Sally Hansen Brisk Blue & Heart Nail Art!

Hey everyone! Today I have a cute heart nail art look to share!

I feel pretty bleh about these pictures except for the last one and lately I've really been thinking about changing up my poses/background/pictures in some way. I love the more artsy pictures like the bloggers Pshiiit, BeautyGeeks and Nail Escapades use! Maybe I could do some of those in addition to the ones or most of the ones I use. I've already made a few blog changes lately including my font, commenting system and a slight change to my blog title, and now I'm really wanting to make some more changes!

I'd love to know what you guys think of the changes along the way! I'm going to try out some new poses, backgrounds, lighting, etc. today so maybe I'll be back to you guys with a post asking which poses you prefer (again :P, link to the first time I did this here if you're curious). I know I haven't tagged all of my posts featuring indie brands with the tag "indie polish" and that's been bugging me for a while so that's another change I'd like to make! I also want to make sure I have the tags "review" and "swatch" on all the applicable posts because I'm not sure that I do. Anyways, onto the nails!

For this look I started with one easy coat of Sally Hansen Brisk Blue and a coat of top coat. I would definitely recommend not going in and trying to fix a spot you missed if you've allowed it any time to dry already. I made that mistake and let me tell you, they don't call it Insta-Dri for nothing! Things got real bumpy and even after two coats of top coat it still looked odd. But not to fear! If you just wait a minute or two more you can do an easy second coat instead to get the spot you missed.

I also want to note that I got a tiny bit of staining from this polish. I only used a thin coat of base coat and after hitting my nails with remover twice it was gone, so it was really nothing major! Doing two coats of base coat would definitely eliminate any possibility of staining though! Also, it did seem to stain my fingers that were holding the cotton pad while removing them, but that staining was gone before I remembered I should try and wash it off!

Next, I went in twice with OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls so the hearts could reach full opacity. I just realized I never took a picture of my other hand, but I put the hearts on my index and pinkie finger because I've been loving doing those kind of reverse accent nails lately! That's another change I'd like to make; always including pictures of my right hand in each post!

Thank you so much for reading everyone! I'd love to know what you think of the changes I've made and the ones I've been thinking of making in the comments! I'd also love to know what you think of these nails! Hopefully I'll have some more interesting pictures and poses for you in my next post! Happy Monday! =)

Pastel Water Marble & Textured Nail Art!

Hey everyone! Today I have a fun little water marble and textured polish combo to share!

I was sitting around watching a marathon of the Naked Gun movies with my boyfriend this morning, and it made for a really good day! I love Leslie Nielsen and outrageously silly movies! I have to watch them with my sister and dad because I know they'll love them too :D. I've also been checking out a ton of swatches of neon collections and summer collections and I'm itching to pick up some new bright polishes (though I should really stop buying polish)! Anyway, onto the nails!

For these nails I started with a base of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and OPI Solitaire on the water marble and textured nails, respectively. Both were perfect in two coats, in fact, Solitaire was pretty darn opaque at one coat! It was also very fast drying and it has a perfect formula!

For the water marble I used four lovely China Glaze polishes; For Audrey (turquoise), Secret Peri-Wink-Le (purple that spread out and appeared blue), Dance Baby (pink) and V (orange). I found that they all worked really well together, or maybe China Glaze polishes in general work really well for water marbling!

I followed a lovely tutorial by PackAPunchPolish on Youtube (link here) for the water marble! I also included a sped up video of me doing this whole mani at the end of this post for funzies!

Here is my right hand! I kind of think this one turned out better but I wish the little dots of polish in the middle weren't there. I think they were from not cleaning the dotting tool before dipping it in the middle, so if you guys try this out you can learn from my mistakes!

What do you guys think of this mani? I'd love to hear in the comments!

Thank you so much for reading everyone! I'll try and post more frequently, I've been keeping busy despite being out of school and it seems I've been keeping too busy to post every two days! I'll have a cute nail art look with an awesome Sally Hansen blue up soon! Happy Thursday! =)

Another Go at a Mrcandiipants Floral Design!

Hey all my lovely people! Today I have another round of Mrcandiipants springy floral nail art to share!

So this probably makes me a total weirdo but I'm actually writing this on the bus right now! It's a 50 minute to an hour long bus ride to and from school so I often write up my blog posts on the way (depending on whether we get a set of seats and if it's a double-decker). Anyways haha, I'm super happy to be sitting on my butt and getting a ride home after finishing two finals today and one yesterday! I have one more next week but I'm exhausted from reviewing reviewing reviewing so I'll definitely just be relaxing tonight!

As you may have noticed, I totally didn't prepare any posts ahead of time. In fact, I actually wore a polish for a few days that I've never worn and never took proper pictures of it! It was the amazing Color Club Eternal Beauty and you can check out a picture of it on my Instagram (button in my right sidebar)! Now, onto these nails!

