Tag: L’Oreal

Posted on

Spring Splotches & Geometric Lines

Happy Monday Lovelies! Today is a super exciting day for me because I’m officially starting at my new job after my week away training, which is both nerve wracking & a brand new adventure for me. Also exciting is today’s manicure which was inspired by a few make up cases I stumbled across at Superstore while grocery shopping.

I love when I find inspiration when I’m not looking for it. This pattern just screams nail art, so obviously I had to snap a picture for future nail designs. I loved the imperfect splotches of colour against the white background & loved how well it paired with the other make up back.

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Quo by ORLYBreathable Kiss Me, I’m Kind
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Hard To Get
  • Essie Flowerista
  • Essie Too Too Hot
  • Essie Garden Party
  • Essie All the Waves
  • L’Oréal Feeling Kilty
  • Quo by ORLY Nail Art Striper in Black
  • Medium size nail art brush

I just love love love how these turned out! The pretty spring colours, the splotches of colour with the geometric lines. It just turned out as perfect on the nail as I pictured in my head. I feel like I don’t do my freehand lines as often as I used to, so I’ve been trying to practice more!

What do you think of this design… do you think I stuck close enough to my inspiration? Where do you get your nail art inspiration from? Let me know your favourite place to find inspiration (or who inspires you) down in the comments below!

Happy Monday everyone 🌸

Posted on

Bestie Twin Baby Boy Birthday Nails with @hjs_nails

Happy Tuesday lovelies! Today I have a very special nail collab to share with you. One of the most amazing things about the nail community is the way it brings people together. Last August I did a mani swap with Hannah from @hjs_nails & we bonded over the fact we both had baby boys in February. Since our beautiful little guys share a birthday month we decided to team up & do some Bestie Twin Baby Boy Birthday Nails in their honour.

How handsome do our little guys look hanging out beside their special birthday manicures! For our designs, Hannah & I created a fun celebratory design featuring a gradient dotticure (to represent confetti), some balloons & the number one. Hannah had painted her nail design first, so I followed her polish picks to match the best I could.

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Quo by ORLY Breathable Kiss Me, I’m Kind
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • ORLY Decades of Dysfunction
  • Essie Strut Your Stuff
  • Essie Too Too Hot
  • L’Oreal Feeling Kilty
  • Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Black Heart
  • Small detail brush from Bundle Monster
  • Small dotting tool from Bundle Monster

How cute did this design turn out?! The colour combination reminds me of a race car, which is perfection when celebrating baby boys. My little guys birthday isn’t until Thursday, but it still works because on this day last year I was on day 2 of my 54 hour labour! It’s kind of crazy to believe that I am almost the Mom of a one year old. This year has certainly been a whirl wind, & it definitely hasn’t been easy to balance Mom-life with non-Mom life (like blogging & doing my nails) but I wouldn’t trade it. It’s been a very interesting adventure.

My nails & my 9 pound baby boy.

Hope you liked this design! & don’t forget to pop over to Hannah’s instagram (@hjs_nails) & give her mani some love too!

Have a happy Tuesday! 🎈🎉🎁

Posted on

COMPARISON POST — Matte Top Coat

Hello lovelies! Today I’m sharing a fun post with you that was inspired by @mugglenails on Instagram! Meghan & I were having a conversation about matte top coats & I thought it might be fun to do a comparison of all the matte top coats I own. Truthfully, I used to own way more, but apparently I got rid of some when we moved so I’m going to (potentially) call this part one.

The matte top coats we will be testing today are from Butter London, Personnelle Cosmetics, Sally Hansen & L’Oréal.

To start, I painted all my nails a base colour. For this comparison, I wanted to go with something dark, so I picked this nameless blackened blue from Hard Candy that I picked up at Walmart in the clearance for 37 cents.

Next, I applied just one coat of each matte top coat to the nail & let dry. From left to right is Butter London, Personnelle Cosmetics, Sally Hansen & L’Oréal on the pinky. As far as dry time, both Butter London & L’Oréal dried fastest, the Personnelle Cosmetics was next & Sally Hansen was the last to dry.

