Friday Favourites

Up until now, I didn’t really have a way to remember my favourite manicures from fellow bloggers. I have saved a few JPEG here and there for future inspiration, but those photos, unfortunately, I don’t know who to give credit to because I didn’t think to at the time!

So here is a new feature that I’m calling Friday Favourites (you get the Canadian/British spelling, no favorite for you Americans, sorry!) I will link to a handful of manicures that I have encountered on various blogs over the past week that have really stood out for me. They may be from old posts or new, stay tuned to find out!

Let Them Have Polish’s Shattered Zoya Sooki – very True Blood-esque, and I can’t help but say Sooook-ay, a la Bill Compton, haha

Chit Chat Nails’ Pink Wednesday Print – I’m drooling over Essie Watermelon here, and the ring finger accent is just gorgeous!

Scandalously Polished’s Yellow Brick Road – I’ve seen this colour around quite a bit and it never did anything for me… BUT these photos make it look so BRIGHT! JUICY! SUMMERY! FUN!

Nihrida’s Clayton My Hero and Irreplaceable comparison – Very unexpected colour from Clayton My Hero, I love it! And after her comparison, Nihrida layers the colours with very nice results.

Let Them Have Polish’s American Eagle colours – I didn’t know that AE sold nail polish, now apparently they do!  It’s too bad that they are unnamed. I love the stamping design that Cristina did on what she calls “Coral Bits”

Liquid Jelly’s Treasure on Sunset Beach – I love this because I’m quite certain that I have all of the colours to recreate the look! I love the extra shimmer and I know that it will look great with a tan.

Fashion Polish’s Something Blue – I keep coming back to this post, that’s the blue I’ve been looking for! Also, I think that I have royal wedding fever

NOTD: The Royal Wedding!

I woke up at 3:45am today to catch the Royal Wedding! I am overjoyed watching all of the festivities. The bride looks stunning, the groom looks dashing, and THE HATS! The hats are so entertaining! It would have been incredible to be there in London while all of this is happening, but watching it live is meeting all of my expectations and I’m thrilled :)

I gave myself this royal wedding-themed mani last night… London Butter’s No More Waity, Katie and a Union Jack accent on my ring finger, plus a stamped crown on my thumb :)

The Union Jack is a litle bit wobbly, I'm sure that I could have made it crisper if I taped it off, but I was impatient! Still, I like that it looks like it's done by hand :)

The stamp is done with one of the new Bundle Monster plates (I just recieved them yesterday) and I accented the tips with glitter from Only Gold for Me.

Did you watch the wedding? Do you have a themed mani to share? Post a link I would love to see!

Hayley

NOTD: Striped Shatter Manicure

I got around to trying a look that I had admired in a few blogs… First striping some colours on the nails and then applying Black Shatter and of course a gorgeous glossy top coat! This was actually my first time using my shatter, I’ve been intimidated to use it for some reason. I'm so glad that I finally took the plunge, the colours peek out just enough to make me LOVE this look!

For the stripes I used Sally Hansen X-Treme Wear Mint Sorbet, The Real Teal and Cobalt Seas (l-r).

Everything applied really nicely. I free-handed the stripes and I was impressed with how well I did! The shatter covered up a few minor slip-ups, but I would have worn the mani without the shatter, too. I just forgot to take a picture before hand, oops :)

Thanks for reading!

Hayley

Latest Haul

Sherway Gardens is one of my favourite places to shop for nail polish. It’s a mall in the west end of Toronto, and it’s about a 40 minute drive from my house. There is a Holt Renfrew (there I can get Deborah Lippmann, London Butter and Chanel), SoHo Salon and Spa (Full Zoya display, buy 1 get 1 half off this week!), Trade Secrets (O.P.I., Essie, Zoya), Sephora ($O.P.I.), Shoppers Drug Mart (Sally Hansen, Revlon, Nicole by O.P.I., etc), and a few other salons too!

I went on Saturday and did my round of the mall, I was really happy with what I picked up! Here it is:

Zoya Sunshine Collection! Rica, Faye <3 and Tanzy

Clearance from the Intimate collection, Marley, Gemma and Jules ($6 ea, down from $10)

Mod Mattes: Phoebe and Mitzi. I opted not to get Lolly, but now I’m reconsidering!

Tiffany and Roxy from the regular collection. Tiffany looks like it could fit perfectly in with the Summer Sunshines!

No More Waity, Katie <3 I'll wear this when I watch the Royal Wedding on Friday!

Thanks for reading,

Hayley

NOTD: I did it!

I did a full set of monarch nails!

And by full set, I mean a half set (haha, you can’t see my right hand!)… regardless, I LOVE the result!

