Saturday, February 23, 2013

Dream Girl

As some of you may know, SHINee made their comeback this past Monday with Chapter 1 of their 3rd Studio Album, Dream Girl: The Misconceptions of You.
In honour of their long awaited comeback, I did a manicure inspired by the music video for their title track, Dream Girl!




Each nail is different and each one is inspired by either an outfit or a set in the music video. Can you find where each design is from?

I'm really, really excited and pleased with these nails and I'm going to be smiling like an idiot all week because I have a little piece of SHINee on my nails!

If you're interested in the products used for this design or are curious as to the exact scenes I used for inspirations, click the "Read More" button below!

Stamping

I got an entire nail stamping set for Christmas, (plates, scraper, stamper), and this is the first time I've actually used it for a manicure!
I've been kind of trying it out on old manicures before I take them off just to see how it works, but  this is the first time I'm using it seriously. It took me a while to figure out how to use it, (I kept letting the nail polish sit too long and it would dry in the stamp), but it's really easy now that I know what I'm doing!



I'm really impressed with the stamps, and they work very well with regular nail polish.
The base colour here is actually purple, but when it was on it looked black, purple, or navy, depending on the light.

Products Used:
Rimmel London - 100 Base & Top Coat
Revlon - 955 Quick Dry Base Coat
Revlon - 280 Orbit
Essie - 941 Good As Gold
Plate # BM-314

~ Becca.

Love Letters

When I was downtown last week I saw a really cute window display in a coffee shop and that is what inspired my Valentines Day nails!
I used the newsprint-ing technique for these and then used a black striper for "Amour."





Products Used:
Revlon - 955 Quick Dry Base Coat
Rimmel London - 100 Base & Top Coat
Borgese - B160 Angelica Blush
Quo by Orly - 59701 Black

~ Becca.

2013, Year of the Snake

恭禧发财!

I did this manicure a few weeks ago for Chinese New year. This picture was the muse for this manicure, which I turned out better than I expected!



This, to the best of my knowledge, is the Chinese character for Snake.

I'm in no way ambidextrous so to save my sanity I decided to skip attempting this design with my left hand and instead did the characters for "Happy Chinese New Year."




In case anyone is interested, these are the products I used in this manicure:
Revlon - 955 Quick Dry Base Coat
Rimmel London - 100 Base & Top Coat
Rimmel London - 110 French White Nail Tip Liner
Borghese - B115 Bianco White Tip
Sally Hansen - 390 Red Carpet
L.A. Colors Art Deco - NA902 Black

~ Becca.


30 Day Nail Challenge, Day 4: Green Nails




I think this may have been the first, (or second), time I've done a colour-gradient as opposed to a glitter one. I find it a little time consuming, but I think it looks good in the end.
This is supposed to be a three-toned gradient, but the darkest green isn't very prominent. I'm quite pleased with the bamboo design, though!

Products Used:
Rimmel London - 100 Base & Top Coat
Rimmel London - 286 Rags to Riches
Revlon - 955 Quick Dry Base Coat
Borgese - B115 Bianco White Tip
L.A. Colors Art Deco - NA902 Black
Essie - 299 Mojito Madness
Essie - 752 Turquoise & Caicos 



30 Day Nail Challenge, Day 3: Yellow Nails



Even though it's still early, this is one of my favourite manicures of the year. I think the sugar-spun bumblebee design looks adorable on short nails!

Products Used:
Revlon - 955 Quick Dry Base Coat
Rimmel London - 100 Base & Top Coat
Rimmel London - 110 French White Nail Top Liner
Sally Hansen - Barracuda
Sally Hansen - Yellow (No name)
Wet n' Wild - 229C Ebony Hates Chris

~ Becca.



30 Day Nail Challenge, Day 2: Orange Nails




Orange is the prompt for the second day of this challenge, and I decided to go with some Tiger-print French Tips for it.
This is kind of different for me, I don't do French Tips often, but I think it looks pretty cool!

Products Used:
Revlon - 955 Quick Dry Base Coat
Sally Hansen - 460 Snappy Sorbet
L.A. Colors Art Deco - NA902 Black
Sephora by O.P.I. - Matte Top Coat

~ Becca.

30 Day Nail Challenge, Day 1: Red Nails


I've decided to take on the 30 Day Nail Challenge this year!
This is a very nice deep red complete with a bit of shimmer. It's currently my favourite red and this picture really doesn't do it justice.

Products Used:
Rimmel London - 110 French White Nail Tip Liner
Rimmel London - 100 Base & Top Coat
Revlon - 955 Quick Dry Base Coat
Sally Hansen - 390 Red Carpet

~ Becca.


Houndstooth Accent

This manicure is also from a few months ago, but it was my first attempt at doing a freehand Houndstooth design. It was pretty labour intensive, but I think it was worth it in the end.





It looks better from further away, but this is a close up of the pattern.
Products Used:
Rimmel London - 170 Crystal Clear
Rimmel London - 110 French White Nail Top Liner
Borghese - B115 Bianco White Tip
L.A. Colors - NA908 Black Sparkles

~Becca.

Movember Manicures

I did these two manicures last November as a part of Movember.






Here are the products I used for each:
Suit 'n Stache
Rimmel London - 170 Crystal Clear
Sally Hansen - 300 White On
L.A. Colors Art Deco - NA902 Black

Metallic Mustaches
Rimmel London - 170 Crystal Clear
Sephora by O.P.I. - Matte Top Coat
Sally Hansen - 650 Navy Baby
Borghese - B016 Lira
Revlon - 860 Metallic

~Becca.

Pandayang Manicure


This manicure was inspired by Ko Seungji's macaroons in the drama Ms. Panda and Hedgehog.
I wasn't too fond of the main actress, but I love watching Donghae act, so this is what came of that!

I used this picture for reference while designing this manicure:

These are the products that I used:
Rimmel London - 170 Crystal Clear
Sally Hansen - 300 White On
L.A. Colors Art Deco - NA902 Black
Revlon - 305 Sublime Strawberry

~ Becca.