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 March 17/13 - Happy St.Patrick's Day!

Happy St.Patrick's Day everyone! I worked today so I didn't get into any kinds of festivities, but I hope you're all having fun of some kind today!

I looove this mani.. I know I say that a lot, but it's OK to love a lot of things... and I really do love this. It's so simple but it has so much impact. I was an easy mani to do, even the clovers only used a dotting tool and took about 4 seconds each! I think too that this is a good format for other kinds of manis... ie: use red and pink glitter and do the white nail with a heart on it for Valentine's Day... you get the idea!

Anyways, here she is!

The white is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On, the gold I layered under the glitter is Sally Hansen CSM in Gilty Pleasure, and the green I layered under the glitter is Sinful Colors in Envy. The gold glitter is Milani Jewel FX in Gold, and the green glitter is LA Girl Glitter Addict in Purge.

NOTD Mar 4/13 - violet and colourful glitter

I just loved this new shade of polish so much I had to find a way to use it! It's another dollar store one, can't remember the exact price but it was somewhere in the $2 range, and it applies marvellously for such a cheap polish! Doesn't have that stinky chemical smell some cheaper polishes can have too which is even more of a bonus.

I kept it simple (for me) with a couple coats of the gorgeous violet and then a glitter gradient that was multicoloured.

The violet is Tivoli Color Shock in shade NP127 (have I mentioned how much I hate it when companies don't actually name their shades? Grrr!) and the glitter is NYX Advanced Salon Formula Nail Polish in Multi Glitter. At least it has a name, but no points for creativity there.

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 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!

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 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 Nov 25/12 - festive glitter

This one was pretty simple guys! I just layered three different glitters to get one festive glitterbomb mani!

The colours I used were all by LA Girl - the gold is Live on Stage (from the Rock Star line), the red is Animate, and the green is Purge (the last two both from the Glitter Addict line).

These looked like sparkly little Christmas ornaments on my hands and people kept commenting on them at work! They looked like they were one glitter polish, so this has me of a mind to try layering more glitters to see what combos I get!

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!

NOTD Oct 30/12 - black and red glitter gradient

Just a quick one today! I wore these nails to pair with my Halloween costume this past weekend, which was a black devil costume - just a simple horns headband and a tail and I wore all black. Cute and simple and these nails gave it a little bit of colour! Not the best picture but it was cloudy and early and I was in a rush!

I used a few colours in this - basic black obviously, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Black Out. Then for the reds I used Illamasqua Scarab, Revlon Cherry Crush, and LA Girl Glitter Addict in Animate.

NOTD Sep 18/12 - matte mixed

I always feel like I'm never doing enough matte manis! I love the way they look and I really love the way they feel (so soft!) but I never seem to make them happen. I especially like how glitter looks mattified but I didn't want to do an all-glitter matte mani because that's all I've ever done with the texture before. So I went for a mixed mani with glitter incorporated for this one!

I painted my ring finger with Revlon Impulsive, and the rest with Revlon Dreamer. I painted Milani One Coat Glitter in Lavender Fizz on my ring finger. Then I used Impulsive to paint on the dots and stripes on the blue nails (I alternated on my other hand, so the dots were on the thumb and so on), then I added highlights of the glitter on each nail as well, and then mattified with GOSH Matt Effect top coat!

NOTD Sep 15/12 - vertical dots and glitter tips!

Sometimes I get a random idea for an abstract nail design that I haven't seen anywhere (to my knowledge anyways, if this design has already been done by someone, I either haven't seen it or I have but it went straight to my subconscious mind). When I do, they either turn out NOTHING like what I pictured in my head, or really cool. In this case, I think it falls into the really cool category!

The design itself is simple. Vertical dots on the nails, in alternating colours, with different sized dots and different length rows. And then glitter on the tips. I wouldn't mind trying out other colour combos, but I love how this looks the first time around!

 The blue dots are Nicole by OPI in "Baby" Blue, the pink dots are Revlon Pink Lingerie, and the silver glitter is LA Girl Glitter Addict in Explosion.

NOTD Sep 12/12 - peachy pink and gold glitter gradient

I just got all those glitters in from my Cherry Culture order, and it had been so long since I did one of my favourites, a glitter gradient!

