It's Australia Day!!

Today's the 26th January... which, here in Australia, is Australia Day!
I love going all out for Australia Day!
This year I decided to do an Aussie Flag mani.

 I used OPI DS Magic for the base colour ( It's like the perfect blue for this!) then OPI Alpine Snow and Sally Hansen Diamond and Rubies for the stars and Union Jack!

On a related note... I found this at Priceline the other day!

 I had heard that Priceline started stocking Violent Lips recently, and although I was curious about how they would turn out I wasn't brave enough to try the designs they had (cheetah prints, polka dots, glitter).  And then I saw the Aussie Flag one and it was the perfect excuse to buy them and try them on!

They cost $14.95 at Priceline...a bit pricey..but they contain 3 lip "temporary tattoos" so you could share them with 2 other friends...? or save them for another occasion (the only thing that comes up is a sports match?)

So here's what the tattoo looks like:

It also comes with instructions on how to apply them...I'm going to try to put it on later today and hopefully I can get a nice picture up!

Edit: Here's the outcome....

They pretty much work like temporary tattoos, cut them to size, place them on your lip and soak the paper backing with water and then take the paper off...voila!
The top lip was a bit harder to do (it's a bit wonky lol)
But overall I like it!

Hope u guys have a great Australia Day!

Happy New Year!!

 Hey guys!
I decided to do a fun festive New Year's Eve/New Year's Mani, and since I'll be going to watch the fireworks, I went with glitter! I also wanted to incorporate Shatter because I feel like 2011 has been the year of the shatter/crackle nail polishes! And finally I HAD to have OPI Teenage Dream on my nails since it is definitely my favourite nail polish of the year!

So this is what I came up with:

I started off with a bottom coat of glittery colours, and to make it super sparkly I also added a layer of glitter pieces. The glitter pretty much covered the nail colours completely so I won't bother mentioning the nail polishes I used. On my thumb I used OPI Teenage Dream.

 Then I used pieces of tape to cut out numbers so that I could use it as a stencil for the shatter. It actually ended up being a really tricky process, I had to take out my dissection kit and use a scalpel to cut the letters out! (couldn't find a razor thingy at home).
Finally I added a coat of black shatter. I was quite surprised that the shatter sort of moved away from the tape so you can kind of see the numbers without removing the tape.

 So that the numbers stand out a bit more, I outlined them with Sally Hansen XtremeWear in Black Out. Then I peeled the tape off, added a Top Coat and cleaned up...and voila!

Hope you guys have a wonderful new year!

Merry Christmas!!

Hey guys!
Merry Christmas!
Just a quick post before Christmas officially ends haha.
So I played around with some Christmas-y colours: red, white, green and gold (for that extra sparkle) and I came up with this:

I alternated with OPI Alpine snow with OPI Red Shatter and Sally Hansen XtremeWear in Emerald City with OPI White shatter on my fingers and I put Orly Luxe on my thumb.

To make it extra sparkly (what's Christmas without sparkles right?) I topped it off with Maybelline Express Finish in Pot of Gold and some extra gold glitter on my thumb!

Oh and here's what I did with my sister's nails!
I made the candy cane stripes with OPI Alpine Snow and Maybelline Wet shine Diamonds in Cherry Carats. Then I added red and silver glitter on top and sealed it with a top coat.

I really like how this turned out! I'd probably wear this on non-Christmas days too!
and it kinda reminds me of one of Katy Perry's dresses haha.

Hope you've all had a lovely Christmas!!

Happy Halloween!!

Sorry I haven't been posting for a while, exams are coming up so it's been pretty hectic... =/
Anyway, Halloween isn't very big in Australia (no one went trick or treat-ing on my street =(... )
but it's a great excuse to go all out on nail art right? =)

So this was the first design i did...

My camera didn't want to cooperate so i apologize if it's a bit blurry.

I did some cobweb designs and a (happy looking) ghost on my ring finger. 

I used OPI Ink as the base colour, then OPI DS Coronation for the designs, and for that extra sparkle, I added Rimmel I<3 Lasting Finish in Disco Ball (who doesn't love sparkly cobwebs??).

For the other design, I was inspired by a design by this youtuber, meliny.
Aren't these Jack-O-Lanterns super cute??

