Chic Matte Red Tips

Hello my dears :) Happy Thanksgiving to those of you in the US!

I have been a bit under the weather and felt like a sort of palette-cleanser for my nails. I decided on this simple, sophisticated, matte French-tip look:

(please click to enlarge)

This one's quite easy to describe :) I used my usual base coat (Seche Retain, by the way, which is discontinued and I am struggling to replace it! Why are there always a thousand things I don't need, and the one I do gets axed??) and then two coats of OPI Lost on Lombard for the French tips. I like this deep, muted sort of red. It reminds me of autumn... and wine.

The matte topcoat I added over it all is Picture Polish G'Day Matte.

This is one of those rare times when both hands match, and I've been wearing it for quite a few days now. It feels very clean... but I think next time I'll do something dazzling and sparkly. Stay tuned for that! xoxo

Halloween 2015 | Kitty Skulls & Glitter!

Happy Halloween!

(click to enlarge) :)

Jacaranda-Inspired Textured Gradient

Good day, my dear readers! Spring has come on strongly here in sunny Queensland, and the weather is already starting to feel like summer. I have a massive Jacaranda tree in my back yard, and it's beginning to bloom beautifully. I was inspired by the lovely purple colour and created this manicure!

(click to enlarge!)

Zuza's Fetish - Black BPS Stamping

Hello my dears! Today I have more Born Pretty Store stamping to show you!

Read on!

Black & Gold: BPS Stamping Polish Review

G'day, boys and girls! Today I'm happy to be reviewing some Born Pretty Store stamping polish, and I've created this elegant black and gold mani to show it off :)

The Classic Christmas Lights Mani

Happy weekend, everyone! I hope yours is going wonderfully so far :D It's been rainy here the past couple of days, but I don't mind--I rather like the rain, plus it's a welcome reprieve from the hot summer weather.

For today's nails, the title says it all. Painting Christmas lights on your nails is not a unique idea, but it's one I really wanted to do. I did add my own unique touch, though--I used a matte base and lots of clear coat to make the bulbs really stand out and look like glass! Check it out:

Matte Leopard + Diagonal French

Hello, lovely people!

Today I decided to tone down the crazy colours and sparkles and do something a little more subtle and chic :)

Outdoors in sun

Back to my usual post format, so please click the jump to see more!

#31DC2014 - Day 27 - Inspired by ARTWORK

Yo, what's up? Day 27, and for my "artwork" prompt I took inspiration from street art!

Outdoors in cloudy overcasty light. I know it's spring, but I'm still not impressed, Sunshine State.

My perspective on graffiti has quite changed over the years. I used to consider it all vandalism and, while acknowledging that some of it takes talent, I just couldn't appreciate it. As an artist, I look back now and just think this perspective is silly. Some cities actually encourage it in some areas (hello, Hosier Lane!) to improve the look of plain walls or just as an attraction. Obviously, just 'tagging' does not take much thought or creativity, but well-crafted street art can be such a pleasure to see!

I don't feel like I'm very good at the style, but I had to give it a try. The base for this manicure is China Glaze Stone Cold, a dark matte-shimmer polish that looks very much like tarmac when dry. The white and black accents in this design are acrylic paint, and the colours are China Glaze Shocking Pink (Neon),  China Glaze Pool Party (the more orangey one), Sinful Colors Neon Melon (green), and Orly Glowstick (yellow). I did my initials on the middle two nails, and then some random designs on the others--and a shooting star on the thumb, because yay stars.

I first topcoated with Seche Vite, and all shiny it looked like this:

But to return Stone Cold to its original appearance, and more realistically portray this type of art, I added Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love to finish it off.

As usual, my camera had no idea how to handle these neons. In real life, these colours are eye-searingly bright and awesome :D

What do you think about street art? xoxo

#31DC2014 - Day 19 - GALAXY nails

Hola! Today's challenge prompt is galaxies. I do love doing traditional galaxy manis, but this time I went for something different:

Outdoors in sun

Galaxy chocolate nails! Mmm...

