Tag: Matte Nails

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SWATCH SUNDAY — China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise

Good morning lovelies & welcome to another rendition of Swatch Sunday. Today’s polish is brought to you by my 2 year old who decides what colour I needed to wear. & his pick? China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise!

Turned Up Turquoise is a neon shade that dries to a very matte finish. For my swatches, I applied 2 coats over my base. The coverage was perfect but like any matte shade, it gets a little goopy the older it gets because matte polishes do dry faster than regular (in my experience) & my bottle is going on 5 years old.

Usually I apply a glossy top coat to my matte shades & then finish with a coat of matte top coat, but I really wanted to show off the true finish of this shade. As you can see, it dries down pretty well on its own, although it doesn’t hide the rough state of my current nails. If I was wearing this for a while, I would definitely top coat it & then either add my matte top coat or leave it glossy.

& speaking of glossy, I had to add some top coat to show off how gorgeous Turned Up Turquoise looks with Essie Speed Setter added.

As you can see, glossy top coat really adds to the shine of this shade. It also shows off the shimmer that gets kind of hidden when it’s matte. But honestly–I love this polish either way! It’s so pretty while left matte & it’s gorgeous when glossy.

My only complaint about this shade? It’s just so hard to photograph the true colour! It’s slightly more green-ish than you see in my photos, but from browsing the Internet I don’t think anyone can capture the shade truly. I think that just comes with it being a neon, as neon polishes can be difficult to photograph.

So what do you think of this shade? Do you have it in your polish collection? Which do you prefer — glossy or left matte? Let me know your thoughts down in the comments below!

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Pantone Nails with Sally Hansen Miracle Gel in Malibu Peach(& a new matte top coat!)

Hello lovelies & happy 2019! I hope everyone had a fantastic start to the new year… I certainly enjoyed having two days off in a row! Today I’m starting off the new year not only by blogging (oh how I’ve missed you) but with a post featuring a shade inspired by the Pantone 2019 shade of the year Living Coral — Sally Hansen Miracle Gel in Malibu Peach.

I have to be honest, I’m not always drawn to these specially selected shades, but I am seriously in love with everything about this shade. It’s such a bright, happy shade, & I want to pain my house in in.

For my swatches, I did three coats of Malibu Peach followed by the Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Top Coat to seal it in. The formula was a little bit tricky on this guy, which is why it took so many coats to have the polish not look streaky, but the end result was definitely worth it. & the top coat left the polish looking shiny & fabulous.

However, this time of year always leaves me craving matte nails, & Sally Hansen is releasing a BRAND NEW matte top coat, this time in their Miracle Gel formula! I am always impressed with how long I can get the Miracle Gel shades to last on my nails (especially when I’m so hard on my nails… that’s retail life for you!) So to say I was excited to see how well this matte top coat would last was an understatement.

Matte perfection.

In my original test run of this combo, I had my manicure last 5 days during Christmas craziness before any major chipping happened, which for a matte manicure is pretty impressive. There was the unavoidable tip wear, but as far as the whole nail it remained relatively intact. The only thing I did notice was that I seemed to have some cracks on the nail when I looked closely, but other than that it held up really well!

If you want to check out this new topcoat, Sally Hansen will be releasing this Miracle Gel Matte Top Coat in Canada stores this month & should retail for the same price as the other Miracle Gel shades.

Are you a fan of matte nails–are you excited to try out this new Matte Top Coat? Share your thoughts down in the comments below!

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SWATCH SUNDAY — Zoya Yves

Happy Sunday my lovelies! Today’s post is a goodie–something perfect for these cooler Fall days. 🍁 Today I’m sharing a polish from the Zoya Winter 2015 collection called Yves. This beauty was found last Summer at my local Winners & has been sitting untouched in my Melmer, just waiting for the perfect opportunity to be worn. & what is more perfect that the beginning of Fall.

Yves is a sapphire blue matte polish with a scattered blue shimmer. For my swatches, I used two tricky coats, but I could have definitely gone with 3 as I had some bald spots that could have benefited from an extra coat. I also used 2 coats of thick base coat under my swatches as this is definitely a stainer. & nobody wants their nails permanently stained blue. (I’m already dealing with blue hair dye that doesn’t want to fade for me.)

