Very Belated Birthday Manicure

When I say belated, I mean belated. My birthday was back in August. Better late than never I suppose.

I started with Pure Ice Wild Thing, the closest polish I had to my birthstone. On my index and pinky, I have OPI Rainbow Connection. Not only is it colorful, its a dupe for Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday. How perfect?! The glitter on my ring finger is a little less colorful with ICING Glitterati. Some cute cupcakes topped it off with the use of stamping plates BM-H19 and BM-H20.

Essence Cotton Candy and French Glam

I hope you are enjoying your Friday! As you probably know by now, I am obsessed with Essence cosmetics. I own so many of their polishes (nearly an entire drawer in my melmer) and a ton of their makeup. I just love them. So is it really a surprise that today's manicure is all Essence?

A rare peek of my right hand. :) Essence Cotton Candy is a sheer very light pink creme. This is three coats. It has a delicate feel to it, and would be perfect for french manicures. I added French Glam Nail Stickers from Essence to glam this polish up a bit. The stickers are black (some with clear stones) on clear.

Colorful Leopard Print

I'm back! If you want to know why I was gone, see this post. Its too much to summarize again. Oh my goodness, I missed you guys so much! To all of those who stuck with me during my absence, thank you! To those who left, I hope you come back soon. And to those who are new, welcome!

So many of the upcoming posts are old-ish manicures. However, this one is brand new. I hit the blogs for inspiration and ended up wanting to recreate this gorgeous leopard print by Chalkboard Nails. For mine, I used Zoya Pippa, Essence Let's Get Lost, and Sally Hansen Black Out. Leopard print is an easy design, even for the nail art challenged. I love it!

I'm trying out a new watermark technique. Let me know what you think.

Born Pretty Mixed Metal Nail Art Roll Foils Review

I hope you are enjoying your Wednesday! Today I some fun and easy nail art to share with you. Nail Art Roll Foils Glitter Transfer. Gorgeous colors splashed along your nails without the work and cleanup of regular splatters.

Applying these could not be easier. Simply paint your nails with two coats of color. I chose Finger Paints Where Art Renoir?. Dark colors are best. When its almost dry, press a piece of the foil onto the nail shiny side up, rubbing it onto your nail. When you pick it up, some of the foil design should be left on your nails. You can use several different foils on each nail to cover as little or as much as you want. Make sure to topcoat once you are done.

I used two different foils on my nails, both from Born Pretty Store. Numbers 3 and 7 to be specific. A sapphire metallic blue and pink holographic. The colors just pop! And you definitely get your money's worth. This isn't something you use for a couple of manicures, and then its all used up. No, these nail foils can be used for multiple manicures. Each foil comes in a roll that is one inch wide and nearly four feet long. I could not believe how long they were!

These are definitely a must own. Just make sure your polish is nearly dry when you apply the foils. If its too wet, the polish will be pulled up when you remove the foil. Not a good thing to experience, trust me.


The foils come in twenty-seven different colors. The bows (Item ID: 5361) retail for $2.38 on Born Pretty Store. They have a ton of other fun nail art related items as well. Shipping is always free worldwide. You can also use my coupon code AHL91 to save 10% on your order.

Disclosure: The product (bows) in this post were provided to me for consideration. All opinions are mine and honest.

Sunshine and Bows

I hope you are enjoying what is left of your Tuesday, most likely Wednesday by now. I know I've absent recently, but I'm back and ready to blog.

Today, I have a cute design to share with you featuring some 3D nail bows.

Very 3D nail art. I started with China Glaze Lighthouse then added a full nail design with Essence Stamp Me! Black and stamping plate BM-310. Finally with a little nail glue, I added these cute black bows from the  Born Pretty Store. How cute are these?!

The bows come in twelve different colors with a rhinestone in the middle of each. Each set comes with ten bows. The bows stay on well when applied with nail glue. The bows (Item ID: 1675) retail for $2.38 on Born Pretty Store. They have a ton of other fun nail art related items as well. Shipping is always free worldwide. You can also use my coupon code AHL91 to save 10% on your order.

Disclosure: The product (bows) in this post were provided to me for consideration. All opinions are mine and honest.

Spongebob! Born Pretty Stamping Plate Review

I hope you are enjoying your Tuesday! Or what is left of it. I have a very fun stamping plate to share with you today. A Spongebob Squarepants themed plate. I will admit; I am twenty-three years old and I love Spongebob. Its a part of my childhood. I was ten years old when it first aired.

I used each of the designs, except for one in the middle. Eleven designs and only ten fingers. As you can see, the designs are adorable and transfer well. The smudging you see on a couple of fingers is from the polish I used to stamp with, not the plate itself. I used Zoya Pippa as my yellow base and Sally Hansen Black Out as my black stamping polish.

If you like Spongebob, this is a definite must have. It makes a fun manicure!

This particular plate (Item ID: 4936) retails for $2.99 on Born Pretty Store, as well as all other single plates this size. They have a lot of fun designs to add some fun to your nails. Shipping is always free worldwide. You can also use my coupon code AHL91 to save 10% on your order.

Disclosure: The product in this post were provided to me for consideration. All opinions are mine and honest.

Essence Ticket to the Show & Front Row or Backstage?

I hope you are enjoying your Thursday!

Essence Ticket to the Show and Front Row or Backstage? are one of the Colour3 duos. A double ended polish. Ticket to the Show is a black jelly like creme base filled with rainbow shimmer. The shimmer was hard to capture on camera, and rather subtle. Front Row or Backstage? is a grey brown filled with gold flakes. It is the layering polish and while meant to be used over a base, I decided to showcase it on its own. The application on both is perfection. Ticket to the Show is opaque in two coats, while Front Row or Backstage? took three.

