Face of Australia Molten Metallics: Amethyst and Iron Ore

Firstly, many thanks to Vita for pointing out this limited edition collection from Face of Australia. I bought three polishes from the Molten Metallics collection as they were so cheap! These are available from Priceline and K-Mart for only $4.75. That is insanely cheap for nail polish that is Toluene, formaldehyde and Dibutyl Phthalate free. I always try to avoid cheap polish that is filled with the nasties. So while I originally bought Flaming Lava as shown on Vita's blog, I couldn't help but pick up Iron Ore and Amethyst. Then I started to play.

I know what you're thinking. Finished painting your nails? Have a Pascall Swirl. Yes I sourced my inspiration from a marshmallow. Go on, have a Pascall Swirl:

Berry Delights are delicious. Not fussed on the passion berry, although I did force myself to eat them :-) I did look for the TV ad for the swirls on YouTube but sadly couldn't find anything. I would have loved to share the silly ad that convinced me to buy these things! Anyway, back to the nail polish.

For my 'swirl' design I used Iron Ore as the base which looks lovely and black with a touch of glitter on its own:

In some lights you can even see a slight reflects of green. But it might just be my lighting.

Amethyst is this gorgeous magenta purple which turned out quite frosty and dark against the iron ore. Originally I started with just the two colours without outlines but it needed contrast, so I added white:

And I was happy with that. I used my trusty China Glaze snow and a small nail art brush, in case you are wondering. Anyway, that is all I have for now! I hope you enjoyed this simple design and are having a lovely week. Until next post...

Simple Golf Nail Art How To feat. Illamasqua Smash!

I quite like Illamasqua Smash and while I was staring at my green polishes last night, all I could think of was golf. I don't know why, it just happened. It's funny because I hate golf. Inspiration is funny that way.

So there we have it. I hope it looks like a golf green. I tried to do various shapes but with small nails it doesn't always work out how you envision it. Pretty basic design featuring a few Illamasqua polishes!

Left to right we have China Glaze Snow, Essie Mink Muffs, Illamasqua Boosh, Throb and Smash, and finally Sally Hansen Green With Envy. Now I can't imagine WHY you'd want golf on your nails but maybe as a father's day theme? Anyway this is how I went about it:

After doing the thumb I moved onto the rest of my nails. I tried drawing different shapes with Sally Hansen's Green With Envy using a small nail art brush.

I then took Essie's Mink Muffs and with the same small nail art brush carefully drew a line straight down onto the green. I then used a dotting tool to dot the top of the flagpole with the Essie polish, then tried to create the illusion of a hole with Illamasqua's Boosh dotted at the bottom.

Then using Illamasqua's Throb I drew triangle flags on the flagpole. I chose this colour as a nice contrast to the green and because of its opacity. I also took Mink Muffs again and drew further into the black to make it look like the flagpole went all the way down.

Finally dotted with China Glaze snow for the golf balls! Now I initially attempted detail on the golf balls but it didn't turn out quite right and I had to go over it :-(

Well there you have it. Golf on the nails. Hopefully something you don't see everyday ;-) I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend. I saw Bridesmaids yesterday which wasn't too bad! Still a 'chick flick' but funny. Well it's time to warm up because Canberra is freezing! Until next time...

MAC Surf Baby Nail Polish Swatches, Hibiscus Nail Art and Pandora :-D

Oh MAC polishes, how you tempt me and frustrate me at the same time. I wasn't planning on buying the summer collection polishes from the MAC Surf Baby line. However I noticed they were creams and I thought 'ooh, perfect for nail art'. Especially tempting as one looked nude/skin toned. You won't find it hard to guess where I got the nail art inspiration from ;-)

Ah yes, the Surf, Baby! line has cute hibiscus flowers on the packaging and I'm a sucker for different packaging. I can't say I like the red flower so I went for white over MAC's Ocean Dip.

Obnoxious yellow packaging? Check.

Alas you might think these are both creams as the bottles claim but looky here at the swatch of Hangin' Loose:

Up close that flash shot reveals shimmer! Subtle yet still pretty at two coats I was slightly disappointed. I thought cream meant no shimmer :-/

And here is a swatch of Ocean Dip. So pretty. I can't say I'm the biggest fan of teal/jade/blue/green shades but this one is lovely and I couldn't wait to wear it.

Now here's the sad part. Normally when I swatch I don't get the opportunity to wear the polishes for very long. I wore Ocean Dip for a couple of days and despite my heavy base coating, my beautiful white nails turned slightly yellow. Which yellows and blue shades tend to do. But quite frankly this annoyed the crap out of me because I had just last week (after filing away the remainder), finally removed the last of my *very* yellow nails from a previous naughty polish. All I can say is wear Essie's Mint Candy Apple without base coat at your own risk. Looking online I see similar claims. It takes months to grow out badly stained yellow nails and over the last couple of years there's a few polishes that have been thrown in the 'sin bin'. The joys of nail polish?

Back to the hibiscus nail art! Only a few colours required and my current favourite MAC polish Ice Cream Cake makes a return :-) I really need to start looking for a new white nail polish as poor China Glaze Snow is getting thick and hard to work with.

To start with, I simply drew the outline of the flower with five petals, slightly pointed at the end.

Second I filled with white.

