OPI Jelly Sandwich

Hey everyone! Today I have a long awaited jelly sandwich mani that I've been wanting to try for the longest time! I've done jelly sandwiches before, but now that I have OPI's Bubble Bath, I've had the urge to try this technique again. Continue reading for sparkly goodness! (WARNING: This will be a picture heavy post!)

Crisp Striping Tape Mani!

How is everyone doing? Today I am thrilled to share my newest nails with you! I recently saw a design by @Rachell_Rachell and fell in love! I've done something similar before on my sister but her design took it to the next level! I also took this as a great opportunity to use my new striping tape!

(Do you see the holo in that China Glaze polish?!?)

Julep - Zelda

Good morning everyone! Today I'm sharing with you a swatch of a new polish I got for Christmas. For the past few days I've been wearing Zelda by Julep. I can't wait to share my thoughts on this polish with you all!

Polishes I Received this Christmas!

Hey guys! I know Christmas was over a month ago but I never had the chance to show you all what polishes I received this past holiday. I'm so grateful for the friends and family that fed my polish addiction and I'm so excited to share my new pretties with you!

*Disclaimer* I am in no way trying to brag about things that were given to me. I simply want to share them with you and show you my collection as it grows. I love reading about what polishes people bought/ received so I thought this would be a good idea :) I also want to mention that this will be a picture heavy post! 

To start, I'll show you polishes from one of my favorite brands, Essie! These polishes were given to me by my aunt, my friend Madi, and my mom!

From L to R: Off the Shoulder, Shake Your $$ Maker, Sable Collar & Using My Maiden Name

#NailArtJan - Sparkles

Phew, today was easier to figure out than Day 3 - Fresh! I have so many glitter polishes but I immediately knew which one I wanted to use. I recently bought Essie's Lots of Lux, it's been staring at me for a while and I realized that this was a perfect time to use it!

Lots of Lux is a cobalt blue, textured polish. In the bottle you can really see the blue, green, and deep purple shimmer throughout the polish. When applied, it dries to a matte texture that's somewhat gritty but really beautiful because of all of the sparkle. Did I also mention that it's 99% opaque in one coat?! Seriously, so many people have had the same reactions and I didn't believe it until I tried it. Of course, I had to add another coat because I just don't feel okay without it, but it's fine with just one!

Out in the sunlight, you can easily see the texture in Lots of Lux. If you prefer smooth nails, you could add a topcoat to this but I really love the fine grit to this. Overall I'm so happy that I purchased this nail polish! I haven't heard that many good things about Essie's Encrusted Treasures Collection but Lots of Lux sure seems to be a hit! I also purchase Ignite the Night and I'm praying that it's as fabulous as this! Not too sure if I'll be purchasing Belugaria or Peak of Chic any time soon but so far I love what Essie has done with Lots of Lux.  I'm so excited to wear this for the next few days, I'm afraid I won't be able to focus on school with nails like these :) So tell me, what do you think of the Encrusted Treasures Collection? Do you own any polishes from it or do you plan to? I'm personally on the fence about buying any more but Hors D'ouevres and On A Silver Platter just look so nice! Leave me a comment about what you think down below!

Diamonds In The Rough

Hi everyone! I had some time to spare yesterday and I decided to paint my nails! I've had this idea in my head for a while and I finally had the time to execute it last night. I used one of my new sparkly nail polishes that I got for Christmas and I really love it! I hope you like these nails as much as I do!

After my base coat, I began to paint my ring finger, middle finger and thumb with Superstar! by Pure Ice. This polish was difficult to work with, but after three coats it evened itself out and was streak-free. Since the layers came out thick, I allowed ten minutes for the polish to dry between coats. 

As I was waiting for the white polish to dry, I began painting my index and pinkie finger with Some Like It Haute by China Glaze. I got this from my uncle for Christmas and I really REALLY love it (not only because of the adorable silver cap). Some Like It Haute is a clear base with small charcoal grey glitter with larger holographic glitter scattered through it. Because it has a clear base, this is five extremely easy coats of the nail polish. If you're impatient or running out of time, I would suggest to use grey undies but I really loved watching the layers build up and become opaque. I noticed that this polish dried rough, almost like a textured polish. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be worn like that but I did add one coat of Seche Vite to add shine. 

