Bright Warm-Toned Squiggly Nail Art Featuring Sally Hansen and Nicole by OPI!

Hey everyone! Today I have some bright squiggly nail art to share!

It looks like I'll probably have a biology research assistant lab job starting next month and I'm so excited y'all! My plan was to start my Master's this September but there is a funding crisis going on in the biochemistry department. All I want to do is lab work so I really hope this job works out! I've met with some lab members and I'll meet with the lab head in September and let you guys know! Life is and has been hard for the last few years but hopefully some good things are coming!

Anyways, onto the nails!

I started off with three coats of NOPI Hit the Lights over my holy grail base coat: Orly Bonder. In real life this polish was still streaky at this point, so I wouldn't recommend it.

Next, I went in with Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Madame X and Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear Daquiri on a small nail art brush. A coat of Essie Good to go, some clean up and I was finished!

So what do you guys think of these nails? I'm a big fan of these squiggles! Hope you're all doing okay, happy Tuesday :).

Sally Hansen Cheery On Top Over Bare Nails!

Hey everyone! Today I have some naked glitter nails to share!

So I've been feeling a cold coming on for a while and after feeling better and deciding I wasn't actually going to get sick, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I think I will basically just go to sleep when I get home (at seven at the latest) and definitely go straight into bed! I hardly slept last night, so that in itself makes me excited to go through my day and just get it over with :P.

Onto the nails!

What you see here is simply one coat of Sally Hansen Cheery On Top between a coat of base coat and top coat!

It has quite good coverage and was super easy to work with!

What do you guys think of this polish or this look? I'm all about looks where bare nail shows so I'm kind of into this! It's still a bit girly for my liking.

Thanks so much for having a look everyone! I'll be back with some tweed nails! Happy Monday!

Dark Mix & Match Featuring China Glaze Choo-Choo Choose You!

Hey guys! Today I have some mix and match nails to share!

So yesterday we actually went through a haunted house and then a maze and it was so fun! I wasn't actually too scared and definitely wasn't the most scared in our group which was cool!

Onto the nails!

For this look, I used Sally Hansen Slick Black, L'oreal Rose To The Occasion, American Apparel Hassid and China Glaze Choo-Choo Choose You! I really didn't like these much and they are very worn and not cleaned up well, but I post every look I wear so whatever!

Thanks so much for taking a look everyone! I'll be back tomorrow with some Sally Hansen glitter nails! Happy Saturday! :)

Textured Black Nails with Mint Chevrons Featuring Sally Hansen Lick-O-Rich!

Hello everyone! Today I have some simple chevron nails to share!

This will probably be the first of two posts you'll be seeing from me today so I'll keep this one short! I'm trying to get caught up on here so why not! No news yet on the volunteer opportunity but I'll keep you guys posted!

Onto the nails!

To start, I applied two coats of one of the Sally Hansen Sugar Coat polishes called Lick-O-Rich.

A few days later, I went in with Revlon Entice just with the brush from the bottle for some quick chevrons!

This is one of the four manis I did for the WNAC challenge this April, before realizing they were all supposed to be pastel. I really can't believe I did that! I must have been really stressed at school because it was right on the picture I regrammed to say I'd be doing the challenge! :P

Here is my other hand! Whether I include it in a post or not only depends on how well it can pose that day, I always do a design on both hands!

Thanks so much for taking a look guys! I wasn't sure if I should blog about these or not but I decided to continue the tradition of blogging about every look I wear! I'll be back with some grid-topped gradient nails! Happy Sunday guys! :)

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! =)

Sally Hansen Brisk Blue & Heart Nail Art!

Hey everyone! Today I have a cute heart nail art look to share!

I feel pretty bleh about these pictures except for the last one and lately I've really been thinking about changing up my poses/background/pictures in some way. I love the more artsy pictures like the bloggers Pshiiit, BeautyGeeks and Nail Escapades use! Maybe I could do some of those in addition to the ones or most of the ones I use. I've already made a few blog changes lately including my font, commenting system and a slight change to my blog title, and now I'm really wanting to make some more changes!

I'd love to know what you guys think of the changes along the way! I'm going to try out some new poses, backgrounds, lighting, etc. today so maybe I'll be back to you guys with a post asking which poses you prefer (again :P, link to the first time I did this here if you're curious). I know I haven't tagged all of my posts featuring indie brands with the tag "indie polish" and that's been bugging me for a while so that's another change I'd like to make! I also want to make sure I have the tags "review" and "swatch" on all the applicable posts because I'm not sure that I do. Anyways, onto the nails!

