October Haul

I said at the start of the month that I would most likely do monthly haul posts and here is my first one! I started working again at the start of October, so I was happy to have some extra money to spend on nail polish and nail related items.

From L-R: Bamboo Shoot - Sally Hansen, Bubblegum Pink - Sally Hansen, Cotton Candy - Essence, 24/7 Nail Base - Essence, Ultra Strong Nail Hardener - Essence.

Boogie Nights - Sinful Colors, Misty Jade - Rimmel.

 I got a (very cheap) bottle of Nail Envy from eBay.

 My brother bought me these polishes, they're the Bright Nails collection from Miki

I also got some swatch sticks. This isn't even half of them or even a quarter.

I didn't get a massive amount of nail stuff this month, but it's more than I normally would have I guess. But during November, I'm going to be doing a 'no buy' month. I want to see how much I can save if I don't purchase anything nail related, unless absolutely necessary, but I can't see a reason why I'd need something straight away. Wish me luck!

In other news, I now have a tumblr for those of you who want to follow me there. I haven't posted anything yet, but I'll definitely be posting from November onwards. You can also follow me on instagram, where I sometimes post some extra stuff.

Blue and Pink Watercolour

Just a quick post today to show everyone my nails from the weekend. I went to a party and the dress I wore had two stand out colours, which were neon pink and a cobalt/royal blue. I struggled to stick to a plan because I had so many ideas. I was originally going to do a neon pink base, use striping tape and top it with a royal blue, but I decided I didn't have the patience for the tape so I went with the acetone watercolour design instead.

I used Daiquiri - Savvy by DB and Royal - Revlon with a base of MBSW - O.P.I

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Blue Leopard Print

I have to admit, after this mani, leopard print is growing on me. But only for nails, and in cute colours that are opposite to the generic leopard print. It's just a simple, fun design and with a coloured background and black and white print, it can pretty much go with anything. I never thought I'd like this design. Guess it just goes to show that you've got to try it out to really judge it.

The blue base is Let's Get Lost - Essence. When I first bought this polish, I used it on my toes and for some silly reason I didn't use Essence's 24/7 Base, which is amazing at preventing staining. I'm on my second bottle in only a few months. So because I didn't use it, it stained my toenails like crazy, and even the skin around them. I had to use a bi-carb soda (baking soda) paste to remove the stains. This time around, I used the base I should have and I'm hoping it won't stain when I take it off later. Otherwise this polish is just ruined for me. 

Anyway, the black and white are my go-to black and white's which I've repeated enough in previous posts. I topped with Seche Vite and I'm sad to say that I think it might need thinning soon. It's becoming a bit too thick for my liking. Does anyone know any good polish thinners?

That's it for today! There should be some more posts up this week. Happy Monday everyone!

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Liebster Award (or half of it at least)

So I have been nominated by the lovely Chan from Indian Ocean Polish (btw, thank you so much for your kind words, means a lot! And I'm so sorry this took forever) for the Liebster Award, which I understand is a way for new bloggers to be discovered and to discover other relatively new blogs. Sort of like chain mail.

When you are nominated you are meant to:
1. Share 11 random facts about yourself.
2. Answer 11 questions given by the person who nominated you.
3. Nominate 11 more bloggers with less than 200 followers
4. And then write them 11 questions to answer.

To start off, here are 11 random facts about myself:

1. I'm naturally blonde, but I currently have brown hair (I used to have white blonde hair in high school a few years ago)
2. I love to read
3. I just started working in a medical centre
4. I've suffered from migraines since high school and I hate them so much
5. I have a phobia of ears, it's really unusual but I hate everything about them, I don't like people touching mine or having to touch someone else's, I refuse to share headphones and I can barely look at them (I'm fine touching and looking at my own though)
6. I'm a middle child
7. Recently I discovered I suffer from kidney stones
8. I've worn glasses since I was 3, I'm currently 21
9. I don't hate needles like most other people, I'm so calm and completely unfazed when I have to have a blood test or get a local anaesthetic 
10. I'm pretty sure I'm accident prone, I've injured both arms a few times, bruised my knee bone in three different places, twisted an ankle and I always have bruises
11. I have the quote "From my rotting body, flowers shall grow" tattooed on my ribs and it means a lot to me

And here are my answers to Chanfie's questions!

1. What/who inspired you to blog?
I had been wanting to do it for a while but didn't have the motivation until I started doing a Nail Technology course and my best friend told me I should make a portfolio of my nail designs and she agreed a blog would be a great idea!

