A Franken By Lissa: "Elizabeth Purr"

Hello there! I have another franken to show you today! You can see my first franken here. :)

Sunlight

This was actually my first franken, but I never swatched it until yesterday! I decided to name it "Elizabeth Purr", some of you might recognise the name right away but a lot of you probably won't, so just keep on reading to find out what the name means! :)
This was inspired by some indies I've seen. I can't remember the names of any of them now though. :/
It started off as a super white base (Ulta3 Lily White) with a ton of multicolour glitter (including Revlon - Sparkling, Radiant, OPI - Rainbow Connection, Divine Swine, BYS - Million Dollar Baby and some random iridescent glitter). But when I swatched it I wasn't a fan because the base was way too pigmented and covered a lot of the glitter. It also looked really chalky and too "stark" white. I'm not a fan of stark white nails on myself. Plus, the glitters aren't that chunky so when I saw my nails from further away, they just looked like white nails.
So I decided to mess around with the polish a bit. I dumped out a bit of the polish to make room for more and added probably a quarter of a bottle of clear polish (Sally Hansen's Mega Shine... Probably shouldn't have used that because it's quite fast drying and that's not always a good thing!), and maybe a fifth of the bottle of BYS - Marry a Millionaire for some more large glitters! I also added maybe 4 drops of China Glaze - Dance Baby and about 6 drops of Sally Hansen - Commander in Chic to make the polish more of an off white.

Artificial Light

I wish the polish came out on the nail as chunky as it looks in the bottle! All the glitters seem to have just stuck on the sides of the bottle. :(

So the polish turned much more "jelly like" after adding the clear polish which is much better for glitter polishes anyway because otherwise you can't see the glitter through the base! I wish I had some chunkier glitters to add into this! I think it'd look a lot better if the glitter was chunkier.

Artificial Light

Artificial Light

I'm happy with how this polish turned out! I like that it's subtle and from far away you can't tell there's glitter but up close you see it. :)
It still looks white on my nails but not like I just painted white-out on them! (Lol! I used to do that in primary school!) It looks like more of a SUPER light, almost-white-lilac-taupey colour.

Sunlight

So, I was trying to think of a name for this polish. Some people on Instagram said that they thought it looks like a jawbreaker! I agree, but I didn't want to name it 'Jawbreaker' because there's an indie polish by Pretty & Polished with that name.

I've never actually eaten a Jawbreaker before, but I always think of the movie 'Jawbreaker' when someone mentions it! I watched Jawbreaker with a friend when I was probably around 14.. I don't even know how my friend convinced me to watch it LOL. I get freaked out EASILY by movies if they have anything to do with death/murder. And if you've seen the movie, you'll know the whole movie revolves around a murder. I barely remember the movie to be honest. I probably wouldn't recommend you watch this movie if you're underage (the movie's rated M15 in Australia, and I believe R in America) because there's a fair bit of swearing & mature themes. ANYWAY long story short, I decided to name this polish 'Elizabeth Purr'. If you haven't seen Jawbreaker you'll probably have no idea what that means, so if you really want to know, go read the IMDB page, or watch the movie. It's over 10 years old so you might be able to watch it online.

I have two more frankens I've never showed you so I might show those to you sometime soon! :) I don't like them as much as the ones I've showed you so far but some people might like them?

I'm not loving my nails at the moment. I feel like the length is kinda awkward. I was thinking of trimming them but I think I might see if I can grow them some more. :) I've just had a few corners chip lately and it makes some of my nails look funny. I usually like to photograph my right hand but those nails are looking a little weird right now so I've been photographing my left hand which I feel like is what most people do because the polish looks neater on their non-dominant hand but not me LOL.

Hope you enjoyed my first franken that has a name! :) I quite like it!

