Found my marbles

Hi again!

After yet another long hiatus, I am back with some water marbling.

Used OPI Happy Anniversary for the base because it is the most versatile base polish.
Then I layered that with drops of Nubar Pasadena Purple to create this wonderful psychedelic effect. Loving the swirls but hating the yellow lighting.

Happy painting, girls!

An explosion of dots somehow adds up to a fish

I've always wanted to try some sort of fish scale nail art and since my creative mind functions completely different to a normal person, I ended up with a whole bunch of dots vaguely resembling fish scales.

For the base, I used 2 coats of OPI Alpine Snow (Matte) that I've never managed to pull off on its own because it is just such a terrible polish with the worst consistency and streaky texture. But it came out reasonable after I whacked on a layer of OPI Funny Bunny, one of my all time favourites (as you can tell because it's half empty, I mean is that even possible for a polish junkie?).

And here comes the rest of the gang! A whole lot of Essies and a Milani, featuring (from left to right) Splash of Grenadine, Smokin' Hot, Lilacism, Mint Candy Apple, Mesmerize and finally, Key Lime Shine.

I started dotting in the colours from the base of my nail, working my way up to the tip. At first I blotted each colour onto a piece of paper and worked with a wooden skewer, wiping off after each dot. But then I realised that it is so much easier just blotting using the brush of the bottle.

And ta-da! The final result of my experiment process.

 

I still haven't decided if I actually like the result or not but the thumb seems to look better than the other fingers. It was definitely quite a messy process with 2 hours spent on dotting. But I can't wait to try it again with different sized dots and maybe colours that are only varied in shade. Hope this tickles your fancy.

Warm fuzzies + flocking powder review

Love is in the air! February is the month of love with the very special Valentine's day falling on the 14th. I've been doing quite a bit of reminiscing lately. Even though all of the polish I own are very dear to me, this colour in particular holds very fond memories.

This is OPI Chapel of Love. What an appropriate name for Valentine's day, right? I got this 3 years ago as a Secret Valentine present from my dear Jenny (hello, if you're reading). So with the perfect colour for February as the base, I decided to spice things up with some flocking powder.

Born Pretty Store was kind enough to send me a whole jar of flocking powder. I chose white because I've always been obsessed with the perfect white mani. Flocking powder is actually not a powder. It should technically be called flocking fluff if it was up to me to name.

Click HERE for the link to the jar of fluffiness! 

The powder (or fluff) is super simple to use. All you need to do is to pour some out into a container. I used the triangular tray for flipping rhinestones because the pointed corners makes pouring the powder back into the jar super easy.

 

The powder does come out a bit clumped since it's been condensed in the jar. So just grab a little stick or tweezers or anything that you have handy (like your hand, I'm so punny) and break up the clumps.

Now you should have a good, even consistency because the last thing you'd want is for the powder to come out in clumps on your nails.

I wanted a fluffy heart-mani so I simply just painted the tips in white and dipped my nails into the powder while the polish is still wet.

On my ring finger, I stuck on a bit of masking tape in the shape of a love heart as a negative stencil. Then applied white polish all over the nail followed but a good sprinkle of flocking powder.

To get rid of the excess fluff on your nails and fingers, all you've got to do is lightly dust them with a brush. Also remember to gently press on the powder to make sure that they've settled nicely with the wet polish that you've used as the glue.

The result is a warm and fuzzy mani, all ready for February!

♥ Review verdict: Definitely Recommended!
It was super easy to use, although it does require quite a few pieces of equipments like a small tray and a soft bristled brush for dusting. But the powder has great lasting power. It can get wet and be dried in the blink of the eye and still look the same as when it was first applied. I love the fact that I didn't need glue for its application. Removal was also the same as a normal polish mani.

Born Pretty Store has by far, the largest range of colours for flocking powders and also the best value with its mega-sized jar filled with compressed fluff.

Remember to use my special code MUL91 for 10% off all of your purchases.

So definitely go ahead and give this mani a go for Valentine's day. ♥

Red bow + Born Pretty Store

I love to use rhinestones for my nail art. They're fast and easy. But the best thing is that they look so good with minimal effort! Sometimes the simplest touches can turn an ordinary mani into something quite special.