As you can see above, L’Oréal & Butter London dried almost identically with the L’Oréal looking a little more matte to me, & while the Personnelle Cosmetics dried fairly matte it had weird streaking which would require a second coat to hide. As for Sally Hansen… it was the least matte of the 4. It wasn’t glossy but it certainly still had a sheen to it which is especially evident when paired next to the other 3 top coats.

Looking at these 4 top coats, I would say it’s pretty close between Butter London & L’Oréal & if we’re figuring cost into the equation then I would call L’Oréal the winner. Personally I love both Butter London & L’Oréal & tend to reach for them equally. The Personnelle Cosmetics top coat was a clearance score while on vacation (I grabbed it for a $1) & while its not the best, I can see myself using it if I didn’t have my other favourites. As for the Sally Hansen matte… I love Sally Hansen, I really do. It’s one of my favourite brands. But I’m sorry Sally Hansen, I hate this matte top coat. It’s slow to dry, & it’s just not matte enough. There are just much better (affordable) matte top coats you can use.

Did you favourite make this list? Do you have a favourite matte top coat not on this list that you’d like to see a comparison of? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below & I’ll see what I can do about putting together a part two!

Posted on

Multicoloured Chevron Accent Nails

Good Morning! We’re half way through the week & in Halifax it’s actually snowing. I seriously thought we would never see actual Winter, so it’s pretty exciting! Although I’m sure it will lose its novelty in about a day & a half.

Today I’m sharing a chevron accent nail design with you. I’ve really been into darker shades right now (& grey, always) so I decided to combine a whole lot of shades together. & I even made you another tutorial to show you the technique I used.

Music: bensound.com

For this design, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Nailtek 2
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Pat on the Black
  • Essie Merino Cool
  • Color Club Silver Lake
  • OPI Aurora Berry-alis
  • L’Oréal Feeling Kilty
  • Kiss Products Nail Art Chevron Vinyls
  • Small detail brush (from Born Pretty Store)

You can see in the video above, I was originally going to use Essie Merino Cool (such a good grey) as my main colour, but switched it to Sally Hansen CSM Pat on the Black because it just went better with the accent nails. Also next time I want to try filling in each chevron with a different colour for even more coloured stripes.

This is such a great design for a beginner because it looks complicated, but it’s really not. The hardest part honestly is just placing your vinyls (as you can see from the above video!) You could also use straight vinyls to make your stripes, but that would involve extra wait time for drying. Your stripes don’t have to be perfect because you’re covering them up anyways, so freehanding them usually is just easiest!

What do you think of this design? Would you try it out? Let me know your thoughts below! & if you do try it out, don’t forget to tag me on social media & use the tag #lookcoffeeandnailpolish! 💜 Happy Wednesday everyone!

Posted on

Christmas Tree Branch Nails 🎄

December is speeding by & I’m seriously attempting to fully embrace everything about the Christmas season.Have you put up your tree yet? We’ve been meaning to the last couple days, but still haven’t managed to… sadly I’m allergic to pretty much all trees so we have to stick to an artificial tree. But I did go out & buy a Christmas tree scented candle so the house would smell somewhat seasonal. 🎄 I also decided to create some Christmas tree inspired nails & oh my I’m so in love with how they turned out!

<<<<<<<<<<<>
For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Nailtek Foundation 2
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • Essence Give Me Nude, Baby!
  • Sally Hansen I ♥️ Nail Art Pen in Green
  • Essence The Green & The Grunge
  • Essie Stylenomics
  • Essie Butler Please
  • L’Oréal Carmin Parisien
  • China Glaze Metro Pollen-tin
  • Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Hard To Get
  • Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Black Heart
  • Bundle Monster Detail Nail Art Brush

Sometimes I get really excited about how a manicure turns out & this is one of those times. This isn’t the first Christmas Tree/Tree Branch manicure I’ve attempted, but it’s definitely the best I’ve ever done. I’m just so beyond in love with how it turned out.

I love that you can see the individual needles on my “branches”. It reminds me of our own sparse little artificial Christmas tree. True story: it’s the same tree my parents used when I was a kid, & the box still has the K-mart sticker on it from when it was purchased. & K-mart left Canada in 1998 I believe, so this tree is at least 20 years old. Haha. But it’s okay because it’s well loved, full of memories & is still going strong all these years later.

What do you think of this Christmas tree design? Do you have your tree up yet? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!