Born Pretty Store Neon Studs and My Best Nail Art Ever!

 Born Pretty Store nail studs sent for review.

I stink at nail art. I really do. But I give it a try from time to time when I get inspired because it's fun and it's just polish, so I can always take it off if it's terrible. But this time, I am so proud of this look, I think it's my best nail art ever! I received the new and awesome neon nail studs from Born Pretty Store, my source for all things nail art. These square studs come in two sizes, 2mm and 3mm, and a large variety of bright neon colors. I got the 2mm studs in a cool neon yellow-green, #8F. They seemed like the most obnoxiously bright ones from the pictures.

I thought these nail studs were so cute, I wanted to do a really cool look to do them justice. I started with a matte black base to let their brightness pop (KnockOut Cosmetics Flatte Black). When it was completely dry, I taped off a triangle on each tip using Scotch tape and painted that area with my favorite silver polish (L'Oreal Silver Star, but any silver will do!). I then put a drop of Poshe top coat on the back of each stud and placed one stud at the tip of each triangle. I topped the whole nail off with a coat of Essie Good to Go. I am still wearing this look now after 24 hours, a shower, dishes and various cleaning projects, with all studs intact.

If you look super close, you can see that the tips of the triangles are not all in the absolute center of my nails. But, the lines are crisp and from a bit of a distance everything looks really cool. I am quite pleased with this look, and I love these neon studs! They are much brighter in person, like your typical neon polish, and a flashy shade of yellow-green. Born Pretty Store also has a great neon pink and bright orange that I may pick up next. I'd love to cover a whole accent nail with these next, maybe with a couple of different colors.

Born Pretty Store nail studs sent for review.

These neon studs are available for $2.99 at Born Pretty Store. If you order the 2mm size, you get a bag of 200 studs, or the 3mm you get 100 studs, so this is a great deal. Shipping is always free and you can use the code ERJ61 for 10% your order. What do you think? Did I finally do a nail art look that doesn't suck?!?

A Lynnderella Sugar Bunny Sandwich!

Base: one coat Nicole by OPI Base Coat Plus

Color: one coat OPI Don't Burst My Bubble, two coats Lynnderella Sugar Bunny, one coat OPI Don't Burst My Bubble

Top: one coat KnockOut Cosmetics Flatte Top (matte top coat)

Application: good (out of poor, average, good, excellent)

Lynnderella Sugar Bunny was purchased by me with my own money. OPI Don't Burst My Bubble was sent for review. All opinions are my own honest thoughts.

 I knew Lynnderella Sugar Bunny was the first polish I wanted to wear from the Lynnderella Everything's Coming Up Neon collection. Sugar Bunny is a gorgeous, spring-y looking mix of white and neon glitters in a soft shimmery sheer white base. I hadn't done a good jelly sandwich in awhile, so I decided to use OPI Don't Burst My Bubble from the Oz collection to sandwich Sugar Bunny. When I finished the sandwich, it looked gorgeous and glossy, but for some reason I wasn't feeling it. I grabbed my favorite matte top coat, KnockOut Cosmetics Flatte Top, and had at it. I love the result!!! For some reason, I just really like this matte! Don't get me wrong, it looked great shiny too, but I think I was just in a matte mood.

Sugar Bunny was super easy to apply with the dabbing method. Let's be real here, if you're not dabbing your  heavy glitters on, I think you're causing yourself a lot of unnecessary frustration. This is really one dabbed coat, plus a few strategically placed glitters for the second coat.

Lynnderella Sugar Bunny and the rest of the Everything's Coming Up Neon collection are available on Lynnderella.com.

Lynnderella Sugar Bunny was purchased by me with my own money. OPI Don't Burst My Bubble was sent for review. All opinions are my own honest thoughts.

OPI Electric Eel Over Black Rocks My Socks

Feel free to take a few minutes to ogle these pictures. Definitely enlarge them to see the wonder in full force. Especially the first picture, that one needs to be clicked on. This masterpiece is OPI Electric Eel over two coats of KnockOut Cosmetics Flatte Black, although any black polish would do the trick.