Base is 2 coats of OPI Girls Just Want to Have Fun. I always like to add the extra bits of bling on my fourth finger. To be honest, it just looks better on that finger.

A great place to get quality rhinestones and endless other nail art goodies is Born Pretty. They're extremely affordable, even for a poor university student such as myself. That store is like paradise! A nail art blogger's candy store.

Remember to use my special code MUL91 at the check out for 10% off your order!

And the world will be dominated by the bling power of rhinestones!

Giveaway winners + dabbles!

It seems that I lied when I said a few hours because somehow it turned into a few days. But better late than never. I think it should become my own motto since that is how disorganised I am.

Without further ado, the Grand Supreme winner is...

 

Lynette! Says the random number generator. I counted the numbers by chronological order of when I received each email. You are the proud parent of 2 bottles of rhinestones, 2 canes and a dotting tool (great for picking up rhinestones).

And da-da-da-TA! The Ultimate Grand Supreme is crowned...

Min Hee! Congradulations, girl! I hope you'll take good care of my minty dessert babies.

Thank you all for your participation. I promise that there are plenty more giveaways to come. I'm in the process of organising another one, in fact.

Onto my own nails. These were meant to be watercolour nails. You know, the ones that are dissolved by polish remover like how normal watercolour paint is dissolved by water. But my OPI Alpine Snow (Matte) base didn't seem to like having remover on it so these turned out as a dabbing effect instead. Still pretty awesome. I've invented a new nail art (wishful thinking).

Summer is fast approaching Sydney so I thought I should pick more floral tones to match how excited I am about summer!

These somehow remind me of the Qing dynasty pottery but in pink. Nonetheless, I am still very proud to have these happy accidents on my nails.

Sponge nail art: Mini tutorial for gradient nails

Sponging is one of the fastest and easiest way of creating amazing nail art designs. Galaxy nails are usually done through this technique. My favourite, though, would be gradient nails because the porous texture left by the sponge makes blending super duper easy.

Feel free to click on the image below to enlarge the tutorial.

 I like to cut up my make up sponge into smaller bits so I'm not wasting it. I'm pretty sure that kitchen sponges would also be fine. Another great tool is the spongey eyeshadow applicator. Make sure to gently dab off any excess before dabbing the colour onto your nails. I like to dab on the tip colour first then go back and dab on a bit of the base colour if the tip is too overwhelming.

The trick is actually not to worry about being messy or too fussed about the bumps left by the sponge while you're dabbing. A layer of topcoat will fix everything down with a super smooth surface.

The end result:

Base colour: Essie Splash of Grenadine
Tip Gradient: OPI Dim Sim Plum

You have no excuse not to have gradient nails. I will take over the world, with a sponge at a time.

In a shimmery meadow

Uni is back for me. Which means long periods of inactivity and ugly, chipped nails. I have been good though. So I thought I should celebrate with a splash of glitter.

Base colour: OPI Stranger Tides
Glitter: Bloom Seoul

Apologies for the blurry photo. My hands are not as stable as I thought. Huge over estimation of myself. Plus I took it on the train. Got a few strange looks but a girl's got to do what she needs to do for her nails.

I love this green so much. I've also updated my watermark stamp thing. I am open to criticism.

Starry-eyed love (for you, honey)

Galaxy nails are something I've been wanting to try for quite some time. Each time I try to make them happen, I'd be reminded of the fact that this stupid nail art design needs a tool that a normal nail painter wouldn't have lying around his/her house: a sponge.

I know what you're thinking, "why not just use a dishwashing sponge?" Gee, I wish I had thought of that BEFORE I had finished the design.

So this was done using a make up sponge. I think they work much better than cleaning sponges, anyway, since make up sponges are a lot finer, which means greater control while dabbing.

Base colour: OPI Yoga-ta Get This Blue. And a lot of glitters.

This is the first successful nail art design in weeks. Now I'm pumped to experiement with other designs!

