March Polish of the Month: OPI DS Glow

Good Morning dears!

Yay it's Saturday! This means I will be sleeping in, making a big breakfast and well doing nothing! It's super exciting. I love my weekends, don't we all?


Today I have my polish of the month to show you! There were sooooo many pretties to pick from this month, but I finally decided on OPI's DS Glow. I stumbled across this by accident. I was walking by a salon in the mall and saw some silver OPI caps and decided to investigate. They had this beauty in the bargain bin! It was on sale for $5.95. My jaw literally dropped so I scooped it up and held it really close as I headed to the register. I was scared I was going to get there and they tell me that it was put there by some customer and it was actually $15.95 or something. But this was not the case! Rang up at $5.95 and I had this silly grin on my face. 

This polish is a gorgeous brown copper gold metallic fusion. I was expecting it to be a holo as most of the DS series is, but it is stunning regardless. There are so many little metal platelets in this polish that combine to make this super sparkly beauty. It is a warm to neutral light gold and copper shade, but can take on an orange tone depending on the light. Since the light reflects off the metallic particles differently in different lights it can take on a number of gorgeous hues. There is so much sparkle it is amazing. It looks like a glitter, but it's not. So you get the gorgeousness of a glitter while no tricky removal process.

 

Even though this isn't a holo it is amazingly gorgeous. I am completely in love with it.

Do you own DS Glow? Or any of the other Designer Series polishes? Are you madly in love with them?

Don't forget the Black and White Challenge starts tomorrow! Be sure to check back to see what me and my challenge buddies have done!

Also enter my giveaway by clicking on the tab across the top :) 

Sincerely Stephanie

I Really Like Tribal Nails

Happy Friday Everyone! 


I hope you have all had an excellent week and and if not well it's almost the weekend! For today's mani I started out knowing I really wanted to do tribal nails because I love them and haven't done any in a while. I spent like 2 hours on the internet looking at various tribal like patterns, both nails and just random images searching for my inspiration. When I finally sat down to do my nails I had looked at so much that I don't really know where the inspiration came from. So if I used something of yours credit goes to you! This is what came out of 2 hours of looking at various tribal patterns! 

I started with 2 coats of OPI's Fly from the Nicki Minaj Collection. Then I took my black striper and created an outline of the different patterns I wanted. Then I used Essence's Wanna Be Your Sunshine to fill in where I wanted the yellow. I took a white striper and filled in the white areas and then used Sally Hansen's Celeb City and a striper brush to fill in all the silver areas. WBYS needed about 3 coats to be fully opaque over Fly. So I waited for this to dry. At this point it was a hot mess. Colours everywhere no definition. I was thinking I had an epic fail. But once it was dry I went back over the outlines I had made in back to really give some areas definition. Then I felt some of the areas needed a little filling in with more black stripes. And finally I grabbed a small dotting tool and added them in black and white in various places! 

I think this is the most intricate mani that I have ever done! I love it and am still wearing it now :) 

I love this so much so there are a lot of pictures! 

What do you think of my crazy detailed tribal nails? 


Also since everyone loved my peeling snakeskin mani so much yesterday would you guys like me to do a tutorial for it? Let me know! 


AND Have you entered my 50 Follower Giveaway yet? If not go enter now! Click that link or the tab across the top :) 


Hope you have a happy Friday lovelies! 


Sincerely Stephanie

50 Follower Giveaway! (Closed)

That's right guys I am having my very first giveaway! I can't believe I have already reached 50 followers. I started this blog without even really knowing how to do nail art or anything really about nails. I just knew I had a passion and wanted to document it somehow.

In less than 3 months 50 people are following me?! It feels so crazy. Your sweet comments are so amazing and it always makes me so happy when I see someone else has commented. Please keep doing it! It honestly makes my day everyday!

Now for the prizes! There will be two winners and each winner will recieve a bottle of Revlon's Whimsical and Claire's Candy Shop! I own these, but the winners will be recieveing brand new never been cracked open bottles!

Please use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter this giveaway. Must be a follower to enter. New followers are always welcome :) All polish was purchased by me. Must be 18 or older to enter. Giveaway is open internationally. Must be a follower to win. The giveaway will close on April 20th 2012 and after entries have been verified the winners will be contacted via email. If you have any questions email sincerely.stephanie.blogspot@gmail.com or ask in the comments!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Rattle rattle hiss hiss...

Today I have some rattlin nails to show you! I did some pretty awesome peeling snakeskin nails if I do say so myself.  

I started with 2 coats of Orly's Rock-It (swatch at the end). Then I took Nicole by OPI's Kendall on the Katwalk and just created random patterns on my nails with the bottle brush. KOTK is a really jelly blue with microglitter. Then I let that dry for probably 20 minutes. At this point it looked like a mess. Then I took a piece of tulle and wrapped it tightly around my nail. I wanted the tulle to make dents into KOTK.  I wanted the tulle to make dents because I wanted my nails to look as though part of the skin was peeling off (Gross I know lol) Then I sponged OPI's She's Golden on top of the tulle. She's Golden is a white polish with a strong gold shimmer. I think I achieved my peeling snakeskin nails!

