Dazzle Dry Sweethearts

Hi Everyone!

Today I have swatches to share with you which are long, long, looong overdue. This beautiful pastel Dazzle Dry Sweethearts collection released for Spring 2015. I managed to get it swatched before my unexpected haitus, but I'm shamefully just now going through photos from that time. I do hope that you won't hold it against me to much and enjoy the swtaches instead ;)

Dazzle Dry Beach Ready Summer 2014 Collection Swatches and Review...

Hi Everyone! Summer is so close, I can feel it. These past few days in Seattle have been just absolutely gorgeous and I've been loving these bright and sparkly shades on my nails. This beautiful collection is Dazzle Dry Beach Ready which launched yesterday for the summer season. It features four bright creams and two glass fleck loaded sparkly beauties...

Guest Post on Glam Style Nails by Carolina!

Hi Everyone! Today my nails are making a special guest appearance on the blog Glam Style Nails by Carolina.

Carolina and I met on Instagram and we quickly realized that we share a mutual love of fashion inspired nails. Even though it has been a while since I've actually created a fashion inspired manicure, when Carolina asked me to write a guest post for her, I knew it had to be fashion inspired...

For more details on this manicure, head over to Glam Style Nails by Carolina...

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Running Wild...

I'm not sure what has gotten into me, but something certainly has since this is my second tiger manicure this month. I got some fun neon nail studs for review from the Born Pretty Store and they really brought out my wild side. I wanted to pair them with an equally bright and matching color.

Nicole by OPI Tink Dotticure...

I've got a fun dotticure to show you today. This is something simple and fun that I created while swatching the Nicole by OPI Tink collection this weekend. I feel that it is a bit outside of my usual style (whatever that may be), but I just love it. It is so fun and happy and just wait till I show you what else I did with it...

Nicole by OPI Tink Collection Swatches and Review

Today I have the Nicole by OPI Tink collection to show you. These shades were inspired by Disney's Tinker Bell and give us lots of bright bold creams and a sparkly glitter topper. When samples were mailed out, two of the shades were on back order so I waited to track them down at my local store and show you the whole collection at once. These are perfect summery shades...

Tutorial Tuesday: Striping Tape and Gradient

Today I would like to share with you a tutorial for the technique used to create the striping tape and gradient manicure yesterday. If you read my spoiler alert at the bottom of that post, then you were probably already expecting this. It is a manicure that I think looks complicated, but is actually pretty easy to make. The fun part is experimenting with colors and tape placement for endless manicure possibilities. If you have not tried this technique yet, I hope this will encourage you to try it...

Supplies:

• 3 polishes of your choice (Barielle Banana Drop, Lilac Jelly Bean, and Green Apple Chew used for this manicure)
• Striping tape in any color 
• Makeup wedge or other sponge

Steps:

Instructions:

1. Apply desired number of coats of base color and allow to completely dry
2. Cut and apply pieces of striping tape in a desired pattern
3. Paint a stripe of each gradient color directly onto makeup wedge or sponge
4. Gently tap the sponge over the nail moving it slightly back and forth to blend the gradient
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 by applying more polish to the sponge and gently tapping on the nail  for a second coat of gradient. This helps build color opacity for the gradient
6. While the polish is still wet, carefully remove the striping tape one piece at a time
7. Using a Q-tip clean the cuticles of excess polish.
   Tip: clean up any fine details with a brush as demonstrated here
8. Add a layer of top coat (or two if the sponging is bumpy) and enjoy! 

As always, please let me know what you think of this or if you have questions!

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

** Polishes were provided to me for review by the manufacturer or their PR. **

** For more information please see the disclosure policy **

Barielle Sweet Treats, Striping Tape and Matte-inee

I had quite a bit of fun playing with striping tape and a few of the beauties from the Barielle Sweet Treats collection. The resulting manicure is something that I have been wanting to try for a while and I am loving the result. It feels a bit like the cold gray winter transitioning to spring...

Barielle Sweet Treats for Spring 2013

Barielle Sweet Treats collection offers some beautiful creamy shades for Spring. With names like Green Apple Chew, Banana Drop, Lilac Jelly Bean, Blue Cotton Candy and Orange Parfait my mouth was watering before I even tried them. The collection is set to release on March 1st so here are some swatches to hopefully wet your appetite in the mean time...

Sunday Stamping: Halloween

Just ten days left until the spooky day of Halloween so it is no surprise that the popular vote for this week's Sunday Stamping challenge in Adventure is Stamping is a Halloween themed manicure. I chose to skip the really dark and scary for today and go for cute instead. The idea for the manicure came from the fact that we are having some friends over later today to carve pumpkins. It only seemed fitting that I dig up all the jack-o-lantern images to play with for inspiration...

Color Club Take Wing Collection (Summer 2012)

It is officially the last day of summer and I could think of nothing better except to show you the beautiful Color Club Take Wing collection released this summer. I'm a bit sad that I didn't play with these sooner, but still quite happy to be sneaking it in at the last minute. I just refused to put them away alongside the sad unswatched collections from prior years. As usual the summer just went by too quickly and I'm not at all ready for it to end. Instead of dwelling on that thought, let me show you these fleck filled beauties...

Plucked Chicken!