Elissa

MaxFactor Fantasy Fire: A Bottle of Amazing-ness

Hi girls! I have something very exciting to share with you today! :D
Again I have to apologise for not posting for a week. :( I don't wanna throw around excuses but I've only done one or two successful manis this week. So sorry. <3

Artificial Light

Probably nearly two weeks ago, I heard that MaxFactor Fantasy Fire had been spotted in Terri White Chemists here in Australia. And I could've squealed with joy when I read that! I checked my local Terri White a couple of days after but didn't find it. The next day on Instagram, Angela posted that she found Fantasy Fire in Target! I literally jumped out of my chair and basically ran (ok more like power walked) through rain and FREEZING cold weather to go and buy this beautiful bottle of amazingness. I'm not kidding. Within 5 minutes of reading it, I was out the door and halfway to Target! So happy I live a 5 minute walk away from Target! ;)
I saw the MaxFactor display before I even walked into Target and was crossing my fingers that it would be there!
AND IT WAS. I swear I almost started jumping up and down in the store. I probably would've if I had a friend with me. LOL. On my own I would've looked like a lunatic. The display was full and there were even extra bottles of FF on the shelves next to the display! I wish I'd brought more money with me but I only brought enough for one bottle! (They're $5.95AU for a very tiny bottle. - I don't see the exact amount printed on the bottle but I'm guessing about 5ML). Would NOT pay that much for any of the other standard colours in their collection).
From Target I had to go and pick my siblings up from school and walked totally the wrong way because I was so excited! LOL!
So of course I went straight home after that and put this baby on my nails!

For those of you who don't know (but I'm pretty sure 99% of people reading this will!), MaxFactor - Fantasy Fire is a dupe of Clarins - 230, probably one off the most coveted nail polishes ever. I don't know a lot about it but I do know that people have paid CRAZY amounts for that polish on eBay!!

Fantasy Fire is a GORGEOUS, super sheer purple based duochrome shimmer. You mostly see red and green flecks on the nail. It's so hard to describe. In the bottle it's a bit prettier than on the nails but oh my gosh. It's AMAZING. If you can, you need to see this in person. And then clear out the display. ;)
I believe it'd look slightly different layered over certain colours but it looks best layered over purple or blues.
Almost all the swatches/manicures I've seen have been layered over Revlon - Royal so I did this too! Revlon's Royal is a jelly royal (hence the name) blue and Fantasy Fire just looks AMAZING over it!

Artificial Light

Click "Read more" to see more gorgeous photos and info. :)

NOTD: Sally Hansen Nail Prism - Pink Rose Diamond!

Hey girls! I'd like to start off by saying I am so sorry for being MIA again for the past week or so. :( All my manis lately have sucked and I've only been wearing them for like, 12 hours or less before I remove it, or I've just been wearing no polish so I haven't had any NOTDs to post! :( I feel terrible especially since I've seemed to gain a lot of followers and readers in the past week so helloooo to all of you lovely ladies. :)

Today I received a package in the mail that I was SUUUUPER excited for! :D Of course it was a polish and of course I had to put it on right away. ;) It was a Sally Hansen Nail Prism polish!! The Nail Prisms are all holographic or duochrome polishes, you can see more of them here on NailXchange's blog. :)

Sunlight

I bought mine on eBay at a great price so if you want one, definitely head over there because some of them are pretty reasonably priced! Some of the more rare ones obviously cost more (some of them a LOT) however. I think this is one of the most common Nail Prisms and the easiest to get your hands on, but I don't care because it is BEAUTIFUL, and my first proper linear holographic polish! And it did not disappoint. :) I was so happy that the sun was out for most of the day because I think we have rain for the rest of the week! :(

Click 'read more' to see more swatches and more info about this beautiful holographic polish! :)

NOTD: A Franken By Lissa!

Hi guys! I'm sorry I've been lacking some polish posts in the past few days! :( But this has to be one of the most exciting posts for me that I've ever done so far! :) Hope you'll like it too.

Lately I've been loving making franken polishes, which is basically where you mix a bunch of polishes and sometimes glitters to make your own unique polish, or to try to recreate a lemming of a polish you may not be able to get your hands on. ;) I've made a few before but this one is definitely my favourite!

