Four Weeks of piCture pOlish: Week Four, A Voodoo Ruffian

Hi everyone! This is my last post for this piCture pOlish miniseries. I'll admit that I saved Voodoo for last because initially it didn't really catch my eye like the others. In the bottle it looks like a brown shimmer polish. It wasn't until I swatched this polish that I realized I made a mistake overlooking this one. If you love vampy dark colours, Voodoo definitely deserves a place in your collection.

piCture pOlish Voodoo

Check out the rest of this post for swatches and some shimmery nail art perfect for holiday parties!

Salvatore Ferragamo-Inspired Flowers

Hi everyone! Tonight's post is a little bit different. I was contacted by Destiny USA, a shopping mall in Syracuse, NY and was asked if I would be interested in creating a post on the topic of Italian fashion.

For me, when it comes to fashion I prefer styles and pieces that are classic and can withstand seasonal trends. For example, a jacket or a dress that has a timeless cut but can be accessorized with jewelry or a nice scarf. Maybe it's the budget conscious in me, but I find it difficult to buy clothes that will be out of style in a year.

Salvatore Ferragamo-inspired floral nail art

The Digit-al Dozen Does Black & White: Art Nouveau Roses

Hi everyone! This is later than I hoped, but I finally have my fifth and final post for Digit-al Dozen's Black and White week. I feel very proud of myself for finishing five days of nail art, I mean, this is not something I'm used to doing. I had very high hopes for my final design, and yet, I have very mixed feelings about the final results for reasons that I hope will become clear in the rest of the post.

Art Nouveau roses

The Digit-al Dozen Does Black & White: Black and White Abstract With Studs...Take Two!

Hi everyone! I have a draft of one of my dissertation chapters due tomorrow, and I knew that I wouldn't have time to do any nail art the night before, so I was able to complete this design a few weeks ago. Lucky for me, I finished my revisions and tomorrow I'm free and clear to do my last design for this challenge. I can't believe my first challenge week for the Digit-al Dozen is almost over, and yet, I still have a chance to come up with one more (hopefully) awesome design! What do you want to see me do for day 5?

Black and white abstract with studs

Today's design is actually inspired by previous nail art designs that I did. I kinda like that, it's like I'm ripping myself off! Haha! ;)

The Digit-al Dozen Does Black & White: Disrupted Water Marble

Hi everyone! Monday we had the distressed poppies, and now we have disrupted water marble. Notice a trend? ;) You may have seen similar designs like this here, this is my favourite way to do water marbles. It's not a perfect water marble, nor is it a water-spotted water marble (see no spots!), so I've dubbed it the disrupted water marble.

Black and white disrupted water marble

The Digit-al Dozen Does Black & White: Graphic Galaxy Nails

Hi everyone! It's interesting to think about where inspiration and ideas come from - whether it's a painting, nail art, a poem...you get the point. When I heard that my first Digit-al Dozen challenge would be black and white, I remember thinking to myself, "now how am I going to come up with five black and white designs?!" But it's interesting what has happened in the time leading up to this challenge. The ideas slowly came, sometimes unexpectedly.

I told you about the inspiration for last night's Remembrance Day poppies. Well today's design comes from a shopping trip last week.

Graphic Galaxy nails and matching dress

The Digit-al Dozen Does Black & White: Distressed Poppies for Remembrance Day

Hi everyone! Today marks my first official blog post as part of the Digit-al Dozen! The theme for the week is black and white, and since today was Remembrance Day here in Canada, I decided to do something appropriate for this special day. You may be wondering why my design has some red in it, if the theme is black and white. Well let me explain...

Distressed Poppies for Remembrance Day

31 Day Challenge: Day Twenty-Nine, Inspired by the Supernatural: Dark Willow

Hi everyone! I have my second Halloween-related nail art post for you tonight. Ideally I would have posted this before Halloween, but it's just been one of those weeks!

This is actually one of those challenges I've been looking forward to for awhile. I'm not too big on the supernatural, but over the summer I devoured all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - my first time watching the show. Even though the show is over ten years old, and some of the special effects are a bit dated, it's still pretty awesome. It's one of those shows where I felt lost and sad once I had finished all the episodes.

