Half Moon Heart Nail Art Featuring Tiny Triangle Studs and a Born Pretty Store Review!

Hello everyone! Today I have some half moon heart nail art and a Born Pretty Store stud review to share!

Hey look, I tricked you (and myself) because I thought I'd be back with some blue or green nails! I love blue and green so much and since it feels like it has been long enough since I last posted some, doing these nails really did feel like a trick or surprise to me! Sometimes a palate cleanser like this is nice; a mauve and white combo like this feels so fresh and lady-like. By the way, if you guys ever have a certain kind of nail art or polish you'd like to see on here you should let me know! Sometimes I struggle with ideas for nail art so I'd be happy to have a suggestion to work off of!

Anyways, onto the nails!

For this look I started off with two coats of OPI Just Lanai-ing Around and a coat of top coat. As usual for me lately, I wore this polish plain for a while before I added to it. The next day, I went in with two coats of Black Sheep Lacquer Scatter Heart (which I swatched a while ago here) in a top-of-a-heart-like shape. I then decided to add a contrasting line between the base and Scatter Heart with Contrary Polish The Boulevard (which I still haven't swatched or worn on its own, gasp!).

Because I remembered that I still had one more nail art thing from BPS to review, and because I figured it would go with the gold glitter in Scatter Heart, I went ahead and added these adorable triangle studs (B2 of these) to this look! They feel like they'll really stay put as they come down at the edges, and they were super easy to use! I feel like these are the most "me" nail art things I've ever picked to review from BPS so the shopper/hoarder in me wants to pick more up (specifically all six of the small ones on that page :P).

By the way, the lines and heart-top things here are pretty wonky because I filmed a video tutorial for this look. Unfortunately though, I can't find the video files. I filmed it through Canon EOS Utility 2, does anyone have any experience with that program? The camera did die while I was in between filming and I haven't plugged the whole camera back in to my computer to look for them (just the SD card) so maybe there still is hope!

What do you guys think of these nails or these studs in particular? I think they're my favourite things I've ever reviewed from BPS!

If you guys decide to check out any of their nail art stuff and want to pick some up, be sure to use my code for 10% off; SKBQ10!

Thanks so much for taking a look everyone! I hope you're having a great start to your weekend! Again, I'm not sure what I'll be back with because I just did these nails yesterday so I'm still wearing them, but stay tuned! Happy Friday guys! =)

KB Shimmer Vicious Circles Swatch & Review!

Hey everyone! Today I have a gorgeous KBShimmer polish to share!

I'm currently marathoning Dexter (once again) with my family and I'm really loving it! I probably should be doing homework instead but it's a bit of a less busy week than usual and I've been feeling stressed lately, so whatever :P. Tonight's post is a bit of a quick one because it's getting late here in my part of Canada.

Anyways, onto the nails!

I started off with two coats of ACI Yellow Stopper Top Coat from Sally's as a peel off base coat. After that had dried, I went in with two coats of Vicious Circles and a coat of top coat. I probably should have done two because I noticed that a few of the glitters had fallen off by the time I took pictures of these!

The formula was perfect, the dry-time was great and for a jelly it was quite opaque! It was a dream to work with and dang is it pretty. Also, it's stuffed full of gorgeous holographic glitters and it's so freaking squishy!

I know I won't be using Yellow Stopper as a base coat ever again because I ended up with a huge chip just a day after applying this polish. I'll report back on wear-time of KBShimmer polishes the next time I wear one with a good base coat!

What do you guys think of this polish or KBShimmer polishes in general? I think I'll probably fall in love with the brand based on how gorgeous they are and the formula on this baby!

Thanks so much for taking a look everyone! I think I'll be back with another green or blue because I'm in lurvvve (as you may already know). Happy Monday y'all! =)

Genetics-Inspired Nail Art: Transposon Nails Featuring Mattified Yume Lacquer Submerged Siren!

Hey everyone! Today I have some genetics-inspired nail art to share featuring a gorgeous Yume Lacquer polish! =)

I finally had a good sleep last night and I think I'm used to being back at school and waking up early! Funnily enough though, I've been exhausted all day :P. I think I'll make this a quick post so I can post on schedule and watch an episode of an anime with the boyfriend (Magi: The Kingdom of Magic, on Canadian Netflix) before bed! Onto the nails!

I started off with two coats of Yume Lacquer Submerged Siren (swatched and reviewed here) and a coat of matte top coat (NYC Matte Me Crazy).

Once that had dried I went in with a few different nail art brushes and four American Apparel polishes; The Valley (light tiffany blue), Sunshine State (yellow), Dynasty (mauvey purple) and Sunset Bvld. (orange)!

