Ice Cream Sprinkles

 ***Remember to subscribe! I'll be holding my first giveaway at 50!***

Today I have something a little different to show you, and no doubt most of you have heard of these. They're Nail Rock nail wraps. I bought these from the ASOS website a few months ago when they were on sale (I think this particular design might be sold out now though, sorry!). They normally retail for around AU$11 - $14 depending on the design, but ASOS tend to have some on sale for around $5 if you want to try them before forking out that sort of money for the fancier designs. The ones I bought are part of the 'toontown' collection exclusive to ASOS.

I thought I'd test these out on one nail to begin with before doing a whole manicure, so I chose the pink/purple toned sprinkle design to put on my ring fingers and used Revlon's 'Flirt' on my other nails. It's a pretty good colour match, the Nail Rock is just slightly lighter. The nail wraps appear a bit 'spotty' in my photos below, I think this is just how my camera picked up the print because the colour is much more blended in real life.

Full sunlight

Shade

Partial sunlight

These were super easy to put on, you just buff your nail first to remove any shine, peel the sticker off the sheet and place it on your nail starting at the base. Then you simply file off the excess length at the top with the nail file included in the kit.  The kit includes 16 stickers of different shapes and sizes, a small nail file and wooden cuticle stick, and a 'nail preparation wipe' (which is just acetone) to use before placing the sticker on.

To be honest I'm a bit sceptical about the longevity of these since they apparently don't require a base coat or top coat, but I'll update this post once I've removed them to let you know how long they lasted. I must warn you though, I had a few issues with my nail polish application this time so you'll have to excuse me if I remove them before they actually start to come off as I'm not confident that my polish won't chip after a couple of days!  

UPDATE: These really stickers surprised me! I had them on for 4 full days and they didn't start to peel or fade at all, they just had minor tip wear like you'd get with any nail polish. In fact, I only took them off because my nail polish was chipped beyond what I can tolerate. Be careful removing them though, there's no instructions for getting them off but I suggest soaking them in nail polish remover. Even then they damaged my nails a little when peeling them off so have your buffer at the ready!

Finally, I just want to alert you guys to a few sales going on at the moment:  
1. For the Australians, all Gloss 'n Sparkle polishes are currently on sale in order to clear their current stock to make way for a new shaped bottle. Stocks are limited to what's currently in store and no more polishes will be added until the middle of October when the new bottle shape is launched. Better get in quick as colours are selling out fast! (Sorry international ladies, Angela from Gloss 'n Sparkle is still working on shipping for you. If you want to stay up to date join the facebook page).

2. Born Pretty Store currently have 20% off most of their studs. I personally love these studs, they really stay put once you apply a top coat and they're super light and don't snag on anything. If you've ever thought about using studs in your nail art now is the time to buy. Unfortunately you can't use my discount code with these ones since they're on sale, but if you add anything else to your order be sure to use the code MLE10W21 for 10% off.

3. Pretty Serious have 50% off their 'Hello World' collection until this Sunday (September 30th).  That means nail polishes are just $4.95! Also in the collection are eyeshadows and lipglosses.

Glitter Bomb Explosion

 ***Remember to subscribe! I'll be holding my first giveaway at 50!***

Sorry for my posting absence guys, I've had a very hectic couple of weeks. I promised you a nail art post this time, so here you have it, requested by one of my subscribers: Glitter Bomb Explosion!

Full sunlight

Full sunlight

Shade

I've used OPI's 'Elephantastic Pink', 'Don't Pretzel My Buttons', and China Glaze's 'I'm Not Lion'. I had planned to take tutorial photos, but managed to get distracted and forgot halfway through, but I do have a picture of the most important step!

Step 1: To do this design you're going to be using the same masking technique that I used in my Judas design. Before you even touch your nail polish I suggest you pre-cut your tape strips. Just cut a square of tape and cut one edge into an uneven zigzag shape. I use painter's tape simply because I find it isn't quite as sticky as sticky tape and it doesn't rip up your nail polish or leave as much residue when you remove it from your nail, but if sticky tape works for you then go for it. I got my painters tape from my local hardware store, it's similar to masking tape so if you have some of that then you can give that a go instead.

