Inspired By... #9

Hello lovelies! I'm back today with another Inspired By post. Once again, I am inspired by Candice of MrCandiiPants. I want to recreate so many of the designs and tutorials she does because she's incredibly talented and she makes them look so easy. This time I was inspired by this particular tutorial. It's a floral design using a stippling method with many different colours.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about these nails. Firstly, I suck so hard at painting leaves, some look okay-ish, while others are a total mess, and secondly, did I do them well enough to look like flowers? I have no idea, but they are nowhere near as good as Candice's. They look pretty cool though, I'd be interested to see how stippling over the whole nail would turn out; just doing a bunch of colours all over. I might have to try that out, even just for an accent nail or something.

Here's the list of colours I used (and for once I'm not being lazy even though there are a lot):
After School Boy Blazer - Essie (base colour, very nice dark and deep navy blue)
White On - Sally Hansen (base colour for the flowers)
Fun In The Gondola - Essie (light pink)
E-Nuf Is E-Nuf - Essie (dark pink)
Avenue Maintain - Essie (light blue)
Mellow Yellow - Sally Hansen (yellow, obviously)
Bright Me - Ulta3 (orange)
Sheer Peach - W7 (peachy colour on top of the yellow and orange)
Thanks A Windmillion - OPI
Mojito Madness - Essie
Don't Mess With OPI - OPI 
(The last three were mixed in various ways for the leaves)
And like usual, I top coated it with Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri.

June BellaBox Review

It's time for my second bellabox review! This month's box was sent out a little later in the month so I only got it at the start of this week, but I've been testing it out since then and decided it was time to review it!

(I've just realised the position of the box on the magazine makes Sarah Murdoch look gigantic) 

The theme of the June box was Iconic Beauty, think Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn. Personally, I didn't see much of the theme in the item's I got compared to other's but I'm not complaining because I got items that were targeted towards me due to what my beauty profile says on my account, which means these products were more suited to me than the other products were.

This month, everybody got a free copy of the June issue of Instyle Magazine, which usually retails for about $9.95 I believe. I'm not a huge magazine lover (I can't remember the last time I ever bought one) but it was nice to receive a copy and have a browse of it. However, it doesn't make me want to go out and buy the next issue.

1. Herbal Essences Naked Shine Shampoo & Conditioner (RRP: $6.99 each) - These shampoo and conditioners are quite new in the Herbal Essences range and they're paraben and dye free, which is always a good bonus. I've been a fan of Herbal Essences for a while now and I loved these products. They smelt amazing and left my hair feeling soft and clean and smelling just as amazing as the product. They're very simple and I would buy these for sure as the price is just as good as the product.
   
2. Garnier BB Cream Original (Light) (RRP: $13.95) - I have an odd relationship with BB creams and this time was no different. I've tried various BB creams in the past, hoping for a nice light coverage to wear in summer or on lazy makeup days, but I'm yet to find one that I don't wan to throw away. This BB cream in particular was just a massive no straight away. It was in the shade Light, but was so much darker than my skin (I'm very pale but it's impossible to find a match). It was a little greasy as well. Maybe it's because I applied it with my hands (which it says to do), but I was just not loving this and removed it right away. I might give it another shot, but we'll see. Side note: I was sent the full sized product of this which is pretty awesome and very generous.
   
3. Indio Clear Moisturiser (RRP $62.00) - I'm having a lot of trouble with my skin lately, and by a lot I mean breaking out horribly in both acne and small rashes, dry patches everywhere as well as my usually oiliness, so I've only used this once. The next day was when my skin gave up on me, but I don't think it was because of the moisturiser (I've been using other new products). It was very nice and easy to apply and soaked into my skin straight away, which did leave it a little tight, but my skin really loved it. From the description of it on the packaging and the website, it sounds like the perfect moisturiser for me as it's "formulated for hormonally stimulated skin issues" and due to an illness that's exactly what my skin is like. I'll definitely try this again when my skin settles a bit more, because even though it might be really good for what I'm going through now, I don't want to overload my skin even more and have it hate me. However, even if I do love it and it works wonders, I highly doubt I'll buy it as it's just way too expensive for me.
   
4. Vaseline Ultimate 10 Anti-Ageing Body Lotion (RRP: $7.68) - I haven't tried this sample yet but that's only because I have used this product in the past and still have some left. I don't really know why I have the anti-ageing lotion, but I do like it so I'm happy to have that little bit extra which will be good for travelling.
   