My mom picked me up a bottle of hairspray because I had run out, so I spritzed the nails with transposons on them, let that dry and then applied another coat of matte top coat (to avoid smudging my design with the top coat)!

What do you guys think of science-themed nails, matte nails or Submerged Siren? I'd love to hear in the comments!

Thanks so much for taking a look everyone! Now I think I'll be back with a KB Shimmer polish next, like I said last time :P. Happy Thursday guys! =)

Groovy Purple & Green Nail Art Featuring a Born Pretty Store Iridescent Rhinestone Review!

Hey everyone! Today I have some groovy nails and a review of some Born Pretty Store rhinestone-like studs to share!

I'm currently on my hour-long bus ride home writing this post! Our reading break is over so I'm on my way home from my first day of school in a while. The break made me so excited for the end of the semester and my four month summer! My friend Anna (who my sister and I visited last summer in Switzerland) will be coming here for three of those months! I'm so freaking excited! Basically I'm just dreaming about being done school for a while. I know I will be tonight while I'm writing up a huge inorganic lab report! :P

Anyways, onto the nails!

I used a whole lotta polish for this look; Essie DJ Play that Song (purple base, two coats), Deborah Lippmann Shoshanna (light purple), Rainbow Honey Shark Attack (blue jelly with glitter, on top of Shoshanna), OPI My Dogsled is a Hybrid (green) and Black Sheep Lacquer Lorelei (clear-based glitter, on top of MDiaH). For Shoshanna and Shark Attack I just used the brushes from the bottle, but for MDiaH and Lorelei I used a small paintbrush.

I applied a coat of top coat (Essie Good to Go) and left it alone for a day. The next day, I realized I still had some nail art stuff to review from Born Pretty Store and I decided the 2mm green ones of these* would go perfectly with this look! I smeared some top coat where I wanted to put the rhinestones and just picked them up with tweezers and stuck them in. I then applied one more coat of top coat on those nails and I was done!

I think these studs are really cool looking due to their iridescent finish and they were really easy to use! I think the layer of top coat on top made it so you could only see them flash yellow or orange, but they still look really cool! They have stayed on perfectly so far, and I've been wearing them for a day doing student-like things including taking books and other things in and out of my bag! As long as you like the look of these, I see all pros and no cons!

What do you guys think of these nails or these rhinestones? I'm not so sure about the nails, I think they might be getting too long and they're a bit too glittery for my liking. I'd love to know what you guys think the comments!

My microbiology lab teacher commented on these today and said I had really pretty nails, which totally made my day! I think I do like them but they're just not really my style.

If you decide to pick up any nail art stuff from BPS be sure to use my coupon code for 10% off; SKBQ10!

Thanks so much for taking a look everyone! I'll probably be back with a swatch and review of a KB Shimmer polish this Thursday! Happy Monday guys! =)

*This product was provided in exchange for an honest review.

piCture pOlish Fool's Gold Swatch & Review!

Hey everyone! Today I have a swatch and review of the gorgeous piCture pOlish Fool's Gold to share!

I'm still on my reading break and loving it! It's going to be so hard to go back to school with all the labs and midterms and assignments and stuff. I especially don't want to have less free time considering all of the indie polishes I've purchased lately! I picked up 8 piCture pOlish polishes as you can see below as well as 12 KB Shimmer polishes! Because of tutoring my cousin recently, I actually had some money to spend so I was able to go crazy for two indie brands I've been drooling over for over a year!

Here is a picture of my whole Nail Polish Canada order of piCture pOlishes! Let me know if there's a particular one you'd like to see soon!

Onto the nails!

This base of this polish is kind of hard for me to describe. I'd say it's between turquoise and aqua, but closer to aqua. Either way it's freaking vibrant and gorgeous! As you'll see more clearly later in the macro shot, this polish has small gold hexes and silvery flakies tossed in!

Application and formula-wise this polish was a dream! I love the bottle and brush, they remind me of butter LONDON polishes. The brush is definitely smaller than an OPI one (and like I said, similar to a bL one), making it easy to control and small enough to paint my pinkies with and not require a bunch of cleanup! It was a perfect consistency to avoid flooding the cuticles and wasn't so thick that it was hard to work with!

The polish seemed to dry quite quickly and when I did my thick second coat, I didn't have any problems with balding. I am still wearing this right now, and before I reshaped my nails with this on there wasn't even much tip wear! I haven't noticed and chips whatsoever either. I've been wearing it for three days so far and it's doing amazing!

