Sea Siren Cosmetics–Midnight Moves & Leucosia

Hi all!

I’ve said it many times over the past couple of weeks and I’ll say it again now: I AM SICK OF THE HEAT!!!! We have had two days under 40 degrees (Celcius) in the past 28 days. NOT COOL. That’s what I get for living in the desert, I guess. We are supposed to have over 70mm of rain tomorrow. Bring it on, I say! There are some serious bushfires happening in my state at the moment so we need all the rain we can get.

 

Anyway, I made a Sea Siren Cosmetics order the other day after making my good friend Tracey drool over some of their shades. We ordered together to save on shipping and the gorgeous Deb, owner of Sea Siren, included a few of her classic creme shades.

She included a white and black, which was perfect timing because I’ve been trying to find a decent white to buy lately!

 

These were amazing! Great formulas. The white did take three coats to be completely opaque but it wasn’t streaky, draggy or thick at all like most whites I’ve tried. It also doesn’t have that “just painted my nails with white out” look about it. The black was friggin’ awesome!!! It is almost a one coater. You could probably get away with one thick coat but I did two thin ones. The awesome formula meant I had barely any clean up and it was super easy to clean up and not stainy.

 

Of course, there was one thing that popped into my head when I first saw the white and black polishes …

DICE!

 

It’s amazing how the simplest of manis can be so eye catching and gorgeous. I got so many compliments on this mani and it was so, so simple! I kind of wished I had six fingers so I could do this properly  

 

I’m so impressed with these cremes and I still have two classic cremes and two brights to try – wooo!!

To try Sea Siren Cosmetics, go to their website and check out their Facebook page. 

 

Em

piCture pOlish Blogfest 2013

Welcome to piCture pOlish Blogfest 2013!
Each year piCture pOlish select some lucky bloggers to blog about their products. Everyone posts on the same day, at the same time.
This year I was lucky enough to be selected for Blogfest and the theme was nail art.
Uh oh. Nail art. Hrmm.. My version of nail art is to do some nail stamping. I knew I’d have to put my thinking cap on for this one.
Luckily there are some nail art ideas out there for us not-so-talented nail artists. I’ve put together a tutorial on some simple nail art that anyone can do – a “Nail Art for Dummies”, if you will.

Away we go!
First, select the piCture pOlish shades that you plan to use:

Lucky me was given Antique, Mardi Gras and Atomic.

There’s a little bit of prep work involved so make sure you do these few steps the night before you plan to do your mani.
Grab a sheet of household baking paper and paint a few coats of polish onto it. Allow it to dry overnight.

I wasn’t sure how much I was going to end up using so I painted quite large strips. You don’t have to wait too long in between coats for the polish to dry, just make sure you wait at least six or so hours after the final coat.

Carefully use tweezers to peel off your polish strips.


Grab a craft punch from somewhere like Lincraft or Spotlight. They are pretty inexpensive (mine was $7). Use it to punch the shape out of the polish.

Be careful as the polish can get quite brittle! You may need to lightly pull the polish away from the punch.
You can also use scissors to cut out thin strips or pinking shears to cut zig zagged strips.

You’ll end up with a lot of pretty shapes and, in my case, some sparkly strips.


Now we’re ready to paint the nails!

I used Atomic as my base colour with an accent nail of Antique. Atomic is such a pretty but subtle colour.
Antique is almost a one coater but I did two coats to be on the safe side. Atomic seemed quite sheer at first but it built up nicely with three coats.

Grab your third polish. In my case, it’s Mardi Gras, a multi coloured glitter topper.

I chose to go simple with this one. I simply painted two coats of Mardi Gras over Antique. It’s a subtle but glamorous look!

Use either a toothpick, a metal manicure tool or a dotting tool to pick up one of your shapes.

Dip whatever tool you’re using into a slow-drying top coat first so you can stick it to the nail properly.

Carefully lay it on the nail in the position you want.

Try not to move it around too much because you may smudge the base colour!
You can use cuticle nippers to cut off any overhanging bits.
I then did the same with the polish strips to form a diagonal line pattern.

Add a coat of top coat and you will end up with this:

There you have it, a pretty yet simple to do nail art manicure.

Now sit back, relax, and throw your arms out in glee!


Em

China Glaze Hanging in the Balance and Whirled Away

I really, really loved this mani.

For my Secret Santa present from the lovely Peita from Peita’s Polish I received three of the polishes from the China Glaze Cirque du Soleil collection.

 

This is Hanging in the Balance, a beautiful bright blue creme. Stunning, isn’t it? It stains like a biatch, so beware! I layered Whirled Away, the black and white glitter, on top.

I really love the colour combination but the glitters were just too big for me. I’m not a big fan. If the glitters were smaller then it would be a winner!

I also stamped a koi fish design from plate A48. Beautiful fishy!

 

What do you think?
Em

Love Thy Polish Dreams collection

I’m proud to announce the new Love Thy Polish Dreams collection will be released tomorrow (27th April) at 10am South Australian time.

