NOTD January 30/13 - valentine's day dotticure

The first of my Valentine's Day manicures is here! I really love this one, it started out with one idea (the dotted heart design) but then grew when I decided I didn't want to do that design on each nail. So I went for the cuticle dot gradient with a contrasting colour on the ring finger. Love this so much!

NOTD Jan 27/13 - matte grey, simple and classy

On Pinterest this week I saw a photo of a very simply mattified grey manicure, and I was totally inspired - grey isn't a colour I use a lot. But being me, I couldn't do just matte grey. I wanted to keep it fairly simple and classy looking though, so I toyed around with some different ideas and settled on grey with white polka dots and an accent nail of silver glitter, all mattified.

I love how these turned out!!! They're simple but still different, totally classy but cute vibe to them. This would be cute in any colour combination but I'm loving the grey/silver/white look.

Colours I used were Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Wet Cement and White On, and LA Girl Glitter Addict in Explosion. Top coat is GOSH Matt Effect.

Also, I think my indoor photo taking is a bit better this time. I messed around with the lighting in an editing program a bit and I think it worked nicely!

Freshly Ordered: Jewelry Haul

I have been hitting the Pinterest fashion boards hard the last few days, and one conclusion I have come to is this: I need more jewelry. Particularly statement jewelry! All of my necklaces are either small pendant charms on a chain, or long pendant charms on a chain. I still love those styles and don't plan to stop wearing them, but I wanted something else for variety and to make some of those awesome outfits I've seen on Pinterest happen for me in real life!

I got real lucky tonight too - I scored some absolutely amazing deals and I just can't wait til this stuff arrives!

First I placed an order with HauteLook. If you don't know what HauteLook is, you should!! Basically they host limited time sales for all kinds of brands, at prices that are SO LOW it's insane. I got a $300 curling iron for about $50. And wait til you see the prices for the jewelry I bought!

If you wanna join HauteLook (and simultaneously gift me with a $10 credit upon your first order ;) then CLICK HERE to join!

Now let's see the goods!

This is the Harriet Disc Necklace by Chloe and Theodora. Original price $96.00. I paid $22.00!

And then the t + j designs Pretty in Pink Crystal Necklace. Original price $98.00. I paid $14.00!

Crazy deals right? And the shipping (to Canada, which can be notoriously expensive!) was only $10.95. A steal!

I went to check out the website of t + j designs, and their sale section on their own site. I noticed if you signed up for their newsletter you could get a $10 credit for your first order, so I did that...

I ordered their Lemon Teardrop Necklace. Original price was $30.00. Sale price was $18.00! With the credit, I paid only $8.00!!! Shipping was also a very reasonable $5!

So that was three beautiful statement necklaces, worth over $200, that I paid around $60 for!

I consider this a good day.

Disclaimer: No companies are asking me to pimp their stuff! These were orders made with my money for my own self! Clicking the link to join HauteLook and give me a $10 credit upon your first order is an offer available to any member of HauteLook, not something offered just to me. Join up, share the love, and start sending out invitations to other people to get yourself some credits too! ;)

NOTD Jan 25/13 - funky abstract

This idea was sort of floating in my head for months, but I never got around to doing it. The idea for the pattern on my thumb and ring finger popped into my head and I thought it would look pretty cool, and when I finally decided to make it happen, the perfect colours jumped out at me too!

Now that I look at the pattern in reality, it really kind of reminds me of tire tracks, especially when I was first drawing it on and started it in the middle of my nails. The black rhinestones I added on as a last minute addition to make it a little more balanced and add a bit of pizazz to the plain nails.

The green is an awesome shade I recently picked up, Essence in L.O.L., such a gorgeous chartreuse shade, LOVE! The lavender is Revlon Top Speed in Lily, and the peach is Illamasqua Purity. I painted the designs with black acrylic paint, and the black rhinestones are from Born Pretty Store!

Liplicious Best Kiss Haul

I recently bought a set of colour changing lip glosses by Liplicious called Best Kiss from Bath & Body Works and I love them! I tried to take pictures of them but they didn't turn out true to colour so I'll have to try again another time, but I gotta post the haul pics!

The pink goes on totally clear, then turns to a beautiful neutral toned medium pink on the lips, and it smells like brown sugar. Sooo yummy and gorgeous! This is my current favourite brighter pink lip gloss, it looks bright but still natural. It stains the lips after several hours which also leaves a nice look.

Click here to see a FOTD where I'm wearing the pink Liplicious Best Kiss gloss.

The coral comes out clear with tiny gold shimmer, and then turns a warm orangey colour on the lips. This one I had the most trouble photographing, in pictures it looked just like the pink even though in real life it was definitely orange toned. I haven't tried it yet but I think this would look really great over nude lipstick. It smells like oranges!

