Category: Sally Hansen

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Pacific Blue (the original!) and a little subtle shimmer.

So as most people have probably heard, Sally Hansen decided a little while ago to change Pacific Blue, taking it from a beautiful creamy blue to a less appealing darker shimmery blue. I was not very impressed when I heard the news (as most people weren’t) because Pacific Blue is one of my all time favorite blue polishes! I’ve been on the look out to see if I could find any of the old bottles, but wasn’t having the best luck. However, I got lucky the other day when I visited my local Shoppers–they had a whole display with the old formula of Pacific Blue, so naturally I had to stock up on this beauty!

In honor of finding my beloved Pacific Blue, I decided to do a manicure featuring it. Originally I wanted to use striping tape to create triangle accent nails, but after getting way to frustrated I gave up on the striping tape and decided to create freehand mosaic accent nails. Someday I’ll manage to get the hand of striping tape, I just guess that today is not going to be that day.

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The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pacific Blue — blue.
  • Essence Beach Cruisers Girls Just Wanna Have Sun! — Coral.
  • Essence Beach Cruisers Keep Calm and Go to the Beach! — Teal.
  • ACO by Ardene Kiss From a Rose — Pink.
  • Vernis Classique by Cherimoya Black — black outline.
  • Quo by ORLY Glitter Pink Matte Top Coat.
  • Essie Go to Go Top Coat.

God, I really love this blue. As soon as I came home, I put it on my toes. My old bottle was beginning to get goopy from over use, so I was really sad thinking I’d never get to wear this polish again. I also added some shimmer to my manicure in the form of Quo’s Matte Pink Glitter Top Coat so it would qualify for the OMD Nail Art challenge. I ended up adding top coat over the sparkle, just to bring it out a little more. Maybe it’s not as BAM! IN YOUR FACE! as some shimmery manicures, but I like the subtle quality of it. Plus it looks amazing over Pacific Blue so it’s a definite win for me.

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Coral stripes & my first real striping tape manicure.

When I first read about the OMD Nail Art Challenge for this month I got excited. Even though my first attempt at the 30 Day Nail Art challenge kind of crashed and burned, I wanted another attempt at accomplishing a challenge. What I like about this challenge is you don’t have to do it every day. That makes it easier when I want to be able to do something other than the prompt.

 

Today’s prompt was Coral. As you have seen, I love coral. And I own a lot of coral nail polishes. I also really wanted to attempt something with the striping tape I received for my birthday last year. I’ve played around with it a little bit, but never accomplished a full manicure. So this was my first real attempt using it.

coralstripes

The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • Sinful Colors Easy Going — creambase color.
  • Quo by ORLY Sugar Cookie — cream base color.
  • Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Coral Reef — stripes.
  • Sinful Colors Island Coral — stripes.
  • Rimmel Salon Pro Reggae Splash — stripes.
  • Essie Go to Go Top Coat.

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For a first attempt with striping tape, I’m really happy with the outcome. The lines are definitely cleaner than when I freehand my lines, and I like that I could create thicker lines easier. Of course, it did take much longer to do my nails than it usually does, but that was mostly cutting and applying the tape, and then taking the time to pull it off. But I can definitely see myself using it again.

So what do you think of these coral stripes? I think it’s a great Summer manicure, even though I’m going to spend the majority of my day cleaning and organizing my closet and purging old clothing I never wear. Not the most glamorous way to spend my day off, but it is a great excuse to play dress up! =)

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‘Tis the season… for prom nails.

Tis the season for Prom. I’m long past my prom years, but my old neighbour I used to babysit is attending her grade 9 grad this year, which is pretty much a mini prom for those graduating to high school. It’s also a very big deal to them, almost as much as prom is to high school seniors. So when she asked me to do her nails for the big dance, I was more than honored. Her dress was lime green with sparkles, so I went with that theme.

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I did a glitter gradient at the bottom of her nails, with an accent nail of pure sparkle. (I also did her toes to match with a glitter gradient.) Her dress has a whole lot of glitter and sparkle going on, so we wanted to do something that would match. These are going to look awesome when the lights at the dance hit them! Just like a disco ball!

The polishes I used for her nails were:

  • Pure Ice Wild Thing
  • Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Celeb City
  • Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Ice Pop
  • NOPI Inner Sparkle.
  • Color Club Platinum Record.
  • OPI I Snow You Love Me.
  • Essie Good to Go Top Coat.

Continue reading “‘Tis the season… for prom nails.”

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Bestie Twin Summer Nails.

I’ve always wanted the chance to do Best Twin Nails with someone before, so I was excited that my coworker and favorite nail art buddy agreed to do twin nails with me, especially since she’s leaving us later this week.

palmtress

Since it’s finally officially Summer, I suggested something tropical. We decided to go with a gradient on the accent fingers, with palm trees. I really wanted to get a picture of our nails together, but we totally forgot to!  Thankfully though, she sent me this picture with the caption “for your blog!” so I could share with everyone our cute bestie nails.

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For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • ACO by Ardene Purple Rain — thumb & gradient (purple) .
  • Essie We’re in this Together — pointer (pink).
  • ACO by Ardene Lights, Camera, Action — pointer (glitter).
  • ACO by Ardene Sea of Beauty — gradient (blue).
  • LA Colors Color Craze Palm Tree — gradient (green)
  • China Glaze Metro Pollen-tin — gradient (yellow)
  • Sinful Colors Island Coral — pinky & gradient (coral).
  • Cherimoya Black — palm tree.
  • Sally Hansen Diamond Flash top coat.

I thought this was a super cute design for the second day of Summer. It was really fun to have matching nails with my favorite nail art buddy. I’m really going to miss her when she leaves us, and I hope she’ll still have nail art chats with me, and we can do bestie twin nails again.  =)

 

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So what do you think of these summery nails?

Have you ever done Bestie Twin nails with anyone?

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A Peek into my Stash — Part One.

Warning: this post is going to be VERY picture heavy.

So I’ve been thinking for a while of going through my polishes, and actually documenting what I own. With it all packed away in it’s storage unit, something I forget what polishes I actually have. When I saw Confession of a Nail Polish Addict‘s pictures of her own stash, I was inspired to take the work to document my own. I’m going to be breaking it up into a couple posts, just because it would take a crazy long time to take pictures of everything, and then put them in all one post (that would be a lot of pictures!) So instead I’m going by my drawers — today we have the bottom two drawers of my storage uni.

So without further ado, here is part one of my stash post. =)

Continue reading “A Peek into my Stash — Part One.”