O.P.I. I Just Can't Cope-Acabana, Where Did Suzi's Man-Go? and Toucan Do It If You Try

When we saw the bottle shots of the O.P.I. Brazil collection for Spring/Summer 2014 we had a moment of tropical excitement - despite braving temperatures in the negatives in chilly Canada. We consistently look for polishes lacking in our collection, and orange and yellows always top that list. After using the yellow polish, I Just Can't Cope-Acabana, we can totally confirm that it is the perfect creme yellow for our nail art needs. If you are starting to get in to nail art or looking to do a rainbow design and lacking a yellow - you need this. If you are looking for bright, punchy orange and orange-y pinks, the other two polishes are for you! 

We used a sponge with some topcoat on it (to prevent absorption of the gradient polishes) and sponged 4 coats on with no base coat. The coverage is pretty amazing for four sponged coats, we are definitely impressed. If these polishes are any indication of what the whole Brazil collection will be like, we will definitely check out a few more! We cleaned up the mani using acetone and a nail art brush, and topped it off with an O.P.I. top coat. 

What do you think of this mani? Would you wear this bright gradient in the hot weather?

Disclaimer: Some of these products may have been provided by the company/PR in exchange for our honest opinion and review.

Spring has sprung! Or is that just our nails? Regardless, we're getting in to the season by sporting some bright and pastel stripes on our fingertips. For this look we used a variety of brands and colours, but the fun of this mani is mixing and matching! Gather a bunch of your favourite polishes and go with the flow. We used striping tape, available here, to create the straight edges for our lines - but you could just as easily use a thin paint brush available at your local craft store.

We started with OPI's Alpine Snow for our base, a classic white with great coverage. We used Seche Vite top coat and let that dry for about 10 minutes, to ensure the striping tape didn't strip the white polish. Then we applied striping tape at different intervals to achieve the bands of different thickness. We used a few of our favourite colours, examples above, to paint within the boundaries of the striping tape. Alternating the order of your colours on each nail makes this mani even more playful, we tried to keep each nail different! Then, after a few minutes drying time, we carefully peeled off the striping tape and finished with a second coat of top coat! Voila, stripes for spring!

Monarch Butterfly Wing Nails

The Monarch Wing Nails on a full hand.

Why we love these:

These nails reflect the beauty of mother nature, and are fun and easy to do! We love mixing this look up with different backgrounds colours (full silver glitter butterfly, anyone?) and even using it as an accent nail to liven a tired mani!

What you need:

• White Polish (we used OPI Alpine Snow, buy it here)
• Black Polish (we used Essie Licorice, buy it here)
• Orange Polish (we used Misa Speed of Life, buy it here)
• Gold Shimmer Polish (we used Chanel Gold Fiction, buy it here)
• Base Coat and Top Coat (we used Essie, buy the top coat here, and base coat here)
• Nail Art Brush and Dotter Tool (buy both in a set here here)
• Makeup Sponge (we used something similar to the Make Up For Ever HD Sponge, buy it here)

What to do:

1. Start with clean, dry nails. Paint each nail with base coat.
2. Paint each nail with two coats of your gold shimmer polish, and allow to dry fully (this is the most important part!).
3. Soak your makeup sponge in water - so it doesn't absorb all of the polish - and paint your orange polish on to one side. Begin sponging at the tip of your nail, and move  3/4 of the way towards one upper corner, creating an ombre style fade of orange polish in to the gold shimmer polish.
4. Using your nail art brush and black polish, paint a diagonal black line from the upper top corner to the opposite bottom corner of your nail. Perpendicular to this black line, draw another black line near the top of your nail.
5. Use the nail art brush to draw two more black lines, dividing the bottom section of your nail in to 4 quarters. Fill in the tip of your nail creating rounded edges (see photo below for clarification).
6. Using the dotter tool and white polish, make some white spots on the black tip of your nail.
7.  After ensuring your nails are dry enough to top coat without running (allow about 5-10 minutes), paint the top coat over your whole nail and the tip of your nail and allow to dry!

Close up of a Monarch Wing nail.