Born Pretty Store Review - Water Decals

Hello everyone! Today I have one more product from the Born Pretty Store to review for you guys! I was given the chance to pick two items and the second one I chose was some water decals to incorporate in my nail art. The package I chose is currently not available on the website, but here is a link to the section where the rest of their water decals and water tattoos are.

This is the first of three manicures that I put together to show off these water decals and I chose to start out with a nautical theme! These are really easy to use, you simply cut out the decal, submerge it in warm water for 10 seconds, then press it onto your nail. I had no problems with these smudging and I had less than perfect application skills.

The blue colour I used is OPI Eurso Euro, the white and red accent nail used OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and OPI Red Lights Ahead...Where?

These come off very easily with nail polish remover and are in my opinion a great addition to anyone's collection as they are really quick and easy nail art.

There were some cute star decals on the sheets that I received so I threw together this manicure for you guys to see how well these transfer. Look at the detail on the stars on my middle finger, I was amazed that all those little dots make it onto my nails!

I couldn't resist doing a princess themed manicure with the crowns and bows that were on this sheet of decals. The light pink is OPI Mod About You.

I was in love with this manicure and I kept it on for quite a few days!

I am really pleased with this product from Born Pretty Store and I think that I will be ordering some more of their nail decals as they make nail art so easy to do. The trickiest part of using these is placing them straight on your nails, I had some troubles with this in my nautical manicure but I think I mostly had it figured out by the end.  These are another product that I wholeheartedly recommend, even for nail art beginners.

As always, Cutie-cles readers can save 10% on your Born Pretty Store purchase just by using the code BQL91 which you can find permanently on the sidebar on the right side of this page. This code can be used on all your orders, it's not just a one-time thing! 

Could you see yourself purchasing these nail decals? If you have any questions about the application process let me know and I'll answer you in the comments!

OPI Couture de Minnie - Swatches & Review

Hi everyone! Sorry for the little break in posting, we had pouring rain for the past couple days and I couldn't take any pictures of my nails. Today I have some swatches of a new OPI collection to make it up to you! I was lucky enough to receive three of the polishes from this summer collection to review for you - here we go.

The first shade is a gorgeous light pink with a very subtle silver shimmer called Chic from Ears to Tail. For comparison purposes, this is a tad darker than OPI Pink Friday which makes it unique to my collection. 

I didn't have great luck with the formula on this colour unfortunately, shown in  my photos is three coats but they were fairly uneven and streaky. I used a coat of Seche Vite to get a nicer look, but it probably could have been resolved with a fourth coat. 

I was hoping you could see the silver shimmer in this photo, but it really is quite sparse. 

Here's a photo in the shade. This colour has a very jelly-ish finish to it because it's quite sheer. While I do like the look of this, if you're someone who prefers a creme with great coverage I would opt for a shade like OPI Pink Friday or OPI If You Moust You Moust.

This colour is called A Definite Moust-have and it is my favourite of the three I received. The colour shown in my photos isn't quite right, there is a little more coral to it, it's not a true raspberry, but it sure is pretty.

OPI A Definite Moust-have has a very nice silver shimmer to it which isn't shy like it is in the other polish. I used two coats here to even things out, but I think with a think coat you could get away with just one. This polish might work well for stamping!

I could absolutely see myself rocking this colour as a pedicure all summer.

The final polish that I have to show you is an amazing Liquid Sand polish called Magazine Cover Mouse. This is a reddy-coral with tons of gold sparkles that really catch the light in real life. 

This had a great formula just like the other Liquid Sand polishes that I have tried from OPI and I needed two easy coats to get this look! I have been wearing this polish to work for a couple of days and my coworkers keep complimenting me - also, no chips!

Overall I'm pleased with the three polishes I received to review. Each one is unique to my collection which is always tough to do with pinks and reds. The formula on Chic from Ears to Tail wasn't the easiest to work with, but this could just be a fluke bottle. The formula on the other two polishes were spot on and they will definitely be some of my go-to colours this summer. 

