ABC Challenge: R

Happy December!! Today's post features China Glaze Ruby Pumps and Running In Circles. Enjoy!

ABC Challenge: Q

Hello, lovely people! Today I have the totally delicious OPI Quarter Of A Cent-Cherry to share with you. This is such a completely yummy deep red creme - if I'd had it over winter it just may have been my go-to shade. Also, today's photos feature my right hand (shock horror!!) as my left hand (which I usually paint / photograph / post) had a couple of boo-boos that made my nails go bye-bye. The nails on my right / dominant hand still had a bit of length to them, and I wanted to keep painting, so you get to see my other hand! For any of you bloggers out there who always photograph your dominant hands, and I know there are a few of you, I salute you!! Photographing your dominant hand is HARD! There was a lot of not particularly flattering balancing going on to get these shots... Anyway, on with the show!

I used two coats of Quarter Of A Cent-Cherry for these photos, and no top coat. Yup, all that glossy goodness is simply the polish. This polish was released by OPI when they hit 25 years old (gee, really, I never would have guessed... XP). Completely delicious, completely creamy and apart from my talent of drowning my cuticles in hard-to-remove colour, it applies like a dream.

Sometime last month, longer ago than I'll care to admit, a good friend of mine sent me a photo on Facebook and said "CAN YOU DO THIS???!!!? It'd be so cool!!!", or words to that effect. I'm sorry it's taken me SOO long, Becky, but here's my version of what you sent me! I know it's not dead on, but I wanted to play, sorry!

The original image was essentially what I've got on my index and pinky fingers - bloody blood drips. This was actually harder than I thought it was going to be - I couldn't get the 'drip' shape, and ended up with kinda awkward bulgy lines instead. Oh well, blood will do what it likes! (Disclaimer: I used nail polish, not blood!).

I'd recently ordered and received the latest Bundle Monster stamping plates and wanted to play with them, so I used a couple for the thumb, middle and ring fingers. This is Quarter Of A Cent-Cherry stamped over two coats of OPI Bubble Bath. I wanted a nice light girly nude under the bloody mess XD.

You see how this would've been great for a Halloween post if I'd gotten my shiz together? *sigh* sometimes I just fail at life LOL. Getting into the Christmas spirit with the next post - there's a sneaky peek up on Instagram but come by and see the full post soon! Thanks for stopping by ^_^.

ABC Challenge: P

Hiya! Well we've just had the most beautifully sunny day ever here in Wellington - light cool breeze and endless sun... Mmmm it was gorgeous! And because it's put me in the mood for gorgeous things, I thought I'd share some absolutely gorgeous polishes! There are plenty of photos to look at (five extremely photogenic polishes, and one extra...) so let's get to it!

Just Being Shelf-ish

Well hello there, lovely people! Hope you're all wonderfully wonderful and enjoying the warmer / cooler weather depending on where you are ^_^. Yesterday I put a photo of my home-made nail polish shelves up on Instagram, and a couple of people asked me how I made them, so today's post is a 'pic-torial' of how I went about it. I've edited quite a bit out, so I'll write out a super simple guide too. Here's the photo I posted to IG: 

Click through to see how I did it!

ABC Challenge: O

Hello there! I know, slack blogger is still slack, but I've had SO many new beautiful new babies to play with lately (ordered online, and also my local Farmers (NZ equivalent of Target) has just started stocking Essie polishes - previously unavailable in stores here!!) so I haven't been concentrating on getting blog posts ready - sorry! >.< I'd like to say I'll get better but in all honesty, there's a strong likelihood that I'll stay as slack as ever especially as we get into the crazy holiday retail season! Anywho, today I have a nice bold PINK to share with you for 'O'. Presenting Sinful Colors Oasis.

We Interrupt This Programme...

... to bring you the most intensely pic-heavy post you ever did see. I was completely committed to continuing with the Alphabet Challenge, but then those scheming little devils at OPI went and released a bright shiny new Christmas collection!! Wahh!! 

I picked up six of the 18 available polishes - three of the 'core' shades and three of the Liquid Sands. Click on through, but get your scrolling finger ready - there's a LOT to look at!

ABC Challenge: N

Hidey ho there, reader! I finally got a day off so I thought it was about time I post somethin' new! We're up to the letter 'N', and I (finally) settled on OPI No Room For The Blues. More over the jump!

ABC Challenge: M

Hiya! Two posts in two days? Woah!! I know, I'm shocked too XD. Let's get on with it! I've got a double whammy for you today - M is for OPI My Paprika Is Hotter Than Yours and My Chihuahua Bites!

