Marvelous Manicure: Christmas 2011

Hello all!

Now that Remembrance Day (or as I like to call it, Novembrance Day) is behind us, it is officially acceptable to start listening to Christmas carols and decorating for the holidays. One of my favourite parts of the holidays is getting to do themed manicures! Last year I took my inspiration from Starbucks' holiday to-go cups, but this year I wanted to do more of a Christmas tree ornament type of thing. I started with Midnight Kiss by China Glaze, which is a molten gold. I followed by doing a very light coating of OPI's Bring On the Bling on just the tips of the nail in a gradient style. Bring On the Bling is a great glitter from the Burlesque collection, and has gold, green, and red micro-glitter: perfect for the holidays. Finally, I accented two nails on each hand with holly berries and leaves, which I created used some nail pens.

 

While I'm on the holiday theme, I may as well attach last-year's Christmas manicure, which I'll probably repeat this year - I loved it! For it I used OPI's Malaga Wine, a dusting of loose red glitter, a white nail pen, and a touch of sliver glitter for the snowflake centres. (Sorry for the blurriness!) Enjoy!

Zebra Strikes Again

One of my favourite friends has been up to visit for the last few days, and today we (her, my sister and I) got together for a good old-fashioned nail painting session.  Serenaded by such musical heroes as Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, and Shawn Desman (my "Shame" Playlist) we got our paint on.

I have what appears to be an enduring love for zebra print (and many animal prints in general) so today I decided to go for a "Silver" Gosh base with hand-painted black zebra stripes (Sally Hansen nail pen).  For staying power I finished with two coats of Seche Vite.

As promised I said I'd deliver a verdict on the efficacy of Seche Natural, a new base coat I'm trying (instead of my usual Seche Clear).  After having used it for my last few manicures I can say while I haven't noticed any huuuuge changes my nails do seem to be in better condition (less flaking and chipping, less staining).  I would definitely recommend it!

 

 

Marvelous Manicure: Cupcake Confection

Okay, so I have something pretty awesome in the works, but it's taking longer than I thought so I figured I'd post a pic of my newest manicure.  I am head-over-heels in LOVE with this one!  This is the colour breakdown: pinky = 589 Sweet Rose by Gosh; ring finger = Sweetheart by OPI; middle = Van D'Go by Essie; index = Lilac Pastelle by Revlon; thumb = Passion by OPI.  I decided to tie all the colours together by using different patterns with a white nail pen I picked up at the PNE a couple of years ago.  As per usual I finished things off with a top coat of Seche Vite.  Hope you like it!

Marvelous Manicure

Yesterday the local Shoppers Drug Mart had a nail polish sale on, so of course my sister and I swung by to see what there was to be had.  I wound up getting three new polishes: 555 Silver by Gosh, Nicole's Nickel by Nicole, and Iceberg Lotus, also by Nicole.  I was going to wait until closer to my event next week to do a manicure, but the temptation was too much, especially after seeing this manicure by Chloe's Nails.  So, voila!  I used two coats of Nicole's Nickel, which though patchy is sparkle-packed, and then did the tips using Black Onyx by OPI.  Then I finished things off with two coats of Seche Vite.

Stealth Zebra

Not too long ago my sister sent me this link to this inexpressibly cool manicure, and when I saw it I knew that there was no way I wasn't going to try it out.  The only thing that delayed me was that until today I did not have a black matte nail polish.  For those of you who don't speak nail polish, "matte" refers to a nail polish without any shine.  Anyway, today I headed out to Shoppers Drug Mart and got myself Razzle Dazzler Matte from Nicole by OPI, which is very close to what the blogger used (Matte is Murder by ManGlaze).  Now in her version she used a Konad stamp plate with zebra pattern and some topcoat.  My sister has the right Konad plate, but unfortunately has lost part of her kit so stamping wasn't an option.  Instead I hunted down an itty bitty paintbrush and quite literally hand painted on my zebra stripes using my all-time favourite Seche Vite topcoat.  I am totally jazzed on my results!  Not only am I now sold on matte nail polish, but this manicure is just tooooo coooooool.  It's very subtle, which is a nice break from some of the more elaborate stuff I wear sometimes.  Plus I'm loving the way the topcoat picks up light at certain angles.  Anyway, if you have a stamp plate or have the patience to paint on your stripes I would say this is definitely a manicure to try!

This is the original from http://www.graziadaily.co.uk/GraziaDailyNails/archive/2010/09/06/opposites-attract.htm

And this is how my manicure turned out.  This isn't the best photo of it, but quite honestly I'm in a bit of a rush and don't have time to take another pic.  You get the idea.  Happy hunting!

Purple Rain

So I did only do my manicure yesterday, but shortly after the lacquer dried I had a new idea.  I became mildly obsessed with a deep plum purple polish with flecks of gold and purple in it.  So I went hunting, but came up empty handed.  Luckily, my sister is as much of a polish addict as I am and happened to have the perfect colour.  It's Rimmel's Night Before, which I did two coats of and then added purple sparkles to the base of the nail.  I'm not sure how old this polish is, but I found it came out rather clumpy.  In its defense it did even out after a moment or two of settling.  Overall I'm pretty pleased with the result.  For all of my manicures I use Seche Clear's basecoat and Seche Vite's topcoat, which has an unparalleled finish.  Honestly, it dries SO FAST and has great wear.