Sally Hansen - Mint Sorbet - Mission Untrieds #14

This is Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet from the Xtreme Wear line.

2 coats + topcoat.

Mint Sorbet is obviously a pastel mint colour. It kind of dried darker than the colour looks in the bottle, though. Which was actually a bit disappointing because I wanted it to be REALLY pastel. :(

The formula on this was terrible, to be totally honest with you. :/ It was extremely thick and goopy, like I'd owned it for years when this was actually my first time using it. It was also a bit bubbly but I think I managed to avoid the bubbles. So this one definitely needs some thinner.

I also hate the brush on these Xtreme Wear polishes. The polish tends to run off the brush out of nowhere! Argh.
Lucky I only paid like $1.50 for it because I had Priceline vouchers haha.

Do you have a fave pastel mint green? This is the only one I own and since I'm not too fond of it, I'm on the hunt for a new great pastel mint! :) I want a very white based one.

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 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.

China Glaze - Flip Flop Fantasy

Today I have a manicure to show you that I wore probably a month or so ago now, but never got around to showing you here!

This was inspired by Lisa_Beth on Instagram! She did something like this maybe 4 or 5 months ago! Haha. It's really bright and summery. :)
I used 3 coats of China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy, a coral-y pink neon, on all fingers but my ring finger, where I used 2 coats of Sally Hansen's Celeb City, a silver foil, and topped that with 2 coats of Ulta3 Twinkle Toes! This was really fun to wear but unfortunately it chipped extremely quickly, like within 12 hours! I don't usually wear my nail polish more than 1 or 2 days and it never chips!

Being an old manicure, I only had one photo of it worthy of posting haha. All of the others were either bad quality, or not colour accurate whatsoever!

Hope you're having a great day!

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 15/12 - Christmas Tree

Hey guys! :) Today's challenge prompt is "Christmas Tree"! A coincidence because today we put up our Christmas Tree! :) Well, actually, I didn't even know my siblings were putting it up so I didn't help. :(
I'm annoyed I didn't get this up by midnight. :( Haha.

For my mani I used three coats of Sally Hansen Brick Wall on my pointer, middle and pinky, topped with 2 coats of Rimmel Ruby Crush. You could use ANY red user this Rimmel glitter because it almost fully covers the base colour!

On my thumb and ring finger I used 2 coats of OPI Designer De Better (Am I the only one who thinks that's a weird name..? Or maybe I'm just slow and don't get it hahah). Then for the Christmas tree I used a striper to paint it, with Essie Mojito Madness. For the baubles and star I used Ulta3 Blue Marlin, Frangipani and Butter London Pillar Box Red. I also dabbed some of Ulta3 Luck Of The Irish all over the place. Haha.

Hope you're having a great weekend! :)

Aussie Nails Monday - 3/12 Glad Wrap

Hellooo! This post is going up a bit later than usual because I wasn't as organised as I like to be. :P

Today's Aussie Nails Monday is 'glad wrap' (or saran/cling wrap if you're from another country). This is a technique I've been seeing a lot in the last few months!

This technique is done by applying a base colour, waiting for it to dry completely, then painting another colour over top (usually a contrasting colour) and while it's still wet, dabbing a ball of glad wrap over it.

Here are some examples and tutorials I found on this method:

• http://blognailedit.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/saran-nails-on-going-out-chic.html (includes tutorial)
• http://nailderellanails.blogspot.com/2012/08/saran-wrap-nails-with-illamasqua.html
• http://zabranjeni-grad.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/video-tutorial-saran-wrap-nail-technique.html (includes video tutorial)
• http://thepolishwell.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/nail-ideas-saran-wrap-nails.html

I really liked the colour combination in the first link so I decided to use similar colours. :)

For my base I used Sally Hansen Lacey Lilac, and the colour I put over top is Revlon Buttercup! This method is pretty messy, at least it was for me. I'm not super happy with how it turned out but it'll do. :)

I used two coats of Sally Hansen Insta Dri topcoat over the mani because it felt sort of rough/bumpy.