Deborah Lippmamn's Glitter in the Air (or Revlon's Whimsical - a dupe for Glitter in the Air) has been at the top of my wish list for quite a while now! I don't think I'll ever get my hands on the Lippmann but I'd still like to try and get the Revlon dupe!
So, I had an empty mini polish bottle and just randomly decided to make something similar to Glitter in the Air! :D

Click 'read more' to see more pictures and a list of which polishes I used in my franken! :)


I wish I'd taken pictures during the process so I could show you exactly what I did and which polishes I uses to create this franken but I didn't. I can't tell you exactly how much of each polish I added, but here's a list of the polishes I used to make my franken:

• A small amount of Glossyblossom - Bubblegum Baby Blue (Glossyblossom is a brand I've found at Morning Glory stores) to make the base blue
• Revlon - Radiant
• Revlon - Sparkling
• A small amount of BYS - Million Dollar Baby
• And some of a Satin - French White polish (sheer white jelly-ish consistency) to make the base more jelly like and lighter.

I also added in some iridescent blue and pink hex glitters that I got on eBay.

L-R: Glossyblossom - Bubblegum Baby Blue, Revlon - Radiant, Revlon - Sparkling, BYS - Million Dollar Baby, Satin - French White.

As you can see, I've used the Revlon polishes for a few frankens now! I need to stop using them for frankens because I only bought them a couple months ago and Revlon polishes really aren't that cheap here, even though they're a 'drugstore' brand.

Sadly today's weather was HORRIBLE. Raining for most of the day and the sun didn't make an appearance so I was unable to get any photos in the sunlight.

The bottle I used is TINY so I don't think I'd get many uses out of it, so I'm still on the hunt for Whimsical.

The polish I made obviously isn't an exact dupe of Glitter in the Air but it's enough to satisfy my lemming for now! Or until I go through this little mini bottle. ;)
My franken (kinda annoying calling it that over and over. Maybe I should've given it a name...) isn't as sheer as Glitter in the Air but it's not completely opaque either so I'm going to layer it over other baby blues when I choose to wear it. :)

Of course, right after making this franken I HAD to put it right onto my nails! :)
Here I used one coat of China Glaze's Kinetic Candy and one coat of my franken over it!

Macro

All I can say is that I am in love. I'm so happy my franken turned out the way I wanted! I'd definitely recommend frankening! It's so much fun and you can try to make some polishes that you may be lemming! :)

Hope you enjoyed this post and happy frankening!

I'd also like to say sorry for the obnoxious watermarks on my photos. I think it looks really ugly, but there's been SO many bloggers and nail girls having their photos stolen and reposted without credit lately and I want to prevent that from happening to me!

-Elissa

The Liebster Award!

Hi guys!

I was tagged by Bec @ Nail Gun XS for an award! :) I've seen things like this before but didn't really know what it was. But Bec posted a little description about the award so now I'm in the know. ;)

Thanks heaps for choosing me Bec! :) So nice of you. :D Thanks to everyone else who also reads my blog too! I've been blogging for a couple months now and it's really fun! I'm sorry if I forget to blog every now and then or I don't have time. I'll have to get in the habit of having some posts ready on the side for if I'm too busy to post something new. :)

"The Liebster Award is given to up and coming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. I have a tendency to Google everything so I just had to look up what Liebster meant. Liebster is the German word for sweetheart, dearest, favorite, beloved. So I guess this is for your favorite new blog!"

Official Rules!

1. Each person tagged must post 11 things about themselves.
2. They must also answer the 11 questions the 'tagger' has set for them.
3. They must create 11 more questions to ask bloggers they have decided to tag.

4. They must then choose 11 bloggers with less than 200 followers and tag them in their post.

5. These lucky bloggers must then be told.
6. There's no tag backs.

11 Things About Myself:

1. I'm the oldest of 5 children in my family, I'm almost 19 and a half, and my youngest brother just turned 7.

2. I have absolutely no idea what I want to do with my life, career-wise. Or any other aspect either. When I was in high school, I had no desire to go to university or TAFE, or do any further study. I hate when people ask me what I do and I have to tell them "nothing", but oh well. Not everyone discovers what they want to do at the age of 16.

