Nude and Pastels

Hi guys! As I mentioned yesterday, today is my very first day back at work. I've been having a pretty nice time sitting around doing my nails, reading, and watching non-stop TLC and Stanley Cup Playoffs so it's a bit of a bummer to be headed back to work, but guess who can't wait to actually be earning money again! Anyway, today's nail art look came from me playing around with striping tape while watching hockey the other night and I really love this colour combinations!

The base colour is one of my favourites - OPI Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh, and the two pastel colours I used are Zoya Neely and OPI You're Such a Budapest.

Is it just me, or does the purple OPI polish lean periwinkle-blue in these photos? It sure looks a lot more lilac-esque in real life.

Thanks so much for reading guys! I'll let you know how my first day of work goes later this week!

Zoya PixieDust - Swatches & Review

Hi everyone! So you probably all saw my last post featuring the Zoya PixieDusts where I featured them in a striping tape manicure, and today I finally have swatches of the entire collection to bring to you.

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Keep reading to see all my swatches, I've put it under a jump because there are quite a few!

Neutral and Teal Glequins

Happy Monday, everyone! If you've been reading my blog for a while, you probably know that I am in love with glequins. You will also probably know that I'm not the best at applying them. There are some bloggers who manage to get a perfect honeycomb design with theirs, but I am still not one of them. That said, I hope you enjoy today's neutral nails with teal glequins!

I used two coats of OPI Berlin There Done That from the lovely Germany collection. This colour is a definite favourite of mine. I then used a dotting tool to apply teal glequins from Born Pretty Store.

Well, these definitely aren't some of my best nails due to the somewhat awkward glequin placement. Fortunately, the colour combination is lovely!

Thanks for reading!

Pastel Stripes

Hola a todos! Today I have a pretty simple design to show you all, it's just some simple colourblock-esque stripes on a pretty neutral base. Mixing nude colours with neons has been in style lately, but I'm predicting that neutrals and pastels will be big soon because they make a lovely combination.

I suppose if I had used tape this manicure would have sharper lines, but that takes forever and I was lazy when I set out to do this. I think this is probably a look that I'll try again with different colours, maybe add some jazzing up to the stripes too.

The base was OPI Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh, and the stripes were OPI Thanks a Windmillion, OPI Pink Friday, OPI A Grape Fit!, China Glaze Secret Periwinkle, and Illamasqua Load.

What do you think about this colour scheme?

Zoya Lovely - Comparisons

Hi guys! Today I have the comparison post that I promised you the other day to accompany my swatches and review of Zoya's Spring 2013 collection appropriately titled Lovely. Let's see if I managed to find any dupes!

Here we have Zoya Blu vs. Zoya Kristen. Zoya Blu is much cleaner and more of a true blue while Kristen is very gray in comparison. In case you couldn't tell, Blu is on my index and ring fingers while Kristen is on my middle and pinky fingers.

Here's a bottle shot showing off the differences which I personally think are more obvious on the nail. Kristen is on the left and Blu is on the right. 

The next comparison I was able to do was between Zoya Neely and OPI Thanks a Windmillion. I really though these would be similar but the OPI is much darker and makes Neely look like a much better option for spring in my opinion.

See? They're not even similar! Are you convinced that you need Neely yet? She's amazing!

This last comparison compares quite a few lacquers. On my index finger I have OPI My Vampire's Buff from the new Euro Centrale collection, then on my middle finger I have Zoya Jacqueline, on my ring finger I have Zoya Avery, and finally on my pinky I have OPI Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh?

I personally don't think that the new OPI is a dupe for Jacqueline and I think this bottle shot illustrates it best. The OPI is a little more rosy while Zoya Jacqueline leans a little to the yellow side in comparison. Are these two extremely similar? Yes. Do you need both? Probably not. Honestly I would recommend the Zoya just because the formula is a bit easier to work with, but I love both of them and would be happy with either one.

If you're convinced about some of the Zoya Lovely colours you can follow this link over to the website and make an account. Using this link will allow you to get a coupon for a free bottle of nail polish, and by adding two more to your cart you can get free shipping!

