Milani Candy Cane Nails

Happy Friday, everybody!

With Christmas officially less than a week away, I figured it was high time for some Christmas nail art! So with a little help from the straight nail vinyls from NailVinyls.com and a pair of Milani Color Statement shades, I whipped up some candy cane nails!

For this manicure, I used Milani Iconic Red and Spotlight White.

Here are a few helpful tips if you want to recreate this look:

1. Paint the white for your base color and apply the red over the nail vinyls. I made the mistake of painting red as my base and it was a lot of work getting the white opaque. So save yourself the hassle and don't do it!

2. When using nail vinyl lines or striping tape, paint in the direction of the pieces. I achieved FAR cleaner lines when I applied the polish on a diagonal than when I just applied the polish in a vertical line from bottom to top.

3. Wait at least 20 minutes for the polish to dry before applying a top coat. I know that seems like a long time and the Milani Quick Dry top coat is amazing, but your colors WILL smear if you don't wait at least that long. Seriously. Hold out as long as you can. Nothing is more aggravating than having beautiful stripes and screwing it up after such hard work.

Feel free to post your Candy Cane nails to the Princess Polish Facebook page to show them off!

ANNOUNCING: The Happy Haul-idays Giveaway!

The holiday season has arrived and that means lots of presents in store for you all…

So here's the first!

I've teamed up with a bunch of my favorite bloggers to take part in a giveaway for a $100 Ulta or Sephora gift card!



Be sure to enter using the Rafflecopter widget at the end of this post and show some love to my fellow bloggers!

Best of luck!

Adventures in Polishland

BeautyGnome

BeautyPopStop

Cosmetic Sanctuary

Glisten and Glow

Love for Lacquer

mandie's manicures

manicurator

Nail A College Drop Out
Pointless Cafe

Polished Cousins
Possibly Polished

Princess Polish

Samarium's Swatches

Set In Lacquer

Taneja's Bride

The Lacquerologist

The Nail Network

work/play/polish

XO, Noelle

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Top of 2012: Glitter Bombs

Happy New Year, my lovelies! What better to kick off 2013 than a sea of glitter? And no, I don't mean all of the confetti still stuck to your hair from last night!

 

Even though Christmas has passed, I'm still head over heels for R. Hobby Cosmetics's Peppermint Shatter. It's like I got a crushed up candy cane and decided to turn lemons into lemonade... or rather, nail art. It's really unique and well thought out.

The above is two coats layered over two coats of Zoya Holly.

Oh, Maisie Shine Aquarium. How I adore thee.

This glitter bomb consists of an aqua jelly filled with varying shapes and sizes of blue and silver glitter. Above, it's layered over Nfu Oh 61 for a really cool underwater look.

Here, you can see how I built up coats of Aquarium to create a really cool gradient effect. Every time I see the chunks of glitter, I feel like they're fish in the depths of the ocean.

So there you have it folks... my Top of 2012! I hope you enjoyed this little segment of posting while I was away and went digging through your own stash to find your favorites.

Happy 2013! (And take that Mayan Apocalypse!)

Swatch and Review: R. Hobby Cosmetics Holiday Collection

Happy Friday, everyone! We're less than two weeks away from Christmas and a break from work, school, or just life in general! For those of you suffering through final exams, like I am, I sincerely feel for you and wish you all the best of luck! And Happy Chanukah to all of my fellow Jewish followers... sorry it took six nights to get that out to you all!

Today, I have two beautiful polishes to share with you from R.Hobby Cosmetic's Holiday Collection: Christmas Shatter and 5 Golden Rings. R.Hobby is an awesome indie brand you may remember from my review of Rachel's fall collection!

First up is 5 Golden Rings, a delicate gold flake polish. It's actually opaque, as you can see, on the nail in three coats and was super easy to apply. I loved how the flakes are in completely varying sizes and gives a really delicate look. It's super pretty, super girly and I loved it. It would also look gorgeous with one or two coats over a white, black, blue, purple, green, or red polish!

My favorite of the two is Peppermint Shatter, a glitter top coat of red and white shards with fine red and white glitter. Oh my God! Does this NOT look like you smashed up a candy cane and sprinkled it on your nails? I know!

This is super unique and I adore it! The above is with two coats over Zoya Holly and the application was perfect.

Overall, I am in love with both of these. 5 Golden Rings for its delicateness, Peppermint Shatter for its big pop of color! Either would be great to wear to Christmas dinner and 5GR could be worn year round for a dainty look! Plus... who doesn't love a little nail polish as a stocking stuffer

Polishes from R. Hobby Cosmetics are available through its Etsy Store for $8 per 15mL bottle. I highly recommend taking a look at Rachel's other shades, as they're all stellar. You can also follow R. Hobby Cosmetics on Facebook!

Are you as in love with these as I am?
Princess Polish

Disclaimer: The product(s) in this post were provided to me by the manufacturer or their PR company for consideration. For more information please visit my Disclaimer page.

Holiday Presents

Oh, hello again all of my lovelies! I have missed you so much!

Prior to Thanksgiving break, my professors at law school saddled us with enough assignments to bury me in my textbooks for two weeks. I have finally come out of case book hibernation and am so happy to be reunited with you all. The Halloween Hangover prizes are all on their way and things are getting back to normal!

Today, Princess Polish is getting in the holiday spirit with nails I rocked on Black Friday! I went back to the toy store I worked at for a little under two years (as my second job, Mets-aside) to help out on the super busy day. I am very well known for my crazy nail art amongst the customer base, so I HAD to go a little overboard for the day. And both Christmas and Chanukah are represented.

I went back into my It's So Easy drawer filled with their awesome products for nail art and pulled out their white Stripe Rite paint and rhinestones to create this simple and easy design.

 

Here are the Chanukah presents, represented by the blue and silver colors. I used Zoya Song (which is my new go-to blue) and Essie No Place Like Chrome. It took a little extra dexterity for the bows because I'm right-handed and this is my right hand. 

If you can't do the loops, this will still look very pretty using the straight lines to make a t and the rhinestone at the center.

And here are the Christmas presents! I used Sally Hansen Insta Dry in Emerald Express and Zoya Elisa to get a nice metallic glow. For some reason, the "ribbon" on the ring finger yellowed after I put on my top coat, but it worked alright with the color scheme. I apologize for the raggedness of the middle finger near the cuticle... I got into a fight with a door. Though I win, this was the sacrifice!

So what do you think of this mani? If you try out this technique, be sure to let me know!
Princess Polish