Avon Radiant and Born Pretty Decals

Sponsored | Bought Myself | Press Sample | Nothing to Disclose | Giveaway Winnings | Gifted

Happy Thursday to you, I hope everyone is staying warm! In my neck of the woods, the good old mountains of NC, it was -4 and with the wind factored in, it felt like -23, a great day to just stay indoors!

My mani today really needed to be photographed outside, but there was no way I was going out there so I just headed to the window! I used Radiant from Avon's Cosmic Collection on all my fingers but one, and on that one I used a Lizard Print nail decal from Born Pretty Store. 

As with all of Avon's Cosmic polishes, Radiant is a very nice scattered effect holographic polish and is a very pretty light gold color. Applied smoothly and dried very quickly, always a plus! The Lizard Print nail decals also worked amazingly, I cut out the decal I wanted, stuck it down in some water and then slid it off the paper and right on to my nail. I have found that using a paper towel, or some kind of tissue, to soak up the excess water makes them stick a lot better, even if the packaging does not say to do that. The only thing I didn't like about the decals was that they do not look the same in person as they do online. Online they appear to be mostly gold, in person they are more of an olive green.

I felt like using the decals on all my nails would be a bit much for my liking, I really like the way it came out just using one of them for an accent nail.

These decals are currently available in four different designs and only $2.15 each. You can use coupon code SMBW10 to save an extra 10% off you order and as always Born Pretty Store offers FREE shipping!

Christmas Nail Ideas

Sponsored | Bought Myself | Press Sample | Nothing to Disclose | Giveaway Winnings | Gifted

I think I am finally on the mend from this sinus/ear infection! Once I did start feeling better all I wanted to do was my nails LOL and lets just say, I should not do my nails if I'm feeling the least bit out of it.

I wanted to work on some Christmas nail designs/ideas and I knew I had some Christmas decals from Born Pretty and I figured that would be the easiest thing to do to my nails. I had a great idea in my head but I don't think that it transferred over well from my head to my nails. So the first thing I did was start out with a white base (Avon Iceberg) then I did the 'saran wrap' technique on all but my accent nail, using Cherry Merry from Duri Cosmetics. On my accent nail I added a super cute Christmas tree from the Born Pretty decals. I think my issue with this is that it's a whole lot of red and just a hint of green. I'm thinking instead of using red for my other fingers I might should have used green. What do y'all think?

This next Christmas inspired mani is a very simple subtle look that can be created using any nude polish as a base and adding a red, gold, or green glitter to the top. Here I used Shore Bet from Pure Ice for my base and Sinful Colors Gilded for my glitter. It is a beautiful red and gold mix of glitter that gives a little bit of life to the nude polish. I think this would be great for a Holiday wedding or an office party where crazy nail polish is frowned upon.

I have a couple more Christmas themed manis in mind, but not sure if I will get around to doing them before Christmas. I will try my best though :)

Now I'm off to catch up on blogs that I read, I have almost 2 weeks of catching up to do!!

I'm With the Lifeguard and Born Pretty Water Decals

Sponsored | Bought Myself | Press Sample | Nothing to Disclose | Giveaway Winnings | Gifted

I love spring and summer, not only for the warm beautiful weather and occasional thunderstorm (yes I like thunderstorms, as long as they are not severe), but it also gives me a reason to wear neon green nail polish!

I purchased I'm With the Lifeguard from China Glaze off of Amazon earlier this year and it's just been sitting in my unworn nail polish box, waiting for the perfect time to wear it. I also received some nail decals from the Born Pretty Store to review and I thought they would go great with this polish.

Let me tell you a little about I'm With the Lifeguard then we'll get into the mani. This polish was a weird one for me, like most neons it has a matte finish, but I don't feel that it's completely matte. Maybe it's the micro shimmer in it, but to me it still seems to have a little sheen. The formula on it was just okay for me, since it is a neon you have to work a little faster with it, or else it's gonna start to dry and when you swipe the brush across it, it's gonna drag the polish around that is already on your nail.

Now for the mani details, I started out with a coat of Sinful Colors Snow Me White, so that the green would pop. After that was dry I applied two thin coats of IWTL and waited for those to dry. Then I applied my decals.

The decals that I got are so cute, zebra stripes and pink bows that look a little like Hello Kitty's bow. These were super easy to work with, I cut out the decals I wanted to use then, one at a time I used tweezers to dunk them in water for about 15-20 seconds. I slid them off the paper and used the tweezers to help place them on my nails, then used a paper towel to soak up the excess water. Super Easy! For $2.03 you get one sheet that has 20 decals of different sizes. Last thing I did was added a shiny topcoat.

Now I did notice after applying my second coat of IWTL I started to get some bubbles in the polish, and I thought oh no this is going to turn out horrible. I kept with it though and after I applied my topcoat none of the bubbles or other little imperfections were really noticeable anymore. Really love the way it came out in the end :)

I'm With the Lifeguard is even super bright in the shade!

I was also really shocked that my camera didn't get all wonky trying to capture this neon, it's actually a fairly accurate take on it.

Tomorrow I'll be back with one of the Sally Girl 2013 March Ice Cream Collection polishes!

Review: Born Pretty Glow in the Dark Nail Sticker Decals

Sponsored | Bought Myself | Press Sample | Nothing to Disclose

Today I have a review of a product I received from the Born Pretty Store. I received a set of glow in the dark nail sticker decals. I really love the concept of nail stickers decals, it's a super fast way to get a rocking manicure that looks like you spent a ton of time on, but really didn't. I was not all that impressed with these decals, for starters you only get 12 decals so it makes it hard to find a strip that will work on all your fingers, because you end up with them either being too big or too small. They are very thin, not like any of the other nail decals/strips I've used before. It is stated on the back of the packaging that they are super thin, so I guess that's the way they are supposed to be. The glow in the dark effect worked great though and made for super cool looking nails in the dark.

I did have some issues with application, I don't know if it was the way I applied them or what, but I lost one the very next day after applying them and I had significant tip wear in no time. These only lasted 2 days for me, they were peeling up on the sides and just did not look good. They were easy to remove, I just peeled them off, I had no need for polish remover.

I would consider trying these again and applying them different to see if that made a difference. I do wish they came like the Kiss Nail Dress though, with them you get 28 strips opposed to the 12 you get from Born Pretty.

Have you tried the nail strips from Born Pretty? If so what did you think about them?

Save 10% off your entire order with Born Pretty using this code: SMBW10