Have you picked up any colours from this collection yet? Which one of the above is your favourite?

Paintings Nail Art Series - "The Happy Family"

Hello everyone! Today is officially the first day of exam period for me and I'll be facing my first final exam this evening for Personality Psychology. Instead of having to stress about my blog during finals I have queued up a fun little nail art series based around some awesome paintings that I've found on Etsy!

The painting that inspired this was called "The Happy Family," but unfortunately it already sold and I can't find a photo of it - but here's a very similar one from the same seller.

The colours I used were OPI The Thrill of Brazil and China Glaze Happy Go Lucky for the gradient background. I love this look, it's so sweet!

OPI Matte Top Coat - Swatches & Review

Good afternoon everyone! I got quite a bit of feedback regarding the press release I posted last week for this new Matte Top Coat by OPI, so I'm excited to let you know that I was sent this polish to review for you guys! I tried out a couple of combinations using the Matte Top Coat and I think you're going to like what you see.

The press release indicates that this is meant to be used over your favourite OPI polishes, so for my first combination I chose two recent OPI releases that look wonderful when matte-ified. 

I took two coats of OPI The Man with the Golden Gun that was released along with the Skyfall collection and layered it over two coats of the gorgeous OPI Vant to Bite My Neck? from this spring's Euro Centrale collection. To get the matte look I only used one coat of OPI Matte Top Coat covering the entire nail.

You can see the polish beginning to turn matte right before your eyes. It takes maybe two minutes for the polish to reach full matte-ness, and an added bonus is that it dries really quickly. 

Yum, matte gold flakes are definitely going to be making an appearance on my nails next holiday season. I love the way this looks.

I wanted to test the claims and see if I could use this successfully over a polish from another brand. I used to use my Essie Matte top coat on top of anything, so I was pretty sure the OPI would work the same way.

No surprises here, one easy coat of OPI Matte Top Coat over two coats of Zoya Blu makes for a fun take on pastels. On my ring finger I layered one coat of Lynnderella Love, Lace and Lilacs on top of Blue before adding the matte coat. 

I mentioned my old matte topcoat - Essie Matte About You - which I had to order from ebay. I know that I searched long and hard in stores trying to get a matte topcoat, but there simply isn't one on the market for Canadian consumers that is easily accessible. I'm going to show you next how the new OPI release stacks up against my old Essie.

I wanted to show you how it performs over two colours - OPI Skyfall and OPI Jade is the New Black. I've labelled the photo above with which polish was on which nail. Personally, I can tell a difference, and I prefer the OPI Top Coat. Especially over Skyfall, I think the OPI polish has a flatter matte look which the Essie is a little more rubbery. I waited about twenty five minutes for these to dry to ensure that one of them wasn't still matte-ifying so I don't think that's an issue. Of course, they are pretty similar and if you already have the Essie maybe you won't need the OPI, but if you haven't invested in a matte top coat yet I would recommend OPI's.

Lastly, I wanted to show you guys some fun nail art using the OPI Matte Top Coat. If you follow OPI on facebook you will have seen the variations on matte manicures they have been posting recently. I love the idea of combining glossy and matte into the same manicure, it's a subtle but chic way of doing nail art.

I chose to use another colour from the OPI Euro Centrale collection, so for reference, here is OPI I Saw...U Saw...We Saw...Warsaw sans Matte Top Coat for a very glossy look.

I taped off some sections of my nails and brought out my dotting tools and this is what I came up with! I love how this looks!

I think in this combination, my middle finger is my favourite, look how satiny the section near the cuticle looks. Wow!

The OPI Matte Top Coat will be available starting in April 2013 and the suggested retail price is $10.95 CAN, which by the way, is less than what I paid for my Essie polish after shipping. I think this is a great product and it's really bridging the gap in the market that we face in Canada where there isn't a matte topcoat easily available. I love the OPI Pro Wide brush and I much prefer it to Essie's small brush. I would absolutely recommend the OPI Matte Top Coat to anyone in the market for one.

