Wild Wednesday - Jumping Dolphins

Hey guys! I hope that your Wednesday is going well.  I'm so excited for today's Wild Wednesday so lets just jump straight to it!

Photo courtesy of National Geographic.

 Okay, so today's Wild Wednesday is featuring the bottlenose dolphin thanks to the suggestion of www.BigDaddyBeauty.com.  These curious and friendly creatures are being threatened by careless fishing practices that cause dolphins to become entangled in the nets.  Dolphins travel in social groups known as pods and can jump as high as sixteen feet high.  Dolphins range from 10 to 14 feet in length and can live for 45 to 50 years.

So for this manicure, I thought I would recreate the bright blue sparkling waters that the bottlenose dolphin inhabits by creating a jelly sandwich.   For this jelly sandwich, I used two coats of Nicole by OPI Nothing Kim-pears to Blue, one coat of Nicole by OPI Make U Smile, and then a final coat of Nothing Kim-pears to Blue.   I love how this captured the brilliance of the Caribbean Sea.  




In order to create the dolphin, I used Essie's over the edge.  I free handed the dolphin and used a dotting tool to create the perfect eye.  Overall, I think it really captures the look of a dolphin jumping out of the water.

If you love animals and the planet as much as I do and would like to join the Wild Wednesday movement, feel free to message me and I will add a link to your blog on my Wednesday posts.  Otherwise, if you have an animal that you would love to see featured, let me know by commenting on this post or tweeting me @ChippedNailBlog!

Keep those fingers pretty!

Wild Wednesday - Tiger Talons

Hi readers! I hope you are having a wonderful Wednesday.  This morning started off a little grey but the sky is slowly starting to clear so hopefully we will have another spectacular spring day.  I hope you guys are getting to enjoy nice weather as well!  Anyways, I thought I would start a new Wednesday trend.  As you may know, I have studied environmental sciences and hope to pursue a career in protecting the environment.  As a result, I came up with the concept of Wild Wednesday.  From now until the end of June I will be featuring one animal every Wednesday.  I would love to hear suggestions from you guys so email me , tweet me, or leave a comment below with your suggestions!

Image from National Geographic (click here for more info) 

Today's animal is the bengal tiger.  This large cat is native to India and is endangered.  Right now the wild population sits at around 1,250 bengal tigers which is approximately half of all the tiger subspecies put together.  These nocturnal mammals live alone and travel vast distances to hunt other animals such as buffalo, deer, and other large mammals.  They use their distinctive coat as a method of camouflage while stocking their prey. An adult bengal tiger weighs approximately 240-500 lbs and is six feet in length (head and body).  Though generally thought of as fearsome, bengal tigers generally avoid humans.  Not only do bengal tigers look impressive, they sound equally as impressive too! Their roar can be heard from distances as far as 2 miles away.

For today's manicure, I thought I would replicate this large cat's stripes.  To begin, I used two coats of Quo by Orly French white.  This really made the orange pop.  On top of the white, I used two coats of Essie's Action I reviewed this polish yesterday which you can read here).  This neon orange was a perfect contrast to the black stripes.  To do the striped pattern, I used the Konad stamp plate m57 and Essie's Over the Edge.  After stamping I freehand painted more detail to darken the pattern and to make it more realistic.  

Overall I was very pleased with how this turned out.  I really love animals and the environment and believe that it is our job to protect the planet.  I hope that this mani can inspire you to do one good thing for the planet today! 

Have a Wild Wednesday and keep those fingers pretty!

Trendy Tuesday - Favourite Essie Colours

Hi Readers! First of all, I would like to thank A Polish Problem for adding my blog to the Blog Round Up.  I hope that I can share my passion of nail polish with more people everyday! Okay, so today I thought I would write about my absolute favourite Essie polishes out there.  But if I featured them individually, this post would be a mile long (kind of like yesterdays).  Anyways, I got creative and decided to feature all of my favourites using polkadots! This way, you get a taste of each colour in a creative and fun way.

As I wrote yesterday, the weather here has been dreadful.  If it isn't raining, it's snowing (in APRIL!).  It has put me into a bit of a funk.  As a result, I thought I would brighten up an awesome platinum colour with these bright polkadots.  But I ran into a bit of a problem. For the past three weeks I've been on the hunt for a set of dotting tools. In the end, I never did find any.  I've tried Sally Beauty, Trade Secrets, Shoppers, and even Michaels.  If anyone knows of somewhere  to buy dotting tools in Canada, please let me know! Anyways in the end I got creative and used the plastic end of a bobby pin and I think they turned out quite nicely.  


