Beach time!

Hey all! Today's post is coming to you from the beach! You know...the place of hotels, sand, miniature golf, all you can eat crab, boardwalk, boardwalk fries, etc. Yay! The nail design is a take on the popular lifeguard logo (if I were not posting from the actual beach I would link to an example....until then Google Ocean City sweatshirts and you'll sed what I mean). I'll update this post when I'm back near a computer but until then....sandy toes and salty kisses is all I need!!

Swatch: Ciate Dangerous Affair

Finally after a bit of a hiatus, I have a new post! Today is my little brother's birthday (17!) but I couldn't seem to come up with a design for a birthday manicure so...today is a swatch post for Ciate Paint Pot Dangerous Affair, a gorgeous burgundy that is perfect for...well...not spring or summer weather. However, because I'm me I tend to rock whatever color fits my mood at the moment (seasons be damned!) so I will work this polish even though it's springtime here. I think the formula is a little thinner than a normal polish but it dries quickly and it's still really opaque so it's not really a big deal. Just slap some Seche Vite Top Coat on there and it looks great. The burgundy that is on the nail is definitely the same as what shines in the bottle so that's awesome. I hate when I choose a color but then when it gets on my nails it's something totally different. The cost for Ciate full size polishes is about $15 USD but mine is a mini that was part of the Christmas Advent Calendar that Bloomingdales sold (so I have a ton of really amazing Ciate polishes in mini). I'd say this polish would get a 9 on a scale from 0-10. Check out the amazing shade of this polish:

Also, some exciting news! My sweetheart and I will be spending a few days at the ocean tomorrow! I have to do a beach appropriate manicure!

Advice needed: Wedding Wears

So, any thoughts on what I should put with this plain black dress to give it a festive flair?? If you have any other ideas let me know!

Toetally Tuesday - Holographic Dots

Brief post today because I'm at my parent's house and don't have much of my polish stuff with me! I loved the colors from my anniversary post in April so much that I wanted to use them in another way....voila, on a Toetally Tuesday. I did a dottie, holographic pedicure. Where are my sandals? These tootsies need to be seen!

For this look, I used Color Club Kismet and China Glaze Highlight of My Summer. 

They say it's my birthdayyy!

...we're gonna have a good time! Hello nail friends, today is indeed my birthday. Woot woot! I'm a strict subscriber to the whole birthdays-are-a-big-deal belief. I don't care whose birthday it is. I don't care how old the person is. If there's a birthday for someone who means something to me I am right there celebrating it. Seriously, I have been known to celebrate "birthday weekend" for my boyfriend when we can only see each other on the weekend and not on the actual day. I tend to text people "Happy Birthday" consistently throughout their birthday just because I can (at one point I tried to text a buddy of mine 21 times for her 21st birthday...I'm serious). Get the picture? I love celebrating people I guess -- hopefully that's not weird. Anyway, this year it's doubly special today because (A) we're celebrating MEEEEE (*cue conceited moment*) and (B) I get to share my birthday with celebrating my mom (because Mother's Day is today!). Ok, now that that's out of the way...Last year I celebrated my birthday with this design and you know I love me some color so I came up with this design...

I'm kinda sorta really completely obsessed with this manicure to be honest. (It's not bad to really like your own manicure right?). For this birthday look, I used Essie Be Right Bag as the base and then dotted ROY G. BIV (the rainbow) across the nail in Zoya Kristi, OPI Flit A Bit, Sinful Colors Pull Over, China Glaze Kiwi Cool-ada, China Glaze Moody Blue, Orly Blue Suede, and Zoya Mira.

And I just realized right now that I did NOT include my age on this one! I always put the person's age on the thumb! Dagnabbit!