3. I'm currently a youth group and Sunday school leader.

4. I wear makeup about twice a week, maximum. Sometimes I don't wear it at all in a week. When I do, I only wear concealer and occasionally foundation or tinted moisturiser/BB cream, powder, sometimes blush, and mascara. I VERY rarely wear eyeshadow mainly because I don't own many and I suck at applying it.

5. I'm extremely shy and awkward. I love making friends online because I find it hard to make friends in real life. :( It kinda sucks but I love all the great people I've met online. :) To be honest, it's so much fun to make friends online because it's much easier to find people with common interests to you! And it's so fun to talk to people all around the world. :)

6. I LOVE superhero movies! The (Christian Bale) Batman movies are AWESOME. :D I also love the Transformers movies a lot!

7. My favourite singer of all time is Delta Goodrem. I've loved her since I was 9 years old and she was my role model when I was little. I still look up to her a lot. She's been through so much in her life and she's so strong! She's very inspirational. :) I had the absolute pleasure of meeting her in June at the Voice finale. I was crying and shaking on the red carpet and she hugged me. :) Most exciting moment ever! I blogged a little about that here so you can read more about that if you'd like! :D

8. My favourite animals are puppies. I loooove super tiny dogs, I think they are SOOO cute! :D I don't have a dog, but I really want one someday. I have a cat named Sooty, I got him when I was 8! :)

9. And to go along with the dog theme, I've always been scared of big dogs. Mainly when I was little but they still freak me out a little bit. When I was younger I was super short so big dogs always scared me, especially when they'd jump up on me. :/ It still scares me a little when they do that, LOL. I guess I'm just not used to having dogs.

10. My favourite foods are (beware - they're mostly junk foods :/) cupcakes, cinnamon donuts, chicken parmigiana (I always order it when I go out, even if it's not the most "ladylike" thing to order!), gnocchi... And more. I'm making myself hungry typing this. :(

11. My number one place I need to go in the world is the USA. I need to go to Disneyland/world. I forget which is which. But omg. I've dreamed of going there my whole life. I think I'd probably cry walking inside. :/ And if I saw the castle, I'd bawl my eyes out. HAHA. Disney freak. Also I need to go on a huge polish buying spree in the US. ;)

11 Questions Bec Asked Me:

1. How did you start blogging?

I started blogging almost two months ago. I LOVE reading other nail polish and nail art addicts' blogs so I thought it'd be fun for me to start one too! Also I'm very interested in web design and I like graphic design too so having a blog I get to do some of that too.

2. Where do you live?

South Australia. :)

3. If you were stuck on an island what are the top five things you need?

• Nail polish ;)
• Nail polish remover
• Coca Cola. I'm a bit of an addict. :/ Lmao, Bec said almost the same thing.
• Cuticle oil. LOL. I love the stuff. <3
• My boyfriend. :) 

4. What's your favourite nail polish finish?

Creme. Or glitter. :)

5. How many bottles of polish do you own?

Around 150 I believe.

6. If you could have a super power what would it be?

Super nail art skill. ;) HA.

7. What are your hobbies other than blogging?
I love crafts! I've always been pretty crafty and creative. I also really used to enjoy writing when I was in school. I wrote tooooons of stories and things like that. Maybe that's why I like blogging. :) I also enjoy baking and cooking! Though I don't do that super often. Oh, of course doing my nails is a hobby right?