ABC Challenge: L

Hello!! Happy October!! October's the best month IMHO - it's properly Spring-y, Christmas is creeping nearer, and it's my birthday month! What more could you want!? Oh, more blog posts? Okay! XD

Today's post is brought to you by the letter 'L'. Anyone who follows me on IG knows I have an addiction to the Liquid Sand / Pixie Dust glitter 'texture' polishes, so naturally I had to share this gorgeous grey one with you. Here's Zoya London!

ABC Challenge: K

K? K! Hiya guys! Today's post is brought to you by the letter 'K'! Our featured polish is China Glaze Kinetic Candy. Onwards!

ABC Challenge: J

Hiya! We're up to J! I wasn't really feeling the nail-art wonder for this shade, so you'll have to put up with some simple (and pretty bad) stamping. Behold! It's Zoya Jana!

ABC Challenge: I

Hello! Yes, I've been slack again, my bad! We suddenly lost two full-timers at work so I've been covering a LOT of hours (yay more money for polish!!) so I just haven't had the time to polish / post! I've got a few posts lined up now so we should be good for a wee while =P.

Right - we're up to 'I', and I chose OPI In The Cable Car-Pool Lane from the San Francisco collection. This is definitely a Fall / Winter colour, but I'm rocking it in Spring, 'cause I can XD click through to see how I made it more Spring-friendly ^_^

ABC Challenge: G and H

Heya lovelies. Sorry for being a bit MIA the last few days. A good family friend passed away and I haven't really been in the polishing / blogging mood. Because of this, today's post is super pic-heavy but really quite boring - I haven't done any nail art with the featured polishes, and I'm being extra lazy and cramming two letters into one post. Two letters, five polishes. Today we've got Sinful Colors Gorgeous, Essie Good As Gold, Maybelline Gold's Night Out, China Glaze Highlight Of My Summer and Born Pretty Store Holo #1. Phew! Click on through to the scrolling extravaganza. 

ABC Challenge: F

Hello! Happy Sunday! It is so bright and sunny and beautiful here today - it really feels like Spring is here! In the spirit of things looking lighter, today's polish is a nice bright minty green: Essie First Timer!

ABC Challenge: E

Hello, lovely people! Super super quick post today - I didn't even do any nail art for this feature polish because it's SO darn gorgeous on its own! I present to you - OPI Every Month Is Octoberfest!

I used ONE COAT for these photos - how cool is that?? I don't even know how to describe this polish... It's like a deep blue base with red micro glitter, I guess? Which makes it look purple, but it's still blue and red separately at the same time... Yeah... XD

The shimmer in this is crazy beautiful. For me it was visible in all different lighting, which is almost unheard of for shimmer! I didn't use a top coat - all that shiiiiine is just the polish.

It's a bit darker than polishes I like to wear on an every day basis, but as far as one-coat Autumn/Winter shades go, this is hard to beat. Flawless application (even with my terribly lazy unsteady method of slathering it on) and the shimmer really lifts it so it's not *so* dark. Completely wearable if you're a bit bolder than I am!

And a nice close up of that yummy deep red shimmer to finish up. Sorry it's such a plain post tonight - I'll be back into nail-arting for tomorrow's post ^_^. Thanks for stopping by!!

ABC Challenge: D

Hello there, friends! Today's post is gonna be a bit of a guessing game for me, as I did this mani over two months ago (>.<) so I'm having a wee bit of a hard time remembering specifics! Let's see how we go...

Today's featured polish is China Glaze Dance Baby. I'm pretty sure I used two coats for these photos.

 Click through to see how I nail-art-y-ed it up!

ABC Challenge: C

Well hello again, friends! Welcome to day 3 of my ABC Challenge! As mentioned at the end of yesterday's post, I had no idea what I was gonna do for 'C', and since I'm crazy-indecisive, I decided to jam two (and a half) polishes into this post so I didn't have to choose which one to showcase. I'mma make today's one nice and quick - here's OPI Can't Find My Czechbook and Charged Up Cherry!

ABC Challenge: B

Hi hi! Okay so I lied a little bit, I'm a day late with this post, but I have a legit reason! I know it sounds stupid, but my cat walked across my keyboard while I was editing in Photoshop and kinda reset all my settings, and changed some I didn't even know about. It took some pretty serious Googling to get everything back, but I'm sorted now, so on with the challenge!

ABC Challenge: A

Hello all, and happy September! It's the first day of Spring here in the Southern Hemisphere, and although it's been pretty chilly here the last couple of days, the daffodils and magnolia trees are out in full bloom and it's looking brighter and lighter already. Since I've been so slack in posting regularly and keeping you guys entertained, I've decided that I'm going to do a nail challenge - each post I'm gonna feature a polish beginning with a different letter of the alphabet, starting with A, of course, and try and do something nail-arty with it. This could go horribly horribly wrong, but I'm gonna give it a go... It's only 26 posts, how hard could it be...?