This polish is definitely gorgeous. & it’s been way too long since I wore just blue on my nails. I was quite impressed with how the polish dried down (to its satin matte finish) but I think I love it even more with top coat over top–you can really see that blue shimmer & it feels much more jewel like. Down below you can really see just how stunning it is with top coat (& just ignore those spots where I could have benefited from an extra coat of polish.)

& a close up to see those blue shimmers!

Zoya Yves is definitely a stunner, & I’m living for these jewel tones right now. 💎 Fall has me feeling all these dark shades I’ve been ignoring during Summer months & I’ve ESPECIALLY missing my darker shades. They’re just so good!

I found this shade at my local Winners, but if you need this polish in your life, you can pick up the beauty at NailPolishCanada.com as well as the Zoya Website. After googling the rest of the shades in the collection, I’m definitely going to need to pick up a few of the others. You can never have too many jewel toned polishes in your collection for Fall.

What do you think of Zoya Yves? What Fall Polish are you currently wearing? Let me know down in the comments below!

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SWATCH SUNDAY — China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy

Hello lovelies! Today I’m sharing a fun polish for my Swatch Sunday pick! Today’s polish is cult favourite China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy. Sadly I don’t have the original version of this shade which was a bit pinker, but I do have the new formulation & it’s one of my summer favourites. Who doesn’t love a blinding neon coral? The perfect shade for emphasizing that summer tan (or giving you the illusion of a tan when you spend 40 hours a week inside the mall).

Like most neons, Flip Flop Fantasy dries matte which means it dries quickly & can make application tricky. For my swatches below, I did Base Coat, & then two coats of Flip Flop Fantasy. When I started trying to photograph my swatches I realized how crazy the neon-ness was making my camera so I tried three different lighting situations to see if I could accurately capture the colour.

Normal light box lighting (daylight bulb):

Light box no lighting:

Natural lighting:

As you can see from above, my pictures outside my light box with natural lighting were the most colour accurate. The light box with daylight bulb made it look almost yellow-ish & without lighting it looked kind of peachy. #3 really shows off the neon colour true to that shade you see in the bottle. This is just one of those shades which is beautiful on the Nails, but hates to be photographed.

Down below I have my swatches, this time with glossy top coat (Seche Vive) added. I almost managed to capture the polish true to colour in my second photo!

Do you have China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy in your stash… original formula or new? Share your thoughts on this shade down in the comments below!

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Matte Floral for the First Day of Spring!

The day has finally come… it’s the first day of Spring! Well as of 1:05pm or something. It’s definitely been a long Winter, even if we didn’t have a super snowy Winter this year. I am so absolutely excited for Spring days & floral dresses & warmer days. So in honour of Spring finally arriving, & to encourage Mother Nature 🌸 a little, I figured some more floral was in order.

I’m not going to lie, these nails took me a while. A whole episode of Vanderpump Rules & then some. What’s the saying? You can’t rush perfection? Well these are definitely perfection to me.

For this manicure, the many, many polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Quo by ORLY Kiss Me, I’m Kind
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • Matte Top Coat: Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Matte Top Coat
  • Wrenn Polish Passionfruit Pink
  • China Glaze I Got A Blue Attitude
  • Wet N Wild Haze of Love
  • China Glaze Life is Rosy
  • L’Oréal Jardin des Roses
  • Essie Flowerista
  • YSL Beauty Vert D’Orient
  • Quo by ORLY Second Hand Jade
  • Sally Hansen I ♥️ Nail Art pen in Green
  • Sally Hansen I ♥️ Nail Art pen in Turquoise
  • Sally Hansen I ♥️ Nail Art pen in Purple
  • Nail Art brush from Bundle Monster

It’s definitely the matte top coat that makes these nails so perfect. They were pretty shiny too, but they were just another floral. Adding the matte just brought this mani to a whole other level that I’m quite honestly obsessed with. Also this is my first time matte-ifying Wrenn Polish Passionfruit Pink & oh my god! It completely transforms it to a whole other level. I’m kind of obsessed.

So who else is so excited about the first day of Spring? I’m choosing to ignore the fact we have a snowstorm apparently coming tomorrow/Thursday & chiding to concentrate on the fact it’s going to be sunny today & I’m going on a thrift store adventure today to expand my Spring wardrobe.

What do you think of these florals? What are you doing to celebrate the beginning of Spring today? Share you thoughts in the comments below!

💗