8. What is something you love, but everyone else hates?

Uhhhhhh. Good question. I like Justin Bieber (ooooo now half the people reading this will probably exit!) and I only have like two friends who like him... That's all I can think of. x)

9. What trends do you hate?

Where do I begin. Tights/leggings as pants. Unless it's for working out, or if your top covers your butt, then it's okay. I wear them as pants occasionally, but I'd never wear them out in public. :/ I'm also not really a fan of patterned jeans, but some people can pull it off. Oh and those "booty shorts". YOUR BUTT HANGING OUT THE BACK OF YOUR SHORTS IS NOT ATTRACTIVE. As for nail trends that I don't like, I HATE the caviar/fish egg manicure trend. I think it looks gross. :/ I'd hate my nails to be all bumpy like that! Hope that didn't offend anyone. x)

10. If you won a million dollars what would you do with it?

Buy a car... Then get my license. HAHA. And one for my boyfriend too. :) Buy a house/apartment and move out! Then I'd buy every polish on my wishlist (it's HUGE). :D

11. What are your pet peeves?

Hmm. All that comes to mind is my nail pet peeves... Flooded cuticles, polish all over the skin, dry cuticles (though sometimes I do forget to moisturise too). I can't think of anything other than my nail pet peeves... Edit: OH I JUST REMEMBERED. I CAN'T STAND spelling errors!!!!! It drives me insane. And when people correct my spelling with words like "organisation, favourite, realise, colour" because those are the Australian/UK English way of spelling those words! That just really gets on my nerves, but I guess some people just don't know that so I can't be too mean. x)

11 Questions for the People I Tag:

(Stole some of the ones Bec asked me. ;))

1. What made you want to start blogging?

2. Where are you from?

3. What are your five favourite nail polishes of all time? (Or more if you can't nail it down. ;))

4. What is your favourite nail art design that you've done (or that you've seen on someone else, if you don't do nail art)?

5. What are some of your favourite nail polish brands?

6. What are your favourite nail care products?

7. Number one nail tip you'd like to share?

8. How often do you do your nails?

9. Favourite base and top coat?

10. What are your hobbies other than blogging and nail polish?

11. What nail trends do you love, and which do you hate?

Who I Nominate:

1. Emma @ Globe and Nail

2. Holly @ MissHollyBerries

3. Zenorah @ Zenorah

4. Aubrey @ Aubrey Hannah

5. Laura @ Brummingbird

6. Lauren @ Tales About Nails

7. Joy @ Drugstore Junkie

...

I couldn't think of any more girls to tag. :( If I remember any more, I'll add them to my list!

I would've tagged Jas @ Jas's Blingtastic Nail Blog but she tagged me while I was typing this out! :P

I believe all the girls I tagged qualify to do this but I could be wrong. :/

Hope this post wasn't boring for you, it was a little long! And if I tagged you, I hope you'll do this too & share the love for lesser known blogs! :)

-Elissa

NOTD: China Glaze - Lubu Heels

Last night I sorted out my polishes and set aside my "untrieds" (well, most of them). I've put them in little baskets apart from the rest of my collection. I had more untrieds than I thought. :/ I counted exactly 40 so I'm definitely going to try and use some of those soon instead of using polishes I've already tried. I've seen some more I'm interested in picking up soon so I don't want my untrieds to become even bigger!

I decided to wear China Glaze - Lubu Heels from my untrieds today! I bought this one when I bought OPI - Just Spotted the Lizard. I'd had Lubu Heels on my wish list for a while so I just picked it up. (Can you believe I don't even have Ruby Pumps in my collection either!? That was the first CG I ever wanted!)

Lubu Heels is a sheer black base with tiny red glitters. I had to do two coats and another very thin coat with this polish but since it's sheer it didn't make my nails all thick which I appreciate. The only thing I didn't like about the formula was that it's extremely runny and I flooded a couple of my cuticles which wasn't fun. Removing black polish from the cuticles isn't the easiest thing in the world!
Regardless, I love this colour! When you're not in direct sunlight it looks just black but in the sunlight, the red glitters pops and is really sparkly!
Lubu Heels is really vampy and I feel like it's almost even sexy! I've never known a polish to be 'sexy' before. Haha! I don't wear darks too often but in the past couple months, while it's been winter, I haven't been wearing that many dark colours on my nails. I have quite a lot of darks in my collection so I was really feeling a dark polish for today. :)

Artificial light

Daylight

Daylight

In my daylight pictures you can barely see the red glitter which was disappointing. Stupid me for trying to take my photos one hour before the sun is gone!

