Can you tell it's fake?

Ugh my night was a mess. Started off ok with a large pizza that I ate at the speed of light with the boy. Turns out that was a horrible idea. I hadn't had much to eat all day and when I eat heavy food after a long stretch of nothing I get BAD abdominal cramps. So I got horrible cramps and once they subsided I decided to tap out for a while and just lie down. I'm not sure that was the best idea. At the time I didn't notice this but the boy's place was HOT. You could feel the heavyness in the air when you took in a breath. I think I ended up getting heat exhaustion, because whenever I woke up I was in a pool of sweat, dizzy and my heart was pounding. I'm feeling much better now, I slept in my clothing and makeup, but whatever.

Today I have for you week one of the A-Z's challenges successor, The Wiki'd Challenge. This time around all our prompts come from random Wikipedia articles. This week the subject was 'Tattoo'. For this I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. Originally I was going to do a tattoo I wanted in the future, but I have actually already done something with it in the past. My next option was doing something with fake tattoos, but I didn't feel like buying any. Sooooooo I took it into my own hands and did my own fake tattoo. Can you tell it's not real :P I don't know why but I thought that was amusing originally.

Mara Hoffman Inspired Nails

I have yet another Born Pretty Store plate to share with you today! This is plate BP-L 003. When I saw this plate I knew I had to have it because a)It has a lot of nice designs and b)On my laptop I have a nail art inspiration folder. The second I saw the plate I knew one of the designs would be perfect for a photo I had sitting in the folder for months. The photo is of a dress from the Mara Hoffman RTW SS 2015 line.

Gorgeous model in a Mara Hoffman dress

The plate was a bit tricky to use. As you can see some of the designs have some fine details(like the centre of my swirls). I found that I had to use a thinner polish(OPI Alpine Snow) if I wanted those smaller lines to show up. I originally used Sinful Colors Show Me White, but I could never get the centre of the wave patterns to show up. Maybe an actual stamping polish would play nicer. And just so you know, the other colours I used were Pure Ice's Party hard  for the blue, and the sun was all acrylic paint that I mixed.

 On the left I stamped with OPI's Alpine show and on the right is Sinful Colors Snow me White

That aside I really like this plate, it has a lot of other designs that don't have such fine details. I can't wait to whip it out again! If you would like this plate, you can find it here, where you can buy it for $5.99 USD. And of course you can add Varnished Valkyries 10% discount code EAL91.

 *Product sent for honest review

Moon Prism Power!

So the other night I ran 3k, at 2 in in the morning, in 3 inch wedges, in around 15 minutes. I thought I was going to die. I'm super unfit so I'm proud of myself in a way. The things you will do to catch the last bus of the night.

Today I have yet another plate from the Born Pretty Store. It's the BP-49 Sailor Moon plate. For my base I kind of did this pastel galaxy, then covered it with holographic glitter. The stamping plate was ok. I don't know why but I had a difficult time picking up the whole design. I used Sinful Colors Snow me white to stamp with. A polish that I have used before in the past with no problem. And the stampers I used also have been used with Snow me White before without a problem. So this manicure took me quite a while because of all the trail and error. I will say I did love how the nails turned out and I have been wearing this manicure for days now because I don't want to take it off and it still looks presentable!

If you like this plate, you can get it over at the Born Pretty Store site where it is on sale for $1.49 USD. And if you want to pay even less for it you can add on out 10% discount code EAL91

I don't know how I feel about these...

The title is pretty self explanatory. I'm not sure I'm loving these manicures.

The first one is this manicure using the Born Pretty Store plate in BP-L007. A large stamping plate with for the most part a lot of elegant patterns. I started with a base of Sally Hansen's Lady Luck and stamped over it with OPI's Alpine Snow. I personally think the pattern I used was a bit too much with the polish under it.

The second manicure that I'm on the fence about is another one using a Born Pretty stamping plate in BP36. For this I stamped over a stamp over Barry M Rose Hip with some random pink foil I have had for years and Barry M's Dusty Mauve. Honestly I like the idea of this, but I'm not sure the mauve worked as it looks waaay more brown on the nail.