 I hope this review has helped you make your decision! Do you think you'll be picking up the OPI Matte Top Coat? What's your favourite way to wear matte polish?

Some of the products in the review were kindly provided to me for my honest opinion. 

Sheer Water Marble

Hello everyone! I'm not really sure what to call this post, it's a technique that I've shown you before on the blog where you watermarble with an opaque colour and a sheer one to make sort of a peek-a-boo over a pattern. I've been envisioning this manicure for ages but unfortunately the black polish that I used didn't spread in the water as much as I would have liked.

Gorgeous, right? 

So to get this look I first did gradients on each of my nails. If I remember correctly, the colours I used were OPI The Thrill of Brazil, Zoya Arizona, China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, OPI Green-wich Place, OPI Fly, and OPI Do You Lilac It? For the water marble I used Quo by ORLY Little Black Dress and OPI Don't Touch My Tutu!

I think I need to find a black polish that would spread better in water, if there was just a little less black here I think I would be much happier.

Have you ever tried this technique? What colour combinations would you like to see?

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!

Striping Tape Manicure ft. Zoya PixieDust

Hi everyone! Today I have a breathtaking manicure to show you all that I am so proud of. I really wanted to incorporate the Zoya PixieDusts into some nail art so I sat down last night thinking about some of my favourite nail art looks and I immediately thought of this blog that has gorgeous manicures and whose striping tape skills are unparalleled. If you aren't following Dressed Up Nails yet I highly recommend you take a peek - you won't be disappointed.

I applied two coats of Animeniac Cosmetics Sandman for the base of this manicure. I reviewed this polish and a few others by Animeniac Cosmetics in a post from last week that you should check out if you haven't yet. Keep reading to the end of this post to claim and exclusive deal for Cutie-cles readers that the lovely people at Animeniac Cosmetics were generous enough to offer me!

So you can probably tell which two Zoya PixieDust polishes I chose to create this look - Chyna and Dahlia. I will have my full swatch and review post up of the PixieDust collection in the next few days, but I couldn't help showing off this nail art look first!

I simple painted on my two coats of Sandman followed by one of Seche Vite, then I applied my striping tape and one coat of the PixieDust shade I was using on that nail. I was a little worried that the Zoyas wouldn't play nice with the base underneath them, but I had absolutely no problems at all!

This manicure has already jumped to the top of my "Best of 2013" list and it's only the beginning of March! The PixieDust polishes has great application even over the other colour and this really makes for a stunning combination - not only is there a contrast of colours but of textures too which is what makes this look so special.

I am in love and I never want to take this manicure off my nails!

Have you purchased any of the Zoya PixieDusts yet? I think I want to try another striping tape manicure with them soon, I'm so pleased with their application. You can get the Zoya PixieDusts by following this link to their website. These polishes are $9.00 each and as I told you the other day, they are coming out with more of them for Summer! 

The above link is my personal Share the Love link.

Now remember I told you above about a special offer from Animeniac Cosmetics?  They have been generous enough to offer 25% off to all my readers! At check out, enter the coupon code CUTIECLES25 and it should take that amount off your order. This code is good through March 31st, 2013. I hope you guys can take advantage of this awesome deal! If you want a reminder of the shades that I reviewed you can visit my post here or another awesome review by ChitChatNails.

Some of the products in this post were provided to me for review.

Valentine's Day Manicure

Hi everyone! Happy Valentine's Day to all of you. Do you have any big plans? Dan has a midterm quite early tomorrow so we don't even have a Skype date planned, but that's fine by me because he flies out to Montreal in less than 24 hours!
As I was doing my nails last night, the tip of one on my middle finger on my swatching hand broke off completely on one side, and I was forced to file my nails down into nubbins. This is the shortest I've had my nails in probably a couple of years. I'm still not used to the length, but I would like to hear what you all think of them!

