Beige and Blue Skittles Manicure

Good morning everyone! Today I have kind of a funny manicure to post about because I had a little mishap with one of the nails in this skittles look that is throwing me off. Here, you'll see what I mean.

Oops, check out that middle finger. I accidentally put down the tape and then painted with both the blue and the beige leaving a textured stripe. Well, other than that, I quite like this manicure!

The colours I used for this were OPI Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh and China Glaze Secret Periwinkle, as well as some of my blue glequins. In my true nature, I think my favourite nail is the gradient one. 

Rainbow Sherbert Chevrons

Hi everyone! Today I have a nice little nail art look for you using a colour combination that I fell in love with when I dumped out my polishes on my bedroom floor and saw these four next to each other. It reminds me of some sort of Rainbow Sherbert ice cream - yum!

The colours I used were Zoya Lara, OPI Do You Lilac It?, China Glaze Secret Peri-winkle, and Barry M Peach Melba. 

These colours are very springy and I'm loving wearing this manicure.

Have you tried free hand chevrons before? What are some of your favourite colour combinations for spring?

Paintings Nail Art Series - "Blue Mountains"

Hi everyone! Today is the third entry in my mini nail art series inspired by paintings I found on Etsy. Today's painting, like the previous two, has been sold already. Who knew how fast these things sell! Here's the original link I have, I hope it allows you to see this lovely painting titled "Blue Mountains." I grew up near the Rockies and I love the mountains (and am heading back home in less than two weeks!)

I think this looks quite silly if you don't look at the painting for reference, haha!

Thanks so much for reading everyone, I can't wait to be finished with finals, head home, and be able to get back into the groove of painting my nails and posting for you all.

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!

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?

St. Patrick's Day Manicure

Hello everyone and Happy St. Patrick's Day to you all! Today is also my eldest sister's birthday, so I'd like to wish a very happy birthday to Colleen!

I think this manicure mostly speaks for itself, right? I tried to freehand a trinity knot of sorts, I'm not sure how easy it is to identify though.

The two base colours I used were Animeniac Cosmetics Sandman and China Glaze Four Leaf Clover (how appropriate!) For the rainbow I used OPI My Paprika is Hotter than Yours, Zoya Arizona, China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, OPI Can't Find My Czechbook, and OPI Do You Lilac It?

I hope everyone has an awesome time today! Drink a green beer for me my friends, and be safe!

Animeniac Cosmetics - Swatches & Review

Morning everyone! I hope you're all having a great first day of the month. Today I have a new indie brand to share with you that I'm really excited about - Animeniac Cosmetics. I was contacted by them to try out and review a couple of their polishes and I think you guys are going to like what you see! They generously offered to send me a full sized polish and a couple of their minis to play around with - let's see what I got up to with these!

This is Sandman and it's a beautiful gold metallic foil polish. I used two easy coats here for opacity, this glided on like butter! I was really impressed with the formula on Sandman. I have to say, I'm a big fan of the full-size bottles that Animeniac Cosmetics uses, they are clean and professional looking.

Here's the colour label attached to the bottom of the polish bottle.

And here is something I'm thrilled to see included on their bottles - an ingredients list! 

I wanted to put Sandman to the test and see how it fared again my favourite gold polish ever - Quo by ORLY Filthy Rich. Here you can see that they are quite similar in colour, with the Animeniac polish leaning a bit more silver. 

Here you can see a comparison between the two, they're obviously quite similar and I'm very happy about this because my Quo by ORLY polish is running out. I think the Quo polish is a little more opaque, but I usually end up using two coats of either one so it doesn't much matter.

I'm thrilled to have found a polish that can rival one of the staples in my collection.

This is Geek Chic and it's one of the mini bottles I got to try out. This isn't a combination of glitters that I would pick out for myself, but if multicolour glitters are you calling then you should check this out. Here I used two easy coats over OPI You're Such A BudaPest. It was easy to get a lot of glitter on the brush, I never had to fish around.

I like the combination of the different shapes and sizes of glitter in Geek Chic. I bet this polish would look awesome layered over a bunch of different colours.

