Bra Water Decals - Born Pretty Store Review

*This product was sent to me for review, all opinions are my own

Recently, Born Pretty Store sent me a few items to review for them. This is the first of four reviews coming up in the next week or two, so keep an eye out!

These bra water decals are really cute and quite quirky actually! I haven't come across any nail art products like these ones before so I thought they would be fun to try out. Water decals may seem daunting to apply, but it's pretty simple as long as you're careful and don't rush the applying process, plus there's instructions on the back that are so easy to follow you can't really go wrong.

As you can see in the above pictures the process is simple, you choose which decal you want, cut it out, peel off the front plastic protector, dip the the decal in water for 10-15 seconds and gently lift the decal off the backing. I like to lift the decal with my nail (as the picture shows), then grab it with some tweezers and apply it where you want it on the nail. Make sure to dab the nail and decal with some tissue or paper towel to dry off the excess water and to make sure the decal doesn't slip around. Then it's just a coat of your fave top coat and you're done! You've got some cute nail art and it didn't require too much effort.

Seriously, how cute are all the little designs! Especially the thumb one, which I love because it's a lingerie set. There's so many to choose from and to mix and match with that whatever decals you choose from this set, your nails will be adorable and a lot of fun.

The base is Ulta3's Sour Grapes which is quickly becoming my favourite purple.

Don't forget to check out all of Born Pretty Store's nail art products and use the code below if you want to purchase anything. They also offer free shipping which is always a good thing! Shipping usually takes a few weeks to Australia, I believe my products arrived in about three weeks, which is really quite good because I've found with some eBay sellers products take at least five weeks to arrive. So all in all, I really do love this website and their products, I've ordered from them a few times in the past and have never had a problem with them, so I definitely recommend them and encourage you all to check them out!

- Melissa.

February Round Up

I have another round up post! I didn't post any nail art this past month but I was definitely posting on my Instagram. I'll definitely try to post more in March and I think I said that last round up post but February has just gotten away from me and a lot has been going on. So let's try for next month!

I did quite a few designs in the first two weeks of February but not as much in the last two, but still there's a good range of designs! I'm really happy with all my nail art from the past month, let's hope I can do even more in March!

-Melissa.

February BellaBox Review

Today I have my first bellabox review of this year. I did receive the January box but wasn't in much of a blogging mood and didn't find the box very 'review worthy' so I didn't bother posting about it. But I'm trying to get back into the swing of blogging and I'm starting with this review!

This month bellabox teamed up with three Australian magazines, Elle, Harper's Bazaar, and Cosmopolitan. I was lucky enough to get to choose which magazine I wanted and I picked Elle, because it's a magazine I've never read before and thought there might be some good items in the box!

I felt a little indifferent towards the products though. I received some products I've gotten in the past and also products that I shouldn't be receiving at all according to what I put in my beauty profile on my account.

Let's get into the product reviews!

1. Essie Nail Colour in Truth or Flare (RRP $16.95) - As a nail blogger it's a no brainer that I'll love this product and any nail polish or nail art item that comes in my bellabox. Every member got an Essie polish and there was a range of colours sent out. The polish I got looks significantly different to what the colour on the official Essie website does so I'm wondering whether they changed or renamed the polish. But either way I love this colour. It's kind of a slate colour with strong blue undertones. It's so nice on my nails! See below of swatch pictures.
2. Indio Multi V-Serum (RRP $139.00) - I don't mind the brand Indio, I've gotten their samples before and even purchased their products but as I've probably mentioned before I had an allergic reaction to the salicylic acid in one of their cleansers so I just sent all the products back as it was easiest to just start over with a different brand. This smell of this serum reminds me of beer or some type of alcohol and I don't enjoy it. I only used it once so I can't vouch for it's effectiveness. It does mention that it's a hydrating serum though which isn't something I need so I won't be using this or buying it myself.
3. Burt's Bees Mini Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream (RRP $14.99) - Another product I can't help but love... except for the fact that I already received a sample of this back in August. I'm happy I have another sample which now brings my total tins of cuticle cream up to five (six if you count the sample of this my mum got in hers this month which of course she'll give to me), but I am annoyed I received something I had already gotten in a past box. So I definitely have enough cuticle cream to last me at least a year, probably two actually.
4. Neutrogena Hydro Boost Water Gel ($24.99) - This is the product I'm most annoyed about this month. This is the opposite of what I need. My skin does not need hydrating, it needs moisture sucked out of it really. I did try it though because in the end it was free and it's a sample but within half an hour my skin was a shiny mess so it's definitely a no go. I'm pretty mad about receiving it though because my beauty profile clearly skin my skin is oily and NOT dry. They obviously don't take note of that.
5. Aveeno Daily Moisturising Lotion (RRP $14.99) - I definitely got my fair share of moisturisers in this box. This one I can use though because it's mostly for the body and I tend to get dry legs a fair bit so I'm happy with this one.
6. Kerastase Paris Nutritive Nectar Thermique (RRP $48.00) - I received this product back in December so that's another product I've already received but I really did love this one so I guess it's okay that I got it again.

