NOTD: Embarca-Dare Ya! from OPI's Fall/Winter San Francisco Collection

Hi guys! 

Today's post is showing you one of the polishes from OPI's newest collection, the San Francisco collection. This was released very recently, for Fall 2013. 

I was tempted by a few different colours from this collection, but I decided to go with only one (for now) and pick up Embarca-Dare Ya! as I do not have many pinks in my collection. 

Embarca-Dare Ya! is a gorgeous raspberry magenta shimmer with golden undertone shimmer. The gold shimmer is quite evident in the bottle, but unfortunately, does not transfer on to the nail very much. 

Here's a bottle shot to show you the gold shimmer: 

And here's a sunlight picture of this colour: 

The gold is a little difficult to see, but it is a very pretty colour nonetheless. This was a little sheer on the first coat, but it became opaque by the second. 

I'm very tempted to try some of the other colours from this collection! I'm eyeing "Peace, Love, and OPI" which is the duochromy one. 

Thanks for reading!

Melissa

NOTD: OPI Thanks a Windmillion with OPI Lights of Emerald City

Today's post is going to give you a quick look at the nail polish look I currently have on that I just love. These two polishes are both from OPI. 

Thanks a Windmillion is from last Spring's Holland Collection, which for some reason, is still being sold in the stores where I live. I think the collection might have been added to the permanent line. 

Thanks A Windmillion (cute name) is a muted, dusty, blue toned green creme. It is very very similar to Mermaids' Tears from the Pirates of the Carribean collection. It's a gorgeous colour, and needed two coats to be opaque. 

Lights of Emerald City is from Oz The Great and Powerful collection which was released earlier this year to coincide with the release of the movie. That collection is still available in some stores. 

This is the colour I used to put over the Thanks A Windmillion. It consists of a clear base with two types of square glitter- large white squares, and smaller iridescent pieces. Depending on what colour base you layer this over, it can look golden green (darker bases) or blueish purple (lighter bases). It was kind of difficult to get this evenly dispersed and I didn't end up with quite the look I wanted, but oh well. I'll try harder next time. 

Here's a close up shot of the bottle.

Thanks for reading!!

Melissa

Nail Tutorial: Ombre Nails!!

So ombre is a huge trend this summer. It's everywhere- hair, clothes, shoes, and now, my nails!!
This is the first time I've ever done ombre nails, so this is not going to be the high tech tutorial ever. But I thought I would just share my method for doing them!

So if you want to see how I got the look below, keep on reading!!

Ok, yes I am aware this isn't the best looking ombre ever, but for a first attempt, I'm pretty proud of it. Alright, let's jump into the "tutorial"!

WHAT YOU'LL NEED:

The Polishes:

Ok, from the left, I have base coat and top coat, obviously. Then the third polish is what I'm using for a base colour. I would highly recommend using a white or light cream/pink polish to use as a base for your ombre, because that makes all the colours pop a lot more. I'm using OPI's My Vampire Is Buff.

Then the last polishes are my ombre colours. The colours blend more smoothly together if you use three colours instead of two, and the ombre looks more gradual. I stuck with colours in the same colour family for my first try. For the lightest colour (third from the right), I'm using China Glaze Hopeful. My medium colour (second from right) is China Glaze Flirty Tankini, and my darkest colour is China Glaze Make Some Noise.

The Tools:

You will also need some clear tape and a makeup sponge to paint the colours on.

HOW I DID IT:

Step 1:

So first and foremost, you can paint your nails with base coat, if you want to use it. I always do, it's just a habit.

But then you're going to paint on your white/cream/pink base. Side note: if your lightest colour is a white/cream/light pink, then you can just use that as your base. 

Don't worry if it's not completely opaque.

my base colour- OPI My Vampire is Buff

Step 2:

Once your base colour is completely dry (it needs to be dry so your ombre will stay on), take your clear tape and tape around each nail until the skin around each nail is covered by tape. This is a really messy process and the polish will get everywhere, so this step just saves a lot of cleanup.

So I covered the sides, bottom and top of my thumb. Sorry if this is kind of hard to see. But basically when I press the sponge down on my nail, the polish that isn't getting on my nail will be getting on the tape.

This is an incredibly awkward angle, but I just wanted you to see all my fingers taped up. I did it one hand at a time, so I taped one hand, then did the ombre pattern on that hand, then taped the other hand.

Step 3:

So now we arrive at the fun part. So your base colour is dry, and you're all taped up. So take your makeup sponge, and depending which colour you want at the base of your nail, paint the polishes on accordingly. In other words, if you want the darkest colour on the base of the nail and the lightest on the top, the paint a stripe of your darkest colour at the top of the sponge. 

I wanted the darkest at the base of my nail, so here's how I painted my sponge.

The darkest is at the very top of the sponge, so when I press it on my nail, it will go at the base of my nail. 

Wait a second or two to lets the polishes sort of absorb into the sponge and blend better together.

So angling the sponge so all your colours line up where you want them on the nail, press down and make sure you're getting all your colour on there.

This is one coat of the ombre. After each nail, I repaint all the colours onto the sponge so it will be freshly painted for the next nail. I did two coats of ombre for every nail, because after only one coat, the colours aren't super strong. 

So this is one hand after two coats of ombre and BEFORE clean up!!

Told you it gets messy!!

