Gargantuan Green Glow

It's Saturday! Woo hoo!! I've got a major essay due on Monday, and what better way to procrastinate than by blogging? =P Today's totally delicious feature polish is OPI Gargantuan Green Grape - one of those 'neon pastel' polishes I've been so hooked on. I knew from the second I applied it that I wanted to make it matte (like I don't with every polish?) and I'm so glad I did, it's totally scrummy!

This is three generous coats with Seche Vite to dry, then Rimmel Lycra Pro Matte Finish top coat on top. I had been warned about the application issues with this one - it's been really difficult for me to find pastel / neon polish that don't have some application issues - but as my opinion is generally colour over consistency, I didn't mind too much! Thank the heavens for Seche Vite or I'd never have got this baby to set!

If you look reeeeeally close, the weird shape of my middle nail (extra bulge-y) is due to the aforementioned ripped nail being held together with tape under the polish. I used white fabric tape until I could get some nail glue, taping along the rip then buffing the tape down and base-coating like crazy! It worked! At least until the nail lifted along the tape line instead of the rip... Well, it worked well enough to snap these pics! I really didn't want to lose my length =( *sigh* oh well!

All of the above pics were snapped outside on an overcast day, but when I came inside to the relative dark of the hallway, this polish just glowed. Poor lighting = poor photo quality, but I had to try and grab a shot of this glow-in-the-dim effect.

I'm so in love with soft / pastel-neon polishes at the moment! Maybe it's because it's Spring? Well, I was in love with them until I broke my nail off and had to revert to nubbins *sob*. I've been rockin' dark colours since I cut all my nails off *sob* but I don't know if I'll post nub pics here because I really don't like 'em! I keep staring at them muttering "... grow, grow, grow, grow, grow..."! Wah! </whinging>.

Do you love bright glow-y colours on your tips or do you prefer softer nuder tones? Nuder's totally a word, right? More nude... You know what I mean! What was the last polish you picked up that you loved the colour but hated the application? Happy Saturday, beautiful people! Wish me luck with that essay! ;-)

Stamping The Night Away

Hiya most wonderful peeps!! So I've been a tad MIA in terms of my blogging, and I am sorry for that, but I've just been lacking inspiration lately - you know how it is... I've still been posting on Twitter and Instagram, but I thought it must be time to do a proper post since I haven't blogged since last month! I have a sweet and simple stamped mani for you today =) Enjoy! (And excuse my poor dry cuticles...)

Nothing goes together like pink and blue, so I decided to use OPI I Think In Pink and BYS Sky's The Limit for a pale but clean + bright mani. As you might know I've been using OPI Don't Touch My Tutu as a base coat until I could get my hands on a real one (which I did today, in some VERY exciting circumstances - more in a later post ;-) ), and since I knew how sheer I Think In Pink can be, I doubled up on the white base coat for those nails. This meant I only needed 2 coats of both ITIP and Sky's The Limit for opacity and no VNL (visible nail line). The wonders of white 'underwear'!  

When my yummy yummy base colours were dry, I stamped with BYS French White using Bundle Monster plate BM321. While stamping I managed to bump my middle finger, mostly because I'm yet to do a mani during which nothing goes wrong ;-) but I tidied it up best I could, and apart from a gap in one of the flowers, it wasn't particularly noticeable. My stamping still needs some work, but if I'm careful I can usually get a result I don't hate =P. Guess what's coming next... Go on, you know what it is... 

Matte top coat! Yes, I am still obsessed with all (nail) things matte. It just gives such a nice finish in most cases, though I will admit I've come across a couple of polishes that IMO should NOT be worn anyway but glossy-glossy! For this mani, it definitely worked, don'tcha think? I used Rimmel Lycra Pro Matte Finish Top Coat =). 

The big ol' bump on my middle nail makes an appearance ;-). This pink is just so yummy matte! To be honest I really wasn't madly in love with I Think In Pink when I first tried it on - with a shiny finish it does not work with my skin tone at all, and I was so sadly sure I'd never use it for anything more than nail art-y stuff. Made it matte and BAM! Pure deliciousness! It's amazing what a different finish can do! =)

And a close up, because close ups are great =P. I'm sorry I was away from here for so long, lovelies - I promise to try harder to blog more often! You're all so good to me, you deserve some new content every once in a while ;-).

Do you like pink and blue together or are you totally over the combo? Are you giving the matte finish some lovin' or is that another fad you can't wait to see disappear into the abyss into which Shatter polish has fallen? Thank you SO SO SO much for stopping by, you wonderful peoples! Enjoy your fab Fridays ;-).

