Sunset Gradient

So I decided I wanted to go a little bit further with my last mani and use it as a base for a sunset inspired gradient. This was pretty quick and easy, all I needed was a coral pink/red jelly polish and a sponge!

I have tried cosmetic and dish sponges and prefer the cheap dish sponges, for me the cosmetic sponges soak up too much of the polish. All I did was pull out OPI Big Hair, Big Nails and applied a small amount to the sponge, then I took my base colour, Orly Crush on You and applied another small amount right beside the other polish. I then lightly dabbed this on the nail concentrating the pink at the top of the nail.

Once the first layer is dry, repeat the same process until you are happy with the saturation of the gradient. Add a layer of top coat to smooth everything out and you are done! I would recommend a thick  layer of topcoat to smooth over any texture that was created by the sponge.

The Latest Bundle Monster Plates!

Today I have an update of the latest plates revealed for the Bundle monster Holliday collection from last week.

I'm really liking the Halloween one :)

Check out Bundle Monsters facebook page for more information and the reveal of the remaining plates in the upcoming weeks. There are 11 plates left and they will be revealing a new plate each day!

Sally's Coupon for Free Bag + 10% off! - Canada and U.S

Happy Friday!! To ensure you enjoy you weekend, I have another Sally's coupon to share! Here is the message I received from Sally's:

Danielle, shop Sally Beauty today to save an extra 10%* on EVERYTHING you BAG! Show your coupon to any sales associate to get your FREE reusable bag. Then fill it with anything you like – styling tools, hair color, extensions, and more, and get 10% off! Hurry, this offer expires Monday, May 27. Exclusions apply, see store for details.

Below is the coupon, hope you have a great weekend!

Orange Jelly!

I have a nice bright orange jelly today! I purchased this polish a while back and must have forgotten about it, Orly Crush on You is a medium orange jelly. I had no problems with application, it went on smooth and and was self levelling. I used two coats on my nails.

I wanted to do some jelly layering so I took Essie's As Gold As It Gets, from the Luxeffect line and applied it to the tips on each nail. As Gold As It Gets is a gold flakie polish. Once that layer was dry I added one final coat of Crush on You on top.

The final result is subtle, but interesting. I may go back and try something else with this as a base ;) Stay tuned!

Zig-zag

Today I have a fun and bright mani refresh to share! The base is Sephora by OPI Havana Dreams. I wanted to do something fun with this colour, I really loved the colour on it's own but wanted to change it up a bit. I originally was thinking of a nautical design! I soon realized that none of my nail art plates have a full nail nautical pattern :(

So I did what I usually do, flip through all my plates until I see something I like, I found a few stripy patterns and thought either would look good stamped with white... Then I remembered I have the perfect complementary blue for stamping, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Brisk Blue. I did a test with each design and the zig zag pattern from Bundle Monster plate BM-201 won me over!

This polish and this design stamped effortlessly. I had issues when I used this plate a few years ago and Bundle Monster was kid enough to send me a new plate, this one works fantastic! I love the final look, almost like abstract waves or water.

More Bundle Monster Plates Revealed!

The latest Bundle Monster mission has been completed, which means a new image plate will be released each day for the upcoming holiday collection! Check out the two they have released today below.

I am looking forward to the next plate to be revealed! For more information and to check out the preview of the previous plates released click here.

Coupon for Free Tote at Sally's + 10% Off Your Purchase!

Happy Friday!! To ensure you enjoy you weekend, and in the case of Canada, long weekend, I have a Sally's coupon to share! Here is the message I received from Sally's:

  Shop at Sally Beauty today to save an extra 10% on EVERYTHING you BAG! Show your coupon to any sales associate to get your FREE* reusable bag. Then fill it with anything you like – styling tools, hair color, extensions, and more, and get 10% off! Hurry, this in-store only offer expires Sunday, May 19. Exclusions apply, see store for details.

