Echoes Polish Swatches... Round 2!

Today, I have the final three swatches from my Echoes Polish haul! I ordered a mystery bag as well, which is an awesome bargain. You even get to select your colour preferences when you purchase, and I left a note that I don't really like dark colours. They hit the nail right on the head and picked out 3 awesome shades for me!

This is Life is a Caberet holo polish. Even with my fancy new lightbox, indoor lighting wasn't doing this beauty any justice... so I took it outside!

The holographic shimmer just blew me away. Gorgeous! I didn't have any holos in my collection so I was super excited to see this pinky-red polish in the bag. I think this is two coats... possibly three! (I recommend clicking the pic to enlarge and check it out in all it's sparkly glory!)

I also received a thermal, Fracken, with the mystery bag. It has light pink base tone in heat and room temp, and it darkened a few subtle shades in cold water. I had a hard time capturing the thermal effect, it was pretty subtle. But the shade is gorgeous, soft and shimmery regardless!

This is after dipping my nails in cold water... you can see a hint of the colour change at the tips.

And finally (best for last!) Holo Cow- Look at That Topcoat. This is pure holographic amazingness. I showed it over Spearmint Away, and on it's own on the accent nail. This is two coats. It creates a great linear holo effect and I can't wait to use this to make my favourite shades into holos! It's a beaut and I definitely recommend this one.

Would you ever buy a mystery bag or are you picky about your polishes?

xo Shawna

Neon Tribal Inspired Nails

Happy Sunday everyone! Today I'm excited to share the fun manicure I created that has been in my mind for a while. Tribal (geometric) manicures are remaining a popular trend in the nail art world and I couldn't wait to jump on board. I bought black and white striping paints the other day and I decided I was ready to take on a whole manicure inspired by tribal prints!

For ideas, I googled "Tribal Print" and I had a few ideas already tucked away in my mind. My favourite nails are the design on my right thumb/ left middle finger, and the design on my left thumb/ right index finger!

To create this look, I used:

China Glaze Pool Party 

Finger Paints Hip-Hip-Hue-Ray!

Finger Paints Ch-Art-Coal Black

HK Girl Top Coat

Are you on board with the tribal trend? Which designs are your favourite?

xo Shawna

Twinkie Nail Art Challenge - Nude & Teal Floral Stamped Mani

I decided a few days too late that I would have liked to join the 31 day mani challenge. Luckily I stumbled upon another gem of a nail art challenge, which involves only one mani per week - definitely doable! 

The #twinkienailartchallenge is hosted by @spilledmilknails and @polishedbybeckie on Instagram. The first theme of the month is a teal mani for ovarian cancer awareness. At first I had a different vision involving a dark on light lace stamped mani. The more I thought about it though, the more I decided it was high time to use my princess collection plate 09 from MoYou - the first pattern I fell in love with! 

I decided to pair the delicate rose pattern with a more neutral base, and settled on one of my favourite (ok, only) nudes which is OPI Barefoot in Barcelona. I just love it, it goes on smoothly with a gorgeous creme finish. Rimmel's Do Not Disturb provided the perfect pop of colour and proved to be a great stamping polish too! I'll have to grab more colours from that collection. 

Wanting to be a bit more creative than another full nail stamping mani, I used scotch tape to divide my nail in half on the diagonal. A great tip I found from a defunct blog (Chloe's Nails) suggested sticking the tape to the back of your hand a couple of times so it was less likely to wreck your base (which I let dry super well anyways!). After prepping the stamp, I applied the tape and stamped to minimize the amount of time the tape was on the nail, working one nail at a time. 

I used a liner brush to paint a thin line of the teal polish to make the pattern really stand out. Lastly, I finished with a coat of HK girl top coat. Voila! This was so fun and I am looking forward to the rest of the challenge for more inspiration! 

xo Shawna 

Pastel & Holo Nail Polish Swatches

I was able to get great prices on a few shades I've had my eye on. I had told myself no new polishes until September, so I ended up with a mini haul today! Now the question is - can I wait until October for more? Totally addicted.

I ended up with:

OPI Avoplex cuticle treatment pack 

China Glaze Be More Pacific 

China Glaze Fairy Dust

OPI Mod About You

Minis: Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat and CND Solar Oil

Finger Paints Striping Polish: Ch-art-coal Black & Hip Hip Hue-Ray 

Onto the swatches! 

First up... Mod About You. I was searching for a dupe for my favourite pink polish, panda-monium pink (as seen in my romantic stripes & sparkles mani). 

