Jasmine - Disney Princess Nail Art Challenge - Day 1

Hey guys! I'm really excited about today's post! Bec from LacquerDreams created a Disney Princess Nail Art Challenge and when I saw it, I was like HECK YEAH. I'm a big Disney fan :D Most of my friends definitely know this about me! My mum even gave me a Tinkerbell card for my 20th birthday this year. ;)

(Jasmine PSD Source)
Let me just say - I hate the Urban Outfitters bottles. They are SO awkward for photos...
So today's theme is Jasmine, from Aladdin! I have to admit I don't remember being a big fan of Aladdin when I was little. I actually don't remember watching it more than once...

As soon as I saw that today's theme was Jasmine, I remembered I had seen this mani by Yvonne / Lafemmelulu on Instagram, a few months ago and it TOTALLY reminds me of Jasmine! So I decided to do something similar to this :)

For this nail art I used Urban Outfitters Sea Dust and China Glaze Passion, with a coat of Essence Sweet As Candy as my base. I started off using striping tape to try and get cleaner lines but gave up because I couldn't be bothered waiting for the layers to dry, honestly. :P

I hope you're looking forward to the rest of this challenge - I sure am! :D It also makes me want to re-watch all of these Disney movies! I might need to for inspiration for some of them! Hehe.

Also - don't forget to follow me on BlogLovin' if you haven't already! Check out yesterday's post on Google Reader getting the boot and other ways you can follow me. :)
Hope you're having a fantastic weekend! ♥

Please check out the other awesome ladies participating in this challenge ♥

LabMuffin

It's All About The Polish

ErinZi's Nails
WalkInMyEyeshadow
Nailed Obsession
Every Little Polish
For The Love Of Lacquer
Nailovelogy
MaedayNails
LacquerDreams

Strawbrie

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Shades Of Phoenix - Chaos Glitter Tips

Hey guys!

Guess what - today, at 9pm AEST, Shades of Phoenix is launching two new colours to her line! I am SUPER excited about this so I can't wait! :D Definitely head on over to her Etsy shop at 9 and get your hands on these beauties. :)

In honour of Teneil's new polishes, I did a mani using one of her old colours! In January I did a glitter tip mani using a different SoP shade and LOVED it so much. So I thought I'd do another!

I used Essence Sweet As Candy as my base just to make my natural nail colour look a bit better haha. Sweet As Candy is a really nice sheer pink that I like to use for manis like this one where you can see some of my natural nail. It's a LITTLE streaky but not too bad, it levels out by itself pretty well.

And then I created my glitter tips with Shades of Phoenix Chaos. 

Unfortunately this was a LE shade so it's no longer available, sorry! I have a video tutorial on Glitter Gradients which you can see HERE if you're interested!

I love doing glitter tip manis like this. Must find more polishes to do this with! It's really easy and a bit more interesting and flashy than a plain mani. ;)
I can't seem to make the glitter totally cover my tips, though, no matter how much I put on LOL. So yeah, I do realise that you can see my nail through. :P

You can see my first swatches of Teneil's polishes HERE. Be sure to head to her Etsy shop to snatch up her new colours! :) And follow her on Facebook too, she updates very regularly and shows a load of sneak peeks!

I'd love to know your fave SoP shades! Leave me a comment :D

Hare - Midsummers Midnight

Hey guys!

Today I have a mani to show you that I wore last night! :D This is also my first polish from the brand Hare Polish! :)
Apologies in advance.. The photos of this turned out really horrible. :/ So I'm only showing you two. For some reason the polish looked super cloudy in most of the photos, and my hands looked a really weird colour, lol!

Hare - Midsummers Midnight

Midsummers Midnight is a black base with pink, purple, green and blue glitter! I layered 1 coat of Midsummers Midnight over one coat of Essence Black Is Back, and topped it off with 1 coat of Seche Vite top coat.

I looooove this polish! The glitter payoff in one coat was awesome! :D I sort of dab the brush when I apply glitter polish, though, instead of just wiping it on like you would a normal polish. (I'll have a video demonstration of this coming soon!)

EDIT: I actually found a much better photo on my phone that I took right after I did this manicure. Go figure, my phone took a better photo than my camera did LOL.

Do you guys have any Hare polishes? I really want to try some more... but kind of don't want to go through all that restock drama etc. lol. I don't even know where to buy them! lol! So I usually leave a link to where you can buy indie polishes but I have no clue where to get these. Sorry! I guess you can just Google it? ;) Google's your friend! I bought this one from a blog sale, by the way.

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 :) ♥

A Valentine's Day Nail Tutorial

Hey guys! Today I have my first Valentine's Day nails to show you + a tutorial on them! :)

The colours used to create this cute Valentine's Day Leopard Print look were:

Lime Crime Milky Ways

Sally Hansen Coral Reef

Essence Trendsetter

and a Sportsgirl Nail Art Pen in black

And here is the tutorial...

