Category: Purple Nails

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Favorite Polishes: Bizzare Blurple.

I’ve been trying to make an effort to go through my stash, and wear polishes I don’t wear as often. Sometimes I get a little too excited about new polishes, and forget about my old favorites.

bizarreblurple

This is Bizarre Blurple, but China Glaze. It’s a darker purple base color, filled with itty bitty blue micro glitters. I’ll be honest, I bought this polish just because of the awesomeness of the name. I got it on a 3/15 clearance sale at the Chatters by my work in the beginning of the year, the same time I picked up my bottle of OPI’s My Boyfriend Scales Walls. I needed to grab two more polishes for the deal, and when I saw the name I was like “Yep! Mine!” However, the second I put it on my nails I realized just how beautiful this polish was. I’m a sucker for purple and blue polishes, and this is the best of both worlds!

It also makes a great base for nail art.

bizarreblurple2

The above manicure is from back in January, when I first picked up this polish. You can see the blue micro-glitters a little bit better in the flash. Just looking at this old picture makes me remember why I love it so much. Different lighting just changes it so much.

Have you ever bought a polish based strictly on its name? I have to admit–not the first time I’ve had to have a polish because the name was just too perfect. God, if I could get a job naming polishes, I would be set!

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#HePicksMyPolish — Floral edition.

I’m lucky, as I have a boyfriend who can put up with the fact I own so much polish,–a collection that just keeps on growing! I’m also lucky because every so often I give him the responsibility of picking my polishes when I can’t, or don’t, feel like doing it myself, and he’s always a good sport about it. A couple months ago, I read about the #hepicksmypolish challenge, and thought it was an awesome idea. So I sat him down, made him pick three colors, and created a manicure from them. I hadn’t done that in a while, so I figured another round of #hepicksmypolish was in order.

hepicksfloral

For this manicure, the boyfriend picked the following polishes:

  • Maripose Nail Polish with no name — the teal base color.
  • Essie in The Lace is On — purple pedals of my flowers.
  • OPI in You’re So Flippy Floppy (from the OPI Brazil collection mini sandies) –Yellow middles of my flowers.

He didn’t really go through all of my polishes to find these–he chose them all from my mini’s drawer. I don’t know what it is, but he always picks a purple and yellow combination for me. The second I saw these three colors, I knew I was doing a floral! Haha. And I do love how they turned it–they kind of remind me of the 60ies, and Andy Warhol.

I ended up adding my Icing It’s a Matte World top coat, which I feel just upped this floral to a whole other level.

hepicksfloral3

Have you ever let your significant other chose your nail polish/or what you should paint on your nails? I keep trying to convince him he should actually paint my nails, but he hasn’t agreed to it… yet. Maybe someday haha.

 

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Essence Gel-look top coat: the good, the bad, and the bumpy.

So because I ran out of my Sally Hansen Diamond Flash top coat, I figured there was no time like the present to test out a new top coat. I picked up Essence brand Gel-look top coat from Shoppers the other night, along with Essence brand Express Dry Drops (which I’ll review at another time) and was curious to see how it was.

I’ve read some seriously mixed reviews on this top coat. Of course, I didn’t read them until after I had bought it. Never the less, it was only $2.99 at Shoppers Drug Mart, so the price was definitely right. Because I paint my nails so often, I go through a lot of top coat so it can get pricey. A cheaper, but good quality, top coat would be much appreciated, and Essence does make some lovely polishes.

Everyone complains about how long the dry time on this top coat is, so I made sure to paint my nails a little while before bed, and to fall asleep with my hands outside the blankets (just in case). It felt dry to the light touch so I figured I would be fine.

Yeah, not so much.

geltopcoat geltopcoat2

Sheet marks. Lots of sheet marks. You can see how lovely the shine is on a couple of my nails–the ones that didn’t get dinged, but the majority of them were left textured because they were not quite dry before I fell asleep apparently. It was kind of disappointed, because I almost always paint my nails before bed so I need a top coat that isn’t going to take forever to dry. =( However, I do have those Express Dry Drops to try out, and I’m interested to see how the two will work together.

However, I did fix up my manicure with a very thin layer of Sally Hansen Diamond Flash from the bottle of a bottle I forgot I had. It definitely smoothed them out so I could show off the lovely sparkle of my moon manicure.

geltopcoat3

Just in case you’re interested, I used Sinful Colors in Forget Now as my base, and LA Girl in Groupie for the purple. They just go so perfectly together.

 

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Crazy for Dots.

My brand new dotting tool set I ordered last month finally arrived last week, and I couldn’t be more excited. I already had a single dotting tool that I bought at Shoppers last year (Essence brand) but it’s had better days. Plus, I only had the one size so it restricted my dot options to two sizes.

dottingtool

I scored these beauties on Amazon.ca for $1.96. (I also scored some new small detail brushes as well, which haven’t arrived yet.)

It took a while for them to arrive, but once they did I couldn’t wait to try they out! I just needed to figure out what was the first design I wanted to do! It was getting a little late when I started these, so I figure I a funky dotticure was the perfect solution.

dots

The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • Cherimoya nail polish in Dulce de Leche (from the “Make You Melt” Petite collection.) — base color.
  • Essie in The Lace is On — Dark purple dots.
  • Garage brand nail polish — the light pink dots. (No name on this one.)
  • LA Girl Quick Dry Top Coat.

Even though it’s a simple mani, I really like how it turned out on the nail. I really am crazy for dots.

The only disappointment was a I banged my finger in the morning getting ready for the gym, and broke the nail on my pointer finger so I had to file down the rest of my nails so they were all the same length (and go through work with a slight chip to the polish all day). Then I ended up hitting my hand at work, breaking the edge of my thumb nail! So my nails are super short again. I’m a sad girl.

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31 Day Nail Art Challenge — Day 20: Water Marble.

Okay, so I can’t water marble.

I can’t do it. I don’t know how people can create such beautiful water marble manicures, but I am not one of them. However, I didn’t want to not have anything to show for day 20–except a whole bunch of failure–so I looked up “water marble without water” in google, and what did it lead me to? A dry “water marble” technique. Score! So it’s not your typical water marbled nails, but it was something I could actually accomplish so I figured that was better than nothing!

(If you’re interested, I used this youtube tutorial by cutepolish.)

drywatermarble

The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • Revlon polish in Minted–mint green polish.
  • China Glaze in What a Pansy!–purple polish.
  • OPI in My Boyfriend Scales Walls–white polish.
  • ACO by Ardene in Sea of Beauty–baby blue polish.
  • ACO by Ardene in Kiss from a Rose–pink polish.
  • Sally Hansen Diamond Flash Top Coat.

Even though I couldn’t do a proper water marble, I LOVE these. They spring color combination pops on the nail, and I just love the swirls. Even though I only did it on two accent nails for this manicure, I think it would love amazing all on my nails, and I will definitely be trying it again so I can play with it more (and with more color combinations).

 

 

 

Also, I’ve been thinking about this challenge, and I have to admit I’ve started to feel a little confined by it. I started it so I would have inspiration, but lately I feel like it’s restricting the manicures I want to do. There is SO much inspiration out there, and so many manicures I really want to try! I still want to finish the challenge, and not be a quitter, but I think I will be spreading it out with some other manicure ideas. Especially as my brand new dotting tool set just arrived, and I’ve yet to be able to really play with it, and it’s begging me to do some awesome floral nail art!