Dutch Ya Just Love That Shimmer?

Hiya, peoples! Hope your Sundays are all lovely and relaxing and re-energising and stuff. Today's post is a swatch of OPI Dutch Ya Just Love OPI? from the Holland collection. 

This is a deep plummy purple with a copper shimmer throughout. The shimmer is obvious in the bottle and translates pretty darn well onto the nail, though capturing the little beauty on camera was a bit tricky. A perfect buttery 2 coat application. I wore this one for days - a rarity for me! The purple is just so... Purple. It's deep without being gothic, and it's not particularly blue-purple or red-purple, it's just smack in the middle of purple-purple. The copper shimmer gives off gold flashes, making this baby just royal enough for every polish princess ;-).

An attempt at capturing the copper shimmer.

I added a matte top coat, purely out of curiousity, and this was the look that I wore for days. It sort of fused the purple and the coppery shimmer together - it gives a more all-over copper sheen rather than a burst of copper shimmer where the light hit. Yum yum yum!

See? The copper shimmer is no where near as vivid as with a gloss finish, but it's definitely still present. Doesn't the purple look just so delish in matte? Mmmm...

Another angle to prove that the copper shimmer is still there. Just yum!

Hope you all enjoy what's left of your weekends ;-) and thank you for reading! 

Triple Threat

Look who's back, back again... Hey hey hey lovely people! Sooo it's been a wee while since my last post (yes, I'm ridiculously slack) but in my defence I've been a tad ill + it was production week last week for Hairspray here in Wellington NZ, which means the show is OPEN! Well, we close this coming Saturday =( but tonight is one of the two nights we have off, so I thought I'd better bloomin' post something! As the queen of indecisiveness, naturally I couldn't choose what to share with you. Instead of sifting through my reserve piccys (yes, I've been taking pics without posting them, naughty!) I decided to do something fresh and new for you. Well, lots of fresh and new, really. I did three different manis using the same colours in different tones (ie blue on blue, purple on purple...) then added a matte top coat over each completed design to create six snazzy lookin' manis. Wanna see??

Click on the pic for a bigger image. Cute, no? I really haven't decided which look I like the best - I think it's tying between the purple and the blue... Hmmm... Let's break it down =D

I popped into the local Cosmetics Plus in the mall to have a look for some cheap dark jewellery for the show (booth singers [which is what I am] have to wear black as we sit in the orchestra pit in front of the stage, so we can be seen but we're not meant to be!) and in the corner I spotted a Miki mini's stand packed full of goodies! With 2 for $3 pick'n'mix, naturally I pounced on the cute mini nail polishes and even bagged myself a quad-colour eye shadow compact. Score! This Miki mini polish is one of the ones I picked up - Miki No. 21. It's a little sad that they don't name their colours, but they're such yummy shades that I'll get over it ;-). 

A delicious buttery two-coater. This pale lilac-y purple sits just perfectly between a couple of other purples I have, and I'm more than happy to have spent the $1.50 to add this little cutie to my stash! Stamped over it is Bundle Monster plate BM317 in BYS Reign Supreme. This purple refuses to photograph its true shade, but rather prefers to lean toward a navy blue. I swear it's purple!!

The completed look with a coat of Seche Vite. I stamped my middle and ring fingers first, then realised how matchy-matchy the stamp was looking, so tried to mix it up a bit on the others. I'm just going to take a second to say how much I FRICKIN' LOVE THESE BUNDLE MONSTER PLATES!!!! Everyone I know who's got them is absolutely in love with them - they are the easiest stamps I've ever used, and the customer service at Bundle Monster has me itching to go back just because they are so lovely to deal with! I may have mentioned before my massive blonde moment in ordering these plates? I clicked the wrong ones... The lovely people at the site fixed it all for me complete with smiley faces =D. One happy girly right here, I can tells ya!

This is the same look (duh) with a coat of Rimmel Lycra Pro Matte Finish over top of the Seche Vite. I'm still impressed with the ability of this matte top coat to cut through the intense shine of SV every time =P. Going matte is such an easy way to change up a mani just a bit and make it something less everyday-ish... I think so anyway!

Okie dokie, next up we have the blues! The base colour for this mani is a polish I came across in a local Dollar Store. I'd never really looked at this brand because I assumed (like a snobby little girl) that a nail polish that's $3 and stocked next to packets of imitation... everything... with poorly translated Chinese descriptions on the packets maybe wouldn't have such a good formula. However, after (more time than I'll admit) surfing through online auction sites looking for polish, this brand kept popping up over and over in the $10-$15 range. They had some colours I've been hunting for, and I knew they sold them cheaply in the Dollar Store so I took the plunge and bought a couple to check them out. 