Dark Willow-inspired nail art

Pretty & Polished Halloween Collection, Swatches and Review

Hi everyone! I have the new Pretty & Polished Halloween collection for you today! Pretty & Polished is an indie brand that's been around for quite some time, and I've bought them in the past and always been happy with their formula. They have a great selection of glitters, thermals, and crellies with glitter, and in the past year they've introduced bath and body products such as cuticle oils and balms, bath scrubs and bath bombs. Right now everything is on sale so make sure to check out their store.

I was pleasantly surprised with all three polishes. Sometimes indie polishes with glitter can be lumpy and difficult to apply. But I found the formula on these to be excellent, and they had just the right amount of glitter in them - making them easy to apply and quite smooth on the nail.

Pretty & Polished Halloween Collection

One note about the labels - mine came without labels on them, but I'm sure that wouldn't be the case if you ordered them. In the past I've found that if I have a customer service question for Pretty & Polished, Chels, the maker was pretty fast to respond to my questions.

Are You Afraid of the Dark? is a black jelly-based polish with different sizes of teal hexes; red, fuchsia, and wine coloured circles; and teeny red squares. This is supposed to be opaque in 2-3 coats, but I found the base to be a bit sheer so I layered two coats over a black creme. I like how it turned out and I think it makes the glitter stand out.

Pretty & Polished Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Pretty & Polished Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Death By Candy Corn is an yellow-to-red thermal polish. At normal room temperature it will be orangish-yellow, and it turns red when it gets cold. The glitter is fun with a mixture of yellow hexes, white rectangles, small orange squares, and red-orange hexes. The application was great and the glitters are perfectly suspended. I used three coats here.

Pretty & Polished Death By Candy Corn

Pretty & Polished Death By Candy Corn

In order to change the colour, I ended up sticking my hands in ice cold water. I love how dramatic the change is, however, I did find that it went back to it's original colour pretty fast after I took my hands out of the water (hence having water on my hands in these photos). I think this polish would be more fun to wear in the colder weather when there is more of a temperature change.

Pretty & Polished Death By Candy Corn

Pretty & Polished Death By Candy Corn

Glowstick is a neon grass green jelly with small and medium orange-red hexes plus tiny, small and medium kelly green hexes. The application was great - the polish goes on very smooth and the glitter is perfectly suspended in the polish. I used three coats here and there's still some visible nail line, so wear a base polish if you don't care for that.

Pretty & Polished Glowstick

Pretty & Polished Glowstick

The polish glows green in the dark, and I love the mottled effect with the glitter. For these photos I charged the polish for a bit under my daylight lamp (not for long - just 30 seconds or so). I love that you get a pretty strong GITD effect.

Pretty & Polished Glowstick

If you like Halloween polishes, you should definitely check these out. And for a very limited time they are on sale! I'm not normally a Halloween person, but these do kinda get me in the mood. :)

Pretty & Polished is available from their online store and Etsy shop. Follow them on Facebook and Twitter for updates and new releases.

*Products provided to me for review, all opinions are my own. See my disclosure policy for more details.*

31 Day Challenge: Day Seven, Black and White: Obsessive Abstraction

Hi everyone! Happy International Nail Art Day! I meant to post these earlier, but this design may have *ahem* taken a bit longer than expected. But what better way to celebrate the first INAD than with some extremely detailed nail art!

About this design: I wish I could take credit for this design but unfortunately I can't. The inspiration came from this image I found on Tumblr. I really don't know much about the designer, I guess filling out the "About" page on your blog is too old fashioned; however, you can find more designs by this person on a website called Society6.

When I saw this design, I knew instantly I wanted to try to recreate it for the 31 Day Challenge. And despite the fact that it took forever and a day to complete, sometimes when you have your heart set on something you just have to run with it.

To get this look: I used my go-to black and white for this design: Orly Liquid Vinyl and Sally Hansen White On. The brush is a detailed liner brush - the hairs are longer than a normal detail brush. While I normally go over a line lightly and then go over it a second time, this time I only did the lines once except for some parts where I had to do them twice. I finished with a thick coat of KBShimmer Clearly On Top then Essie Matte About You.

You don't need to see a giant thumb, do you?

The thing I love about the original design is that, while it is precise and detailed, it is not mechanical. It looks like a drawing - lines are not straight and there are variations that give it character. In my nail art design, even though you can see the brushstrokes and mistakes, I don't mind them so much here. Of course if I inspect it very closely, I can see all the imperfections, but if I move back and take it all in, the effect of the design is just amazing. I love the detail and the almost obsessive compulsiveness of the design.