Here's a bottle shot of Geek Chick, it's pretty fun isn't it? Glitter polishes with such a heavy presence of red and pink aren't usually ones that I opt for, but I did like the way this looked layered over a cooler toned colour.

The next polish I was sent to review is Mayhem, and it is not yet available on their website. I honestly wasn't expecting to like Mayhem much - boy was I surprised! I couldn't tell by looking at the bottle if it was in a truly clear base or not, and it definitely is for anyone who's wondering. I chose to layer it over both OPI Skull & Glossbones and OPI Nein! Nein! Nein! Ok Fine! Shown in the above photo is two coats of Mayhem.

I knew I loved this polish as soon as I saw it over the darker OPI, but there was something missing - matte! I threw on one layer of Essie Matte About You and took this manicure from cool to amazing. Mayhem reminds me of crayon shavings on a chalkboard, I can't get enough of this combination.

Here's a closeup of the matte goodness for you to enjoy. I really like the purple glitter shards in Mayhem.

Such a fun polish, I can't believe I didn't think I'd like it at all. If you're interested in trying out a glitter shard polish Mayhem is absolutely one I would recommend, the glitter was easy to work with and none of it stuck out from my nails.

The last polish that I received to review is Screen Saver. This is a gorgeous black and white polish in a transparent base. To really show this off I chose to sport two coats of Animeniac Cosmetics Screen Saver over a gradient using China Glaze Happy Go Lucky and OPI Can't Find My Czechbook. Something to note about this polish that sets it apart from all the Connect The Dots - esque polishes is that the white glitter isn't completely opaque, which I think is a nice touch.

I think this is just gorgeous, such a fun gradient and Screen Saver looks awesome over top. Once again I had no problems with the formula. I did end up fishing a little bit for the two bar glitters, but I know that some people hate bar glitter so much that this might be a bonus for them.

Something I did notice about this polish was that it took quite a while to dry completely, this may have to do with the many layers of polish to achieve this look, but I would recommend a coat of a quick dry topcoat like Seche Vite.

Here's a bottle shot of Screen Saver, see what I mean about the white glitters being slightly translucent? 

Overall I'm quite pleased with the Animeniac Cosmetics nail polishes that I got to try out. They have a great selection on their website, I love that they don't stick to just glitter topcoats and that they have a variety of nail polishes that cater to those who aren't so crazy about glitter. You can purchase Animeniac Cosmetics nail polishes from their website right here. 

What did you think of these polishes? Which was your favourite?

EDIT: The lovely people at Animeniac Cosmetics have been generous enough to offer 25% your order to all Cutie-cles readers! You can enter the code CUTIECLES25 at check out to get this discount. This code is valid through March 31st, 2013!

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?

Leopard Print Gradient

Hi everyone! Today I have a leopard print gradient on the blog for you to enjoy. I wish I had practiced my freehand leopard spots a little more before embarking on this manicure! A couple of them turned out looking like hearts, which I guess is pretty cute.

I did a gradient with China Glaze Happy Go Lucky and Zoya Arizona, then finished off the look with Quo by ORLY Little Black Dress.

I can't get enough of gradients lately, I'm just having trouble thinking of what to put over top of them.

One day, with any luck, I will master freehand leopard prints.

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.

Glitz & Glam

Hello lovelies! It's the beginning of January and the festivities are coming to an end, meaning back to the textbooks, calculators, formula sheets, and essays for me! I wanted to kick this month off with a sparkly and celebratory manicure, in hopes of giving myself some motivation for the last stretch before second semester begins. This month, I have 4 diploma exams so chances of me posting frequently are slim, but I will try my best to do some swatches over my exam break. 

That being said, when I went to visit my relatives for Christmas, my grandma gave me some polishes that she received from a salon owner. As soon as I opened the box, my eyes were drawn to the gorgeous silver capped silver polish, which was upon later inspection OPI's DS Radiance. I haven't ever bought any DS polishes, and I received one as a gift a long time ago but it's unfortunately an unflattering color with my skin tone. Suffice it to say, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw this in the box of goodies!

More pics after the jump!