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 Lips Like Sugar and Valentine's/anti-Valentine's Day Nail Art!

Hey-lo my lovely readers! Today I have a gorgeous Black Sheep Lacquer thermal called Lips Like Sugar to share, as well as some Valentine's/anti-Valentine's day nail art!

I've been getting increasingly excited about my upcoming giveaway! It's kind of funny because it seems like I was steadily gaining followers on Tumblr until I mentioned that once I reached 150 I would launch my giveaway haha! I'm now at 149 and I'm so dang excited to launch this giveaway so if you have a Tumblr and you'd like to follow me (link here) I'd be so happy! Anyways, onto the nails and buttload of pictures!

Lips Like Sugar is a shimmer-stuffed sheer light pink thermal polish that turns a dark coral colour when cold! I think my hands/fingers are so warm that the polish doesn't even look very pink when I'm at my normal temperature, it looks more like a nude colour which I love!

The formula on this polish was amazing just like all of the other Black Sheep Lacquer polishes I've been reviewing lately! It dried really fast and had a perfect consistency! What you see here is three easy coats and no top coat!

My camera cannot handle taking pictures of reds or corals, it freaks out! Does anyone have any tips on photographing red polishes? I'd love to know!

The shimmer really comes to life and appears gold when this baby gets cold!

I then decided to put some matte sweethearts on top with a mix of nice and not so nice sayings! These were inspired by these nails by Fab Fatale and these nails by Petite Marine! After I painted the hearts on and let them dry, I painted a coat of NYC Matte Me Crazy over just the hearts (not the Lips Like Sugar base).

The polishes I used here were: Julep Blake (yellow), American Apparel Office (green), Color Club Take Me to Your Chateau (blue), OPI You're Such a Budapest (purple), OPI Mod About You (pink) and OPI Lost on Lombard (red).

I couldn't be bothered to matteify the red letters, and that's why I decided to just make the hearts matte. Red polishes seem to smear on me no matter how long I allow them to dry and no matter the top coat, so I left the words/symbols slightly shiny!

I think the heart shapes came out better on my left hand, but funnily enough, I think the writing on my right hand looks better! I can't for the life of me write with my left hand, but apparently I can paint letters/symbols with it? So strange!

I'd love to know what you lovely people think of these in the comments! I quite like them, they're a bit girlier than I'm used to but I'm loving the sheer nude base with nail art on top! You may see some more manis like this in the future!

Yesterday my boyfriend gave me twenty dollars to buy something for me and something for him, so I picked up OPI Muir Muir on the Wall and bought him a mini grater and a knork(knife and fork combined)/spoon (does anyone get the Clone High reference? The knork episode? I LOVE that show). So that's what we did for Valentine's day! Do/did you guys have any plans for Valentine's day?

Thank you so much for taking a look everyone! Let me know what you think of these manis and whatever else you'd like to tell me in the comments! :)

Rainbow Honey Swatches and Review: Papillon and Magic Cake!

Hey everyone! Today I have a swatch and review of two lovely Rainbow Honey polishes to share; Papillon and Magic Cake!

I am still just absolutely exhausted from my two back-to-back midterms yesterday evening so I'll keep this short! How are you guys doing today/this week? Let me know in the comments!

I'll be hosting a giveaway once I reach 150 Tumblr followers, so you guys can follow me on Tumblr here if you'd like to see the giveaway start sooner! It will be open to the US and Canada only unfortunately, sorry guys, I'm a poor student!

First up we have Papillon, a clear-based glitter topper with silver shimmer, iridescent hexes and tons of different pink and purple holographic glitter (including the butterflies)!

Application was super easy and I only had to fish for a few butterflies, and I did all ten nails so that's pretty darn great!

What you see here is just one easy coat followed by a coat of topcoat, with two coats of Revlon Timeless for undies!

Pink is definitely not my colour and even so, I absolutely loved this polish! You can check out it's holographic awesomeness below in an Instagram video I posted a few days ago!

Next we have Magic Cake, another clear-based glitter topper, with tons of neon matte glitters in various sizes and a small amount of silver shimmer!

I apologize for all of the bubbles in this mani, I painted it pretty quickly pretty close to a fan and it definitely shows!

Application was just a hair trickier with this one as the glitters were slightly more difficult to move around and separate. I think that's often the case with glitter-packed polishes like this and it was still completely manageable!