Elissa xx

Check out the blogs/accounts of the gorgeous ladies joining me for Aussie Nails Monday:

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 - Mel My Issta - Walk In My Eyeshadow - JennLojko - The Polish Haven - Nails In The Desert - Erinzi - Strawbrie - Lovessweetas - Jas' Blingtastic Nails - Mckfresh - Jessica

Aussie Nails Monday 26/11 Weather

Hey guys! Sorry I didn't post over the weekend! Hope you had a great one. I had a couple posts planned but I was feeling pretty average all weekend. Had a terrible headache for most of Saturday and then yesterday I developed a cold! :( Boooo.
In other news, today is 3 months till my 20th birthday! Woohoo! (Yep, I'm only 19 lol. I feel like a baby sometimes lol)
Anywho, onto the reason I'm sure you're here - POLISH. :D

For today's Aussie Nails Monday, the theme is 'Weather'. I thought this was a pretty unique theme and can be interpreted in many ways. :)

I chose to do some nail art (I use that term loosely) with neons because in a few days it'll technically be SUMMER here! Woohoo! Towards the beginning of this month we had some pretty hot weather though so it already felt like summer for a while there! But then the weather got a bit chilly again. :( Haha.

I used mostly Ulta3 polishes for this! I don't own many neons but for some reason, I think all but one or two of the neons I do own are Ulta3!

For the base colour I used Sally Hansen Insta Dri in Whirlwind White, which I really need a new bottle of because mine is almost done and is thick and bubbly. :(
For the splatter I used Ulta3 Fruit Tingle (pink), Ulta3 Citrus (yellow) and Color Club Age Of Aquarius (aqua/turquoise). I used a straw to create the effect by blowing the nail polish onto my nail but I didn't really find this technique easy. Let me know if you know of a more effective way to create this look! I taped off my fingers so I wouldn't have too much cleanup to do, but really it still ended up really messy. :( lol.

I think this looks so cool! I will definitely be rocking this again in summer. :D 

Elissa xx

Please go check out the other lovely ladies' nails for today! :D

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 - Mel My Issta - Walk In My Eyeshadow - JennLojko - The Polish Haven - Nails In The Desert - Erinzi - Strawbrie - Lovessweetas - Jas' Blingtastic Nails - Mckfresh

Sally Hansen Gem Crush - Lady Luck

Hey hey! I have a quick polish swatch to show you!

I bought this polish last week because I got my Priceline "payback" reward voucher a week or two ago. :) It wasn't a lot, but it made my decision to buy this polish easier. ;)

I think this was probably one of the first 20 polishes to go onto my nail polish wishlist ever! I wanted it when I first started collecting in February, which I think was around the time this line was released here. But I never owned it til now. I think that's because to me, they're a little expensive (compared to the US prices. But that really doesn't surprise me at all anymore, everything here is double, sometimes triple the price of US cosmetics). And that's why having my little Priceline reward made me feel better about buying it.

Anywho!

This is Sally Hansen's Lady Luck from the Gem Crush line. I eventually want to own all/most of the Gem Crush polishes. I'm crazy about glitter and lately I've been really liking small glitters like this, and usually I only like chunky glitter. 

Lady Luck is teeny tiny magenta glitters, and larger (still small though) silver holographic glitters in a clear base.

From other swatches and reviews I've seen, I expected this to be more opaque. But I actually needed 3-4 coats to get it opaque. And as you can see, it still isn't even fully opaque. :(
I think it would work better if the base was thicker. Maybe I'll leave the bottle open for 15 minutes so it can thicken up a bit, lol.

But sheer-ness aside, this is totally gorgeous and so sparkly! Love.

I bought mine at Priceline as I said, but I've also seen them in Target, Kmart, and a couple at Big W. Woolworths also had a few I believe. They cost $9.95 but Sally Hansen is on sale in the shops I mentioned pretty often so I'd suggest waiting until SH is on sale if you want these. :)

Elissa xx

The product(s) shown were purchased by me. This post is not sponsored by Sally Hansen in any way.

This is Halloween: 22/10 Gradient

Hey guys! :)

I have not had a good day and I am sooo tired so this post will probably be kept short.

