ILNP Metropolis on Barry M Blood Orange

I signed up to Snupps to keep track of my collection. It is much more portable than swatch sticks and I can look up in store. Although my not perfectly colour balanced and what with screen settings and lighting differences, they colours are not 100%, it reminds me of what I have it keeps my impulse buys under control. :)

I'm on Snupps as "wug". This is the nail polish I added to my shelves that saw my follower numbers explode.

It does look pretty impressive, doesn't?  Check out my Snupps account to see the collection of polish I'm growing (responsibly) in London!

Powder Perfect Maneater Swatched

*I found this in my drafts folder from May...? Oops. It's a great polish even if my little life update is a little out of date. Well, it's mostly still current, except I am no longer sick!*

I got Maneater from The Lady is a Vamp collection with an order and it was the perfect travel sized bottle to pack.

I finally put it on the other day and I have totally fallen in love.

I was looking for something green to do for Lyme disease awareness month. I didn't really pack a bright green or a lime colour, but I did have this gorgeous green leaning teal.

Incidentally, it must seem like I paint my nails everyday to my flatmates, because everytime I paint my nails, they see me doing them in front of the TV!

I'm home most evenings, so it gives me something to do after dinner. I haven't found a gym here yet, so I have a bit of time. My post viral cough makes the idea not very appealing and my visits to Fitness First was just an aggravating experience due to the crowds. I hate jogging, and that's probably not good until the cough subsides, but I think I need to get into the idea. Not exactly flushed with heaps of discretionary spending money anyway.

Sadly it is no longer available in the Powder Perfect store, but I did find some available through her stockists.

MILV Water decals looks

I've been quiet here, so now I have quite the backlog of nail photos to share! Today I'm here about the MILV decals that Powder Perfect had recently started stocking. They make it super easy for me to be creative and impress people at work and because it's not a "dangerous goods" I can have it posted without fear to me here!

MILV S177 - card suit patterns

Picked these due to my newfound obsession with poker... it's a long story. I'll just say I found it a fascinating mind game to watch.

 

I actually love how the skittle card suits turned out even though my original idea totally failed to translate.

MILV N204 - Floral print

Florals are a little unusual for me, I don't usually got for such looks... but they aren't really in wishy washy colours, but is rather retro looking. 

I did them as double accents and tried my three new The Body Shop nail polishes on the other nails... I may have picked this packet of decals to try next just to try the new polishes out (hey, they were 3 for 2!) They're great polishes, I tried to do a quick swatch of them the other night, but it was too dark to take good photos. I might swatch them again and share.

Sadly, I had some shrinkage, I think it was a combo of the top coat plus not stretching the decal a little bit as I laid it down...

I'm trying to stick to a no buy as I want to move in the near future (my landlady seems to think she's my mother). The only exception has been the two polishes below for a quid each and the full set of Celestial Cosmetics' for the Hella Holo customs group. Cannot wait for them to arrive (via the UK group buy)!

Kester Black Dragonfruit and Nebula double header

I found this sitting in my drafts folder. It's belated, but enjoy!

This is my precious Kester Black Dragonfruit and I used Nebula for some simple details. It never works as a paint on glitter, but I love fishing out the large holo dots for placement nail art.

I remember wearing this mani in the first week at my temp reception job. There were a couple of departures in that first week, so I got to partake in some gorgeous and delicious goodies.

Cupcake is from a place called Lola. It doesn't quite beat my first love, Cupcake Central, but it was more than adequate as a replacement in London.

I love this pink and it's perfect for the lovely Spring (and now Summer) weather I have been fortunate enough to enjoy.

Celestial Cosmetics Men of Mayhem swatches

I started a temp room reception job. While everyone is really nice and the job is not st all demanding, I am keen to move onto a more intellectually engaging job. 

But for now, I'll use the ample spare time I have at work to quickly share some more nails I've done since moving here and a couple of snaps from my daily life.

Love this polish. Great formula and colour. I just think it's so sexy. Edgy and fun at the same time. I think it's been discontinued, but only recently, so some may be floating around in stockists.

Here we have my fluffy flatmate, Bicardi and the view behind my desk. It overlooks Hyde Park and everyone who visits, including me on  my first visit, says "wow". There are not many views like this in London, so I'm quite lucky. 

Polish Me Silly - Envy swatch

I took a selection of my favourite polishes to London with me. And a few basic ones for work, just in case it is necessary.

