Glitter Me Crazy!

Lately I've been really obsessed with glitter. There's a ton of different kinds of glitter; this can be really confusing. There's a ton of different shapes and sizes too. There's round, square, hex, bar, holographic, shimmer... the list goes on. I'm not really an expert at this in the least, so I'm not going to pretend to be. All I know is I love glitter! 

There's so much you can do with glitter. The most common thing is to just layer it over polish. I really like this if the two colours are similar or if the glitter is very very fine and it just adds a nice sparkle to the mani. You can also create a glitter gradient - a little time consuming, especially on your first try because it takes some practice before you figure out how to spread the glitter out so it makes a nice gradient. You can also use it to create designs, or go under another polish, or even make a jelly sandwich. The possibilities are endless! 

Here are a few of my favourite glitters! 

China Glaze - Nova 

This is a beautiful rainbow glitter polish, it's got two sizes of hex glitters suspended in a clear base. 

NOPI - Gone Wishin'

I love this purple and blue glitter, it adds a little extra dazzle to any polish! Suspended in a clear base. 

Sally Hansen - Rock 'n' Roll

This isn't a glitter as much as it is a translucent pink shimmer. I love adding this over top of any colour, it gives the base colour a whole new look! 

NOPI - Look At Me, Look At Me

I've enjoyed this every time I've used it. Who doesn't love a polish thick with nothing but glitter? It's about 90% silver glitter, 10% pink glitter. Almost opaque in one coat, but I always use two. 

Finger Paints - Art You Wondering?

This is my favourite polish to put on top of China Glaze - Turned Up Turquoise. The colours were meant for each other! Click here to see my blog post about them. Suspended in a clear base. 

Sally Hansen - Diamonds

This is extremely pretty on top of any colour, it just adds an extra bit of glam. Suspended in a clear base. (Sorry this photo looks really weird, didn't realize it until after :/) 

NOPI - Wear Something Spar-Kylie

Similar to Look At Me, Look At Me, this one is a solid pink glitter. Opaque in two coats. 

Sally Hansen - Bling-Tastic

I love the colour of this glitter! It's got tiny blue hex with bigger silver hex, suspended in a clear base. I like using this when doing nail art. 

Orly - Tiara

Silver hex suspended in a clear base. Very pretty when doing glitter gradients. 

Revlon - Sparkling

Large and tiny pink hex suspended in a milky pink base. I also love this one for glitter gradients! 

Deborah Lippmann - Mermaid's Dream

Tiny teal hex suspended in a teal shimmer base, with tiny rainbow hex and bigger blue hex. One of my absolute favourite polishes of all time; definitely makes me feel like a mermaid! 

NOPI - Fabulous Is My Middle Name

Silver, red, purple and black bar glitter, and tiny silver hex suspended in a clear base. What can I say, bar glitter, especially with those four colours mixed together, is stunning! 

China Glaze - It's A Trap-eze!

Small and large blue, green, yellow, silver, pink and orange hex suspended in a milky base. Everyone loves this one, and for good reason! So much colourful glitter packed into one bottle is simply breathtaking. 

Feel free to comment below and tell me some of your favourite glitters! 

Pro FX Product Reviews

Ever since I decided to take a risk and try Pro FX products I fell in love with them, and I haven't been disappointed yet! These babies are a whole 75ml/2.5oz... MASSIVE! You'll never run out. Here's a bottle. I feel like it looks smaller in my hand than they look in real life, but maybe I'm just used to them! 

Pro FX has 9 products, but I believe only 8 are available in Canada. I've only heard of the 9th on a blog I came across while trying to search for a Pro FX website, sadly, this does not exist :( 

The Pro FX products are: Long Lasting UV Top Coat, Quick Dry Top Coat, Complete 3, Mineral Botanical Strengthener, Protein Enriched Base Coat, Epoxy Bond Base Coat, Fiberized Ridge Filler, Apricot Cuticle Oil, and Quick Dry Drops. This last one I have never seen in stores but I really really want it so if anyone in the USA is willing to get it for me I will graciously pay for it as well as shipping, and even send you some goodies! 