The formula was a little thick, so after two coats it was mostly opaque but slightly streaky in a few areas. I smoothed it out with a Ciate top coat. I love the colour - I've been wanting a true pastel pink for my collection and this definitely fits the bill. As for a panda-monium pink dupe, it's close but not quite there. PMP has a blue undertone giving it a slight lavender hue. 

Another polish that has been on my list is a Be More Pacific. To be honest the colour didn't draw me at all- this one was all about the name! It's a bit of an inside joke with my fiancé and I. 

I'm not generally attracted to green as a polish shade but I do have a few in my collection. This one was a pleasant surprise! It's a light pastel green even leaning very slightly towards yellow. This would make a great spring colour. The formula applied well, albeit a little sheer. After two coats there was still visible nail line, and after the 3rd coat a few tiny bubbles appeared- so be sure to let this one dry very well between coats! 

Lastly, I've been coveting a holographic top coat. After some research, I found Fairy Dust as the most affordable option. I'd love to get my hands on Cult Nails Mayhem, but it is nearly 4x the cost so this was a great compromise! 

The formula was easy to apply and dried reasonably quickly. Top to bottom: 3 coats, 2 coats, 1 coat (and no coat) over PMP. The pics don't do the sparkle justice at all, but you can get a sense of the density of the glitter. This will go into my regular glitter rotation for sure, especially until I get some proper holographic polishes! 

Top to bottom: nothing, 1 coat, 2 coats, 3 coats. 

Overall, I'm digging all of the new colours despite a few minor formula flaws - they're worth dealing with to me. 

How do you like the pastel polishes? 

xo Shawna 

Purple Ombré Stamped Mani

I was envisioning a purple hued mani when I sat down this afternoon (yay for stat holidays!). I don't actually have a ton of purple shades so I used a base of Essie "Lapiz of Luxury", and used a sponge to create a gradient effect with China Glaza "Grape Juice" and my mini Color Club in neon purple. The Grape Juice has a heavy undertone of silver micro glitter, and the colour effect reminds me of royalty with the sparkly purple ombré!

I used a born pretty store stamping plate (item 6450) with Ciate "Snow Virgin" to create a lacy, almost chain-link, effect. I love the way it turned out!

 I actually attempted double stamping but it just wasn't working out, the black wasn't popping over the deep purple tones. I'll save that for another manicure!

The base for my stamping.

An off-topic question today: what cuticle treatment do you use? Despite regular oil use, mine are a little ragged!

xo Shawna

Gray & Yellow Lace Manicure

Tonight's mani was a quickie! My nails are going to get wrecked tomorrow so I played around with some of my new colours and plates. 

Colours used are NYC in Sidewalkers and Lexington Yellow. The gray had good, smooth coverage in two coats whereas the yellow was three coats and still a little streaky. I used wet n' wild in black creme for the stamping.  I used a born pretty stamping plate (item # 6455) for the lace details. 

I need more practice centering but I really liked the look of the lace down the centre of the nail! 

Hope you like it :)

xo Shawna 

My Nail Polish Organization

I was excited to be able to get out to Ikea today to pick up a Kallax insert for my Expedit shelf. (They recently changed the Expedit line to Kallax - It's slightly thinner and therefore uses less material = more eco conscious). I've been eyeing one since my polish collection started outgrowing my previous storage, shortly after I wrote the post on my polish stash!

It wasn't too difficult to put the unit together, although once I finished I realized I could have gotten use out of my fiancés power drill! Probably best I stayed away from the power tools, though - I'm definitely not handy. 

In the top drawer, I have all my nail art supplies. This consists of: my black & white polishes for stamping, my Ciate caviar beads, rhinestone wheel, nail wraps, nail decals, stamping plates & scrapers, brush set, dotting tool, orange wood cuticle pushers, feathers, files and a few other odds & ends. 

My polish drawer was loosely organized by colour. Base/ top coats and nail treatments in the back! 

There's a few other great storage solutions for polish from Ikea including the Helmer (the gold standard for polish collections, I think!) and the Alex. I would love a Helmer however there is just no where else to cram another storage unit in my condo! 

What's your storage look like? Do you organize by brand or by colour?

xo Shawna

Birds on a Wire Stamped Mani

Tonight's mani has booted out my Paris nails as my new favourite! As soon as I saw the Birds on a Wire on the MoYou Pro Plate #4 I knew it was a must have. The only thing that prevented me from using it earlier was a fear of the fine line work, so I wanted more practice first! 