Today for the (grand?) initial post, I give you Alcatraz... Rocks - one of the Liquid Sand polishes from the OPI 'San Francisco' collection. As some of you might be aware, I have a brother in San Francisco, so I had to at least grab a couple from the collection (yeah, like I needed an excuse...). This polish is... like... uhm... WOW!!! Photos simply don't do it justice!! 

Click through for more =)

ALL The Colours!!

Well hello there, friends! I have something bright and colourful to share with you today to get back into the swing of blogging. I've been MIA from here for a couple of reasons - 1) my nails took a serious beating when I was working on a construction site a few weeks ago, and I've been waiting for them to grow into something paintable, and 2) I got lazy and decided to post everything straight to Instagram instead of writing it up here - sorry! Last night I did the first properly nail-arty mani I've done in ages, and I knew it was time to share. I give you: ALL the colours!!

This one's pretty pic heavy so click through to see more ^_^

Marvelous Minnie Minis

Hello, lovely people! Today I've got a particularly photo heavy post for you. I couldn't choose which of the four new Couture de Minnie mini polishes I wanted to show you, so I decided to share them all =D. OPI put out a Vintage Minnie collection last(?) year, and I guess they were popular enough to keep that train a-running, so the bright brand spankin' new Couture de Minnie collection appeared. Aside from the four I've got for you today, there's also a glitter polish in the collection that I didn't pick up. It's called Minnie Style and has red, pink and white hexagonal glitter in a clear base. Personally I'm not crazy about large-ish glitters in clear bases so I gave it a miss, but if you're into that kinda thing, I've heard it's got a great, easy-to-place formula. Anyway, onto what I DO have!

I love how OPI's mini bottles are perfect mini-scale versions of their regular bottles - makes me feel like a giant! ^_^

Click through to see swatches of each polish in its own glory.

So The World Will Never Find You

Hi hi hi! A super quick one for you today - I'm just about to head off to rehearsal for Phantom of the Opera! I know I haven't been posting lately so I thought I'd pop one up just to keep things fresh until I have a bit more time. Check out my Masquerade Mani! 

I've discovered Sinful Colors nail polish at my local pharmacy and my gosh - LOVE! This stuff stays on like you wouldn't believe, and the formulas have been something out of a dream. This is two coats of Sinful Colors GoGo Girl. The mask is a water-decal from Born Pretty Store. It's my first time using water-decals and I can already tell these are going to become a staple of the quick and easy nail art pile!

Something was missing, so I added black rhinestones for a bit more darkness ;-).

And that's all I've got time for - sorry loves! If you're in the Wellington (NZ) area, Phantom of the Opera opens this Thursday 13 June, and goes til the 5th July, on at the St James Theatre in Wellington. Come see me! It's a freakin' incredible production - sure to be a massive crowd pleaser! Thank you so much for stopping by, and take care, lovelies ^_^.

Holo, Is It Me You're Looking For?

Well hello to you! I've got a quick one for you today - I'm in hospital at the moment, but I got some day leave today so I did my nails (of course!) and had a play with some polishes that arrived while I've been away. I HAD to share this one!! It's a polish from the China Glaze 'Holographic' collection, called Infra Red. It's my first proper 'holo' and I could NOT stop staring at this absolutely stunning polish!

Even though it's called Infra Red, it's definitely more of a dark pink, don'tcha think?

Look at that rainbow shimmer!! This is what sets 'holo' polishes apart - that breathtaking, ever-stare-worthy flashing rainbow on your tips. This was bad lighting, rushed photography and I had no idea how to photograph to show off the intense holo-ness, but even from these crappy photos, you still get an idea of the amazingness! Yes, I walked into things because I was staring at my nails - we've all done it, and this polish deserves it!

Mmmmmm rainbowy goodness... I used two coats for these photos, and I used INM Out The Door fast-dry top coat... that was a mistake. The holo finish is much MUCH more obvious without topcoat, but as I said, this was a rush job so I didn't bother to take it off and start again... Sorry! Maybe in the future I'll take better snaps - I just had to share!

Yep, I'm hooked, and can you blame me!? I definitely wanna get my greedy little paws on some more holo polishes. There's nothing like this in my collection, and it's getting lonely there by itself =P. Must be time to save up and do a proper haul...