This collection is inspired by Stevie Nicks and is a collaboration between Love Thy Polish and Tammy from Lacquer and Leather. Thanks so much, Tammy, for coming up with some amazing colours and being truly inspiring. And thanks for keeping me in line and telling me when something isn’t good enough

 

Thanks also to Kristy from The Polish Haven for the amazing swatches and blog post.

 

 

You can buy the new Dreams collection from www.lovethypolish.com … if you live outside Australia please contact me via the website to arrange your order as I will need to do a shipping quote for you.

 

I’m excited! Are you?
Em

Boe Green Valley with Modi

Don’t you love it when you find dupes for expensive polishes that are super duper cheap and even better than the original!?

 

A dear friend of mine, Tammy, gifted me this gorgeous Boe sea foam green:

 

It’s called Green Valley and was a lovely squishy crelly. Two coats of a lovely application.

The awesome find was this Modi black and white glitter which is pretty much a dupe for Lynnderella’s Connect the Dots. This beauty only cost me a few dollars + shipping from Korea Depart. What a find! I think two coats of this looks amazing over Green Valley.

 

Do you own Connect the Dots or a dupe?

Em

L’Oreal Rue de Montmartre with Nailz Craze stamping

This is one of the manis I’ve done lately that’s gotten the most compliments. I’m pretty chuffed with it myself!

 

I started with a base of L’Oreal Rue de Montmartre:

Two coats. Delicious! This is a lovely deep blue creme. As usual, L’Oreal’s brush made application easy and awesome.

 

Stamping with Nailz Craze plates. Isn’t this just adorable!? Winter sweater nails Granted, I did these when it was over 40 degrees here but I think I was just channelling colder weather. Our air conditioning has been broken for six weeks now and I’m a little over it.

 

Do you like the winter sweater nails?

Em

Whimsical Ideas by Pam Peanut Butter and Jelly with Australis Milky Way

I was lucky enough to acquire one of the Whimsical Ideas by Pam polishes and had to try it literally the moment it arrived.

I whacked on my PVA base coat for easy removal and away I went!

 

Two coats of Peanut Butter and Jelly. This is such a gorgeous squishy red-purple jelly with gold hexes and micro glitter. Two coats and it was perfect. I didn’t have to go fishing for glitter!

I decided to do an accent nail of Australis Milky Way. Australis have been trying some different things lately and this polish is really cute! Two coats and it was good to go.

 

I just love the packaging of the Whimsies. The little bow on the bottle lid is adorable!! It’s little special touches like that which make the polish, in my opinion.

 

Do you have any Whimsies?
Em

Butter London–Pillarbox Red with Cult Nails-Coveted

Merry Christmas, everyone!

So, the Christmas mani I did yesterday didn’t quite work out but I have another one for you. This is the mani I did for the Christmas Pageant in my little town:

Two coats of Butter London Pillarbox Red and two coats of Cult Nails Coveted. So, so gorgeous. Pillarbox Red is honestly the most perfect red I’ve ever seen and Coveted is such a lovely, deep green jelly with glass ‘shards’ in it.

 

I decided to make it a little more Christmassy:

I sponged white on the tips and stamped some Konad designs on. Cute little snowmen on my fingers and “Merry Christmas” on my thumbs. Everyone at the pageant loved this!

 

Hope you’ve had a happy and safe Christmas!

Em xx

L’Oreal–Rebel Blue

I’ve been kind of loving sponging lately. It’s so simple yet so effective So when I did this mani I knew exactly what I wanted to do!

 

L’Oreal Rebel Blue with Ulta3 Lily White sponged on and the gorgeous puffer fishies from the 3rd Bundle Monster set stamped on as an accent.

So, so cute Rebel Blue is such a pretty blue and a dream to apply thanks to their awesome wiiiiide brushes.

 

How do you like my puffers?

Em

Gloss n’ Sparkle–Unicorn Droppings & Goblin’s Grave

Hi all! I have been a crappy blogger, haven’t I?! I don’t remember when I last posted and now I have a huuuuuuuge backlog of photos to edit and posts to write. Whoops!

Anyway, here are couple of polishes from Aussie indie brand Gloss n’ Sparkle.

 

Unicorn Droppings:

Love, love, LOVE! A gorgeous milky white base with holo shimmer and rainbow hexes. This was two coats which gave enough coverage! I must wear this again because the night I put it on, I used a PVA base and I had to take my partner to the emergency room and he was admitted for suspected appendicitis. So I peeled it all off while in the ER anxiously waiting.

 

Goblin’s Grave:

Gorgeous!!! Look at the depth to this lovely squishy deep green polish. All the different coloured hexes:

*drool*

 

I used three coats of this as it was a little on the sheer side. This was one time I was too lazy to use my peel off base coat and I regretted it when it came time to remove it. Oh, removal was a bitch alright!

 

I mattified it for something a little different:

Ahhhh, perfect!

