Crisp red cremes - Essie Jelly Apple

I miss wearing reds! This time it's one of my top favorites - Essie Jelly Apple, a bright, red jelly with cooler tones and a great consistency and payoff (looks great for blood splatters, too).

My nail shape is a little more pointed now, so red nails looked so clawlike... I gotta admit, it felt pretty awesome. What's your favorite red polish?

These were my Halloween nails

I'm posting these a little late, but these were my Halloween nails! I really love the look of the drippy blood nail art and I've done it before, so I neeeeded to do it again. Base: Elf - Nude, blood drips in - Essie Jelly Apple and accent it WnW Black creme.

I wasn't really feeling too festive for Halloween this year for some reason, but I did like seeing all the related nail art. Of course, I got my fair share of candy and the chocolate eating done and because of that, it makes a great holiday in my book.

I'm going to say this: buying Halloween candy in an organic grocery this year has been a great idea - it was seriously amazing! I know I'm going back next year.

Illamasqua Scarab again

Ahh Scarab - my only vampy color so far and it's all I need for now. I've written about it before, but just had to wear it again. The formula is a pleasure to use and the color is so rich and sexy, it's super alluring to me. It looks better on shorter nails in my opinion but sometimes I like dark claws with either this color or black. I'm very happy with the sunlight in these photos - it helped capture the shimmer perfectly. I only had flash photos of this color and getting sunlight pics makes it look even sexier. Mmm!

Pokemon nails!

Good morning! I think I'm a little overdue on video game nail art, so here's an easy one: Pokemon nails!

Those hours spent hunting down critters and catching them, adventuring through the same general premise no matter the generation, over 400 Pokemon to find and catch... can you find a more popular timesink? Those hours spent evolving, breeding, entering contests and battling were awesome, especially since it's cemented itself as a handheld must-have. I have long wanted to do Pokemon nails, but was lacking the perfect yellow and i finally found it - SH Instadry Lighting is what I used as a base colour for Pikachu and Revlon Fire/SH Instadry Whirlwind White for the Pokeballs. 

Here's a nice pic my mom snapped!

I've seen Pokeballs on nails many times before, but I still wanted to try them - it's relatively easy to make and actually looks like a really cool nail design to someone who has no idea what they are. I used tape to tape off a half of the nail, will with the other color and when dry, drew a line with black and using a dotting tool to put in white dots. Pikachu was drawn with the black nail art pen and dotting tools as well.

I want to attempt more Pokemon on my nails, especially the classics! any specific ones you want to see done?

Revlon Fire

Whoa, 555 followers! That's really awesome, thank you for entering the giveaway and following the blog!

I want to apologize for my lack of activity lately, it hasn't been my top priority to update the blog, so it's mostly been running on queued updates for the last little while. I've been behind on my comments as well and I want to apologize for the general lack of activity.

I've got a lot of photos to edit, lots of content! Lately, I've been more into nail art, rather than getting new polish. It's become a game of trying to improve my skill at dotting, taping and drawing tiny pictures. So if you like nail art, I hope you stick around!

And now for the polish:

Revlon Fire is a cool coral jelly with a very saturated colour payoff. I'm wearing 2 coats in this picture, yet the polish glows! The formula is smooth and easy to work with, just like Revlon Royal, making it a joy to apply. It dries relatively fast, but it's much less shiny without a topcoat. With a topcoat, however, it's amazing! A bold jelly and a beautiful bright polish. I ended up wearing it for longer than I intended to and it lasted for 3 days without chipping! Sometimes Revlon makes germs like this... among their hit and miss formulas, a few truly amazing polishes like this. Looks like it's new favourite red polish!

Sally Hansen - Very Cherry

Sally Hansen Very Cherry is an interesting raspberry red foil with a nice drying time and good staying power.

This is more pink than red, but it does have a reddish look to it. 3 coats, nice formula. I found this to be a total twin of SH Xtreme Wear Deep Blue Sea both in formula and finish. It's the same metallic shimmer suspended in a differently colored base. Here are the bottles side by side with comparison!

I also tried a few flakies over it, inter finger - nfu-oh 38 (iridescent flakies) middle and ring - Deborah Lippmann Stairway to Heaven, pinky - nfuoh 51.

Looks like flakies don't show up too well on foils! That was the end of my experiment.
What do you think? Which one do you like better, Deep Blue Sea or Very Cherry?

Sponge gradient tutorial!

Have you ever wondered about gradients on your nails? How to get it to fade without using an airbrush?

I want to show you my way of doing it...don't worry, it's very easy!

Illamasqua Scarab

This is one of the Illamasqua polishes I hauled at Sephora and it's a gigantic win for me!

Let me say this first: dark red and vampy colours are not something I'll reach for first, if ever. I don't think I have any dark reds in my collection, so Scarab is a cautious venture into the unknown for me.

After seeing swatches of this I just HAD to get it. It's such a beautiful red shimmer in a dark brown base. Truly, like beetle's shell. Although it's named Scarab, it does not match the color of Scarabaeus viettei's shells, which is black. This looks more like the shell of Lucanus maculifemoratus instead, with a bit more red shimmer.

The formula impressed me the most. This polish applied unlike anything I've ever put on! The color was pretty much a one-coater, slightly thick but not chunky, flowed perfectly. The easiest way to describe it, as if I was applying liquid vinyl on my nails. It was a beautiful experience and I am still blown away by it. I neeeed more Illamasquas! I wore this for 2 days and while there was tipwear, it did not chip and stayed on like iron. 

This is a wonderful polish, colour and formula wise. It's 14$ dollars in the Canadian Sephora, but that's a lot less than Deborah Lippmann, Chanel and NARS. Scarab has been a wonderful experience and I'm hoping I can get my hands on more Illamasquas. 

Video game nails Kirby, Sonic, Megaman and Mario mushrooms!

hurf durf left hand

This is what I spent my Saturday doing...absolutely nothing AND video game nails! Also my left hand is looking ridiculously wonky but the nail shape fits much better. I did this with dotting tools, and some help from brush shapes (thank YOU SH- whirlwind white for your round brush). I've been meaning to do video game nails forever, but I was lacking a yellow since I'm still away from most of my stash... Had to make do with the cremes I acquired in the last month. Also had to pick and choose characters I can do based on what color I got (sorry Pacman and Pikachu ), but I think it turned out decent! I'm hoping to do some Pokemon manis once I get my stash back...hmm...what else?

Sally Jansen Xtreme wear - Red Carpet

with flash

no flash

Red Carpet is a dark red "jelly" with red glitter and a raspberry tint in bright light. It dries a little dark, very deep dark red, which weirded me out a little bit. I'm not a lover of vampy colors and this is a little too close to vampy for my liking. The redeeming feature is that the red glitter lights up when in a bright environment! The dark red becomes a raspberry red and very very sparkly. Red Carpet was a little gritty when it dried, which was a turn off. The base is not a true jelly but rather a transparent glitter base which becomes "flat" when dries. Topcoat helps it to regain a jelly look but it just isn't the same...another thing I noticed is after THREE hours I started to get pretty bad tipwear. There is no excuse! I use the keyboard at work, so next morning the first thing I saw? Chips. CHIPS AFTER LESS THAN 12 HOURS of sleep and then 30 mins if work. How is that possible? I used a topcoat and wrapped the tips but they still chipped. I've never had that happen before so early...This is a fail for me. Looks like this is my first Xtreme Wear disappointment.

Lioele - Sparkling Red Wine matte polish

Sparkling red wine is another matte Lioele polish I picked up in Vancouver. This is very similar to Lioele Pearl Plum Purple (shown here) This one is a dark red "suede", so it's a shimmery polish with a matte finish, so it has a nice texture. One coater, dries fast, chips easy. Once more, very similar to OPI suede polishes in texture and wear. I like it a lot!

ELF fire coral and Sexy Bomb S81 glitter

ELF Fire Coral is a fiery creme, applies veeery nice and is a one coater.The only issue I could find with it is that it chips VERY easily ( you can already see chips on my middle nail). But for 2 dollars, I don't really mind.  I added some of that really chunky holo glitter I got on the Vancouver haul (pic here) and it looked pretty nice. Fire Coral is sort of comparable to NYC Color Times Square, which is my favourite coral and also happens to be a one-coater.

Time Square is still my favourite though, just because it is a little more red, rather than orange. Fire coral leans towards orangey on my skin, but without Times Square next to it, Fire Coral looks like a true coral. Vibrant, reddish orangey pink. Corals just make me feel so sassy!

Halloween Hussy nail art!

"Hussy" is what my nails feel like right now. Super long and black...this began with an idea for a corset mani, like a goth or a vampire theme. I tried doing two corsets and messed up on my middle finger. However, I decided to do a fishnet stamp on ti instead. I think this turned out well and with the theme! I added a bit of blood  and an upside down cross sort of like a vampire. I have not worn black polish on nails THIS long! It's the longest my nails have ever been. So crazy!

Also, I have been messing with the blog layout and design, fixing broken links and implementing the related posts at the bottom. Any feedback? 

Halloween nails - bloody nurse

Halloween is coming! Candy is bite sized and abundant!
 TIME FOR SCARY NAILS.

I attempted a bloodsplattered look with a toothbrush and topped off with dropslets of the same color. 

This turned out very nice! Bright and creeepy.

I can't wait to do more Halloweeny stuff.

Essie - Lollipop

Lately, I've been hungering for a bright candy red and have never tried a red JELLY!

 On the first glance, Lollipop is a classic bright red. However, it is a jelly, not a creme. 

The color payoff is amazing, even though the finish is slightly transparent (you can see through my pinky and ring fingernails in this photo).Basically, it reminds me of red jolly ranchers.

 In most cases, jellies tend to be very sheer, but Lollipop looks fantastic in 2 coats and the formula is smooth and dries very fast.I'm really happy with this polish! This is my go-to red from now on.