SWATCH SUNDAY — China Glaze Don’t Let The Dead Bite (Halloween 2014)

Hello lovelies & happy Sunday! Today I thought I would pull out a Halloween oldie from my polish stash for this week’s Swatch Sunday! This is China Glaze Don’t Let The Dead Bite from the China Glaze Apocalypse Of Color 2014 Halloween collection.

Don’t Let The Dead Bite is a milky jelly pinky polish that is packed full of multi sized & shaped red glitters.

2 coats + top coat

I am a sucker for a good Halloween collection, so I remember being very excited about finding this shade on clearance a few years ago. If I remember correctly, I bought this shade for Valentine’s Day, because I thought the glitters would be perfect for that.

My bottle has definitely changed a bit over the years, with the glitters bleeding a bit & making the base darken. It’s still a beautiful shade, but not quite in its original form. The formula, however, remains just as easy to work with as when I first bought it, which I appreciate.

I really like this shade, & to be honest, I kind of forgot I owned it until I was looking for something Halloween-y to adorn my nails with! I can’t believe October is almost over! How crazy is that?!

Do you remember this China Glaze collection from 2014? Did you get your hands on any of the shades? What is your favourite Halloween polish collection? Let me know down in the comments below!

#GlamNailsChallengeOct — Blood

Hello lovelies & Happy Monday! Hope everyone is having a lovely start to their week. Can you believe how quickly October is speeding along?

The countdown to Halloween is officially on, & I’m fully embracing spooky season. Which means we have another fun design to share for #GlamNailsChallengeOct! Our next prompt is Blood & I decided to go with a blood splatter look using my favourite Saran Wrap Splatter technique!

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Sally Hansen Hard As Nails
  • Top Coat: Essie Gel Setter
  • ACO by Ardene Tea Party
  • Sally Hansen CSM Cherry Delightful
  • Sally Hansen CSM Red Over Heels
  • Crinkled Saran Wrap

I absolutely love when people rock those blood splatter nails, using a straw, for Halloween, but I never have enough time for clean up, so I decided to take a shortcut & use my Saran Wrap Splatter technique to get a similar effect that still gives off the blood splatter look. I decided to go with a pretty pastel base (ACO by Ardene Tea Party) because I loved the contrast between the pretty & the gruesome.

Halloween always makes me feel extra creative when it comes to nail art. Even if I don’t have a lot of time, I can still come up with a fun look!

What do you think about this blood splatter look? Would you rock these Halloween nails? Let me know down in the comments below, & stay tuned because the next manicure I have to share for this challenge might be my favourite Halloween nail art I’ve ever done!!

(Unintentionally) Wonder Woman Nails

Hello lovelies! Switching things up a bit & posting on a Saturday because I’m starting to feel better from my head cold, & really wanted to show off the nails I wore for my birthday on Thursday!

I really wanted to do some chevron moons, because it’s been a while, & after a paired the shades together I realized the colour scheme reminds me a lot of the movie version Wonder Woman costume! & even though I didn’t set out to create Wonder Woman nails for my birthday, I thought it was very fitting for my birthday!

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Sally Hansen Hard As Nails
  • Top Coat: Essie Gel Setter
  • Essie Birthday Girl
  • Essie In Hot Purse-uit
  • Essie Tote-ally in Love
  • Starrily Vantablack
  • Chevron nail vinyls
  • NailStuff.ca 7mm detail brush(COFFEE10 to save 10%)

Oh man, I seriously always forget just how much I adore a good chevron until I haven’t worn one in a while & then I’m reminded why they are my favourite kind of design! & the colours are just so perfect for Autumn (& you know, meeting up with the Justice League to save the world.) It was the perfect choice for celebrating my 34th year.

What do you think about this look? Do you usually chose a special look for your birthday nails? Let me know down in the comments below!

#GlamNailsChallengeOct — Sugar Skull 💀

Hello lovelies & happy Wednesday! Hope everyone’s week is going okay so far. Here is Halifax the weather is very, very, VERY wet — it’s a very good day for a snuggly sweater & a lot of hot tea!

Today I’m sharing another look created for this month’s #GlamNailsChallenge. The next is prompt is Sugar Skull, which was one I was quite nervous about. I’ve seen lots of tutorials for how to create a sugar skull look, but they’re not as easy to do as they let on. Haha.

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Sally Hansen Hard As Nails
  • Top Coat: Essie Speed Setter
  • Sally Hansen CSM Belle Of The Ball
  • Essie White Page
  • Starrily Vantablack
  • Color Club Nail Art Club Duo pens in assorted colours (green, pink, blue)
  • Sally Hansen I ♥️ Nail Art pens in fuchsia & purple.
  • NailStuff.ca 7mm detail brush(COFFEE10 to save 10%)
  • NailStuff.ca Dotting Tool Trio

This was my second attempt at a sugar skull design, since my first one was a little wonky. It’s not perfect, but I do like how it turned out. I decided to go a more Jack Skellington direction for my initial face, then added the colourful details. I feel like it gets the Sugar Skull theme across nicely!

What do you think about this sugar skull look? Do you like accent nail designs like this, or full nail designs? Let me know in the comments below!

SWATCH SUNDAY — Essie Like A Charm (Blue Moon Halloween 2020 Collection)

Hello lovelies & Happy Sunday! Today I have another really fun nail polish to share with you!

For those who don’t know, Essie released a Halloween nail polish collection, for the first time ever! So naturally when I saw the shades at my local Shoppers Drug Mart, I knew I had to pick at least one shade up (I was being good). All the shades were pretty beautiful (@apolishedcolleen has full swatches on her Instagram) but the one that caught my eye most was Like A Charm.

There is something about a shifty dark purple that just makes me so happy, especially during Halloween season.

2 coats + Essie Speed Setter Top Coat

Like A Charm is a dark navy with scattered teal & blue & silver flakies to give it a fantastic colour shifting effect, which you can really see in the above macro shot. The formula was nice & not too thick, but did off a good amount of coverage. I did two coats for even application & opacity.

I definitely was really excited to see Essie come out with a fun Halloween collection this year, & even though this isn’t a completely unique shade in my nail polish collection over all, it is a unique shade when it comes to the Essie shades I own, & for that I am so, so glad that I picked it up!

Truthfully, I haven’t even gotten that excited about Halloween yet, just because this year has been such a rough year, but starting to paint my nails with Halloween polishes (especially one so witchy!) definitely gets me pumped to start thinking about my favourite holiday!

Next up will be Halloween decorations!

Have you picked up any of the shades from the Essie Blue Moon Halloween 2020 collection? Do you have a favourite? What do you think about Like A Charm? Let me know all your thoughts down in the comments below & if you’ve already started decorating for Halloween! 🎃