Category: OPI

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Sparkly Red Stamping 

I’ve been seriously digging red nails lately. They’ve been a favourite of mine for a long, long time—I almost used to exclusively wear red nails during my late teens, early twenties—so I’ve accumulated quite the stash of crimson polish. & even though my days of just wearing red are a bit behind me, that doesn’t stop me from buying good red polishes when I see them so my stash has continued to grow.

 I recently found a beautiful red at my local Lawtons (one of my favourite stores for polish steals) & I found a red shade from L’Oréal (Carmin Parisien) that seemed to me to be more opaque than most reds, so I had to buy it! Even though I love red nails, I find that a lot of red shades are not opaque & usually show some degree of visible nail line. Lucky for me, L’Oréal Carmin Parisien is completely opaque in 2 coats! This pretty much cements it as my new go to red. 

The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • Base Coat: OPI Natural Nail Base Coat
  • Top Coat: Sally Hansen Diamond Flash Top Coat
  • L’Oréal Carmin Parisien 
  • CND World Crimson Sparkle
  • Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Black Heart
  • Born Pretty Store Clear Jelly Stamper (item #38611)
  • Essence Cosmetics Stampy Set stamping plate. 

I’ve actually been thinking about buying this stampy set from Essence for a while, but I had some Optimum Points to spend so I decided to pick it up. The very first stamping set I ever bought was from Essence, & they’ve definitely upped their game since I bought that one—the images actually fit my whole nail now! For a beginner curious about the whole stamping business, this is a great little set to try it out & see if you like it (especially for under $5). 

What do you think of these sparkly red nails? What colour do you love the most on your nails? Let me know in the comments below! 

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More Fall Leaves! 

Oh yessssss. I swear I’ve been just waiting for September to come back again so I could pull out my Fall leaf nail vinyls. You know my obsession with nail vinyls knows no bounds, & I love that you can pretty much find vinyls or stencils for every occasion & season. These particular leaves vinyls are from The Base Coat (whose site is currently on hiatus) but you can definitely find a ton of different versions of these Autumn themed vinyls with a quick search online.  Xroma Polish & Vinyls sells these uniquely beautiful Autumn stencils while What’s Up Nails sells the more classic Fall leaf stencil.

  • Base Coat: OPI Natual Nail Base Coat
  • Top Coat: Sally Hansen Diamond Flash Top Coat
  • ACO by Ardene Jacob Green
  • Essie Leggy Legend
  • ORLY Brilliant Boysenberry (aka ORLY Space Cadet)
  • Nicole by OPI Best Pink Ever 
  • Revlon Spidey Sense
  • The Base Coat Fall Leaves Vinyls
  • Latex Free Make Up Sponge

I love the shiftiness achieved by combining all these shades together & I think they look really great over my base of my swatch of Jacob Green. The shimmer of these metallic shades really pops over the dark green base colour. It’s literally Fall on my nails & just makes me wish I had a pumpkin spice latte & plaid blanket scarf to go along with them. 


What do you think of these Fall Leaves? Would you rock this design while drinking your favourite Fall drink? Let me know what you think (& what your drink of choice is!) in the comments below. 🍂

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Bestie Twin Nails with @torisprettythings


I always get really, really excited when I can team up with fellow nail polish addicts I love, admire & am inspired by. So I was really excited when I had the opportunity to team up with Tori of @torisprettythings! 

I’ve been friends with Tori on Instagram for a long time, but somehow we’ve never come together for a collaboration. 😳 Thankfully we’ve finally amended that with these fun Fall polka dot nails inspired by a mani she found on Pinterest originally by Oooh Shinies. 


For this manicure, the polishes I used were: 

  • Base Coat: OPI Natural Nail Base Coat
  • Top Coat: Sally Hansen Diamond Flash 
  • Essie Wrap Me Up
  • China Glaze Champagne Bubbles
  • Essie Leggy Legend
  • OPI My Private Jet
  • Small & tiny dotting tool. 

