Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day and I have a love/hate relationship. I cannot completely hate a day that gives me an excuse to cover my nails in cute colors and hearts. Who can?

This particular manicure is a Barielle polish explosion. Seriously. All Barielle shades. Six, in fact.

Barielle Enduring (white), Smarty Pants Pink (light pink), Eli's Magic (hot pink), Vivacious (red), Grape Escape (purple), and Black Rose (blackened burgundy).

There is quite a bit going on. Hearts, dots, gradient, and stamping (using plate BM-317).

Barielle Brilliant Colors Collection

I have an awesome Summer collection to share with you today! Normally, I swatch each color separately; however, when I saw this one, I knew I had to do them all together. They just screamed skittles.

The Barielle Brilliant Colors Collections consists of five creme shades perfect for all the Summer days to come.

Barielle Smarty Pants Pink is a bubblegum pink creme. Literally the perfect bubblegum pink. Not too bright, not too pastel. The formula is perfection and opaque in two coats.

Barielle Straight A Coral is a red toned coral creme. I love corals for Spring and Summer! The formula on this one was just as great as the last.

Barielle High Marks Purple is a grape purple creme. Describing the formula will get redundant. I can tell you right now, they were all amazing. High Marks Purple looks a little uneven on my nail, but that is my fault.

Barielle Magna Cum Laude Turquoise is a bright aqua creme. Puts me in the mood for a fun day of playing in the water.

Last, but definitely not least, we have Barielle Head of the Class Green, a seafoam green creme. I cannot say enough how much I love this collection. I wore it for days on my fingers. So many people randomly questioned what polish I had on my nails. It was a big hit!

This collection retails for $8 individually, $25 for the whole set at Barielle.

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

Ulta After Party over black

I hope you are enjoying your Tuesday! I have yet another Ulta brand polish to share with you today.

Ulta After Party is a clear base with micro red/orange, mauve, and silver glitter. On its own its very light; it really pops over black. The glitter disperses evenly and dense in just one coat. It can easily be layered on its own to be opaque.

Ulta nail polish retails for $6 at Ulta, in store and online. They always have a sale, so you never have to pay full price. I got this shade (along with several others) during their recent $2 sale.

Ulta Glitter Gradient

I hope you are enjoying your Tuesday! I have a colorful gradient to share with you using Ulta polishes. 

Ulta Eye Popping Poppy is a red poppy jelly like creme. This is three coats to reach opacity. Pinata-Yada-Yada is a clear base filled with multicolored and multi-size hex glitter. Can you tell I love my multicolored glitters?

Merry Christmas!

I hope you are enjoying your Tuesday! And that you had a Merry Christmas, if you celebrate. Otherwise, Happy Tuesday! I wanted to do nail art for Christmas, but I have been utterly exhausted lately, so I settled for Christmas colored polishes.

Ignore the tip wear and band-aid. I usually take photos within an hour or so of doing my nails. However, I did not remember I needed pictures until the next day after work. By then, I had tip wear and a bandage from a cash register related injury.

For my green, I used Barielle Date Night, a jewel toned emerald shimmer. My accent nail consisted of Essie Head Mistress and As Gold As It Gets. I love this combination! So simple, yet very appropriate for the holiday.

Christmas Stamping

I hope you are enjoying your Sunday! Christmas is getting closer and closer. And the stress is getting worse and worse. But at least my nails are cute. :)

I used only three polishes for my base and stamping. Ulta The Jungle Look (green), Color Club Gingerbread Man (gold), and Love My Nails New Love (red). For my stamped images, I used BM-316 (gift with bow), BM-320 (ornament), BM-321 (tree), and BM14 (bells).

Color Club Gingerbread Man & Holly

I hope you are enjoying your Thursday! I recently got a new camera. I have been playing around with it and trying to see if it is what I want. Obviously, macro shots (close up photography) is a large part of my camera use. I have not perfected taking manicure shots with this camera yet, but decided I needed to start posting them. If anything, seeing them on my blog will hopefully help me figure out tricks to make the pictures better. I purchased a Fujifilm FinePix HS30EXR. The camera is amazing. I am just having trouble getting macro shots in my light box without casting a shadow with the long lens. Also, getting my skin to turn out the right color. If you have any advice, please let me know, whether by comment or email.

Enough of my camera rambling, onto the pictures!

Color Club Gingerbread Man is a light gold foil. The application is perfection and opaque in one coat. It may appear like your basic gold foil, but it does have something special about it. Its scented! It smells like a frosted gingerbread cookie. The scent is very light. Nothing overpowering.