I used mostly OPI polishes for this look--the chocolatey base (and the word "Galaxy") is Suzi Loves Cowboys, and the warm mahogany brown for the wrapper/accent nail is the same polish mixed with a little of A Roll In The Hague, a nice rich orange. The gradiated centre on the wrapper, is My Vampire Is Buff, and the shiny bits on the chocolate is the same mixed with a bit of Suzi Loves Cowboys. (Follow all that?? Haha.) The only colour I didn't have an OPI for is the yellow bit, so I used Zoya Darcy for that. The black for the separation between chocolate squares is acrylic paint. And finally, KBShimmer Clearly On Top over the accent nail, and NYC Matte Me Crazy topcoat on the chocolates. It's more of a wax-finish than a true matte, which I felt looked most like the candy.

Posing with my phone, which is also a Galaxy. Hur hurrr :)

Another indoors with flash

Outdoors in sun

Anybody hungry for some yummy choccies now? :D

Join me tomorrow for one of my favourite types of mani--water marble! xoxo

#31DC2014 - Day 16 - GEOMETRIC nails

G'day and welcome (back)! It's day 16 of the 31-Day Challenge. This day has historically been "tribal", but that's been changed this year to the less-controversial, more fun, and easier-to-interpret "geometric". Really, the fundamental idea is the same. Geometric shapes in your design. But... I went with a more literal interpretation of the theme...

Indoors with flash

Haha! Actual geometry on my nails. Fun, eh?

I started with two coats of Cult Nails Falling Hard, a beautiful pink creme. I knew I wanted a matte base for my sketches, and matt-ified shimmers are très awesome, so I topped the pink with L'Oreal #802 The True Diamond, one of their "Magic Top Coat" polishes. It's SUCH a pretty combo--here's what those two looked like together before I went any further:

Outdoors in sun... so sparkly!

As much as I loved that look, I had to press on with my vision, so I added a coat of OPI Matte topcoat and let it dry completely. Finally, I grabbed a black fineline Sharpie and started drawing everything I could remember from my geometry classes in school.

The thing about Sharpies is that you really only get one try--I didn't want to attempt cleaning up with rubbing alcohol and risk messing up the base--so the sine wave is a little uneven and my cone's a wee bit wobbly. But overall, I'm happy with it!

One more in sun, with Falling Hard in hand

These really take me back! Geometry was actually one of the classes I enjoyed. Feels like forever ago.

*nods* :D

Righty-o, hope you enjoyed these! See you tomorrow! xoxo

#31DC2014 - Day 4 - GREEN nails

Hiya! Day 4 of the 31-Day Challenge is to do green nails. I took inspiration from a pair of my socks! I tend to do that a lot...

Outdoors in indirect sunlight

The base is China Glaze Starboard, and the hearts are done with OPI Green-wich Village and a small brush. They are very similar shades, just as the pattern on the socks is very subtle:

 

I used OPI Matte topcoat to take away the shine, and when it was almost dry, I gently pressed the socks into them to give them the same texture. It sort of worked. And by that I mean, not really at all. :P

Outdoors in shade

Indoors with flash

How'd I do? :)

I hope you liked these. See you tomorrow for day 5 and blue nails! xoxo

Matte + Shiny Stripes: Blue for Autism Awareness

Hello! I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend so far.

After my last post, I wanted to play around more with multi-finish looks--I think a combinaton of matte or wax finish & glossy just looks so chic! I also wanted to do a blue manicure to honour Autism Awareness month. So, with those two concepts combined...

 

Silver Metallic Matte + Foil Tips

Hello, lovely ladies and gorgeous gentlemen!

Sorry for the delay in posts! In preparation for some renovations starting tomorrow, we've been tearing the house apart and packing things out of the way, and my poor nails had to be neglected. The good news is, I didn't break any and I'm all caught up on manis and I have posts scheduled for the 5-6 days I'll be out of the house. You won't even know I'm gone ;)

Today's design was inspired by this awesome design by More Nail Polish. I don't have any gold foil, and unlike Cathy, I prefer silver over gold--so I used that instead!

Swatch Time! Metallic Cobalt Blue & Chunky Rainbow Glitter

Hello hello :)

Today's post is relatively simple--I just want to show off a couple of new (to me) polishes today! A chunky rainbowy glitter by Face of Australia, which I'll show you second, and then a really gorgeous shimmery blue.

Chinese Royalty Inspired Red & Silver Nails

Hello! I hope everyone is having a nice weekend.

