SWATCH SUNDAY — China Glaze Glow With The Flow (2015 Electric Nights Collection) ⚡️

Hello lovelies & happy Sunday!

I hope everyone has had a gorgeous week. Does anyone else feel like this Summer is absolutely barreling towards the end. It’s almost the end of July. & the other day, I saw Back To School items in Walmart!

Today I’m going full Summer vibes, though, with a shade originally released as part of China Glaze 2015 Electric Nights Summer collection. This is Glow With The Flow.

2 coats + top coat.

The first thing you notice about Glow With The Flow is it has a surprisingly easy to work with formula, especially for a neon-y cream pink. Sometimes I find with neons, they can be streaky or hard to apply. But this one truly applied like a dream. I also did thicker coats, instead of thinner ones, but I still didn’t have any issues with dragging. & it settles to such a beautiful smooth finish, especially with the addition of a coat of top coat.

How vibrant & beautiful of a pink! & So Summery! I actually let my little girl pick what colour I should do for this week’s Swatch Sunday pick, & naturally she picked pink. This shade was sitting in my stash just waiting for its moment to shine.

Sadly, this shade was released as a limited edition shade, so I can’t find it for mainstream purchase. That’s the only downside to buying from these amazing collections — you fall in love, & then when you want to replace it (or encourage someone else to buy it), it becomes an impossible quest.

What do you think of China Glaze Glow With The Flow? Do you love this beautiful warm neon pink as much as I do? Would you wear it? I always love to hear from others in the comments –makes my whole day! — so share with you think!

Happy Sunday

♥︎

SWATCH SUNDAY — Butter London Pure Colour 21X Piccadilly Prawn

Contains PR

Hello lovelies & happy Sunday! A beautiful Sunday at that. Today I’m excited because I recently received a little PR package from Butter London, containing the most beautiful Summer-y shade from their Pure Colour 21X line: Piccadilly Prawn.

2 coats + Top Coat

Look at this beautiful fiery coral! The formula itself is very creamy & easy to apply which I loved. The colour is a beautiful bright coral, but leans red. It’s very vibrant, & very beautiful. We all know I’m a sucker for any shade from this colour family, & I really adore how it looks on me.

The Butter London Pure Colour 21X line is a 21 Free product — meaning it is free of 21 of the chemicals that can sometimes be added to nail polish. It’s a cleaner alternative for those who are careful with what they wear — it is also vegan, cruelty free, gluten free & designed to help with nail strength. All in all, it’s a fantastic choice for painting your nails!

You can find Piccadilly Prawn on the Butter London website here, or it can be purchased where other Butter London products are sold.

What do you think of Piccadilly Prawn? Are you a fan of this Butter London shade? Personally, I think the name is super cute! I don’t have a ton of Butter London in my stash, but the ones I do have all have the cutest names.

Happy Sunday!

🖤

Pink Gel & Floral Nail Art 💖🌸

Hey lovelies! I totally meant to post this manicure last week, but I got knocked out by the cold from hell which left me ravaged & not in the mood to do any posting! But my sinuses are finally recovering, & now I can finally show this fun look I did last week!

I was super curious about doing nail art over my gel manicure base, so I wanted to give it a try. I plan on also doing some nail art using all gel, but I was curious what would happen if you painted some nail art over just gel. (Including topping it with a regular top coat.)

Products used for this manicure: 

  • Olive & June Peel Off Base Coat *
  • Olive & June Gel Polish Base Coat *
  • 2 coats Olive & June Gel Polish XOXO *
  • 1 coat Olive & June Gel Polish Pink Goldfish *
  • Olive & June Gel Polish Top Coat *
  • Sinful Colors Bold Color
  • Essie Mint Candy Apple *
  • Essie Satin Sister
  • Butter London Coming Up Roses *
  • Nailstuff.ca Mermaid Tail 7mm liner brush
  • NailStuff.ca Dotting Tool 
  • China Glaze Fast Forward Top Coat

**gifted/PR

I think these are so just so pretty! I will say, the quick dry top coat I used (China Glaze Fast Forward Top Coat) did dry down in a way that made the nail art flowers almost look like 3D stickers — which I thought I was very cool. I’m curious what would have happened if I had used the Olive & June Gel Top Coat — & I might have to experiment to see what happens!

