Happy Go YELLOW!!!!!!!

Happy Saturday, lovely people!! Today I have a very BRIGHT and sunshine-y yellow for you - China Glaze Happy Go Lucky. This is my first ever yellow nail polish, and I am definitely not disappointed. I got it primarily because it was the only colour I was missing to make rainbows (and everyone loves rainbows!) but I'm very happy to wear this stunning yummy goodness all on its own! It's much brighter than anything I usually wear and would take some getting used to, but it's such a perfect yellow that I think it's worth it!

I reshaped my nails today, can you tell? I've never had nails this square and honestly I wasn't crazy about the shape when my nails were bare, but once they were polished - love them! They look shorter than they are in the pic below because of the angle my hand is on. Square nails are surprisingly useful for random little things like doing up clips on necklaces. I think I'll keep them ;-).

The pic above is probably the most true to the colour IRL, though the shade was so ridiculously YELLOW and my skin is so ridiculously pale that my camera had a difficult time getting the white balance right. Think happy sunshine neon yellow with no trace of green, and you've got Happy Go Lucky.

With a yellow this bright and Summery, I had to add bumblebee stripes. They were entirely necessary for my first adventure into yellow polish. I cut strips of sticky tape to the width I wanted, made them tacky, stuck 'em on and painted over them with my go-to black, BYS Black Satin. Bzzzzz....!

Yep. I'm a yellow polish convert. I can't usually wear yellow with my skin tone so I've been hesitant, but it's just the trick of finding that right shade. This leans more toward orange-yellow than that bright green-y-yellow, and I think that's why it works for me (at least I think it does?? It's so darn bright it probably has the same level of wear-a-bility for everyone!). 


Do you dare wear YELLOW nail polish? Do you have a colour you can't wear as clothing but love on your tips? Thanks so much for checking in, babes, I really appreciate it =D.


- Ally xx

Fail Friday: Splattered

Hello hello! I know it's a late one today - sorry! - but I thought I'd share with you a technique I've only tried once, and will probably try again but not anytime soon. Behold, the 'splatter mani'. 

You can tell it's an oldie by the round nails... I've really been liking my squarer nails, to be honest! This is BYS French White and Drop In The Ocean. I found this on Youtube and had to try it. The technique involves dipping the end of a small straw into a puddle of whatever polish you're using, and then blowing on the (OTHER) end of the straw so the paint splatters out and onto your nail (and everything else in the vicinity...). I think I got a bit carried away trying to cover the whole nail, and it ended up just looking a mess. My base colour application left something to be desired too.. An all over fail, don't cha think?

I originally saw this done with red polish splattered over white, and the result was very gorey - perfect for Halloween! My blue version just resulted in my nails looking like I'd had some accidents while trying out test pots of paint... Not so glam. 

Have you ever tried a mani technique that didn't work anywhere near as well for you as it did for the person doing the tutorial? What's your favourite Halloween mani look that you've come across? Just think - it's the weekend tomorrow! Happy Friday night, loves =) Thanks for stopping in!

- Ally xx

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

Orange You Glad?

Hiya! Hope your week is off to a wonderful start and that wherever you are, your weather is a lot nicer than here! Today's mani is what happens when I get bored and start playing with my different sized dotting tools. Check it out!

This is BYS Tempt Me Tangerine and Black Satin. My lovely Black Satin is starting to get gloopy which is great for stamping but not so much for dotting. Tempt Me Tangerine's consistency is the exact opposite, so I had to do my orange dots twice to get the colour to play properly on the black. I was a bit more precise with my orange dots - I did them last - so here's a close up of what all of them were meant to look like ;-).

Spot the nice big bubble in my Seche Vite top coat? Because I double-dotted the orange, it was rather 3D when I finished and I didn't think it was going to dry anytime soon, so I smothered it in SV to try and hurry it along, but I had to use heaps so I wouldn't smudge my dots! Bubbles were somewhat inevitable. 

Hmm I need to work on my finger positioning! I did use the same sized dotting tool for all the big dots, but they look a lot bigger in the orange. I'll blame the polish consistencies =P. I used my biggest dotter for the big ones, the bigger end of one of the smaller dotters for the medium ones, and the other end of the biggest one for the little ones. Does that make sense?? Haven't had enough coffee to be more coherent yet today, sorry! I'm sure y'all smart enough to figure it out =D. Behold my chubby nubbly thumb!

Dots dots dots dots....

Whaddaya think, do you like the black and orange? What are your favourite colour combos for manis like this? I tried to avoid the infected-look that I've seen in some orange/black dotted manis - some of them seriously look like they need to get to an infection specialist ASAP! Do you reckon I managed to avoid the toxic look? Or maybe you're into that kinda thing =P. Thanks for stopping by, loves, check in tomorrow for Pink Wednesday!


