Giveaway - OPI Couture de Minnie Collection

Good morning, fellow polish lovers!

Today I have an exciting post! A couple of days ago I showed you swatches of OPI's new Couture de Minnie Collection, and today I'm giving you the chance you win the entire collection for yourself!

Please be advised that because the prize has been generously sponsored by a Canadian PR firm, this giveaway is only open to residents of Canada.
All other rules for the giveaway can be found below in the "Terms and Conditions" section of the Rafflecopter form.

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Good luck!

Playin' With Polka Dots

Hey everyone!

Ever have one of those days when you want to wear totally awesome nail art but don't actually want to do said nail art? I had one of those days recently. I really wanted to have some cool art on my nails, but I was also feeling pretty lazy. The two don't really go together that well. So I settled for a happy medium with some pastel polka dot nails! There's still pretty art, but it was quick and easy, which satisfied my laziness that day.

I tend to stick with China Glaze polishes when I do pastel designs, but this time I decided to branch out a bit. The peach is Illamasqua Purity, the light purple is Orly Gumdrop, the light turquoise is butter LONDON Fiver and the light yellow is China Glaze Lemon Fizz.

Part of me wishes that I'd saved this design for just a couple of days because yesterday I received my order for the models own Fruit Pastels Collection and I know this design would look great with those. I guess I'll have to come up with something else entirely to do with them!

Thanks for stopping by!

Review & Swatches - OPI Couture de Minnie Collection

Good morning!

Today I've got the new OPI Couture de Minnie Collection to share with you! Last year OPI released a Minnie Collection and very sadly, I never did pick up any of the polishes from that collection. I definitely want to get my hands on them some day, but for now the new Minnie Collection will suffice! Check out all five shades below.

A Definite Moust-Have is a medium pink with slight coral undertones and subtle, pearly silver shimmer. The shimmer is pretty subtle, but you can definitely see that pearly look at all times. The formula was excellent and I've shown two coats in my swatch.

Chic From Ears to Tail is a light pink with subtle silver shimmer. The formula was decent, albeit a little patchy. My photo shows three coats.

Innie Minnie Mightie Bow is a gorgeous candy apple red with gold and fuchsia shimmer throughout. Unless in direct lighting, the shimmer is on the subtle side, but it's definitely there. The formula was fantastic and it's almost a one-coater, although I did use two for my swatch.

Magazine Cover Mouse is another of OPI's Liquid Sand shades, which as you might know, I'm a big fan of. This one is a red-orange with lots of gold and fuchsia microglitter. It's similar to OPI Jinx from the Bond Girls Collection, but much more red. The formula was amazing and I've shown two coats below.

Minnie Style consists of red, pink and white hex glitters in a clear base. Style-wise, it reminds me a lot of OPI The Living Daylights from last year's Skyfall Collection. I've shown it below layered over Chic From Ears to Tail. The glitter payoff was really good - I only needed one coat to get the coverage you see. The formula was also good, but I did find that the glitters wanted to stick together, so I did a little pushing with the brush to get them to sit where I wanted them to.

Overall, I really like this collection. I'm not normally a red/pink gal, but OPI always seems to nail those colours so well that I can't help but love them all. I'm a fan of all five shades, but if I have to pick favourites, I'd go with Innie Minnie Mightie Bow, Magazine Cover Mouse and Minnie Style.

The Couture de Minnie Collection is set to release in June.

The product(s) in this post were provided by the manufacturer or their PR in exchange for an honest review.

I'm a Nail Technician! + A Gel Rose Manicure

Hey guys!

I posted about it on the NbKS Facebook page, but for anyone who doesn't already know, I'm now a fully certified nail technician! I did my final day last Monday and then I took a little time off for myself to just relax and prepare for the opening of my in-home salon. It was nice to have a few days away, not just from blogging but really from the internet in general. But I'm so glad to be back now!

For the last day of my course, we were all required to be wearing gel nails ourselves. Of course, I had to add some art to my gel mani, so today I'm showing you the design I did!

The brand I use is called Entity 1 and for this mani in particular, I used the soak-off gel polish line called Color Couture. If you're not familiar with this brand, Colour Couture is similar to CND Shellac, Gelish, or any of the other soak-off gel systems that are now readily available. The Colour Couture line offers a huge variety of soak-ff gel shades, so I'm really glad that I trained with this company and have no need to go searching other brands for a particular colour.

After the necessary prep stages for gel nails, I applied two coats of Entity 1 Midnight Runway, a deep purple shade, to all of my nails. After that had cured in my UV light, I used a very small amount of Zoya Julie and a medium sized nail art brush to create the basic rose shapes. Then, using Entity 1 Spotlight, an opaque white, I used a smaller nail art brush to create the leaves, the finer details on the roses, as well as some dots. I cured that, added the Color Couture top coat, cured that as well, and then voila!

I love how protected my nails feel with gel on them! They're less prone to breakage because of the hard gel on them, which is one of my absolute favourite things about soak-off gel manis. But because I like to change my manis so often, gel nails are more of a special occasion thing for me. On top of that, I do a lot of swatching for this blog, so gel manis aren't particularly practical for me.