I'm in love.

The base colour is Kleancolor Sea Ice - a perfect creamy two coater! I nervously did a swatch immediately after purchasing it and was majorly impressed! Such a great find - this brand is dangerously plentiful in the cheapy shops... The stamp is from Bundle Monster plate BM322 in China Glaze First Mate. The more I look at it, the more I think this is my favourite mani of the 3 (6..) in this post. 

There's something a little bit mod about this one, and as each performance of Hairspray transports everyone back to 1962, I think everyone in the show has been in a bit of a mod mood lately! 

With the matte top coat. I definitely like this one better matte. Whadda ya think?

And finally, go go green! 

The base for this mani is Revlon Posh, a polish I haven't used before today. Farmers (department store) had Revlon polishes for $11 each for about a week (they usually retail around $20-$25 here) so of course I pounced. I was getting a teensy bit tired of painting my nails by this point (I know, blasphemy on a nail blog!) so my strokes were a bit off, meaning I ended up doing three coats when I ordinarily would've needed two. Lazy bum. This polish is aaaaaall shine, even before my beloved Seche Vite was applied.

I stamped in China Glaze Holly Day with Bundle Monster plate BM319. I'm really glad the design shows up in the photos because the contrast was so slim when I first stamped it. I did consider trying to double-stamp, but my aim is so bad that I knew it wasn't worth it! 

Yummy Matte-y goodness... Love this mani in the matte version! With a gloss finish, I honestly don't think I'd wear this mani out, but with the magic matte top coat, it's right up my alley. Funny how the littlest last minute additions can make all the difference, huh?

Do you agree with me, or are ya lovin' the shiney shines? Maybe I'm just obsessed with matte at the moment and it's making me biased =P. 

Phew! That was a long post! I might be making up for missed time... =P 


So what are your favourites? Are you all about the shine or are you crossing over to the matte side? Talk to me, beautiful darlings, I love to hear your feedback! Check in again soon - I have my Pink Wednesday all sorted ;-).

Matte For Me

My darlings, I'm so sorry I've been away for sooooooo long! Two weeks feels like an eternity and I'm feeling so guilty about it, I hope you'll forgive me! Obviously while I was away I couldn't paint my nails, so there was a week with no polish (aarrrgh!!!), and the manual work resulted in me ripping several nails and having to trim them all back to uber stubby little nubbins! On top of all that, it's just been a rubbish time for me personally so inspiration wasn't exactly flying rampant around my head. All of this combined means I hadn't actually painted my nails at all for about two weeks! Blasphemy on a nail blog I know, but hopefully now that everything's settling down a bit more I'll get my life under control and the blog will follow ;-).


Now, on a wee shopping spree (and I do mean wee, 3 tops and 1 nail polish... only 1!!!!) I stumbled upon a Matte Top Coat in the newly erected Rimmel stand in our local Farmers (department store). I saw it, loved it, talked myself out of it, came back to it about 3 times then finally bought it! Sooo glad I gave in and splurged on that $13 for this baby - I've been itching for a matte top coat for ages but they're not common here at all. So naturally, I have a matte mani for you today!

I started with two coats of BYS Black Satin on my index, middle and pinkie fingers, and painted my accent nails in OPI Glitzerland. The gold shimmer takes a bit more to become opaque so this is three generous coats. Stamped over top is Black Satin with my brand spankin' new Bundle Monster Plates, which you have no idea how excited I was to get! They arrived within a few days of placing my order, and I had a major blonde moment while placing my order (clicked the wrong set... duh...) and the wonderful customer service people sorted it all out for me with no fuss at all - massively impressed!! Buy from them, they're lovely! (Can't remember which plate... I might edit in plate number later...)

I added a coat of Seche Vite to all my nails, mostly to have them dry fast but also because the brush for the matte top coat is white and I didn't want to stain it black on the first use!

I just had to go MATTE - so I added a top coat of Rimmel Lycra Pro Matte Finish to my black nails... Yum yum yum yum!!! Then I dotted Glitzerland over the black to tie it all together. I only used one dotting tool, but by not re-dipping in the polish I got the different sized dots. I had to go over the dots twice as that stunning gold shimmer is just so darn sheer!

Well, whaddaya think? Is this mani awesome enough to excuse my absence? I promise to try and keep up, it's just life's a bit of a poo sometimes and painting my nails was the last thing on my mind for a while there. 


Matte polish: yay or nay? Feedback, lovely people, I do love hearing from you! Enjoy your week!