Autumn Plaid 🍂🍁

Hello lovelies & happy Wednesday! & happy first day of Fall! It’s true — Summer is officially over. Which means we are just that much closer to Halloween.

Today I thought I would celebrate the occasion with some plaid nails. This has basically become a yearly tradition (in fact, I posted another plaid on this date last year), & this year I decided on some neutral toned plaid.

The polishes I used for this manicure are: 

  • Base Coat: Essie First Base
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • China Glaze The Snuggle is Real
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Get Mod
  • Starrily Vantablack
  • Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Zip Wine
  • Color Club Art Club Pink Pastel
  • NailStuff.ca 16mm Striper Brush

I decided to go with China Glaze The Snuggle Is Real for my base shade, because bit is such a lovely neutral, & then added the little bits of pink & maroon for accents. I think this colour scheme is a perfect every day plaid look, & I got so many compliments on it when I wore it to work! It was very exciting.

What do you think about this plaid look? Do you enjoy plaid nails for Fall? What plans do you have to celebrate Autumn? Let me know in the comments below!

Purple Metallic French Tips

Hello lovelies & happy Monday… it’s been a while! Sorry for my bit of an absence—this last couple weeks have been a little crazy, & I was trying to accomplish too many things at once, & my head ended up not in a great place. So I decided to pause doing the challenge for this month, & take a little breather.

I did miss posting my nails though.

I did these easy metallic French tips last week, when I needed an easy to do look. I used to love French manicures circa 2002 — inspired by Kaley Cuoco on 10 Rules… who always rocked a classic French manicure on the show. The classic French still remains too boring for me now (sorry) but I have been loving the updated versions I’ve been seeing on Instagram, so I wanted to try them myself! Of course, we had to give it an updated Fall feel.

& easiest part was no tools needed.

The polishes I used for this manicure are: 

  • Base Coat: Essie First Base
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • Essence Arabian Nights
  • Zoya Devin

Oh man, long nails look so good with these kinds of designs. This was pre-me breaking a few nails last week & needing to trim my claws back. I really adore how this looks so I’ll definitely be doing it again in a variety of colours when I need an easy go to nail art look — a nice change from my usual dotticure. & again, this look was so so easy to do, with no tools needed. I just carefully used the brush from Zoya Devin & ran it along the tip of my nail ever so carefully.

Of course, if you were feeling uneasy about trying to freehand this look, you could definitely use French tip guides, or my favourite: paper hole reinforcers.

What do you think about this nail art look? What are your feelings on this new version of the French manicure? Let me know all your thoughts down in the comments below, & which colour scheme you would love to see next!

Neon Dry Brush

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Hello lovelies & happy Friday. It’s almost the weekend! & today I’m keeping the Summer time vibes up with a neon dry brush design featuring the new Sally Hansen neons I recently shared!

As much as I want Fall designs, it’s kind of hard to think of Fall of when it feels like 38 degree outside. So I guess I’ll keep the Summertime vibes going just a wee bit longer — at least until the cooler temperatures forecasted this weekend.

The polishes I used for this manicure are:

  • Base Coat: Essie First Base
  • Top Coat: Essie Gel Setter
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Get Mod
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Sun-Shine On
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Squeeze the Day
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel FlorescPink
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Feeling Grape
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Chill Out
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Electri-Lime
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Blacky-O
  • NailStuff.ca 16mm Striper Brush

Seriously, how much fun are these?

The Miracle Gel neons are perfect for this kind of design because of the thinner formulas—especially to get them to smudge when applying your top coat. You get that blended effect, which I adore. & obviously I had to add some graphic lines over my base to complete the whole look—it just adds something to the manicure overall; gives it a little extra POP!

What are we thinking about this neon look — yey or nay? Let me know down in the comments below.

& stay tuned because I have a ton of Fall/Autumn worthy shades (just ordered the China Glaze Autumn Spice collection yesterday!) coming soon.

SWATCH SUNDAY — Sinful Colors Rebel Rose

Hello lovelies & happy Sunday!

Another week is over, so let’s start a new week with a little more brightness. We’re almost to the end of August — if you can believe it — so I suppose I should keep the Summer vibes going a little bit longer.

Last week I was visiting my local Walmart, on the search for nail polish to cheer myself up, & decided to pick up a few—okay, six—Sinful Colors shades to cheer up my blahs. Walmart sells their Sinful polishes 3 for $6, which is a pretty awesome deal. Plus they have a bunch of new collection shades which always gets me excited. I picked up 4 of their scented shades, which I’m going to swatch & shade soon, but I thought for this week I would share this bright fuchsia shade: Rebel Rose.

2 coats + Essie Gel Setter Top Coat

I was initially draw to this polish because of the bright fuchsia shade, but what sold me on it was this beautiful underlying blue/purple shimmer. I also really like that this a great end of Summer/early days of Fall shade. It works with complimentary brighter shades, like a turquoise blue, or something a bit darker, like navy purple or deep purple, depending on what you’re trying to invoke.

The formula was really nice & easy to work with, & applied very smoothly. I did need two pretty evenly applied coats of polish to cover the nail — I noticed when I applied too thinly, it looked a little patchy. Over all, for a very affordable polish, it’s great! Easy to apply, dried pretty quickly (especially with quick dry top coat) & had a great opacity & finish. I’ve always been a fan of Sinful Colors, for these reasons, & I’m happy to add another pretty polish to my stash.

What do you think about Sinful Colors Rebel Rose? Are you loving this shimmery fuchsia as much as I am? What is your favourite affordable polish line? Let me know down in the comments below!

Glam Nails Challenge August — Peach 🍑

Hello lovelies & happy Monday!

Sorry for being MIA this weekend; this last week has been CRAZY & then I spent my Saturday in bed all day with a migraine, which put any blog work I was going to do on the back burner. But I’m back this morning with prompt #3 of #glamnailschallengeaug: Peach. & I decided to go with a bit of an abstract interpretation of the prompt with these peaches & cream inspired stripes.

I actually was struggling a bit with what I should do for this one. But once this idea popped into my head, I knew I wanted to do it!

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Essie First Base
  • Top Coat: Essie Speed Setter
  • Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Giant Peach
  • Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Sunkissed
  • Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Day Cream
  • NailStuff.ca 7mm detail brush

Oh man, these feel kind of retro, which is really fun!

I went out & bought 3 new Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear shades at Shoppers since they were on sale for $2.99 each, it’s been a long week, & I haven’t bought new a nail polish in a while. I thought these three shades really gave me the peaches & cream feels (plus they’re very pretty colours over all). & I’ve been obsessed with these retro inspired stripes that are all over Instagram right now.

What do you think about these peaches & cream inspired stripes? Do you like my take on the prompt, or is it a little too outside the lines haha. Let me know if you’d rock this peach inspired look in your nails, down in the comments, & don’t forget to pop over to Instagram & check out the other looks using the hashtag #glamnailschallengeaug.