Vintage Rose Nail Tutorial

So I'm kind of obsessed with making these pictorials. Haha I'll make one with every chance that I get! I think they're so fun to put together and I love helping you all achieve my nail designs. Today I have a brand new pictorial for the Vintage Rose Nails that I did a few days ago inspired by @PrettyLittleNails. I hope you all enjoy this and continue reading for in depth instructions on how to get this nail look!

#NailArtJan - Fresh

It was honestly really difficult to think of a nail design that is seen as "fresh." I first think of fresh air, freshly cut grass and fresh fruit, but I didn't really want any of those things on my nails. So I decided on fresh flowers. I had seen a design a few weeks ago by @OrlyNailGirls and completely fell in love. The design included a sheer background and crisp, white flowers on top of it.

To start, I grabbed the nail polishes that I needed. For the nudey-pink base, I used Essie's Mademoiselle. I also needed a white polish for the flower petals so I used Sinful Color's Snow Me White. Lastly, for the center of the flower I used Mellow Yellow by Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear. 

After painting my nails with two coats of Essie's Mademoiselle, I used a large dotting tool dipped in white polish to create a big flower at the top of my nail. As the flowers go down my nail and decrease in size, so do my dotting tools. I used a large, medium and small sized dotting tool for the flowers and a toothpick for the smallest daisy. 

Once the flowers were dry, I took Mellow Yellow and created small dots in the center of each flower. I then added a matte top coat and I'm done! I love this design and I think it looks very fresh and it's such a palette cleanser compared to all of the sparkly and intricate New Years nails. I hope you guys love these as much as I do and I hope you all had a fun and safe New Year! 

Roses & Glitter Accents

I've recently been inspired by a few pink Essie colors in my collection. After staring at my polishes thinking of what design I could do, I was always drawn back to Muchi, Muchi, Boom Boom Room, and Mod Square, all by Essie! I finally decided on roses, and glitter gradients for my ring fingers.

I first painted my nails with four thin coats of Essie's Muchi, Muchi. This polish is sheer and sometimes hard to work with, but when you start to build a few layers of it, you get a smooth, light pink color! Once that dried, I took a large dotting tool and dipped it into Essie's Boom Boom Room. I placed three large dots toward the cuticle and let them dry. Next, I took Essie's Mod Square and a smaller dotting tool, to create the curved petals on the roses. With a dark green polish and the smallest dotting tool that I own, I made little tear drop shapes in arbitrary areas around the roses to act as leaves! The nail looked empty with just roses on it so at the last minute I took my white striper by Stripe Rite and created vertical lines on my nail. If stripes were to originally be in my design, I would've done them first to avoid accidentally overlapping the roses! 

I was really interested to play around with Jetset In My Sunset by Curtsy and Bow. After swatching it on a piece of paper to see how much glitter I could get in one stroke, I realized that the formula on this polish wasn't so great. With one swipe, I got about two pieces of glitter, which is a shame because the gold hex glitters are gorgeous! After experimenting with this polish, I realized that I could create a glitter placement gradient (that's a mouthful) on my ring finger! 

I began by dumping some of the polish out on a piece of paper (aka an old magazine I found lying around). With a toothpick, I grabbed each glitter individually and placed them heavily toward the cuticle of my nail. The further down I went, the less glitter I would add, until it looked like a gradient! The clear base in this polish helped the glitter stick to my nail. If you're using completely loose glitter, add a topcoat on your nail (to help the glitter adhere to your nail) and also dip your toothpick in topcoat to make the process of picking up glitter much easier! 

I hope you liked this design as much as I did and I hope you try it out for yourself! If you do, use the hashtag #InspiredBySabrinasNails or send me a picture through Kik or Email! Thank you and have a lovely week (:

Freak Show Polish: Circus of the Sun

Circus of the Sun is a shimmery orange polish with bright orange glitters mixed inside as well. This polish reminds me of gold and I couldn't wait to put it on!

I first applied 4-5 coats of Let's Meet by Sinful Colors. I would usually wear this polish as a topper but I really didn't mind the building up of coats which others might find annoying. I really love the outcome, it feels like I'm wearing the sun on my nails! I haven't worn a bright color like this in a while and it feels great!

I probably should've worn a more orange base but this one looked fine under two coats of Circus of the Sun. I love the way this looks, it makes my nails feel like summer!

Besides my awkwardly chipped nail, this polish looks amazing up close! 

Here is my rating of this polish:

Application: Very easy to apply even though the brush to my sample bottle popped off of the cap :(

True to Color: Completely true to color.

Dry Time: 2-4 minutes.

Consistency: Smooth, not clumpy or goopy. 

Coats Until Opaque: On its own probably 3-4 coats. 

Additional Comments: If you want to feel like you have gold on your nails, get this nail polish! 