How perfectly Fall is this manicure? Both Tori & I are all about that Fall weather so we were pumped to team up on some Autumn inspired nails. I haven’t done a dotticure this fun in a while so it was really fun to sit down & play around. 

 Sometimes the simpler designs actually bring out your most creativity. This isn’t a super hard design & would be great for a nail art beginner! All you need is a dotting tool & some complimentary shades & people will be in awe of your nails. I am going to be doing a whole week of beginner nail art designs coming up (I’ve already been collecting & playing with manicure ideas) but this would definitely be on the list of great beginner designs. 

What do you think of this bestie twin nail collaboration? Don’t forget to check out Tori’s Instagram…. not just for all the beautiful nail art inspo she posts, but also her awesome OOTD & make up looks. 

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Tribal-esque Chevron Nails

I’m still obsessing over the OPI Iceland collection, so I felt like pulling it out for some more nail art. This time, I decided on these chevrons which ended up looking slightly tribal-esque. 

Even better, this design was super quick & easy to do which is good because I’m still pretty run down from my gluten attack but still want to do my nails. Don’t get me wrong–I enjoy complicated freehand designs. But sometimes you just want to be able to have pretty complicated nails without having to spend 2 hours crafting them! & this design is definitely perfect for that. 

For this design, the polishes used are:

  • Base Coat: OPI Natural Nail Base Coat
  • Top Coat: Sally Hansen Diamond Flash Top Coat
  • OPI This Isn’t Greenland
  • OPI Suzi & the Artic Fox
  • Xroma Polish & Vinyls X Stencil (I used the inside pieces) 
  • Small dotting tool 

How great do these two colours look together? They compliment each other really, really well. But then again these OPI shades are so gorgeous, I think it would be impossible to create a design that didn’t look beautiful. & again, these were super simple to do:

  1. Paint your nails using your base colour (in this case, OPI This Isn’t Greenland) & apply quick dry top coat. 
  2. When your base colour is completely dry (about 20 minutes), apply your nail vinyls. I find it easier to go one hand at a time. 
  3. Going one nail at a time, paint over vinyls with your secondary shade (OPI Suzi & the Artic Fox). Remove nail vinyls as soon as you apply your polish. 
  4. Once you’ve done all nails, go back with a small dotting tool & your base colour & add your dots. 
  5. Apply top coat to seal in design. 
  6. Repeat on other hand. 

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

Some of these lovely polishes were all gifted to me by OPI as part of the #PreenMeVIP program. 

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Fall Leaf Stamping 🍁

Sorry for my lack of posting this week. If you follow me on Instagram you would have saw that I was struck down by the gluten gods this past weekend & I’ve been recovering from a particularly bad attack the last couple days. I spent Monday & Tuesday in bed sleeping but I finally had a bit of a burst of energy, enough at least that I could post this mani. 

& can I just say I freaking love how this design turned out?! Okay so my husband may have said that he thought they looked like spiderwebs but he’s a boy & it doesn’t count. 😂 

For this manicure, the products I used were: 

I started off with a base shade of This Isn’t Iceland the used my other OPI shades to create a Saran Wrap splatter. I topped that with clear nail polish that I knew would smear the polishes so it blended them together better. Then I stamped the leaf print over top over the blend using Back to Black to finish the design. I topped everything with top coat to seal in the design, & used a brush dipped in acetone to clean up around the cuticles. I love using Back to Black for stamping because not only does it stamp well, it cleans up easily & doesn’t leave my cuticles stained black when using acetone. There is nothing worse! 

I’m digging this pattern. I wish I could have gotten a picture with an actual leaf but mine aren’t quite on fire yet. I’ll have to repeat this stamping again when the leaves are in full colour change, just for the chance to take a picture! That, or I’ll recreate one of my all time favourite Fall designs. 

What do you think of these Fall leaf nails? Do you see leaves or spider webs? Let me know what you think in the comments below! 

Some of these lovely polishes were all gifted to me by OPI as part of the #PreenMeVIP program.