Ombre - Aussie Nails Monday 18/3

Hey guys! Today I'm back with Aussie Nails Monday! :) I haven't participated in ANM for about 3 weeks now so it was about time I stopped being lazy hehe.

Today's theme is Ombre. Now, as far as I understand, an ombre manicure and a gradient are not the same thing. You can read all about that in THIS POST by Jeanette/The Swatchaholic. :) She does a fabulous job at explaining and demonstrating the differences! You could probably also say these are Skittle nails.
PS. Sorry, the photos in this post were taken outdoors rather than in my lightbox. Didn't have my lightbox handy at the time and then the weather was crappy. :( Anywho hope that doesn't bother you.

So I had a little bit of a hard time choosing what colour I would do for my ombre because I was like "do I even own enough shades of the same colour to do that?!"... Of course you do Elissa! :P
I chose blue because I'd have to say, I own a LOT of blues.

The colours I used were (from darkest-lightest):
Essence Date In The Moonlight
China Glaze First Mate
China Glaze Secret Peri-wink-le
Ulta3 Pro Sky Blue
Essie Borrowed And Blue
All are creme colours except for Essence Date In The Moonlight, which is a very dark navy base with a lighter blue subtle shimmer.

Have you ever done ombre nails before? :) I really like it!

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Aussie Nails Monday 25/2 - Favourite Brand

Hey guys :D I hope you had a great, relaxed, fun weekend!

Today is Monday again which means ... Aussie Nails Monday ... and that my birthday is tomorrow! :D

Today the theme is Favourite Brand. Nice and broad :D

I haven't been feeling like doing nail art lately so I hope you don't mind! I'll be showing you swatches of some polishes from a few of my favourite brands :) (All swatches are without top coat just FYI)

I haven't included any indie brands in this because I think I've shown you every polish I own from my favourite indie brands. Haha. But just putting it out there - I LOVE INDIES TOO ♥

Sorry about the slightly awkward hand pose in these photos... I was having "one of those days" where I just hated my photos and the 'pose' hahah!

OPI DS Original

OPI would probably be my #1 favourite brand. I love the formula on every OPI I've tried and I love the brush too. I think OPI polishes were what got me obsessed!

DS Original is probably the most HTF (hard to find) and most popular of the Designer Series collection by OPI. It's discontinued now and sells for ridiculous amounts on eBay! I'm so lucky to have got it for the price I did! x)

DS Original is a beeeautiful light purple holographic. It has a more scattered than linear holo effect, but it still isn't completely scattered. It looks more linear in the bottle, though. It's a bit sheer so my swatch shows 3 coats but it probably could use a 4th... I've seen others layer this over medium toned purples to get an opaque look without using up the whole bottle ;)

China Glaze Riveting

China Glaze is definitely up there in my favourite brands. I have slightly less CGs than OPIs but the CG number is slowly climbing! I'm starting to like them more because I find them to be much cheaper than OPI and easier to find for me. China Glaze also has more unique colours in my opinion. They also have a fabulous formula on every one of their polishes I've tried :)

Riveting is from the Hunger Games collection from 2012. It's a bright, hot orange with a golden and orange glass fleck shimmer. I think this may be the only orange that I actually think I like :D

The formula on this is fab as usual ^_^ And my swatch shows 2 coats of Riveting.

Essence Grey-t To Be Here

Essence is my favourite "drugstore"/cheaper brand. If you've been a reader of my blog for a while then you probably already know this. :) I have a LOT of Essence polishes and I will continue to buy them :D They have a GREAT colour selection for such a cheap brand and their limited edition stuff never disappoints :) I also enjoy their makeup but that's not what I'm here to talk about hehe ;) When the new packaging of the Essence core line polishes came out, I went CRAZY for them and was so excited to grab some... And then I only wore one or two and the rest have been sitting in my untried basket. Woops ;)

Grey-t To Be Here is a grey, as the name would suggest. It has a beautiful pink/orange shimmer in it too! Reeeally pretty! The swatch shows 2 coats :)

Check out the Aussie Nails Monday tab to check out some of the other lovely Aussie Nails girls :D

Have a great week guys :) ♥

Aussie Nails Monday 18/2 - Rainbow - (China Glaze DV8)

Hey guys! It's Aussie Nails Monday again!