 Sweet deal, hope you have a great weekend! Happy Victoria Day :)

My Summer Polish Picks!

With the start of May not long behind us it seems the winter that didn't want to end finally turned in to... Summer? We seemed to skip right over to Spring here in Toronto! But hey, I am not complaining one bit. The sunny and hot weather makes me want to bust out my bright, colourful polishes right now! I have compiled a list of my favourite colours and polishes that correspond for summer!

Coral
One of my all time favourite shades of polish, but so hard to find the right one for my skin tone. The perfect coral for me is slightly more orange than pink. Some of my favourite coral polishes are:

Flip Flop Fantasy - China glaze
Manis Before Mimosas - China Glaze

BTW, Flip Flop Fantasy is not even close to being captured properly in that photo, must be the mix of sun and being beside another coral that gives it the glow of fire! For a more accurate look at these shades, and the rest I have swatches in the past below, be sure to click the name of the polish.

Yellow
Summer is about the only time i dear to wear yellow on my nails. Yellow was a trendy shade last summer and I am pretty sure it will be popular for summer 2013 as well! My faves are:

Happy/Earthy - Claire's  -- When warm of course ;)
Sunkissed - China Glaze

I had to run Happy/Earthy under hot water before snapping this pic!

Green
Claire's Happy/Earthy is also a great polish when cold for another summer favourite of mine, green! Here it is cooling off to green.

Bright, summery and bold. My picks for summer are typically neon, however some of my favorites include:

I'm With the Lifegaurd - China Glaze
Baby Green - Nabi

Orange
Orange is one of those colours you can pull off year round depending I the shade. I absolutely love my neons for summer, just to name a few:

Orange You Hot? - China Glare
Japanese Koi - China Glaze (my first EVER China Glaze mani!)

Pink
Who doesn't love a hot pink mani for summer?! I have so many pinks, before I started growing my collection I had a good selection to choose from! Some of my top favourite pinks for summer are:

Shocking Pink - China Glaze
Yum Gum - Color Club

So what do you think of my summer polish list? What are your faves?

Yesterdays Bundle Monster Task Completed! - New Plate Preview!

So yesterdays Bundle Monster mission has been completed, which means a new image plate has been released! Check it out below.

Todays mission seems to be the same as yesterdays, boost Bundles Monsters facebook page to 25 likes. Seems simple enough, right? Looking forward to the next plate to be released! For more information and to check out the preview of the other two plates, which I posted about click here.

Havana Dreams

My boyfriend picked this shade for my latest mani, he is a sucker for blues! Sephora by OPI Havana Dreams was a long sought after polish for me when it was first released, such a pretty, soft, pale blue. I have worn this before, you can see the post here and here. I remember originally having some trouble with application and making a huge mess of it. This time I took my time applying thin coats and allowing time In between coats to speed up the final dry time and avoid any bubbling. Considering I applied this in my dimly lit living room (changing between The Apprentice AND hockey) I am pretty happy overall, my application could have been better but it turned out nicer than my first attempt.

I used a total of three coats for each nail, however, there were a few nails i went back to after the third coat with some touch ups. Although the formula is thin and streaky it does even out pretty well. I used Seche Vite to dry the polish quickly and as always it added the perfect shine!

I really love this shade of blue, and I probably wouldn't have picked it myself to wear on its own since the trouble I had with it the last time, so I am glad that it was picked for me :) I guess some polishes deserve a second chance sometimes. All this particular polish needed was some time and care to apply. That being said, considering how much Sephora by OPI polishes go for, you would think the formula would be spot on. I haven't bought much from them lately, has anyone noticed an improvement in formula lately?

NEW BUNDLE MONSTER PLATES!!

Check this out! I got an email from Bundle monster regarding their latest nail plate collections, it looks to be holiday themed. They have two plates posted currently, but they will be having missions every day to unlock the other plates. They are really killing us with the suspense here! See more information below.

To learn more about the missions have a look at the site here.