The berry lip gloss is a red-toned purple shade, which comes out clear with tiny red shimmer - this shimmer also contributes to this berry shade leaning red, rather than too blue which could start to look a little corpse-like. This is a nice option if you like the idea of berry lips but not the intensity they usually have. Smells like berries :).

I'd recommend all of these! The set is at BBW for about $18 CAD, and last I saw you could just purchase the pink one for about $8.50, but the set is obviously a better deal. They have a nice texture on and a really good wear time, plus the fact that they all start to stain your lips is kind of nice, since even when they eventually do wear off (which I find takes a few hours) they leave the colour on your lips.

Review/Swatches: NYX Stick Blushes (Hibiscus, Pink Poppy, and Tulip)

Today I want to review a product that I am completely loving!

If you've been reading my blog for a little while you may recall I reviewed NYX Stick Blush in Hibiscus back in August, but since then I've gotten a couple other shades and I wanted to have one post where I sort of review the product in general, and pool all the swatches. I will probably end up with more shades of this in the future and when I do I'll be sure to swatch them!

These are nice and stiff in the tube, but they apply very smoothly and blend well. To get the best colour level I usually like to swipe it directly on my cheeks, blend with my fingers, and then repeat once or twice depending on how intense I want my blush to be for that particular look.

The longevity is really great, which is nice since that isn't always the case for cream formula blushes. They are also a great size, so they're easy to pack in your purse in case you're out for a very long time and eventually need a touch up.

ALSO - I need to talk about one of the hidden delights of these blushes. They make AWESOME lipsticks. Seriously! I like to pick up the product off the stick with my finger and then pat it on my lips. Pink Poppy especially looks gorgeous on the lips. It creates a really nice put together look to have neutral eyes and then the same shade on your cheeks and lips! And take it from someone with lips that tend to be as dry as the Sahara, these don't dry your lips out like you would think they might!

OK, enough talk though, let's get to the pictures!

 This is all three of the ones I currently own. As you can see, another awesome thing about these blushes is that the packaging is the same colour as the blush on the inside. Even right down to the details - Hibiscus and Tulip are non-shimmery, and so is their packaging. But Pink Poppy has very fine gold shimmer in it, and so does the packaging!

First let's focus on Hibiscus. This is a slightly darker beige toned pink blush with some peach tones. Out of the three it's the most neutral and most peachy type of colour. I wouldn't even really describe this one as overtly pink at all, more like peachy-nude.

Here's a shot of the product inside the package.

And here is a swatch. On the left is it swiped on, and on the right blended out.

Now let's look at Pink Poppy. Pink Poppy is a neutral pink shade with definite peachy tones, and a slight gold shimmer. Very, very pretty!

This picture I think actually shows the colour as a little pinker than it is, and I'm sure you can tell it looks more peachy in the package. It definitely looks like the colour in the package on the skin, and not as dark or "magenta" looking as the swatch on my skin. Camera must have been being funky or the lighting outside wasn't great or something!

Click here to see a FOTD where I'm wearing Pink Poppy on my cheeks.

Last but not least, let's see Tulip! Tulip is a cool toned pink, much more Barbie!

This swatch turned out the most colour accurate I think, although a little more intense than it appears in real life. It's not quite so vivid when you're wearing it on your face!

Overall, I LOVE these products! I have several more shades of this on my wishlist, and I definitely think you should check them out too!

Let me know if you have tried them and what you think!

NOTD Jan 21/12 - mint and magenta with studs

This was a manicure that started out totally different and then needed to be resuscitated because it failed SO BAD!

Remember that Aruba Coconut manicure I did the other day? I wanted to carry on the Bath & Body Works Escape Collection theme, so I started the mani with several magenta nails, and then on the middle nails I was going to do a design based on the packaging of another bottle from that collection. But they looked SOOOOOOO bad. Like laughably bad guys. Epic fail bad.

So I wiped off the polish from those two nails and quickly did something simple so I wouldn't spend another eon doing my nails!

Also, forgive my subpar indoor lighting photo-taking skills. My new job is a full time 9-5 type deal, so there are not going to be many opportunities for me to take manicure photos in daylight unless I start bringing my camera to the office and taking photos out the back during my lunch. Which is an idea, come to think of it...

Both of these were polishes I bought yesterday, and both Revlon. The pink is Revlon Top Speed Bubble, and I LOVE it. The formula on this polish is amazeballs. So smooth and gorgeous, perfect in two coats. The colour is straight up BARBIE. <3 <3 <3 I don't usually go this googoo for pinks but what can I say... the mint is a repurchase, it was on clearance at the drugstore, Revlon Minted. Studs are from Bornprettystore.com!

