THIS POST IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PUEEN COSMETICS.

Did I end up having to do today's mani twice because the first time went great until it went absolutely off the rails? Yep! Was it worth it in the end? Also yep! I've had the neon pigment powders that I used for this mani in my collection for over a year now, but this is the first time I've actually used them and while I think there is probably a bit of a learning curve, I am also super into them and have a lot of ideas of other mani's I might wanna do with them.

But for now, let's get to this mani, shall we?

 THIS POST IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PUEEN COSMETICS.

I have to tell you, when I sat down to to today's mani I didn't feel entirely confident that it was going to work out, but I had a picture in my head and the products to create it so I figured it was worth a try and I have to tell you.. it went above and beyond what I could have hoped for. One of my favorite types of gradients is a thee color rainbow gradient because if you use the right polishes for the gradient you really do end up getting nearly a full spectrum of rainbow colors. Though this isn't technically a Pride mani, I think the pairing of the rainbow with the hearts works pretty well for the entire vibe of June. 

Keep reading for more!

For today's post I've partnered up with Pueen Cosmetics and I got to play with some seriously gorgeous stamping products to create today's mani. Recently I've definitely been drawn to really graphic, abstract designs with layered stamping, so it's really no surprise that that's the first place my mind went when I was looking through the products that they sent over for me to try out. 

Keep reading for more!

Fall colors are definitely my favorites. Not only because I really think they're beautiful - and I really, really do - but also because they tend to be the colors that suit me the most. When I really think about my all time, ride or die favorite fall colour, though, I would say that it's pretty hard to beat rich burdungy and plum shades at this time of year - and, in this case, not just because I think they really suit me. In fact, I would say this type of shade suits pretty much anyone. In my opinion, anyway. So for one of my last mani's before I transition into holiday themed nail art, I went with plum!

Keep reading for more!

At this point, I really feel like the yearly pineapple mani is a bit of a summer staple and I'm currently definitely having a bit of a moment with fruit themed mani's and the Whats Up Nails B008 Summer Seeds Stamping Plate. I love this plate, I really do, and I think there's really just so much you can do with it - especially if you're into reverse stamping. Reverse stamping, for me, is something that I have to sort of hype myself up to do because my brain is always convinced that it's going to go badly - but it actually rarely does and is usually worth it. Anyway, this is a great plate and a solid one to have in your collection.

Keep reading for more!

One of my favorite types of mani's to do during the hotter months of the year are the really warm toned sunset gradients. I think there's a lot you can do with them - and actually a lot of ways to do them - but for this mani I really wanted to just keep it simple and almost a little bit expected. I went with a purple to orange neon gradient with some beachy stamping and I'm a little bit in love. 

Keep reading for more!

For our July #CBBxManiMonday theme, we went with a general Summer theme and I am HERE for it. Although I absolutely know that this is going to turn into an explosion of neon in coming weeks, I'm starting out the month a little bit softer. I've been in love with mermaid scales nails for years and somehow didn't get a stamping plate with a mermaid scales image that worked on my nails until very recently. Don't get me wrong, I've managed to fake it in the past, but I finally got my hands on the Whats Up Nails B038 Stamping Plate, which actually has both a simple mermaid scales image and the more fancy, art deco sort of vibe that I used for this mani and I AM SO EXCITED. Honestly, keep an eye out for more manis using this plate coming up this summer.

Keep reading for more!

I like to keep polishes that are new or that I really want to use out on my nail desk so that when I'm trying to plan nail art I have them in my eyeline for inspiration. I actually wasn't planning on doing my nails when I did this mani, but I saw Holo Taco's Cats' Evasion and I had a bit of a lightbulb and had to get my idea onto my nails. I'd had this polish in my collection for a couple of months now, but I could never think of how I wanted to use it as a base until I had this idea so clearly I had to get it onto my nails ASAP.

Keep reading for more!

Keep reading for more!

Soooo... today's mani was inspired by a mani that I saw on Instagram and I can't remember the artist and it's driving me crazy to not give credit. But yeah, these were inspired by another artist who did something similar to this in softer tones. I had recently gotten a couple of new-to-me Color Club polishes and I really wanted to get them on my nails and this seemed like it would be the perfect fit. There's something so dreamy about a candy colored galaxy, don't you think?

Keep reading for more!

