Revlon Raspberry Rapture

Hey everyone. Hope everyone has been having a good weekend. I'm off on a small trip tomorrow and will be back on Tuesday but won't have a chance to post again until Wednesday. When I get back I'll be posting about nail mail, polish I bought while away (hopefully), making a start on the 31 day challenge and some drool worthy holo polishes! In the mean time I have a polish from Revlon's scented range; Raspberry Rapture.

This is two coats. It smells quite perfume-y rather than fruity. Ya know what I mean? The smell isn't over baring and lasted for the entire time I wore it (about 2 days) even with a top coat over it.

I added a stamp using Born Pretty fauxnad plate M73 and black Konad polish.

That's all for now. See y'all in a couple of days =)

31 Day Challenge

I found a challenge on Annie's blog Polish This! and I thought it looked like fun, so I am going to give it a go! The challenge is going to take me longer than 31 days to complete because I don't have enough time to post or paint my nails everyday.

RULES:

• Reblog this post if you're gonna accept this challenge
• One post per day
• If you miss one, pick it up the next day
• Post a picture of each mani
• It would be nice if you listed/linked to what polishes you used
• For the inspiration prompts, SHOW US YOUR INSPIRATION/SHARE LINKS
• BE CREATIVE
• TRY NEW THINGS
• HAVE FUN!!!

NOTE: don't want a new look everyday? Go at your own pace! The big goal is to get through all 31 manicures... and notice how your skills grow!


I'd love for you to join me in the challenge! Let me know if you're gonna give it a shot =)

P.S Don't be surprised if I post things that aren't part of the challenge such as nail mail or swatches =)

**Edit** For some strange reason parts of the rules have been highlighted... I'm not sure how this happened or how to fix it so please ignore =P

Kleancolor Swatches

Today I have some swatches of 6 Kleancolor glitter polishes; Black Out, V.I.P, Kiss Goodbye, Grand Finale, 24 Carat and Peaceful Heart.

First up is Black Out. This is a sheer polish with small silver glitter and hexagonal silver holo glitter. I found this polish was too thin and that made it difficult to work with. It liked flooding my cuticles. This is two coats.

Next up is V.I.P. I liked this one more than I thought I would. I'm not much of a fan of red but this was nice. I like how there is silver and gold glitter in the polish as well as the red so the red is not so overwhelming. This polish was easier to work with than Black Out. This was one coat.

Kiss Goodbye is my favourite from this set. It is a clear polish with pink, gold, blue and silver micro glitter. I looove it. It was easy to work with and the glitter applied evenly. This was only one coat.

Grand Finale would come a close second to Kiss Goodbye. I like that it has silver holo sticks of glitter rather than circles or hexagons. One coat.

24 Carat was a bit disappointing to me. In the bottle there are gold holo diamond pieces but I could not get one out no matter how hard I tried! This polish is such a tease. Without the diamonds 24 Carat is rather boring, just another gold glitter. *yawn*. One coat

And last but not least, Peaceful Heart. This polish has small green glitter as well as green holo hearts. The glitter is not as dense as 24 Carat or V.I.P. I did manage to get a heart out on my first try though so that makes it better than 24 Carat in my book =P. One coat.

My First Cupcake Mani

I know that cupcake manis are a dime a dozen but I had to try it out. And I took some step by step photos as I went so you can do your own cupcake mani =D

Dori, over at Kiss my Acetone is the shiz at cupcake manis!! Hers are amazing. She has done them here, here, here, here and a tutorial here. haha. I used her tutorial to do mine. Here is my step by step photos:

I started off with one coat of OPI Sparrow Me The Drama and one coat of OPI I Lily Love You

Next I painted half the nail with China Glaze Spontaneous

Added details with Orly Velvet Rope,

Then added the yellow icing using Orly Lemonade and added sprinkles using a dotting tool, OPI Dating a Royal and Essie Mint Candy Apple. Then the final touch, a cherry on top, done with Orly Star Spangled.

So overall I used:

OPI Sparrow Me The Drama

OPI I Lily Love You

China Glaze Spontaneous
Orly Velvet Rope
Orly Lemonade
OPI Dating a Royal
Essie Mint Candy Apple
2x Nail Art Brushes
1x Dotting Tool

I hope this was helpful. Would you like to see more tutorial type posts on here? Leave a comment =)
Thanks for reading

Nubar Dewdrop with Flowers

Just a quick post today, last night I did this mani as a way of procrastinating from going to bed.

I started off with two coats of OPI Mermaid's Tears

Followed by one coat of Nubar Dewdrop. This is a glitter polish with white, green and blue glitter. 

Then I added some flower stickers I found in a discount shop a few months ago

All topped off with a coat of Orly Sec'N'Dry.

Thanks for reading =D

Kleancolor Chunky Holo Black

Hey girlies, today I have swatches of Kleancolor Chunky Holo Black. I got it about a month ago with my order from Born Pretty (Haul Post HERE).

This was one coat of Chunky Holo Black over one coat of BYS Black Satin. It flashes red, green, orange, yellow and at some points blue. It is quite mesmerizing and I cant stop looking at it!!

P.S. It's still snowing!! =D

Snow!!