My mom said that it looks like the snake skin is peeling and there is blood seeping through! I totally love that interpretation! :)

When I showed my family that night everyone loved them! Even the boys. My brother was like 'Woah I don't know what you were trying to do but it looks like a snake is shedding' I was pretty stoked that even he picked up on that!

Here is my swatch of Orly's Rock-It from the Mineral FX Collection.

This is a rapsberry-burgandy-magenta glassfleck with a slight golden duochrome. It really is gorgeous on its own. So shiny! You can see in my pictures there are reflections off the nail, I could not avoid it so I apologize! It has so much sparkle but is still completely smooth. I love this polish and it will be making more appearances :)

What do you think of my peeling snake skin nails? Love em or hate em? Let me know either way! :)

Have a happy Thursday and I'll see you all tomorrow!

Sincerely Stephanie



Cocktail Brights Splatter

Good Morning!

Is it Friday yet? Nope Wednesday, damn. Well we're halfway there right?

Since the weather has been cold again I have very bright nails to share with you today! I was in the mood to do a splatter mani, but was unsure about what colour combination to use. So I headed over to Design Seeds and took a look at some of their combinations. I came across this one entitled Cocktail Brights and decided to go for it. Here is what the palette looked like.

From that this is what I came up with!

I wasn't sure what order to splatter my colours in so I followed from top to bottom on the palette. I started with Revlon's Bare Bones as my base. Then splattered Essie's Mint Candy Apple, Wet n Wild's The Wonder Yellows, Wet n Wild's Lavender Creme and finished with Essence's Let's Get Lost.

For those of you that aren't familiar with the splatter mani, it really is pretty easy, just takes a little time and a lot of mess. You start by painting a base coat. Then take a straw and dip it into a bottle of polish and then quickly blow onto your nail.Some people don't like dipping the straw directly into the bottle but instead dab some polish on a paper plate and then dip the straw in that. I'm OK with going right into the bottle. I found this time that if you aim a little off of your nail you get more of a splatter effect. When I was aiming right onto the middle of my nail it ended up being a blob on my nail and the cool splatterness was on my wax paper.

I really like how bright the outcome of this. Many people suggest that with splatter manis you should include black or white for definition, but I'm liking this without black or white! What's your opinion on adding black and white to splatters?

Sincerely Stephanie



Sinful Colors Cinderella

Good Morning dears!

How are you today? I have a polish to show you today that is very dear to my heart. Sinful Colors Cinderella. Now the blogging world has been flooded by this awesome polish recently, and for good reason, it's FANTASTIC! It's a duochrome blue that flashes pink with pink glassflecks throughout the polish. Simply gorgeous. It really matches it's namesake.

Now why this is so special to me. When I was little Cinderella was my ultimate favourite movie. I would watch it over and over and never get tired of it. I was obsessed with her and pretty much just wanted to be
Cinderella. So when my family went to Disney World we HAD to see her. We waited in line to see the princesses for probably an hourish and it said that she would be there. When we finally got to the front she was gone. Well I lost it. I completely broke down and started bawling because all I wanted to do was meet her. The Disney people rushed over and asked my parents what was wrong. They told them how I was just upset because I wanted to meet her and that I would be OK. The awesome Disney people decided I had to meet her. So they took us on golf carts over to the castle and I got a private meeting with her!! How awesome is that?

OK you're probably tired of my ramblings so on to the polish! Here is Cinderella

Look at how stunning this polish is. I could not stop staring at my nails when I was wearing it. Also it's blue, Sincerely Stephanie 101 is I love blues. I really can't get enough of them and when it is as special as this polish? I'm in love *swoooooooooons*

See the pink duochrome?! It matches her dress perfectly. This was a polish that needed nothing else added to it for me. No nail art of any kind from this one. I just wore it by itself and honestly got a little distracted by my nails whenever they caught my eye. 

I haven't found Sinful Colors in Canada anywhere near me, but my family recently went on a trip to Florida, without me *tear* and found this for me while they were gone. :D If you see it I would HIGHLY recommend you pick it up. I might get my sister to pick me up  backup bottle bottle, or two haha.

What do you think of this polish? Do you own it?

Sincerely Stephanie

Subtle Shimmer Nude Triangles

Good Morning loves!
How are you all doing this morning? I'm sad the weekend is over and our warm spell has ended for a while in Southern Ontario. It was 0C this morning! I was rather chilly walking to my car.

The mani I have for you today is something that I came up with yesterday. I used Essence Nude It! for the base and OPI's DS Glow for the details. I have had mixed reviews from friends and family on this on, so let me know what you think!

I started with 2 coats of Nude It! (swatch pictures at the end of this post). Then grabbed my striper brush and started free handing these triangles onto my nail. Originally I had planned to go all the way up my nail, but I really liked the inverted triangle I ended up with at this point.

