Effie Trinket Nails

Hey guys!
I have some very pretty and very popular nails to show you today!

I'm a big fan of The Hunger Games book series so of course I had to see the movie. Effie Trinket was rockin' some seriously hot nails during some of the scenes, and I had to recreate some of them!
But I'm definitely not the first to do this look, I've seen it probably 10 times already. Haha!
Despite being all over the place, they're still pretty and I really enjoyed wearing them!

Tada!
I did mine with a more purple color while Effie's were more fuchsia.
I happened to be wearing China Glaze Gothic Lolita when I thought about doing this manicure so I just went for it!

The gold glitter gradient was done with China Glaze Blonde Bombshell and Essence Make It Golden. I did the gradient with a sponge.

Glitter gradients are so quick and easy, and really eye-catching! I dig them. A lot.

I wish I had liked the colors from China Glaze's Capitol Colors collection... But they were just a bummer. I didn't buy ANY! And that's rare for me. Not my colors.
I mean yes, the Hunger Games is pretty morose... But the colors didn't have to be!!

Do I have any more Hunger Games fans out there? Did you do some Effie nails?
I'm really interested to see how they do the next two movies in the series. The books are pretty intense so I bet the movies will be too! (And I wonder if we'll get to see more crazy nails!)

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go french with OPI We'll Always Have Paris Suede

Good morning lovelies!
Today I'll be showing off another OPI Suede polish and the resulting mani that I wore with it!

OPI - We'll Always Have Paris Suede
I seriously dig these suedes. I never liked matte finishes until I tried these out! They apply so nicely, dry in seconds, and just look really cool!

I wore this polish for 2 days before it started to wear away at the tips, which is great for a matte finish polish with no topcoat.
I wasn't ready to take it off, so it was time for some art to cover the tipwear!
(You may remember I did the same thing with Russian Navy Suede in this post.)

I went for a cool french mani! And man, I seriously enjoyed it. My nails looked so... vampy. I don't know. They were badass but still elegant. If that's possible.

To add on the V-shaped french, I used Essence - Black Is Back and just used the polish brush to quickly paint it on. It's not perfect, but it's hard to see the imperfections.

Et voilà!  A sexy french mani in Paris. Suede.

More about → go french with OPI We'll Always Have Paris Suede

glad in plaid!

Good afternoon darlings!

Today I have a really fun tape technique to show you. Instead of using tape to create relief patterns, you use the tape to make your own nail stickers!
I saw this cool mani on The Beauty Department, which is a really fun site that I am guilty of stalking.

Can you spot the tape? Haha! The trick is to paint some tape, let it dry, and cut it into shapes to put onto your nails. It helps you create super even and straight lines, which is a good thing for me because I am awful with a striper brush.

I broke up the intensity of the plaid with a solid accent nail, which I think looks pretty cute!

I took a whole bunch of pictures of this mani because I was really proud of it!

It can be kind of difficult to cut the tape into small pieces so take your time, and then once on the nail, use cuticle nippers to clip the edges. I also used a file to smooth the edge of my nail a little, to stop the tape from hitching.

The polishes I used are:
Urban Decay - Superfreak (gold)
Urban Decay - Woodstock (pink)
OPI - Fly (teal)
Essence - You Belong To Me (light blue/green)
The base color is a light gray franken I made.

What do you guys think of this fun way to use tape? I think I'll definitely be trying it again!

More about → glad in plaid!

as seen on... Chalkboard Nails

Bonjour! Today's scheduled post is probably my favorite out of all the ones I've got planned this week, because I love the nails and I love the girl behind them.

I'm sure you all know Sarah from Chalkboard Nails. If you don't, you must be living under a nail-art-rock because she is insanely popular nowadays!
I'm pretty lucky because Sarah is my homegirl.
Even though our timezones are 5.5 hours apart, we still find time to chat every day and we're pretty much in love, I think. We also like to make fun of each other. It's a pretty good relationship.

Of course I had to recreate one of Sarah's manis, or else she'd probably think she's too good for me. And we can't have that.

Not only did I recreate her nails but I've stolen her hand poses and her watermark. Take that!

I get a kick out of these photos. Plus the nails are totally badass!

A little while ago, Sarah did these nails for a collaboration with the blog What I Wore. I love them a whooooole lot. Enough to spend an hour doing the four striped nails. (I did both hands!)

This is the mani I chose to wear on my vacation so I'm still wearing this as we speak! Hopefully it will last me through most of my trip. (Don't worry, I packed my Nail Envy and Seche Vite for a mid-vacation mani change with some new polish I will surely buy!)

The base color of the leopard nails is Sephora by OPI - XOX Betsey.

The center of the leopard dots is Color Club - Love 'Em Leave 'Em.

For the white, I used Sally Hansen - Whirlwind White and the black is Essence - Black is Back.

I did the leopard print with a dotting tool.

I've found lately that the Essence polish works nicely for nail art because it doesn't dry as quickly when you're using it for dots and stuff and it isn't so much of a nightmare to clean up!

I used striping tape for the stripes, painting white first, and then adding the tape and painting over it before removing the tape. The thumbs came out perfectly but sadly I had some issues with the ring fingers.

Nobody bats 1000, right?

Tada! I'm in love with this mani and I'm pretty sure I'm going to get a ton of compliments on it.

Thank you Sarah for the great idea and thanks for bein' my bestie. 

