Real Floral Manicure | Nail of the Day

For Easter weekend I wanted to do a fun, springy manicure! I came across this Ciaté Flower Manicure kit in Bada Bloom (such a cute name!) at Winners last summer, so I decided to finally try it out! It's a kit that comes with little dried pressed flowers, a nail polish, a top coat, tweezers, and a nail file. 

To get this look, I first applied Seche Base as my base coat. Then, I applied 2 coats of a pastel blue polish. The kit came with a Ciaté pastel blue polish in Ferris Wheel, but I found that after even 3 coats of it, it was still sheer and streaky in places so I ended up using a Formula X by Sephora polish in Infatuated instead. Once the blue had dried completely, I then applied a layer of the Ciaté top coat, followed by picking up and placing 1-2 flowers onto each nail. I used the back of the tweezers to gently press them into the top coat so that they'd stick. After doing each nail like that one at a time, I applied another layer of the top coat as they recommended. Then I took the nail file from the kit and gently filed any flowers down that were hanging off the top edge of my nails to smooth the edges. Once all my nails were dry, I felt like my nails were still quite bumpy and I could feel the flowers poking up through the top coat in places. To smooth them out as much as possible, I ended up applying another layer of the Ciaté top coat, and when that wasn't enough I went in and applied Seche Vite over the top. With those 3 layers of top coat my nails were much more smoothed out.

This manicure wore better than I expected over the weekend. After 3 days of wear, the purple flowers were all still in tact, but some of the pink and blue flowers had begun wearing off. I think this is a beautiful manicure if you have an event or just want a springy manicure for a couple of days, but it's not a super long wearing one. I think in the future I'll try just applying flowers to one nail as an accent nail, that way if the flowers wear off I can just repaint that one nail to go with the rest of my manicure. It was still a fun look to wear on my nails though and I got many compliments! People seemed to be really impressed that they were actually real flowers! It's a good manicure for people who aren't very good at nail art to try too, since all you have to do is place the flowers on your nails!

I don't believe these Ciaté manicure kits are still available, but it would be super easy to achieve a look like this with dried flowers you can find elsewhere. Ebay has a ton of inexpensive ones!

Would you ever try a manicure with real flowers? What other fun nail art decorations have you tried?

Also, I'm running an Instagram giveaway and it closes tomorrow! Check it out and enter if you haven't!!

Nail of the Day | Gold + Monochrome

A couple of weeks ago I did this manicure and I never got around to sharing it on my blog! I really liked how it came out since I'm a big fan of black & white with gold accents! I hadn't done nail art in such a long time so it was kind of fun playing around with it again. For this manicure I used the Sephora Formula X polishes in White Matter and Dark Matter, as well as the Avon Brushed Metals polish in Brushed Gold.

Have you ever experimented with nail art? What are some of your favourite patterns or colour combos?

Sephora Formula X in Thrilling | Nail of the Day

As I mentioned in a post this week, I've been in love with neutral nail polish lately. Sometime last summer I picked up the Sephora Formula X "The Twenty-Two" set, which contains 22 mini bottles of their Formula X polishes. I'm finally getting around to trying out the shades in it and I really love the shade, Thrilling! It did take 3 coats to be fully opaque and even, but it was worth it for the end result. This colour is really unique. It's a really light gray with very slight mauve tones in it, and it's really beautiful on the nails! I might have to end up buying the full size of this polish because I feel like this will be a new go-to neutral polish for me!

Have you tried the Sephora Formula X nail polishes? What's your favourite shade?

Essie Maximillian Strasse-Her | Nail of the Day

After seeing this polish in countless Lily Pebbles videos and vlogs, I knew I had to buy it. Every time I saw Lily wearing it in a video my eyes were drawn to the shade and it seemed like something right up my alley! This is Essie Maximillian Strasse-Her. I found it at Trade Secrets and it was 40% off at the time too! I've been wearing this polish for a few days now and it has yet to chip, and just has a slight amount of tip wear. I am so impressed with this polish and I feel like it'll be a new go-to for me! It's right between a pale green and a gray, which makes it perfect for everyday wear!

