Whats Up Nails Stamping Nail Polish Swatches

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Hey there!  If you follow me on Instagram, you'll have seen quite a few posts using Whats Up Nails stamping polishes.  I thought it might be good to properly swatch them as regular polish and as stamping polish over black and white in case folks want to get a look at them individually.  This really have become staples in my collection and I've already gone through whole bottles of some of them that I use most often (I'm looking at you, black and white...rose gold, you're almost there too).  They apply great as regular polish though I can't speak to whether or not they stain since I always use a base and rarely keep the same mani on for more than a day and most stamp really opaque, even over black.  At the end of the post, I'll also post some manis I've done where I used quite a few of them together, just for fun.  

Hit The Bottle Jelly Shots Part 2 (and more) Swatches

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Hey there!  I'm back on the blog today to share some swatches of the second instalment (and more) of Hit The Bottle Jelly Shots.  The Jelly Shots are a collection of sheer polishes that are perfect for leadlighting (think of a colouring book but on your nails, when you paint your nails a light color, stamp with a dark color and then paint in your stamping image with the sheer polish) but can also be used for a lot of other nail art techniques.  Click here to see my swatches of the original set.  I've already used a lot of these newer ones  in some of my Instagram posts (along with the original Jelly Shots) so I'll include photos of some of those towards the end.  These were mostly sent to be by Lantern & Wren but since receiving these ages ago (when I disappeared from the blogging world) more have been released so I have purchased a few and included them here.  There is also a neon "Street Art" collection but I have not yet purchased those.  Now onto the swatches!

Maniology School's Out Neon Stamping Polish Swatches

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Hey there!  Looks like I'm back on the blog today.  I wanted to share this set of Maniology neon stamping polishes, the School's Out collection.  I, personally, think a blog is a good place to post them because it's easier for people to find swatches at a later date so I'll likely be back in the near future to post other stamping polish swatches.  So I guess my blog isn't completely defunct.  It's nearly summer so it's time to bust out the neon polishes!  Neons are notoriously difficult to photograph but I did my best to get them color accurate.  However, these are mostly brighter than they appear.  I'm also including a fun gradient that I did with them just last week since I do love a rainbow mani!  

Past Polish Pickup Hit The Bottle Swatches

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Hey there!  Welcome to my first blog post in well over a year!  I thought I'd pop on here to create a bit of a reference for (almost) all of the Hit The Bottle shades that have been available through Polish Pickup.  I love Hit The Bottle and have been lucky enough to get a lot of her non-PPU polishes as press samples but I like to support the brand so I have purchased every stamping polish that she's put out through Polish Pickup since I first discovered that PPU was a thing (except that two I did receive as samples which I will mark with an *).  Since it's almost time for PPU Rewind this year, I thought this would be a good time to post the swatches I've done of them over my blogging break.  I believe Michelle may post a poll for people decide on which shades they want brought back in her Facebook fan group but don't quote me on that.  I know that not all of the ingredients are available anymore so they won't all be a possibility but fingers crossed that your favourite is!  Also, some of these are still available for purchase from Hit The Bottle, Beautometry and Lantern & Wren (off the top of my head) so you might not even need to wait for Rewind month!   Also, if you're a fan, you may want to check out my 2018 blog post where I swatched all the non-PPU polishes to date.  I do have more swatches to add to that so I should update it soon. 
Note: there's some funny stuff going on with the formatting of the text in this post, with regards to spacing and font.  I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to fix it right now.  Hopefully it's not too off-putting or confusing!  

Where have I been?

Hey there!  I'm not really sure where to start here but I wanted to pop in and give you guys an update on where I've been and why I've disappeared.  Really, there wasn't a specific reason for me abandoning my blog for the better part of the last year and I honestly didn't mean to.  Time just got away from me....time flies when you're having fun, I guess.  It's been so long that, as I'm typing this, I'm having to figure out how to use Blogger again.  But I want to come back if you guys will have me!  

Staying Positive during COVID-19 Times...

Hey there!  I truly come back to this space to say I hope all of you out there are safe and healthy and happy during these stressful times.  I knew I'd been absent from the nail world but I didn't realize it had been two full months.  Since this virus popped up, I've definitely had my fair share of stress.  But I'll admit most of it is self-inflicted.  I have mostly been paralyzed with anxiety watching and reading the news 24/7.  Now I know that's soooooo unhealthy for me so I'm trying to reduce my media diet to mostly just Alberta's chief medical officer's daily update.  She's incredible and calming.  Overall Alberta isn't doing terribly (*knock on wood*) but we are definitely in shut down.  I have to go to work at the university every couple of weeks but mostly I've been at home.  Part of the anxiety I'm feeling is likely because my sister is an ER nurse and a single mom so I'm just hoping that she can come out of this with her, my niece and my parents' (who have been watching my niece most of the time) uninfected.  I'm also worried for myself since I know that it'll be tough on me if I get it because I have garbage lungs (I've had asthma my whole life and then I smoked for ages, so dumb of me).  

I would've thought that if I was forced inside for weeks on end that I would've jumped at the chance to do my nails all the time but I've been neglecting them as much as I have this blog.  But hopefully I'm out of my dark place now and will be appearing here more regularly.  Last night I started cropping my backlog of photos and I must apologize to the companies that sent me stuff that I ended up late on.  But today is a mani I did just for me.  I couldn't sleep and my sister was on night shift so I texted her and asked her her favourite colors and she said "charcoal grey and blue".  This is what I came up with...

Maniology January 2020 Heartbreaker Mani X Me Box

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Hey there!  Since today is Valentine's Day, it is more than appropriate that I get a blog post up about last month's Maniology Mani X Me box seeing as it's theme was Heartbreaker.  I normally try to get these done while the box is still available but I normally only get a few days before the month switches over on the 23rd so it wasn't possible this time around.  I received February's box today if I can find some time to play with it this weekend I'll definitely get a look at it posted next week.  Even if January's box is gone, hopefully someone can find some inspiration with the looks I've create with it.  In case you're unaware, the Mani X Me box is a monthly subscription box (though it can also be purchased on a month to month basis) with 2 exclusive Maniology stamping plates, 2 polishes and an extra.  This month's "extra" was so helpful that I hope they start selling them on their own because I'd definitely buy some.  If you're interested in the box and want to try it out, using the code COPY10 will give you $5 off your first one.  Now let's take a look...