Don't forget to check out my ongoing giveaway here because I know that all of you want a chance to win some free polish! The prizes are two OPI polishes, one from the Mariah Carey collection and one from the yet unreleased Euro Centrale collection!

The link provided is my personal referral link for the Zoya "Share the Love" program.

Zoya Lovely - Swatches & Review

Hi everyone! Today I have an exciting collection to show you that most of you have already seen, haha. To be fair, I just got these in the mail on Thursday so there IS a reason to why I'm so late in posting these. I love the Zoya Lovely collection so much that I could sit around looking at swatches of it all day, so I hope you don't mind some repetition.

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So here I've shown you the bottle pictures both with my blinding flash, and then in natural light in my apartment. I honestly think that every single colour in this collection is perfect for spring. Let's get started with the review and swatches!

First up is Zoya Blu, a gorgeous, clean baby blue shade. The formula on this colour was okay. I used two coats for opacity, but it seemed a little chalky and it wasn't good at self-leveling so I added top coat and it was perfection!

I really like this colour and I think it translates extremely well into spring. This will be a really nice creme to have around to use in nail art!

Next up is Zoya Neely which is my absolute favourite from the collection. Seriously people, you NEED this colour in your life. Neely is a perfect light mint green creme.

The formula on Neely was better than the one on Blu, it was a little more watery but there was no problem with getting ugly ridges. I will be using this polish over and over and over again.

This stunner is called Zoya Jacqueline and she is a lovely off-white colour. At first glace she seems similar to OPI's My Vampire is Buff but I will get into that in a comparison post soon. Jacqueline had a similar formula to Blu, two coats for opacity but a bit of a chalky feel to it. A coat of topcoat smooths everything out deliciously.

I am in love with neutral shades like this. You can be sure that I will be wearing Jacqueline all spring for a clean, fresh manicure, and after spring is over I'll be using her in a lot of nail art.

Next I would like to introduce you to Zoya Piaf. I guess I'm thrown off a little by the name, I thought that Piaf would be a pink colour (La Vie en Rose anyone?). This shade was surprisingly flattering on my skin tone which is something that yellows don't usually accomplish for me.

I love the silver shimmer in this polish, it really brings it to life. This polish and the two other shimmers in the collection have very similar formulas and take three thin coats for opacity. They were all very easy to work with!

This pretty pink is Zoya GeiGei (spelled GieGie on my label..hmm). GeiGei has the same silver shimmer running through her as Piaf and I think this is a really great colour for spring. I'm not sure how original it is but I can get behind it because it's unique to my collection.

You guys know how I am, I just can't get enough pink polishes!

The last lacquer from the Lovely collection is Zoya Julie. Apart from loving the name Julie, I cannot get enough of this pretty purple shimmer. 

I'm not sure why I love Julie so much more than GeiGei and Piaf, but I think the silver shimmer really goes well with this light purple. 

I don't have anything bad to say about this collection, I really enjoyed all six of the colours and I think that they're both great for wearing this spring and incorporating into nail art for the future. You know what the colour scheme reminds me of? Easter eggs!

Will you be picking up any of the Zoya Lovely collection? You can check these beauties out by following this link. If you click on that link and create an account, a coupon for a free bottle of Zoya nail polish will be placed in your account, and by adding two more polishes to your cart you can get free shipping!

The products in this post were kindly provided for review. The above link is my personal referral link for Zoya's "Share the Love" program.

Mariah Carey for OPI - Swatches & Review

Hi everyone! Sorry for my recent disappearance, I've been battling a killer cold for going on eight days now, not to mention it's finals time! Fortunately, I think I have something to show you today that will make up for a couple days of inactivity - swatches of the Mariah Carey for OPI collection!

I've never really been a huge Mariah Carey fan, I appreciate her amazing voice but her music hasn't appealed to me. When I saw promo images of this collection, I'll admit that it didn't appeal much to me either. Let's get on with the swatches and see if my opinion has changed since seeing them in person!

