Sally Hansen Color Whirl in Marble-ous

*Sent for review*

I have the new Sally Hansen Color Whirl in the shade "Marble-ous" for you today. Marble-ous is one of two Color Whirl polishes that are to be used on top of any of the regular Sally Hansen Miracle Gel polishes to create a spotted, marbled effect. Here's what Sally Hansen says about the Color Whirl polishes-

"Miracle Gel Color Whirl is a polish “overcoat” that creates a marble effect over any Sally Hansen Miracle Gel polish, so you’ll still get the great chip resistant gel-like wear you expect, but now with an eye-catching design! Miracle Gel Color Whirl is available in two color-transforming shades, Steam Punk and Marble-ous, that work with the Miracle Gel 2-step system giving you a new salon-inspired look in just one swipe, right in the comfort of your own home!"

I tried Sally Hansen Marble-ous over two different Miracle Gel shades. The first is a classic black creme, Sally Hansen Blacky-O. I think this is such a perfect spooky Halloween mani! It looks aged and kind of decrepit, like a haunted house. I'm not sure if this would be an every day kind of mani for me, but it's definitely something I will rock at this time of year when ghouls and goblins abound!

I also tried Marble-ous over Sally Hansen Miracle Gel in Good Cheer-y, a shimmering cherry red. This also makes a really interesting Halloween nail look, kind of gory looking, right?

The key to getting some good marbling with this polish is to use a really really thin coat. You must wipe the brush off on both sides and try to cover the whole nail in just one or two swipes. If you go back over any part a second time, it sort of closes up the spots and smooshes them together. I finished both of these looks with one layer of Sally Hansen Miracle Gel top coat. Sally Hansen made a video tutorial for using the Color Whirl shades that I found to be helpful. You can check that out here.

After trying Marble-ous, I am planning on picking up the black Color Whirl shade, Steam Punk. I think it would look so cool over orange for Halloween! If you're looking for something fun and different to add to your collection, definitely check out these new Color Whirl toppers.

Sally Hansen Color Whirl and Miracle Gel polishes are available at a CVS, Walgreens, or Ulta store near you!

Memorial Day Stars and Stripes

*Some products sent for review*

Hope all of my US readers are enjoying your Memorial Day weekend! I picked up these American flag stencils from What's Up Nails awhile back and thought they'd be perfect to honor our veterans this weekend. 

I used OPI Infinite Shine Non-Stop White for the base, Lynnderella Unicorn Shoes for the blue stars, and China Glaze Ruby Pumps for the stripes. Overall I love how it came out, but I had some challenges with the stencils themselves. The stars did NOT want to pop out of the stencils. I had to pretty much individually remove them with tweezers, so the whole thing took quite a bit longer than I expected. But I do like the finished look!

These stencils are available now at What's Up Nails!

First St. Patrick's Day Mani of 2018!

Having a snow day yesterday gave me some extra time to do my nails! Of course I had to go with a green with a little shamrock accent for St. Patrick's Day! This nice spearmint green creme is OPI Infinite Shine S-ageless Beauty. I haven't worn it since it came out and I had forgotten what a nice pastel yellow-toned green it is.

I used Zoya Chita and What's Up Nails Shamrock Stencils for an easy shamrock accent. Have you done any St. Patrick's Day manis yet? Let me know in the comments!

Valentine's Day NOTD with OPI and What's Up Nails

*Some products sent for review*

Valentine's Day isn't really my thing, but I typically do try to do a mani for it at least. This year I went simple, but eye catching, with OPI Let's Be Friends as a base for some hearts. Let's Be Friends is from the Hello Kitty collection and I forgot how much I liked it until I put it on for this mani. It makes a great stark white pink base for the hearts. I used these heart chain stencils from What's Up Nails and Vapid Lacquer Hard Candy for the hearts.

If you are planning on celebrating Valentine's Day I hope you get lots of chocolate and have a fun evening!

Snowflake Mani with Vapid and Sally Hansen!