First, I created a gradient with:

China Glaze - Naked

L'oreal - Orange You Jealous

Sally Hansen - Pacific Blue

I was going to use an Essie shade in lieu of Pacific Blue but the colour was just too sheer to be really noticeable and I wanted more.

Next, I used Wet n' Wild Black Creme for the stamping. I paired the delicate (illegible) text from the same plate with the bird image.

I absolutely love the way this one turned out. The ombre effect on my thumbs are less than perfect - I figure my thumbs are kind of like the first pancake - a write off. 

Do you have issues getting your thumbs sponged as nicely as the rest?

xo Shawna

Blue Ombré Paris Stamped Mani

Yesterday, Shoppers Drug Mart had an amazing deal on Essie polish, which worked out to $4.50 a bottle in multiples of 2. So I grabbed 4 different shades - and since I bought them at two locations I didn't realize until after how similar they all are! You like what you like, right? They're gorgeous light blues, lavenders and teals. I'll have to do a swatch post soon!

I also managed to get my hands on a couple bottles of the original formula of Sally Hansen's "Pacific Blue". Being new to the nail art world, I've only just discovered this "holy grail" shade, and my first attempt at buying actually landed me the new formula. I didn't love the colour so I'll be returning the new versions. SDM's in Milton are a gold mine for the original, with 9 bottles between the two stores I visited - it doesn't seem like there are a whole lot of nail enthusiasts in Milton, or else they'd all be gone! 

On to today's mani. I used Essie "Lapiz of Luxury" as the base (one of my new shades) and sponged a gradient with "Pacific Blue". 

Lapiz of Luxury swatched. 

I love the way the ombré effect looks with these two shades! 

I used MoYou London Tourist plate 21, which has a definite Parisian theme. There are a ton of cute designs, so I chose one floral as the main design with two accent nails on each hand. 

Clearly, getting my stamps straight is something I need a little practice with! I don't mind too much, in particular I think the Eiffel Tower looks cute on a jaunty angle!

On my right hand, I love the little moustaches! 

Despite my lack of centering some of the images, I think this mani is my favourite so far. (Not that I have a whole lot to choose from!). I used Ciate "Snow Virgin" as the stamping colour, and of course topped it off with HK Girl Top Coat which is becoming a fast favourite.

Does your nail polish stash have all the colours of the rainbow, or do you tend to gravitate towards the same colour family?

xo Shawna

green mani Sunday

Happy Sunday everyone!

There is a green theme going around the nail instagram feed today, to support depression awareness in light of the recent passing of Robin Williams. If you search the hashtag #fightforlightandlive, you'll find a whole bunch of IG'ers who have painted their nails green today!

As I posted a few days ago on Facebook, I hope the positive that comes from the tragic event of a few days ago is to bring awareness to depression. If you are depressed, or even just not feeling like yourself and can't quite pinpoint it, you can ALWAYS ask for help - whether it be a family member or friend, or reaching out for support to a support line. Find a list of all the Canadian hotlines here.

To lighten things up, on to today's mani!

I've combined safari green with a leafy stamp, for a very nature inspired look!

The base colour is L'Oreal "Safari Chic". This was my first time using this new (to me) polish, and I was really impressed with the coverage of just one coat (as pictured). 

The white is Ciate "Snow Virgin". This is my first time using it to stamp, and again I'm impressed with the coverage from the polish. 

Don't be fooled by the bottle in the pic, I actually used HK Girl Top Coat. I had just packed away all my polish supplies when I redid the pics, and this bottle is being donated to my sister so it was readily available for a photo op!

Also, I am really having issues getting crisp photos, so hopefully you get the point. 

There you have it. Hope you had a great weekend!

xo Shawna

my nail polish stash

So I decided it would make sense to take stock of my collection to get a better idea of exactly what colours I have (and therefore, which I will need to round out the colour wheel for my nail art - I'm after grey and turquoise next!). Normally this storage bin just has all the bottles chucked in haphazardly, and things get buried at the bottom.. The other night I really wanted silver glitter and thought I didn't have any, but I found a mini bottle in there!

This is the whole collection, including 50 shades (that includes the glitters, etc), 7 base & top coats and nail treatments, one bottle of caviar, feathers, a set of nail wraps and my implements. I also have a bunch of nail decals in the mail from the born pretty store. 

A close up of all the colours. Mostly OPI & China Glaze, with a sprinkling of Color Club minis, L'Oreal, and a few random brands. 

These are my favourite shades in rotation. 

And all my nail treatments. My sister has just claimed my China Glaze top coat since she ran out, and I clearly have more than enough. 

What does your collection look like? Do you know how many colours you have?

xo

Shawna

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