The holographic glitter >

Once the white polish was dry, I took my black Stripe Rite striper and began by creating a diamond on a random spot on my nail. To make the diamond, I started by creating a black triangle. Then I painted a trapezoid on top of it with lines going through the trapezoid and triangle. It's really easy to figure out when you look at my nails, all of the diamonds are different shapes and sizes but have the same concept.

Once one diamond is done, I drew more and more on arbitrary spots on my nail. You can't do this wrong! I seriously just painted a diamond wherever there was space. When the polish was dry, I added one layer of my favorite top coat! These nails really make me feel bad ass and I love it! If you try these out please use the hashtag #InspiredBySabrinasNails or send me the picture through kik or email. I hope you like these and become inspired, see you next time! 

Pink & Gold

Merry Christmas! :) I'm finally back to posting regularly on Instagram and on my blog because of Winter Break! These past few weeks of school have been stressful and I haven't really had time to do my nails (which is why I didn't do any holiday themed nails). But today after spending time with my family, I had time to paint my nails with two of my (29) new nail polishes that were gifted to me by my friends and family. (Anyone want to see all of my new pretties?)

Today I decided to go for something simple because of how beautiful these colors are on their own. My aunt bought me two new mini Color Clubs that I am really in love with. The first is Modern Pink. This polish was a little bit hard to work with because of how streaky it was, but after four coats I was able to even it out. The gold polish is called Take The Stage. This nail polish is a clear base with medium sized hex glitters and holographic flakes scattered through it as well. Since this polish has a clear base I think it works way better with undies (I used Sally Hansen's Golden-I).

Overall I'm really liking this combo, I think it's elegant but still fun because of the bright pink. I topped this mani off with one coat of Seche Vite. I hope y'all had a great time this holiday season and spent a lot of time with loved ones and even might've gotten some nice gifts! I'll see you next time!

Silver Glitter Gradient + New Nail Shape!

Hello everyone! Today I have a really simple design and a brand new nail shape. I decided to switch to almond shape nails after ogling Christine's gorgeous nails for a few months now. Not sure how long I'll have this shape for but I'll enjoy it while it lasts!

On my nails I have a silver glitter gradient over a sheer pink. This look is extremely elegant and perfect for a wedding, holiday parties or any time you want some glam nails!

I started this look with three thin coats of Mademoiselle by Essie. Mademoiselle is a new polish of mine and I really love it. It's sheer enough so you can slightly see your nail, but it's opaque enough to cover any stains I have on my nail. After the sheer polish was dry, I took Tiara by Orly and a makeup wedge and sponged the fine silver glitter onto 3/4 of my nail. 

To add even more glitter, I sponged on Set In Stones by Essie to the tips of my nails. Finally, I added one coat of Seche Vite to seal all of that glitter in! I am honestly in love with these nails and I want to keep them on forever! I hope you like them too :)

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 (:

Nude to Blue Gradient

I was inspired by the gorgeous bright blue color (St Thomas Blue Me Away) that CurtsyandBow sent me, that I decided it was finally time for me to try a nude to color gradient. I have seen the trend everywhere and I think it's so pretty!

I began by applying two coats of a nude base (Trade Winds by Revlon) on my nails. Once that was dry, I took Trade Winds and St Thomas Blue Me Away and painted two horizontal stripes next to each other on a cosmetic wedge and sponged the colors onto my nail. This technique creates a flawless gradient every time! To help the colors blend and to add some sparkle, I added a coat of Fairy Dust by China Glaze, followed by one coat of Seche Vite. 

I think these turned out really nicely and I'm excited to try this again with different colors! If you'd like to purchase St Thomas Blue Me Away, please visit www.CurtsyandBow.com! If you try this design out, use the hashtag #InspiredBySabrinasNails or send the picture to me by Email or Kik! Have a marvelous day :)

Gradient Triangles

My sister and I decided to have a "Nail Painting Day" to paint our nails with a similar design. We decided on a design that we've been seeing everywhere on Instagram and Pinterest. There's no specific name for them but they look like triangles that start near the cuticle.

I started this design with two coats of white polish topped with Seche Vite for faster dry time. Since I used tape for this mani, I had to wait about an hour until the white polish was completely dry or else once the tape is added, it will pull polish up with it. Once the polish was dry, I added two strips of tape starting from the cuticle and meeting up with each other to create a triangle. I then applied a dark purple polish ( Spontaneous by China Glaze), a medium purple polish (Play Date by Essie), and a light purple polish (Sweet Hook by China Glaze) onto a cosmetic wedge and started to sponge it onto the nail. After a few coats of sponging and a coat of Fairy Dust by China Glaze, I carefully peeled the tape off to reveal crisp lines on the triangle. I added one coat of Seche Vite and Voila! They're finished! 

