Grey, Red and Black Abstract Mani

I wanted to do a fun abstract pattern to go with a black, white and grey tie-dye dress that I wore today. This is what I came up with:

For this manicure, I used Nubar Citadel, a light gray creme polish, as the base for the stamped fingers. I then stamped an abstract texture pattern over it using a dark gray creme polish, OPI's "Liv" in the Gray.  The texture patters used were from ÜberChic Beauty Über Mini plates 'Texture-licious', and 'Texture-licious 3'. The two accent nails are painted red with OPI 'Let Your Love Shine'. I also added some cute red heart decals over my stamped index and pinky fingers, to tie the look together.

I also did a slight modification of the mani on my other hand: 

It's essentially the same design, but I double-stamped the nail stamped fingers with another texture pattern in black - Bundle Monster 'Straight Up Black' stamping polish. The texture pattern I used to top the design was from ÜberChic Beauty Über Mini plates 'Texture-licious' 4. This design more closely resembled the tie-dyed dress that I used as inspiration, but I liked both versions and couldn't bring myself to just pick one! 😄

I really enjoyed creating this manicure! It was a lot of fun to design, and a lot of fun to wear!

Blue, Orange, and Silver Stamped and Dotted Manicure

I finally managed to do a little nail stamping! It's been a while, but it was fun to get back into it again. Here's what I came up with:

I started with a simple base of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure 'Calypso Blue'. Then I stamped some silver accents on my middle and ring fingers using an image from my ÜberChic Beauty ‘Culture Rich’ stamping plate. I finished it off by using a dotting tool to add orange dots on the nails.

The manicure came together rather quickly, as the embellishments were done pretty much at the spur of the moment. However, I really like how it turned out!

 

White and Blue Line Art Nail Stamping Mani

Here's another unposted manicure from my archives. This manicure was from February 2017. I no longer remember the polishes or stamping plates used, as unfortunately, I didn't take a photo of the materials. It looks like I was going for a blue and white porcelain look, similar to one that I did over here.

Zebra Print Nail Stamping Manicure

Today I have a nail stamping manicure to share from the archives I mentioned in an earlier post. This is a zebra-print nail, with a black ring finger accent nail topped in silver glitter. Again, I have no idea which polishes and plates were used, but I really like the way it turned out, so I figure that it was worth sharing!

Red, Yellow, Green and Black Plaid Nails

Polishes Used

Revlon ‘Revlon Red’

Maybelline Color Show ‘Fierce N Tangy’

Revlon ‘Posh’

Bundle Monster ‘Straight Up Black’

Stamping Plate Used

ÜberChic Beauty 'Pretty in Plaid'

I'm really excited to share today's post, because I finally got a chance to do some nail art!!! Even better, I was able to use a couple Revlon polishes for this manicure, so it also continues the theme of the last 6 posts, where I've been rediscovering the polishes in my Revlon collection.

I used a 'buffalo check' plaid stamping image from the ÜberChic Beauty 'Pretty in Plaid' stamping plate. For the base colours, I used red, yellow, and green creme polishes, and I stamped the plaid image in black. Since I stamped the buffalo check image over a red, yellow, and green base, my nickname for this look is my 'Buffalo Soldier Check' manicure 😉.  Here are a few more shots of the manicure, and a nice shot of the base layer prior to stamping:

This manicure was so much fun to create! I really love the final look, and the striped base looked pretty cool as well!  I may have to create a mani with vertical stripes one day soon... Below, I have a collage with my bottle shots, as well as label shots showing the names and numbers of all of the polishes I used.

The polishes used were: Revlon 'Revlon Red', Maybelline Color Show 'Fierce n Tangy, Revlon 'Posh', and Bundle Monster 'Straight up Black', black stamping polish.

Metallic Red and Silver Stamped Mani

Today I have a simple nail stamping manicure to share using metallic red and silver polishes, and embellished with some nail art jewels:

Polishes Used	Stamping Plate Used
OPI ‘A Little Guilt Under the Kilt’	Über Mini: Texture-licious – Plate 3
Sally Hansen ‘Silver Sweep’*

*Original formula                 

I created this manicure by starting off with a base of metallic red nail polish, OPI's 'A Little Guilt Under the Kilt'. Next, I stamped 2 separate textural images from ÜberChic Beauty's ÜberMini 'Texture-licious' plate 3 on both my ring and middle fingers. I used a metallic silver polish for the stamping, my quickly depleting bottle of original formula Sally Hansen's 'Silver Sweep'. I completed the look by placing 2 colourless nail art jewels each, on my pinky and index fingers.

