essie–Coat Azure with stamping

I have a pretty, pretty polish for you guys today. I had this beauty sitting in my untrieds since February (whoops) and I’m not sure why it took me so long to wear it!

essie Coat Azure, two easy coats. It’s got such a pretty shimmer through it, hasn’t it?

I decided to jazz it up with some stamping:

This is a design from the latest MASH plates. I’m really impressed with these plates.. I found them easy to stamp with

I dotted the centre of the flowers with NYC Color Banana Split. Some of the dots are a bit wonky but you get that in the big jobs!

 

It’s such a Spring-like mani, don’t you think?

Em

Manis for Race Day

Every year in the little mining town I live in we have an Outback Cup. Half the town gets doled up to the nines and the other half wear jeans and a t-shirt and we all head out to the race course to watch some horsies run and win races. It’s basically an excuse to get drunk and dress up. I don’t really drink and I hate getting dressed up so I wasn’t even going to go to the races. A friend and client of mine convinced me to do some volunteer working serving all the drunk people their alcohol. It was good fun for most of the day until about half an hour before the bar shut when people started getting rowdy and messy and just plain gross. It really made me glad I don’t drink!

 

Anyway, I’ll cut to the chase and get to the point of this post! I ended up doing three lots of nails for the races for friends of mine. I had a really busy evening the day before the races and the morning of the races prettying up three friends nails.

 

First up was Miss Michelle’s nails. Michelle wanted something natural and understated so we started off using essie’s Au Natural and we were just doing stamping over it. Then she spotted essie Footloose and fell in love so we ended up with this:

Pretty, right? A coat of essie Foot Loose (my favourite one-coater pink) with Konad in white. It turned out so, so pretty! She loved it! She ended up borrowing my bottle of Foot Loose and when she returned it she asked me to find her a bottle to buy.

 

Next up was Miss Laura.

Laura picked a base colour of Towel Boy Toy by China Glaze, a gorgeous blue neon. Silly me didn’t actually realise it was a neon so I needed three coats. If I’d started with a base of white it probably would have turned out a bit brighter. But that’s okay, it was still super bright!

She wasn’t sure if she wanted any stamping and left that entirely up to me. I decided to do some dotting. Simple, effective and eye catching!

Here’s the end result:

Pretty right? So this was three coats of China Glaze Towel Boy Toy and dots with Ulta3 Frangipani and Gelato.

She loved it!

 

Finally, we have Miss Narelle.

Narelle has been interested in trying gel polish for a while, so I tried out my BlueSky shellac polish on her. I used a pretty purple shimmer which as far as I can see, doesn’t have a name.

This is what we ended up with:

This was a coat of the BlueSky base coat, cured for two minutes, then a coat of the purple, cured for two minutes, another coat of the purple, cured for two minutes, then the BlueSky top coat, cured for two minutes. Then I wiped off the tacky layer with a cleaner and stamped a pretty Konad flower design in silver on the ring fingers and sealed that with a coat of Seche Vite.

Narelle wore these nails for about two weeks with no issues! She even said that she’d broken a nail underneath the polish but the polish had held it all together and protected it for her! Winner!

I think this is a great idea for people who don’t want to change their polish all the time but love having pretty nails. What I loved about it was that you could change the stamping designs easily

For polish addicts like myself, this probably isn’t the answer!

 

Em

essie–Sew Psyched

I wanted to love this polish, I really did. I’ve seen so many swatches of it on other blogs and loved the look of it. But on me, it just did not work.

Here it is, essie Sew Psyched:

Ehhhhh. I just did not see anything special in this polish on me. I don’t know, it just didn’t work. This was two slightly runny coats. I couldn’t tell you what the durability of this polish is because I took it off straight away. Some polishes are just like that, aren’t they? You just can’t wait to get them off your nails.

 

Have you had any colours you’ve been looking forward to trying but just haven’t worked for you?

Em

Blog Sale!

Hey everyone!

It’s that time again! It’s blog sale time!

 

I’m culling my stash because I just have way too many polishes … it’s getting ridiculous! So take a look and see if there’s anything you’d like.

 

Postage will be quoted depending on how much you buy. I CAN ship internationally but only under 500g.

Please leave a comment on which polishes you’d like and it will be on a first come, first serve basis. Leave your name and email address and I’ll email you an invoice through PayPal. I will be in Adelaide until Tuesday so probably won’t be able to check this until Tuesday evening. Happy buying!

