Swirling around in candy cane dreams

Hope all of you polish addicts got to take some time to rest and enjoy some time with friends and family. I know I did! As we end this year and start onto the next, I would like to thank each of you for continuing to read my posts! It has been a little over a year and I still love blogging as much, or even more, than when I first started. Today's design is a water marbled candy cane mani, which I hope you enjoy. I used Sally Hansen White On and Wet N' Wild Red Red for this mani. Have a wonderful new years. 

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Festive Cheer

Here is todays gradient Friday. Sorry it is a bit late, but things have been pretty busy here with Christmas just around the corner! I did a simple layer gradient using China Glaze Ring in the Red. I topped it off with China Glaze Snow Globe (my new addiction!) to give it a more festive look. 2 more days until Christmas! I am so excited!

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Festive decorations

For this festive design, I used 3 medium coats of SpaRitual Illume, which is a blurple cream polish. The formulation for this was quite runny and hard to work with, which was disappointing because it is such a pretty color. You should probably use 4 coats if you want it to be opaque or wait longer in between coats as the formulation is quite sheer. I was too impatient so I only used 3 and waited not very long in between coats. Next, I used China Glaze Harmony to stamp on a design using my BM plate. This design reminds me a lot of the shiny decoration balls you hang on Christmas trees and I really liked it. Harmony stamps wonderfully and I sealed my mani off with a coat of Seche Vite.

Hope the holidays are treating you well!

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Glittery Snowflakes

There is less than a week until Christmas day so I am going to try and fit in as many festive designs as possible. I wanted to do something glittery and fun with snowflakes so I decided to try for some glitter tips. I used some bright light blue fine glitter that I bought from Michaels for this look. I painted my tips with clear polish and then dipped each nail into the glitter. I lightly brushed the glitter with a fan brush to get rid of the excess. Next, I layered on China Glaze Snow Globe to give it a falling snow kind of look. I used OPI Catch me in Your Net on my pinky as an accent finger. To finish off my look, I stamped on snowflakes using BM plates. I sealed it all off with a coat of Seche Vite for some extra shine.

Now if it will really snow here, it would be perfect…what would your perfect Christmas look like polish addicts?

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China Glaze Eye Candy

From left to right: Love Marilyn / Marry a Millionaire / Material Girl / Some like it haute / Lorelei's Tiara

Missing from nail wheel: Blonde Bombshell

Love Marilyn: Red glitter polish with red fine glitter and small silver hexagonal glitter

Marry a Millionaire: fine light purple glitter polish mixed with gold, green, and light purple tinsel glitter

Material Girl: pink glitter polish with pink fine and hexagonal glitter

Some like it haute: Dark blue glitter polish with blue fine glitter and holographic hexagonal glitter

Lorelei's Tiara: Silver glitter polish with silver fine glitter and blue hexagonal glitter

The formulation on these China Glaze polishes were great. It only took 2 coats for each of them to be fully opaque and the glitter was quite dense. These are super festive and I am happy to add them to my collection! I have already used them for gradient designs here and here. If you are a glitter lover, I would pick up this set. My favourites from this set are Material Girl and Lorelei's Tiara.

Polishes were sent to me for review. All opinions are my own.

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Festive Green Gradient Friday

The holidays are near, so I decided to try a festive green gradient Friday. I used one coat of Nubar Earth as my base color. It is a pretty shimmery teal green with teal sparkles and applied well. Next, I sponged on Essence Lime up! on my tips. Finally, I blended this manicure together using China Glaze He's going in circles, which is a light green holographic polish. I added some dots on the tips using Wet n' Wild Red Red and Sally Hansen White On. I stamped 2 festive bows on using fauxnad plate m59.

Hope this starts off your holidays with a smile!

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Polished Style: Studded

I am very excited to announce a new feature on my blog in which I will be collaborating with my friend Jen from herwaisechoice. She runs a very stylish fashion blog and her outfits are always styled impeccably. This feature will show you the pieces the manicure was inspired by, how the nail design can be worn in real life, and tutorials on how to create it yourself! I hope you will enjoy this feature as we are having lots of fun doing this! As all of you polish addicts know, your manicure is a great way to accessorize your outfit, so we are happy that we will hopefully be able to give you some ideas to do this. 

