Finger Paints Masquerade Affair Collection Swatch and Review

I have a beautiful collection to share with you today! I have been seeing swatches (Betty's Beauty Bombs and Lavish Layerings) all over of this gorgeous collection and I knew I had to swatch and review these for you as well. Finger Paints Nail Polish is new to the blog. I do own one other, but never posted about it for some reason. It is sitting in my vault of unused photos! I'll have to pull that out again someday, but today I have the entire Masquerade Affair Collection! Finger Paints is only sold at Sally's Beauty Supply, so hopefully you have one near you. The collection features four colors with some vampy tones but also some brightness to it that I didn't expect. 

Nail Art: #31DC2014 Day 12 Stripes- Tweed

Today, the daily challenge is stripes. Since fall is coming on, I feel like tweed would be appropriate. I've been wanting to try tweed for a while, so I thought this was a great excuse. I used Sinful Colors Hot Spot as a base, which is a gorgeous dark blue with shimmer and then alternated stripes both horizontally and vertically of Enchanted, Sail La Vie, and Tantalize. I also added some bow studs from the Born Pretty Store. 

Tutorial: Euro Mod

So, my Euro Mod post seemed to be the most popular this week so far, so I decided to do a quick tutorial for you! I really enjoyed this look and I hope you do too!

Nail Art: Euro Mod

I hope you all had a lovely weekend! Yesterday my husband and I stuffed ourselves silly for an event called Savor the Pearl, which is a fundraiser benefiting cystic fibrosis. We had one of those passport things where you go around to several places getting "tastes" and stamps. You have a week to do it, but since we don't live in the Pearl District in Portland, we went up for one day of binge eating. Oh my goodness, I still feel like I am recovering, but it was fantastic. I wore these nails out for it. I'm calling them Euro Mod because the look Mod, but I also inadvertently used all OPI polishes from their Euro Centrale Collection, which was one of my favorites! I used a base of You're Such a Budapest, which is the lilac/blue color, then I free hand painted vertical stripes of Vant to Bite My Neck? which is the deep purple color and then I free hand painted horizontal stripes with a deep blue I Saw...U Saw...We Saw...Warsaw. Finally I finished it with a large dot and smaller dots on each nail. Every nail is slightly different and I love how it looks so simple but complicated at the same time.

Swatch and Review of Morgan Taylor: Sapphires, Rubies, and Emeralds Oh My

 Today I have to share my first and only Morgan Taylor polish! I bought this a while back and just haven't thought to use it. I'm not sure where these are normally sold, but I found this one at a salon. Sapphires, Rubies, and Emeralds Oh My is a glitter bomb. It is loaded, and I mean loaded with glitter. The best part is that it has a good base color so you don't need many layers. I think the base is a blue/purple, maybe more blue than purple. I only needed two coats for the photos below.

Swatch and Review of Different Dimension 50 Shades and That Is So Fetch!

Today I have a new to me indie brand to share with you! Different Dimension is a brand I have been following for quite a while, but never purchased, until now! I have two shades to share with you today: That Is So Fetch! and 50 Shades. I'm not really sure what to classify them as, but maybe a glitter topper with a jelly base? The base is pigmented but not entirely a full coverage type of polish. That Is So Fetch! was inspired by Mean Girls character: Gretchen Wieners. So funny! 50 Shades was inspired by 50 Shades of Grey. 

Nail Art: Bridal Inspired Foil Stamping

Have you all heard of the Sally Hansen Color Foil Collection? It has been out for a while, but for one reason or another, I haven't gotten my hands on them until now. I have a nail art look today using Leaden Lilac as a base color. This polish is different from the usual polish where you use a base and top coat. This one specifically states to not use a base or top coat. The polish dries to a very metallic foil looking finish which has a really cool effect. The color is an interesting mix of blue and purple, I would call it more blue than purple. It reminded me of the blue/purple Pure Ice Laven-Dare because I couldn't really tell if it is was more blue leaning or purple leaning. I decided to pair the two for this look. Turns out Laven-Dare stamps really well, so I used my MoYou Tourist Collection Plate 07 for this design.   

Born Pretty Store Review: Pressed Flowers

Press Sample 

I have another Born Pretty Store review for you today! I received some dried flowers from the Born Pretty Store to try out. They come in 12 different colors and in their own protective containers. They come as whole pressed flowers, so you could really use the whole thing, but I decided to break them up and combine two colors to make a more detailed design. I created something similar to my Sideways Moons, but with flowers. I started with a base color of Nails Inc. Sheraton Street, added top coat, and placed the flowers in the still wet top coat. Then I top coated over the flowers and voila! 

Swatch and Review of Daily Hues: Isys

I have a beautiful polish to share with you all today! Daily Hues Nail Lacquer is a (sort of) local brand for me. She is one state over, but it still feels local. I previously shared Blaze from Daily Hues Nail Lacquer and love the brand! Today I have Isys, a purple jelly with different size and shape glitters. The highlights for me are the circle glitters and the shreds of glitter. I don't have any other polishes with glitter shreds, so that makes this polish really unique to me. I applied two coats for the below photos.

