Mish Mash Challenge: Purple

Hi cupcakes!

So it's been a long while since I've joined a challenge... the last one I think was around Christmastime last year. The reason I never join challenges is because I don't always have a lot of time on my hands and I would hate to start a challenge and not finish it! BUT, I've finally joined a new one called the Mish Mash Challenge hosted by Kimber's Lacquer Korner. I joined because it only posts once a week and I figure I can keep up with that... hopefully ;) 

Anyways! Today is the kick off of the Mish Mash Challenge and the theme is purple. I knew immediately I wanted to incorporate Color Club Eternal Beauty, a purple holographic polish, because it's been one of my favorite polishes ever since I bought it! I also figured it was time to give water marbling another go, I heard somewhere around the polish community that the Color Club Halo Hues are really good for water marbling so hey, why not right? 

Alright, to start off this mani I did a base of Maybelline Color Show  Iced Queen on my thumb, middle, and ring finger. Then I used Maybelline Color Show Iced Queen and Color Club Eternal Beauty for the water marble on those fingers. On my pointer and pinky I just did two coats of Color Club Eternal Beauty. Seal it all in with some Poshe top coat and we're finished! 

yumm holo love!

These were super cool out in the sunshine I still get so amazed every time I see the Halo Hues outside in the sun because they are really quite stunning! Because both polishes were so good for marbling I ended up with really skinny lines I think it almost looks like a zebra print of sorts! And I was pleasantly surprised at how smooth water marbling went this time so expect to see some more in the future ;) 

Question for you guys: I've been thinking about starting some video tutorials.... not that I know how lol! But would anyone be interested in seeing a tutorial for a water marble like this?

Don't forget to check out all the ladies participating in the Inlinkz below! And if you want to join too then feel free to add your blog! 

Thanks guys :) 

Big scary: Freehand stripes

Hey chickies!

Recently I was searching for a new nail art brush since none of mine seem to be quite small enough. I ended up stumbling upon stylishnailart on instagram and found that she sells like a million tiny brushes. So I perused her brushes and settled on one and ordered it! To my surprise it came in really quickly and I got to play around with it the other day. I was feeling pretty brave and with my new nail art brush in hand so I decided to tackle one of my big scarys: free hand stripes. I've always admired those talented bloggers who are so good at making free hand stripes... it seemed like whenever I tried they went anywhere but straight.   -_-

But! Since my skills have improved and I got the right equipment I was actually successful this time! They aren't perfect but they are definitely a huge step in the right direction! 

I started with a base of Lime Crime Parfait Day. Then I took my nail art brush and created an off-centered stripe with China Glaze Pool Party and outlined it on either side with OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls. I finished it off with a generous coat of Poshe top coat.

I wish I could have worn these for longer, they're real simple but they really stood out! I think that partially because Pool Party is just so darn bright!!

What do you think? Do you do free hand stripes? Have any tips for me? :)

Oh! And I also got myself a brand new light box with brand new lights can you tell the difference in my pictures?? 

Thanks guys!

Do you Incoco? Incoco Nail Polish Applique review

Hi cupcakes!

*press sample*

I have a cool review for you guys today. The lovely people at Incoco were kind enough to send me some of their nail polish appliques to show you guys.

A little about Incoco: With research starting back in 1988, Incoco has started a new trend in the nail polish industry. They are the first and only manufacturer of 100% real nail polish appliques, "taking nail polish out of the bottle and transforming it into self-stick strips."

I was sent two different designs, Summer Sizzle (pink checkered) and Venetian Lace (purple lace). I will be reviewing Summer Sizzle and testing Venetian Lace for its wearability! On with the review!

The nail polish strips come in nice small packages and they contain sixteen separate nail polish strips. Definitely a plus because there is plenty of sizes to choose from to get the right fit. Unfortunately for me I have little baby hands so I had a little difficulty getting a few to fit correctly. 

The directions are pretty simple and easy to follow:
- Select the nail polish strip that best fits your nail and remove the top clear cover.
- Remove the nail polish strip from the paper back by pulling on the silver tab.
- Choose which end will fit your nail best and remove the silver tab. 
- Apply the strip to your nail, gently stretching and smoothing it so you don't get any wrinkles.
- Remove the excess strip by lightly filing the end in a downward motion.
- Optional step.. I immediately put top coat on it to remove any small wrinkling which was purely my fault.

The pros and cons:

- Pro: Incoco products are 3-free. 