I swear, I am so, so excited for summer nail art this year and now that we're into June, the time has arrived. And, of course, with June comes pride month and an excuse to do all kinds of beautiful rainbow nail art in support of the LGBTQ+ community. Definitely expect to see more rainbow themed nails in upcoming weeks. For today's mani, though, I went with some of my favorite pastel neon polishes from Color Club to create this beautiful sort of spectrum mani with some free form wiggly stamping and... I'm kind of obsessed. 

Keep reading for more!

I don't know if this is true for other people, but I very much have a thing in my brain that decides certain things go a certain way and it's pretty rigid. (Just ask my partner about my thoughts on loading the dishwasher, specifically the direction that the forks are supposed to face...) But anyway, that definitely extends to nail art and I tend to feel like certain themes very much belong in certain seasons. For me, oceany or beachy or watery type of designs definitely belong firmly in the summer (unless they're rain themed, which belongs in the spring.) Luckily, my brain has switched into summer nail art mode pretty firmly over here, so this one sort of flowed - pun sort of intended.

Keep reading for more!

Admittedly, though I have a LOT of toppers in my collection, there are very few of them that I use with any sort of regularity. That being said, as soon as I saw the new Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Cruella Collection, I knew that I was going to absolutely have to pick up Pretty In Punk, a matte multicolor glitter topper that I was itching to sandwich between a milky crelly. These, my friends, are the things that happen in my brain. Anyway, I managed to get my hands on the last bottle in the display at my local Shoppers Drug Mart and am completely thrilled at the fact that it did exactly what I was hoping!

Keep reading for more!

If there's one indie brand that has been giving me grabby hands for year but took forever to get my hands on, it's Painted Polish... and now I'm obsessed. I've wanted to try their polishes for so long, but I have a mental block for shipping things to Canada (it's a whole thing in my brain, I don't try to explain it) so it wasn't until this year when I started purchasing from Polish Pickup that I finally started getting my hands on their polishes, but now I'm fairly certain I'll be buying from them every month. Because of... obviously. Obsessed. 

Anyway, keep reading for more!

Every once in a while, I find that I've let my nails get too long and my dexterity is starting to be impacted, so it's time to give them a good trim (and by trim, I do mean file because I don't cut my finger nails ever anymore) to take off some length. Of course, after having them so long for so long, looking down at them they almost start to feel like shorties (which is clearly not actual, but my brain decides things that are not actual all the time) and I really just needed to do something simple and cute, nail art wise. So this is what I came up with!

Keep reading for more!

You know those times when getting to the final product is just... a struggle? That was how this mani went for me - although once I got to what I ended up settling on, it went smooth like butter. It was the 5 other mani's that I tried before this one that failed spectacularly and almost meant this mani never came to be. Luckily, though, since I really, really love this mani, I ended up figuring out somethat that worked and didn't give up and just curl up with TikTok for a couple of hours of depression scrolling. Just me?

Keep reading for more!

The other day I was looking through the Pict You store on Aliexpress, which is where I've picked up several of their plates in recent months, and I fell a little bit in love with the product photo for one of the plates that I already owned. There was just something about the example photo that made me want to try out something similar, so I decided to run with it and do my own variation. Honestly, this is such a solid plate - both in the selection of images as well as the quality of the etching - that it made this mani just super easy and successful. 

Keep reading for more!

I think sometimes when a stamping plate is themed, you can get kind of stuck in using it only for that theme - in this case, the plate I used is under the sea themed and it would be easy to stick to only aquatic types of looks with this plate - but I think there are actually a lot of images that can be something entirely different if you just pair them with the right base. For today's mani, I paired a really muted gradient with this sort of swaying seaweed type of image and I love, love, love how it turned out. 

Keep reading for more!

I've always loved the butterfly nail designs that I watch much more talented nail artists than myself do every spring and summer with the beautiful backgrounds and the hand painted butterfly wings, but... just never had the confidence. HOWEVER, that was solved for me in the way a lot of nail art dilemmas were solved - with stamping. I've been keeping this mani in the back of my head ever since I got the Whats Up Nails B025 stamping plate last fall, waiting for the warmer months when my very specific brain would decide it was time. And... it's time!

Keep reading for more!

I really, really want to start doing more nail art challenges because I'm having such a good time with the prompts from the Whats Up Nails March Nail Art Challenge. The second prompt for the month is Ombré Stamping and since that's actually not something I do all that often, I'm having a good time digging down into my stamping polishes to get some really pretty gradients. I'm kind of obsessed with this mani, you guys. Like literally, I keep pausing typing just to look down at it in person....

Keep reading for more!