Left Hand

Right Hand

I used:

Revlon "No Shrinking Violet" for the base colour, 

Rimmel I <3 Lasting Finish "Tangerine Queen" and Australis "Citrus" for the pumpkins, 

OPI "Mermaid's Tears" and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear "Emerald City" for the stalk + vines,

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear "Black Out" and Rimmel i <3 Lasting Finish "London Clouds" for the eyes and mouth

Sun

And....I also did my sister's nails...

 I used the same base colours, but i used Sally Hansen Diamond Strength "Platinum" for the ghosts and cobwebs.

I also bought BYS Glow in the Dark topcoat, which works really well, but i can't seem to capture it on my camera =(

I had a lot of fun doing these designs... hope u guys have a fun Halloween!

Fuschia Power!

Hey guys! Sorry i haven't been posting lately! I have all these new nail polishes that I want to blog about but i just haven't had the time =(.

Sun

 This is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Fuschia Power.
Pink always cheers me up, there's something about that bright warm pink-ness that makes me so happy! =)

Shade

 And...as you'd expect, i quickly got bored of wearing just one colour so i did this nail design.

Indoors

I actually got inspired by this youtuber meliny who does amazing nail art designs. So this is "drag marbling", there's no water involved!
What you do is paint a nice thick, wet layer for your base colour, and quickly paint a few stripes while it's wet. Then grab a toothpick (or something similar) and carefully drag it across the stripes and...tada! you get this!
I used Rimmel London Clouds for the white.
It took me two go's to get it the way i wanted to..but it's pretty cool right?

Sun

 In other random news, Last night was Vogue's Fashion Night Out! It was quite fun! there weren't that many events ( i was expecting a lot haha) but i managed to get some freebies (like fairy floss and mocktails haha) and i saw some celebrities so all was not lost! I think it's just starting here in Australia, so hopefully it'll get bigger and better in the years to come, and hopefully they'll add in some nail-related events!

Revlon Steel Her Heart

So I was out shopping and this bottle of nail polish caught my eye. I'm not usually a fan of grey/dark silver but for some reason i got attracted to this one.

Isn't it pretty?? And the name is sooo cute! Steel Her Heart! It's definitely stolen mine!
The application was pretty good. The bottle said to use two coats but i used three for full opacity and to eliminate any streaks.
The colour itself can only be described as...steel. Which made me think of the Sydney Harbour Bridge..lol.

Fun Fact: It takes 30 000 litres of paint to paint one coat on the Sydney Harbour Bridge (equivalent to 60 football fields) to prevent the Bridge from rusting. And apparently they use a fast drying type of paint so that it doesn't drip onto unsuspecting vehicle down below.
This makes me wonder whether they use Steel Her Heart to paint it...imagine how many bottles it would take!

I added an accent nail to my mani using OPI White Shatter and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Discoball (you can't really see the sparkles in the pictures, but believe me it's there!)

Then i got bored and decided to mattify it. I used Rimmel PRO Matte Finish. While I haven't been impressed with the quality of Rimmel's nail polishes i really like this matte top coat.
I really like Steel Her Heart matte. The shimmer is still there but it is a bit more subtle.

Shake It Up Nails!

I decided to do another set of "Inspired Mani's"!
These nails are inspired from a music video called "Watch Me" by Bella Thorne and Zendaya which they shot for their TV show Shake It Up. I thought the nail designs that they had were cute and fun to do so i decided to give it a try!

Zendaya

Zendaya's nails were pinkish gold fading into green.

You guys kinda got a preview of this mani in my previous post.

I used Orly Luxe for the gold colour ( i didn't have any golds with a pink tinge) and sponged on Sally Hansen XtremeWear in Emerald City.  The green and gold combo makes me feel very Aussie haha.

Bella Thorne

 I thought Bella Thorne's Nails were really cool! I call it a Black and Red Accent Stripey Mani =)

Black and Red Accent Stripey mani

 I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Blackout for the black base and Sally Hansen Diamond Strength in Diamonds and Rubies for the red accent nail. Then i used Sally Hansen's Nail Art Pen in Silver to draw the stripes and Orly Luxe for the gold stripes.

Sally Hansen Xtreme Blackout, Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Diamonds and Rubies, Sally Hansen Nail art Pen Silver, Orly Luxe

Usually, I really suck at using my left hand to do free-hand painting, but surprisingly my right hand turned out better than my left hand! I think maybe the messy lines adds character to the mani...?

