Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Metallic Matte

*press sample

Hello lovelies! Today I have some new Sally Hansen Insta-Dri shades to share! All six of these shades are matte but I personally preferred the sparkly look with glossy top coat. I included swatches of both so you can see for yourself. I'm a fan of the Insta-Dri line (I swear I own most of them) but the brush is always the one thing that I think could be improved on. While it's just a bit to big usually, all of these brushes were cut unevenly :(. Let's get to the swatches..

UberChic Beauty Collection 16 & 17 Stamping Plates Review

*press sample

I promised with my last UberChic Beauty review (here) that I was coming back with more. Well here I am with the Collection 16 & 17 stamping plates! As usual there were sooo many good images to choose from. I could have spammed you with a ton of nail art from these plates, but I wanted to show these to you sooner than later. Let's check them out!

Polished Glossy Spiderwebs

Surprise! More Halloween nails! This mani is not only classy and chic, it's easy enough for anyone to do. The subtlety is perfect for those days that you don't want your nails to scream, "I LOVE HALLOWEEN"! I mean, it's my favorite holiday and all. I just don't always feel like being obnoxious about it.

Southwestern Wedding Anniversary Nails

Last Saturday my husband and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary! Each year I give myself a nice pat on the back for making it this far. Yay for us!

Last year's anniversary nails were more soft and romantic. This year I went with colorful and graphic. Our wedding colors were blue and orange. It's one of my favorite combinations because I love blue, and I love bright colors!

Chaotic Chiaroscuro

When I wrote my Formula X swatches post yesterday, I looked at Chaotic and remembered how I've been meaning to wear it again. I loved how it looked on top of my gradient for my Blue Medley nails. Ever since, I've had this mani in mind, waiting for the right time to try it. In between all the soft, flowery, pastels of Spring, it's nice to have something stark and dramatic. I just love how the glitter seems to change in contrast over the black and white.

I started off with a white base, two coats of Sinful Colors Snow Me White. I let that dry for a few minutes while I prepped my skin around the nail with Elmer's glue. When the glue was all dry I got a makeup sponge and painted it with Snow Me White and Wet N Wild Fast Dry Ebony Hates Chris. I dabbed the sponge on a few times until I achieved the effect I wanted. Then I applied a coat of Formula X Chaotic over the gradient. I finished it off with a coat of China Glaze Matte Magic. Then it was cleanup time! I removed the dry glue off my skin and used my cleanup brush and acetone to remove the remaining polish around the cuticles. I'm so glad it came out how I imagined it!

I always forget about the aftermath of a gradient mani. They take soooooo long to clean up. The polish sticks to my cuticles and doesn't want to let go. I thought this would take little time, easy peasy. It took just as much time to clean up as it did to apply it! Oh well, always worth it in the end.

What I used:
Sinful Colors Snow Me White
Wet N Wild Fast Dry Ebony Hates Chris
Formula X for Sephora Chaotic
China Glaze Matte Magic top coat

Do you like the dramatics of this mani? It's definitely one that demands everyone to "Look at me!".

St. Patrick's Day Half Moons With Zoya Hunter and Opal

I have a quick St. Patrick's Day mani for you today. The star of the show here is Zoya Opal, a polish I bought months ago and can't believe I'm just now showing off! What better time to do it than for the upcoming holiday? I have another St. Patty's theme mani I hope to have for you on Monday, so don't forget to tune in!

Artificial lighting:

To create this manicure I applied two coats Zoya Hunter, then applied fast dry top coat. After they were nice and dry I placed reinforcement labels over my cuticles. Then I painted on one coat of Zoya Opal, then a matte top coat before removing the labels.

Outdoor lighting:

What I used:
Zoya Hunter
Zoya Opal
China Glaze Matte Magic
Sally Hansen Dries Instantly
Reinforcement labels

Hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you think in the comments. :)

33 Day Challenge Day 02: Your Most Used Color Polish

It's a good thing that I didn't start today's mani until late in the day. I wasn't sure about the specifics of the prompt. Deb who is running the challenge on her blog The Crumpet, clarified what she had intended. She explained that she meant an actual polish color. I struggled trying to figure out what single polish I use the most. The most used ever? In the past five years? This year? I have noticed that in the last two plus months since I have started my blog, I've incorporated Sephora by OPI What's a Tire Jack? in a multitude of manicures. So I'm going with it.

Ever since I did my Red Matte and Glossy post I've been wanting to do this manicure. I love it! It's something I could wear practically any day. I especially love how easy it is. I just painted on a couple of coats of the polish and topped it with Seche Vite. The top coat helped it to dry faster and to give a glossy shine. Then I used my striping brush dipped in a matte top coat and brushed on the lines. That was it!

I love that it's subtle, but has a little edge to it.

What I used:
Sephora by OPI What's a Tire Jack?
Seche Vite top coat (shiny)
China Glaze Matte Magic top coat


I have a few different black polishes but this seems to be the one I reach for the most? Anyone have a favorite go-to black polish? What do you like about it?

31DC2013 Day 25: Inspired by Fashion

To be honest, I wasn't super excited about today. I guess it's hard to get excited about fashion when you hang out in your sweatpants all day. Every day. I mean, I do change into my jeans when I leave the house, but that's about it.
Once I started searching for my fashion inspiration I suddenly found a TON of designs I wanted to do. Before I made it any harder to choose I made myself stop browsing, and went with the one that stood out the most. Rest assured, I will be doing more fashion inspired manicures in the future!