Review: Born Pretty Store Green Heart Studs

Today is my last product review for the Born Pretty Store for the moment. If you're interested in my previous three reviews you can always check those out! The product for today's review is the 90 piece Mini Colored Heart Shaped Metallic Stuff Rhinestone UV Gel Nail Art Decoration. These are adorable 4 mm alloy hearts that come in your choice of six colors. The colors available are pink, orange, light green, green, purple, and blue. They were really easy to apply (just use a top coat or nail glue) and were really secure so they should stay on my nails for a while. I think there's a lot you could do with them (you can use them on your nail or decorate stuff with them) and you can reuse them if you're careful. They retail for $2.63 and the product ID number is #12151. They come in two plastic baggies so you might want to find a way to store them (or you could just leave them in the baggies if wanted to). The design I came up with to showcase these adorable little heart studs is:

See? Really simple to use but they look so great! If you're interested in these or any other Born Pretty product, you can use my coupon code BWB10 at checkout to save 10% on your order! Also, if the code is used 10 times Born Pretty will sponsor a giveaway on my blog!

Review: Born Pretty Store Fimo Fruit Decals

Today's post is a review of the third product sent to me by the Born Pretty Store: the 120 piece "Lovely Fruit 3D Nail Art Fimo Decals Manicure w/box." I've never used Fimo before and I have never had 3D decals like this so I was super excited to select these for review and see how they worked in general and on my nails. If you want to see my first Born Pretty Store product review you can check it here. The Born Pretty Store sells all kinds of stuff, including nail art and other goodies. These Fimo fruit decals retail for $1.79 per package and are item number 4999. Each package of decals comes in a small nail wheel that keeps all the different decals separated even when the wheel is flipped over. Each nail wheel comes with ten pieces of the following twelve fruit decals:

How adorable!? The decals themselves seem to vary in thickness (at least in my set) but most of mine were thin enough that they didn't look awkwardly chunky on my nail. The thicker ones definitely seemed harder to work with. A few of the pieces were curvy so they fit snuggly on my nails without me having to push them too hard into the polish. Of course, I sealed the decals with an extra coat of top coat in order to make them nice and secure. I love these little decals but I honestly have no idea how to use them in designs. Here are two designs I came up with:

 The first is a water marble of OPI Flit A Bit and Orly White Out with the Born Pretty fimo orange slices. 

The second design is a watermelon nail base (Zoya Quinn, Love&Beauty (Forever21) Jade, and Kiss BrushOn Nail Art in White and Black) with the Born Pretty fimo watermelon slices.

If you're careful when removing the fruit decal from your nails you can use it again and again. All you have to do is clean it off with some nail polish remover and you're good to go. The decals are a good deal though so I would just purchase a new set.

Review: Born Pretty Store Three Piece Brush Set

Today's post is the second review in my Born Pretty Store series. For today it's not as exciting as the adorable rhinestones I reviewed yesterday but it's still a great product that I think everyone who enjoys painting nails should have. Personally, I'm surprised it took me this long to find a set of nail art brushes but I'm glad I gave these a try. These are the the Born Pretty Store's White Handled Brush Set. It's a set of three brushes with varying tip length. The longest brush is 145 mm, the second is 10 mm, and the third is 5 mm. You can obviously reuse these (you just have to clean them carefully after each use to keep them nice!). The store retails them at $3.19 and the ID number for these is #12307. I tested all three of them and the brush gives really nice lines. I have to practice with using the actual brushes to make designs that look nice but the design I created with this is:

 If you want to see my first Born Pretty Store product review you can check it here. If you don't know of the Born Pretty Store, it sells all kinds of stuff including nail art and other goodies. If you guys are in the shopping mood and see anything you like on the store's website, please use my coupon code: BWB10. If the code gets used ten times the Born Pretty Store will host a giveaway! 

Review: Born Pretty Store Rhinestone Comma Nail Decorations

I am absolutely ecstatic to be writing this post right now because for the first time in Nail Files history, I have been sent a few amazing products to try out courtesy of the Born Pretty Store! In case you don't know what the Born Pretty Store is, it's an online store that sells pretty much everything, including nail art products, clothing, accessories, stationary, and more. For my first review,  I chose the "Nail Art Decoration Dazzling Colorful Rhinestoned Comma Shaped Design", which are these adorable multi-color rhinestones that are perfect for adding a little oomph to your manicure. These rhinestones are a wonderful size (2.5 millimeters) and are packaged in a perfect-to-store nail wheel. I was really pleased to see that the rotating nail wheel top is tight enough to the top of each compartment so that the gems can't intermix if the wheel flips upside down or is being transported in a bag or something. Also, the comma shaped design is too cute! Luckily, we don't have to choose which color we want with this product because each package includes all twelve of these colors:

