*Before we begin, I need to state that this post is not sponsored in any way or form. I just really like this app and wanted to share it with anyone else who may need it in their life!

Any avid collector of nail polish knows what the struggle it is to maintain their nail polish collections. The more nail polish you own, the harder it is to keep track of what polishes you already have. I'll go shopping and find a nail polish that I like, bring it home, and realize that it's a shade that I already own. I used to take pictures of my swatch boards back when my collection was manageable, which helped when I was trying to figure out if I owned similar shades. But now that I own somewhere between 250-300 polishes, I'm apprehensive to buy a lot of polishes because I don't remember if I already own them or not.

So I decided to browse the internet for an app that would help me keep track of what I own. I mean sure, I can keep a list of all the polishes and shades that I own in the notes app on my phone. But I'm a visual. I also wanted to be able to search my polishes by colours, finish, textures, etc as well.

I found two apps that seemed to be what I was searching for. The first is Nail Polish Book and the second is Glossy.

At first, Nail Polish Book seemed okay, but I wasn't able to add subcategories to search by. So I downloaded Glossy instead, which started to be love at first site... until I realized the app was free with "in app purchases". The purchases honestly aren't that expensive, but I don't like having to pay to use a full app. Without the in app purchases you can only store 5 polishes... and when you have 250+ polishes that isn't very helpful. I did like the features in Glossy though. You are able to store four images for each polish which made it extremely helpful to view the polish, the swatch, and any nail art that you've created with the polish. To increase the lookbook and add more pictures, the price is $2.79USD to unlock. The price to add unlimited polishes to your collection (which is 100% necessary if you own more than 5 polishes) is also $2.79. However, if you wanted to fully unlock all the features, the price is a mere $3.99 (which saves you $1.59). Honestly, for $4, that's a pretty good deal to keep track of your excessive nail polish collection!

Screen shots of the Glossy app from the App Store for iOS

But what if you don't want to pay money at all for in app purchases? What if you want to use an app that is entirely free?

After I realized that Glossy wasn't a completely free app, I went back to Nail Polish Book. After playing around with it for a bit, I realized that there is no need for subcategories. The app allows you to add certain features about each polish: the shade, brand, and collection. It also allows you to add comments for each polish, and you can use the comments section as a search tool! So let's say I want to add Sidewalk Psychic by Color Club to my collection and I want to be able to search it by two key words: "red" and "holographic". I make the shade "red" and add the word "holographic" to the comments section. Then voila! When I search either word, the polish will come up in my search results. The only thing that I wish I could change about Nail Polish Book would be the ability to add more than one picture for each polish, which means that Glossy is more helpful in that aspect. But I'd rather go for Nail Polish Book because it's completely free.

Screen shots of the Nail Polish Book app from the App Store for iOS

The one thing I'll note is that if you have giant collections of nail polish, compiling your inventory is going to be extremely time consuming ⎼ especially if you hate typing things out on your phone. And while I could just take pictures of my polishes myself, I want the images to look uniform. So I've been scouring the internet for stock photos of the polishes I own. This has been proving to be a difficult task as a lot of the polishes that I own are old, discontinued, indie, or not sold online (or the images that I find online are terribly pixelated). Another downfall is that both apps are only available for iOS devices, so they won't be compatible for anyone with Samsung, Huawei, Sony, or other non-Apple devices.

I'm extremely grateful to have found the Nail Polish Book app. The next time I go shopping and I'm unsure of if I already own a polish or not, I can consult my app! This is going to be so helpful. I'm never going to have to call my fiancé while I'm shopping again, and be like, "Babe. Do me a favour and go to the nail polish shelf. Go to the Color Club section on the top shelf. Go through them all and let me know if I already own Cherubic. It's a holo. Kinda browny-gold. Yes this is important. No, it can't wait. Babe, please. I need to know if I should buy this polish while it's here at Winners for $4 or if I should just come home. Ugh, it's not that hard. I only have like 10 of these holos for you to go through. You know what, fine. I'll just buy it anyways. Thanks for the help." Click. And trust me, I have had this conversation with him. He puts up with my nail polish nonsense so much! This app is going to be a life saver.

