Damasks Inspired by Robin Moses (NCC Wallpaper Week #1)

Hi everyone! Super excited to share this post with you guys today. I have been holding on to this one for a while now, and I'm glad to finally get it out there!

It's currently Wallpaper month at the Nail Challenge Collaborative and I have the perfect first nail art for this theme! I used an amazing nail art tutorial from Robin Moses to create these Damask nails - hope you guys like! :)

I kinda sorta loosely followed Robin's tutorial because to be totally honest, her patterns were way more intricate than I was capable of and I gave up on them pretty quickly haha. So I generally tried to mimic some of her damask-y patterns and came up with this!

I used Sinful Colors Snow Me White for the white base, and Zoya Sooki for the red base. I used my Stripe Rite striping brush in black for the damasks, and Sinful Colors Pinky Glitter for the glitter topper over the red. HK Girl topcoat to finish it off! :)

I loved this look - it looked so complex but thankfully, doing just two damasks for accent nails made it simpler and it didn't take me that long! :) If you want to try your hand at recreating this cool look, you can check out this tutorial by Robin Moses here. She's seriously amazing to watch - she makes it look effortless! :)

Thanks for reading, and be sure to check out the other ladies' looks for Week 1 of Wallpaper month!

Kelly

An InLinkz Link-up

Winterize Your Nails with tips from Julep!

Hi everyone! I've got a really fun post for you today, brought to you with the help of Julep!

As I'm sure we all know, especially those of us who are beauty enthusiasts, winter is not always kind to our hands and nails. :( I know for me especially, my hands can get dry, cracked, and painful in the winter. And my nails can get brittle and peely. Worst of all, my cuticles - UGH! They look so gross in the winter if I don't take extra good care of them. 

That being said, it's important to "winterize" your nail care routine during these bitter cold months, so that you can keep your nails and hands in perfect health and looking fabulous!

Julep has shared a few helpful tips on how to winterize your nails. I'll show you their ideas, and then I'll give you the rundown on my typical routine! :)

When I read over the tips sent from Julep, I realized that they were very similar to what I do for my nails, so I must be doing something right lol. ;) Here's a look at my nail care routine - the whole gang!

I know, I know. It looks like a lot. But it's really not. And there are very few of these items that I actually use every day. I'll break it down and explain what each item is, what it is used for, how to use it and how often I use it.

My first step? Starting with a clean slate!

Before a manicure, you want to start with clean nails, and that includes removing excess cuticles. I skipped the step about removing old polish, because you knew that already, right? :) Be sure to wash your hands after removing polish with acetone. Dry your hands off well, and then you can grab your trusty cuticle remover. I use Blue Cross, which can be purchased at Sally's, and it's extremely affordable. I think this huge bottle was about $5, and it will last you forever! I drip a bit along the nail bed line and a little underneath the free edge as well. It is a bit watery, so I do this over the sink. After that, I use the curved, spoon-looking edge of the cuticle tool (I got this at Wal-Mart for a few dollars) and push up toward the curve in the nail bed, pushing up and off excessive cuticles. Then, I use the other end of the tool (Careful, that one is sharp) to gently scrape around the curve of the nail and then underneath the free edge to get all that grossness out of there. Sorry, not every part of nail care is glamorous! ;) Once you've scraped off all the excess, wash your hands with warm water and your favorite soap or scrub, I love Sunny's Hand Scrub for this, which of course, I forgot to show in the picture! Then, dry off your hands and get ready for your next step.

The next thing I do is file my nails, both for length and shape. I don't usually cut my nails using clippers unless they're really really long, because that tends to make them crack or peel. I use a very coarse file or emery board to take down length, and also to shape my nails. Lately, I've been keeping the rounded or almond shaped because they grow longer and stronger that way on me. Once I'm happy with the length and the shape, I paint on my base coat. In the winter, I typically reach for strengthening or hardening base coats to help fight off the brittleness that winter brings. This one from Sally Hansen is a good one. Then apply your polish color, which I've left out of the photos because that is up to you (though I'll have some good suggestions at the end of the post). My go-to topcoat is always HK Girl though. It's the best in my opinion!

Now, you're all polished and topcoated...what to do now, you ask?

