12 Favourites Of 2012

Hi guys! :) Merry Christmas Eve Eve! ;) LOL. Today I have my 12 favourite polishes/manicures of 2012 to show you, instead of the "Santa's Swimsuit" mani for the Aussie Christmas Challenge. I know, I failed at my own challenge. LOL. I tried a few designs and it just failed miserably so sorry about that! This post is 100x better anyway. ;)
I wasn't going to do this because I didn't think I really had many favourites but I was tagged on Instagram to do the #myfavemanis2012 tag and I did have a fair few favourites so I decided to share them with you here too. :)

2012 was the year of nail polish for me. :P I've been into nails for probably almost 2 years now but I used to be more into artificial nails. I started "collecting" polish in February and I now have about 250 polishes is my guess. (Although my guesses are usually WAAAAAAY off so it's probably more like 300 :P)
Beware: You'll see a whole lot of different nail lengths/shapes in this post!
Oh, and these are in no particular order! :)

1. China Glaze "Ruby Pumps"
I've had this polish for about 4-ish months and wore it for the first time at the start of December! I don't really see myself wearing it other than around Christmas and maybe in winter, but it sure is a gorgeous one. I absolutely fell in love with it. "Ruby Pumps" is probably in the top 3 best selling China Glaze polishes. <3

2. MaxFactor "Fantasy Fire"
The elusive "Fantasy Fire" was released in Australia this year! I went crazy for it. When I found out about it, I literally ran to the shops in freezing cold weather just to get it. LOL. It's dupey of Clarins "230" which is why it's so popular. The picture says it all. (Worn over Revlon "Royal")

3. Gloss n Sparkle "Mirage"

"Mirage" by Gloss n Sparkle is just gorgeous. I'm a sucker for pastels and this one has glitter in it so of course I fell head over heels for it. ;) Beautiful beautiful beautiful.

4. OPI "Warm and Fozzie"

This polish was probably one of my first blog posts! :) If you read that post, you'll know I had some issues with it. Mainly because I paid full price for it (OPI's ridiculously expensive here) and then dropped the bag on a tile floor and it smashed. Luckily I was able to save some of it! I have one mini bottle full of it now, plus half another mini bottle and then I managed to pick up an extra mini of it from a blog sale! :D "Warm and Fozzie" is just gorgeous. A bit duochrome-y, a bit glass-fleck-y, ahh I love it.

5. Christmassy Half Moon Manicure

This mani was from the start of December and I loved it so much! I got a lot of compliments when I wore it! :) The polishes I used were Ulta3 "Antique Copper" and "Black Plum", with Milani's "Gold" placed glitter around the half moon.

6. Navy Holo
OPI "Russian Navy" with Gloss n Sparkle's Spectraflair topcoat over it! Please excuse the slightly messy cuticles. This mani was from about June or July-ish, and I hadn't mastered cleanup yet lol. :) I totally loved this mani.

7. Chevron Manicure
Look at these claws! Haha. I remember absolutely loving this mani. I love the colour combo! The blue is China Glaze "For Audrey" which is also a favourite in itself! A great colour and everyone needs it (or one like it)! I can't believe I haven't done this chevron pattern mani since this one because I really loved it and so did a lot of people I showed!

8. OPI "Man With The Golden Gun"

I don't think I could do a favourites post without including this. OPI's "Man With The Golden Gun" is an 18k gold flake topcoat and I'm sure you've all heard about it, or perhaps the other gold flake topcoats going around. I've worn it once so far, over OPI "DS Mystery".

9. OPI "Just Spotted The Lizard"
I'm typically not a huge duochrome fan. I think most people know that about me. But this was one that I totally fell in love with! It's a dupe for Chanel's "Peridot" and it's amazing. I think this is also my boyfriend's favourite polish of mine haha.

10. Nails Inc "Sweets Way"

This was on my wishlist for ages before I finally bought it. I'm a sucker for glitter in a milky base and this one stole my heart! :) <3 It's adorable.

11. Emily De Molly "Blue Moon"
This is a custom polish that Hayley of Emily De Molly made and sold to some Aussie girls. I don't think she makes this anymore though, sorry. :( I absolutely adore this, it is so sparkly! Pictured over China Glaze "Dorothy Who".

12. Essie "Shine Of The Times"

"Shine Of The Times" took me almost a year to get! Haha! It's a beautiful orange to green shifting flakie that looks most amazing over black. <3

So those are some of my favourites! :D It was hard to narrow it down haha. Let me know what some of your favourites of 2012 were. I'd love to know!

31DC2012: Day 23 - Inspired by a Movie

I could think of a bunch of ideas for "Inspired by a Movie"! I will probably make a list of them and maybe do a series or something! :) Let me know if you'd like to see something like that!

I decided to do a mani I've wanted to try for a while now! Actually maybe 5 months! Wow haha. Its not exactly inspired by a movie, but inspired by someone's nails in a movie! Have you guessed yet? :)

Effie Trinket inspired nails from The Hunger Games! Super easy to do and really pretty! I'm loving gradients right now!

I'm gonna be honest. I'm not like 99% of the population; I haven't read any of The Hunger Games books. Even my boyfriend started it (and never finished it)! Haha! But I have seen the movie. And I have to be honest again, and say that it wasn't as good as I expected it would be. Everyone hyped it up so much and it just didn't live up to it! Maybe because I didn't read the book but I don't know...

Anyway Effie Trinket in the movie had some crazy awesome nails and I wanted to try this design for myself!

I used Revlon ColorStay - Rich Raspberry, a gorgeous berry colour, as the name would suggest, for the base. I think in The Hunger Games the base is a darker berry colour but this was the closest colour I had!
I then sponged on MaxFactor - Ivory. I got this polish for only $0.50 when MF was on sale at Big W a few months ago! :D I wouldn't wear a colour like this as a full mani because I'm not into metallics or anything but it looks good for this look! :)
I then used a thin coat of a sparse small gold glitter polish called Disco Diva by NYC, over the whole nail. I think you can also find NYC at Big W and some supermarkets. I'm pretty sure NYC is made by the same people who make Ulta3 because the bottles are the same.

I really like this look a lot! It's gorgeous!
Let me know if you'd be interested in me doing a movie inspired series on my blog in the near future! :)

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. :)