So the title might be a somewhat misleading... I did not actually pluck or otherwise harm any chickens! Just thought it would make for a funny title. My brother and his family got five baby chicks this past spring. They have been growing and shedding some pretty feathers. I happened to be at their house a few weeks ago and picked up a few feathers outside the pen that I thought where pretty. This is a manicure I've wanted to make for quite a while, although honestly I always assumed it would be with store bought feathers. This just made it more fun...

OPI Germany Collection for Fall 2012: Part 1

Although I not excited for actual fall to come, I am always excited for fall colors. When it comes to nail polish, I will take a dark, vampy fall color over a bright neon one any day. Today I have fore you the first half of a beautiful fall OPI Germany Collection. Hopefully you are as excited about these as I am...

Barefoot on Barielle Myrza's Meadow

Walking around barefoot in a meadow somehow sounds so good, which is probably why I wanted to stamp flip flops over Barielle Myrza's Meadow. I'm not even going to mention the fact that I just got the new Bundle Monster plates in the mail and wanted to try them out. I had some technical difficulties with the stamps. They didn't transfer as well as I had hoped...

Peackock inspired by OPI Nicki Minaj Collection

As I was playing with the fun polishes of the Nicki Minaj collection, I couldn't help but think they would be perfect for a peacock manicure. Somehow I managed to use every single color from the collection. I started out with Metallic 4 Life as a base and added a little pink heart using Pink Friday. Then, alternating Fly and Did It On 'Em I added the "barbs". Next followed the Supper Bass Shatter in the middle of the pink heart and down the center of the feather. I topped the whole thing off with a few touches of Save Me using a detail brush and covered the whole thing with two layers of top coat.

I think the colors are perfect for a peacock manicure, I'm just not sure I'm pleased with my execution of it. It looks better from a distance and I definitely need more practice. Here is what I ended up with...

I'd love to know what you think!

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

OPI - Nicki Minaj Collection - Swatches & Review

Today I have swatches of the OPI Nicki Minaj collection that I have been playing with over the weekend. The collection contains three creams, two glitters and a shatter. It is a fun collection so take a look at the photos (be warned, there are a lot of them) and let me know what you think :)

Did It On 'Em
This is a chartreuse cream which kind of caught me off guard. I did not expect to like the color as much as I did. I have no idea how, but it made my nails appear narrower and longer. You won't hear me complaining about it... Application was good. I used three coats plus a top coat for the full even coverage in these photos...

Swatch Details
	Brand: OPI Collection: Nicki Minaj Color Name/Number: Did It On 'Em, NL N13 Number of coats: 3 Top Coat: Yes Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

Fly
A beautiful teal cream. This one applied thin with the first coat, but did build up very nicely. Make sure to use a nice base coat with this one as it did stain my nails blue (I was lazy and skipped the base coat... lesson learned). The photos below are three coats plus a top coat...

Swatch Details
	Brand: OPI Collection: Nicki Minaj Color Name/Number: Fly, NL N14 Number of coats: 3 Top Coat: Yes Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

Pink Friday
A sweet pink cream. This one was a bit thicker than the other creams and therefore only required two coats for full coverage. Definitely a shade I would reach for if I needed something quick, clean and work friendly. Didn't expect to find such a shade in a Nicki Minaj inspired collection, but I like it. This it two coats with a top coat...

Swatch Details
	Brand: OPI Collection: Nicki Minaj Color Name/Number: Pink Friday, NL N16 Number of coats: 2 Top Coat: Yes Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

Metallic 4 Life
A black jelly base with small square and larger hex silver glitter. I love this one. The silver makes a nice pop against the black. It had full nail coverage at two coats, but I applied three just to get more glittery goodness. These are with one layer of top coat...

Swatch Details
	Brand: OPI Collection: Nicki Minaj Color Name/Number: Metallic 4 Life, NL N15 Number of coats: 3 Top Coat: Yes Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

Save Me
This glitter consists of small silver glitter in addition to blue and holographic bar glitter. I am not sure how many coats of this it would take to get full coverage, but I did not try it on its own. I consider this a layering glitter. The holographic glitter was hard to capture in the photos although it was not at all shy in real life. You can see it best in the bottle of these swatches. I applied one coat plus a top coat over all three creams in the collection...

Over Did It On 'Em...

Over Fly...

Over Pink Friday...

Swatch Details
	Brand: OPI Collection: Nicki Minaj Color Name/Number: Save Me, NL N17 (over Pink Friday) Number of coats: 1 Top Coat: Yes Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

Super Bass Shatter
A purple shatter which as far as I'm concerned works well over any color in the collection. My favorite combo though was with Did It On 'Em. I like the contrast in this case. What makes this shatter special is that it is not a cream, but a strong purple shimmer instead. I applied one coat of shatter over the above cream with Save Me combinations...

Over Did It On 'Em plus Save Me...

Over Fly plus Save Me...

Over Pink Friday plus Save Me...

Swatch Details
	Brand: OPI Collection: Nicki Minaj Color Name/Number: Super Bass Shatter, NL N18 (over Did It On 'Em) Number of coats: 1 Top Coat: Yes Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

I would love to know what you think of this collection!

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)


** These polishes were provided to me for review by the manufacturer or their PR. For more information please see the disclosure policy**