Pink Wednesday... on Thursday

I ment to post this yesterday, obviously, but I got side tracked a bit. I had it all typed up and ready to go too, does that ever happen to you? I hope your week is going along as fast as mine is, doesn't work in the summertime suck?

Today I have a jelly polish from OPI's Texas spring collection, Big Hair, Big Nails. Technically this is more of a warmed toned coral, jelly. I had no application issues with this one, but was scared that I was. I used a base coat of OPI's ridge filler which has a slight creaminess to it and dried matte. I really love it, I feel like it binds the polish to my nail so well! The great thing about using this as a base will a jelly is that you have a nice smooth surface to work on, plus it camouflages your nail line.

I used 2 coats of the ridge filler and 3 coats of the polish and got pretty great results. I added a coat of Seche vite to speed up the dry time and I was done :) This polish is super glossy and juicy and glossy on its own, I think next time I might skip the top coat.

This polish looks orange in some lights, deep coral in others and in the sunshine in looks like a pinky coral. It was hard to capture and I feel the photos I have up make it look more red that it actually is. I haven't gotten bored of it yet, although I plan on Konading tonight :)

This polish has been nothing but perfect for me, no chips and very minimal tip wear after 5 days of wear. This is why I love OPI :)

Peacock Fail

Hello, hello.

Today I have a mani refresh from with the polish I showed you yesterday, China Glaze's Turned Up Turquoise. I used the peacock looking full nail pattern from the new Bundle Monster plates (Plate BM 212), and a no name black polish for stamping.

The main reason for adding the stamp on top was to cover up the chips I got after 1 day of wear. I attempted to patch up the chips with some dabs of polish which actually blended in with the originally applied polish and looked decent! I applied the the peacock design and my trusty NYC quick dry, high gloss top coat and I was good to go!

Not so much... By the photos you can see that I STILL got major chips in this polish! It wasn't even 24 hours yet! I did this retouch before going to bed Thursday night, and by mid day Friday it was chipped :( I took it off later that night and FINALLY applied a polish that has been chip free since Saturday :)

How unfortunate, I have not come across a chippy polish in a long time other than the peeling Perfect Formula base coat from last week. It was not a good week for chippy polish and me. But, like I said, I have a beautiful, chip-free polish to share with you tomorrow for pink Wednesday :)

More summer Neons!

Sigh, Monday again, can't wait for the long weekend ahead :)

Today I have a bright neon for summer, I've really been trying to wear all my untried bright colours this summer. Today I have China Glaze's Turned Up Turquoise, A lovely green based turquoise neon with a blue-ish shimmer. I noticed a lot of other bloggers wearing it around the same time I decided to try it out.

The formula was okay, a little thick, but manageable. I actually liked the thickness. I may add a bit of thinner the next time I wear it just to make it a little more even on the nail. I applied 2 coats which made it opaque, but a thin third coat wouldn't have hurt. This polish dries to a satin finish so a top coat is a must.

Although the base colour is beautiful and the shimmer really makes it pop, I found that it chipped very easily on me. First I thought it was because I went swimming a day after applying it and it started to chip in the pool. But even after fixing it up, adding Konad and another coat of top coat, it still chipped within less than 24 hours! I even wrapped the tips both times, that always makes my polish last forever!

I also used a different base coat, Seche Clear. It was my first time using it so not sure if that could have had an effect on the chipping, I hope not! I also used Seche Vite for my top coat and it has never done me wrong! I think the next time I wear this I will use my OPI ridge filling base coat, I find it really binds the polish to my nail. I have not been having luck with long lasting manis lately!

Have you had issues with this polish chipping? Have you had issues with Seche Clear before?

Pink Wednesday! Featuring a Summery French :)

I'm starting to catch on with pink Wednesday :) I actually have a ridiculous amount of pink polishes, it used to be all I wore a couple of years ago. Now I want a different colour family all together each time I change my polish!

I was feeling like a funky French the other day and decided to go with a pink toned coral, Orly's Ole, from last years summer collection. Other supplies I used included:

- Nailene French Tip Guides
- Perfect Formula Pink Base Coat for French Manicures
- Konad Plate M29
- Konad White Special Polish
- Seche Vite Top Coat
- Small silver rhinestones (pointer fingers only)

Basically the process for this French manicure is the same as I always do
1. Apply my base
2. Once fully dry apply my French tip guides
3. Add 2 coats of polish with some dry time in between
4. Carefully remove the guides with tweezers and apply a top coat.

