Be Mine: Pink & Gold Valentine Nails

Hi hi hi! Jeepers, it looks like I escaped just in time. It's a very harsh winter for some parts of the northern hemisphere, isn't it? I hope you're all staying warm and safe :)

Today I have a sugary-sweet pink and gold look for you, inspired by one of Pirate Polish's shades from their Love in a Cold Climate collection released about this time last year!

The polish, as you can see, is called Be Mine. Nice squishy baby pink with gold and holo sparkles! It's a bit gritty, and needs three coats to be opaque, but it's a great one that looks flattering on my skin tone and has just enough sparkle to be different and interesting :)

The hearts are stamped with Bundle Monster plate BM-317, and the Love image from BM-009. I used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Flashy Fuchsia for this. It's been a while since I stamped, and you can tell--especially on my index finger, which I actually re-did twice and then thought OMG I AM NOT DOING THIS AGAIN, IT'S JUST GOING TO HAVE TO BE WONKY. Luckily I did not have *quite* as much trouble with the other fingers.

To jazz it up I added some pink striping tape and gold heart studs from Born Pretty Store to the accent nail, and the gold glitters on the other nails are from a bottle of Milani Jewel FX Gold. I used an orange stick to pick them out and place a few around the hearts to tie them in with the gold studs.

Finally, two coats of Seche Vite smoothed everything out :)

Nice shot of the bottle, with all the glitter showing off in the sun.

In the shade they look softer and squishier! This is also what they look like indoors, mostly, so I didn't bother with another photo.

I hope you liked these! Are you sick of the Valentiney designs yet? I'll be honest, I sooooort of am... but we have one more to go before moving on. And, well, I'm not always the most overly girly person, so all the pink and sweetness has been a fun change.

Have a great day, and I'll see you next time! xoxo

Pirate Polish--Love in a Cold Climate collection: Skittle mani!

Happy Sunday, everyone! I hope everyone is feeling as grand as I am today. It's quite chilly outside (37F, 2C) but super bright and sunny! After weeks on end of grey, rainy weather, I am loving this nice change. It's still cold, so I can totally get away with just now showing off the Valentine-esque collection by indie brand Pirate Polish called Love in a Cold Climate. Most people reviewed these last month, but better late than never, amirite?

I just love that there's a Ninja Polish and a Pirate Polish. Those of you who know me at all know which way I go (hint: ARRRRRR!), and this collection was so cute I had to get it, although I just went for the mini-bottles. Instead of simply swatching, which plenty of folks have already done, I went for a random skittle mani to show different combos together!

They sort of remind me of candy.

There are four polishes at work here:

Be Mine is the soft pink creme. In the bottle there is SO much gold shimmer, but on the nail it doesn't come out as much. It's really nice, though. Two thick coats or three thin ones are enough for this opacity. I used that as the base on the small, middle, and index fingers.

The red base is Cinnamon Girl, which is a squishy jelly red with lots of red and holographic sparkles! I love cinnamon, and I'm pretty sure this was the one that pushed me over the edge and made me order the set. This is three thin coats.

Over the index nail you can see two coats of Lovandula, which is a great glitter topper! Tiny blue and purple microglitters, medium-sized satiny pink hexes, large purple holo glitters, and those fantastic purple satiny diamond-shaped glitters! I think it looks great over Be Mine, but I'm going to wear it over purple next time--I'll bet that will look splendid.

On the middle and thumb nails, you can see the glitter topper Love in a Cold Climate, the collection's namesake, and my favourite of the bunch! I love the mix going on here and how opaque the glitters are--they show up over anything! Tiny squares, medium hexes, and big hearts all in both blue and white, plus white diamonds and square iridescent specks, for some shine. I think it looks so neat over the red! That was two coats, with some fishing needed to get the hearts out, but not too bad at all--the suspension base these glitters are in is GREAT.

Pretty much just put this pic here because it made me laugh. My actual thumbnail is the size that the middle white heart appears here!

I posted the link above, but I'll add it again here: Pirate Polish on Etsy
They have lots of great polishes, including this set which is still in stock!

And with that, I'm off to enjoy this beautiful day. See you next time! xoxo