What you see here is one normal coat and one thick coat plus a coat of top coat (Essie Good to Go as always)! It's not quite opaque everywhere on every nail but I really don't mind. Three normal coats would get you a completely opaque look if you're more into that!

What do you guys think of this polish or piCture pOlishes in general? I suspect I'm going to love every one I picked up!

Thanks so much for reading guys! Again, I'm not sure what I'll be back with on Monday but it will either involve a new indie polish, nail art or both! Hope you guys are having a good week! Happy Thursday! =)

Abstract Green Brain Nail Art & American Apparel Malibu Green Review!

Yo yo yo my lovely people! Today I have some vine/brain like nail art to share!

Today was my boyfriend and I's three year anniversary! We had a coffee date and then really yummy Japanese food for dinner so I'd say it was a success! I planned the whole afternoon/evening and I was even able to pay because of the tutoring I've done recently :). School-wise I'm waiting on getting some midterm marks back that I'm really curious about! Since I've been more motivated for school my next step is being motivated enough to clean my room. I think I'll tackle that tomorrow after school, I really love having a tidy room so I'm excited to get it back in that state!

Anyways, onto the nails!

I started off this look with one super opaque coat of American Apparel Malibu Green. It is even opaque up against the light like this, and I wasn't even being careful and trying to make it a one-coater :O. It dried really quickly, had a lovely formula and dried to the shiniest and smoothest finish! I have heard people say that it stains, but I doubled up on base coat and my nails were as white as usual after taking this off!

I then went in with a new small paintbrush I picked up from Michaels recently and American Apparel 7th and Alameda. I waited a while before I applied top coat (Essie Good to Go) but as you can see, I still smudged my design. I think I'll go back to doing a quick spritz of hairspray before top coating to avoid that!

The one coat of top coat wasn't enough to smooth the design out, so it ended up being a bit of a bumpy 3D look. I thought that was pretty cool and I think it would have looked neat with a matte top coat, but I'm worried that matte top coats make your polish chip faster so I didn't try it out. I feel like once I make one mani matte I'll fall completely in love and be obsessed with the look so I'm kind of putting it off I guess

What do you guys of this look, these polishes or American Apparel polishes in general? I really love the formula and the brush and I actually have an entire row of my nail polish rack with these babies packed sideways (so quite a few :P)!

Thanks so much for taking a look everyone! I'll probably be back with some KB Shimmer or piCture pOlish swatches because I've bought from both brands for the first time recently and I can't wait to use them! Happy Thursday everyone! =)

Snowy Nail Art Featuring Born Pretty Store Snowflake Decorations!

Hey everyone! Today I have some wintery nails featuring some Born Pretty Store snowflake charms to share!

Look at this, I'm posting for the second week in a row and keeping up with my proposed schedule! Say what? I'm even thinking of trying to get two posts in on weeks where I'm not so busy and eventually maybe two posts a week regardless. I think getting back into blogging has helped me motivation-wise already. Taking a break from here and not doing my nails wasn't taking a break, it was not doing the things I enjoy and doing things I don't enjoy like procrastinating at school and stressing myself out. Anyways! Onto the nails!

I started off with one coat of the base coat I've been using recently (Orly Bonder) and then to most of my nails I applied two coats of a lovely texture polish, OPI Solitaire. For my snow-capped nails I just used a small detailing brush (Winstonia Kolinsky Sable Brush in #000) for the white part (done with OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls) and Black Sheep Lacquer Blink straight from the bottle for the duochrome topper. For my remaining nails I applied two coats of MBSW and while the second one was still wet I applied the snowflake charms (number 8 of these, though I seemed to have a 9 thrown in as you can see in these pictures).

I ended up tripling up on top coat for the snowflake nails (as well as pushing the edges down while they dried into the white base) and the corners still came up and got caught on everything. If that doesn't bother you then these charms would work for you, but in my opinion they're only really good for pictures and not practical to wear. They are super pretty though!

I'm getting a proper soft box/light box in the mail soon and I'm really excited about it! Lighting and white balance is something I'm constantly trying to improve on and I think it will really help!

Thanks so much for taking a look everyone! What do you guys think of this look or these charms? Does it snow around this time of year where you live? Let me know in the comments!

If you guys decide to pick up some nail art stuff from BPS be sure to use my coupon, SKBQ10, for 10% off!

I hope you guys are having a good week so far! I'll be back with some dark green glittery nails featuring some Hex Nail Jewelry charms soon! Happy Monday!

Born Pretty Store Nail Frame Review Featuring Purple Flower Nails!