I've been insanely obsessed with this Mrcandiipants design lately, I even did it on my grandma's nails last weekend! So this time (on myself) I used Sally Hansen Firey Island (orange base), Zoya Kristen (muted pale blue petals), American Apparel T-shirt (white petals), American Apparel Coney Island (pale pink petals) and Essie Plumberry (dark pink dots). Like in her tutorial, I just used the bottles from the brush for this design!

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

Well, I'm off to nap/lay down, paint my nails and eat! Those are my plans for tonight haha! I hope you're all having a relaxing evening also! Happy Wednesday! =)

MrCandiipants Spring Floral Nail Art!

Hey everyone! Today I have a springy floral Mrcandiipants design to share!

I finally got caught up on posting everywhere and replying to everyone's comments, it seems I always fall behind with that and I love the feeling of being caught up! Today I have a short and sweet post for you because the boyfriend and I are off school in an hour and we'll be hanging out with his mom all evening! I don't know if she'll want to be out and about or at her apartment so I'm getting this post up now while I know I can! She's such a lovely lady and she's so hilarious, I miss her and I can't wait to see her! Also, my mom told me that a friend of mine I see nowhere near often enough reads my blog, so hi Hannah if you're reading! I miss you too!

As I said above, this design is one by MrCandiipants and here is a link to the video tutorial! I want to try tons more floral designs using just the bottles from the brush and she has a lot of tutorials for those!

The base I used here is two coats of American Apparel T-shirt and a coat of top coat! I've been madly in love with Butter London polishes lately and the Butter London colours I used here are Slapper (bright teal), Trout Pout (bright pinky coral) and Wellies (bright chartreuse crelly). The other polishes I used here are American Apparel Dance (peachy petal colour) and Nicole by OPI All Kendall-ed Up (pink dot colour)!

Thanks so much for having a look everyone! I'll have a swatch and review of a crazy multichrome holographic polish called Butter London Knackered up in a few days! Happy Friday! :)

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!

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!

Born Pretty Store Nail Sticker Review!

Hey everyone! Today I have some Born Pretty Store nail stickers to share!

I'm sorry this post is a day late guys (I like to post every two or three days) but I either have a mild flu or it's just coming on and it's going to get worse! I feel like a jerk coming to school and possibly infecting other people, but I have a lab due and a lab tonight that I can't really miss. I've hardly been eating and I've been sore all over and feverish so it really hasn't been fun! Yesterday I could hardly open the bathroom door at school because it was too heavy!

I was going to have this post ready for you lovely people earlier, but when I picked one of these stickers off of the white paper they came on, I realized they were see-through and not white-based. I didn't have time to do a white base first that night and then I forgot I had these for a while because my nail stuff storage area is a mess. That's why I've included a couple of pictures of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls; the base I started with for this look. This is just two coats and a coat of top coat!

I'm actually not overly keen on MBSW's formula, but I bought two when they came out so maybe this one is a bad bottle and the other will be fine! Mine is pretty thick (I could just add thinner) and it's as if the brush is too stiff because the bristles can leave bare spots from touching the nail. It also doesn't level out and dry smooth for me and you can't go over the same place a few times without some major balding action! Do any of you guys own this polish? Do you think I got a bad bottle?

Onto the stickers (link here, number YB-Q105)! On the package it says to put a coat of top coat on top of these babies for a better result (which I did here for these photos) but I found that made the stickers pull up around the cuticle which made them get caught on everything. I have a lot of hair and I brush it with my fingers a lot so after about thirty minutes of wearing these I had to take them off. I didn't notice any catching or lifting of these stickers before I top coated them so I would suggest not using top coat! Also, if you have long nails never fear! I only used around half of each nail sticker and my nails are decently long at the moment!

A few of my nails didn't fit any of the 14 stickers it came with very well (i.e. my thumb and pinky nails) so that can be an issue if you have oddly-shaped or small nails like me! I actually put the thumb ones on upside down so I had the more square end along my cuticle but even that wasn't square enough for my thumbs. I used the smallest sticker it came with on my index fingernails so there weren't any small enough for my pinky nails. I'd suggest cutting the stickers to size before applying them because they don't dissolve with acetone and I couldn't cut them at the cuticle with nail clippers or scissors after I applied them.

These stickers were really easy to apply and to take off and reposition if you didn't get them in the right place the first time! They were kind of stretchy so they were easy to pull on to make them lie flat (something I didn't have the hang of yet when I did my index finger nail :P). These stickers had a clear border around them so if they are a little too big for your nails you can see that border and it kind of wrinkles on the edge of your nail (see my ring finger nail). Taking these off was a bit of a struggle because acetone doesn't dissolve them or the glue on the backs of them. I soaked my nails in warm water like it said and scratched them off bit by bit which took quite a while. Keep in mind some of the issues I had could have been solely due to the fact that I've never used nail stickers before and this was my first try at it!

Thank you so much for reading everyone! What do you think of these stickers? I think they're really pretty and I love the tiny glitters they're covered in! Be sure to check out Born Pretty Store for any of your nail art needs, they have so many nail art supplies! Here's my code for 10% off!