I thought this polish would work well over black, and I was SO right. This is amazingly beautiful in person. It changes every time you move your hand, and looks different in all kinds of lighting. Sometimes it looks very very green. Other times, it looks almost pinkish gold, or even a purple color! Electric Eel is pretty alone, but putting it over black makes it a total standout. This is one polish I will not mind layering. I imagine it would look fantastic over navy blue as well.









Oh P.S., I added a blogroll finally! It's small now, but please email me if you'd like to be added to my blogroll. I only ask that you add me to yours in return, and I will only add blogs that are updated reasonably frequently.

First Halloween Mani!

I've mentioned my love of Halloween before on this blog, but just in case you missed the message- I seriously love Halloween. I love decorating the outside of the house with ghosts and witches and all of that, I love costumes, I love cheesy Halloween movies (Hocus Pocus, anyone?). So I plan to show you a few looks that I'm considering wearing on my nails for Halloween.



This is two coats of OPI Tangerine Scene with KO Flatte Black. I really wanted to use my favorite matte black, Knockout Cosmetics Flatte Black in this look, but a different black would have probably worked better. The KO brush is long and just too large for precise nail art lines, so my lines here are kind wobbly. However, I really like the look of the matte black with the shiny orange. And from a slight distance, you really don't notice the fuzzy lines.


This was a really easy look to do, but I actually like it a lot!! I am planning on wearing it again this month, maybe even on Halloween!

KO Cosmetics Flatte Black is available online at Knockout Cosmetics. OPI Tangerine Scene is hard to track down, but it's similar to the more recent release, OPI Flit A Bit.

Reader Question: Does a Matte Top Coat Help Prevent Chips with Matte Shimmers?

After seeing my post about MAC Studded, a gray/silver matte shimmer polish, reader Skulda wanted to know if a good quality matte top coat would help prevent a matte shimmer polish from chipping. So I did a quick test to find out the answer to her question!

I used KnockOut Cosmetics Flatte Top for my matte top coat. I have found this to be an excellent matte top coat. When applied over non-matte and glitter polish, this top coat is chip-free for days!

left to right: 3 coats Studded plus 1 coat Flatte Top; 3 coats Studded; 3 coast Studded plus 1 coat Flatte Top; 3 thick coats Studded

As we know, the polish companies do not recommend using a top or base coat with any of the matte or matte shimmer polishes. In my wear test of MAC Studded, the nails with the KnockOut Flatte Top top coat actually chipped worse than the nails without. As you can see, my middle nail (Studded alone) only has tip wear, no chips. My pinkie (Studded alone) has a chip, but I accidentally applied the polish very thickly on that nail, so I would say that caused the chip more than anything else. I also had Studded alone, with no top coat, on my right hand and the nails only had tip wear. The only nails that chipped were the ones with top coat (and the aforementioned pinkie nail). The pictures are both with flash, as the weather here in CT is charming yet again.

left to right: 3 coats Studded plus 1 coat Flatte Top; 3 coats Studded; 3 coast Studded plus 1 coat Flatte Top; 3 thick coats Studded

In the pictures, I had been wearing MAC Studded for two days. In my experience of mattes and shimmer mattes, this is pretty standard wear for that amount of time. I do have very oily nails though, if you do not have oily nails, mattes might last longer on you. The polish was absolutely perfect for the whole first day and a half. It started to look like this after I took my second shower while wearing it. I think showers really wreck matte and matte shimmer polishes. Maybe it's just because I take really long showers LOL.

So, to sum up my test, sorry Skulda! I don't think a good quality matte top coat will help prevent chips while wearing a matte shimmer polish! On the bright side, chips are very quick to fix with this polish, and you can't see the seams like you can with non-matte polishes.

MAC Studded is available online at MAC. KnockOut Cosmetics Flatte Top is available online at KnockOut Cosmetics.

OMG, while we're on the subject of KO Cosmetics, check out their new polish "Match" a matte hot pink! I want it sooooooo much!!!!!