As a base colour, I used two coats of Essie's Playa Del Platinum.  It's from the Resort 2010 collection.   It's a grey-beige blend rather than a pure grey.  The uniqueness of this colour is what originally brought me to buy it.  It truly is a warmer grey.  Then I used four colours for the polkadots. Firstly, I used Essie's E-nuf is E-nuf.  This creamy coral is a great punch of colour. Then I used Essie's Turquoise and Caicos.  This Tiffany box turquoise colour was also released as part of the Resort Collection in 2010.  For the third set of polkadots, I used Essie's Splash of Grenadine.  Again, this colour was a part of the Resort Collection in 2010.  As you can see, this was one of my favourite collections that has been released so far.  Splash of Grenadine is a wonderful mix of lavender and pink.  Alone, this colour almost makes me look like I've got some colour (which is far from the case).  I can't get enough of how it's not quite a true purple nor is it a true pink.  Splash of Grenadine is truly lovely.  The final colour used for the polkadots was Essie's Over the Edge.  This gunmetal grey has a nice hint of sparkle.  As described by Essie, it's "a dramatic metallic midnight silver".  I couldn't have described it any better.  I like how it's not just a flat black, rather it's quite a dramatic grey.

Overall, I love how this manicure turned out.  This was my first attempt at polkadots and I'm sure I'll get better.  Are any of these colours staples on your nails?  Do you use any other home-made tools to polkadot? If so, which ones?

Keep those fingers pretty!

Limited Edition - Axe's Anarchy for Her

Happy Thursday readers! It's almost the weekend and I know I can't wait.  With the madness of exams and assignments over, I feel like I can finally breathe.  For those readers who are still writing their last few exams or assignments, I wish you good luck!  Sometimes it can be hard to find motivation in these last few weeks but dig deep and you'll find the needed motivation.  For me, I normally reward myself with a mani or pedi after an exam or assignment so today I'm talking about something quite unique that I found for a very reasonable price.

 When I was at the grocery store last week I found an end display of Axe.  Now normally I don't like Axe because it's such a strong smell, but this one intrigued me because it's their first scent for women in Canada and the scratch and sniff sticker actually smelled quite light and fruity.  What really sold me was the fact that it came with a hot pink crackle nail polish.  So, for around 6 dollars, I picked up this body spray and nail polish.


For this manicure, I used my normal base coat, two coats of Essie's over the edge, and one coat of Axe's Anarchy for Her.  In terms of application, this crackle goes on very smoothly but I found that sometimes it crackled too little in and too much in other areas.  I also found that the vibrancy of the pink faded once on the nail.  To make this polish less dull, I applied two coats of regular top coat and one coat of fast dry top coat.  I found that this really brought out the pop of colour.  I think that this polish would look excellent over top of lighter colours because the lighter colours wouldn't drown out the pink as much as the charcoal did.

In terms of the body spray, I have no complaints.  According to the Axe website, its a feminine mix of fruit (apple and blackberry) with soft florals and a light finish of sandalwood, amber, and vanilla.  (http://www.axe.ca/#/axe-products/anarchy-her-bodyspray)  Though I may not be a perfume connoisseur, I loved how this spray wasn't overwhelming and lasted for a long time.

Overall, I'm glad that I bought this package because of the body spray.  I think with time this crackle will grow on me and I will learn to love it.

Have you tried this crackle? How do you think it compares to other crackle polishes?

Happy polishing!

Happy Hump Day - China Glaze's Electrify

Hey readers! Hope you're having a great Wednesday.  My week has been crazy.  I'm in exams right now with some major assignments due tomorrow! Anyways, last weekend I went to my local Sally Beauty Supply because they're having a buy 2 get 1 free sale which completely sucked me in.  As a result I have a few new polishes to review for you guys.

Today I chose to do a unique mani with China Glaze's Electrify from the Hunger Games Specialty Colour Collection.  To be honest, it was the only one that really caught my eye from this collection.  It is a glitter polish with a clear base. There are little gold and red circular glitters that are densely packed throughout this polish.   I really feel like this is a nice and dramatic glitter that would be well suited with Christmas colours but I'm a die-hard glitter fan so I don't let seasons dictate my choices in polish.  Anyways, this week I've been a little tired of solid glitters so I decided to switch it up.  For this manicure I used two coats of Essie's Over the Edge as my base colour and one coat of China Glaze's Electrify on the tips of my nails.  I'm super happy with how this turned out.  Once again, pictures never really capture the true brilliance of glitters but I am really in love with Electrify.  The coverage is excellent and it went on beautifully.  It's a perfect consistency and the glitter spreads evenly.

I think this polish may may reappear in combination with other colours throughout this summer.  What do you think of this colour? Are there any polishes that you would like to see reviewed?

Have yourself a happy hump day!