two coats of Black Sheep Lacquer A Letter to the New York Post and another coat of top coat!

The green to pink gradient was completely inspired by Steph Stone Nails on Instagram (link here)! It's a really interesting combination to me because green is my favourite colour and pink is my least favourite. I'm surprised that I like these so much because they're half pink! =P

For the chevron nails I just did two coats of Sally Hansen Lick-O-Rich (it's opaque at one but some parts are shiny and missing the texture bits) and two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls for the white lines! Lick-O-Rich dried really quickly and had a lovely formula, the only bad thing I could say about it is that it takes about half a day for the sharp textured bits on the edges to wear off, so try and avoid scratching up your face!

What do you guys think of this mani? I loved wearing it because the black nails were so bold and stood out even from far away! I also love a good gradient with a matte black and white glitter topper, so this is a win-win for me!

Thanks so much for reading everyone! Anything exciting going on with you guys lately? Let me know! Happy Tuesday!

Black Sheep Lacquer Lips Like Sugar and Valentine's/anti-Valentine's Day Nail Art!

Hey-lo my lovely readers! Today I have a gorgeous Black Sheep Lacquer thermal called Lips Like Sugar to share, as well as some Valentine's/anti-Valentine's day nail art!

I've been getting increasingly excited about my upcoming giveaway! It's kind of funny because it seems like I was steadily gaining followers on Tumblr until I mentioned that once I reached 150 I would launch my giveaway haha! I'm now at 149 and I'm so dang excited to launch this giveaway so if you have a Tumblr and you'd like to follow me (link here) I'd be so happy! Anyways, onto the nails and buttload of pictures!

Lips Like Sugar is a shimmer-stuffed sheer light pink thermal polish that turns a dark coral colour when cold! I think my hands/fingers are so warm that the polish doesn't even look very pink when I'm at my normal temperature, it looks more like a nude colour which I love!

The formula on this polish was amazing just like all of the other Black Sheep Lacquer polishes I've been reviewing lately! It dried really fast and had a perfect consistency! What you see here is three easy coats and no top coat!

My camera cannot handle taking pictures of reds or corals, it freaks out! Does anyone have any tips on photographing red polishes? I'd love to know!

The shimmer really comes to life and appears gold when this baby gets cold!

I then decided to put some matte sweethearts on top with a mix of nice and not so nice sayings! These were inspired by these nails by Fab Fatale and these nails by Petite Marine! After I painted the hearts on and let them dry, I painted a coat of NYC Matte Me Crazy over just the hearts (not the Lips Like Sugar base).

The polishes I used here were: Julep Blake (yellow), American Apparel Office (green), Color Club Take Me to Your Chateau (blue), OPI You're Such a Budapest (purple), OPI Mod About You (pink) and OPI Lost on Lombard (red).

I couldn't be bothered to matteify the red letters, and that's why I decided to just make the hearts matte. Red polishes seem to smear on me no matter how long I allow them to dry and no matter the top coat, so I left the words/symbols slightly shiny!

I think the heart shapes came out better on my left hand, but funnily enough, I think the writing on my right hand looks better! I can't for the life of me write with my left hand, but apparently I can paint letters/symbols with it? So strange!

I'd love to know what you lovely people think of these in the comments! I quite like them, they're a bit girlier than I'm used to but I'm loving the sheer nude base with nail art on top! You may see some more manis like this in the future!

Yesterday my boyfriend gave me twenty dollars to buy something for me and something for him, so I picked up OPI Muir Muir on the Wall and bought him a mini grater and a knork(knife and fork combined)/spoon (does anyone get the Clone High reference? The knork episode? I LOVE that show). So that's what we did for Valentine's day! Do/did you guys have any plans for Valentine's day?

Thank you so much for taking a look everyone! Let me know what you think of these manis and whatever else you'd like to tell me in the comments! :)

Black Sheep Lacquer Hecate Swatch and Review and Brushstrokey Distressed Nail Art!

Hey everyone! Today I have a swatch and review of a new Black Sheep Lacquer multchrome called Hecate to share, as well as some brushstroke nail art using a few more Black Sheep Lacquer duo/multichromes!

How has the start of your week been going everyone? I've finally caught up responding to your comments and I'll try and stay caught up from now on! I'm feeling a bit better now that I've had some time to process some sad things so hopefully I can respond to your comments in a more timely fashion from now on! That said, let's get on to the nails!

Hecate is a turquoise (to blue to purple) to pink multichrome stuffed with a whole lotta shimmer! At extreme underwater angles it can even look like it shines orange or yellow!

Please excuse the clump of soap and cat hair in the above picture! I really wish I had noticed it at the time because other than that it's a great shot!

This baby had a lovely formula, it was almost a one coater (I used two) and it dried super quickly! The consistency was perfect so the only complaint I could see regarding this polish is that it does dry a little brushstrokey. I sponged a thin layer of Hecate on top of my second coat to eliminate the brushstrokes, only because I've never tried that before! The following picture is it without the sponged layer so you can see how it looks on its own!

I think I like it better straight out of the bottle and it seems to be more multichromey this way! In the future I'll definitely only wear it on its own!

I applied one coat of the top coat I always use (Essie Good to Go) on top like I always do when I'm going to wear a polish!