Hey everyone, happy new year! Today I have a review of some Born Pretty Store hollowed-out square studs to share!

So I'm back to school again with a few new year's resolutions, not only for school but for blogging as well. I struggle with motivation in basically every aspect of my life, but I think if I can stop procrastinating so much I'll be more motivated and less stressed out. I've been really excited by nail art and nails in general on Instagram and Reddit lately, which is sadly something I couldn't say for months and months before now. It's as if school has been so stressful that doing my nails and blogging just felt like more work I had to do so I wasn't excited about it. So hopefully I'll start posting more regularly, I'm aiming for once a week! Anyways, onto the nails!

I started off with two coats of OPI Lost on Lombard over my previously base-coated nails. A minute or less after applying the second coat to my ring fingers, I added the gold frames with a brush dipped in top coat. I allowed that to dry and then applied a coat of top coat (back to my favourite; Essie Good to Go). 

I then went in with a small paint brush or a dotting tool and American Apparel African Violet (dark purple), Butter London Toff (medium, warm-toned purple) and OPI Don't Bossa Nova Me Around (pinkish nude).

The hollowed-out square studs (or nail frames as I like to call them) were very easy to apply and work with. They were thin enough to curve to fit my nails, really the only problem I had with these is that the corners lifted off and one of the studs ended up falling off. There is a super easy solution of course, just double up on top coat! I really love the look of these, and as a bonus you can apply them upside down for a copper-coloured frame instead (though the gold side isn't completely flat so they may not stay on as well).

Here is how my right hand turned out, pretty good minus the smudging! 

What do you guys think of these nails? I'd love to know in the comments!

Thanks so much for taking a look everyone, be sure to use my code (SKBQ10) if you decide to pick anything up! I'll be back soon with some wintery nails, happy Monday! =)

Simple Leaf Nail Art Inspired by Jaunty Juli & Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Top Coat Review!

Hello my lovelies! Today I have some simple leaf nail art to share as well as a top coat review!

I'm sorry I've been posting so sporadically guys, I'm really going to try and get into some routine with my blog even if it means just one post a week! I am very overwhelmed and unmotivated at school lately and I think that lack of motivation has carried over into my nail life. I haven't even put away and reorganized my nail polish all semester and that's something I do often and love to do! Would you guys be interested in seeing an updated collection post when I finally get organized? I'd love to know!

So about three weeks ago in this post I mentioned that I ran out of my absolute favourite top coat (Essie Good to Go) and so did London Drugs, and instead I picked up a bottle of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Top Coat. I went from loving it, to thinking it was okay to hating it in the last three weeks. As you can see from these pictures, my nails are bubble and bumpy city! The bumpiness is the first thing I noticed about this top coat; it doesn't even smooth out a layer of polish as thin as a stamped image! That is why I thought this polish was alright for a little while. Now I've discovered it either doesn't play well with certain polishes or needs the polish under it to be completely dry (which is exactly not the idea for fast-drying top coats) for it to not bubble up like crazy. Either way, my Essie Good to Go has none of those problems so I've already picked up a new bottle! I do like that this top coat smells kind of like vinegar (yum!) and dries quite shiny and pretty quickly though! However, I am also finding that I get tip wear quite a bit faster with this top coat. Usually in one day or less in as opposed to four or more days in with my Essie one.

Now, onto the nail art! These were inspired by these nails by the lovely JauntyJuli! I started off with a base of two thin coats of Revlon Espresso and a coat of top coat. I wore that alone for a day (complete with a ton of bubbles from the top coat). The next day I went in with American Apparel Mac Arthur Park (green), OPI Did Somebody Say Party? (orange) and Essie San Tropez (nude) on either my Winstonia Kolinsky #0000 or #000 Brush (I used both for different leaves).

I allowed my nails a lot of time to dry, and then I decided I wanted to add some gold leaf top coat to the empty spaces. I used Jessica 18K Gold Leaf Top Coat for this, but it doesn't have a lot of flakes per volume of top coat so it was a struggle. I then waited a while longer and applied a coat of top coat. The lack of gold flakes per clear base also caused those areas to stick out very badly because as I said above, this top coat does not level anything out at all.

Here is my camera-shy right hand! This is seriously the only pose it can do so I'm just going with it haha.

I think I would have liked these nails a lot better if they didn't look so bad in macro pictures! What do you guys think of these nails or this top coat? Do you use it and love it and is it just me having problems?

Thanks so much for taking a look everyone! I've ordered a bunch of Hex Nail Jewelry charms so I'll probably have a post up on some pretty soon! Happy Tuesday! =)