Double Delight

Hello lovely people! Happy Saturday! Brrrrr it's so chilly here today, been sitting at around 5 degrees all day! That's 41 degrees for those of you who use Fahrenheit... Before my exam yesterday I snapped a quick pic of the mani I was wearing, so that's the first of the two manis you get today!

This is one of the newest additions to my (ever growing...) OPI collection, Ate Berries In The Canaries. I know it's not a new shade, it was released for Spring 2009, but it's new to me, and I think it's delicious! I didn't even realise until after I left the house that it matched perfectly with the scarf I was wearing! Stamped over top is fauxnad plate m73 in Black Satin as always. Topped off with Seche Vite. The rest of the post is dedicated to THE newest addition to my OPI stash: I'm All Ears from the reasonably recently released Minnie Mouse collection. The moment it arrived, I was in love. This bright pink almost-but-not-really-a-jelly polish has the most gorgeous pinky silvery shimmery glittery fleck running through it which brings it to life. It's gone straight to the top of my favourite pink polish list.

The above photo was taken inside with flash. This lighting brings out the pinkiness of the shimmer more than the other photos do - outside, the silver shimmer was definitely dominant. I had to add the bow, it's Minnie! The dots were a must too, though I cheated with them a bit - I used fauxnad plate m79 instead of freehanding them. I thought it would give a more uniform and even finish. Whaddaya think?

I keep forgetting to mention the number of coats and other technical details about my manis! I'm sorry - I'll work on that! I started with one coat of OPI Don't Touch My Tutu (the white from the NYC Ballet Collection) because I really wanted this colour to pop. For I'm All Ears I used three coats. I could've stopped at two, but I still had some VNL (visible nail line) and I wanted a more opaque finish for this mani. A coat of Seche Vite locked it all in.

See what I mean about that silver shimmer? My nails are screaming to be reshaped - I'll get onto it soon, I promise! It's been a hectic week =P.

Whaddaya reckon, is this mani all Minnie or what? I'm in absolute love-love with this shade - it's pure shimmery deliciousness! I'm so glad I wasn't disappointed - it really was the only polish in that collection that called to me! What was the last polish collection that failed to totally wow you? Do you like your pinks with a bit of shimmer or do you like them strong and solid? See you soon, sweet people =D.

Fail Friday: Absent

Happy Friday, lovely people! I usually post some hideous attempt at a mani on a Friday for you to laugh at, but I'm simply unprepared today. I've actually run out of fails because I don't tend to photograph them! Also I've been studying like a mad thing, but my exams are over (at least for now...) so I should be up and running as normal from tomorrow! Consider today's fail the fact that I failed to have a post ready =P. This is just a quick 'happy weekend', and I'll see you soon! =)

Spotted Barefoot

Hello hello, lovely people! It's almost Friday, yay! I have a quick spotty mani for you today. This mani is inspired by some wrapping paper I saw while shopping for a friend's birthday present. You know you're obsessed with nail art when you see random things and think "that would make a great mani"! 

For the base colour I used two coats of OPI Barefoot In Barcelona - the most 'nude' colour in my entire collection. This is my go-to pedi colour but it made its way to my tips for today! Dotted over it is BYS Baby Let's Cruise and China Glaze Something Sweet, which arrived today. I love new polishes!

I used my biggest dotting tool and applied random dots of Baby Let's Cruise first, then added Something Sweet over those dots with the same sized dotting tool. Then I went back with a smaller dotting tool and added more Baby Let's Cruise to fill in any gaps. I like the different layers - it adds to the randomness. 

An attempted Macro shot. I didn't get out while the sun was available today so the photos suffered, sorry! 


Have you ever spotted something while out and about and thought 'that would make a great mani'? Did you get around to recreating it on your tips? If you've got pics, I'd love to see 'em! Post them on RFTP's Facebook page if you wanna share =). Thanks for checking in, babes!

Pink Wednesday: Pink Panic!