Midnight garden party

I can't believe it's been so long (over half a year) since my last post. I'm so sorry! No-one probably reads this anymore, which makes me feel even more guilty about it.

I haven't stopped painting my nails. It's just that it doesn't happen very often anymore, because my course is still a killer.

I remember almost 2 years ago, I bought quite a few packets glow in the dark stickers. But I've never been a fan of floral stickers because over the top rhinestone blings had always seemed to come out on top (I'm so punny).

These babies in action!

What it looks like the other 99% of the times. Base coat: Essie Something Borrowed. French tip: OPI Suzi Says Feng Shui.

I'll be uploading again real soon!

Retroactive loving

I absolutely did not intend for this to turn out like some 70s flashback gone wrong. I mean, how badly can some polka-dots get, right? I guess it is really the "rays" of exploding colours that pushed it to the edge, so close to That 70s Show and whatever people were and still are smoking.

That was a really weird tangent and I hope I'd never have to go down that path again. So back on track, I actually really like this. Somehow, simultaneously, I am reminded of some cute yet high-classed stationery involving circus clowns and also those white sweaters with tiny, colourful pom poms. Or I could just be losing my mind?

The base is OPI Alpine Snow Matte. It has been featured in my blog before if you click here. I am a big fan of stark white nail polish (especially the matte ones) since I love how I can fool people into thinking that I've whitened my nails with liquid paper because that is just how awesome I am. Although I am not quite sure how the two would correlate.

I don't know why I had decided to do these rays of colour explosion but it does look great from afar.

I also like the randomness of the patterns and the underlying order within both hands. Spot the similarities, go on, I dare you.

Lace therapy

This isn't my first time working with lace for nail arts but this is probably my most successful attempt thus far (on my own hands). I've only decided to give it another ago after a friend suggested that this is something worth trying. I am so lazy that I need to have people to tell me what I could be doing.

So here you have my fancy, laced up nails in all of its glory.
For base, I used OPI Mermaid's Tears since it is such a nice, cool colour. Absolutely perfect to relieve today's stickily humid weather. I've managed to get my hands on a small UV light nail dryer with a tiny built in fan. It is pretty cute and it does indeed speed up the nail polish drying process. Or maybe I'm just imagining it. Regardless, here it is, hard at work.
Tip #1: always trim the pieces to size first! It was a nightmare trying to cut off the excess on my nails.

Tip #2: only apply topcoat after everything has dried completely. I'd recommend whacking on the topcoat at least an hour after laying down the lace.
I was really tempted to cut up my black lace top for the "lace over bare nails" look. Maybe you should give it a try instead?

I throw cats at your children

My close friends always joke (well more like theorise) that I will grow up to be one of those crazy cat ladies who chuck cats at anyone who passes their house, especially their children. But of course we ALL know it is not true since I love those cute little fluffy felines way too much to part with them. Halloween is just 2 days away so I think I am allowed to squeeze in at least one kitty power nail art, right?

I've used OPI Glow Ink the Dark (the purple-blue coloured bottle in the photo) on my thumb and ring finger. Like the name implies, it is meant to glow in the dark once you "charge" it with light. However, the glow is so faint and short, I couldn't even get a photo of it, even after shining the iPhone torch at it for a whole minute. But yet, I still purchased it along with the Halloween nail art set that it had came in. Brilliant marketing.

I'm a cheater, but a smART one (oh I am so punny). The white cats are done using 'smART nails' stencil stickers. Completely idiot proof: just stick down when the base polish has dried, brush across the stencil with your chosen nail polish colour, then peel off after a minute. They come in a pack of 10 (exactly for a complete mani) but I found that each one is actually reusable. So you can get at least 2 manis out of it!

Enjoy Halloween! Don't look at any black cats in the eye. Although I'm not sure if they'll fly at you and peck you eyes out like what magpies do.

Haul-lo from the U S of A

I marvel at my extraordinary ability to make dodgy puns.

America was heaven for a nail polish addict like me when compared to Australia. I live in a hole. That's my conclusion. Why does the stupid island of a continent have to double the price for everything? I've found so many 'old' polishes that I've been craving for heaps long like Lincoln Park at Midnight in Nordstrom Rack for just $8 a bottle. Absolute Bliss, with a capital B.

