Festive Nubbins

I couldn't let Christmas go by without wearing this little beauty I found at a Hot Dollar store!

This is Easy Paris Cosmetics in the shade #026 and it has large hexagonal, slightly holographic green and gold glitter interspersed in small silver hex and round glitter in a sheer green base.

I was feeling rather festive while I was picking out a base colour and decided to do alternate both my Christmas favourites.

The green nails are two coats of China Glaze Emerald Sparkle, with one coat of the green hex glitter, and the red is two coats of China Glaze Ruby Pumps, with one coat of OPI Gettin' Miss Piggy with it.

It's just rolled over to Christmas morning in Sydney, so Merry Christmas from down under, i'm off to get some sleep!

China Glaze OMG

Today i've got some silvery holo eye candy to share!

Although temperatures are back down to usual winter frigidness and the clouds have rolled back in, I managed to get a few holo swatches in during last week's blazing sunshine! Unfortunately i've had three breaks since then, including one on my more photogenic hand. So lots of naily envy, solar oil, old swatches and boring colours while I grow them out again boo!
These photos are over freshly (lightly) buffed nails and a ridge filler because I find that holo polishes are extremely unforgiving to any imperfections.

The first photo is sans top coat and the second is after. I really can't see any dulling of the holographic effect with top coat.

@_@

Love that rainbow effect!!

Mmmm this one's going to get a lot of wear come summer, the perfect polish for a day out in the sun!

China Glaze LOL

Hey guys, i'm really sorry about the lack of updates lately, i've been really busy with uni, various family functions and making the decision to have my first horse put to sleep. Only 3 weeks until all my exams and uni stuff is finished and i'll be able to do my nails on a regular basis and do some makeup swatches i've been meaning to get around to.

I've seen on quite a few blogs that holographic polishes dry SUPER fast, so being time poor and needing something that would cheer me up a little, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to try out one of my China Glaze OMG polishes! Going by names alone, are you surprised that I picked LOL?

Please excuse the pooling in my cuticles, I did this at three am during a stretch of essay procrastination and I really didn't feel like cleaning up.

I took stacks of pictures, but all but these two were so washed out that it looked like I was wearing IDK, the lavender lacquer from the same collection. You know what they say about purple and cameras! I also didn't manage to capture the full holo effect because the sun refused to play nice until I had massive chips on my swatch hand. Guess i'll just have to wear it again!!

I don't think i've ever worked with a formula quite like this. It's really thin but extremely pigmented, I only needed two coats for full coverage, but it shows every single imperfection on my nails even after I buffed them.... Also, top coat didn't seem to dull the holo effect, but neither did it extend wear time! I think I might play with a base coat next time.

I absolutely loved the colour of this lacquer, but the wear was absolutely terrible! I took these photos the in the afternoon of the day when I did my nails then jumped in the shower. When I got out and inspected my nails, three had minor chips boo! Oh well, it was fun while it lasted :)

The week from hell... redeemed :) (pic heavy)

Yay! Blogger's back up and running fairly smoothly, finally :P So here's the recap of my week i've been wanting to post for a few days now.

So the excitement all started on Sunday, when I read Carina from Gilded Nails post about a supply store in Sydney of all places that had some AMAZING htfs and I decided that I had to get over there at some point during the week. Finished an assignment (YAY!!), printed it and then left my laptop on the table. I turned around to retrieve the assignment out of the printer and heard this almighty crash! My laptop fell off the table onto bare floorboards :(

I took the computer to the repair shop, and spent the next two days going at it hammer and tongs to redo the half finished assignment that was on the laptop, due Wednesday..

So here's where the week gets better! As of now, I have a new model Macbook Pro with all my data, sans music and photos.

It was also my birthday! Cosmetics wise, I received two OPIs, a Sally Hansen and all the stuff pictured below. I also had to put my necklace in there, it's multichrome!!

My Zoya package also arrived on my birthday, so stoked with the colours I ordered!

Thank you so much to Sharon from sales who got these out to me :)

So these are Ivanka, Mimi and Charla from the 2010 Sparkle collection. Yes, I know I jumped on the wagon pretty late with these, but that doesn't stop them from being gorgeous!!

If you're in Australia, you can purchase Zoya from selected salons, or Art of Beauty for AU$17 a bottle.

Sadly, I only had time for a one finger swatch on my way out the door to uni, these are three coats each. I haven't played with these properly yet, because I got just a little distracted on Thursday...

Remember that supply store I mentioned?

OMG literally!!!! Thank you Carina!!

I picked up DS Signature and Original, China Glaze Dorothy Who?, C-C-Courage and Watermelon Rind, in addition to my pick of the OMG collection; L8R G8R, BFF, LOL, DV8, QT and OMG.

I spent like an hour in the store, and there were so many more pretties that I wanted, guess i'm going to have to make another trip!

So after returning from my supply store haulage, it was clear that I was not going to fit any more polish into my desk drawer :P So a drawer in my wardrobe got cleaned out...

There we go, much roomier!

On another note, i've officially put myself on a no buy until i've worn all of my untrieds, around 30 bottles, more than half of all the polish I own!... this could take a while :)

China Glaze - Ruby Pumps

 This is my most used polish, and if you own it, it's easy to see why. Inspired by Dorothy's shoes in the 1939 adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, this lacquer hits the nail on the head! This mani lasted me a full week with minor chipping on the seventh day.

Ruby pumps tips with my latest craft project, if you'll ignore my shoddy needle work please :)work in progress.

Because i'm still learning, sadly I haven't nearly caught the real beauty of this little gem in my photos. But in full sun it really does sparkle like this!

If you google this shade i'm sure you'll find much better pictures! If you like this lacquer, it was originally released as part of the China Glaze Wizard of Ooh Ahz collection waaay before I got into polish, but it was re-released in 2009 so you may have some chance of still picking them up. 

So I thought i'd round off this post with this yummy chocolate pudding I made for my grandma's 80th last week. Mmmm...

Featured mani is 3 coats of Ruby Pumps with OPI Nail Envy as base coat and Revlon Colorstay Topcoat.

I purchased this polish from Crush Cosmetics for AU$11.95

Wicked Series-China Glaze Emerald Sparkle

Upon realising last night, that for the past few months my uni oriented life has been shockingly Wicked deprived, i've decided to do a series of Wicked inspired manicures. I also though that these might be useful to those lucky members of the community who are going to the Adelaide and Perth productions and would like a special colour to wear. So, my first colour is a green. Namely my quintessential green, China Glaze Emerald Sparkle. Before you say 'eeeewww, green on my nails?!' have a look at this picture.

Green sparkly awesomeness! Even if you don't like greens, who doesn't want a Christmas colour like THAT? I do apologise for the lack of close up images, but the camera I was using refused to take anything more zoomed in than these.

 Unfortunately the flash in this picture turned my skin orange, but I think it shows off the glitter.

When applying, the first coat will look a little bald and patchy but stay with it!! These pictures were 3 coats with OPI Original Nail Envy as the base coat and Revlon Colorstay Top Coat.

I purchased this polish from Crush Cosmetics for AU$11.95