Born Pretty Store Patterned Metallic Stud Review!

Hey everyone! Today I have a fun stud nail art look and review to share!

I'm getting really excited about my trip to Switzerland, so much so that I'm even looking forward to the long trip there! :O It's just my little sister and I going and travelling without our parents is a first for us! It's all very exciting but I'll quit yammering on and get to the nails!

For these nails I started off with three easy coats of Black Sheep Lacquer Smells Like Teen Spirit. To apply the studs, I applied the third coat of polish and then stuck the studs in the wet polish before moving on to the next nail. The smaller studs are from a random shop on Amazon or eBay, and the larger studs with the striped holographic pattern are from Born Pretty Store (link here, item number 2)!

All of the polish and studs were very easy to work with in this mani! Some of the Born Pretty Store studs we're stuck to other ones in pairs, but since they're not super small they were easy to pull apart. It also comes with plenty (100 pieces) so you wouldn't need to pry two apart until you've used them many times and were starting to run out! One other thing I noticed is that removing the studs with acetone-free remover still took off their holographic stripe design. I thought that was actually pretty cool because now I have some plain silver circle studs in my collection!

The Black Sheep Lacquer polish I used here is a thermal and I've done a review post on it before showing it's transitions (link here). It was so much fun wearing this mani (I wore it for 5 or 6 days crazily enough) because sometimes my nails were a pale jade green like in these pictures, and sometimes they were a much darker teal colour when I was cold!

If you guys decide to pick these studs or any of their other nail art stuff up, be sure to use my coupon code, SKBQ10!

Thanks so much for having a look everyone! Let me know what you think of these nails or these studs in the comments! Happy Friday! =)

Friday Swatch Spam: NOPI, OPI, Essie & Yume Lacquer!

Hello everyone! Today I have swatches of five lovely polishes to share!

I'm going to make this post short and sweet because I'm about to paint some nails and I've been accumulating swatch photos that I really need to post! I'm thinking I'll continue to post swatches of the bases of my nail art with the posts about the nail art like I was doing before. So I guess this'll be the first and last swatch spam post for at least a while! All of these swatches are of two coats of polish and some are with top coat, all had lovely formulas (though I Just Can't Cope-cabana was a little streaky and would have done better at three coats)! Let's get right to it!

OPI I Just Can't Cope-acabana- two coats and a coat of top coat

NOPI Rock the Look- two coats, no top coat

OPI OPI... Eurso Euro- two coats, no top coat (check out my peely nails :()

Essie The Girls Are Out- two coats and a coat of top coat

Yume Lacquer Galactic Punt- two coats and a coat of top coat

Thanks so much for taking a look everyone! I'll have some more half moon heart nail art to share very soon because I'm obsessed! Happy Friday! =)

Deborah Lippmann Hannah & Taping with Black Sheep Lacquer Purple Planet!

Hey everyone! Today I have a swatch and review of Deborah Lippmann Hannah as well as some simple taping nail art to share featuring a lovely Black Sheep Lacquer multichrome!

Today I've been enjoying another lazy morning with my boyfriend since he has Thursdays off. I'm especially glad about it because I've had a migraine all day that started last night, so I definitely wouldn't want to be running around! I took a Tylenol earlier but I don't think it really touched the pain. Oh well, I'm happy just laying around because standing up and moving around is mostly what's hurting. Anyways, onto the nails!

I played around with a bunch of different lightings, camera settings and poses this time around, and I'm still not sure what I like the best. The pictures with a white or brown background were just kind of for fun. I took them outside of my light box on full automatic settings, but they actually turned out better than my light box swatches!

I do think I'll be wanting to use my light box for my pictures, I just need to figure it and my camera out a bit more :P. I plan to spend more time fiddling with it today or tomorrow and I hope to make some decisions!

I found that custom white-balancing the pictures on the white background was easier to do and more accurate, so I'm feeling very tempted to go back to that. I didn't include any of those pictures here but maybe I will in my next post. I'd really love to hear your guys' thoughts on all of this! It would help so much!

Now, onto these nails specifically! I started with two easy coats of Deborah Lippmann Hannah; a gorgeous dusty dark green creme. It had a perfect formula and was super quick-drying! I also absolutely love the brush Deborah Lippmanns have, they're thin and kind of small and so dang easy to work with and get nice rounded lines at the cuticle!

Speaking of cuticles, this polish did stain my cuticles a little bit. I'm pretty sure that was because I had just pushed them back and they were a bit dry though!

The next day I decided to add little accents using Black Sheep Lacquer Purple Planet. I purchased it a while ago and I have been really excited to try it! I think I'll swatch it and have a post up about just it later this week!

Another decision I'd like to make is whether to use square pictures or pictures with the normal dimensions. Square pictures show up bigger on my blog and they're so easy to Instagram! What do you guys think? I'd really love to know!

I can't get over how pretty and how multichromatic Purple Planet is! I can't wait to get up some proper swatches of it!

Sorry for all the pictures here guys, I kind of went nuts!