Step 4:

Clean up time! Peeling off the tape gets rid of most of the excess polish, but depending on how precise you were with your taping, you might end up with some polish around your nail. When that happens, I take a nail polish remover pad and put some nail polish remover in the center. Then I fold it in half, and use the folded edge to remove any leftover polish. 

And here's the finished look!!

Sorry for the chip on my index finger, I accidentally hit it when I took the tape off. 

But anyway, I hope this tutorial was helpful! I know I'm not a nail art expert (that can be clearly seen), but I thought I would share how I did this anyway.

Thanks for reading!!

Melissa

NOTD: OPI Excuse Moi!

OPI Excuse Moi!

I would like to preface this post by saying this is my favourite glitter nail polish of all time. It's just SO PRETTY. This is from the Christmas 2011 Muppets collection from OPI. 

It's a beautiful mixture of a candy pink base, with all different colours of circular glitter- silver, blue, pink, green and yellow. It's stunning. These photos don't do it justice.

I don't wear glitter nail polish all that often, because it is just such a pain to remove! But this one is worth the pain. It eats topcoat though. A LOT. 

Here's some pictures in natural light-

SO SPARKLY.

Anyway, thanks for reading!

Melissa

Nail Art Tutorial: Strawberry Design

Today I'm going to show you how to recreate the simple strawberry nail art shown above. It's really fun, and really easy to do!! I don't do nail art very often, so I know this isn't the best art ever and definitely not the most precise!

I actually got the idea for this from an Instagram picture my friend showed me. Unfortunately, I only saw it for a second and didn't get the name of the account. 

If you want to see how I did this, keep reading!!

The Polishes: 

So for this look, you only need three polishes, plus base coat and top coat if you like. You need a red polish (which I'm sure most of us own), a green polish, and a white/cream polish. 

Here are the polishes I used. For the red, I'm using Essie's Fishnet Stockings. For green, I chose OPI's Uh Oh Roll Down the Window, and for the white/cream (mine is more of a cream) I used OPI's My Vampire is Buff. Any similar polishes will work. 

You also will need some sort of dotting tool. You could use an actual dotting tool or a nail brush, but I opted just to use toothpicks. If you want a more precise look, I would use a dotting tool.

THE STEPS:

Step 1:

I first applied some of Revlon's ColorStay base coat (you can skip this step if you want), and then I applied the red base. 

Step 2: 

Then once that was dry, I took a toothpick with some of the green polish on it and started making triangle shapes at the top of my nails.

Like this:

Depending on the size of the nail, I usually put four or five triangles, then filled them in. 

Step 3:

Then using the white polish, I just made polka dots over the nail! Super simple! Then I applied top coat over everything. 

And here's the finished look! 

Hope you guys enjoyed this tutorial!

Thanks for reading!!

Melissa

NOTD: China Glaze Unfor-greta-bly Blue with OPI Goldeneye

Unfor-greta-bly Blue with Goldeneye

Today's NOTD is from two different brands, China Glaze and OPI. Unfor-greta-bly Blue, the base colour, is from this past summer's Germany collection from China Glaze. And Goldeneye is from OPI's James Bond collection. 

This is what Unfor-greta-bly Blue looks like on it's own:

It is a shimmery cobalt blue, with a hint of turquoise. Goldeneye looks nice on it's own or layered over top of another polish, and it is a gold fleck polish in a clear base. It is very yellow toned.

I gave it one layer of top coat, just to tie things together. I really like the way it turned out!

Thanks for reading!!

Melissa

NOTD: OPI Warm and Fozzie

OPI Warm and Fozzie

Today's post is a really super quick post of my nail polish I was actually wearing last week! It's OPI's Warm and Fozzie, which was from 2010's Holiday collection, the Muppets.

This is a really cool looking polish, because it has so many different colours in it. It's main colour is obviously bronze, but since it is a foil finish, it has lots of other sparkly colours like green, yellow and pink. 

A couple of pics to show the duochromeyness (definitely not a word.)

It's super pretty! Since it was in the Muppets collection two years ago, you obviously can't get it anymore, but there are plenty of similar colours out there, so don't worry! 

Thanks for reading!

Melissa

NOTD: OPI My Vampire Is Buff

OPI My Vampire Is Buff

Today's NOTD is a polish from OPI's newest collection, Euro Centrale. I'll be honest, I don't know what the name of this polish has to do with Europe, but whatever. The name is still cute. I was drawn to this polish because plain whites look too harsh against my skin tone, but since this was an off white, I thought it might work.

And it does work. I love this colour. My Vampire Is Buff is a beautiful eggshell cream that looks so clean on the nails. LOVE. The first and second coats were a little streaky, but a third coat evened everything out. 

And because I was feeling a little creative that day (and I had some inspiration from a friend), I decided to do polka dots on top of the polish. I think this colour will be a great base for any nail art.

This is how it turned out!

I really like the finished look! The colour I used to make the polka dots was Dress Me Up from China Glaze, which was a part of their Hunger Games collection last March (almost a year ago! Wow!)

This was my "workstation". I used a toothpick to make the dots, and I just put a glob of the colour on a Post-It note and just dipped the toothpick in. It worked very well!

I really really like this colour. I think it looks soft, yet also makes a statement. Love it!

Thanks for reading!

Melissa