I really like this Mani and had heaps of fun doing it and i took so many pictures of it, i thought i'd share some more with you!

Here's my attempt at imitating Bella Thornes pose from the screenshot of the music video!

I actually find the song quite catchy! Here's the music video if you want to check it out!

Nails fit for a Princess!

I was really loving my Hanna mani but it didn't match the dress i wore to mum's b'day dinner (and when i say "didn't match" i mean "CLASH CLASH CLASH!!). And so, after i said my goodbyes and many tears were shed, i reluctantly plunged my nails into the murky and spongy sea of Kwik-Off... *whelp*

ANYWAY, so i replaced the Hanna mani with this...

Which i am totally loving, but that might be because i love pink and i love love love OPI Teenage Dream!
So i started off with Sally Hansen Maximum Growth in Dreamy Pink, then i added a coat of OPI Princesses Rule! and topped it off with OPI Teenage Dream. Initially i was only going to use Teenage Dream for an accent nail...but i tend to go overboard with Teenage Dream because it's so SPARKLY!! (Imagine London Tipton from Suite Life of Zack and Cody saying that) so i had to add more SPARKLES to the mani =)

This shade of pink, along with the sparkles always reminds me of princesses don't you think?
(OPI totally nailed the name for Princesses Rule!)

Pretty Little Liar's Nails from S02E04 Blind Dates Part 2

Here's Part 2 of my Pretty Little Liars Nails!

Hanna

I absolutely love Hanna's mani. It's a red and black french manicure with a polka dot hearts accent nail. Red is such a sassy colour which totally suit Hanna's personality and once again the black gives it that edge. The accent nail, which i believe was done with nail polish strips adds a girly touch to the mani. In that episode Hanna went on a faux date with Caleb (and Lucas and his date), so maybe the love hearts suggest that she still has feelings for him?

I used Sally Hansen Diamond Strength in Diamonds and Rubies and Sally Hansen Xtreme wear in Black out to recreate this look. I did the hearts on the accent nail by hand which is why the hearts on the right hand look a bit dodgy..but hey, i think it's a pretty good effort using my left hand!

Spencer

Once again, it was really hard to get a good look at spencer's nails but from what i could gather from these pictures. she had a simple nude/beige mani. It's clean and classic, which really fits Spencer's no-nonsense attitude.

I used this old nail polish i found called Raffia by Estee Lauder.

I really hope you've enjoyed these mani's! Let me know if you want me to do more of these!

Pretty Little Liar's Nails from S02E04 Blind Dates Part 1

A new episode of Pretty Little Liars is on today! yay!!

Pretty Little Liars is one of my favourite TV shows! Sheena and Marina are also hooked on it, and we probably spend a fair amount of time speculating what would happen next, who "A" is, how yummy the guys are and how pretty the "liars" are. My goal now is to get Shirley and Michelle hooked on it too hehehe!

Anyways last week, as i was cuddled up in bed watching the episode, "Blind Dates" i saw a glimpse of Aria's nails and i though "why not do a blog post on the Pretty Little Liar's Nails!". And so here's Part 1, inspored by the nail polish Aria and Emily wore on last week's episode "Blind Dates".

Aria

Aria wore a pastel green nail polish with black shatter. The pastel green is sort of mellow and a bit romantic while the black shatter makes it quite edgy and this whole ensemble really suits Aria's quirky style.

OPI Mermaid's Tears and OPI Black Shatter

To recreate this look, i used OPI Mermaid's Tears with OPI Black Shatter. I decided to add a coat of OPI I Juggle Men to add a subtle sparkle.

Emily
Emily's kind of a jock, she wears comfortable, casual, but stylish clothes so I'm not that surprised that she was wearing a dark, shimmery navy nail colour. It was really hard to find a nice screenshot of her nails, this was the best i could do.

If I had OPI Russian Navy i would have totally used that for recreating this mani...but i don't so instead i put OPI Ink over one coat Sally Hansen Xtreme wear nail colour in Black Out. I'm sure that if i just used OPI Ink and built it up it would have had the same result, but i was feeling quite impatient, and well, this mani only took 2 coats! =)

OPI Ink and Sally Hansen Xtreme wear Black out

I hope you've enjoyed these recreations! I'll be showing you Hanna and Spencer's nails in the next post. Now I'm going to go and watch this week's episode =)
Have you watched it yet?