Category: China Glaze

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Nails for Days.

Wow, I’ve been MIA again…. we’ve been house sitting for my parents which means I don’t have all my polishes (or nail art tools) at my disposal. However, I have still been painting my nails the last week so I thought I would share with you the simple manicures I’ve been playing around with. I’ve been testing out the combination of using Essence Gel Look top Coat with Essie’s Good to Go top coat, and I have to say it’s been working for me. Usually I have chips in my polish by the end of day 1 (or sometimes half way through), but most of these manicures I’ve worn for 2+ days with minimal chipping. Considering I’m not gentle on my hands, that is actually kind of amazing.

 

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The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • China Glaze Flying Dragon (purple)
  • Essence Petal to the Metal gold topper.
  • Essence Gel Look top coat.
  • Essie Good to Go top coat.

Oh China Glaze Flying Dragon… how I love you. You are now, and will forever be my favorite nail polish color…. I just wish you didn’t chip so damn fast! Thankfully though, adding my top look combo gave me these nails for THREE days with very minimal chipping until day three (when it all went to hell). I do love the combination of the Essence Gold Topper over dark colors though… looks so regal. (Also makes me crave fall a little bit… some one slap me!)

 

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The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • Sinful Colors Be Happy (blue base color)
  • Icing Electric Graffiti (pink shatter)
  • Essence Gel Look Top Coat.
  • Essie Good to Go top coat.

I was feeling some crackle, since I haven’t used it in years. I used to love playing with crackle, and Icing’s Electric Graffiti was definitely my favorite of the ones I owned. That hasn’t changed. So bright, and so awesome.

 

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Polishes used for the manicure were:

  • Joe Fresh Latte (nude base)
  • Nicole by OPI Oy Oy Oyster (nude shimmer)
  • Essence Dive with me to the Island (teal ruffian)
  • Essence Gel Look Top Coat.
  • Essie Good to Go Top Coat.

Oh man, I had such high hopes for the manicure… I had visions of a gorgeous nude and teal ruffian… except the nude color my mother owns (which is dark for her) blends PERFECTLY into my skin… so it just looked like I didn’t paint for enough down on my nail. And the shimmer I added didn’t show up enough. Next time I’ll definitely go with something not so perfectly matched to my skin tone.

 

So as you can see, I’ve still been playing around with polish I just haven’t been as nail art crazy as normal. I’m also still bumming hard about my shorties, but they’ll grown… unfortunately just not over night (I wish!) Next week I’m on vacation from work so it will be A LOT more nail art time. In fact, in honor of my best friend who is getting married next week, I think I’m going to do a whole week of wedding manicures, for both bride and bridesmaids. And then at the end of the week, I can share the manicure my friend is letting me do for her nails for the wedding. =)

 

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Now it’s time to finish my coffee, and get started on a super cool manicure I hope to share with you tomorrow.

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Inspired by… Keira Knightley!

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So… confession time. I have a HUGE girl crush on Keira Knightley. It’s a little dorky actually. She has an impeccable fashion sense that I can’t help but envy. The other night I was trying to come up with nail art ideas and remembered this Valentino dress she wore to the premiere of a movie a couple years ago. Since I knew I had a color very similar to the background of that dress (NOPI My Jay or the Highway) I thought… why not give it a try! After all, the worst that would happen would be that I’d have to redo them with something else!

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The (many) polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • Nicole by OPI My Jay or the Highway.
  • ACO by Ardene Flower Girl.
  • Bourjois Paris in 1938 Mais Oui
  • Bourjois Paris  in 1995 Grains de beauté
  • Boujois Paris in 2002 Effect 3D Lip Gloss
  • ACO by Ardene Misty Love.
  • China Glaze Metro Pollen-tin.
  • Sinful Colors Strapped.
  • ACO by Ardene Green Peace.
  • Sinful Colors Easy Going.
  • Vernis Classique by Cherimoya Black.
  • Essie Good to Go Top Coat.

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I love these. I love these SO much! When I first started I wasn’t sure what to do to capture that dress on my nails, but they turned out just how I hoped they would. Maybe my nail inspiration is little dorky, but the end result makes me smile. I don’t even want to take these off!

