Hi guys!  Today I'm going to show you some studs I got to review!


  These are from the Born Pretty Store and can be purchased for $4.89.  You can find them here.


As you can see, there are assorted shapes, including stars and hearts!  I tried out the large diamond shaped ones for this simple nail art that I wore to a concert last month.


For this look I polished all of my nails with one coat of Cult Nails Nevermore.  I used nail glue to stick the studs on.  I may have used a little too much because this was my first time trying glue instead of sticking into wet polish.

For the most part I really liked these, but the larger ones are not so good for my very curved nails because they are too flat.  As you can see in the photo below, the edges stick up.  This didn't bother me too much but they didn't stay on for very long because they were easily caught on things.


As usual, you can use my code below to get a discount on your purchase if you'd like!

Hi loves!  I've got a few more Lynnderella swatches to share with you in the coming weeks, and today its Lynderella Love Potion 99.9.


 Love Potion 99.9 is from the Early Halloween Resurrected collection.  According to Lynn, "Love Potion No. 99.9 is a new formula about with about 25% more glitter. Purple and violet hexagons and squares with micro-red glitter in a cool violet base. Multiple shapes, sizes and violet holographic glitter."


I've shown one coat of LP 99.9 here over two coats of Sparkles by Julie Black Pearl, which is a shimmery blackened purple.


I found this polish to be particularly difficult to photograph... as usual with purples, my camera turns this a hint more blue than it really is.


I had no problems with application.  Of course I like this one because its purple!  I found it a bit hard to choose undies for it though because of the purple tint to the base.


Lynnderella polishes are now sold exclusively through Norway Nails in Europe for 239 NOK each.  As always, you can use my code SMASHLEY10 at checkout to save 10% on your order!

Hello lovelies!  Today is the final TPC day for this month, and I've done a simple dotticure.  I used a base of two coats of Spa Ritual Gold Digger and added the dots with Orly Preamp, Gina Tricot Pump the Breaks, and China Glaze Custom Kicks.  Not much more to say other than that, so we will keep this post short and sweet!
 

Hi again!  Time for more TPC!  For today I've decided to give dry marbling a go.  I normally dislike this look because I hate when you can see the gouges in the polish after you're finished.  BUT, Debbie The Crumpet has done a post a few weeks back where she dry marbled with a nail art brush instead and I quite liked how it turned out.


In case you've forgotten, I am using Orly Preamp, China Glaze Custom Kicks, and Gina Tricot Pump the Breaks as my pink, turquoise, and orange polishes.  I have used one coat of Preamp as my base, then added a thick vertical line with each polish on each nail and dragged my clean brush through lightly in a zig zag pattern.  I'm quite happy with the results, and I'll try this again with different colors.

 Hi guys!  Today I've got a swatch of one of the newer Lynnderella polishes for you!

 
 This is  BirdBrain Blue from the Everything's Coming Up Neon collection.  Lynn's description of this polish is "BirdBrain Blue has scattered cyan, turquoise, magenta, neon blue and green, neon pink and pastel satin aqua glitters in a soft, translucent robin's egg aqua base with matching shimmer."

I've shown one coat of BBB over two coats of OPI What's With The Cattitude.


I so love this polish... Those neon pink star glitters put this over the top for me!  You know how I feel about star glitter.  I also LOVE the shimmer in the base of this one.


I have to say, I'm not one who loves neon glitter (I know many people do!), so I didn't think I needed anything from this collection at first... but I really love this one, its unique to my stash and I'm a fan!

I don't know if you can tell in these pics, but I also had two heart shaped glitters on my thumb, and a butterfly glitter on my thumb.  The shapes are not too dense in this though, so I'm sure you could easily scrape those off the brush if you didn't want to have them.



Lynnderella polishes are now sold exclusively through Norway Nails in Europe for 239 NOK each.  As always, you can use my code SMASHLEY10 at checkout to save 10% on your order!

