Cirque Colors x Pop-In @ Nordstrom - Vans 50th Anniversary Celebration: Stripe Stencil Nail Art Kit

press sample 

Hello, hello! I've got another nail art kit to share today from Cirque Colors! If you'll recall from last week, they've teamed up with Pop-In @ Nordstrom to help celebrate the Vans 50th Anniversary! There are 3 exclusive and limited edition shades available as well and three nail art kits that come with nail stencils and two polishes. Check out my previous Checkerboard mani here!

Today is the stripe stencil kit as well as the two shades, Skate Date and Big Wave (pink and blue, respectively).

31 Day Challenge 2.0, Day 9 - Stripes: Distressed Strip Nail Art

Nothing to Disclose

Hello, all! I've been feeling a bit under the weather as of late so I'm a little bit behind on posting, but I've got my striped mani for Day 9 of the 31 Day Challenge to share with you all! I decided to do a pretty different take on your traditional striped mani and instead made them a bit distressed...and I'm kind of in love with them!

Dermelect Bejeweled Collection for Fall/Winter - Swatches, Review & Nail Art...plus a contest opportunity!

Press Sample

Hello, all! Hope you had a wonderful weekend! I've got a review of the new Dermelect Bejeweled collection for Fall & Winter to share with you today! As the name might suggest, the Bejeweled collection is inspired by precious stones, particularly, garnet, a patinated finish, sapphire and quartz. 

I've never tried this brand before but I'm really loving the formulas on these. While they are 3-Free and cruelty free, these polishes also boast nail strengthening properties which is always welcome to someone like me. If I can find a polish that strengthens while I wear it, I want it. Being able to remove that extra step of a separate nail strengthener makes a world of difference for me. Anyhow, let's take a look!

The Beauty Buffs - Stripes Trend

Nothing to Disclose

Yay! It's time for another Beauty Buffs post and this week we're giving the stripes trend a shot! Lately I've been seeing mixtures in stripes colors and directions so that was my inspiration for tonight's mani. I was directly inspired by this Tonya Taylor runway set and I really like how she combined the classic nautical blue and white stripe with bright summery shades as well as multidirectional stripes. All around, a really fresh take on stripes.

Simple Nautical Stripes

Nothing to Disclose

Hello, all! I'm so glad that it's Wednesday (night)! I feel like the past 3 days have been as long as an entire week and I can't wait for Saturday to get here. I don't have a very exciting post for you tonight, but I figured I'd share it anyway. This will be short and sweet :) 

Several months ago I ordered the two of the Zoya NYFM boxes that included 3 special colors that are created by designers. I stole away with the Peter Som Spring/Summer 2014 collection, as well as the Zang Toi Ballet Babe Spring/Summer 2014 box. I got them and then promptly forgot that I had them. I have been using the boxes as hand rests for when I take my photos and was literally touching the boxes with polishes still INSIDE them for months. I was taking advantage of the Zoya 3 Free Promo yesterday and realized that I still had 6 unused/unopened polishes from them and suddenly it was like I had brand new nail mail! It was all very exciting and it made my day haha 

Mani Monday: Simple Stripes

Hope everyone is having a fabulous Labor Day! Today's Mani Monday collab with the Lulu*s blog is a super simple striped look. All you'll need is some masking/striping tape and some patience ;) A quick trick I forgot to mention in my tutorial: if you stick some masking tape to a cutting board, use a razor blade and a ruler or straight edge to get even strips of tape every time. I used to struggle so much with getting even widths with my masking tape when I used scissors and this trick has drastically reduced my striping tape mani times. Be sure to check out my full tutorial here!

What do you think of these? Doing anything nice today?

Happy Polishing! :)

31 Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 12: Stripes

I can't believe we're already on day 12 of this challenge! I'm so happy that Meghan and I are sticking with this - I'm still really loving this challenge :) 

For today's stripes theme, I thought about doing something complex with striping tape and going crazy, but in the end, I settled on classic vertical stripes. I recently bought the China Glaze Avant Garden collection and I've kind of been obsessing over the colors since I got them. I used 38 strips of striping tape for this hand alone and I felt my eye start to twitch in frustration after about the 12th strip being placed on my nail! How is it that the tape suddenly acquired a magnetic attraction to my nails for this mani!? 

Gradient and some free hand stripes!

On Sunday I had a friend tell me that they would love to see pink and blue together in nail art so I decided to create a gradient using the two colors! Well, if you'll remember your kindergarden lessons of how colors work, when you blend red (or in my case pink) and blue together, you get purple! Oh Lindsey, sometimes your brain doesn't work, does it? 

Despite my gradient turning more into a pink to purple gradient, I like how these turned out. As a friend put it, they are FIERCE! ;) I added a matte top coat for good measure as well. 

March Nail Art Challenge - Day 2: Stripes

Today marks the start of the next theme in the March Nail Art Challenge! Stripes is the theme and boy do I love me some stripes :) I was a bit impatient tonight, so rather than wait for my base color to dry, I went ahead and did my stripes free hand. My inspiration came from what I was wearing tonight, actually. I have a cute striped skirt in this navy and tan, and then I was wearing a plain what t-shirt with it. Pretty literal interpretation ;) 

I used a striper for this and about pulled my hair out in frustration when my lines weren't perfect. I used OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls (big surprise) as my base, Zoya's Natty is the navy and Zoya's Jacqueline is the tan/light yellow. Overall, I think it's a simple and classy look that is a bit on the nautical side. 

