Katy Perry "Dark Horse" Nails

 EDIT: So I jumped the gun and accidentally posted this waaayyyy too early for Twinsie Tuesday. I'll do something else when the theme actually comes up, so in the meantime, enjoy these. Also, I'm dumb. Carry on.

We're borrowing some looks from Hollywood for this week's installment of Twinsie Tuesday, where we've been challenged to re-create a nail look worn by a celebrity! So I turned to arguably the queen of celebrity nail art, Katy Perry. Her music is a guilty pleasure of mine and I love how much fun she has with her make-up and nails. Katy always has something fun and flashy on her nails, but for this challenge, I chose to copy a mani from the video for the song "Dark Horse."

Katy actually wears three different nail looks in this video. I chose her triangle-tipped nails as the ones I wanted to re-create:

It seemed like a relatively simple manicure to do and I love the contrast between the gold and the bright blue. I used Essie Strut Your Stuff, Essie Good As Gold and some scotch tape for my version. Here's how it came out:

I botched taking off the tape on my ring finger, so that one came out a little wonky, but otherwise I'm super happy with this mani! I tried free-handing a similar design a few months ago for some Lana Del Rey-inspired nails and I gotta say, the tape makes it soooo much easier. They may not be 100% perfect, but I'm still really proud of these nails!

Is there a celebrity you look to for polish inspiration? I would say my big ones are Katy and Zooey Deschanel. Their nail game is always on point!

Born Pretty Sailor Moon Stamping Plate: Review & Swatches

Sailor Moon, both the anime and the manga, was a huge part of my childhood and young adulthood. One of the only times I ever faked sick was so that I could stay home from school and watch a marathon of Sailor Moon on UPN. I think I was in 4th or 5th grade? Something like that. I still enjoy watching the new series, Sailor Moon Crystal, but the original show will always have a special place in my heart--yes, even the cringeworthy US dub.

So when Born Pretty asked me if I would like to review some of their stamping plates, I had to try the Sailor Moon-themed one! I mean, just look at how freakin' magical this is, you guys!

Before I go any further, I wanted to note that Born Pretty has actually changed up the design on this plate since I received it. The individual pictures are bigger now and simplified the overall design. I think that should make some of the images, like the one of Sailor Moon right in the middle, easier to pick up with your stamper. Here's how the plate currently looks:

The other thing I wanted to make sure I tell you guys is that I have never tried stamping before. I've always been too intimidated by it! But for Sailor Moon, I will try! 

So I looked at a couple tutorials online and then gave it my best shot. It's definitely something that takes practice and it took me quite a few tries to get it right. But damn if it wasn't satisfying when I finally got that first stamp right! I played around with stamping some designs, using Essie Good As Gold, over my OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls manicure that I showed you all yesterday. Here's a look at the designs I tried:

I really wanted to get that image of Sailor Moon herself onto my nails, but after at least two dozen attempts, I couldn't quite get it--although I did come close a few times! Any issues I had are completely due to my lack of experience rather than any defect with the plate itself, which is very nice quality. I just need to practice my technique more!

While it can be a little tricky, I still had a lot of fun finally trying out stamping! I think for a first try, I didn't do too bad. I've got two other BP plates to review, so hopefully I'll keep getting better!

If you would like to purchase anything from Born Pretty, they offer 10% off for Nailed readers:

Disclosure: This product was sent to me for my honest review. For more information, please see my disclosure policy.

OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls

I looooove a good white or off-white polish. One I constantly see other bloggers raving about is OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, from the Amazing Spider-man Collection a couple years back. So when Anna was kind enough to gift it to me for my birthday, I was thrilled to finally have this much-hyped shade in my collection. My Boyfriend Scales Walls is...well, it's pretty much perfect, you guys. It's a gorgeously simple white creme with just a touch of grey mixed in.

If pure whites remind you too much of painting your nails with white-out, then you need to give this polish a shot. The grey gives a soft, cool undertone to the white that's super pretty and clean-looking. This may just be the ultimate blank canvas shade.

The formula is also ridiculously good, especially for a white polish. It's very creamy and smooth--not streaky in the slightest. Two coats was enough for most of my nails, but a few did need three.

China Glaze Road Trip Preview

For those of you who celebrate, I hope you had a wonderful Christmas! I have the day after Christmas off for the first time in a long while, so I'm looking forward to another day of relaxing and spending time with my parents.

If you're looking for a way to burn some of your newly acquired holiday cash, then China Glaze's upcoming spring collection, Road Trip, might not be a bad place to start. Take a look at the 12 new beauties CG has in store for us!

