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 Swatch and Review: Sweet Talk and Xoxo!

Hey everyone! Today I'm here with two Valentine's Day polishes that I received in a surprise swatch package from Rainbow Honey!

I was really shocked and excited when I saw the package in the mail, and they included a lovely note with a coupon code I'm allowed to share with you awesome people! From now until March 31st you can enter the code ILOVENAILBLOGS to get five dollars off of your orders!

Onto the nails! Get ready for a lot of pictures!

First up we have Sweet Talk, a white crelly polish with medium-sized light blue, purple and pink glitters, as well as smaller pink glitters and even pink shimmer! The base almost looks pink on the nail because of all the awesome shimmer!

Formula-wise this polish was perfect; it was super easy to apply and it dried very quickly! It wasn't even very bumpy without top coat despite all of the glitter, and I'm just wearing a thin layer of top coat over two coats of it here!

I always love a good white crelly and this one is that and more!

Next we have Xoxo over two coats of Essie Bikini so Teeny! The pink/red glitters really make Bikini so Teeny look purple instead of blue, which I'm actually happy about because I think purple looks really awesome with this polish! This baby has pink or red hexes in varying sizes (to me they look red but I've heard other people call them pink and I know I see some colours that most people consider pink as other colours), silver holographic microglitters, and even gold flakies that look different over different bases!

The formula on this polish was a dream just like Sweet Talk, easy to apply and quick-drying! What you see here is one coat of Xoxo over my undies and a coat of top coat on top!

I couldn't really tell how this polish would look on the nail by looking at the bottle, and I love it even more than I thought I would! I think it would look fantastic over any base colour!

Finally, we have Xoxo again but over a different base! The base is two or three coats (on some nails two, on others three) of the famous OPI My Vampire is Buff!

You can see the gold shimmer actually looking gold here, as opposed to pinky or orangey like it does over Bikini so Teeny! I seriously love this polish and how different and awesome it looks over different bases!

Thank you so much for reading everyone! What do you think of these polishes? And which base do you like better for Xoxo? I'd love to hear in the comments! Happy Thursday!

One Year Blogiversary: Then and Now!

Hey everyone! Today I have a "then and now" post for my one year blogiversary to share!

I saw this awesome idea on Lindsey of Wondrously Polished's lovely blog (link to her post here)! It was hard to find anything very interesting that I did in the first few months of blogging because unlike Lindsey, I wasn't very good when I started my blog, and because of that I didn't try any advanced nail art. My picture quality is the biggest difference I see in these pictures, what do you guys think is my biggest improvement?

For this first mani I remember thinking all of the colours were too bright and intense for a watercolour look, and even when I redid them the other day I thought I should have made the colours even less intense. The funny thing was, rather than thinning the polishes out, I decided to sponge them on the first time I did these. It was like I was trying to do a design that involves a certain technique but I decided to use another technique and still call it the original design… I'm strange sometimes :P.

Here is the link to the post this first picture is from if you're interested! I used to write a lot less in my posts and write even more awkwardly than I do now haha! These are from January 2013 and while wearing these and before writing up the post, I picked up my first bottle of pure acetone for cleanup!

Here is my recent reattempt at this look! I used all of the same polishes as in the other post (American Apparel California Trooper, Essie Cute as a Button, Essie Bikini so Teeny, Revlon Mint Gelato, and Revlon Lemon Meringue) as well as a sheer white polish on top (Essie Waltz) to achieve a more pastel and watercolour-like look!

What do you guys think about the new version of these? To me they look like a blurred floral or houndstooth pattern!

The other mani I decided to redo for this post was a black to neon gradient look. Here is the original post from February 2013! There is a cute story behind these nails because my boyfriend at the time (and current one, we're still dating) told me in detail exactly how I should do these nails and which colour to do on each nail! I just painted a black base and asked him what I should do and this is exactly what he said, down to the ring finger orange accent nail :).

I remember noticing that if you just sponged on a neon colour once or twice it looked like a dark version of the colour, so it really isn't difficult to make a smooth gradient with sheerer polishes like neons. I'm not sure why I didn't think that was as important as it was at the time haha, live and learn!

I almost used the exact same polishes as I did last time for this, but I switched out the Orly black for a more opaque (one-coater!) black; Revlon Espresso. The rest of the polishes are the same, American Apparel Neon Yellow, American Apparel Neon Green, and China Glaze Sun Worshipper! I also switched top coats to a 3-free one because that's really important to me, and as I've said many times I use Essie Good to Go!