If you're interested in learning how to do this design, I posted a video tutorial for it not too long ago (sans the dots). Check it out here. And while you're there, don't forget to subscribe to my channel. :)

Oh and for anyone wondering more about my in-home salon, I'm currently working on a separate blog where I'll have all the information available for that. This blog is all about nail polish, and I really want to keep it that way. I'll post all of my clients manicures on the other blog, as well as all the info about the services I offer, pricing, etc. So if you're interested in following that blog, I'll post a link to it as soon as it's up and ready.

Thanks for looking!

Leopard Print Colour Blocking Nails

Hey guys!

I hope everyone's weekend is going well while I'm studying and practicing for my upcoming course! It's weird because studying is so much different when it's for something you actually enjoy!

The design I'm showing you today is the one that I wore most of this week and it incorporates two of my current favourite polishes. One of them you surely already know because I've talked about it so much - it's OPI My Vampire is Buff, which I now have two back-up bottles of, making it officially the shade I own the most bottles of. And not surprisingly, I still feel the need to get even more back-ups. The other is butter LONDON Trout Pout, a gorgeous coral polish.

Anyways, I started out with a base of My Vampire is Buff on all of my nails and then I used a medium length striping brush with Trout Pout and a black creme to block off diagonal sections. I also did an accent nail of a simple freehand leopard print. I was going to stop there but decided to tie in the leopard print on the accent nail to the other nails by adding the same print to all of the beige sections.

I absolutely love this combination of coral, nude and black! When I was looking at the polishes lined up before I started the design, I had a slight concern that the colours might end up looking a little Halloween-y. But I went for it anyways and I'm happy that I don't get a Halloween vibe from this combo at all.

Thanks for stopping by! Talk to you guys in a couple of days!

Studded Scarab

Hi everyone!

FYI: From now until Tuesday all of my posts are scheduled ones. I have the final day of my gel nail course coming up soon, so I need to focus all of my attention on that. I'll respond to comment, tweets, emails and messages when I return. :)

Illamasqua is definitely one of my favourite higher-end polish brands. The high price deters me from buying too many of them (I'd totally love to own every single Illamasqua polish ever created), but sometimes the polishes are just too pretty that I feel it's justifiable to spend the extra money. This is an example of one of those polishes. It was on my wishlist for quite a while and then recently I found out that it's been discontinued. Luckily, I happened to snag it from a blog sale!

Scarab is a beautiful vampy blackened red shimmer. Not really the most seasonally appropriate polish for this time of the year, but that never really bothers me. The formula was fantastic and I needed two coats for full coverage.

Originally I was just going to post a few quick swatch photos of this alone, but as soon as I applied it I knew it would look great with some stud accents. So I added some larger circular studs to most of my nails and then a grid pattern of small silver microbreads on my ring nail as an accent.

Like I said above, Scarab is a discontinued shade, but I don't think it's particularly hard to find. In my opinion it's a must-have vampy shade, so if you come across it, don't pass it up!

Thanks for stopping by!

Shimmer Polish Swatches - Part IV

Hey guys!

Today I have more Shimmer Polish swatches for you! I finished swatching all of the first batch, but the lovely Cindy contacted me again and generously offered to send me a second batch of polishes to review. I loved all of the ones I've tried so far, so of course I said yes!

Candace consists of gold, black, holographic and fuchsia glitters all suspended in a clear base. I've layered this one over OPI Vant to Bite My Neck? and I think this makes a really great combo. I don't wear a lot of gold polish personally, but the addition of the fuchsia glitter in this one makes it extra special. The formula was great and my swatch shows one coat over the base polish.

Jovie is a mix of light pink and iridescent glitter in a clear base. This is one of the few Shimmer shades that is a glitter topper only and won't reach opacity on its own. I've shown one coat below over China Glaze Mimosas Before Manis. The formula was a tad thick, but still easy to use.

Julie is a multi-coloured glitter mix in a clear base. The mix of colours include purple, red, blue, green, gold and silver. I've layered one coat of Julie over China Glaze Tart-y for the Party. This is a super pretty shade and I especially like it over the light purple.

Lorene is a gorgeous mix of magenta, gold, copper and blue glitters in a magenta tinted base. I've shown it over Zoya Raegan, but it's pretty opaque on its own in two coats so you can't even see the base colour. This one is super complex and pretty. Love! The formula was excellent as well.

Maria features a variety of blue glitters in a clear base. I decided to layer it over Zoya Jacqueline. It should come as no surprise that I love this one as well. The formula was great and my photo shows one coat over Jacqueline.

Shimmer Polish is available via the Shimmer Polish Etsy shop. Each shade retails for $12. If you're not in the US shipping can be pretty steep, so Shimmer Polish is also available from Harlow & Co. for us Canadian and international ladies.

The product(s) in this post were provided by the manufacturer or their PR in exchange for an honest review.