As I mentioned earlier, my sister also did her nails but she decided to do a pink gradient instead of purple. She followed the exact same steps as I did but her dark pink polish was Mod Square by Essie, her medium pink polish was Boom Boom Room by Essie, and her light pink polish was Muchi Muchi by Essie. We both loved how these turned out and kept these on for as long as we possibly could (a little over a week)! If you try these out, use the hashtag #InspiredBySabrinasNails or send the picture to me though Email or Kik! I'll see you next time!

NOTD: Sephora by OPI's I'm So Sari!

This week I've been wearing a gorgeous glitter polish from Sephora by OPI, named 'I'm So Sari!' This polish is from their 2012 Indian Summer Collection and my mom picked it up for me the other day at Sephora.

This is definitely a must have nail polish! This flashy polish has a teal crelly base, with dense teal glitter, and filled with silver holographic hexes. In three coats it's a complete glitter bomb and I couldn't stop staring at my nails this week! Do you own this polish? Tell me in the comments below or tell me on Instagram! Have a fabulous week :)

  

Floral + Stripes

Today's blog post is dedicated to a cute floral and striped mani! I found inspiration from a photo I saw on Pinterest and I decided to recreate the roses and ended up with a fun and detailed design!

I started off this mani with Royally Yours by L'oreal on all of my nails except for the ring finger, a light and dusty blue color that was opaque in three coats. On my thumb and pinkie finger I added vertical stripes with a white striper. On the pointer and middle finger I carefully painted white (acrylic paint) and pink (Boom Boom Room by Essie) roses with a thin nail art brush and topped it off with curly green (acrylic paint) stems! Lastly, on my ring finger I started off with a base of gold polish (Golden-I by Sally Hansen) and added two coats of a chunky gold glitter polish (The Golden Age by Sephora by OPI [RIP]). To complete the look, I added one coat of my trusty Seche Vite topcoat! If you like this mani, feel free to tell me in the comments of this post or on Instagram! If you want to try it out for yourself, use the hashtag #InspiredBySabrinasNails or Kik me the photo of your results! See you next time!

Soothing Dreamcatchers

Not only do dreamcatchers help filter out bad dreams, but they also look really cute on your nails! I've seen dreamcatcher nails everywhere lately and decided to finally hop on the bandwagon! They were much simpler than I thought they would be and they turned out nicely along with a white to lavender ombre on the other nails.

The lavender color I used is Sweet Hook by China Glaze, it's a creamy light purple that is opaque in two coats. I also sponged on white for the ombre with Superstar! by Pure Ice and topped it off with Fairy Dust by China Glaze. To create the dreamcatcher I first used a black striper to create a half circle at the top of my nail and then filled it in with cross hatching. I also added three lines at different lengths to act as the string to hold all of the accessories on the dreamcatcher. Finally, I drew on pink and yellow beads and added brown feathers to complete the look! You can really customize these nails however you want, you change the background color, the amount of feathers and beads, and you can also change the design that goes inside of the half circle! If you try these out, use the hashtag #inspiredbysabrinasnails and tag me in the Instagram photo, or send me the picture through Kik or email! Have a great day!

Sephora By OPI Haul

Recently Sephora by OPI Nail Polish have been announced to be discontinued. As sad as that is, the good news is that they are all on sale for only $4.50! (Instead of their usual price of $9.00.) My mom took advantage of this sale and went to our local Sephora to pick up a few polishes for me. I told her that all I needed was a gold glitter polish but she came back with all of these beauties!

(From L to R) Not Your Average Turquoise, To The Glitter End!, The Golden Age, Hollywood If I Could, I'm So Sari! and Indi-go With The Flow

I'm in love with all of these and I can't wait to use them! I definitely recommend to check out the sale before all of the good colors run out! Have a nice day! 

Dazzling Chevrons

I finally decided to try out the famous chevron mani by @SelenaDee_Nails on Instagram! This design is not only popular, but very simple and appealing. I thought this design would be perfect for the Jonas Brothers concert I was going to that day, yes I was totally there for their comeback, and they were just as great since the last time I saw them in 2008!