Yay! It's Wednesday! And you know that On Wednesdays We Wear Pink so today's mani features another polish salvaged from the 'to go' bag: BYS Pink Panic. This shade is SO bright and clean that I wanted to pair it with something equally as in-your-face - enter China Glaze Happy Go Lucky. Both stamped in BYS Black Satin to take a liiiiittle bit of the edge off, but both these polishes are so intense, nothing really takes the edge off! The designs are from fauxnad plates m60 and m64.

I don't know why but I've always loved pink and yellow together. Maybe it's because I'm a 90's kid and didn't have to put up with the pairing through the 80's?

Do you think it works? I'm so proud of my stamping on this mani - it truly feels like I really am improving! Apart from my impatience to top coat and the resulted smearing, all of my stamps were pretty darn perfect this time! It's a little bit satisfying =P.

I spotted this little guy peaking out around a leaf on our Swan plants along the driveway. Over the late Summer we looked after / 'raised' Monarch butterflies from egg through to adulthood. It is now definitely Winter but the Monarchs were so late in their cycle that we still have 5 chrysalises waiting to emerge! They haven't been getting enough sun or warmth to actually come out, but they still look like they might any day. As for this guy, his egg must have been laid really late in the season and he's only just grown big enough for us to see him. He's nom nom nomming away and I hope it's not in vain, because the temperature's definitely dropping every day and he won't have long to spin his little cocoon! Maybe I'll move him inside...

He's so cute!! I love little Monarch caterpillars - I've learnt so much about them over the last Summer. We had heaps of them, and they turn into such stunning butterflies! It must be so confusing to be a caterpillar, waking up one day to discover body parts you've never had before, like a tongue! How weird would it be to wake up and suddenly have a tongue? Anyway, I think he's cute and I'll be keeping an eye on him to make sure he doesn't ice over anytime soon!


What do you think about pink and yellow together? Love it / hate it / think it should just not happen? Thanks for stopping by, lovelies! =D

Re-Collected

Hello, lovely people! Hope your week is off to a nice gentle start! Quite some time ago when I started my OPI 'collection' (hoarding...) I decided to get rid of all my cheaper polishes and just stick to using OPI. This was before I started exploring nail art and realised the necessity for colourful cheaper polishes that can be played around with and utilised in different ways. I put all my non-OPI polishes into a plastic bag, and gave them to my Mum to donate to the local second hand store. Then, last night she popped into my room with the bag of polishes and asked if I wanted to double check before they went to live somewhere else. I can't believe what I was getting rid of, just because they weren't branded! Although by now I had managed to get dupes of most of the colours in either OPI or China Glaze, some of the BYS polishes in the 'to go' pile were gorgeous colours unique in my collection! Silly Ally! So today I have one of those polishes for you, stamped with a fauxnad (faux-Konad) stamp that has been calling out to me since it arrived. Saved from the pile is BYS Ultra Violet!

Although this polish has a bit more shimmer in it than I would've liked, it's a clean straight pure purple unlike anything in my polish stash. It photographed surprisingly well for a purple - I read about so many horror stories trying to get purples true to life in nail blogs. I reckon that's a testament to my new camera, which is still absolutely perfect in every way. These photos are untouched other than resizing and adding the border. I've named my camera Johann (Johann Pachelbel composed Canon in D, a ridiculously famous piece of music, and my camera is a Canon... Geddit? Yeah I'm a dork =P). So thanks, Johann, for being perfect =D.

Over the delicious Ultra Violet I stamped with fauxnad plate m64 in BYS Black Satin. I mentioned a while ago that my Black Satin was getting all gooey and relatively useless, yeah? Well after I went and bought a new one, of course there was one in the 'to go' bag. So I tried out the stamp with the old one, and it was perfect. I've never stamped with a polish that had a more ideal consistency for stamping. And then, as my luck dictates, I managed to smudge it with my top coat. Clever, huh? 

I lied. I adjusted the colours on the above photo a teensy bit. But that's all, I swear! Johann did the rest!

