NOTD: My Sydney Manicure

If you read one of my previous posts you'll remember that I went to Sydney for 3 nights almost a week ago. It was an amazing time but before I went, I was very concerned about my nails. :P I knew I wouldn't be able to paint them or pay too much attention to them so I wasn't sure if I should paint them and just hope that they don't chip too much or break, or if I should leave them bare (which I usually don't like to do because I always manage to break a nail when I don't wear polish - eg. Today). So I was thinking about it & I saw Sally Hansen Salon Effects real nail polish strips in a Chemist Warehouse catalogue for $9 (they retail for about $13.95 here I believe) and I've been wanting to try them so I went and purchased them in the "Skinny Jeans" pattern. It's a pretty subtle pattern compared to some of the other ones they have.

I watched a few YouTube videos about these and how to apply them so I was pretty confident that I wouldn't mess it up when I put them on. But they were different than I expected. I wasn't sure if I should use a base coat before applying them but since I wanted them to last as long as possible, I thought I would use a base coat. Mistake number one. I believe you aren't supposed to use a base coat with these, from what I heard from other girls.
I didn't have a good time applying these. They were a mess! I had a hard time getting them close enough to my cuticle without actually touching the cuticle, and a couple of the strips dried out because I took so long to apply them! And for some reason, when one of the strips dried out, I was unable to find another in my packet the same size which was really annoying and left one of my nails with a strip that was too small for my nail and looked funny. Also, the strips didn't want to stick to my nail at the cuticle properly and went kind of bumpy. But I think this had to do with me using a base coat.

More info & photos after the jump! :)

Sydney Polish Haul + More! (Pic Heavy!)

Hey guys!
I'm sorry I haven't posted anything for about a week. I've been away in Sydney, NSW for 4 days!

My mum won a competition (she's a competition junkie, it's AWESOME. We've had some amazing opportunities/experiences thanks to my clever mother! :)) for two people to go to The Voice Australia grand final in Sydney! When she told me, I started crying and laughing (I giggle a lot when I'm excited about something) and almost choked on whatever I was eating! All because Delta Goodrem, my favourite singer of all time, my obsession and role model, is one of the coaches! I've been a MASSIVE Delta fan since I was 9 (about 10 years). I don't think I've ever been so excited about something in my entire life.
So of course my mum said I could go on the trip, I think that was the reason she entered, knowing that I LOVE Delta. But she said she couldn't go with me but that I could take my boyfriend with me! This was even more exciting because we'd never been on a holiday or anything together and it was our 5 year anniversary about 3 weeks ago (the day before I found out about the prize actually) so it was really cool. I then found out that the prize included even MORE amazing things, if The Voice grand final wasn't amazing enough! We were staying in a 5 star hotel, having limo transfers to our hotel from the airport (and back to the airport at the end), limo transfers to/from the Voice at Fox Studios, a 2 hour beauty treatment including facials, massages and a body scrub, a 20 minute helicopter ride over Sydney, a $300 dinner and EVEN MORE absolutely amazing stuff. WHAAAAAAAT!!!!! So freakin' awesome!

So I had two and a half weeks before we left to totally freak out and spend every moment thinking about the trip. x)
I found out we would also have some time for shopping while in Sydney so of course I checked out what type of places I could shop at. ;)
About a 5-10 minute walk from our hotel was some amazing shopping areas! Woot! And as you can imagine, I went crazy on nail polish. But not as crazy as I thought I would. I found a really cool nail supply store and bought some polish there, and also at some chemists and other places where I usually get polish at home, but being in a different city and larger malls/shops they did have a little different variety than what we have at home! :)
I think I bought about 16 polishes all together, including some base/top coats and some other goodies. :D I'll include my haul photos in with my other holiday photos below.
Photos all taken from my Instagram profile.