Why am I describing the process in steps? because somewhere between step 1 and 3 my base coat failed me! As I peeled the guides off, the base coat came with it! Not on all nails, but enough to bother me. I have never had this problem with the French tip guides EVER! And the polish was fully dry! It just peeled right off! This wasn't even the worst of it unfortunately... I continued with step 4 and the Konading and everything looked perfect. I took my photos below right after application, besides some smearing of the stamp not too bad right?

The polish actually started to peel up mid day... I was pissed. I got my seche vite and put some under and on top of the peal and that seemed to save it, but not before one full nail of polish peeled right off.

This is the base coat I used

I ended up redoing my pointer finger with a proper base this time with the pink base on top and went through the rest of the steps as normal. I have not had any problems at all with this nail at all. Sooo disappointed with the perfect formula's base :( I actually reviewed their French mani kit before and thought it was not too bad (minus the thick white tip "polish), but I guess this shows you how it wears. I loved the consistency and colour of the base though, it had a pink tint and is perfect!ly smooth. Next time I will just have to use a regular base beneath it.

I had to vent a little seeing as I put way more time in to French manis than regular ones! In case you were wondering I used the middle hibiscus flower on the plate without "Hawaii".

Funky Summer Gradient with New BM Plates

Today I have the cover up for the mishap that happened with Color Club's Get Your Lem-on.

I had originally thought to make a gradient with neon pink or red, but for some reason when I was testing out colours I was drawn to a turquoise shade. I used China Glaze's Turned Up Turquoise on a cosmetic sponge and sponged the polish on the tip of my nails, trying my best to make a seamless gradient. It didn't happen lol, and that's why I didn't take a photo of the process. This was also my first time attempting something like this , and my sponge wasn't cooperating 100% with me, it was leaving behind little pieces on some nails.

After I dealt with that and the polish had dried, which was quick because it's a neon, I stamped over the "gradient" with a new Bundle Monster stamp. I had seen someone use this stamp with black polish over neon yellow and though it was so cool! I forget which blog I saw it on though, if it was you let me know!

I used plate BM-201, the zig-zaggy pattern and some random black polish I posted about a LONG time ago (it came in a Nfu-oh bottle, and it was 50 cents). It stamps amazingly and does not smudge! My new favorite black stamping polish. The only draw back is it smells.

The pattern works good to break up the gradient a bit. Even though the it isn't seamless, the lines distract a bit and make it look right :) The final look reminds me of funky shutter shades!

What do you think, yay or nay? I only wore this for one day because it was so bright and flashy! Plus, I thought I could do a better job, because the cosmetic sponge left some pieces behind it was a little bumpy. Perhaps I will try this again with some different colours :)

Get Your Lem-on

When I first saw Color Club's Wicked Sweet collection I was super excited about the yellow polish with the turquoise/green shimmer, Get Your Lem-on. Previous to trying it I had seen reviews of the full collection and heard that it was one of the sheerest in the bunch. I was kind of disappointed at first, but figured I could get the colour to be bright and opaque with a base of white :)

I tried a white polish I got not too long ago, an old formula Sally Hansen Insta-Dri. It did dry super quick but I think I should have added one last coat to even the white out. Get Your Lem-on being was sheer that you could actually see the subtle streaking of the white beneath :(

Three coats later I decided that I had too much polish on my nails and it was time to stop. I sealed everything off with Seche Vite so all the layers would dry fast and went to sleep. In the morning I woke up to a blindingly bright yellow mani! The shimmer wasn't too visible which again I was kind of disappointed about. It wore pretty good for 2 days but then something weird happened. I wore really dark blue jean capris and it actually stained my nail polish! I wish I had taken a picture to show you, there were little crack marks of blue, it almost looked dirty. My sister called it ghetto crackle lol

Anyways, this was of course not the polishes fault, I'm sure it could have happened with any light polish. I ended up doing nail art to camouflage the marks and I will show you that tomorrow.

Over all I love the bight neoness of this polish. Although it isn't that apparent in the photos, I can assure you it is blinding. Next time I wear this I will make sure that the white polish beneath is fully opaque and take my time with it. I almost forgot to mention that this polish is scented also! The scent remindes me of lemon gum drops, it was strong when first applied, but faded significantly over a couple of days. If it wasn't so sheer it would be perfect! That, if the shimmer was still visable.