The first mani  I did in London was  Polish Me Silly Envy. It's an amazing multi-chrome polish! Look at it go in the two slightly different angles! The bank employee, male, even commented on the colour shift when I was opening my account. Lol. Gosh opening a bank account is painful here. I still haven't gotten all the numbers and whatnot I need to access it properly. :-(

Emily de Molly Insipid on Butter London The Full Monty

Easter long weekend! Moving to London on Thursday! It's all happening now. I had my last day of work yesterday, then went to a screening of The Heckler at the ACMI and afterwards meet up with an old friend for a drink. Next thing I knew, I was stumbling out of a gay bar at 4am. Nursing a very big hangover today.

Anyhow, my nails! I am quite pleased with this layering combo. I don't think it is very common - mostly I see these flakies sponged on for an opaque look or layered over a dark base.

I think the gold of The Full Monty looks much more interesting with a coat or two of Emily de Molly Insipid. I used Celestial Cosmetics Solar Ray QD top coat. I must admit I don't know how it's a quick dry - I only use it when I have plenty of time to sit and let it dry (like today, thanks to the aforementioned hangover).

Dance Legend Pulsar

Love Dance Legend's chromes, but they are so hard to find here in Australia. So when I see them available I go into *must buy all the dance legends* mode.

This was from a destash sale I found advertised on an aussie nail polish buy/swap/sell group. I am trying to not buy too many polished right now because of my upcoming move to London, but sometimes I just can't help myself! 

Zoya Roxy Swatches

My first Zoya ever is this gorgeous red-purple jelly glitter called Roxy. I wore it on Sunday to my friend's girl's birthday party. Her name is Roxie and right now purple is her favourite colour, so it was perfect! It went on like a dream and the patchiness on the ring finger was not visible IRL.

I caught this in a destash sale, along with a gorgeous Dance Legend multichrome. I am on a mission to buy all the Dance Legend chromes!

I did two coats and originally topped with Seche Vite. However, the next day, I decided to see how it would look matted. I used my trusty Revlon matte top coat. 

Emily de Molly Chrome Flakies Nail Art

I thought the new Emily de Molly Ariel's Realm and Insipid were the perfect polishes for some more nail art. I've been a little slack with that and lately I am trying to up my game. They lend themselves quite well to scaled gradients.  

I used Emily de Molly's Clean Up Crew around my cuticles to aid clean up. Once I got pass the unexpected whiff, it was great!

Ulta3 watermarble nails

I used Blue Marlin and Strawberry Sundae in this watermarble mani. As you can see, I need heaps more practice. But luckily I won a set of the top 15 bestseller bottles of ulta3 polish to play with from Sonailicious and have plenty of good quality cremes to play with.

My patterns are a bit off. Other people loved it, but I always end up feeling a bit ambivilent about watermarbles. I think it's because it's a bit psycheldelic and I'm just not into the 60s hippy look.

After a couple of days I added the Glisten and Glow holo top coat. Unfortunately it dulled the colour a bit, so I'm not sure if I should have done that. 

L'Oréal Collection Exclusive - Julianne's Nude Polish + Simple Nail Art

I used Priceline's buy one get one free offer on the L'Oréal Color Riche range with my small loyalty voucher to pick up a couple of neutral nail colours. These are my first L'Oréal polishes, I think. The bottles are a tiny 5ml, but with the size of my collection, I prefer to play with smaller bottles.

This is a swatch of Julianne's Nude. Now Julianne Moore most definitely doesn't have a similar complexion to me, but nonetheless, I love this colour on me!

I then did a simple accent nail by sponging on Freida's Nude. I used Loki's Nail Vinyls for the champagne glasses and a set of the aprons to protect the edges. I sponged so that there would be less polish on the nail and hopefully easier to peel off. I think it worked?

Anyway, that's my Valentine's day nails. It's about as sweet as I can bring myself to be. BUT WHAT'S NEVER TOO SWEET IS CUPCAKES. This is how the ladies in the office celebrated! Love Cupcake Central!

Glam Polish Bewitched with OPI Sheer Tints

I came across a couple glittery nails topped with some sheer tints, but I can't for the life of me remember who did those. Sorry. If I remember or if someone tells me who they are, I'd love to credit them. 

But anyway, it was an easy to achieve look, since I have the full set of the OPI Sheer Tints. I was so excited about those when I first saw them, but then they turned out to be thick and hard to use and sat mostly unloved in my USA haul pile. The base was Glam Polish Bewitched.

John Paul Gaultier @ the NGV

On Saturday, I went with my sister and her friend to see the John Paul Gaultier exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. We saw some beautiful creations, some truly bizarre fashion and a few ideas that I can totally translate myself and on a budget. 

Despite not planning to take photos, I couldn't help myself, and ended up taking heaps with my phone and nearly completely draining my phone's battery in the process. 

Heaps of photo, some below and more after the jump!

One of my favourite dresses

Worn by Princess Caroline

The near dress was worn by Kylie Minogue

Does it feel familiar? Beyonce worn this!

Make up inspiration