 

 

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Purple Ombre.

When I first started getting into nail art, Ombre nails were all the trend. Even though they aren’t as popular as they once were, I still think they’re a great look. I hadn’t done ombre nails in a while so I decided to give them another try. I was feeling a purple manicure, so I grabbed five purple polishes as close to each other in tone and created a quick ombre.

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The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • Essence Beauty Beats Baby Ooh Ooh — thumb.
  • Essence Color and Go Break Through — pointer.
  • China Glaze What a Pansy — middle.
  • ACO by Ardene Purple Rain — ring finger.
  • Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure I Lilac You — pinky.
  • OPI I Snow You Love Me — glitter placement.
  • Essie Go to Go Top Coat.

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Plus side of owning a TON of polish–makes it easy to match a few up to create  a quick ombre which still looks like the colors are supposed to go together. I also added some glitter to create a rhinestone look, just for an extra little something-something. It just pulls the whole look together for me.

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So what do you think of these ombre nails? Like I said, I still really love the ombre manicure so I could see myself doing this with all sorts of different colors. Also I’m really digging I Snow You Love Me for all the glitter placement possibilities. Plus from a distance it looks like rhinestones on the nails (but without the worry that I would knock them off in about 2 seconds at work.)

Also I’m seriously addicted to the Skinny Caramel Macchiatos at Starbucks. I go through waves of being addicted to certain drinks, and they’re my drug of choice right now. So delicious.

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Holographic stripes.

I’ve been coveting a holographic polish for a long time, but hadn’t yet managed to add one to my stash. However I was at Shoppers the other week, and happened to stumble across Holographic Hero by Gosh–on sale to boot!–and knew I had to own it.

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Holographic Hero is a silver holo that goes on opaque in two coats. This is one of those polishes that definitely requires a bit of time to dry before coats, as it can drag if it’s too wet, leaving bald spots. However, once dry the polish is spectacular on the nail! I couldn’t stop staring at it! Not sure why I waited this long to buy a holo, but I’m definitely going to need to add more to my stash. So pretty!

Now Day 7 of the OMD Challenge is holographic, so I figured now that I had the right tools, I could totally create something fun with my new polish. I decided on a tape manicure, and holographic stripes.

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Sadly, my stripes ended up wonky on a couple fingers–a result of trying to do these later at night, and after a couple drinks (and not pressing down the tape hard enough so that the polish wouldn’t bleed under the tape.) I used China Glaze Flying Dragon for the purple which is one of my all time favorite purple polishes, and everything was topped with Essie Good to Go Top Coat. I can’t wait to play around with this polish a little more–it’s just so pretty and sparkly. Even though it’s hard to capture on camera, it’s very striking in person.

And, just for fun, here are my nails with my new bottle of Biotin. I found this also at Shoppers. Biotin is my go vitamin for my nails (and hair). I noticed SUCH a difference when I’m using it. I was impressed when I found these. They’re cool–they dissolve under your tongue, and taste like cherry. And they’re a much higher dose than I usually take, so I’m hoping they work even better.

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‘Tis the season… for prom nails.

Tis the season for Prom. I’m long past my prom years, but my old neighbour I used to babysit is attending her grade 9 grad this year, which is pretty much a mini prom for those graduating to high school. It’s also a very big deal to them, almost as much as prom is to high school seniors. So when she asked me to do her nails for the big dance, I was more than honored. Her dress was lime green with sparkles, so I went with that theme.

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I did a glitter gradient at the bottom of her nails, with an accent nail of pure sparkle. (I also did her toes to match with a glitter gradient.) Her dress has a whole lot of glitter and sparkle going on, so we wanted to do something that would match. These are going to look awesome when the lights at the dance hit them! Just like a disco ball!

The polishes I used for her nails were:

  • Pure Ice Wild Thing
  • Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Celeb City
  • Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Ice Pop
  • NOPI Inner Sparkle.
  • Color Club Platinum Record.
  • OPI I Snow You Love Me.
  • Essie Good to Go Top Coat.

Continue reading “‘Tis the season… for prom nails.”