There are 3 amazing things about Pro FX which in fact cover the entire polish. What I mean is that the bottles are huge, the price is great, and the quality of the product is amazing so you are literally (at least in my opinion) getting a PERFECT product! I've already told you the bottles are 75ml/2.5oz, so let me just tell you how much they are and I'm sure you will all be jumping up to go grab them asap! Drumroll please... Pro FX products are ONLY $5!!! Based on price to volume, you won't find another product with this amazing value. On top of great value, the products do exactly what they are meant to do and they give long lasting results. Like I said, this is the perfect product! Let me put this into perspective... a 15ml bottle of seche vite top coat sells for around $10 USD, meaning a price of $66.67/100ml. Pro FX 75ml bottles sell for $5 USD, meaning a price of $6.67/100ml... Pro FX is a TENTH of the price of Seche and I've actually heard of some ladies who prefer Pro FX over Seche! 

*** The only downside to Pro FX is they aren't big 3 free :( Sorry to the ladies who don't use products that aren't, or who are allergic! 

Long Lasting UV Top Coat 

This is the last Pro FX I added to complete my collection. Initially I would have bought this one first but then I saw Complete 3 so I figured I would just get that since it's an all in one - more on that in a bit. I heard excellent reviews about the top coat before I finally got to use it, so you can imagine how excited I was to use it with epoxy bond... the result would be a mani lasting longer than 2 weeks! There's nothing else to really say, this top coat is wonderful, quality top coat, and a top coat is perhaps the most important part of a mani. 

Quick Dry Top Coat 

Like the name suggests, this top coat dries really fast! I didn't time it or anything but it is significantly faster than any normal top coat. The thing is though, after a few uses this one gets thicker, as is the case with most quick dries. I find this top coat doesn't smear designs underneath as much so I'll use a coat of this, then put my UV top coat on. I do typically like to do a couple top coats, I just find it seals the mani in better, makes for a smoother finish, and makes it extra shiny! I also use it when I'm in a rush because if the polish underneath is still a bit tacky, I can put this on, cure it for 2 minutes in my UV lamp and I'm good to go. 

Complete 3 

This is the first Pro FX product I ever purchased! It was great for me at the time because I could use the same product as a top coat, base coat, and strengthener. Although this polish isn't exclusively a strengthener, I did notice a difference in the strength of my nails after one use. My mom also owns this because I recommended it for her and she loves it! 

Mineral Botanical Strengthener 

Other than my Sally Hansen strengtheners, this is my only other strengthener. As the name suggests, it's got minerals, and botanical just means that it's natural and comes from plants so it's not like this is going to hurt your nails at all. Trust me, this strengthener is amazing. Again, my mom bought it after I recommended it to her and she's very happy with it because being a mom her hands are constantly in water and she just has really weak nails. This helps her and she loves her now strong nails. 

Protein Enriched Base Coat 

Half the reason I bought this was to complete my Pro FX collection. I obviously knew I would use it but I wasn't 100% sure what exactly it would do for me. Its full name is Protein Enriched Base Coat & Revitalizer. Pretty much, it's similar to a strengthener so it's for sort of weak nails that need a little bit more protein. Strengthener is for weak, thin nails. Protein is for nails that are prone to actual breaking or splitting. The first time I used this I instantly loved it. My nails were a tad yellow from having so much polish on, so when I took my mani off after having used this base coat, almost all the yellow was gone! I noticed a significant difference and I rotate between this, strengthener, and my epoxy bond for base coats and the result is unbelievable. My natural nails are beautiful. Yes, they're a bit brittle and prone to splitting, but that aside, they're not weak or yellow at all! This protein enriched base coat will make your nails healthier. 

Epoxy Bond Base Coat 

I came across this beauty of a base coat when searching for Pro FX reviews. At the time I only had complete 3 and strengthener so I wanted to know what other people thought of it. So many girls were going on and on about how amazing this was and how their manicure lasted forever! So I got it as soon as I could and I gave it a try right away! I left my polish on for a week with this base coat and there was very minimal chipping - only because of washing dishes all the time. 

Here's a picture from my Instagram. These are my nails after a week of heavy wear. All you ladies who regularly wash dishes you know what the water does to our handsi and nails! 

 I use this on my friends a lot, and if they don't get their polish changed this base coat EASILY makes a mani last two weeks! If you're looking for extremely long lasting manis, I suggest epoxy bond and the uv top coat, I promise you'll see amazing results! 

