Born Pretty Plate W-02 Review.

Today I have a review of another Born Pretty Store product, one of their plates. This one is basically the ultimate girly stamping plate. 

The W-02 plate has lots of bows, hearts, and even a moon. You can find this plate for $1.54 from BPS.

W-02 happens to have a lot of the same/similar images to another plate from Born Pretty that I own, m59. I didn't want to use an image I've done before, so for today's manicure I chose to use the image in the center of the plate. 

Since the image was very girly I decided I wanted to pair it with a girly glitter I've been waiting for the perfect opportunity to use, Nails Inc. Fulham Palace Gardens. 

The blue polish I used for this manicure is Wet n Wild Saved By The Blue, and I stamped with the Konad Special White polish.

I added some of the glitter to the nails with the stamped design to tie everything together, which I think worked out nicely. This feels like a perfect, feminine manicure for summer.

As always, if you're interested in getting this plate or anything else from Born Pretty, you can enjoy 10% off with the coupon code BRJ61.

Born Pretty Cat Water Decals Review.

This past October I shared my experience with using water decals for the first time. And I ended up loving the manicure I came up with so much that it was one of my favorites of 2013 and I knew I wanted to try more water decals in the future.

And that future is today! This time I went for something that was totally different from what I would normally freehand (as opposed to roses which I did last time), cats.

This is the manicure I came up with. I put the flower and cat decals over a base of OPI Sparrow Me The Drama.

I'll definitely be doing more manicures with these decals in the future, the sheet they came on also had lots of puppies and ducks, and I know I want a dog manicure soon. 

The sheet with all of the decals, which has enough for at least four manicures is $3.99 from Born Pretty Store. And as always, you can use the coupon code BRJ61 to receive 10% off any BPS order!

Butter London Patent-Gel Review.

For the most part I'm very loyal to my Seche Vite top and basecoats. However, when I received the Butter London Paten-Gel Flawless top and basecoats I was very curious about how comparable to a gel manicure they could be. 

I usually don't keep a manicure on for more than a few days, making the long lasting aspect of a gel manicure unnecessary. But I decided to but these to the test during a week where I wanted my manicure to last through finals, Christmas shopping, and traveling home for the holidays. 

I gave the topcoat and basecoat an extra hard test by using them with all glitter polishes, which of course tend to chip very quickly. And I'm happy to say that after my week with this manicure my nail polish has worn a little bit at the tips and suffered very minimal chipping.

I wouldn't say it's quite like a gel manicure (although I've never had one myself) since they did chip a little, but I'll definitely be using these more in the future.

I also tried out a few new polishes (and polish brands that are new to me) for this manicure. I used Mr. Positivity and Atom + Eve from the Sephora Formula X collection and Jenna Hipp Flair Your Affair. I loved these polishes and they made for the perfect holiday manicure.

Merry Christmas Eve!

Born Pretty Star Stickers Review.

I have another Born Pretty Store review for you today! The product I have to talk about are glitter star stickers. I have them in six colors; silver, white, hot pink, black, purple, and pale pink. 

For today's manicure I used two different sizes of stars in the white color. The white has a very pretty iridescent glitter that reminded me of snow. 

The base color I used is Wet n Wild Saved by the Blue (I hadn't broken this color out in forever but I love it!) So far the stars have received very positive reactions and the stars in combination with the blue have elicited comparisons to the 4th of July, Boogie Nights, and Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders.

These work great as an easy way to make any manicure special. They're of course super simple to use, my only tip is to use a thick top coat because they're not completely flat!

Born Pretty also sent me a couple of accessories; a bow ring and a pink lipstick pen which I've been getting a lot of use out of lately.

It's easy to forget that Born Pretty has non-nail related things since they have so many great nail art products. But they have plenty of cute things that aren't related to nails, these are just two examples!

If you want to order one of these items or anything else from BPS you can get 10% off with the coupon code below!

Born Pretty Neon Square Studs Review.

During the time I've been blogging here, I've reviewed a lot of things from Born Pretty Store, many times those things being studs. 

At this point there is only so much to be said, but they keep coming out with new studs that I want to share with you! 

Most recently, I've received a wheel of their fluorescent candy colored square studs. The wheel contains twelve different colors, which basically means endless manicure options! I already have lots of ideas of how to put them to good use, but for today's post I tested out two of the colors.

My first time using the studs I decided to do a kind of creepy, neon drip manicure. I thought it would be fun for Halloween. The polishes I used were China Glaze In The Limelight and Wet n Wild Black Creme. Then I finished off my accent nail with the neon green studs. I stuck them on using my typical method, a little bit of topcoat and a dotting tool.

Since I wanted to give using the studs another shot, the manicure you're actually going to find my sporting for Halloween is the one below.

For this manicure I used the same black polish and just added orange studs to the base of each of my nails. I've really been enjoying the simplicity of this one!

In the future I can't wait to combine lots of different colors and play around with my options. Studs are already so much fun to add to any manicure, and even more so when they're in awesome colors.

If you're interested in getting a wheel of your own they cost $7.59, or you can buy different colors individually for $2.99 a bag. As always you can get 10% off any BPS purchase with my coupon code, BRJ61. 