NOTD Jan 19/13 - inspired by Madeline Poole

I saw this gorgeous mani on Tumblr, and something about the simple design and the yummy colours just caught my eye! I had to recreate it!

I tweaked the design a bit for myself, instead of the rhinestones I did a single gold pyramid stud on each nail. Love how this turned out, couldn't stop staring at my hands last night. :)

 The yellow is NYX Salon Polish in Pastel Yellow and I painted the triangles on with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Mint Sorbet.

FOTD Jan 18/13 - subtle cat eye

I based this off a Pinterest look I found recently!! Very simple to do and pretty!

The look was mainly simple eyeshadow - just skin toned shadow on the lids, a slightly darker warm brown in the crease (I used Urban Decay Buck) and a shimmery white on the inner corners. Then I drew on a cat eye with a black eyeliner pencil (CoverGirl Liquiline Blast in Black Fire) but went over it with an angled brush in a charcoal eyeshadow to soften it up (I used MAC Knight Divine).

On my cheeks I'm wearing NYX Stick Blush in Pink Poppy and on my lips I'm wearing Liplicious Best Kiss colour-changing pink lip gloss, both of which I'll be reviewing soon!

Here's some close ups of the makeup! :)

NOTD Jan 17/13 - Mr.Bubble gradient ruffian

Sometimes you just sit down to paint your nails with no real idea what you're going to do. You just look at your polishes til something jumps out at you and then you go with it.

When I did these nails, Lush Lacquer's Mr.Bubble screamed out at me for some more love - it's such an awesome polish but I've only worn it once. I decided to layer it over white polish (which I'm realizing is my manicure base colour of choice) in a cuticle gradient. But once I did it it just didn't seem like quite enough. There didn't seem to be enough of a fade from cuticle to tips, so it looked like I just painted half my nails with glitter. Not the effect I wanted. So to give the cuticle area more impact I painted on a stripe of Essence Ultimate Pink and turned it into a ruffian.

It was only after I'd finished that I had the thought that someone seeing my hands from a distance might think I had some horrible cuticle infection because of the bright pink colour! LOL But I had lots of compliments at work so I guess that wasn't the first thing people thought when they saw them!

I think these turned out pretty cool and unique looking, I don't think I've ever really seen a manicure like this one!

NOTD Jan 11/13 - Aruba Coconut tropical leaves

As many of you may know, I work at Bath & Body Works (although not for much longer!). This week we've begun receiving product for spring/summer, including the new 2013 repackages of the tropical themed Signature Collection products like Aruba Coconut, Bali Mango and Rio Rumberry.

You can already check them out on the website, although they won't be available in stores until after the weekend, but oh my goodness, the packaging is GORGEOUS. I knew I had to do some manicures inspired by them!

I started with Aruba Coconut. This mani is one of those ones I love the most when I see it from a bit of a distance, but when I look at it up close I get really nitpicky about the shapes of the leaves! Next time I try a design like this I'll probably use the sandwich bag method because it was hard to freehand the leaves on my own nails. But overall I really like this mani and the colours especially!

Background colour is a polish I picked up at the dollar store, and I am very impressed by it! I'll be back to grab more shades. It's Tivoli Color Shock NP153 (no real name :( I hate that!). Then the leaves are Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Mellow Yellow and Green With Envy, LA Girl Disco Brites in Turntable, Essence Walk on Air, and one bit of the leaves is a mixture of the two previous shades.

The Essence hauls continue!

Essence is one of those brands that's hard not to haul, it's so cheap! But I always find their products to be pretty good quality, especially for the price you pay!

I will have swatches and reviews for these at a later date. :)

 This haul was comprised of Essence Eyeshadow in Cappuccino, Please!, Essence Mattifying Compact Powder in Transluscent, and Essence Liquid Eyeliner in Black.

Top 12 Manicures of 2012

I did this last year for 2011 and meant to get it done sooner for 2012, but better late than never! It's always fun to look back and remember manis you were really excited about!

These are all my personal favourites out of the manicures I did in the past year. :) It was so hard to narrow it down to 12, I looked back and really loved a lot of the manis I did this year! It was also harder than 2011 because I only started doing nail art in June of 2011, but this time I had a full year of designs to pick from! According to my count, I did 81 manicures in 2012!

These aren't in any particular order except going from earliest in the year to most recent!

Pop Art Hearts

 

 Pink Roses on Yellow

 Candy Pastel Gradient

 Diamond Jubilee

Cotton Candy Splatter

 Disneyland Nails

 Colourblock Meets Drippy

 Salt n' Peppa over Gradient

 Intricate Floral on Periwinkle

Pumpkin Tips

Peppermint Swirl 

 Blue Snowflakes and Dots