Category: China Glaze

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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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Black & White Chevron Accent Nails

Good morning lovelies& happy Tuesday!

I know things have been quiet on the blog, but I have a good reason: baby #2 has made her arrival! Madeleine Lena was born very early last Tuesday morning, so I’ve had a busy week of readjusting to newborn life. & I’m still wearing my blue drag marble nails which ended up being my labour nails!

However, going through my phone I found a few nail art looks I haven’t yet posted, so until I’m able to actually paint my nails–which is hard when you’ve got two little ones keeping you busy… no surprise there!–I have a few nail polish & nail art looks that I can post for you!

First up I have some stacked chevron accent nails–this is a look I’ve done before a few times because it’s super easy to do & is such a cute look!

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Sally Hansen Bamboo & Green Tea Strengthener
  • Top Coat: Essie Speed Setter
  • China Glaze Too Yacht To Handle
  • Quo by ORLY Platina
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Blacky-O
  • The Base Coat Vinyls Stacked Chevron

First off I love love love how blinding China Glaze Too Yacht To Handle is! Such a great Summer Polish to wear for a serious pop of colour. It’s just so good! I thought the simplicity of black & white accent nails worked really well because it added some art while still letting my polish shine.

what do you think of this look? Share your thoughts down in the comments below.

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Pink Vintage Roses

Good morning lovelies & I hope you’re having a lovely Thursday. The weekend is so close you can’t almost taste it!

Today I’ve got some brand new nail art that I haven’t done in a while–roses! I was feeling inspired by this pretty pink polish & decided that some vintage rose inspired nail art would look so pretty over it! (& maybe I was feeling slightly girlie & romantic.)

The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • Base Coat: Sally Hansen Bamboo & Green Tea Strengthener
  • Top Coat: Essie Speed Setter
  • ACO by Ardene Flawless
  • Kiss Nail Art Striper in White
  • Essie Peach Daiquiri
  • China Glaze Life is Rosy
  • Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Racing Rose
  • QUO by ORLY Breathable The Antidote
  • Essie Off Tropic
  • Essie First Timer
  • NailStuff.ca dotting tool set & nail art brushes

So very in love with how these turned out, even if it’s been so long since I created roses that I’m a little rusty. But it’s like riding a bike: you never really forget how to do it, just takes some practice to get steady again.

I will say, having teeny tiny detail brushes really does make a huge difference in creating your petals, so a micro detail brush like THIS can give you a very realistic finished product! Same thing goes for your leaves–I feel like my floral designs have gotten so much better since I got amazing brushes. So it’s definitely worth it to invest in fantastic brushes & I’m lucky enough that I have received some fantastic detail brushes from NailStuff that have brought my floral designs to another level!

What do you think of this floral design? Would you like to see me attempting more florals again? Share your thoughts down in the comments below!

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Blue on Blue Dotticure

Good morning lovelies & happiest of Mondays! I hope the weather where you are is nicer than here on the East Coast — it’s raining, again.

My favourite.

Today I’m showing off a quick & simple nail art look that I did last week. Now that the countdown for baby #2 is down to days, I’ve been trying to keep my manicures quick & simple. & there is nothing I love more when I want quick nails than a dotticure!

The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • Base Coat: Sally Hansen  Green Tea & Bamboo Strengthener
  • Top Coat: Essie Speed Setter
  • China Glaze For Audrey
  • Sally Hansen I ♥️ Nail Art Pen in Navy

I’ve mentioned before how much I love my Sally Hansen nail art pens for creating dotticures. I find they’re the easiest because you don’t have to constantly need to reapply polish to your dotting tool, you just need to touch the nail. Obviously, that’s for petite polka dots as opposed to bigger dots.

This was also my first time wearing China Glaze For Audrey in absolute ages & I forgot how pretty it is. Fun fact: For Audrey was the very first China Glaze shade I ever bought (shortly after our very first Sally Beauty opened) & I bought it completely based on the fact Breakfast At Tiffany’s is one of my favourite movies.

What do we think about this dotticure? Do you have a favourite polka dot combination? Share your favourites down in the comments below!

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Neon Summer Stripes

Good afternoon lovelies! Today I have some brand new nails to share with you, which was a spur of the moment design that turned out surprisingly fun!

I’ve been using a lot of the same polishes over the last couple weeks (probably because they’re out sitting on my desk, so easy to grab) so I wanted to pull out some other shades! & TADA! this design was created. I decided to still stick to my neon-ish shades, as the weather is warming up & finally feeling beautiful, but dug into the stash to see what other Neons I could find.

The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • Base Coat: Sally Hansen Green Tea & Bamboo Strengthener
  • Top Coat: Essie Speed Setter
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Pretty Peony {PR sample}
  • Color Club Disco Dress
  • China Glaze Too Yacht To Handle
  • China Glaze Thistle Do Nicely
  • NailStuff.ca 11mm Liner Brush {PR sample}

At first, I had just Too Yacht To Handle & Thistle Do Nicely & wasn’t so sure I liked to colour combination — which I hate when that happens — but as soon as I added my lines of Disco Dress, it brought the whole look together & I ended up being absolutely obsessed with the end result.

The imperfection of the stripes reminds me of a beach towel, or something. I originally was going to use vinyls to create everything, but I’m so glad I was lazy & freehanded things because I think it looks so much better the way they turned out.

What do you think of this look? What summer nail art look are you wearing right now? Share your thoughts down in the comments below!