Cocktail, with a touch of gold

Hi everyone~ On Saturday, I attended my church's annual end of year dinner. The dress code was 'cocktail, with a touch of gold'. I decided that bit of gold to be my nails...surprised? :P

I started off with two coats of Hello Kitty Golden girl. This is a beautiful soft gold foil - I can't believe I didn't try this sooner! I tend to shy away from golds as I feel they clash with my yellow based skin tone  ^^;; Not this one though! It dried extremely fast too, I was applying the first coat onto my third nail and accidentally touched my pinky...well, it was dry already so there was no need to redo that nail! :D

On my thumb and fourth finger, I layered on one coat of Nicole by OPI Disco dolls. I used Ulta3 black satin and lily white for the flowers before going back over the petals with Golden girl. The centre of the flower was filled with Disco dolls.

The Hello Kitty nail polish is available in Priceline stores now and retail for $9.95 each. I personally haven't seen any of the Hello Kitty cosmetics in the stores I've walked into so it may be a good idea to call into the stores to check if they have it.

I love this mani loads and received quite a few compliments on the night ^^ What do you think of this mani?

Thanks for dropping by!
~Sharon

A product was provided for consideration. For more information, please view my disclosure policy.

Cavalry Baseball nails #3

I said I was going to do Canberra Cavalry baseball nails for every home game, so here are the nails I wore for this weekends home series.

The team finally got white uniforms for home games this season, so because they were wearing their whites, I decided to as well (with an accent nail).  I don't do accent nails very often, but I really love them.  I think I will do them more!  

I also layered a Spectraflair top coat over the white.  It looks amazing.  Holo topcoat over white certainly curbs my lemming for Glitter Gal Light as a Feather.

The orange polish is Picture Polish Citrus.  It's the perfect bright orange creme.  A lovely summer colour.

Here is a close up of my accent nail.  This is a water decal that I had made up from a site on eBay.  The only tricky bit is that the decals are on transparent paper, so I have to create a white dot on my nail.  I did this by punching a hole in a piece of paper and then sticking that to our glass table.  I then used that paper as a konad template and put my polish in the hole, wiped it off, picked up the polish circle and stamped it on.  It worked amazingly well.  And the hole punch I had was the perfect size for the shaded baseball on the decal.

Here is a close up of the holo topcoat on the white.  Sooooooo purdy!!!

And now a quick story about the local wildlife.  

Yesterday Mr Three was playing out in the backyard and came sprinting inside.  He told me he saw a really big dinosaur outside.  I grabbed my camera and followed him out.  I asked him where it was and he walked me up to under the apple tree.  "Don't get too close mummy, you don't want it to bite you". Of course there was nothing to be seen anywhere, but we have now figured out that he saw some sort of lizard!  We've had blue tongue lizards in the backyard before, but I'm not sure what this one was.

While out there I heard another strange sound which I investigated.  Sitting on the side fence was this very cute and fluffy baby kookaburra.  The kookaburra's have been laughing their heads off here recently with all the stormy and wet weather.  It's mother and father were flying around in the gum trees too.  I snapped a picture of one of them with a MASSIVE spider in it's mouth, but forgot that the camera setting was only on VGA and not 10MP. D'oh!  But then again, I'm sure not too many of you would want to see that spider in the birds mouth.  We grow them big down here!

The other week when I was playing golf, there was a huge troop of kangaroos (and apparently 'troop' is the correct terminology for a group of them!)  I really wished I had taken my camera to show my international readers just how close the roos roam near us down here!  I want to share more pics of the local wildlife, I hope you all don't mind.

Rainbow leopard

Hi ladies~A few days ago, I decided to try out Nicole by OPI It's all about the glam from the Kardashian Kolors collection. However, after three coats it was still a little patchy and so voilà, a rainbow leopard print evolved :P It's all about the glam is a pretty marshmallow white with shimmer running throughout it. Too bad about the sheerness - I might try to layer it over a white crème first next time.

Because it was patchy and I didn't want to add a fourth coat, I brought out some colours for the leopard spots.

Orange: Australis Titania
Green: Australis Sweetpea
Yellow: Ulta3 spring blossom
Purple: China Glaze Light as air

I quite enjoyed this spontaneous mani and wore it for three whole days :)

For Australian ladies, NOPI nail polish can be found at Terry White Chemist and selected pharmacies. Each bottle retails for $14.95. The Kardashian Kolors collection will be available in December.

What do you think of this mani?

Thanks for reading!
~Sharon

Some products were provided for consideration. For more information, please view my disclosure policy.

