Valentine's day gift from the Born Pretty Store!

Quick post to let you all know about the neat promotion going on at  the Born Pretty Store starting today!

all orders place between the 20th and the 24th will receive a FREE crystal infinity ring and if you spend over $15 dollars, you will also get an extra free jewelry item (that they will pick for you).

You can stock up on your favorite nail art goodies, pick up a few specialty polishes, and even score some cute accessories! everything ships for free! and to make your money go even further, feel free to use my coupon code when you check out :D

Here are a few items I've got my eyes on!

(you can click the picture to be taken to the product page)

3D bow stickers

Tiny metal decals

Mohair loop scarf

Hello Kitty key necklace

Until next time ^_^

Velvety Party Mani

Hello everyone
Today I am going to show you my New Years Eve nails :D
I received a flocking powder kit from the Born Pretty Store to review and thought a nice night out like New Years Eve would be the perfect time to rock such a neat textured nail!

The item I received is the fun flocking powder manicure kit in blue (you can click the link to get your own!) and it retails for $7.99
With the kit you get this massive jar of manicure grade flocking powder, a large pair of tweezers to pick up the stuff, and a little brush for clean up so it's a very good deal!

Unlike the flocking powder you can get at Micheal's or other craft stores, this one is really fine and creates velvety nails. No furry nails here!

Here is my first attempt with the flocking powder kit:

It was actually really simple to do, surprisingly. 

1. You have to find a polish that is close to the shade of powder you have (I used Barry M in Indigo)
2. Apply a thin coat of polish on each nail, let it dry                                                                                                                                                       !Do the rest of these steps on 1 finger at a time!                                                                                                                                    
3. Apply a thicker coat of polish, don't worry if it isn't perfect, just make sure your whole nail is covered in wet polish
4. Immediately dip your nail into the jar of flocking powder, or use the tweezer to pick up the powder and drop it on to your nail
5. Make sure the entire nail is covered in flocking powder and using your other hand apply a light pressure all over the nail
6. Wait a minute or 2 and brush off the excess powder back into the jar
7. When both of your hands are done, use a moistened towel to remove any powder that is still on your skin

here is what my little set up looked like

The powder does get everywhere so make sure to do this over a paper towel or a sheet of paper...

This manicure was seriously easy peasy!

Since I would be wearing these on New Years, I decided to add a couple of rhinestones... That, my dear friends, was much harder. 

I applied a drop of clear polish to the back of my rhinestone, but as soon as I placed it on my nail, the flocking powder absorbed it all away!

I did eventually manage to get them on there but it required a little bit more clear polish than usual and I also had to apply pressure on each stone until it was dry... 

It was more time consuming than I had anticipated but I really liked the contrast of matte velvety nails and shiny rhinestones!

I took this picture the day after I did them...

This highlights one of the flaws of the velvet mani... fuzzies fuzzies everywhere!

I tried to pick them out but they just kept coming back! Short of using a lint roller on my nails, I'm not really sure how one would get rid of these... 

So the velvet mani is a great and easy way to make your hands stand out, but they're more a of one night deal. After the fuzzy stage, you get to the matted stage. Basically after you get them wet a couple of times, the velvet stuff starts to wear off. It starts to resemble suede more than velvet. 

So if you are looking for a really fun short term mani, I would totally give flocking powder a try :D

Also, because the Born Pretty Store is super awesome, they have given my readers a special code that you can use to get 10% off your purchase of anything on their website. It is HYL91 and if you ever need to find it again, the code is also located on my sidebar!

Have you ever tried flocking powder? what did you think of it?

Until next time ^_^

*The product in this post was provided to me for honest review. Please see my disclosure policy for more information*

Color Wave Fiesta!

Hi everyone!

I miss blogging. I really do. Time has become such a precious commodity since school started. It's been hard to find the time to paint my nails, much less post about it. I am sorry I haven't been around as much, but I am sure that you can all understand :) Im not going to promise to post once a week because I have no idea if I will be able to do that but I will try to pop in once in a while. Quality over quantity!

I know it's Halloween time and most posts right now have something to do with Halloween manis so if you are looking for that, feel free to take a gander at my previous posts : Monsters Inc, Halloween on Purpose, and Halloween Ruffian.

Today, I wanted to show you all this pretty stripey mani I made using only the China Glaze electropop collection.

Zig-zag stripes are not as easy to do as I thought they would be! This really reminds me of the Fiestas we used to have in High School Spanish class. Pinata, anyone?

Have you ever made a mani using polishes from only 1 collection?

Until next time ^_^

So mod by Sally Hansen

More nail stickers! This time they are polish bases which males application and removal a bit easier than nail shields. However wear time is not nearly as good. My Jamberry shields held up nicely for 2 whole weeks but these Sally Hansen nail strips don't usually make it more than a week for me. By the end there is just too much tip-wear...
However I really enjoy all of  these nail sticker things. They're convenient and come in a multitude of colors and patterns. This is the mod design by Sally Hansen. Perfect for my mini trip to South Carolina!

