Mermaid Sparkle Nails ✨🧜‍♀️

Hello lovelies & happy Thursday!

It’s a beautiful sunny day & it’s lovely. Definitely feeling like Spring more & more, & I’m just soaking it up. Today I’m sharing a really pretty manicure with you that I did recently, which was actually super easy to do! A while ago — probably sometime last year—I picked up these pretty iridescent glitters from Dollarama, & I’ve had yet to use them! So I was so excited to finally pull them out. 

The polishes I used for this manicure are: 

  • Base Coat: China Glaze Calcium Gel Fortifer
  • Top Coat: LA Girl Rapid Dry Top Coat
  • Nailtural Keep Palm, & Swim On
  • Icing Mermaid Oil Blue
  • Dollarama Nail Art Glitters iridescent shard glitters
  • Small nail art brush (to pick up glitters)

How pretty did these turned out?! I feel like with my new blue hair, I’m all about the mermaid vibes lately. Mermaid hair just needs mermaid nails.

These were so easy to apply the glitters to my nails, & it turned out so beautiful. I really really love how they look. Of course, I did have some little peices sticking up on my nail, but I feel like a thicker top coat might help with that issue. Either way, I wore the heck out of this manicure!

What do you think about these mermaid glitter nails? Let me know your thoughts down in the comments below! I’d love to know all your thoughts on this design!

Happy Thursday 💙

Batty Thermal Halloween Nails 🦇

Hello lovelies & happy Halloween! I couldn’t not try to sneak at least one more quick design in before Halloween was over. After all, Halloween is my most favourite holiday.

This look is a quick & easy one, using those Dollarama nail art stickers I’ve been gushing about all month. I had this idea of doing dark bats over a thermal polish — & I just love how they turned out!

The polishes I used for this manicure are: 

  • Base Coat: Essence Colour Grip Base Coat 
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • Cadillacquer Nostalgia
  • Dollarama Halloween Nail Art Stickers

This is a super simple Halloween look — the thermal effect of Cadillacquer Nostalgia really does all the work. It’s been particularly cold recently, so I had to rest my hands against some hot coffee in order to show off the shift between colours — & you can kind of see how it transitions back to cold in these shots which is cool.

I hope everyone has a happy, happy Halloween! I’m looking forward to trick or treating with my kids tonight, & soaking in every last minute of my favourite holiday. & there will definitely be some sour patch kids enjoyed this evening!

♥︎ Stay safe & have fun!

GLAM NAILS CHALLENGE OCTOBER—Full Moon 🌙 🦇

Hello lovelies & happy Monday! I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. It’s a new week, & we’re getting very close to the end of Glam Nails Challenge October. Kind of crazy to believe that Halloween is in little more than a week.

Today, I’m jumping into the next prompt for this challenge: Full Moon. Honestly, I struggled a lot with this one for some reason. I was feeling less than inspired, but after a bit of brain storming, I think the end design I created perfectly encapsulates the prompt.

The polishes I used for this manicure are: 

  • Base Coat: Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Colour Grip Primer Base Coat 
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • Orly Fowl Play
  • Acrylic Paint
  • NailStuff.ca Mermaid Tail Brush Trio (11mm liner brush)

I decided to go with acrylic paint to create my design—versus nail polish—because I wanted the ability to start over easily if I needed to without removing everything. Not my cleanest design, but I do like the spooky trees & the brightness of the glowing full moon. & my little wonky bats.

Also a design that benefits from looking at it far away, haha. But I love it none the less.

What do you think about my full moon design for Glam Nails Challenge October? Are you enjoying these spooky designs? Let me know what you think, & stay tuned for a few more spooky looks to come!

Happy Monday. 🖤

SWATCH SUNDAY — ORLY Fowl Play

Hello lovelies & happy Sunday. It’s a rainy & dreary Sunday here, but that’s late Autumn for you. We have only 9 days until Halloween, can you believe it? I’m so excited, even if I haven’t figured out my costume for Trick or Treating yet.

For today’s Swatch Sunday, I broke out a very old shade from my stash which I think is still (sort of) keeping with my Halloween trend. I had planned on going out & finding an actual Halloween shade to share — but I’m having the hardest time finding Halloween collections this year, locally, which is disappointing.

This is ORLY Fowl Play from the Fall 2011 Birds of a Feather collection.

3 coats + top coat

This shade is an oldie, but it’s beautiful. Everything I’ve seen online about it, people talk about how unique this shade is & I have to agree. It’s a purple base packed full of a multitude of flakies & glitters. It was hard to accurately photograph it in my light box, because I feel like it was hard to accurately capture how beautiful it looks (& how many colours it really has packed into it).

Formula for this guy was a bit thin, which meant multiple coats were a necessity (especially to show off all the flakies). I did three coats, because of how thin the formula was, & looking at these swatches I feel like I could have used a forth. Definitely a shade you want to apply a quick dry top coat over so you don’t have to wait forever for it dry.

The colour is perfect for late Autumn/Halloween. Dark & mysterious, & perfect for spooky season, or as the base for Halloween nail art.

What do you think of ORLY Fowl Play? Do you remember when this shade was released? Let me know all your thoughts down in the comments below, & share any Halloween shades I should be on the look out for!

Enjoy your Sunday. 🖤

SWATCH SUNDAY — Layla Pro Nail Polish SG31

Hello lovelies & happy Sunday. It has definitely been a while!

This is actually the first time I’ve painted my nails all week after surviving covid. & I won’t lie — it was a rough week for sure. I have never felt so sick in as long as I can remember. But I’m back, slowly & surely, & ready to share a fun nail polish for this week’s Swatch Sunday.

Once again, I went shopping in my own nail polish stash, & found a beauty I’ve owned for quite a while. This is Layla Cosmetics Layla Pro Nail Polish in SG31.

2 coats + top coat

I actually have a couple polishes from the Layla line I’ve picked up over the years in my local Lawton’s clearance bins. &, truthfully, I have two difference bottles for this particular shade; this bottle, titled Layla Pro & the Ceramic Effects line which is the exact same polish.

According to what I read online, the Pro line was released for nail polish professionals, in bigger bottles than their other shades. I picked up this bottle a few years ago for the very affordable price of $3.25 on clearance. What drew me initially to this shade is it’s very close to the original version of Color Club’s The Uptown — although not a direct dupe.

For my swatches, I did two easy coats. The first one applied fairly thinly, but the second one I applied a bit more generously. The flakies are very densely spread through the formula, so you get a lot of coverage. It’s a beautiful polish, with the perfect shift for Autumn weather.

I’m already kind of on a purple kick, & flakie kick, so it’s giving me the best of both worlds. I love the shift between orange, gold & green depending on how you move your hand. I also, obviously, had to top it with some matte top coat

Have you ever tried Layla Cosmetics polishes? Do you love a good flake polish? I feel like you don’t see shades like this as much anymore — outside the Indie polish world. I kind of miss when unique shades like this would pop up in mainstreams store. Can we petition for 2024 to be the year of the mainstream flake polish?

Have a fantastic Sunday!