Please be sure to subscribe to my channel and give the video a THUMBS UP if you enjoyed! :)

Hope you enjoyed! Let me know of any Valentine's Day looks you'd like to see and tutorials too (V Day related or not). I'd love to hear your suggestions! :)

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 Christmas - 25/12 Your Choice!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY! :D I hope you have an amazing and safe Christmas and spend it with the people you love!!

I ended up skipping the challenge on the 23rd 'Santa's Swimsuit' because I tried a few designs and they just turned out horrible so I gave up. :( lol. Sorry! I skipped my own challenge LOL.

Today's post is a scheduled one because I obviously don't have time to blog on Christmas Day! lol. I have seen so so so many cute Christmas manis this year so my head has had so many ideas swimming around and not enough time to create them all!

I decided to recreate this design by Michelle at Cosmetic Cupcake! It's one of the cutest Christmas manis I've seen!

On my pointer I used 2 coats of Sinful Colors Sugar Sugar which is a perfect Christmas red, and topped that with 1 coat of Ulta3 Luck Of The Irish* and 1 coat of Disco Fever*.

My middle finger is 2 coats of Butter London Pillar Box Red and 1 coat of Femme Fatale Cosmetics Shimmering Snowcap which reminds me of snow! :)

On my ring finger the base is 2 coats of Butter London Pillar Box Red, Ulta3 Lily White for the white fur on Santa's suit, Ulta3 Black Satin for his belt, and Essence A Piece Of Forever* for the belt buckle. :)

My pinky is 2 coats of Butter London Pillar Box Red, 1 coat of China Glaze Ruby Pumps and 1 coat of Ulta3 Disco Fever*. This combo is so perfect for Christmas time!

I also found a really awesome Australian Christmas Tag going around so I thought I'd put that at the end of today's post! :D I'm not sure who created this, sorry!

The Australian Christmas TAG!

1. What is your favourite thing about Christmas?
I love being with my family and THE FOOD. Omg we always have the most amazing food. Mmmm. <3 I also absolutely LOVE Christmas lights. <3 They're amazing.

2. Seafood or traditional Christmas?
Traditional definitely. :)

3. Christmas Carols, love or loathe them?
I like the newer, modern ones but the old stuff is boring to me LOL.

4. If you like them what is your favourite?
Idk if this even counts as 'carols'.. but I like the Christmas songs 'Last Christmas' especially by Taylor Swift and the Glee version too. I like all of the Glee Christmas songs actually.

5. Do you wish it snowed here at Christmas or do you like it hot?
I'd love to experience a winter Christmas once in my life but I do love my hot Aussie Christmases! :)

6. What nail polish do you plan on wearing on Christmas day?
Well when this goes up I'll be already wearing something but right now as I'm typing this, I have no idea!

7. Do you put the tree up on December 1st?
Well usually we put it up early in December, but we only just put ours up last weekend actually LOL.

8. What is your favourite Christmas memory?
My brother and I used to make a "plan" on Christmas Eve for what we'd do on Christmas morning. Because we'd usually wake up at like 6am and get in trouble from our parents because we were too noisy LOL.
And one Christmas morning before we went to my auntie's house for lunch, my brother said something to my sister and she threw her cereal bowl at him. HAHAH. I'll always remember that. I don't even know why I find it so funny!

9. Do you have any Christmas traditions?
Hmm.. Not so much anymore. :( I used to go with my dad and siblings at night on Christmas Eve to see Christmas lights but for the last 4 or so years, I've been at church. But I now go to see Christmas lights with my boyfriend around Christmas time. :) We went like 4 times this year lol!

10. What is on your wish list this year?
My number one gift on my list is a new camera for blogging! The one I've been using for the last few months belongs to my mum and we usually want to use it at the same time lol. So I'd really like one of my own!

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to you all! :) Thank you all for following my blog and all your nice comments, it means soo much to me. :)

*Products marked with an asterisk 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 Christmas 21/12 - Gold

Hey hey! 4 sleeps till Christmas! :D I am so excited! Usually I don't do anything Christmas-y until the night of Christmas Eve when I'd usually go to church but this year I'm doing Christmas-y things every day starting Sunday (possibly Saturday..?) which will be awesome! :)

For my "Gold" nails I decided to do some stamping! I'm obviously not great at stamping, and I only own 5 or so plates but I love the look of it.