Jamberry nail shields- Blue Damask

So we ended up leaving for our vacation a day early... Which is why I never uploaded my holiday mani! I actually ended up finishing it up in the hotel room that night.

Well here it is, better late than never:

Since we were going to be gone for 2 weeks, I decided against traditional polish that would just chip and need constant attention. I leave that for my regular routine. On this trip, I didn't want to worry about how my nails would look.
Lucky for me, I recently won a sheet of Jamberry Nails. These are not something I would usually buy for myself. They are $15 and since I like to change my polish so often, it just isn't worth it. Usually anyhow... For this trip, they were perfect!

They are a little trickier to apply than regular nail polish strips. You have to heat them up with a hair dryer in order for the adhesive to work. I don't know if you have ever held your hand in front of a hot hairdryer, but it really isn't the most pleasant thing. Filing the edge down the my tips was not super easy either since the nail shields are a little thicker than nail polish.

However, the mild hassle of putting these on was worth it in my opinion. They lasted my entire vacation. Not one of them came off and no chips!

I think they were actually good for my nails too. When I got home and took them off, my nails looked healthy, strong, and were longer than I ever managed to get them before!

Removal is also a little tricky but, well worth it. The yellow from my nails is completely gone :D I guess they just needed a little polish break...

So after 2 weeks, this is what most of my nails looked like. They were a bit grown out but nothing too troubling

However my index, on both hands, took quite a beating as you can see above. It was a little annoying having a few pieces of plastic hanging off my nail but I just used some manicure scissors and my file to smooth them down.

So Jamberry nail shields? Love them! they last longer than polish strips and you get more in each pack. I have enough left over to do another mani or maybe even my toes. If you're headed on a long vacation, I totally recommend reaching for these.

What do you prefer, nail shields, polish strips, or good ole' nail polish when you head out of town?

Until next time ^_^

Ombre Stripes

Week 23 of the Year of Polish challenge- Ombre Mani

I saw a mani very similar to this on Tumblr not too long ago and thought it would make a nice alternative to the normal Ombre manis

Plus, as you have probably noticed, I have been in a very colorful mood for a while now so the thought of sticking to different shades of the same color was not very exciting.

This striped ombre was very easy to do and it is a nice alternative for nail-fanatics who just do not happen to have 5 complementing shades of polish!

Sally Hansen in White On

YELLOW

Sally Hansen in Yellow Kitty

Orly in Spark

China Glaze in Solar Power

PURPLE

China Glaze in Agent Lavender

Fresh Paint in Blackberry Smoothie

China Glaze in Grape Pop

GREEN

China Glaze in Refresh-mint

China Glaze in Gaga for Green

Zoya in Envy

BLUE

China Glaze in Kinetic Candy

Sally Hansen in Brisk Blue

Barry M in Indigo

PINK

SinfulColors in Pink Forever

NYC in Pink Promenade Creme (old version)

China Glaze in Fuchsia Fanatic

A nice white base and paint on a stripe of each color. Add a topcoat to blend everything nicely and bam! A stripey rainbow!

Alrighty then! I'll be leaving for a summer vacation on Sunday so I will be taking a little break from posting. I'll try and log on to show you what my vacation mani looks like first though :) I'm planning on using some Jamberry Nail shields since they last for so long!

Until next time ^_^

Paint Splatters!

Last week's theme for the Year of Polish challenge was a splatter mani. Since I just made a true splatter mani for the earth day theme, I thought I would take a different spin on this one by making "controlled" splatters.

Instead of splattering by putting polish on by blowing with a straw, I created some paint splatters using a dotting tool.
The polishes I uses were inspired by Jenna Froggy. When I saw her splatter mani using metallic polishes I knew I had to try it as well :D

Wet N Wild in Black Creme

KleanColor in Metallic Green

KleanColor in Metallic Yellow

KleanColor in Metallic Fuschia

KleanColor in Metallic Pink

Orly in Sweet Peacock 

My splatters did not end up looking especially splattery. Some of them look  more like flowers no? but I loved the colors!

Until next time ^_^

Fruit Salad Smoothie Nails

Today I'll be showing you the summeriest of manicures ever created! Just kidding! but it is really bright and happy

Week 21 of the Year of Polish challenge had the theme: Fruit Mani
I received some fimo fruit slices from a super neat friend of mine and had yet to use them so I decided to take this opportunity to try them out

First of all, I love these little slices. They are so tiny and cute! You can buy fimo-fruit by the stick and cut each slice yourself, or for a little more money, you can purchase them pre-sliced! You can find these on ebay as well as at Sally's

I started with a brightly colored drip mani, added some glitter, and found some contrasting fruits to stick on

Orly in Spark

China Glaze in Aqua Baby

Sally Hansen in Coral Reef

Orly in Green Apple

Color Club in Pucci-licious

Art Deco in Silver Glitter

Fimo fruit from Sally's

I opted against adding a topcoat over the fruit. First of all, I knew I would not be wearing it very long since I am behind on the challenge, but also because I think they look prettier when they are not completely flat against the nail. 

