Valentine's Day Nail Tutorial

FOREWARNING: This post is heavily picture ladened. You have been warned.

Happy iheartyou day, everyone! I hope your loved one has treated you well & if you're single, I hope you treated yourself well today! No need to be sad on this "day of love" when you can be your own Valentine & spoil yourself rotten & make yourself feel beautiful with something as simple as a fun mani using drug store nail polish! What's that mean for you? Cheap beauty! Here's our arsenal:

 NYC #111 in Fuschia Shock Creme
Sinful Colors #101 in Snow Me White
Wet'n'Wild Wild Shine #424A in Black Creme
NYC Matte Me Crazy top coat
Small nail design brush {side note: I actually went to Walmart & in the arts & crafts section I pick up a 5 pack on brushes designed for miniature doll house painting. Works wonderful although the brushes are a little stiff}

First things first, make sure your nails are prepped, clean & ready to go! If not, remove any excess polish, clip, flip, whatever! The apply 2 coats of Sinful Colors "Snow Me White" to you thumb, middle, & pinky fingers.

 While the white is drying, take Wet'n'Wild's Wild Shine in "Black Creme" & apply two coats to your index & ring finger. This step is not neccessary if you use a thick coat but I like to apply thinner coats to get a nice even coating. Even one coat was good but I wanted to do 2 just to be safe.

 Now here comes the fun part! Take you thin nail art brush & the "Black Creme" again. Now we're going to draw the tic-tac-toe board on the thumb making x's in all the boxes except the 3 going diagonally.

 After we're done carefully placing our x's we're going to take NYC #111 in "Fuschia Shock Creme" & our small brush again. This time, we're going to draw a little heart in each empty square on our thumb as well as a big heart on them middle & pinky.

 & voila! Now the final step is optional, but I don't really like the look of high gloss black so I took NYC's "Matte Me Crazy" & did a nice coat on my index & ring finger to kind of offset the textures a bit.

See? Isn't that just the cutest little mani!? It's great if you're not too girly but still want to have a valentines day mani. What do you think? Would you rock it? If you do, show me pictures! Tag me on instagram: @JustaGirlx826 or hashtag me on twitter @JustaGirlx826 #vdayblogmani
xox.

Matte Me Crazy

Not sure why, but today feels like a "matte" day. I decided to use Lucky 107's "Elf Cookie" {currently unreleased as on the date of this post}. It's a pretty medium brown with a very obvious coppery-gold shift.

No Flash. Indirect Sunlight. No top coat.

See? Pretty on its own but I decided to go matte today & used NYC's "Matte Me Crazy" top coat just because I could!

No flash. Indirect Sunlight. "Matte Me Crazy" Top Coat.

I love that it doesn't lose the shift when it goes matte. (: Have you tried your nails matte before? What do you think? Matte or the normal glossy finish?

Not All Bronzers are Created Equal

 So as the pretty little graphic above says, this is a Bronzer Comparison post. I decided to do this post after my recent Target Haul {video seen here} & bought 3, yes three, bronzers. So in total I have 4 bronzers now. Who needs that many bronzers? Me. (: I have the Bronzer made by my company Lucky 107 & it's called SunKist; then I have NYC's Smooth Skin Bronzing Face Powder in the shade 720A Sunny, Rimmel London Natural Bronzer in 021 Sun Light, & ELF's Contouring Blush & Bronzer Duo.

In Natural Light, No Flash, From Left to Right:
Lucky 107, NYC, Rimmel, & ELF.

The first Bronzer I'm going to look at is Lucky 107 SunKist. SunKist is a mineral bronzing powder - meaning it's a loose powder. SunKist is VERY sheer & shimmery. Before purchasing my other bronzers, I used this one quite a lot - especially as an all over face powder {on top of my translucent powder} for a natural sun kissed look. SunKist is only available for purchase through the Lucky 107 website & comes in a 10 gram jar with sifter containing approximately 8.5 grams of product for $12.

The next bronzer I bought was the NYC Smooth Skin Bronzing Face Powder in the shade 720A Sunny - which is very popular in the YouTube makeup guru world. Don't believe me, look it up! Go ahead... I'll wait... {& now back to our regularly scheduled blogging}. NYC comes in a compact with one of those annoying powder poof pad... things. Not sure the exact term because they're not really sponges but they're cotton-ball-y... I threw mine away. Blah.  The product itself has a cute little sun design on it & the opposite side has a mirror {wooo! what girl doesn't need another mirror to check her makeup?} It is a matte bronzer with minimal to no orange undertones {everyone says there's none - so maybe it's just the lighting in my house because outside there is no orange cast... hmm..}. I will say that I do find that I have to work my bronzing brush a couple of times over the surface to get some on my brush - maybe it's just me? the NYC compact comes with 9.4g/0.33 oz for around $3 {I paid $2.88 for mine at Target} & can be found at most drug stores, Targets, Walmarts, etc.

My next bronzing adventure is the Rimmel London Natural Bronzer in the shade 021 Sun Light. It's also a matte bronzer with a cool sun design {can't you tell that I'm a sucker for cute packaging?!} This one was a little more expensive than the NYC {I want to say it retails for about $5 or $6 at Target - I got it for $2; yayyy coupons!} but produces a darker shade of, well, bronze. I think this one goes better with tanner people or my pasty butt when I get a tan in the summer. It comes with 14g/0.49 oz for, like I said, about $5 or $6 & can be found at drug stores, Targets, Walmarts, etc.

My final bronzer is the elusive NARS Laguna/Orgasm Blush & Bronzer Duo DUPE {yes, a DUPE!} by Eyes Lips Face {ELF} - entitled: Contouring Blush & Bronzer. This is the darkest payoff of the 4 bronzers that I own & slightly less shimmery than the Lucky 107 SunKist. It does blend out nicely into a smooth light bronze & obviously could be built up as needed. I think this duo should be a staple in any girls purse! It's got the perfect blush & the perfect bronzer in one for a quick touch up on the go. Oh! & it's a compact with a MIRROR! ^__^ Maybe it said it on the box {I'm not sure, I threw it away - hah hah!}, but the packaging itself doesn't say the net weight. It is however $3 & can be found mostly online {here} but I pick most of my ELF stuff up at Target & rumor has it that they're dabbling with extending into Walgreens.

SIDE NOTE: ELF apparently came out with *2* new color shades! So the shade I got is called St. Lucia but they came out with Antigua & Turks & Cacios. I'll review them when I get my grubby little paws on them.

So, all in all, while I do own 4 bronzers, they are each in their own way different - from the way they apply, to how they're package to even their price. Lucky 107 is more expensive then the other 3 put together due to it being minerals & from an Indie company. I like all 4 of my bronzers & I don't think that will ever change. (:

What is your favorite brand of bronzer? I'd love to hear your thoughts on the four I listed above.

HugxKisses.