TopBox has sent me some Burt's Bees products to review, and I'm about to spill the tea on their makeup. I wanted to love the products that TopBox sent me because it's Burt we're talking about here. The brand is super popular and mostly known for their lip balms. They also don't test on animals, and their products are formulated without parabens, phthalates, SLS, petrolatum, talc, or synthetic fragrances. But the products didn't wow me, and one particular product was so awful that I'm debating tossing the bottle in the trash. And I hate wasting products.

Burt's Bees Goodness Glows Liquid Foundation - $20.99

Burt's Bees 100% Natural All Aglow Lip & Cheek Stick - $20.99

I had a slightly better experience with their 100% Natural All Aglow Lip & Cheek Sticks. I received the shades Suez Sands and Dahlia Dew. Their lip & cheek sticks retail at $20.99. I've never tried a cream blush or a stick blush, let alone one that doubles as a lip tint. This product tries to be versatile, but that makes application dirty and germy. If you're using this product on your face then your mouth, you're going to have to wipe it off between uses otherwise you're applying a cesspool of germs onto your lips. I wouldn't recommend using the stick directly on your face (which is literally its sole purpose as a stick product) because it will move your foundation around relentlessly. I found that the best way to apply it to my face to swipe a clean makeup brush against the stick, then to dab it onto my cheeks. You can also use your fingers to transfer the product from the stick to your skin, but the lighter you dab (which is easier with a brush), the less likely you'll be disturbing your foundation. Paired with the Goodness Glows foundation, blending the two were difficult, and if not done correctly, will make your foundation patchy all over. As a lip tint, the product applies well and will last an hour or so. And I'll admit, as a lip tint it does feel nourishing. Colour-wise, Suez Sands is a dusty rose colour and applied very lightly, which looked natural on my cheeks but not opaque enough to be noticeable on my lips. Dahlia Dew is very red and I found it to be too dark to look natural on my cheeks, but added a nice darker tint to my lips.

Burt's Bees 100% Natural Highlighter/Bronzer Stick - $20.99

The Burt's Bees 100% Natural All Aglow Highlighter Stick and 100% Natural All Aglow Bronzer Stick retail for $20.99. You will need to apply it the same way as you would the cheek/lip sticks: with a brush or your fingers. If you use the sticks directly on your face (more specifically, with the Goodness Glows foundation), you will smear all your foundation underneath. They have one highlighter shade called Opal Mist, which is a soft and opal/cream colour and applies lightly and gives a more natural and subtle looking glow. Their bronzer sticks have two shades, Golden Shimmer and Bronze Splash, which can be described as gold and darker gold. I received darker gold, and it applied like a gold highlighter. I wouldn't use this as a bronzer because it's too shimmery, but I'd definitely use it as a highlighter, especially for warm summer days.

Burt's Bees 100% Natural Nourishing Mascara - $14.99

Lastly, I also received their 100% Natural Nourishing Mascara, which retails for $14.99 and comes in the colours black brown and classic black. It's made with jojoba oil and glycerin to nourish lashes, and is supposed to be delicate for your eye area. I've seen many reviews saying that they thought it was clumpy and flaky. Personally, I didn't see any flakiness whatsoever. As for clumping, maybe a teensy bit, but that can always be rectified by twirling the mascara wand as you apply the product. This is a trick that I use with all my mascaras to create a flawless, clump-free finish. It also didn't hold up very well with water, so if you happen to shed a tear while wearing this mascara be prepared to have it run down your face. This product wasn't the best mascara that I've ever used, but it wasn't the worst. It didn't make my lashes look lengthened or anything, but is good for a more natural lift for my lashes. It was meh, but it's budget friendly for anyone looking for natural makeup products.

