Haul post!

Hey lovelies! As promised here is a haul post of all the Kiko polishes and Essence products I got while I was in Europe. 

Left to right: 268, 385, 245, 387

268 - a pearly light frosty lime green

385 - a cornflower blue creme

245 - purply magenta shimmer 

387 - tealy dusty aqua blue

Now for the Essence products!

Each of these products were under 2 euros each.

stampy designs plate with zebra, giraffe, leopard, tiger and paw print

stampy designs nail plate with checkers, diagonal stripes, abstract dots, abstract diamonds, and plaid

Quick dry topcoat

That's all folks! Pretty good deals in my opinion, and I got things that you can't get here in Canada. I wish we had Essence more readily available, with the new collections and all! And Kiko, the nail polish is really really good, I love the formulation and color choices available.

Thanks for reading!

Mandy xoxo

Faux Prada Nails

Good morning everyone! Last week my dad was reading the paper in the morning as usual and he pulled out a section for me talking about nail art! The Calgary Herald featured a manicure from Prada's Fall/Winter 2012 look that I tried to recreate. I'm thinking of sending an email to the author of the article and offering to do a tutorial for the website or something - I wonder if there's any interest in that.

 I know I don't have the same almond nails as the model so mine looks a little different, personally I like it better but that's probably because I'm accustomed to square nails.

 I used quite a few colours to recreate this look: OPI Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh, OPI Funky Dunkey, OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, OPI Red Lights Ahead...Where?, OPI Ski Teal We Drop, OPI Call Me Gwen-ever mixed with China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, and Quo by ORLY Filthy Rich.

 

I surprised myself with quite liking how this turned out, and it honestly wasn't that hard to do.

 

Where do you often get inspiration for your manicures?

I'm back! With a European brand to share

Hello everyone! I know, it's been such a long time! Hope you've all been having a great summer so far, I know I sure have. These past few weeks in Europe have been fascinating and hectic all at the same time. We went to London, Paris, Nice, Cannes, Monaco, San Remo, Girona, and Barcelona. You can imagine the traveling and sight-seeing we did, but all very worth it. My favorite city is definitely London though, the overall vibe just appealed to me (not to mention great and cheap shopping). But my favorite touristy site was the Eiffel Tower, it's such a magnificent structure, you can't NOT see it when you're in Paris. 

Now to tie in with nail polish! If you recall, I had originally painted my nails and said that I would do a post on how the manicure held up when I got back... Unfortunately that manicure lasted a whole 3 days before I went into Sephora and took it off because it looked so bad. Basically, I had naked nails for 2 and a half weeks. 

Keep reading for pics and more info about actual nail polish related stuff!

Braided Nails

Hello everyone! This is a scheduled post because I am off to the Okanagan this weekend with one of my very best friends. The weather looks great so I hope to enjoy a couple days at the beach before the upcoming thing starting August 1st, do you know what I'm alluding to yet? I've been seeing this trend around and I keep seeing it named incorrectly - why would it be called a Fishtail Manicure when a fishtail braid uses two strands of hair, so it would make sense to use only two colours - maybe I'm just pedantic.

 

What do you think of the watermark? I'm getting the hang of it!

 

The colours I used for this manicure were OPI Do You Lilac It?, OPI Fly, and China Glaze Happy Go Lucky.

 

I really like this look - it was fun to do and I think there are a tonne of colour combinations begging to be experimented with.

Have you done a braided/fishtail mani? What do you think of the double accent nail trend?

Fancy Tape Manicure

Hey everyone! Sorry once again for my absence, I'm prepping for something pretty big coming up here on the blog starting on August 1st, and I figured that before I undertake this challenge of sorts I should figure out a watermark, so here I am experimenting in these photos!

I recently came across an entire bucket of craft scissors that I thought my mom had long thrown out, and I knew that I wanted to do a tape mani with them.

 This is Zoya Megan, Zoya Tracie, and OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls.

 I didn't really plan for them to match up like what ended up happening on my pinky, it gives a more put together look but I like both of them.