The answer is simple - MOISTURIZE! If there is one tip you can take away from this post on how to better care for your hands and nails in the wintertime, it is simply to moisturize. The cold, dry winter air is torture on our hands and nails, and you can never have too much moisture at a time like this. For overall hand lotion, I am LOVING the new (at least to me) Carmex hand lotion. It might have existed before, but I'd never heard of it...I'm so glad I found it! It is ultra moisturizing and long-lasting. It's kind of like when winter is really bad to your lips and you know Carmex is the only thing that will do? It's the same with this lotion. It just feels really heavy duty, but in the best sense possible - and it feels amazingly silky smooth!

Now, onto the cuticle products. There is not a day that goes by that I don't use something from Sunny's Body Products hand and cuticle care line. I use her Miracle Balm every single night before bed, her cuticle oil every single time before I take nail photos, and I reach for the Intensive Oil and the Hand Cream for times when I really need some extra moisture. I've shown a few of my favorite scents in the photo. I've been loving Satsuma lately in the Miracle Balm and Caramel Apple Intensive Oil smells good enough to eat! Don't do that. Some other favorite cuticle balms/butters that I use, but less often, are the Burt's Bees Lemon Butter cuticle cream - which smells absolutely fabulous and works wonders on dry cuticles, and Fortune Cookie Soap's Polyjuice Potion cuticle butter. The FCS cuticle butter is aptly named; I would definitely say it is thicker and harder to spread on than any of the balms I've tried. The smell is absolutely phenomenal, I'm so upset I missed out on the "Polyjuice All the Things" sale at FCS, but such is life. Anyway, just due to the consistency, I only use this one at bed time, it's not as practical to use on the go, in my opinion. 

See? Pretty simple! 

Now, I promised you I'd talk a bit about some up and coming trends in polish colors for winter. Now, everyone's different, but during winter months, I find myself reaching for more subdued, darker, or vampy shades, typically cremes, but not always. I enjoy a good shimmer in the winter also. I always love holographics, but since the sun likes to hide here during the winter, I often feel like I'm not getting the full effect so I do try to save those more for summer.

Julep also shared some great ideas with me, showcasing some of their popular winter shades! Check them out!

You can pick up the above shades of polish and as well as the rest of Julep's products by clicking here. I'm especially feeling Sawyer out of these, I think...but I can also see Joanne making a perfect base for some winter nail art!

So there you have it, my winter nail care routine! To recap, it goes as follows:

Step 1: Remove old polish and excess cuticles.

Step 2: Prep nails by filing for length and shape.

Step 3: Polish! Base coat, polish, topcoat.

Step 4: Moisturize, moisturize, moisturize! (This step can be repeated as often as necessary!)

I hope you've enjoyed this post and possibly even learned something! Nail care is especially important during winter because as I'm sure you know, healthy nails are pretty nails. Please don't hesitate to ask if you want more information about anything or have further questions about my winter nail routine! Thanks so much for reading!

<3

Kelly

Galaxy Nails (Sally Hansen Miracle Gel topcoat wear test)

Hello loves! Don't forget to get your entries in for my giveaway - only two days left to enter!!!

This post is a bit late, but that's typical for me haha.
A while back, I decided to do a wear test with the Sally Hansen Miracle Gel topcoat, right after it first came out. Since I was going to be doing a wear test, I wanted to come up with a nail art look that I wouldn't get sick of looking at for a long time - so I thought I'd do a galaxy!

I hadn't tried one in a long time, so I was nervous I wouldn't be able to do it again. But, I think it turned out pretty great! :)

For the base, I used Sinful Colors See You Soon, which is a black with blue shimmer. From there, I used ripped up pieces of a makeup sponge and dabbed using the following colors: Sinful Colors Snow Me White, Bikini, Sugar Rush, Blue By You, Kissy, Let's Talk, Wet n Wild Deadly Dose, and Nubar Star Sparkle over top.

I really loved how these turned out. And, I got SO many compliments on them! Always a great feeling. :)

I took this next one after (I believe 9 days of wear). You can see some slight tip wear, but other than that - these held up incredibly well! And I did a lot of cleaning, washing dishes, typing, and writing - meaning I put them through a lot!

