Sideways Ruffian

Here I was again itching to paint my nails after spending the whole weekend without nail polish on. That was almost 72 hrs!!! How did I survive? I had to think of something simple and choose fast drying polish, since I'm lacking quick-drying topcoat and I want to go to bed.

This is where Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Night Flight and Sonic Bloom came out to play. This mani took me about ten minutes from using basecoat to the taking photos. I started with a PVC basecoat, then applied one coat of Sonic Bloom, let it dry and applied one coat of Night Flight using its flat brush to create the sideways ruffian. Finished it all off with a high shine topcoat and voila! Extra quick mani.

I picked up these two bottles from Kmart on clearance for $4 each a little while ago. Every so often, Kmart discounts the Insta-Dri polishes, even though they remain in the core line in every other shop. I find it a bit strange but I've taken advantage of it a few times. I won't stop buying them as I can't wrong their creamy formula, super quick drying time and one coat application.

I found these polishes to be a perfect way to try the ruffian trend that's been around for ages. I wasn't originally planning on creating this but as I applied the black polish to my middle finger, I decided halfway through the stroke I wanted a sideways ruffian. I don't think it turned out too bad but I'll let you guys be the judges of that.

What do you think? Would you consider this nail art or is it too simple?

Till next time, 

Laura

Neon Saran Wrap Mani

Or since I'm in Australia, should I call it Neon Cling Wrap mani?

Whatever name you'd like to give it, here's my first successful saran wrap manicure. I've tried it a lot of times before but it always looked lumpy or I would take off the base with the wrap. I learnt to be a gentler and it looks like it paid off.

I used American Apparel's T-Shirt as a base for American Apparel's Neon Pink. I then layered B Collection by Bloom in Miami and gently applied pressure while still wet to create the effect . 

It was actually a bit bumpy after blotting the wrap on my fingers. At the moment, all my topcoats have either yellowed so much they change the colour of the polish, or are rock solid and no thinner would save them. I'm waiting to for my first Seche Vite to arrive in the mail but it's taking forever. I was itching to post. 

Anyway, instead of topcoat, I used OPI's Natural Nail Base Coat. It seemed to even things out a bit and give it shine but it took foreeeeeever to dry and, after a couple of hours, still has a rubbery feel. It also seemed to dull the neon colour a tad. Can you tell? 

This was originally going to be the base for some tribal nails. I have been trying to get some done but every time my hands seems to get shakier/completely-uncooperative and ended up with a terrible mess. They will not elude me!!! One day, I'll draw the coolest tribal nails and everyone will be talking about them. Haha! No, not that far. I'll just have postable nail art.

Is there anything that's you love but haven't been able to recreate?

Till next time, 

Laura

Dry Marble with Face of Australia Pastels

 Browsing through YouTube I came across this video from MissJENFABULOUS. I had actually seen it when it first came out back in June but I was browsing through her channel. Yes, I'm a fan of hers and she has some cool ideas.

So as a good 'Monkey See, Money Do'-er that I am, I brought out my lightest coloured polishes and created this mani.

Excuse the lobster-coloured hands and shiny cuticles, the colours of the polishes are the best I've captured and my cuticles have been way too dry from work. 

Polishes used: 

White (as a base): Rimmel London I <3 Lasting Finish in London Clouds

From left to Right: All Faces Of Australia from their Pastels Collection. After Dinner Mint, Boys 'N' Berries, Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy and I'll Take You To The Candy Shop. 

Top Coat: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri

I'm really happy with the result and the technique is super easy. Including drying time and clean up, this mani only took me about twenty minutes. I also need to say, even though the formula in Face Of Australia polishes isn't generally great, I'm really loving these polishes for their slow drying time. Basically, it means that I can play around with them to create nail art (like this marble) and if I stuff it up, I can take it off without too much trouble. I'm seeing the positive on these polishes... Plus they were $1.65 each when I bought them. :)

What do you reckon? Would you try this technique? Maybe other colours? Oooh, I might try this with some metallics...

There's something really exciting (for me, at least) that I wanna show you guys in the next couple of posts. It might involve a long time lemming... Stay tuned.

Til next time, 

Laura

Polish Binge Pt. 1

A couple of weeks back, I went on a massive nail polish shopping binge, mostly on Beauty Bay as they had 20% off everything and free international shipping as a part of their Black Friday sales.

I got the first out of two packages on Friday. I got a heap of mini polish sets and the first one I'm going to show you is one by Orly. It's called Mani Minis Hot Shots and it has four brightly coloured polishes.

