Powder Perfect Storm Rainbow

Happy New Year! I'm seeing the new year in with Power Perfect's Storm Rainbow. Gorgeous grey micro holo glitter bomb. Two easy coats and top coat. No need for more words.

Look see photos now! :) 

An Indie Extravaganza 2 from Powder Perfect swatches - part 1

Today I've got swatches of Secrets of Her Majesty and Flying Trapeze from An Indie Extravaganza II, by Pretty Pots Polish and Peita's Polish respectively.

This was the first time I've tried either of the brands and I was very impressed with the quality. The jelly Flying Trapeze was one of the best I have used, I didn't have my usual thick, lumpy problems and the small glitters came out readily.

Very excitingly, Jacinta from Powder Perfect has regrammed both my collection and the Flying Trapeze swatch pics on Instagram! It's a nice feeling when the pros thinks my nail photos are good! Let's have a look.

First up is Secrets of Her Majesty by Pretty Pots. I had issues adjusting the photos, so decided to leave it as is - a little dark, but most natural looking. Two coats.

This is a purple holo, which truth be told, I am building a rather big collection of. This reminds me of Birth of a Star by Celestial Cosmetics, but I will have to put them on side-by-side to properly compare. The formula was great though!

The second one I have here is Flying Trapeze by Peita's Polish. A beautiful fuchsia jelly formula, one of those fruity shades that I am rather obsessed with lately. The glitters are aqua, blue, purple, pink, with some smaller possibly orange and gold and some shimmer. The glitters are reminiscence of the glitters in OPI's polka.com. This was about 3 coats, no undies and smoothed out with 2 layers of top coat — Essence gel look top coat and then HK girl on top of that.

These are limited edition, so if you're interested, better get on it at the Powder Perfect store!

Cute Snowy Christmas nails

I only managed one other Christmas mani, this cute snowy manicure. I used Celestial Cosmetics Sapphires of Tarth, from the Game of Thrones collection as base. Then used Illamasqua Blizzard for the falling snow effect and Formula X White Matter for the fallen snow. The silver glitter is also Celestial, the LE December 2014. Decal from Born Pretty store that I got last year (if you have a photographic memory you'll have recognised that I used the same decal last Christmas). Topped with Essence gel look top coat. 

I think the mix of finishes made it very effective. My nail art has been more miss than hit lately, so it was nice to get one to turn out nice and cute. Although I am not sure what caused the bubbles on the index finger. Anyway... it wasn't obvious and I just drew your attention to it for no real reason!

The nailguytv said these were "very cool". That made me very proud! Lol. He was on Nail'd It! I want to watch that so badly. 

Phillip Island Wildlife Park Outing

My cousin and his wife are visiting and we did a day trip to Phillip Island yesterday. With five people in a little Yaris we set off, along with apparently thousands of others.... we were at an actual standstill on the freeway for a significant amount of time. 

I forgot to pack my SLR, so I had to make do with my phone, but it does mean I can upload my shots in a timely fashion.

We unfortunately didn't pre-purchase tickets to the penguin parade and it sold out. We ended driving back to Melbourne and going to St Kilda Pier where we saw little fairy penguins up close. It was super crowded, so I will have to go back another time when I can just sit back and relax while watching them come ashore.

However, we did get to go to the Phillip Island Wildlife Park and had ball. The weather was perfect, not warm but not so hot to be unbearable.

I was also too lazy to process or watermark, so sorry for some of the framing and colour and please don't steal or repost without crediting me.  :(

BABY! I mean, JOEY!

To make life a bit easier and to not make this post impossibly long on the homepage, I have added a jump with more photos after. There are many cute wallabies/roos pics (I can't tell the difference, I know, failed Aussie right there).

Celestial Cosmetics Deck the Halls

This is Deck the Halls with some glitter placement for a little holographic tree. I fished the glitter out of Kester Black Nebula. The tree is wonky, I clearly need more practice lining things up on my nails! It's tricky, especially since I am working on it upside down! It's my first Christmas mani this year, I might be inspired again, but hard to say at this stage. I have so many pretties that are so sparkly and complex, I don't feel the need to add more.

In sunlight

From this year's Christmas collection, Deck the Halls is a mulberry-ish purple with fine glitter dust, microdots and small aqua blue and purple dots and some holo circles and some pink diamond-shaped glitters. The jelly formula was relatively easy to work with and I only needed two coats for the coverage you see here. It's top coat hungry though, two coats of hk girl top coat wasn't enough to smooth it out. Should have used my Essence gel look top coat to feed it first!

The Kester Black Nebula appears to have good glitter payload. I got more than enough glitter for the tree with one dip. Also, I've been using a clear, soak off gel manicure as base to try protect my corners. It's going ok so far. Hopefully I don't add any more cracks to the tips.

In shade

Lucy Liu Melbourne for my birthday dinner

I just wanted to share some snaps from my nice birthday dinner and my fun houndstooth nails using the Sally Hansen nail stripes. I picked them up for $5 at a sale a while back. I'm not well practiced,  so it's not the best application, but still really enjoy looking at them! I love houndstooth, but since I can't draw that finely and my stamping skills are non-existent, this is the only way to do it. I'd have picked up more boxes if there was more than one still in the bin!

Mmm... food

The food is, clockwise from top, a schezwan duck, lamb shoulder, ginger creme brulee, soft shell crab pancakes, Collin San (a ginger and lime based cocktail) and eggplant and pork tempura. Not pictured were the duck dumplings... totally forgot to snap that photo! Haha. Failed asian. 

I look rather well and happy there. Doesn't look like I am sick at all. But in actual fact, I became horrendously sick on Friday and instead of going out for my drinks, I had to cancel that at the last minute and laid curled up in bed all day, with rather frequent dashes to the bathroom. That drink is the one and only drink I managed for my birthday, and I was soon tucked back up in bed.

And a proper swatch photo of the nails

Glam Polish Euphoria

Short post, not much to say. I also ate too much of those Korean sweet potato noodles and now I am feeling very uncomfortable. Anyhoo. 

I have here one very pretty glam polish, like all glams are. It even has some white gold flakes. Talk about lux! I just love blue nail polish and my collection of blues is getting ridiculous.

Dance Legend Wazowski

I now understand the hype about the Dance Legend nail polishes and it's ALL TRUE. This is truly beautiful. I wish I was able to buy more, but this was the only one left in the sonailicious boutique.

The polish is green based and shifts from aqua blue, bright green to a golden olive and I just can't stop staring at my nails. Loved it so much, I wore it for almost a week!

Natural light 

This is just two coats which dried quickly. I wanted this to last, so I topped it with Celestial Cosmetics Solar Ray quick dry top coat. Did not affect the colour at all.

Indoor artificial light

Look at that colour shift!

Pre-stereo caffeine and carb fuelling

Gratuitous food photo

Picture Polish Fool's Gold by the Nailasaurus

I have been coveting this one for months, ever since it first came out. When my sister rang while I was half asleep saying she was putting a Picture Polish order in, this was the only polish name that came to me.

Create with the Nailasaurus, this is one sexy shade of blue with hints of gold. That is courtesy to the micro gold glitters and gold shimmer. So elegant, so eye catching. 

This here is three thin coats topped with my old favourite, hk girl top coat.

And Omg, omg! I tagged the Nailasaurus and she liked my photo on Instagram! Lol, fangirl moment!