Category: Icing

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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 💙

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SWATCH SUNDAY — China Glaze Blue Iguana (& some bonus sparkle ✨)

Hello lovelies & happy Sunday! The first Sunday of November, if you can believe it! Sadly, I’m starting off November with some extra short nails thanks to a bad, bad break at work on Friday.

So I wanted to make my nails feel extra pretty, so I dug through my stash & landed on this sparkly old school China Glaze shade. This is China Glaze Blue Iguana.

2 coats + top coat

Blue Iguana was originally released as part of the 2011 Summer Island Escape collection. It has an electric blue foil finish with a great micro shimmer. The formula was fairly thin, but I had adequate coverage in 2 coats. It also appears lighter on the nail than in the bottle, which was kind of a bummer — but maybe an extra coat or two would have fixed that. I also wish you could see more of the purple duochrome flash on the nail, as much as you can see it in the bottle. But it’s still beautiful regardless.

I was feeling like my short, stubby nails needed a bit more sparkle, so I pulled another oldie (released around the same time) from Icing to add a little pizazz: Icing Radio Super Star.

1 coat over Blue Iguana + top coat

I was actually really impressed with how closely the blue glitters in Radio Super Star matched Blue Iguana. It has a clear base with blue micro glitter, fuschia hex glitters & these fun silver star glitter. What you see above is just one coat over my base — & I had great luck with getting the star glitters onto the nail with minimal fishing.

It gave me exactly the sparkle I was craving to cheer myself up!

How are you feeling up these two fun polishes both together & apart? I feel like it’s just a smidge too early for holiday polishes (although I’m keeping my eyes open!) but I may see what glitter shades I can pull out for this month.

Have a happy Sunday!

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Instagram Space Collab 🌌

Hello lovelies & happy Friday! I hope everyone’s having the most lovely week. I had yesterday off, & the kids had their first day of school, so it was a nice relaxing day where I caught up on laundry & blog stuff.

Today, though, I’m excited to share a new design I did as part of the monthly Instagram collaboration hosted by @Essiyall & @Petitenaillover. I’ve been having so much fun with these large collabs, & this month’s theme was SPACE. It’s been a bit since I did a galaxy design, so I was pumped.

The polishes I used for this manicure are: 

  • Base Coat: Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Colour Grip Primer Base Coat 
  • Top Coat: Quo by ORLY Color Amp’d Top Coat
  • China Glaze Glamcore
  • Icing Mermaids Have More Fun
  • Ardene La Luna
  • Sally Hansen Buffalo Nickel
  • NailStuff.ca 4mm Micro Detail Brush

For this look, I went with the classic sponge effect for my design. I used two shades I thought suited each other well, especially the shifty base of Mermaids Have More Fun. Then I added the little details of the stars, for that fun galaxy effect. I really like how everything came together.

Don’t forget to hop on over to Instagram, & check out all the amazing beautiful designs that my fellow nail artists did. Everyone interpretation for this theme, & I absolutely love everyone’s manicures!

Have a lovely day!

♥︎

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Instagram Mermaidcore Collab 🧜‍♀️🩵

Hello lovelies & happy Friday! Todays nail art look is another special collaboration I did with some fellow nail artists on Instagram. & it’s very fitting, as I’m currently on my way to vacation at Ocean’s Playgound (aka Prince Edward Island, Canada). So this Mermaidcore look is totally fitting for our fun ocean vacation this weekend.

For my mermaid themed look, I decided to go with a classic scale look. I don’t have a scale stamping plate, sadly, but I decided to pull out one of my older stamping plates & see if it would work for a scale pattern — & it did!

The polishes I used for this manicure are: 

  • Base Coat: Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Colour Grip Primer Base Coat 
  • Top Coat: Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Glossy Top Coat
  • Icing Stores Matte Effects 60217
  • Icing Stores Mermaid Mint
  • Essie Under The Twilight
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Unicorn Top Coat
  • Bodico Stamping Plate B-12
  • NailStuff.ca Clear Stamper 

Do you think I captured the Mermaidcore aesthetic? Obviously I had to add a little extra shimmer with the Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Unicorn Top Coat over my stamped design. & I think it turned our absolutely perfect, & just the nail art look I was going for.

Mermaid vibes all the way.

What do you think about this Mermaidcore design I did for this Instagram Challenge? If you get a chance, hop over to Instagram & check out everyone else’s amazing mermaidcore manicures: #mermaidnailartmanicollab2023

Have a great weekend! I’ll be back to posting next Wednesday! 🩵

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SWATCH SUNDAY — Icing Stores Starlight

Hello lovelies & happy Sunday. It’s a rainy, grey, & extremely blah day here on the East Coast — & it’s starting to feel like we’ll never see the sun.

I needed some cheering up after this blah, blah week so I started digging through my Claire’s/Icing drawer & found this old school beauty! & I just knew that I had to pick it for this week’s Swatch Sunday.

This is Icing Starlight.

3 coats + top coat

The formula on this beautiful jelly glitter is thin thin thin, but it builds to nice coverage. & because the formula is so thin, each coats dries down quickly before you apply the next one. It also means you can see each & every silver & holo glitter suspended in the base, which I love.

Truthfully, I could have applied a forth coat for a bit more opacity, but with the exception of my tips (where it shows of a bit of my natural yellowing from my nail polish obsession) I really love how this looks. & that could easily be corrected with a colour correcting base coat. Or, by using it as a topper over another blue polish.

In the bottle it reminds me a bit of China Glaze Dorothy Who? but the base is much thinner leaving the colour on the nail much, much lighter. However, it has those beautiful holographic glitters that really show up, so I can’t be mad about it. It’s a beautiful shade all on its own.

Sadly, this colour is long long out of circulation. If I had to hazard a guess, based just on the bottle shape, I would say I purchased this bottle somewhere between 2009-2011. The brand has gone through quite a few bottle changes since then, but I’m happy to see even a decade later, this shade applies & wears beautifully.

& sometimes it’s just fun to take a walk down nail polish memory lane with a shade you haven’t seen in a while.

What do you think about Icing Starlight? Do you have any oldies in your stash you haven’t pulled out in a while? This Sunday is a great day to find a shade you haven’t worn in a while, & pull it out!

Have a lovely day! 🖤