Category: Sparkles

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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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Icing’s Peek a Blue.

Today I’ve got an older polish from the depth of my stash to share with you.

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This is Icing’s Peek A Blue, which is a sparkly blue polish that I picked up from Icing last summer. It was on clearance, so I managed so score it for a sweet $2.49 (it was regularly $5.00)

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Peek a Blue is a very, very sheer light blue polish scattered through out with slightly darker micro glitters. I’ve applied two coats of it over a two coats of Sinful Colors Be Happy, as it would take quite a few layers to make it even close to opaque. But because the base of Peek a Blue does have it’s only tinge of color, the base color of Be Happy doesn’t really change it much. It still very much looks like the polish in the bottle, even with layering it over another color.

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The second I saw this polish, I remember thinking I need that! And now I remember why. Even though it’s very sheer, it’s just beautiful on the nail.

Tomorrow I have some pretty nail art to share with you using Peek a Blue as my base color. =)

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Pretty in Pink gradient.

Sometimes I like my manicures complicated, and sometimes I just want something simple on my nails. These would definitely fall on the more simple end of the spectrum. After a couple days of super bright and colorful nails, I really wanted to rock a somewhat softer manicure. After browsing pinterest for an hour or so, I decided on a gradient as I haven’t done a (successful) one in a while. With my nails so short right now, I find it a lot harder to create gradient, if only because I don’t have the room to move around on my nails. But even though these are a very, very subtle gradient, I do love how they turned out. With my best friend’s wedding come up shortly, I’m going to need to figure out something to do–as I’m guessing super bright and colorful neon nails won’t work with her wedding plans haha.

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For this manicure the polishes I used were:

  • ACO by Ardene in Bridezilla — pale ivorny//off white base color.
  • Essence Love Letters Collection Rosy in Love — pales pink of the gradient.
  • ACO by Ardene in Kiss by a Rose — darkest pink of the gradient.
  • QUO by Orly in Sugar Cookie — pale glitter on each nail.
  • Sally Hansen Diamond Flash top coat.

Oh man, I wish you could see the beauty that is Sugar Cookie, but sadly my camera just didn’t want to capture it. It was part of the Quo by Orly holiday mini-collection that my boyfriend got me for Christmas, and I’ve yet to find a manicure to pair it with. It’s really sheer, so it’s unfortunately impossible to wear on it’s own (it would take about 15 coats to get it opaque), but I love the look of it. So pretty!

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Killing it in Killing Red by Layla.

I think I’ve mentioned before that I used to be completely obsessed with red nail polish. I went a good year and a half almost exclusively painting my nails some shade of red. (This was circa 2004-2005 when all the celebrities of young Hollywood–Mary-Kate Olsen, Nicole Richie, ect–were rocking bright red nails.) Now a days, I don’t wear red quite as often (except as a pedicure), but I do love to throw back to a classic every once in a while.

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For this manicure, the polishes I grabbed were:

  • Mariposa Mini polish in red.
  • Layla Ceramic Effect in shade 53 (which, I saw somewhere was called Killing Red.)

I applied a base color of the Mariposa, because I knew from experience that the Layla takes quite a few coats to cover. This Mariposa polish is a red jelly. I’ve never used it before–I grabbed it on a whim–but I must say it has beautiful application, even if there is still visible nail nail with it on it’s own. Next, I applied two coats of Layla 53–Killing Red, to get a full application of the flakies over my nail. Oh my god I love this polish. It’s such a step above your basic red. I finished it all off with a coat of Essence Gel-Look Top Coat, followed by Essence Nail Art Express Dry Drops. When that was dry, I finished with a coat of Icing’s “It’s a Matte World” Matte top coat.

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Such a gorgeous combination. Makes me remember exactly why I use to love wearing red nail polish so much. But it isn’t until you capture it with no flash that you can really see it’s true beauty.

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Can you see those beautiful golden flakies swimming in this red polish? I didn’t have the best natural light inside for taking pictures, but they still come through.

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I legit cant stop staring at my nails, especially in the sunshine. It’s making me realize I’m going to have to go out and get more Layla polishes. All the ones I have used already have all been winners, and they have such an awesome selection! First on my list is going to be some of their holographic polishes. I’ve seen swatches of them online, and I have to have all of them!

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Simple Nails: purple & gold.

Sometimes I just don’t have time to get complicated with my manicures, for whatever reason. After rocking my Spiderman nails for two days, I needed to paint something new, but I was feeling under the weather so I had to come up with something quick, but still pretty.

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The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • ACO by Ardene in Sea of Beauty — my gorgeous base color.
  • Layla in Golden Touch (from the soft touch collection) — golden shimmer.
  • Essence Gel-look Top Coat.

Oh man, I love the combination of these two together! Sea of Beauty is just the most perfect blue ever. And Golden Touch is one of my favorite polishes to layer over other polishes. It just jazzes up a manicure, and adds a nice shimmer. Love!

Also, you can see from my ring finger, I’m still having trouble with my Essence top coat–even though I applied the quick dry drops over the top coat, it obviously didn’t dry soon enough for me not to nick my nails. It makes me sad, because the top coat has excellent lasting potential–a good two days with no chipping, which for me is awesome since I work in retail and use my hands for 8 hours a day. =(