 (Essie - Truth or Flare)

Overall I wasn't too happy with this box. I shouldn't be receiving one two products that I've already received before, it just seems like a waste. And I definitely shouldn't be getting hydrating moisturisers according to my beauty profile.

I am considering cancelling my subscription but I'll give it another month because I really do enjoy getting a box of goodies at my doorstep each month and for only 15 dollars it's not at all expensive. Here's hoping next month is better!

- Melissa.

January Round Up

So, long time no posting! But I did warn that it would happen so there's no surprises there! But I thought I would do a round up post for the times I don't post much and round up what I've been doing recently. I've actually found that I get a lot more nail art done when I'm not worrying about writing the blog post to go with the pictures so if you follow me on Instagram you'll have seen that I was posting a lot recently.

Let's look at some nail art!

I absolutely love this colour combination for the leopard print below. The silver and coral polishes go really well together and I'm glad it turned out as good as it looked in my head.

I filmed a tutorial for this design below (see end of post for video). I love the colours and this design is definitely in my top ten favourite things to do.

This post and the one above were posted on my instagram while I was away in Queensland for a few days. It's a sort of plaid like design that is super easy to do.

After my little holiday I took a mini break from nail art just because my nails were in bad shape from being in the pool a lot, but I came back with this awesome splatter nail art. It's one of my favourites that I've ever done, the colours just go well together and the splatters are perfect sizes!

This ended up being the base of some nail art that is under this post but I thought I'd chuck it in here seeing as I did post it on my instagram.

Painting the black sections over this gradient just bought it all together for me and made the gradient look smoother and neater. I used to tape to get clean, straight lines.

I've only done this design once before in a mix n match mani but I thought I'd incorporate a few colours and see how the pattern turned out and I love how it ended up. I did this in about ten mins (minus the white polish drying time) so I think this will be my go to mani when I'm short on time or lacking inspiration.

And here's the video for the striped nail art.


That's all for this round up post! I actually have a few exciting posts coming up, but I'm not exactly sure when they'll be so keep an eye out for any posts over the next month or so! I'll try to make posts for at least one mani every few weeks, but I enjoy doing these round up posts till I get back into the flow of blogging.

Thanks for reading!

- Melissa.

Colourful Geometric Nail Art

Hi everyone! It's been a week since I last blogged but I've still been posting on instagram. I'm considering taking a break from writing blog posts and focusing on my instagram instead. I just don't think enough people are reading it and to me it seems a bit wasteful to spend my time and energy writing up posts. I'm also not happy with the appearance of my blog so maybe if I spend some time revamping and refreshing it I'll be fully into blogging again. But for now, I think I might just write the occasional post on new nail art designs I do (like this one) and still continue my bellabox reviews (maybe, I'm still unsure about those posts). Let me know what you think and what you'd like to see!

Onto the post today, for this one I used all Ulta3 nail polishes: Lily White, Black Satin, Strawberry Sundae, Block It Out, Palette Play, and Frog Prince.

I am beyond happy with how these turned out! I looove them. They took quite a while to fill in the spaces and do two coats of them and then clean up the white areas and neaten up the black stripes etc etc. But it was definitely worth it because I love them.

Thanks for reading! And hopefully I'll be posting soon, but make sure to follow my instagram for extra nail art that I won't be blogging about!

- Melissa.

Australis Milky Way / Colourful Stripes

Today I have my first nail art of 2015. It's been extremely hot in Melbourne these past two days so yesterday after work I quickly smashed out this mani before my room became too hot to work in as I wanted to get a new post up this weekend.

It's a very simple mani using an Australis polish called Milky Way as inspiration for the stripes. I've wanted to use this glitter for a while now but every time I tried to I just couldn't think of a design that would go with it; I also had a bit of trouble applying it perfectly but this time round I started with a white base, applied one thick-ish coat of the glitter and then once dry, dabbed some polish onto a piece of paper and picked up and placed single bits of the glitter onto my nails to make it look packed on. I love how it turned out, it's such a nice glitter polish with the white base colour and a lot of colourful and different sized glitters.

I matched the stripes to four of the colours in the glitter using the following polishes:
Frog Prince - Ulta3
Manic Panic - Australis
Lacy Daisy - Ulta3
Block It Out - Ulta3

As you can see I applied a matte top coat which makes me love this mani even more! The matte glitter actually reminds me of jawbreakers when I think about it; that chalky sort of effect.

Thanks for reading!

- Melissa.

Favourite Nail Art of 2014

Hello lovelies, and Happy New Year! For my first post of 2015 I'm going to share my favourite nail art of 2014 with you all. I was going to do a big favourites post on everything, but just never got around to writing it all out properly so instead I'm just going to share ten or so of my favourite manis.








So there are my favourite designs of 2014. I really branched out of my comfort zone with nail art this past year and I'm so happy with all I've learnt and discovered and conquered and produced for this blog. Here's to another year full of nail art!

Thank you for reading my blog!

- Melissa.

p.s I'll link these photos to their original posts very shortly.