Monday, January 27, 2020

Leopard Nails

Hey everyone! Hope you had a good weekend. We ended up binge watching the entire first season of The Circle on Netflix. It was actually really entertaining!

Today I felt like doing leopard print nails. I started with two coats of Essie Angora Cardi on my thumb, index, and middle nails and then two coats of Essie Urban Jungle on my ring and pinky nails. Once my base color was dry, I went in with Angora Cardi on the two lighter nails and made random spots all over. These don't have to be perfect, because the last step is taking a black polish, I used Essie Licorice, to randomly make curved lines around your spots. You can fill in any blank areas with more imperfect black spots. Pretty easy, right? Plus you can do this with any color combo!





Hope you have a great week!

xoxo,
   Brooke

Friday, January 24, 2020

Zoya Sailor

Hey everyone! Hope you had a good week. Call me crazy, but I've really been wanting a big snow because we haven't had much snow yet this winter. I was deciding on a nail vinyl to use and came across my snowflake vinyls from PolishedVino. I'll get into more detail later on how I use them.

To start I used two coats of Zoya Sailor, a gorgeous dark navy creme with an amazing formula. I also used two coats of Zoya Dream on my middle nail. Whenever I'm doing nail art I like to work on top of a silicone mat, such as this one from Bliss Kiss. It makes clean up so much easier, plus you don't have to wait forever for your base nail color to dry. I've had way too many frustrating experiences of putting the vinyl on my nails before they were fully dry and totally ruined my base.

Here's how I created the snowflakes:
1. Peel the vinyl off and place on the silicone mat.
2. Use your color of choice (I used Zoya Trixie and then Lux) to paint over the negative space and immediately peel the vinyl, leaving your design on the mat.
3. Let the design dry and then put a layer of top coat over it. I like to do all of this before painting my nails so it has a chance to dry completely.
4. Once you've finished painting your nails and they've had some time to dry, use some sort of tool (I used tweezers) to peel the design off the mat and press it into the nail.
5. Seal your design with top coat.





Have a great weekend!

xoxo,
   Brooke

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

ILNP Ava

Hey everyone! Hope you're having a good week so far. It's freezing here so I've pretty much been staying inside and bundled up.

I'm slowly making my way through the 8 ILNP polishes my husband got me for my birthday, which has been so much fun! Today I reached for Ava, described as a vivid violet holographic polish with a rich and saturated finish. It has a jelly-leaning formula, which creates stunning depth and layers of red shimmer, glowing old, and holographic micro-flakes. It's truly gorgeous, and even more so in the right lighting.

I took these photos in natural light, but you'll see in the last photo how vibrant this color is when I turned the flash on my phone. I've actually been debating getting a little light box for taking photos, so I may have a look on Amazon to see what I can find.






Enjoy the rest of your week!

xoxo,
   Brooke

Wednesday, January 15, 2020

Sprinkle Birthday Nails

Hey everyone! Hope your week is off to a good start. I'm just doing a super quick birthday nail post since I'm celebrating my 29th today.

I decided on a fun and colorful sprinkle design! I love how easy this look is and that it works with literally any colors. I started with three coats of Essie Marshmallow, a great base for nail art. The rest of the colors I used were also Essie: Roarrrange, Splash of Grenadine, Dye-Mentions, Bachelorette Bash, and hay there. I used a small detail brush to make the little lines randomly on each nail. I think it looks so cute!





Enjoy the rest of your week!

xoxo,
   Brooke

Monday, January 13, 2020

Zoya India

Hey everyone! Hope you had a great weekend and enjoyed the glorious weather. It was in the mid 60s here so we definitely made sure to get outside and take advantage of it! We also went out for dinner on Saturday with my family for an early birthday dinner - I'm turning 29 on Wednesday so I'll be back mid-week with some birthday nails.

Today I'm wearing a color I wanted for my collection for a few years and just finally got around to picking it up. The polish is Zoya India from their 2014 fall collection. The color can best be described as a deep, luxurious red with a gold liquid metallic shimmer. It's absolutely stunning and I'm so happy to finally have it in my collection!





Have a great week!

xoxo,
   Brooke

Friday, January 3, 2020

Zoya Jen

Hey everyone! I hope you had a great week. I was very pleasantly surprised to have my big 70% off Zoya order come earlier this week (did you order anything?) and knew I wanted to paint my nails with one of the new colors. Aside from a few polishes, I also ordered 4 giant bottles of their Remove Plus. It's the BEST nail polish remover! I'm so happy to know I won't run out for a long time.

The color I chose for my nails today is Jen, described as a royal sapphire blue with a hint of purple. I used two coats here and hopefully you can see the shimmer that gives this color some depth. It's just beautiful! It's definitely perfect on it's own, but I thought some silver nail stamping would look amazing with this color. I used Zoya Trixie and this stamping plate for the designs.





I hope you have a great weekend!

xoxo,
   Brooke