I wasn't feeling any nail art so I opted for a (not so subtle) ombre manicure topped with OPI's The Man With the Golden Gun topcoat. The colours I used from left to right are OPI My Very First Knockwurst, OPI Pink Friday, OPI If You Moust You Moust, OPI The Thrill of Brazil, and OPI Skyfall.

Look at those tiny nails, you can see my finger tips peeking out! This is so new to me!

I actually have a couple posts queued up for the next week since I don't want to be spending time focusing on my nails and blog while Daniel's here visiting, so you'll see my (longer) nails again, while I get used to these puppies.

Super Bowl XLVII Manicure

Hi everyone! I bet many of you are really excited about the Super Bowl tonight! As a Canadian, I follow the CFL and am a pretty big fan of the Calgary Stampeders, so I can't say I'm too concerned about tonight's event. Llarowe decided to host a Super Bowl themed manicure contest to celebrate the big game, and while I can't say I know anything about the two teams facing off tonight, I worked my butt off to create two manicures to submit to her contest! I think she'll judge them either tonight or tomorrow - fingers crossed!

So here is my first of two manicures for the Ravens! Part of Llarowe's rules were that we could ONLY use team colours, making this extra hard. My original idea was to draw a football field and have a bunch of ravens (the birds) in Ravens jerseys, but that didn't work out.

The colours I used were OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, OPI Funky Dunkey, Quo by ORLY Filthy Rich, and Quo by ORLY Little Black Dress.

The ring finger here is supposed to be the eyes in the old logo, as seen in this picture. This manicure was my favourite of the two I did and for that reason I'm saying Go Ravens tonight!

Leah Ann was sweet enough to let us each have two entries, one for each team! I knew I had to take advantage of that offer so I called in the help of my boyfriend Dan for a 49ers manicure. This one was SO HARD TO DO because Leah Ann listed only Red, Gold, and White as the team's colours. It is so difficult to not use black! The colours I ended up using were OPI Thrill of Brazil, Quo by ORLY Filthy Rich, and OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls.

So my index finger is a candlestick, get it? Candlestick Park? My boyfriend came up with that one, I never would have known that. My favourite nail is the one with the helmet - so cute! Not sure how I feel about my attempts at the logo, I'm surprised at how much harder a text based logo is to translate to nail art than a picture logo.

A close up of my sweet little football helmet! I'll definitely take note of this for the CFL season so I can rep my Stamps!

Is anyone doing something fun for the Super Bowl tonight? Do any of you have NFL-themed manicures to celebrate?

Wish me luck in this contest! ;)

EDIT: No prizes for me :( Dang, I already had plans for my new Girly Bits & CrowsToes polishes! :P

Ikat Nail Art ft. OPI Euro Centrale

Hey everyone! One of my favourite nail art bloggerts, Kayla Shevonne, posted an awesome tutorial last week about how to create the Ikat print in a manicure and I couldn't wait to try it out. I know you like seeing colours from new collections incorporated into nail art, so I took three of the Euro Centrale colours and came up with this pattern.

The colours I used for this eye-catching manicure were OPI My Paprika Is Hotter Than Yours, OPI My Vampire's Buff, OPI Can't Find My Czechbook, and Quo by ORLY Little Black Dress. I used a very thin nail art brush, I think next time I will use a real striping brush though because this made my design turn out a little rougher than I would have liked.

This is a really simple way to incorporate a few colours into nail art, but Kayla Shevonne's tutorial makes it perfectly easy to understand how to try it out. I really recommend you all check it out if you're interested.

What do you think of the ikat print? I have an ikat scarf that I really like, I should find an excuse to wear it this week.

