Saturday, July 30, 2016

on 10 comments

The Digital Dozen does birthday's - Roselynn of Manicured & Marvelous

A new thing we have started with the Digital Dozen ladies is celebrating each others birthday by the birthday girl selecting an inspiration photo, and then anyone who can, creating a mani based on that photo.

This month it's RoseLynn from Manicured & Marvelous birthday and she chose a piece of art from Lynda Lehmann called Legends of the Galaxy.  This was such a great image to recreate nail art with.

I used a whole range of Picture Polish shades.  The orange base was Popsicle, and I used little bits of vegas, freya's cats, sunflower, saltwater and bright white.  I hardly ever wear orange nails so this was a fun combination to wear.

Happy Birthday Roselynn!







Friday, July 29, 2016

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Hippie/Festival nail art ideas

What a random theme we have this week for the 40 Great Nail Art Ideas Challenge, Hippie/Festivals. Now I'm not really a festival type of girl, in fact I have never attended a music festival. I've attended other sorts of festivals, like the city's multicultural festival and food festivals, but I'm not sure that they count.  So instead I stuck with the hippie theme, and for me hippe = 60's tie die, peace and love.

So I ended up with these sponged rainbow nails with a white stamped peace sign.  I actually loved this and it was commented on a LOT!






Wednesday, July 27, 2016

on 1 comment

Jamberry collaboration with SoNailicious

A few weeks back I received an unexpected, beautifully presented package in the mail from Jamberry. Don't freak out, I'm not becoming a consultant, but I am still a firm believer that there is a market for good quality nail wraps which can bring nail art to people that for whatever reason, can't do nail art.

I've tried Jamberry wraps before and the truth was I actually found them really excellent. I've even worn a few more that I'm yet to blog about. They always apply neatly and smoothly, they last well and they remove cleanly without any damage to my nails (unlike those nasty NCLA ones I tried last week).

This package arrived with the official Jamberry heater.  What a difference this made, not so much to the application of my wraps, but to my comfort as I applied them.  My previous experience was standing in the kitchen next to the toaster and warming up each wrap over the element.  This time I was able to sit comfortably and have this mini blow heater gently warm my wraps and fingers.  I also received a little manicure kit that provides all the tools to get a perfect Jamicure.

Of course the package also included all four of the new nail wraps designed by fellow Australian blogger So Nailicious.  The Geo French Twist design, with black and gold was by far my favourite and the one that I chose to put on.  The other three wraps are exactly the same design in other colour combinations.

I really like the design that Maria created, it's funky and chic and it is most definitely true to her style. But I would love to have seen four different designs, rather that four colours of the same design. Gosh, I can think of so many designs I'd love to see on a set of Jamberry's it not funny!






Jamberry products provided for consideration.

Monday, July 25, 2016

on 3 comments

For Ane Li

My tribute to @Ane_li. An incredibly talented and creative young lady. She was an inspiration to me and many thousands more. She had more than 800K followers on Instagram, yet sadly no one knew and understood her deeply enough to know what was going on in her life and to be able to help her.

Looking back now through her Instagram account, the designs that jump out at me are the ones where she may have been crying out for help.


Ane suffered from depression and sadly chose to leave her family and friends on 11 July. None of us knew because depression is a disease that people don’t fight publicly. There is a stigma that surrounds depression that makes people afraid or ashamed to talk about it.  I'm not someone that suffers depression, which in itself make it very hard to comprehend how people suffering with it feel. 

If you suffer from depression, then  talk to someone. Tell them how you are feeling because you can't fight depression on your own. In Australia you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14 to talk to someone.





Sunday, July 24, 2016

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The Polish Chrome Wars Part 2 - Polish Vs Powder chrome edition

Today I continue the chrome crazy by doing a chrome off between chrome powder and the chromest polish I own, the Born Pretty Mirror polish.

Lets looks at the two in a side by side comparison.  


And now without direct light to see the reflectiveness.


Which is which you ask? The index and ring finger are the chrome powder and the middle and pinky fingers are the mirror polish.  Let's analyse them.  The chrome powders were done over black polish and seche vite top coat, not over gel.  They also show the slightest speckling.  The mirror polish is over an aqua base and is without top coat.

My verdict, the mirror polish is shinier, but the chrome powder produces a less fuzzy reflective finish. I'm sure both of these look better over a gel base (in fact I prove that with the polish below), but I wasn't up for another gel set to soak or peel off this week after the damage those NCLA wraps did to me.

If you actually want to wear these for any length of time, they need to last.  The new chrome powder does last, especially when you put a layer of gel top coat over it, it also doesn't lose it's chrome finish.

But the mirror polish, well that is another story. I did these tests and swatches of the Born Pretty store mirror polish a while back, and it seems like the perfect time to share the results.

