R.I.P

A somewhat oldie, but a goodie and perfect for October!

Today I have Orly R.I.P., a black jelly base with shiny orange copper mini and hex glitter. It has a wonderful formula and applies like butter! The glitter is easy to distribute, but keep in mind that I did have the bottle stored upside-down so the glitter was held at the top of the bottle.

I only needed two coats for full opacity. I applied a coat of Seche Vite over top and it added a nice glossy finish without being sucked up by the glitter. All in all a perfect kick of to the Halloween season!

Getting Ready for Halloween!

 It has been forever since I have done any type of stamping in my nails. I was inspired by all things to come with Halloween and decided on a more subtle design that is more reminiscent of the Day of the Dead. The designes I ended up choosing has to have something to do with my recent obsession with Ink Master, I can totally see all of these elements being a part of a super cool tattoo!

Using OPI's Skull and Glossbones as by base, I knew right away that I wanted to use a deep red and stark black to the nail. I chose Sally Hansen Miricle Gel, Dig Fig, a deep opaque red and Konad Black. For stamping I used the two stamps I HAD TO HAVE on the nails ASAP; were the Victorian style skull profile (plate BM-612) and the simple yet bold coffin with a cross (plate BM-402).

I wasn't quite sure at this point what I was going to do with them, but once I started stamping with the black and red polishes and I took another look through my plates I knew I wanted some full nail patterns that matched the theme. I chose the full nail bats pattern (plate BM-H08) for my pinky and large roses (plate BM-323) for my pointer finger. I defiantly want to do something more complex with the roses and the skeleton profile in the near future!

I carefully added Essie's Matte About You top coat and voila! I'm pretty happy with the outcome and looking forward to using my plates more for some fun nails this Halloween!

Witchy Tips

I have been pretty busy the last few months and could not decide on what I wanted to wear on my nails. I ended up going for something classic with a slight twist, a mix of a French manicure and colour blocking.

I taped off my nails with thin striper tape and added a generous coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out, which has been my go to black polish lately. Although I only applied one coat, this mani lasted me a full week with minimal tip wear. It really started to show it's wear in the last few days, however.

I wanted to do some Halloween nail art over it but was just too busy unfortunately.

Ghostess with the Mostess

Hostess with the Mostess is apart of the Ghouls Night Out collection released this year apart of China Glaze's Halloween collection.

I decided to layer two coats over a bare nails (plus a base coat, of course!) to make the most of each piece of glitter. I couldn't decide on a base shade that would be truly complimentary to each coloured glitter.

Ghostess with the Mostess is made up of matte black, pastel green, pastel orange and striped purple hex glitter of various sizes. In hindsight I thought of a layering idea of layering the glitter between a black or orange glitter. Heck, even green or purple would work too!

It applied nice and smooth, the consistency of the clear base was a breeze. There was lots of glitter on the brush, didn't have to fish around too much, just played around a bit with the brush on the nail for placement of glitter so it was not overlapping. So far it has been wearing great!

Ziggy Zaggy!

Today I have a Halloween inspired refresh inspired by @Stormandstars on Instagram (shown below).

I'm not sure exactly what products were used, but I just loved the look!

My base is Del Sol Trick or Treat and I used Bundle Monster plate BM-201 with Konad black for stamping the zigzag pattern.

 

I LOVE this look, although I must say I am a bit rusty at stamping. It's been a while! My nails are also a tad long and the pattern just reached the top. I actually filed then down a bit to ensure the pattern looked complete.

A fun and quick way to Halloween up your nails!

A Halloween Favorite

Today I have a Halloween favorite that I try to use sparingly, Del Sol Trick or Treat.

Trick or Treat is a UV activated colour shifting polish. In it's regular state it is a bright orange jelly with holographic micro glitter. When in the sun or exposed to UV light it turns a dark shade of purple, almost black jelly! Such a great shift and colour changing polish. I wish there were a heat activated version as well!

