Fadin' Daze

Well a very Happy New Year to all of you lovelies! I posted today's post on Instagram back when I did it like 11 months ago, intending to create the matching blog post immediately afterward, but you guys know how ridiculously slack I am! So it's been the better part of a full year and I'm just getting round to it now. Big slaps on the wrist for me! I still wanted to do this post though, in the hopes that it serves as evidence and/or inspiration for anyone starting out with nail stuff. Yeah it's another before-and-after, but this time it's Gradient Style! Check it!

Obligatory Christmassy Stuff

Well Ho Ho Ho to y'all! I did some Christmas nail art in the few moments I had to myself in the raucous Christmas season! Yeah okay so I'm posting on Boxing Day, but I know a lot of you are still celebrating the Big Day, so I wanted to share. Hope you're ready for a whole lotta green, red and gold!

More after the jump......

I'm Alive!!! Muahahaha....

Well hello, strangers! Bet y'all thought I'd fallen off the edge of the universe, huh? Well you're kinda right, I disappeared into the void of a brand spankin' new job (which has entirely taken over my life for the better!!) but I missed you guys too much, so I'm back. I'm gonna cheat a little bit and use up a bunch of my old un-posted photos, mostly because they deserve to be shared, but also because I still don't really have time to do cool stuff yet. Let's crack on, shall we? 

Triumphant (lolz) return starts with a post I had saved in my Drafts here on Blogger - it's a recreation of an oooold mani with a couple of tweaks. Please enjoy China Glaze Dance Baby with special guest appearance from some BornPrettyStore glequins!

The Polished Kiwi Gets Swatched!

Well hello there, lovely people! I know I've been a bit AWOL but it's for good reason, and to make it up to you I have a HUGE and exciting post for you today - Polished Kiwi Lacquer swatches!! You guys have no idea how excited I am to be doing this!! The beyond kind and wonderful Jade from The Polished Kiwi has started making and selling her very own home-brewed lacquers right here in NZ, and I've managed to snag the immense honour of swatching five of her currently available beauties. It's a bit pic-heavy, but soooo worth it. Click on through to see these yummies in action!

Psychedelic, Baby!

Well hello hello lovely people! Hope you're all doing wonderfully XD Today I've got some seriously psychedelic swirls to share - neon psychedelic swirls! Slip back to the swinging sixties with these babies!

I Lied Again...

Hiya, yeah, so, I kinda lied a little bit. You know how I said I had some awesome glittery nails to share last Friday? I'm sort of still editing the photos... I took a LOT of photos 'cause I loved them so hard. Because I don't have the time / patience to edit it them at the moment, "here's one I prepared earlier!". You can consider this a 'from the vault' because it is a few weeks old. I'm sorry I haven't got the glittery goodness ready for you yet! In the mean time, here's some stud-y matte-y nails for you to enjoy.

Pink Thur(Wednes)Day: XOXO

Hmmmmmk so I meant to post these yesterday but I didn't get around to it... Whoops... So even though I'm a day late, Happy Pink Wednesday ("On Wednesdays we wear pink!")! I got a bit busy with some glitter placement nails that I'm aiming to have up for V-Day, so stay tuned! They're super pretty! 

Today's post was for the February "Totally Doable 'I Have A Life' Nail Art Challenge" prompt 07: XOXO. If you don't follow, this particular monthly nail art challenge is hosted by @californails and consists of prompts every few days to inspire nail artists to get creative! Click on through for deets.

Glittery Buttons of Luxury

Hi hi hi! Super quickie for you tonight - I was just going through the ridiculous backlog of manis that I've got waiting to be posted and thought it was time to shuffle some out into the world. It's already after midnight so I'm not going to be very chatty tonight (woohoo!!) so you can sit back and enjoy the glittery goodness!

Essie x4

Hello, hello! In a recent moment of weakness I bought three new Essie polishes (...and I may or may not have four OPI on their way >.< oops!) and I wanted to share them with you! The three I purchased were Play Date, Lapis Of Luxury, and Turquoise & Caicos. Yeah I know there are four pictured... I already had Cute As A Button from a couple of months back when my local Farmers started stocking the new Essie formulas, and it made sense to 'complete the rainbow' by adding it in as a fourth. Click on through to see swatches and an impromptu watermarble. =)

Simple Stripes: Pastel Edition

Whaaaaaat?? Two posts in two days??? This hasn't happened in months! Woo! Talk about starting off the way you wanna go on XP. Honestly, I just couldn't wait to share this mani - I LOVE how it turned out! Okay, there are still a couple of bumps along the road but this mani was super fun and easy to do, so I had to share straight away! The line-up:

L to R: piCture pOlish Fairy Floss (uh, duh...), Essie Liliacism (new formula, the old one is shite), Color Club Take Me To Your Chateau (haven't I seen that somewhere before...?), and Essie Mint Candy Apple (the one polish in my whole stash I have to stop myself from wearing EVERYDAY cos I luvs it so hard). Click on through to see what I got up to with these bad boys!

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!

It's Marbling Time!

Hello hello lovely people! As promised, today's post features a watermarble using pastel polishes. Let's just jump straight in, shall we?