2. Keeping with the 11 theme of this award, what are your 11 favorite polishes? 
Oh this will be tough, but in no particular order: 
My Boyfriend Scales Walls - O.P.I
Feeling Blue - Models Own
Royal - Revlon 
Instyle Coral - Rimmel
Suzi Says Feng Shui - O.P.I 
Bamboo Shoot - Sally Hansen 
Cool Cat - Sugar Baby 
Azure Martini - Savvy by DB 
Mint Julep - Savvy by DB
Vanellope - Lilypad Lacquer (from the August What's In-die Box?) 
Splash and Dash - Savvy by DB
Most of them are blue so I guess it's obvious that it's my favourite colour.

3. What is your favourite type of nail art and how long have you been doing it?
I think it would have to be either splatter or cling wrap, I think splatter nail art was the first proper nail art I ever tried so it's stuck with me for about a year and a half. I've only been doing cling wrap nail art for a few months, but it always looks great.

4. Do you ever experiment with different nail shapes/lengths? Which is your favourite?
Right after I started blogging I decided to make my nails square and I loved it! They seemed to grow better, but they were also very prone to breaks, I've had squoval shaped nails forever and they're my go-to shape but I think square are my favourites. I like medium length nails too because nubs don't suit my fingers.

5. Do you have other hobbies other than painting your nails?
I read a fair bit and watch a lot of TV shows, but mostly I paint my nails because it's a better distraction from everything and they don't make me sad like books and TV shows can haha. I also watch a lot of YouTube. It started with MyDrunkKitchen, which led me to DailyGrace which led to YouDeserveADrink and now I can't get enough of those three girls and they all led me to other great channels and I just love YouTube so much haha.

6. What non nail related beauty product could you not live without?
Foundation and blush! I love a good foundation and blush combo.

7. How many photo's on average do you take of each mani?
What an interesting question! On a good, sunny day I probably only take about 4-8 and cull it down to just 3 or 4. But on a bad day I'll take up to at least 20 and hope 1 or 2 of them look good enough.

8. What is the biggest challenges you've faced with your blog?
Taking photos, for sure. I use a camera I'm not familiar with yet because it's my dad's and I don't know all the settings or whether I'm allowed to change them haha. Also because I live in Melbourne and everyone knows it's weather is unpredictable, so natural lighting is a bit unreliable. At the start, I struggled using blogger though, but I've gotten past that.

9. What technique that you have not yet tried yet would you like to master?
Hmm, I think that would be chevron. I've seen so many different techniques but I haven't yet attempted any of them because it makes me nervous haha. I also haven't come across chevron scissors, which I would love so I can make my own decals.

10. What's your go-to mani when you're pushed for time?
I like to go for a simple one colour mani most of the time! Maybe with a glitter accent if I'm in the mood. I try to leave enough time though if I know I'll be going somewhere that I want to wear a mani for.

11. What mani are you most proud of, and why?
I think that would be my galaxy nails from the 31 Day Challenge. I had attempted galaxy nails before with limited success, so when I achieved what I did I was so damn happy with them and honestly couldn't stop smiling when I looked at them, it felt like a big personal achievement. 

Here's the part where I'm supposed to pick 11 other bloggers to keep this going, but I have to admit I've struggled so much to find people who haven't done this before, and I didn't want to make them double up. But at the same time, I really wanted to publish this because it's been a draft for sooo long and I felt bad not having done it yet. 

Hopefully I can come back to this when I come across some people who haven't done it yet, in my searching I did discover some good blogs though, that's a plus. I'm so bad at these things, I'm sorry haha.

Dots on Dots

Just a simple mani today while I wait for my nails to grow. I'm still so sad I had to file them all down, but this looks kinda cute with the length anyway.

The green base is two coats of Wind Fall - Revlon (shown on it's own in the first picture), the bigger dots are Time Out - Sugar Baby and the smaller dots are Azure Martini - Savvy by DB. I feel like I've seen this mani with very similar colours elsewhere, so if I've copied someone without giving credit, I'm sorry. It's completely unintentional and I cannot remember where/if I did see it.

I'm still on the lookout for some affordable, good strengtheners. But everything is so expensive in Australia and if it's cheap online, there's still some hefty shipping costs. However, after doing this mani I feel like I'm back in the swing of things, and I can deal with short nails for now. I know they'll grow eventually.

Quick Apology

I realise I've been slack at posting lately, but the other day I broke a nail and I feel so uninspired when I have round, short nails. I am contemplating attempting some nail art on my right hand, or my cinderella hand as it's known in the nail world, because the nails are a nice length and shape.

