Tag Archives: OPI

Nail Art Tutorial: Chicken Drumstick Nails

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Sunlight Chicken Drumstick Nails Nail Art Tutorial & PicturesYesterday I shared my thoughts on Milani One Coat Glitter Gold Glitz with you. I was really impressed that it actually was dense and indeed covered my nail with just one coat.

The only thing was I felt like I couldn’t properly rock that shade of gold and orange glitter, so I did silly nail art on top of it.

Here are the Chicken Drumstick Nails I ended up doing. 🙂 With poultry on my nails, I was way more comfortable sporting this manicure. It reminds me a little of shake ‘n’ bake chicken.

For the bone, I used an L.A. Colors white striper, and for the meat, I used OPI Espresso Your Style!, which is a pretty shimmery brown.

Hehe, I don’t know how many of you will actually want to recreate this look. I still took step-by-step photos of it as I was painting so that I could include a little nail-art tutorial for you. Maybe you’ll want to modify these and turn them into turkey drumsticks for your American Thanksgiving. 😛

Side note: I was a vegetarian for 4+ years partially as a personal challenge and partially because I saw an alarming documentary, Earthlings. I couldn’t watch it all because it was so disturbing. (If you click on the link, you’ll be taken to the free online video of it. Warning: It’s very depressing and graphic.)

These days, I do eat meat, but only 1-2 times per week. (I’ve always loved the way meat tastes, but I got really used to cooking vegetarian dishes over the years, so it’s really only when I eat out that I tend to eat meat. And after being a vegetarian for a few years, I learned that there are tons of delicious meatless dishes. Some of them, like the vegetarian lasagna I make, still tastes way better to me than any I’ve tried with meat! That really surprised me. Sometimes we just have to give new things a chance.)

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Nail Art Tutorial: Frog Nails

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Easy Frog Nails Nail Art Tutorial & SwatchHere are the Frog Nails I wore to IMATS Toronto (the event I recently blogged about).

Originally I wanted to do frog prince nails, but I misplaced my gold polish that I had planned to use for stamping on the crown. Other colours just weren’t right, so sadly, my green froggy had to be de-throned. (Hmm…suppose I could’ve just freehanded the crown, now that I think about it.)

I had also planned to stamp on some lips on an accent nail to make it look like he was gonna get his kiss.

On the upside, Mr. Frog wasn’t looking forward to smooching all those females who only thought they were princesses. 😉

This frog nail art is really easy to do, and I think it would be really fun if you did unconventional frogs in pink or purple instead of the traditional green like I did.

Also, consider painting on some flies for your accent nails with dotted lines to show their flight pattern. I think that would be so fun!

Come see how you can put some ribbit on your digits! 😉

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Cult Nails Unicorn Puke Swatches & Review (Layered Over Unicorn Pee & OPI’s OPI Ink)

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Natural Light Cult Nails Unicorn Puke Swatches & ReviewMy immune system is quite strong, so I don’t get ill too often. However, as fate would have it, I’m feeling feverish right now as I work on this post. Must have caught something on the subway. There was a guy sneezing a whole lot.

Perhaps I was just really feeling this incredible polish, Cult Nails Unicorn Puke! Yeah, looks like the unicorn picked up a different bug than I did. Poor unicorn!

Unicorn Puke is a multi-coloured flakie polish that’s so gorgeous, it’s making my palms sweat just looking at the bottle. (And it’s probably magnified even more because I’m not feeling well. But enough about this sicko!)

Here, I’ve layered Unicorn Puke over Unicorn Pee (aka Clarins 230 – I thought this was appropriate to combine these body fluids) and OPI’s OPI Ink. (Whenever I type that name, I feel like there’s an echo in the room.)

If you missed out on pre-ordering Unicorn Puke (only 275 limited-edition bottles of it were made), don’t worry! It’s coming out in the Cult Nails Super Powers Collection (their winter collection), except it’ll be called Clairvoyant and the packaging won’t have the gold lettering.

In person, the polish looks even better, and it totally stands apart from the few other flakies I own.

I was already over the moon (and into the stars) about Unicorn Puke, so you can imagine my delight when Marta from ChitChat Nails asked me if I wanted to do a twin post with her on this gorgeous polish. Of course I said yes! Check out her post on Unicorn Puke here!

I’ve been admiring her nails for quite a while because somehow every colour she wears looks so classy. She’s incredible with nail stamping and photography! But beyond her nails, I’ve found her to be a really sweet and good-natured person with a funny bone. She’s become a good friend to me, and I’m so thankful to know her. Please be sure to also check out her Unicorn Puke post!

