NAILS | Mary Kay Fall Nail Lacquers #ManiMonday

I try hard not to do too many vampy looking manicures during the Fall season and I was grateful for October to kind of break up the monotony and give a bit of colour to the manicures I had planned, but that's not to say that I don't appreciate a good set of Fall purples like these limited edition lacquers from the Mary Kay Fall makeup collection!

NAILS | Keeping up with Pink with Unt - Onscreen Chemistry!

I forgot how short February was and realized that I only have time for this and maybe one more pink manicure! Ahhh! Where has the time gone? I've had a bit of a hectic week with a stomach bug at the beginning of this week and taking it really easy with food for fear of tossing my cookies on public transit. SO EMBARRASSING.

Anyway, two years ago I was one of the winners of the Nailpolis 1,000,000 Facebook Fans contest and won a gift certificate to shop at Live Love Polish! One of the polishes I picked up was this pink cream glittery beauty from the "Kate Party" collection called Onscreen Chemistry!

NAILS | Pink, Grey and Studded with Duri Cosmetics #ManiMonday

I am beyond excited to be sharing my very first Duri polishes here! When I first started doing my nails, I never planned on blogging or sharing my hobby with anyone other than my husband and cats. I used to read mainly nail polish blogs and would come across all sorts of exotic sounding brands that I could never seem to find locally or at a reasonable price online. I remember seeing one nail blogger using Duri polishes along with their most well-known product, Rejuvacote, a nail treatment that preserves the life of your mani in addition to stimulating nail growth and fortifying nail strength. After seeing swatch after swatch of these gorgeous polishes, I knew that one day, they would be mine! 

NAILS | Power to Purple with OPI for #ManiMonday

I am cheating a little because this manicure was actually something I was saving for a later date, but because I didn't have a chance to paint my nails last night I am jumping the gun. I wore this manicure as a tribute to Urban Decay for their new store in Metrotown Mall last month. It's pretty cute though I wish the taping came out more cleanly. Purple is one of my favourite colours as I always feel empowered when I wear it and is actually a great shade to wear if you have a case of the Mondays because you look down at your nails and feel ready to slay whatever comes your way! 

NAILS| The Turquoise Stone Blobbicure #ManiMonday

I have been loving the look of textures and creating more "organic" manicures lately and one technique that I have been wanting to try is the infamous "blobbicure"! A blobbicure is quite literally nail art that has been created using blobs of polish (see video by Simply Nailogical). I wanted to create a turquoise stone-like effect so I used some of the shades from the Ceramic Glaze Botanical Oasis collection which worked out perfectly to give this mani the look I was going for!

NAILS | BCD NAIL ART CHALLENGE WEEK 5 - Moody Metallic Gradient #BCDNAILS

Last week's Mosaic BCD Nails Challenge (here) took a ridiculous amount of time to do and I was pretty proud of myself for putting in the hours so I decided to keep them for the weekend. It put me one manicure behind for this challenge, but I will hopefully be able to make it up this week! I had a bit of rough week at work and though nothing bad happened, I was just feeling a bit overwhelmed and with Week 5's theme being "Emotion", I thought that instead of being "social media happy", I'd do a manicure that showcased how much of a moody *ahem* witch I was last week.

Using mark. by Avon's new Precious Petals Trend Mini Nail Lacquers in Steel Magnolia* and Green Thumb* as well as some Avon nail studs, I thought I'd go with conveying how icy blue my soul felt all of last week. Dramatic, I know.

NAILS | Feeling Glittery with the OPI Starlight Collection #ManiMonday

Due to a 50 hour work week and seasonal gatherings, today's episode of Mani Monday will be a brief, but sparkly introduction to the OPI Starlight Collection. Inspired by the celestial, this collection is filled with MUCH glitter, shimmer, textured finishes and even a holo! As it is a holiday collection, there is still a classic red and wine shade, but as I will show over the next few posts, the other shades will be the ones to catch your eye!

NAILS | Triple Coral Glitter Gradient #EssenceGelNails

The Essence Gel Nail Polish launch has been invigorating for me in many ways because I don't think I have done THIS many nail art posts in a very long time. For those that have been following me since I started blogging in 2011, I began as a nail art bloggers and would never have dreamed that I would be showing you all more than my talons. I probably take nail polish far too seriously, but I love pushing myself and trying new things. FOTDs are fun too, but sometimes I feel like there are only so many ways you can change your canvas aka your face. With nails, every time I take off my current design the slate truly is blank and can be transformed into ANYTHING.

