Five Manis I've Done on my Grandma!

Hey everyone! Today I have some manis I've done on my grandma to share!

I am in the middle of a few big midterms and lab write-ups so I thought I'd get up a quick post on some nail looks I've done on my grandma for you guys! I love all things nails (obviously) so I really love doing my family or friends' nails while we're having a visit!

Anyways, onto the nails!

In this first look she's wearing two coats of Emily de Molly Turbulence and a coat of top coat (link to the post on my plaid nails shown here).

Here I believe she's wearing two NYX Girls polishes in Pimp My Ride (lime green) and True Navy (navy)!

Here she's wearing a MrCandiipants floral design with Essie Play Date as the base, and Quo by Orly Lilac Lust, Zoya Kristen, Orly Mind's Eye and OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls for the details.

For these nails, I think I used NYX Girls Mermaid Green for the base and I definitely used OPI Solitaire for the zig zags (also inspired by MrCandiipants)!

Lastly, we have some American Apparel Coney Island with Black Sheep Lacquer Forbidden Fruit on top!

What do you guys think of round up posts like these? I'm sure I could put some together with my mom and sister's nails as well! Happy Monday lovelies! :)

Rainbow Honey Apple Kid & Watercolour Nail Art!

Hey everyone! Today I have a swatch and review of Rainbow Honey Apple Kid and some watercolour nail art on top to share!

I am super happy today because it's Friday! I do have a bunch of homework and studying to do over the weekend but I'm trying to be less lazy and more motivated so it might not be so bad! I'll be proud of myself for doing the work and putting in the effort! I even decided to dress like I used to today (i.e. less lazily and comfily) to try and get myself back on track. Remember when I was following the Blogilates calendar? I haven't worked out since I stopped and I remember being more motivated for school when I was working out, so I'd like to start up again! Life changes excitement aside, let's get onto the nails!

I decided to wear a pink polish for once the other day, so I reached for one of my many untried Rainbow Honey's, Apple Kid. My camera hates reds and pinks so I think this is showing up a little too pink and not quite red enough here!

This lovely polish was just about a one-coater but I did two just to be sure! I also added a coat of top coat and it dried super shiny (unlike it looks here). Ugh, taking accurate pictures of my nails is an endless struggle, but at least they keep getting better!

Another thing that's a little bit off in these pictures is my skin tone, because dang did this polish make me look pale. I kind of like when a polish does that because it means it's really freaking bright and bold!

The formula and consistency of this polish was awesome, definitely no complaints there! I've just been loving all of my Rainbow Honey's so far!

And now we have the nail art! I thinned out blobs of Essie DJ Play that Song (purple), Sally Hansen Fiery Island (orange) and Nyx Girls Bloody Mary (red) with acetone on a piece of paper and painted random blobs of them on my nail! I then messily covered my entire nail with a thinned out coat of American Apparel Angeline (pink) with my nail art brush to tone down and blend some of the colours in better.

Next I applied one coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust followed by a coat of top coat! It would have been so fun to add some stars and turn these into sunset galaxy nails!

Another thing about these pictures is it's hard to see the different colours that were painted on. If you check out my Instagram there is a picture where you can see the different colours better! I think the dulled shine, improper white balance and the fact that it's hard to distinguish between the colours is because like other cameras, my camera hates reds and has difficulty photographing them!

Thanks so much for reading everyone! How do you feel about this nail art or Rainbow Honey Apple Kid? I'd love to know! Happy Friday! =)

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!

Above the Curve Merry & Bright over Nyx Bloody Mary!

Hey everyone! Today I have a swatch and review of the lovely Above the Curve Merry & Bright to share!

I'm finally completely (or just about) over my flu, so today's the day that I'll get back into Pilates! I'm pretty scared to do so because Monday's are the crazy cardio and HIIT workouts which I struggle with quite a bit! Cardio is not my strong suit because I have almost no stamina and it's hard for me to find enough motivation for crazy cardio stuff!

School-wise I have a midterm this week and most weeks for the foreseeable future, so I'm not ecstatic about that! I also have this crazy class with tons of write-ups, assignments, quizzes and even a 12-15 page term paper, plus four midterms in total. Like, what? It's a second year genetics course and it's not so bad so far because the material is incredibly simple!

Onto the nails at hand (get it? :P)! I started with two coats of Nyx Bloody Mary, a bright red jelly polish. Two coats wasn't quite enough for opacity, but I knew I was going to cover it in a bunch of glitter! I then dabbed on two easy coats of Merry & Bright and finished with two coats of top coat!

Merry & Bright is packed with every finish of circle glitter (matte, metallic and holographic) in varying sizes and colours, plus some silver micro glitter! The glitters were super easy to spread out evenly on the nail!

Thank you so much for reading everyone! I'd love to know what you think of this mani or glitter topper in the comments! Happy Monday!

Born Pretty Store Flower Water Decal Review and a Gradient!

Hey guys! Today I have some flower-covered gradient nails to share! I will also be reviewing the floral water decals seen here from Born Pretty Store!

Sorry about posting these late guys, I was crashing while editing the pictures so I decided to write it up this morning instead. I try really hard to post every three days but sometimes life (for me, school) gets in the way! I've been exhausted for the last week or so and I'm so glad today's the last day of school! Anything exciting happening in your guys' lives? Let me know!