My base colour is Essence Walk On The Wild Side, a nice dark green with a lighter green shimmer. I then stamped over it with Essence A Piece Of Forever from the Breaking Dawn pt 2 collection. It's a warm metallic gold. I would never wear it on its own but I heard it was nice for stamping so I kept it for that purpose. :) I used Fauxnad plate M57 from Born Pretty Store.
Now I know that my stamping is not very good! But I actually also think it may be the quality of the plate I used. Please also excuse my index finger. I screwed it up a few times. :( I still need a lot of practice with stamping I think!

I can't remember if I mentioned it, I don't think I did, but I'm probably not going to post any "new" nail posts for a week or so after I finish the Aussie Christmas Challenge because I am just not liking my nails right now. :( I'm never happy with the shape or length. This doesn't mean I won't be posting  anything, it'll just be NOTDs I never got around to posting, etc. :)

Revlon - Whimsical

Hey guys! :) I have a NOTD to show you that I wore a couple weeks ago. :)

If you've followed me for a long time, you'll probably realise from the title of this post that yes, I now own Whimsical. Whimsical by Revlon (Deborah Lippmann Glitter In The Air dupe) was my number one lemming for like 6 months. And then the fabulous Natalie sent it to me in the swap we did! :D It was so exciting for me! And I can't believe it took me such a long time to wear it after receiving it. LOL. I'm a weirdo.

I think everyone and their dog (lol) owns or has at least seen Whimsical so I won't blab too much about it. It's a super sheer blue base (you'd need at least 4 coats and it still wouldn't be fully opaque - but it's meant to be that way) with blue and pink hex glitters, and also some teeny tiny glitters. I love it. So cute! The formula is a bit thin so I did have to sort of place the large glitters with the brush to get them where I wanted.

I did have a bit of bubbling with this mani sadly. :( I think it was because of the base colour, which was Essence You Belong To Me and my bottle is very thick now as I've used up about half of it.

Do you own Whimsical? Or perhaps Glitter In The Air by Deborah Lippmann?! :) Do you have any layering combos you recommend?

Aussie Christmas 17/12 - Beach

Hey hey! Today's challenge prompt is Beach! :D I like the beach but I don't love it. I really dislike sand, haha. It gets into EVERYTHING! And also, the beach is usually pretty windy which can be annoying. But I do hope to go to the beach sometime soon because it's now the summer school holidays here so all my siblings are home for the next 6 or so weeks!
So anyway, my beach mani is inspired by all things beach related. :)

On my pointer I used a base of Face Of Australia Once In A Blue Moon topped with China Glaze Snow Globe and then used a dotting tool with Essie Van D Go to paint two little starfish! :) I actually used a tutorial for this, by MissJenFabulous on YouTube.

On my middle finger I was inspired by my sister's new rainbow striped beach towel! I used Ulta3 Lily White for my base, and then freehanded my stripes with a striping brush using Butter London Pillar Box Red, Ulta3 Tangerine Tango*, Frangipani, Sea Breeze Swirl*, Face Of Australia Once In A Blue Moon and Ulta3 Flirty Bikini*. (I will have full swatches of the 3 Ulta3s* soon!).

My ring finger is inspired by the water and sand, which is probably obvious. ;) There's also a little heart in the sand, aww. :P I used Essence Sleepy*, as my base and freehanded the sand with Essence Iced Latte using the regular polish brush. The little heart was done with BYS Fairytale Florals. I used Ulta3 Lily White for the line where the sea hits the sand.

And lastly, my pinky nail is a beach ball! This looked harder than it actually was to do! I used a striping brush with Ulta3 Blue Marlin, Frangipani, and Butter London Pillar Box Red and the base colour was my trusty Ulta3 Lily White.

Phew, that's a lot of polish for one mani haha!
Hope you enjoyed! :)

Essence Snow White TE Swatches (Part 3)

Hey guys! Today I have the last part of my Essence Snow White Trend Edition (TE) swatches for you! :) You can go here to see the first part, and here for the second if you missed them!

Thanks again to Sharon who helped me get my hands on the rest of these babies! :D

First is Bashful, a gorgeous green with a gold shimmer! This was pretty opaque in one coat but I did two.

2 coats, no topcoat.

Bashful - artificial lighting

Bashful - sunlight

Doc is a pretty basic orange creme. Kinda bright too. It was a little thick, like most polishes in this collection but not hard to apply. :)

2 coats, no topcoat.

Doc - artificial lighting

Doc - sunlight

Snow White is a really gorgeous red jelly. The glitter toppers, as well as this red polish in the 10mL bottles, all have a nice wide brush. :) Can't wait to try a jelly sandwich with this one!

2 coats, no topcoat.

Snow White - artificial lighting (look at that shine!!)

Snow White - sunlight

Well that's the end of my Snow White swatches! I love all of the colours and I'm so happy I own the whole collection! :)

I also have a few of the polishes from this collection available on my BLOG SALE right now if anyone's interested!