Cookies and Creme

I hope you are enjoying your Sunday! Today I am revisiting a polish layering combination I did a little over a year ago. I was inspired by my favorite candy bar to do a Cookies & Creme mani. I simply layered black glitter over a milky white base, as seen in the post I did for it. This time I got a tad more creative.

I did alternating layers of Essie Marshmallow and Love & Beauty Black Knight for five layers total. Jelly, glitter, jelly, glitter, and jelly. I think it gives more depth and reminds me more of candy. 

China Glaze Whirled Away

I hope you are enjoying your Sunday! I was very excited when I saw that a mainstream brand came out with a black and white glitter. They have been extremely popular in the indie polish world. However, this particular one leaves a lot to be desired.

China Glaze Whirled Away is a clear base with black string, large hex, and white extra large hex glitter. The base is thick and the glitter is difficult to place. You do not even see only of the white glitter here because they were so hard to fish out. This is one coat and some fished out pieces over Pure Ice Super Star! and Claire's Lime Yours. If you want black and white glitter, in my opinion, you are better off going the indie route. I plan to.

Love & Beauty Pink Speckled Glitter Over Black

I hope you are enjoying your Wednesday! I recently saw a gorgeous manicure on Pinterest and I had to know what glitter was used. To my surprise, it was something I already owned. They had simply layered it over black.

This is one coat of Love & Beauty Pink Speckled Glitter over a black creme. Pink Speckled Glitter is a sheer pink jelly with iridescent flakies, micro, and small round glitter. All of the glitter is iridescent, not quite holo, but close. I loved it over a pink base, which you can see here, but I am just head over heels seeing it with black.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

I hope you are enjoying your Monday! Today I have my first Christmas design of the season to share with you.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, along with all of the other reindeer! I wish I had done better on getting the shapes even. It was part my hand shaking and part the fan going making the polish too tacky. For my little reindeer I used, China Glaze Mahogany Magic (brown base), Pure Ice Super Star! (white), Sinful Colors Black on Black, Essence Once Upon a Time (red), and Julep Olivia (tan antlers). I took inspiration from Top Coat It.

Autumn Leopard

I hope you are enjoying your Wednesday! Thanksgiving is almost here! For those who celebrate, I hope you have a wonderful day. Hopefully it will involve the people that you love and yummy food.

Today I have a fun nail art design to share with you. Leopard print!

I have honestly never been a big fan of leopard print. But I kept seeing so many pretty nail designs involving the print, so I finally decided to give it a try. This design could not have been easier to create. So simple! I'm still on the fence as to whether I love it yet or not, but it is growing on me.

Since we are well into Autumn, I decided to use colors fitting the season. Essie Head Mistress, Finger Paints Figure of Art, and Love My Nails Black Rage. I'm rather found of the colors; I just wish red didn't turn my skin pink during cleanup.

Head Mistress is part of the Essie Stylenomics Collection and retails for $8. Finger Paints retail for $5.29 at Sally Beauty Supply. Love My Nails retails for $1 at Bari Cosmetics.

Essence Edward's Love

I hope you are enjoying your Wednesday! I have a pretty polish to show you that I picked up last week.

Essence Edward's Love is a black jelly filled with small silver glitter flakes and a sparse shattering of holo glitter. I'm still debating whether its holo or iridescent. Its hard to tell. The application was not up to par with the rest of my polishes. I blame the insane amount of flakes. Though it was not bad. It took two coats to be opaque and cleaned up very well for a black polish with glitter.

The Essence Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn Part 2 Collection is limited edition. They finally hit the US recently. I purchased mine last Friday at Ulta. There is a variety of makeup, including four polishes. I purchased all four at $1.99 each.

Cat's Eyes

I hope you are enjoying your Saturday!

Cat's Eyes designs are everywhere! And I love it! For mine, I followed a tutorial by Kayla Shevonne. I used Beauty UK Black, Pure Ice Wild Thing, Wet n Wild The Gold and the Beautiful, and white acrylic paint. It is a very easy look to achieve, especially following Kayla's tutorial.

The Itsy Bitsy Spider

I hope you are enjoying your Wednesday! Today, I have some cute/creepy spiders to show you.

Wacky Laki did the cutest spiders and I knew I needed to have them on my fingers. I started with two coats of Julep Dendrie, a light gray creme. With a nail art brush and black, I drew on half moons then legs. Finally, red eyes and black pupils with Sinful Colors Sugar Sugar.

Sally Hansen Spun for You with Spiders

I hope you are enjoying your Saturday! If you follow my Facebook page then you know I'm currently in Baton Rouge to see friends. Among the normal things we're doing, we are also going to Gate, a huge Halloween haunted house. So I wanted a themed manicure.

I spiced up Sally Hansen Polish Strips in Spun on You with a little stamping. Using Sinful Colors Black on Black and plate BM13, I stamped spiders on my ring finger and thumb. The strips are easy to apply. This set is left over from last year. So as long as they stay sealed in original packing, they will last. Very good to know because I have another set from last year as well.

Wet n Wild Night Prowl

I hope you are enjoying your Thursday!

Wet n Wild Night Prowl is a black jelly filled with small purple glitter. I am loving black polishes filled with glitter or shimmer. Its dark, but fun at the same time. Plus, I think its a bit less harsh with fair skin. The application with Night Prowl is great. Completely opaque in two coats.