NOTD Mar 27/13 - nude, black and silver glitter

Just a really quick and simple one today! I saw this look in Pinterest and thought it was very classy and pretty, so I had to try it out! I also finally spruced up my toes today! Feels good to be all polished up!

Colours are Essence in Black is Back, LA Girl in Romantic, and LA Girl Glitter Addict in Explosion.

NOTD Mar 10/13 - stripes and negative space

Negative space has been a growing trend with nail art lately, and I really love the look of it. I also really needed to find more reasons to use my striping tape, but I always hesitate to use it because I have to let my bottom layer of nail polish dry for so long before it's safe to put the striping tape over it, and I don't usually have the time! So combining a striped look and negative space was the perfect solution!

I applied the striping tape over my bare nails, and then used a detail brush to paint in stripes of the various colours. The colour palette I picked was black, gold, turquoise and coral. I'm really happy with how this turned out, I think it looked awesome!

The colours I used were Essence in Black is Back, Barielle in Do Unto Others, Sally Hansen CSM in Gilty Pleasure, and Barielle Blossom. My right hand was skittles of these colours because I did eventually get tired of fussing with the striping tape!! :p

NOTD Mar 7/13 - chevrons and dots

I couldn't just leave the chevron look alone! It's a design I really like and I wanted to give it another shot. This time I mixed it up - I did smaller chevrons on the thumbnail and bigger ones on the fingers, and then on my right hand I went for dots instead in the same colour scheme.

Here's a side by side shot of both hands!

The orange is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Sun Kissed, and the blue is Essence Let's Get Lost. White is acrylic paint!

NOTD Feb 23/13 - 80's abstract!

This was actually from last week but I've been slow in getting stuff done, had a busy week!

My boyfriend really loved this design which was funny, he is supportive but he doesn't normally notice my nails all that much!

I based this off a design I saw on Pinterest, but I'm not sure where it originally came from. I just switched up the colours. This looks pretty 80's to me and I like it! Very easy to do and looks so fun!

The green is Essence in L.O.L. and the blue is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Blue Me Away.

NOTD Feb 2/13 - simple Valentine's glitter fade

Sometimes simple manis happen because that's what you're in the mood for, and sometimes they happen because you have somewhere to be but then you realize your manicure is looking totally busted and it's time for a new one. And time is short, so you do the quickest thing you can think of! This manicure is the latter! But even if it was rushed, I still really like it. I love the contrast of the really sheer, soft pink and the bright red glitter - I don't think this would look as cool with an opaque pink polish.

The pink is Essence in Sweet as Candy, and the red glitter is LA Girl Glitter Addict in Animate.

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!

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.

NOTD Jan 7/12 - glitter space

This could be termed the lazy woman's galaxy manicure as well! I just wanted to test out the new polish I picked up at Shoppers Drug Mart, Essence Chic Reloaded. In the bottle it is dark shimmery reddish purple with a little bit of greenish duochrome. The green doesn't translate onto the nail from what I can see, but the reddish-purple looks so cool on the nails I'm not even mad! It's shimmery but dark enough to be kind of vampy, but it doesn't stray into that so dark you need a spotlight on it to tell whether it's black or not kind of territory.

But I can never seem to leave well enough alone, so I had to add something - glitter! I used Wet n' Wild Kaleidoscope, which looks like a dark silver glitter but on the nails a lot of the pieces flash rainbow colours, and it's all various sizes of smaller glitter. These were hard to stop staring at!

In other news, I wanted to share the happy announcement that I will shortly be starting a new job! I took a course in the fall to qualify for my level 1 insurance broker/adjuster's license, and I just got a job at a brokerage! The start of a new job is always exciting, and the start of a new career is even moreso! :D

NOTD Dec 13/12 - Christmas presents

This is one of my favourite Christmas manis so far! Presents had been in my mind for a while but I wasn't sure how I wanted to execute them so I kept putting them off. I finally figured out how I was going to do it, and alternated several holiday appropriate colours and glitters. They are so cute!