These are the scissors I used, the pattern is called Victorian.

What do you think of my fun and fancy tape mani? Do you have any guesses as to what kind of project I'm going to be undertaking this August on the blog? :)

Essie Mojito Madness

Good morning! The other day I found a giftcard to a drugstore that my Great Uncle had given me a few years ago, and having never used it, I ran up and browsed around. They had a pretty good selection of Essies, but Mojito Madness was the only one I picked up. I had terrible application problems, but as I have mentioned the weather here has been off and I'm usually never one to experience bad bubbling.

 

Eugh, bubbling in green polish just reminds me of those bumps on pickles. :(

 

The colour is gorgeous, so I will try it again when the weather here is back to normal.

Did you pick up any of the shades from Essie's latest collections?

Back to Nubs

Hi everyone! In yesterday's post you probably saw a drastic change in my nail shape. Unfortunately a chip of my nail broke off and I have no idea how, so today I have a couple of pictures to show you, to mourn my long nails.

Here are my nails before, you can see the strange diagonal chip on my middle finger. I'm lucky it wasn't a worse break, but it sure was a shame that this happened on my swatching hand. My hands and nails are all greasy because I've been using Lush Lemony Flutter Cuticle Butter recently, and I really like it. I must have just applied it in this photo.

Here are my new nubs! I know for some people these are still considered pretty long, but they're shorter than what I'm used to!

What's your go to solution when you break a nail? Do you file the rest down to match? Get a fake tip or a fill?

Colombian Independence Nails

Hello everyone! Happy July 20th, today is the 202nd anniversary of Colombia's independence and I have some tricolor nails to celebrate. I myself am not Colombian, but as you may be aware my major (and extracurricular obsession) is Spanish Literature and Culture, and my boyfriend Daniel was born in Bogotá.

 

The flag of Colombia has a stripe of yellow on the top which takes up half of the flag, so I used China Glaze Happy Go Lucky to paint two of my nails. The yellow of the flag is said to represent the riches of Colombia. The next colour is blue, OPI Dating a Royal, which takes up one quarter of the flag in another stripe, the blue represents the seas on the coasts. Colombia borders both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The bottom stripe is red and it represents " the blood spilled on the battlegrounds by the heroes who gained Colombia's freedom" (source), to complete the flag on my nails I used China Glaze Hey Sailor!

Here is today's Google Doodle on Google Colombia.

For my nails to look like the flag, this photo should be rotated 180 degrees, but I wanted to show off my boyfriend's key chain that he placed on my car keys.

Speaking of the polish, I seem to have had some bubbling problems with China Glaze Happy Go Lucky. Calgary has been somewhat humid lately (humid as far as the prairies go) and I've been noticing bubbling in a few of my lacquers, so I would take that with a grain of salt.

DIY Nail Polish Jewelry

Hi my lovelies! Previously mentioned in my Purple Party post, I have been looking for materials to make some nail polish jewelry for a friend. I ended up being able to find the materials necessary for a ring but that was about it... I guess it's better than nothing! If you haven't heard of this jewelry before, don't worry it's super simple. Basically you paint the flat inside of a piece of domed glass (called a cabochon) with any nail polish you want, wait for that to dry and then glue it to a ring base or a pendant setting. These also make great magnets as well! I first saw them on a blog a while ago, then just recently I searched them up on Etsy to see how much they would cost. But really, these are easy enough to make on your own and will probably cost you less if you can find the materials. Here are the things you'll need:

 - glass cabochon
 - setting to fit cabochon
 - nail polish(es) of choice
 - base coat polish
 - heavy duty glue (I didn't have E6000 so I used Aleene's Jewel-It, hopefully it stays)
 - patience

Keep reading for instructions and more info!

Stampede Nails

Howdy everyone! Today I have some hometown nails to show you in honour of the Calgary Stampede - a ten day long rodeo, festival, and excuse to dress up like cowboys and drink all day. I couldn't decide what to do so I did the Stampede logo on an accent nail, and tried to do a plaid pattern on the rest of my nails.