I used two coats over (two layers) of my Deborah Lippmann All About That Base base coat. I decided to use two layers of the base to help with opacity of the polish, and save a layer or two of polish. All and all the technique worked very well!

Comparing the colour shift from the last time I wore this polish, it's safe to say there is a bit of a difference. This may be due to a few factors, either age of the polish or quantity of layers. Age may have affected the colour shift or additional layers are needed to produce a better effect. I'll have to test the polish out to know for sure.

Do you have this polish? How is the colour shift like from your bottle?

Zesty

You all know this shade. I'm sure I have pulled it out pretty much every year since it's release and tried it out in a new way. Although my favorite way I wear China Glaze, Zombie Zest is on it's own, I decided to try it out over a deep green this year, China Glaze Holly-day.

Holly-day is a deep blue based green creme, I used one coat as a base. I then added two generous coats of Zombie Zest over top. Holly-day masks the overall murkiness of the swamp, green/yellow base, which I love. However, I find the deeper base makes this look more dramatic and vampy. Maybe even a little more wearable for those not used to pretty ugly colours like Zombie Zest.

The longer I have this on my nails the less I eat to remove it!

Hay Loft!

In case you haven't already noticed...As in previous years on my blog, this month will be dedicated to 31st of October, Halloween! This means exclusive content, polish and nail art inspired by Halloween.

Today to kick things off I have a hardcore lemming if mine from last year, China Glaze Rest In Pieces layered over Zoya Charlotte. I could not locate the Apocalypse of Color collection last year, I had to call around to get some of my favorites. And by the time that happened October was over. That is just one of the reasons it was too on my list to wear this year.

You want another reason? Take a look at that glitter! Rest in Pieces is a mix of matte black, copper and holo hex and bar glitter. It reminds me a of glittery hay!

Application was awesome, one blobbed coat was required and is shown in my swatches. It dries to a high gloss shine unlike other glitters. I love glitters on a neutral base, and this was no exception.

I will definitely be pulling this one out again before the end of the month!

Halloween Haul! - Photo Heavy

Today I have my picks from China Glaze's Ghouls Night Out collection for Halloween this year. Something must have aligned perfectly for me to obtain these pre-Halloween this year. I usually get my hands on these collections just after. Last week I knew I would be passing by Sally's on my way home from work so I called to see if they had it in stock (this location happens to be particularly late receiving the latest collections). Not only did they have it in stock, but they had buy one get one free! BONUS!

Left to right is Something Brewing, Cackle if You Want To and Ghostess with the Mostess.

Something Brewing is a glitter topper made up of matte black and pastel green hex glitters of various sizes in a clear base. One coat is shown in the swatches below.

Cackle If You Want To is similar to Something Brewing, a glitter topper made up of matte black and violet hex glitters of various sizes in a clear base. The key difference is the largest violet hex glitters, can you see the little stripes on them? They remind me of ruffled chips! One coat is shown in the swatches below.

And last, but not least, my top must have from this collection, Ghostess with the Mostess. This is a combo of the above polishes with some pastel orange glitter thrown in there! One coat is shown in the swatches below.

Swatches!

So remember how I said it was buy one get one free? Well I have a bonus polish to share, Star Hoping. The funny thing is this was yet ANOTHER polish I was wanting. I had vaguely heard about the Star Hoping collection, and didn't know that it was now apart of the core line at Sally's. Lucky me!

Star Hoping is a gorgeous deep indigo jelly with densely packed blue and holo glitter. This is so pretty! Literally space on your nails!

Two coats are shown in the swatch below.

This is a thirsty glitter, for a nice glossy shine you will probably need a few coats of top coat. It is worth it though!

More Halloween to come this month on the blog, stay tuned!

Immortal

Today I have a neutral shade. I feel kind of in-between seasons at the moment. During the month of Halloween I was all over my Halloween polishes, pretty much anything goes! Right now it is still technically fall, but I feel the cold of winter quickly approaching. Polish wise I feel somewhat in a rut but not in a bad way, more in the way I can't decide what I want to wear because of all the options! I still have a few Halloween polishes in my desk, so I decided to try China Glaze, Immortal.