The colours I used were Sinful Colors Envy, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On, Sally Hansen CSM in Gilty Pleasure, Nicole by OPI Positive Energy, Essence Glamorous Life, and various striper polishes and glitters. Honestly, too many to list!

NOTD Nov 8/12 - rhinestone halfmoon skittles!

Got a few different elements going on with these ones! They're bright, fun and sparkly!! Good combo!

The colours I used were (from thumb to pinkie) Revlon Electric, Barielle Swizzle Stix, Barielle Sailor's Delight, Barielle Do Unto Others, Essence Break Through.

Then I added a little silver glitter - LA Girl Glitter Addict in Explosion, and added some rhinestones from Born Pretty Store on top!

NOTD Nov 6/12 - nude sparkly

This is the time of year where getting good pictures of my nails becomes very hard! It's almost always grey and/or rainy here now, so the lighting is never great! These look about a million times cooler in person but oh well, not much you can do!

I started out with a couple coats of Essence in Sweet as Candy which is a really sheer baby pink. Then I added a couple coats of the LA Girl Rock Star Lacquer in Double Platinum. It's hard to tell in this pic but in real life Double Platinum's base is lightly tinted kind of grey/beige-ish, so my nails look like they're a warm grey/beige shade with tiny silver and iridescent sparkles. They have a lot more dimension in person - the lack of light made it hard to capture that aspect of them. I really like these even though they're so simple! Life has been a little busy lately so I haven't had as much time for more complicated nail art. I do want to do something a little more elaborate very soon though!

FOTD Sep 28/12 - no eyeshadow and darker hair!

This is a look I pretty much NEVER go with, but it was born of necessity this time! I have no idea why but recently my eyelids have been really dry and irritated, which is something that has never happened to me. I don't know why it's happening but I'm trying to keep from irritating them further, so when I did this look (actually yesterday) I tried to do a look that didn't have any eyeshadow. Well, that's not entirely true - I did a tiny bit of shadow just along the lashline on the outer corners for a bit of definition. But nothing on the lids themselves!

Since I'm not used to going without shadow, it was a bit of an experiment for me! I decided to balance out the lack of eyeshadow with extra mascara, bright blush and pinky nude lips.

And as you can also see, my hair is back to darker! I was overdue for a re-dye!

I styled my hair by twisting the hair back and pulling more hair into the twist as I went back, and then pinning it on the back of my head. And then lots of hairspray and pins to keep the shorter bits from falling out!

There were a couple new elements in my makeup too, besides the lack of eyeshadow on the lids! I finally decided to try out another mascara, after only using Cover Girl Lashblast waterproof for the past few years! I picked up Essence Get Big! Lashes in Waterproof... and I'm glad I did! Although it's not replacing my CG Lashblast (I still love it the best!) I like it for layering. I've found to get a ton of volume on lashes you want to layer two different kinds, one coat after another. I did that with the CG and the Essence mascaras and was able to get a lot more volume.

Also new was a kind of lipstick hack I did. Last year I bought Wet n' Wild Mega Last Lip Color in Just Peachy (903C) and I loooved the colour but found that the matte finish just didn't work on me. My lips are very dry and tend to get really flaky, very quickly. So matte is not an option for me. But I didn't want to lose that awesome colour! So I bought some little plastic pop-top containers from the dollar store, and created a gloss out of it instead! I mixed the lipstick, some Vaseline, and a bit of two kinds of lip gloss (one more pink and one more nude-peach) together and created what I'm wearing on my lips! It's got a glossy finish but a really opaque colour because the lipstick was such an opaque shade. I love it!!

I also wore two bright pinky blushes here, a cream with a powder layered on top.

Have you ever had to change up your usual makeup routine or try something totally different unexpectedly? How did you adapt, and what did you have to do?