I love the pastel colors paired with black. It's sweet and sexy.

I started off with a yellow base color and topped it with Seche Vite to speed up the drying time. Then I put a couple pieces of striping tape on each nail. I applied the blue between the cuticles and tape, removing the tape immediately. Repeating the process, I applied black polish from the tape to tip. I finished it off with another coat of Seche Vite. I loved the glossy look, especially on the black. To be more true to the dress I added a matte top coat to mimic its duller color of black.

Here's what it looked like before the matte coat:

What I used:
Sephora by OPI Havana Dreams- blue
Jenna Hipp Tweet Me- yellow
Sephora by OPI What's a Tire Jack?- black
Seche Vite top coat
China Glaze Matte Magic top coat

Only six more days of the Challenge left! I've been so inspired by everyone else participating. Thanks everyone for reading!

31DC2013 Day 16: Tribal Print

I could not nail down a decision on what design to do for the tribal print prompt. It kind of bothered me all weekend. It wasn't until I googled "Aboriginal art" that I found what I wanted to do. I found so many beautiful images of dot artwork, and I knew I had to try it. Then after a couple more hours of decision making and hesitation on the colors and design, I finally got to work. Here's what I came up with!

To start I applied two coats of Zoya Flynn. After letting it dry for a few minutes I applied a top coat. I'm sure I didn't need to, but I wanted to make sure it was smooth before I started with the design.

I started with my little lizard (isn't he cute?) in the middle and then worked my way out. I continued the dot pattern on the neighboring nails. Then on the thumb and pinky I used the same order with the colors, but with concentric circles. I used a long striper brush to make the lizard. For the dots I used the pointy shaped dotting tool from my nail art brush set.

I was just about to post this when I realized something was missing. I almost forgot that I wanted to see how this looked in a matte finish. So I quickly applied some China Glaze Matte Magic, took the photos, and added one to the post. I considered replacing all the ones I had ready with the matte ones, but then I couldn't decide. And it would be that much more work. Which do you like better?

What I used:
Zoya Flynn- base color (I love this color and almost didn't want to cover it up!)
Sephora by OPI What's a Tire Jack?- black
It's So Easy Stripe Rite - for the tiny white dots on the lizard
Sephora by OPI White hot- white for the other dots
BK #25 (from the Born Pretty Store)- orange
Sephora by OPI Studs and Stilettos- brown
Sephora by OPI It's Totally Karma- lime green
Finger Paints- Art Hue Serious?- forest green
Seche Vite top coat
China Glaze Matte Magic top coat

This is one that I really don't want to take off my nails right now!! At least the photos will last forever... I know I will be doing more designs like this in the future! 

31DC2013 Day 03: Yellow Nails

How is it only Day 3? I swear it's been at least a week already...

For today I created a "cartoon nails" manicure. My reasoning is that yellow polish is somehow already a little cartoon-y by itself. Only, it might not have been the best shade choice for this look, because the white doesn't contrast well on it. I'll try it again sometime with a more saturated shade like pink or red.

But I digress. These are still cool. They're kind of trippy to look at. Enjoy!

I started with three coats of the yellow. Then I outlined the nails in black polish with a striping brush. Next I painted on the white with a striping brush and dotting tool. I finished it all off with a matte top coat. Viola!

What I used:
Sephora by OPI Yellow My Name is Betsey
Sephora by OPI What's A Tire Jack?
Sephora by OPI White Hot
China Glaze Matte Magic

I hope you're having as much fun with this challenge as I am!

Red Matte and Glossy

I've been wanting to try this look for so long. I bought American Apparel Downtown LA a couple weeks ago and thought this would be a good color to try it out on. It's a great classic red, but after the matte coat I felt a little meh about it. It's always trial and error finding out which colors look good matte and which ones don't. I don't think this one does. But I will try again and have some good polishes in mind.

I know if I just used a matte polish this would have been much simpler. Since I don't own any I started with two coats of Downtown LA, followed by Seche Vite top coat. Once it was all dry I taped off the tips. I wanted to make sure I got a really crisp line so I used striping tape. You can see I got a little confused with the process on my pinky nail. Then I painted on China Glaze Matte Magic from cuticle to the tape. With that extra coat it made the polish get a little thick where it met the tape. 

I had debated whether I should do it this way or just start with the matte coat over the whole nail and then paint the tips next. I'm pretty sure I should have done the latter. I just thought the Seche Vite would dry it really well so that the tape wouldn't mess it up. I'll try it the other way next time and will let you know how it turns out!

Bubble Gum Zebra

I finally got my nail art brushes in the mail!! Oh happy day! So now.. what to do, what to do? I was already wearing Clinique Different Nail Enamel Pinkini, and I thought I could just add to it. I decided to christen my brushes with a zebra print. I was surprised by how easy it was! At least,  it started easy. For some reason by the time I got to my ring and pinky fingers, I started to struggle a little more. Regardless, I was so excited by the result! Obviously there is room for improvement (isn't there always?), but you can still tell it's zebra print, right?

The next day I tried it with a matte top coat. It smeared it a little and shrunk it too, but I liked the finish. I used China Glaze Matte Magic.

I was still in the mood for experimenting, so I added a glitter coat. I struggled with the hex glitter, getting it both on the nail and then in the right place. It ended up pretty goopy. Still, I liked the contrast and the color of the glitter. I wish I was able to photograph it better because it looked better than this. This is Jenna Hipp After Party.

What colors should I use for my next zebra print?