5. L'Oreal Base Magique Primer (RRP: $29.95) - I've used this primer once, but I didn't use it all day so I can't vouch for a full day's use, however he application was so lovely and I did notice my foundation went on a lot smoother, especially considering how messed up my skin is currently. It feels velvety smooth and continues to leave your skin feeling that way even after you've removed your makeup. It removes shine and instantly makes your skin matte. I would seriously consider buying this, even despite the cost because I need a good primer and I think this could be it.
   
6. Nutrimetics Nutri-Rich Instant Radiance Beauty Balm (RRP: $50.00) - As I've said, my skin isn't doing so great this week, so due to that, I haven't used this sample yet. I might keep it for a while and use it to pamper myself as I doubt I'll buy this unless it's the most amazing thing ever.

A lot of products this month were skin related, actually all but one were, so it was sort of bad timing with my skin playing up and what not. But I'm quite happy with what I got, because as usual I get to try products I would never ever consider buying such as the primer and the Indio Moisturiser. For only $15 I received some pretty awesome products worth well over the price of the box. I always feel a little bit spoiled when my bellabox arrives! Don't forget to sign up for the July edition here if you'd love to get some new products!

OPI Water Marble Nails

Hello! Today I have another water marble design for you. I recently got some new OPI polishes so once again I had to do a water marble while they were still so new and fresh. I only used two out of the three polishes I had gotten though as two of the colours turned out pretty similar when watered down so it would have looked a bit funny. 

The two colours I used were Did It On 'Em and Thanks A Windmillion. 

Two weeks ago when I did an Essie water marble design I said it was the best I've ever done, but now I think these are the best I've ever done. They're both pretty much the same, in the way I did the pattern and how I dipped my nail in, but I think I love this colour combo more than the navy and purple one. I want to do water marbling forever! 

I'm just very happy with this one and I love doing these designs. I know everyone has a love/hate relationship with watermarbling but mine is a love only one and I've never had any real difficulties with it except some colours not working together so I guess I'm quite lucky.

That's all for today, so I hope you enjoyed this post! Have a lovely weekend everybody!

Inspired By... #8

Hello everyone! It's been a while since I did an 'Inspired By...' post but I'm back today with one! This week's post has been inspired by one of my own manis; the leopard print and glitter one I did back in January. Back then I did it with purple and this time round I've used green. I loved the original mani and it's my top five all time favourite designs I've done. So I felt the need to recreate it with a completely different colour.

The green is Mojito Madness - Essie which isn't as lime green as the photos show, but it was hard to capture the true colour; a more deeper green.

I'm super happy with how these turned out, but I do love the original more.

Blue Essie Dots

Hello! Today's post is very simple as it's nothing too special or fancy. I see these dotted gradient mani's everywhere and I thought I would them a try as they're super easy, but definitely eye-catching. Blue is my favourite colour, so naturally I had to use blue polishes for this. I originally wasn't planning on using all Essie polishes, but it just so happened that the only blue Essie's I had, made for a perfect gradient mani.

The colours I used from bottom to top are:
After School Boy Blazer
Butler Please
Avenue Maintain
Bikini So Teeny

It's pretty ironic that I love doing dotticures because I'm not a huge fan of dotted designs on anything else. But I really love these nails, they're so fun and really stand out. Maybe I'll do more of these in the future, using one brand for all the polishes like I did with these.

That's it for today, hope you enjoyed this post!

Galaxy Nails

Hello lovelies! Today I have a very quick post on some galaxy nails I did. I'm not too happy with them, but I enjoy them just the same as galaxy nails are always fun to do. I think my problem this time might have been that I accidentally put too much glitter on, I should have only put it in sections as it was a very packed glitter polish. But anyway, here they are!

I used a variety of polishes for this, but some barely show up so I won't bother listing them all. But the general colours are dark blue, dark green, dark purple and white with a black base.

These look very similar to a previous galaxy nails I did, but I think my older ones are much better, you can check them out here. I guess not every mani I do is going to turn out how I want it to, but it's good to post them and share my thoughts on them. Doing nail art is one big learning curve I've discovered. Let me know what you think!