First was a couple coats of LA Girl Nude Polish in Dainty, then I sponged on Sally Hansen
CSM in Gilty Pleasure to start the gradient. I topped that with a sponging of LA Girl Rock Star in Live On Stage, and I had planned to stop there but it didn't quite look finished to me, so I added a thin coat of Milani Jewel FX in Gold over the tips and spilling down into the other part of the gradient and then it was perfect!

I've been lemming the Jewel FX for aages, so glad I finally got my hands on it!

Review/NOTD Sep 2/12 - Lush Lacquer's Salt n' Peppa over gradient

I went back and forth in my mind a lot about what to wear under this polish! Since it's a black and white glitter you can wear pretty much anything with it, so it was hard to narrow it down! I thought about some shades, then I thought about doing a different colour on each finger. Then it was a matter of whether to do brights, pastels or ombre from thumb to pinky. I had settled on a selection of colours for each nail, but as I sat down and was about to do it, it hit me that I hadn't done a gradient in a while! So I picked out two of the shades I was going to use and gradient-ized them instead!

I had kind of forgotten the power of a gradient to really give impact to a design and make it look more interesting with minimal effort. I've tried different techniques, but my favourite is still the most basic - paint your nails with the bottom colour (the one closest to your cuticle) and then sponge on the upper colour(s) with a makeup sponge. I also like to go back with the bottom colour to sponge in the middle and blur the line a little better, and then paint a little bit of the tip colour with the brush from the bottle right on the ends to make sure the colour is really opaque there.

Then I topped it off with a coat of my second fantastic shade from Lush Lacquer, Salt n' Peppa! It's an awesome black and white glitter topcoat with all kinds of shapes - bar, hex, square, even vaguely rectangular ones. And there's also some iridescent silvery microglitter tossed in there too, so this has a nice sparkle to it as well as being very graphic and bold looking! It's nice and full of glitter
 just like Mr.Bubble, also no need to fish around for glitter. I did 1.5 to 2 coats anyways to get the coverage I like. The base is not quite as thick as Mr.Bubble too, which is nice.

Colours used for the gradient are Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Lacey Lilac and Barielle in Blossom.

Review/NOTD Aug 30/12 - Lush Lacquer's "Mr.Bubble"

I finally got my toe into the indie polishes pool, and I think I picked a couple of real good ones for my firsts! I decided the two I wanted most were from Lush Lacquer, a shop run by a mother and daughter team! I bought two shades, Mr.Bubble and Salt n' Peppa. Today I'll review and show you a swatch of Mr.Bubble!

The polish is in a clear base, and contains large and small hex glitters in matte white, matte pink, and matte blue. This is my first matte glitter and I love the way it looks! It's so fresh and different from the glitter I'm used to.

This is it on my nails, layered over two coats of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Wet Cement. My boyfriend actually pointed out that this looks like a retro linoleum floor, which is so true! I also really want to try this over a sheer light pink, like Essence Sweet as Candy. It would probably make a cool glitter sandwich candidate too - so many options!

The amount of glitter in this polish is awesome - you really don't have to fish. I have about two coats of glitter on here, but really it was one coat, and then a very bare second coat where I wiped off the brush almost completely before applying - just to fill in spaces where I felt there weren't enough large hex. It's pretty thick, so I can see this needing thinner eventually, but they include a note warning of that so no surprises there!

I'll leave you with one more bottle shot to admire! Next up will be Salt n' Peppa!

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 18/12 - "First Stars" frankenpolish

I did finally think up a name for my frankenpolish :) I've named it "First Stars", because it reminds me of the colour of the sky a little after sunset, when it's just beginning to get dark and the first stars are coming out. I think it suits it well!

I made a couple more frankens (having fun with it!!) so you'll be seeing those soon too! :D

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 9/12 - orange leopard and gold

Orange is a colour I realize I just don't use enough in my nail art. It's just one of those colours I find hard to feature in a design for some reason... but that shouldn't mean my poor orange polishes sit lonely and unused! I love leopard print and it's a really versatile bit of nail art, so therefore a great way to include some bright sunny orange! And perfect timing too.. I painted these yesterday when we had been sitting through a couple days of rain, gloom and even a huge thunderstorm. But today the sun is back and bright!

First I painted all my nails white with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On, then I used an orange nail art pen to draw on the leopard print. I painted my ring fingers with a few coats of LA Girl Glitter Addict in Synergy for an accent!

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.