Quo by Orly Water Transfer Nail Art: Kaleidoscope

Hello!  I've got another set of the Quo by Orly Water Transfer Nail Art to share with you today.  They applied the exact same as the previous set, so I'll omit most of the details in this post but you can read up my original review for everything you need to know about them here!

This time,  I applied the decals over a glitter polish instead of white.  I used three thin coats of Orly Halo for the base, and then applied the water decals.  The rest of my nails are one coat of LaCC 1999 followed by one coat of Butter London Black Knight.  All nails are topped off with a coat of Seche Vite. 

Quo by Orly Water Transfer Nail Art.  Available at Shoppers Drug Mart/Pharmaprix for a limited time only.  Quo by Orly polishes are free of DBP, formaldehyde, and toluene. 

Disclaimer: The products in this post were sent to me by the company's PR representative for review and my honest opinion.  

Fairy Floss & Halo Skittlette

I've mostly been sticking to plain manis the past couple weeks as I adjusted to a new schedule, but when I saw this skittlette by Marta at Chit Chat Nails I knew I had to recreate it for myself!  

I did make a couple small adjustments to Marta's version, but her mix of colours and finishes was what inspired me most.  :)

For the pink nails I painted three thin coats of piCture pOlish Fairy Floss, and the gold glitter is three thin coats of Orly Halo.  The navy is two coats of Cult Nails Time Traveller dotted with Fairy Floss, and the glitter gradient on my thumb was just painted with the bottle brush.  All nails are topped with a coat of Seche Vite.  

Marta always manages to put together the most interesting skittlette combinations, I wish I had the same gift!  Don't forget to check our her original version here.  What do you think of this mani?  :)

Quo by Orly: Spring 2014 Collection

Press Sample

This morning I have three of six new Quo by Orly polishes to show you from the Sring 2014 Collection.  I've got quite a few Orly polishes in my collection, but this was my first experience with the Quo line and I was very impressed!  Continue reading after the jump for a full review. 

NCLA Nail Wraps Review: Aly En Vogue

Nail Polish Canada recently started carrying the NCLA Nail Wraps; I'd had my eye on these wraps for a while, so when I got an email asking if I'd like to review them when they got their first shipment, I couldn't say no!

I got to choose two designs, and I have one of them for you today.  This design is called Aly En Vogue, and is super pretty!  Since I think that all-over patterns can sometimes be a bit much (and to extend the life of the packages of wraps) I prefer to use them as accent nails, which is what I chose to do with these!

Although it's not visible in the listing for these wraps, you can see in my first photo that the wraps come in two different colours: a pinky peach and a light eggshell yellow/nude.  I used two of the peach-coloured wraps on my accent nails, and my other nails are three coats of Orly Prelude To A Kiss with BornPretty Store studs. 

Along with the wraps, each package comes with a set of instructions and a nail file.  These wraps were very easy to use: choose the size that best fits your nail, peel off, place on your nail, stretch and rub to remove any air bubbles or wrinkles, file off the excess at the edge, and top coat.  The great thing about these is that if you don't get it on the first try, you can quickly remove it and try again.  They were pretty stretchy, and it was super easy to get the completely smooth finish that I've been missing from other brands of wraps.  In case I'm making no sense, ChrissyAi posted a video on applying these wraps! 

I topped them with one coat of LaCC 2013 top coat, and then added a coat of Seche Vite right before photos for a perfectly shiny finish.  These lasted for two whole days (through two showers, doing dishes, and multiple dance classes) with no signs of wear or any lifting.  I'm sure they would have lasted longer, but I had lots of swatching to do and therefore had to remove them.   

Honestly, my only problem with these wraps is that the designs aren't centered.  Despite how pretty this design is, if you're as OCD as I am, I'd choose a design that doesn't need to be centered.  They've got plenty to choose from!  

NCLA Nail Wraps are now available for purchase through Nail Polish Canada for $16CAD per set of wraps; you can find this specific set here.  To see the whole selection offered by NPC, clicky here.  With 40 individual wraps in one set, you'll get a lot of manis, especially if you use them as accent nails!  

What do you think of these wraps?  I've tried quite a few brands of wraps now, and these have definitely hopped to the top of my list!  :)

Disclaimer: The products in this post were provided for review and my honest opinion.  

Teal Spotted

I will not say good morning, since I neither feel good this morning, mean it is a morning to be good on, mean it is a good morning whether you want it or not, nor all of them at once.  (x)  I do, however, have some cool nail art I did last week to share with you. 

I started with a base of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, and followed this tutorial by CutePolish on YouTube with Orly Le Chateau to create the spotted look. 