Thanks for reading! Hope you're having a great weekend (or week, depending on when you read this ;))!
-Elissa

Cupcake Nail Art - Take 2!

In my previous cupcake nails post, I did a blue and green cupcake mani for my brother's birthday.
This time I felt like trying a pink cupcake mani! :)
I was inspired by Cutepolish for this mani! Super cute and girly.
I don't have much to say about this mani but I think it was too girly and cutesy for me because I didn't wear it for long at all! I just can't make myself love wearing nail art for very long, no matter how cute it is. :( Some designs look super tacky on me.


The polishes I used for this mani were:
• OPI - Pink Friday
• Essence - I Want That!
• OPI - Alpine Snow
And I topped it all off with Essie - Good to Go top coat. :) I think I prefer this one to Seche Vite because it dries just as fast but it isn't as thick and it doesn't smudge as much as Seche does.
I also used a striping brush (purchased in a set from eBay) and a small & large dotting tool (also from eBay) for this nail art.

Hope you enjoyed this short and sweet (pardon the pun! ;)) post! Hope you're having a great day/night, depending on when you're reading this. :)

Sorry that the photos I posted are all SUPER similar. I didn't realise until I actually inserted them into the post that they're all basically the same. LOL.

-Elissa

10 Nail Blogger Questions!

Hey there! Hope you're having a good day/night!
I came across this little questionnaire on Zenorah's blog today and thought I'd give it a go too since it looks fun! :)
If you're reading this and you too have a blog, you should definitely fill it out too and let me know so I can read yours too! :)

1. For how long have you been a nail nerd?
Well, it's kind of a long story but if you have time I'll tell ya. ;)
For as long as I can remember, I was a SUPER bad nail biter. Like I'd bite my nails until there was barely anything left. It was a disgusting habit and my fingers always hurt. At the end of 2010 I had my year 12 formal (I guess like a senior prom or graduation for those in the US?) and I got a set of acrylic nails done on my non-existent nails. I had those on for about a month and that just kicked the habit pretty much. I never bit my nails again! :) After this I became a bit more interested in nail polish but had no idea of all the amazing brands out there and I probably owned 10 polishes max. Most of them probably taken from my mum! I then started to do my own acrylic nails in October last year but that only lasted a few months. My natural nails by then were HORRIBLE. I'm so sorry, nails, I was so mean to you. :( I believe YouTube is what made me get obsessed with nail polish. I found out about "nail art" and was like WHAT IS THIS. Hahaha! I only started actually collecting polish in February this year. Before then I probably had 30 polishes. But most were like, children's polishes that were absolute crap so I threw some away and gave some to my little sister.

2. How many polishes do you have in your collection?
I believe around 130-150. But I also have a basket under my bed of "crappy" polishes. Haha! They're all either no-name brand polishes or extremely old polishes that I hate. Before I got addicted to polish, I had no idea that most of the ones I owned were TERRIBLE in formula and that a polish could even be opaque. :/ So I've acquired about 120 polishes since February.

3.If you, starting now, had to use polishes from one brand only, which one would it be?
OPI, probably. :) I love that they bring out new collections all the time and we're actually starting to get them in stores here around the same time as the US so that's nice. :) Well maybe we did before but it seemed like we got them AGES after the US! OPI is probably the only high end brand that I can easily find here and has updated collections! Essie is fairly easy to find but the collections we have in stores are about 6 months outdated!