This is another one of those "Halloween" shades that doesn't really scream Halloween to me. I almost didn't purchase it originally because of that, however, swatches and reviews of this polish online made me want to try it.

Immortal is a medium grey creme polish with a faint shimmer of small iridescent flakies. The shimmer reflects mostly pink and blue. The formula was great, a little on the thin side but not too liquidy. It was easy to apply and only two coats were required for full opacity. 

Overall, I'm not really super impressed with this shade, it's a nice neutral but doesn't really have the "wow" factor I was hoping for. The longer I wear it the more it has been growing on me.

Cast A Spell!

I have another Halloween themed polish today, although Halloween was over a week ago and October is now over. I pulled out China Glaze Cast A Spell when I was going through my untried Halloween polishes in early October. Since I didn't have a chance to weather it then, I thought why not now?

 I found that the Wicked collection, which Cast A Spell was apart, of to be not super "Halloween-y", naming and colour wise. However, I do love this shade, it reminds me of a more grown up, sophisticated version of Zombie Zest.

The base is a deep, blackened olive green with golden green shimmer scattered throughout. In direct lighting it appears shimmery, and in low light the shimmer particles appear to be beautiful flakie shards floating on top of the dark base.

The formula is excellent. I could have gotten away with one coat, but I decided to add a second thinner coat on top. 

This is such an awesome shade for fall and winter, love it!

Happy Halloween ^_^

Happy Halloween!

I just love the whole month of October because to me it is basically a whole month centred around Halloween. I mean, who didn't love halloween as a child? Dress-up and free candy? I would be down for that every day of the year! 

It's funny though, ever since going vegan I have rethought a lot of my food choices and aside from the obvious (meat, dairy and eggs) I don't include white sugar or high fructose corn syrup in my life and if it's presented, I try to avoid it as much as possible. That being said I have still found so many fun ways to create delicious and healthy Halloween treats that I enjoy even more that my old favourites! So many things to love about Halloween, horror movies, PUMPKINS and of course, fun nails.

For Halloween I decided I wanted something classic, meaning black and orange. I used an unexpected favourite of mine from last year, China Glaze Bump in the Night. This is an opaque black textured polish. I love how it looks like dirt or asphalt. I applied this to my pinky and middle fingers. I did the reverse of this on my right hand.

To the rest of my fingers I applied 2-3 thin to medium coats of Maybelline Color Show in Dotty. Another unexpected favorite! My boyfriend talked me in to trying this one out. I told him I was going to leave it and he said, and I quote; " you can't leave it, it's so cool i'm going to get it for you". What a guy :)

In the bottle, Dotty looks like a rusty orange, but on the nail it is the perfect pumpkin orange. The orange jelly base is thin and the black and white matte glitter is dense. I had no issues with application, but I must warn you to be patient with application. I was getting impatient and decided to add thicker coats to a few nails, and although not very visible, it did cause some small bubbling to occur.

All and all I am super happy with this mani and my October. Lots of fun was had this month at haunted houses, watching scary movies, making awesome treats, hay rides and a pumpkin patch!

Create & Win Your Own Franken-Polish!

Halloween... so close I can taste it! Don't forget to enter my Halloween themed giveaway here, the contest ends in a few days.

Zoya has an awesome promo/contest for this last week of October (which I have dubbed Halloweek). See below for the details directly from Zoya:

This Halloween we're giving you a chance to bring your Zoya color creation to life!!! Create It, Name It and Potentially Win It! Click here for full instructions.

Take a look at their colour laboratory:

As you can see below, you can choose the exact shade, finish and opacity you would like for you polish along with a name an description.

Check out my creations below, in true Zoya fashion, I have given them all plausible "names":

I'm excited to see the winners, this is a super cool idea. Although you are not able to be super creative with actual glitters and textures, the description allows you to really tell the story of your polish.