Random nail art

Hello everyone~Have you ever had a perfect design in mind and failed to execute it the way you wanted it to? This mani was one of them >< I thought I'd share it anyway cos I actually really love the design, just not how it turned out. This was inspired by a design I saw on another blog but of course I forgot to save the link and now I can't find it. If this is yours or you know who's it is, please do let me know! :)

I applied two coats of Misa Dirty sexy money for the base colour. OPI You don't know Jacques is the brown you see and Glossyblossom nail art striper in white for the white.

I might try this again next time with better colour combinations :P

Thanks for reading.
~Sharon

It's the blues~

Hello ladies :) So after my green phase, it was time for the blues. I had just received Orly Stone cold from the latest Mineral FX collection in the mail and totally needed to try it out. Unfortunately, I think this mani looks so much better in photos - in real life, not so promising :(

I started off with two coats of Australis Sky high. I then used Ulta3 lily white and a dotting tool to add some polka dots. I took out my Glossyblossom nail art striper in white to paint the stripes. For my index and pinky nails, I applied two coats of Orly Stone cold. This is a gorgeous, gorgeous blue and I love it so much! I found application a little annoying though as the polish took a while to dry. If you don't leave enough dry time in between coats you'll definitely end up with a goopy mess. I think the end result is soooo worth it though, just look at the beauty and depth it has!

On my thumb I used a dotting tool to outline the heart in white before filling it in. I then layered on one coat of Mode cosmetics Diamonte. Using a smaller end of another dotting tool, I went around the heart with Aldo Stardust. Stardust is a sparse glitter polish which would look great for layering!

I'm proud of my heart, heh!

What do you think of this mani - hit or miss?

Thanks for reading!
~Sharon

Some products were provided for consideration in this post. Fore more information, please see my disclosure policy.

A Few more Halloween Designs

Hey y'all! I just wanted to share a few Halloween designs I came up with to sell in my webstore. Hope Y'all like! This month's sale is a free crackle nail set with your purchase of $30 or more. Don't miss it!

Jack O'Lantern Nails

Good afternoon, Dear Reader!

It was time for a color change, so today I did another Halloween manicure since I might not have a chance to change it tomorrow.  Since I haven't done the obligatory black and orange combination yet, I figured I'd do that today with the jack o'lantern pattern from nail stamping plate D03, one of the two Halloween D-Series plates.

I wanted a bright orange, and for that I chose Zoya Paz.  It took three coats, and I thought I'd extend the theme and cut the stamping by 60% by alternating nails between Paz and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out, the two coat black creme that was nearest Paz when I was gathering supplies for this manicure.  After allowing the base colors to dry, I stamped Paz with the Jack O'Lantern face in Konad Black Pearl.  I'd planned on stamping some additional Halloween patterns on the black, but after placing the first one on my pinky I thought the better of it and removed the stamp (this is the rare occasion when the decision that less is more was made at the front end of a manicure...).  I sealed the stamping and shined up the manicure with Sally Hansen Salon Speed Shine and called it finished. Here are my Jack O'Lantern nails.

Jack O'Lantern Nails with Stamping Plate D03

This is probably my favorite of this year's Halloween manicures.  It really doesn't leave open any questions about what the intent is!

That's another Halloween manicure and all I have for today, so until next time, love and nail polish to you!

All Rights Reserved, Siobhan@The Nailphile. If you're reading this elsewhere, it's stolen from a real nail polish blog.

D-Series Halloween Nails

Good afternoon, Dear Reader!

A good while back I'd mentioned the D-Series plates that I got from Chez Delaney, the ones that were sold only as a complete set due to some of them not working 100%.  Truthfully, I have yet to run into a stamp that doesn't work, and the same was true today when I broke out the two Halloween-themed plates from the series.

I took pictures of the plates so you can see all of the patterns.  They're nice and big - some are too big for my nails even now, which is pretty uncommon amongst available patterns.  Of course, I didn't have the good sense to take pictures of the plates before I used them, so they have a little cloudy acetone residue from post-stamping cleaning, which is done when I'm sick of messing with stuff and just want to be finished.  This is plate D03 and D04.

Halloween Nail Stamping Plate D03

Halloween Nail Stamping Plate D04

I wanted to use the spooky-font "Trick or Treat," but there's no angle at which I can fit anywhere near the whole thing on any nail.  There are plenty of others to choose from though, so I'll show you what I did.  This isn't intended to be the most fabulous manicure ever, it's more to sample the patterns and show you the size and quality of engraving.