I did this manicure during the middle of the work week, so I didn't really have a lot of time for planning and execution. Typically in these situations, I would do a traditional manicure using just one shade of polish on all of my nails. However, I've been trying to get back into the habit of doing nail art regularly, so I decided to go a step further and do some basic nail stamping and add some embellishments. I'm really pleased with how the look turned out, and it has served as a reminder for me that a manicure does not have to be complicated or time-consuming to be beautiful. In fact, sometimes simpler is better, since I don't end up going over-board and doing way too much! 😄

Below, I've included a few additional pictures of the manicure:

Essie 'Silk Watercolors' and 'Glazed Days' Collections Comparison

For today's post, I wanted to do a quick comparison between the two iterations of Essie's Jelly Polish collections: Essie's 'Silk Watercolors' collection from 2015, and Essie's 'Glazed Days' collection from 2019. To see reviews on the collections separately, you can click the links on the collection names in the previous sentence.

Overall, I really like both collections, and think that they actually complement eachother really well. Because of the different formulas, and hues, I'm happy to have both sets in my collection.  

I noticed that the silk watercolor collection has a slightly thinner, and slightly less vibrant formula, which lends itself a bit better to blending and layering applications. For example, blending a watercolour-type abstract pattern on the nails, or layering designs between coats of the jelly polish, as is done with 'pond' manicures.

By contrast, the 'Glazed Days' Collection seems to be more vibrant and the formula is a bit thicker, which lends itself a bit better to nail art applications where more full coverage is important, like 'leadlighting'.  None of the shades are exact dupes of eachother, so combined, the 2 collections provide a total of 14 rainbow shades!

Below I have samples of nail art that use all of the polishes in both collections. On the 'Glazed Days' portion of the collage, the polishes are layered over a silver background (Sally Hansen's 'Silver Sweep').

Leadlighting Manicure featuring Essie's Silk Watercolor Collection

Polishes Used	Polishes Used
Essie ‘Highest Bidder’	Essie ‘Point of Blue’
Essie ‘Love Sheen’	Essie ‘No Shrinking Violet’
Essie ‘Blush Stroke’	Essie ‘White Page’
Essie ‘Art New-Beau’	Maniology ‘Straight Up Black’
Essie ‘Muse, Myself’	Stamping Plate Used
Essie ‘Pen & Inky’	Moyou London Trend Hunter - 01

After reviewing my purchase of Essie's 'Glazed Days' collection which was released earlier this year, I decided to go back and do a manicure using Essie's 'Silk Watercolor' collection that I purchased back when it was released in 2015. 

Essie 'Silk Watercolor' Collection

I never did a complete review of the 'Silk Watercolor' collection when I purchased it. However, I did feature one of the shades in a blog post. It was the pink shade, 'Blush Stroke', which I used for a 'Pond' manicure. Here's a link to that post. 

For today's manicure, I decided to use all of the shades from the collection to create a cute, colourful look. I started with 'White Page' as my white base colour, and then stamped two different floral images on my thumbs, and ring fingers. The images were from Moyou London stamping plate 'Trend Hunter - 01', and the black stamping polish I used was Maniology's 'Straight Up Black'. I also stamped the cross pattern on my middle fingers from a portion of one of the images on the same plate using the same polish. 

Next, I coloured in the flower portions of the images with each of the colours from the 'Silk Watercolor' collection using the 'leadlight technique', which involves using a dotting tool (or any other tool or brush that can transfer polish) to place the transparent jelly polishes over different parts of the image. After this, I embellished the image on my middle finger with some black dots, and then added multi coloured dots on the bottom portion of my index, and pinky fingers. The multi-coloured dots were also made with the 'Silk Watercolor' collection. I completed the look by using a quick dry, glossy top coat in order to smoothe everything out, and add shine.

Below, is a collage with a few additional shots of the manicure:

Here are some of my thoughts about the 'Silk Watercolor' collection. I'm quite pleased with the colour saturation from the jelly polishes in the collection. The jellies look great over the white polish even with only one coat, which is really important for leadlighting. The white polish is pretty much your standard white polish. It performs well, but if you already have a white polish that you like, I don't see a specific need to get this one.

I also really like the colour range. There are more warm shades in the collection than cool shades, and I find that a lot of the colours are sort of 'in-between' shades, as opposed to 'true' shades ie 'pinky-red' as opposed to 'true' red. This works well for me, as I already have jelly polishes that are more classic shades, so these polishes are a great addition to my collection.

