Tag: China Glaze

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SWATCH SUNDAY—China Glaze Cast A Spell

Happy Sunday everyone! Hope you’re not too hung over from whatever Halloween shenanigans you got up to this weekend! (& hey candy bar hangovers count too!) I thought for Swatch Sunday this week, I would delve deep into my stash & grab a Halloween shade to share with you! 

This is China Glaze Cast A Spell which the internet tells is from the 2012 Wicked collection. I picked up my bottle a year or two ago in a clearance bin at Chatters—one of my favourite places to find lost polish treasures—so it’s relatively new to me. 

Cast A Spell is a blacky green thickly packed full of golden flecks of shimmer. The formula was fantastic, & it applied in two super easy coats. It’s one of those shades that glows on the nail, & I can see why it would be part of a Halloween polish collection—it’s the perfect shade for the modern Witch who cares about her mani while out casting her spells or buying eye of newt from her local Trader Joes. 

Seriously though, this polish is gorgeous. I only own a few Halloween shades in my extensive stash, & I think 90% of them are from past China Glaze collections. They just do extremely well when it comes to Halloween collections & you can’t help but just love them. Cast A Spell is outside my usual polish comfort zone colour wise, but there is just something about it that makes me not want to take it off. It’s a great Autumn shade that I don’t think exclusively needs to be kept for Halloween night. 

& for fun I added some pumpkin stickers I purchased at the Dollar Store on vacation for an instant accent nail! 🎃


Do you have a favourite Halloween polish/collection either from this year or years prior? Let me know in the comments below!

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Saran Wrap Smoosh Nails

I don’t do a lot of Saran Wrap smoosh nails, mostly because I find them fairly messy (& I ran out of liquid latex & I’m being lazy in replacing it). But every time I see one pop up on my Instagram feed I tell myself I need this technique in my life again. They just always look so cool! I’ve been struggling with inspiration lately, so I decided to risk the messy clean up & do a smoosh. 

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: OPI Natural Nail Base Coat
  • Top Coat: Cutex Quick Dry Top Coat 
  • Essie Cocktails & Coconuts
  • China Glaze VII
  • Quo by ORLY Fairy Godmother
  • Saran Wrap, or plastic bag of some sort. 

If you’ve never done a Saran Wrap smoosh, there are lots of tutorials on the internet (this one from @snowglobenails is great). From my expirence, I find sometimes they can take a few tries before you figure out what works for you, but for me less is more.  I prefer to use maximum 3 shades together, otherwise I find my nails can end up looking kind of swampy. & I also try not to push blend colours too much when pressing down on my plastic. 

What’s your thoughts on smooshy nails? Do you have a favourite colour combination? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below! 

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Dripping Blood French Featuring URSugar Vinyls


Ready for some more Halloween inspired nails? Today I have what I’m calling a dripping blood “French” Manicure that has just the right amount of scary & sparkles—which is just how I like my Halloween designs! 

The few times I’ve tried to do a dripping design, I’ve always done it using a dotting tool (which isn’t always easy to accomplish the right look.) These drippy nails were made much easier by using URSugar Vinyls which were kindly sent to me for review. 

For this manicure, the polishes used were:

  • Base Coat: OPI Natural Nail Base Coat
  • Top Coat: Cutex Quick Dry Top Coat
  • Gosh Holographic Hero
  • China Glaze Ruby Pumps
  • URSugar Drip Nail Vinyls item #AUB39877 —click to buy. 

These URSugar vinyls are great for a design like this. You have two options—you can paint your nails a base shade & apply the stencils & paint over with a second shade, pull off & reveal or you can use the other half to paint inside (like a stencil). I find the second option works best for a design like this, done at the tip of your nails. 

What do you think of this Halloween-y take on a French manicure? Would you wear this design? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below! 

*PR SAMPLE* Some of these items were sent to me for review. However, all opinions are my own. 

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Geometric stamping over Sally Hansen Mermaid’s Tale 

Yesterday I featured a swatch of Sally Hansen CSM in Mermaid’s Tale–a beautiful teal jelly glitter shade. Today I have the mani I did using that shade as my base colour! I’ve really had a lot of fun getting into stamping, & practicing, so I decided to try stamping a pattern over the glitter. I knew black wouldn’t show up over such a dark base, so I decided to grab something fun & bright (Turquoise) & the end result turned out perfect. 

For this manicure, the polishes used were:

  • Base Coat: Finger Paints Peel Off Base Coat for Glitter
  • Top Coat: Cutex Quick Dry Top Coat
  • Essie Under the Twilight 
  • Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Mermaid’s Tale
  • China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise
  • Born Pretty Store Clear Jelly Stamper item #24059
  • Older Born Pretty Stamping Plate that’s no longer available — this plate contains the same image. 

Can I just say how impressed I am with how well Turned Up Turquoise stamps? I was shocked with how opaque it was on the nail, especially over such a dark base colour. I wasn’t sure how it was going to look, but it turned out awesome! I always find myself so drawn to dark shades in the Fall months, but the pop of colour over top works well for a transitional manicure–just enough of Summer & just enough of Fall, all in one design. 


What do you think of this stamping? What polishes do you love for stamping? Share all your secrets in the comments below! I’m going to be ordering a bunch of new stamping plates (especially Halloween/Christmas themed plates) in the next couple days so I’m looking for all the best stamping polishes for playing. 

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31 Day Nail Art Challenge — Day 6: Violet Nails

I love purple.

You have no idea how much I was looking forward to the violet prompt for the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge. Purple has always been my favorite color–I even had purple hair years ago! So I was super excited when Day 6 rolled around. The only hard part was trying to decide which polishes to use, and what design I wanted to try. After obsessively browsing my favorite nail art blogs for a couple of hours, I finally decided to go with Chalkboard Nails Distressed nails. It’s been on my to-try list for a while, but I’d never given it a go. I’m glad I did though! These turned out better than I imagined, and I had so many random compliments on them!

Violetnails

The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • China Glaze’s What a Pansy — Purple Base & some strokes.
  • OPI’s  My Boyfriend Scales Walls — White base & some strokes.
  • Sally Hansen Complete Salon manicure in I love you — light purple strokes.
  • ACO by Ardene Forever Young — medium purple strokes.
  • Essence “Beauty Beats” collection in Baby, Baby, Ooooh — Darkest purple strokes.
  • Sally Hansen Diamond Flash top coat.

It’s hard to distinguish between the different shades of purple with just a picture, but on the nail in person it was striking. I feel like the darker purple base turned out better than the white base. I will definitely have to try this look again, with different colors. I also feel, it’s a nice (less messy) alternative to the paint splatter manicure–which I also want to try, but will definitely need more than a couple extra hours just for clean up.