Seven Deadly Sins - Day 1

Hello! I know, I know. I suck and I've been gone forever. Life has been kind of... interesting... lately. I guess the stress of life has stopped the care I used to give my nails, they're brittle and keep peeling and I'm not really sure how to fix it. For posting, I will wear false nails until my nails get a little longer.

Today's nail art is a bit of a review and a bit of Day 1 of the Seven Deadly Sins challenge, put together by One Nail to Rule Them All and Nail Wish. This challenge is meant to either be twice a week or once a week for seven weeks. I've opted to do it once a week.

Image credit : Dahlig

This week is Lust and the two prompts are "Be a bad girl and make something you have wanted to do soo badly" and "Let your body talk and feel free to do whatever you want." This was pretty vague, but I've always wanted to do a striped gradient and use some square studs from the Born Pretty Store, so that's what I decided to do.

I used OPI Did You Ear About Van Gogh and OPI Mermaid Teares to do the stripes. They're a little difficult to see in this photo. Basically I gradually added more DYEAVG to MT with each stripe. I really like the look with the studs, I just applied the as I would any other studs.

Then I decided to do something a little crazy.

I decided to put the studs all over my ring finger, which I think would have looked really nice had I done a neater job. At first I wanted to leave a little bit of space between each stud, then I got kind of lazy and it definitely shows.

These Silver Square Stud Rhinestones can be purchased from the Born Pretty Store for $5.73. You can use the code NHL91 for 10% off at checkout.

Make sure to check out the other bloggers taking part in this challenge :)

Makeup and Nails Not War Guest Post

I have another guest post for today. I'm really excited to have Makeup and Nails Not War on my blog :) MaNNW is a makeup and nail blog run by two friends, Megan and Alicia. Today's post if from Alicia. Check it out!

Glitter Grunge (Born Pretty Store Review)

Hello everyone! Today I have a review of the loose glitters sold by the Born Pretty Store.

For this nail art look, I painted my nails with OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and then used the seran wrap technique with China Glaze Liquid Leather. I used a topcoat to make it all nice and smooth and picked up the glitter with a dotting tool dipped in water and placed it where I wanted it on the nail. I finished it all off with another coat of topcoat.

I like to call it glitter grunge :P I also had a difficult time photographing these glitters, they're not as silver as they appear in the photo, maybe a little more like a gun metal.



The Born Pretty Store calls these pots of loose glitter "Shiny Glitter Powder Sheets" and you can get 12 different colors for $6.45. I did not receive the exact colors that are shown on the website and some of the colors are pretty similar to one another, but I still think it's a pretty good variety for the cost.

 

As a gift, all my followers can use the code NHL91 for 10% off.

This product was sent to me for review. All of the above statements are my own honest opinions.

OPI Can't Let Go

Here's a swatch of OPI Can't Let Go, the purple liquid sand from the Mariah Carey collection. This is something that's been sitting on my computer for quite awhile. I was planning on posting after I swatched all of the liquid sands from this collection, but I kind of forgot... whoops!

This was three coats, if I remember correctly. I actually really like it, but it's difficult to see the larger glitters through the multiple coats, which was kind of a bummer.

If by some chance you haven't tried any of the textured polishes out there, you really should. I'm not planning on buying all the textured polishes on the planet (like I did with crackle polishes) but they're still fun and a nice change from regular polish. Plus, at least in person, it really looks like you have sparkly sugar on your nails... Yum!

Springtime Floral

There may be snow on the ground outside, but I am definitely ready for Spring.

These nails were for a guest post for Little Laura Loves so please view the full post on her blog :)

I definitely want to do a similar pattern again soon.

Nail Luxxe Guest Post

Today's guest post is by Nail Luxxe. Her nail beds are freaking awesome, and her nail art ain't bad either :P Actually it's pretty awesome as well. When I asked for some bloggers to guest post she was one of the first to respond and I'm so glad she did.  Onto the post!

Guest Post by Just One More Bottle

Hello everyone! To continue with the guest posts, here is a beautiful Easter manicure by Samantha of Just One More Bottle. Samantha posts both nail art and swatches on her blog and she might have a bit of a holo obsession, but then again who doesn't? Onto the post!