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!

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. =)

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!

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 ^_^

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! 

Pink Wednesday: Strawberry Delight

Hi hi hi! Happy Wednesday! I know, I know, slack blogger is slack, and I'm sorry I've been MIA this week but life's just sort of taken over and blogging's taken a back seat =(. As always, I felt obliged to do a Pink Wednesday post, so enjoy a simple 2 colour water marble with OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and Strawberry Margarita!

I started with two coats of OPI Don't Touch My Tutu as I have done for a while now - I haven't got a base coat at the moment and this sheer white gel polish is perfect to make the colours pop! I think I applied more to my ring finger than to my middle finger - can you see the difference in opacity? I wanted to try a different marbled design to my usual swirls, so I stuck my fingers in the middle of the water pattern instead. What do you think, do you like the side on swirls or these ones?

I smudged my index finger =( I applied a top coat without waiting for it to dry properly... Will I never learn? =P I used Rimmel Lycra Pro Matte Top Coat because I'm still a teensy bit obsessed with matte finishes... Just a teensy bit! I'm almost over it, I think... ;-)

That's all folks =) Thanks SO much for stopping by! Smile lots, and I'll try to post more ;-)

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!

Moody Marbled Blues

Well as it's Monday, it felt somewhat appropriate to post a blue, blue, blue mani for you today. It is a bit of a fail - though the overall effect is pretty nifty, it's not where near my usual OCD standards, and I didn't wear it for longer than it took to take the pics. Here's a relatively crap water marble. Enjoy!

OPI I Vant To Be A-Lone Star, OPI No Room For The Blues (my current obsession), and China Glaze First Mate. Because IVTBALS is so sheer and shimmery, I started with two coats for a base colour so that it would show up at all when marbled. Always good if you want to use a colour that doesn't necessarily show up on its own very often.

Then the horror began. Believe it or not, my middle finger was the one I did twice, and this is the better result! I wasn't feeling it, I guess, and you can tell that there isn't much love in this mani =(.

Though I did kinda like how my thumb turned out... I tried for a swirl for once. Ya like?

Bubbles, bubbles and more bubbles. It just wasn't workin' for me, I tells ya!

Then I started playing around with my camera... Heh heh...

Technique aside, as it was not my best day and I couldn't be bothered fixing all the bloopers, what do you think of the colour combo? Do you like one colour marbles (like this one) or are you a fan of the ones that use different colours? What was your best / worst colour combo? I'd love to hear from you lovely people!! Hope your week's off to a better start than mine ;-). 

Pink Wednesday: My Boyfriend's Sweet Tulips

Hiya darlings! All sorts of exciting things have been going on here - I'm in the process of building a shiny new rack for my nail polish collection, and consequently have been devoting more time to the construction of that than to my nails, which is why I've missed a couple of days, oops! But because it's Wednesday, and On Wednesdays We Wear Pink, I thought I'd do something special to make up for missing a couple. I haven't done a water marble in aaaages, and it's the nail art technique that really kicked off the passion for me, so I've done one for you in pink! It took me a few tries to get back into the swing of it (I used to have the method down pat!) but I'm happy with the results =D.

In case you were wondering about the name of today's post, explanation is here! The three polishes I used for my marbling were OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, Kiss Me On My Tulips and China Glaze Something Sweet. 

To add a bit of shimmer (because who doesn't love a bit of shimmer?) I added a very thin coat of OPI Princesses Rule! over each nail. Princesses Rule! can be quite over powering when it's used over top of other polish and tends to take the focus away from whatever's under it because it's such a dense glitter, so I only used the teeniest tiniest bit. There was barely anything on the brush at all, but it's still clearly visible! Surprising for a 'sheer' glitter... 

I forgot how much I love water-marbling! I think I avoided it for so long because it uses up so much polish. But still, the result is kinda worth it... =P.

Have you tried water-marbling before, or dry 'needle' marbling? What colour combos would you love to see in this style? Enjoy your Wednesday, babes, and thanks for checking in! =D