First up, here is the chrome polish over an aqua base.


Here are some tests with different top coats, including the one that comes with it. But they all significantly effect the shine.


Here is the mirror polish over a gel base. Wowser!  I think this polish over gel easily bets the chrome powder for reflective finish and shine, but again this is still without top coat, so it just rubs off.


What about with gel top coat?  The answer is no.  You can tell the nail that didn't have gel top coat, and you can see how sharp that refective image is too, even when compared the reflection image near the top.


Then I added another layer of mirror polish, to create a mirror gel sandwich, hoping that would last better.


After just a few hours of wear the mirror polish had worn off and it was back to the gel top coat over the mirror polish, and it's not reflective at all.


So what won this war? The mirror polish is the chromest, but it loses out to the chrome powder because of it's staying powder. Unless you were happy with something on your nails that was only going to look amazing for about 2-3 hours, then you could stick with the mirror polish.

Saturday, July 23, 2016

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Nail art ideas with nude polish and colours - NCLA wraps

This weeks 40 great nail art ideas challenge theme is nude + colour and my personal prompt was tribal.  By total coincidence, I've had these NCLA nail wraps in my drawer for at least 2-3 years, and given that they matched the theme, I figured this was as good a time as any to put them on.  Yes, I know it's not 'nail art' and may be considered a 'cheat' for the challenge, but hey, I haven't missed a single week so far and these were too perfect for the prompt. 

This is the first time I've used NCLA nail wraps, they have some gorgeous galaxy ones that I've been eyeing off, but after this experience I don't think I will bother.  Application was great, very easy to apply and over and done with for all ten nails in about 30 minutes.  The wraps are pliable yet strong, so you can peel the off and reposition them without them breaking.  The instructions say to apply a layer of base coat before applying the wraps.  So I did.

The reason I wont be using these every again is because they torn the shit out of my nails when I removed them.  The instructions say to just peel them off, which I assume is because you have a base coat on that they wont wreck your nails.  Not so for me. I got little splinters of nail peel up when I tried to remove these, and the only way to get rid of them was to buff my nails.  These are also made of some sort of vinyl, so they don't dissolve very easily using acetone either. I did lots of rubbing with acetone and gentle peeling with tweezers to eventually get them off. Removal definitely took longer than application.   

So, whilst these were nice whilst I worn them, I'm not a fan anymore.  






Wednesday, July 20, 2016

on 12 comments

The Polish Chrome Wars - Rub all the things into your polish!


Chrome nails are THE it thing at the moment. Every second video you see on Instagram is someone rubbing that silver powder into their polish.  Of course there is a good reason for this, it's freaking cool! Not just the finished product (which looks awesome) but the application process is fun and magical.

After getting my chrome mirror powder in the mail I realised that this rubbing or 'burnishing' technique, where you polish some sort of powder into your polish, could be used with a whole bunch of things. So I pulled out a whole bunch of things that I had in powder form and played.

I already had a blue gel polish base on. Specifically Dance Legend 'My December'.  Its a juicy jelly blue gel polish, but because of it's jelly appearance I felt I needed three coats to have enough opacity.


Let's look where I started.  First up, the chrome powder. This is the one from Daily charm.  I like it a lot, this is the number 03 one, which is the finest particle size with the least shimmer and most mirror like finish.

The next three fingers have three different chameleon pigments.  Specifically the ones that I sold in little one gram jars about 5 years ago. (No I don't have anymore to sell so please don't ask).  I kept a few grams of the powders for myself because I knew I'd want to use them for something, and here you go.  Middle finger is the red to green powder (which had the best effect in my opinion). Ring finger has the green to blue and pinky has the gold to green.  All these show one rubbing of the powders into the gel. No top coat on the chrome, but a layer of seche vite over the chameleons.




Next I tried some glitters.  Middle finger has the silver flake glitter that is used in all those really reflective polishes.  Ring finger is gold holo glitter and pinky and silver holo glitter.  These are the ultra holo glitters from Glitter Unique. The silver flake didn't work so well, but I did love how flat the gold and silver glitters were.  They would obviously be much better over a closer matching base rather than dark blue.



Next I wanted to try holo. Because the next thing we are going to start seeing in about a month, is everyone rubbing holo powder into their nails.  Yes, I caved. I forked out the ridiculous $40USD for a single gram of the holo powder from Daily Charme, which is currently on sale as a pre-order only. I hope to have it in my hands in about a month.

But in a effort to try create that effect now, I pulled out some stuff.  Firstly Spectraflair. I've still got a little stash of spectaflair in powder form, again because I used to sell the stuff before JDSU changed their requirements so that it could only be sold pre-mixed in suspension base. So using as much caution as possible, and noting that the product is not cosmetically approved, I tried rubbing some into my gel.  FAIL. I could not get it to adhere. I got a tiny bit on there, but it kinda sucked. Note that I'm not using a wipe free top coat, so I don't know if I'd get better results with Spectraflair if I were using that sort of top coat.