I wanted to love these products by Burt's Bees. I wanted to love how they were made from natural ingredients. But I feel like these products missed the mark for me. I can learn to use all the stick products so that I can apply them more expertly. The mascara I can work with. But these products were all meh. Not incredible, but not horrible either. And for meh products, I don't know if I could justify the price points. If you want to make better consumer choices by purchasing natural products, then maybe this is the product line for you. However, the foundation was absolutely horrid and I would never recommend it. Maybe it works better on people with different skin types than me, but this product is definitely not meant for anyone with oily skin unless they want to look oilier than they already are.

P.S. This is the look that I created using all the products (minus Bronze Splash). If you can't tell from the picture below, I suck at selfies! I'm not even smiling. My house has poor lighting, so you can't really tell, but my skin looks super oily/shiny because of the foundation. Opal Mist didn't give much of a highlight, the mascara looks average, Suez Sands didn't make my cheeks look very rosy because it was too sheer, and Dahlia Dew did an okay job adding some tint to my lips, but it didn't last much longer than an hour or so. Overall, the look is very natural. So with the exception of the foundation, I may keep some of these products in my arsenal of makeup for days that I want to look more natural (ie. when I do a no-makeup makeup look).

Born Pretty sent me a thermal gel polish to review (Item ID#43620). I wanted to try a particular colour that Born Pretty sells called Truth of Lie that turns black from clear. I've already tried one of the thermal gels from this collection, so I knew that I'd like this polish. Born Pretty included one of their thermal gels from this collection in my last batch of products that I reviewed, which I think was an accident because it's not one that I requested or was told that I'd be receiving. But I'll show you both of the shades that I own!

The thermal gel polishes dry with a demi-matte finish, but if you don't like that you can always top it with a glossy top coat. Truth if Lie will change from clear in warm temperatures to black in cold temperatures. I find that one coat works fine, but you can use two coats. Just be wary that the more coats of Truth of Lie that you use, the smokier-looking the clear colour will be in warm temperatures.



I decided that for Truth of Lie, I wanted to add a design underneath the polish. I chose a stringed-up star design from an old stamping plate that I already owned from Born Pretty (Item ID#36245). I was hoping that with the smoky top coat overtop, that the design would look less like stars and more like barbed wire. I really wanted this design to look grungy!

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Thermal gel nail polish from @bornprettyofficial (Item ID#43620). Colour is Truth of Lie, which is a sheer/smoky clear to opaque black thermal. Sheer when warm and black when cold. The finish is a demi-matte but you can always add a glossy top coat overtop. Thank you #bornprettystore for sending me this polish to review! 🖤

A post shared by Christina - Blondie's Nails (@blondiesnails) on Mar 9, 2019 at 7:29am PST

The other colour from this collection that I own is Strawberry Shake. It turns burgundy in cold temperatures and hot pink in warm temperatures!



I love both of these thermal gel polishes and would definitely want to try out some of their other shades! I got so many compliments when I showed people that my nails could change colours too. If you guys are interested in checking out some of Born Pretty's thermal gel polishes, they currently retail for $3.40 CAD and Born Pretty offers free worldwide shipping with no minimum purchase!

Born Pretty Store sent me a thermal holographic top coat to review (Item ID #44195), and I'm honestly digging it. For those who aren't aware, Born Pretty has a wide variety of nail art products for low prices, and offers free worldwide shipping with no minimum purchase. This polish is currently retailing for $5.24 CAD.

What intrigued me about this product is that it's marketed as a top coat that can be used over any colour! When I first saw the product several months back, I thought that it was a thermal polish that only came in blue/black and red/black because that's what the stock photos showed.

I wish that I got to photograph some more colours other than the one that I chose to pair it with, but due to an unfortunate incident, I broke my nail on my index finger. So now my picture-hand is temporarily out of commission until it grows out a little.


The colour I chose to test this top coat with is a fun turquoise/green colour called Turned Up Turquoise by China Glaze (Ignore the stock photo on Nail Polish Canada's site if you click that product link. It is waaaaay more green/turquoise in real life than that neon-blue that they show. It also has a matte finish.). I wanted to pick a fun colour that I haven't worn on its own or have been able to fit into any designs I've done in the past.