Topped it with one coat of Seche Vite.  This look was pretty easy to achieve once I figured out which of my perfumes worked best to create the spots.  The most difficult part was cleaning up, Le Chateau stains like crazy!! 

How do you like this look?  I think it's a great alternative for those of us who can't get our hands on OPI Spotted (though I'll take a look for it when I go to Europe in March), and there's infinite colour choices when you do it this way!  

I've got another post scheduled for tonight with something very exciting, so look out for that later!  :)

Indie January: ILNP Fully Turqued

Can I get an unenthusiastic hooray for Monday??  It's Day 21 of Indie January, and today I've got one more glitter topper from I <3 Nail Polish to show you, Fully Turqued.  You can see my two previous posts on I<3NP here:  All Gold Everything, and Once Upon A Starry Night.  

Fully Turqued is a clear base packed with black and white matte bars and hexes, and turquoise squares.  I used one dabbed coat over Orly Decoded, with two coats of Seche Vite.  (Eww, the bad bubbles are the fault of my SV with this one!)  The formula was what I've come to expect from chunkier glitter toppers, it needed a little pushing around and fiddling to get an even spread, but not too much trouble.  

I really like how all the nails are unique, but they still have a very uniform look overall.  The different glitters in this blend well together.  I love how the shapes of the black and white glitters are all the same, while the turquoise glitters are also all the same shape; I think it really helps define the different glitters. Does that make any sense? Haha!  I'm wearing this polish right now, and when I'm holding this at arm's length, it looks almost like a splatter mani!  

I<3NP is currently available through Etsy, and like the Facebook page for updates! 

You may have noticed that my nails are a bit shorter... I was in a bad mood last night, and I started filing and just kept going... I guess it's somewhat of a stress reliever, haha!  I really like them this length though, it's not a huge change but it's nice!  

Overall, this is a really cute and fun glitter topper that I think would look good over a lot of different polishes!  What do you think?  Any layering combinations you'd like to see?  :)

Disclaimer: The products in this post were sent to me for review.  

Swan Song

So I'm a little late on today's Castle Mani Monday post (seeing as I've just finished watching tonight's episode) but I've got a quick post! 

I'd like to put it out there that I'm going to be keeping these manis pretty abstract in the interpretation so that they can be enjoyed by everyone.  Since last week's post was inspired by Beckett's look, today's mani was loosely based off of one of Castle's looks in tonight's episode. 

Nathan Fillion as Richard Castle

I started with a base of Zoya Dove, placed stiping tape in a line down the center, and painted over with Orly Decoded before removing the tape and adding a top coat (which apparently didn't do much good since it got all scratched up right afterwards).

I haven't been doing my nails as often as I'd like the past couple of weeks because I'm swamped with rehearsals for a big performance that's this weekend (that plus the fact that I'm almost done reading The Hunger Games series and I only started 3 days ago.)  My birthday is this coming Friday (the 16th), and I'm having trouble deciding what I want to wear on my nails!  I'm thinking of re-creating one of my favourite previous manis in different colours, so let me know if you have any suggestions!  :)

Grey Ombré

I'm sitting here trying to come up with some clever name for this like my Grey-dient.  Grey-bré?  Om-grey? Yea, not really working for me.

This was my first time trying ombré nails, and I really like it!  I've been sick for two days now (though I still have to go to dance - can't miss any rehearsals with the show coming up next Saturday!) and even though it was late last night, I had already been wearing my last manicure for three days and it was getting pretty chipped.  I wanted something fast and easy that was still more interesting than a plain mani, so I finally decided to try this. 

From thumb to pinky I used Sally Hansen Black Out, Orly Shockwave, Grey franken (2 parts Zoya Dove, 1 part Orly Shockwave), Zoya Dove, and OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls. 

I like the look of the colours transitioning from one to the next across the fingers!  I was a little nervous about having to mix a colour for the middle finger, but I think it came out just right.  I actually ended up liking the colour so much that I might make myself a mini bottle of it! 

I also went a little crazy with the nail file last night, they feel like such nubs after how long they've been the past few weeks!  Oops! 

I'm working on collecting some stuff for a giveaway soon, because lots of exciting events have all seemed to converge!  I just passed 300 blog followers, I'm getting close to 5000 Instagram followers (@emmaclarem), my next post will be number 100, and it's my 17th birthday next Friday, November 16th!  :)

Half-Moon Gradient

Good morning!  It's been a couple days since I've posted, but I was really enjoying my last mani and ended up wearing it for 3 days!  (Yes, that's a long time for me!)  Since I'm one of the few bloggers who actually posts what is currently on my nails, I had to take a short break from blogging while I enjoyed wearing my leopard-print nails.  