Step 2: With the tedious tape-cutting process out of the way, you can apply your protective base coat and then paint your nails in the colour you want to show at your tips (in my case, OPI's 'Elephantastic Pink').

Step 3: Allow your nail polish to dry completely, then take your pre-cut tape pieces and press them onto your nails. I found using tweezers helped with placing them on where I wanted them. Make sure you press the tape down well, you don't want any polish leaking underneath.

Step 4: Take the colour you want on the base of your nails and do one or two coats. Remove the tape from your nail about 10 seconds after applying your final coat. With any luck you will have nice clean lines! In my case, I did one coat of OPI's 'Don't Pretzel My Buttons' followed by a coat of China Glaze's 'I'm Not Lion'.

Step 5: Apply your clear top coat. Complete!

I wanted to get in on the neon trend, and I'm pretty sure that 'Elephantastic Pink' is as neon as I'll be getting! I must admit that at first I was completely against neon, and while I won't be wearing a full neon outfit anytime soon I think that if you use it as a small accent in an outfit it can look really effective. And please, PLEASE don't mix neons with pastels, just because there are two trends happening at once it doesn't mean you're supposed to mix them!

What do you think of the neon trend? Is it something you're getting in to? Or does it bring back terrible 80's flashbacks?

Unicorn Droppings

First off, I just want to start by saying that I have a giveaway planned for the near future. Wooohooo!  I'm pretty excited about this giveaway, it's only small since it's my first one, but I promise that the prize is definitely worth having. The catch: this giveaway will be to celebrate 50 subscribers. If you're not already subscribed to my blog, you know what to do! (Hint: click that 'join' button just to the left there...)

So on to today's polish! For those of you who follow my blog for my nail art, I promise that the next post will be a nail art one, so please don't groan when you realise this is yet another indie polish review! This is another of my new Gloss 'n Sparkle polishes, aptly named 'Unicorn Droppings'.

Full sunlight

Full sunlight

Partial sunlight (you can just see a glimmer of those micro-sized shimmers).

Full sunlight

You can see why it's named 'Unicorn Droppings'! Judging by the number of blogs I've seen this polish featured on, I'm willing to bet that it's one of Gloss 'n Sparkle's best selling polishes (if not THE best seller). I think this polish can best be described as a milky white jelly base packed with vibrantly coloured rainbow matte glitters (in red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple). It also has a tonne of micro-sized rainbow shimmer in it, which was super hard to photograph on my nails, but you can see it in the bottle shots below. I promise you CAN see it on the nail, its not one of those sneaky polishes that look amazing in the bottle but dull on the nail.

It's a lovely fluid formula, but not so runny that it pools in your cuticles. I didn't really have any application issues, my only (tiny) gripe was that most of the glitter ends up at the nail tip so I did have to dab a few more pieces towards my nail base just to even out the distribution. I think this is a fairly common trait of any glitter polish though regardless of the base it's in. In the photos above I've layered 2 coats of 'Unicorn Droppings' over 2 coats of Essie's 'Blanc'. I believe this polish is probably opaque in 3 coats, but I prefer to do a base colour regardless because I can't stand VNL. I did play around a bit with layering this over a coloured base, but in the end the glitters really do stand out more on a white background. If anyone's interested in seeing this over a coloured base let me know and I'll take some photos of my swatches :)

Close up of the bottle. Lovely vibrant glitter!

Out of focus shot to show you that awesome micro shimmer.