4. How much do you spend on polish and nail care in one given month?
I'm not sure really. I just buy polish here and there since I don't have an income at the moment. And I buy nail care products whenever I need them. I don't go through them that quickly really. I'd say I buy nail polish remover the most often. I go through one bottle every week and a half usually. :/ I like the Sally Hansen Strengthening nail polish remover, it's in a pink bottle. It's one of the more expensive removers you'd find in a drugstore/chemist though which isn't the best. The other thing I find myself going through reasonably quickly is my base coat. I am always running out! Most of the ones I've used, get SUPER thick about halfway through them and not even a thinner will fix it! :(


5.The most expensive polish in your collection is..?
The most expensive polish in my collection, I believe, is Butter London's Wallis. It was $25. I have two other Butter London polishes but they were free gifts with magazines. Awesome gifts, right!? My other expensive polishes are OPIs. I only really buy full size OPIs if I can find them somewhere cheaper than retail ($12.95 is an okay price for me), or online somewhere like Catch of the Day, where they tend to have them every now and then for around $10. I have paid full price for maybe 5 of the OPIs I own and it doesn't make me feel good to spend so much on a polish but they're so pretty, I can't help it!


6.What are your lemmings right now?
What is NOT my lemming right now, would be an easier question to answer. :( I fulfilled one of my lemmings this week when I bought OPI - Just Spotted the Lizard which I LOVE. <3 I'm also dying to own OPI - Nothin' Mousie Bout It from the Minnie Mouse collection. I'd also like to own I'm All Ears and If You Moust You Moust from the same collection but I could PROBABLY live without them. ;) Oh and Revlon - Whimsical (which will apparently be in Australia soon - HECK YES!!!!!!!!) and Essie - Shine of the Times. Yep, I've got a few lemmings there. :(


7.Favourite finish?
Probably creme finish, I'd say. I also enjoy shimmers and glass fleck finishes though. :) Oh and glitters! Mostly chunky ones but I love a good glitter!


8.Finish you just can’t stand?
Oh goodness I'm picky about this. I HATE frost finishes. YUUUUUCK. I also hate pearly sort of finishes. They remind me of a grandma. Sorry to anyone who likes those but I do NOT. A few of the polishes in my basket under my bed (mentioned above) are pearl finishes and I'm probably going to give those to my sister who actually likes that finish. I also usually hate matte finishes but there's times when certain polishes look cool matte-ified like glitters or flakies.


9.What nail care products can’t you do without?
My glass file, cuticle pusher, cuticle nippers (I ONLY use them to clip away hangnails or DRY parts. Never cut your live cuticle!), and a good base coat or strengthener! I love my nail care products; no mani is complete without them.


10.What polish is on your nails right now?
Sadly, none. :( I did a failed mani last night (actually, it wasn't that much of a fail, I just wasn't feeling it and only did it on my left hand) which I removed at around 11pm so I couldn't be bothered to do another mani by then.Well, technically I am wearing polish.. I'm wearing one coat of my new nail strengthener which arrived from eBay yesterday, Duri Rejuvacote! I've heard amazing things about it from some girls on Instagram so I had to try it. :) I never ever go without polish on my nails. If I don't have time to do a full mani, I always make sure I have a coat of my strengthener on. Whenever I do ANYTHING without polish on, I break a nail. Or three. :(

PHEW. I did not expect that to be so wordy. I guess I just feel like typing a lot right now. Sorry! ;) If you got through all that, good on you! And I hope you'll do these questions on your blog! :D

-Elissa

NOTD: Cupcake Nail Art!

Hey! :)
So technically this post isn't a NOTD because I'm not wearing it today, I wore it last week. Forgive me, I'm a bit behind! x) Last week was my little brother's 7th birthday, and also my Grandma's birthday so I thought it was appropriate to do some birthday-esque nails! :)

This is probably my favourite nail art I've done so far! I LOVED it! And apparently so did a lot of other people! I received compliments about my nails from complete strangers when I was shopping with my mum! Not a regular occurrence! My family were also all looking at my nails which doesn't usually happen that often. For some reason, whenever my mum sees my nails she thinks they're press-ons! I feel so flattered when people tell me my nails are pretty! x) I rarely get complimented on anything else so that's probably why I like doing my nails so much! Well of course not just so I can get complimented, LOL! But because I feel like it's one of the only things I can actually do!