Aren't they gorgeous? There is a color for every design and every occasion that you could dream up. From left to right in the picture, the colors are a light blue, emerald green, clear/white, purple, bright red, baby pink, royal blue, light green, fuchsia, pale blue, pale gold, and rich gold. When I was trying them out I used four of them: the bright red and the three blues. This is the manicure I thought of:

When using these rhinestones I think it's best to do the standard top-coat-rhinestone-top-coat process where you apply a top coat, use tweezers or a dotting tool (I used my dotting tool) to select a rhinestone, push the rhinestone down (carefully though so you don't smudge it across your nail), and then follow up the application with a second top coat to seal in the rhinestone. When I did this manicure I painted the exact same thing on my left and right hand but on my right hand I didn't seal with a second top coat. Boy I should have because the rhinestones had fallen off within the day. My left hand is still going strong though (as you can tell by the photos) and the rhinestones have not come loose. You could also use nail glue but nail glue is so hard to remove for me so I just use top coats.

I also used the rhinestones for a pedicure too! Again, I added a top coat over the rhinestones for security. It also dawned on me that you could use these rhinestones on things other than nails...such as cellphones, tablets, cards, etc.




So, what do you think? Is this a product you'd like? If so, Born Pretty has given me a coupon code for all of us to use! If you want to buy these or if you find something else on the cite that you would love...use the code BWB10 to save 10%. Also, if the code is used ten times Born Pretty will sponsor a giveaway! The ID number for this product is #14331 and it retails for $3.75.

Review: Ciate London Dolls House Collection

As hinted at before, my mother gave me the new-ish limited edition Ciate London Dolls House Collection as part of my Easter basket this year (I'm spoiled!). I couldn't wait to get to use these and then I ended up using them to celebrate my buddy's birthday on May 1st. Before finishing the design though I did snap some photos so that I could review it on here and show the colors in all their glory. So, fair warning, these are not current nail photos. Can I just say I adored the names of these polishes though? They are adorable! The set comes in a little dollhouse box package and contains five polishes called Doll Face, Poppet, Paper Doll, Sweet Pea, and Baby Doll. The collection is pastels (you know how I feel about pastels for Spring!) and the polish finish is sort of like a chalky matte finish that Ciate calls "porcelain." To be honest, the polishes were a bit difficult to work with. I know it's bad to put on thick coats of polish but if you don't use that approach with these polishes you will get really frustrated with how it turns out. If you do thin coats and don't wait until the nails are fully dry you will have balding and pulling of the polish. If you don't particularly care for a chalky matte "porcelain" finish you can always use Seche Vite top coat to gloss it up. I prefer my nails to have a nice gloss to that's what I did and the top coat didn't effect the polish colors or anything. The colors are really vibrant regardless.

As for the actual colors, the set comes with an adorably sweet mint green called Sweet Pea (on my thumb), a chalky white called Paper Doll (index finger), a baby/salmon pink called Baby Doll (middle finger), a luxurious lavender named Poppet (ring finger), and taupe/nude called Doll Face (pinky finger). How adorable are those names? I made me laugh because when I read the names it reminded me of my boyfriend (I call him or he calls me a bunch of these names). I guess I will have to use one of these for our anniversary in a year!

 So all in all the collection is cute. The formula can be hard to work with and the set is a tad expensive so I'm not sure I would be buying multiples but...it was nice :)

Birthday dots for Harmony's birthday!

Today is one of my original law school pal's 30th birthday! Happy birthday Harmony! I didn't have a ton of time for my nails because I'm in the thick of finals and all, but this day can't pass without a nail design! I used my Ciate Dollhouse Collection (will be reviewed shortly in another post) to create a really colorful design that is fresh and festive for a birthday. Even though I can't celebrate her birthday with her (my first final is tomorrow) I hope she's having a wonderful day :)

Update: Please pardon the cuticles!