I was definitely super impressed with this topcoat! Like I said, I did not take it easy on this mani and it still lasted much longer than I expected. It is a slow dry topcoat so I wouldn't recommend if you are just doing a quick look and heading out the door. For a situation like that, I'd still go for HK Girl or Seche Vite. But, if you are doing your nails for an event or a longish trip like a vacation, this is perfect! I will definitely be using it in the future when I want to leave a mani on longer than a couple days (which isn't that common for me haha).

Thanks for reading! <3
Kelly

LynBDesigns Swatch Spam!

Hi guys! 

A while back, I bought my first ever LynBDesigns polishes when she had her Black Friday sale. I was super excited to try this brand anyway, so the sale was a perfect chance.

I'll be showing you most of them today: Off With Her Head, Phenomenal Cosmic Powers, Ragdoll, Wait Wait Wait...Is This a Kissing Book?, and Wild and Sweet. I'll have another post coming up soon with Friends Come In All Sizes and Nightmare Revisited. :)

First up today is Off With Her Head, which is from the Wonderland collection. It's described as a red jelly base with small red, silver, and white glitters. 

I can see that this is kind of a red jelly base, but to my eye, it leaned a bit purpleish. I did note that my bottle looked somewhat different from the bottle I saw in a post by Accio Lacquer, which looks like a true, bright red. I also seemed to notice more large hexes in my bottle and more squares in Accio Lacquer's. So, I'm not sure, but this one may have been reformulated. Regardless, it's still gorgeous! :)

Formula was great. Since OWHH is a jelly base, it is slightly sheer, but very buildable. In these photos, I'm wearing 3 coats plus HK Girl topcoat. Even with all the glitter in this one, it laid completely flat with topcoat! 

Next up is Phenomenal Cosmic Powers, from the Spark of Madness collection. It's described as a bright blue jelly with color shifting shimmer that changes from gold to green to blue. This polish is inspired by the genie in Aladdin, and I can definitely see that! :)

Formula was good, again this is another jelly, so it did need some building up but it's doable. I actually used 4 coats here, but I probably could have gotten away with 3, I just really hate any VNL! I used HK Girl topcoat.

The finish on this one is simply beautiful! The color shifting gold shimmer really glows in certain lighting. I can't get over how perfectly this matches to the genie! :)

Next up, we have Ragdoll, from the Nightmare Begins collection. It's inspired by Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. This polish is described as a stunning purple jelly with blue to green color shifting glass flecks.

This polish is seriously amazing, and frustratingly enough, I could not do it justice in photos! This one honestly just GLOWS. It actually looks the best in shade or low lighting, but of course, that makes the photos soft, so this was tough to capture! It is sheer like the others due to the jelly base, but again, formula was good. I used 3 coats here for opacity, but some slight VNL was still present. It wasn't enough to bother me though. :) I used HK Girl topcoat here.

This next one is kind of in indirect sunlight, and you can really see the glow here. So pretty!! I love that bright blue flash that shows up in certain lights. :)

Here we have, Wait Wait Wait...Is This A Kissing Book? hereafter referred to as "Wait" haha. Long name but amazing polish! This one is from the Dweam Wiffim a Dweam collection, and it is described as a flakie top coat. It's got hot pink, red, and gold flakies. Jenna says it can be the perfect topper or stand alone polish. I noted that it is in a red/dark pink jelly base, so I chose to build it up alone rather than layering it. This is 4 coats with HK Girl topcoat.

Formula on this was great! The flakies are absolutely incredible - I adore this color combination. In the future, I probably would layer this over a pink or red to conserve polish, but I wanted to see how it stacked up by itself, and I have no issues to report with the formula. :)

Click to enlarge one of these photos to really see up close how awesome these flakies are! I think this one might be my favorite of the 5 shown here. So gorgeous! :)

Last for today - Wild and Sweet. This one was a limited edition, released as a gift on Black Friday when you spent a certain amount of money in the shop. It's not currently available for sale in the shop to my knowledge. It is described as a medium berry toned pink cream base with golden shimmer.

I was so glad to receive this polish with my order - it's so pretty! It feels very soft and feminine, in my opinion. It reminds me of last year's Pantone color, radiant orchid. And I love the shimmer in this, it really adds a pop of something extra! I've used 3 coats here plus HK Girl topcoat.