Today is sooo hot. It's like 40 degrees (Celsius) and I don't feel like doing any nail art, so I decided to show you a swatch of a holographic polish (which gives a rainbow effect) that I had in my untrieds basket.

This is China Glaze DV8 from the HTF (hard to find), discontinued OMG collection! :) I got it almost 2 months ago and haven't tried it yet?!?! I know I'm crazy.

DV8 is a really beautiful teal holographic.

Photos show 2 coats of DV8 with no topcoat.

Topcoat dulls the holo effect in the OMG collection so I would not recommend using a top coat with them.

DV8 in the shade

I love the China Glaze OMG collection! They dry so fast and the formula is fab. Unfortunately, my camera's not great at picking up the holographic quality. :(

I pretty much burnt my feet when I went outside to take these photos. :/ lol! So you better enjoy them! ;)

I also made a quick swatch video of this polish in action. :D

Hope you have a lovely week. ♥

Stripy Cupcake Nail Tutorial (Video)

Hi guys! Just a quick post to let you know that I have finally uploaded the tutorial for my Cupcake Nails I did for Aussie Nails Monday last week! :)
Please excuse the bad quality voiceover! :/ lol.
Hope you enjoy! :)

Aussie Nails Monday 11/2 - Food + Tutorial!

Hi guys! Happy Monday, even though it's almost over haha. Hope you had a nice weekend! I definitely did, it was awesome! :)
Today's Aussie Nails Monday is FOOD! :D I was so excited for this theme haha!

I did cupcake nails! :) I've done something really similar to this before but I don't think I blogged it.

Who doesn't love cupcakes?! I know I do! :D My fave cupcakes are RED VELVET, mmmmm! :)

  

Polishes used:

OPI Pink Friday

OPI Strawberry Margarita

I also used striping tape, white acrylic paint, heart rhinestones, a dotting tool and Seche Vite fast drying top coat!

Not sure if you can see it, but when editing the photos I saw that some of my fingers had some weird black smudges on them. :/ May have been some dirt from the lamp when I touched it. So, sorry about that. Haha.

Here's the video tutorial for these cute cupcake nails! :)

Check out my AUSSIE NAILS MONDAY page to see the other ladies' food manis! :)

Aussie Nails Monday 4/1 - Bright

Today's Aussie Nails Monday theme is Bright! Well I was late doing my ANM and I honestly didn't feel like doing any nail art so I chose to just show you some swatches of some bright polishes by Ulta3 that were in my untried basket. :)

These polishes all came from the Ulta3 Candy Cane that came out around Christmas time.

Ulta3 Coral Reef

Coral Reef is obviously, a coral colour. The formula was slightly jelly-ish but dried really flat :/

2 coats + topcoat. 

Ulta3 Pink Hibiscus

Pink Hibiscus is a regular hot pink that leans more blue-toned. This was nice and nearly opaque in one coat!

2 coats + topcoat.

Ulta3 Flirty Bikini

Flirty Bikini is a super pretty purple with a subtle gold shimmer. It was very opaque like Pink Hibiscus.

2 coats + topcoat.

Sorry this post probably wasn't very exciting for you. :( I'll have something more exciting soon I promise. :D

*Product(s) in this post were provided to me for review but this does not influence my opinion in any way. My reviews are 100% my honest opinion. For more information please see my Disclosure Policy.

Aussie Nails Monday 28/1 - Black And White

Hey guys! First of all I wanted to say... THANK YOU SO MUCH TO MY 200 FOLLOWERS!!! I just hit 200 yesterday and I am so excited! :D :D :D Thanks so much for following me and all your lovely comments on my posts, as well as following and talking to me on Instagram/Twitter etc. :) <3 I am hoping to put together an awesome giveaway to thank you in a month or so, so make sure you stick around for that! :D

Today's Aussie Nails Monday is Black and White! I decided to do another 'skittle' manicure!

On my pointer I used OPI's Number One Nemesis. It's a really cool colour! Grey-ish, silver-ish, green-ish.
On my middle finger I used Ulta3 Black Satin with some rhinestones.
On my ring finger, I used Ulta3 Lily White as my base and Ulta3 Black Satin for some polka dots.
And lastly, on my pinky I used OPI Metallic 4 Life which is a black jelly base with loads of silver glitter in it! I loooove this polish so much.