All that being said I did find it easy to use the stamping plates despite maybe not using the best colours :P If you would like the first plate it retails for $5.99 USD and the smaller plate for $1.99 USD. And you can use our 10% discount code: EAL91

*Products sent for honest review

Do you like stars? Do you like stripes? Do you like stars AND stripes?

Well this is the post for you!

Today I have a couple sets of Incoco's Made in America, real polish, nail appliqué collection, which is available today(May 11th) on their website!

The first set I have is Lady Liberty, which is described as 'A sweet mix of stars, stripes, chevron, and hearts'.  My favorite(Without a u ;) ) part of this design was the tiny stars within the lines! Even though it is small and may not be noticed from afar, it's still a super clever idea!

Next I have Starsrtuck, which is probably the one I like best out of the two. It's described as 'A red, silver, and blue star-studded design'. I was a bit worried about these because when I peeled them off their backing I noticed they were on the thin side, and a bot transparent. Luckily once I put them on the nail that wasn't noticeable at all.

These are great for those of you who celebrate the 4th of July, are attending the opening of a Marvel film that involves Captain America, or you just really like stars and stripes. You can find them on their website for $8.99.

There are times in life when change is bad. This is one of them.

Max Factor has changed the formula to Fantasy fire due to the fact that they no longer get that certain pigment. Gone are the days of colour this shifting goodness! This beauty that kept all the Clarins 230 lemmings at bay!  Thankfully I have 2 bottles :D But if you don't have any you should probably go head out and see if you can get old bottle still. If you are in the UK or Australia there are still old bottles out there. I do not remember the name at the moment, but there there was a website that sold this and they still had some old bottles left. Apart from that I have no clue where else you can buy a bottle.

I actually wear Fantasy Fire quite often as it works really well over so many colours. I was actually wearing it when I found out they had changed the formula. And just a note, but you can see the colour shift in person I just couldn't capture it very well on camera.

 

 

For my base I used 3 coats of this vibrant purple from a brand called F.A.W.N. There was no name on it just the number 018. I have never heard of this brand before and I have no idea where I bought it from. Shrinkage aside it is very pretty.

 

While I don't have a comparison post, you guys can head over to Cosmetic Sanctuary and see her post where she does a detailed comparison of the two. Here are some of her photos so you can see for yourself how different it now is. New FF is on the left, old on the right.

An attempt was made. Zig-Zags were had.

So this is the final week of the A-Z Challenge. Technically this was going to be posted yesterday BUT I thought it would be too close to my last post. I like at least a good 20-24 hours between posts. Anyway here we are 26 weeks later. Now I will admit I didn't do all the weeks, but I did most! I also was rarely on time, but I still got around to it! Overall I really liked doing these challenges, as it was a nice way to get a creative jolt. I can't wait to start the next challenge. ARE YOU ALL READY FOR MY TARDINESS?!?!?!

The final week was Zig-Zag. I had this idea in my head that I would do these really cool zig-zag water marble nails. I even found around 3 tutorials for it. Well long story short, water marbling with precision is hard. Zig-zags aside I'm honestly lucky I got a solid water marble. As neat as I thought they looked in the end I really wanted zig-zags, so I got out my NailVinyls and used those. I was a bit worried that the pattern underneath and the black on top would look weird together, but I ended up loving it even more!

And the polishes I used were China Glaze Stoked To be Soaked, Sinful Colors Pull Over and Milani Dude Blue.

Left Hand

 Right Hand

To see all of the people who did the challenge, head on over here:

An InLinkz Link-up

I haven't updated in HOW long?

Usually when I don't update I feel it(in my bones). But this week for some reason I have been in a permanent state of "I think I updated 2 days ago," but it turns out that is has actually been over a week. Whoops!

Today I have a review for you! I got some stamping plates from The Born Pretty Store a couple days ago. They also sent me a new squishy stamper, as I had told them last time my reviews had been slow because my stamper had pretty much pooped out on me. So thank you for that!

Today I have this fun floral design I used using the stamping plate BP-43. I stamped purple metallic Orly polish over  Ninja Polish Passion Shift. I did have some problems at first with the new stamper, as it would not pick up the image. Thankfully I had heard that you sometimes needed to prep your stamper. So I gently filed it a bit and it worked after that.

This plate retails for $2.99USD. If you would like this plate be sure to use our 10% discount code! EAL91

 

*Product sent for honest review