Have you tried a holo polish yet? Were you pleased or disappointed? I'd love to hear any stories you have - I'm always interested in fellow polish-holic experiences! =)

Hopefully I'll be back in full swing soon so keep checkin' in. Hope you're all smiling your lovely smiles! Thanks for reading ^_^

- Ally xx

Suzi's Flowers

Well hello there, friends! Yes, I know I've been AWOL for a loooong while now but I have plans to make it up to you! Without going into too much detail, I've been battling some pretty serious depression and painting my nails just hasn't been at the top of my priority list. I'm on the way up though, and I have plans for a good solid comeback *rubs hands together while emitting evil laugh*.

Ahem.

On today's menu I have a comparison of two OPI pinks - Flower to Flower and Suzi's Hungary Again! - the latter from the relatively recent 'Euro Centrale' collection. First up I just wanna say that I luh-uh-uh-ove the formula for the Euro Centrale cremes - Suzi's Hungary Again!, You're Such a Budapest, Can't Find My Czech-book and My Paprika is Hotter than Yours! all have totally delish two coat creamy formulas that glide like butter and shine like jelly. If you've been eyeing up any of the collection, those are the ones I'd recommend. The others are lovely, but those 4 cremes are something truly special. 

For these photos I used two coats of Suzi's Hungary Again! with a top coat of Seche Vite because I'm as impatient as... Someone who's impatient, I guess!?

As mentioned above this totally delish two coater glides on like heaven, and without a top coat it's just as glossy. There is a very very subtle pink shimmer in this baby that my camera didn't capture (a tone-matching shimmer that's present in My Paprika is Hotter than Yours! too). This doesn't affect the look of the polish or make it any less creamy (read: dreamy), but apparently it's a little trick to get the polish more even in appearance so even those of us who are useless at applying polish evenly can get away with this one.

As I decided where on my shelves of polishes to make this polish's home, it looked pretty darn similar to OPI Flower to Flower which came out in a Spring collection a couple of years ago. I'll use any excuse to paint my nails some more, so I grabbed FtF off the shelf and did a quickie comparison.

They look more similar in their bottles than they do on the nail, granted, but it must've been dim lighting that day because the differences in these two are huge. As you can see SHA gives off a more neon-orangey glow when next to a pink pink, and FtF has a much more obvious silvery shimmer. I used two coats of FtF but didn't bother putting a top coat on.

Even though they look nothing alike in these photos, I'm still happy I decided to check, if only because it meant I got to play with FtF again. It's such a Barbie pink that I hardly ever use it, and haven't brought myself to wear it out of the house yet. Just not my colour... 

Do you have any favourites from the Euro Centrale collection? Can you get away with the PINK Barbie pinks? Look forward to next time - the comeback will officially commence soon! 

Thanks for checking in, lovelies ^_^

Quick n Dirty

Well hello there, strangers. I trust you've all had amazing and relaxing wonderful New Years, Januarys and half Februarys! To crack into the new year of blogging, I've got a couple of quick n' simple silver / grey manis for you. First up: I was feeling musical.

Do you remember how I was in a local production of Hairspray last year? Well the next show is Phantom of the Opera (SO freakin' excited!!!) and yesterday was the presentation for all auditonees to get a snapshot of the new set design / general creative jist of the show. That put me in a super excited musical mood, so I thought I'd share some (poorly) stamped musical nails.

This mani is two coats of China Glaze Pelican Gray, with a coat of OPI Pirouette My Whistle over top. Accent nails are two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls from the Spiderman Collection, stamped in a generic black using fauxnad (Konad knock off) plate m73. All topped off with a coat of Cult Nails Wicked Fast.

Yeeeeah so my stamping was terrible at best, but it gets the point across, don'tcha think? I'm obviously out of practice... Will make an effort to improve, promise!

Next up is the mani I'm still wearing. This is China Glaze Glistening Snow. Freakin' gorgeous!!!

This baby is tricky to capture with my lighting setup (ie: my bedside lamp...) because whenever it's in direct unfiltered lamplight, it just looks silver, and it's NOT! It's every colour ever, in a beautiful sparkly, shimmery, dancing mosaic of gorgeousness. Can you tell I like it?

For these photos I used three coats, with a coat of Wicked Fast to set it. I've found with this one the more coats you use, the more intense the sparkle becomes. I'm so madly in love with this polish, you don't even know. It's become my go-to 'happy polish'. I mean, I like all my polishes, but this one always makes me smile.

My mum and I have an ongoing in-joke about owls (long terrible pun-filled story), and I got her this silver owl ornament for Christmas last year, and he goes perfectly with this polish, so I had to include him in the shoot!

So there ya go, quick n' dirty! What's your favourite polish that can always lift your mood? Do you have a favourite musical? Thanks for stopping by - hope to see you again soon!