Next I pulled out a product that I've barely used.  It's JOSS Holo Flake from the Nail Super Store.  I always considered it the poor cousin to spectraflair, because the results when mixed into polish never seemed as good. How wrong I was to consider this the poor cousin.  Firstly, as I rubbed it in, magic happened, holo amazing magic. It adhered perfectly and the linear holo was intense.  Plus, let me just add, this IS cosmetically approved, and it's is cheaper.  Way way cheaper than the $40USD for the gram of the holo pigment from the Daily Charm.  This beautiful powder is only $10AUD a gram. Downside for those outside of Australia is that international shipping is not available. *Edited to add - JOSS Holo flake has been removed from the Nail Super Store site due to low stock levels*


After doing all that experimenting on gels, I peeled them off (cause I cleverly remembered to put on a layer of Picture Polish peel off base coat).  I then applied a full mani in Emily de Molly Iridescent Skies. Here's a bonus swatch photo of that!


I applied a layer of Seche Vite and let it dry to about 80%.  It was still dentable but wouldn't leave finger prints. Then I gently rubbed away, and I didn't have to rub hard for it to adhere to the top coat. OMG just look at it.  I'll edit a video at lunch tomorrow and upload my rubbing to instagram.  So make sure you are following me there! This first photo is straight after application. with no top coat.


Below is my final mani. You do need to apply top coat otherwise the powder does eventually rub off.  I applied Seche Vite.  I found it did reduce the holo intensity a little bit, but nothing too major.  I then rubbed in another bit of the holo flake and made a holoflake sandwich with the top coat.  This lasted really well and the holo was strong.  I didn't apply a gel top coat because I didn't feel like doing the whole soak off thing, as I hadn't applied the peel off base.  But I'm confident that a gel top coat would keep the holo just as well, if not better than the Seche Vite does.


Pretty cool huh!

I've got some more fun things coming with the nail polish chrome wars, next installment will be a comparison of the chrome powder with the Born Pretty Store mirror polish.

Monday, July 18, 2016

on 1 comment

Face of Australia - Autumn Romance Collection

Bad blogger, bad bad blogger.  Today I have some swatches of the Face of Australia Autumn Romance collection, which I have been sitting on for a few months now.  Yes. it is now the middle of winter and this was an autumn collection, but I'm pretty sure Aussies will still be able to find these in store, so I figured I'd still post them. Plus they are such gorgeous winter shades I couldn't miss posting them.

There are six shades in the collection and they are all vampys that fit perfectly with the romance theme of the collection.  Let's take a look.

Captivating Cranberry is a rich and pigmented crimson.


Enchanting moments is a dark aubergine with a purple shimmer.


Kiss me at twilight is a burgundy red with a metallic shimmer.


Mulled wine is a deep oxblood red.


Rug up is a dark reddened brown.


Snuggle me is a blue leaning cranberry.


The formula on all these was excellent. Smooth and easy to apply with each polish being opaque at two clean coats.  The two shades with the shimmer did show a little bit of brush strokes, but nothing that made the polishes looks streaky or frosty.  These swatches so each polish at two coats with Seche Vite top coat.

The collection was available from March this year. Stockists: Priceline Pharmacy. Big W, priceline.com.au, faceofaustralia.com.au, fashionaddict.com.au and makeupexpress.com.au.

Polishes provided for consideration.

Saturday, July 16, 2016

on 4 comments

Digital Dozen redoes Fashion Day 5 and Insects

Oh I love it when I combine nail art challenges and feel clever.  I'm feeling super clever with today's nail art that is for sure.

The two challenges are the Digital Dozens Fashion, and 40 Great Nail art ideas with insects.  So what does that mean, it's means finding fashion that in inspired by insects and then creating nail art on that. I very nearly went with a butterfly design, specially a monarch butterfly, because there are some amazing dresses based on the monarch butterfly, but then I spotted this beetle inspire dress and went with it instead.

I'm disappointed that I didn't choose a better yellow gold, rather the OPI Golden Eye, which was just to orange rather than the green gold that I should have used, something like Ozotic 507 would have been heaps better.

This was a bit of a mix and match of different aspects of the dress, mostly freehand with a few stamped accents.





Here are the inlinkz for fashion nail art.


Here are the inlinkz for 40 Great Insect Nail Art ideas

About Me

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I live in Canberra, Australia with my husband, Mr Ten and Miss Eight. My blog is all about nail polish, and a few other bits in between. You can contact me at morenailpolish@iinet.net.au