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! =)

Green Abstract Baseball Nail Art!

Hey everyone! Today I have some baseball-looking nail art to share!

Sorry about my absence in the last little while, there was a tragedy in my boyfriend's family recently so life has gotten a little busy and more than a little sad. I don't want to go into a lot of detail because I want this blog to be a happy place to talk about polish! So let's get onto the nails!

I started off with two easy coats of Revlon Spanish Moss and allowed that to dry. Spanish Moss seemed to have shimmer in it in the bottle, but I really couldn't see any on my nails or after close inspection of these photos. I do love a good creme polish so I don't really mind!

I then went in with Orly Liquid Vinyl and a medium-length striper brush. The black I normally use (Revlon Espresso) is a little more opaque but also a little more thick and quick-drying so I prefer Liquid Vinyl for nail art and Espresso for a full black nail!

 Finally, I applied a coat of Essie Good to Go top coat as per usual!

I really like simple nail art looks like this because they look so bold but don't take a lot of time!

What do you guys think of these nails or simple nail art looks like this? I'd love to hear in the comments!

Thanks so much for taking a look everyone! I'll have some gradient nails that look like peaches posted in the next few days so keep an eye out! Happy Thursday! :)

Rainbow Honey July Mystery Bag Review & Swatches!

Hello my lovely readers! Today I have a review of the Rainbow Honey Mini July Mystery Bag (link here) to share!

I am officially back from Switzerland! I'm very happy to be back to my light box and sister's nice camera so I can get back to blogging! The trip was really amazing and it was so great to hang out with our friend Anna for a month. Surprisingly, I only picked up two polishes while I was away (both by the brand Kiko) which I'll be blogging about soon!

The night we got back I was super excited to learn that I'd come home to a package from Rainbow Honey! In addition to the mystery bag I got three new polishes to review, so keep an eye out for another Rainbow Honey post very soon! Above you can see the adorable packaging their mystery bags come in!

Everything came packaged very well so there's no need to worry about of ending up with broken bottles or product explosions.

As you can see, everything is also packaged close together so there's no way for any products to bang into each other with any considerable force!

Did I mention you get a whole lot of stuff for a small amount of money? These mini mystery bags retail for just 10 American dollars plus shipping! Shipping is free if you spend 50 dollars or more for America and 75 dollars or more for Canada, and you better believe I made sure to spend at least 75 dollars last time I ordered haha! Also, if you spend 65 dollars or more you can get this mini mystery bag as a free gift which is awesome!

This month's mystery bag came with three mini (5mL) polishes, a 4mL eau de parfum rollerball, a 29mL cooling gel and a 4.25g scented cuticle balm. All three body products are in the scent midori; a fresh melon scent! 

The rollerball perfume goes on easily and dries quickly for a nice light summery scent! The cooling gel is very effective, if you don't fully rub it in it stays wet and continues to cool you off for quite a while! It has some really pretty and subtle blurple and green shimmer flakies that makes it extra summery, as well as the same delicious scent as the perfume!

Finally, the cuticle balm is thinner than most, (which I absolutely love!) non-greasy, and fast absorbing! It does that thing where most of if sinks in but you're left with a layer of protection from moisture-loss which I really love! You can see above and below how nails and cuticles freshly swiped with pure acetone look with (thumb, middle finger and pinkie) and without (index and ring finger) the cuticle balm on top!

This cuticle balm adds hardly any shine to pictures even when it's freshly applied so I think it's going to be my new go to cuticle product before I take pictures! I also really love the formula so I'll probably by using it all the time!

Now, onto the polishes! Each mini Rainbow Honey polish comes in a tall skinny bottle with a long and skinny brush that picks up globs of polish full of glitter really well!

First up we have Viridis, a clear-based glitter topper stuffed with shimmer, microglitter and full-on glitter in various shapes, finishes, colours and sizes! Some of the glitters are partially transparent so this beauty will look different over different base colours! Here I've layered one coat of Viridis over two coats of Revlon Espresso, no top coat.

Like I said, what you see here is only one coat of this polish because the glitter is so densely-packed! This is also the result of hardly any dabbing, mostly just applying the glitter topper as if it was a normal polish!

The dry time seemed really awesome and the glitters were so smooth and flat that I didn't even see a need to use top coat for these swatches!

Next up we have Chemical Plant, a very densely-packed clear-based shimmer polish. Despite the clear base I was able to reach opacity in just two easy coats! The shimmer in this baby consists of rose gold/copper coloured flakies, much smaller pink shimmer and even a small amount of blurple shimmer! When the light hits this polish its shimmer mix gives it a duochromey look which is pretty freaking cool!

What you see here is two easy coats and a coat of top coat!

Again, dry time was good and application was awesome!