I wanted to make this manicure into something even more Christmas like than gingerbread, so added hollies. Three berries and three leaves. I used stamping plate BM14 and Ulta The Jungle Look. I attempted to stamp red and green on my thumb, but the delicate design dried too much before I could stamp it. So I decided to do green and add the red afterward. I went back with a small dotting tool and Love My Nails New Love to make the holly berries red. I personally love this. Its simple and very easy.

Lex Tuileries

I hope you are enjoying your Wednesday! I need to get myself into the Christmas/Winter spirit with nail art. It does not feel very much like the holiday season. And our weather just recently started to feel like December. Louisiana weather... But I do have a very pretty pink polish to show you today!

Lex Tuileries is a sheer pale pink base filled with orange, red, silver, and purple medium hex plus orange, red, and silver small hex glitter. The sheer base easily builds to be opaque in three coats, while allowing you to see the underlying layers of glitter. The application is perfect. Absolutely gorgeous!

Lex Cosmetics lets you submit an idea for a nail polish. If chosen, it is voted on by you and other polish lovers. If it wins, they will create the polish. How amazing is that?! Each polish retails for $10, with 10% of that donated to a charity.

The story behind Tuileries is: "First, tulips are one of the first signs that spring is really, truly, finally here! Second, they always remind me of my mother..... I would love to have a color that can represent her in every way: in beauty, in color, in her favorite things, and in her uniqueness. My color would be light pinkish-red with glass-like flecks of silver, red, pink, and orange within it to showcase the depth of both tulips and my mother."

Glitter Sprinkled Gold

I hope you are enjoying your Sunday!

Milani Signature Gold topped with Snowman Red Glitter. Signature Gold is a metallic copper gold. Perfect and opaque in one coat. Red Glitter is a clear base filled with red micro glitter. The bottle is shaped like a snowman and they are exclusively sold at Rite-aid this time of year.

Zoya Katherine and Wet n Wild The Gold and the Beautiful

I hope you are enjoying your Friday! I have what I discovered to be a popular manicure to share with you today. I wore this for two days and had an usually large amount of people compliment me on it. Some actually reaching to grab my hand to get a better look.

Zoya Katherine is a sheer eggplant jelly. It starts off very sheer and light colored. As you build it, it grows darker and more opaque with each coat. Four coats to reach opacity for me. In person, there is no visible nail line, completely opaque. This polish is a dream to work with. It does not look or feel thick, even after four coats. Given it is a sheer build-able jelly, the layering possibles are endless.

Wet n Wild The Gold and the Beautiful is a clear base filled with small (almost micro) gold glitter flakes. I absolutely love this polish as a glitter gradient! I am so happy I grabbed it to use. It is perfection. It easily gives solid tips, while also making it easy to fade the glitter out.

I originally planned to wear Katherine alone. I painted it on with a fast dry top coat as my last step. However, I did not give it ample time to dry. I ended up with a few exposed tips from push back, a couple of dents, and smudges. All toward the tip of my nails. I did not want to wear a mangled mani to work, but did not want to take Katherine off either. A glitter gradient was my solution. Before work, I quickly sponged The Gold and the Beautiful on. It saved my manicure and turned out so lovely that I am glad I messed up my polish.

Barielle Carnival Fiesta Collection and Swatches

I hope you enjoyed your Wednesday! The day is nearly over, probably will be over for me by the time I hit publish. Today I have Barielle's new winter collection to share with you. Carnival Fiesta. It consists of five metallic polishes varying between shimmer, frost, and duochrome.

Wanna Samba? is a purple to steel blue duochrome. It even appears teal at certain angles. It has a frost finish and applies opaque in two coats.

Jillian's Jammin' is a bright teal glass fleck that reflects purple at certain angles. The blue/purple duochrome is very strong in the bottle, but not quite as noticeable on the nail. Though it is more visible in person than in photos. The application is great and opaque in two coats. This is my favorite of the collection.

Lindsay's Dancin' is a shimmering red. Every holiday collection needs a red. I love the shimmer in this. Adds something extra. The application is great and opaque in two coats.

Holiday Madness is a metallic light olive green frost. The application is great and opaque in two coats. I love that it is not the typical holiday green. But rather something different.

Rio's Rockin' Bands is a medium purple shimmer. As with the rest, the application is great and opaque in two coats.

All in all, I love this collection! I wish the duochromes was stronger and that Wanna Samba? was a tad less frosty. But its a fun grouping.

Barielle polishes retail for $8 each an sets (including Carnival Fiesta) retail for $25 on their website.

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

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.