For the base I used two coats of Sally Hansen Barracuda, and then I topped it off with one coat of Magic Cake and a coat of top coat!

For some crazy reason I didn't think I was going to like this polish, but I was SO wrong! The name is so perfect too! I'm currently wearing it and I like to imagine I have ten little magic cakes on my nails with light blue frosting and sprinkles!

What do you guys think of these lovely glitter toppers? I'd love to hear in the comments! As always, thank you so much for reading everyone! Happy Tuesday!

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

Essie Lots of Luxe Swatch and Review!

Hey everyone! Today I have a quick swatch and review of a lovely new Essie textured polish called Lots of Lux!

I've had a rough week filled with the flu, some tragedies and now possibly a cold, so this will be a short post. I also have constant homework, studying and labs to do so I should probably work on those soon! On a happier note, I'll have swatches of Above the Curve's Valentine's Day Collection for you guys soon! They asked me if I'd like to do some reviews for them and of course I said yes; I absolutely love their polishes! I'm so excited!

Essie Lots of Lux is a blue metallic texture polish with black/dark blue particles, and purple and light green tiny glitters! The formula was perfect and it dried pretty quickly, and this is just one coat!

Since I've been pretty down and I haven't been up to writing this post, I actually can talk about the staying power of this polish. I've been wearing it since Wednesday night I believe, so two and a half days, and I only have the slightest tip wear near the middle of some of my tips. I also took these pictures almost twenty-four hours after I put it on and I can't see any tip wear!

Here's a picture of these with my lamps but without my light box to show off the shimmer!

Thanks so much for reading everyone, happy Saturday!

Dollish Polish Putting On The Ritz! over a Blue to Purple Essie Gradient!

Hey everyone! Today I have a quick post featuring another glitter-topped gradient mani to share!

I've recently fallen in love with gradients (probably because I've finally mastered a technique that works) so I decided to do another one yesterday! The blue is Essie Bikini So Teeny and the purple is Essie Play Date (two of my favourite polishes)! The glitter on top is Dollish Polish Putting On The Ritzzz!, a lovely black and white glitter topper without any bar glitter (unlike Hard Candy Black Tie Optional)!

Onto the pictures!

What do you guys think of gradients topped with glitter? Thank you so much for reading! :)

Dollish Polish Super Bubblicious!

Hi everyone! Today (like many other days) I have a swatch of a lovely indie polish for you!

This is Dollish Polish Super Bubblicious and it was a pleasure to work with! Many bloggers claim this polish is a three-coater, but I think I apply thicker coats when working with jelly/crelly polishes or just in general, so I got away with just two coats! I also added a coat of top coat before taking the photos, so the pictures show two (thick) coats and a coat of Essie Good To Go top coat!

I apologize for the sad, dry skin around my nails in these photos, I had two big midterms last week and my cuticles and hands were neglected!

Anyways, onto the photos!

Super cute right? I have a few other Dollish Polish polishes, so let me know down below if you wanna see swatches of my other ones! I hope you're all having a lovely day! :)

Plum Flakie Mani: Shiny and Matte!

Hey everyone! I'm sorry for not posting for a few more days than usual, I have a night lab on Thursday nights and I got busy Friday, so I couldn't repaint my nails until today! Anyway, today I have some shiny and matte flakie nails to share!

For this mani I started off with two coats of Essie Carry On, a lovely crelly plummy brown polish! It's absolutely perfect for fall and winter if you're into matching your nails to the seasons! I feel like I say this about every polish I've talked about lately, but this beauty could be a one-coater if you're careful!

I then went in with a gorgeous flakie top coat, Color Club Covered In Diamonds. Covered In Diamonds is definitely more my kind of flakie polish than Essie Shine Of The Times, though I do own and love both! I've always been more of a cool colour than warm colour girl, what can I say?

After that, I went in with Julep Matte Top Coat, making sure to go even closer to the cuticle than the polish already there did (so I didn't get that glossy-millimetre-right-at-the-cuticle thing that often happens with matte topcoats).

Onto the pictures!

Two coats of Essie Carry On, no top coat.

One coat of Color Club Covered In Diamonds over my undies, no top coat!

One generous coat of Julep Matte Top Coat over everything else I mentioned!

What do you guys think, shiny or matte? Let me know in the comments!

Thanks so much for reading everyone! Hope you're having a lovely weekend, we're having a turkey dinner tonight just for fun and I can't wait! :)