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OPI Rainbow Connection Dupes, Comparison Swatches & Brush Reviews

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OPI Rainbow Connection Dupes Comparison Swatches Milani Gems Swatch & Nicole by OPI Rainbow in the S-Kylie SwatchIt feels like a long time ago when I swatched and reviewed OPI Rainbow Connection from The Muppets Collection even though it was just in September.

You’ll remember it as the multicoloured glitterbomb with 3 different sizes of hexagonal glitter.

Since then, I have acquired 2 other nail polishes that are quite similar.

One of them is a dead-on dupe. And if you’re not interested in paying OPI prices, you’ll want to check this out because one of the polishes I compare rings in at just $3.99 USD online!

I whipped up a post for those who are a fan of the glittertastic look of OPI Rainbow Connection, but who want to see how it stacks up to the alternatives. Thought this would make for a nice little shopping-tip post.

The nail polishes featured in this OPI Rainbow Connection Dupes post are: OPI Rainbow Connection (of course), Nicole by OPI Rainbow in the S-Kylie, and Milani Gems.

I’ve compared all 3 in relation to their appearance, brush, accessibility, and price. Hopefully this will help you decide which one is a better fit for you. Or, maybe you’ll decide that you no longer like any of them, and you’ll keep your hard-earned cash in your wallet.

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OPI Spookettes Review & Swatches (Includes Glow-in-the-Dark Pictures)

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OPI Spookettes Review & Swatches

It’s almost Hallowe’en! I’m excited, but also sad. Why sad? The closer we get to it, the more it means it’ll be over soon. Wahhhh! (I really enjoy the anticipation leading up to an event.)

If you need some Hallowe’en nail-art staples, I recommend picking up the cute OPI Spookettes kit if you can still get hold of it.

It comes with 3 mini creme polishes: orange (He’s My Boo), white (Mummy Knows Best), and black (I Only Date Werewolves). But what’s really exciting is the green glow-in-the-dark lacquer (Zom-Body to Love)!

The OPI Spookettes set also comes with free nail decals!
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Nail Art Tutorial: Haunted House Nails

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Flash Haunted Mansion Halloween Nail Art TutorialAt first, this design may look like a Christmas tree next to an egg yolk or like a whole bunch of random dots. Haha!

They’re really supposed to be Haunted House Nails – see how the black house has all the lights on? The small yellow ‘light’ can be seen from the windows. And that big ol’ egg yolk? Imagine that it’s a moon in the sky.

In my other photos of it in different lighting, hope you’re able to humour me and see a haunted mansion at night. 🙂

I could see how you could tweak this design for Christmas. Instead of different-sized little dots, add multicoloured little dots for the string of lights.

To create this, I used a combination of nail stamping and freehand painting.

When I visited my mom on Sunday and showed her this, I asked her to guess what they were. “Dots!” She said. Hehe, okay, that’s technically correct. When I asked my boyfriend, he thought they were stylized Christmas trees. 😛

A man in his 50’s actually paused mid-sentence to tell me that he really liked my nails! (That was the first time an older man commented on my nails out of the blue…hehe, and on this Christmas-tree-and-egg-yolk design, too!)

There was also a little girl who kept staring at my nails on the subway. She was soooo cute! Every time I’d look at her, she’d look away and pretend that she wasn’t looking at my nails. Then, when I looked away, I could see her leaning forward to look at my fingers. Maybe she was trying to figure out what eggs had in common with trees. Or why someone had egged the tree. 😛
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Nail Art Tutorial: Frankenstein’s Monster Nails

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Frankenstein Nail Art Tutorial Hallowe'en Nail Art Tutorial Frankenstein Monster NailsToday I am really excited to show you some more Hallowe’en nail art: Frankenstein’s Monster Nails!

I wore them for 4 days straight. Unfortunately, during that time, the sun only came out once, but I was busy and couldn’t take photos, so I only have flash and natural-light photos to show you. Hope you don’t mind!

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is my favourite novel of all time. I love the author’s way of writing in such a descriptive and flowery way – it helps me visualize everything like I’m watching a movie.

Back in 1818, people sure knew how to craft sentences and make them sound so poetic. And I admire how they flossed an impressive vocabulary!

If you haven’t read the original text, I highly recommend you do. It’s so much more than just the Hallowe’en character that a lot of people have identified it with.

The first time I read Frankenstein was in university for a humanities class. It was the biggest surprise. I thought it was going to be boring and cliche. It wasn’t! And I had trouble putting the book down. I literally read it in 2 days…on the bus, the subway, in my bed… (Sigh, I so need to re-read it.)

There’s deep philosophy and a myriad of allusions to other famous literature.

I really empathized with the monster more than with Frankenstein. The nameless monster was actually really intelligent and even taught himself how to read! He desperately wanted to be loved and to feel a sense of belonging, especially after he was harshly denied all ties to the only familial bond he knew. I could understand why he ended up lashing out.
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