Pretty & Polished Mannequin Hands

The polish I'm going to show you today is one I was VERY excited for. Pretty & Polished came out with a few polishes to add to their main line along with the Christmas collection, and as soon as I saw Mannequin Hands I had to have it.

Here are some swatches, along with my first impressions of the polish.

This is one coat of Mannequin Hands (Over my extremely uneven nails. Hello dry winter, thanks for breaking my nails!) It is a pinkish-nude jelly with baby pink hex glitters. I instantly thought of how darling this would be for a french manicure with a twist.

And this is 3 coats of Mannequin Hands. I think I prefer this as a sheer. The opacity kinda ruins the delicacy of the nude & pink. Or maybe It's because I'm not a huge fan of the color of the base at full opacity. I might try layering it over a more opaque nude as a topper.

Maybe if my nails weren't so stained from hair color It might've looked better, ha! Anyway, Mannequin Hands is a great polish for any nude or french manicure lover.

You can purchase Pretty & Polished on Etsy. Mannequin Hands is not currently in stock, but there are lots of other beautiful polishes in stock! Such as some of the Christmas collection! (swatches coming soon!)

Neon Dot Stripes!

Sorry it's been so long! Suddenly work got crazy because 1, we had a black friday sale, and 2, before Christmas everyone wants their hair done. Regardless I am back and even though I haven't had time to post, I've built up lots of goodies to show you.

Today I'm gonna show you what wonders a dotting tool can create! With my Lime Crime babies (my new favorites) I did some fabulous mix n match dot stripes!

The colors I used were Lime Crime Once In A Blue Mousse, Lime Crime Pastelchio, Lime Lavendairy and a generic black creme. I think the funnest part of this manicure is the different sized dots in each stripe.

Something so simple can look so complicated and funky! Can't wait to try this in all sorts of different colors.

Lime Crime polishes can be purchased on Harlow & Co for $8.50 a bottle.

China Glaze Holiday Joy - Red Satin & Pure Joy!

Today I have 2 polishes from the China Glaze Holiday Joy collection to show you! Christmas Collections have always been my favorite, lots of the polishes I get from these collections I use year round (OPI Comet Loves Cupid is my favorite red!)

Here is two coats of China Glaze Red Satin. It is a deep red creme leaning a bit jelly. It is a polish where you could apply too thick in some areas and get darker spots, so it's important to apply evenly.

It is a beautiful red to add to any collection. Christmas time is the best time to get new reds! This is the perfect classic red polish.

Then I painted one coat of China Glaze Pure Joy as a glitter topper! It is a clear base with tons of micro red glitters and a bunch of slightly larger gold glitters. It is so amazing and so Christmas-y!

It's hard to photograph red glitter on a red base, so I also took a photo in non-direct light to show the glitters a little better.

It is a little out of focus but in this photo you can see how the red glitters are almost the same color as the base creating a neat, sparkly effect! And the gold glitters are just the icing on the cake.

And an out of focus photo to show you the shine of the glitter!

Glitter is my favorite and the Christmas season is definitely the season of glitter! I can't wait to show you all the other Christmas glitter I got my hands on!

A Wintery, Glittery Manicure!

It's the most wonderful time of the year! Christmas polish collections are hittin' the shelves again and I am forever excited. I picked up some polishes from the China Glaze & Venique collections!

I was especially excited to try out the Venique polishes i bought, because the brand is fairly new to me. I actually use it at work when I do manicures and I've come to love it a lot.

This is a fun, wintery use of my new Venique glitter! This mani started with 2 coats of China Glaze Towel Boy Toy, which is another new polish I picked up recently. It is a sky blue creme with a little bit of a royal blue shimmer. I love to use blue to create snowy manicures, so it was perfect.

Then I added one coat of Venique Twinkling Glitter! It is an assortment of small & medium holographic silver hex glitters in a clear base. It is amazingly sparkly. I was so impressed with the shine.

And here is an out of focus photo showing the holographic rainbow of the glitter! I love all the different colors you can see! Twinkling Glitter is a must have for any glitter lover. It's spectacular!

A (Late) BCA Manicure! Featuring Pretty & Polished Hello Dolly!

October was Breast Cancer Awareness month & I wanted to show my own awareness!

At work, we do product specials to raise money and whatnot but sometimes sporting the pink just to show your respect for all the survivors out there is just as meaningful! I wore this manicure in late October, so I'm showing you all a little late.

This is 2 coats of Zoya Emme, a light pink shimmer polish with a little bit of a frostiness to it. I actually got this through Glossybox, which is a subcription to a box where I get 5 sample sized (and sometimes full sized!) products for $21 a month. It's also a Canadian company, which I dig since I'm Canadian. Zoya sent an assortment of pink polishes to Glossybox to give to their subscribers for BCA month!

This photo shows the frosty finish really well. I love the baby pink color! It covered well and was not streaky at all despite the fact that most frosty polishes are. Very nice!

I then added a coat of Pretty & Polished Hello Dolly. It's 100% the girliest manicure I have ever worn in my life. I loved how the girly glitter added some pizazz! (You know I love glitter, who could resist?)