Happy Monday! There is some snow expected here tomorrow/Wednesday, so I thought it was time for a snowflake mani. I picked up a Vapid Lacquer Winter Midnight one-off in the Purge sale. A one-off just means that something about the polish is slightly off from the formula. I can't really tell what is different between my one-off and regular Winter Midnight, maybe it's a little lighter or has fewer of the white shimmer flakes? Whatever the difference is, it's beautiful!

I used What's Up Nails snowflake vinyls for this and sponged on some Sally Hansen Insta Dri Silver Sweep. I also used Vapid Catsuit latex to make clean up easier and prevent getting the silver polish on my skin. Kinda hoping my snowflake nails bring me a snow day tomorrow 😉!

I believe Krys from Vapid has said that Winter Midnight will be available again. Check out http://vapid.mybigcommerce.com and keep an eye on the Vapid Facebook page for restock info.

Happy Halloween with Sally Hansen and Rimmel!!

*Some products sent for review*

Happy Halloween!!!!! Hope everyone had a fun Halloweekend and maybe got a chance to dress up, because that's the best part of Halloween! Sally Hansen and Rimmel London sent me some products (both new and old) recently that are just perfect for Halloween. I used some in my Halloween mani (above) and others over the weekend for a costume party. Let's start with my NOTD- a graveyard scene with a twinkling gradient night sky. For the tombstones, I used my favorite tombstone vinyls from What's Up Nails and Sally Hansen Hooked on Onyx. It was important to me to have a really pigmented jet black polish for these, as you really can't do a second coat with vinyls, and Hooked on Onyx worked perfectly here.

For the night sky gradient, I used one coat of OPI Angel with a Lead Foot, then sponged on OPI I Saw... U Saw... We Saw... Warsaw and OPI Reach for the Sky. I topped it off with one layer of China Glaze Fairy Dust before adding the tombstones. Love love love the finished product and super happy that I had some time to do this for Halloween!

Over the weekend I wore this easy mani. This is two coats of Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Blacky O, with freehand designs using the new Sally Hansen I 💛 Nail Art Pen in Orange. This pen is probably the best nail art pen I have ever used. Usually I find them to be kind of a pain, either the polish doesn't come out enough or it floods your nail and ruins any design you might be going for. This one is just right, enough polish comes out to write or draw, but not so much that you can't control where it's going. I did this in a huge rush and it still came out half way decent for me and freehand designs haha.

My pinky nail is supposed to be googly eyes but I didn't really have enough room. Don't judge.

Rimmel London also has two great new products that are perfect for Halloween makeup. Rimmel Stay Matte Liquid Lip Color in Pitch Black is a super black matte liquid lipstick (top pumpkin swatch in the picture above). It is a very saturated black color. I am not the world's best applier of matte liquid lipstick, but it was pretty easy to work with and didn't dry down so quickly that it became patchy. I just had trouble smoothing out the edges and couldn't figure out what to use as a liner! My new favorite Rimmel product is the Scandaleyes Bold eye liner (bottom pumpkin and line swatch in above picture). It has a very cool innovative round tip that I found to really help me apply the liner evenly. I wore this liner over the weekend and it lasted perfectly, no flaking or smudging at all. It's very very black too, which I prefer!

If you are in need of any last minute Halloween supplies, these great Sally Hansen and Rimmel London products are all available at a drugstore near you!

Sally Hansen x Madeline Poole March Trend- Bright Stripes

*Press release*

Sally Hansen Global Color Ambassador Madeline Poole always has her finger on the latest nail trends and this month she recommends bright stripes- a rainbow bright manicure with big impact. 

When explaining her inspiration for Bright Stripes, Madeline reported that “tons of bright colors revived the 80’s this spring 2017 season. There was no shortage of saturation”. So Madeline followed suit with a manicure to match this runway trend. 

Want to get this look yourself? See below for a step by step guide to achieving this look right at home, with just Sally Hansen Nail Colors and a toothpick!

Happy Vapid Valentine's Day!!