Check out the hot mess on that index finger! Take note: that's what happens when a) you don't let your nail art dry a bit before top-coatting and b) you don't have enough top coat on the brush before you start applying it! Otherwise, this is easily the best stamping I've ever done. It's kinda nice to think that I'm finally starting to get a little bit better. Whaddaya reckon? 


Have you ever cleaned out your room / gone through and old box or drawer and come across something you can't believe you put aside? I love going through old boxes of stuff and digging out things I completely forgot about! Though I'm getting better at getting rid of the stuff I genuinely don't or won't use... I blame my Dad, he was an avid collector of anything that 'might be useful'! I hope your Monday is as pleasant as a Monday can be, lovely people, and thanks so much for stopping in =D.

P.S.: If you want a giggle, check this clip out!

Baby, Let's Cruise!

Happy Sunday!! Sorry I didn't post yesterday, but I was a teensy bit busy with a three hour final exam. One down, one to go! That was English, and I have my Philosophy one next Friday. I'll try and get next Fail Friday's post ready early so I can just click and go, but that will require forward planning, and that is not a strong talent of mine... Anywho, on to the nails! 

Today's polish is one I bought yesterday: BYS Baby Let's Cruise. I know it's plain and boring, but I fell madly in love with this colour on its own. I'm planning on stamping it at some point, but by itself it's like nothing I've ever worn before. The colour is stunning, but the formula is easily the worst I have ever encountered. I had to basically pour it onto my tips to get any sort of colour out of it at all, and what you see in the pics is three thick coats, topped off with Seche Vite. If I didn't have my magic bottle of SV, this polish would simply be unusable, the formula is that bad. Having said that, I do have SV, and the colour is worth the hassle! 

It has a much stronger green tint in real life, but these photos (taken in the shade) get across the clean, bright, solid characteristic of this polish. Whether it's because it requires the wearer to wear SO much of it, I don't know, but this is one of the stronger colours I have. Definitely a polish that you know you are wearing, and that everyone in the vicinity knows you're wearing. There is absolutely nothing 'understated' about this polish!

Aren't my cuticles looking good? That Lemon Flutter cuticle butter from Lush is working miracles on my tips, and it's just so yummy! Oh, oh, oh, I almost forgot - I got a new camera! I don't know how much you can really tell as I used to work so hard to get all my photos up to a decent quality for you lovely people, but my new camera is soooo hassle free and wonderful and magical and I love it! It's just a little 'point and shoot' - not what I started out looking for at all - but it actually has more functions and manipulation abilities than some of the bigger expensive manual cameras I thought I wanted. The picture below is exactly the photo I took with the camera with no photoshopping or anything (except resizing, it was a massive file...). Lookit!

This is the 'toy camera' setting, where it kinda 'instagrams' the photo up a bit by dulling the edges. I know, I'm easily entertained, but I got the camera for the specs and all the random little scene settings were a bonus! It's got fish eye effect, miniaturisation, posterisation - so many bonus features that make me love my new little camera all the more! *end rant*

Although I am seriously disappointed by the formula of this polish, you get what you pay for, and the BYS polishes here are definitely on the cheap side. They're $6.90 per bottle, and to give you some prespective, OPI retails for $27.50 a bottle over here (not including the DS range, or the Nail Envy range which sits around $49.90 p/bottle). So one out of two ain't bad I guess, and I'd rather have colour over formula any day! Great formula with an average colour is less desirable in my book. I managed to grab a tiny bit of sunlight as it was passing today, so you get an 'in direct sunlight' look at this stunning colour too!

Just ignore my chubby little fingers ;-). Conclusion: love the colour, hate the formula. What was the last polish you bought for the shade but were disappointed with the formula? What's the most you've ever spent on a single bottle of nail polish? Enjoy the rest of your weekend, you lovely people, and check in again soon! =D

Fail Friday: First Gradient

Happy Friday! The weekend's just about here, wahoo! I've got a lot of pics for you today, and you'll be able to tell they were taken a while ago! This was my first ever attempt at a gradient, and I think it went terribly wrong. I recorded it step-by-step in the hopes that it'd be awesome, but it was not to be.