The colours I used for this mani were OPI The Thrill of Brazil, China Glaze Secret Peri-wink-le, Quo by ORLY Filthy Rich, and Art Deco stripers in black and white.

Here I am posting with a belt buckle from 30 years ago - the 1982 Calgary Stampede.

Here's a photo of the midway that I took at the Stampede this year!

Thanks for reading!

Ruffle Nails

Good evening everyone! Today I have a look to show you that I've seen on a number of blogs recently - a ruffle manicure! If you're interested in trying this yourself you should check out Sarah from Chalkboard Nails' tutorial, it's a simple process with really cool results.

The colours I used were OPI Skull & Glossbones, OPI Alpine Snow, China Glaze Liquid Leather, and China Glaze Secret Peri-wink-le.

I wish I had been a little more patient to perfect this look - but from a distance the small mistakes aren't very noticeable.

This is definitely a manicure I want to try again, you could do endless colour combinations.

Something else I wanted to mention - you may have noticed how dry my cuticles have been since moving back home. Unfortunately for my nails, the prairies are dry and ruthless compared to the sweet St Laurence air of Montreal, but I recently picked up some Lush Lemony Flutter and hope to be back on track! 

Do you have any experience with this product?

Au revoir, et bonjour Paris!

Hello world! I promised I would schedule some posts for you for the 3 weeks that I am gone, so today I have my 'trip nails' for you all to see! I decided to go with something light and summery, but I still wanted a little bling (you all know I love my bling!) OPI's Mod About You is a beautiful light pink creme that is perfect for nail art, on its own, or as a base for some glitter on top which is exactly what I did here. I used Sephora by OPI's Only Gold for Me topcoat. This is one of my favorite glitter topcoats because it's so elegant and classy yet is effective in giving the necessary oomph to a manicure. Here are the pics!

This color combo is definitely a winner, I'm so happy with how it turned out. We'll see how well this lasts (I'll do a post on that when I'm back). 

Friend amazed at all my nail polish, I need to organize this box because I can't find anything!

I did her nails with China Glaze's Secret Peri-Winkle. Hannah :)

Thanks for reading! 

xoxo

Mandy

OPI A Grape Fit

Hey everyone! Today I have a polish that I hear talked about quite often - I know it's a favourite for nail art and it's one I've never really seen as necessary to my stash, but I picked it up the other day just for kicks!

I used two coats of this polish for opacity. The first coat was a little watery but everything was perfect after a second one.

Maybe it's because I've never been a huge purple fan, but this polish is a little boring to me!

Here it is in the shade, sorry about the minor tipwear!

Have you ever heard a lot about a polish, only to buy it and be less than thrilled?

Pink Skittles

Good evening everyone! I hope you've had a fun weekend, I sure have! Today I have some pink skittles to show you. I recently bought OPI Mod About You after hearing about it for so long, and the buzz was right, it is the perfect baby pink! After wearing it as a plain mani for a few days I opted to spice things up, take a look!

I used one coat of Ozotic 509 on my index finger to make a holo pink, unfortunately it wasn't sunny enough to show this off. I used OPI Alpine Snow for the polka dots and for the zebra stripes using Konad plate m57. Finally I sponged OPI Teenage Dream onto my ring finger to complete the look.

Honestly I kind of wish I had left this mani alone, the colour is pretty enough to stand by itself. 

Lace Nails

Good morning everyone! Today I have some delicate lace nails that I did to match an outfit I wore out to dinner with my boyfriend last week. I took inspiration from this photo and executed my design using Konad plate m57. I used OPI Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh for the base and Konad Special Polish in white to stamp.

My stamping was far from precise with this manicure, honestly I was in a little bit of a rush.

The OPI polish matched my shoes almost perfectly!

Here's a bonus picture of Daniel and I. You can't see my dress really well here but it's off white and lacey, and my shoes are nude pumps.

Thanks for reading!