As I mentioned, I’m still so new to the world of gel, so I’m enjoying playing around with it.

What do you think of this little bit of nail art? Would you like to see me do a series or feature on nail art using only gel nail polishes? Let me know all your thoughts down in the comments below!

Happy Wednesday

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Outlined Glitter Jelly Nails

Hey lovelies, happy Wednesday!

Long time, no post. I’ll be honest — blogging has been really hard this month. Even wanting to do my nails has hit a road block. I’m still painting them, but I don’t necessarily have the energy to do nail art. Hoping once this month is over, I’ll feel super inspired again.

But I did manage to do a simple nail art look recently, so I’m excited to share it!

The polishes I used for this manicure are: 

  • Top Coat: Essie Gel Couture Top Coat 
  • Base Coat: China Glaze Calcium Gel Fortifier
  • Essie Love Sheen (Silk Watercolours collection)
  • Ardene Secret Diary
  • Quo by Orly Nail Art Striper in Black

I started off by creating a jelly sandwich using Essie Love Sheen & Ardene Secret Diary. Originally that had been my only plan for these nails. But the next day, I couldn’t help but thing that some black outlining would really up the dramatic factor of this manicure — & I was right!

I don’t do outlining often, mostly because it takes a very steady hand I don’t always posses. But I’m so super proud of how these turned out & how neatly I managed to outline them! & nothing makes me happier than a cleanly drawn manicure!

What do you think about my outline glitter sandwich nails? Are they dramatic & fun? Let me know all your thoughts down in the comments below!

& if you have some nail art inspiration you want to shoot my way, I’m always looking for new inspiration for my nails! & with this nail art block I’m going through, I’d love some help to break out of it!

Happy Wednesday loves

🖤

SWATCH SUNDAY — Olive & June Gel Polish XOXO & Pink Goldfish

PR/Gifted

Hello my lovelies & happy Sunday! May is very quickly speeding along — can you believe it? Summer is almost here.

Today I’m excited to share some more polishes I was recently gifted from Olive & June. They reached out to me about trying their Gel Polish system, & I said yes! While I don’t use gel polishes a lot, I’m always curious. They sent me a beautiful PR package with everything I could need to create a beautiful gel manicure, & I’m excited to share two shades with you (& a little review) today!

Products used for this manicure:

  • Olive & June qPeel Off Base Coat
  • Olive & June Gel Polish Base Coat
  • 2 coats Olive & June Gel Polish XOXO
  • 1 coat Olive & June Gel Polish Pink Goldfish
  • Olive & June Gel Polish Top Coat

I’m not well versed with gel polishes — it’s not my usual medium — but I will say I found this system easy to use. I used the provided peel off base coat for easy removal, & then followed directions.

The gel polish itself is pretty opaque. 2 coats of the pink polish XOXO, curing for the 2 minutes between each coat, & then I topped it with the shimmer Pink Goldfish. & then I finished it off with one coat of the Gel top coat.

You have no idea how many compliments I got on this colour! I’ll probably do a quick tutorial video the next time I go to apply this polish just to show how easy the whole system is to use.

The most important steps are cleaning up your cuticles, remembering to remove any oils from your nails with acetone, & making sure not to floor the sides with gel polish. For a first try, with this system I think I did awesome! & I can’t wait to try out all the colours they sent me a— maybe I’ll do a skittle look next!

I’m also so glad for the peel off base coat, because I HATE removing gel polish, so I love an easy removal option.

What do you think of these polishes from Olive & June’s Gel Polish line? Have you tried out their new system yet? Tell me all your thoughts down in the comments below.

🖤