The base is Nicole by O.P.I.’s Hint of Mint, which is a sheer light mint. I used four coats, and there was still a bit of a VNL. That hasn’t been a big deal for me since my nail length doesn’t go much past my fingertips.

And just for fun, here’s Chloe checking out my mani ;)

Hayley

NOTD: Monarch Butterfly

I’ve loved this nail art design since I read Deez Nailz' tutorial, I had to try it myself! I wasn’t confident enough to create consistent designs on all of my nails (didn’t even ATTEMPT painting on my dominant hand’s nails!) so I just went with the ring finger. I’m pleased with the result!

I started off with two layers of Zoya’s Lulu and added sparkle by applying BB Couture Pina Colada. The result was a light shimmery peach shade.

Next time I will go for a brighter colour and try to attempt doing all of my nails… if I am successful there will be pictures :)

Hayley :)

Wish list!

First off, thanks for the heads up, Natalie’s Nails; The new Bundle Monster stamping plates are available now! $21.99 for 25 plates? Yes please! With shipping it came to $25.99 for me, that’s practically a dollar a plate, amazing. Would someone mind explaining the difference between Bundle Monster and Konad to me? Why are Konad plates so much more expensive? I haven’t tried BM plates yet, but I’ve been swept up in the excitement about the new set getting released. If everyone is talking about them, they must be good, right?! :)

http://www.bundlemonster.com/

 I’m a little worried about the next month or so, there are so many polishes that I want to get my hands on, and my bank account is going to suffer! I am looking forward to the OPI Pirates of the Caribbean collection, especially the silver crackle (swoon) I need to see some more swatches before choosing which to get (or see them in person!), but right now I’m leaning towards Stranger than Tides, Mermaid Tears, and Planks a Lot. Not that I need another purple polish… haha



 



Skull & Glossbones, Stranger Tides, Mermaids Tears, Steady As She Rose, Sparrow Me the Drama, and Planks a Lot

Based on the photos I’ve seen, I really like the OPI Serena Williams Grand Slam! duo sets that are coming out. I’m not crazy about the white and red shatters, but Rally Pretty Pink looks stunning!



ALSO: Sweet Sugar is celebrating 500 followers with a giveaway! Visit her blog to see the goodies up for grabs... I love the Essence polishes! Good luck!

I will have a new NOTD up soon, thanks for reading :)

Hayley





Rally Pretty Pink

NOTD: Hue Left A Message?

I haven’t posted in a week, BUT I’ve still been doing my nails! :) Sally has a Buy 2 Get 1 Free sale, I’m quite certain I’ve got 9 bottles in the past few weeks! Some ORLYs, Finger Paints, and of course, China Glazes. It’s been a great time to get some essentials in my collection.

Here is Finger Paint’s Hue Left a Message. It goes on quite thick and gooey, which I was not a fan of. Regardless, with only 2 coats I had some opaque, beautiful pink GLITTER!

For a glitter polish, it’s actually strangely quite subtle. It didn’t feel like my nails were blindly shining, and I love the colour. Still work appropriate, an overall pretty girly shade.

Thanks for reading!

Hayley

Polish storage

My nail polish collection has grown significantly in the past 2 months since becoming exposed to so much inspiration and knowledge through the blogging community. I needed better storage than the shoebox I used to rely on! I wanted more space, to have my polish on display, and the colours to be easily visible. Plus I didn’t want to spend a whole lot of moola (I’d rather put that towards more polish!)

 

Solution: I typed DIY Nail Polish rack into You Tube and low and behold this amazing storage rack plus tutorial by LovinBeautyNStyle. The tutorial is easy to follow and the rack was inexpensive (under $5) and easy to make. Mine holds 73 bottles. Here are some more pics!

Mine took about 90 minutes to make, or 3 episodes of Parks and Recreation (lol). I changed the design from the tutorial slightly by adding triangles to each side so that the polishes don’t slide off (look at the last photo). As you can see, the rack is full and I need to make another one soon! I have polishes waiting, still sitting in that darn shoebox. Haha. I have a feeling this may be a trend – build a rack, fill it, build a rack, fill it, ...  

Hayley

NOTD: Monochromatic Leopard Print

This is the second time I’ve rocked this mani. I stamped China Glaze C-C-Courage over Nicole by O.P.I. Miss Independent (awesome metallic pinky-purple, btw) using the leopard print on m57 and finished it with China Glaze TC.

 Miss Independent is very overpowering in this combination, and C-C-Courage doesn’t stamp with a lot of intensity of colour… BUT I love it still! Leopard prints usually come off as very powerful and loud to me (not necessarily bad!) This design is more subtle and I like seeing the softer leopard print. Added bonus: you can’t see my Konad stamping errors! Woo! 

The print was difficult to photograph. Depending on the light sometimes it really stands out and other times it’s not visible.

