Category: nail polish

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Chic Red & Gold Plaid

Hello lovelies & happy Wednesday! It is a very, very chilly Wednesday at that. It is officially creeping into Winter, & not at all slowly. Guess I’ll need to do some snowflake nails soon!

Today though, I’m sharing a design I did last month, & it’s the last big of nail art I have featuring my longish nails. Time to jump into short nail nail art again! Today’s look, though, is perfect for these in between holidays days.

The polishes I used for this manicure are: 

  • Base Coat: Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Colour Grip Primer Base Coat 
  • Top Coat: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Top Coat
  • OPI Just Be-Claus
  • OPI Rolling in Cashmere
  • Essie Lady Like
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Get Mod
  • Sally Hansen InstaDri Ghouls Night Out
  • NailStuff.ca 16mm striper brush

I absolutely adorable all things plaid — in fact I’m wearing my favourite plaid leggings to work today. Plaid nails are no exception. I’m not sure if it’s because they’re so easy, or if it’s because there is endless colour combinations, but they really are one of my favourites, especially this time of year.

& I’m sure this won’t be the last plaid nail art design I share this season. In fact, I can pretty much bet on it.

What do you think about this chic plaid design? Would you wear this on your nails? Let me know all your thoughts in the comments below, & let me know what short nail designs you’d like me to create & share!

Enjoy your Wednesday! 🖤

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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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SWATCH SUNDAY — OPI Green On the Runway

Hello lovelies & happy Sunday. & happy Halloweekend! Did anyone dress up & go to any fun Halloween parties?

Today I’m sharing my last kind of Halloween-y shade of the season. To be fair, I don’t own a lot of actual Halloween shades (that I haven’t shared on here already) but I saw this OPI mini bottle in my stash & thought it was a great spooky colour. & if it looks familiar, that’s because I also used it for the base of my last manicure.

This is OPI Green on the Runway from the 2014 OPI Coca-Cola collection.

3 thin coats + top coat

This beautiful duochrome shade has a thin formula that requires multiple thin coats, but it’s worth it. The dark green base flashes like a bronze-y brown depending on the light. There is almost a metallic quality to the green base as well, which I like a lot.

I believe the 2014 Coca-Cola collection was released as a Summer collection, but this shade just feels straight up Autumn to me. I didn’t really jump on them when they were first released, but when I was perusing through my local Chatters last Christmas, I saw this little mini bottle for .99 cents & had to pick it up.

& I’m so glad I did! It’s such a beautiful shade that works both for spooky season, & a great transitional shade into the impending holiday season.

What do you think of OPI Green on the Runway? Did you pick up this shade when it was originally released? Let me know all your thoughts in the comments below!

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Halloween Ooze Nails 🧪

Hello lovelies & happy Friday! Only a couple more days until Halloween is here — can you believe it? & only a few more days to squeeze in some Halloween nail art!

I’m calling today’s look Halloween ooze nails because it’s the best description for them! I didn’t want to do your classic blood dripping design — these look much more spooky!

The polishes I used for this manicure are: 

  • Base Coat: Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Colour Grip Primer Base Coat 
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • OPI Green On The Runway
  • Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Belle of the Ball
  • URSugar dripping nail vinyls

I like these because I feel like the drips work both ways — the dark blurple dripping down, or the green dripping. The perfect Halloween design that’s not too over the top! I’ve literally been wearing these for 3 days now, & I don’t want to take them off. But I do have a few more Halloween designs to squeeze in, so I guess I’ll have to say goodbye to them tonight.

What do you think of these Halloween ooze nails? You could definitely get away with doing these without nail vinyls if you didn’t have any — I was just feeling lazy. Haha.

Happy Friday 🖤

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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. 🖤