Fiberized Ridge Filler 

Like the protein enriched base coat, I pretty much only bought this to complete my Pro FX collection. I don't have big ridges, at least not big enough that a base coat + 2 coats of polish + 1-2 top coats won't cover so I didn't think I would actually be using this. I wanted to test it out one day so I put the protein base coat on, and this overtop because I had some craters in my nails from splitting. Let me tell you, this works wonderfully! Even if you don't have ridges I recommend this because it just makes your nail so much smoother to paint on. The only downside is it takes a while to dry, but it's totally worth it. If you're like me and your nails split a lot, just put a little bit thicker of a blob where the "crater" is and wait for it to completely dry and your nail will be smooth to perfection :) I find my toes have big ridges so I love using this on them because it covers all imperfections! 

Apricot Cuticle Oil 

This isn't the first cuticle oil I've used and it's not my favourite but I wanted to try it out and again, I got it to complete my collection. My favourite cuticle oil is Sally Hansen's Vitamin E cuticle oil. The reason I prefer that over the apricot is because it's vitamin e. My cuticles are constantly dry and it seems the only thing that can keep them moisturized and soft is vitamin e. I use the apricot cuticle oil on my friends and they love it! Like all Pro FX products it's a great value for a great price so I can't complain too much and when it's summer again I'll be using this as I won't need to moisturize as much. 

Here is my whole Pro FX army! They're lined up like this in my Helmer and I love seeing them all when I go to paint my nails! When I show people they ask what they are because I guess so many oversized bottles looks a little intimidating!

I recommend these products to anyone and everyone because they've given me such amazing results. For top coats, I still do want to try Seche Vite but I'm in no rush because I'm completely satisfied with the top coats I have. I haven't used my OPI top coat since I got Complete 3 about 8 months ago (Maybe I should!) As far as base coats go, I will never go back to anything else! I love the strengthener, protein base coat, and epoxy bond. I also like the ridge filler as a substitute to Orly's nail rescue and who could live without some cuticle oil in a massive bottle like that! This whole set only costed $40+tax and as a broke university student I really do love finding products that have a great value with reasonable prices!

Deborah Lippmann - Mermaid's Dream

Lately I've been in a crappy/stressy mood so I figured swatching 1) an untried polish and 2) a fancy polish would de-stress me! Mermaid's Dreams by Deborah Lippmann happened to fall in both those categories so I figured I'd swatch it.

Before I even bought this polish I told everyone it was one of my favourites. I wasn't disappointed; this polish is absolutely gorgeous! The pictures do it no justice because I used my iPhone 4 camera, I was too lazy to get out my Canon Rebel T1i!

Here's Mermaid's Dream in the bottle. Who else loves the DL bottles?! They're so classy and elegant.

This is after 3 coats, no top coat. I find the polish to be very thin so 1 coat is definitely not enough, 2 coats was almost enough but there were still a few bald spots although they were not noticeable unless you stared, so 3 coats was just perfect to achieve opacity. It dries a bit textured which is okay for some, but I don't really like textured nails, and I find stuff gets caught or snags on it. 

Here's it is again with two top coats - sorry for the glare! There's still a tiny bit of texture, so I'll be applying a 3rd top coat tomorrow when I get my Pro FX UV Top Coat! For the two top coats pictured I used my Pro FX Quick Dry since I did this before bed and didn't wanna see ugly smudges when I woke up.

Ughhh sorry for my terrible cuticles :( They don't even look as bad in person as they do in this picture! I attempted to get a macro shot of the polish so you could see what's going on here... I did not succeed, clearly! There's all different sizes of the teal glitter, some bigger silver pieces of glitter, and of course the big blue pieces of hex glitter. This polish is just jam packed! Everything works so well together which makes for an absolutely stunning polish.

And one last picture of my whole hand, again, sorry for the glare, that top coat sure is shiny!

Overall, I LOVE this polish. The colour is breathtaking and anyone who purchases it won't be disappointed. Application was good - not bad at all, but definitely not the best. Probably because it's intense glitter, the actual polish is thin (not the formula) and because of the DL brush. The brushes aren't terrible or anything, but I prefer a pro-wide OPI brush, just my personal preference. Glitter placement was probably one of the easiest I've had. There's definitely a good amount of blue hex in this polish; I knew this would be fine since I've seen so many swatches. 

Would I recommend this polish to EVERYONE?! Umm, YES! I know DL's are a bit pricey but this one is absolutely gorgeous! Besides, every girl needs a few expensive polishes to use when she wants to feel extra glamorous or to cheer her up when she's feeling down :)