Abstract Green Brain Nail Art & American Apparel Malibu Green Review!

Yo yo yo my lovely people! Today I have some vine/brain like nail art to share!

Today was my boyfriend and I's three year anniversary! We had a coffee date and then really yummy Japanese food for dinner so I'd say it was a success! I planned the whole afternoon/evening and I was even able to pay because of the tutoring I've done recently :). School-wise I'm waiting on getting some midterm marks back that I'm really curious about! Since I've been more motivated for school my next step is being motivated enough to clean my room. I think I'll tackle that tomorrow after school, I really love having a tidy room so I'm excited to get it back in that state!

Anyways, onto the nails!

I started off this look with one super opaque coat of American Apparel Malibu Green. It is even opaque up against the light like this, and I wasn't even being careful and trying to make it a one-coater :O. It dried really quickly, had a lovely formula and dried to the shiniest and smoothest finish! I have heard people say that it stains, but I doubled up on base coat and my nails were as white as usual after taking this off!

I then went in with a new small paintbrush I picked up from Michaels recently and American Apparel 7th and Alameda. I waited a while before I applied top coat (Essie Good to Go) but as you can see, I still smudged my design. I think I'll go back to doing a quick spritz of hairspray before top coating to avoid that!

The one coat of top coat wasn't enough to smooth the design out, so it ended up being a bit of a bumpy 3D look. I thought that was pretty cool and I think it would have looked neat with a matte top coat, but I'm worried that matte top coats make your polish chip faster so I didn't try it out. I feel like once I make one mani matte I'll fall completely in love and be obsessed with the look so I'm kind of putting it off I guess

What do you guys of this look, these polishes or American Apparel polishes in general? I really love the formula and the brush and I actually have an entire row of my nail polish rack with these babies packed sideways (so quite a few :P)!

Thanks so much for taking a look everyone! I'll probably be back with some KB Shimmer or piCture pOlish swatches because I've bought from both brands for the first time recently and I can't wait to use them! Happy Thursday everyone! =)

Born Pretty Store Brush Set Review!

Hey everyone! Today I have a review of a set of Born Pretty Store brushes (link to the set here) to share!

I've started filming myself when I do my nails and I've been thinking of making tutorials or something! Let me know if that would be something you'd like to see :). For the manis I've recorded myself doing, I think I'll just add the video to the post about them so you guys can see how I did them/how I paint my nails! I'm quite behind in posting so that may be in a while :P. Anyways, onto the nails!

This is the base I decided on for this mani because it has been calling my name ever since I bought it! This is two coats of Nicole by OPI All Kendall-ed Up plus a coat of top coat!

I decided to not use any other brushes for this mani, so for clean up I used the smallest brush in this set instead of my normal clean up brush! It works super well for a clean up brush!

Please excuse the bumps on my nails, I've since buffed them! They just get so darn peel-y and bumpy from removing glitter polishes, even when I use the foil method!

Here are the three brushes that came in the set! The metal part and brush part detached from the wooden part on one of them, but I just applied a little top coat to the wooden part and shoved it back together. It has been perfect ever since!

These brushes are a lot bigger and have a lot more bristles than I typically work with when I do nail art, but you can still totally use them to make awesome designs! I did cut off most of the bristles of one of them after doing this design and I'll probably do the same to the others, just because I like thinner brushes better!

Here is the design I decided on! I used the longest brush for the stripes and the medium-sized brush for the grey blob shape!

All of the polishes I used for this design (except the pink of course) are by Revlon. The grey is Timeless, the yellow is Lemon Meringue and the turquoise-y colour is Mint Gelato! Despite the yellow and turquoise being a bit sheer they worked really well for nail art! They are also both scented and smell like their names which I love!

After doing this design, I used the smallest brush to clean up again!

What do you guys think of this nail art and these brushes? I'd love to know in the comments!

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

Thanks so much for reading guys, I hope you're having a lovely day! I'll have two more Born Pretty Store reviews up soon! Happy Wednesday! =)

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! =)

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

Illamasqua Viridian Swatch and Review & Half Moon Heart Nail Art!

Hey everyone! Today I have a swatch and review of Illamasqua Viridian and some nail art on top to share!