One coat over any colour of your choosing will look fine, but if you want the thermal polish to be completely opaque over your base in cold temperatures, you'll want to use two coats. The brush is wide and the polish tends to apply a little thick and gloopy. But it finishes really well over the nail and smooths out with thick coat of glossy top coat.


And let's be honest, the results are stunning! The product turns clear when it's warm, and if your nails are long the tips may stay black. When the nails are cold, they'll turn completely black (2 coats makes for a nice opaque black finish).


Photographing thermal polishes is so difficult! Even with a bowl of hot and cold water on standby while taking my pictures, my nails kept changing colours too quickly for me to photograph. My home is warm, so therefore, it will stay my base colour or have the black tips. So how can I get my nails to stay cold? Eventually, I had the bright idea of taking pictures of my nails outside because I'm in Canada and it's winter. Oh boy. Was that the most un-fun idea I've ever had. It worked, but I didn't like it. I stood under the entryway of my home for a good 10 minutes trying to get the right angle and lighting while it was snowing/sleeting/raining a foot away from me. But if it works, it works!

I love it when products that I need in my life happen to fall into my lap. I really needed a new primer that would be kind to my oily skin when Influenster let me know that I'd be receiving Ole Henriksen's new Banana Bright Primer to review.

When my friend who works at Shoppers Drugmart told me that GOSH was being discontinued from their stores, I was a little sad. Their metallic liquid liners were amazing and I rocked the heck out of them when I was in high school. But I'm 26 now, and need to rock some more "adult" makeup looks for when I go to work. GOSH has been pulled from Shoppers Drugmart's stores and has since been replaced with a new brand called Nude by Nature — a brand that boasts being made with 100% natural ingredients and is cruelty-free. The products are all free from parabens, silicone, siloxanes, phthalates, sulphate, PEGS, triclosan, phenoxyethanol, carmine, talc, and bismuth. 

Nude By Nature Cashmere Pressed Blush - Desert Rose - $26

Nude by Nature Natural Definition Brow Palette - Blonde - $30

Nude by Nature Natural Glow Loose Bronzer - Bondi Bronze - $30

Nude by Nature Travel Brush 10 - $28

Nude by Nature Contour Brush 04 - $33

Born Pretty Store reached out to me to review some more products. While I was browsing what items that I wanted to review, I came across their blooming nail polish (Item ID# 44181). The concept of the polish is that you add the drops of colour over your base colour, and watch the drops spread and bloom. To make them bloom even more, you add drops of their clear blooming polish. Born Pretty even has a helpful tutorial on their YouTube channel if you can't understand their pictorial on their product page on their website.

Beauty Big Bang had recently sent me some products to review. One of them is a beautiful green chrome powder (Item ID#J6463TM-1C). Chrome powders can look gorgeous, but only if you apply them correctly!


One of the main things that you will require to use the chrome powders is a gel top coat. I tried using a regular topcoat at first but it dulled the metallic sheen and made the nails look less like chrome. If you don't use a gel base coat or base colour, you will need to make sure that you create a smooth base for the chrome to adhere to. To do this, using new polish, or an old polish thinned out with nail thinner tends to work best. If you create any bumps or dings in the nail, it will show through the chrome and get rid of the smooth mirror finish.

To start off, apply base coat, then a black polish. Next you can either use regular top coat or gel topcoat before the powder. If you use a regular top coat, you must wait for it to get almost dry, but not completely. If you use a gel top coat, simply cure it under a lamp . Then you need to use a burnishing technique to buff the powder in. Pick up some of the chrome powder with the application sponge provided and tap it onto the nail, then very lightly buff it in. I actually found that using my finger tips allowed me to lightly buff in the chrome powder much easier than by using the application sponge. Lastly, apply gel topcoat and cure the nails again.