This mani uses Essie Lilacism, China Glaze Aquadelic, OPI No Room For The Blues and Miki No. 25. I started off with two coats of OPI Don't Touch My Tutu (the white one from OPI NYC Ballet collection) to give the pastel colours something to shine on - I thought they'd be too sheer without some form of white basecoat.  

I double dipped my left ring finger because the first try was so off centre! You can just see one of the original loops peeking out from the swirl closest to the tip of the nail! I kinda like how the middle finger turned out - the yellow gives a little bit of a colourful french mani effect, don'tcha think?

Another double dipped nail! This really shows how sheer those pastels can be. I stuck my thumb right in the middle for this effect, just to try something different. I think maybe my colours were too far apart to give a really cool effect... It's not so bad anyway =P 

Behold the giant gash. Gahh!!! Don't you hate it when you have everything sorted and finished and just *boop*... Destroyed. Sigh. I added a matte top coat because in the wonderful wise words of my mother, "Matte makes everything look yum!". So true. The matte somehow makes the mani look a bit 60's ish, no?

My right hand makes an appearance! Note the night big smudge-y bald spot on my middle finger ;-). Man I'm awesome at bumping my nails when they're wet! The cuticles on my right hand are so dry, sheesh! Looks like I need to use more Lemony Flutter! 

Swirly swirly swirl...

And just a couple of quick piccys to show any of you who haven't tried this before how truly messy it is! Great fun, great effect, but a b**** of a clean up, especially if you forget to tape around your nails!

Hehe mucky pup... So there ya go, pastel water marble! Every time I do a water marble, I think 'I should do this more often'! Then I realise how much polish it uses, and reconsider ;-).

What are your favourite colour combos for water marbles? Have you tried this mani before, or maybe the dry marbling technique? I'd love your feedback, darlings, I love hearing from you! =D Happy almost weekend!

Pink Wednesday: Simple Sparkles

Happy Wednesday, wonderful people! On Wednesdays We Wear Pink and today's Pink Wednesday mani is a little bit simple, a little bit sparkly and a whole lotta pink. 

I used two coats of Essie Flawless for my pink polish, and applied two coats of China Glaze Icicle to my accent nails. I love how silver goes with everything! On Icicle I dotted on three pink rhinestones from the BornPrettyStore - the ultimate online store for all things nail art (and they ship internationally for free!!). A coat of Seche Vite on all nails keeps everything secure.

My camera can't even handle all that sparkle!

So there's today's quick, simple and PINK mani! What are your favourite colours to pair with a glittery silver? Do you wear rhinestones on your nails or think they get in the way? Happy Wednesdays, loves! 2 days to the weekend, woo! 

Pink Wednesday: By Request

Happy Wednesday, lovely people! On Wednesdays We Wear Pink, and a couple of Pink Wednesdays ago I got some comments from wonderful ladies saying that they love pink and blue together, and that they should be paired more often. Your wish is my command, loves, so today you get a very simple pink and blue gradient mani! I love the plain-ness of this mani and the fact that you don't need any fancy equipment to do it - just some sponge! This suited me down to the ground as my fancy nail art inspiration is lacking a tad this week. I'll blame the blasé weather! Without further ado...

The clean bubblegum pink is Essie Flawless, with Miki No. 24. sponged over top. I used this tutorial, and I can't believe how ridiculously easy it is to get the colours to blend together properly! Thank you, Sammy, for making such a useful tutorial! I seriously urge all of you to pick out two (or three or four...) of your favourite polishes, pop your feet up for a bit and give this mani a go. So simple for such a wicked look!

Okay well they're not perfect, but I'm truly diggin' this look. Thanks to those lovely ladies who requested the blue and pink - you made this Pink Wednesday so easy =D. 'Scuse my cuticles - they're just screaming "moisturise me, moisturise me!!". Whoops! I must stop neglecting my cuticles. Apparently they're quite key in keeping your nails healthy... Who'd a-thunk it? Below I have a photo of the sponges I use for my gradient manis. I think this bag of 20 was about $6? I can't remember, I just added it to the cart while grocery shopping. See what I mean about not needing any snazzy expert equipment? 

I've given you a couple of close ups of the sponges so you can see how small the pores are. A lot of the ladies who do gradient manis use sponges with big pores, like the sponges in the best tutorial ever, but I figure the smaller the pore, the less polish you use, and the finer the gradient, AND the less times you have to go over and over to get the colours to show. And they're just so fun to squish. I am a simple creature at heart...

I swapped the colours around on my right hand to see which I prefer. I swear I used the same polishes on both hands, but I was apparently much more enthusiastic with the blue on my right hand! The pink is purple, and the blue dominates every nail. Oopsies... 

And, as usual, my right hand is a lot worse than my left... Something else I need to work on ;-).

Here's a comparison of the left and right hands so you can see how ridiculously purple my right nails are! But there's still enough pink in there to qualify for a Pink Wednesday, yeah?

Which do you prefer? Pink fading to blue or blue fading to pink (well, purple..)? Do you like the gradient look or think it's weird / ugly / overdone? Gimme your feedback, lovely people, I always love hearing from you! Thanks for checking in =D.

- Ally xx