A bunch of people from Will Paint Nails For Food's Beginner Blogger's Bootcamp Group Critique commented on my last post saying that my fingers were blurry and that it was a bit distracting, and I had seriously never noticed! When I saw my pictures after that, I realized I looked like some weird alien without any lines or wrinkles on my fingers haha! I increased the depth of field before taking these pictures and I think you can see some detail on my fingers now, what do you guys think? :)

For these nails I started with one coat of Essie Mesmerize, painted on NYX Girls Inkheart and Revlon Espresso, and then patted on mixtures of the two colours where they met! I think the gradient looks better and smoother in person, so I'm excited to improve on my gradient skills so they look good in pictures too! Lindsay from Wondrously Polished always does literally perfect gradients (they look like the ones you can make in a photo editing program) and often puts nail art on top, so these nails were definitely inspired by her! I really think it's an amazing and beautiful idea to use a gradient as a background for nail art rather than a plain creme!

As for the decals (link here, they're the BLE422 ones), I was completely silly at first and applied one like a tattoo, and of course the design was upside down and all black and white (see my left hand's thumbnail). I asked my boyfriend if he thought it'd be possible to slide them off and on to the nail so the designs would show, and he ended up trying it for me and it worked! I just wetted a reasonably soft brush (my cleanup brush), let the decal soak in water for 15-20 seconds and slid it off of the paper carefully and onto my nail! You can move them around once they're on your nail for a period of time (especially if you wet your nail first) so you certainly don't have to get the perfect placement right away! I decided to place two decals on top of each other on some nails and I think they look really nice layered! I accidentally crumpled and folded one up, and I was still able to flatten it back out and put it on my nail which really impressed me! The only negative thing I have to say about these is still totally avoidable; top coat can smudge the decals a bit but as long as you apply it carefully (as you would on top of nail art) they won't smudge! I was being very careless when applying my topcoat because I didn't think they would smudge, and they still hardly did! :)

Off-topic, but do you guys think I should spread my text out between the pictures so it's not a huge block of text and then a huge block of pictures? I think I'll start doing that so let me know if you'd prefer I didn't!

Onto the nails!

Here's the gradient I started with as a base!

My right hand!

If you're looking for any other nail art stuff Born Pretty Store is a good place to check! Here's my coupon for 10% off!

Thanks so much for reading everyone! Have any plans for the weekend? I'll be studying for the three back-to-back finals I have coming up and finishing a biochemistry assignment! :)

Plaid Nails Inspired by MrCandiipants!

Hey guys! Today I have some plaid nails inspired by MrCandiipants' flannel tutorial (here)!

After doing this mani I was feeling flannel and plaid so hard that I actually ran to my favourite thrift store and picked a few shirts up! One of them had a rip in the armpit, but my grandma came over and fixed it after I painted her nails! She definitely did a better job than I could have done haha! I'm going to go ahead and insert a picture because we took a cute one of my hand, my mom's and my grandma's last night (she's wearing Emily de Molly Turbulence by the way)!

It was just a lovely evening to top off a lovely day! I even found an American Apparel skirt for only four dollars! Score!

Anyways, let me tell you about the nails! I watched Mrcandiipants' tutorial on Youtube (linked above) a week or more ago and I've wanted to do plaid nails ever since! I know mine aren't that similar to hers, but I like them nonetheless! I do wish that I had done the yellow (Color Club Almost Famous) stripes before (under) the black (Orly Liquid Vinyl… duh!) and blue (Essie Mesmerized) ones, but it had already taken a while so I decided to keep them like this! Also, the red base isn't just one colour like it looks in the picture, the middle square is NYX Girls Bloody Mary, the four corners outside of the black lines are Sally Hansen Nail Growth Miracle Stunning Scarlet, and the colour that makes a huge plus sign under the middle square is American Apparel Poppy! I'm so sad that the plus sign and the square on top look like the same colour in these pictures, I made the overlapping part darker like most plaid looks and you can tell in real life! :P

Anyways, onto the pictures!

Here's my right hand! I think it looks pretty similar to my left hand and for that I'm pretty proud!

Thank you so much for reading everyone! What do you guys think of plaid or flannel nails? Or more specifically, what do you think of these? Talk to you soon! :)

Green and Blue Spiral Nail Art!

Hello everyone! Today I have some spiral/squiggle nail art for you!

For these nails I was inspired by some subtle rose nail art that Candace of MrCandiipants did!

I started off with two coats of my base, and then I just drew on the spirals with a small detailing brush. The base I used here is probably my favourite nail polish I own; green and teal are definitely my favourite colours and this is basically a mix of both! It's a lovely crelly polish that's almost a one-coater, and I swear it's so shiny that putting on my top coat (Essie Good To Go) dulls its finish.

Anyways, onto the photos and colours used!

Teal base: Nyx Girls Mermaid Green

Dark blue/teal spirals: Essie Go Overboard

My right hand! Sorry for the dry cuticles! I'd definitely recommend never stopping caring for your cuticles with oils, butters or cremes because it really takes forever to make them nice again! :P

Thanks so much for stopping by everyone!

Nyx Girls Mermaid Green with a Holographic Tip!

This is just a quick and simple mani because I'm waiting for five polishes that should come in the mail any day now! I just know I'll have to take these off and try out a new polish! I absolutely LOVE the base colour I'm wearing here, it's Nyx Girls Mermaid Green and it's the most gorgeous teal ever! This is just two coats with my current top coat, Essie's Good To Go :). The holographic top coat I'm wearing here is NOPI Make a Comet-ment, and I did the black stripes with Orly Liquid Leather!

I finally perfected putting curved text on my pictures from Kayla Shevonne's tutorial here, so these more professional-looking photos are here to stay! I'm also going to make sure to mention how many coats of each I'm wearing in future posts, and I'll put up a nail care post outlining the products I use and a review of them (including base coats and top coats) as soon as I can! Thanks so much for reading!