I had absolutely no issues with formula, this applied like a dream! And just check out that shimmer in the photo below, where the light hits it - stunning! I can definitely see myself using this in nail art in the future. :)

Overall, my first experience with LynBDesigns was great! At first I thought the polishes were a bit sheer for my taste, until I went through and realized that I literally ordered ALL jellies haha! Totally my fault. Even with that being said, the formulas on all of them were great! I think in the future, I would layer most of these just to conserve polish, but that's to be expected with any jelly.

I did notice that LynBDesigns has some really unique and eye-catching color combinations and finishes. I love the shimmers she uses, flakies, glitters - how it all works together with the bases she makes. Another thing I really liked about her polishes is how clearly you can see the inspiration she draws from. Just looking at the polishes instantly brings to mind the characters that the polishes represent, which I always think is really cool. I will definitely be trying more LynBDesigns in the future. :)

Right now, 4 out of 5 of these polishes are available in the LynBDesigns shop. Unfortunately, they are no longer Black Friday priced haha, but Jenna seems to have sales often, and even at full price, they are very reasonable. All of the available polishes shown here today (with the exception of Ragdoll which retails for $10) retail for $8.

You can find these and many other amazing creations in the LynBDesigns Etsy shop, and be sure to follow LynBDesigns on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to keep up to date on new releases (a new collex is coming Jan 24th!) and sales.

Thanks for reading! <3
Kelly

These polishes were purchased by me, with the exception of the Black Friday gift. This review reflects my full and honest opinions. I am not being compensated in any way for this post. Please see my Disclosure Statement for more information.

Jindie Nails Swatch Spam: Dead Roses, K.I.S.S., Just Say Glow, Lights Out, Twerkin' for a Birkin

Hi everyone! I hope you're all having a great week! Before I get into today's post, I want to remind you to head over and enter my giveaway if you haven't already - you have a chance to win some amazing prizes from Model City Polish, Mentality Polish, or Polish Me Silly! :D

Today, I have some gorgeous Jindie Nails polishes to share with you! I am finally making my way through the vault, and I have a ton of amazing Jindies that I've swatched, so you will be seeing a lot of them coming your way soon. These are some kind of random groupings, but I put together polishes that I felt went well together. 

First up, we have Dead Roses! This is one of the few polishes in my collection that I have ever worn on all ten fingers for like a week, on TWO separate occasions. It has to be pretty epic to make it onto all ten fingers for that long, and multiple times?! Almost unheard of. ;)

Dead Roses has a pretty purpley/fuschia jelly base with a holographic micro shimmer and various sizes of silver holographic dots. It's very buildable especially for a jelly. I used 3 coats here plus topcoat and I had no VNL.

The depth in this polish is seriously amazing. And in certain lighting, it just glows! I love it so much. :D

Next up is a pairing - I started with a base of Jindie Nails K.I.S.S. and layered Just Say Glow over top of it.
K.I.S.S. is described as a barbie pink cream/jelly loaded with copper and bronze shimmer, copper flecks, sparks of small scarlett hexagons and pink/gold shimmer.

Just Say Glow is a semi-sheer gold toned rose pink polish with gold and copper shimmer and hexagons. I did wear this on its own when it first came out, and I thought it was pretty, but it was part of the same collection as K.I.S.S. and it just hit me that I thought they would look great layered together!

In these photos, I am wearing 3 coats of K.I.S.S. and 2 light coats of Just Say Glow. I topped it off with HK Girl. I really loved how the flecks in K.I.S.S. paired with the shimmer in Just Say Glow. I love these two together! They are both pretty on their own, but I think they're even better together. :)

Next up, we have Lights Out. This one was released as part of a duo with Love Me.

Lights Out is a very dark gray, almost black super squishy jelly.  It's full of all shades of reds and pinks and is pretty opaque on it's own in 3 coats, but can be layered over many different darker colors for a different look. I layered 3 coats of Lights Out alone here, with HK Girl top coat. Formula was great! No issues at all to report, even with how tightly packed the glitter is!

Lastly for today, this is Twerkin' for a Birkin'. This one came out a while back, but I'm just getting through my vault of swatches! :)

Here is the description from Jindie Nails website since Jen describes it better than I could: 

"This one is a gorgeous multi-chrome polish. The colors in this one include silver, gunmetal and several shades of green including a bright lime green to a gorgeous emerald green. The shade will depend on what angle the bottle or nail is being held. This polish also has silver shimmer/flake throughout for extra kick. This is opaque in about 3 coats."