I was browsing randomly the other day, with a vague idea for a design in mind but wanting to be inspired. I ended up looking at some beautiful images of the type of fashions worn by ancient Chinese royalty and higher-ups. Bright, rich colours with ornate and intricate details, usually in gold. I ended up using silver for my details instead, but I hope you can still see the link :)

Outdoors in indirect light. Please excuse the slight error in stamping--was hardly noticeable IRL!

The silver nails are two coats of the polish shown above--OPI This Gown Needs A Crown, from the 2013 Miss Universe collection. A beautiful silver that has a matte/satin finish, yet still manages to sparkle and gleam in the most captivating way. It looks so impossibly rich and deep. I want polishes with this finish in every colour imaginable. OPI has really outdone itself with this stunner!!

Over that, I added a row of red metallic studs from Born Pretty Store. Usually I would adhere these with topcoat, but I didn't want to mess up the finish of the silver, so I used dots of nail glue instead. I got it all over one of the studs on the middle nail and it isn't as shiny as the others, and I know nobody else would notice, but it bothers me! However, it did the job and I think it looks very refined.

Outdoors in sun. I love the little crown adornment on the bottle which can be a ring.. too cute! And look at that silver glow. It really is magnificent.

The red base on the other nails is actually one I made myself--I had an old bottle of topcoat that was about 1/4 full, and two red Petites cremes that were nearly identical and about half full each. The small reds were called Rockin' Red and Hot Sauce. I'm a Judas Priest fan. The resulting franken, therefore, was dubbed Hot Rockin'  :D  Here's a quick swatch of it:

Two easy coats, no topcoat (since it was made WITH topcoat, it doesn't need more!) I love that it's mostly a squishy plain red crelly, but has that blue shimmer at certain angles.

I used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Silver Sweep to stamp the cascading diamond image from Bundle Monster plate BM-404. This was a plate in their "user created" plate set, and I think it's perfect for this look I was going for! These nails were topcoated with INM Out The Door.

Another in sun, along with the thumb.

My right hand was a reverse of this--the index and middle nails were red with stamping, and the other nails were silver. I didn't have enough studs, though, so I cheated and did red dots with Hot Rockin' in a line instead. I wish I could say "you could barely tell at a distance!" but that isn't true--the metallic, 3D look of the studs is very different to anything I could do with this polish. Oh well, it looked passable anyway, and still pretty.

One more, indoors with flash. I may never take this silver off...

I may be biased, since silver is one of my favourite colours to wear anyway (especially on my nails), but I think This Gown Needs A Crown is a must-have for any polish lover. It's AMAZING.

And now I shall stop gushing and let you go on with your day ;) thanks for stopping by. Have a lovely sparkly day!! xoxo

Red, Black, & White Party Skittlette*

*with apologies to Marta for the name!

Hiya! I went to a party this weekend, and wore a black top with red, black, and white shoes and accessories. It was the perfect occasion to match my nails to my outfit, so...

...I did :D

The feathery thing you see me holding here is the headband I wore! It has a black band that disappears in my dark hair, so you just see the cool red feather. Très chic, in my ever-humble opinion ;)

But right, you came here for the nails! I'll just go down the list...

Index finger: China Glaze Adventure Red-y & Wet 'N Wild Black Creme, topped with NYC Matte Me Crazy. This matte is actually more of a wax-finish topcoat, and reminds me of Cult Nails Wax That.

Middle and ring fingers: Two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls (nice off-white creme), stamped with Konad black and Bundle Monster plate BM-016. The centre of each flower has one individual glitter from Milani Jewel FX Red, except the biggest flowers, which have a small red rhinestone.

Small finger: Base of China Glaze Adventure Red-y, then several sponged coats of the aforementioned Milani red glitter. Not really sure how many coats--maybe 3?--I just went until I felt it was thoroughly covered.

Thumb: Same as the middle and ring fingers, but with Wet 'N Wild Black Creme covering half the design, just for some visual interest :)

All topcoated with KBShimmer Clearly On Top (except for the matte-ified one, of course).

I was kicking myself for not picking up the new Cult Nails Passionate Dreams collection while it was on pre-sale, because Kiss (a lovely red with a wax finish) is SO pretty. However, this NYC matte topcoat with some of my medium reds seems to mimic the effect quite well! I think the red I used here is too dark, but others I played with (Revlon Red, for example) was pretty much dead on.