The End of Blogmas | Christmas Eve Manicure

Merry Christmas Eve!! Today is the final day of Blogmas and I'm so happy I've followed through and posted every day this month! I figured since day 1 of Blogmas was a manicure, I'd end it off the same way. I just painted my nails for my family Christmas party that's happening today and I love how they came out! I'm wearing OPI Visions of Love with Julep Joelle and a Forever 21 gold glitter polish ombré-ed on top! If you want to check out all of my previous Blogmas posts you can do that here! I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and I'll be back in a few days with a new post!

Mani Monday | Green + Gold

Today's nail of the day is a very simple yet festive one! Instead of going for the typical red and gold manicure, I used a Christmas-tree green with a gold accent! I used 2 coats of The Body Shop Color Crush Nail Polish in The Body Shop green, and 2 coats of Avon Brushed Gold on my ring finger! I really love this green shade for the holidays!

Mani Monday | Greige + Glitter

Last week when I was at Target I noticed a ton of their nail polish was on 70% off clearance, so of course I had to pick up a few bottles! The two shades I used for this manicure were two polishes I picked up! I didn't initially think about combining them, but when I was trying to come up with a fun manicure for the coming week I tried swatching these two together and loved the subtle neutral glitter look it gave! This is Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in 300 Greige with Nicole by OPI Pick of the Glitter layered on top! I also used my OPI Glitter Off base coat and I tried out my new Julep Oxygen Performance top coat! This is such a unique colour combo and I absolutely love how it came out!

Mani Monday: OPI Miss You-niverse + Julep Mia

Today's nail of the day is slightly less festive than last week's but still a nice wintery manicure! I used 1 coat of OPI Miss You-niverse on most of my nails and applied 2 coats of Julep Mia on my accent nails! I had to quickly do my nails before running out the door and I'm really pleased with how this manicure came out! I love the purple and metallic combo.

BLOGMAS! (+ Nail of the Day)

 

I've decided that I'm going to do Blogmas! Many YouTubers I watch are doing Vlogmas this year (vlogging every day leading up to Christmas), so I thought since I'm not a vlogger, I'll do that on my blog! I'm planning to post on my blog every day until Christmas!

Today I thought I'd start with the manicure I did today! I want to have Christmassy nails all month long, and I kicked off the month with a pretty festive manicure. I'm wearing OPI Coca Cola Red with OPI In True Stefani Fashion on top - just one coat of each! I'll likely be posting a new manicure about once a week this month so keep a eye out for those!

If you have any requests or suggestions of blog posts I should make this month, let me know in a comment below!

Broadway Nails imPRESS Press-On Manicure Review

About 3 weeks ago I received a box from Influenster with these two imPRESS Press-On Manicures from Broadway Nails to review. Now that I've worn and tested these nails I thought I'd share my thoughts with you!

Mani Monday #16

This is China Glaze In A Lily Bit from the Spring 2014 City Flourish Collection. I found this at Winners and it was such a pretty colour, I had to pick it up. Sorry I've been really slow on posts these past couple of weeks! I plan on getting back on track now though so expect more posts to come your way!

Mani Monday #15

I got this polish this week in my May Julep Maven box. It's the shade Ramona. It's a pale lilac-rose colour. I love the colour of this polish, and the polish was really opaque (even with 1 coat), but the formula was really thick and hard to work with. I still do like the colour though! I'll do a post showing what else I got in my Julep Maven box this month later this week!

Mani Monday #14

Last week I recieved an Influenster VoxBox which came with some imPress Press-On Manicures by Broadway Nails. I thought I'd try one of them out this week! I've never used press-on nails, acrylic nails, shellac, or any other kind of "fake" nails before so this is totally new for me. I'll be wearing these throughout the week and will post a full review then! So far, so good though. They were really easy to apply and look cute! My only issue so far is that my nail beds are quite long so the nails were too short for a lot of my nails.

This imPress Press-On Manicure is part of their Disney Villians collection, and it's the Evil Queen manicure. I love the pastel pink-blue ombre and the lace overlay! It's girly but still kind of edgy too. Keep an eye on my blog later this week for a full review on my imPress Press-On Manicure!

Disclosure: I received these products complimentary from Influenster for testing purposes.

