Skimp or Spend? # 3

Good afternoon everyone! How are you all doing? I'm home sick today (I just woke up with a really sore throat, nothing major) and I decided I'd post another Skimp or Spend? post for you! Thank you so much for loving this series, your positive feedback makes me so happy! :) 

OPI The Iconic Nail Lacquers + Mani Essentials

Hello everyone! I hope you're all having a great Wednesday :) I have really been busy with school and homework but I just had to post about the OPI Iconic Nail Lacquers and Mani Essentials! This is a recent purchase for me and I'm so excited about this one. Keep reading for OPI must-haves!

Ruffian Nail Tutorial!

Today is the day that I get to share my pictorial with you all! Sorry that it has so many watermarks, I've had previous pictorials stolen before and they've been plastered with other people's Instagram usernames on top of mine so I wanted to make sure it wouldn't happen again. I spent so much time on this and I really hope you love it! :)

Coral & Rose Gold Ruffian Nails

Good afternoon everyone! Right now I'm enjoying a Girls marathon (is anyone else in love with that show?!) and stressing out about how much homework I have on this gloomy Sunday evening, which means that this is a perfect time to procrastinate and blog :) Today I have some super cute ruffian nails to share with you that I'm honestly in love with. If you read yesterday's blog post, you'd know that I was thinking of adding a ruffian design on top of my swatch of Zelda by Julep, I tried it last night and they came out great!

Braided Nails Pictorial

Here's the pictorial for the Braided Nails that I posted on here and on my Instagram! Many of you requested this so I decided to take pictures of my process and share! Sorry for the large watermark on this, it's the only way I can somewhat still get credit from thieves!

Start off by choosing your three colors that you want to use in this design. I chose a coral color, (Coral Reef by Sally Hansen,) a Light Pink shade, (Easy Going by Sinful Colors,) and a gold polish, (Golden-I by Sally Hansen.)

1. I started off with the coral polish as my base. 
2. Next I got my gold polish, started at the edge of my nail and swiped it across diagonally to create the first part of the braid. 
3. With the light pink polish I started from the other edge of my nail and swiped diagonally to the right, overlapping the gold to create a triangle looking shape with the coral color. 
4. Now using the coral again, I'm going back to the right side and swiping the brush across, overlapping the pink shade.
5. It's time to go back with the gold, start from the opposite edge and swiping the brush to the right to continue the braid.
6. Going back with the light pink, I continued the braid.
7. Using the coral I swiped the brush from left to right diagonally. 
8. The braid is now starting to end, using the gold I repeated the last few steps.
9. Finally with the light pink I finished off the braid, making sure that my line is as neat as possible because it will be fully shown.

Now you're done! I know my steps are confusing but I tried my best to explain! Haha hopefully the pictures explained it better than my words. If you try this out, please send me the picture so that I can see it! Or you can post the picture to Instagram, tag me in it and make sure to use the hashtag #inspiredbysabrinasnails. Have a great day and I hope you try this!

Braided Nails

This is my second attempt at braided nails and they aren't so bad if I do say so myself! I really didn't know what to add on top of Coral Reef after I swatched it the other day and I thought that this would be perfect! The color scheme was a bit tricky to figure out but I ended up choosing a light pink, Easy Going by Sinful Colors and a shimmery gold color, Golden-I by Sally Hansen.

I still have a tremendous amount of trouble making each part of the braid even, some of my lines are shaky and it is something I still have to work on.

I also have a problem with this design because it tends to get rather thick. To achieve the braided nails, you have to keep layering the three different colors of nail polish, so by the time I get to the last few strands of the braid, it is extremely thick. So thick that even my trusty Seche Vite topcoat can't smooth it out. 

These nails unfortunately took hours to dry and have already had many dents in them and now as I'm typing this, are all pretty much ruined. But they were super pretty while they lasted and I was able to take some pretty snazzy photographs of them! I'll have to practice this design more often until I master it and I'll be posting a pictorial on both here and on my Instagram soon just in case YOU would like to recreate these too!  

Coral Reef Swatch

Woohoo, my first official post on the blog! Today I swatched Coral Reef by Sally Hansen. I was a bit skeptical about this polish at first but it is so beautiful!

2 coats of Coral Reef plus a topcoat. 

It's super creamy, easy to apply, and is opaque in two coats. Coral Reef is the perfect mix of pink and orange and it makes my hands look so much tanner than they actually are which is always a plus. I would really recommend this nail polish and it is not very expensive either, somewhere around $3 and it is completely worth it!