 

Em

 

B (salon brand) – 2 different pinks (unnamed) – $1 each. Ulta3 Strawberry Sundae – $1. Rimmel Tangerine Queen – $1, Milani Photo Flash – $2.

 

 

BYS Anyone for Tennis, Steal the Limelight, Pink in a Blink, Ladies that Lunch, Goldfinger – $2 each.

 

 

BYS Baby Pink, French White, Pink Manicure, Matte Grey – $2 each.

 

 

BYS Hollywood Hills, Pretty Pastel Peppermint, Sunshine, Colour Change Blue Glitter – $2 each.

 

 

Cherimoya 2012 Crackles – Apocalypse, Typhoon – $2 each.

 

Kleancolor Disco Ball, Purple Sparkle, Holiday Jingle, Firework – $1 each.

 

 

essence The Dawn is Broken – $2, essie Real Simple – $5, Zoya Angella – $5, Zoya Lisa – $5

 

NYC Colors Lemon – $0.50c, Ulta3 Lemon Tart – $0.50c

 

 

Bloom – Maui, Copenhagen – $2 each, Nicole – $5 (used for approx. 3 manis).

 

 

Miki minis – red w/ gold shimmer – $1 each, blue-green – $1. Chemistry 618 – $5, 609 – $5 each.

 

 

piCture pOlish Nude & Violet Femme – $6 each.

 

 

Modelista Sao Paulo – $3. duri Devil Wears duri – $5, k.k. unnamed gold & blue-green – $1 each.

 

 

rokk96 Silver Screen & I’ll Be Frank – $5 each. Color Club Foiled collection Antiquated & Lumin-icescent – $4 each.

 

 

Mode Cosmetics – Trendsetter, Blingin’, Style Magnet, Midas Touch – $1 each.

 

Revlon Ocean Breeze (scented), Blueberry Burst, Apricot Freeze, Pina Colada Pop – $3 each.

 

The Face Shop PK105 (Pink with purple flash) – $5 & RD301 (Orangey red scattered holo)- NEVER USED – $8 (RRP $14.95).

essie–Real Simple

I wanted to love this polish, I truly did. I have been searching for the perfect sheer polish that I could use for french manis for months now, and I was sure this would be it.

But alas, it was not.

 

This is essie Real Simple:

Three coats of hell. This formula was awful, awful, awful. Streaky and unmanageable. It wasn’t an even finish no matter how hard I tried.

 

It wasn’t quite sheer enough, either. I needed three coats to even it out to be decent enough to wear in public, so I couldn’t go with two coats to make it more sheer.

 

Blah, just blah. There was nothing special about this polish.

Since then, thankfully, I’ve found the perfect sheer polishes. Can you guess what they are?

Em

essie–Nice is Nice Easter mani

I kind of did my Easter mani at the last minute (ie Easter Sunday morning). I wasn’t going to do one because generally I’m pretty damn lazy when it comes to doing holiday themed manis … but this was so easy I didn’t have much of an excuse not to do it!

 

Here it is:

This is two coats of essie Nice is Nice, a gorgeous pastel purple. Beautiful formula and such a lovely colour. The dots and zig zags are Ulta3 Lemon Tart from their Gelato collection. Horrid formula, as I’ve heard. The zig zags were way harder to do than they should have been!!!

 

Did you do an Easter themed mani?

Em

essie–Smooth Sailing

I finally got my essie order from Ozsale – yay! I was really lucky because none of my bottles were broken or leaking. I’ve heard some really bad stories lately about people’s packages from Ozsale being trashed. They actually packed mine pretty well with bubble wrap and a bubble lined post bag. I got lucky!!!

 

This is Smooth Sailing, a polish I have been lemming since it came out:

Ahhhhh, gorgeous. Two coats of perfection. Look at this stunning shimmer! It’s such a beautiful blue with a hint of purple. This was actually pretty hard to photograph.

 

How did you go with your Ozsale order?

Em

essie–Foot Loose

This is the perfect pink. And that’s a big call because there are a LOT of pink polishes out there!

This polish was a dream to apply and was opaque in ONE coat. You heard me, ONE!!!

What is it?

See for yourself:

essie Foot Loose. ONE COAT. ONE COAT!! I can’t get over it! I have a similar colour polish which needs three! I just cannot fault this polish. It’s a beautiful deep pink and I just love it! It’s enough to get me to get rid of all my similar coloured polishes. And that is a huge deal!

