Category: Freehand

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Celebrating National Nail Polish Day With Vintage Floral Nails! 

It’s here! June 1st marks the first annual National Nail Polish Day which has been originated by Essie. I’m actually shocked that national nail polish day wasn’t already a thing, but I’m very excited to be able to celebrate it. & in honour of this awesome holiday I just had to go with a vintage floral using some of my favourite Essie colour. 

For this manicure I used:

  • Base Coat: Sally Hansen Nail Growth Miracle 
  • Top Coat: Cutex Quick Dry Top Coat
  • Essie Where’s My Chauffeur?
  • Essie As Good As Gold
  • Essie Stones And Roses
  • Essie Brides No Grooms
  • Essie Topless And Barefoot
  • Essie First Timer
  • Essie Off Tropic  
  • Dotting Tool
  • Small Nail Art Brush from Bundle Monster

You’ve heard me gush before about my long standing love affair with floral nail art, so obviously I had to share it on a day dedicated to all things nail polish! & obviously I had to celebrate some Essie love as well. Also I know I said that I would avoid Blue in the month of blue, but Where’s My Chauffeur? is more turquoise so that doesn’t count! 

What are you wearing on your nails to celebrate National Nail Polish Day? Let me know in the comments below! 

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Simple Rose Accent Nails

Sometimes a polish is so pretty, it doesn’t need much in tens of nail art. That’s how I felt about the combo of CND Vinylux in Dazzling Dance & Nicole by OPI Love Song. It looked so dang pretty on its own I didn’t want to ruin it by overwhelming it with too much. So what would be the perfect simple nail art? Roses of course! 

For this manicure I used:

  • Base Coat: Perfect Formulas Pink Gel Coat
  • Top Coat: Cutex Quick Dry Top Coat
  • CND Vinylux Dazzling Dance
  • NOPI Love Song
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Pretty Peony 
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Bourbon Belle 
  • Essie Brides No Grooms
  • Essie First Timer
  • Sally Hansen X-treme Wear Kiwi Bikini
  • Dotting Tool from Bundle Monster
  • Small Nail Art Brush from Bundle Monster 

First off, check out the holo glitter in Dazzling Dance! I’ve worn this polish before a couple years ago, but without any undies & it took way too many coats (4+ with visible nail line.) So undies we’re necessary. I picked out NOPI Love Song to bring out the purple undertones. I bet a gray base would be beautiful too. 

These roses make me happy. So simple but beautiful. I will never get tired of roses & floral designs in general. They’re just the perfect pop of nail art for when you don’t want (or don’t have time for) something more complex. 

What do you think of my roses? Don’t forget to comment below & let me know you thoughts! 

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Desert Sunset inspired nails

Coachella is finishing up this weekend, which means lots of festival inspired nails have been popping up in my feed! I’ve never been to Coachella, but I DO know it takes place in the desert so I thought these desert sunset gradient nails would be perfect to channel my inner festival goer (instead of what I’m actually spending today doing which is cleaning my bedroom & putting away way too much clothing while simultaneously trying to convince the baby to nap.)


For this design, I used:

  • Base Coat: Perfect Formula Pink Gel Coat
  • Top Coat: Cutex Quick Dry Top Coat 
  • Color Club Almost Famous 
  • OPI Where Did Suzy’s Man-go?
  • Essie Play Date
  • Color Club Pucci-licious
  • Sally Hansen I ♥️ Nail Art pen in Black. 
  • Latex Free cosmetic sponge 
  • Born Pretty Store Liquid Latex Peel Off Tape

My bottle of top coat is reaching the bottom which lead to some weirdness & shrinking. Never the less, I really love the colour combination of this gradient with the desert landscape. I could totally see these fitting in at Coachella, or another similar music festival! 🌄 all I need is a flower crown & some cut off denim shorts & I’d fit right in! 

I think I’ve rediscovered my obsession with gradients, clean up be damned. (Thank goodness for Liquid latex.) & I think I’m slowly getting better at them! They make me happy. This colour combo worked out so well, I just can’t stop staring! Even my husband commented how wicked these were (& without asking even!)

What do you think of this design? Let me know in the comments below!

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Mani Swap with @PolishedFingernails


I hope you’re excited because Mani Swap week continues with a fun swap I did with Sophie (@polishedfingernails). For this swap, we both went similar directions picking Negative Space designs with line details–Sophie recreated my vampy colour blocking,  & I picked her pretty teal and white design!

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Perfect Formula Pink Gel Coat
  • Top Coat: Cutex Quick Dry Top Coat
  • Essie Where’s My Chauffeur?
  • OPI By The Light Of The Moon
  • OPI Ce-less-tial Is More
  • Kiss Products Nail Art Striper in White

I’m not going to lie, I love this mani extra amounts because I managed to freehand everything. I’ve been trying to practice my line work, & I’m so happy with how these turned out. Also I kind of improvised the thumb nail, adding my own touch which is kind of cheating, but I didn’t know what the thumb looked like so I gave it my own spin & I think it fits in so well with the design. 

So what do you think of this swap? Thanks to Sophie for joining me in this swap, & you definitely need to check out her Instagram account! She always had such unique designs! 

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Mani Swap with @teenynails

It’s been a long while since I teamed up for any Mani swaps, so I have a few swap collabs coming up with some of my favourite girls on Instagram.

Up first, I have a swap with the very talented @teenynails. For this Swap she recreated my leopard patterned half moons & I had to recreate her beautiful purple vintage floral!

The polishes I used for my recreation were:

  • Essie Play Date
  • CND Crimison Sparkle
  • Kiss Nail Art Striper in Black
  • Kiss Nail Art Striper in White
  • Sally Hansen I ♥️ Nail Art pen in White 
  • Essie Brides No Grooms
  • My Beauty Spot unnamed pink
  • Essie Off Tropic 
  • Essie First Timer 
  • Cutex Quick Dry Top Coat
  • Small Nail Art brush from Bundle Monster

You know how I feel about floral, & I thought these were so perfect for the Spring-y weather we’ve been having. Plus it gave me an excuse to pull out Essie Play Date again. & these are definitely some of the best roses I’ve done in a while. I just can’t stop staring at them.

What do you think of our recreations? Let me know in the comments below!

And shout out the the lovely @teenynails for joining me in this swap. 💜 Don’t forget to check out her account on Instagram & check out all her amazing nail art!