For the Gradient theme of the This is Halloween challenge, I knew from the start I'd want to do a 'candy corn' inspired gradient! :) I think the colours on candy corn look so fun and bright and festive. But I do not like candy corn. :| My sister bought a packet of them from Jelly Belly last year and I was NOT expecting them to taste the way they did. I thought they'd be like gummy lollies or something but they weren't! In Australia I've only ever seen candy corn in the shops once and then the time when my sister brought them home.

Disclaimer! I didn't realise until I was about to take photos of this mani that I realised I'd put the colours in the wrong order. :( BOOOO. If you're not familiar with candy corn, I should've put the orange and yellow the other way around. I have not done very many successful manis for this challenge have I. :( Oh well, my boyfriend said it still reminded me of it.
Please also excuse the oily cuticles. I really need to make sure the pictures are fine before I remove my mani...

I used a base of Sally Hansen Whirlwind White, and then did a gradient with a makeup sponge and Face of Australia Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy, and Essie Fear or Desire. :)

On the plus side, my nubbins don't look too bad here! Yay! :)

Thanks for looking! Have a great week!

Elissa

31DC2012: Day 29 - Inspired by the Supernatural

Hello girlies. My sickness just keeps getting worse. :( But I don't want to fall behind too much in the challenge! Plus I'm so bored and I have to do SOMETHING. The last couple days for the 31 Day Challenge will be very simple manis unfortunately. :( It really sucks.

So today's theme is "Inspired by the Supernatural". What I chose isn't exactly supernatural... I think it fits more into "fantasy", but oh well. ;)
I chose a really simple Harry Potter inspired mani! And yes, yet again I used a tutorial. But I really did not have enough energy to come up with something of my own lol.

Here is the video tutorial I used, by missglamorazzi on YouTube:

For my base on my index and ring fingers, I used NYC - Lemon. For the base on my middle finger I used OPI - Swimsuit Nailed It and on my pinky I used OPI - Cuckoo For This Colour! For the base on my thumb I used Ulta3 - Black Satin. (I chose not to show my thumb, as I had to patch it today and I haven't buffed it out enough, and it looked horrible and bumpy in photos. On my thumb I had a gold sparkly lightning bolt.)
I also used Ulta3 - English Rose, Ulta3 - Antique Copper, Sally Hansen - Celeb City and BYS stripers in Black, Gold glitter and Silver glitter.

This was SO simple to do and only took 20 minutes max, which is pretty perfect for me right now because I can't concentrate for too long and I keep having coughing fits! :(

I'm hoping I'll be feeling a bit better tomorrow! The 31 Day Challenge is almost over! I'm sorry this post was probably all over the place. :(

Elissa

31DC2012: Day 28 - Inspired by a Flag

Hey! Please excuse me if today's post is all over the place or is short. I have some crappy sickness and I feel horrible right now. :( I don't even feel like painting my nails! Can you believe it!?!?! :( But I am really excited to show you today's nails so I will soldier on!

Today's theme is 'Inspired by a Flag', so of course I did the Aussie flag! :D I actually used the small amount of creativity I have to come up with most of this mani on my own! ;) I used a tutorial for one nail.

My stars are less than perfect, LOL, but I looove the way my mani turned out! :)
For the blue on all my nails except my pointer, I used Ulta3 - Blue Marlin. I actually used all the same colours in today's mani as I used yesterday! Haha!
I also used Sally Hansen - Whirlwind White, Ulta3 - Lily White, Butter London - Pillar Box Red and China Glaze - Ring in the Red.

I used a tutorial by The Nailasaurus to do the Union Jack on my pointer. It was really easy and I am so pleased with how it turned out. :)

I am a proud Aussie! :D I'll definitely do this nail art again for Australia Day next year!

Elissa

31DC2012: Day 27 - Inspired by Artwork

I cheated a little with today's nails. ;) Hehe! I decided that nail art is technically artwork so I was inspired by yet another YouTube tutorial. :)

I watched this nautical nail art tutorial video by CutePolish on YouTube and decided this should be pretty quick and easy to recreate. I was wrong. :)

Video by Cutepolish on YouTube

On my thumb, pointer, middle and pinky I used Sally Hansen - Whirlwind White for the base, and Butter London - Pillar Box Red for the stripes. On my ring finger I used a base of Ulta3 - Blue Marlin and a white striper for the anchor.