I've rambled on quite a bit about this design, but obviously I'm very proud of it! What do you think of this? Let me know in the comments below. :)
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Foxy Paws The Spell

Hi everyone! This is day five of eight days of Foxy Paws, and I can't believe I'm over half way through these polishes. If you're not familiar with the indie brand Foxy Paws, check out my introductory post.

Foxy Paws The Spell

The Spell is from the Danish collection, and like all the polishes I received to review this one is named after a song - this time by the Danish group Alphabeat. I wasn't familiar with the song, so if you're in the same situation, check out the video here. (Warning: it's a catchy tune!)

Foxy Paws The Spell

The polish is a black jelly with multicoloured metallic circle glitter in different colours - pink, blue, gold and silver - and also small blue hexes, and medium red and gold hexes.

Foxy Paws The Spell

The application was flawless, I used two coats over one coat of a plain black polish. There's great glitter payoff and it went on very smooth. You can wear it on its own - I tried it this way but didn't take any pictures. It would take three coats for full coverage, but then the glitter makes it bumpy, so you would need two coats of top coat to smooth it out.

Foxy Paws The Spell

Foxy Paws The Spell (direct light)

I feel like this is a very fun polish - I seem to be saying that a lot with this brand - like something I would wear for a night out. I always enjoy black polish, and this was a nice variation on black nails.

What do you think of this polish? What is your favourite Foxy Paws polish so far?

Foxy Paws polishes is available from Foxy Fingertips (European and International buyers). Follow Foxy Paws on Facebook and Instagram.

*Product provided for review, all opinions are my own. See my disclosure policy for more details.*

Nicole by OPI Gumdrops Collection, Swatches and Review: Part 1

Hi everyone! I was at Shoppers today and saw the new display for the Nicole by OPI Gumdrops collection. This is a new collection of eight shimmery textured polishes. I've really enjoyed the OPI Liquid Sand polishes so I was eager for this collection to come out. However, I was surprised to see eight polishes in the drugstore display - all the reviews I've seen say there is only six in this collection.

So I've decided to break this up into two posts, and tomorrow I will show you two polishes from this collection that you may not have seen before! Are you eager with anticipation? I am!! :)

Nicole by OPI Gumdrops collection

But first, a little bit about the formula and application, since it is similar for all four polishes I'm showing in this post. I followed the instructions on the label and used a base coat, two coats of polish, and no top coat. I found for all of these that two coats was enough. The formula on all four was great - they go on very smooth and have a perfect consistency, meaning they are not too thin or thick. The dry time was very good on all of them.

A-Nise Treat is black with a silver shimmer. This is very similar to Zoya Dahlia from the first Pixie Dust collection - so similar that you don't need both. While I like the silver shimmer in this, I feel like OPI could have done something a lot more interesting for a black texture polish.

Nicole by OPI A-Nise Treat

Nicole by OPI A-Nise Treat

For each polish, the first two photos were taken in my lightbox, and the third photo under direct light to give you a sense of what the polish looks like under different lighting conditions.

Nicole by OPI A-Nise Treat

Blue-Berry Sweet on You is a periwinkle blue metallic texture. It's very shimmery and while the shimmer has hints of other colours when it hits the light, it is very, very subtle.

Nicole by OPI Blue-Berry Sweet on You

Nicole by OPI Blue-Berry Sweet on You

Nicole by OPI Blue-Berry Sweet on You

Candy is Dandy is bubblegum pink with shimmer, as well as gorgeous tiny and small holo hex glitters. The consistency and finish is more of a squishy jelly. While there is some visible nail line in the photos, you don't really notice it in real life. This is one of my favourites, I love pink and the hexes are so pretty. This is the only one with this kind of shimmer and hex glitter, and I really don't understand why.

Nicole by OPI Candy is Dandy

Nicole by OPI Candy is Dandy

Nicole by OPI Candy is Dandy

Cinna-Man of My Dreams is a shimmery red brown with hints of copper. The colour on this one is quite unique - the shimmer gives this polish lots of depth and the colour is very rich. I see this being very popular in the fall.