If I do that, it'll be tomorrow. I had planned to do some designs this week, but after my nail broke I lost all my enthusiasm and when I filed all my left hand nails down to match it, I was really disappointed. In the mean time though I'm on the hunt for affordable nail strengtheners that actually work, so if anybody has any suggestions on where I can find some in Australia, that'd really help.

Thanks for sticking around, I'll be posting normally again soon.

Watermarble and Dots

I love this mani! I had the urge to do some watermarbling, but I didn't want to spend a long time doing it, so I chose to have it as an accent nail and use the same colours for dots over a white base. This photo was taken about a day or so after I did it, so there's some obvious wear happening on the tips and I realised I hadn't moisturised until after I'd packed up my little camera set-up so apologise for the damage and dry cuticles. 

I used W7's White polish, the green is Misty Jade - Rimmel and the blue is Suzi Says Feng Shui - O.P.I.

I think I've realised that I love doing designs with a white base. I've done so many lately that I think I need to stay away from the white polish for a while. If I can.

Pink Gradient

For some reason, all I want to do lately is gradients. It might be because I have no other inspiration or just the fact that I've always loved gradients, but I just want to do as many gradients in as many colours as possible!

Today I painted three coats of My Boyfriend Scales Walls - O.P.I and then loaded up my sponge with Kiss on the Chic - O.P.I (barely noticeable but I didn't want it to be stark white) and Bubblegum Pink - Sally Hansen. I did a few coats on each nail to make it a bit more smooth and opaque.

It's a bit of a girly mani for me to be wearing. I'm not one to wear pink nail polish a lot or at all really. But I think this is pretty cute and simple.

NOTD: Bamboo Shoot - Sally Hansen

Amongst nail art, I thought it might be good to occasionally do a nail of the day post to showcase some colours I wear by themselves or ones that I rarely use for nail art. I also might do it for new polish I buy, because I generally put at least one on as soon I get it. And that's what this is today!

I recently bought Bamboo Shoot because I needed a good nude colour and I love it. The polish did take three coats till it was opaque and it felt a bit thick because of that, but it applied nicely and I thought it'd take more than three coats anyway, so I was surprised when it didn't. I wore this for a few days before it chipped because I knocked my finger otherwise I would have kept it longer. 

 

I will hopefully have some nail art to show you very soon!

Criss Cross Gradients

I'm back! I did this mani yesterday but it didn't photograph well, so I waited till today to take better pictures of it. I think this looks like a cute summer design, it's very bright!

I used striping tape for this, which took me forever to do so I don't think I'll be rushing to recreate this again, but it might be nice as an accent nail, I wouldn't mind doing that. I started with a base of My Boyfriend Scales Walls - O.P.I (three coats), then I waited a while for it to dry so the tape didn't pull it up. I used six bits of tape for each nail and then I painted Frangipani - Ulta3, Orange Fizz - Savvy by DB, and Daiquiri - Savvy by DB onto the bottom of a triangle make up sponge and then dabbed it all over my nail, blending it as I went. I did two coats on the gradient to get it mostly opaque. I did a simple gradient on my accent nail using the same method, just without the tape.

I love these nails so much and I'm pretty disappointed that I'll have to take them off before I go to work but I have been trying to think of work appropriate nails, so maybe that will be a post during the week.

I still haven't figured out how often I'll be posting but I think I'm still aiming for at least two posts between Thursday and Monday, so we'll see.

September Favourites

As you may have noticed, I haven't posted the last day of the challenge. Yesterday I started a new job after being unemployed since January and I planned to do my nails after I finished, but I underestimated how exhausted I'd be after learning so much in one go so I just didn't have the energy to do my nails and I wasn't even sure which nails I wanted to honour. I think that means I failed the challenge, but I completed every day but one so it doesn't feel like too much of a fail. Eventually I'll complete the prompt, but for now I want to share my favourites designs for the month.

I posted this onto my instagram yesterday but I also wanted to share it here to sort of round up the challenge and apologise for not doing the last day. These were my all time favourites of the challenge; they were the ones I was most happy with. And seeing the watercolour nails makes me miss my square nails so much, so I think I'll definitely be growing them out again.

So far, I'm not sure which days I'll be posting, over the next few weeks my work days will change a bit, but I'm hoping to at least post once or twice from Thursday to Sunday until I figure things out. And at the end of each month I might do posts like this, with some of my other favourites for the month, such as what new polish I've bought or what nail care I've been using. Maybe I'll even do some haul posts (which might include other beauty products). 

But for now I'm going to have a few days break until the weekend. I really enjoyed doing the challenge and I hope everyone loved seeing what I came up with!