Festive Glitter Gradient ✨🎄

Good morning lovelies & happy Thursday! & happy Christmas Eve Eve. I hope everyone is ready for their holidays, & for those still working long hours & not sure how they’re going to be ready — I feel you! Hopefully everyone is also staying safe with everything quickly changing in the world.

I said I was dedicated to 5 nail art looks this week in preparation for Christmas, & I wasn’t lying! Today is day four, & I went with a classic look that I do some incarceration of every year: a Christmas glitter gradient. Last year’s was very similar to this years, but that’s okay! When you find a classic that works for you, you go with it! (Plus my nails are so much longer this year!)

The polishes I used for this manicure are: 

  • Base Coat: Essie First Base
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • Icing Emerald City
  • Icing Tis The Season

Hello Christmas sparkle! I was actually going to use my other Christmas-y glitter from Icing, Santa Baby, but unfortunately it’s on the goopier side, so I decided to go with my other very Christmas-y glitter for this look. I’ve mentioned before how I love the speed & ease of a glitter gradient, plus the versatility, so I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of them.

What do you think about my glitter gradient? Do you like this years version, or last year’s shorty version? Let me know what nail art design/style you repeat year after year & never get tired of!

Vampy Half Moons

Hello lovelies & happy Wednesday! It’s a snowy Wednesday here in Halifax, which is the first snow of the season for us. Not a lot of snow, granted, but just enough to get those toasty holiday vibes swirling. & my kids were so excited for it this morning. The walk to school was definitely interesting, haha.

Today I’m sharing a design style I haven’t in a while: half moons. These have been a go to classic for me since I first fell in love with nail art, but sometimes with all the other awesome nail art designs I love to do, I forget about this classic look. I was wearing a beautiful fun red last week, & decided I wanted to do some kind of half moon look with it, so I grabbed another shade from the same collection (Sally Hansen 2018 Decadence collection) & paired them in a fun vampy design.

The polishes I used for this manicure are: 

  • Base Coat: Essie First Base
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Good Cheer-y
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Garnish Attention
  • Paper hole reinforcements

As I mentioned, this is a favourite easy nail art look of mine. & a great beginner nail art technique! I feel like if you’re new to nail art, this is the perfect way to get fancy nails, without too much hassle. The hardest thing is always just waiting to make sure your base shade is dry enough (which I’m super guilty of being impatient, so definitely make sure you wait!)

This colour combination is beautiful, & I like that it’s not too Christmas-y, although you could definitely swap one of the shades out for a glittery gold, & bam! Christmas party ready.

What do you think about these vampy half moons? Are you a fan of the half moon mani design? Let me know down in the comments below which colour combination you would pair together for a fun moon mani!

Brown & Gold Shattered Glass Glitter Placement

Hello lovelies & happy Tuesday!

Can you believe we’re in the final days of September? It’s kind of crazy. Where has this month gone already? It’s certainly been a busy month at our house with school starting. I can’t believe that we’re already a month in… & Summer is already feeling like a distant memory. Although, I cannot lie — I’m super pumped for my favourite month: October!

Now that we’re officially deep into Autumn, & the late September weather is in full force, I’m really feeling the Fall nail art. I realized the other day I haven’t done a shattered glass nail art design in way, way too long. I was wearing this beautiful brown shade, & realized it would be the perfect base for some gold shatter glitters, so I decided that was just the nail art look I needed in my life.

The polishes I used for this manicure are: 

  • Base Coat: Essie First Base
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • Sinful Colors Essen-chills Smoky Palo Santo
  • Sinful Colors Twilight Twinkles
  • NailStuff.ca Dotting Tool Trio

First of all, how absolutely beautiful is this brown shade? This is another one of the Sinful Colors Essen-chills scented shades that I picked up at Walmart earlier in the month. I really love the dense silver shimmer with the dark, dark brown base. & I know I keep saying this, but I’m just absolutely obsessed with brown nail polish, which is such a weird thing for me because I was not expecting to be a brown nail polish girl. But I totally am!

Second, this gold shard glitter goes so well over top. I used to be absolutely obsessed with these style of manicures a few years ago, & I think I need to bring them back again. It’s such an easy look to achieve, because it requires minimal tools. Sure, it does take a bit of time to do… but not nearly as much as you would expect! I think I’ll have to keep my eyes out for more of these style of glitter polishes

What do you think about this nail art look? Are you feeling these shattered glass nails? Have you ever tried a glitter placement look like this? Let me know all your thoughts down in the comments below — & get excited because Halloween designs are coming very soon!

SWATCH SUNDAY — Sinful Colors Rebel Rose

Hello lovelies & happy Sunday!

Another week is over, so let’s start a new week with a little more brightness. We’re almost to the end of August — if you can believe it — so I suppose I should keep the Summer vibes going a little bit longer.

Last week I was visiting my local Walmart, on the search for nail polish to cheer myself up, & decided to pick up a few—okay, six—Sinful Colors shades to cheer up my blahs. Walmart sells their Sinful polishes 3 for $6, which is a pretty awesome deal. Plus they have a bunch of new collection shades which always gets me excited. I picked up 4 of their scented shades, which I’m going to swatch & shade soon, but I thought for this week I would share this bright fuchsia shade: Rebel Rose.

2 coats + Essie Gel Setter Top Coat

I was initially draw to this polish because of the bright fuchsia shade, but what sold me on it was this beautiful underlying blue/purple shimmer. I also really like that this a great end of Summer/early days of Fall shade. It works with complimentary brighter shades, like a turquoise blue, or something a bit darker, like navy purple or deep purple, depending on what you’re trying to invoke.

The formula was really nice & easy to work with, & applied very smoothly. I did need two pretty evenly applied coats of polish to cover the nail — I noticed when I applied too thinly, it looked a little patchy. Over all, for a very affordable polish, it’s great! Easy to apply, dried pretty quickly (especially with quick dry top coat) & had a great opacity & finish. I’ve always been a fan of Sinful Colors, for these reasons, & I’m happy to add another pretty polish to my stash.

What do you think about Sinful Colors Rebel Rose? Are you loving this shimmery fuchsia as much as I am? What is your favourite affordable polish line? Let me know down in the comments below!

Muted Dry Brush

Hello lovelies & happy Thursday! Whoa… how is it Thursday already?! The weekend is almost here. I wish it was beautiful & sunny day but nope… 80% chance of Thundershowers haha.

Today I’m keeping up with the nail art, & sharing this brush stroke look. I haven’t done one of these in forever, but it was another case my previous mani had started to chip, & I needed something to cover it up, but didn’t have time to repaint my full nail. So bring on the sneaky nail art!

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Sally Hansen Nailgrowth Miracle
  • Top Coat: Essie Speed Setter
  • Essie Cacti on the Prize
  • Essie Shop Til You Drop
  • Essie Worth the Tassel
  • Essie Blanc
  • Essie Kimono Over
  • NailStuff.ca Dotting Tool Trio

This is such a simple & easy to do look! Literally anyone can do it, & it looks way more fancy than it actually is. I thought about adding a little gold flakies, but decided to just keep it more simple & muted, & I’m really glad that I did! I even ended up wearing this design for 2 whole days, which I feel like I never, ever do anymore. But it was just too pretty.

How are we feeling about this muted dry brush? Have you ever done a dry brush look like this before?

I’ve been (sort of) thinking about getting back into making short tutorial videos again — would that be something you’d be interested in seeing? Let me know in the comments below!