I rushed through all these steps and it shows in my final look. You can see some of the bumps and dings under the chrome unfortunately. I also wish that my camera could see my nails how I see them, because they looked much more mirror-like and metallic in real life. They looked much more like the stock photo that I've provided below.

Beauty Big Bang offers a growing variety of nail polishes and nail art supplies, and also offers free worldwide shipping. IF you have't checked them out before, they're definitely worth a try!

Beauty Big Bang sent me some free stamping plates and a jelly stamper to review. Today I'll be reviewing 2 separate orders that happened to both arrive at the same time (yay Canada Post strike!). One of these is from an order back in August, and another is from October.

I've received more products from Born Pretty to test and review! I chose a Thanksgiving themed stamping plate as well as a stamping polish to test out and review for you guys. I received them a little too late to post on time for Canadian Thanksgiving, but I hope that my design can at least inspire some of you on time for American Thanksgiving!

I'll try and keep this review short and sweet. Born Pretty sent me some products to test and review, and one of the polishes that I picked was a Peacock Holo Polish in a beautiful purple shade called Rose of No Mans Land (item ID #43165). The polish is a gorgeous colour that looks amazing worn over a coat of black polish or sponged on.

Below I tried wearing the polish three different ways. The first and last nail are one coat of the holo polish over black, my index finger is a coat over white polish, and the ring finger is the holo sponged over black. The polish looks amazing no matter how you wear it!

If you haven't checked out Born Pretty before, they're worth your time to check them out. They offer a wide variety of inexpensive nail art products with free worldwide shipping. I've been using their products for years and I love trying out their new products!

A couple of weeks ago I received some NeosStrata products to test and review for free courtesy of Influenster. It's probably one of the most expensive items that I've ever received from Influenster (or any review program) to review. In the NeoStrata VoxBox, I received four items to review: a facial lotion, facial cream, facial cleanser, and a glycolic peel.

The products that I received are supposed to help enhance skin clarity by smoothing the texture and reducing wrinkles through exfoliation (which is weird, because they're all very smooth products that don't feel exfoliating at all). I'm only 25 and don't really think about using products to target signs of aging, but I do have some thin lines on my forehead that I'm concerned about so I figured that these products may do me some good.

NeoStrata Resurface Glycolic Smoothing Lotion - $45 CAD

The facial lotion that I received is supposed to improve the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, enhance skin clarity, exfoliate with AHAs, and is ideal for people with normal and oily skin. I have oily skin so this product is suitable for my skin type. The lotion came in a 10ml bottle and was okay, but didn't feel like anything special for me. It wasn't the most moisturizing facial lotion I've used, and I couldn't tell at all that the lotion was exfoliating my skin. I do think that it has helped a little with the redness on my skin, but aside from that I wasn't wowed by it.

NeoStrata Restore Bionic Face Cream - $75 CAD

The Bionic Face Cream honestly didn't wow me (and holy hell, look at that price tag). The cream is ideal for dry and sensitive skin, and is extremely hydrating. I received a 10ml bottle and I find that the product goes on very thick, a little sticky, and doesn't fully get absorbed by the skin. I can put it on an hour before bed and still have my face sticking to my pillowcase. My face feels super greasy afterwords which isn't very impressive for a $75 face cream.

NeoStrata Restore PHA Facial Cleanser - $30 CAD

One of the most affordable products in this line, the facial cleanser was probably one of my favourite products that I received. I received a 10ml bottle to test out, which I feel isn't a whole lot of cleanser for this particular product. I feel this way because the product applies a with a jelly-like consistency, and doesn't have much spreadability when applying it to the face. However, it's a very gentle cleanser. It's soap-free and lightly exfoliates without drying out the skin. It's also ideal for dry and sensitive skin types.