Born Pretty Rose Water Decals Review.

Finding time for blogging (and good lighting) isn't always as easy during the school year as it is in the summer, which is why I've been absent lately. I haven't been doing any nail art over the last two months or so, but when I received rose water decals from Born Pretty Store, I had to test them out and share the results.

I haven't had any experience with water decals before, so I was very happy to find that there wasn't a learning curve and they were super easy to use right off the bat.

My method was to paint all of my nails and let them dry completely before starting on the decals. The base color I chose for this manicure was China Glaze VIII, I wanted something dark so the roses wouldn't seem to spring-y.

Once my nails were dry I cut out all of the flowers I wanted to use and set them aside. Then one by one I dropped them into a cup of water for a few seconds before pulling them out. Then I used tweezers to separate the decal from the paper backing and placed them on my nails. Once I had all of the decals in place I just added topcoat to keep everything in place.

I love a good floral manicure, and I was very happy with how these turned out! I also tested the decals out for a week and was pleased to find that since I put topcoat on top there wasn't any peeling and they stayed perfectly in place all week.

The decals I used come in three different colors, but the ones I got are called HOT-035. They're currently on sale for $1.99 from $2.99 and you can get at least a few manicures out of one sheet of decals.

Born Pretty also has lots of other water decal options and if you're interested in trying those or anything else from BPS you can use my coupon code BRJ61 to get 10% off your order!

Born Pretty Holographic Polish Review.

Today I have another product from Born Pretty to review for you, this time it's a silver holographic polish.

There are a bunch of fun color options available, but since a good silver holo was missing from my collection I chose the polish in effect #1. 

The polish bottle is pretty small, it holds 0.2 oz of polish. I found that the brush worked nicely. 

The polish is very sheer, but it is buildable. I was able to get it opaque (in the picture below) but I lost count of how many coats it took. I didn't let this dry, but I imagine it would be quite the time commitment because of how thick it ended up being.

The better option (pictured below) is to do a coat of a silver polish (I used Sally Hansen Silver Sweep) and then a few coats of the holo polish. It's much quicker and ends up looking just as nice.

I don't know a ton about holographic polishes but I thought the holo effect was pretty strong. It looks very pretty in the light. Holos tend to look the best in the sunlight but it was still quite fun to look at inside.

Overall I'm happy to have this polish added to my collection, a bit of holographic polish is an easy way to dress up a manicure!

The polishes are available for $5.59 each and you can get an additional 10% off using my coupon code.

Born Pretty Neon Studs Review.

When I saw that Born Pretty Store had new neon studs I knew I had to try them. I've had good experiences with all of the studs from BPS that I've tried in the past, but this was my first experience with a colored stud. And they're so much fun! They have 11 different color options, the ones I chose were the bright blue (#7) and light lime green (#9.) I also think the neon yellow (#1) is super cool and could make for some awesome summer manicures. (It was sold out when I chose which colors I wanted, but it's in stock now!) 

The studs come in little bags and there are 200 studs in each, plenty to create lots of different designs.

When it came time to put the studs to use, I chose a bright base color (China Glaze Rich & Famous) and went for a random design. As far as application and wear and everything else, these worked just as nicely as any of the other studs I've reviewed in the past.

The only real difference are the colors, which are of course awesome. On the nail I think they give off a kind of candy-esque vibe. You could get more of the colors and do a candy buttons manicure!

The typical metal finish studs create more of a grunge-y look, whereas these are more youthful and fun.

After testing the studs out for this design, I'm sure I'll continue to use them in the summer and spring.

If you want studs of your own, each color is $4.24. And you can get 10% off using the coupon code BRJ61!

Born Pretty Nail Foils Review.

I officially have a new obsession! I love nail foils. No matter what you do with them they look awesome. Today I'm reviewing the nail foils from Born Pretty Store, which are the first foils I've ever tried. 

I chose three different foil colors/designs. The ones I have are #6, 7, and 19. There are 27 ones to choose from, and I'm pretty sure you can't go wrong. (Although I've seen a few people use #27 and have really awesome results!)

I didn't really have any idea how to use nail foils when I picked these out, I just knew they looked pretty and I had to have them. When they came in the mail I looked up directions on the BPS website. It required a bit of trial and error for me to get things right but once I had one nail that looked good, it all went seamlessly from there.

I used the polish I've already declared as my summer favorite, OPI Can't Find My Czechbook as the base color and used all three foils on top. I read about a few different methods but ended up sticking with the one suggested by BPS. I did one coat of the base color and let it dry completely. Then one nail at a time I did a second coat, which I had to let dry to the perfect consistency. You should be able to make a finger print mark, but you don't want it to be too sticky because that is when all the polish smudging will occur.

Once I had the right consistency I took each foil and lightly pressed it (foil side up) against my nail wherever I wanted the design to show up.

I loved how this manicure turned out, and I'm excited to try out more foil manicures in the future. There are so many different ways to use them (incorporating them into a design, covering the entire nail, small splotches, bit splotches, etc.) and I'm already thinking of fun combinations.