I decided to finish of the month with a classic nail art design that is so fast and easy to do, but always looks amazing at the end - the glitter gradient!
 

NAIL ART | Gettin’ Squiggly with Mary Kay at Play Hail to the Nails Mini Nail Lacquer Trio

I had briefly talked about the Mary Kay at Play Hail to the Nails Trio*(18.00 CDN) over the holidays as the perfect little stocking stuffer for the nail polish lover in your family and now I get to show it to you in action!

NAIL ART | Studded and Aztec-Inspired Nails

Along with nail decals, nail art studs are one of my favourite ways to add some bling. Nail studs can either be used as delicate accents OR as full on nail armour. When it comes to pricing and variety, I always turn to Born Pretty. My partnership with them was borne out of my inherent love for their products long before as a customer. I rarely do “nail armour” because I tend to lose studs, but the final product always looks so awesome.

Rimmel London Rita Ora Collection | Do Not Disturb with Swatches and Mega Stud Nail Art

Rimmel London nail polishes are making their debut today on Cosmetic Proof and I have no idea why it has taken so long since these polishes are mega awesome. British singer, Rita Ora, has recently partnered up with Rimmel to come out with six nail polishes that are just as trendy and vibrant as she is with Do Not Disturb being the first in a slew of swatches. Do Not Disturb is a bright, creme teal polish that is easily opaque in just one coat. Shown below are two coats as I always do two for good measure. In real-life, this colour is more green and vibrant, but the camera was being difficult. Formula was lovely to work with and the brush nice and wide for easy three-stroke application. 60 second dry time was a bit of a stretch and was more like just under 5 minutes for me.

Essence | Colour & Go Nail Polish in Breakthrough with Neon Studs

Is it weird that the first thing I noticed about this polish was that “colour” is spelled with a “u”? Finally! I can spell it the “right” way! I digress, but this is the first time I have ever featured an Essence polish on the blog! How that is even possible is beyond me, but without further ado let’s welcome Essence – Breakthrough, which is sort of jelly-like bright purple that is opaque in two coats. It has a very glossy glass-like finish that at first coat made me think it would not be opaque but its second coat proved me wrong!

I added some neon green square studs to jazz things up a bit and also I can’t seem to leave a swatch alone!

PR samples featured for review

Swatch It Up | Rainbow Honey - XOXO

Today I have a swatch from the Rainbow Honey Sweet Talk Collection in the aptly named XOXO and is described as “a ravishing blend of glitters and flakes in a clear base for easy use over any manicure!” XOXO is filled with fuchsia hex glitter and micro gold and iridescent glitter all beautifully suspended in the most perfect glitter formula! When you take out your brush, it is just loaded with glittery goodness and my swatches are just one coat. My one coat was on the more generous side, but I guarantee that no one will have any problems getting that glitter out because it applies BEAUTIFULLY. Here are my swatches of XOXO layered over two coats of Essence – Black is Back.

#BusyGirlNails | Week 1: Antique Gold

Nothing like a challenge to get the blood pumping, right? Traci from drinkcitra invited me to join in the #BusyGirlNails challenge which is MUCH LESS intense than the traditional challenges we are used to seeing! This week’s theme is "Antique Gold” so I kept things simple and painted my nails two coats of OPI – Shim-Merry Chic, which is from the 2010 OPI Christmas collection. It’s a very interesting polish as there is both iridescent glitter and orange flakies all sitting in a shimmery brown base. It was probably quite fashion forward at the time this polish came out!

Studded with Revlon Chroma Chameleon in Tanzanite

I was completely fascinated by this duochrome polish when I first glanced at it in the bottle because it looked definitely purple, but on the nail looked almost brown. Duochromes are not a new idea, but Revlon-Tanzanite was the first drugstore version that I picked up. I love the gemstone so I immediately gravitated towards the polish name! I found application of Tanzanite to be similar to that of holographic polishes in that the application was patchy and required a very light touch with few strokes of the brush. I found myself loading up the brush with polish and then gently moving it around in thick coats. I’m wearing three coats in these photos and my current favourite Julep-Freedom Polymer Top Coat. Oh and…there IS nail art coming!

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