Hey all! It's been a while since I've done an adult toy review here on the blog, but I'm super excited to show a new goodie from LELO that I - and my partner - have been testing out over here and it's a GOOD one. I've always been overall really impressed with all of the gadgets from LELO that I've tested out, but the LELO Dot Cruise* ranks pretty high up there, particularly as a toy to be with or on someone else, if you get my meaning!

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A few years ago when I was very first experimenting with gel nail art, I first tried out the 3D cable knit nails technique and ever since I've considering trying it out again but I've never actually gotten around to it. Finally, I decided I wanted to give it another go and see how much time and experience impacted how it all came together. It's actually a sort of interesting exercise and one I'm now considering playing around with more because I feel like I can definitely see the improvement both in my skills but also in my confidence when it came to putting together this mani.

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So I have to admit that I'm not entirely sure what it was that inspired this mani, but I'm actually pretty stoked at how it turned out. Abstract is obviously and necessarily a wide open sort of thing that doesn't really have any rules, but since my brain doesn't really work without having some rules and parameters for things, I tend to be very particular about how I put together abstract nail art and I tend to relate a lot back to classic designs - like French, in this case - and then play around with how I can manipulate those classic styles into something new. 

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Recently I was gifted some really, really lovely polishes from Unt and I was so eager to use them, but they didn't really fit in with the Halloween vibes so I've been holding off on using them until now. Because these colors are all so soft and desaturated, I knew that I wanted to do something sort of delicate with them and maintain that muted look overall. Of course, because I'm me, that meant putting them together in what is perhaps the most subtle smoosh I've ever done - and I love how it turned out.

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 THIS POST IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PUEEN COSMETICS.

When I got my hands on the Pueen Accent Fun 01 Stamping Plate* recently, I was really, really drawn to this image that looked like a wood grain French tip with a sort of garland and rosebud motif and I knew that I really, really wanted to use it. Of course, I'm a bit of a weirdo and I tend to not be a huge fan of all of my nails being exactly the same, so I spent some time sort of marinating on how I could create a cohesive mani using that image without making all of my nails the same. It wasn't until I realized that I could use the rose image directly next to the French tip one on the plate to create a cohesive vibe that it all came together in my head and I'm super stoked at how it turned out.

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Happy November, all! Anyone else feeling a little bit fatigued from the Halloween season or is that just me? Honestly, I think November is the hardest month for me to find my creativity because I'm coming off the marathon of Halloween nails and I've already got my eye on Christmas nails, so it can be a bit of a struggle to come up with new and fun ideas without a really specific theme in my head. That said, I'm really excited about this first mani out of the Halloween season because it's something I've sort of loosely had in mind for a while now but hadn't gotten around to trying out. 

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 THIS POST IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PUEEN COSMETICS.    

Over the summer I really, really fell in love with Bio Sculpture's Live Life Loudly Collection and regular readers would have seen those neon polishes pop up several times, so of course I was excited to see what would come next for the brand. Color me even more surprised and incredibly excited when they announced that their fall collection would be in celebration of their 25th Anniversary and it would be an entire collection dedicated to the beauty of Canada. Absolutely could not wait to try out the brand spankin' Bio Sculpture Pride Of Nature Collection for Fall 2022* and share it with you all. It really, really is right up my alley in all the best ways!

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When I sat down to plan out my September nail art plans this year - not something I do every month, but something kind of necessary when staring down the gargantuan task of Halloween approaching - I knew that I absolutely needed to include this mani in this month's posts. Pretty much as soon as I saw the Pueen Animal Safari 01 Stamping Plate*, I was inspired to put this together and what ended up on my nails is pretty much bang on exactly what I pictured in my head, which is definitely not always the case. But I'm pretty in love with the final result and super excited to share it!