The base color I used was two coats of Barielle Coalest Day of the Year, a good basic charcoal shimmer.  It's a two-coater with a respectable drying time, so it seemed like a good choice.  I wanted to stamp the patterns in White Konad Princess Polish just because it's reliable and one with which I'm familiar to knock out a variable in terms of how well the stamps worked, and Coalest Day of the Year seemed to offer good contrast without being as stark as a black creme.  I gave that a few minutes to dry with Tout de Suite then just went at it with the multistamper and sealed the stamps with Sally Hansen Salon Speed Shine.  Here's my amusing Halloween manicure.

Halloween-Themed Nail Art Manicure

The sunlight obscures some of the pattern on my pinky - it's the funny witch at about nine o'clock on plate D03.  Every one of the patterns worked well, even the spider web ones (which are always tough) and the scary skull (the ones with a great deal of solid engraved space are also tough).  I like it - it's silly and fun without being too immediately attention grabbing, with attention grabbing on a stamp-sampling manicure being the very reason I didn't use and orange base and stamp in black.

That's my Halloween-themed manicure and the update for today, Dear Reader, so until next time, love and nail polish to you!



All Rights Reserved, Siobhan@The Nailphile. If you're reading this elsewhere, it's stolen from a real nail polish blog.

Konad m85 ~ New Plate!

Good morning, Dear Reader!

I was thinking of what to do for a mani today, and I have an absolute ton of fun stuff to show you at this point (especially since I found some cool Wet n Wild glitter polishes yesterday), but when it came right down to it I did not yet have the heart to remove Winter Sky, the blue from the FingerPaints Merry & Bright Collection.  It's way too pretty and I'm not done enjoying it yet, so I considered what I could add and realized I hadn't yet shown you Konad plate m85, the other new one that WowSoCool sent for review.  Here's their image of the plate so you can see all its patterns.

Konad Plate m85 from Wow So Cool

I chose the floral full nail pattern, the one at about eleven o'clock on the plate, with Konad White Princess Polish. I'd planned just an accent nail because I wasn't up for twenty stamps, but I found that the pattern is open enough that it looks fine with a single stamp that has a bit of free space at the top and bottom, so I went for ten stamped nails since that's a much more manageable number.  Some people may disagree with me on whether double stamping should have been done, and that's okay - they're not the one facing the task of lining up twenty stamps!

I used the Konad multiscraper that I showed you with plate m84, and it was very fast and easy, far more so than a separate scraper and stamper for me.  There were no do-overs or troubles at all, and then I sealed it with Sally Hanson Salon 10 Day Speed Dry (the old SH Salon, not Compete Salon Manicure).  I think it might be my new favorite for Konad.  The 10 Day part of its name is likely accurate - it makes my manis bulletproof, with no chips or tip wear no matter what, but the Speed Dry part is open for debate.  The top coat  itself dries very quickly, but it doesn't dry the polish under it well at all and I've never had a success with it drying polish.  I don't know if I've used it to seal Konad before, but it didn't make even the tiniest smudge on a single nail, and it also has a fantastic shine (that's what I'd repurchased it for), so I think it'll be what I use over most Konad.  Maybe one day I'll be brave enough to see if it works over Konad Black, but maybe not, we'll see.

After the top coat dried, I went out and took pictures under a cloudlessly sunny sky, and here is my first use of Konad plate m85.

Konad Plate m85 over FingerPaints Winter Sky Nail Polish

I love this pattern!  I have a strong but inexplicable attraction to the full nail patterns that look like wallpaper, and this qualifies as one for me.    Every time I go a little while without using Konad, the next time I use it I wonder why I don't more often because there's not another nail decoration I like quite as much.  The Sally Hansen Salon Effects are in second place, but Konad's lead is pretty strong!

That's my first Konad m85 manicure and I'm sure there will be many more.  Until next time, Dear Reader, love and nail polish to you!



All Rights Reserved, Siobhan@The Nailphile. If you're reading this elsewhere, it's stolen from a real nail polish blog.

A rainbow creation

Hey everyone~ I'm actually posting three days in a row, what a feat! :P While my last pink notd did grow on me, I knew it was time for a change as soon as the weekend hit. I received some polishes from OPI's Muppets collection yesterday and couldn't wait to try them out. Rainbow connection was totally calling out my name and I just had to wear it :)

I applied two coats of Ulta3 black satin onto all my nails except the middle - it has two coats of Ulta3 gold rush fever. For my index and pinky, I applied two coats of Rainbow connection. For my thumb and fourth finger, I used a thin brush to apply the gold stripes (gold rush fever). I layered on a coat of Mode cosmetics Diamonte on my third finger (you can hardly see the glittler though, unfortunately) and then finished it off with a crackled look with OPI Black shatter.