Navy and Purple Watermarble

Hello lovelies! Apologies for my slight absence once again. I had a much busier working week than normal and instead of my usual one or two days, I worked four days. So I was very tired and exhausted which left me with no energy to even paint my nails, let alone do some nail art. But today I woke up refreshed and happy and decided to do some watermarbling.

If you follow me on Instagram (or if you see the feed in my sidebar) you'll have noticed that I finally got some new Essie nail polish. I ordered them through OzSale and pretty much everything you get from that site takes weeks and weeks to arrive. So I was very happy when they finally did come just at the end of May. The two colours in this mani are my favourites from the five that I got. I love a good navy and dark purple polish. They may even have made it into my top 10 polishes (is that be a post that anyone would like to see? Because I'm considering it).

This is by far the best watermarble I have ever done (next to a red and white one I did for Christmas day to make candy cane designs, but never got around to taking photos of, such a wasted opportunity...). I am so freakin' proud of this! Usually I only watermarble the two middle fingers and then do dots or gradients on the other three but I only ever do a full hand when I looooove how it's turned out.

Despite some bubble marks and a few little flaws I really am truly proud of it. It's designs like this that turn out sooo well that make me remember why I love doing what I do and I can't stop staring at them! I'm very, very pleased.

The colours are: After School Boy Blazer and Bahama Mama.

And some good news is that I think I've figured out how to use my new light box properly! It takes a bit of fiddling around with the background colours and lighting set up but it turned out great and I couldn't be more pleased about it.

That's for today, hopefully I'll be back in the next few days! Have a good long weekend (if you're in Australia except Western Australia) and stay safe!

May Favourites

Hello there! Does anybody else think that May went by very quickly? Because it definitely feels that way to me. Today I've got a few new favourite things, but not a whole lot! Let's get to it.

Nails:

I didn't do a whole lot of nail art this month because I was sick for the first half, but these three were my faves anyway!

Beauty:I tried out a few new products this month and thanks to Chemist Warehouse's annual half price cosmetics sale, I got a bunch of them quite cheap! (I'll do my best to link where I bought them from).

• Rimmel Wake Me Up Concealer: I got this in the shade ivory, which is the lightest one, and of course being so pale, it's still a little too dark for me. But when teamed with the right foundation shade and a good under eye setting powder (see next item) it does a good job of concealing my dark circles and brightening my eyes. I do use this to also cover up pimples but I don't use a lot.
• E.L.F High Definition Undereye Setting Powder: I purchased this a few months ago from Kmart when they redid their make up section and I didn't love it at first because it's got small glitter specks in it and I didn't see a need for them. But then I got used to it and I thought 'who cares, glitter is amazing' and fell in love. It sets my concealer really nicely and sort of blurs out the lines and prevents creasing. If you're worried about the glitter, don't be. I always fear that someone will ask why I've got glitter under my eyes but so far no one has so I keep on wearing it, plus who cares haha.
• Rimmel Match Perfection Loose Powder: I picked this up because I hadn't had a loose powder for a while and now I don't know why I ever went so long without one. I love loose powders! The one I got is in the shade 001 Transparent so it doesn't add any extra colour and sets dewy foundation really nicely. It's not cakey at all like I find some pressed powders to be so I'm very happy with this product!
• Maybelline Fit Me Foundation Stick: I needed a new foundation for going out/matching fake tan and I was going to repurchase the liquid form of this but it really doesn't go well with oily skin, so instead I picked up the stick in 120 - Classic Ivory. It's so damn easy to apply, which I love and it's very buildable without looking like too much because it leaves you with thin layers each time. It claims to be shine free, but anyone with seriously oily skin knows that's impossible for them. But I'm very pleased I picked the stick up and I'm considering getting the lightest shade for everyday use.
• Anastasia Clear Brow Gel: I've already mentioned my love for this product in my bellabox review here so I won't go on about this. But it is definitely an amazing product and I hope that it never, ever runs out (even though I know it will).

Other:

• My new phone! I recently updated from a slow iPhone 4 to an iPhone 5C and I love it. I chose the 5C because I like the design so much more, I hate the metallic sorta look that the 5S has going on. I never thought I'd be confessing my love for an iPhone considering I was an Android person for several years.

I think that is pretty much it for my May favourites! Not much else has wriggled it's way into my fave things and I've been sticking to my usual things more than trying a lot of new stuff. Hope you enjoyed this post!