However, their lack of flatness did become a problem. They kept getting stuck in my hair and while watching a movie, I did peel a few of them off... but I saved those and now I can reuse them! silver  lining eh?

I still really like the way this looked. I would re-do this mani for a nice summer pool party or barbecue! 

Does it bother you when things hang off of your nails?

Until next time ^_^

Pink and Glittery with Bows- The Girly Nails

Hello!

I've fallen behind on my Year of polish challenge >_< sorry about that!

I have a day off from lab tomorrow so I will see what I can do about that :)

Today, I have for you a mani I did some weeks ago. I was lacking in creativity and while perusing through my drawer of nail art accessories, I picked up a nice little sheet of nail stickers. 

To keep the nails from looking too busy, I picked a simple color and added a bit o' gold to it!

China Glaze in Strawberry Fields

Revlon on Gold Coin

Nail stickers from Ebay

What do you think of nail stickers? do they help you when you are in a rut?

Until next time ^_^

MyGlam bags and May Birchbox

So I just realized that I have not been updating my Glam bag posts! The last one I posted was in February... shame on me! So I'm going to catch up in one post. Here's a quick and dirty run-down of the past 3 Glam Bags

March Glam Bag

March's theme was "Repair and Restore". We received a DermStore care package with sample of Murad's Eye Lift Perfector, PurLisse's Essential Moisturizer, and a $25 coupon for DermStore. We also received a sample of Keracolor Color Enhancing Leave-in, and a MyGlam brush case and crease brush. Also each bag contained either 3Lab Perfect cleansing foam, PurLisse pure lip comfort, or Murad's absolute bronzing boost. My bag contained the full size PureLisse pure lip comfort which is really nice.

There were some complaints that the bag and the brush case smelled chemically, and they did. However, a few days of airing out and they were fine. The quality of the crease brush is also very good. From what I can tell it is made of natural hairs, which is awesome. 

Overall, not the greatest Glam bag but still pretty good!

April Glam Bag

April's theme was "Girl's Night Out" and our bags were filled with items that we could use to create a very nice party look. I received Urban Decay's 24/7 glide on eye pencil in Junkie, which is a shimmery golden teal color. I loved it so much that I bought the rest of the "electric" collection from Urbandecay.com. This eyeliner is soft and really does glide on like butter! but after a few minutes, it dries and become smudge-proof, best of both worlds my friends :)

We also received DermStore's new Lip Quench which is a plumping lipgloss but without that stinging feeling all those other plumpers have. It is also really nice. Along with that each bag contained a pair of lashes from All-Belle and an eyeshadow and eyeliner brush.

May Glam Bag

Finally we have May's Glam bag with the theme "Love is in the Air!". This bag contained a sample of the new perfume by Philosophy "love sweet love" along with some glittery nail stickers, a Studio Gear lipstick, and the 2 last brushes for our MyGlam case: a concealer and a eyeliner definer brush. I'm not sure how an eyeliner definer brush is used though... it looks more like a lip brush to me...
Overall, not as good as April's but still pretty banging for $10!!

Lastly, I've also joined a few other beauty boxes subscription. I joined Beauty Army a couple of months ago because I liked the fact that you could pick out which samples you wanted. Unfortunately, the variety of what they had available was rather disappointing. There were a lot of moisturizers and small packets of eye cream, but nothing I really wanted to try. So after 2 boxes, I canceled my subscription.
Then last month I joined Birchbox since I had heard so many good things about them. This is what I received this month

Aparently Birchbox had teamed up with Gossip Girl to create this box and I couldn't be more thrilled. I looooove Gossip Girl! Since I don't have cable, or reliable local channels, I have to get my fix through Netflix which means waiting until the September for the whole season to be uploaded :(
Anyhow, back to the box! My box came with Algenist's complete eye renewal balm, Color Club in Disco Nap, Dr Jart's waterfuse BB cream, and Ojon volumizing shampoo. Oh and a little note-card :)
Not too bad right? I'm not too thrilled about another eye cream but I will probably just give all of the eye cream samples I have acquired to my mom.

So that is that. Sorry about the massiveness of this entry. It's hard to fit 3 month's worth of stuff into 1 entry but that is my fault for being a slacker right?

What do you think of beauty box subscriptions? Should I keep posting about the ones I received or do you hear about them enough in other places? let me know :)

Until next time ^_^