Love Month. Day 4: Cutesy V-Day Water Decals.

Valentine's Day is less than 2 weeks away, so I created some cutesy nail art to share with you today. (How poetic of me!)

A super easy way to create nail art is by using water decals, like these ones I have used from Born Pretty Store.
These decals (pattern BLE1774) include pictures of little bird cages, birds, roses and some little quotes that don't really make sense. You get 21 decals for $2.86.

I used China Glaze Something Sweet for my base colour, and Rimmel Aurora from the Space Dust line for the accent nail. These colours are both perfect for a Valentine's Day manicure!

I really love the bird cage decals especially!

If you'd like to know how to apply water decals, I talked about that in this post.

I couldn't resist sharing a close up shot of Rimmel's Aurora.

You can get 10% off your Born Pretty order using the code CAL91. They do free worldwide shipping all the time.

*Product(s) in this post were provided to me by the company or PR for my 100% honest review.  For more info please read my Disclosure Policy*

Rudolph Nail Art featuring B Squared Lacquer

I've been so busy lately, but I had to make some time to do some more Christmas nail art before the season is over. I have lots of ideas and lots of Christmastime polishes to use so I have to get a wriggle on!

Today I have a very quick & easy Christmas manicure to share with you, also featuring a new indie polish.

On all the nails except my ring finger, the base colour is Rimmel's Acid House which is one of the new-ish Kate Moss shades. It's a beautiful shimmery dark green.

Over the Rimmel shade I've used B Squared Lacquer's Glitzy which is a beautiful gold glitter! It has a whole bunch of different sizes and shapes of holographic gold glitter including stars. {I actually used one of the stars in this for the tree in my Christmas Cuties nail art.} I have more polishes from B Squared Lacquer to share with you very soon so keep your eye out for that! :D

For my little Rudolph, I used Rubi Taupe, Essence Red Ahead, China Glaze Winter Berry and Ulta3 Black Satin.

Let me know if you might be interested in a quick video tutorial for my Rudolph buddy. :) It's super easy but maybe somebody would like it.

I hope to show you the rest of the Christmas & New Years polishes from B Squared Lacquer before the end of this week! :) Stay tuned for that.

Christmas Cuties ❅ {Nail Art}

I'm finding myself super busy lately, leaving me little time to do my nails at all, let alone do any nail art. But I recently made some time to crank out some cute Christmas nail art.

I've included lots of standard Christmas things in this manicure. Santa Claus, a snowman {although it doesn't snow here and I have never seen snow!}, a Christmas tree, a pudding and a Christmas jumper pattern!

My nail art skills are kind of rusty, so I made each nail pretty simple. {It may not look that simple to some, but I promise you, it really was. The whole manicure only took me about an hour to do. A normal one-colour-manicure usually takes me about 30 minutes for reference.}

Polishes used in this manicure:

• Sinful Colors Rich In Heart
• Ulta3 Lily White
• OPI My Very First Knockwurst
• China Glaze Winter Berry
• OPI Big Apple Red
• Ulta3 Black Satin
• Essie Fear or Desire
• Revlon Jaded Night
• OPI My Favourite Ornament
• China Glaze Be Merry, Be Bright {'ornaments' on Christmas tree nail}
• Rubi Shoes Taupe
• Rimmel Acid House
• B Squared Lacquer Glitzy {one star glitter used on Christmas tree nail}

Sooo, as you can see, I used a darn lot of polishes in this manicure. LOL.

Oh, and the weird red & green lines on the tip of the Snowman nail? That's supposed to be a scarf, k? ;)

On my thumb nail, I stamped over Sinful Colors Rich in Heart with Nailz Craze plate NC 03*, with Ulta3 Lily White polish. Despite Lily White not being completely opaque, it stamped pretty well!

I have had my eye on this stamping plate for a while because of this adorable Christmas jumper pattern image! A few stamping companies have similar images now but I think Nailz Craze was definitely one of the first to do it.
I used this squishy XL stamper from Winstonia to stamp with, by the way.

I have some more Nailz Craze plates to share with you soon {I cannot wait!}, and I'll probably use this one again in a full manicure because I love it so much. :)

Thanks for visiting, my lovelies. :D I hope I have some time to do more Christmas nail art before Christmas is here but I'm not sure if I will. I have a lot of posts planned & a whooooole lotta swatching to do!

*Products marked with a * were provided to me by the company or PR for my 100% honest review. For more info please read my Disclosure Policy*

Nail Care Series: Top Coats

Today I'm going to talk to you about top coats for the next part in my nail care series. :) A top coat isn't exactly a "nail care" item exactly, but it's essential for any manicure. I'll let you in on which top coats I love and some other options too.