From left to right: Hottie, Hook Up, Holla, Blue Collar. All two coats except for my middle finger, in which I needed 3 coats to make Hook up opaque.
I added an accent with Bundle Monster's BM-225 plate motif of what I believe is a Christmas bauble with essence's Silver twister.

These are my first Orly polishes and I was amazed. This spread like butter and dried fairly quickly. Even Hook Up, the yellow one, was a dream to apply. I find any yellow polish takes a bit of work to make it look good but not this one.

I'm so happy with these purchase and I'm really looking forward to showing you the rest of my (new) stash.

Till next time, 

Laura

Saran Wrap? Sugar Spun Nails? Not quite...

I watched this video a little while ago and really liked the effect it created. It reminded me of sugar spun nails without too much of the mess. I set off to try it it today with colours different  from below but I turned into a grey, green mess. So the polish came off my ring finger and tried again.

This is what I turned up with. You can see the lines from the fan brush but they're not too defined so it looks like I tried to take some of the polish off rather than put it on.

Polishes used:
Gold: Topshop in Gilted (2 coats)
Ring Finger: Base: American Apparel in T-Shirt (1 coat)
                  Purple: American Apparel Metallic in Violet Panache (3 coats)
                  Pink: Ulta3 in Tahiti
Top Coat: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri

For the ring finger, I had to use a base as the American Apparel metallic polishes are on the very sheer side and would have taken a lot of coats to get it opaque. 

I'm leaving short and sweet today. Going back to work has left me really nappy...

Till next time,

Laura

kit's Time To Shine... Ooh, yeah!

I looooooooove nail wraps. I suck at free-hand nail art and can be pretty impatient, so when nail wraps started popping out I tried every brand I could get my hands on... and my budget would allow me. I've tried lots of Sally Hansen's wraps, eBay, random Asian brands from the two-dollar shop, I even ventured into full nail water decals. I'm generally happy with the quality, design and time these wraps have stayed on. They have been a life saver when I'm frustrated from dodgy attempts at nail art. 

As you may have guessed, this particular post is about kit's Nail Strips. If you haven't seen them around here's a photo. This design is called Time To Shine.

And they look like this on the nails.

I'm gonna insert a break here because the post is rather long but please keep reading because these strips are awesome.

Too Random Skittle

I've had a few terrible manicures in the last couple of days that were not even worth photographing. I'm talking about extremely flooded cuticles that couldn't be fixed, crooked stamping, smudging of such said stamping, terrible colour combinations and bad gradients. 

This is the first one that looked sort of OK, even though I'm not completely satisfied with the result. I tried using differents textures ( a cream, a metallic and a glitter) in blue, green and pink that I thought would look good together as a skittle mani. Tried tying it all up by having a striped middle finger but the job was kinda dodgy and there's a piece of stray glitter on my ring finger that I couldn't remove!!!!

Anyway, I'll do and learn but here are the pictures.

The obliged matte top coat, which in my opinion, makes polish look a million times better. 

Polishes used:
Pink: B Collection by Bloom in Cologne 
Blue Glitter: Essence in Blue Addicted
Metallic Duochrome: Topshop in Eclipse
Top Coat:   1st pic: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri
                 2nd pic: Rimmel Pro Matte Finish

There you have it. I'm gonna Google Colour Theory and maybe learn a little about what looks good together and keep practicing with that tape.

Till next time, 

Laura

Not So Afraid Of The Marble Anymore

I went to Big W yesterday in search of a new foundation but stumbled upon their massive beauty sale. I found Max Factor's mini bottles for 72 cents. Yeah, that's right. When have I seen such prices for ANY brand of polish on Australia? Never! There were only three colours left so I picked them up and turn around to start running to the checkouts. 

However, in my way, I came across the Face of Australia stand. I'm not a massive fan of their formula as it takes a while to dry but every so often they come up with decent collections and fairly nice colours. Their last one is called Pastels (innovative, right?) and each bottle was $1.94. Woohoo!! I grabbed 6 out f the 7 colours of the collection and ran off to pay. 

When I got home, I took my little $14.52 stash of nail polish and then realised I didn't really like pastels. There was a reason why I never had any before!!! So I had to think of how to use them all at once and the idea of a marble popped up. I brought out my plastic cup of water and started playing with the colours and come up with something I'm actually proud of.

Look at my ring finger. Yeah, I like it.

And some more detail of my index and middle finger (excuse the bubble).

