Amazon...Amazoff

Disclaimer: the terrible pun title was not my creation for once - OPI's naming team is getting worse! 

Hello hello! Looks like the New Zealand nail addicts have been lucky enough to get our nabby little hands on the OPI Brazil collection a little ahead of quite a few places! I'm one of those annoying customers who comes back every few days "Have you got them in yet??!?" but it kinda wasn't my fault this time, because my local Farmers (department store not unlike Target) put the stands and names up, then left them empty! Ultimate tease! Anywho, last Friday I was on a break at work and popped in, and there they were!! They were so new out the codes wouldn't even scan at the till. I could only afford two at the time so I got a stunning perfect nude called Don't Bossa Nova Me Around which I'm sure I'll feature later on sometime, and this amazing "Jungle Green" (OPI), Amazon...Amazoff. I will be heading back for more, trust me. But today I want to share Amazon...Amazoff. Check 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.

Quickie for Nickie

Hiya!! Hope your Mondays are off to a nice easy start! I've got a super quick post dedicated to one of the most wonderful ladies I've met in the nail-blogging community - Nicole of Young Wild and Polished. She is insanely talented, amazingly sweet and tears-in-your-eyes, rolling-on-the-ground-clutching-your-sides funny! On top of all of that, she's one of the most supportive and understanding ladies I've ever talked to, and she's dealt with more crap than anyone should have to and has come out smiling! 

Nic (and Dot) - this one's for you! ♥

Watermarbling is Nicole's self-confessed "gateway nail art", so I used OPI Kiss Me On My Tulips and Black Onyx for a double nail marbled accent à la Nic. I used the same colours on my pinky and index fingers to re-create a design that she's been playing with since she got her Born Pretty Store nail striping tape. Honestly, doll, I dunno how you do it so neatly - that tape was not cooperating with me!! A coat of Seche Vite topped it all off.

These flowers are absolutely 100% what I associate with Nicole! They are so trademark Young, Wild and Polished that if I ever see them re-created anywhere (not just stolen like on Instagram, grrrr...) I automatically think of her! She's got a quick and easy-to-follow tutorial to let you borrow some of her talent ^_^. I used the same polishes again, and added some light dots throughout in China Glaze Something Sweet. I stole this directly from one of her Instagram photos (obviously I highly recommend following her). 

So there ya go! Go check out Young, Wild and Polished for some gorgeous nail art and some serious lols, or follow her on Twitter and Instagram! Thanks for reading, babes! 

*Happy Dance*

Hiya! So you know how I have the most awesome and supportive brothers in the world? As if that needed any more proof, today I have just a few snaps of a little parcel my oldest brother sent me for my birthday. Get ready to get jealous.

After my big long ranting rave about how amazing Maria from Cult Nails is, she goes and proves it again by sending me ANOTHER free Wicked Fast top coat!! This birthday just keeps getting better and better! And for those of you who missed my instagram / twitter moment when these arrived, "there ain't no happiness like seeing those Cult Nails burritos"!! Maria's packaging is always so secure and beautiful - it's the little details that I love... Well, aside from the incredibly gorgeous polishes inside!

I had to wait for the sun to shine to get a worthy photo of my most beautiful new babies.

Just look at all that gorgeousness... 

L to R: I Got Distracted, Princess, Charming, and Charlatan.

While I'm still whimpering about my stupid unintentional short stubby nails, I probably won't swatch them because they deserve to be on much more beautiful nails than I have at the moment. It's killing me though, because I just wanna wear them!!! I've tried them all out (Charlatan over an almost-black navy blue, totally delish!) but they're too special to wear on my nubbins at the moment. Silly nubs, grow already! 

Do you have an uber supportive family member that helps your collection grow? What's the most special polish in your stash? Thank you so much for reading, lovelies, and thanks Pete for these mind-blowingly beautiful polishes!!! =D

Cracked Apple

Hi hi lovely people! Hope you're all having wonderful relaxing Saturdays! So, I know crackle polish has come and gone and been done a million times in between, but I got my bottle of OPI Black Shatter toward the end of the craze and only used it a few times before I got seriously bored seeing crackle / shatter polish everywhere. Well it's been a while now, and my bottle was feeling lonely up there on the shelf, so I googled around for some inspiration on how to use it differently. This look was originally done in black with gold shatter over top and rhinestones, but I've adapted it for the colours I've got. Lookit!