First up is OPI A Butterfly Moment. This shade is a pretty champagne pink neutral with stunning gold shimmer. When I opened my package I honestly thought "please tell me that frosty mess of a light pink isn't in here" and I will gladly admit right now that I am one hundred percent eating my words. I love this shade.

A Butterfly Moment is what I could only describe as a glamorous neutral. This shade is completely office appropriate but when you see it in the light it has a surprising gold shimmer that really lights it up.

I really hate how this looks in the bottle but I can't stress enough how much I love it on my nails. It reminds me of a very pretty lipgloss that was made into a nail polish colour. I did have to use three coats but I think it is mainly do to some awful blue stains on a couple of my nails that refuse to be hidden. 

Here you can see this in the shade, it's a very subtle, pretty pink. 

The next colour is OPI Sprung which I would call a duochrome glass fleck in a copper-rose-gold shade. When I saw this I said to myself, "how could they do this? They are simply putting OPI Warm and Fozzie in a new bottle under a new name!" After doing a comparison of the two I can tell you that this is definitely not the case, which you can see for yourselves in tomorrow's post.

The formula on this was very nice, just like what I've come to expect from OPI glass flecks. I got near full coverage with two coats and only used a third coat in places that I needed to cover up bald spots. 

This colour, while perfect for the holidays, doesn't make much sense to me for a January release. I guess it is pretty universally flattering and not all nail polishes wearers are as wild as I am, but to me it seems a little tame.

The longer I wore OPI Sprung, the more I liked it. It is very elegant and all the different colours in it make it appear multidimensional. 

Switching gears now over to the revolutionary Liquid Sand shades that are coming out with this Mariah Carey collection. This red is called OPI The Impossible and above I have used two coats. One thing to note is that the star glitters are pretty difficult to get onto your nails, I had to do quite a bit of fishing around.

I'm not crazy about this shade, unfortunately. You do have to wait quite a bit for these liquid sand polishes to dry completely, even after about ten minutes you can tell that they're not completely dry and therefore haven't reached their sandy-ness potential. Even though I don't much care for the colour of The Impossible, I was pleasantly surprised with the Liquid Sand concept. It's not quite as rough as I had imagined and from some angles it is a really cool effect. 

To spruce things up, I used two layers of topcoat to bring out the glitter in OPI The Impossible. It looks super squishy and jelly - what do you think of this effect?

I don't think I've ever seen an OPI polish with star glitters, have you?

Here is a bottle shot of OPI The Impossible so you can get an idea of the different glitters.

Next we have my second favourite polish from the collection, OPI Can't Let Go. I'm begging you people, please don't give up on the Liquid Sand concept because this lacquer proves that it CAN work and it CAN look nice! I used two coats here, this one was much more opaque than The Impossible. 

It's not even as gritty as I was expecting, I am officially converted into a Liquid Sand lover. Well, maybe not quite, but I do love the effect of this polish. After trying The Impossible first I thought that the concept was dumb but I really think that Can't Let Go hit the ball out of the park.

This reminds me of one of the old OPI Suedes, but with more glitter!

I know you're probably dying to see it with topcoat so here you go - two thick coats later. I really like this polish both ways, Liquid Sand or with added topcoat. It looks kind of jelly-ish and the glitter isn't too overwhelming.

How do you prefer this polish - sandy or glossy? I want to know! I think maybe I prefer it sandy, it really is a neat concept.

What do you think of the three colours that I've swatched for you today? Are there any that you are going to be picking up? Even though some of the colours themselves aren't my favourite, they had really great formulas and if they appeal to you they are absolutely worth picking up!

These products were generously sent to me for my honest review!

Zig Zag Nail Art

Morning everyone! Today I have some fun, free hand zig zag nail art to show you all. I wasn't really sure where I was going with this manicure, but it turned out alright. It was a little time consuming and I'm not sure I love the results enough to do it often, but it does have a really unique look to it and there are a lot of possible colour combinations.

I really like this colour combination: OPI Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh, OPI Skyfall, and Zoya Kristin.

This is how this looks in the shade. Unfortunately, it's nearly winter here which means getting pictures in the sun while being at school all day is extremely difficult.

What do you guys think of this look? Have you ever done something similar?