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......

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!

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: R

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

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!

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 ^_^

My New Jade

Hiya! Happy Tuesday!! It's an extra extra happy Tuesday for me because it's one of the only 2 days I have off between now and Christmas! Gotta love working in retail in December =P. Because I have a tonne of stuff to get done today, this is an extra quicky quick post. Last week's pay wiped out the short term debt I'd been paying off, so I celebrated with two new OPI polishes! I bought DS Temptation (so totally drool-worthy, you don't even know) and the polish featured in today's post: Jade Is The New Black!

Mmmmm oh I do so love OPI polishes - the brush, formula, and colours are just so dreamy! JITNB was no exception - this is two easy coats (one would've been fine if I'd had a steadier hand...) with a coat of Cult Nails Wicked Fast over top. I originally planned to add an accent nail of China Glaze Glittering Garland but I haven't had the nerve yet - I've just been enjoying this gorgeous hue all on its own!

Yum yum yum! Such a totally 'wearable' green!

The bottle shot came out a lot bluer than it actually is (the middle photo is most colour-accurate) because I think the green got a little camera shy sitting in front of all that gorgeous greenery in the background. Still drooling over this newbie - it's been on my list for aaaaages! And now it's all mine! Yay!!

What's been sitting on your wishlist for a while? Do you wear green on your nails? I've only recently started (Cult Nails Deal With It totally broke me down...) but I love it!! Thanks for checking in, lovely people ^_^ 14 sleeps til Christmas... ;-)

Golden Glitz

Hiya lovelies!! Happy Friday! ^_^ It's after 9pm, and I have a BIG day tomorrow (going to a friend's wedding, and I'm doing her nails in the morning - eek!!) so I'm a bit too tired and lazy to do proper writings of wonderfully witty snippets of goodness. Instead, you can just enjoy the pics of my latest Christmas mani!

All nails are two coats of OPI Glitzerland, and the accent nails are dotted with OPI Big Apple Red and China Glaze Holly-Day. Everything's topped off with a coat of Cult Nails Wicked Fast.

Sorry for the nasty dry cuticles - I've been neglecting them lately =(

That's all, folks! Quick and painless, huh? =P Hope you all have exciting weekends ahead! Thanks for stopping by ^_^

Deck the Nails

Yeah, okay, I have a confession... I'm getting really excited for Christmas!! Apart from it being an occasion to farewell the generally horrible year that was 2012 for me, it's another Christmas I get to spend with the most important person in my entire life - my Mum - and I've got a holiday job that I am really, really, REALLY loving! On top of all that, my oldest brother who moved to the States at the start of the year IS BACK FOR THE HOLIDAYS!!!! *Mega happy excited dance* This will be the first time the family's seen him since he left, and we're ALL feeling the joy of his impending arrival. How better to celebrate my excitement for the upcoming festivities than by painting my nails? Behold my first proper Christmas mani!

That beautiful deep red you see is two coats of OPI Big Apple Red, my most favouritest of red polishes ever. Yes, favouritest. It's so much my favourite that it gets its own new word! The accent nails are water marbled using China Glaze Winter Berry and Holly-Day. I used Winter Berry instead of Big Apple Red for the water marble for two reasons: 1- water marbles tend to work better if you use same brands together, so since I knew I was gonna use Holly-Day, I wanted to use another CG polish with it, and 2- Winter Berry is much darker than Big Apple Red so when it thinned across the water, I knew (okay, hoped) that it would thin out to a similar shade to BAR. Whaddaya reckon - pretty close huh?

Streaky McStreakenstein made an appearance after I applied Cult Nails Wicked Fast, even though I waited for it to dry and used plenty and everything! *humph* you can't win 'em all... Winter Berry is so freakin' saturated that it tends to dominate whatever it's next to (and is an insanely caffeinated drunk toddler of a [bleep] to clean up) so I'm not too surprised about my lovely unintentional festive stripes. Gotta say, I'm pretty darn pleased with how the water marble turned out!

Today's photos are brought to you by Billy, my big camera - can you tell the difference? Maybe I just like taking photos with Billy more - I feel more 'involved' 'cause I have more control over the settings. I still love Johann (my little point n' shoot) but there's something really satisfying about messing with settings to get the shots you want. 

Are you excited for the holiday season, dreading it, or just meh? How do you celebrate, if you do? Thank you for checking in, lovelies! See you soon ^_^

Her Majesty's Super Sparkle

It's Friday!! Woohoo!!! Hope you're all kicking back and relaxing this weekend! From what I hear from my twitter buddies, the cold weather's starting to settle in up in the Northern parts of the world, but here today, it couldn't have been more beautiful! Well, okay so the wind was a *bit* chilly, but it's excused because I didn't spot a single cloud all day. 'Nuff weather, look at the pretties!! 