Trip of a Lime Time

 

My Way Or The Highway

License & Registration Pls

 

Boho Blues

Dashboard Dreamer

 

Wanderlust

Pack Lightly

 

More To Explore

Pinking Out The Window

 

I Brake For Color

Pop The Trunk

 

Sun's Up, Top Down

Source

I love the mix of brights and pastels. Plus it looks like there are some beautiful blues in here, which you know I'm all about! I wasn't too interested in most of China Glaze's 2014 collections, so here's hoping my love for CG bounces back in 2015.

I couldn't find anything on an official release date for these polishes, but I'm guessing we won't have to wait too long. Will you be getting any of these?

Twinsie Tuesday: Holiday Manicures

Twinsie Tuesday is back! As I mentioned a few weeks ago, we decided to take a short hiatus due to the craziness of this time of year but now we're back for some holiday fun this week with manicures for Chanukah and Christmas!

 I decided that rather than take a more literalistic approach (a.k.a. I wanted to avoid nail art), I would go with manicures that feature the traditional colors of each holiday. So for Chanukah, I cooked up something with blue, white and then a dash of sparkle and shine, since Chanukah is the festival of lights. :)

The main polish here is Rainbow Honey Spirit of Wonder (one of the brand's awesome holiday polishes) and then the accent is another Rainbow Honey called Skyward Bot. I tried adding some additional glitter over the top of both polishes, but it just came out looking kind of a hot mess, so I decided to leave well enough alone here.

Then with my Christmas mani, I got OPI Don't Speak--their latest 24k gold topcoat--on clearance yesterday, so I was itching to use it in a holiday mani. So I layered it over OPI I Sing In Color, a vampy deep red. It looks almost brown here, which is kind of a bummer, because it didn't quite pop the way I wanted it to. So while I do wish I had used more of a classic holiday red, at least the deeper base really brings out all the fabulous flakies and glitter of Don't Speak.

Whatever holiday you celebrate, I hope you have a safe and happy time with your loved ones and that you're gifted some pretty polishes! ;)

​

Alaina at The Little Canvas

Amanda at Amandalandish

Amber at Nails Like Lace
Anna at Going to the Showing
Bridget at A Painted Nail

Casey at CaseyLane Loves Polish

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Cordia at Seriously Swatched

Elizabeth at Did My Nails

Erin at Paint Those Piggies

Jessica at Blue Velvet Lacquer

Kelly at Tuxarina

Lakeisha at Refined and Polished

​Lisa at The Polish Playground

​Marisa at Polish Obsession

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Stephanie at A Little Polish

Tiffany at Polished To Precision​

KBShimmer Spot Sign

KBShimmer Spot Sign sounded like one of the most creative and innovative polishes to come out of the indie polish community in a long time. Yeah, it has black circles and silver holo microglitter, which is all well and good, but the big selling point on this polish is that it has leopard spot-shaped glitter--yes, that's apparently a thing now! Why was this not invented sooner?!

As someone who has always wanted to do a leopard print mani but doubts my ability to actually pull it off, Spot Sign was super intriguing to me. Unfortunately, I found that while it's an absolutely fantastic idea on paper, the execution left something to be desired. Take a look and see what you think. Here's Spot Sign over Sally Hansen Fuchsia Power.

Part of the problem I had with Spot Sign is the formula. I used two coats here and I probably could have used a third to get more of the leopard spot effect with this polish. There is a lot of clear base with this polish; the glitter is pretty sparse, especially the leopard spots. When I actually did fish out some spots, they seemed to always be stuck together. So I'd have to try and pull the interlocked glitter pieces apart and then it was tricky to guide the spots where I wanted them to go. I guess this polish could work better if you were to fish out the spots one at a time and then place them with a toothpick or something, but I wanted my swatches to show you how Spot Sign applies without any special tricks.

So yeah, this polish was sort of a letdown for me. :( I love the concept behind it so much that I'm willing to play around with Spot Sign some more to see if I can get it to look the way I want it to. I just wish it was easier to work with.

You can purchase KBShimmer from their website.

China Glaze Reggae To Riches

I bought this polish after seeing so many other bloggers rave about it--and now that I have it myself, I can honestly see why! China Glaze Reggae To Riches is a bright fuchsia with iridescent blue shimmer. The shimmer is very vibrant, to the point where this polish almost looks like more of a duochrome.

The formula was a touch runny, but not bad overall. I used three coats here.

Reggae To Riches is such a perfectly executed shade. It's more than deserving of its cult classic status. I love how bright the base color is and no one does awesome, life-of-their-own shimmers like China Glaze does.