I think the holoness of DS Glow makes this mani something extra special . In some light you can see the triangles more clearly and in other lights it just looks like there is a little shimmer.

I love how subtle this look is and how kind of edgy it is at the same time! I think with brighter colours the design would stand out more, but I was trying to go for a very subtle look. I hadn't worn anything this subtle in a long time and was craving it. Do you ever crave simpler subtle manis?

Here are my swatches of Essence Nude It!

I really like this colour, it is nude without being the exact same colour as my skin tone. So it lengthens my nails without completely blending in.

Formula was great on this. Covered completely in two coats and was really easy to control. I had very little clean up to do.

Every Essence colour that I have tried so far has been fantastic. I will have more to show you soon!

What did you think of my subtle shimmer mani? Do you have any Essence polishes?

Sincerely Stephanie

The Black and White Challenge!

Good Morning loves!


What it's a Sunday? Why am I posting? Well I want to inform you that in a week from today I will be starting the Black and White Challenge that was created by two fantastic bloggers  Dolores of Colorful Bottle and Mateja of Purple Glitters!! Myself along with, Rie from Nails and Noms, Cristina from Let Them Have Polish, Sammy from The Nailasaurus, Esther from Fab Fingertips and Emily from The Lacquerologist will be taking on the following challenge over the next month. We will post every 3 days starting on April 1 until we are done! I am incredibly excited to see what these extremely talented ladies come up with and I think I have a few pretty cool ideas of my own! 

Are you excited to see our challenge in action?

Sincerely Stephanie

The Hungry Asian's Sneeze Breeze

If you are completely confused by my title of this post, I will assure you it is not about a hungry asian that wants to sneeze. The Hungry Asian is an awesome indie polish maker and today I have the first in a set of four awesomely amazing polishes to show you.


Let me introduce...

SNEEZE BREEZE

Look at that baby. This polish is intense microglitter. I mean micro. Each piece of glitter is probably about the size of a grain of sand. That small. And this glitter isn't sparkly. It just sits on your nails like a dream. 


The polish itself is a mix of blue and black super fine glitter. My favourite kind of polish is blue, and well I love glitter. Especially black glitter. It's just so preeeettyy *swooooon* So I pretty much never want to take it off my nails. Yes I am still wearing it right now as I type this. 


Let's see another pic.

BAH! It's beautiful. 

Application on this bad boy was a tad tricky. All my pictures are two thickish coats. You need to be really careful when applying it because it is so dense. I didn't want to use a base colour, but I have seen others put blue or black underneath which would help when you're applying it. 

I had read on a couple other blogs that this glitter was HUNGRY! Boy were they right. I used two coats of Gelous and a coat of Seche Vite and the next day my nails were slightly bumpy again. Not enough that it bothered me to go and put on another coat of SV, but still bumpy. 

Yup that's a lot of pictures. I purchased Sneeze Breeze as part of THA Holiday Collection, but she sells it individually in both 12mL for $8.50 USD and 5mL for $4.50 USD bottles in The Hungry Asian Etsy Store. There are also a number of other gorgeous polishes that Kae makes. All 3 free and cruelty free. I would recommend you run over there and sell her out :) 

On another note do you guys see a difference in my pictures? I got a white light and it felt like it was all the difference when I was taking these! I am going to learn to become a better photographer I swear haha. 

Hope you all have a fantastic Friday if you are still with me after this long winded post! 

Sincerely Stephanie

Deboprah Lippmann Bad Romance vs. Revlon's Scandelous Dupe Comparison

Morning dears!


Today I have another dupe comparison for you. I'll be comparison Deborah Lippmann's Bad Romance with Revlon's Scandelous. Scandelous was originally released under the name Facets of Fuchisa. Scandelous is the exact same polish, Revlon just rereleased it under a new name.


First up the bottles

In the bottles these two look almost identical. Bad Romance looks like it has more concentrated small pieces of glitter, but that could be a result of the glitter sticking to each other and might be solved by some serious shaking.


I applied two coats of Bad Romance and Scandelous on my index and middle fingers and then one coat of each over Wet an Wild's Black Creme on my ring and pink fingers.





With Flash

 

On the nail there are a few differences. Scandelous has more of a jelly formula than Bad Romance, so the glitter stands out a little more. It seems to me that the glitter in Scandelous is a little brighter as well.

For these swatches I didn't try to fish out the glitter, I wanted to see what the polish did on its own. Bad Romance is for sure one of those glitters that will require a little bit of fishing to get the big hex glitter onto your nail.





Sunlight

  In the sunglight I noticed the same. They look a little different, but if you spend the time to fish out the glitter from Bad Romance I think they would be exactly the same. 

Application wise, they were very similar. I actually prefer Scandelous to Bad Romance, the glitter comes through nicely and thr $4.47 price tag sure as hell beats the $18 Bad Romance costs. If you are lemming Bad Romance, I would say you can kill that lemming with Scandelous.

Which one do you prefer?

Sincerely Stephanie