Category: Sparkles

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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!

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My Nails & My Cup — Holo Gradient Nails

Are you guys sick of the holo yet? I certainly hope not because I have another mani to share–this time I created a Holo gradient to match my new-ish tumbler that I picked up at Claire’s on clearance for $2. It came with cute little manicure tools inside, so I had to have it!

I posted on Instagram the other day what nail art I should do on my naked nails, while holding the above cup, & received an overwhelming amount of responses saying I should match my cup… so that’s what I decided to do!

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Sally Hansen Green Tea & Bamboo Strengthener
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • China Glaze BFF
  • Color Club Eternal Beauty
  • China Glaze 2Nite
  • Quo by ORLY Falling Star
  • Latex free make up sponge
  • Creating the holo gradient may have been one of the easiest gradients I’ve ever done! I don’t know if it’s the sparkle or formula or what, but I was as to sponge on each colour separately (which kept from making a big old mess around my cuticles) & they blended together seamlessly!
  • I know the cup has a whole bunch of rhinestones, but I definitely did not have enough on hand to apply to my fingers (or enough colours that would match) so I decided a couple coats of a scattered holo top coat could give a similar look, so I grabbed Quo by Orly Falling Star because I find the glitters larger than some of my other holo toppers (like China Glaze Fairy Dust). Gave off just enough extra sparkle on the nail without being distracting!

    • so what do you think of the holo gradient? Which colour combination do you think I should try out next? Share your thoughts down in the comments below!

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    Pink Drag Marble with Gold Glitter

    Hello lovelies & Happy Tuesday! Hope everyone is recovering from the time change this past weekend. I’m currently trying to recover from another fantastic cold, but I did manage to get my nails done before it struck me down this weekend! & it was so exciting to play around on my nails.

    & what was I feeling? A drag marble. & oh boy was I rusty!

    The polishes I used for this manicure:

    • Base Coat: OPI Nail Envy
    • Top Coat: Essie Speed Setter
    • Ardene ACO Dashing
    • Ardene ACO Road to Nowhere
    • Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Black Heart
    • Sinful Colors Twilight Twinkles
    • Nailstuff.ca dotting tool

    It’s been forever since I attempted any kind of drag marble design & my base shade (Ardene Dashing) was a little too quick drying which added some difficulty to my look. But the more I look at this design, the more it’s grown on me. I added a bit of gold glitter flakes which I’m not sure if it added to the design, but I was a little haphazard with my placement.

    & my favourite nails? My thumb & my pinky. The design on both definitely turned out be best. As you can see, the swirl on my thumb looked just perfect. If only every nail had turned out this amazing.

    What do you think of this look? Which nail do you think turned out best? Which colour combo do you think I should try next?

    Share you thoughts down in the comments below!

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    {Yet Another} Spring Floral

    Good morning lovelies & happy Wednesday. Hopefully wherever you are right now it’s feeling like Spring is around the corner. Here in Halifax, sadly, it seems like Winter has finally hit & it’s been bitterly cold. So naturally that means it’s time for floral! Seriously, anytime I remember that it’s still winter, I just have to create some floral nails again.

    Today’s nail art look was done while watching the Oscars on Sunday night & inspired by the Valentino dress worn by Keira Knightley in 2015. I remember wanting to create Nails inspired by that gorgeous dress 4 years ago… but you know, I always get distracted haha. So I decided while watching this year’s show that it was finally time.

    For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

    • Base Coat: OPI Nail Envy
    • Top Coat: Essie Speed Setter
    • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel In the Sheer
    • Sally Hansen MG Make It N-Ice
    • China Glaze Life Is Rosy
    • Sally Hansen MG Orchid-ing Around
    • Essie Play Date
    • Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Trouble Maker
    • Sally Hansen MG Sugar Rush
    • Sally Hansen MG Just Maui’d
    • China Glaze Metro Pollen-tin
    • Sally Hansen I ♥️ Nail Art pen in green
    • Essie Off Tropic

    I’ll be honest–I used so many polishes, that I probably forgot some. But that’s the gist of what I used. I always use a ton of polishes when feeehanding my floral & I never think to write all of them down. Maybe someday I’ll remember.

    I really love how this turned out, especially over the light almost nude base (with hint of holo.) A little pop of colour.

    what do you think of this design? Who else is craving Spring weather hardcore? Ooooooh dreaming of maxi dresses & jean jackets & counting down the days (weeks… months…)

    💗

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    SWATCH SUNDAY— Crafting a Layered Green Holo

    Happy Swatch Sunday lovelies!

    Today is a bit of a different post for me–instead of featuring single polishes on their own today, I’m showing off 3 polishes layered together to create one amazing look!

    I’ve been really loving layering polishes together–it’s similar to creating franken shades only instead of mixing everything together, your layering one on top of another. Obviously this could only really work with layering more sheer shades over more opaque ones (which works well with a lot of the Layla Cosmetics hologram effect polishes I own.)

    For this particular look I started with 2 base coats of Essie Turquoise & Caicos & then layered a coat of Layla Cosmetics Jade Groove over top. I’ve worn this Holo on its own but found it didn’t have enough of a green/mint pop to it on the nail. By adding some undies, it really showed off the colour I wanted. & then, because I’m absolutely Holo obsessed right now I finished off with a layer of Quo by ORLY Trash Glam (aka. ORLY Sparkling Garbage for my non-Canadian friends!) The end result is a whole lot of holo happening on the nail.

    Seriously, this is a distracting amount of sparkle happening on the nail. In the sunshine, it was actually incredible how many rainbows you could see.

    I love how you get the linear holo from Jade Groove but then the scattered holo from Trash Glam picks up the light too & it’s absolutely memorizing! I definitely need to find a linear holo top coat so I can transform every polish I own into a Holo Polish too! Let me know what your favourite ones are!

    I hope everyone had an amazing Sunday. 💚✨