I have lived in the same place for my entire life and it has NEVER snowed like it has today!! It's madness and completely surreal. It is like we're not in the same country anymore. I really makes me wish it was Christmas time. I've never had a white Christmas because it is summer in NZ in December. 

I took some photos to share =)

 

A Somewhat Average Water Marble

Hey everyone! Hope everyone has had a good weekend. Mine was good and while I was at work on Sunday night we had a mega snow storm. It never snows where I live so it is really surreal to have snow everywhere. I may even do a snow inspired mani in the next few days =)
I had two 21st birthdays to go to this weekend (both on the same night, typical huh!?) so I decided to do some water marbling.

For some reason, I'm just not so impressed by how this turned out. The black ran a little into the blue (can be seen on the thumb). I used China Glaze 'Spontaneous', Australis 'Sin City' and OPI 'Dating a Royal'.

Happy 21st Erike

So Friday was the 21st birthday of my best friend of 14+ years, Erike. She had a dinner to celebrate on Saturday night and I painted her nails for the occasion

I used BYS Black Satin, an accent nail of Milani Jewel FX Gold and stamping using Konad white and BM11.

Happy Birthday Erike! Hope you had a great time last night =)

Sparkle-icious Swatch

I have some swatch photos for you from yesterdays dusty hunting.

OPI Sparkle-icious

To start, this is one coat over a clear base coat

Two coats

Three coats

As you can see in the close up photo, there are still some patches on the nail that haven't been covered completely but from afar these are unnoticeable. I am loving the colours in this polish: gold blue and pink glitter. It's like a party on your nails

Sorry about the messy cuticles, I was doing this in a hurry =P

First Time Dusty Hunter

Today I went dusty hunting for the first time! There is this little salon that I also pass on the bus when I'm going to Uni that have and OPI stand in the window. This afternoon I decided to finally go in and check it out. At first it was pretty average, some oldish collections (Texas and Swiss). Then I found two Burlesque glitters (Simmer and Shimmer and Glow Up Already), still wasn't that enthused. And then I stumbled upon OPI Shim-merry Chic. I had never heard of this one and it had flakies so instantly caught my attention. I umm-ed and ahh-ed about getting it and then when I finally decided to get it I saw another stand of polish used for manis, so I had a browse through those too. This stand was SO much better than the other one. For starters I found a half bottle of Merry Midnight!!!! Tbh it is so much prettier than Orly Fowl Play, it is more purple and the flakes catch the light better. But because I already have Fowl Play I reluctantly put it back. But I managed to find OPI Sparkle-icious and Show It and Glow It from the Burlesque range. Sparkle-icious was about 95% full and oh so pretty so I snapped it up!! So I came away with one pretty polish and one broken no-buy month, whoops

Because You're Worth it

Hey guys. I just thought I'd share what I'm wearing right now

This is 3 coats of OPI It's Totally Fort Worth It from the Texas range. I wasn't in the mood for an elaborate mani nor did I have the time. I'm liking how understated this is. It is hard to see in the photo but this silver/light grey polish has a subtle pinky purple shimmer. It does however show the imperfections of the nail though so if you have nice smooth nails this would be a good polish to have.

Also, I have just added a 'stash' page (click here) with a list of all the polishes I own. I didn't really realize how many there were and I will be adding to it as I acquire more polishes. I'm also working on a wish list page =)

Feather Gradient

Hey girlies, hope everyone has had a great week!
For this mani I used two of the polishes from my previous post from the Orly 'Birds of a Feather' collection. I did a gradient of Orly Nite Owl, Sweet Peacock and China Glaze C-C-Courage

After that I did some stamping using plate BM214

P.S. I'm up to 70 followers! YAY thank you. I'm starting to think about my 100 follower celebration. What do y'all think; giveaway or contest??

Birds Of A Feather Flock Together

Today I have swatches from the new Orly 'Birds Of A Feather' collection. I bought four today even though I really shouldn't have haha. I'm seriously considering going on a no-buy for August. 

I got a three pack that came with a purple bag with a peacock feather. The polishes it came with are Nite Owl, Lucky Duck and Sweet Peacock. I had to get Fowl Play too!

 First up is Nite Owl:

I really like this colour! More than I thought I would anyway. This is two coats but you could probably get away with one thick coat. It is a light brown with a silver shimmer. I would recommend this.

Next is Sweet Peacock. Only one coat for this one. It is a electric metallic blue. I think it might be good for stamping but I haven't experimented with that yet.

This one is Lucky Duck. I did one thick coat for this. It was a little bit streaky at first but was easily manipulated. When I was trying it out I thought it might be very similar to Orly Green With Envy. 

GWE is a bit more blue than LD. The similarity is greater IRL though.

Two coats of GWE on index and middle vs. one coat of LD on ring and pinky. GWE is more of a jelly compared to LD which has more of a creme consistency. Again, they are much more similar in reality.

And finally..

Fowl Play!

As most of you already know, Fowl Play is a dupe of the hard to find OPI polish Merry Midnight. The range Merry Midnight came out with didn't get released in New Zealand so I didn't even know about it until recently. Fowl Play (and Merry Midnight) has a dark purple jelly base with tiny blue glitter and flakies! The flakes look orange at first but at the right angle can be blue or green.

ahh pretty flaky-ness! This was two coats

There ya have it! Bit pic heavy but hopefully worth it. Have a great week everyone!