Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Naughty Nautical

I was going through my polishes the other day when I ran across my bottle of Essie's Naughty Nautical and fell in love with the colour all over again. I've had the polish since last summer but I've hardly used it because of it's slight shimmer. Now don't get me wrong - I love shimmer - but I can never seem to work it into a design. With that in mind I was determined to create a design just for this super pretty, shimmery colour.


Given the name I obviously had to do something nautical with it so this is what I came up with. 

Saturday, July 26, 2014

Darling

Technically I'm a little late with this since Girl's Day had their comeback over a week ago, but I still wanted to do something for their super cute new song Darling!


Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Product Review: Floral Lace Water Decals

More reviews for Born Pretty; as always don't forget to check out their Nail Art section for other cool products.

Today I tried out some lace and floral water decals. When I asked to try them out I had a faint idea in my head about making a tea part theme and I kind of expanded that to Alice in Wonderland Tea Party.

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The decals come in a 1 sheet package with 20 individual decals per sheet.

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There are 5 different decal designs on sheet #Y148: 3 large, floral, corner pieces that are shaped to be positioned at the edge of your nail; and 2 straight lace decals, one of which contains the writing "All is Well."

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Sorry the photo is so dark, it was hard to see the words with a lighter picture. This brings me to my first point about these decals. Even before any attempts at applying them they are very hard to see on the sheet since they're white. It was difficult cutting around them as the only way you can really tell where you should be cutting is from the way the light hits the decals vs. the paper backing.

With that being said, once the decals were cut out the application was ok, (they separated from the backing easily and didn't adhere to the nail too quickly). I did have some issues with getting the larger decals to lie flat though, and I think it's because of their size. They were a bit too big for my nail and I ended up just making sure it was as flat as possible and using a paint brush dipped in acetone to "trim" the edges a bit. After applying the top coat they seemed to flatten out a bit more, though, and integrated well with the polish.

I had the opposite problem with the smaller, straight decals: they were too small for my nails!

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They didn't have the length to go across the whole nail and I didn't really want to use another whole decal for like 3 mm of uncovered nail. The decals might have fit across my pinky finger, but being too short for every other finger makes them kind of useless to me. I don't know how else I could use them.
As another side note, while you can see the decal in this macro shot, I wouldn't recommend using them on light colours because they aren't very visible from further away.

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The decals are very pretty and visually I really like them, but I think their sizing makes them fall short in their usefulness and I also can't see the design (meaning the floral decals and the ones stating "all is well") being very versatile. If you'd like to try these decals out for yourself, they sell for C$2.46 (US$2.29) per sheet and come in one other floral design.

Don't forget you can use the code FHX31 for 10% off your order at BPS, (also free world-wide shipping which is always a bonus!).



Thanks for reading!

xo,
Becca.

** These products were provided for review. All opinions are my owns and have not been influenced by anyone. **

Saturday, July 12, 2014

Red Light

Another comeback, another manicure. This time it's in honour of f(x)'s new album Red Light!


Thursday, July 03, 2014

#TBT: Tamagotchi

For the second Throwback installment I focused on some toys I'm sure we all remember: Tamagotchis!





I don't know about you, but I had four of these at the very least, all of various generations/versions. I think I had up to the Tamagotchi Connection V4 (a lot of research went into this manicure, I definitely wouldn't have been able to tell you that if I hadn't been searching these things up).

I also remember these being so big that I literally gave one to all of my friends for their birthday's. Tamagotchis were so simplistic but so much fun. In case you're feeling nostalgic for your old toys, there's now an app for that! Tamagotchi L.i.f.e. on Android phones lets you re-experience Tamagotchi's right on your phone, (without the hassle of trying to press the reset button on the back when your Tamagotchi inevitably perishes...).



Products Used:
Ceramic Glaze - 109 Pineapple Breeze
Coco + Lulu - 432 Macaron
Essie - 008 Blanc
Essie - 720 Licorice
Essie - 1018 DJ Play That Song
Essie - 1027 The More the Merrier
Essie - 1064 Serial Shopper
Essie - 1065 I'm Addicted
Essie - 1067 Vices Versa
Essie - Grow Stronger Base Coat
Maybelline - 390 Audacious Asphalt
OPI - NL E82 My Vampire is Buff
Revlon - 471 Fashionista
Sally Hansen - 360 Barracuda
Seche Vite - Quick Dry Top Coat

xo,
Becca.