B-face.

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Essence - It's Purplicious!

Hey everyone! Posting a bit late today because I've been a busy bee - I was up early for my hellish Saturday morning final exam but good news, it went well!
The rest of my day has been busy with things like naps... Baking... Eating... Haha!

In my swaps I've managed to acquire two of Essence's Nail Art Special Effect Toppers!
Today I'm going to show you my favorite one. The purple one. (Duh.)

Essence - It's Purplicious!
This is a really cool purple glitter, I've never seen anything else like it! We all know how popular square glitter has become so this one is a winner of course.
This polish is sort of a re-release from Essence - one of the older Essence Twins is the same glitter by a different name.

There's two shades of the purple squares and a bunch of small silver glitter as well!
It disperses nicely, this is just one coat! (Over Depend 202 from yesterday!)

I love this. Definitely one of my favorites in my stash! Essence is addicting.

I've got another new-favorite-glitter to show you tomorrow so wait patiently for that ;)

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Essence Nail Art Twins - Edward and Bella

Good morning everyone! Today I'll be showing you my final set of Essence Nail Art Twins which are also my favorite ones!
Sadly, I had some serious issues photographing these polishes! Ugh, they drove me crazy.

Now that this is my last set of twins, I'll do some shameless begging for the rest of them!
If any of my lovely followers can find me Mr. Big & Carrie, Joe & Victory, Thelma & Louise or Bonnie & Clyde, please let me know! I just love these stinkin' polishes.

Essence - Edward and Bella
If you've been living under a rock, let me explain to you who Edward and Bella are. They are the main characters in the book/movie series, Twilight (or The Twilight Saga.)
There's a lot of Twilight lovers and a lot of Twilight haters.  I once was a hater, but I gave in and now I'm a lover. And I'm not ashamed to say it!

So of course I needed these polishes, being a fan of the series, and they also happened to be one of my favorite colors. Turquoise! It's perfect.

Now if only they would have cooperated with my camera. I even swatched them twice to try to get better pictures! I've got some good shots and some not-so-good ones.

Essence - Bella
Bella is a beautiful turquoise creme which is right up my alley! The third picture is the most accurate.
The formula is great on this polish, you can get away with one thick coat but I did two thin ones. Be careful though, because Bella can stain pretty badly. Double up on base coat!

Now let's add the pretty glitter.

Essence - Edward
Edward is another great topper from Essence with square glitter. We all love the squares.
Most of the glitter is teal but there is also some small holo glitter mixed in there. My swatches show two coats of glitter to get the best coverage.

This stupid polish hated me. Or my camera. Or something.

Edward looks great over other colors too:

Here it is over OPI Suzi Says Feng Shui and Russian Navy. This is for sure one of my fave glitters.

I hope the shots I managed to get were good enough for you guys! These polishes are beautiful and I am so happy to have them. You can bet I'll be wearing them when I go see the final Twilight movie!

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Essence Nail Art Twins - Gabriella and Troy

Here's my third set of Essence Nail Art Twins for your viewing pleasure!

Essence Nail Art Twins - Gabriella and Troy
If you don't recognize these names, you must be in the lucky part of the population that has not been subjected to watching High School Musical. Gabriella and Troy were the main couple in the painful movies, but hey, at least we can thank those movies for making Zac Efron popular, right? I have a major crush on him now that he grew up a little. Haha!

This purple pair of polishes are particularly pleasing. Like all those P's?

Essence - Gabriella
Gabriella is a lovely purple polish with a strong violet-blue shimmer. Covers perfectly in two coats and is super shiny! And it only gets better when you add the matching glitter on top.

Essence -Troy
This glitter-packed topcoat has purple, blue and gold glitter in a clear base. It spreads evenly and densely with just one coat!

The first time I swatched this on a nail wheel I fell in love with how well the two polishes go together! And then it looked even better on the nails.

All of these Essence Nail Art Twins are total winners. I've got just one set left to show you... My favorite set! Stay tuned for them tomorrow.

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Essence Nail Art Twins - Chuck and Blair

Good afternoon all - I hope you're having a better afternoon than I am, because it's snowing here! I've had enough snow. It makes me sad. Bring on the spring!
I'm counting down the days until I get to go on vacation and go to somewhere warm! (23 days!)

Until I get to go away and cheer myself up with some sun, I'll have to cheer myself up with polish. So here's another pretty swatch for you!

Essence Nail Art Twins - Chuck and Blair
Here's the second set of nail art twins I'm going to show you. I think this set might be my least favorite of the four sets I have. It's still great and love it, but the glitter just isn't as satisfying as the others! Haha. 

Chuck and Blair are a couple from the book/TV series, Gossip Girl. I don't watch/read the series but I know who they are because I have some friends who are fans of the series.

Essence - Chuck
Chuck is a cool royal blue creme that has a bit of a dusty feel to it. The formula is great and you can almost get away with one coat but you'll wanna do two for a perfect finish.

Now for the glitter!

Essence - Blair
Blair is a silver glitter topcoat in a clear base. The silver is more of a gunmetal type color, it's darker than usual. There's a bunch of different sizes of the glitter and there's also some small holo glitter mixed in there. 

On certain angles the glitter almost looks black, but if the light hits it, it starts shining.

This is a great set from Essence, as usual!

More about → Essence Nail Art Twins - Chuck and Blair