Nude beauty

I'm a huge fan of nude nail polish. I think they're the nail polish equivalent to the little black dress. Every girl needs a bottle in their stash.

Orly Pure Porcelain has a very prominent pink undertone. But it works great for yellower skin tones because the pink is hushed down by its colder colour.

 I've been wanting to do something with the spikes for quite some time but didn't want to just go with the usual grunge sort of look. I think putting them on a nude base definitely gives them a touch of elegance.

The nude is really a refreshing break from this season's neon invasion. Hope you guys like this as much as I do. And don't forget to enter into the giveaway if you haven't already!

Don't judge a bottle by its glitter

Thank you guys for your entries into the giveaway so far. Remember that it is closing soon so keep those emails coming! I was kind of hoping of drowning in electronic mails.

This was meant to be some Halloween thing but since Australia is a bit of a kill-joy when it comes to American festivities, I decided to tone down the spook factor (until it is non-existent) and celebrate the colour black instead.

To be honest, I've never painted my nails as plain black before. Partly because I have talon-like nails. Glitters all the way!

The base is just a plain black. Here comes the trippy part. The bottle I'm holding is China Glaze Snow Globe. The glitters appear all white and pure and innocent in the bottle. I thought I'd be having a winter wonderland crossed with unicorn snot on my nails (which I was in fact looking forward to).

But to my surprise, a very pleasant surprise, the glitters turned into a much darker, almost fluorescent-like glow! I hope that mutated transformation was spooky enough for you folks.

I think I've found my new favourite glitter.

[CLOSED] My very first giveaway! Ends 12 November, 2012

I feel so treasured by everyone's continued support even though I am a very lazy blogger. I really wanted to give something back. I know this isn't much but I hope you'll like it and still enjoy it.

We all love to win. But I am one of those extremely unfortunate people who never, I mean NEVER win anything. No raffles, no online entries, nothing. So it actually makes me very happy being able to give and make someone feel lucky and hopefully break their unlucky streak.

I talk too much. I'll get on with the prizes.

I'll be drawing out 2 winners. Think of them as the Ultimate Grand Supreme and the Grand Supreme (but not as fancy). I should really stop watching Toddlers and Tiaras. But it is one  addictive show. Youtube needs to upload more episodes. Sorry, side tracked.

Grand Supreme Prize:
 

♥   1 bottle of pearl bows
♥   1 bottle of silver rhinestones
♥   2 nail art canes (as shown in the photo) that you can slice up and stick onto your nails (the slicing is such an addictive process)
♥   1 nail dotting tool (which I actually use to pick my rhinestones up)

Ultimate Grand Supreme Prize:

♥   1 set of minty dessert nails + double sided nail stickers for application

It comes in 8 different sizes with 2 in each size like in the photo. I've got to apologise in advance if you find them too short if you have a long nail bed. From experience, I tend to have this habit of making really long fake nails because they obviously look better when I'm painting them. But the person receiving them never really wears them because they're too long to look natural on their hands. No-one likes to have talon claws.

The rhinestones don't seem to show up on camera. I promise that the set is much shinier in real life.

So there are the prizes. Here are a few rules for entering.

1. Please email all entries to vintageplum@gmail.com by 7PM AEST 12 November, 2012
2. You do need to be a follower of this blog.
3. The email needs to contain your google username (so I can double check if you're a follower because I'm pedantic like that).
4. Email subject/title: GINGERBREADMANNE GIVEAWAY [your username]
5. Purely optional: something that you'd like to see in my next post.

The winners will be drawn out at random by that number generator website so no human bias there. They'll receive emails confirming the entry then will be contacted for postal addresses. Because you know, it will be very hard for me to personally deliver a parcel that is destined for anywhere outside of Sydney.

Good luck to you all and I really hope you do enter. Otherwise I'd end up looking very stupid. Across the globe. Stupid world wide web.

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.