Anywho,  today I've got a half-moon gradient that I've seen floating around quite a bit.  The main reason I tried this was because I have an audition on Sunday, but I have a social event to go to immediately afterwards and was looking for something that I could do in french manicure colours while being more interesting than a plain french tip.  I gave it a trial run in these colours to see if I liked the look, and it turns out I LOVE it!  

I began with a base of two coats of Orly Plum Noir, and a coat of Seche Vite to speed up the drying.  I then used hole-reinforcers to block off the half-moon shape, and sponged on a gradient of Plum Noir and Nails Inc. Power Pink, followed by a second coat of gradient with Plum Noir and Revlon Raspberry Scone.  Two coats of Seche Vite to smooth it all out.  

As I've already made clear, I absolutely love this; I keep looking at my nails and thinking that I should be seeing them on a model in a magazine or something!  I think that this is such a chic, modern and edgy look that would look great in so many different colour combinations, (dark red and gold for Christmas?), and it wasn't difficult at all!  Needless to say, I'll definitely be repeating this design on Sunday in french mani colours, so keep an eye out for that post early next week!

What do you think of this look?  Do you like my colour choices?  Are there any specific colours that you think would work great for this?  :)

Reciprocal Gradient Tutorial

As promised, here is a step-by-step picture tutorial of my Reciprocal Gradient nails from yesterday's post.  Here is what the finished mani looks like:

For this look I used Zoya Dove and Orly Decoded, though I'm sure it would look great in a lot of other colours combinations too!   Please excuse the the less-than-desirable lighting in the tutorial, it was nighttime and I had to use artificial light (I seriously need to make a lightbox) but I figured you'd rather have a funny-coloured tutorial than none at all! 

1.  Begin with a base coat, and paint your nails the lighter of the two colours you've chosen.  

2.  Sponge on a gradient, I use this method. (Skip to 2:10)  Add a quick-drying top coat.  

3.  Place pieces of striping tape (or very thinly cut pieces of normal tape, if you have no striping tape and a lot of patience.)

4.  Sponge on another gradient using the same method, but this time reverse the colours.  So if your gradient was going light-to-dark before, now sponge on dark-to-light.  You may have to go over this one a couple of times to completely cover the gradient underneath.  

5.  (not shown)  Peel off the striping tape, and clean around your nails, first with q-tips and then with a makeup brush dipped in acetone. 

6.  Add a couple coats of your favourite quick-drying top coat for a nice smooth finish, and you're done! 

How do you like it?  Was it easy enough to understand?  Will you be trying this?  If you write a post about it, please link back to this post.  If you do try it, email a link or a picture to ecm.dancer@gmail.com.  I'd love to see!  :)

Reciprocal Gradient

I've had this idea floating around in my head for a while, and I don't *think* anyone else has done it before, so I decided to give it a go.  I'm SO happy with how this turned out!  

I started by painting my nails in a Grey-dient with Zoya Dove and Orly Shockwave.  Unsure of how my idea would turn out (regardless of the fact that it looked awesome in my head) I decided to do only my thumb, and if it looked awful I would leave the rest as plain gradients.  At that point I was almost wishing my idea would look awful, nearing 10:30pm, just so I could go to bed sooner...  

Unfortunately, after finishing my thumb, my exact thoughts were "Oh crap, this looks awesome.  Now I'm going to have to do all 10 nails." *facepalm*  Take a look. 

Zoya Dove and Orly Shockwave, with two coats of Seche Vite.  I consistently have problems with these two greys photographing way more blue than they actually are.  Grrr.  

I felt so cool naming this the reciprocal gradient.  I was thinking about nail polish while doing math (I promise that doesn't happen all the time,) and the word popped out at me and it just seemed to fit perfectly  :)

So, since I'm hoping that you'll all love this and want it on your own nails (and then it'll blow up and become a huge trend... Ha. Right.) I took a couple pictures as I was going and I'll post a step-by-step picture tutorial tomorrow!  Awesome nails for all!! 

So you've probably got it figured out that I think this is awesome, but what about you?  Do you like the reciprocal gradient?  Will you be putting it on your (probably lengthy) to-do list of manicures?  Remember to check back tomorrow for a tutorial, and if you re-create the look shoot me an email (ecm.dancer@gmail.com) I'd love to see!  :)

Glequined Nite Owl

First off I'd like to mention that I forgot to include in my last post about WingDustCollections that Stephanie has generously offered a coupon code for my readers to get 15% off their order at her Etsy shop with the code GLOBE15.  You can visit her shop here.  :)

On to today's mani!  This is my second time playing with the glequins I got from the Born Pretty Store; you can see my Glequin Ruffian here.  This time I used the holographic glequins to make a pyramid at the base of my nails, and I really like the effect.  Take a look :)

Orly Nite Owl is a flattering taupe with silver glass-fleck-ish-shimmer.  I know, I'm really good at describing polishes :) Haha

This is two perfect coats of Nite Owl, with two coats of Seche Vite to seal in the glequins.  Nite Owl is a tad more brown than my pictures show.