The 'Silk Watercolor' formula is really good as well. The jelly polishes are on the slightly thinner side, and have enough pigment to perform well for leadlighting, as well as on their own, as seen in my 'pond' manicure. Of course, I haven't used all of the jellies on their own yet, so I'm estimating the performance based on 'Blush Stroke', the one I've used (sort of) on it's own, as well as my experience with using all of the polishes in this manicure. 

All in all, really like these polishes. I really enjoyed creating this look, and I love how it turned out. I even got a couple compliments on this manicure! 

Water-Marble Style Leadlighting Mani 2 featuring Essie's 'Glazed Days' Collection

Today I have another leadlighting manicure created using Essie's Glazed Days Collection, and my water-marble stamping plate B002 from What's Up Nails.

Polishes Used	Polishes Used
Essie ‘Glazed Days’	Essie ‘Sweet Not Sour’
Essie ‘Confection Affection’	Sally Hansen Insta-Dri ‘Silver Sweep’*
Essie ‘Sweet Supply’	Maniology ‘Straight Up Black’
Essie ‘But First, Candy’	Stamping Plates Used
Essie ‘Ooh La Lolly’	What’s Up Nails plate B002

                                                                                                                      *new formula

Basically, the steps I took to create this manicure were the same as for the manicure I described in my last post. The main difference is that I used different stamping images from the stamping plate. The middle finger accent nail was also featured in an earlier post in which I did a quick review on the Essie 'Glazed Days' collection. You can click here to see that post.

Overall, I was really pleased with how this manicure turned out as well (even with the small smudge on my thumb!). I really like how these jelly polishes look over a silver base. Below, I've included a few additional close-up shots of my fingernails.

Water-Marble Style Leadlighting Mani featuring Essie's 'Glazed Days' Collection

Polishes Used	Polishes Used
Essie ‘Glazed Days’	Essie ‘Sweet Not Sour’
Essie ‘Confection Affection’	Sally Hansen Insta-Dri ‘Silver Sweep’*
Essie ‘Sweet Supply’	Maniology ‘Straight Up Black’
Essie ‘But First, Candy’	Stamping Plates Used
Essie ‘Ooh La Lolly’	What’s Up Nails plate B002

* New Formula                

Today, I have a manicure to share using the Essie 'Glazed Days' collection realeased for Summer 2019. This collection of very saturated jelly polishes lends itself quite well to a variety of nail art applications. It's been a while since I posted some nail art on my blog, so when I purchased the set, I was so excited to be able to get back to playing with polishes to create some beautiful manicures! 

For this mani, I used the Leadlighting technique, to create a look similar to a stained glass window. I started out with a silver base. I then stamped over the base with a black stamping polish, using one of the water-marble images from What's Up Nails plate B002.  Afterwards, I coloured over the silver portions between the black lines using different colours of polish from the 'Glazed Days' collection.

Below, is a picture of the materials I used to create the look:

It was so much fun creating this manicure. I really love how it turned out - I even got a really nice compliment on my nails! Below, I've included a collage of some additional shots of the manicure:

Heart Stamped Skittles Mani

Today I have a cute skittles mani with a stamped accent nail to share.

I'm ecstatic about the way this manicure turned out. I love the colours together and I think the finished look is so much fun. For the stamped accent nail, I made a stamped gradient by filling the stamping image with drops of both coloured polishes. The dark metallic pink polish 'The Lace is on' and the dark metallic blue polish 'Front Page Worthy' combined to form a lovely metallic purple where the two polishes blended. I stamped the image over the light gray polish 'Go with the Flowy' used as a base.

Polishes Used

Essie 'The Lace is On'

Essie 'Go with the Flowy'

Essie Gel Couture 'Front Page Worthy'

I think the plate I used was Lina Nail Art Supplies 'Make Your Mark 07', but I am no longer 100 per cent sure, as I forgot to take note of it or take a picture to remind myself. If I figure it out at a later time, I'll try to remember to come back and update this page. All in all, this was a very successful manicure, and I absolutely loved wearing it!

