Grey marble nails

I can always tell how much I loved a certain set of nail art by how many photos I took. Different hand poses, different lighting, close-up photos, lots of very slightly different angles to catch every detail. So I definitely loved these grey marble nails (for which I made my first nail art tutorial ever), but it makes it really hard to pick out just a couple photos to make it into a blog post.

Marble is a lot different from nail art I've done in the past that needs a lot of precision to look just right. It's especially great for de-stressing, because I'm super focused but not stressing out too much about how it doesn't look like my reference photo, not proportioned right, etc etc

With marble nails I can sorta just happily doodle along. I don't even need to draw straight lines -- it's actually very satisfying to draw a freeform jagged vein. 

Marble nail art: a tutorial

My first post of 2019 (and in over half a year) and I'm back in a big way - with my first-ever nail art tutorial! I made the quick pictorial above but I think some steps could use extra explaining, so I have a detailed step by step below.

Holiday 2018 nail art

Hello~ a quick post before we all get back to our turkey dinner leftovers and/or Boxing Day shopping (hopefully online). Lately I've been focusing more on knitting but I wanted something easy but still unmistakably festive.

I started out knowing I'd paint one nail with a wreath and keep the rest simple to make things quick. Essie Going Incognito is a great deep green to represent holly and Christmas fir trees, while my workhorse Orly Luxe gold is a perfect base for Sephora Formula X glitter in Starlight for a multi-dimensional sparkly gold nail.

CND 2018 Boho Summer collection

It's a little late to be posting about a summer collection, but with the weather so gray and dreary right now, maybe a bit of brightness couldn't hurt? The Boho Spirit collection from CND this summer hit just the right mix of brights and subtler shades for me. Available in both long-wear Vinylux and Shellac (CND's gel range), there's Offbeat (bright magenta), Uninhibited (pinky peach), Gypsy (orange), and Vagabond (muted pale yellow).

Gypsy's orange is a bright and true orange, bordering on almost neon. This shade fits in equally as well in a cheerful summer mani as it would in a fall look. It's the kind of brightness that makes cameras photograph kind of wonky (the below picture is a bit more accurate imo).

Galaxy & stars nail art

Hi, guess who is trying to get back into the swing of (blogging) things~ I have a bunch of stuff that has been sitting and waiting around super patiently for me to get my shit together, so here we go.

I posted these spacey, galaxy-y nails earlier this year on Instagram; they were inspired by a LUSH bath bomb that had glittery gold stars in it, and I honestly still love this look so much. I think this might be my second or third time ever doing water marble, and as a result my left (dominant) hand, which I always do second, turned out much better than my right hand after getting the hang of it. So in this post, I have photos of both hands, which is a little unusual :)

First, two (or maybe it was three?) coats of Layla Pro N.19. The peacock blue with tons of gold-green, fine iridescent shimmer is a perfect base. Unfortunately this brand seems to be discontinued now, but a similar polish in terms of the shimmer is maybe OPI Do You Sea What I Sea. Afterwards, I made a water marble by layering OPI Funny Bunny and more Layla Pro N.19. Funny Bunny is a milky white that worked really well at making that translucent effect. The extra N.19 in the marbling added more shimmer. Last, I painted gold stars with Orly Luxe and added a few dots to represent distant stars. I tried to give them an 'aura' of gold for more dimension using Essie As Gold As It Gets (super fine gold shimmer in clear base), but it ended up just making the outline of the stars look messy.

I'd like to try re-doing this look again because I think I could do so much better. If you have any water marbling tips, please send them my way!

Daisy floral nail art

I had a super productive period for a few weeks where I was doing a lot of time-consuming, intricate nail art, but after that I needed a little break. Something a little easier, no-symmetry-required, less "ohnoohnoyou'llscrewthisupifyoubreathewrong"

The result, or what I called my "palate cleanser nail art": some simple floral nails and dots. The daisies and dots were freehanded with a fine-pointed brush, and inspired in part by chalkboardnails' extreeemely teeny-tiny daisies.

Lately with school going on, I haven't had much time to do more complicated nail art. Plus I can't seem to find my acrylic paint set - it's nice to be able to say something is painted with 100% nail polish, but honestly it is a total pain. Acrylic paints are way more flexible and don't dry on my palette as quickly. If you have any cool ideas for nail art, send them my way!

Polishes used:

• Essie Chills & Thrills (dusty medium blue)
• Ceramic Glaze Pure (white)
• Essie Serial Shopper (orange-coral)

Essie Spring 2018 Bon Boy-age

Essie Bon Boy-age

Essie's nautical-themed Spring 2018 collection is such a pretty set of soft, versatile shades! There's a beautiful, dusty vibe to them that make them very spring-appropriate, though of course they're so lovely you'll want to wear them year round.

First up is Essie Bon Boy-age, and it should come as a surprise to exactly zero people that this is my favourite of the bunch. I'm a total sucker for this sort of milky, jade-like colour. I used two coats, but you can still see just a little bit of visible nail line.

Ingredient Breakdown: Live Clean Healthy Scalp Balancing Shampoo & Conditioner

Soooo the weather transitioning from winter to spring has really messed with my skin, including my scalp! My scalp is normally a bit dry (small white flakes) and not very itchy, but lately I've been seriously horrified by the volume of flakes I was seeing and the itchiness. My skin generally responds poorly to changing seasons, but it's the first time that even my scalp is going haywire. It was like I couldn't even exhale a breath without some tiny flakes falling >__< I'd been waffling about picking up a new shampoo for a while--committing to a full-size bottle is hard!--but I was extra motivated now because I had to deal with this crappy dry scalp. After a random trip to Shoppers Drug Mart, I unexpectedly was won over by Live Clean Healthy Scalp's ingredients list and $6.99 price tag.

So what was it about the ingredients list that convinced me to give it a try? It's been a long time since I dove deep and did an ingredients list breakdown, so here we go (it gets long, sorry!)

• Salix nigra (willow bark) extract - the second ingredient after water; a source of salicin, which has some anti-inflammatory properties (source, source)
• Chamomilla recutita extract - #4 on the list has some soothing, anti-inflammatory properties and in one study, improved atopic dermatitis-like lesions in mice when used with emollients (source)
• Camellia sinensis leaf extract - aka green tea leaf extract with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory effects (see article from FutureDerm that explains way better than I ever could)
• Hydrogenated castor oil / sebacic acid copolymer - conditioning and smoothing (source); this abstract from people with ties to a company that makes this ingredient, trade name Crodabond CSA) states that it smooths and coats hair by smoothing down the lifted cuticles in damaged hair
• Salicylic acid - a chemical exfoliant (source) and the main ingredient that attracted me to the product. In this Allure post, Randy Schueller from Beauty Brains says it can speed the skin's natural shedding process; which may help in cases like dandruff where the process is slow, and is also anti-inflammatory. It's also oil-soluble, so it can penetrate even if my scalp is a little oily
• Coconut oil and olive oil - high- to mid-penetration oils to condition and protect hair (source). My hair is a bit damaged and dry from years of colour-treating so I thought these oils might help. I'm wary of too much oil and other conditioning ingredients weighing down my fine hair, but the oils are very low on the list (after salicyclic acid, which can't be more than 3% maximum and more likely much less) so it wasn't too much of a concern 
• Glycerin - a humectant to draw and bind water to skin
• Tocopherol acetate - aka vitamin E, soothes and hydrates