Don't forget that I have a giveaway going on where you can enter to win one Liquid Sand polish from the Mariah Carey collection and one polish from the Euro Centrale collection. This would be a great way to try out the liquid sand texture without having to invest your own money, though honestly, I think those polishes are so worth it!

OPI Euro Centrale - Comparisons

Hi everyone! I hope you're having a great start to the weekend. I've come down with a cold so I'm not doing much this weekend, luckily it's just the first week of the semester so there's not a lot that I'm missing out on. Today I've compiled some comparisons of a few of the colours from the new Euro Centrale collection by OPI. Unfortunately I don't have my entire stash with me, as many of my followers know I recently moved across the country and only brought around 50 polishes. That said, I think I was still able to come up with some great comparisons - let's check them out!

So first up we have OPI You're Such a BudaPest vs. OPI Do You Lilac It? Here you can see that the new polish from the Euro Centrale collection leans much more periwinkle, while the other is a true purple. No dupes here! I can definitely justify owning both... how about you?

Once again, OPI You're Such a BudaPest on the left and OPI Do You Lilac It? on the right.

Next up are some comparisons of OPI Can't Find my Czechbook. I thought that this would be easy to dupe, but at least in my personal collection I couldn't find anything that was exactly the same. 

As you can see, OPI Fly is quite a bit darker than OPI Can't Find My Czechbook and China Glaze For Audrey is much too pale.

China Glaze For Audrey vs. OPI Can't Find My Czechbook vs. OPI Fly

On the left we have OPI Eurso Euro, in the middle we have an old classic OPI Dating a Royal, and on the far right stands OPI I Saw...U Saw...We Saw...Warsaw. I hope it's clear in the photo, but if not just know that Dating a Royal is much lighter and creamier than either of these two shades.

Here we have OPI Ski Teal We Drop on the left and OPI I Saw...U Saw...We Saw...Warsaw on the right. I was positive that these were going to be dupes, or at least ridiculously similar, but again I don't think they're that close at all! Ski Teal We Drop is much greener than the Euro Centrale polish.

See what I mean? Again, I can justify owning both polishes because I don't consider them dupes. For people who don't hoard polishes though you may be able to get away with only having one of these. Maybe.

Alright, from left to right I've got: OPI A Roll in the Hague, OPI Call Me Gwen-ever, OPI My Paprika is Hotter Than Yours, OPI Red Lights Ahead...Where?, and OPI The Thrill of Brazil. On the nails I only chose to compare the middle three, but I wanted to show you all five to give you a night spectrum.

So as you can see these three polishes are very similar but they're definitely not dupes. As expected, Call ME Gwen-ever is much too orange. While My Paprika is Hotter Than Yours is a red, it looks orangey compared to OPI Red Lights Ahead...Where? I'm not sure if I needed a shade that fits perfectly between these two shades that were released in 2012, but they all have a great formula and if you're looking for one I would recommend any of these.

Here's a flash picture just to illustrate my point: not dupes, but pretty close to the untrained eye!

 I opted to just do a comparison of bottle shots for the next couple of polishes because they're not close at all.

Here's OPI Don't Touch My Tutu on the left, OPI My Vampire is Buff in the middle, and OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls on the right. As you can see, OPI My Vampire is Buff is definitely not white and is more of an eggshell neutral. Gorgeous.

OPI Vant to Bite my Neck? vs. OPI Funky Dunkey. Clearly Funky Dunkey is substantially lighter and creamier than the Euro Centrale polish. These will both be great to have in my collection to do nail art with.

OPI Suzi's Hungary AGAIN! vs. OPI If You Moust, You Moust. The Minnie Mouse themed polish is much more blue-toned while the Euro Centrale polish leans to the warm side. I love them both.

I hope some of these comparisons gave you a better idea of where these colours lie in relation to some older nail polish colours. Do you have any polishes similar enough to these that will persuade you not to purchase any from the Euro Centrale collection? Can someone really ever have too many gorgeous OPI cremes?

Some of the products in this post were generously provided for review.