Finally we have Deep Heart Sea, a slightly green-tinted medium blue jelly with intense pink to blue multichrome shimmer and a whole bunch of matte and pearl finish glitters! The base is a little more green and a little more dark in the bottle than in these pictures, mostly because with all of the glitters you don't need the base to be opaque for the whole polish to be opaque... know what I mean? There are even some white heart glitters thrown in as you can see on my pinky nail, so cute!

The formula on this one was a little thicker than the other two but still entirely manageable! The added thickness gave me more control and it didn't dry so fast that trying to cover your whole nail turned the polish into a gloopy mess. Basically it was a really good consistency for something so packed with glitter!

What you see here is two coats and a coat of top coat!

Whew! You've made it to the end of this massive photo-heavy post! Rainbow Honey included a 20% off coupon code for me to share with you guys to use on your next order! Enter MIXTAPE20 at the checkout before August 31st to get 20% off your order!

Thanks so much for taking a look everyone! What do you think of these polishes or products or Rainbow Honey stuff in general? I love it all and I really think they make polishes unique to other indie brands! I'll be back with one more Born Pretty Store review and one more Rainbow Honey review soon so stay tuned! Happy Sunday! =)

My 200th Post: Purple Watercolour Halloween Nail Art and a Small Giveaway!

Hi everyone! Today I have some fun Halloween-y nail art and a fun little giveaway to share!

If you haven't read my last post I know what you're thinking... it's late May not late October, what's with the Halloween nails? And like I said in my last post, Halloween is one of the prompts for Nail It Magazine's September/October Issue and I'm trying to get my nails in their super fancy magazine!

Today is a special day because this is Partial to Polish's 200th post! In honour of that I've picked out a cute set of coloured studs from Born Pretty Store for one of you lovely people to win! This isn't a sponsored post, it's just a fun little spontaneous giveaway I decided to throw together today! The widget will be at the bottom of this post so read on!

For this look I started with a base of Essie The Girls are Out, a lovely fuchsia polish with glowy silver shimmer. I then went in with Essie DJ Play that Song, Color Club Pucci-licious and China Glaze Fancy Pants. I basically followed the lovely Chelsea Queen's tutorial to get the water colour effect, but I also went over each nail with acetone and a little DJ Play that Song at the end to blend everything together a little better! Check out the picture below for what that looked like (with no top coat).

I fell in love with the waxy finish of this watercolour look, so much so that I've since made a wax effect top coat with some corn starch and top coat! If you're curious you can head to my Instagram through the button in my sidebar to check out how it looked!

For the spiders and birds/bats (I was going for very simple bats but I think they look more like birds) I used a small paintbrush and Revlon Espresso, my favourite black creme polish. After letting my nails dry I sprayed the spider and bat nails with a spray of hairspray and let that dry. I finished off with a coat of the top coat I always use, Essie Good to Go. I do that every time I do any kind of nail art now because the layer of hairspray makes nail art so much harder to smudge!

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

Now, onto the giveaway portion of this post! It is open internationally and will be open for a week. One of the requirements is that you leave a comment on this post letting my know which colour combo you'd like to receive the most. The following pictures are from the Born Pretty Store website and if you click on any of them they'll take you to the item listing for more information. I have named each set below so you can easily let me know which is your favourite in the comments!

BPG (blue purple green)

POP (pink orange purple)

GYG (green yellow green)

OPB (orange pink blue)

Here is the widget, good luck everyone! The winner will have 24 hours to respond to my email or I'll have to pick a new winner.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks so much for reading everyone! I'll have a big random swatch post up soon of the bases for my nail art or polishes I wore on their own, so keep an eye out! Happy Thursday! =)

Above the Curve Doctor Who Collection Part 1: Donna and The Silence!

Hey everybody! Today I have two polishes from Above the Curve's new Doctor Who Collection to share!

I have a midterm tomorrow to study for so I'll make this post fairly quick! It's in organic chemistry which is the class I'm the worst at so I'm kind of nervous. Scary things aside, let's get on to the pretty polishes!

Donna is a bright orange metallic polish with holographic pigment tossed in! I find I don't own or wear a lot of warm-toned polishes like this, and I really don't know why because they're gorgeous!

The formula on this baby was amazing; it dried quickly and had the perfect consistency!

This polish was nice and opaque too, needing just two coats for full coverage! I also applied a coat of top coat for the pictures you see here (not that it needed it, it was super smooth and shiny on its own)!

The Silence is a black polish stuffed with holographic pigment, purple to blue duochrome shimmer, and what look like pink and blue flakies. In other words, this polish is gorgeous!

Again, no issues to report with the formula here because it was amazing too!

What you see here is two coats and a coat of top coat but you could probably get away with just one coat of this bad boy. Isn't it stunning?

Thank you so much for reading everyone! I'll have the other two polishes from this collection up on Thursday! Happy Tuesday! :)