From left to right: OPI Black Onyx / Martha Steward microbeads in Florentine gold / Borghese Base & Top Coat

The look is pretty simple yet stunning. Here is a step by step tutorial.

Prep: Start off by painting your fingers with a black base coat. I used 2 coats of OPI Onyx.

1.  Choose an accent finger. Use a top coat (preferably not quick drying) and brush a thin layer on top.

2. While the polish is still wet, use tweezers (or an orange stick with a bit of clear polish at the end) and place the microbeads in a straight line down the middle of the nail.

3. Once you have your middle line in place, you can add either 1 or 2 lines on each side, depending on your preference. Alternate the beads and place each new bead beside but between two other beads. If you do this line by line, you will get the best result!

Seal this all off with a top coat and you are done! Easy right?

Hope you enjoyed week 1 of Polished Style. There will be more to come in the near future! For more clothing pairing options and everything fashion related, visit my friend Jen! Any suggestions for future posts are always welcomed. 

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Dark Brown Sparkle

Here are some swatches for the base color I used from last Friday’s gradient. Glitter Gal Dark Brown Sparkle is a stunning chocolate brown holographic polish that applied very smoothly. It was opaque in 2 coats and adding a top coat doesn’t diminish the awesomeness. This is the first Glitter Gal polish I have tried, and I am happy to say it won’t be the last. This polish is just amazing.

PS – something exciting will be unveiled Thursday! Stay tuned.

Polish was sent to me for review. All opinions are my own.

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Cozy Gradient Friday

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire….
Those lyrics were stuck in my head this week because Christmas songs are playing everywhere. This inspired me to make a warm, cozy, chestnut colored gradient for this Friday, so I hope you like it. I started off with 2 coats of Glitter Gal Dark Brown Sparkle which is a chocolate holographic brown polish. Next, I sponged on Revlon Gold Coin which is a foil gold polish. Lastly, I dabbed on China Glaze Cheers to You on the tips. I blended this in using a coat of China Glaze Snow Globe and sealed it off with CND Super Shiney.

Keep warm everyone!

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The Wyndham Collection

Here is the 2^nd nails inc. special effects overglaze polish set that I picked up from Sephora. This one is called The Wyndham Collection. The base color it comes with is a dark green black polish called Kensington. It applied smoothly and was opaque in 2 coats. The effect polish for this set is obviously called The Wyndham. This effect is a green-blue flakie polish and is oh-so-pretty. I had more success, a few day later, capturing the blue flakies in the sun. I used 2 coats for the flakies and I liked how it looked. Overall these nails inc. sets pleased me as it helped me add some flakies to my collection. Would you pick any of these sets up? 

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Gradient Friday Recap

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The Donmar Collection

Nails Inc. recently came out with some awesome special effects sets, so I stalked my local Sephora until they got them in. This set is called The Donmar Collection. The base color it comes with is called Chelsea, which is a reddish plum black that was opaque in 2 coats and applied very smoothly. The effects is called the donmar, hence the name. The donmar is a reddish-green bronze flakie topcoat and it is gorgeous. It is mesmerizing to look at in the sun. I do not own a flakie polish so I was excited to pick this one up. I only used one coat of this, but you can definitely use more if you want to build the effect up! What are your thoughts on this set? 

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Lady of the Lake

This polish is one of my favourite purple holos of all time. A-England Lady of the Lake is a gorgeous medium purple holographic polish that applied extremely smoothly. It was opaque in 2 coats and the dry time was great. With Christmas coming up, this would be a perfect stocking stuffer or mini present! They offer free shipping worldwide and their site is found here.

