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

I'm in a blogging mood...

Two posts in one day? Yes, that's right. Laura is in a blogging mood. And also feels like she needs to do something with her day. So here we go.

A little while ago, I went to Mecca Maxima in the city and the lady that was serving me showed me this beautiful, sunny yellow by Nars but the $32 price tag put me off buying it. When I tried it in-store, the polish had an amazing formula and wasn't too streaky as yellows can be but it wasn't enough to justify it.

So I went looking for another yellow and I came across the discounted bin at Target and found Monte Carlo by B Collection by Bloom for only $5!!! It was a steal and I've had pretty good experiences with this brand. 

I also happened to get two Bundle Monster Nail Stamping Plate Sets and was itching to try them. I applied two coats of Monte Carlo and let them dry. They were fairly thick coats and took a little while to dry but I had patience that day. Generally, I like wearing really bright colours and their boldness doesn't bother me, but I'm glad I decided to stamp over this because it was B R I G H T. 

I have noooooo idea what colours go well together so I jumped on Google and checked out a colour wheel to see what would look with the yellow. According to my understanding of the colour wheel, a purple would look good (Colour theory? Laura has no idea). I grabbed an old SugarBaby in You Rock, I don't even know if they sell them anymore but it's in my stash and I might as well use it. I stamped very sheer and it looked more maroon than purple but I really like the effect it created. I used BM-204 plate for the stamping image and use OPI RapiDry Top Coat. 

I only took one good photo of the mani  but it does it enough justice, I hope.

Till next time.

Laura