Gloss 'n Sparkle polishes are available on Etsy here. I've also placed a link in my 'useful links' on the right hand side of my page so you guys have easy access in future. Polishes are $10AU for a 13ml bottle and they have some really unique shades available. Unfortunately due to legal reasons shipping is currently only available within Australia, but Angela from Gloss 'n Sparkle is working on a solution for those of you who live internationally. If you want to keep up to date with the international shipping situation I suggest you like the Gloss 'n Sparkle Facebook page for updates.

The Worst Possible Thing

I feel like I'm constantly apologising to you guys at the moment. Sorry for my delayed posts, sorry for my lack of nail art, sorry for my dodgy photos. Blah. I'M SORRY! University holidays start in a week, so bear with me until then and I promise everything will go back to normal.

Today my apology is for my dodgy photos. I started getting my boyfriend to take my photos because his camera is better than mine (and if he's super lucky he might even get a macro lens for Christmas - no promises if you're reading this though Michael!). Unfortunately due to uni we've both been really busy and have hardly seen each other, so I've had to take a lot of my own photos lately. I'm sure you guys can tell which posts have photos taken by me haha.

Anyway, on to today's polish - 'The Worst Possible Thing' by Rainbow Honey (sorry RH, I'm really not doing your polishes justice am I?). I suggest clicking on the photos to enlarge them to see the effect of this polish a little better.

Full sunlight

Full sunlight - notice the iridescence starting to show through

Full sunlight

Shade

Full sunlight

First off, I just have to say that this polish is definitely NOT 'The Worst Possible Thing'. It's BEAUTIFUL! It's from the 'Equestria' collection, which are all inspired by some of the My Little Pony ponies. 'The Worst Possible Thing' (which I will now shorten to TWPT) is inspired by Rarity.

Say hello to Rarity

Rainbow Honey describes this polish as "A sheer layering polish, jewel encrusted just as Rarity would endorse and shimmering with flakies in purple and blue and a multitude of holographic and iridescent glitters". I'M IN LOVE. In the above photos I've applied one coat of OPI's 'Do You Lilac It?', followed by a coat of OPI's 'Yokohama Twilight', and finally a coat of 'TWPT' (and of course my clear top coat). Yokohama Twilight was the perfect choice of base colour for 'TWPT', as it's iridescent qualities really brought out the best in 'TWPT'. 

This polish has easily weedled it's way into my top 10, it's absoultely stunning in person, I only wish my photos could do it justice! I didn't have any application problems (I really thought this one would be thick, I was proven wrong). I've yet to see this polish applied over a colour that it didn't work well with, and it looks amazing over black. Here's Rainbow Honey's swatches so that you get an idea:

Swatches from Rainbow Honey's blog.

And of course, I couldn't do this post without including some bottle shots:

Bottle close up. Just mesmerising...

Cute packaging as always.

One of the many things I love about Rainbow Honey is the packaging. I know some people just throw the box out, but I think it's a lovely touch and I'll be keeping my polishes in their boxes. What a waste to throw it out! From the silver printing, to the heart shaped cut out and swatch sticker on the top, it really shows professionalism, which I think some indie brands could learn from. Personally, I'm much more likely to buy from an indie seller if they put effort into their labelling. That might just be because I'm a bit OCD about the appearance of my polish rack though.

So there you have it, yet another beautiful indie polish. For those of you interested in buying some Rainbow Honey polishes, I suggest you wait until the 22nd when the Chrono Cross collection is re-released (you can check them out now on the facebook page). With their international shipping fee sitting at a flat rate of $16.95 you don't want to make an order and then realise you wanted one from the Chrono Cross collection too! (As for me, I've placed my pre-order and I'm eagerly waiting for 5 new polishes. SQUEEE!)

UPDATE: 
So that you can see how versatile this polish is, here it is layered over a few different colours:

Rainbow Honey's 'The Worst Possible Thing' layered over (L - R) OPI's 'Yokohama Twilight', China Glaze's 'Blue Island Iced Tea', OPI's 'Elephantastic Pink', and OPI's 'Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous'.

Dazzling Dusk

Hello! I have to apologise, I've had this post ready to go for a few days but hadn't had time to edit my photos.