The next day I went in with a few more Black Sheep Lacquer duo/multichromes and did a brushstrokey nail art look! I was inspired by Chalkboard Nails' distressed nail art tutorial and Will Paint Nails for Food's distressed jewel toned nails!

The Black Sheep Lacquer polishes I used (other than Hecate) were Purple Planet (which I ordered recently and have yet to swatch), Zaftig Zombie, and Forbidden Fruit!

This is already the second time I've used some Black Sheep Lacquer duo/multichromes for nail art so they're definitely versatile! They're gorgeous on their own and gorgeous together!

Thanks so much for reading everyone! What do you think of Hecate and this brushstrokey nail art? I'd love to know! Happy Tuesday! :)

Black Sheep Lacquer Swatches and Review: Get Lucky and Lorelei!

Hey everyone! Today I have swatches and reviews of two gorgeous new glitter toppers from Black Sheep Lacquer, Get Lucky and Lorelei!

You may notice I've changed my background to black, do you guys like it better? I think it looks a lot more professional! I got the idea from the lovely Lindsey of Wondrously Polished and the lovely Sarah of Chalkboard Nails! That aside, onto the swatches and reviews!

First up we have Get Lucky, a clear-based polish with fine green shimmer, small gold holographic hexes, small and medium-sized dark green hexes, medium-sized green holographic hexes and large green circles!

This polish had a perfect consistency and formula! I didn't get any circle glitters on the first go, but that's the idea with this polish (I talked to Erin, the owner, about it and this is what she said). It doesn't have a lot of them in it so it's a fun accent, and so the circle glitters don't overpower the rest of the gorgeous glitters! I fished for the one you see here so you could see the polish with a circle glitter in it!

I tried to match a creme to this polish, and the closest in my collection was Essie Mojito Madness. So what you see here is one coat of Mojito Madness with one coat of Get Lucky on top! That's another thing about Erin's new formula, neither of these glitter toppers needed a coat of top coat to smooth them out. Like, what? That's how smooth and shiny they are on their own!

Do you guys love her new bottles as much as I do? I think they're just the coolest!

Next we have Lorelei, a clear topper stuffed with tiny gold flakies and hexes, small dark aqua (or slightly greenish blue) hexes, medium-sized holographic aqua hexes and large iridescent pale green and rose gold hexes!

Again, this polish had a perfect formula! I didn't have to fish for any glitters and they spread out well on the nail (i.e. the glitters didn't clump together at all)!

The best creme I had to match these glitters was Nyx Girls Hot Blue, and I used one coat for undies here! Be careful, I only wore this for about thirty minutes or less with base coat and Hot Blue stained the edges of my nails! I then put one thicker coat of Lorelei and no top coat on top, because again, these babies dry so smooth and shiny!

What do you guys think of these gorgeous glitters? I love them! You can check out videos of the holographic glitters on my Instagram, here! Thanks so much for reading everyone, happy Saturday!

Black Sheep Lacquer Fire & Ice Swatch and Review!

Hey everyone! Today I have a swatch and review of a new Black Sheep Lacquer thermal called Fire & Ice!

How are all of my lovely readers doing today? I'm actually doing quite well despite the sad stuff going on in my life right now. It has been harder for me to focus lately (on school and on blogging) and I've been procrastinating even more and studying even less than usual. Somehow, I managed to get A's or even A+'s on my first three midterms (one for each of my non-elective courses; Organic Chemistry II, Spectroscopy and Genetics) and I've never gotten an A on an organic chem test before! It's the class I struggle with the most, but now that I know I can do well in it (i.e. get better than an A-) I might actually put in some more effort :P. Getting my marks back was a very welcome and happy surprise because I was worried I wasn't doing well and that I'd started off the semester badly.

Anyways, onto the polish! Fire & Ice is a clear/grey to lightish blue to purple/burgundy thermal polish stuffed with varying sizes of iridescent glitter! The iridescent glitter in this polish is such a lovely addition because it shines different colours when the base is different colours!

These first few pictures are of the polish in it's normal/warm state, or at least my normal/warm state!

Another cool thing about this polish is that the temperature of my house is warm enough to make it blue, so I got to see it warm up before my eyes when I took it out of the package!

This is what this polished looked like after I had stuck my hands in the freezer to grab a few ice cubes (to stick in a cup of water to cool my nails in for the rest of the pictures)!

The formula on this baby was amazing! I used three coats and each one dried insanely quickly, I don't think it would be possible to paint the coats too quickly and create bubbles! The glitters were perfectly suspended in the base and it was the perfect consistency for easy application! 

This polish did dry slightly matte (which looked really cool) but after top coating it it became extremely shiny! Like, shinier than my top coat ever makes things. Also, one coat of top coat is all you need for a glass-like finish because the polish is sheer enough that you don't need a crazy amount of glitter to see it all!

See what I mean about the iridescent glitters? They glow like crazy when this polish is cold!

Up close the tiny iridescent glitters almost look like holographic ones because of all the different colours they shine, so pretty!

Here the polish is in all of it's states at once so you can really tell how dramatic the changes in colour are!

I know I've bombarded you with pictures, but this is the last one, I promise! Here are macro shots of the different states all together so you can really see how the glitters change based on the base!

Thank you so much for reading everyone! Like I said above, I'd love to know how you guys are doing in the comments! I'd also love to know your thoughts on this polish! If you'd like to see some videos of this polish in action you can find some on my Instagram! Happy Friday!