Final Rating: 8/10

To purchase, visit FreakShowPolish.com or visit Carissa's Instagram (Instagram.com/FreakShowPolish) to view more swatches and polishes!

Freak Show Polish: Strongman I

Strongman I is a glitter topper with round blue and green glitters to make any mani pop. In the bottle this polish is to die for, the glitters were just calling my name!

I first started with three coats of Mint Apple by Sinful Colors which was also my Mint Mani for Talia Joy. I really wanted to be a part of that tag so I planned this swatch to go up on Friday. Mint Apple is a gorgeous shimmery mint polish.

I absolutely love this color and think it's perfect for summer. I topped this off with two coats of Strongman I and let me tell you, I was in circle glitter heaven!

This polish is a glitter bomb! Two coats did fill most spaces and I didn't have to fish for glitter too much, but being the perfectionist that I am, I did fill in a few empty spaces on my own. Other than that this polish is gorgeous! Since the base is clear, you can layer it over any base color that you wish!

Don't these glitters make you swoon? Here's my rating for this polish:

Application: This glitter topper went on pretty easily. 

True to Color: The base is clear but the glitters are as vibrant as they are in the bottle. 

Dry Time: 2-3 minutes.

Consistency: The clear base did get a bit thick at times but it wasn't too hard to work with.

Coats Until Opaque: It's a clear base but it does take 2 coats for the glitters to fill most spots on the nail.

Additional Comments: I think this polish is beautiful! I did have a hard time taking it off but that's not necessarily a bad thing! That just means it's definitely long lasting. I also did have to place a few glitters on myself but that's only because I'm picky and I need glitter to be EVERYWHERE!

Final Rating: 7/10

To purchase, visit FreakShowPolish.com or visit Carissa's Instagram (Instagram.com/FreakShowPolish) to view more swatches and polishes!

Cath Kidston Inspired

This week I decided to create something super girly and fun on my nails! I have been seeing this cute pattern by Cath Kidston around EVERYWHERE and I just had to have it on my nails. There was something about the colors, vintage vibe and roses (aka my weakness) that drew me closer and closer to this design.

 

To be completely honest, I'm thrilled with how these came out! They were very time consuming but I am in love with the outcome. I think the mint green (Jealous, Much? By Orly) pairs perfectly with the multi-toned roses. The roses are a bit messy and look more like blobs when you get extremely close, but from afar they look pretty nice! 

Haha see what I mean? When you get close, you realize that the flowers look like nothing more than a few flicks of red and pink. But, I'm still in love. And apparently so was my 23 year old sister because she insisted that I do them for her as well! 

For her version, since she loves blue, I decided to use Essie's Bikini So Teeny as a base instead. Little did I know that the pattern looks amazing on top of that color as well! I honestly think that the design would look great over almost any color. From pale pinks, dusty blues, grassy greens, to pastel yellows. I'm so excited to be rocking these for a few days. I hope I did Cath Kidston justice!

Overlay seen in the last photo from : http://shii-overlays.tumblr.com/

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!  

Target Haul

I went to Target yesterday and picked up a few polishes! The Target that I went to didn't have much of a selection, almost all of the Essie's were gone which was what I was looking forward to the most, so that was disappointing. But, I did buy some that I really love!

Loreal

       I Will!                        Lacey Lilac

I bought two Loreal Polishes that I am so excited to add to my collection of Loreals! This is one of the best brands that I've tried, the polishes are creamy, opaque and super easy to work with. Loreal also has really nice pastel colors for Spring and I almost own all of them! On the left is a plain but gorgeous white called, I Will! I've been needing a new white polish because my old ones are starting to turn thick and goopy. On the left is Lacey Lilac which is a very unique shade of pastel purple, unlike any that I already own. These are so pretty and I can't wait to try them out!

Sinful Colors

Pink Forever                     Hazard

The Sinful Colors section at my Target had some very bright and exciting colors that I had never seen before so I decide to purchase a few. Pink Forever is unlike any nail polish in my collection, once I brought it home I compared it to my other pink shades and there were none like it. Its a very bright, almost bubblegum pink color that is very pretty in the bottle and looks very opaque. Hazard is a bright coral/peach shade that definitely leans more toward orange than it does pink. 

Revlon

Coastal Surf

Lastly I bought Coastal Surf by Revlon. I really love Revlon but this polish isn't the best. I opened the bottle in the store and it unfortunately had a funny looking brush with a few crazy hairs not in place, but it was the last one in the store so I decided to buy it anyway. I guess its partially my fault for still purchasing it but I couldn't resist! This shade of blue reminds me of Avenue Maintain by Essie but this one is a bit brighter. I really like it and I hope I can still apply this somewhat easily despite the funky brush.