- Pro: Since the strips are 100% nail polish they are thicker then any other nail polish appliques I have tried making them more durable.

- Pro: They're really sticky, and because they are thicker if you don't place it right you can slowly peel it off and reposition it. I loved this because I can never place them right the first time!

- Pro: No clean-up! Nice and clean and mess free.

- Pro: No dry time! 

- Pro: Over 200 different designs to choose from.

- Con: Don't pull too hard when smoothing them on your nail.. I ripped one on accident and I wasn't pulling very hard. 

- Con: I didn't like the silver tab at the end because sometimes the tab didn't pull off cleanly and if thats the side the fits your nail best then you don't get that real crisp line by your cuticles. I know this can't be helped because you need something to grab on to but I figured I'd make you guys aware anyways. :) 

Quick pic of Venetian Lace I love this color. My sister was kind enough to allow me to apply them on her so I can see how long they last. They claim to last up to 14 days and I'll be sure to keep you guys updated. 

Overall I really like these. You can get great designs with very little effort and you're always left with a perfect design. The no dry time and no clean up and really make a difference. Definitely a great alternative if you're short on time and want some gorgeous nails! They also have french nail strips and even some for your toes! Talk about versatile :) 

Incoco products can be purchased here. They retail from $7.99 to $9.99 and they ship internationally!

Don't forget to follow them to stay up to date one all new happenings. ;) 

Facebook . Twitter . Pinterest . Instagram . Youtube

Have any of you tried any Incoco products before? Would you? Thanks for reading guys!

Inspiration Nation: Purple Waterfall

Hi cupcakes :) 

I've got another Inspiration Nation post for you all today. I really really enjoy looking at all of the beautiful and creative nail art that's circling the interwebz. Everyone has their own style and own amazing ideas. The best part of not know what to do on my nails is having the advantage of looking around... I mean seriously all you have to do is type in nails to google and you get 73895794379 million results. It's amazing! 

I've got a bunch of blogs that I follow.. and I always love finding new ones so if you've got a blog you want me to know about here's your chance! Let me know in the comments what it is and I'll be sure to head right over :) 

Anyways, one of the very first blogs I ever followed was Sammy at The Nailasaurus. She is one of the reasons I fell in love with nail art, her designs are just so damn good! Recently she did a new type of nail art which she calls the waterfall, I won't try to explain it to you because she put up a really great tutorial which you can see HERE, but basically you take your nail art brush and do simple, quick strokes from the nail bed towards the tip and it creates a waterfall-esque effect. It's quite stunning. So she's where I take my inspiration from today because I've tried some waterfall nails of my own!

To get this look I started with a base of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and then painted two coats of ORLY Glowstick and then used Lime Crime Lavendairy, Maybelline Color Show Iced Queen, Maybelline Color Show Plum Paradise, and Sally Hansen Golden-I for the stripes. 

It's not nearly as crisp as any of hers but I'd say it's a pretty solid first try ;) I really love the effect though, it's so simple really but it can look so complex at the same time. Oooh look at me getting all deep and stuff! LOL But really, I know I'll be revisiting this nail art soon because it's addicting! 

Don't forget to tell me about your blogs guys! I don't usually allow links in my comments but link away today!! :) 

Thanks so much chickies

Rainbow gradient love

Hello loves

I've been on a neon kick lately... not sure what it is about summer and neons that just go so well together but hey don't let me question a good thing! I think it's because summer is just so bright and fun, and that's exactly what neons are. I don't think I can wear a neon and not smile because they are just so striking and attention grabbing. I may just wear a neon every day of my life... except that would probably be pretty boring for you guys ;) But I'll most definitely sneak some in every once in a while, like this super bright neon rainbow gradient!

You can't see the whole rainbow in the first picture because I have the red/pink to orange on my thumb so use your imagination! ;) 

To start of these bright babies I did two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls. I don't think I can praise this polish enough seriously everyone needs to own this one! :) Then I used two polishes for each finger:

-Thumb: China Glaze Pool Party / China Glaze Orange Knockout

- Pointer: China Glaze Orange Knockout / China Glaze Sun-Kissed

- Middle: China Glaze Sun-Kissed / China Glaze I'm With The Lifeguard 

- Ring: China Glaze I'm With The Lifeguard / Nina Ultra Pro Blue Blaze

- Pinky: Nina Ultra Pro Blue Blaze / China Glaze Flying Dragon

... Me thinks someone like China Glaze... A LOT ;)

Anyways to do this gradient I paint both colors in vertical lines slightly overlapping on a makeup sponge. Be careful on the order you paint them though because you want the rainbow to be in the right order. I learned this the hard way... apparently I paint my nails with my eyes closed -_- Then I tape around my nails because ain't nobody got time for that clean up mess ;) When they're taped of I lightly dab the sponge on my nails, I go over it 4-5 times on each nail to get a real saturated and seamless gradient. Top it off with a good top coat like Poshe and it will blend the colors even more! 