Today I have one of my new Gloss 'n Sparkle polishes to show you, 'Dazzling Dusk'. Angela from Gloss 'n Sparkle describes it as 'a warm shimmery pink with orange, pink and red glitters'. Boy is it pretty! I would describe the pink as a dusty/musk pink, and the shimmer through it is just lovely. The glitters are really vibrant when they catch the light, it really does live up to its name!

Unfortunately, the day I took these photos it was rather overcast, so you'll have to use your imagination a bit with the glitter (but when are glitter polishes ever done justice by photos, really?)

I added the ruffian because I wanted to bring out the red glitters a bit more. I wish I'd tried a ruffian before cutting my nails down though, it definitely looks better on long nails! The red I used is OPI's 'Wocka Wocka!'.

The consistency of 'Dazzling Dusk' is lovely and smooth, I had no problems with application and there was no fishing for glitters. It isn't too thick like some glitter polishes tend to be either. In the above photos I've layered one coat of 'Dazzling Dusk' over 2 coats of OPI's 'Got A Date To-knight', so I can't comment on how many coats are required for opacity. 'Got A Date To-knight' provided the perfect base for 'Dazzling Dusk', it didn't alter DD's base colour at all which I appreciated. All Gloss 'n Sparkle polishes are big 3 free too. Woohoo!

Lovely shimmer and vibrant glitters.

Bottle shot! (My boyfriend is particularly proud of this one haha).

Gloss 'n Sparkle polishes are available on Etsy here. I've also placed a link in my 'useful links' on the right hand side of my page so you guys have easy access in future. Polishes are $10AU for a 13ml bottle and Angela has some really unique shades available. Unfortunately due to legal reasons she can currently only ship within Australia, but she's working on a solution for those of you who live internationally. If you want to keep up to date with the international shipping situation I suggest you like the Gloss 'n Sparkle Facebook page for updates.

So there you have it, another beautiful polish from an indie polish brand. I'm starting to see why this indie polish craze is catching on, they're just as good as the big name brands! What are some of your favourite indie polish brands?

P.S. Gloss 'n Sparkle have 20% off all polishes until midnight Thursday 13/09/12 AEST. Just enter the code 'THANKYOU' at checkout. Get on it!

Liebster Award Part 3

The other day I was nominated AGAIN for the Liebster Award, this time by Maisky. Thank you! (If you missed my first two nominations or want more info on the award you can see my posts here and here).

Once again, since I've already been through this process twice, I'm not going to nominate another 11 people or ask more questions or any of that other stuff in the award 'rules', I'll just be answering the 11 questions Maisky has left for me so that you guys might get to know me a little better :) Here goes!

1. What is your guilty TV pleasure?
I don't actually watch much TV. But in addition to Gossip Girl and other shows like that that girls my age are supposed to be watching I'm actually a bit of a Trekkie. In particular I like the Next Generation series.

2. What is your dream job?
If you had asked me this a year ago when I graduated from my fashion course I probably would have said that I wanted to have my own fashion label. Now? Well I'm not so sure, but I hope it will still involve fashion.

3. What was the first bottle of nail polish you ever bought?
OPI's 'Come To Poppy' from the Nice Stems collection. That was my first 'real' nail polish anyway, I'm sure I had a few cheapies as a kid.

4. Heels or flats?
I'd wear heels all the time if it was practical, I find that they make my outfits look far more fashionable.

5. Summer or Winter?
Summer (I think I answered this question in a previous Liebster post if you want to know why!)

6. What was the last movie you went to see?
To be honest, it's been so long since I went to the movies that I don't actually remember. I used to work at Video Ezy so I got into the habit of just watching the movies for free once they came out on DVD.

7. What was the hardest job interview question you were ever faced with and how did you overcome that?
That's a hard one! I'm really bad at remembering specific things people have said to me >.< But I always hate ones such as 'what is your weakness'...you know, the sort that you're supposed to be able to turn into a positive? Haha.