Hi guys!  Here is my second day of the Tri-Polish Challenge... I've recycled my base from the tape mani I did for the first day, and added some stamping!  The polishes I'm using for the challenge this month are China Glaze Custom Kicks, Orly Preamp, and Gina Tricot Pump the Breaks.


I stamped these with Gals plate GA11 and my black Mash Nail Art Polish.

 Hi loves!  We are back to Tri-Polish Challenge time for the month.  This time our three colors are orange, pink and turquoise.  I've chosen Gina Tricot Pump The Breaks as my orange, Orly Preamp as my pink, and China Glaze Custom Kicks as my turquoise.


For this first day I did a fairly simple tape mani... I suck at tape manis, so I don't like to mess with cutting or using striping tape when I don't have to haha.  I used Preamp as my base and added the other two over top.



Let's see what everyone else chose for their polishes this month!

Hi again beauties!  Today I want to share a review for a couple products I've had the chance to try out for the last month or so... a new quick dry top coat, and a lovely cuticle oil.

 



Above is The Impossible without top coat.  Perfectly gritty!  (And beautiful, can I just say I didn't know this had holo micro glitter in it and I love it!)

In the next photo I have added different top coats.  Its hard to tell much of a difference in this shot, but hopefully the macros down a bit farther will give you a better look.  In the following photo I have Simply Quick on my index finger, Seche Vite on my middle finger, Essie Good to Go (not a fresh bottle, used about half way and is thickened up a bit) on my ring finger, and Dior Gel Coat on my pinkie.


Here you have a little collage I made of macro shots of each finger.  (Sorry for the randomness of the color, I wasn't to worried about color accuracy for these pictures.)


My thoughts were this:  Simply Quick and Seche provided about the same amount of smoothing, which was more smooth that I expected.  I would say these were 85% smooth.  My thickened Good to Go and the Dior Gel Coat were about the same, they were both very smooth.  These nails were 95% smooth. Out the Door didn't smooth much at all, and you can clearly see it was still bumpy and gritty.

Simply Quick has good dry time, about the same as Seche or Good to Go.  I did experience any smearing or streaking when I used it over my nail art.  As far as chipping, I still can't say that I've found my solution unfortunately.  I got my regular chips after a day or two.  Like I said earlier though, I am really tough on my hands, and nothing seems to work for me, so don't discount this because of my experience.

Now, moving on to the Pure Nail Oil...

Here is a shot of my naked nails just after polish removal.  You can see the dryness around my cuticles, especially on my ring finger and thumb.


After applying the oil liberally to my nail and cuticles, and letting it sit for 5 minutes or so, I rubbed it in.  Here is what my nails looked like then...


Much better!  I really like this oil because it absorbs quickly and makes my cuticles feel moisturized but not greasy.  I also really like the applicator, which is one of those twisty clicking pens.  I am always paranoid about carry oil in my purse, and these are perfect for that.  The pen I was sent is the Crisp scent, which is really nice.  I'm rubbish with pinpointing scents, but this smells sort of fruity to me, with some floral undertones.  Its nice and fresh.  There are seasonal scents to try as well, in Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter.

The ingredients in this oil are jojoba oil, grape seed oil, olive oil, essential oil blend, vitamin A, vitamin E, and tea tree oil.  Ana has a page HERE when you can read a ton more about this oil and why it is great for your nails.

Ana sells one pen for $10 in her shop, or you can buy 3 for $22.  She also sells a refill kit for $22 so you don't have to waste the packaging and chuck the pens when they're empty.  Visit Nail Care HQ to buy.

Hi again!  So it is the last day of Animal Week with the Digit-al Dozen, and I just had to do a mani dedicated to my kitties.  I painted them onto my bare nail (well, just with base coat anyway) with acrylic paints.  My other nails have two coats of OPI Pink of Hearts 2009 and white polish for the stamping/paw prints.  I did the paw prints with my dotting tool.

Here are my furbabies, Katorce is on the left, and Alli is on the right.



I am pretty proud of how these turned out, especially since I had to custom mix the colors and everything.  I'm slowly figuring out the acrylics a bit better!