Brace yourselves, Valentine's Day is coming....

TOMORROW! Hurrah! The first of the Valentine's nail art posts! I kept this one subtle since I actually had it on my nails at the end of January. I started with Sally Hansen CSM Pat on the Black and then, using just the brush from another of my Sally Hansens (Cruel Heart) I stroked on a heart!

Without proper light it was difficult to see, but this was perfect. I decided I wanted to hollow it out though, so I carefully filled in the middle with Pat on the Black again.

This lasted about a week! I love hearts. I may do another hearts design before Valentine's. Have you seen any good ones yet this year? Feel free to link me here or on my Facebook page!

Swatch: Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Pat on the Black

Last but not least from the Influenster VoxBox, Sally Hansen CSM Pat on the Black, which is in fact PURPLE! It's also quite a dark purple, more like the second photo than the first. My flash betrayed me.

Two coats to opacity but as you can see with the flash there were some bald spots though I certainly did not notice just by looking at it.

That's not so bad. I have some neat and easy nail art coming up with this though so stick around =3

Jaded Studs

Hello hello! What did you guys think of SH Jaded? I hope you liked it because you're seeing it today too! This design was actually under the impression that Jaded would be a mint green rather than jade but it still worked out alright. I started out by doing a V shaped french with my new silver Sharpie pen.

You can clearly see how impatient I am by the catching on some of the nails... oops!

That was both hands and as soon as I was satisfied with that (AKA I couldn't see all those unfilled in parts, even though apparently my camera can) I pulled out my studs again and this time chose the silver rhinestones which I nestled into the point of the V using a coat of Essie Pure Pearlfection. I also tried to see if I could anchor the studs better by putting another layer of topcoat over them and you definitely can! But if you use something like Essie Pure Pearlfection, you end up changing the look of the stones.

Rounded with topcoat

Cut stone without topcoat

I found the rounded style looked like moonstones which actually worked really well with the jade colour.

So what do you think? Do you prefer metallic studs or sparkly rhinestones?

Swatch: Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Jaded

Polish number two courtesy of Influenster! At first glance on this one I thought, Yay mint green! and then I thought, I have so many of those... and then I put it on. Far from being mint green, this colour is actually well named in that it is Jade. It's a little less bright and pastel and a little more stony and cold, like actual jade.

All that being said, I did not enjoy applying this. The brush was still that fantastic width but the formula on this one was not as opaque. It took four coats to get this look. That is only a problem because I was expecting another one coat colour while this one was closer to four. It didn't seem to dry as fast as a result. In the future, I will use this for jelly sandwiches and nail art that requires layering and have more realistic expectations not clouded by the previous Red My Lips.

And now some photos, with and without flash.

It's a very pretty colour. Do you guys know any others like this? Seen any cool nail art with it?

*Insert stud pun here* *Can't think of stud pun*

... STUDS. And here it is, the glorious FLASH!

Obviously this is a continuation from the other day with Sally Hansen CSM Red My Lips and I decided to stick with the brand and use my studs which are also Sally Hansen brand. First thing I did was put one more coat on and stick a black stud right at the base of my nail. (Excuse the mess)

These studs were much more prominent than the little gold ones I did previously in that they were just much less flat. I thought this would make them extremely likely to just fall off but they lasted pretty well for a couple days despite some dishwashing and baking I did (BANANA BREAD :D)

The studs weren't enough though so I took my Sharpie and drew a dotted line down the middle. It was simple but I liked it much better and kept it for a couple days. I managed to avoid the awful streaking and smudging that has become the bane with this material by not putting any topcoat over it (imagine that). I fully expected this to mean the lines would rub off in a day or two, but they lasted the manicure so I'm pretty impressed.

BRIGHT. I need to pair this with some lipstick and get to breaking some hearts!

If anyone's got some ideas about using studs, let me know!

Swatch: Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Red My Lips

Hello! As I said the other day, this is an influenster sponsored posts but all thoughts and reviews are my own.

Obviously I started with Red My Lips, the most eye catching and bright of the trio. This was also just before I discovered the flash on my BlackBerry is fantastic and colour accurate so these photos are much more muted than the actual colour itself.

It took two coats to be opaque and Red My Lips is a true Taylor Swift lips red and I promise you will see that in my next post. The formula was fantastic and did feel very high quality. The brush on these CSM polishes are also super wide, you can ALMOST get away with one swipe coverage (almost). If you're looking for a low maintenance, highly effective red, pick this up.

No topcoat, lasted for an entire week (and I'm a picker). If you can't shell out for Butter London like me, this is a really good option.

Influenster Sally Hansen #CSMTKO Complete Salon Manicure Master Post

I love mail! Especially when that mail contains free stuff! Woohoo! Influenster Canada sent their second VoxBox out earlier in January and to kick off February, I'm going to show you some swatches and art I did with the Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure colours I got!

I'm not sure if everyone who received this box got the same colours, but when I opened mine up I had Red My Lips, Pat on the Black and Jaded.

I'll be on Twitter soon using #CSMTKO (Complete Salon Manicure The Knock Out) so look out for me there! I'm also going to be posting dedicated swatch posts and some nail art for each colour so come back soon. In the meantime, here's a sneak peek! (I'll update links to the posts with their reviews as they are posted.)

Red My Lips

Jaded

Pat on the Black

At first glance, what do you think? The only disappointing thing right off the bat was that I couldn't think of any design that could coherently combine all three colours. I'm out of practice, clearly!