Nicole by OPI Cinna-Man of My Dreams

Nicole by OPI Cinna-Man of My Dreams

Nicole by OPI Cinna-Man of My Dreams

All of these have a fine texture - if you like polishes with a lot of texture you might not be happy with them. For me they have enough texture to make them appealing, but not so much that it's annoying to wear.

Stay tuned tomorrow for part two of this collection!

What do you think of these? Any stand out to you?

Seven Deadly Sins Challenge, Day 9: Wrath

Hi everyone! How was your day? I was supposed to work on my dissertation today, but I felt so tired that I didn't get much done. I probably should work on it over the weekend, but I also have a bunch of stuff I want to swatch and review for the blog. Blogger problems I know. ;)

But I finally got a chance to start on this week's challenges. The prompt for today is as follows: "Get mad trying, again, that technique you know it's going to be a fail." Well the only technique I've really failed at is the sugar spun mani, and I have no desire to revisit that again any time soon. So I decided to do a water marble. I haven't done one since the Advent Calendar challenge I did back in December. But a water marble is one of those techniques that can go horribly wrong, so I thought it would be appropriate here.

"Water spotted" water marble manicure

"Water spotted" water marble manicure

There are some people who can do very perfect water marbles. Corynn Musser, aka @mucking_fusser on Instagram, immediately comes to mind and her work is so beautiful. But while I appreciate the skill, intricacy and talent that goes into these perfect water marbles, I'm more interested the chaotic, disruptive, unpredictable aspects of the technique. So when people started doing the so-called "water spotted" technique, I knew that was right up my alley.

"Water spotted" water marble manicure

To make this even "wrathier" I used red and black. My base is my beloved OPI My Vampire is Buff, the red is Colorama Deixa Beijar from their Cremoso line, and the black is Orly Liquid Vinyl. Basically I dropped the red and black in the water and moved it around with a toothpick as if I was doing a water marble. Then I sprayed hairspray into it, which caused it to break apart and spread. The black didn't really want to break apart, but the red was perfect for this technique. I assume that it's the different brands that account for this.

"Water spotted" water marble manicure

"Water spotted" water marble manicure

I know that there are imperfections in this, a few places where there were bubbles, that sort of thing. But overall, I really love how this turned out. I enjoy looking at how the polish spread and moved in the water, and each nail is so different and unique. I plan to explore more with this technique.

What do you think of this? Have you tried the water spotted method?

Seven Deadly Sins Challenge, Day 5: Greed

Hi everyone! I'm still standing when it comes to this challenge, sort of! ;) Yesterday was a big day blogging wise, so I decided to take it easy for today's challenge. Here's the prompt for day five: "Go wild and use your most expensive and precious polish."

Simple damask design nail art

For today's challenge I went with a base of Dior Diva 901 from the Grand Bal 2012 Holiday collection. It's not my most expensive polish, but it's one of my more precious polishes. I'll be the first to admit that I bought this for the packaging and the luxurious look of the product.

Dior Diva 901

Dior Diva 901

Diva is a warm-toned black with a micro-shimmer that appears to have a slight olive and rose tint - it's a very unique combination. I needed three coats for full coverage. Formula-wise it went on fairly smooth, although it had a bit of a gritty texture - perhaps because of the shimmer? Unfortunately, the shimmer that is so prominent and enticing in the bottle gets lost on the nails. I wouldn't say it's my favourite black, but it holds a special place in my collection for that gorgeous bottle!

On top I did some freehand simple damask patterns using Chanel Diwali. Again, not my most expensive polish, but definitely one of my most precious - it was a birthday gift from my mother and step-father (thanks guys!). Poor them, little do they know that I've already started compiling my birthday wish-list for this year, and I'm a December baby! Lol! :P

Simple damask design nail art

Simple damask design nail art

I really love Diwali, and I should probably show a swatch of this sometime. It's a beautiful, shimmery gold with great coverage. I love that, for a gold, it's not very yellow in tone. Unfortunately both Diva and Diwali were limited edition and no longer available, so eBay would be your best bet for finding these.

Now that I've rambled on plenty, I will wrap up this blog post. I didn't use my most expensive polish, and I don't know if I went wild with this design, but somehow I think I fulfilled today's challenge.

What do you think of today's design? How would you take on the theme of greed? :)