For this look I started with one easy coat of Sally Hansen Brisk Blue and a coat of top coat. I would definitely recommend not going in and trying to fix a spot you missed if you've allowed it any time to dry already. I made that mistake and let me tell you, they don't call it Insta-Dri for nothing! Things got real bumpy and even after two coats of top coat it still looked odd. But not to fear! If you just wait a minute or two more you can do an easy second coat instead to get the spot you missed.

I also want to note that I got a tiny bit of staining from this polish. I only used a thin coat of base coat and after hitting my nails with remover twice it was gone, so it was really nothing major! Doing two coats of base coat would definitely eliminate any possibility of staining though! Also, it did seem to stain my fingers that were holding the cotton pad while removing them, but that staining was gone before I remembered I should try and wash it off!

Next, I went in twice with OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls so the hearts could reach full opacity. I just realized I never took a picture of my other hand, but I put the hearts on my index and pinkie finger because I've been loving doing those kind of reverse accent nails lately! That's another change I'd like to make; always including pictures of my right hand in each post!

Thank you so much for reading everyone! I'd love to know what you think of the changes I've made and the ones I've been thinking of making in the comments! I'd also love to know what you think of these nails! Hopefully I'll have some more interesting pictures and poses for you in my next post! Happy Monday! =)

What I've Been Wearing Lately: Color Club Eternal Beauty, Sally Hansen Sweetie & Illamasqua Facet

Hey everyone, I'm back! Today I have three recent manis I've worn and haven't blogged about to share with you!

I am officially done my second and final year of college and I won't be back in school until next fall for University. In other words, expect a lot more manis and posts from me for a while! :) This post will be relatively short (in words, not pictures!) because I have some errands to run and celebrating to do today because my boyfriend will be done school as well in a few hours! Some of these pictures are just taken from my phone because I didn't get to my light box until I had tip wear, or I never bothered to clean them up so I didn't want to take proper pictures! :P

First up is Color Club Eternal Beauty. This polish is an easy two-coater with a lovely formula and the holo effect is not altered by top coat! So gorgeous!

Next up we have Sally Hansen Sweetie, a gorgeous textured matte polish from their Sugar Coat line! This polish was also an easy two-coater and it wore so well! I do find that it takes a day or less for the sharp texture bits on the end of your nails to wear off, so be careful if you want to scratch your face and it hasn't been a day since you applied it!

Lastly, we have Illamasqua Facet. This polish is everything I wanted it to be and more and I'm really glad I splurged on it! It has gold and copper/orange shimmer and I think that's such a cool combo! It applied like butter and like the other two polishes in this post, it was an easy two-coater!

Excuse the sad finals week cuticles, I just wanted to include a macro shot so you can see the shimmer I was talking about!

Thank you so much for reading everyone! I'd love to know what you think of these polishes in the comments! I'll have a fun little nail art post using a Rainbow Honey polish up soon (see my Instagram for a picture)! Happy Thursday everyone! =)

Another Go at a Mrcandiipants Floral Design!

Hey all my lovely people! Today I have another round of Mrcandiipants springy floral nail art to share!

So this probably makes me a total weirdo but I'm actually writing this on the bus right now! It's a 50 minute to an hour long bus ride to and from school so I often write up my blog posts on the way (depending on whether we get a set of seats and if it's a double-decker). Anyways haha, I'm super happy to be sitting on my butt and getting a ride home after finishing two finals today and one yesterday! I have one more next week but I'm exhausted from reviewing reviewing reviewing so I'll definitely just be relaxing tonight!

As you may have noticed, I totally didn't prepare any posts ahead of time. In fact, I actually wore a polish for a few days that I've never worn and never took proper pictures of it! It was the amazing Color Club Eternal Beauty and you can check out a picture of it on my Instagram (button in my right sidebar)! Now, onto these nails!

I've been insanely obsessed with this Mrcandiipants design lately, I even did it on my grandma's nails last weekend! So this time (on myself) I used Sally Hansen Firey Island (orange base), Zoya Kristen (muted pale blue petals), American Apparel T-shirt (white petals), American Apparel Coney Island (pale pink petals) and Essie Plumberry (dark pink dots). Like in her tutorial, I just used the bottles from the brush for this design!

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

Well, I'm off to nap/lay down, paint my nails and eat! Those are my plans for tonight haha! I hope you're all having a relaxing evening also! Happy Wednesday! =)

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! =)