Have an awesomely awesome week everyone! :)

Aussie Nails Monday 21/1 - Skittles

Hey hey! :) I just wanted to start by saying thank you soo much for 100 likes on my Facebook page! So awesome! Thank you! :) I also got to 4000 followers on Instagram this week!! :D
AND, I'm almost at 200 blog followers! Which is soo exciting! I never ever thought in a million years that anybody would want to read my blog! :) I am thinking about doing a giveaway in a couple of months to celebrate and thank you, so keep your eyes peeled. ;)

Today for Aussie Nails Monday, the theme is Skittles! I think some of the ladies in the ANM group will take "Skittles" literally and do a mani inspired by the lollies. :P A "skittle manicure" is usually when you do a different colour on each nail. Or the same colour on each nail, but a different nail art design on each nail. I don't think there's really any "rules" when it comes to skittle manicures ... I hope. Hehe.
I did more of a mix and match manicure than skittles but I hope it still counts. I just don't feel right wearing a completely different colour on each nail haha. So I did something using 3 colours. I wanted it to all tie in together.

On my pointer and middle nails I'm wearing OPI Stay The Night from the Mariah Carey collection. This is one of the new Liquid Sand polishes! I wasn't sure how I'd feel about the Liquid Sands but I think they are so cool!
Stay The Night is a black base with black and pink-ish red glitter. And as the name "Liquid Sand" would suggest, it dries to a sand-ish looking finish. But it's not overly rough or scratchy like I thought it might be. The texture does make me shiver a bit to touch though lol!

On my pinky and thumb I am wearing a berry-ish pink colour by Rubi Shoes (by Cotton On) called It's Getting Hot In Here and I added a little black rhinestone at the cuticle. :) This is the closest colour in my collection to the glitters in Stay The Night, so it doesn't exactly match.

On my ring finger, I did some stamping! I used my favourite white, Ulta3 Lily White as my base and then I used the lips design on stamping plate QA28 that I bought from Born Pretty Store and a random black polish.

And here is a close up of what Stay The Night looks like! I think it looks so awesome! The red glitters still sparkle a lot even though the overall look is matte.

This is something so out of my comfort zone but I love it so much! I want to try more mix and match nails!

Check out the other awesome Aussie Nails Monday ladies! :)

Nail Gun XS - Marie’s Manicure Madhouse - Shatter Me Claire - A Polished Prance - Shades of Phoenix - The Epitome of Superficiality - Lacquer Dreams - NananaisNails - Enamoured With Enamel - Adelle1985 - Kelly's Kolors - Polished Peripherals - Every Little Polish - Mel My Issta - Walk In My Eyeshadow - JennLojko - Erinzi’s Nails - Lovessweetas - Jas’ Blingtastic Nails - Mckfresh - Maedaynails - Lili_Bete - The Reluctant Femme - Jibber Jabber - Messy Mansion - Nailovelogy - Ronda - It's All About The Polish - Pretty Polish Please

Aussie Nails Monday 14/1 - Fishtail

Hi guys! I hope you had an awesome weekend. :) Sorry *again* that my ANM post is going up late in the day but guess what! Today I got an Ikea Helmer! :D EEEEE!!! I've wanted one forever and I think it's the most popular storage for nail bloggers/addicts. :P It was an early birthday present (my birthday isn't until the end of Feb lol!) Thank you to my loverly boyfriend! :) He put it together for me as well haha. And though I barely did any of the work, I managed to slice my finger on one of the drawers. Luckily I did these nails a few days ago, or I wouldn't have been able to do them today after slicing my finger!

ANYWAY...

Today's Aussie Nails Monday is Fishtail. You may have seen a lot of people doing 'fishtail braid manicures' around the middle of 2012 when they seemed to be most popular.

You'll have to excuse the rounded nails in these photos... You probably know I'm SO indecisive about my nail shape and I keep trying new ones and then hating them! -_- So right after I took off this polish, I went back to squares and my nails are unbelievably short and nubby now. Luckily they grow pretty fast. :)

So anyway. I did a 'fishtail braid' accent nail.
The colours I used are OPI's Kiss Me On My Tulips and Pink Friday, and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Celeb City!
If you'd like to know how to do this, HERE is a helpful tutorial by CutePolish on YouTube.