I have to say that I'm a little disappointed with how sparse the glitter in Rainbow connection is. You won't get full nail coverage unless you plan on applying at least four coats. The glitter however, is beautiful and I'm really happy to finally own a true rainbow glitter polish! It does seem to be a dupe of the Milani and Essence glitter polishes but since I can't get my hands on them, the OPI will definitely suffice :)

What do you think of Rainbow connection? (I keep on typing rainbow concoction and then having to delete it >< Don't you think it's such a suitable name for it though? :P)

Thanks for reading!
~Sharon

A product was provided for review. For more information, please see my disclosure policy.

Ozotic multichrome dry marble

Here are two quick photos I took of my mani that I wore earlier this week.  I put it on on Sunday night and didn't get to photograph it until Tuesday morning before work.  And then, I took only TWO photos.  Why I ask?  Why did I only take two photos? I'm sure I wasn't running that late to work that I couldn't stand there for another minute to capture a few other angles.  Oh well.  Two photos it is. 

I did this as a dry water marble just like I have done my other ones.  My black and gold one and the first ones with the step by step guide.  I find it much easier to do a dry water marble than a regular one. This one wasn't great, it was a little rushed, but the effect was still pretty.

I used my set of Ozotic multichromes; 502, 503, 504, 506 & 507, marbled over black.  The worst thing about only having taken two photos is I didn't even get the best fingers.  My right thumb and index were so good! DOH!

This shot in the sun is lowsey, but I either include it, or only show one picture.

The only real weird thing with this water marble using multichromes is that I wasn't able to see much of the colour shift of any of the polishes anymore.

Now before you go off and say what a great idea this was, know that I saw it first using Ludurana multichromes over on Esmaltes da Kelly. Her's is AMAZING.  I will try this again cause I really want mine to look like hers!

Sally Hansen Salon Effects Booty Call

Good afternoon, Dear Reader!

Today I'm back to another BCA mani with Sally Hansen Salon Effects Nail Polish Strips in Booty Call.  I bought these several weeks ago during a good sale especially for a grand breast cancer awareness manicure because they're pink camouflage.  That seemed appropriate for doing battle with the illness.

I used non-sticky base coat (I found sticky base coat made these hard to work with), the nail strips with a few repairs because I'm too exhausted to even have a shot at perfection, then I finished it off with  BB Couture Top Rock top coat (I generally just use a top coat that doesn't dry polish well on me over strips).  Here's my pink camo mani, Booty Call.

Sally Hansen Salon Effects Booty Call Nail Polish Strips

The repairs show in the picture and you can also see that the pattern is composed of dots, but looking down at my hands neither of those things shows - this one just isn't holding up to magnification as well as most.  The result is pink camo nails, and I love them.  They're a nice change from all the glitter I've worn recently but not one tiny bit less fun.

That's Sally Hansen Salon Effects Booty Call and one more BCA pink mani, so until next time, Dear Reader, love and nail polish to you!




All Rights Reserved, Siobhan@The Nailphile. If you're reading this elsewhere, it's stolen from a real nail polish blog.

Kleancolor stamping and awesome Nail Mail!

Ah, Kleancolor metallics, is there anything you can't do?  I seriously can't tell you how in love with the Kleancolor metallics I am.  Why did it ever take me so long to try them, and why did I not see anyone else raving about them on their blogs?

I've frankened with these babies, they're amazing one coaters in their own right, and now, look how well they stamp.  I've gotta say they do bleed a little when you apply top coat, so that the edges of the stamping go a little fuzzy and out of focus, but when I think about the stamping possibilities with all the Kleancolor metallic colours, I simply don't care.

My base colour here is Orly FX Shine, stamped with Bundle Monster plate BM-221 in Kleancolor Metallic Purple.

And now I'm sure you've noticed that I also added a coat of my Spectraflair topcoat.

Now I have made that SV spectraflair top coat, I'm not quite sure how I'm going to stop myself applying it to every single non holo mani I'm wearing.  I mean, come on, if you can holo up every mani, then why wouldn't you right?!?