Today's spotlight goes to OPI On Her Majesty's Secret Service from the new James Bond collection, released in conjunction with the new Skyfall film. The film isn't out until the end of November here, but the stunning polishes are all out, and boy am I glad they are! Totally, TOTALLY drool worthy!! You don't even know. OHMSS is a dark gunmetal green-grey base packed choca full of teeny tiny little multicoloured glitters. To die for. Not kidding.

While it is a deliciously dark polish, it's actually quite sheer. When it first arrived and I tried it out, it took FOUR coats for my nail line to disappear. FOUR. Due to this, and because I freakin' love it so I don't wanna waste it, I started with a coat of KleanColor Retro Green - an almost black grey-green shimmer.

↑ KleanColor Retro Green in direct sunlight ↑

This brilliant one-coater dark polish gave a beautiful colour-match to OHMSS without stealing any of her glory. If I had a dark frosty grey, I probably would've used that, but the green (more teal, actually) added just a hint more dimension... As if this baby needed any more! Click the macro below to basque in the prettiness...

Over Retro Green (which dried in no seconds flat, btw -getting seriously hooked on the surprisingly good formula that KleanColor has) I applied two coats of On Her Majesty's Secret Service. One coat simply wasn't enough glitter for this "ooh! shiny!" kinda gal... 

Aren't my nubbins growing out nicely? ;-P

Delish, delish, delish!! Speaking of which... It's almost Summer here, which means Summer fruits! Yay! Topping my list of faves are strawberries. The early season strawbs here are just sooo sweet and juicy and totally yummy! You can tell just by looking ;-)

I had almost a whole punnet of these bad boys for lunch, chopped up with some banana and pineapple. I sat in the sun and did the crosswords in the paper and took photos of my nails... Perfect afternoon, I reckon!

Do you like your glitters dark and devilish or light and luscious? Have you got a favourite polish from the James Bond collection, or a favourite 007 film? I love hearing from you, lovelies! Thanks for reading, and happy weekend!! 

Wanna See Something Gross?

~~ Happy Halloween!! ~~

Is that totally disgusting or what?? It's my first time doing an 'effect' mani, and I have to say, I'm pretty darn pleased with how this turned out! I don't really celebrate Halloween other than making sure we have candy for the neighbourhood trick-or-treaters, but with all the hype on Twitter from my American friends, I kinda felt like I wanted to do a themed mani. I thought about doing some stamping with spiders / bats / pumpkin faces etc, but it's kinda been done a LOT... (though Marta posted this one yesterday and my gosh, I'm glad I didn't try, it would never compare to that awesomeness!!) So I thought maybe a splatter mani with blood red polish, but again, that's been done a million times over... So I decided on something a bit more gore-y that I hadn't seen done much at all. I could be wrong by now because it's Halloween and all the manis are coming out, but when I planned / did it yesterday, it was still an original thought! =P

Ewwwww, that ^ photo grosses me out a bit, and I don't gross out that easy! (When you have a Mum who's worked night shift in the Emergency Dept of a major city hospital, you develop a stomach for the oogies ;-) ) I'm quite proud of this mani... ^_^

I started with two thick coats of China Glaze Winter Berry, with a coat of Zoya Kennedy on top. Over Kennedy I used an eye shadow applicator to sponge on China Glaze Holly Day and OPI Stranger Tides, creating a festering / rotting effect. Once the polish was 'gooey', I used a small dotting tool to gouge out chunks of polish, letting the bloody Winter Berry ooze through! No top coat, because I wanted all the texture I could get!

 Gross or what??

This mani was extra easy as there was no clean up required! Because I was aiming for a roughed-up look, the messier the better =).

An added bonus: after taking pics of the deliciously disgusting mani, I thought maybe the polish was still un-set enough to come off the nails with just a tissue. I was wrong, but the result was extra-extra disgusting!! Lookit!

That Winter Berry is the perfect bloody shade...

Ewwwww..... And thus concludes my totally gross contribution to the holiday! 

Do you celebrate Halloween? Do you like themed manis or are you totally over everyone doing the same thing? Thank you so much for reading - hope you're not too grossed out!! I promise tamer manis from now on =P Happy Halloween!

Deal With It

Ohmahgosh ohmahgosh ohmahgosh ohmahgosh ohmahgosh... I'm still jumping up and down a little bit - the excitement hasn't faded! Today's post has a bit of a story behind it... Read if you're interested, but I totally understand if you just wanna scroll to the pretties ;-).

