SWATCH SUNDAY — SpaRitual Open Minded

Hello lovelies & happy Sunday! Can you believe we’re almost done with November? This has definitely been a blink & it’s over kind of year — but I’m definitely excited to get my Christmas nail art on!

Today’s Swatch Sunday pick a brand new (to me) brand: SpaRitual Open Minded. I was at Marshall’s the other day & checking out the clearance section, as always, when I saw this beautiful blurple looking shade. I knew I needed it in my life, especially as I didn’t own any SpaRitual shades in my stash, so I added into my cart! I scored this polish for $4 on clearance, regular Marshall’s price was $4.99.

2 coats, no top coat.

According to the SpaRitual website: “Our Nourishing Vegan Nail Colors are vegan, cruelty-free and clean. Our colors are formulated without 13 harmful chemicals and are 1-step, no need for base coat or top coat.” I’ve never tried their polishes before, so I was excited to see how this shade would hold up.

For my swatches I needed two coats for full opacity. The first coat was definitely patchy & streaky — the formula itself is almost crelly like, leaning more towards the cream side. The second coat gave the application you see down below — perfect opaque coverage, no streakiness.

The colour itself is really vibrant & striking. The SpaRitual site describes it as a cobalt blue, but I feel like it does lean a little purple which is why I’d call it almost blurple. Over all, I’m quite impressed with this shade, & my first experiences with SpaRitual in general. I’ve also been wearing this shade since Thursday, & it’s still holding up with minimal tip wear, even after two very busy days at work.

I’m interested to see how easily removal will go with this shade. Blues can sometimes be tricky, so hopefully we’ll have no issues!

What do you think about this beautiful SpaRitual shade? Do you have any experience with this brand?

I will definitely be searching out more of these shades whenever I see them at my local Winners/Marshalls. The price can’t be beat, the lasting quality has been awesome, & I would love to try out more colours in their range!

Have a lovely Sunday!

SWATCH SUNDAY — OPI Ink

Hello lovelies & happy Sunday… The first Sunday of November!

I’m not quite ready to start thinking about holiday polishes yet—although I’ve been tempted—so I thought I would delve into my stash & pull out an untried. Todays pick is OPI Ink, which I scored on a serious deal at my local Lawton’s.

2 coats + Seche Vive Top Coat

According to my Google research, Ink was originally released as part of the 2007 Night Brights collection. It has since become part of the permanent core collection.

The polish is a deep blue shimmer with a multitude of purple & blue micro flakie glitters. It’s very densely packed, which means 2 coats of polish easily covers the nail. There is also a beautiful shift that shows blue or purple, depending on how you move your nail.

You can really really see the glass fleck glitters in a macro shot. It looks really beautiful. Also you can really see the beautiful shift — it’s a stunning polish for sure!

You can OPI Ink (pretty much) anywhere OPI nail polish is sold, both in regular formula as well as the gel formula. A few places I’ve found online which have it in stock are:

What do you think about this beautiful OPI shade? Do you have OPI Ink in your nail polish stash? Let me know all your thoughts down in the comments below!

Glam Nails Challenge October — Skull 💀

Hello lovelies & happy Monday! Today we’re getting into the spooky season with this month’s GlamNailsChallenge: skull ☠️ .

Now that it’s October I feel like I can finally really start getting into the Halloween nail art looks. & it also means that I can finally use a brand new stamping plate I recently bought via NailPolishCanada.

The polishes I used for this manicure are: 

First off, I can’t believe this is my first time using one of the Color Club stamping plates — they stamp amazing! I was super impressed with how easily I picked up the image & applied it to my nails. It was a very speedy experience, which was way faster than how stamping usually goes for me. Originally I had only planned on an accent nail or two, but everything applied so easily that I just kept going, & got all 10 fingers stamped in like 15 minutes.

Second, I love how lovely the silver is over the purple. A nice spooky skull design, perfect for my first Halloween look of October!

What do you think about this skull design? Are you excited for Halloween designs? Let me know all your thoughts down in the comments below, & what Halloween designs you plan on doing this month!

SWATCH SUNDAY — Wet N Wild Buffy the Violet Slayer

Hello lovelies & happy Sunday! The first Sunday of October… aka the beginning of Spooky season, aka my favourite Month! Who else is excited?

Today I’m starting off with a fun polish that I’ve had for years, that I can’t believe I haven’t shared for a Swatch Sunday yet: Wet n Wild Buffy the Violet Slayer. I’ve been rewatching Buffy (yes, again) so it felt like an appropriate shade to share, especially at the beginning of Halloween month.

2 coats + Seche Vive top coat

For a bottle of polish that is 8 years old, the formula on this shade is pretty darn good. The polish itself has that shimmer that can sometimes be hard to apply without streaks, but applying top coat flattened everything beautifully.

As for the colour, it’s a lovely — the purple is vibrant, & the shimmer adds a little something extra that gives it a beautiful underlying glow. Without top coat, it dries down to a matte finish, but I think I prefer it with a glossy finish.

Check out that macro shot — you can really see the varied shimmers. Pink. Blue. Purple. They’re such a beautiful combination, & gives the shade that glow that I’m kind of obsessed with.

Sadly these shades are no longer in production, which makes me sad I didn’t at least pick up a back up bottle. I love purple, & I love Buffy, so this is the perfect combination for me! It also works great for a pre-Halloween polish pick.

What do you think about this Wet N Wild shade? Did you pick up any of these Fast Dry shades during their original release? Let me know down in the comments below!

Purple Metallic French Tips

Hello lovelies & happy Monday… it’s been a while! Sorry for my bit of an absence—this last couple weeks have been a little crazy, & I was trying to accomplish too many things at once, & my head ended up not in a great place. So I decided to pause doing the challenge for this month, & take a little breather.

I did miss posting my nails though.

I did these easy metallic French tips last week, when I needed an easy to do look. I used to love French manicures circa 2002 — inspired by Kaley Cuoco on 10 Rules… who always rocked a classic French manicure on the show. The classic French still remains too boring for me now (sorry) but I have been loving the updated versions I’ve been seeing on Instagram, so I wanted to try them myself! Of course, we had to give it an updated Fall feel.

& easiest part was no tools needed.

The polishes I used for this manicure are: 

  • Base Coat: Essie First Base
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • Essence Arabian Nights
  • Zoya Devin

Oh man, long nails look so good with these kinds of designs. This was pre-me breaking a few nails last week & needing to trim my claws back. I really adore how this looks so I’ll definitely be doing it again in a variety of colours when I need an easy go to nail art look — a nice change from my usual dotticure. & again, this look was so so easy to do, with no tools needed. I just carefully used the brush from Zoya Devin & ran it along the tip of my nail ever so carefully.

Of course, if you were feeling uneasy about trying to freehand this look, you could definitely use French tip guides, or my favourite: paper hole reinforcers.

What do you think about this nail art look? What are your feelings on this new version of the French manicure? Let me know all your thoughts down in the comments below, & which colour scheme you would love to see next!