Mani Monday #12

Hey everyone! I hope you're all doing well and had a good weekend! Sorry I've been kind of absent the past couple of weeks. I finished my internship and college and then I ended up with 2 ear infections that lasted me a week so I've had a bit going on. This week I'll be back to posting regularly though!

Here's a manicure I did based off of this nail tutorial because I thought it was a cute look and it used this Sally Hansen nail art kit that I bought about a month ago but haven't used yet. The studs were surprisingly easy to apply and I'm making this post 4 days after doing this manicure and none have fallen off or come loose yet! I just applied the studs to wet polish and applied my top coat as usual to seal them on the nail. You'll definitely be seeing me use these studs a lot more in future Mani Monday posts!

The polishes I used for this are Julep Monaco, Rimmel Lasting Finish Pro in Black Satin, and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On.

Mani Monday #10

For my nails this week I did a floral design inspired my the case I'm currently using on my iPhone 5s! I got this case a few months ago from Winners and it's a Betsey Johnson floral case. I love the colours and floral print on it so I decided to try and replicate it on my nails! I've never really done a floral pattern on my nails like this before but I'm pretty pleased with how it came out! If you like my phone case, I found a site selling it here if you're interested!

I used quite a few polishes to create this manicure so I'll list them left to right in the photo above: Julep Monaco, OPI Kiss Me I'm Brazilian, OPI Funky Dunkey, OPI Pink Friday, OPI I Just Can't Cope-a-cabana, Ulta Limelight, Sally Hansen White On, and Rimmel Lasting Finish Pro Black Satin. I used the last 4 colours (yellow, green, black, and white) mixed in different combinations for the leaves. I also applied my Sally Hansen Hard as Wraps Hardener as a base coat and Seche Vite as a top coat.

Mani Monday #9

As much as I love brightly coloured and boldly patterned nails, sometimes it's nice just to have a clean simple nude manicure. This week on my nails I'm wearing OPI My Vampire Is Buff from last year's Euro Centrale collection. That collection is one of my all-time favourites, and this simple ivory nude polish is perfect. I applied two coats and topped it with Seche Vite.

Mani Monday #8

In the past couple of weeks I've picked up quite a few new nail polishes (expect a haul in the next couple of days!) and one of the most unique polishes I've picked up is this topcoat from Hard Candy's new Pop Art line of polishes called King of Pop. This is a matte/flat glitter with light green, white, light blue, peach, and light pink in it! It's such a unique and beautiful combination that is so perfect for spring. I used Kleancolor's Light Blue underneath it and Seche Vite as a top coat!

I remembered seeing this post on Lily Melrose's beauty blog a couple of weeks ago of a Seventeen Colour Clash nail polish in In The Surf and I loved the look of it, and this Hard Candy polish looks like it might be a dupe for it!

Mani Monday #7

For my manicure this week I decided to do some subtle polka dots! I used the Pantone Colour of the Year - Radiant Orchid - to create these pretty spring nails! The polishes I used were Julep Rae as the main colour and Essie Under Where? for the dots. I topped it off with Seche Vite and that's it! I love how this manicure turned out. It's subtle but still really cute!

Mani Monday #6

Happy Monday everyone! Last week I got a few polishes from the OPI Brazil collection and this is one of the ones I got! It's Toucan Do It If You Try, a beautiful orangey-coral creme. I don't typically like orange polishes on me, but this one leans slightly coral and it's a really pretty colour! The formula of this was great as well and was smooth and opaque in two coats. I topped it off with a coat of Seche Vite.

Do you have any polishes from the OPI Brazil collection? Which ones are your favourites?

Mani Monday #5

This week's manicure was inspired by pop art as well as this iPhone case from Kate Spade! I love how simple polka dot manicures are to do, but they always look so cute! And I love the look of the layered polka dots in this manicure, it just adds some more dimension to it! A manicure like this could work with any colour combo too, and I'm sure I'll be trying it again with different colours in the future!

Nail polishes used: Wet n Wild Megalast in I Need A Refresh-Mint, Dynamite Gold, and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On. I used Sally Hansen Hard as Wraps as a base coat, and Seche Vite as my top coat.