The three colours I chose were OPI Steady As She Rose, Do You Lilac It? and Lincoln Park After Dark. 

Base coat

 Base colour: Steady As She Rose. The rest of the photos kinda speak for themselves...

Yeeeeah.... This is not the look I was going for. In an attempt to smooth everything out and hopefully help the 'gradual' effect, I smothered my nails in OPI Princesses Rule. Not any better. 

I'm so glad I've improved my gradient technique, because this could seriously put a girl off ever trying again! Ugh just... no...!

Short and sweet today my lovelies! I'm off to look at cameras... Mmmm... Apart from the fact that I seriously love new stuff, my big camera that I use for just about everything is quite a bit behind in the times, and it's not really standing up to what I need it to do anymore. As a point of reference, my stepdad's cellphone produces better images than my big expensive 5yr old camera. *sniffle*. So, to the shops! Thanks for checking in, you wonderful people! =D

Pink Wednesday: Black Roses Pink

Hiya! It's Wednesday again, and as you know On Wednesdays We Wear Pink so today I have a yummy pink jelly mani using OPI Do You Think I'm Tex-y?. Let's just jump in, shall we?

I started with three coats of Do You Think I'm Tex-y, then stamped it with BPS [Born Pretty Store] stamp m65 in my go-to black BYS Black Satin. 

I added some nail tape in silver to the tip just to give it a little something more, and I think it helps it to look 'finished'. It's a little bit more special than just a straight stamp, don'tcha think?

I absolutely lo-o-o-ove Do You Think I'm Tex-y? -it's such a yummy true jelly polish. No creme in sight here! Depending on the light, it does tend to lean more toward red than any other colour, but in daylight it is a deep dark delicious pink. Here in NZ we have these ice creams called 'Jelly Tips', and the finish on this polish is exactly what the frozen tip of jelly is like! Mmm I just love this polish! 

Spot the great big chunk of missing polish on my middle finger? When all was said and done last night, my Seche Vite top coat was all but dry, and Dog was snoozing on my computer chair. I went to stroke him and he jumped up, banging my finger on the corner of my desk. Bye-bye perfect polish finish. That's what I get for showing a little love!

A close up of the gorgeous stamp design. I had a heck of a time trying to get the tape to stay down at the edges! I top-coated the *bleep* out of my nails, and a few of them still peeled up at the corners over night! I ended up applying new pieces of tape to some of my nails right before I took the photos, and even then they just didn't want to stay down. There must be a knack to it - I'll figure it out some day!

THIS STUFF!! Oh my goodness, this stuff. Lemon Flutter cuticle butter by Lush. Since our local Lush store opened up before Christmas last year (my gosh they were busy!) I have been itching to get my paws on some of this most delicious cuticle butter. I had recently resolved to stop putting it off and grab a tub on my next pay day, and lo and behold my incredible Mum came home with it today, along with a couple of other tubs of pure deliciousness! This stuff is just magic for your fingers, and I know I look crazy sniffing my cuticles but I don't care! If you could smell this stuff, you wouldn't stop sniffing either! 

Thanks for stopping by, lovely people! =D 

Fire-y Fingers

'Ello 'ello lovely people. More pictures less typing today - I'm not feeling my best. Today's mani is a fire / flame themed gradient using this magical technique. 

The lineup: OPI Don't Touch My Tutu!, China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, BYS Tempt Me Tangerine and Revlon Red Hot. 

I started with two coats of Don't Touch My Tutu - the same as yesterday. Then paint paint paint, sponge sponge sponge!

Yeeeah the photos are terrible today, sorry. As well as I know that my room is a truly bad place to take colour-accurate photos, I still try. Maybe one day I'll learn the trick? Must play around with my settings sometime.

That's all folks. Such a quick one today! Relieved? =P What are your favourite colour combos for gradients? Do you bother to clean your sponge after using it or chuck 'em 'cause they're so cheap like I do? Check in for Pink Wednesday tomorrow =D.