How to ~ A Quick & Easy French Manicure Tutorial

Hi everyone!  Today I want to show you a cool trick I used the other day to do a French manicure by using a rubber band.   It’s really simple, and makes fiddly French tips sooo much easier!   To do this tutorial you will need:

• Nail polish ~ I used BYS Nail Enamel - 02 French Pink, N.Y.C. Color – Blue Bird, Sally Hansen Double Duty Strengthening Top & Base Coat and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Top Coat.
• An elastic band; I personally think that a thin rubber band is better than a thick one, but that’s up to you.

Really simple right?  So let’s get started.

   Step 1:  Prepare your nail base.  I wanted a two-tone manicure, so I painted my nails pastel pink first.  Make sure your polish or base coat has dried thoroughly before proceeding to Step 2. 

   Step 2:  Stretch the rubber band over the top of your nail, placing it where you want the French tip to end.

  Step 3:  Holding the band in place with your other fingers, paint the tip of your nail. 

   Step 4:  Release the rubber band one side at a time and take it off your nail being careful not to smudge the wet polish.  Rinse and repeat. 

 
Extra Tip: The pinky nail is the hardest one to do, so here are some pictures of how I held the band down.  Also, I found that if you accidentally made the tip too short, you can re-lay the rubber band down lower on your nail and paint the tip again.  It works really well!

 

Step 5:  Coat your manicure with a top coat for extra protection and enjoy your cute nails.  ᵔᴗᵔ

xox,

bonita

P.S.  ~  I used a toothpick to dot a heart on the bottom corner of my thumb nail.  Just in case you were wondering where it came from.   ; 3

The Nail Art Times

 

~ *  Enjoying the BYS Matte Aqua nail polish & the best application technique I have ever seen!  This is with no clean up whatsoever!! I blogged about it here: Nail Art ~ Blue Lagoon * ~

~ * Chickadee manicure with Prêt-A-Polish in C'est La Vie using Konad Plate m11 * ~

~ * My latest polish haul ~ four BYS polishes. L to R: 05 Light Purple, 03 Gold Glitter, 02 French Pink, 10 Silver Glitter.  Totally unimaginative names, really cute colours!

BYS are well known in the nail world for having a great lacquer at a fantastic price.  For instance, these polishes were $4.00 AUD each; I brought all four for the price of one bottle of Revlon nail lacquer.  Sweet!  Plus, don’t you just LOVE the leopard print lids??  I usually pass on leopard print, it’s not my style, but I am LOVING these.  I had to buy them as soon as I spotted them.  * ~

~ * The Gold Glitter in action ~ I would have to say that it’s no where near as impressive as I would have liked, but the three different sizes of glitter is nice and I think that if you layered it over another colour, this polish would really pop. * ~

xox,

bonita

Nail Art ~ Blue Lagoon

Before we get to the good stuff I just had to share this amazing diagram I found on Pintrest yesterday.  And the best thing about this is that it works!  I used the technique it depicts when I did this manicure and proceeded to paint the neatest job I have ever managed to achieve…   See ~

And that’s before the tidy up! 

Top Tip:  For the best tutorial on cleaning up a manicure that I ever come across go here.

~ * ♥ * ~ 
On my nails:

~  BYS Polish in Matte Aqua
~  Konad Plate m80 & m40

~ * ♥ * ~

I am really loving solid cream polishes at the moment. This lovely blue by BYS is more of a sky or bluebird blue rather than an aqua ~ so it’s a bit misnamed in my opinion, but it’s still a gorgeous colour.  And as always, any excuse to add a bit of sparkle to my nails in the form of these tiny deco gems is more than welcome!

I really enjoy creating nail art ~ there is something about the small, temporary canvases that are your finger nails that holds a strong appeal to the artist in me.  I am not sure whether it’s the limited space, or the myriad of different colours you can use, or the multitude of looks that you can create, or the fact that you can start anew any time you like. 

Either one of those reasons are good enough for me ~ I like to give myself a manicure whenever I can{which isn’t always as often as I would like these days!}  It is somewhat of weekly ritual now, so of course my polish collection is slowly expanding!  I am keeping my eye out for a good light purple polish, because I don’t have one yet.  I am really craving lilacs and duck egg teals, and of course you can never go wrong with fairy floss pink.  Pastels are great for spring and I think they work really well with a vintage wardrobe as you can see from this delightful 1950s Revlon ad. 

What are your favourite colours to splash on your nails?

xox,

bonita  

Review ~ Sally Hansen Treatment Polishes

To make up for my slack posting this week I thought I would put up an extra post that I had prepared over the last two weeks. I hope you all like it, as I thought I would try my hand at a review….. It is rather long. Sorry!

I thought I would do the review on the Sally Hansen polishes I’ve been trying out. Just in case anyone cares!!    O_o

I am not doing a review of coloured polishes, but of these three treatment polishes.

1} Sally Hansen Miracle Cure ~ For severe problem nails. Packaging claims polish will cure peeling nails with 50% stronger nails in 3 Days.

2} Sally Hansen Nailgrowth Miracle ~ Salon strength. Packing claims polish will cure soft nails, brittle nails, and help nails to grow 30% longer {tip length} in 5 days.

3} Sally Hansen Insta~Dri ~ Anti~chip top coat. Packing claims the polish will dry your colour polish in 30 seconds.


~*~ Polish 1 ~ Miracle Cure ~*~

Instructions:

Shake gently. Apply one thin coat to clean, dry, bare nails every other day. If wearing nail colour use as a base coat, then apply colour.