Edit: I went back and re-googled to give credit where credit is due - check out the inspiration here! (Note this post was done a year ago! How behind the times am I, sheesh!

I applied one coat of OPI Big Apple Red, let it dry (aka applied some Seche Vite), then taped off an angle on the tips and applied some Black Shatter. I taped off the design with some black nail tape from the BornPrettyStore to give it a nice clean edge. Some more Seche Vite top coat sealed and settled it all in. Whaddaya think?

It can take a bit of practice to get the shatter to shatter properly, so I'm pretty pleased with how this lot turned out. Some of them aren't flash hot but on the whole, the effect's pretty neat, don'tcha think?

I think the black tape just gives it a finished / 'on purpose' look, as opposed to the random mess it was kinda looking like before I applied the tape... 

What are your thoughts on shatter / crackle polish? Love it, hate it, over it or want more? How do you mix up a mani that's been done a billion times before? Thanks for stopping by, sweet people. Happy weekends!

Pink Wednesday: Hound's Ears

Hello wonderful people! Sorry for the delay on this Pink Wednesday post, but those of you following on Twitter or Facebook know that I've been having some issues with my blog host =(. For the last couple of days it has just not wanted to let me upload any pics! Anyway, I can now, so onwards! This mani is OPI I'm All Ears with BYS Black Satin stamped on top.

To quote a bestie of mine, I "love me some houndstooth"! I've used this stamp a few times now, and it's definitely up the top of my fav design pile. It never really called out to me, but once I tried it... Hooked!

These pics are a little out of focus because a) I had a crappy lighting source that upset my camera and b) I wanted you to see the insane shimmer in I'm All Ears. I've ranted and raved before about this polish so I won't go on too much, but just look at that shimmer!! IRL there was so much depth to this (3 coats of) polish that the stamp looked like it was floating on top. 

Sorry again for the delay, sweets, but it looks like we're all back up and running now. I've got a couple of new arrivals that I can't wait to share with you, so check in soon! =D

Spot the Dots

Hiya lovelies! Another one 'from the vault' for you today! I wore this mani just over a week ago after I'd gone through the entries for Marta's 'Dots of Fun' competition and had a spark of inspiration! See if you can spot the one that inspired this dotty mani! My base colours are China Glaze Pelican Gray and OPI No Room For The Blues. Two coats of each started me off.

Aside from my two base colours, I also used BYS Black Satin, Sky's The Limit, and Revlon Indigo Night. I'm glad I took this photo because I never would've remembered what polishes I used =P

Then I got dotting! Using a relatively small dotting tool, I started with Black Satin first and dotted a dot in the middle of each nail. Well, that was the intent anyway. On my index and pinky nails, I missed... I followed the 'centre' dot back down to make a triangle. Then going from the darkest blue to the lightest, I followed the triangle back. On my index + pinky nails, you can see I put the blue outside the black because the design didn't come far enough down the nail for my liking. I don't know if I like it or not, but it's done =P.

You can see I added the grey in where it would be silly to dot in the same colour as my base coat. I'm working on getting my dots more uniform... so far not so good... Not as neat as I would've liked but the overall effect is pretty nifty.

So there you have my inspired dotti-cure. What nail blogs spark your inspiration most often? What's the most random thing that's inspired a mani for you? Thanks for stopping by! =D

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!

Fail Friday: ALL the Colours!!

Hiya guys! Today's Fail Friday post is a well-intended mani that simply didn't turn out as imagined, and actually looked bad enough that I couldn't bring myself to leave the house with it on! I think it was a mixture of the crap-tastic stamping and the wrong tones for the rainbow and my rush to get something done that resulted in just... no. Wanna see?

From left to right: Revlon Red Hot, BYS Tempt Me Tangerine, China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, China Glaze Four Leaf Clover and BYS Drop In The Ocean. I think I had the wrong orange, green and blue for this to be an effective multi-coloured rainbow mani, but they're kinda all I have at the moment... I'm working on it, I promise! 

I painted each nail a different colour - red on my thumb through to blue on my pinky - and hated it, so I tried to mute it by stamping over them all with fauxnad plate m65 in BYS Black Satin. Again, well intended, poorly executed... Smudge smudge smudge all the way home...

See what I mean about the wrong 'tones'? The theory was there, but it just... failed. 

Gah. Thank goodness that's over! What was your last mani-fail? Have you mastered the rainbow mani yet? I'd love your feedback, guys! Oh, and happy weekend!! =D

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.

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!