Manicure Monday - China Glaze It's A Trap-Eze & OPI What's With The Cattitude

Welcome to another Manicure Monday (on Tuesday...oops)

I wanted something a little fun on my nails this week so decided to finally use my China Glaze It's A Trap-Eze polish. This is a multi coloured glitter suspended in a milky white base...AH-MAYZING. I'd never used this before so wasn't sure if it would work on it's own, I think with 2 coats it would go pretty opaque but just to be certain I paired it with one of my favourite baby blues OPI What's With The Cattitude.

OPI is sold at David Jones, Myer & selected stores across Australia. You can also purchase OPI from Adore Beauty - RRP $19.95AUD. This colour is now discontinued but can be found on various e-tailers websites.

China Glaze is available from Crush Cosmetics for RRP $10.95AUD. It's A Trap-Eze isn't currently on the website and I do believe it is quite hard to find, so again e-tailers might be your best bet.

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Twas The Manicure Before Xmas

It's Christmas Eve!! I've spent the day dying in the heat, cleaning my house and watching A Nightmare Before Christmas. Now i'm heading out to our family Christmas Eve dinner (Italian side).

So I thought I'd better do my possibly last Christmas manicure of 2012. It's pretty simple just 2 coats of China Glaze Poinsettia with a glitter gradient of China Glaze Twinkle Lights (they came in a pack together in 2011).

Hope you enjoy and have a lovely Christmas!

Nailin' It - Recent Nail Looks

This could be the blogger in me, but I obsessively take photos of my nails when I do them. I guess for the reason that I may eventually blog about them but I have so many un-blogged nail pictures I thought i'd start posting them.

These looks are fairly recent (oldest being 2 weeks ago in fact) but I will also dig through the archives that is my photo album on my iphone to bring you some historic nail looks i've sported.

Before I get into my nail pictures, you must see this amazing little contraption I purchased solely for the use of painting my nails. I was visiting my nan a few months ago and she had one which she uses for drawing, I borrowed it to paint my nails and was so impressed I had to find one myself.

Hello Stable Table! This isn't a regular Stable Table though, it's pimped out! It has a light and a cup holder, which I refer to as the nail polish holder! It generally holds 3-4 bottles of polish and the light is awesome for making sure your nail polish application isn't shit. This is a dodgy picture but it gives you an idea of what it looks like.

I got mine from Homeart and I believe it's on sale this week for $9.95!

(P.S. I am not endorsed by Homeart, in fact i'd never been to a Homeart store until I was told of this amazing table!)

My first nail look is a simple accent glittered nail, I wanted something subtle and pastel but a little bit fun so I used Essie Lilacism (RRP $18.95AUD) on all nails and put on China Glaze Dollhouse (RRP $10.95AUD) on the accent nail for a bit of bling.

The next mani is a gradient glittler mani, using one of my favourite polishes of all time OPI Lincoln Park After Dark - RRP $19.95AUD  with a splash of Nails Inc Bloomsbury Square - RRP $18.95AUD as the gradient. (sorry I don't know stockists in Australia yet so i've had to link to Beauty Bay.) A little tip for doing glitter gradient nails, wipe one side of the brush in the polish bottle and use that for the top part of the gradient, the other side of the brush with the most polish on it use that for the tip where you want the most polish to go.

As always my topcoat of choice is Seche Vite (RRP $14.95AUD)

Here is a little preview of a nail look i'm going to be attempting to do a video tutorial of this weekend. This is a mistake turned out cool in my opinion :) Stay tuned for Tie Dye Nails!! (I've mucked around with the picture a bit because it's only a sneak peek). Ignore the shitty clean up, this was just taken to show some friends before I tidied it up properly.

Disclosure Policy - All products were purchased by me, honesty as always!



Manicure Monday - It's Festival Season!! Feat. Picture Polish Festival Flakie

Don't you love when January hits it generally means all the great Music Festivals are starting, well this nail polish besides being called Festival is perfect for those summer days seeing music you love all the while admiring your gorgeous nails in the sunlight (am I the only one that does that with glitters & flakies?)

Festival by Picture Polish is there foray into flakie polishes, when I saw Festival a multi coloured flakie in my inbox and a pre-order was available I was all over it.

I've only just had a chance to get it on my nails after receiving it a few weeks ago and decided to do a swatcheroo with a few different base polishes to see which handles it the best.  So in true festival tradition...

The support acts -

China Glaze - Shocking Pink, China Glaze - For Audrey, Illamasqua - Boosh, OPI - Skull & Glossbones

I must apologize for my crap-tacular swatching you are about to see, The clouds were looming and it was about to storm but i'd already painted up my hands so had to take the picture... Seriously go Here, Here and Here for better swatches of this polish then mine.