For a while I'd been planning to do cupcake nails for my brother's birthday because he is one of the only people close to me that appreciates my nail polish addiction! :P He thought it was really cool! Since I'm quite new to nail art, I'd feel weird wearing cupcakes on my nails for no reason so I had to do them for my baby brother's birthday! :)

For this nail art I used:

• OPI 'Princesses Rule' for the french manicure colour.
• Essie 'Bikini So Teeny' for the blue.
• Essie 'Mojito Madness' for the green.
• OPI 'Alpine Snow' for the white.

I also used small red heart rhinestones as the cherry on top of the cupcakes! I believe I bought them from eBay, probably a year ago. 

I'm really happy with how this mani turned out! Though it did take me a few tries to get the cupcakes to look okay. They're not perfect but I think they're cute. :) I feel weird having nail art on my nails though so I was kinda itching to take this off only one day later. I prefer the look of just a plain colour or extremely simple nail art. But since it took me a really long time, I had to stop myself from doing that until the next morning. x)

I'm definitely going to try the cupcakes again with more girly colours sometime soon! :D Maybe just an accent nail next time. The cupcakes on every nail is too much for me to handle! Haha!

-Elissa

NOTD: OPI - Just Spotted the Lizard!

Hey there! :)
I have an exciting polish to show you today! It's exciting for me anyway! I've been wanting this baby ever since I saw the press releases for it!

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I'm a big fan of superhero movies, I'm not really sure why because I don't like a lot of other action sort of movies. I'm a huge fan of Batman but I also really enjoyed the Spiderman movies! When I heard that OPI was releasing a collection for The Amazing Spiderman movie, I was so excited! I also saw the movie a couple weeks ago and LOVED it. Much more than the Toby McGuire ones, sorry. :P Andrew Garfield is a better Spiderman IMO. I don't know a lot about the Spiderman comic or anything though & people seem to have a problem with it not being the same as the comics or something. But I thought it was great! :)

Anyway, onto the part you're actually here for, the polish! This was the only one from the Amazing Spiderman collection that really interested me. The rest are mostly frosty shades and I'm not a fan of those.
I'm surprised at myself that I wanted this one because it's a duochrome and I'm usually not a fan of those either! Usually I hate duochromes unless they're colours very close to each other (red/orange duochromes, purple/blue duochromes), and bright. I hate dark duochromes. I'm very picky. :)
This is "Just Spotted the Lizard", a gold-green duochrome! In the bottle I also see some blue but not as much on the nail.
I really love it! I didn't know whether I would, but I really wanted to own it even if I didn't like it. Haha!

This post is a bit picture heavy, so click 'Read more' for more photos & my thoughts about this polish! :)

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Direct sunlight

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This polish is also a dupe for Chanel "Peridot" and Jessica's "Iridescent Eye". China Glaze's "Rare & Radiant" from the new New Bohemian collection looks like it'll also be a dupe but I haven't seen a comparison so I can't be 100% sure of that. For me, the OPI is the easiest to get my hands on right now. The China Glaze would be cheaper here but I don't think I'd be able to find it, since it's rare that I stumble upon China Glaze. x) Any of the other dupes I'd have to buy on eBay or online somewhere else.

This polish is also boyfriend approved. ;) I bought some new polishes yesterday and when I asked my boyfriend which one I should put on first, he picked this one. When he saw it on my nails, he thought it looked really cool! :) Yay! My boyfriend doesn't really approve of my polish addiction very often. :) Actually I'm pretty sure he's really annoyed by it but oh well! :) Polish is literally the only thing I ever buy. I often neglect buying really essential things so I can buy polish. :/

Anyway, so sorry for this extremely wordy post. :) Hope you enjoyed! I'm loving this polish! I've now been wearing it for 18 hours and don't want to remove it! That's pretty rare! Usually after 12 hours I'm already planning what colour to use next and itching to remove my current polish. x)

This mani kind of also doubles as an Olympics mani, since the Aussie colours are green and gold. ;)


Do you like duochromes? Or are you extremely picky about them like I am? x) Oh and have you seen the new Spiderman movie?! If so, what did you think? :)

-Elissa