Next drew the pistil (uh thank you google?) with MAC Hangin' Loose and the shimmer while visible, didn't detract from the look.

Finally added MAC Ice Cream Cake to the centre of the flower and as stamens at the top. Then I just finished with a top coat!

Onto something slightly off topic, the boyfriend and I celebrated an anniversary on the weekend. He presented me with a bunch of red roses, one for each year we've been together. There were six and he is very sweet.

The roses came with this cute balloon!

And because the weather has been absolutely dreadful here (cold, windy, rainy) we had a picnic on the lounge room floor. Complete with picnic blanket and a small bottle of bubbly :-)

And a whole lot of cheese! Oh my I was so full after this cheese and cracker epica.

I was surprised with a bag from Pandora, and there was a small wrapped gift box inside.

Revealing a new charm for my bracelet :-D I had my eye on this duotone star charm for a while and was stoked when I saw it.

My updated Pandora Bracelet! Which I promptly cleaned and polished. Silver gets tarnished SO quickly! But I love the charm, it was a really lovely weekend.

Well I hope you enjoyed the flowers and swatches, let me know if you've been tempted by anything in the Surf Baby collection. I was very tempted to get the eye liners but resisted :-( Hope you're all having a wonderful week and I'll see you next time!

Braziliant! Essie Summer 2011 Collection Swatches

I have been looking forward to this latest Essie collection! There are some seriously gorgeous shimmers in this collection as well as some 'sorbet' shades and a creme. Something for everyone I would say.

Left to right we have Too Too Hot (jelly/sorbet finish), Meet Me At Sunset (another jelly/sorbet), Braziliant (orange with pink pearl reflects), Super Bossa Nova (shimmer with blue purple reflects), Smooth Sailing (periwinkle blue with silver pearly glitter) and Absolutely Shore (pale green creme). Onto the swatches!

Above is a flash shot of Smooth Sailing. This looks slightly more spectacular in the bottle. When on the nail the glitter is more silver than pearly as it looks in the bottle.

Above is a natural light shot of Smooth Sailing. Only 2 coats required here. You could maybe do one thick coat but two light coats would suffice.

Above is a flash shot of Super Bossa Nova, possibly the star of the collection as it's so bright and gorgeous.

Above is a natural light shot of Super Bossa Nova. Only one coat was needed for this polish, impressive.

Above is a flash shot of Absolutely Shore. Very pale green, almost minty.

Above is a natural light shot of Absolutely Shore. This was 3 coats and it was still sheer. I'm not a fan of having to work with sheer cremes.

Above is a flash shot of Braziliant. Ah, the brilliance of Braziliant. It was hard to capture the prettiness of this polish but the subtle shimmer is there if you check out the full size of this picture.

Above is a natural light shot of Essie Braziliant. This was two coats and left a suede/non-glossy finish. This definitely is one to look out for if you like orange :-)

Above is a flash shot of Meet Me At Sunset. This had a clear jelly like finish, much like that of the OPI Texas collection polishes, maybe less glossy.

Above is a natural light shot of Meet Me At Sunset. This was two coats.

Above is a flash shot of Too Too Hot. And wow it IS hot! I don't normally go for reds but I like this.

Above is a natural light shot of Too Too Hot. Only one coated needed.

My favourite colour is a toss up between Smooth Sailing and Super Bossa Nova. I ended up with a simple floral design when I started to draw with no real goal in mind :-) As you can see Braziliant made an appearance, it all it's shimmery loveliness @_@ Well I hope you enjoyed the swatches. I'm probably going to skip the Resort 2011 collection as it really does not appeal to me except one or two colours... we shall see. I hope you're all having a wonderful weekend! Until next time...

Space jump! UFO nail art feat. Sally Hansen DVD!

Ok I'll admit to watching the second X Files movie on TV the other night. It wasn't as good as the first and it was way too long since the first movie but I thought I'd put some more alien type nail art 'out there' ;-)

I really wanted to just show you all Sally Hansen DVD, a brilliant glitter top coat that looks different depending on the light:

It's a sheer blue glitter polish that reflects a gorgeous purple depending on the angle and lighting. To give an example:

Flash drowns out the purple but under lamp light it is more obvious.

Because the polish is so sheer, I added one base coat of Essie's Coat Azure and just one coat of DVD. Flash shot above.

Without flash shown above. See the pretty purple @_@

I also wanted to trying layering over black and white compared to just wearing DVD on a bare nail.

A black base really seems to transform this colour into something else. On its own however it is comparable to having a white base. But you need quite a few coats since it is so sheer.

Back to the UFO nail art! A simple design with a few tiny pink gems added for decoration at the end. Essie's Coat Azure made a nice opaque base even at one coat. The outline was drawn in China Glaze Snow and filled with MAC Ice Cream Cake. Still loving this pink.

Progress shot above. I was going to stop here but I thought, this needs pink :-D

To be honest I don't know why I drew them so wonky and at that angle. It was easier I guess!

The source of my UFO - another Bonne Bell Bottled Emotion art ;-)

Thumb swatch above. I decided to finish the design with some little pink gems. It just gave it that extra cuteness. Well I hope you enjoyed the swatches and let me know if you've tried any of the HD range, I know there are some gorgeous colours out there! Hope you all had a lovely week and I'll see you next time :-)