China Glaze - Ruby Pumps

Today's red glitter polish is none other than China Glaze - Ruby Pumps which is the loveliest red glitter polish ever? I know I say that a lot but how can you blame me? This red is the bomb.

It is as fierce as it is stunning and from the name of the polish itself, you can kinda tell what is characteristics are. Judge for yourself:

 

It's a wonderful red that doesn't look gaudy at all. The glitter is embedded in the polish so no grittiness at all! I love that about Ruby Pumps. It's almost a jelly but not quite.

Also, it is THE perfect holiday nail color. It's the perfect red for Christmas nails. You can use it for nail art or you can just wear it as it is and it'll look fab either way. Christmas is in 3 months but I still make excuses to wear this color all year round. In fact, I'm wearing Ruby Pumps right now haha.

The first coat of Ruby Pumps goes on half-sheer so you definitely need two coats. Apply top coat and you're good to go. I've tried using a matte top coat over Ruby Pumps and the effect is quite fascinating. The flatness of the red glitter is unique so you might want to try that.

Bad cuticles, sorry!

Ruby Pumps isn't really flashy in sunlight though so don't expect it to be one of those sparkly glitters. Its beauty lies in its subtleties, really.

Go pick it up at your local Sally Beauty Store. Or order it online.

Let me know if this is the kind of red you dive for the moment you see it in stores.

Thanks for reading!

Love,
Raine

Valentine's Day nail art - it's raining hearts

Hey everyone!

I'm back with Valentine's Day nail art! I think this calls for a round of celebrations. I managed to edit my pictures (tedious work on PicMonkey since I don't have Photoshop installed on this PC), I'm actually posting BEFORE Valentine's Day and this is a fresh design aka I'm still wearing it, haha.

I'm not big on Valentine's Day and wasn't actually going to do any specific design but I've been seeing some V-day nail art contests (?) and decided, what the heck I'll just try to come up with something and if I think it's worthy and if I don't miss the contest entry date, I'll submit my entry.

Okay, anyway, here's what I did:

This is the finished look! I love it! It's so me in the sense that it's so pretty yet imperfect. I don't think I could ever claim to be a perfect nail artist since my lines are usually always slightly off and sometimes I make a smudge or two. And that's fine because I've embraced my imperfections to be kind of like my style.

Here is what I started with:

Thumb: China Glaze - White on White

Index: China Glaze - Strawberry Fields

Middle: Essie - The Girls Are Out

Ring: Orly - Hot Shot (holla, new purchase!)

Little: Love & Beauty - pink

I used two coats of each polish as the base.

Next, I was inspired by a picture of a tree with hearts hanging off it and decided to draw one on my thumb nail. I have no idea why I left my brown nail polish back home and I was bummed when I realized that. I made do with my black nail art pen as the tree trunk and branches.

I used Sally Hansen - Mint Sprint (love this color!) and China Glaze - Salsa and a nail art brush to paint the leaves and hearts respectively. I didn't spend too long on drawing them on. It was more like dab and go. :D

My idea for the other nails was to do rows of hearts and one accent nail with XOXOs on it. I used the black nail art pen to draw the XOs. By now you can already tell that the white hearts on my middle finger are much more prominent. 

That's because I used my white nail art pen to draw them on. I only wanted the white polish as a base for the colors I was going to paint over it so the pen wasn't such a good idea. The polish flowed out and was rather thick and hard to control so I switched over to China Glaze - White on White and a nail art brush.

Then it became a bit of a mess around this part. I envisioned the different shades of red/pink to stand out but they... didn't. Haha. Well, I guess sometimes things don't turn out the way you picture them. I wanted to just leave them be and call it a day but stubborn me wanted to make this design work... So I...

... grabbed the black pen again and outlined all the hearts. Granted the outline wasn't as smooth as it should have been but I'm glad I outlined them. Don't they just pop against the base colors? Yup, then I sealed the designs in with top coat and called it a day.

Here's a close-up of my heart tree. :)

And here is my biggest accomplishment yet, haha. I labeled the polishes in the picture. It took me sooo long to squeeze everything in and align the arrows and stuff but I really wanted to point out the nail polish bottles behind.

I only labeled the red and pink polishes, all of which I used to color the rows of hearts. The rest are my base coat, top coat, Orly - Liquid Vinyl and China Glaze - White on White. Oh, and those are the two brushes I used for the entire design.

Here's a better picture of Essie - The Girls Are Out and Love & Beauty - pink. I had no idea I had so many red/pink polishes. I initially started out with ONE red polish, thinking I wouldn't buy any other reds... Who was I kidding?