Polishes used:
All Face of Australia
Pink: I'll Take You To The Candy Shop
Purple: Boys 'N' Berries
Blue/Green: After Dinner Mint

I applied the pink polish as a base and added the three colours to the water. The beauty I found with these three polishes is that they took about a minute or so to dry up on the surface of the water so there was quite a bit time to play around with the shapes. I was also really easy to clean up. I didn't use sticky tape or Vaseline to protect my fingers but I managed to just wipe the polish off my skin with some cotton. I found some tiny bubbles from not drying my fingers quickly enough but they're barely noticeable in real life.

I originally intended to use all all six colours for the marble but the yellow and orange polishes from the collection would dissolve in the water by themselves but wouldn't let the other polishes dissolve and dry out really quickly. Really strange considering when when I combined only the yellow and orange, they would play nice and actually create a marble. 

 So, Face of Australia polishes have shown me the beauty of the marble and how I shouldn't be so afraid. Hmm... I wonder what other colours I can try.

Till next time, 

Laura

The Gold Crackle

I'm sure I'm not the only one that got caught in the crackle fad and bought a heap of different colours because the black one was so cool and innovative. Well, now that phase has well and truly passed and I have don't-want-to-count-how-many bottles of crackle, I thought I start getting creative with them. 

I saw this video a few weeks ago and this is what prompted me to get the crackles out and work with them in a different way. I really loved how shiny the glitter in OPI Gold Crackle and decided to work with that one. First I tried to paint it on sticky tape a la The Beauty Department but I found, once dry, the polish was inflexible and would come off the tape. I tried cutting this dried polish into shapes but my hands and scissors were too big for the strip, so I just ended up crushing it and throwing it in the bin.

I also tried stamping with it but it was a major fail. Lesson learnt.

Today I came across this other blog, Konad Addict, where the crackle polish is sponged onto the nail with some rather amazing results. Yes, I am using other people's ideas but I really have no practical creativity, which I guess this blog may help me out with( I hope).

So here it is, my sponged-on crackle over pink. It is so sparkly and shiny in real life I can't stop looking at it. The combination of colours also reminded me of a Disney princess or Barbie colours. It is sooooo cool even though it looks like a normal glitter gradient. I didn't really crack either. There's only two minor ones on my index finger.

Polishes used:

Gold: OPI in Gold Crackle

Pink: OPI in If You Moust You Moust

Top Coat: Essence XXXL Shine Gel-Look and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri

The photos don't do the glitter justice on how sparkly it is and that pink, that pink is  impossible for me to photograph. I've tried every setting and light possible but to no avail. The middle photo would be the closest I managed to get it to the actual colour.

That's all from me today.

Till next time, 

Laura

Layla Mirror Effects Tape Mani *Edited*

When in doubt, reach out for the sticky tape... Yes, I'm bad at rhyming but the idea stays true. This mani is not my finest work, the lines aren't that crisp, the pink is quite patchy, the clean up left a lot to be desired, the top coat created bubbles. If you squint your eyes, it looks ok. :)

Polishes used:

Pink: OPI in If You Moust You Moust 

Silver: Layla Mirror Effects in Metal Chrome 

Black: Ulta3 in Black Satin 

Top Coat: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri

The pink polish belongs to the Minnie Mouse collection by OPI and I really like the colour. 

I originally got a mini bottle  but love it so much that I got a full size bottle. However, both bottles are very streaky and the mini bottle has gotten fairly thick, which didn't help with the application. 

******Edit******

I had to add a matte top coat to this mani. I think I may be in absolute and utter love with Rimmel Pro Matte Top Coat. It looks everything look so... soft and dreamy. and it doesn't streak like every other matte top coat I've tried. 

**************

Leaving it very short today, 

Til next time, 

Laura

End of Semester Manicure

Well... Technically the semester isn't over and still have about four pieces of assessment due in the following two weeks but I couldn't wait to post again. 


I've been wanting to do this fish braid technique for ages but I didn't find the time or I had disastrous attempts at it. As always, I found on YouTube on MissJenFABULOUS channel, and I loved it. Here's my attempt.

I got home on Friday night, after having three assignments due that day, and started making the braid on my ring finger which took  F O R E V E R and painted the rest of the nails on Saturday morning.  

Polishes used:

Purple: Dubai by B Collection by Bloom
Pink: Cologne by B  Collection by Bloom 
Gold: Goldie by Bloom Cosmetics
Top Coat: Rimmel Pro Matte Finish

I've also learnt the very important lesson of cleaning up the cuticles and how much better it can look when the polish is fairly even. I grabbed an old eyeliner brush and tried it out. It's OK but i don't think it will stand the polish remover for much longer. So it'll be my quest to find a good one.

I'll leave it short and sweet for today,

Till next time.