You can use the code PPJ61 (shown below) to get 7% off at the Born Pretty Store.  What do you think of this mani?  Do you like using glequins as a way to spice up an ordinary polish job? 

Kudos to you if you spotted my awful photoshop job.  Didn't notice it was gone until I was editing the pictures. Oops. 

Quidditch Nail Art

Mooorning.  (If you said that in George Weasley`s voice, you're awesome.  If not, you've lived a deprived life and need to go watch this right now!) 

In case you didn't know, I'm a huge Harry Potter fan.  Like read-all-the-books-multiple-times-know-all-the-lines-in-the-movies-can-ramble-off-every-obscure-fact-nobody-should-know kind of fan.  

Oddly enough, it's been almost a year since I did Harry Potter related nails (last Halloween.)  For my sister's birthday party last weekend, I made her a golden snitch birthday cake (yes, I decorate cakes too.)  Of course, I couldn't resist doing Quidditch nails to match :)

I just had to take a picture holding the wand that my super-mega-foxy-awesome-hot friend Michaela made for me, A.K.A. Queen Of All Things Crafty.  My sister has one too, and yes, we know all the spells and have wizard duels.  ("THAT'S ABSURD!")

Yea, yea, freehand nail art definitely isn't my strong point, but I think I did alright.  

I used a base of Orly Snowcone, sponged on a little OPI Don't Touch My Tutu for some depth (not that you can tell in my pictures) added details with acrylic paint, glitters that I pulled out of Pirouette My Whistle, and then sponged on some Essie Pure Pearlfection for a little added magic.  ;)

What do you think of my Quidditch nails?  Are you anywhere near as crazy of a fan as I am?  :D

Orly Electronica Collection

Or, well, half of it.  I picked up two polishes from the Orly Electronica collection sometime in June when they were on BOGO sale at Sally's; I'm really glad I did because they'll definitely be some of my go-to colours for fall!

Decoded is a dark grey creme, which you saw a couple of days ago in my Grey-dient.  In the pictures it's leaning much more blue-toned than it is in real life, it really is a true grey.  Two coats, flawless formula, stunning colour.  LOVE.

Shockwave is a rich dark royal blue which you saw in my review of Tough As Nails Lacquer the other day.  Pictures were taken outside, and it appears quite a bit darker in indoor lighting.  It's one of those blues that looks navy at times but never looks black; love that!  The VNL you can see in the pictures wasn't visible at all in real life.  Same thing: two coats, flawless formula, amazeballs colour.  DOUBLE RAINBOW.

Gosh, how I love Orly.  Every polish I own is so freaking fantastic (despite the near-inevitable SV shrinkage!)  Luckily I've learned to mostly avoid it with very careful application, and it's sooo totally worth it! Orly FTW! :D  

Do you guys love a good fall-coloured creme as much as I do?  Do you own either of these polishes?  Which one is your favourite?  Comments make me happy :)  Thanks for reading!

Glequin Ruffian

Inspired by all of the glequin manicures I've seen around lately, I finally caved and bought some for myself.  I used gold glequins on a base of Orly Prelude To A Kiss for this ruffian(ish) look.

I'm really happy with how this turned out, it looks very elegant and classy, with just a little bling ;)

The glequins held up pretty well on my left hand, but they started falling off my dominant hand after about a day.  It's probably because I only used one coat of Seche Vite, (always shrinks like crazy when I put it over Orly) so next time I think I'll use two coats and it should last longer.

I got the glequins from the Born Pretty Store.  Here's a code to get 7% off your order; click on the picture to be brought directly to the website! :)

Grey-dient

Puns aside, here's a fall-appropriate gradient that I'm absolutely loving!  I started with two coats of Orly Decoded, (swatches soon) and sponged on Zoya Dove. 

I didn't realize until after I was done, but I did the opposite of what I normally do for gradients.  Instead of starting with a lighter colour and sponging on the darker, I started with the dark and sponged on the light.  I guess that Dove was opaque enough, because it obviously worked alright. :P

The colours are showing up really blue in my pictures, but in person they are both true grey colours and blend together beautifully.

Hate to toot my own whistle, but I felt like a freaking genius when I thought of this grey-dient thing.  Not gonna lie.  (Super awkward for me if its been done before and I didn't know...)

Anywho, I've also done some layering over this which looks super awesome, but you'll have to wait for another post for that ;) 

Recently we've been seeing gradients done more often in pastel and bright colours, but how do you like the gradient with more muted fall colours? :)