The different finish of the index nail shows up well here.

One more in the sun. :)

Glitters are so hard to photograph! I wish the sparkle and glow of the small nail had come through in any of the pictures. In real life it's very dynamic and looks like Dorothy's shoes in the Wizard of Oz.

Anyway, that's all for today. As always, I hope you enjoyed this post. Thanks for reading today, and I'll see you soon! xoxo

Alphabet Challenge: W is for... Wet N' Wild Water Marble

Hello, my dear readers :) Welcome to day 23 of the Alphabet Challenge, and the letter W! Getting this post up on a Wednesday to boot. I totally did that on purpose...

Lots of wild stuff going on here!

Couple of layers going on with this! First I laid down a base of two coats of Wet N' Wild French White, which is (as you might guess) a plain white creme polish. Over that, I dabbed two coats of China Glaze Glitz N' Pieces. This is an awesome chunky silver and black glitter combination--they did a whole collection of black-and-<insert colour> glitters called Bitz N' Pieces. The whole collection can be seen swatched here over white over at Beauty Junkies Unite. I didn't get a pic at this stage, but it looked exactly like her swatch of it, at the bottom of the post :)

I wore that for a day, then decided I wanted to kick it up a notch. I did a water marble with Wet N' Wild Black Creme and a cheap clear polish (no name, but a regular slow-drying clear) to get this look. The base shows through the clear and the black swirls really look cool! I first topcoated with Cult Nails Wicked Fast...

OK, they were super sparkly, but it's hard to tell here except on the small finger. The black looks nice and bold, though.

...but then I remembered how cool chunky glitters look with a matte topcoat, so I added a layer of the cleverly-named OPI Matte Top Coat.

The most fabulous zebra ever.

And just for fun (and because the design came out really cool on the thumb), here's a with-and-without-matte-topcoat shot of my thumb:

My entire thumb, nail and all, is the height of just my nail in these photos. MADNESS.

I hope you enjoyed this wonderful design for the letter W! ;) Have a lovely rest of your week and I'll see you next time! xoxo

Alphabet Challenge: N is for... Nein! Neon-Dotted Tips

Good day, my friends! On this nice Sunday afternoon I have some N-inspired nails for you:

Nein! Nein! Nein! OK Fine, you can put dots on top of me

I just love neons in the summer :D Let's break it down!

The tips are OPI Nein! Nein! Nein! OK Fine! -- the bottle you see in the pic. Nice creamy dark grey, in which some say they swear they can see green tones. I can't... maybe my bottle is defective, or perhaps my brain is. Either way it's a nice grey, and two coats covered the tips quite well.

The neons I used for the dots are Sinful Colors Irish Green and Neon Melon (yellow), and China Glaze Shocking Pink (Neon). I used two sizes of dotting tool to create this look, putting down white dots first to make the neon pop against the dark background. I also used my black striper to line the tips, neatening them up--plus I liked the contrast; it makes it easy to see that the tips themselves are grey rather than black.

Finally, topcoated with NYC Matte Me Crazy. This is a bit less matte than some of the others I've seen... it's almost a wax-finish, which suits me fine. The other wax-finish topcoats I've looked at were fairly expensive, and this was $2.99! So I'll take it in a heartbeat.

Claw hands! Another pose with the bottle.

And one in the sun, which really shows off how bright the neons were compared to the rest :D

Neons make me look tan! *pose*

That's all for now, folks. I stayed away from holographics for a whole post! Next time we won't be so lucky... muahaha, I shall assault you with rainbows again :D see you then! xoxo

Clash of the Finishes: Holo Pink + Matte Black nails

Hallo! Eep, been nearly a week since I posted! I actually kept my birthday design on for five whole days. Whaaaat? Who does that?

But they were so fun :D

I did promise a cool new challenge, and I've already done a couple of manis for it! But before jumping into that, I want to show you a few others I had been saving. This is one I wore a few weeks ago. I love contrasting-finish manicures that use different types of polishes, and I always love wearing holographic colours! So, this happened:

So rainbowy and fantastic!