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Perplex Passion Gradient

Here is another purple gradient Friday to start off the weekend! For my US readers, Happy Thanksgiving! I started out with 2 coats of Dr.'s Remedy Passion. This is a purplish red shimmer that will probably take 3 coats to be opaque, but since I was doing a gradient, I left it at 2. Formulation was nice and smooth and better than the other shimmer polishes that I tried from their summer collection. Next, I sponged on Revlon Perplex on ¾ of the nail. Following that, I sponged on China Glaze Harmony on the top third of the nail although it is not very noticeable in the pictures. I finished this gradient look with some glitter using China Glaze Marry a Millionaire. This polish is packed with fine light purple glitter as a base then mixed with gold, green, and light purple tinsel glitter. I topped this manicure off with a coat of Seche Vite for added shine. Hope you enjoyed and thanks for dropping by.

Marry a Millionaire and Passion were sent to me for review. All opinions are my own.

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Autumn Allure

Dr.'s Remedy enriched nail polish has, in my opinion, some perfect fall shades in this mini collection. I have said before that they create great basic cream polish shades and these did not disappoint. 

First up is Balance, a vibrant raspberry red polish, which took 2 medium coats to be opaque. The formulation for this one was a bit on the watery side but it was very minor. I stamped over this with Color Club Hot like Lava .

Next up is Deep Red, a burgundy wine red, which also took 2 coats to be opaque. Formulation was good on this one and although it says it is supposed to dry matte, I did not notice the matte effect. This reminds me of cranberries!

Wrapping up this collection is Navy, a dark blue cream polish. It wont win points for creativity in the name, but this is a basic solid navy that everyone should have in their collection. It came to my attention recently that I do not own any dark cream blues sans glitter, so this fit perfectly in my collection (I totally thought OPI Russian Navy did not contain shimmer). Formulation was great on this one and you can get by with 1 thick coat, but I did 2 for the picture.

 This collection impressed me more than I thought it would in terms of color as they truly do remind me of fall. Although these colors are not completely original, they are still good basics to pick up if you do not have any in your collection! Dr.'s Remedy enriched nail polish is a 3 free brand and retails for $17 at their website. However, they have a black Friday and cyber Monday sale coming up this week which allows you to try their polish for $14 and free shipping! You can also look for more info on their facebook and twitter page.

Polishes were sent to me for review. All opinions are my own.

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Foiled

ColorClub Foiled Collection

The formulation on these was good considering they are foil polishes. It took 2 coats for these to be opaque and I'm pretty certain they'll stamp nicely.

From left to right: Lumin-icecent / Foil Me Once / Hot like Lava / Cold Metal / Perfect Mol-ten / Antiquated

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Winter Gradient

To celebrate the first snow fall of winter here, I did a snow inspired gradient Friday! The first flakes of snow paired with listening to Christmas music was definitely a perfect evening. I first painted half my nails with China Glaze Lorelei's Tiara. It is a silver fine glitter based polish with medium blue hexagonal glitter. This was more opaque I thought which was exciting. Next, I used China Glaze Some Like It Haute on my tips while the other color was still wet and blended it in. Some Like It Haute is a silver and black fine glitter based polish with medium holographic hexagonal glitter. This is quite mesmerizing. Finally, I finished this gradient look with 2 coats of CND Effect Sapphire Sparkle to blend all the colors in. A coat of Seche Vite finished off this look and added more shine.

Both of the China Glaze polishes are from their new Eye Candy line and I love them! Lorelei's Tiara reminds me so much of winter. Have a warm and cozy day!

China Glaze polishes were sent to me for review. All opinions are my own.

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Follow me on Glitter

Here is the last color I have from the Nicole by OPI Kardashian Kollection. Follow me on Glitter is a black based sparkle polish with red, green, blue, gold, magenta and silver hexagonal glitter and silver fine glitter. This was surprisingly opaque and only took 2 coats for this result. It dries on the matte side, so use a topcoat for shine! For easier removal, you can use 2 coats of base coat or opt to use one thin coat of black polish underneath. The glitter will be much easier to remove. Those are the four colors I have from this collection. I did not expect to like all of them, but I do! They have a wide range of colors from this collection, so everyone can find a color they enjoy. I would say Khloe Had a Lam-Lam is a must have for me since it is the perfect teal shade. Do you have any must haves from this collection? Let me know! (Sorry for the blue fingers! I had just swatched Listen to Your Momager! and it left a bit of a stain.)

Polish was sent to me for review. All opinions are my own.

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