 

Here is the headliner!





 I only have 1 other flakie (Nubar 2010) in my collection to compare this to but I found the colour was amazing especially over black there are so many different facets of colour, so this will definitely be one to go over my darker polishes. The actual flakies were quite spaced out so I had to do 2 coats and the formula is quite thick so this can become quite a time consumer especially when it comes to drying time. Even with my beloved Seche Vite on top it took ages to dry. I do love the effect though and look forward to wearing it more!

You can purchase Festival from the Picture Polish website for $11.90AUD and there are also 2 other flakies in the collection and I believe more to come!

I also recommend signing up to the Picture Polish mailing list as you get advised of new colours coming out (like I did with this one) and they also do free shipping deals sometimes!

This product was purchased by moi!  

 

 

Nail Polish Haul!

Today I did another nail polish haul at Pro Nail Supply on Bankstown and here are the goodies I picked up.

China Glaze - Ahoy!, China Glaze - Pure Torture, Orly - La Vida Loca, Essie - St. Barths Blue, Orly - On The List, Essie Apricot Cuticle Oil, Precision - Twilight Zone, China Glaze - Nova, China Glaze - Secret Peri-Winkle, OPI - Lucerne-Tainley Look Marvelous

Looking forward to trying out the Precision color as it's a brand i've never tried before and the colour is beautiful (deep purple with rainbow holo glitters)

You'll surely be seeing these colours in upcoming NOTD posts.

In other exciting nail news! I got a Helmer!!!! Waiting for the boyfriend to put it together for me tomorrow and then I can begin sorting out my nail polish collection... Yippeeeeeeee!

Manicure Monday (on Tuesday) with a little China Glaze Midtown Magic

This polish is an absolute mystery to me, I came across it at the cheapie nail store I visit and it was the only bottle, it was glittery and looked like something from one of the China Glaze Halloween collections so I picked it up.

The sticker on the base of the bottle calls it Midtown Magic, a bit of googling later yes there is a China Glaze polish called Midtown Magic.. but it's not released yet and its burgundy. So i'm very confused!

So this so called Midtown Magic is a pretty deep brown with gold glitter flecks in it, quite similar to this BYS polish I swatched awhile ago. As with most China Glaze polishes the formula is lovely and it's opaque with 2 coats.

My photo of it isn't great but it gives you a bit of an idea of the colour anyway.

If anyone can help me solve this mystery i'd be grateful!

Manicure Monday - Truly Outrageous

I'd like to dedicate this manicure to a super stylish character.

JEM!



This manicure came about by mistake after i'd had a small fail with my crackle polish not crackling enough (I blame myself for applying a little too thick...thin = cracks) so I decided to put some glitter on the top to mask my mistakes and I loved the look!



The prescription - Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Celeb City, China Glaze Crackle in Broken Hearted, China Glaze Fairy Dust & Seche Vite

Result! Ignore my crapola nails, cuticles everything! I've not been looking after them like I should be.



I actually own this shirt and it's one of my favorite items of clothing

China Glaze Beauty & The Beach... & Shattered!

This is a new China Glaze polish I picked up... yes the colour is pretty but I mainly got it because of the name. I love Beauty & The Beast (Disney movie...although that tv series in the 80s was pretty cool too!) However if were talking Disney this reminds me more of a Little Mermaid colour (my number 1 Disney movie for those playing at home)

Enough about Disney, lets look at the polish!





Something else you guys need to know about.... you probably already do and have noticed it's sold out so I apologize if this creates an even bigger lemming.

I was lucky enough to get my hands on a bottle of OPI Black Shatter polish from the new Katy Perry collection.... so it's.... AMAZING!!! I am finding myself doing a regular manicure, wearing that for a few days and then popping Black Shatter over the top to just see how it looks. This is the polish I was wearing when it came and wow... what a combo!

This mani also packed a punch in the longevity stakes as well lasting a week with only a couple of very slight chips.



China Glaze can be purchased from Crush Cosmetics website or any nail e-tailers if your savvy and know the best ones :)

OPI can be purchased at David Jones and again e-tailers... Black Shatter is super hard to come by but if your desperate there are a few bottles on Ebay going for crazy prices

NOTD - China Glaze Peachy Keen

Hi Nails I haven't seen you on this blog for awhile...

Here is one of my new colours that I picked up for a bargain ($6) at ProNail in Bankstown.

It's from the China Glaze Up Up and Away collection and the colour is Peachy Keen and it's... Peach!

I don't really think this colour suits my skintone but a girl at work thought it looked fantastic... I think it might end up being a toe colour in it's future.

