April 29, 2013

Peacock Feather Nail Art Tutorial

I love peacock feathers.  They are just so eye catching.  I challenged myself to come up with peacock feather nail art that I could do fairly quickly.  This was the result.


There are lots of polishes involved but I can do a whole hand in about 20 minutes.  The key to doing this quickly is to do each step on the entire hand and then move on rather than completing each nail individually. 

 What you will need:

A long skinny brush

A dark green polish (Zoya Cynthia), a light gold metallic polish (SH Sequin Frost), a dark teal metallic polish (Nubar Earth), a dense gold glitter polish (CG Angel Wings), a bright blue cream polish (CG Shower Together), a shimmery blue (OPI Austin-tatious Turquoise),

A navy blue (Finger Paints Art of Theft), a shimmery light green (Orly Limelite), a dense dark green glitter (CG Winter Holly) and a medium green glitter (Nubar Meadow Sparkle).

What to do:

Step 1: Paint your whole nail with the dark green polish.  Use however many coats it takes to get opaque.


Step 2: Use the metallic gold polish to outline where the feather 'eyes' will go.


Step 3: Add thin stripes around these eyes using the metallic gold.


Step 4:  Colour in the top half of the eyes with the metallic gold.  Then, use the dark metallic teal to add more stripes around the eyes.  Try to offset these a bit from the gold stripes.


Step 5: Add the dense gold glitter around the edges an top half of the eyes.


Step 6: Add circles of bright blue cream on the bottom half of the eyes.  Add some of the shimmery blue on top of them.

Step 7: Add smaller circles of navy blue polish at the bottom center of the bright blue circles.


Step 8: Add a line of light green shimmery polish around the left edge of the eyes.

Step 9: Ad a line of dark green glitter around the right side of the eyes.

Step 10: Add a line of medium green glitter around the two stripes you just made.  It's subtle in the picture but it catches the light nicely.

Step 11: Wait a couple minutes for your polish to set then clean up your cuticles and add a coat of your favorite top coat.  You're done!




April 28, 2013

Nfu Oh 54 Swatch

I love flakie glitters.  I feel like they turn my fingertips into gemstones.  Yesterday was the first nice sunny day in a while so I took to the opportunity to take some pictures of how beautiful this polish looks, especially in natural light.  This is two coats of Nfu Oh 54 over one coat of China Glaze Manhunt.


April 27, 2013

Dupes: OPI Divine Swine vs Wet n Wild Take the Stage

I love OPI's Muppets Collection but it's getting harder and harder to find these days.  However, if you are lusting after Divine Swine you are in luck.  The Wet n Wild Fergie collection contains a polish that is a 90% match, Take the Stage.  See for yourself.


In the bottle Take the Stage looks a tiny bit more purple than Divine Swine.  However, one you put in on your nails, this difference seems to disappear.  I used two coats of each.




There were two main differences that I spotted between the two polishes.  First, the glitter in Take the Stage seems to be a bit more dense than that of Divine Swine.  Also, Take the Stage has two sizes of purple glitter where Divine Swine only has one.  Overall I think that Wet n Wild Take the Stage is a very reasonable substitute for OPI Divine Swine and bonus, it's less than half the price.  What do you think?

April 24, 2013

Why Not Zoidberg?

I entered a tentacle themed manicure contest.


Julep Sea Salt Mystery Box Review

I can't resist a mystery box.  There are just so many awesome possibilities of what you could get.  When Julep announced their sea salt mystery box I figured this was a good (and cost effective) way to find out what all this textured polish hype was about.  For $24.99 you were guaranteed to get a box worth $70-$200 that contained at least one of their three new sea salt finish textured polishes.  I ordered and obsessively checked my mail until it came.  Here's what I got.

A lovely wrapped package with bright spring colours.  Their packaging is always so cute.  On top was a pair of separators and a nail file.  You can never have too many nail files.  Underneath was a mini package wrapped in purple paper.  It was full of polish!

A matte top coat, Claudette, Vivien, Jill and Simone were what waited inside.


I didn't already own a matte top coat so I was excited to see this.  It basically "doubles" the number of polish options I have since now I can give a matte finish to every colour.

Simone (Classic with a Twist) is a brick red cream polish.  Would not have been my first choice of colours but I'm sure I'll put it to use.

Vivien (American Beauty) is a mix of small and larger hex gold glitter.  I love this one.  It isn't a super yellow gold which is what I prefer since it goes better with my skin tone.  I think this will make a great glitter gradient.

Jill (Boho Glam) is a taupe coloured sea salt finish textured polish.  Unfortunately this is the one textured polish that I didn't want to get as I am not a big fan of very neutral colours.

Simone (Classic with a Twist) is a pink cream polish with a subtle blue shimmer.  I quite like this one as I haven't seen anything like it before.

Now, the big question, what do the sea salt polishes look like on???

Personally, I'm not a fan.  To me it looks like mixing concrete or a painted popcorn ceiling.  I've come to the conclusion that the textured polishes really need a glitter aspect to add more dimension to them.  As for the texture itself, I don't love it but I don't hate it.  It just kind of is.  I think in the future if I spot a texture polish that I love the colour of I would still buy it and then add a topcoat to even it out a bit.

