If you followed me on social media since Friday, you already saw some photos that took while at the Canadian National Exhibiton (aka the CNE / The Ex) in Toronto.

This Summer Carnival Dotticure is what I wore to the CNE!

It was my first time trying out the KISS Polish Pop nail stickers. (The neon dots are the stickers.)

Everything else, I painted myself and tried to create a cohesive look to incorporate the fun neon dots.

With photos zoomed in so closely on my nails, you can see the transparent outline surrounding the neon dots, but in real life, it’s not quite as noticeable.

They’re worth playing around with, especially if you don’t have dotting tools, a lot of nail-polish colours, or the time to do freehand designs.

The black lacquer I used is China Glaze Liquid Leather, the pink (used on my thumb, which you can see in other photos in this post) is Duri Venom, the green is Duri Summer Rain, and the white is OPI Infinite Shine Non-Stop White.

Summer Carnival Dotticure Swatches

All swatches have:

• OPI Nail Envy Nail Strengthener (Used as a base coat)
• Duri Venom (Pink)
• China Glaze Liquid Leather (Black)
• OPI Infinite Shine Non-Stop White (White)
• Duri Summer Rain (Green)
• KISS Polish Pop nail stickers (neon dots)
• Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat

Artificial Light Photos

Natural Light Photos

KISS Polish Pop Nail Stickers

The KISS Polish Pop nail stickers I used come in a package that looks like this. (It retails for $4.97 CAD.)

There are full-nail wraps, as well as little designs. All of them are meant to be used as accent designs, not for every single nail. However, you know that I like bold looks, so for my manicure, I made all my nails loud.

If you purchase these nail stickers, you could use a design to just accent one nail and then keep all the other ones a solid colour. It’s up to you how to use them.

You should wait until your base polish is dry before applying the stickers. (Since I was painting a new manicure, I used a fast-dry top coat after my final coat of colour so that I could soon after go right in and apply the stickers.)

I don’t recommend trying to peel the stickers off with wet nails, as they are small and therefore it’s tricky to do so without creating dents.

These stickers are great for breathing life into an old manicure. If you have a solid colour on, maybe on the second or third day, you can change up the look by applying some of these on top.

The area surrounding the small accent designs is transparent, but I found that I couldn’t get it to be completely invisible. Even when I applied a thick, glossy top coat, I could see the outline, but it wasn’t too bad. (In photos that are larger than real life, yes, you can clearly see the outline, but in person, it’s way more subtle, and people would have to get really close to your nails to see it.) I don’t have much experience using stickers, so that could also be a factor.

Nevertheless, I was really happy with how the neon dots looked against the black China Glaze Liquid Leather! 🙂 (To get the neon vibrancy with regular polish on top of black, you’d have to layer the colour over white dots, so these stickers are definitely a time-saver.)

I snipped the long line of dots at the bottom so that they’d be long enough to fit diagonally on my middle fingers. You could totally customize them any way you wish to make a manicure all your own. And if you layer them over a gradient or other solid colour, it will completely change the overall appearance.

On the back of the package, it shows an example of a design you can create using the stickers:

Disclosure: OPI Infinite Shine Non-Stop White and the KISS stickers were provided by PR. Everything else I used was purchased by me.

What kind of nail designs would you do to incorporate the stickers? When you think “carnival nails,” what immediately pops into your mind? Have you been to the CNE (Canadian National Exhibition)?