NOTW - L.A. Girl Punk & China Glaze Zombie Zest

Wooooo I actually remembered to take photos of my nails this week!! Kinda helps that both colours are ahhhhmazing!

I started the week off with an L.A. Girl Lacquer, this one is from the Rockstar collection and is called Punk. I found this polish in a Hot Dollar store near me for $4.50. Can I just say....this colour is brilliant! It has a dark blue glitter but in certain light there is a duochrome flash of purple. You can kind of see that in this picture in the bottle but I couldn't capture it on the nail for some reason.



Today is Halloween, so I thought this next polish was quite fitting. It's from the China Glaze Halloween collection called Awakening. This one is what I believe is the star from the collection. Zombie Zest! It's an awesome ugly green glitter (ugly in the prettiest way of course) It's kinda murky and blah but actually very very amazing! It really needs to be seen to be believed. I highly recommend getting this for your polish stash.



I hope you have all had a wonderful weekend, once again I had plans to blog but they didn't end up happening.

Back into the weekday grind tomorrow! blah!

NOTD – China Glaze Emerald Sparkle

It's Nail Of The Day time! but with a little something extra


I've gone with China Glaze Emerald Sparkle and I realised something very interesting indeed.


I think China Glaze need to rename the colour... why? and to what? you may ask....


This polish needs to be renamed Starbucks Sparkle, it is the exact same green as the Starbucks logo!!


Here to demonstrate is my very poorly polished hand with my Starbucks cup... see!

I guess now I can reveal something about myself. Yes it's true I am a Starbucks addict! That cup you are seeing there, I bought it in Melbourne last week it's a hard plastic version of their cold beverage cups, it even has a green straw. Now I can feel like i'm having Starbucks at home even though it's my diet cordial (yes something else I can tell you, I'm on a diet...ick!) 

This may sound weird but this cup has made drinking water and cordial more enjoyable and making me miss coke less... another thing I am addicted to!


FYI and if you ever want to buy me one, my drink of choice at Starbucks is....

Caramel Frappucino Light, usually in Grande :)

NOTD -Valentines Day

I hope everyone has had a lovely Valentines Day, this post is just to show the nails I did this morning for Valentines Day. 

Please excuse the shocking application, I did them this morning before we went out and was a little rushed.

P.S. I FOUND MY CAMERA CHARGER! yay! Can now do proper photos!

The colour I used is China Glaze - Ruby Pumps

Nice and sparkly which i'm very into at the moment :) The sparkle isn't showing up really correctly (need to work on my nail polish photo taking skills)

NOTD – China Glaze For Audrey

Like most girls I adore Audrey Hepburn and Breakfast At Tiffanys is definately a must watch movie. I'm also a fan of the Tiffany signature blue colour, though I don't own any Tiffany jewellery myself I can admire from afar and thought this nail colour was a little fun and something to talk about.

image courtesy of www.bellasugar.com

As for application, I found it evened out with 2 coats, I do however have a bit of a gloopy bump on my thumb but hey were not all perfect right. This colour is unlike anything I have in my small nail polish collection (which is growing...at quite a rapid rate in fact) but I thought it was a cute kickback from all the mints we've been seeing lately (I am a fan, don't get me wrong). Hope you like it. Ignore how ugly my hands look too! I just had a coffee in my hand so it's all red from the heat.

Once again, photo from my phone so not the best quality. I will go looking for my camera charger tonight and promise much much better quality photos.

NOTD (Nail of The Day) & www.transdesign.com

I recently received my first order from www.transdesign.com, I used to order my OPI colours from a different website but I'd heard some recent reviews on them that were a little unfavourable so I decided to try out somewhere new. So far so good! I have heard though that some people had received polishes from them that were cracked open so I was a little worried when my package arrived (a little over 2 weeks, FYI). When I was opening it I must have looked a little weird because i'm smelling it as i'm cutting the tape so I didn't get a surprise of nail colours all over me. Turns out mine was okay (thank goodness!). 


I love love love the colours I bought and i'm sure you'll be seeing them on here at some point. I discovered recently i'm really into nails and have been obsessing over the blogs Scrangie, All Lacquered Up and an Australian one i've recently discovered You've Got Nail (disclaimer : do not go to these blogs unless you want to buy everything they swatch)

Here is a picture of my nails today in one of the colours I got which is China Glaze - Atlantis. Holy Moly this colour is amaaaaaazing! I can't stop looking down at my pretty nails! I used 2 coats of the polish and 1 coat of Seche Vite (review coming on this soon!).

Sorry about the crappy pictures, I can't find my camera charger anywhere and the battery is dead so these are taken with my iphone. These photos really don't do it justice.

I'm going to go eat some 2 minute noodles now :) yummmmm!

Have  a great day!