 

Product Details:

Costs around $8.00 from Woolworths {Australian supermarket}




Review:

I used this polish as an undercoat and I left it on for around five days. Firstly, the polish went on really smoothly and dried quickly. It made a great base for my nail colour. I noticed that after a couple of days ~ whether it was strictly three I am not sure, my nails did feel stronger. I could not tell if the polish had ‘bonded’ the peeling layers on my thumb nails together {being covered with the pastel pink colour coat and all!} but when I took the polish off, I could only see a tiny bit of peeling on my right thumb and that was an improvement from before.

Conclusion:

I would not say that the polish cured my peeling problems in 3 days, but I did notice that my nails were stronger so it could be with extended use {more than once like I did!! ^^; }the polish could ‘cure’ your nail peeling problems. I for one am willing to give it another go.

And I will say that compared to other nail treatments for peeling I have tried at various times, this Sally Hansen one seems to be the most effective by far as in I can actually tell my nails are better and “see” the results!

Would I buy it?

Yes. I will keep using this, and if I run out, I will get more! I think that it is good value and saves you a trip to the salon to try and stop the dreaded continuous peeling effect.

Rating:

9/10 ~ it does not quite exactly manage to do what it says it does, but it did improve my nail health as far as I could tell without proper testing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These next polishes are featured in these pictures.
I used them as the base/top coats.



~*~ Polish 2 ~ Nailgrowth Miracle ~*~

Instructions:

Shake gently. Apply one coat to clean dry bare nails every other day. Wear as a base coat under your favourite Sally Hansen nail colour. Apply two coats of your favourite Sally Hansen nail colour and let dry. Apply one coat as a protective top coat. Use one thin coat as needed to refresh manicure. Remove with Sally Hansen Polish Remover.

Product Details:

Costs around $8.00 from Woolworths {Australian supermarket}

Review:

I used this polish as an undercoat and I left it on for around two weeks. Firstly, the polish went on really smoothly and dried quickly. It made a great base for my nail colour ~ much the same as the Miracle Cure. My nail tip on my left ring finger measured 3mm when I first put the polish on and my thumb {which are my slowest growing nails as well as the only ones with peeling problems!} tip measure all of 2.5mm! Yes, I have really short nails which is why I decided to alternate the Miracle Cure with the Nailgrowth.

After two weeks of using the Nailgrowth as an undercoat on my nails I measured my thumb and ring finger again and both of them had only grown a little bit. The ring finger had grown 1mm from 3mm to 4mm and the thumb had only grown 1/2 a mm from 2.5 to 3mm

Conclusion:

This polish makes a great base coat with the added bonus of being a treatment at the same time. I would say, however, that the effectiveness of the treatment was lacking. I did not really see any growth. It took twice as long as the recommended treatment time {5 days} to get the 30% growth. So as a growth treatment, it is not as effective as it claims. It may not even help the nail to grow as I am pretty sure that is my nail’s normal growth rate!

Would I buy it?

It does make a good undercoat, so if you are looking for something that dries quickly and goes on smoothly I would buy it. But if you are looking for a polish to use as an undercoat and a treatment at the same time I think that there could be other polishes out there that may perform better than this one. That being said, I do not know which ones they are! I would try something else before I came back to this one I think.

Rating:

3/10 ~ disappointing with the growth results, but a good undercoat nonetheless.



~*~ Polish 3 ~ Insta~Dri ~*~

Instructions:

After applying your favourite Sally Hansen Nail Colour, wait two minutes, then apply one coat of Insta-Dri Anti-Chip Top Coat. Manicure will be dry to the touch in 30 seconds.

Product Details:

Costs around $8.00 from Woolworths {Australian supermarket}


Review:

I used this polish as the top coat as instructed over a Rimmel 60 seconds midnight blue and a Sally Hansen pink {I am sorry I do not have more details as these polishes belong to my sisters and I did not think to get the names, numbers, etc.}. I did the base with the Nailgrowth, put on one coat of each colour and waited a few minutes for the colour to dry. The Insta~Dri went on easily and did not smear the polish beneath it; like some top coat polishes will! It was nice and thick.

I waited two minutes like the instructions said and surprisingly my nails were touch dry. They were only tap dry though, not bump dry! I found that if I accidentally nudged them too hard, the polish would wrinkle/smudge. I found I had to wait at least another fifteen minutes before I could really use my fingers again ~ I certainly would not doing anything like doing up a zip before that. The final product, once properly dry, is really glossy and shiny. Not quite as shiny as a wet nail polish shine, but very close. It ended up very smooth and very nice.

Conclusion:

I would say that this polish, much like the other ones, comes close to what it claims to do, but does fail slightly. I would not say that it is touch dry in 30 seconds, because sometimes I wack my nails really hard! But perhaps if you are gentler you would be able to get away with it.

I do know that the three coats of polish I had on did dry a lot quicker than what they normally do, and were less inclined to smudge. That being the case, I was still happy with the results of applying the Insta~Dri to my nails in terms of dry ability.

For the top coat, anti~chip protection, I would say that it works quite well. I must admit I am brutal to my nails ~ between horses, hot glue guns and super glue, paint and all sorts of nail polish chipping activities, I was quite pleased that this manicure lasted as long as it did. Five days showed a little wear in the polish around the tip of the nail, and two weeks showed quite a lot of chipping, but it was still better than what my nails look like after two weeks without a top coat.

Would I buy it?

Yes, it is best top coat I have found so far.

Rating:

9/10 ~ I wish my nails really did dry as quickly as they were supposed to, but other then that I am very happy with this product. Money well spent!


xox,

b.

P.S. ~ Sorry about the length of the post, I hope it was worth reading that much text! ><