Overall I'm happy with the box.  I got a few polishes that I liked and I finally got to try a textured polish (even if it was the colour I didn't want).  The matte top coat was a great addition too.  Want to become a Julep Maven so you'll get first dibs on their future mystery boxes?  Sign up here and use the code "freebox" at checkout to get your first box for free!



Julep Maven Bombshell Intro Box Review

Well guys, I caved and signed up to be come a Julep Maven.  I ended up choosing the bombshell intro box because I have trouble resisting some nice purple polishes.  It showed up in the mail yesterday and here's what I got.

A lovely note welcoming you to the maven family is the first thing you see when you open up the box.  Since I had researched what you get with being a Julep Maven a lot online before signing up I promptly skipped reading the whole thing and wanted to check out the goodies hiding underneath.

A bonus sample of their warming pumice foot scrub was sitting on top.  I walk around barefoot EVERYWHERE so I will definitely put this to good use.  Also visible was the American Beauty Volumizing Mascara.  I don't wear a lot of mascara but I'm sure I'll find it a good home.

Now for the polishes!  The bombshell intro box comes with Yumi and Petra.  Yumi is a pinky-lavendar glitter polish.  I found in indoor lighting it looks more like a holographic silver glitter polish but in sunlight the pink glitter really shines through.  Petra is a deep fuchsia with a silver shimmer.  Both are beautiful and I can't wait to try them on my nails.

Like what you see and want to become a Julep Maven yourself?  Good news!  You can get your first box for free!  Just use the code "freebox" when checking out.  Become a Maven now.

April 19, 2013

OPI Holland Collection - I Have A Herring Problem and Dutch Ya Just Love OPI?

I love a good rich shimmery polish so I just couldn't resist these two from OPI's Spring/Summer 2012 Holland Collection.


Dutch Ya Just Love OPI? is a beautiful medium purple with a rosy gold shimmer.  I found that under indoor light the shimmer was very subtle but get that polish under some sunlight at the gold shimmer really popped!  This picture shows two coats of Dutch Ya Just Love OPI? with one coat of CND super shiney top coat. I found that this colour is very similar to Zoya Tru.

I have a herring problem is a sky blue with a bright silver shimmer.  I found that the shimmer was more pronounced indoors than that of Dutch Ya Just Love OPI but really stood out under natural light.  This photo shows two coats of I Have A Herring Problem with one coat of CND super shiney top coat.  I found that this colour is very similar to Zoya Skylar.

The other really shimmery polishes from this collection include I Don't Give A Rotterdam which is very similar to I Have A Herring Problem but a bit lighter blue and Pedal Faster Suzi! which is a light pink with a silver shimmer.  I'm hoping to add them both to my collection as well.

Indies! LynBDesigns Little Foot and Iocaine Powder

Little Foot from the Land Before Time collection is a beautiful lilac tinged grey cream with small silver glitter and larger silver hex glitter.  Also, I loved the Land Before Time as a kid so the name got my attention all by itself.  The application was very easy and the polish was a good consistency.  Not too thick, not too thin.  This is three coats with one coat of CND super shiney top coat. 


Iocaine Powder from the Dweam Wiffin a Dweam collection is beautiful glitter polish.  It combines small flakies, microfine holographic powder, and microfine iridescent glitter to create a sparkly topper with flashes of blue and silver.  The polish had a great consistency and was very easy to apply smoothly.  Here I put one coat on over OPI I Have A Herring Problem and then used one coat of CND super shiny top coat.  You can see what a great addition it makes.


If you want to get some of these polishes for your very own you can find at the LynBDesigns Etsy shop.

April 06, 2013

Turn That Jelly Sandwich Into a Cough Syrup Gradient

In my last post I showed you my true jelly sandwich manicure.  I felt like switching things up but didn't feel like taking off all that polish and starting from scratch so I decided to do a cough syrup gradient using the same jelly polish, Zoya Frida, that I had used for my previous manicure.  All I did was leave a small gap at the bottom of my nail and paint to the top.  Then, with each coat I left a bigger and bigger gap at the bottom of my nail.  After four to five coats (depending on how long the nail was) I had a nice gradient.  The technique was really easy and the results were pretty good, especially for a first try.  The downside?  Because there were so many coats at the nail tips it took a while to dry.  This is a manicure best left to those times when you want to be lazy and watch tv but want to actually watch the tv, not do your nails with the tv in the background.


Time for a True Jelly Sandwich

A little while ago I talked about a polish with built in sparkles that made it look like you put more effort into your manicure than you actually did.  I figured it was time to try the real deal and see the difference.  I used my first every jelly polish, Zoya Frida, and a multi size glitter polish, Orly Mermaid Tail.  It actually didn't take too long because I only did one layer of glitter.  In total I did two coats of jelly polish, one coat of glitter polish and then one more coat of jelly.  I liked the final results though in the future I might switch one coat of jelly from below to on top of the sparkles to dim them down a bit, but that's just personal preference.  The one difference I noticed is that with the true jelly sandwich you don't get any bare sparkles on the top layer.  Which look do I prefer?  It's hard to say since Revlon Popular was more of a cream base.  I think either is doable in a short amount of time, it just depends what kind of look you're going for.


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