I swapped out the bright red that Selena used on her thumb, index and pinkie fingers for Essie's Butler Please, a rich blue. This was the first time I used my new polish and I was honestly a bit confused. To my surprise, Butler Please is a crelly polish! It applied like a cream but was somewhat sheer and dried matte. It was opaque in two coats but with one more coat it was much brighter. 

When I know I'm doing a full silver glitter nail, I always apply one coat of a metallic silver polish first. I do this so that there won't be empty spots if the glitter doesn't cover my whole nail, meaning I'll need less coats of the glitter polish. My go-to glitter is Essie's Set in Stones, it's packed with sparkle and will never disappoint! I layered three coats of that over one coat of Silver Mercedes by Pure Ice, a metallic polish.

For the accent chevron nail I started off with a few coats of Superstar! by Pure Ice, a creamy white. This isn't my favorite white polish, its a bit old and thick. I thought I had grabbed I Will! by Loreal but realized I hadn't and was too lazy to walk a few steps to my room to switch them out, haha so I thought this would do. When doing this tape mani, you have to make sure the white is completely dry before moving on, or else the tape could ruin the wet nail. I added a coat of Seche Vite to speed up the drying time. 

In the mean time I was cutting up the pieces of tape for this design. I don't own any zigzag scissors so I followed @Jewsie_Nails tutorial for her easy chevrons. Using a regular piece of tape I folded it (sticky sides out) and cut an angled line down the fold, and then did it once again to get a thin v-shaped piece of tape after I opened it up. 

I placed the pieces of tape on my dry nail and pressed them down to make sure no pieces were oddly lifted up. Then I painted two coats of Liquid Leather by China Glaze on my whole nail and quickly but carefully lifted the tape off of my nail. Ta-da! You're left with a beautiful chevron accent nail! I used my black and white nail art stripers to clean up any empty/uneven lines and I had a very clean and pretty chevron. 

One coat of Seche Vite on each nail and the design was done! I'm pleased with how this came out and I'm definitely doing more chevron manis in the future now that I know how to do them. I hope you all like this and try this out! Have a great day!

Flashy Lilac

My mind is still spinning from a One Direction concert I attended on Sunday, so I decided to have something simple yet cute on my nails. I recently bought my very first OPI nail polishes and I was very eager to try them for the first time today!

I began with four coats of You're Such A Budapest by OPI. This polish was surprisingly thin which was kind of a bummer, but the formula was very smooth which made up for it. You're Such A Budapest is a soft lilac color that is perfect for the spring and summer time. I would definitely wear this alone but I decided to add a touch of sparkle. 

After letting this dry, I added one coat of Which Is Witch by OPI on top. I don't think I've said that I've added only one coat of something in a very long time, it's very refreshing! Which Is Witch is packed with holographic hex and bar glitters. This glitter top coat truly does sparkle like crazy when you're in the sunlight, it's going to bring you much attention!

I hope that you would all know by now that I am an absolute sucker for matte glitter. Not only is it easier to photograph, but it just adds something unexpected to any glitter mani. I finished this off with one coat of OPI's Matte Top Coat. A lot of you have been asking what the best matte top coat is, in my opinion this one by OPI is the best I've tried. It turns your nails matte right before your eyes in about 5 seconds, it's truly amazing! If you're looking for one that's more affordable, I would recommend NYC's Matte Me Crazy. It only costs a single dollar and it achieves similar results. 

I hope I feel in the mood to do some nail art this week, I have some new polishes I want to try out! I hope you love this OPI combination, I know I do!

Freak Show Polish: Three-Ringed Circus

Three-Ringed Circus is a white jelly polish filled with red, black, and white glitters of many shapes and sizes, made to represent the flair that you find in the circus!

I did use the same base polish as I used when swatching Strongman II. I used four coats of I Will! by L'oreal and to prevent picture spam of the same polish, I did not insert the same pictures. To see the white polish, look at the blog post right before this one! 

I love how simple yet elegant and fun this polish is, it really looks nice against the white base. It even looks more beautiful close up!

Here's my final rating of this polish:

Application: Normal, no problems with it.

True to Color: Yes, colors are very bright.

Dry Time: 2-3 minutes.

Consistency: On the thicker side but not an issue to work with.

Coats Until Opaque: With two coats, the small red glitters were all over the nail, I did have to place on some of the circle glitters myself because I wanted a big circle glitter on each nail. 

Additional Comments: This polish definitely holds the essence of the circus while still being sophisticated. 

Final Rating: 7/10

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