Gryffindor Nails

Alright, it’s not quite as awesome as the title implies…

I didn’t have much time to do my nails tonight, as I have an essay due Monday, and I’ll be out all day tomorrow, so it needs to be done tonight. However, this week’s nails were inspired by Gryffindor:

Red (OPI Keys to my Karma) with gold glitter (Fascino #65). Simple, but cute. Maybe one night when I have some more time, I’ll draw something Harry Potterish on one or two in black.

(I should be doing blue and bronze for my beloved Ravenclaw or green and silver for Slytherin for my Pottermore house, but my boyfriend wanted red nails xP)

Oh, and I also have another ELF haul on the way, thanks to a LivingSocial deal, for 50% off $30 worth of products from their Studio or Mineral lines, as well as both my Luxe Box and Glymm Box, which should be arriving any day now. So remember to check back for my pictures and review (and maybe a video?) of all those!

Done anything cool to your nails lately? Show me a picture! Feel free to link to your blog if you have one, I’d love to check it out!

Leopard Print Nails!

I decided when I got home from work tonight that it was time to get to work on trying some of the techniques in my “Looks to Try” list in the sidebar. So, I settled on trying the Leopard Print pattern nails. I already had OPI Nail Envy on my nails, so I left that as my base coat. For my main colour, I used Power Clutch by Essie (Sorry for the mess, I’ll clean it all up when I’m all finished):

And here’s the cleaned up, final product

I really like how it turned out… it looks so lame right after you put on the centre dots, before you outline them, but afterwards it looks much more professional.

Also, if interested, I used OPI Strawberry Margarita for the pink centers, and The Face Shop’s Black for the outline.

I was going to take pictures after each step, so that this would be more like a tutorial, but I completely forgot. This is a really simple look to recreate though, so if you want a tutorial I’d suggest this one. It’s short, and she also has a ton of other very good nail art tutorials!

OPI Original Nail Envy

Hello! I realise that it’s been a long time since I posted anything, and the main reason is that my nails were getting very dry, and peeling a ton, so I’ve mostly kept to laying on my Nail Envy, and a simple polish over top. Also, just last weekend, I had a strong urge for simple, black nails, after all the crazy, colourful, and fun things I had been doing. This, however didn’t seem like something that was anywhere near interesting enough to post to my blog. Anyways, after using my Nail Envy for a couple weeks straight, now though, I thought I would give you guys a quick update on how well it’s been working for me.

First, to remind you, I bought the Nail Envy a few weeks ago from London Drugs, because my nails were getting really dry, and the top layers were starting to peel constantly. I was planning to buy OPI’s Nail Envy which is actually formulated to help fix sensitive and peeling nails, but LD didn’t carry it, so I ended up buying the original. It was a little pricier than I had been expecting at $19.99+tax, but I got it anyways, because my nails were pretty desperate.

So, now, I’ve been using the Nail Envy for a little while now, and I have to say that it certainly has done some good for my nails. They are definitely stronger, and are easier to grow than they have been in the past. However, on some nails, the peeling hasn’t stopped. Admittedly, this strengthener isn’t specially designed to fix that particular issue, but after spending twenty dollars on it, I had hoped that it would help. However, overall, the product does do what it says it will, which is strengthen your nails. At this point, I’d really like to try the Sensitive and Peeling Nails formula, to see if it would actually fix my poor, peeling nails…!

Do you use Nail Envy, or maybe another nail strengthener? Which is your favourite?

Flag nails!!

Hello again!

I just thought I’d put up a quick update, since I bought a few paint brushes a couple days ago to do nail art with! As my first test of them, I decided I would continue with the theme started with my British flag nail, and do my left hand’s nails in the flags of my heritage:

Starting with my pinky, the flags are: Scotland, Iceland, Canada, France, and Britain. If I had a sixth finger I could have done Denmark as well, but to be honest, I’d completely forgotten about that one anyways. So yeah, I’m very impressed with how they turned out, especially Iceland, which is very neat, and Canada, which is hard, what with the stupid maple leaf…!

If you were going to do your nails with flags of your background, which flags would you have to paint?

Union Jack Nail Art

This is just a quick post to show you the British flag nail I just did. It’s a bit messy, partly because I don’t have the right tools, and partly because I am planning to get some brushes tomorrow, so I don’t expect these nails to last very long!

I used:

OPI Nail Envy, Fascino #26 (which I call TARDIS blue),
L.A. Colors Art Deco in White, and OPI Keys to my Karma,
and a dotting tool from Sephora.

And this is the finished product, pre-clean up:

I think it turned out pretty good, considering I was trying to draw a straight line with a dotter, rather than a brush…!

If you would like to see a video tutorial of this look, check out chrissynailart’s video here, which was the video which inspired my version!