In Really Old News...

Guys, guys!!! Did you know Mariah Carey released a range of Liquid Sand polishes in collab with OPI? *Insert Slowpoke meme here*. In all seriousness, I avoided buying OPI's Liquid Sand merely because of the AU$20-$25 per bottle price tag and I wasn't sure I was going to like them. When drugstore brands started bringing out textured polishes I jumped out on that bandwagon ASAP and fell in love instantly at the much lower price. 

Recently, I got a $20 Christmas coupon (which are almost unheard of in this country) for a department store and after some deliberation I decided the best way to spend it was on some Mariah Carey's Liquid Sand minis from last year's collection. I only ended up paying $5 for 4 minis! I don't think I could have done any better online. Woot woot!

Plain swatches were going to be boring, so I paired Can't Let Go up with some plastic nail wraps I got from eBay from this seller and some rectangular studs. Voila! 

I started with two coats of base coat because a. I didn't know if the Liquid Sands stained and b. I've had issues with non-polish nail wraps ripping out my nail bed when removed. Can't Let Go was opaque in two coats and even though I wasn't blown away by it, I really like the darker blueish purple matte finish of it. The nail wraps were also super easy to use and malleable but I managed to get a little bit of one stuck on the cuticle of my middle finger and didn't fix it enough for macro photos. :( That issue aside, they look sparkly and overall pretty especially after I applied a coat of Seche Vite on top of the nail wraps. 

  

I'm pretty happy with this mani and I love those nail wraps. I might have to get some more for Christmas presents... for myself... Or others. 

Till next time, 

Laura

33 Day Challenge: Chinese

It's day 13 of The Crumpet's 33 Day Challenge and here I am, still sticking to it. For today's prompt, Chinese, I was inspired by so many things but unfortunately I had no time to execute any of them so I went for something simple that stuck to the theme. I also want to start using my ever growing collection of nail art supplies. I've stalled my polish shopping lately but now I've moved on shopping on eBay and Born Pretty Store for anything that can be stuck to my nails.

To tackle the challenge and start using some of these supplies, I came up with this mani. 

Which was roughly based on this vase. I googled Chinese vases and this one screamed out at me. I'm not sure of the authenticity of the claim that this is Chinese but it seemed to look like other Chinese pottery I have seen.

Source

I started with two coats of Essence in Grumpy over a base coat and once dry, I stamped over it with Essie's Penny Talk using one of the new Bundle Monster Plates, BM-404. I got some eBay-bought flower water decals ready and started layering them on the blue and gold base but they were too see-through to show up on the darker blue base. I quickly painted my ring finger an thumb with two coats of Sally Hansen in White On and applied a coat of Seche Vite on all my fingers. I could just have applied it on my ring finger to get the white drying quicker but I thought I might as well do them all at that time.

Once that was all dry, I started overlapping the flowers and leaves on the white base and applied one final coat of Seche Vite to seal in the decals.

I really like how my thumb turned out but I didn't want to show another awkward thumb photo, so I tried two thumb poses. I like this one better...

... but this shows a lot more detail. I think. What do guys reckon?

 

You can sort of see the blue base on my ring finger under the white. I also managed to bump it on something so the blue flower looks  somewhat shapeless. 

Considering my past experiences with water decals, none of which have been documented in this blog... thankfully, I'm pretty happy with the way this mani came out. It makes me wanna play with all the new sheets I have just received. Stay tuned.

Check out the other talented ladies' manicures.

Till next time, 

Laura

Australis Aqua

As we all may know, Pinterest can be such an inspiration for cooking, decorating, art, nail polish... So i jumped on it to get some sort of colour inspiration and long story short, I ended up checking out these shoes from Sole Society. I am a bit of an impulse buyer and almost, almost bought them but decided to wear the colours on my nails. After all that's the reason I jumped on Pinterest.

Aren't they pretty? I really wish I had lots of places to go to so I could justify spending money on beautiful shoes. So here's my interpretation.

I know, really straight forward but after all my failed attempts last week, this is rather enjoyable. The blue is actually an aqua colour but I don't seem to get the colours right with my camera sometimes. This polish is the happy medium between green and blue. 

Polishes used:

Blue: Australis Nail Colour in Aqua. If this isn't an original name, I don't know what is.

Top Coat: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri

The striping tape I got on eBay from this seller. I got 18 rolls of different colours for $2.60 ages ago. At the time of posting, the seller had similar offers for purchase. Mine came from China and took a little over two weeks to get here but the wait was worth the quality, quantity and price.

I'm gonna check out some more Pinterest pictures for future inspiration. 

Till next time, 

Laura