Well! At the end of September I was hanging out on Twitter with some of the most awesome bloggers in the blogosphere, and a tweet from @CultNails popped up, saying they were going to be doing some giveaways throughout October. I jokingly tweeted back something about sending me a birthday pressie because my birthday's in October, followed by a version of "I'm saving up to get your gorgeous polishes, I wannem all!". Maria (the Queen of Cult Nails) replied to me with a "Yep! Sure! Email me your address and I'll send a little something your way!". After I got back on my chair, I checked with her that it wasn't a joke, sent her my details, screamed for a while, did some ridiculous dancing and caught my breath. A week later, a little box arrived... More dancing and screaming ensued, and while I held my breath hoping for one of her gorgeous polishes, I opened the box to find a handmade birthday card, and FIVE NAIL POLISHES. FIVE!!!!!!!! Get It On - the best base coat I've ever used, their world famous Wicked Fast top coat, Deal With It which is featured today, Evil Queen and In A Trance which I'll showcase soon. And In A Trance is limited edition too. Can you believe it???? I still can't!!!! Eeeeee!!!!! *deep breaths*

The amazing Maria has most definitely gained a customer for life.

Now, if you're still with me, here is the trademark electric lime Cult Nails polish Deal With It.

Isn't that the most intense bright lime green polish you've ever seen??? It's one of those polishes you know is a Cult Nails polish - 'culties' recognise it a mile away, and not just because it shines so insanely bright you CAN see it form a mile away!! This baby is defo not for the faint of heart! This is three coats with the Wicked Fast top coat on top. The first two pics are taken outside in the shade.

And a couple of shots in direct sunlight. There was plenty of sunshine out when I took these photos, so the incredible yellow-gold shimmer was more than happy to come and play for the camera! Something about the green and yellow deliciousness reminds me of the soft drink Mountain Dew. Maybe 'cause it's so bright and glowy and fizzy and bubbly? Whatever it is, I could definitely stare at this polish all day... and I did!

Click for an extra close up =)

The shots below were taken inside by a window. I wanted to show you how it builds up with each layer. I could have happily stopped at two coats, but the OCD polisher in me wanted to ensure I had no VNL, so I added another to be sure. The third layer helped add to the depth and glow of the colour too - more polish = more shimmer!

Eeeeeeeeeeeee!!! Yes, I'm still super blown away by Maria's kindness and generosity. Go and buy lots and lots and lots of things from her!!! I know I will!! Can you believe it?? Just... Wow!!

What's the most special nail polish in your collection? Has anyone ever surprised you with a polish you've been dying to get your hands on? 

Thank you so much for reading!! Now go shop at Cult Nails ;-P

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! ;-)

For Megan

Hello hello, lovelies! Happy Labour Weekend for those of you in NZ =D Hope you've all got nice relaxing / happytimes plans for the long weekend! Today's post is a) to prove I'm still alive and b) because I got told off for not blogging enough *hangs head in shame*. I bumped into a good friend and fellow polish nut on Friday, and she said "I keep checking your blog and getting annoyed when you haven't posted! Come on, woman!!" or something to that effect. So, just for you, Megan, here's some new nail porn ;-).

I may have mentioned (often, to many people, via many mediums..) that it was my birthday last Sunday - woo hoo! My Mum cooked the most delicious pork roast ever with mountains of veges and perfect crackling, with an incredible cake to follow! OMG, my cake... It was two slabs of chocolate brownies with cookies 'n' cream ice cream between them, covered in ice cream and smothered in chocolate ganache. *drools* Mega incredible. This is all relevant because the two polishes featured today were given to me by my ever supportive and insanely brilliant brother Andy for my birthday. Behold: ORLY Skinny Dip and Jealous, Much?!

First up is Skinny Dip - a gorgeous poolside blue, perfect for Summer! I have a feeling that this might become my go-to Summer pedi colour, replacing OPI Barefoot In Barcelona which has pretty much stayed on my tootsies year-round.

This is two coats with Seche Vite top coat =)

Skinny Dip has the most beautiful pale aqua shimmer shot through it, which helps the 'ocean-y-ness' of the blue to shine! Sadly the shimmer was a tad camera shy, but go find a bottle and you'll see what I mean ;-). 

Next up is Jealous, Much? - a totally delish pastel / mint green that reminds me of the Goody Goody Gumdrops ice cream. I still don't know if that's a worldwide flavour, or unique to us kiwis. Let me know if you have Goody Goody Gumdrops in your country! I'm curious about these things =P.

This baby was a three coater, but only because my application was shockingly uneven.

I've been really diggin' the 'neon pastel' shades lately - light blues, mint greens, aquas, lilacs... I'm yet to give in and buy my first coral polish, but I can feel it coming - must be near! Jealous, Much? completely satisfied those cravings. Did I add a matte top coat, you ask? Of course I did, silly!

... but I alternated nails to give you a comparison ;-). Matte or glossy? I love it matte, but you know that's just the addiction talking =P.

Do I have the best brother or what? To be fair, I think he know he's pretty safe getting me polish for a present ;-), but his choices were spot on, and perfect for me! Thanks, Andy!! =D

Thank you muchly for stopping by, wonderful peoples! Hope that keeps you satisfied for a little while, Megan ;-). See you soon!