Thanks for reading!

Hayley

Giveaways!

This one is almost up! Three more days to celebrate 100 followers at Life and Polish, even though there are currently 348! Amazing what a giveaway can do for your follower count, eh?! Enter to win China Glaze’s Island Escape collection!!

You still have a lot of time for Gilded Nails' April giveaway which features two BB Coutures polishes - Love Bug and Daisy Dweller. Good luck on both giveaways!!!

NOTD: Call Me Irresponsible

I did my first Deborah Lippmann manicure yesterday. LOVE. Great polish application, check. Beautiful colour, check. Durable, check. Attracted compliments, check! I am a big fan of purple polish, various purples take up about a fifth of my collection. Call Me Irresponsible is the most red-toned purple that I have, although the bottle looks more blue-toned, hmm.

I also feel that this was my neatest application of polish ever. I was steady with both my right AND left hand (go me!), going to the edge of each nail and making a nice line along my cuticle. I am proud of myself :)

I added a neat effect top coat this morning on top of yesterday’s mani. I really liked the results.

 Funky Fingers Bourbon St + Deborah Lippmann Call Me Irresponsible =

I love this look! Bourbon St really brought out the redness in Call Me Irresponsible. The undertone turned into more of a pinky-mauve. There were gold, green and purple shimmer reflections depending on the light. I’m eager to try Bourbon St over more colours!


While at the grocery store I saw this for $4. Easy YES!

Joe Fresh Twilight

I haven't seen flakes mixed with a colour before. I tested it on some cardstock, and the black base seems to be jelly-like. I will need to try this out soon!

I would like to mention a wonderful experience that I had a nail polish/Konad retail shop yesterday. You may already follow Wow Wow Nails. If you are ever in Toronto be sure to visit their shop! They carry O.P.I., China Glaze and Nubar lacquers, as well as Konad special polishes, kits, and tons of image plates. Nina was super sweet and gave me a helpful Konad demo (now I know why my stamps weren't turning out so clear!) You can also request polishes and they see what they can do to get them (that's how I got Nubar 2010). Their Markham location carries more polishes than the Toronto location, but both are worth the visit. I will be back again!


Hayley

Mixed bag

I left off my last post with a picture of French manicure stickers. I had plans to do a really cute reverse French manicure following this video tutorial by Nails by Asami. I wanted to redo a mani I did a few weeks ago using Zara’s Maya for the half-moon and Lulu for the rest of the nail. I loved the colour combo BUT (before seeingthe tutorial) I free styled the half-moons and they turned out streaky, uneven and horrible. Asami’s tutorial has helpful instructions, so I decided to follow her method:

Start off by covering the entire nail with the colour that you want the half-moon to be. Let dry completely. Put French tip stickers at the base of the nail and apply top colour over the rest of the nail. When dry, remove stickers and voila!

 It looks alright in this photo, but I hated it so much that I removed it before going to work the next morning (and was almost late. Oops). I still love the video tutorial and I will try again, the errors I made were all mine. Here is where I went wrong:

1. The stickers didn’t have enough curve to them and the half-moons were too broad for my liking

2. I removed the stickers too early resulting in some uneven lines. My bad.

3. The colours. I loved them the first time I tried this mani, when I painted the darker Maya (coral) over the lighter Lulu (peach). Following the tutorial, I needed to put Lulu over Maya. I needed 4 coats of Lulu to make it opaque, and even then it mixed with Maya to create a strange coraly-pink… I hated it. It reminded me of an ugly dress I had when I was a kid in the 80s. blahhh. Coral on peach = yes, peach on coral = no. Look at my photo to see how Lulu changed from in the bottle to on my nails.

4. By the end of it all, I was wearing 8 layers of polish and I don’t like the thick feeling.

Off it went. I slopped on Sally Hanson Insta Dry top coat on my bare nails and sped to work. Hah.

In other news, I picked up some new polishes. Happy happy happy

LA Girl Habit and Extreme. I've never tried this brand before and haven't seen many reviews or swatches online either. Regardless, the purple and blue both have gold shimmer and I couldn't pass them up! 

 Funky Fingers Bourbon St. I just tested this on a scrap of cardstock, I am excited to put it to my nails! It has hints of gold, copper and green. So pretty.

 China Glaze Snow Globe, C-C-Courage and Good Witch. I love that older collections are still hanging around places. It's like finding treasure when you come across them!

Finally, Manicure Addict, one of my favourite bloggers, is celebrating her 100^th post (!) and is having a giveaway!! Woooo balloons, streamers, confetti!!! One of the prizes is the ever-coveted Hidden Treasure. One day, this will be mine. Drool. Here are the other goodies she is giving away:

Thanks for reading!

Hayley