 

Em

China Glaze–Atellier Tulle with stamping

The lovely Kristy from The Polish Haven gifted me this pretty, summery polish when I bought from her blog sale. It’s always nice to open up a package and find extras! Thanks, Kristy 

She gifted me a mini China Glaze in Atellier Tulle, a pretty deep red coral colour.

I was feeling summery so decided on a cute and fun mani using it:

Two coats of Atellier Tulle with some cute lollies and sweeties stamping on in Konad Special Polish White. I’m struggling to remember which stamp it is but I’m pretty sure it’s from the 3rd Bundle Monster series.

 

This was such a fun and happy mani. I really enjoyed wearing it

Have you been getting into the summery manis?

Em

C UK Diamond Gloss-Bloom

I’ve got a cutesy, cheery mani for you guys today. Now, I don’t really know what this polish is. I got it for free from a friend and it looks quite old.

The label says “C UK Diamond Gloss 5 Day Nail Polish” and the colour is  Bloom. I think it’s just a chemist brand polish?

 

Anyway, it’s a really pretty red that I jazzed up with some stamping from my MASH plates:

Cute, huh? This was two coats of Bloom with the cherries stamped in Konad Special White Polish.

 

Very summery! Are you in a summery mood too?

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

essence–Absolutely Blue with stamping

Have I told you how much I love essence polishes? They are cheap, good quality, easily available (for anyone who doesn’t live in the desert) and have a good variety of colours.

 

I picked up this beauty a couple of months ago while I was in Adelaide. Essence called it “Absolutely Blue” but it’s definitely more of a blurple.

Don’t you think? This is two coats. Awesome formula and awesome wear. I couldn’t believe how long this looked good on my nails for.

 

I did some simple stamping and I’m struggling to remember which set of plates this was from. Possibly MASH? Anyway, if you’re interested give me a hoy!

Cute little birdies! I really liked this because it was so simple but so funky and classy at the same time. It felt very Spring-like, appropriate because we’re having some beautiful days here.

What do you think?

Em

Revlon–Stonewash & Custom Polish–Party Smurf

I’ve been on the hunt for the perfect white polish for a long time now. I haven’t found it yet but this Revlon polish is pretty dang good, especially if you don’t want a stark white!


Revlon Stonewash, two coats. Formula was awesome and it’s got a slight shimmer to it. As I said, perfect if you want to avoid that “liquid paper” look on your nails.
The accent nail is a custom creation of mine that my sister in law named “Party Smurf”. Someone has been playing too much Smurfs on their Android phone

I loved this mani because it felt so clean! Sometimes it’s nice to have a simple, palate cleansing polish.

My next white to try is Ulta3 Lily White, the PRC version. I’ve heard it’s the best one coater white polish from the Aussie girls. I hope so

Em

OPI–Don’t Touch My Tutu with Bundle Monster stamping

When I want a pretty, delicate looking mani which will ‘cleanse’ my nails of all the crazy colours I’ve been painting them lately, I reach for one of my trusty OPI NYC Ballet Collection polishes.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. I love these polishes. I love them to the point where I can see myself running out of some of the colours. This is almost unheard of in my world! Perhaps I should get backups?

 

Anywhoo, this is the white from the collection, Don’t Touch My Tutu:

So, so pretty. Three coats. This was probably the worst formula out of the ones I’ve used but it still wasn’t bad. It was a tiny bit troublesome in that I had a couple of bald spots when I went over the same area but that was a minor inconvenience which I sorted out pretty quickly. If this is the worst formula, I’m in love!

I freakin’ love this polish. It is so pure and pretty and is such a nice, clean slate to work with. Am I mental for being so in love with a collection of polishes?!

 

Anyway, as pretty as it was on its own, I really wanted to try some more of my Fab UR Nails metallic stamping polishes.

This time I tried the metallic blue:

Freakin’ AWESOME!!! This time I didn’t have any trouble with the design drying quicker than normal on the stamper. The Metallic Blue worked perfectly and I absolutely love the colour.

This is a Bundle Monster design which I’ve been wanting to use for a while. I got so many comments on these nails!

The only thing about these Fab Ur Nails stamping polishes … they stink like Kleancolors! So they’re definitely not 3-free. But for someone like me, that doesn’t matter!

 

Have you been rockin’ the NYC Ballet Collection polishes like me?

Em

piCture pOlish–Malt-teaser with Red Angel stamping

I haven’t used a piCture pOlish for a while (and we all know how obsessed I am with them!) so I whipped one out today.

For some reason I was feelin’ a bit more of a classy but different colour.

Malt-teaser fit the bill perfectly:

Oh yeah This is a gorgeous shade of brown. Two coats and an amazing formula. Loved it! This is so work appropriate for pretty much any job (and if you have a job which wouldn’t allow a colour like this, I feel for you!!!!).

 

I couldn’t leave it alone, of course, so I did some stamping with my Red Angel image plates:

Cheeee-tah! This image is from image plate RA107. Love it  

 

Have you snagged the Red Angel plates yet?
Em