I underestimated how hard it would be to do perfect, or even decent, stripes! From a distance they look alright, but up close, not so much. :P I'd like to get some striping tape so that I can do perfect stripes though!

I'm also trying out the Sally Hansen Insta Dri top coat again. I tried it a while back but I forgot how it works. Now I would NOT recommend this top coat for nail art. It totally smudged my lines! :( I ended up sort of "floating" the brush over my nail once I realised that it would smudge my nails. Floating the brush is where you load up the brush with top coat, and then brush it over the nail, without actually touching the nail. It's kinda hard to explain but hopefully you understand what I mean. :) Insta Dri is pretty fast drying, not as fast as Seche Vite (because really, nothing compares to it), but I will use it for my regular manis. :) I also would probably wait at least an hour before going to bed or something after using Insta Dri, whereas with Seche Vite I can go to sleep 20 minutes after using it and not ruin my nails at all.

Can't wait for the mani I have to show you tomorrow! :D

Elissa

31DC2012: Day 26 - Inspired by a Pattern

Hey there girlies! :)

Today my nails are again, inspired by a tutorial. I know, another look that was inspired by a tutorial. But lately I've only been getting inspired by nail tutorials (which is where I see most nail art on YouTube) so yeah. But hey, that means I can share the video I used and you can try it too. :D

Today's mani was inspired by MissJenFabulous again! Her nails are just awesome though so how can I not want to recreate all of her nail tutorials!? :) Jen's looks much better than mine though! I also didn't use tape like she did, I just freehanded the black section.

I think this one is Jen's most recent nail tutorial! Argyle print! When I saw the title, I was like "what on earth is argyle print?" :P But I've definitely seen it before. You might have seen it on socks or something, if you don't know what it is.

Polishes used:

• China Glaze - Dance Baby
• Sally Hansen - Celeb City
• Ulta3 - Black Satin
• BYS White striper

Hope you enjoyed this cool preppy mani! ;)

Elissa

31DC2012: Day 25 - Inspired by Fashion

I had a hard time coming up with something for today's nails. I'm not really into fashion and don't keep up with the latest 'trends'.
But I remembered seeing this post by Jen @ Polish and Pearls and thought it'd be fun to try out. :) I've been seeing this Ikat print on a lot of girls' nails but to be honest I've never seen it on clothing, even though Jen said in her video tutorial that she's seen it everywhere!

This nail art is suuuuuper easy to create, but Jen's looks so much better than mine turned out!

For the base colour I used Sally Hansen - Pacific Blue (an AWESOME colour, get your hands on it if you can!), and I also used White and Black BYS stripers, and China Glaze - Flip Flop Fantasy.

Hope you like it!

Elissa

31DC2012: Day 14 - Flowers

In this post you get to see my sad, short, baby nails. :( I was happy when I first filed them down because I was over having super long nails but now once I've done a mani on them; not so much. Ugh! Just can't win. ;)

Anywho. I'll just get right to it. Today's theme is flowers. I had a hard time coming up with a flower design. I couldn't think of anything so I just ended up doing some stamping instead.
I'm not gonna lie, you may have already seen this stamping design on my blog. I can't remember if I've shown it or not but I've definitely used it a gazillion times because I don't own many plates. :(

This design was done with a Fauxnad plate M65, I think I bought it from Born Pretty Store almost a year ago. I used Konad Special Polish in white.

The base is Sally Hansen - Coral Fever! This was also given to me by the lovely Natalie from Instagram. :) I loooove this coral! :) It's not a totally orange-y which I love because I am not a fan of orange polish on me. :P Thank you again Natalie!

Please excuse the boo-boos in this mani; I nicked it a couple times and I'm trying a new top coat which I guess isn't as good as I'd hoped... :(

So I hope my baby nails aren't too ugly for you to look at. LOL. Actually, my pictures make them look a bit longer than they actually are. I don't want to call them 'nubbins' because they technically aren't. I do have a bit of free edge. But I miss my long nails. Boo hoo.

Elissa