 

And now for my nail mail all the way from Brazil.  I did my first ever swap with Tata Nada Ver.  I've always been too worried I'd get busted with the whole dangerous goods in the post business, but when she contacted me to do a swap for the Holográficos Hits no Olimpo, I sucked it up and lied my ass off on the customs declaration!  And yay that we have easy access to Ozotics to swap for too (especially as Picture Polish don't post to Brazil at the moment).  So here they are on our garden wall this arvo!

Left to right: Zeus - black, Hefesto - top coat, Artemise - silver, Hermes - gold, Poseidon - light blue, Apolo - dark blue, Hera - aqua blue, Dionísio - purple, Héstia - pink mauve, Atenas - magenta, Ares - red, Afrodite - pink, Deméter - orange.

Oh yeah baby!!  Any requests for which one first?

Skittling the purple

Hi everyone! Boy, Uni life sure is hectic even during a break. I finally completed my second assignment for the break and guess what? I have a third one to do. Yipee! :( My life will be absolutely crazy until November 25th, which is when my last exam for the year is scheduled to be. So until then, what with assignments, prac and exams, I have no idea how often I will be painting my nails, let alone updating this blog.

Whining over, on to the nails :) I went for purple this time but I'm not sure I like what I did.

I applied two coats of Sportsgirl Baby elephant onto my index and fifth fingers. It is a greyed out purple with a lovely shimmer - beautiful! For my thumb and middle finger, I applied two coats of OPI Parlez-vous OPI?. Decorated my thumb by placing some 3D objects on it and using my Glossyblossom nail art striper in white for the white lines on my middle finger. Zoya Dannii was applied on my fourth finger and also used to dot the flower on my middle finger.

My friend gave me some of the flat 3D decorations to play with for my birthday. She knows me too well ;)

What do you think of this mani?

Thanks for looking ^^
~Sharon

Black and Gold dry water marble

For my first day back at work last week, I wanted to have something a little fancy on my nails.  The best part is, someone noticed! She even knew it was water marbling!  She was wearing OPI black shatter over silver and showed me photos of her mani wearing CG ruby pumps.  It was so fun to have found someone at work that spoke the same crazy nail polish language as me!

Anyway, back to the mani.  On Sunday night I sat down to apply another dry water marble and here is the end result.  It's my best one so far and I loved it.

I had actually done a little water marbling session with my mum, where we tried different combinations, different brands of polishes and different stroke marks through the water.  So I had quite a nice little selection of round plastic marbling pieces to select from.  As you can see, I only had two black and gold ones to select from, and I ended up with more than half of one left.  So I love that this doesn't waste polish and the clean up was so easy!

If you didn't see my step by step guide to dry water marbling, then please check out my previous post about it.  Although please look at this final mani, as it was soooo much better than my original two that I did.  

I think the fact that the marbled plastic was nice and dry cause it had been sitting in my nail box for a week made a big difference with the top coat bubbling.  I didn't get any bubbles at all this time.  I also did a much better job at sticking the marbles down, using just one coat of polish underneath.  

Has anyone else tried dry water marbling yet?  How did it work out for you?

Sally Hansen Salon Effects Girl Flower

Good morning, Dear Reader!

As planned, I'm kicking off my forties today wearing Sally Hansen Salon Effects Nail Polish Strips in the Girl Flower pattern.  There have been a few questions in recent weeks regarding whether a given age is too old for a particular look, and I think the nail strips give a pretty clear picture of my position on that.

In using various Salon Effects strips, I'm finding that there's variance in the durability of the strips, and the Girl Flower strips seemed a little more delicate than others I've used.  Once I realized that making a little tear in one of the first, I was just more careful in peeling them and didn't have any noteworthy problems.  I applied these to bare nails, no base coat at all, and bare nails seem to be preferable.  I didn't have the application nightmare I did last time, there weren't problems today, so it's fair to say the one tough application was a result of error on my part coming from being tired out. There's one thing I finally thought of doing when it mattered that might be worth passing on: I always start with my left hand, and I remembered to skip my left thumb so I could use that nail to peel the strips for my right hand, which is easier than peeling with a freshly decorated nail.  After applying the strips I added top coat to them to seal them and shine them up.  Here's my Girl Flower manicure.

Sally Hansen Salon Effects Nail Polish Strips in Girl Flower

I love this.  My index nail always has a kind of messed up spot at the end of my nail bed because of the curve of my nail, but that doesn't show at all without magnification.

That's my forty-year-old's Girl Flower manicure, and I'm off to have one really good day.  Until next time, Dear Reader, love and nal polish to you!



All Rights Reserved, Siobhan@The Nailphile. If you're reading this elsewhere, it's stolen from a real nail polish blog.