Stay tuned for a funky mani refresh!

Golden Sands

Happy Friday!! So happy the weekend is almost here. The weather in Toronto this month has been beautiful, perfectly sunny so I cannot wait to lounge around by the pool and enjoy the sun :)

The polish I have for you today is the first and only polish I own so far from OPI's Designer Series collection. I picked this one up on sale for only $5, and it is called DS Classic.

DS Classic is a very pretty caramel, nude colour with prismatic sparkle that reminds me of Color Club's Love 'Em, Leave 'Em. It is not a linear holographic polish, but it does have that holo sparkle we all love :)

I used BM Plate 213 on my ring finger after a couple of days, I actually took these photos after about a week of wear, pretty awesome huh?! I did use a base and topcoat though, I know some people don't do that with holo/prismatic polish, but I have had no issues when I do use a base and top coat.

I decided later in the weekend to take off my slowly disappearing pink and yellow crackle mani on my toes ( on most toes it wore quite well!), and apply classic. I think classic is the perfect name for this polish, it is sophisticated and I feel rich wearing it. It is office appropriate for those who can't wear funky nail art to work and it sparkles beautifully in the sunlight.

As soon as I wore this in the pool, I knew it reminded me of resort beach sands :) Kinda nice to get that relaxation vacation feel, but man, I gotta get away! Hope you enjoy your weekend!

Holo Apple

Today I have a quick post for a mani refresh I did with Orly's Green Apple. I decided to use one of my new Bundle Monster plates, plate BM 201. This is the swirly full nail design on the right of the plate. At first glance before stamping it actually looks like a vine of some sort, but on the nail i get this swirly "gust of wind" feeling :) Very Van Gough, Stary, Stary Night. I really want to try stamping this pattern with a dark blue over a light blur now!

Anyways, this is how my actual mani came out, I used China Glaze's High Def to stamp and the design stamped perfectly. Every time I use these plates I am very pleased with the results.

Just in case you didn't know, High Def is from China Glaze's Tronica line and it is a a beautiful, prismatic shade of medium to light cornflower blue.

I really like the little something extra this added to my previous mani, it livened it up without being over the top, it's actually quite subtle. But out in the sunlight it really sparkles :)

Granny Smith

My apologies to those who frequent my blog on a daily basis, I am so behind in posting right now. I made last weekend a long one by taking off Monday so now I'm kind of disoriented... but in a good way because it's a short week for me :)

On to the polish! This is what I wore last week, a nice bright cheery green, Orly's Green Apple.

Green Apple is kind of a perfect name for this polish, although it does lean a little bit more yellow in the photo above. It is a nice bright yellow based green creme. I'm pretty sure I applied 2 coats, it was streaky at first but eventually leveled itself out.

It wore pretty well, although I have been wearing my polish for shorter amounts of time lately. I want to try and get through ALL of my bright and summery shades before summer is over, especially the Color Club Wicked Sweet collection... I'm well on my way though, wearing one from the collection right now :)

Overall this colour is pretty and bright and fun but I dunno... I didn't LOVE to wear it. Not to say that I don't like it, but you know how there are some polishes that you put on and you're like WOW! This one just didn't wow me. Oh well, on to the next polish in my stash.

First Ever Sinful Colors!

Happy Friday! It's finally here!!

This post is long over due, I crossed the boarder mid month in June and picked up some polishes I hoped to find :) I had seen the Sinful Color Adventure Island displays on various blogs and knew I had to snatch up some of those colours. Common, a dupe for OPI's Mermaids Tears for only $2? How awesome is that?!

Other blogs have shown comparisons between the colours in the Adventure Island collection versus OPI's Pirates of the Caribbean collection, and although some are similar or dupes, some are all together completely different. Take a look at what I got below.

First I have Open Seas, the infamous dupe for OPI's Mermaids Tears. I personally don't own MT (I wouldn't have gotten OS if I did!), but from what I have seen on other blogs, they look WAAAYYY close. This is a pretty muted, murky turquoise.

Next is the namesake, Adventure Island, which has nothing even close to it in the OPI collection. I love it though, its a yellowy, murky green. Sucha an ugly pretty colour.