Candy on my fingers!

I'm super excited for how tonight's look turned out! About a month ago I bought Gloss n' Sparkle's Unicorn Spawn from the amazing people over at Llarowe and never got the chance to use it. Well, I'm kicking myself now for waiting so long! I LOVE this polish. It's so fabulous and such a fun color for spring...or any time! 

GLITTER Stripes

Part of my Valentine's Day Haul from the Boyfriend included the China Glaze Cirque du Soleil collection (I also got a BUNCH of nail art pens that I am so excited to get to using!) and I decided to use two of the polishes from that, as well as one of my recent acquisitions from my trip to Sally's Beauty. This by far one of the sparkliest manis to day but I like it so much more than I was expecting to! I used China Glaze's Water You Waiting For and Running in Circles and Orly's Bubbly Bombshell and made super simple stripes. Easy peezy, lemon squeezy!

31 Day Nail Challenge - Day 4: Green

Can I just say that I'm pretty impressed with myself that I'm actually keeping up with this challenge (well, in that I'm actually doing it still...)! I was a bit stumped at first at what to do for my green manicure. I think part of it is that I really loved my stained glass nails which were GREEN and so a lot of my creativity for the time being went into those. However, I ended up coming up with something that I have fallen madly and disgustingly in love with. As I type this, I am looking every few seconds at them in the way you stare at a newfound crush that you're pretty sure you're in love with...yes, you are all invited to the wedding. Maybe that's a bit too much build up and my apologies if you all see these and think I'm crazy for loving them oh so much. BUT beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I'm not budging on my stance ;) 

Is it too early for a Christmas mani?

Autumn and Winter are by far my favorite time of the year. I love being able to bundle up on the couch next to the fire with my hot cocoa and a great book. Reading and nail painting are essentially tied for favorite things to do so don't make me choose! (Maybe I'll do some book reviews on here occasionally...hmm). Anyway! The past few days have finally begun to be gloomy and cold (only took to the end of November!..but that's what you get in California) and driving home after work with the sun already down and all the Christmas lights up really solidified the feeling that it is in fact winter! My favorite! 

I was feeling inspired by the time of year and landed on PRESENTS! Everyone loves to give and/or receive gifts and I've been slowly finding presents to give to friends and family so it seemed fitting. 

I used, YET AGAIN (sorry!) Sephora by OPI's Mr. Right Now because it is my all time favorite red and I am going to have to go buy more soon. My striping accents (you have no idea how many times I checked to make sure that didn't say stripping accents...) are Ulta's Concrete Evidence and a mini Sephora by OPI called Already Famous that came as part of their winter Tinsel Town Collection. 

Outfit inspired

Someone challenged me to do a manicure inspired by one of my favorite items of clothing. For me, that happens to be an awesome skirt made by CottonOn, an Australian based clothing store that has amazing deals and excellent quality clothing. Here's a terrible picture of the pattern to give you an idea of my inspiration.

I recently purchased Essie's Butler Please and I'd like to spend a moment just remembering how stunningly amazing this polished looked on. When I put this baby on my poor neglected fingers, I about fainted from how crazy amazing it was.

An electric and "indulgent bright blue" with a creme finish that may be my favorite blue to date. 

I mean, let's be serious. That is so stunning. I may have stared obsessively at it the entire time it was gracing my nails with is presence. Alright, so electric blue isn't exactly understated in its own right, but since I matched the blue with my skirt and fell in love, I decided I couldn't part with it and went with just my thumb for the rest of my design.

I apologize for the overkill of photos, but I just love this these colors. Yes, I want to marry them. 

The Butler Please is 2 coats and Seche Vite on top. The striped thumb is (colors from left to right):

Navy--Kleancolor Neon Sapphire 

White--Milani White on the Spot

Blue--Essie Butler Please

Lavender--Kleancolor Lavenbaby

Orange--Zoya Natalie

Happy Polishing.

I am Matte About YOU

I recently made what I would consider to be the BEST decision of my life. Okay, well my nail polish life? THAT'S A PRETTY BIG DEAL! I purchased Essie's "Matte About You" and I am in love and I don't care who knows it! I've always been a big fan of the flat matte look but until recently I had no idea that anything like this existed. I generally like to go for an understated look with my nails; nothing too flashy, but still something that's got some good energy to it. As shown in my first post, I'm trying the whole taping technique out and thoroughly enjoying it. I have been using basic scotch tape, though I've seen and heard of using masking tape as well (personally, the masking tape ended up bringing up the base polish I was using). I'm starting to get the hang of it and this is what I came up with.

The main polish is OPI "I Brake for Manicures." This color is pretty, but it's definitely hard to figure out exactly WHAT color it is. Depending on the lighting, it changes from a dark brown/grey/burgundy,  to a deep grey blue. I thought I was getting a deep navy when I ordered it, so I suppose be weary of that fact before buying. All in in all, I do like this color and while at first glance it seems black, it feels like a deep coffee brown. Yes, it's all about the feels!

 Happy Polishing!