It's kinda funny actually, I didn't even remember purchasing Hello Dolly when I first got it, but I'm so glad I did! It is a collection of micro pink, medium purple, & large and extra large white and pink hex glitters. This is only one coat (super dense!) and all of the glitters went on fairly evenly! I did have to do some digging for the large white & pink hex glitters, but it was worth it.

There is a nice macro & bottle shot for you, showing all the sparkle. The larger glitters do sink to the bottom as you can see in the macro shot which is why I had to dig, but if you left it upside down for a while and gave it a good shake, it would definitely make it easier.

 You can purchase Pretty & Polished on Etsy and Llarowe. You can also watch for new collections & updates on the Facebook page! They even have two special BCA polishes!

Funky Glitter Sandwich & Some Big Rhinestones!

I am loving all of the mani's I am seeing lately with the big stud & rhinestone accents so I had to pick both of these embellishments up. The first I received was the big, chunky rhinestones! I couldn't wait to use them!

I was worried I wouldn't be able to wear these for long. I'm a hair stylist, so embellishments tend to catch on clients hair & pull which is not something that makes for an enjoyable experience! However I was pleasantly surprised!

Here is my funky purple mani with my big purple rhinestones! They laid surprisingly flat on my thumbnails and did not catch for the couple of days I wore this mani at all! The only issue I had was they fell off after day 2.

To focus on the polish aspect, here is my glitter sandwich! This was done using Colorama Transparente as the base, a coat of Daring Digits Punch Me Purple and then another coat of Transparente. I loved how exciting this was!

This combined 3 of my favorite things; glitter, glitter sandwiches & nude polish. Me gusta.

You can purchase these big rhinestones on eBay, and Daring Digits polish sells on Etsy. Punch Me Purple is not currently for sale, but they have lots of other great polishes including some beautiful holiday polishes!

Wonder Beauty Products Aphrodisiac!

Happy Monday! Here in Canada the winter season is upon us, so I've been more into pastels, light colors and sparkly glitter that imitates the snow.

Wonder Beauty Products Aphrodisiac is definitely one of those light colors that is perfect for winter & spring! I am also excited to show this off because WBP recently started retailing their polishes in bottles with brushes instead of jars! Way easier for my lazy self.

Aphrodisiac is a light mint/turquoise jelly with small orange & blue hex glitters and small & medium sized gold & silver hex glitters. I love any polish that consists of glitter in a creamy jelly base, because they are glitter sandwiches in a bottle!

The polish is quite sheer, this is 3 coats for full opacity. The build up is worth it, however, because the glitters are beautiful & I love the color combinations.

I really love wearing light polishes in the winter, but I also love wearing deep dark colors! Both make my (super pale) skin look so nice!

You can purchase Wonder Beauty Products on Etsy, and Aphrodisiac is currently up for sale along with dozens of other great polishes! Go check it out!

Dollish Polish Dino-mite Yoshi!

Dollish Polish recently released the Mario Brothers collection featuring character themed polishes and I just had to have some. I picked up both Yoshi & Toad's themed polish (because they're my favorite characters, hehe).

Today I'm going to show you Dollish Polish Dino-mite Yoshi!

Dino-mite Yoshi is an assortment of red, green, light green and white hex glitters in all sizes in a clear base. It's pretty dense, so It could be built up if desired, but I think it's meant to be more of a glitter topper.
This swatch was done as a glitter sandwich with extra glitter on top! The base used in this manicure was Colorama Orvalho.

Very cool and Yoshi-like! I need to pick me up some more Dollish Polish!

You can purchase Dollish Polish on her bigcartel shop & on Llarowe!

Candeo Colors Jellybean

I had been lusting after this polish for so, so long. So when I finally got my hands on it I was so excited to test it out and see it in all it's glory.

Sad story is, I hate the formula. It is so thick, a nightmare to apply and not flattering on my skin tone at all. Major sadness over here.

It doesn't look too bad in my pictures at all (minus the mysterious chip on my index finger, I didn't even notice that). In person it just made my skin look dead.
Candeo Colors Jellybean is a pastel yellow creme with multicolored hexes suspended in the base. This is 3 coats of the polish.

 Had the formula been better on this polish, I probably would've liked it more. It was just so thick.

I really wish I could love this polish, I really do. Maybe I'll save it to give away to one of you lovely nail art addicts. Yellow might be more your color!

Halloween Themed Nails! - Bloody Drips

Did everyone have a good Halloween!? I went out last weekend and yesterday I took on my yearly duty of handing out candy. Always a good time!

Yesterday I sported a Halloween manicure to have my fingers participate in the holiday! I didn't do any jack-o-lanterns or frankensteins, but I did do something gruesome & spooky!

My nails are dripping blood! I called these my murderer nails! I wanted to do something fun like this because I couldn't really do a costume related manicure (I was a flapper).

This manicure was created with 3 coats of Lime Crime Milky Ways for the base & Joe Fresh Wine for the drippies. Wine is the perfect blood color, because it's a jelly. So it almost gave my drips a clot look but leaving darker areas. Really awesome!

This is also my first post featuring my camera in it's proper photo-taking glory! I made a lightbox to take my photos in (following this tutorial by Sarah from Chalkboard Nails!). Don't they look so much better! I'm so pleased.

Hope you all enjoyed your Halloween!