Kanpai OPI!

Hey everyone! Hope you're having a good week so far. I'm getting excited about warmer weather and looking through my spring polishes.

Today I reached for two OPI colors - Kanpai OPI! and Let's Be Friends. Kanpai OPI! is a perfect transition shade from winter into spring. It's a grey periwinkle blue creme with a beautiful formula that's opaque in 2 coats. I also used Let's Be Friends from the Hello Kitty collection. I love this timeless pale pink creme that's also opaque in 2 coats. I used my small detail nail brush to make blue triangles on my accent nails. You could also use nail vinyls or tape to help you with this part, just make sure your base color is dry first!

Have a great rest of the week!

xoxo,
   Brooke

Zoya Vesper

Hey everyone! Hope you had a great weekend. Today's post is going up a bit later than usual - my parents recently moved so I've been going out there a lot to help with the unpacking. My nails survived pretty well today despite all the boxes I opened!

I'm not quite ready for spring colors yet, though I've started to see a bunch of spring polish collections on social media. I'm trying to hold out just a little bit longer! Today I'm wearing Zoya Vesper, described as a grey-violet cream. I've said it before, but seriously Zoya's cream formula's are just exceptional. They're truly some of the best I've tried. I layered one coat of ILNP Rosewater over Vesper on two nails to add some lovely holo shimmer. Sometimes simple combos like these are my favorite, no nail art required!

Have a great week!

xoxo,

   Brooke

Live Love Polish Calico

Hey everyone! Hope you had a great long weekend. It was nice having the extra day to hang out and I took some time to do something fun on my nails.

I remember trying magnetic polish last year and loving it so I pulled out Calico from Live Love Polish. Calico is a magnetic multichrome polish that shifts pink, orange, gold and green. Any of these magnetic polishes from Live Love Polish would be gorgeous, plus they come with the magnetic wand.

To start this look I applied one coat of a black creme polish. You can use any black you have, just know the magnetic effect of the polish works much better over dark colors. To add some sparkle, I then applied one coat of ILNP Party Bus. I thought this black holo would be perfect underneath to add some depth. The last step was one coat of Calico and immediately holding the magnet above the nail for about 20-30 seconds. I did this one nail at a time. I love how these look!

Have a great week!

xoxo,
   Brooke

ILNP Cityscape & Interstellar

Hey everyone! How was your weekend? If you watched the Super Bowl, were you tuning in for the game, the commercials, the half time show, are all of the above? I'm not really into football, so I like to watch the commercials and the half time show. I thought Shakira and J. Lo were amazing! We also made some yummy snacks, with the highlight being delicious skillet nachos. I'll have to start brainstorming some snack ideas for the Oscars next week.

I felt like wearing some holographic nail polish today, so of course I went for ILNP, which makes some of my favorite holos. I also wanted to use my constellation stamping plate, so I thought Cityscape and Interstellar would be two great colors to go with that design. Cityscape is a holographic black and Interstellar shifts from navy to teal to purple with gorgeous holographic shimmer. I used a stamping plate from Born Pretty Store (can't find the link for the exact one but I'm sure they have similar designs) and white polish to stamp constellations and stars over Interstellar.

Hope you have a great week!

xoxo,
   Brooke

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

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

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