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 Duochrome/Multichrome Gradient Nail Art!

Hey everyone! Today I have a multichrome/duochrome gradient to share!

I have a bunch of homework to do this weekend and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed so I think I'll keep this post pretty short. What are your guys' plans for the weekend? Anyone else a bit stressed with school or work?

For this look I started with one coat of my favourite black polish, Revlon Espresso, for a nice and opaque base. I then went in with Black Sheep Lacquer Zaftig Zombie (green), Black Sheep Lacquer Blink (blue) and Black Sheep Lacquer Blue-Yea (pink/purple). Since these are duochromes/multichromes the colour of these polishes on their own is usually different than the colour they shine over black, which I think is super awesome! I had to take into consideration what each colour looked like over black to decide which ones to use and in which order to use them!

I have swatched each of these individually (both on their own and over black) in a very picture-heavy post you can find here! There is a fourth Black Sheep Lacquer polish featured in that swatch post called Forbidden Fruit that I didn't use here because my nails aren't really long enough!

One of my favourite things about this mani is that Blink contains small pink iridescent glitters and some ended up on my nails!

I even made a gif of me moving my nails from up to down because you can see the different colours more from different angles!

Thanks so much for having a look everyone! What do you guys think of this mani? I'd love to hear in the comments! Happy Saturday!

Multicoloured Mosaic Nail Art Inspired by a Bouncy Ball!

Hey everyone! Today I have some fun multicoloured mosaic nail art to share!

Today was a fairly uneventful day for me, I did have an organic chemistry lab where we carried out an elimination reaction though which was fun! I'd love to hear what you guys did today in the comments, probably something more exciting than me huh? I'm getting more used to being at school again now that we've been back for a week and a half, and as I expected I'm enjoying school as usual! How are you guys feeling about school or work or both?

Last Friday night my family and boyfriend and I were checking out at Walmart when my sister and I noticed they had bouncy ball machines. We each ended up buying a small one and a large one and I loved my large one so much that I decided to recreate it's pattern on my nails! I thought about mattifying my nails to match the ball but matte nails don't last as long, and I feel weird about slathering them in lotions, balms, oils, etc as it partly removes the matte effect.

I started out with one coat of Revlon Espresso, a true one-coat black creme! Then from red to pink in rainbow order, I used: American Apparel Poppy, Color Club Almost Famous, China Glaze For Audrey, Julep Claire, Color Club Pucci-licious, and American Apparel Coney Island.

I used a small detail brush for the blobs and applied a coat of top coat on top! I find no matter how long I wait before top coating I always smudge my design a bit. For these nails I waited around an hour and a half to top coat after I'd finished and there still are a few smudges!

I apologize for all of the pictures here guys, I just really love this mani! I also found it a lot easier to paint than my first mosaic mani (link to the post here). I'm not sure which of them I like better seeing as they're quite different, I'd love to know what you guys think in the comments!

Here's my right hand!

Thanks so much for reading everyone! I hope you're all doing well and I'd love to hear about anything you'd like to tell me in the comments! Happy Wednesday!

Floral Brocade Nail Art Created Using MrCandiipants' Tutorial!

Hey everyone! Today I have a quick post of some floral brocade nail art to share!

This design is directly copied from Candace of MrCandiipants by following her tutorial here! It's such a lovely design and she's so darn creative for coming up with it!

I started off this mani with two coats of the lovely Black Sheep Lacquer Jump In The Fire, a thermal polish with gorgeous shimmer! You can see it in it's warmer/normal state in a few of these pictures where it turns a medium pink colour.

Earlier today I mentioned on my Instagram that I was going to do some New Year's nail art today, but I just couldn't shake the idea of using this thermal polish and I decided I didn't care about being festive :P. It's quite impressive how much and how quickly this polish changes in colour, so I'll insert a little Instagram video of it here!

For some reason my hands were very cold for most of these pictures, which is fine by me because I love this polish in it's cold state! 

Here is my right hand! I think it came out approximately as good as my left, which is super exciting! It was also warmer than my left hand ever was while I was taking pictures for some odd reason :P.

Thanks so much for reading everyone! Are you guys doing anything for New Year's Eve? We're having a little party and I'm excited to dress up! :)

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! :)

Mod Lacquer Swatches and Review: Mothman, Loup Garou and Misfit Masquerade!

Hey y'all! Today I have some beautiful Mod Lacquer polishes to share with you!*

I was so excited to get this package you guys, and I have to say, my already high expectations were definitely exceeded!

One of the reasons I was so excited is because of the bottles, they have the cutest shape to them! The top of the handle/brush part is rounded so if you like to store your glitter polishes upside down a few minutes before using them, do what I did and just pop the bottle inside a roll of toilet paper upside down to hold it! The brushes are also lovely, similar to Essie ones but thicker and a bit longer. I had absolutely no problems with application for any of these polishes!

By the way, Jennifer (the shop owner) is running a fall sale until December first, so you can use the code FALL15 for 15% off any order over $10 until then! She also added a retired sale section to her shop so you can pick up polishes from her older collections for reduced prices! Lastly, she has two awesome limited edition polishes available for purchase right now, Breaking Mod, a light blue jelly with different sized pearly white hexagon glitters, and Vault 24/18, an 18 and 24 carat gold topper in a clear base! I'm very tempted to buy both of them though I'm supposed to be on a no-buy! :P

Anyways, onto the pictures and individual reviews!

First up is Mothman, a black crelly polish with medium-sized red and holographic charcoal hexes, and small holographic silver microglitter! I honestly believe it's impossible to own too many black crellies with glitter like this beauty! I love the red hexes because they keep the polish interesting when viewed in the Sun or the shade. In the Sun there are constant red glitters while all of the other glitters are changing colours, and in the shade it looks like a gorgeous black, red and silver blend! Shown here is two coats plus two coats of top coat (it only needed one, but I've never double top coated a glitter polish before and I wanted to see this polish at maximum squishiness)! The formula was great, though it was a little tricky to get a smooth line while cleaning up (solely due to it being a glitter polish). I was studying for and worrying about a midterm the evening I painted these, so that could have also been a major factor for me painting sloppily and needing more cleanup!

Since my lightbox is where holographic glitters/polishes go to die, here is an Instagram video I took of this beauty!

Next we have Loup Garou, a clear base packed with red, orange, yellow and black bar glitters! This polish just screams Thanksgiving to me and I could definitely see it being perfect for turkey feathers in some Thanksgiving nail art! I had a hard time deciding what polish to layer this baby over, I really thought an olive green would be nice but I don't actually own an olive green creme (gasp!). I decided on a pale nude colour to create a Thanksgiving-ish mani! Shown here is one coat (with slight dabbing on two nails) and a coat of top coat under two coats of American Apparel California Trooper!

Lastly we have Misfit Masquerade, a glitter topper containing tiny, small and medium-sized blue, yellow and purple matte hexes! This one is just so fun and cute, I put it on both hands and I'm wearing it right now! I think this would be really cute over a pale version of one of the three colours of glitter in this, I almost did it over a pale purple and I probably will one day! Shown here is one coat plus one coat of top coat over one (yes, one) coat of Revlon Espresso (from the fairly recent Revlon Parfumerie Collection). I found a one-coater black guys!!! Anyways, onto more pictures!

Thanks so much for having a look everyone, happy Friday! :)

*These polishes were sent to me for swatches and an honest review.

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! :)