I'm alive! But barely!

Nothing to Disclose

 Hello lovelies!

I'm still in Montreal. I was supposed to leave yesterday, but then I got The Summer Cold To End All Summer Colds and proceeded to spend three days in bed horking mucus via various facial orifices. A good time was had by all... the little virus buddies... taking over my body.

So I postponed my flight. I miss nail art. I return on Wednesday evening and will likely spend the next week ensconced at home, doing a nail art look every day or two. I gotta catch up!!

In the meantime, here (from my Instagram feed) are some things I've been up to lately:

I wore three coats of Ciaté's Ferris Wheel (augh, THREE COATS) with two coats of Lac Attack's Death Day Party over top! I love me some flakies. These charcoal flakies shifted purple and gold, very lovely.

I did a framed dotticure with... a bunch of things. Some random greyish polish that my mom had (Rimmel, I think), piCture pOlish's Sunset, Ruby Wing's Eternal, and white.

And I did my friend Laurent's nails! He's such a good sport. I will definitely revisit mermaid (/merman) nails in future. I could spend hours and hours on this look, but I feel like maybe his arms would have fallen off at that point. I'm told that cashiers gave him lots of compliments on these. I used the same base of Ferris Wheel and Death Day Party as above, then used a random Bourjois navy polish and acetone for the scales, some of which I dotted full of my custom Tryst Lacquer, Aqueous, and some of which I dotted full of a NOPI shimmery white whose name I've forgotten (but it's a lot like OPI's Happy Anniversary).

I will return to you lovelies later this week! I've got quite the queue of ABC Challenge prompts to catch up on, plus a couple other assorted ideas. :) Do stick around!

xo,

J.

Swatch: Polished by KPT - Dichromate

Nothing to Disclose

Hello lovelies!

I just got back from a period of being up at my parents' cottage without reception. I thought I'd show you what I've been wearing for these past couple of days -- Dichromate.

Dichromate is a green (warm) to orange (cold) thermal polish, and the shift is quite volatile and noticeable. It's been insanely hot here lately, though, so getting both colours to show has been a bit of a challenge. Most times it's just a lovely bright apple-ish green. :)

Application was interesting, a bit. The formula is a bit thick because of, I presume, the heady mix of metallic shimmer and thermal pigment. It tends to gloop ever so slightly on contact with acetone, which means clean-up requires a bit of patience. Your best bet is to go with 3 thin coats, making sure not to finesse them too much, and giving plenty of drying time in-between. The result is worth it, it's really fun to watch it shift colours!

Lastly, here is a photo I took of the clouds and the moon, with my parents' dock on the lake visible thanks to the little lanterns:

I hope to get some nail art done while I'm out here but, barring that, you'll definitely still be getting swatches! I'm thinking of readjusting my nail shape, too, but that's still an Idea and not a Plan... ;)

Polishes used:

Polished by KPT - Dichromate

butter LONDON - Nail Foundation (base coat)

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

I miss you, my lovelies! I hope you're all well. :)

xo,

J.

Triangular Rhinestones from Born Pretty Store + Another Guest Post!

 Press Sample

I have a bit of a special post for you lovelies tonight! And not just because I went oval-ish with my nails aaaaAAAAHHHHHH

Born Pretty Store were kind enough to contact me about reviewing products, and I had to jump on these amazing little triangular rhinestones (#17): 1 Box Shiny Candy Colorful Rhinestones Geometric Shape Acrylic UV Gel Nail Art Decoration! Aren't they precious? At 1.5mm, they are definitely on the tiny side, and you'll need some patience working with them, but this look took me about 20 minutes per hand, so definitely not the same ballgame as glitter placement. (At the link above, #18 are 2mm triangles, which might drive you less nutso to place on the nail.)

Pardon the index finger, not sure when/how that happened. :/

This isn't the first time I've ordered from Born Pretty for my nail art needs-- I've purchased from them twice before. Free worldwide shipping is definitely slow shipping (usually about 3 weeks), but I haven't had a package go AWOL and my orders are always correct, which boggles the mind when you consider how many products they stock. They are a fixture in the nail art community for a reason!

This look was simple: paint 3 coats of My Vampire is Buff, apply a NON-QUICK-DRY topcoat where needed, use a dotting tool dabbed in some topcoat to pick up and place the rhinestones, and seal with quick-dry topcoat when done. It's much more subtle than most of the nail art I do, but I'm kind of digging it! They look like Technicolor four-leaf clovers!

AND GUESS WHAT-- I did another guest post! This time, over at Tips and Topcoat! Lou is incredible, you really need to check out her work. Click here to see the post, and again, give her blog some love!!

Polishes used:

OPI - My Vampire is Buff

Born Pretty Store - 1.5mm triangular rhinestones (#17)

Duri - non-yellowing topcoat

la couleur couture - 2013 (quick-dry topcoat)

dotting tool

I'm going to visit family and friends in Montreal until the 29th, so posting will likely be sporadic. I have shipped myself a box of polish to use while I'm there (oh, don't you even judge, you know what it's like), so I promise to at least have posts of SOME sort for you-- likely straight-up swatches (gasp).

AND DON'T FORGET: if you decide to buy these rhinestones (or anything else) from Born Pretty Store, use my discount code ABCQ10 for 10% off your order!

xo,

J.