SWATCH SATURDAY: Dandy Nails - Chilled Down

Nothing to Disclose

Hello lovelies! Two posts in one day, totally off the hook over here!

Just a simple swatch this time, because I was in the mood for it. Accent nail is inspired by a photo Vanity Projects posted of a Lexi Martone mani that I LOOOOOVE.

Base is three coats of Chilled Down (could have gotten away with two, but taking photos in a lightbox is very demanding in terms of visible nail line). I love this polish. I love polishes that look speckled, and this one reminds me of a bird's egg. A really awesome bird's egg.

Accent nail was done with Shirin, then acrylic paint in blue and white, plus some 1.5mm rhinestones from Born Pretty.

Polishes used:

Dandy Nails - Chilled Down

Mentality Nail Polish - Shirin (I have been ADDICTED to this polish, lately!)

butter LONDON - Nail Foundation (base coat)

Glisten & Glow - HK Girl (top coat)

acrylic paint

liner brush

1.5mm rhinestones from Born Pretty Store

Any seasonally-appropriate designs you'd like to see me do? I don't much celebrate Christmas so it can be hard for me to come up with nail art for the season. If you have any ideas, send them my way!!

xo,

J.

Tweed for Fall

Nothing to Disclose

Hello lovelies!

This looked better in my head. But it isn't a total failure, so up it goes!

It was IMPOSSIBLE for me to get a good photo of the base colour for this mani. I suspect this might be an ongoing battle between my camera and darker colours. They always end up way too dark. I have no idea how to rectify this because I know basically nothing about cameras or how they work. (True story.)

The base for this was Creeping Moss. The tweed accent nail didn't come across quite as well as I would have liked, but it was pretty easy and fun to do; just do the spun sugar technique both horizontally and vertically. I used Aciiied, Desert Fruit, and Xixabangma on a base of Tempest. Next time, I will do it on a dark base and use white as one of the spun sugar colours.

This photo is the only one that is vaguely colour-accurate. It's crappy, but the colour is as light as it appears on the right-hand side.

Polishes used:

Contrary Polish - Creeping Moss, Desert Fruit

Models Own - Aciiied

Elevation Polish - Xixabangma

Cult Nails - Tempest

butter LONDON - Nail Foundation (base coat)

Rica - Glossy Glam (top coat)

Studs and rhinestones from Born Pretty

dotting tool (for spun sugar technique)

Many posts upcoming! One tomorrow, then one each day all next week becaaaauuuseee... Digit-al Dozen week is starting! Holy moly! I'm kind of nervous.

And to any lovelies who are Canadian, happy Thanksgiving!

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.

Rhinestone Skittlette!

Nothing to Disclose

Tonight I have something blingy for you!

I recently read Marta's wonderful tutorial on skittlette manicures and thought, you know what, I want to give that a try! And then I promptly overdid it.

For this look, I started with a base of My Vampire is Buff, followed with dots in Tempest and a pinkie in Once In a Lullaby (four coats! It's not a very dense glitter, but it IS lovely). I found the rhinestones at Born Pretty and affixed them on a thick coat of Gelous, topped with top coat.

I realize that the pinkie is supposed to be the blingiest and the middle two fingers are supposed to be the intermediates, and I appear to have inverted that order, and it's a whole hunk of hot mess as a result, but I like it anyway. And you know why? RAINBOWS, THAT'S WHY.

Polishes used:

OPI - My Vampire is Buff

Cult Nails - Tempest

Maya Cosmetics - Once In a Lullaby

Born Pretty rhinestones

Gelous

Duri - Rejuvacote (base coat)

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

'Traditional' nail art is sort of boring to me, but I do like skittlettes because they offer a lot to look at and you can use a number of beautiful polishes without cluttering them up too much. I may start introducing this look into my repertoire a bit more, perhaps in lieu of my Swatch Saturdays (Skittlette Saturdays!) -- any thoughts on that?

xo,

J.