NeoStrata Smooth Surface Glycolic Peel - $80 CAD

The glycolic peel started off by wowing me, but quickly turned into my least favourite product from the line. It's a high strength exfoliating treatment that is meant to reduce the appearance of fine lines, wrinkles, uneven pigmentation, roughness, and pore size when used as part of a NeoStrata regimen. It's most ideal for normal and oily skin types. For $80, I thought that this product was going to be amazing. Boy was I wrong. When I started using this product, it definitely reduced the redness of my face as well as diminish the size of some of my larger pores. It stung a little with the first use, and only for a few seconds, but I may have just had some open sores (i.e. I popped some black heads). The more I used the product though, the more white heads appeared on my face. At first I figured it was like the skin regimen that my doctor prescribed me when I was in high school; that my face would get worse before it would get better. But my face progressively got worse and worse. I hadn't had such a bad breakout for several years. So sadly, after two weeks of using the peel, I had to give up on it. It's been a few days since I stopped using the peel and my face has almost instantaneously recovered.

I wish that I could say that I loved these products, but I just can't. For a luxury skincare line, I wasn't wowed. I've tried drugstore brands of products that are more gentle on my skin and don't cause me to break out in horrible whiteheads across my face. I expected more from a brand that is so ridiculously expensive and meant to help my face recover. Instead, it made my face look reminiscent of my years in high school — of when I had horrible teenaged acne. A memory I'd strongly like to forget.

Hello everyone! Born Pretty sent me more items to review for you, and one of the items I chose to review was a stamping polish from their White Night collection (Item ID#42857). The White Night set of stamping polishes has a gold, silver, black, white and red polish. I ended up choosing the red polish called Dark Amor.

Now if you know me, I hate stamping. I also hate red nail polish because it always bleeds when you apply topcoat and doesn't remove easily from the skin with acetone. So what was I thinking, right?

A couple years ago, I created a Halloween design with blood dripping from the tops of the nails. I loved the design because it had Ghostface from the Scream movies, which is one of my favourite movie series. While the design still looked really cool, the red didn't show very well over black polish. I wanted to create a similar look for a Friday the 13th mani and I knew that I needed a red that would show over the black.

Ghostface/Scream nails from October 2016

Thankfully, I already had a stamping plate to create the blood drips. The plate doesn't actually have a blood drip design, as it was from the nail polish themed "Keep Calm and Polish On" plate. It's technically nail polish that's dripping, but I figured that the design could have multiple uses. I bought it from Born Pretty a couple years ago and never used it (because I hate stamping). Born Pretty doesn't seem to sell this particular plate anymore, so I'm unable to share the product link with you.

Recently I was contacted by Born Pretty to review some more products for you guys. One of the items that I chose to review is a peel off thermal nail polish. I haven't really tried any thermal polishes or peel off polishes before, so I figured that I would kill two birds with one stone.

If you're not familiar with Born Pretty, they're an online nail polish and nail art supply store that offers inexpensive items and free worldwide shipping with no minimum purchase required. I love Born Pretty and have been buying their products for years. They're definitely worth checking out!

The collection that I chose from is the Champs Elysees series (item ID#42543). The Champs Elysees collection of thermal polishes has several different colours that are all thermally activated. Each polish is supposed to change into four different shades that are activated by temperature and sunlight.

When the polish is warm, it turns a transparent powder/pastel blue like in the image above. After three coats of polish, the product wasn't fully opaque which was disappointing. As you can see, you can still see my nail tips.


In the sun, the polish turns lilac purple. You can see that it's not fully opaque, but it's a little more opaque than how the polish looked as the powder blue from warm temperatures.

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Beautiful colour changing polish from @bornprettystore! It changes colour in different temperatures and in sunlight! Colour is The Smurfs (Item ID#42543) from the Champs Elysees collection and I used 3 coats. The light blue is in warm water, dark blue in cold water, and it also turns purple in the sunlight. It was hard to take pictures by my window like I usually do because I’d dip my nails in cold water and as soon as I’d go to snap a pic of my nails they’d then purple from the sunlight! Super fun and I definitely want to try out their other colours from this collection.

A post shared by Christina - Blondie's Nails (@blondiesnails) on Sep 25, 2018 at 2:30pm PDT