And Last but not least, Seaweed, a very close dupe for OPI's Stranger Tides. This polish is a dusty, murky grey green. My photo makes it look a bit lighter than it actually is, it's more of a green ones grey, it looks super chic! This is another one of the ugly pretty colours. So interesting :)

I just realised that I got another polish from this collection that I forgot to photograph :( Actually, I have been hearing it is not exclusive to this collection and may be apart of their core line. It is called Beautiful Girl and is a slightly coral leaning pink, very bight, but not neon.

What do you think of these polishes? Would you chose these over the OPI's?

Animalistic

So close to the weekend! This week seems to be going by extra slow for me, and it doesn't help that the weather has been amazing this week, it really make me hate staying in all day at work :(
Hopefully this mani will raise your spirits if you feel the same as me, this is what I wore for my birthday on Friday July 1st :)

I got woken up earlier than expected, my boyfriend was taking me out for breakfast within the next hour so I had some time before he came to pick me up :) I pulled out my nail art plates and polishes and came up with this look.

I used a dupe of of the Konad plate M78 that I got from the Born Pretty store, but both plates are the same, so if you were to recreate this look, either would be fine. I love this leopard zebra pattern!, this is my first time using it. I used Sally Hansen's Black Pearl Chrome for stamping. Unfortunatly the stamp was not large enough for my thumb, so I used the zebra pattern from my new BM plates, this is plate BM-223. It almost gave full coverage, but my nails were a little too long.

I had a great birthday long weekend, the weather was perfect. I'm always torn on what I want to do with my nails on my birthday because it is also Canada Day. Maybe next year I will be more patriotic :)

To seal everything off I used a medium sized coat of NYC in a minute top coat, I love the high gloss and quick dry time.

Bubble Gum

Don't you love how bright neons can give the illusion of a tan? Just look at the photos! I actually need a tan badly, on Saturday plan on spending most of my time by the pool soaking up as much sun as possible :)

Today I have another Color Club from the Wicked Sweet collection, so far I am loving EVERY single one of them, scent and all. This pretty neon baby pink is called Bubble Gum Yum, it applied well in 2 coats, and smells like pink bubble gum :)

I will have more colour accurate photos of this polish colour tomorrow, I did some nail art with this as a base for my birthday last Friday :) The colour in these photos are slightly lighter than what you would see in real life.

I found the scent on this one didn't last as long as the grape, after a day or so it really faded. That didn't bother me though, I could see myself getting annoying with it if it was scented too much for too long.

*EDIT* I just realized I finally have a valid Pink Wednsday post! lol I think I actually set it up that way when I had drafted up my posts but forgot to mention it. So yeah, now you know :)

Pineapple Punch

Today I have a mani refresh from the Color Club I showed you yesterday. I decided to try out a look I saw on Emily's Nail Files, If you haven't seen her blog yet, I suggest checking it out.

Basically, I swiped some small lines of polish over the base colour, waited for it to dry and then stamped over top. Its almost like colouring in the Konad stamp lol.

Now this was my very first attempt ever at something like this, so it didn't come out perfect. I do love the two colour combo though. For the yellow I used Claire's Yellow Brick Road, I have 2 versions of this polish, this version is more muted.

For the pineapple stamp I used Konad plate M29, finished it off with a clear coat and it was complete!

This mani felt so tropical, especially since my nails still smelled grape-y. I want to try this same idea again with other colours and stamping designs, any requests?

Have you tried this before? If so, please let me know any tips you may have :)

Give Me A Grape Big Kiss!

Wowzers, do not know what happened to me last week, must have been too excited for the long weekend, totally neglected my blog for the later part of the week. The good news is that I have LOTS to show you this week, and I will have more information coming shortly on the sale of the Sally Hansen Prisms. I just have to work out shipping costs and edit the photo swatches and we are good to go!

Now on to the polish I wore late last week, this is from Color Clubs latest summer collection, Wicked Sweet. This pretty purple is called Give Me a Grae Big Kiss!

I think I may need to start using my SLR again, because this colour was really hard to capture. It is a red leaning purple, but it is definitely not pink! I even compared it to the haul shots I took of it previously and in those outdoor shots it looked more blue toned! That's weird.

Anyways this applied perfectly in 2 coats, and although it is a cream, it reminded me of a jelly :) It smelled pretty good too, like candy grape. Even with a coat of Seche Vite on top the scent was not hidden. The formula on this polish was great, and I would like to wear ALL of this polishes from the Wicked Sweet collection before the end of summer. I hope the formula is consistent.