*Purchased by me*

Happy Valentine's Day!! I don't typically do many Valentine's Day manicures, it's just not my favorite holiday. But I recently got Vapid Lacquer Hard Candy and happened to have these What's Up Nails heart vinyls, so I figured I should put them to good use! Vapid Hard Candy is a gorgeous hot pink metallic with lots of scattered holographic particles. The base color just glows with beautiful shimmer and then the holo particles on top are so pretty! 

The accent nail here is OPI Pink Friday with the What's Up Nails heart vinyls. They came out great except for the one on the bottom, that's kind of a mutated heart for some reason LOL. These vinyls are pretty easy to use, except I did have a hard time getting all of the solid hearts out of the stencil portion, even with tweezers.

This is three thin coats of Vapid Hard Candy, it's pretty opaque though, so two coats should be fine. I am loving this color!! The formula is great, very smooth and easy to apply. I used one layer of top coat and it is nice and glossy.

Vapid Hard Candy is currently sold out, but hopefully Krys will bring it back at some point. Keep an eye on http://vapid.mybigcommerce.com for restock dates. The heart vinyls are available on What's Up Nails. What's Up Nails also has a great selection of St. Patrick's Day nail art supplies, I have my eye on a few things!

CrowsToes Indian Summer Raindrop Mani!

*Purchased by me*

Hi everyone, happy hump day! I wanted to share a mani I wore over the weekend, I really enjoyed wearing this one. I've been dying to try one of those raindrop manis with a matted multichrome polish and shiny raindrops, and I've also had CrowsToes Indian Summer on my list of polishes to wear for awhile. Indian Summer is a beautiful multichrome that shows colors ranging from a deep indigo, to rich purple, to a red-pink. It's a gorgeous polish and I was very entertained watching it shift in different lighting.

This is two coats of Indian Summer. It was easy to apply, I had a little balding when I went to apply the second coat, but I didn't wait for my first coat to dry completely. I would recommend waiting in between coats. I used OPI Matte Top Coat to mattify it and then dotted Vapid Lacquer QDTC on for the raindrops. I used an old bottle of the Vapid TC and it has thickened up a lot, so the raindrops definitely didn't come out perfectly. I would use a newer TC next time to make those perfect looking drops. Overall, I like the effect though, and it was a fun mani to wear.

CrowsToes Indian Summer will be available when CrowsToes re-opens on Friday, February 10. This is the original version of Indian Summer, but it will now be available in four different finishes- Original, Sparked (scattered holo), Linear Holo (self explanatory) and Bleached Holo (densely packed linear holo). I'll be ordering the Sparked version, it's so pretty with just a touch of holo! Check out the CrowsToes shop here- http://www.crowstoesnailcolor.bigcartel.com and Facebook page here- https://www.facebook.com/CrowsToesNailColor/.

What's Up Nails Pine Trees and Glitter

*Some items sent for review*

Can you believe it's nearly Christmas? I still have a lot of shopping to do, I've really left it a bit late this year! I'm on my way to get some gifts now, but wanted to show you my nails of the last few days.  I mentioned I had more What's Up Nails Christmas vinyls, and these pine trees are adorable!! I used a pine tree green Lynnderella Mystery polish that she just sent as a Christmas gift (thanks Lynn!!!) for all of my nails except the ring and thumb nails. This mystery is just gorgeous, it's such a rich green. For my accent nails, I used Sally Hansen Glow with the Flow and the What's Up Nails pine tree vinyls with the Lynnderella. I made the ornaments on the tree with the tiniest dotting tool I own and used Glow with the Flow and L'Oreal Silver Star.

These pine tree vinyls were super easy to use. If you are just starting out with nail vinyls, I would definitely recommend them. I think I have at least one more mani with Christmas vinyls coming up for you, I just can't get enough of them this year!

What's Up Nails Pine Tree vinyls are available at https://store.whatsupnails.com. This particular Lynnderella mystery polish is not available, but there are mysteries for sale in the store. Sally Hansen Glow with the Flow is available at a drugstore near you!