 

I’ve been digging the nail stamping lately because I went without for so long, so I brought out my favourite Red Angel plates and stamped away:

Awww, precious! Without even realising it, I did Valentines Day nails! Haha I must have subconsciously been thinking about it!

 

Are you wearing Valentines nails?

Em

Zoya–Posh with Essie Luxeffects

 I am really, really disappointed with this polish. I've been wanting to try a Zoya matte velvet polish for so long and I finally got a couple.

This is Zoya Posh:

Um, boring. Why do all the photos I've seen of Zoya matte velvet's look so gorgeous and, well, velvety!?
This photo actually makes it look a lot nicer than it actually looked on my nails. Blah.

To brighten it up a bit I added a coat of one of the new essie Luxeffects:

This is As Gold As It Gets. My brother got this beauty for me for Christmas and I'm a little obsessed. One coat and it's the perfect amount of micro flakies.

Of course, what could be better then flakies? MATTE FLAKIES :D

Oh I loooooved this. It was so classy and understated but interesting at the same time.
I just added a coat of China Glaze Matte Magic and it transformed it!

Have you done any matte manis lately?

Em

essie–Buy me a Cameo

I’ve been so uninspired with blogging lately. I think it’s because I’m pouring all my creativity and inspiration into my custom polishes. So when I wear a polish I hate I don’t want to blog about it and I put it off. But then I tell myself that I should still blog about the polish even if I hate it because I can’t love everything!

Anyway, this is a polish I hate: essie’s Buy Me a Cameo:

Two coats. Urgh. It does not do it for me. It makes my cuticles appear red and gross (I swear they’re not that bad!!!). Because it’s a pearl finish you can’t escape the lines.

 

I was so unimpressed with this polish.

 

Have you worn this one before? What do you think?

Em

essie Life Saver with Konad

I wasn’t sure about this polish. Sure, it looked great in the bottle but I thought the beautiful shimmer in the bottle would disappear once on the nail.

Luckily, I was wrong  

This is essie Life Saver:

A gorgeous orange with gold microshimmer. It is STUNNING! The subtle shimmer really tones the polish down and makes it something a little different.

This was three coats because I’m pedantic and had a couple of tiny bald spots after two coats. Gorgeous formula, as I’ve discovered most essies have!

 

And what goes so well with orange?

Tiggerrrrrr! Konad tiger full nail design in Konad Princess Special Polish (Warm Black).

I LOVE IT It’s so fun and eyecatching but not TOO out there and garish like some oranges are. Definitely my favourite orange by far!

I wore this to the Christmas pageant here and got so many compliments!

 

Have you done any Konad-ing you love lately?

Em

BYS Fool’s Paradise with Double Dotties

I fiiiinnally filed my nails down to squovals. I’ve had them round for so long and I was getting really bored. I wasn’t sure about how good squoval looked on me until I saw the photos, but I actually love them!

 

Here’s BYS Fool’s Paradise:

Such a lovely, bright teal. I was most impressed with the formula because it just went on beautifully in two coats and it wore amazingly well.

 

I decided to liven it up a bit with some dotties:

I’m not sure if you can see but these are double dotties. I did the large dots with BYS French White and then slightly smaller dots inside the white dots with essie Borrowed & Blue. I should have picked more contrasting colours but it was more noticeable in real life! My osteopath said these nails reminded her of Easter! I must keep that in mind for next year!

 

This polish reminds me a lot of piCture pOlish Marine. What do you think?

Hmmm, on second thought, it doesn’t. It’s totally different. Marine is much brighter and bluer than Fool’s Paradise. How funny that you think they’re the same in your head until you see them side by side!

 

Happy weekend!!
Em

Goodies from the US

My good friend Kate just got back from a trip to the US and bought me soooo many nail goodies. THANK YOU, Kate! I am forever in your debt.

Here’s what she found me:

Zoya

Amber and Sara.


Lisa, Angella and Rihana.

OPI

Shatters – Red, Black and Turquoise.


Spark de Triomphe, Lucern-tainly Look Marvelous and Brights Power.


Significant Other Color, Go on Green! and Not Like the Movies.


 Last Friday Night and Teenage Dream.

essie

Barbados Blue, Lifesaver, Footloose and Cameo.

Duri

Divas Only, Devil Wears Duri and Oscar Party.
Have you guys heard of this brand? I hadn’t ever heard of them but when I Googled them I found that they’ve release a lot of collections and colours. And they have lots of duochromes Divas Only looks amazing.

I’ve already tried a couple and I am in luuuuurve

Em