I totally screwed up the colour scheme here as you can probably tell, I got distracted watching a crazy movie! What do you guys think of this version of this mani?

Thank you so much for reading guys! I hope I can keep improving and doing posts like this every year! I also hope you've all had a lovely first week back at school and work! =)

Glitter Placement Nail Art Inspired by Polish All The Nails!

Hey everyone! Today I have some individually-placed glitter nail art to share!

Today is day four of January (obviously) and naturally, it's also day four of the Blogilates January workout calendar! I've actually done all three days so far (minus the run and treadmill bits of day one and two :P) and yesterday I was sorer than I ever thought was possible! It was a cardio dance day yesterday and holy crap, I sweated SO much. I stretched afterwards and today I'm feeling a lot less sore, which is amazing because I could hardly walk yesterday! Today is arms and abs day and I'm really not strong in my abs anymore so I'm a little scared! It has actually been at least two years since I've done any real exercise (horrible, I know) so in a way it was nice to sweat so much!  If any of you are doing these workouts or want to start, we can be workout buddies and motivate each other! =)

Onto the nails! These were inspired by these nails by the amazing master of glitter placement manis, Laura of Polish All The Nails! The gold glitters are holographic and the rest are metallic, and the base is two coats of the famous OPI My Vampire Is Buff!

I think this is the first year I've set New Year's resolutions for myself and so far they're working out pretty well! A big one is to not cram and procrastinate at school and study a little everyday… I'd be so proud of myself if I did that! Have you guys made any New Year's resolutions this year? Let me know how they're working out in the comments! =)

I also think this is the first time that I haven't gotten bored over the holidays and that I don't actually want to go back to school :P. I have one more course this semester than last semester and I'm hoping it won't take up too much of my time! I really hope I'll still be able to blog and paint my nails every three days!

If you guys want to see a video of the gold holographic glitters in action check out my Instagram here! My phone camera isn't so great and I'm not sure how I feel about embedding Instagram videos in my posts anymore, what do you guys think?

I have a few fun posts planned for you guys in the near future; another Yume Lacquer swatch and review post and an updated collection post! I'm really excited to write up the collection post because I'm curious to see how many polishes I have now! I'm just waiting on one more package of polish because I was fortunate enough to be one of the winners in that huge Indie Makers Unite Giveaway!

Here is my right hand! It looks just about the same as the other hand from a small distance away so I'm happy with it for sure!

Thank you so much for reading everyone! Is anyone else dreading going back to school or work or are you guys back already? Let me know! :)

Born Pretty Store Shell Studs Review and Beach Nail Art!

Hey everyone! Today I have a review of some super cute shell studs from Born Pretty Store to show you all!

I was recently contacted by the lovely Daisy from Born Pretty Store and asked if I would like to review some products from them, and of course I said yes! I've bought from them before and everything's always packaged really well and lovely to work with! I was sent three items of my choice so stay tuned for two more Born Pretty Store reviews and nail art using those products!

The adorable gold shells featured in this post can be bought here, there are slightly bigger ones and silver ones in both sizes available, I chose the 3mm gold ones. They are curved slightly to sit flat on the nail, so one coat of top coat is all I needed to cover them and hold them in place! I tested these charms to see if they were reusable by scrubbing one with non-acetone remover for approximately a minute, and they seem to be! The stud was the same gold colour and a little less shiny after the scrubbing, but a coat of top coat would easily fix that.

And now, how I did these nails! I started with one coat of Essie Sand Tropez for the sand, then dotted on some thinned out Sally Hansen Wet Cement and finally, smeared some thinned out OPI My Vampire Is Buff on top! For the water I used Essie Go Overboard, some thinned out smears of Essie Going Incognito, and lastly, a mixture of Go Overboard and My Vampire Is Buff for the waves! I then applied dots of top coat in the places I wanted the shells to go and stuck them in! A coat of top coat and some cleanup and I was all finished :).

I'm playing around with some hand positions that I've never tried before, but I'm trying to use most of the other ones I recently decided on too! Bear with me as I figure out which poses I like best haha!

Onto the pictures!

Be sure to check out their site for other nail art stuff if there's anything you're looking for! They have an amazingly huge selection of products so there's bound to be something for everyone! Also, don't forget to use my coupon for 10% off! This picture is also in my sidebar, so it's really easy to find from any of my posts!

Thanks so much for reading everyone, I hope you're having a lovely Monday! I'll have some indie polish swatches coming your ways soon, so keep an eye out! :)