And because mattifying neons is my favorite thing to do lately I had to sneak at least one of those pictures in here. This is after once coat of NYC Matte Me Crazy, my one and only matte top coat ;) 

Just look at that chalky goodness! Which way do you prefer? I'm a matte girl all the way but I still love me a good shiny and smooth nail. I wish the colors showed up more vibrant though, oh is the woes of photographing neons. My camera refuses to make them the bright and beautiful colors that they are. I tried fixing them up in Photoshop but nothing I did did them any justice so I'm stuck with slightly less bright neon-y-ness. *Sigh*

How do you feel about neons? Yay or no way?

Thanks chickies! 

Mint Manis for Talia Joy

Good morning guys!

Or morning for me anyways.  

If you missed my post the other day I'll just recap a bit. Today is a special day in the nail community, on Tuesday, July 16th, we all lost a beautiful girl named Talia. Talia was an inspiration to the beauty community. She was a very special 13 year old girl who was battling two forms of cancer: neuroblastoma and preleukemia. Despite her challenges she put a smile on her face every day and brought beautiful makeup and nail tutorials to us all. She was truly the strongest girl I've ever had the honor to know and so very amazing at everything she did. 

Today, July 19th, the nail community has banded together to bring mint manis to honor miss Talia Joy. The last photo she posted on instagram was of a mint mani and the wonderful Nicole from Nail Polish Wars thought it would be great for all of us to show our mint manis for Talia. I think that's and absolutely amazing idea. So here's my mint mani for the beautiful little girl who was stronger then anyone. 

I started with a base of ORLY Gumdrop and did a glitter gradient using ORLY Sparkling Garbage on my thumb, pointer, middle, and pinky nails. I also put a little rhinestone at the base of each of those nails. On my ring I did two full coats of ORLY Sparkling Garbage and stamped over it with a little bow from BM-317 with L.A Colors striping polish in black. 

I really love how these came out, soft and sweet. 

For anyone wanting to participate today the hashtag is #mintmanisfortaliajoy. This is for Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, etc. 

If anyone want to link their blogs up you can pick up the inlinkz code right HERE. But don't forget to add your name in the actual inlinkz! 

I can't wait to see everyone's love for Talia Joy and her friends and family. Rest in peace beautiful angel and make sure you show all those angels up there how to do their makeup and nails!

Thanks so much for reading guys. :) 

Watermelon Ruffians

Hi loves :) 

I think I was in the mood for some fruit when I thought up these nails ;) Whenever I look for fruit nails in the summer time most of the time I see watermelon nails. Good thing too because I love that stuff! lol! Watermelon is definitely one of my top 5 favorite fruits. I didn't want to do a normal watermelon mani though, I see a lot of beautiful ones around where they have watermelon tips. But I wanted to be different this time so I stared at my nails and thought, "hey, my nails actually kind of look like a slice of watermelon!" And so the watermelon ruffian was born! 

To start I painted all of my nails with two coats of Maybelline Color Show Tenacious Teal. Horrible name by the way... this polish is most definitely NOT teal -_- But that's besides the point I suppose. Then I created a ruffian using Maybelline Color Show Pink Boom a pretty light pink. When that was dry (or dry-ish since I don't have patience ;)) I used black acrylic paint and a toothpick to create the three little seeds. Seal it in with some Poshe top coat and you've got some juicy watermelon nails!

Oh! And for the thumb I started with a base of Maybelline Color Show Tenacious Teal and took a bunch of random green polishes and striped the up and down my nail to create a watermelon rind look... I can't remember all of the green polishes I used so I'll do my best to answer any questions if you have them lol!

I think the final look is really cutesy and great for summer time. Not to mention it was super easy to create and doesn't take a long time at all so you can spend more time outside in the sunshine ;)

Anyone have any favorite nail designs for the summertime? 
Thanks so much cupcakes!

