Category: Pictures

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Bestie Twin Floral Nails

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Happy Saturday lovelies! Did everyone survive Full Moon Friday the 13th okay? Today I’m sharing a fun design that has been in planning for a while–bestie twin floral nails that I did with my girl Victoria over at @nailstuffca!

We’ve been talking about doing some twin floral nails for absolutely ages, so I was really excited that we finally managed to come together to create our matching looks! The inspiration for this floral comes from my favourite place for inspiration: Pinterest! I found this pattern while browsing for Fall floral & that was where we started for our manicures.

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The polishes used for this manicure were:

  • Base Coat: Gel overlay (trying to grow out some damage on my tips)
  • Top Coat: Essie Gel Setter
  • ORLY Plum Sugar
  • Essie Stop Drop & Shop
  • Acrylic Paints (set purchased from Dollarama)
  • Nailstuff.ca Dotting Tool Trio
  • Nailstuff.ca Mermaid Tail Brush Brush Trio (I used the 11mm liner brush)

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This was my first time using acrylic paints to create a look like this (floral) & I was a little nervous at first, but it was actually pretty easy to do! I still had to use polish for the pinky roses, as the set of paints I bought didn’t have any red. But other than that, I was pretty impressed that a $2 set of acrylic paint could create such beautiful art on such a teeny canvas. I don’t think I’ll use paints every time I go to do nail art, but for a design like this that is supposed to be a bit rustic, I think they worked perfectly!

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Ahhhh, how pretty did these turn out? Considering I was definitely feeling rusty since I hadn’t created any floral since before our baby girl was born, I feel really good about the end result.

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What do you think about these floral nails? Don’t forget to hop over to @NailStuff.ca & check out Victoria’s version of this design & give her some love!

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Fall Ombré

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Hello lovelies & Happy Wednesday! I don’t know about where you are, but here in Halifax the weather is already starting to have that gorgeous Fall chill. It also has me thinking about Fall Manicure ideas, & one design I’ve been seeing pop up on my Instagram feed is the ombré look. A few years ago, ombré designs were super popular, & one of my favourites. So I can’t lie, I’m so pumped that ombré nails are making me a resurgence!

For those wondering the difference between an ombré & a gradient, an ombré is when you wear a different colour on each nail, while a gradient blends a few colours together on each nail.

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For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Currently wearing soak off gel to grow out my natural nail.
  • Top Coat: Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat
  • Cosmetic Arts Baby Pink (no name)
  • L’Oréal Jardin Des Roses
  • Kosmic Colours dusty dark pink (no name)
  • ORLY Red Rhapsody
  • Essie Carry On
  • Wet n Wild 2% Milk (to make my pinky & ring finger look more dusky)

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I’ve done a few ombré manicures over the years in different colour schemes, but I was really feeling something dusky, in the rose family. This combination really felt like it suited our increasingly Autumn-like weather. On my pinky & ring finger, I applied 2% milk over my lighter pink shades so they would match closer with the rest of my colours.

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Ah, this makes me so happy! I’m so glad that this design has come back into rotation & is cool again. Not that I care that much about being trendy — my love of crackle nail polish will attest to that — but it certainly gives me a great excuse to wear multiple shades at once.

(Like I need any excuse to paint my nails!)

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What do you think of the ombré nail art trend–have you given it a try yet? What colour combination are you dying to try? Share what shades you’re planning on pairing, down in the comments below.

🍁🍂

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SWATCH SUNDAY — Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure A Bleu Attitude

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Good Morning lovelies & Happy Sunday! I’m currently writing today’s Swatch Sunday post from my parents place in New Brunswick, but a little vacation won’t keep me from painting my nails!

For today’s post, I decided to borrow from my Mom’s vast nail polish stash — Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure A Bleu Attitude. I knew I had to shade this gorgeous polish with you, so I crafted a makeshift lightbox just so I could take pictures of this polish to share!

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According to my Internet Research (aka Google), this shade was released as part of Sally Hansen’s CSM Fall 2016 collection. There is something about Navy that just screams Fall to me. As I’ve said probably a million other times, the first hint of Pumpkin Spice & you have me craving deep, dark polishes.

For my swatches, I applied one (!) coat of polish for full opacity, & finished it off with glossy top coat. Any time I can get away with a one coat polish, I am going to be happy–I love painting my nails, but sometimes I am short on time. So a beautiful one coater like A Bleu Attitude makes my life so much easier. & that makes me very very happy.

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Seriously, can you believe that is only one coat?! How amazing is that? I’m seriously tempted to sneak this bottle into my suitcase to take home, but my Mom did give me her bottle of (original) Pacific Blue, I feel like stealing this beautiful polish from her wouldn’t be the nicest move. So I’ll just have to search out my own bottle online (I did find it on Amazon.ca for sale) & if that doesn’t work, I’ll just slap it on my nails next time I come to visit.

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What do you think of this navy blue? Do you have Sally Hansen CSM A Bleu Attitude in your nail polish collection? Let me know your thoughts down in the comments below! & stay tuned, because I have some fun nail art featuring this shade to share soon!

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COMPARISON POST — My Favourite Cobalt Blues (Pacific Blue Dupes)

Hello lovelies & happy Wednesday! Today I have a special post I swear I’ve been meaning to do FOREVER but just never got around to doing — a comparison post featuring a few of my favourite cobalt blue shades!

I have done a couple of these comparison posts in the past, & they always prove to be popular, so I thought that it would be fun to do another. All the shades you’re about to see are inspired by my love of one polish: the original formula Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pacific Blue. If you don’t know, Pacific Blue was the most perfect cobalt blue polish that ever existed, which sadly saw a formula change in 2014… a formula change which led to serious uproar in the nail polish community. This led to mainly nail bloggers searching for dupes, & stocking up on any old formula bottles they could find… myself included. As a result, I have quite a few cobalt blues in my nail polish collection… & I wanted to compare a few of my favourites to see how they lived up to the original.

As you can see, I’ve selected 5 of my many blues for comparison… can you tell which ones are which from the above swatches? All polishes were applied over my base & finished with top coat (Essie Gel Setter).

Continue reading “COMPARISON POST — My Favourite Cobalt Blues (Pacific Blue Dupes)”

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SWATCH SUNDAY — Color Club Wham! Pow!

Good Afternoon lovelies & Happy Swatch Sunday! I know I missed last week, so I’m back this week with a colour totally out of my comfort zone–Color Club Wham! Pow!

According to NailPolishCanada, this shade was originally released as part of the Poptastic collection. I picked up my bottle in clearance at my favourite pharmacy, for only $1.99, but you can find this shade online for a mere fraction of its original cost.

This shade is very neon, like highlighter orange neon, which obviously made for a difficult time while trying to photograph in my light box with my iPhone. For my swatches, I did 2 coats of base coat, 2 coats of polish & finished with a glossy top coat.

I was super impressed with the formula–sometimes Neons can be less than easy to apply with super thin formulas that need white undies, or they drag really bad, & need too many coats, but Wham! Pow! went on with only 2 easy coats. The first was kind of patchy, but the second coat filled everything in & levelled beautifully.

This colour is definitely out of my comfort zones–usually when I pick oranges I go for more coral shades as opposed to something so bright & neon, but I was feeling in the mood for something different! I do like how shades like this always make you look more tan than you actually are.

& below is what I did with my swatch: I added some holo glitter with both Sally Hansen Make It N-ice & Quo by ORLY Falling Star. You can also see how the colour shows more truly in the sunshine versus the photos in my light box.

what do you think of today’s Swatch Sunday pick? Would you rock this colour? Let me know in the comments below!