And here's a shot of blurry heart-shaped goodness.

This design actually reminds me of a notebook I used to have when I was younger. It was by Happy House and just the cutest notebook with rows of multi-colored hearts.

So what do you think of my Valentine's Day nail art? Good? Meh? Messy? Boring? So spuddylicious? Do you want to try this out? Let me know in the comments! :)

If you have a V-day nail art post, definitely include the link in the comments, I'd love to check it out! If you want to send me a V-day gift, let me know as well, haha. ;)

How will you be celebrating Valentine's Day? Is it a big deal for you or do you just let it slide by? 

Thanks for reading! <3

P.S: All pictures taken with my phone and inside the house.

Christmas nails: Fairy Dust and Xmas tree

Hi everyone! I've got more Christmas nail art for you. I'm really big on the red-and-white theme this year. And minimalism is another main theme for my Christmas nails. No idea why but I think it's fun to switch things up. Last year I was all for fun prints and complex designs and multiple colors.

You could do this nail design if you don't have much time to spend on drawing details or if you just want a simple accent nail.

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

Here are the polishes I used:
China Glaze - Salsa
China Glaze - Fairy Dust
A white nail art pen

Easy enough, right? First I used two coats of China Glaze - Salsa for the base. I'm sure you'll agree with me that China Glaze - Salsa is such a pretty red. Every time I reach for a red polish, I end up picking China Glaze - Salsa. I might have to get myself a spare bottle at the rate I'm using it.

Next I used one coat of China Glaze - Fairy Dust. Fairy Dust adds such a magical glow. It sparkles and I swear you can almost picture Tinkerbell from Peter Pan showering all her pixie dust onto your nails. ;)

For the accent nail, I just used my white nail art pen to draw the tree. I didn't spend much time perfecting it which is why it turned out a bit wonky but hey, snow on trees aren't perfectly balanced, are they?

What do you think of this easy Christmas nail art design? What part of Christmas inspires your nail art? What color theme are you loving for Christmas this year? Tell me all about it in the comments section. Run out and get a glitter polish now. ;)

Thanks for reading! <3

China Glaze - Ruby Pumps

Today's red glitter polish is yet another FAVORITE of mine. I mean, look at this baby. Doesn't she just glow?!

Ladies and gentlemen (do I have any guy readers?), I present to you China Glaze - Ruby Pumps. She is absolutely delectable and I would go so far as to say one of a kind.

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

Taken in indirect sunlight

China Glaze - Ruby Pumps is a crelly red glitter polish. Crelly? Yes, you read that right. I would say jelly but somehow it doesn't really look all that jelly to me. What do you think?  Ruby Pumps doesn't dry gritty like other glitters. This polish dries smooth and shiny and the glitter is suspended in all that lovely red polish. I used two coats here - one coat is a bit thin - and the formula was really good.

Ruby Pumps is a really subtle glitter polish and perfect for Halloween if you're going for a vampy or Dorothy-esque look. I would definitely use this red glitter for a Christmas nail design though.

What do you think of China Glaze - Ruby Pumps? Love it? Hate it? Is red your color or do you stay away from it?

Thank you for reading!

Shades of red nail polish

Hey guys! So I used to think that red polish looked kinda tacky because I used to see a lot of people wearing chipped red polish (why, I don't know lol). Well, I take that right back... or rather, I'll amend my statement. Red polish is awesome!

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

• Thumb: China Glaze - Infra Red
• Index: China Glaze - Ruby Pumps
• Middle: China Glaze - Salsa
• Ring: China Glaze - Strawberry Fields
• Little: Essie - The Girls Are Out

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

Taken indoors

Taken indoors (poor lighting, I'm sorry)

Hmm, Strawberry Fields looks a little orange in these pictures but I assure you that it's as pink as pink can get.

Taken with flash

Some blurry goodness, anyone?

Which is your favorite polish out of these five? Red nail polish - yay or nay?

Thanks so much for reading!

Red jelly glitter sandwich, anyone?

Today's post is going to be short. I did these nails a while back... before I bothered cleaning up the excess polish on my skin completely.

Okay, so it's not exactly a jelly sandwich... It's more like crelly but... You be the judge.

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

I used a red polish from The Face Shop (argh, can't remember the name/number off the top of my head) and Love & Beauty - Red (the pointer and ring finger) which I'm quite sure is a crelly (creme and jelly finish) and I was fascinated by that so I slathered on a micro-glitter topper and gold glass fleck glitter.

I really liked this glitter jelly/crelly sandwich and I plan on doing this again sometime when I don't feel like doing nail art.

Are you into red nail polish?

Thanks for reading!