NOTD Aug 26/12 - pop art graphic dots

These nails were one of those "pops into your head unbidden" kind of ideas. After I did them, they really reminded me of bright, flashy pop art. I love the way the colours work together!

Starting from the thumb going towards the pinky, I painted my nails with: OPI in The "It" Color, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Sun Kissed, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Blue Me Away! (x2), and Sun Kissed again. Then I added dots in Blue Me Away!, Essence in Ultimate Pink, and Barielle Do Unto Others.

NOTD Aug 23/12 - frankenpolish, "For the Love of Mermaids"

I have three frankens under my belt now, and this is the second one! If you missed the first one, check it out here! This one took a little longer to name, but it came to me when I put the polish on, and got one of the little heart shaped glitters on my ring fingernail, and all at once, "For the Love of Mermaids" popped into my head!

This is it layered over one coat of Essence's You Belong to Me. I didn't want to do a million layers of FtLoM but it gets fairly opaque after about three coats.

Sorry about the one dinged up thumbnail! I'm not even sure how I did that, I didn't notice it until I uploaded the photos! Here's a couple bottle shots.

NOTD Aug 16/12 - glitter sandwich!

Another one I can tick off the to-do list, a glitter sandwich! I believe I saw some variation of almost this exact colour scheme somewhere else, so I know this combo wasn't organic from my mind (how many ideas are, really?) but I love it so much! It's soft and girly, almost a vintage vibe in some way. Bright, but still muted. I adore it! I can see this being cute with slight variations, like using baby blue or lavender as the bottom coat.

First I did a coat of Barielle Beaches & Dreams, an opaque peachy nude that just hints at a pink tone too. Then a coat or two of NYX Advanced Salon Formula in Multi Glitter, and then a coat of Essence Sweet As Candy.

For those who don't know the idea behind a glitter sandwich, it basically breaks down to this:
Opaque or sheer base coat + glitter coat + sheer or jelly coat = glitter sandwich. The look is to make it seem like the glitter is kind of floating in the middle of the polish, even though it's actually sandwiched between two other layers. It sort of softens and mutes brighter glitters too and gives them new life. I mean, for something rainbow this comes across as pretty wearable!

NOTD Aug 13/12 - pink roses

I had my uncle's wedding to go to this Saturday so I wanted some nail art that would be appropriate for that kind of occasion, and this seemed perfect and went nicely with my outfit, without being matchy. I really like floral patterns on my nails and I think these turned out really nicely!

I started with a coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On, then I painted the roses with LA Girl Color Addict in Sensation. I added leaves with Sinful Colors in Envy, and then painted Essence in Sweet As Candy over the middles of the roses to soften the color just slightly. :) Hope you like!

NOTD Aug 6/12 - cocktail nails

Hope everyone in Canada is enjoying the long weekend today!

I did these nails the other day just to play around - they didn't turn out exactly how I wanted but I still like them, and I finally got to use one of my new Essence polishes! I love how shimmery it is, almost like glass flecks.

I painted all my nails with a coat of Rimmel 60 Seconds in Green With Envy, then added a coat of Essence in Choose Me! on the thumb, ring and pinky fingers. Then a coat each of Revlon Blue Mosaic and LA Girl Glitter Addict in Explosion on the index and middle fingers.

NOTD Jul 9/12 - matte blue glitter

I love matte nails, but I never seem to actually do matte manis! I was playing around on my nail wheels though and I came up with this great colour combo and I had to do it on my nails. In real life this is actually a lot darker, it showed up really bright in the photo, but that's fine because it shows of the glitter better when the photo is lighter.

First I painted on a thick coat of Essence in Walk on Air, then a coat of Sinful Colors in Hottie (LOVE this glitter, if you don't have it, get it - so gorgeous!). Then a coat of GOSH Matt Effect Top Coat and voila! Very fast and so pretty! I love that soft, velvety feeling of a matte topcoat, I'm always running my fingers over my nails!