OMG Nail Strips Review and Tutorial

You know when you finish painting your nails with a detailed design only to scrape your poor finger nail and ruin your hard work? Well, that's what nail wraps are for! Not only for days when you're in a rush but also for the times you want an incredibly unique print on your nails without having to head out to a salon.

I admit that I have never used nail wraps before and this is the first time I've ever attempted it. I must say, I was impressed with how easy it was and how the results are fantastic! These are supposed to last up to 14 days too! After all, I'm a fashion designer and I do a lot of work with my hands. Here's a quick tutorial for OMG Nail Wraps:


The look we're going for; a detailed and sophisticated skeletal look without any fuss


What you'll need:
-Crossbones OMG Nail Wraps
-A Bowl of Warm Water
-Hand Towel
-Cuticle Pusher
-Cuticle Cutter
-Hand or Body Lotion
-Cotton Swab
-Scissors
-Nail File
-Top Coat


Soak your hands in warm water for 5 minutes. Dry hands.


Gently push back cuticles


Carefully remove any excess skin around the nail bed with cuticle cutter


Moisturize your hands with lotion and wait 1 minute


Using cotton swab, remove any leftover lotion from the nail bed, paying special attention to the sidewall, cuticle area and tip of the fingernail


Select the appropriate sized nail strip for each nail to ensure the nail will be covered from sidewall to sidewall


Cut out nail wrap. At this stage, trim shape of sticker to fit your nail if necessary


Peel off the clear coating


Carefully remove the nail polish strip from the sticker backing. Start by placing the round end of the nail strip along the base of the cuticle. Smooth the strips along the base of the cuticle and towards the tip of the nail.


Trim off and file away any excess nail strip by holding your nail file parallel to the surface you are working on


Apply a finishing topcoat and wait 5 minutes for it to dry completely. Repeat steps above for rest of your nails.


There you have it, easy as that! Now my spooky nails look amazing with my mini Crystal Head Vodka and Nightmare Before Christmas bat knuckle ring

Check out OMG Nail Strips on:
Instagram
Facebook
Website

Visit OMG Nail Strips and use promo code " 4pack " for a 4 for $20 offer or use promo code " 10pack " for a 10 for $45 offer.

Fadeout, Cutout, Burnout

It's the time of year when your daily outfits start shifting from little dresses to dresses with tights to dresses with leggings and one day just flat out...pants! Oh the autumn season is upon us and you can feel it in the air. For most people; layering is the most convenient way to dress during the days of chilly nights and warm days. I've already began wearing my dresses with tights to keep my legs warm :)


H&M neon chained purse, XXI alligator ring, XXI mood (colour changing) nail polish


Side Cut Out Mariah Dress c/o SwayChic.com, Stitches striped footless tights,  XXI wedge sandals


Aldo round gradient sunglasses, Aldo gold necklace, Aldo burgundy chain & tassel belt

I absolutely love my new dress from SwayChic.com. It's so cute with its subtle shoulder pads, side mesh cut outs and I love that it's a fitted dress with chiffon overlays that gives it a flowy asymmetrical touch! They provided amazing customer service and quick shipping from the United States to Canada! Check them out when you get the chance!

204: ORLY instant artist review

We were looking at buying a bottle of ORLY Instant Artist nail polish online & were trying to research it before buying. It was SUPER confusing because it seems that "instant artist" refers to a full set of nail art accessories that ORLY sells, so it was tough to figure out what this product was.

Basically, it's a nail polish with a striper brush instead of a regular applicator, so it's perfect for super-detailed drawing.


Sam started with a couple coats of ORLY cosmic girl




the striper brush is long & thin so it's easy to draw thin stripes-- but it's also really sensitive to shaky hands. I would compare it to a liquid liner brush.


I wanted to try out a complex design so I used this AA tribal printed dress as inspiration


It was pretty easy to control straight lines & dots, but curved lines were a bit more difficult. The nail polish is nice and opaque though so there's no need to go over designs twice.


basically, I just made a few stripes & then filled each row in with geometric patterns :)




I think the amount of detail you can achieve is awesome & so far I really like the instant artist polish... I'm thinking about getting a black one as well!

The same effect could be achieved if you bought a striper brush to use with all of your nail polishes, but this packaging makes cleanups easy. cool right?

xoxo

200: shatter, crackle, & ...pop?

Alright alright, I'm doing it up for post number 2-0-0 since it's the long weekend and I'm not at a cottage like my fellow Canadians out there :(
Also, I think that's enough of my recent hack food posts but can you blame me? I just love food...haha

So I was able to buy some shatter and crackle nail polishes pretty recently. I've been putting off really looking into where they sell them around here but I was finally able to look up some ebay listings. I didn't want to spend too much on OPI polish so I figured I'd look up some reviews of other good brands.
I ended up buying a "China Glaze: Crackle Glaze" online and because I'm not the most patient person ever; while waiting for the China Glaze Crackle Glaze to be shipped to my house from the USA I went out and picked up two "Kleancolor: Crack Nail Polishes" from the local Urban Planet.

I'm going to be a brief review of my thoughts and comparisons of  China Glaze's: Crackle Glaze and Kleancolor: Crack Nail Polishes

Beware of tons of photos below and be warned that I'm not a professional nail polish applicator and some of the results are a little messy!


