Category: Blue Nails

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SWATCH SUNDAY— OPI Gelato on My Mind

Good morning loves! Hope everyone is enjoying their Sunday & well caffeinated! ☕️ Today I have another oldie but goodie swatch to share with you: OPI Gelato on My Mind.

This minty shade was originally released as part of the OPI Venice collection for Fall/Winter 2015 & was the first shade I bought from that collection as you know I’m a sucker for any shade of blue. Also I remember that the name was just too cute, which was part of the reason I NEEDED to own this shade. (It’s also the reason I had to own OPI Pineapples Have Peelings Too.)

For my swatches I did two coats over my base, followed by top coat (Essie Gel Setter). You have great coverage in two coats, but like a lot of light/pastel shades the levelling on this shade wasn’t great, so I needed that top coat to give you a nice glossy finish & eliminate any potential streakiness. Maybe if you’re more careful you can get it to level out, but I couldn’t & needed my nails to dry quickly so a glossy top coat always works for me.

As I mentioned, this shade was originally released as part of the OPI Venice collection, which was for Fall/Winter 2015. Personally, to me this is more of a shade I lean towards for Spring but I can also see pairing this with a few darker/vampy colours for a fun Fall design as well. I definitely can see myself doing another fun tribal design (similar to this look) but with much darker, vampier colours.

What colour are you currently rocking on your nails? Which polish do you think I should pick for next week’s Swatch Sunday feature–something Summer-y or Fall-esque? Share your thoughts down in the comments below!

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Gradient Desert Scene

Hello lovelies & happy Thursday!

Today I’m doing sort of a throwback Thursday post as today’s manicure is one I did a while back but never shared. I was scrolling through my phone last night, & stumbled across this design & knew I had to post it! Especially because I have no idea what I wouldn’t have shared them in the first place. Thankfully I kept a list of the polishes I used, so even though these were done a while ago, I could still share exactly what I used to create this look!

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: OPI Nail Envy
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • Essie Parka Perfect
  • Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Rose to the Occasion
  • Essence Black is Back
  • Sally Hansen CSM Let’s Snow!
  • Nailstuff.ca mermaid tail detail brushes
  • Edge Perfection cuticle barrier
  • Latex free make up sponge (I buy mine at Dollarama)

I love love love doing these landscape gradient nails. It’s kind of like a galaxy nail, but less work. & of course I added cacti in the distance, because they’re my favourite.

Seriously, I cannot understand why I never shared this design when I originally did them. The gradient looks nice, my freehand work isn’t awful. Maybe I was just saving it for right now (without realizing it?) Either way I’m happy to share this look with you now!

What do you think of this gradient landscape look?

Would you like to see more of these designs on the blog?

Hit like if you’re into this kind of nail art & share down below what else you’d like to see me do!

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Blast from the Past — Crackle Nail Polish

I’m sure if you’ve been a part of the nail polish community for any amount of time, you’ve seen quite a few nail polish trends come & go: feather nail polish, magnetic nail polish, textured nail polish & of course… crackle nail polish.

For those who don’t know what crackle nail polish is, it was a kind of topper you would apply over already painted nails, that would crack as it dried, revealing the base colour underneath. I was first introduced to crackle nail polish back with the Katy Perry Teenage Dream collection from OPI, & though it was the most genius idea, so naturally my obsessive brain had to own as many crackle polishes as possible! Thankfully, even nail polish company & their friend seem to come out with their own version of crackle so it was easy to get my hands on a whole slew of brands, colours & finishes!

Most of my shades have long since dried up & are pretty much impossible to use, but every so often I get the urge to pull out one of my bottles still holding on & play around with it. Thank you nostalgia.

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Sally Hansen Bamboo & Green Tea Strengthener
  • Top Coat: Essie Gel Setter
  • My blues from my cobalt blue comparison post
  • Icing Shatter nail polish Electric Graffiti

As you can see, even though this polish is about 7 years old, it still works semi well in terms of the crackle effect (minus my pointer finger… I have no idea what happened there!) Like I said, I collected quite a few of these shades during the heigh of their popularity, but only a few of them still work to this degree. & now that my nail art techniques have improved over the years, I don’t really grab these shades like I once did.

& just for fun, I wanted to share the very first mani I ever did using this fun polish. Please excuse the awful quality in all regards (painting, photography, ect)

As you can see, the actual cracking abilities of Electric Graffiti has dwindled over the years, but for a polish way past prime, I’m impressed I can still get any crackle out of it. I feel like because the formula has thickened up a lot, that’s the reason the shatter is different. A thinner application would definitely give me a reaction much more like my throwback manicure… wondering if adding a bit of thinner to the bottle would revive it. I’m curious to find out.

what are your thoughts on the crackle/shatter nail polish trend from years past? I know some people have very strong feelings about these polishes (& how much they hate them). Let me know if you’re team crackle or hate it?

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COMPARISON POST — My Favourite Cobalt Blues (Pacific Blue Dupes)

Hello lovelies & happy Wednesday! Today I have a special post I swear I’ve been meaning to do FOREVER but just never got around to doing — a comparison post featuring a few of my favourite cobalt blue shades!

I have done a couple of these comparison posts in the past, & they always prove to be popular, so I thought that it would be fun to do another. All the shades you’re about to see are inspired by my love of one polish: the original formula Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pacific Blue. If you don’t know, Pacific Blue was the most perfect cobalt blue polish that ever existed, which sadly saw a formula change in 2014… a formula change which led to serious uproar in the nail polish community. This led to mainly nail bloggers searching for dupes, & stocking up on any old formula bottles they could find… myself included. As a result, I have quite a few cobalt blues in my nail polish collection… & I wanted to compare a few of my favourites to see how they lived up to the original.

As you can see, I’ve selected 5 of my many blues for comparison… can you tell which ones are which from the above swatches? All polishes were applied over my base & finished with top coat (Essie Gel Setter).

Continue reading “COMPARISON POST — My Favourite Cobalt Blues (Pacific Blue Dupes)”

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Blue & Pink Abstract Stripes

Good morning lovelies & happy Saturday! It’s been a while since I posted, but I have a new manicure to share with you!

This design was actually originally done earlier in the spring, but I never got a chance to share! Since I haven’t really had a chance to do any nail art since our baby girl arrived, I thought I would share this look with you now!

The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • Base Coat: OPI Nail Envy
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Rose to the Occasion
  • Sally Hansen Sugar Fix
  • Art Club Nail Art Striper in Paisley Blue
  • Kiss Nail Art Striper in white
  • Kiss Nail Art Striper in Black

I can’t remember the last time I did an abstract stripe design, but it most definitely has been a while. (I went back through my Instagram feed, & this post from May 2018 seems to be my last time doing this technique, with a similar colour scheme. I guess I really love creating this style using shades of blue.

& honestly looking at these nails, it really makes me want to buy nail art stripers in every shade so I can do these kind of looks more often–I have a Sally Beauty gift card from Christmas waiting to be used that I feel like using on a few new stripers from some more line love!

what do you think of this design? What are your favourite colour combinations when it comes to stripes? Share down below!