Simple yet mesmerising, eh? The pink base is the fabulous Color Club Miss Bliss. Two effortless coats, amazing linear holo effect even after adding topcoat. Perfection in a bottle.

I swiped on the diagonal-French tips with Piggy Polish Right BLACK At Ya. It dries quickly and to that cool matte finish on its own. Originally, I hadn't been thinking about it and was going to topcoat this, but then I thought NO THIS LOOKS FLIPPIN' SWEET.

Another, beacuse I couldn't decide between this pic and the first one. Can you? *_*

Both of the above pics were taken indoors with flash, because unfortunately, the sun didn't come out when I had it on. But you know, these Halo Hues are so amazing you can see the linear holo even in low, indirect lighting! Check this out:

aww yeah it's a friggin KOOSH BALL, why yes I am awesome thank you very much

See that? No flash, just indoors with some weird fluorescent lighting (hence the odd skin tone). And still, the rainbow effect is so brilliant they seem to glow of their own accord. I just love these polishes. Also that Koosh ball. (Seriously, that above pic makes me so happy. Haha.)

So yeah! I might have another post or two before I start the challenge, because I was given some beautiful polishes for my birthday and I need to show them off! See you next time xoxo

Nails Inc. Bling It On Rebel Nail Art Kit: Review & Skittle Mani

Hello! Today I have a manicure that stands in stark contrast to the almost angelic look of the last one :) I picked up the Nails Inc. Bling It On: Rebel kit not too long ago and have been itching to try it out. I used it as well as a few other polishes to do a punky skittle manicure. Check it out!

badassssssssss :D

I'm really liking this look! Nails Inc. has several cool nail art kits, but this "Rebel" kit is the only one so far that I felt really compelled to pick up. The kit comes in a box that looks like this:

It comes with a bottle of black "leather" textured polish called Soho, ten small silver square studs, ten small Swarovski crystals, ten large ones, ten small black stones, and four silver skulls with crystal embellishments. It also has a bottle of nail glue, but it is a regular squeezy bottle and doesn't have a brush, so I promptly emptied it into one of my other bottles that does have a brush--ha. Oh yeah, and a couple of orangewood sticks for picking up the decorations :)

The leather-effect polish is COOL :D  I didn't think it looked leathery in the pics I saw online before, but in person, totally does. I'm super diggin' it!

Similar pose to above, but with flash--I think it shows the texture better.

I used a few other polishes as well, obviously. Let's go down the list!

Thumb: Nails Inc. Soho Leather Effect polish + skull decoration
Index: Hot Topic brand silver polish. No name, but it's really nice. And the bottle has fishnet pattern and a skull on it, so it's kind of fitting for this mani :D Then of course, two of the small black stones.
Middle: Nails Inc. Soho, one silver stud, one small crystal
Ring: Hot Topic silver polish, then a coat of OPI Black Shatter
Small: Zoya Dahlia, one of the Pixie Dust matte-glitter shades

The Leather Effect polish says that for best results, one should apply it without basecoat. I never go without basecoat though, so I ignored this, but followed the rest of the instructions, which was to allow the first coat to completely dry before adding a second. The texture looks great to me, so I don't think my basecoat (which was Seche Retain, btw) negatively affected it.

Zoya Dahlia is similar, in that you're meant to apply 2-3 coats while letting them dry fully in between. The results are spectacular! I didn't think I'd like these Pixie Dust shades as much as I do.

Anyway, the non-textured nails were topped with Seche Vite and... now I'll stop blathering and just show you more pics, since that's what you came for! :P

Click to enlarge--you can really see the texture of the leather-effect polish here, as well as the difference between it and Dahlia. They feel almost identical, but the Pixie Dust shades all have silver sparkles included.

Close-up of the thumb with the wee skull accent. They stayed on surprisingly well, despite getting caught on absolutely everything. Didn't budge until I was ready to remove the manicure and (carefully) pried them off.

So... yeah! Hope you enjoyed this rockin' look. I will definitely play with this kit more in future posts. If you're interested in picking one up for yourself, they can be found at the Nails Inc. website, or at Sephora (for a lot cheaper, if you happen to be in their shipping area)! Or you know, the actual store, but that involves scary things like "leaving the house" and all. ;) Anyway, see you next time! xoxo