Aussie Nails Monday 7/1 - Animal

Happy Monday! :) I hope you had a great weekend! It's sooo hot here today. :( Sorry this post is going up a bit late. I was lazy last night and couldn't be bothered to edit my photos and then schedule the post, which is what I usually do. :P But here it is!

Today for Aussie Nails Monday, we did Animal print! :) Animal print scares me a bit haha. I don't know if I really like the look of it on my nails... Which makes it kinda silly that I put it as one of the themes if I don't like it but oh well! :P

I have to say, my all time favourite animal print nails have been done by Brie! Her nails always look amazing and she does awesome leopard prints! :D
So my animal print manicure is inspired by her! :) You can see her amazing version here.

On my pointer and pinky I used OPI's Pink Friday.
On my middle finger I did a base of Ulta3 Lily White and then did polka dots in Essence Black is Back. My go-to black is usually Ulta3's Black Satin, but my bottle's getting a bit stringy so I didn't use it for this.
On my ring finger I used a silver holographic glitter in a clear base from a brand that I think is called Lorins Professional. I believe it's from Israel? I think it's called 734A. Haha. I did the leopard print using OPI Pink Friday, Ulta3 Lily White and Essence Black Is Back.

This definitely isn't my best leopard print unfortunately. Oh well! :P

Aussie Nails Monday - 31/12 Party

It's the last day of 2012! Happy new year! :)
Today is Monday, Aussie Nails Monday! And being New Years, the theme is "Party"!
I've never been one to do anything exciting for New Years. I usually just hang out at home with my family and my boyfriend! I'm definitely not one to go to parties or anything like that! But that doesn't mean my nails won't fit the occasion! :)

I recreated a manicure I saw on So Nailicious a few days ago! I loved this when I saw it and knew I would do it on my own nails really soon!

With flash

Shade

The blue I used is Essence Grumpy from the Snow White collection. If you didn't get your hands on this one, Nails Inc Baker Street is very similar, and so is Sally Hansen Pacific Blue! If you're from Australia, you could also try Ulta3 Blue Marlin for only $2! :)
The silver and blue glitter is Sally Hansen Showgirl Chic from the Gem Crush line. If you can't find this one, China Glaze Lorelei's Tiara is a dupe for this, and so is Sinful Colors' Ice Dream and Savvy by DB (found at Priceline in bins for $2.99) have a similar polish too! So it's not really a unique one, and you can find something like this in many brands! :)

Sunlight

Sunlight

Happy new year! I wish you all the best in 2013. :) Stay safe and be responsible in your New Year celebrations okay?!
Thanks for following my blog in 2012! :)

Nail Gun XS - Marie’s Manicure Madhouse - Tales From The Makeup Bag - Shatter Me Claire - A Polished Prance - Tee Bee’s Nails - The Epitome of Superficiality - Lacquer Dreams - NananaisNails - Enamoured With Enamel - Pretty Polish Please - Adelle1985 - Kelly's Kolors - Polished Peripherals - Nicki - Every Little Polish - All Things Charmed - Mel My Issta - Walk In My Eyeshadow - JennLojko - The Polish Haven - Nails In The Desert - Erinzi - Strawbrie - Lovessweetas - Jas' Blingtastic Nails - Mckfresh - Jessica - Lili_bete - Cassandra

Aussie Nails Monday - 24/12 Holidays

Merry Christmas Eve lovelies! :) I hope you're not too stressed out with shopping, cooking and whatnot! Haha.

Today for Aussie Nails Monday, the theme is Holidays! I ended up not being able to decide on a design for today until the last minute haha. I spent HOURS looking up Christmas nail art for inspiration but could NOT decide on anything! So I ended up just doing something simple. :) A glitter gradient!

I used two coats of OPI I'm Not A Waitress for my base. It's a really gorgeous shimmery red that's perfect for Christmas! It's in OPI's core line so it should be easy to find if you don't already own it!
I then used Essence Make It Golden for the glitter gradient, and then for a bit more glitter I added some of Milani Jewel FX Gold. I really love this! So sparkly and festive! My tips did end up kinda thick because I went a bit overboard on the glitter. :P
I actually wore this yesterday for a church Christmas dinner thing. :)

Merry Christmas! If you're going away for Christmas, stay safe! I hope you all have a great Christmas with the ones you love. :)
See you tomorrow with my last post for the Aussie Christmas Challenge! It's a scheduled one because I don't have time to blog on Christmas Day haha. :P