Pretty Pretty Princess

Well hello there! Happy Sunday! Last night while I was trying to decide which of my (many) nail polishes I wanted to play with, I was channel surfing and came across The Princess Diaries. Settled - Princess by Cult Nails it was! I finally felt like my nails had grown out enough to do justice to this beauty-in-a-bottle, so my dream of wearing this special polish finally came true. 

In case you missed this post, my oldest brother who moved to California at the start of the year sent me four absolutely stunning Cult Nails nail polishes for my birthday last month! Princess was in the bunch, and I've been itching to wear it since the day it arrived, but as fate would have it, I'd broken + cut down my nails shortly before their arrival, so I had super-nubbins =(. These polishes are sooo beautiful, they deserve to be worn on healthy, long, loved nails. Now that I (kinda) have them, I'm drowning in CN happiness!! 

This smooth, creamy baby-blue polish has the most subtle golden shimmer which was far too bashful to be caught on camera. The name could not be more appropriate - this is Cinderella in a bottle. Two coats gave full opacity, and I of course used the Cult Nails Wicked Fast fast-dry top coat, though this baby had such a flawless finish that a top coat wasn't necessary - I'm just impatient when it comes to drying time =P. 

Addicted. Totally addicted. Cult Nails has a customer for life. I'm always so impressed with Maria's polishes - there's something really special about them, and you can feel the love that's been put into creating every single one. If you haven't heard the latest, the newest collection Behind Closed Doors is available on pre-sale at the moment - US$40 for the collection of 5 (they usually go for US$10 each). Head over to Chit Chat Nails for Marta's ever-incredible photo review of the collection. Entirely drool worthy, I promise you!

Thank you so much for stopping by! Happy weekends! =D

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!! 

French Grapes (and some Whine)

Well hello again! I know, I know, slack blogger is slack, and I really have no excuse... But look! A gradient mani! The prettiness makes up for my slackness, yeah? *ahem* Anyway... Today's mani is a gradient mani using BYS French White and OPI A Grape Fit - my current obsession.

There's not really a tonne to say about this mani... I stamped the accent nails using French White and Bundle Monster plate BM310. The stamping on this mani is craptastic, and that's the nicest word I can think of to describe the train-wreck that occurred. I photographed the best nail (yeah, I know, that's how bad it was...) which I had to double stamp because it translated so badly the first time. I tried to line it up, I swear! But it was not to be. *sigh*

At least the gradient is pretty, right??

Ugh. This mani was just NOT working with me today. I didn't even attempt to photograph my right hand because it was twice the disaster of what you've seen. Don't get me wrong, I think it looks really nice here in photo form, but the stamping was horrible, my right hand turned out extra crappy, and overall it was just a total downer for me. You ever have that "This is gonna look sooo great!!" moment in your head, and the execution is just... meh.? Yeah, that's what this was. Humph. 

Sorry to be such a total Debbie Downer on you today, but this is just such a 'could do better' mani that it's left me all meeerghhh... Maybe a nice watermarble will cheer me up... ;-)

What was your last mani-related disappointment? Do you try to touch up what you don't like, or take it all off and start over? Thanks for reading, lovelies, and sorry again for such a pfft reading experience... =P

*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

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