Mint Manis for Taila Joy on Friday

Hey guys,

Many of you have probably heard, but the beautiful and talented Talia Joy earned her angel wings yesterday July 16th. Talia was an extremely sweet thirteen year old girl battling two forms of cancer: neuroblastoma and preleukemia. But despite her challenges she chose to live life to the fullest and was always so sweet and kind. She was also one of the most talented nail and makeup artist I have ever had the pleasure to watch. I was so very sad to hear this news yesterday and I hope that her family can find peace though this difficult time. 

The wonderful Nicole from Nail Polish Wars mentioned that the last photo Talia posted on her instagram was 4 days ago and it was of a mint green cream mani. (the polish was POP Nailglam Mint Magic.) She came up with the idea that a bunch of us should ban together and post our own mint manis this coming Friday for Talia. I think this is a great idea! 

The hashtag for the mint manis will be #mintmanisfortaliajoy

If you want to participate with everyone and link your blog up through inlinkz head over to her page HERE and she has the inlinkz code posted there. 

Sending many thoughts, prayers, and hugs to Talia's family and friends through this sad and tragic time. And many thanks to Nicole for coming up with a great way to honor Talia Joy's memory. 

Thanks so much guys. I can't wait to see everyone's mint manis on Friday. :) 

Let's get cartoon-y!

Hi chickies,

Happy Monday!! Or not so happy I should say. What is it about Mondays that just make me so irritated?! Maybe it the heat, it's been a pretty warm summer with temps in the 90's more often then not. I think its like 91 here today. Suppose I can't complain too much though I'm definitely a warm weather person... me and the winter just AREN'T friends. I mean seriously who wants to get dressed in 123785904 layers just to go outside in miserable weather and STILL freeze? Yeah I'll take this any day! lol! Anyways not that my little rant session is over I'm out of work and back to my nails and I hope you guys like what I've got on my little nubblins. ;)

I'm a little late to the cartoon nail party but hey... like I always say better late then never! 

To do these cute cartoon nails I started with a base of Wet n Wild Black Creme and then painted a ruffian in China Glaze Flying Dragon. I love this polish so much! It's a neon purple with tiny purple and blue glitters in it. Then I took Wet n Wild Black Creme again and did a black tip. I took my nail art brush and fixed the lines after wards. Then with my nail art brush I took some white acrylic paint and did a small line following the curve of my nail thicker at the top and tapering at the bottom and one small white dot after that to give it that cartoon "shine". Finally I added NYC Matte Me Crazy, a matte top coat to get my final result! Check them out :) 

I love how you can really see the glittery goodness of China Glaze Flying Dragon when it's mattified! But incase you don't like the matte look I included one shiny below that just has a coat of Poshe top coat. 

I loved this shiny too but I think the matte just brings it all together and solidifies the "cartoon" look! Which way do you like it better? Make sure you let me know in the comments! 

Oh and hey!! I just got on bloglovin'! Again... late to the party -_- But make sure you guys follow me there, and maybe help me struggle to figure it out lol!! See you there guys! ;) 
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I hope you guys have a lovely Monday and rest of the week :) 

Will you glow with me?

Hey chickies!

Happy weekend!! I hope you all had a lovely polish-filled week ;) Sometimes I love the work week.... well only when I get some nail mail! This week I finally bought my first Serum No. 5 polish! I mean finally right? Earlier in the week I saw Dayglow reviewed on a few blogs floating around the blogosphere and just fell in love. Dayglow is a glow in the dark polish and can I just say wow? This baby is BRIGHT! Like get your sunglasses on boys and girls ;)

Below is two coats of Serum No. 5 Dayglow over two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls. I like to put it over white because it will save you polish... and that's precious!! Then I stamped over it with L.A Colors striping polish in black. Oh yeah, Dayglow dries a little gritty which is actually pretty cool, but if you love that smooth polish look and feel then top coat is a must! 

Look at the glow!!!! B) 

Do your eyes hurt yet?!

I LOVE the lightning bolt design! And I think it looks so cool when it's glowing in the dark. I originally wanted to stamp a little devil on my thumb and ring but the poor little guy just didn't want to come off the stamping plate :( Don't ask me who the cute little guy is on now... not sure exactly what it is. But he's sure cute right? 

So what do you guys think? Are glow in the dark polishes bad ass or what? Last night when I turned the lights off to go to sleep I literally stared at my nails for a good half hour haha! Distracting? I think so!