Hey guys, how are you doing? I'm a little nervous and very curious to get my organic chem midterm back today! They are only worth 10% so I'll try not to beat myself up if I don't do super well! Every time I finish a midterm in that class I tell myself I have to start studying sooner than the night before for the next one but it never happens! :P

If you follow me on Instagram you'll know I actually painted and wore these nails about two weeks ago, but I got a bit ahead of myself and kept not posting them. So here they are today! Because these are older pictures they were just automatically white balanced after being taken (not custom white balanced in my light box prior to being taken) so they might be a little off. I'll take a little off any day when I look back at how off my white balance has been!

I remember wearing just one coat of Viridian the first time I wore it, but this time I wore two coats and a coat of top coat! It had a perfect formula and consistency and it seemed to dry quickly! I really love this polish and I've since bought another Illamasqua polish because of it (Facet if you're wondering)! Props to my friend Sarah for buying me this lovely and making me want a ton more! ;)

I think this polish is prettier and glowier than it looks in these pictures, too bad my light box is where pretty shimmer and glitter go to die!

Another thing I love about Illamasqua polishes are their bottles! They look so classy and ritzy. I also quite like the brush that they come with, it made application very easy!

Now for the nail art! Using the bottle from the brush, I painted heart-like shapes in Zoya Kristen over my base. I was going to go in with another heart shape with another polish, but I decided I really liked these as is!

Kristen is a grey blue hybrid and it can lean one way more than the other depending on what you pair it with. It looks colour-accurate here, but I did feel like it looked more grey next to the green in real life!

What do you guys think of these nails? They're super quick to do but really interesting to look at. I think they look quite chic! Also, does anyone know the proper term for these? I've called them half moon hearts in my title because I have no idea haha!

Thanks so much for reading everyone, I hope you're all having a lovely start to the week! I'll be back soon with a super bright pink polish (Rainbow Honey Apple Kid) and some nail art on top! Happy Tuesday! =)

Black Sheep Lacquer Grey Ghost plus Lace and Peacock Feather Nail Art!

Hey everyone! Today I have a swatch and review of Black Sheep Lacquer Grey Ghost and some nail art on top to share!

I'm pretty excited because in the week that's coming up I have no midterms! Except that means I should really be working on my 1-2 page write-ups and 12-15 page term paper for genetics. I've only done one of the 6-8 write-ups and I haven't started the paper except for an outline (because it was due a few weeks ago). I wouldn't be Bailey if I didn't do stuff like procrastinate so oh well haha! Onto the nails!

What you see here is two easy coats of Grey Ghost and a coat of top coat! This polish has the most gorgeous scattered holographic shimmer and in the Sun it almost looks as if each holographic particle is partially translucent. It is seriously gorgeous and I can't not look at it when it's sunny!

Oh and have I mentioned it's also a thermal? It goes from white/really light grey to dark grey when it goes from hot to cold!

Here is a little collage so I don't bombard you with 12 pictures instead of 9 (technically this collage is one picture and not four right?)! When you aren't in the Sun or similar lighting and this polish is cold, you can see the holographic pigment as silver really well! Gorgeous!

You can see the awesome translucent-looking holographic particles in this picture taken above my light box!

Oh how I love grey polishes, they're perfect bases for nail art of any kind or colour! And I just love watching my nail art and entire mani look different and changing colour in different temperatures!

And here we have the nail art! The design on my thumb, middle and ring finger nails is a copy of part of Lindsey of Wondrously Polished lace nail art that you can find here! She is amazingly talented at nail art and I always love every single mani she does! Check her out if you haven't already!

For my index and pinky finger I stamped a peacock feather design from the Bundle Monster plate BM-212!

I used another Black Sheep Lacquer polish for the free-hand and stamping bits here called Dragon Scale. It's a gorgeous two-coater teal polish with glitter and a bit of a duochrome effect! I swatched and reviewed this baby last summer so here's a link to that post if you want to see a swatch or review of it!

Did you notice that the nail art pictures look a little better white balanced? I think I finally figured out how to do it on the camera I use! Squee!!!!

Thank you so much for reading everyone! What are you guys up to on this Saturday afternoon? And what do you think of this polish and this nail art? Let me know in the comments! Happy March! :)