8. What is the most extreme sport you have ever participated in.
I'm going to be a loser and class ballet as an extreme sport. Ever tried pointe? IT HURTS.

9. If you were famous and had a reality TV show about your life, what would it be called?
Bed of Flowers. My name means 'flower' and I like to spend time in bed. Enough said.

10. What is a song that you absolutely have to dance to (sometimes no matter where you are) when you hear it?
Nutbush City Limits by Tina Turner. Loooove the Nutbush haha.

11. What do you think the next nail polish trend will be?
Hmmmm...I wonder if this velvet nail thing will take off? (You know, the fuzzy ones haha). I'm somewhat skeptical, but we'll see!

さくら祭り Sakura Matsuri

Spring has sprung here in Australia. About time! I'm over this cold weather and I can't wait to get back into my Summer clothes!  As I mentioned in my last post, I'm weighed down with assignments and exams at the moment, but I've just received nail mail from two indie polish sellers, Gloss 'n Sparkle and Rainbow Honey. The timing of their deliveries couldn't have been more perfect. Since I don't have time for elaborate nail art at the moment, layering glitter polishes is an obvious alternative as it's not so time consuming.

I had such a hard time trying to decide which polish would grace my nails first, but since it's Spring Rainbow Honey's 'Sakura Matsuri' was the obvious choice. 'Sakura Matsuri' (さくら祭り) means 'cherry blossom festival' (my Japanese classes are coming in handy for something!). It's the namesake polish of the collection, and I've been lusting after it for quite awhile. Luckily for me Rainbow Honey just re-released the collection, so I jumped on the opportunity to pre-order it and it's finally in my hot little hands!

Full sunlight

Full sunlight

Indoors

Close up - full sunlight

In the above photos I've layered one coat of 'Sakura Matsuri' over China Glaze's 'Secret Peri-wink-le'. I've only ever seen 'Sakura Matsuri' layered over greys, blacks, and light pinks, and while it looks very pretty (and absolutely stunning over a black) I wanted to see what it would look like over a colour that wasn't so neutral. I'm quite pleased with the combination. Perfect for the start of Spring!

The description on the website reads: "The Sakura Matsuri Namesake is full of pink and white blossoms, adorned by holographic and iridescent glitters. It is a fun and festive layering polish that perfectly captures the spirit of the collection." I entirely agree!

I had absolutely no problems with the application of this polish whatsoever. No fishing for glitters (even the blossoms!), it's a perfect consistency, and the distribution of glitter throughout is even. I get a bit OCD if one nail ends up having more of one coloured glitter on it than the others, but Rainbow Honey clearly have the ratios of their glitters down to an exact science.

Bottle close up - amazing glitters!

Bottle close up - more of the red glitter apparent here

Now for the nitty gritty. You can find Rainbow Honey's polishes here. They're $10 for a 15ml bottle or $5 for 7ml. They come very professionally packaged, complete in their own boxes with colour swatch stickers on top. They're well worth the $10 for the full sized bottle in my opinion. International shipping is a flat rate of $16.95, so I recommend ordering a few polishes to help even out the shipping costs. If you're in America where Rainbow Honey is based (lucky you) shipping is $5.95. It took just over two weeks for my polishes to arrive in Australia, and the crew at Rainbow Honey were very friendly and fast to respond to any queries I had. Finally, all Rainbow Honey polishes are the big 3 free and not tested on animals, gotta love that!

Cute packaging!

 So that's it! If you've been considering buying some indie polishes, I definitely recommend you check out Rainbow Honey. Over the next couple of weeks I'll be showing you my other Rainbow Honey polish as well as my new Gloss 'n Sparkle polishes. I'll be getting back to my assignments now I guess :(

P.S. If you do place an order with Rainbow Honey, add the 'Sakura Matsuri Cuticle Balm' to your order. Only $3.50 and it smells DIVINE.