J-E-L-L-O - Fail or Win?

Happy Friday! I don't know how to feel about my latest mani. I used two really cool polishes but am not sure it was right to use them together! I started off with American Apparel Zuma Beach, which is a kiwi green jelly, this is apart of their "Sheer" collection of polishes. American Apparel polishes rarely disappoint and Zuma Beach was no exception. This has got to be one of the best jelly formulas I have ever come across!

It applies mostly sheer in one coat, but builds up nicely with two coats. Three coats gives full coverage. I wish I had taken a photo of my nails with Zuma Beach on it's own, but I decided to do a jelly sandwich! My glitter of choice? Wet n' Wild School of Pyrotechnics, a limited edition multi-coloured hex glitter released last summer.

The formula on School of Pyrotechnics was a bit weird, the clear base was a little runny, which is better than being too thick, however I found it took a bit of effort to get the glitter in the nail. Using the blotting method I tried my best to apply as much glitter as I could. I added the glitter over two coats of Zuma Beach, then added one last coat of School of Pyrotechnics to sandwich it in!

At first it kind of reminded me of jello with fruit suspended within, but once I noticed how kiwi the colour was in different lighting I regretted not using a black glitter for kiwi nails! I'm still not sure how I feel about the mani as a whole. I do really like Zuma Beach though, such an effortless glossy jelly. What do you think, yay or nay?

Online Polish Promos!

I've noticed some great polish promos recently online, looks like some companies are clearing out older stock to make way for newer collections maybe? I have listed below the top promos I have found on the web this week.

Milani's On BeautyJoint.com

The sale section of The Beauy Joint has a small collection of reduced beauty products and implements, but what really caught my eye was Milani polishes on sale for only 99 cents! There is a great selection of colours and finishes since I last checked the site yesterday evening, to see what is available click here. To have a look at their full list of sale items click here.

Deborah Lippmann's on NailPolishCanada.com

This promo has been going in for a while now, but what is left of the polishes are up to half off! It you were holding off on picking up a shade, now if your chance to get a good discount. Since this promo had been going on for a week or two now the polishes have been picked over, however there is still a lot on sale. This includes single polishes and sets. They have mentioned that they are no longer selling Deborah Lippmann polishes which gives me hope that they are likely to be further reduced until they are sold out. Have a look at what's left for sale here.

25% off SallysBeauty.com

Sally's has an promo for Mother's Day, get 25% off your online order totalling $60 or more using promo code 555263!

Plus a little bonus to those bargain hunters that read through the whole post, here is this months $10 off $20 at Sally's Beauty. Enjoy!

When Stars Collide

Another holo today from China Glaze's Hologlam collection. I want to wear each and everyone of these right away, however these colours still don't seem spring or summer-like to me. They should totally come out with neon holos, those would be awesome! I chose to wear When Worlds Collide since it is so rich and pigmented, because of this I knew immediately I would love it!

I applied my Nfu-Oh aqua base which made application a breeze. The formula was a little thick but I can't recall if I added any thinner to the bottle for my first application. I only needed two coats and added a base coat for longer wear. I was disappointed with wear for only one day, I already started noticing tip wear and slight chipping at the tips! I couldn't believe it, even with a top coat.

I ended up adding a third coat ON TOP of the top coat layer and then added another layer of top coat in hopes it would make the mani last longer, but I think it may have been too late. I camouflaged the tip wear and chips pretty well but have a feeling it won't hold up for too much longer. All indoor photos with lamp light were right after first application of polish and all out door photos were right after the touch up layer of polish and top coat.

I love how you can still wear a top coat with these holos and it won't effect the holo. For reference, I used Seche Vite. The holo on this polish it probably one of the strongest in the collection and I love it. The shade of polish it's self is such a deep beautiful amethyst. In very low light it appears so have somewhat of a pinky pearly shine. The holo is visible best in direct sunlight but can also be seen indoors with various types of lighting.