- Ally xx

Fast Frenchie

Well, it's Monday again, and it's a bit of a bittersweet Monday for me. It's the first day of the 'study break' for Uni which means I don't have any lectures (yay!), but sadly my Great Uncle passed away last Wednesday and today was his funeral, so there isn't any stand-out, bright and shiny nail art for you. I went with a simple and classic French Manicure using BYS French White and OPI Barre My Soul.  

This tutorial kept popping up on the 'recommended videos' panel on the side of other nail art tutorial videos, and though I had my at-home french manicure down pat, this method actually saved me quite a bit of time and hassle trying to get the silly 'smile lines' right. The method I used to use was just to paint white on my tips roughly, and use a cotton bud (or 'que-tip' for you Americans...) in nail polish remover to freehanded-ly remove the polish til it got to a line that I was happy with. There were a couple of problems with this, though the results were pretty great. Firstly, I always felt like I was wasting polish because I'd paint it on just to remove half of it straight away, and secondly it took a lot of fixing and going back to try and get all the lines the same thickness and the same curve and just uniform. Not to mention if I slipped and took too much off, I'd have to start the whole nail over again. Ridiculously frustrating, I can tell you. The time and patience required meant as much as I love the look, I simply couldn't be bothered french manicuring my tips very often. 

Now, the new method! In the video the girl sticks the tape onto the polish bottle top and cuts it from there. Turns out I'm useless at cutting a smooth curve in tape while it's stuck to something so 3D, so I adapted it and made myself a little template instead. I drew around the lid of my nail polish remover bottle on a little piece of card, and trimmed it off in the curve. 

I used my bottle lid instead of a polish bottle because I like a bigger, more gradual curve for my smile lines.  

Now I just get a piece of tape, make it tacky (stick it onto the back of my hand and pull it off, repeat - it takes some of the stickiness away and makes it easier to peel off the nail without it taking the base coat with it!), stick it on my cardboard template, cut the curve, and voila, I have my curved piece of tape. This makes the curve on every nail the same - just how I like 'em! I still need to do a teeny clean up with my cotton bud but it's no where near the mission it used to be without the tape.

When I'm happy with my lines, I top it off with two coats of Barre My Soul from the OPI NYC Ballet collection. This is the perfect french 'pink' as it's very sheer and not too pinky. It also takes the edge off the WHITE tips, which I've never really been a fan of. It's so lovely and glossy and just makes it all smooth. A top coat of Seche Vite seals everything in. 

What method do you use for your at home french mani? Do you put the pink over the white or underneath it? Enjoy your week, lovely people, see you again soon =D.

- Ally xx

Urbanite Icicles

Hello, lovely people! My wonderful Mummy recently got a few China Glaze polishes off a website, and snuck one in for me! Urban-Night is a lovely deep purple that turned out quite a bit darker than how it looks in the bottle. In artificial light it was almost black, but out in natural light it's quite a vamp-y red-toned purple. It's definitely red-toned because it stained my cuticles orange! Sorry about the fur in the first pic... The kitties are just so helpful.

These photos were taken without a top coat, which gives you an idea of how incredibly glossy the finish on this polish is. It's a true crelly (creme-jelly) with that delicious China Glaze formula I'm becoming addicted to. Just look at that shine!!

You can even see my camera reflected in this one! 'Scuse the couple of nicks on the index and middle fingers - I seem to be particularly clumsy today and bumped a couple of nails while painting the others. This one took two coats to be opaque which I was a little surprised at as I've become accustomed to the CG formula only needing one. I probably would've done two coats anyway because I'm just that kinda gal! Over Urban-Night I used one of my smaller dotting tools to add some little polka dots in China Glaze Icicle. I have no idea why, it just seemed like a good idea at the time. Kinda cute though, no? 

The silver polka dots add a little bit of a younger, more playful edge to this particularly 'mature' polish. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it! Behold, another label shot:

No top coat in any of these photos either. I knew I was going to be taking this mani off straight away so I didn't bother, but as far as the shine finish goes, it seriously wasn't necessary. Can you see the reflection of my camera lens in this pic?

Have to say, Urban-Night isn't right at the top of my favourite polishes, but it is a truly delicious colour and such an easy formula to work with. I'm not sure what it is, maybe it's just my mood today or the fact that I have so many purple polishes in my 'favourite pile' already, but this doesn't really spark anything magic in me. That's weird, because it has all the necessary elements. Hmm. Oh well! It's still pretty darn gorgeous ;-).


Polka dots - for or against? Do you like the purple / silver pairing or think that perhaps purple and gold belong together? What's the last polish you got that failed to spark as much excitement as you'd hoped? I know I'm nagging, but I wanna know! I love hearing from you lovely people. Pop your feet up and forget that it's Monday tomorrow... ;-)


- Ally xx