Halloween is finally here!! This is one of my favorite holiday's of the year! I love the weather and the parties and dressing up and apple cider and all of it. One of the best things about Halloween is the pumpkin carving! I've done some pretty fun pumpkins in the past and I always try to think outside the box when I do one! So for my nails this year I decided to do some little pumpkin carvings! I used my Born Pretty brush set again for these and I really can't wait to share them with you because I'm already finding so many new things to do with so many options! Anyway I hope you all enjoy your holiday and stay safe and warm!

Here's some of my previous pumpkin art! I usually make my own patterns!

The end has come!! As promised today I'm going to be showing you the difference between using a nail strengthener and simply not polishing your nails. Above you see my final results of four weeks of butter LONDON Horse Power. As I mentioned in my last post I had a bit of peeling but nothing really major and most of it on a previously injured nail. You can see that there's some significant growth and no breaks so that's definitely a plus! On this hand I went polish free with just strengthener for the first week and then after used the strengthener as a base coat under polishes. On my other hand I used NO products. Here are the results of that...

Look at the height of my C curve on the right vs the left. It's nearly double. This is caused by the polish. It creates dryness which causes the nail to curve under more. THAT in turn makes it easier to break the nails. Over dryness can make them more brittle which increases this risk. But in general this is simply changing the shape of my nail. It can be more slight on some people than others but I think that most of us are simply too used to the polished shape to realize that it's not the one we were born with!  Is it serious? No. Will it hurt you? No. But is it better for your nails to grow out polish free? Well...let's just say, it will give you a much stronger base to start polishing!! :)  (as a side note: you can also see in this picture that the Horse Power did not add any thickness to my nail!)

Have you ever tried this experiment? What were your results?

Well we are at the end of week four on butter LONDON Horse Power and this is how my nails look today. I lost a corner of my index nail but I'm pretty sure it's related to the kitty claw injury I sustained early on. Overall my nails seem pretty much the same as they would if I grew them out without strengthener. I did have some peeling with this one as well. Much less than with the OPI and most of it is limited to my index finger so I can't say for certain it was caused by the butter LONDON because I did have an injury. But I also have a few small ones towards the tip of my middle finger. It did seem to prevent staining fairly well and no scary skin growth like with the Rejuvacote. I also like that it's clear so when you want to reapply over polish it doesn't alter the color. I certainly would recommend it to anyone who wants to try out a strengthener. Overall my preference of the three I've tried was the Rejuvacote but I liked that this applies easily and dries quickly. You also don't need to take weeks off like with the Rejuvacote (although they recommend you do!). I'm going to show you the difference between this hand and the hand I left unpolished next week and I really encourage you to check back with that post because it's important to see what polishing really does to your nails. It DOES damage them (though very minimally) and that's why I always recommend growing them out polish free for a few weeks before you resume your polish routine so you get a nice, strong, fresh base to start with. Have you ever used this product? Did you have good results?

Today's small nails look comes to you from Fashion Week again! These nails were sported on the runway shows of Betsey Johnson this year. I really love her but I feel like these were a little tame for her show! At any rate I love how sparkly they are! I think these would be really great in varying colors for the upcoming holiday season. One awesome thing about glitter is it's sort of chip proof! When properly applied it really lasts forever and the even better thing about this is that you can do a really great color underneath and then when it's wearing out a bit just pop the glitter on top and leave it another week! This is the last of the small nails art for the month! There will be a four week update tomorrow and then at the end of the month don't miss the conclusion of my results with butter LONDON Horse Power!! Which look was your favorite?

We're still chugging along with small nails month here at Bee Polished! I promised you guest posts and today I have another one for you! This time it comes from Kirsten of The Geeky Owl! Kirsten always thinks outside the box with her nail art and she loves a lot of the same colors and things as me so that made her a really easy choice for this month's guest post!  Of course, she also rocks the shorter nail look and does it quite fabulously! Don't forget to check out her blog, The Geeky Owl!

I am so excited to be a part of Bee's Small Nails Month! I love that she is doing this feature. Because I sometimes I sit and go through my bloglovin feed and marvel at all the long gorgeous nails that all these bloggers have while looking down at my nubbins. But you know what? I have now come to embrace my nubbins! My small nails can be glorious too!

If you go read through my blog and see the earlier posts, you'll come across longer nails, but they kept breaking or peeling, even with nail treatments. So I tried a shorter/longer version and still they would break. I would also get really bad curving on my index if I let it grow too long. Well, I was sick of fighting it and found if I kept them at a certain length then they were healthy! Less breaks (can't ever say no breaks right?) and no peeling! I find this length to be my optimal nail length.

I love it. Sure, I still look in awe at the long nails that grace other blogs, but you know what? I can scoop out my hair cream and not have it all up under my nail! (one of my pet peeves when my nails get longer!) And even though I have small nails, I can still do nail art! A bonus is that most nail stamping plates fit my nails because they are small! I don't have to worry about the size of the image on the plate! (Now, this is also because I don't have very wide nail beds either). Another bonus? I use less polish? Right? The shorter the nail the less polish! :) Money saved!

In my photo I used Gosh Fairytale as a base and stamped using Konad White and Konad M83.

Another great thing about small nails? They look fab in dark bold colors! Actually, small nails can rock all colors because they are fabulous! :)

Small nails month continues with this cool look I spotted on a model in a magazine!  It's almost a French but then it's not! It's quite simple to do as well and if you wanted you could do a base color to create a really fun layered look. I like this because sometimes French manicures can make short nails look shorter and this is especially true if you're growing them out as a biter and have very different or uneven free edges. You can just drop the line of your French down to about half way and then the little circle pop at the top keeps them from looking stout or heavy. I used butter LONDON Lady Muck for this but I think it could be really fun to do a full white nail and add two neon pops to the tips for the summer! What do you think of this short nail design? Would you rock it?

I used primary colors this time since they're more pop art than neons. I still had a decal but it looks kind of spongy now! I don't mind it though cause it reminds me of how my brush art sometimes looks when I don't want to be heavy handed.  I freehanded my dots this go round as well although they're not as uniform as I'd like so I almost wish I'd stuck to stamping! All in all though, I prefer the new look! Which is your favorite?

And don't forget to check out my fellow dozeners art below!!