This polish is stunning in every angle! It reminds me of those iridescent beetles. :] Here's how it looks in shade, you can really see the gold flash! I am wearing 3 coats plus topcoat in these photos. I also want to try this polish again layered over a black creme to see how it looks that way. 

Here you can see some of the blue/purple coming through, around the edges of the nails. And check out the pink flash along the edge of the bottle. Love it!

I noticed when I was in the shower that when the water droplets hit the nail, they did something cool to the polish color. Of course it was much harder to replicate later, I just tried to run my hand under some water and make it happen again, but the lighting was different and I couldn't quite do it justice. But you can see on some of the water droplets, it makes the polish underneath look purple or pink. So cool!

Twerkin' for a Birkin', Lights Out, and Dead Roses are no longer available sadly, but you can still pick up K.I.S.S. and Just Say Glow at Jindie Nails shop.

Hope you liked this post! I'd love to hear what your favorite polish is from this group! :)

Kelly

3000 FB Followers GIVEAWAY!

Hi everyone! I am so happy the time has finally come to show you my 3000 FB Followers giveaway!! I'm not sure what happened there, I think the page must have been shared a few times, because more and more of your lovely faces just appeared there and I knew I had to do something to celebrate and to welcome all my new readers. :) 

Plus, 3000 feels like such a milestone to me, I remember back when I had just a handful of readers and sometimes posting felt just like I was talking to myself. I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart...for taking a moment of your day to look at my little old blog, and my nail photos, and making me remember why I started this blog in the first place. 

And what better way to thank you than to buy you things?!

Okay, okay, now that my little sappy intro is over, onto what you really came here for:

THE PRIZES!  

Prize 1 is a Mentality Nail Polish prize pack. Mentality has quickly become one of my all-time favorite indie polish brands over the past year or so - so much so that they now need their own Helmer drawer! I chose some of my favorite Mentality's to share with one winner. Detonate and Spree are part of the Jellychrome collection, which has been wildly popular. Diem is a gorgeous multichrome, flakie, shifty thingy. And Tempest is a gloriously vampy blackened red matte. A must have for every polish lover!
One winner will receive Mentality Detonate, Mentality Spree, Mentality Diem, and Mentality Tempest.

Prize 2 is a Polish Me Silly prize pack. I know lately that flakies have been ALL the rage, and there are a lot of brands out there releasing these lately. I still haven't even bought any for myself actually!! But, I looked over what options were out there on the market, and these two from Polish Me Silly really caught my eye. Party Hearty is like a rainbow in a bottle, seriously - I think I will be getting my own bottle soon enough. ;) And Free Fall reminded me so much of fall leaves, and I just love the color combination together.
One winner will receive Polish Me Silly Party Hearty and Polish Me Silly Free Fall.

Prize 3 is a Model City Polish prize pack. I absolutely adore Model City Polish, and some of the polishes she has put out just in this last year are astounding. My personal favorite that I have been lemming since it came out haha, is Pumpkin Spice, an amazing orange holographic. I need it in my life not only because my favorite color is orange (duh) but I am obsessed with all things pumpkin - yum! AND, the elusive Wear with Caution 2.0. This purple holographic is seriously blinding. Nina says this is hands down her best seller, and I can see why!
One winner will receive MCP Pumpkin Spice, MCP Wear with Caution 2.0, and a nail care set including a mini glass nail file and a mini size MCP cuticle oil.

Rules

1. This giveaway is open to US only. Sorry, international friends - the shipping would just be too much for me at this time. However, I am happy to ship to a friend for you, if you have someone in the US who can receive packages for you. 
2. You must be 18 or older to enter.
3. No cheating, period. All winners' entries will be verified. If I draw your name as a winner, and I can't verify your entry for whatever reason, I will re-draw.
4. Giveaway prizes will be shipped by the indie makers listed above. Winners must be okay with giving me with their mailing addresses. 
5. Winners will be notified by email, and must respond within 48 HOURS or I will redraw.
6. Good luck, and thanks again so much for reading!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway