Ombre Leopard

I have to say I LOVED this design. I knew I wanted to do ombre but, I wasn't so sure that it would look good on me. I know, a tad ridiculous considering my nails are always a little cray. To do the ombre, first paint your nail all white (I did gray on a friend and it looked WAY better, picture below) I didn't like the white that I used and I generally don't like white polish because it gets gunky. Once dry, sponge on the colour (I used OPI's "Fly") 3/4 of the way down your nail. Then once dry do it to 1/2 then 1/4. So majority of the colour would be at the top of your nail (darkest) and fade into the lighter part (the white).

Once that was all set, I used the Konad stamping kit for the leopard print. The plate that I used was BM 221. I don't really like the Konad polishes that came with the kit because they tend to rub off, as you can see in the picture, the spots came off in some parts. Which is frustrating because there is top coat on there! The konad polish also doesn't react well to top coat because it drags the design (ugh!)

This is the variation I did on my friend Elizabeth! Products Used (Mine):
Mummy Knows Best- OPI
Fly-OPI
BM Plate 221
Skull & Glossbones - OPI
Smooth & Perfect in Sorbet - Sally Hansen

Products Used (Elizabeth):
Skull & Glossbones - OPI
the "It" Color - OPI
BM plate 225
Hot & Spicy - OPI


PLH,
kmatheson

Easter Nails

Colours used: thumb and 1st two fingers OPI's "Planks a lot", Ring finger OPI's "Pink Friday", Pinky finger Orly's "Spark". The Snail's shell is OPI's "What's with the Cattitude"

I also used OPI's "I Juggle...Men" on the first two fingers as a glitter over coat but it didn't end up showing too well. I have to say I'm a little disappointed in that bottle its too subtle for my liking. But I will give it another try soon!

Just a little spring Easter design! The snail is by request! From my boyfriend who wanted to see a snail nail, not sure how well I did!

Enjoy,
kmatheson

Sorry for all the short posts lately, school has been mega busy! There will be once I'm not so busy

Time for a little Summer

Seeing as it's been so nice outside lately, I felt the need to make my nails a little bit more summer-y. Now this watermelon manicure has been all over blog sites (not really recently, but I've seen them around) and it's simple.

Start by painting your nails a coral or pink I used OPI's "Big Hair, Big Nails" from the Texas collection. Then I painted the 'rind' which the green I used doesn't have a name on it but anything that is a rich green will work. Then I used a striping brush for the white of the rind, easy peasy. For the "seeds" I used the end of a black striping brush creating long dots. and Volia!

I know mine is a bit messy, I was getting quite shaky!

Enjoy!
kmatheson

Hey Stud

FINALLY!
I got studs for my nails! I had been looking for those for a very long time, it was a great find for my nail obsession. Besides the studs, I also used Sally Hansen's Smooth and Perfect nail polish in 08 Sorbet which I was curious about because I wanted to know about the smooth claim and what not (that's the peachy colour used in the design). At first I didn't like the nail polish because I don't like colours that look too nude and I wanted this one to be more pink. However once I was finished the design, how my nails felt was incredible. They feel like fake nails because they are so smooth (even with the stud on it) I'm thoroughly impressed with this polish because my nails chip and crack so easily this one really protects it. They have a lot of really nice pastel colours too which I'm currently dying over. At about 7 dollars they are worth picking up!
Colours used: "Fly" By OPI (Nicki Minaj Collection), "08 Sorbet" By Sally Hansen Smooth and Perfect.

Also! I finally included an HD picture :) (it's the first one)

PLH,
kmatheson

Finally!

For the longest time I've been trying to figure out how to get rhinestones on my nails. Honestly, I tried researching it and looking at other nail blogs but to no avail. Finally I heard that the rhinestones being used are for jewelry design! Once you have the rhinestones all you do is put a layer of base coat on your nail (I used Witchcraft Nail Hardener), put the rhinestone on and then put top coat over (I used Essie's Good to Go). I honestly put the top coat on in giant blobs, it's better to be very generous with it. The first round that I did, I didn't lose a single one! The second time I did lose one but I was less liberal with the top coat that time. Definitely after this discovery I feel like my nails look a lot better :) Mystery Solved!

Nail Colours used: Essie's Chinchilly, OPI's Planks a lot.

I bought the rhinestones from Michaels for about seven dollars. Just make sure that the sizes you are buying can be used on your nail and aren't too big.

PLH,
kmatheson

Review: OPI's "Fiercely Fiona"

A while ago I had a discussion with a friend about yellow nail polish. We both decided that it looks cheap majority of the time, but the people that can pull it off look really great. I own two different yellow nail polishes and the softer one of them is this one "Fiercely Fiona" from (you guessed it) OPI's Shrek collection. In the bottle this colour looks like a nice Easter pale yellow, but it comes off a lot brighter than that. After I had first put it on, I was ready to take it off beacuse I really didn't like it. But I stuck with it, and it grew on me a bit. One thing I didn't like was that I had to plan out my outfit very carefully, I only wore blue and grey tones as I thought it looked best with yellow. I have to say that I'm still split on yellow polish, but overall I think I'm drawn to different colours and it will be a while before I wear this one again. The quality of the polish was okay because I had a mini bottle and the brushes on those ones are not easy to use.

What do you think?

Sorry about all the reviews lately! I'll mix it up more
PLH,
kmatheson

Review: Sally Hansen's Mint Sorbet

I have to admit that this was quite an irregular purchase for me because I had seen this brand everywhere (this specific line from Sally Hansen) and I absolutely hate the packaging. I really don't like the look of the bottle and I'll admit that packaging is the difference in what will make me purchase something or not. I know that it sounds terrible but I believe if a company puts in a solid effort to make their packaging appealing, that's a reason to buy and its hard work being supported.

Anyways! I DID end up buying this because I was hunting for nice mint green as I had been seeing it around a lot and really wanted it. I got this one because the original one that I wanted wasn't on sale and I didn't have the time or patience to make it down to American Apparel to get their version (called "office") so I paid $4.49 for this one. The full name is Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear Nail colour in 340 Mint Sorbet *phew*.

The application I did only took two coats but I found that I wasn't satisfied with it. The colour didn't spread evenly on my nail so some areas were not as full with colour as others. I would have applied another coat except the polish is very thick so it became tacky and hard to dry. As it was drying I messed up them up about four times because I was getting impatient (really it took so long). Once my nails were dry (on the second day or so of wearing it) whenever my nails would drag across a hard surface (such as counters) where the nail scraped would turn the colour of the surface! So I had scuff marks on my nails. That being said, the colour is really nice (when not scuffed) and I got a ton of compliments on them! I don't think that I'll purchase this line again unless I'm desperate. The end result was nice but the experience of applying the product was really not great. I did pay under five dollars for it, so I can't say that I expected the best.

PLH,
kmatheson

Review: OPI's "Elephantastic Pink"

I bought this colour over reading week desperate for some spring colour and I found this perfect fix! This is a perfect bubblegum pink, it's super cute... that's really the only way to describe it. It applies really nicely and only took about two coats! This colour is 10/10 and I really can't say more about it! It's lovely and a great spring purchase with a super cute name. If you want a perfect pink hue that's not too soft, purchase this one.

Sorry about all the chips in this picture as well as the ones below.

MORE shatter pictures! This one is OPI's "Ogre the top blue" from the Shrek Collection.
This is OPI's "What's with the Cattitude?" full review here. It's one of my favourite colours ever also from the Shrek collection.

PLH,
kmatheson

It's Never Going to Stop!

First off I have some more photos of OPI's shattered polish with some different colours underneath.

This above photo is my favourite colour combo so far! I used OPI's Happy Anniversary underneath and then put black shatter on top (obviously!). If you want to know more please read my full review on Happy Anniversary here.
This combo I didn't really like! I used Zoya's Kristi polish underneath because my boyfriend was curious to see what red would look like with the shatter. But after wards we both agreed that it was a little too goth for my tastes so I only had it for a day!

On to the real point of this entry! When black shatter came out I thought that it was really neat that now there's technology that makes nail polish separate (yes, I think about that kind of stuff...) so I was wondering if now since this new polish is out, what are the next steps? Are the people at OPI going to release more shattered colours? And lone behold! My thoughts were answered.

OPI is to release a new collection (in May 2011) for Pirates of the Caribbean (4? I believe...the newest one that's coming out) and in this collection there is a METALLIC shatter!!! Which leads me to think that it wouldn't look much different than the Happy Anniversary/Black shatter combo pictured up top. The collection features a lot of cool colours and I'm pretty darn excited for this one! :) I'm starting to think that this shatter insanity is never going to stop! So if you didn't luck out on getting the black shatter, there is still hope!

I found this all out on this article at NYLON magazine's site.

Happy Valentines Day!

PLH,
kmatheson

Review: OPI's Black Shatter

oh. my. goodness. :)

I tried SO hard to get this polish and by some genius stroke of luck I FINALLY got it!


This polish makes nail art super easy and it looks really nice :) I think that it would look better with a lighter colour underneath but I was so excited I just used the polish I had on already. (Nicole by OPI "Loyalty to Royalty") I saw this used with a bright pink underneath and I think that it looked a lot better.

How this polish works is you have a base coat (which is the blue that I used) and then paint a layer of this black shatter over top. Make sure that the base coat is dried COMPLETELY otherwise it will not work. At first the polish will look solid black but then as it dries it shifts apart creating the shatter effect. Let that dry, and you have beautiful nails!

Before purchasing this bottle I watched this video, it will show you the shatter effect better as well. If you just want to see the shatter effect go to 1:30.

Here's a clearer picture:



Prepare to see a lot of this colour as I will be using it a lot!



PLH,
kmatheson

Half Moon Manicure

This past week I decided to do something different with my nails. I found half moon manicures which I saw in a lot of magazines lately so I really wanted to try it!

This is what they're meant to look like....
First paint your nails a light colour, I chose "Moon over Mumbai" (Review here) You want to pick a colour that doesn't need a lot of coats. Wait for this colour to COMPLETELY dry, trust me you may even want to wait for the next day.

After that you take hole re-enforcers (for paper) and stick them halfway on your nails. I cut mine in half and then stuck them on. They should cover the bottom half of your nail (This would be the moon part). Then you pick a darker colour for the second half, I chose "We'll always have Paris" by OPI. Paint the upper half of your nail over the first lighter colour and it should look like this...
Once the second colour has dried slowly peel off the sticker. Once all colours are set, paint a clear top coat over them. and you're all done! These are what mine looked like before I cleaned them up..
Some problems I had were I stuck the stickers on too early so I ended up with my lighter colour messed up :( and I was really disappointed. I also applied too many coats to the bottom layer making it thicker so it took longer for the darker colour to dry and it chipped easier. All in all I really like these! It's easy to do at home and it looks professional! Hopefully I'll have better luck the next time! :)

PLH,
kmatheson

Two Reviews

First up is OPI's "Happy Anniversary!" This colour (I think) is meant to look like diamonds, the picture is a little deceiving that way because you can't really the dimension of the polish. But it's super sparkly while maintaining a smooth finish. I would recommend this colour to replace some of the Burlesque ones because it's smoother and it also doesn't chip as easily. The finish is really metallic and super pretty! A definite must buy!
Secondly, is OPI's "Russian Navy" my apologies for the blurry picture but I was trying to capture how blue this colour really is. The bottle makes it look like its almost black but I swear it's a bright navy once painted. I found that this colour is really nice neutral, it matches with a lot of stuff and I have a soft spot for navy.

Both of these colours are ones that I got for christmas, you can see the rest of them here.

PLH,
kmatheson

Review: OPI's "Moon over Mumbai"

This photo is SOO terrible! But I didn't have time to take another one because I repainted my nails after this. So this "Moon over Mumbai" also it looks like a white nude in the photo, it is a more greyish purple in real life. This colour is gorgeous! I love it! I got it from one of my best friends for Christmas (she gave me another one too, so expect a review on that later as well) This colour didn't chip for a whole week, which is really impressive considering I usually change my nails every 3 days because of chips. I found that this colour is a nice alternative to the popular taupe colours this season because I could never find a taupe that suited me. This is a perfect neutral and one of my favourites!
These are all the nail polishes that I got for Christmas and I will try to put reviews up on them all! From left to right: Moon over Mumbai, Russian Navy, Lucerne-tainly look Marvelous, Kristi, We'll always Have Paris, Louvre me or Louvre me not and Happy Anniversary!

PLH,
kmatheson

Review: OPI's "Glitzerland"

As promised here is another colour from the the Swiss collection launched in early fall. As you guys know already this is my favourite collection by OPI to date. This colour is beautiful soft gold with a subtle glitter. I think that this one is perfect for the holiday season! Yes, of course everyone will go for that rich red (I have one too so I'm guilty too) but gold is unexpected even though it's a traditional holiday colour. Love love love this! Again the quality of OPI is there and it only takes 2 coats to get a full colour. Definitely purchase this if you have a ton of parties to go!

One combo I really like is a rich red on your toes and this gold on your fingers, it looks marvelous!


PLH,
kmatheson

Review: Essie's Lilacism

I had mentioned this nail polish before in my May favourites entry, but I thought it deserves a full review! I had got this colour in May originally and I was totally obsessed with it but I'm starting to get over my obsession ahaha. This colour applies so smoothly and has an awesome shine to it, one word of warning you really have to make sure that it dries completely otherwise once it gets messed up, it's almost impossible to fix. The colour actually makes me think of spring more than summer but it looks really nice with a little sun kissed skin. My nails were really short this week (as mentioned before) so this colour looked really nice on my nails even though they were so wrecked, you could not tell. I'm super impressed with this one, it stayed on for just about the whole week (only one chip! hooray!) and the only reason that I would change it is just because I got bored of the colour.
It took about 3 coats to get the colour that I wanted.
I would give this about 9/10 I was REALLY impressed with this one. :)

PLH,
kmatheson

Super Simple Nail Art

Once again, these pictures are awful! Within the next couple of weeks, I should have access to a better camera, so please forgive me in the meantime. This was actually a requested topic from a friend, in case you're wondering why I chose to do this.

First off, start with two colours, I chose pink for colour one and purple for colour two. On your left hand paint all your fingers completely except for your pinky. Then paint your pinky finger the second colour and do the opposite on the other hand.
Now you're going to leave your pinky fingers and thumbs one colour, so you want to make sure that you get those all nice and smooth.

On your first finger (closest to your thumb) use the opposite colour and paint the upper diagonal half of your nail.Then your middle finger, you only paint the top half (with the opposite colour). On your ring finger you paint the top diagonal half of your finger. To give you more of an idea of what this is meant to look like; your main colour should make a trapezoid if you put all three fingers together. The first image is the best example of this, but remember that my hands are pointed down.

A couple of things to remember, make sure that the first coat that you do dries completely before you continue on with the design aspect. You may want to choose two polishes that have the same consistency, one of mine was really thick while the other was super thin and it didn't really turn out the way that I wanted it to, it was also hard to remove after wards.
Hopefully you try this!

PLH,
kmatheson

Go Green!

These past couple of days have been the worst for my nails, so this review may not be totally accurate and I will probably have to revisit this polish with a follow up review.

The polishes I used were China Glaze's "Paper Chasing" and Rimmel's 60 second polish in "530 Camouflage". Now I had to use the Rimmel polish as a base because the China Glaze one actually stained my nails yellow the very first time that I had used it :(. On top of staining my nails it made them super weak, now I don't think that this is a trend for China Glaze because I have another bottle in a bright purple and I haven't had any issues with it.

The application of both was fairly easily, I found that CG's polish was a little too thin for my liking so it requires about 3 coats to achieve the look that I wanted. But it has a really nice finishing shine to it which I really liked. This polish took a long time to dry (not the base coat) so again I had a couple marks on it. The polish chipped a lot actually and I had to touch up my nails twice in the span of about three days :(. Again my nails were super bad, so I'm not too sure if it was just a problem with my actual nails or it was the polish. I really do like this look because I feel it's unexpected, I always get so many comments like "ooo green nails, that's daring!" ahaha so I do enjoy doing a colour that's unexpected and would definitely recommend trying a green. Rimmel's polish is awesome on its own but that deserves its own review so I won't include much about it in this one. As far as the China Glaze goes I really like the colour and the finish but I hate that it stains my nails and chips so easily, I'm going to give it a 6/10 just because this time I was really unimpressed with it but I'm a sucker for the finished coat, even if it only stays whole for a day.

Sorry for my super short nail :( it was an accident and I know that's super unappealing but hopefully you get the look of the finished polish!

Are you going to try green?

This picture was taken after 3 days of wear with a couple of touch ups in between.

PLH,

kmatheson

Nail Polish Review: Sally Hansen's "Hi-Definition Nail Colour"

As promised here is the second review on the other polish that I bought another with the Sally Hansen's Calypso Blue bottle. :)

This is Sally Hansen's "Hi-Definition Nail Colour" in "Three D". This picture was taken about three days after I painted them, sorry about my goblin hand! Hahaha I don't know where my wrist went!

At first I really didn't like this colour, I wasn't so keen on the orange, but I wanted to step out of my comfort zone and go for it. The application was not so great, it was really thin and it took about five coats to get the colour that I wanted. It took a long time to dry so I messed them up a bit in my impatience. :( After every coat I had to wait for it to dry to apply the next one, as you can imagine for five coats that took so long! After a couple days though, the colour really grew on me I started to like it a bit more. It came out with a pinkish tone to it, that you can't really see in the picture but it was really pretty. The tips of my nails also got a lot of wear out of them and started to chip really easily (arrgghh!) so that was annoying.

Overall I would give this nail polish 6.5/10, I think that I still have to get used to it so there may be another review for this nail polish the second time around!

What do you think?

PLH,

kmatheson

Nail Polish Review: Sally Hansen's "Complete Salon Manicure"

On tuesday, I bought this new nail polish; the full brand title of it is Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure (I bought it in "Calypso Blue"). As far as I can tell, it's a relatively new line from Sally Hansen and I have to say that I am very impressed! But on with the review;

The application of this polish is spectacular! It's super smooth and I only needed about two coats to get it as bright as I wanted. It didn't bubble at all for me, which I thought was amazing! Considering that this was a drug store purchase, its pretty much a miracle that it didn't bubble. In fact it dried so smoothly that I keep rubbing my fingers over my nails because it had dried so well. :)

I am super rough with my hands and nail polish doesn't usually last for me past about three days without chipping. This nail polish has lasted 6 days so far! There is a little bit of wear on the ends of my nails and one chip on my left middle finger but I could totally survive with it on for another four days. Now, you may think that this isn't a big deal but I get really bothered when I have chips in my nails and my friends always like to say that I paint my nails everyday, when really it's only about three times a week. :)

This picture was taken after six days of wear, so as you can see barely any damage. This also dries really quickly and conditions your nails a wee bit (which I so desperately needed!) I would definitely recommend this 100%, it's one of the best nail polishes that I've tried. The only thing that I would want to change is I wish there were more colours available, it seems that there is only red, pinks and neutrals and that this blue was one of the wilder ones. Although I also did pick up one of the colours in the HD line, so expect a review on that one soon!

What do you think? Any nail polishes that I should try or stay away from?

PLH,

kmatheson