I really want a DSLR. The quality of the photo is so very different, in a good way, of course. Compare this photo taken with my friend's DSLR to the terrible photos from my dummy point-and-shoot camera.

The bottles look so shiny and the colours look so true! So on the top row of Essie from left to right: Silken Cord, Splash of Grenadine, Lilacism, Borrowed & Blue, Smokin' Hot, and Over the Top. Bottom row of OPI and Orly from left to right again: Malaga Wine, Lincoln Park at Midnight, La Playa, Royal Navy, Pure Porcelain, Winter Wonderland, Stranger Tides, and Mermaid's Tears.

There are also OPI's Lucky Lucky Lavender, Suzi Says Feng Shui and Russian Navy, plus Sephora by OPI's Queen of Everything and Spark-tacular! that somehow I had forgotten to photograph. Great memory I've got there.

This haul definitely saves me from making that agonisingly long trip to Bankstown.

Long overdue haul

I'd have to admit that this haul is at least 2 months overdue. So my sincere apologies.

The reason I thought that I really need to post about these is not purely due to my fanatical obsession with nail polish, but instead I'd really like to promote these Ebay sellers out of the goodness of my heart. I haven't been paid, asked, or even contacted by these sellers (I doubt anyone ever will). I've just been incredibly impressed by the amazing service and of course, affordability of their products.

I've gotten OPI's Katy Perry Collection from justpolish. I'm so responsible that I've even linked the Ebay store for you.
The reason that I love this seller is that when the polish arrived, one bottle was completely shattered and leaked over the bottle that it was bound with. I know that it is most likely due to the envelope (with layers and layers of bubble wrap, of course) packaging but I had no problems in my previous experiences with such method. However, I messaged the seller immediately to tell them that a bottle had shattered (ironically, it is called "The One that Got Away) and they've sent out a replacement the very next day without any hassle, which I received within a week's time! It was so incredibly fast for shipping from America because Australia is such a hole.
Definitely a shop to check out, simply because of its amazing service.

Secondly, onto my Zoya haul. In my opinion, Zoya has some of the most unique colours and I've always been a sucker for eye-catching fingertips. I've gotten 8 bottles from sparkling*nails and I've been so lucky to received very useful free gifts because I've spent over USD$50 on their items.

Along with my nail polish, I've gotten the Zoya Remove+ (nail polish remover) and the Qtica Half Time Polish Drying Accelerator as free gifts. Both of these babies work miraculously. I would definitely recommend these to purchase and repurchase and stock up in your nuclear-proof bomb shelter.I have yet to try out all of the new polishes and since I have quite a few nail arts in mind, I'll try my best to execute them using these new shades. However, everything shall depend on how lazy I'm going to be feeling. Don't get your hopes up too high, just saying. I kid. Do I really?

Brushes of sparkling dusk

I'm back! I haven't abandoned you nor forgotten about you. I've just been frustratingly busy with uni work. Its either that or UHU glue. Those stringy buggers are my manicures' worst enemies! Model building with balsa wood (and other weird and wonderful things) have completely destroyed my nails. Heck, I've been painting my nails, very frequently, I might add. The only problem was that I never seemed to have time to catch them before they are destroyed by UHU glue, again. There had been so many photos that I wish I had taken so I'd actually have things to showcase on this blog.

I know that wasn't a very proper apology (it was actually me trying to save my own backside), so here's a huge big SORRY..
Now that's out of the way, let's move onto the more exciting things.

A few days ago, dear Kimberly showed me this link:
So being me, I naturally accepted the challenge. But why have plain ol' black when purple is the new black? Or so I keep telling myself. This is what I've managed to scrape together.
The iridescent base is 2 coats of Zoya's Angella. Dry strokes of Revlon's Primal Purple is used for the tip. Glitter in the form of OPI's Teenage Dream is added on top of the purple because glitter is my comfort food. Well not technically edible but you understand what I mean.
I still owe you quite a few more entries so stay tuned in the next couple of days when I'll be spam posting to make up for my absence.