Tag: NOTD

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Chevron & Deer Stamped Design

Hello lovelies! Today I have a really fun design to share with you. Back in early December, I made an order through Born Pretty Store & just recently received my goodies which included 6 new stamping plates! Obviously, I couldn’t wait to play with my new plates, because I’ve been using the same ones I bought in 2014 for ages. Today’s design was semi inspired by all the fun stag head designs that have been popping up on my Instagram feed! Finally I can create my own cute deer designs!

For this design, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Nailtek 2
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • Matte Top Coat: Butter London
  • Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Trouble Maker
  • Quo by Orly Breathable Barely There
  • ACO by Ardene Daydreamer
  • L’Oreal Feeling Kilty
  • Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Black Heart
  • Born Pretty Store Clear Stamper
  • Born Pretty Store Image Plate BP-L006 (item #17924)
  • Born Pretty Store Image Plate BP-L03 (item #23268)
  • Small dotting tool
  • Edge Perfection Cuticle Barrier.

Seriously, just how cute is this manicure?! I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t order these in time to get them for Christmas, so I could do cute reindeer nails, but I’m very excited for all the upcoming designs I’ll be able to do. I’m also very happy to have a brand new jelly stamper because mine as certainly seen better days & will need to be retired very soon. Don’t get me wrong, I still love doing freehand/nail vinyl designs, but there is something a little more convenient about stamping–you don’t have to spend an hour trying to paint a design, or worry about having to wait for you base to dry to apply nail vinyls (even with quick dry top coat). It’s taken me a while to finally get the hang of stamping, & while I’m not a pro by any means, I definitely feel like I’m so much better than I used to be!

What do you think of this design? Are you a fan of stamping? Let me know all your thoughts (or tips & tricks!) in the comments below.

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Holo Gradient & Hearts

Happy Thursday lovelies! & happy first day of February. Seriously, how is the first month of 2018 already over?! That’s kind of amazing in a way. It also means we’re 2 weeks away from Valentine’s Day, so it’s time to start getting my love-themed manicures started.

When it comes  to Valentine’s Day, I feel like hearts are kind of a necessity. For this design, I decided to skip the pink (there will be lots of pink to come, don’t worry) & used silver, purple & blue holo shades instead. You still get that Valentine’s Day feeling without going too overboard.

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Nailtek 2
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • Layla Cosmetics Hologram Effect Mercury Twilight
  • Layla Cosmetics Hologram Effect Ultra Violet
  • Layla Cosmetics Hologram Effect Ocean Rush
  • Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Black Heart
  • KaylaRayLoves Nail Vinyls Tumbling Hearts Vinyls
  • Edge Perfection Cuticle Barrier
  • Latex Free Make Up Sponge

I really, really love how these turned out. The gradient + the hearts just looks so good together! You could definitely go with more pink shades if you wanted these nails to be extra girlie (which I could see myself doing for actual Valentine’s Day). Also I was really impressed with how well these holo polishes blended together to create a gradient! I feel like I haven’t been doing enough gradients lately, & that seriously needs to change. Yeah, they can be kind of messy, but that’s why they invented liquid latex.

Below, I have a couple of shots of the gradient before I added the hearts. I really need to do more holo gradients because the end result is just so pretty!

what do you think of this manicure? Would you wear it for Valentine’s Day? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

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Negative Space Floral

We’re currently being bombarded with 25+ cm of snow here in Halifax, which is not so much fun. I’m really not a Winter person (well, once Christmas is over anyways.) So how about some floral nails to cheer us up? I wore this design this weekend, but with a raging Winter storm outside as we speak I kind of need something pretty & Spring-y to cheer me up. Did I mention I’m really, really over Winter?

Did you know it’s 49 days until Spring? Just a fun fact to get you through those long, chilly days ahead. Unless you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, in which case do you have a spare room because I’m coming to visit!

I took so many pictures of this design. I know every floral manicure is my new favourite, but this one just turned out so well I couldn’t help but take a million pictures of it.

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Nailtek 2
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • Matte Top Coat: L’Oréal the Matte Velvet
  • Essie The Girls Are Out
  • OPI My Pointe Exactly
  • China Glaze Ever Glaze Don’t Grape About It
  • Sally Hansen Instadri Petal Pusher
  • Essie Bachelorette Bash
  • Sally Hansen I ♥️ Nail Art Pen in Green
  • Essence The Green & the Grunge
  • Essie Play Date
  • Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow
  • Small detail brush (Born Pretty Store)
  • Small & large dotting tools (Bundle Monster)

So many polishes were used for this design, but it was so worth it. & I think the matte top coat just makes the end result that much more beautiful. This is definitely not a quick to do design, but floral just makes me so happy I don’t even care! 💗 I hope you love floral, because I have a feeling there will be a lot of floral leading up to Spring. Also even though it’s snowing today, I’m totally pulling out my favourite floral romper, since I have no plans on leaving the house today… except to maybe go to Starbucks & get coffee but even then I won’t be leaving the car.

What are your thoughts on today’s floral design? Are you a fan of floral nails? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

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Matte Neon Moon Manicure 🌙

Happy Friday lovelies! Today I’m blasting you with a little neon to cheer up the Winter blues. It’s currently -11 degrees here in Halifax, so I need anything I can get that feels even a little Spring-like. Also this colour combination might actually be perfect. 💜

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Nailtek 2
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • Matte Top Coat: Butter London
  • Quo by ORLY Culture Classic
  • Color Club Pucci-licious
  • White Paper White Reinforcement stickers.

I’m so one of those people who can only stand Winter until Christmas is over, & then I want Spring already. If I didn’t love Halifax so much, I would move somewhere where it was warm all year & I could drive to the snow. Instead, I guess neon nails to cheer myself is in order! (& all the hot drinks I can handle to keep myself from freezing)

I guess I should probably start planning my Valentine’s Day designs soon! I missed out on a lot of Valentine’s designs last year, you know with having a baby haha, so I want to make up with it this year!

What do you think of this design? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

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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!