These are the colours I decided to work with. Rainbow fingers! I ended up taking out the orange since I only have 5 fingers...but I thought I could form a nice rainbow for the photo


I did my nails maybe 2 or 3 weeks ago using the awesome Konad system. I love it!!


Clean nails ready to be painted


Just letting my nails breathe for a bit =)


Starting with my left hand. I bought this polish from Shoppers Drug Mart for pretty cheap. It's Sally Hansen Insta-Dri #4917-25 and it has a nice sort of metallic glow to it.
I really love the size of the brush and the fact that is does dry fast!!


I bought this nail polish from Urban Planet for $2 on sale. It's L.A. Colors Color Craze: Atomic Np420. It's pretty good for the price but it is hard to get away with one coat. The brush is just an average size.


I bought this nail polish from Urban Planet for $2 on sale as well. It's Kleancolor Nail Polish #17 Neon Green. Again, it's good for the price but it is hard to get away with one coat. The brush is just an average size.


I bought this nail polish from Urban Planet for $2 on sale too. It's L.A. Colors Color Craze: Current Np413 and it has a slight glitter to it. Again, it's pretty good for the price but it is hard to get away with one coat. The brush is just an average size.


This is China Glaze 87-2086 Pink Underground. I really like the milky pink look of it but it also has a very slight glitter to it. It's hard to tell but this is a smaller bottle of polish but the brush is average sized.


My nails done with one coat of each colour. Looks like Easter!


Two coats done and now ready for the shatter polish.


After my nails were completely dry, I applied one coat of China Glaze's Crackle Glaze #980 Black Mesh on my left hand. As you can see on my middle finger, I ran the brush horizontally across my nail and it caused the shatters to run lengthwise. I don't like that look as much on top of the fact that I didn't do a great job of it. I love the fact that the Crackle Glaze itself is matte.


I finished off my nails with Kleancolor's #90 Madly Matte Top Coat. It turns any polish matte and I absolutely love it!


Complete nails with assorted colours, China Glaze Crackle Polish and Matte Top Coat


Moving on, first coat on my right hand in preparation of for Kleancolor's Crack Polish. My plan is to just alternate between the Kleancolor Teal & Purple Crack Polishes. I ended up doing two coats of the base colour (no photo).


I bought this nail polish from Urban Planet for $2 on sale. It's Kleancolour's Crack Polish #239 Teal Crackle. I had to apple with before the base colour was completely dry


I bought this nail polish from Urban Planet for $2 on sale. It's Kleancolour's Crack Polish #241 Purple Crackle.


This is an "Crack in progress" photo. As you can see Kleancolor's Crack Polish takes more than a few seconds to crack. You have to wait a couple of minutes for the coat to completely dry before you can see an cracking.


Complete nails with assorted colours and Kleancolor's Crack Polish


More detailed shot of the crackle.


Assorted colours, China Glaze Crackle Polish and Matte Top Coat VS. Assorted colours and Kleancolor's Crack Polish (no top coat)


China Glaze Versus Kleancolor. Both finished with Matte Top Coat


A major difference with Kleancolor's Crack Polish application is that it requires you to apply the Crack Polish to partially wet nails


China Glaze requires you to apply Crackle Glaze to completely dry nails

I will have to say that I absolutely love China Glaze's Crackle Glaze but It really depends on what you would like your final you are looking for. I find that with China Glaze I was able to keep the look of my rainbow colours of nail polish thanks to the manner in which the China Glaze was able to not act like a coat of nail polish but more like a secondary layer.
Kleancolor's Crack Polish is a little less friendly in terms of application. It's hard to tell if your nails are "partially wet" without have to touch your nail and potentially damaging your coat. I don't like the fact that when I applied the Kleancolor it cracked like a mini desert. You can barely tell that I painted my nails in rainbow colours really...it just looks like I went and painted the most random colours on each of my fingernails.
China Glaze's Crackle Glaze is fantastic; it's simple to apply, instant results, matte finish, and quick drying! Kleancolor's Crack Polish is difficult to apply because of the fact that it needs to be applied to partially wet nails. I have experienced accidents in which I applied the polish too soon and mixed it with my base colour of nail polish. The end results are okay but I think that I would have looked better if I chose basecoat colours that don't contribute to the Crack Polish colour, I think white would be ideal. Also, it takes too long for the Crack Polish to show any signs of cracking and the finish of the polish is very shiny.

I know that I sound in love with China Glaze over Kleancolor but there is one thing that I like about Kleancolor over China Glaze though. When using China Glaze I made an error in the coat and when I went to fix it; the shatter effect was affected by my error and it did not turn out as planned. With Kleancolor because it does take a few minutes to dry and then crack: I was able to fix errors in the coat before letting it dry and not having any noticable affects in the final result.

All in all, China Glaze's Crackle Glaze gives you a matte shattered glass look while Kleancolor's Crack Nail Polish gives you a shiny cracked snakeskin look. The price difference was $10 and $2 respectively and I think that for the difference in price, Kleancolor is a very affordable alternative!

Thanks for reading my review! What do you think about shatter and crackle polishes? Have you tried any? Which ones do you prefer? What color combinations are your favourite?