Swatch and Review of NYC Samba Collection

Today I have some simple swatches for your viewing and reading pleasure! I have two polishes from the NYC Samba Collection. I have a purple called Jacaranda Flower and a red called Carnival Red. My Rite Aid's display was pretty bare bones when I went, but I was able to pick up these two beauties and share them with you today!

Neon Week Nail Art: Neon Gradient and Rhinestones

Can you believe it is the last day of Neon Week already? It went by so fast for me. I enjoyed creating every neon look this past week and I think I learned a bit as well. Today I have a simple gradient with Color Club Flamingo, Wham! Pow! and Mrs. Robinson. I topped the gradient with China Glaze Fairy Dust and added some rhinestones on my thumb, middle and ring fingers. 

Swatch and Review of Pure Ice: Laven-Dare

Happy Friday! I hope you had a great week. I am carrying the trend from my last post and sharing with you another soft shade. Today I have swatches and review of Pure Ice Laven-Dare. I have no idea if this is a new color or not. Wal-Mart is the only place to buy this and the displays at mine are terrible! I'm lucky if the polishes are in the right section. Laven-Dare looks like a slightly dusty lavender. In some lights it seemed to pull a little blue, but it definitely looks lavender in these photos. I used two easy coats for full opacity. 

Swatch and Review of Zoya Magical Pixie Dust Summer 2014 Collection

Press Sample

Summer 2014 is shaping up to be beautiful! Zoya sent me three new polishes from the Magical Pixie Summer 2014 Collection and I have them to share with you today!  Zoya provided these for my honest review. The Magical Pixie polishes are very textured polishes, but even if you don't like textured polish you should definitely check them out. I have photos of all with and without top coat, and I think you'll be surprised!

Nail Art: Richter Scale Nails with Orly Baked Collection

Today I have three of the six colors from the latest Orly Summer 2014 Baked Collection. I have Ablaze, Hot Tropics and Saturated. I wanted to share swatches first, but since I got these lovelies I have had this design in my head and had to do it first! I have created what I like to call Richter Scale nails. I think it looks like the zig zag line that measures earthquakes, maybe I have my terminology wrong, but Richter scale is what came to mind. I painted half of my nail with Ablaze and half with Hot Tropics. I didn't use tape or anything because the center line is covered with Saturated. I used a striping brush to just lightly brush the color with tons of little lines. 

Nail Art: Galaxy Nails for #hepicksmypolish!

I came across a challenge called #hepicksmypolish, and I knew immediately I wanted to participate! The premise of the challenge is to have your husband/boyfriend/whoever pick out your polish for you. He picks three colors which you have to use and no others except base/top/glitter coats. My husband picked out China Glaze Black Diamond, OPI Vant to Bite My Neck and Essie First Timer. It seemed like a somewhat odd assortment until I realized that he picked them based off of our wedding colors! They aren't exactly our wedding colors, but he did pretty good picking them out.

Nail Art: Purple Waterfall

Today's look was completely inspired by The Nailasaurus. Her tutorial for waterfall nails has been a huge hit, and I have been wanting to try it out for ages! I decided to recycle the swatch from my last post and see if I could pull off this waterfall look. I highly recommend you checkout The Nailasaurus, I love her designs, and he nail shape is so adorable! She has shorter nails, and they are so perfect! This look is done with a nail art brush and regular polishes. My base color is Orly Flawless Flush and for the stripes I also used OPI You're Such A Budapest, Color Club Antiquated and OPI Dutch Ya Just Love OPI?. 

Nail Art: Ice and Fire Gradient

In honor of the season premier of Game of Thrones, I have a mani that looks like ice and fire. This was really inspired by someone on instagram and for the life of me, I cannot remember who it is. I will update when I find out. I created a gradient of blue to purple with OPI Yodel Me on My Cell and OPI Suzi and the 7 Dusseldorfs. I layered on top the ever famous Essie Shine of the Times and added some nail studs. Take a look at that flakie goodness:

Swatch and Review of OPI Don't Violet Me Down (Sheer Tints)

Today I have a Sheer Tints shade to share with you! This came in my birchbox and I was excited to try it out. It seems like a buildable but sheer color, which basically sounds like a jelly, right? I swatched this over my last design of cherry blossoms. Below is a side by side comparison.

Nail Art: Chevron Stripes

Hello friends! Have I told you how much I love Stardust Polish lately? I feel like I am posting about Stardust a lot, but I have another goodie to share with you. Today I have Flowers Can't Talk, from her Alice in Wonderland Collection. I have previously shared Mr. Rabbit and Simply Mad from that collection, both of which I loved! Flowers Can't Talk is similar to Mr. Rabbit, but had a pale pink base rather than white and different glitters. I realized it has been a while since I have done chevrons, so I added those as well using China Glaze Harmony.

Nail Art: Lace

My next design is completely inspired by someone on instagram. Her username is @nails_by_cindy. Love her, go check her out if you use instagram! She posted something yesterday which I immediately fell in love with and had to try out. It reminds me of lace, but less delicate. I used OPI Birthday Babe as a base color which is a really light almost white silver and Dutch Ya Just Love OPI? and Casino Royale as accent colors. I used dotting tools for the scalloped edges and the dots.