‘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.”

Leopard Print Day Two–changing things up a bit.

So technically this isn’t new nail art. I was so in love with my leopard print nails from yesterday, I couldn’t take them off. However, my purple color chipped badly at work so I needed to change them up somewhat to pull off day 2 nails. I don’t often wear my manicures for more than a day, mostly because I chip them so badly at work on a regular basis. But I just couldn’t take off the leopard print–I am so proud of how great they look, I had to give them at least another day of work. So what could I do to chance this manicure up a little bit?

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After grabbing my blue Kosmic Colours nail polish, and painting on the color I still wanted to do something fun. I picked up OPI’s I Snow You Love Me at Chatters for a sweet deal a couple weeks ago, and read online about how awesome it was for a glitter placement manicure. I’ve never done glitter placement on my nails, but I really wanted to try.

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It really wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. All it took was a steady hand and my dotting tool. The blue wasn’t completely dry when I started so the glitters kind of sunk into the color a little bit, but it still turned out neat. Like little diamonds on my nails. I’ve been really wanted to try out studs and such on my nails as I see them on so many awesome manicures on my favorite nail art blogs, but I haven’t had a chance yet. These little glitters definitely gave me a taste of how pretty it can look though!

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So how do you save a manicure you really love? How long do you tend to keep your manicures on your nails?

Then and Now: Multi-colored Leopard print.

Finally! Some nail art.

I’ve been feeling so uninspired with my nails lately. I will start something, get half way through, and then hate it and give up and have to start over. It’s so frustrating. =( I turned to my previous manicures for this one. One of the very first manicures I did when I got a dotting tool was a multi colored leopard print manicure. I remember being so proud of this, especially when I got a “Did you do those yourself?” Comment.

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So I decided I wanted to recreate that manicure. (Although, I used different colors for this one haha.)

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The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • Sinful Colors Dream On — purple.
  • Sinful Colors Easy Going — off white.
  • Kozmic Colours — blue.
  • China Glaze Metro Pollen-tin — yellow.
  • Pure Ice Wild Thing — green.
  • Sinful Colors Island Coral — coral.
  • Cherimoya Black
  • Nutra Nail Speed Dry Top Coat.

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Can I use say proud I am of how these turned out! I haven’t done a leopard print in quite a while, but after a lot of practice I’ve realized smaller spots look much better than bigger blobs. And I think these nails turned out perfectly. Also I tried to take a picture doing that awkward claw hand pose (how did I think that looked good?) but It was the most awkward position ever! Also check out the state of my nails! They look so much better now! Not just because my technique has improved, but they are just such a better shape!

 

So what do you think of these multi-colored leopard print nails?

Kozmic Colors and Margarita Madness.

I’m really excited about today’s swatch post and polish.

I posted before about how impressed I was with my first time trying the Kozmic Colors brand, especially for a polish found at a Dollar Store. I popped into a different Dollarama not too long ago, to see if they had anything new in the nail polish section and was very pleasantly surprised with what I found.

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This polish came in a four park of glitters. It was the only milky base color of the four–the rest of them are splatter and glitter toppers. But when I saw this polish in the group of four, I knew I needed to have them. The first thing I thought of when I saw this polish was Margaritas. These polishes don’t come with nails, but if I had to name it myself I would call it Margarita Madness.

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This polish is gorgeous. It is a milky green-blue base that is filled with large and small blue and green hexagon glitters. There are also tiny holographic glitters mixed into the base which unfortunately my camera flash could not capture. It took 3 coats to cover my nail, but it was well worth it. Honestly, I have nothing like this in my stash. It’s absolutely beautiful and eye catching.

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I tried to take a picture without flash to catch the holographic glitters, but they didn’t show up as much as I wish they would have. Regardless, I’ve fallen in love with this color. And now all I want to do is drink a margarita in the sunshine, and admire my nails. =)

Pure Ice — Wild Thing.

Even though I seem to own a lot of different green polishes, I never seem to wear them as a full manicure–with the exception of the obvious holidays like Christmas and St. Patrick’s Day. Lately, though, I’ve been trying to wear other colors than my usual fall pinks, purples, and coral. So what better time that to chose a color completely out of my comfort zone!

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I picked up Wild Thing by Pure Ice at my local Wal-mart for $1.97. I don’t own very many Pure Ice polishes, even though I always find myself staring at the display. However, this color couldn’t help but catch my eye the last time I was visiting. I’m not even sure what to call this color. It’s bright green, which leans yellow. I’ve seen other bloggers describe it as a “Shrek” green, which seems pretty spot on.

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Application was pretty good on this one–I only needed 2 coats for full opacity. Dry time was also pretty good–I find that’s the trick with polishes that have a tricky formula. Before I applied it, I went online and checked out swatches on other blogs to see what the polish was like (I pretty much do this with every polish after I buy it) so I knew people had some problems with patchiness, so I applied thin coats and let it dry a bit between applications. I also applied my Nutra Nail Speed Dry top coat, which gave it a great glossy shine.

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I like this color. It’s very different for me, but sometimes it’s nice to change things up a bit. I don’t think I’ve worn a straight green manicure outside of Christmas or St. Patrick’s Day since I was probably 15. But it does remind me of green, green grass which makes me think of Summer, so it’s a win in my books. Although I probably won’t wear it everyday (just can’t do it), I think it would make an perfect pedicure color.