If you're interested in getting nail foils of your own each one is only $2.29. There is a lot of product inside the little jars and you could get a lot of different fabulous manicures out of one. (My favorite of the ones I tried ended up being #19 which is the awesome silver holographic one incase you were wondering!)

If you decide to purchase foils or anything else from Born Pretty you can use my coupon code (as always) and get 10% off your order!

Spring Fever VoxBox.

If you've been keeping up with Holy Manicures for a while now, you've probably seen one of my posts mentioning Influenster. If you're just joining us or have forgotten about Influenster, it's a website where you can sign up and receive boxes full of awesome, free stuff. In return you post about what you received on the forms of social media you use. It's a pretty great program, and if you haven't signed up yet I recommend it!

I recently received my fourth VoxBox, which I was excited to find had three beauty items inside.

One of the items was the Broadway Nails imPress press-on manicure in Over the Moon. The pattern mimics a water marbled design, which can of course be a real pain to do, and is the perfect kind of design for fake nails.

I personally don't wear false nails because I don't have a problem growing my nails out, and I like my natural nails better. However, I did originally plan to take these for a quick test drive. The only issue was that I believe these are meant to be used by people with quite short natural nails and I found that my nails were too wide at the tops for the fake nails to cover them completely. I appreciated that these fake nails were a very reasonable length, but since my real nails were of a similar length it didn't quite work.

If I was typically a fake nail wearer, I don't think there would have been a problem as I would have happily been able to trim my own nails down and rock these. But alas, that isn't the case and since I'm working on getting my nails longer, it was a no go.

So, I can't offer my personal experience with wearing the nails, but I can say that if one of my friends was going to be wearing fake nails, I'd recommend these. As I already mentioned I like the pattern and the length, but there is also the important fact that you don't have to use any messy glue, and it's a nice bonus that the packaging is totally cute and functional! I'll be passing these on to a friend since I couldn't get much use out of them.

The other beauty products in the box were Osis+ Dust It, which is a mattifying and NYC Applelicious Glossy Lip Balm, which seems to be their response to Revlon Lip Butters or Maybelline Baby Lips. Since I prefer to focus on nail related things here I won't go into too much detail about these items. The mattifying powder doesn't really serve my needs although has a lot of great reviews (it's better suited for someone with fine hair.) The lip balm is in Big Apple Red, and provides a nice sheer wash of color. I don't wear red lips much, but I approve!

OPI Nail Polishes Review.

If you've ever gotten a peak at my nail polish collection, you'd easily be able to tell that my favorite brand is OPI. So of course when I was offered to pick a few OPI polishes to review, I jumped at the chance!

I decided on six polishes that I thought I could get a lot of use out of during the summer; Can't Find My Czechbook, Dating A Royal, You're Such A Budapest, OPI...Eurso Euro, Sparrow Me The Drama, and I Don't Give a Rotterdam.

I've had the polishes for a few weeks now and have had the chance to wear them all. They all applied very nicely. I needed two coats for each of them except for I Don't Give a Rotterdam which required three.

In the past I've mostly reviewed nail art products and not polishes, so at first I wasn't sure how I wanted to go about doing my review. This has never been a swatch blog, so I decided to keep it that way and do a few nail art looks with the polishes instead.

The first design I did uses OPI...Eurso Euro, Can't Find My Czechbook, Sparrow Me The Drama, and You're Such A Budapest.

I thought this dotted manicure would be fun for the summer, I really liked all the spring-y colors on the darker purple base color.

The second design I did used I Don't Give a Rotterdam, Sparrow Me The Drama, and Dating a Royal.

This time I went for a dainty floral design, I liked the look of the creme finish polishes over top of a shimmer one.

I was very happy with my choices of the OPI polishes, they're already becoming key items in my collection. Can't Find My Czechbook has been my favorite so far, I've already dubbed it my favorite polish for summer!

OPI nail varnishes are available for purchase at Littlewoods.com! 

Born Pretty Plate QA19 Review.

The last few items I received from Born Pretty Store were ones I picked out in December, and one of the things I was sent along with those was the QA19 stamping plate, which is Christmas themed. Of course I ended up receiving the plate in the mail a day or two after Christmas, and it didn't end up getting much attention. I didn't want to end up doing a Christmas manicure in April, but I did think I'd test out the plate a little so I could still review it!

I was happy to find the images all stamped very clearly! Even though they're all pretty small (fourteen images have been fit on this one plate!) the details showed up clear and didn't get smudged together. I was really pleased with how this plate stamped, and I can already imagine plenty of cute manicures I could use it for when Christmas rolls around again. If you're interested in getting this plate to prepare for holiday season in advance, or want to buy anything else from Born Pretty, you can use the coupon code below to get 10% off any purchases! The plate costs just $2.99 pre-coupon code, and you can find all the other Born Pretty items I've tried, here.

And just for fun here are what my nails look like at the moment. There was originally going to be a little stamping too (not the Christmas stamps) but I was having some serious issues with the plate I wanted to use! The polishes are China Glaze Some Like It Haute and Purple Panic.