Were you like me when I was younger? I'd never even heard of a "top coat" for nail polish until I was 13, and I was like "why the heck would you put clear nail polish over a colour..?". It wasn't until I actually started getting into nail art and polish that I knew why it was so important to use a top coat.

Top coats are important for a few reasons and can help in a few areas.

- To smooth out the nail (eg. if you used a glitter polish, you will definitely want to use a top coat to make the nail feel smooth) and even out any brushstrokes or unevenness.

- Some top coats can speed up the dry time of your manicure dramatically. Who wants to wake up in the morning with sheet marks on their nails?! Not me!

- Top coats can also alter the finish of the manicure. Some nail polishes have a matte finish, such as neons, and if you don't like that, you can add a shiny top coat. Or if you want a shiny polish to be matte, you can add a matte top coat!

- Using a top coat (and a base coat - I'll talk about these soon) will make your manicure last a lot longer than it would if you didn't use a top coat.

Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat

SV is my holy grail fast drying top coat! It's extremely fast drying. I can do my manicure, and then go to sleep 15-20 minutes later (ok I don't ever fall asleep that fast but you get the point) and wake up with ZERO sheet marks or smudges! I absolutely love that about it. But it also has some disadvantages. It can shrink really badly on some polishes, which is where the polish pulls away from the tip or cuticle (it only happens at the cuticle for me, when my bottle gets a bit thick and low), and when you get about half way down the bottle, it gets extremely goopy and almost unusable so you definitely have to have some thinner on hand (Seche has one called 'Restore' which you can probably find wherever you buy Seche from). Another thing to note is that this top coat is NOT 3 free. It contains toluene and I'm not an expert but I have heard that this can be bad which is why some people don't use it. I've heard that you should not use this top coat if you are pregnant. I'm not totally sure of why but you can Google that if you're curious.
Although there's many downsides to it, its ultra fast drying time is what makes me love it! I bought the 4oz professional refill size and it's lasted me 5 months so far! I used to have to buy a new topcoat every few weeks but I think this will last me at least another 5 months! Seche Vite also doesn't smudge nail art. :) (If it's smudging for you, it means you probably don't have enough polish on the brush). It also gives a seriously amazing shine to the mani and smooths out any glitter. :)
I buy my Seche Vite on eBay and the 4oz bottle only costs $20!

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Anti-Chip Top Coat

The Sally Hansen Insta Dri top coat was one of my favourites before I tried Seche Vite. It dries pretty fast but I'd probably have to wait close to an hour before going to bed to avoid messing up my nails. I still have a bottle on hand just in case!
This top coat is 3 free and doesn't contain any harsh chemicals as far as I know so this would be great if you want an alternative to Seche Vite.
I also had a good experience with Sally Hansen's Mega Shine top coat which I also found to be similar, perhaps a little faster drying. It comes in a silver chrome bottle (I actually found that kind of annoying because you can't see how much is left lol, I guess you could put the top coat into an empty polish bottle though).
Sally Hansen Insta Dri retails for about $17 here in Australia so I'd probably buy it online next time I want to repurchase it, lol.. (The 4oz Seche Vite on eBay costs about $3 more for 9 TIMES the amount of product...)

OPI RapiDry Top Coat

I first tried the OPI RapiDry top coat in a mini size. It's fairly similar to the Sally Hansen Insta Dri top coat so I don't have a whole lot to say about it, except that this one DOES smudge nail art for me. And it's pretty expensive here in Aus too. You can find it in David Jones or Price Attack, or online (eBay, Amazon, etc).

Essence Gel Look Top Coat

Essence Gel Look is a slow drying top coat that I use to smooth out really gritty glitters, under my Seche Vite (so in order I use glitter polish, Gel Look and then Seche Vite). It really helps to give a smooth, glassy finish. :)
And best of all - Essence Gel Look only costs around $3! WOO! :D I buy it from Target or Priceline.

Rimmel Lycra Pro Matte Finish Top Coat

This matte top coat is the only one I've tried and it's not the best, but it's okay. I find it gives more of a satin finish rather than a true matte. When I use this, I always use it after using my Seche Vite because matte top coats are known to take FOREVER to dry!
Rimmel Matte top coat costs around $10 in Australia and can be safound in Priceline, Target etc.
Other matte top coats that I've heard are good but haven't tried, are China Glaze Matte Magic, OPI Matte top coat, Butter London Matte top coat and Essie Matte About You.

Some other popular fast drying top coats that I've heard about are:

Poshe fast drying top coat, INM Out The Door, and Cult Nails Wicked Fast.

Some other 'glitter food' top coats I've heard good things about are:
Peita's Polish Glitter Glaze, and Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter Food.

So tell me, what are your favourite top coats? :)

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