Sunday, May 27, 2012

Pink Stamping

Hello everyone! Today I have a pretty and delicate mani to show you that combines a few techniques. I originally painted my nails with Shelby from Zoya's summer collection but I decided I wanted to add some flare to it and chose to stamp using Konad plate m63 and Zoya Reagan. I then opted to take the mani one step further by using my smallest dotting tool and OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls from the recent Spider-man collection to add some cute details to the stamp.
Keep reading for more photos!

Friday, May 25, 2012

Zoya Neeka

Well this is awkward, I thought I had written up and scheduled this to post only to log in today to find nothing of the sort. My bad! I have another Zoya polish to show you today, one that got quite a bit of attention when it first came out - Neeka!
Maybe I'm just not a purple person, but I don't really like Neeka! Sure, I can appreciate the pretty gold shimmer, and the polish in general reminds me of Crown Royal whiskey, but I'm just not in love. I used two coats of Neeka for these photos and a coat of Seche Vite which did indeed cause shrinking.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Burberry Nails

Good afternoon everyone! I'm feeling a little under the weather this weekend, which is too bad since here in Canada it's the Victoria Day May long weekend - and the weather in Montreal is absolutely gorgeous, but I'm stuck inside. I finally got around to trying a nail art design that I've been contemplating for a while, but I was nervous about execution: Burberry Nails! I'm actually ecstatic about how these turned out - and they weren't extraordinarily difficult either.
Here are my Burberry Plaid nails in the sunlight.
I used Zoya Avery as the base, the formula was a little thicker than I'm used to with Zoya polishes but it wasn't necessarily hard to work with. I then used my LA Colors Art Deco stripers in white and black, and finished off the look with Quo by ORLY Red Hot and a thin striper brush.
Keep reading for more photos!

Friday, May 18, 2012

Zoya Kimber

Happy long weekend everyone! I don't have classes on Fridays, so it's an extra long weekend for me - do you have any fun plans? I hope to get my nails done a few times, but other than that I'll just be relaxing at home I think. Today I have the beautiful Zoya Kimber to show you, she is from the Surf collection for Summer 2012 and is a beautiful pinky-red gold glass fleck polish.
I used two coats to reach full opacity, the formula on this polish was lovely - as I've come to expect from Zoya. Keep reading for some more photos!

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Lemonade Gradient

Hey everyone! Sorry for my short absence, I'm still adjusting to summer school! Today I have a gradient to show you that looked much nicer in real life - I swear. It reminds me of lemonade, starting with OPI Banana Bandanna and moving towards a pink-lemonade hue with Zoya Shelby and finishing off the tips with OPI Kiss Me on my Tulips.
Now I had this mani on for about five days, so you'll have to excuse the tipwear. I was planning on stamping over top of it, but I just got carried away with life and didn't end up doing anything else. 

Wednesday, May 09, 2012

Colour Blocking with Zoya Beach

Hey everyone! I'm sure you may have noticed since I got my Zoya Beach collection in the mail I cannot get enough of using the bright summer shades, and today is no different. I have a colour blocking mani to show you today using Zoya Wednesday, Arizona, Shelby, Reagan, and Tracie!
What do you think of this look? In retrospect I wonder what it would have looked like if I had used a black or white stiper polish to define the blocks.
Keep reading for more photos!

Tuesday, May 08, 2012

Flowers and Polka Dots

Good morning everyone! Today I have a mani that I did for a facebook group I'm in, PAA, for our Mani Monday Nail Art Challenge. This week's theme was floral, but I wasn't sure about doing flowers on all my nails so I chose two accent nails!
Keep reading for more photos and to see the dress that inspired this look!

Sunday, May 06, 2012

Teal Comparison

Good morning everyone! I'm excited to bring you guys a comparison post today which will hopefully clear up the air surrounding some possible dupes. When Zoya Wednesday arrived in the mail, my friend Anisha commented how similar it is to China Glaze For Audrey, and in a mission to prove her wrong I have done a comparison of four popular polishes that I'm sure most of you are familiar with.

From left to right: OPI Thanks a Windmillion, OPI Mermaid's Tears, Zoya Wednesday, China Glaze For Audrey

Keep reading for some more photos!

Saturday, May 05, 2012

Zoya Beach Water Marble

Hello everyone! As you may have noticed in my haul post, I picked up the entire Zoya Beach collection in their Earth Day Promo this year. With the exception of Lara who was backordered, the other five polishes are here and were screaming "water marble with us" to me. In the past I have found that Zoya polishes are the best for water marbling, and while these did work well they were a little more tricky than some of my other Zoyas.

As I mentioned before I used the colours from the Zoya Beach collection, Tracie, Wednesday, Reagan, Shelby, and Arizona! I love how they all look together, I just wish that the marble itself had turned out better. More pics after the jump!

Friday, May 04, 2012

Zebra Print Cupcakes

Hey everyone! Today I have another submission to a nail art contest to share with you guys! This one is from The Polished Momma and you can check out the link to the contest here! Amber decided to do something similar to what Rebecca did with her contest and have a "my favourite things" theme, which includes stars, frogs, animal print, pink, and cupcakes! Let's have a look at what I've created for this contest, shall we?

Here you can see I did zebra print nails, with an accent nail of a cupcake, and the entire mani has sort of a pink theme! 
I used OPI Alpine Snow for all the white parts, then an LA Colors Art Deco striper for the freehand zebra print (my first time!), OPI Pink Friday for the base of the cupcake nail, OPI Kiss Me on my Tulips for the cupcake holder striped with Zoya Reagan. The pink stripes on my zebra fingers is Zoya Shelby, which is also the bottle you see in the photos. For the decorations on the icing I used Zoya Wednesday, Zoya Arizona, Zoya Tracie, and OPI Banana Bandanna, then the cherry on top was OPI Red Lights Ahead...Where? Wow that is a lot of colours!

Thursday, May 03, 2012

Lynnderella Bottle Spam

Hey guys! Sorry about the two non-manicure posts in a row, but I've been wearing a pretty fabulous water marble that I haven't yet wanted to take off. The first thing I did when my Lynnderellas came was to take good bottle photos of them, I'm a huge fan of macro shots of all the different kinds of glitter that make up one of Lynn's masterpieces. I hope you guys are up for another pic-heavy post!

Keep reading to see more of these beautiful polishes up close and personal!

Wednesday, May 02, 2012

Major Haul

Hey everyone! Today I have a haul post for you guys, remember my roommate Anisha who is from New Jersey and also loves nail polish? She routinely lets me ship packages to her house and her parents came down to Montreal this past weekend to help her move and they brought us a whole bunch of nail polish! Let's see what I got!
Wow! Keep reading for some more pics!

Tuesday, May 01, 2012

OPI Orange Comparison

Good morning everyone, a new month is ahead and I can't wait to get past April and start May off right! Today is my first day of summer school - say buongiorno to Beginners' Italian classes! In nail polish news, today I have a comparison of OPI orange and coral shades for you, featuring Call Me Gwen-ever from The Amazing Spider-Man collection hitting shelves this month.
In all the photos I have OPI Call Me Gwen-ever on my middle and pinky fingers, OPI A Roll in the Hague on my ring finger, and OPI Hot & Spicy on my index finger. I used two coats of each polish.

From left to right: A Roll in the Hague, Call Me Gwen-ever, Hot & Spicy

Keep reading for more photos and to see if I found any dupes!