Thank you so much for reading everyone! Again, I'd love to have your input on backgrounds and picture shapes because I'm pretty indecisive! :P Let me know what you thought of these nails in the comments too! Happy Thursday! =)

Born Pretty Store Charm & B Squared Lacquer Purple Unicorns Review!

Hey everyone! Today I have a quick review of B Squared Lacquer Purple Unicorns and a review of a butterfly charm (link here, number 781) from Born Pretty Store to share!

I've decided to take a OPI Nail Envy break and not paint my nails for a week (or as long as I can handle)! Not to fear though, I am behind enough in posting that I have about a week's worth of posts to get up! I picked up the Nail Envy for sensitive and peeling nails today because my nails have been peeling on the sides (like hang nails) on the ends and on the nail plate due to wearing glitter polishes. I do use the foil method to remove glitters but they still get all peely and damaged :(. Like, who ever heard of peels in the middle of your nails? Ugh, my nails are so sad right now, they're even a little stained by this Sally Hansen blue that I'll be posting about soon.

Despite all of that I really want to be painting my nails! I've been super inspired by this salon's Instagram page called spica_nail (here is the link). You guys should seriously check them out! I've liked all of their pictures they've posted in the last few years because they're seriously all perfect. :D Anyways, onto the nails!

To start, I applied three easy coats of B Squared Lacquer Purple Unicorns, a gorgeous purple polish with a subtle but almost linear holographic effect and green-blue flakies. This means this polish is beautiful and interesting in any lighting! The formula was lovely just like the other polish from B Squared Lacquer I recently tried (All Aboard, link here)! As per usual, I finished it off with a coat of the top coat I still always use, Essie Good to Go!

Now onto the charm! The package actually comes with two charms so you can put one on each hand. I think these charms are super cute and I love that they come in mint! They also stay looking brand new as long as you clean them off and remove them using non-acetone remover (like with any charms)!

I wasn't really sure how I'd top coat these charms if I were to wear them. I think I'd just have to top coat around them because as you can see from the picture below, they are quite tall and stick up quite a bit! That is my only complaint about these charms; I don't know how practical they are to wear and I don't know that they'd stay on that well just because they're so big.

I think they'd be super fun to use while swatching for a little extra interest! What do you guys think of these charms and/or this polish? I'd love to know!

Again, if you guys decide to pick up any nail art stuff off of their site feel free to use my coupon code; SKBQ10!

Thank you so much for reading everyone! I'll try to start posting more regularly! Happy Monday! =)

Butter London Knackered Swatch and Review!

Hey everyone! Today I have a bunch of pictures of Butter London Knackered and a review to share!

I meant to get this post up Monday but after such a long day, a midterm and a busy weekend I was just exhausted! Then last night and this morning I had to finish up a computer science lab! I finally feel better today though because I slept really well last night. Our term papers were due Monday for genetics and I'm just realizing now that I don't have to worry about it anymore and I can relax a bit!

I recently discovered yet another way to procrastinate! :P Have any of you heard of Candy Box 2? It's my new obsession. I'm a bit stuck because I can beat the Bat King and the Devil no problem, but I think I have to save up a billion lollipops to buy the Sorceress' hat to progress any further. Anyways haha, onto a ton of pictures and a review!

Knackered is a GORGEOUS (and I usually refrain from using caps) multichrome polish with small silver holographic microglitter! The base is a blue-grey metallic colour but the multichrome shimmer shifts from green/turquoise to purple and pink and since there's so much of the shimmer it only looks blue-grey in very low lighting. It usually looks green or pinky purple!

It is a bit of a sheer polish so I ended up applying four thin coats (and a coat of top coat) for the opacity you see here. I know that sounds pretty darn sheer and like it would be a pain to apply, but the formula is so lovely and it's so fast-drying that it seemed like applying a normal two or three coat polish. I absolutely love Butter London polishes and I love their brushes!

Like I said above, the formula was lovely. It dried fast, self-leveled, applied like butter, and was only slightly brushstrokey. That's just what happens with multichrome polishes and it was hardly noticeable as you can see from the pictures!

Another super awesome thing about this polish is how dang holographic the tiny glitters are. This polish is so unique and I really think the holographic glitters make it so much better! All of the pictures taken on my chair (the grey background) are in indirect sunlight and the glitters still look holographic! They also look holographic in my light box (black background) and my light box is where holo things go to die! Craziness!

I know when I read something's a four-coater I think it's totally not worth the effort, but the formula on this baby is so good that you really shouldn't let that discourage you! You could also use three  thicker coats and get the same opacity!

My dad even thought this polish was freaking awesome, everyone I showed it to did in fact. I wore this for four days and it did chip a little, but I think that was because my actual nail got a little chip in it.

Overall I think this is a beautiful polish that is totally worth the money (17 dollars plus tax here in Canada) and a perfect present for anyone into nails!

Thank you so much for having a look everyone, I'd love to hear what you think of this polish in the comments! I'll try to prepare some posts for the next two weeks because finals are about to start and I'll be busy again! Happy Wednesday everyone! =D