Ice Crystal Mani using Nicole by OPI 'Rich in Spirit' and China Glaze 'Snow Globe'

Today I have another 'Project Polish' manicure to share. This mani uses 2 of my 'Project Polish' polishes: Nicole by OPI 'Rich in Spirit' and China Glaze 'Snow Globe'. I'm calling it the 'Ice Crystal' Mani:

Polishes Used	Stamping Plate Used
Nicole by OPI 'Rich in Spirit'	Bundle Monster Winter Kingdom -
China Glaze 'Snow Globe'	Plate BM-XL485
Konad white stamping polish (not shown)

I really like how this manicure turned out. The overall effect is very Icy and Wintry. It was a nice change to do a seasonal manicure in December that is winter-themed as opposed to holiday themed. Below I have a few additional shots of the manicure that show a bit more of the details of the stamped images.

Ice Crystal Mani - Thumb Close-up

Ice Crystal Mani - Ring, Middle, and Index fingers

The more I use 'Rich in Spirit' the more I appreciate it's beauty and versatility. It really is just a cool toned silver, so it works in so many different applications - pretty much anywhere that I would typically use a silver polish. With that in mind, one of my most used polishes is Sally Hansen 'Silver Sweep', mainly because I use it a lot for stamping. Hmmm, this is now giving me the idea to experiment with using 'Rich in Spirit' as a stamping polish.  Stay tuned to see how that works out in a future post!

Remembrance Day Manicure - 2018

Today is remembrance day in Canada. This remembrance day in particular is quite special, in that Novermber 11th, 2018 is the 100th anniversary since the end of the first world war. Today, I have a remembrance day manicure to share:

Polishes Used	Stamping Plates Used
OPI 'My Wishlist is You'	Messy Mansion Plate MM78XL
Wet n' Wild Wildshine 'Black Crème'	Clear Jelly Stamper Stamping Plate:
Nicole by OPI 'Scandal, Secrets...	'True North Strong' Plate CjSLC-08
& Sparkle'

I really like the completed manicure. It is very understated, and tasteful. Here is a shot of the polishes that I used to create the manicure:

Here's a link to the last Remembrance day Manicure that I did, back in 2014.  And below are additional shots of this years manicure.

Red and Gold Mani using L'Oréal Paris Vernis à l'Huile - Rubis Folies

Today I have a quick manicure that I did to try out a new polish I purchased recently. This was my first time trying the L'Oréal Paris Colour Riche Vernis à l'Huile nail polish line.  I hope to do a  more in depth review later after trying some of the other colours that I purchased from the line.  For now, here's the manicure I created using colour 552 - Rubis Folies.

Polishes Used	Stamping Plate Used
L'Oréal Paris Vernis à l'Huile -	ÜberChic Beauty Love and Marriage -
552 – Rubis Folies	Plate 01
Sally Hansen Color Foil – 'Liquid Gold'

Polishes Used

Overall, I like the colour and the way the manicure turned out.  I was never really big on red polishes, but lately I've found myself more drawn to them.  I really enjoyed wearing this darker, blue based red on my nails.

Purple and Silver Negative Space Stamping Glitter Mani

Today I have a glitter manicure to share, stamped with a silver negative space stamping image, resulting in a final look made up of full nail glitter patterns on a silver background:

I like the finished result - very blingy, but also very wearable on my short nails. Since I used a micro-glitter polish for the base of the manicure, I made sure to use a peel off base coat to make the manicure easier to remove when the time comes (OPI 'Glitter Off' base coat). 

Polishes Used

Polishes Used

Nicole by OPI Gone Wishin'

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri 'Silver Sweep'

Stamping Plate Used

Lina Nail Art Supplies 'Totally Negative' 01

Gone Wishin' is one of the polishes I want to use up as part of an upcoming 'Project Polish' challenge that I mentioned earlier in my 'Blue and Gold Manicure using Quo by Orly 'Celestial Star' post. This is a great manicure for using up a glitter polish because I had to do a full manicure (2 coats, all nails) as the base to stamp over.  Gone Wishin' is a mix of blue and purple micro-glitters, but since it's hard to see that in the picture above, I've included some additional bottle shots below.

I painted the nails on both of my hands slightly differently for this manicure. On my left hand, I used a circular themed full nail stamping image from the Lina Nail Art Supplies 'Totally Negative - 01' plate for all nails except for my ring finger. On my right hand, I used a floral themed full nail stamping image from the same plate for all nails except for my ring finger. For my ring fingers, I chose a separate image that allowed more of the glitter to shine through, and stamped it on both fingers as an accent. I've included some additional shots of the manicure below showing these details.

As I mentioned earlier, I hope to be using Gone Wishin' a lot more in the coming months, and so far, I'd say I'm off to a good start!