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I have to tell you, I sort of had this exact mani planned for this month for a while now, but it as also an entirely different mani than what I ended up creating just by virtue of the color story that I went with for it. That's one of the cool things about nail art, in my opinion, especially when it comes to stamping. It would be easy to assume that a mani featuring one full cover image on every nail could really only be one thing, but you can really play around with mood and intention by changing the polishes you use to put it together. All of that to say...

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Oftentimes when I first look at any given stamping plate, there are one or two images that really stand out to me and that I can't wait to get on my nails. Sometimes, though, I hold off because somehow I convince myself that I don't want to waste it - as though I can't go back and use it again. I swear, sometimes I feel like these posts when I describe my thought process are like therapy - really going into the weird and specific ways that my mind processes things. Anyway, I've been wanting to use the stamping image I used for this mani for a while now, but I really didn't want to waste it. I don't think I did!

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One thing that I definitely think tends to be true for me is that after a lot of bold, bright, intense nail art designs, my brain needs a little bit of a palette cleanser. So, of course, since I'm moving from all of the madness that is summer nail art into the more muted vibe of fall nail art, I decided to do something really neutral and subtle to fill that sort of palette cleanse need. Of course, I'm someone who is pretty much always going to do some sort of nail art, even when I want the most minimal, so for this mani I decided to add some really soft graphic stamping to a sheer, soft base. Honestly, it did exactly what I was hoping it would do!

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I don't do a ton of gel nail art here on the blog, though I do occasionally get little bouts of wanting to pull out my lamp and try out some stuff. The truth is, I feel like gel polish and traditional polish really just lend themselves to distinctly different types of nail art and I just tend to do more of what lends itself to working best with traditional polish. That said, there are often styles of nail art that I'm drawn to that I know I really sort of need to do in gel to get the look I want, so when Born Pretty reached out and asked me if I wanted to try out some products I jumped on the opportunity to play around with some different designs. 

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I have to admit that when I sat down to do today's nail art design, I just really, really wanted to use the base polish and I sort of built everything else from there. When it comes to really wanting to build something from a base polish, for me it's about not only thinking about the overall color story, but also how I want that base polish to be seen. I don't know if this is making any sense, sometimes the way my brain does things is a little.. specific, but I think that focusing on those specifics is really how some of my favorite mani's have come together.

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 THIS POST IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PUEEN COSMETICS.

It seems like every summer I find myself wanting to do some sort of mermaid or fish scale nails, but I don't just want to do the same thing every time so I find myself really trying to think of different techniques and looks for the base. The trick, I think, is maintaining a texture that suits the feel of fish scales while also really doing something different with it. I actually think that the sponging technique I used to create this base might be my favorite so far when it comes to this style of mani because it gives a really beautiful, shimmering texture that I think suits the fish vibe perfectly. 

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I, like so many other people over the course of the last couple of years living in a pandemic, have recently gotten super into playing around in the world of fragrance. I've actually been meaning to feature more fragrance here on the blog but hadn't gotten around to it until a brand new Canadian fragrance house called FOOPE Fragrances reached out to me and asked if I'd like to try out their three brand spankin' new fragrances. Of course I was absolutely dying to give them a sniff and a test and share them with you guys - just in time for their launch!

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I have to say, I'm fully back down a rabbit hole of wanting to do gradient nails, which is convenient since it's such a great base for a lot of different summer nail designs. I've also really, really been enjoying putting together gradients using stamping polishes from Pueen - they just perform and blend so beautifully together for such an effortless gradient application. When I showed this mani to my best friend, she said that her immediate first thought was Vince Neil Pants and I really, really don't know why I love that very specific 80s hair band reference, but I really, really do!

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Admittedly, I'm a bit neurotic when it comes to how I approach creating nail art to post here on the blog. I rarely feel good about posting something that doesn't have some sort of creativity on my part or some kind of technique that could be of value to someone else. This particular mani actually came about because I looked at this image from the Pueen Marble Paradise 01 Stamping Plate* and it occurred to me that it would be pretty cool to break it up and create a sort of patchwork type of design using bits of it. And, of course, one nail with the full image because I think it gives a cool effect. 

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