My take on GITA & Whimsical ♥

Hello hello~ After my previous attempt at a glitter sandwich, I decided to try it again with a pastel blue. I had this in mind since I thought it might look similar to Deborah Lippmann's Glitter in the air or the Revlon Whimsical dupe. Well, my attempt isn't spot on, but it's killed my lemming for them, at the very least! :D

I started off with two coats of Ulta3 Spring shower, then layered on a thick coat of OPI Rainbow connection. To achieve the softer look, I applied two coats of Flormar #20, which is a terribly sheer white polish. I love, love, looooooove the end result! The shade of the blue or  the glitter particles aren't exactly the same as GITA/Whimsical, but I think it's close enough for me to satisfy my lemming <3

Since GITA is waaay out of my polish budget limit and Revlon nail polishes are sold here in Australia at ridiculously inflated prices (and I don't think Whimsical is available here yet?), I'm pretty over the moon with this mani :) What do you think of this? :D

Thanks for reading,
~Sharon

Bloglovin & Pinterest

Hi everyone~ You may have noticed recently that I added a button to follow me on Pinterest on my sidebar. With Google Friend Connect being discontinued for non-blogger hosted websites, I won't be surprised if even blogger hosted sites will see the end of it too. Because of this, I'm opening up other ways to follow me. You can do so through Pinterest - this is especially good for those who don't like to read long ramblings and just want to get to the photo goodies :P. You can also follow me on bloglovin; the button is just above Pinterest.

If you have a Pinterest account or know of a good one which focuses on nails, let me know! I would love to check it out :)

Thanks for reading!
~Sharon

A clean, white manicure...almost.

Hi everyone~ When I first pictured this manicure in my head, it looked sooooooooo good. Why then, did it not translate as well onto my nails? Ahhhh, the frustration that ensues when this happens!

I started off with two coats of Ulta3 Lily white. On my pinky and index fingers, I layered with two coats of China Glaze White cap. On my middle finger, I applied two coats of Nubar 2010 onto the white polish base. The flakies were actually more apparent in real life, but didn't show up too well in the photos below. For my ring finger, I applied two coats of OPI Rainbow connection, then another two coats of Flormar #20 to achieve the glitter sandwhich look. I took Rainbow connection again to apply a glitter gradient on my thumb.

I think this may have looked better over a different base colour - the white polish just stood out too much against my skin tone for a full manicure. I'll be trying this again another time with a different shade!

Thanks for reading,
~Sharon

Thanks a windmillion!

Hi ladies~ I'm off to my first day of prac tomorrow so my nails are currently bare. I did wear this pretty glitter gradient awhile ago so I thought I'd share this with you today. Below is two coats of OPI Thanks a windmillion from the Holland collection released earlier this year. I decided to glam up the mani a bit with a glitter gradient, so I pulled out OPI Servin' up sparkle to use. It's one of my favourite glitters of all time ♥

Are you a fan of glitter gradients too? :)

Thanks for dropping by.
~Sharon

What colour are your flip flops?

Hello hello! I have a pretty polish to share today. Australian nail polish brand Australis recently came out with a few new shades. I'm sure one of the most talked about polish was Speck-tacular, the greatly affordable flakie top coat for us Aussies! Another polish though, happened to be this beautiful blue polish with a shimmer running through it. And what better name for it than Flip-flop, for a lovely summery colour like this <3. I applied two coats of Australis Flip-flop in the photos below.

The formula was a little watery and sheer, but built up by the second coat. I found application took a little more effort, but the end result definitely makes up for it!

What do you think, gorgeous or what? :D

Thanks for reading.
~Sharon

Product provided for consideration. For more information, please view my disclosure policy.

Stripy skittles :)

Hello ladies~ Australia has finally entered the autumn months but has really yet to feel the cold truly. So I decided to sport some colour on my nails to encourage the nice weather :P I love skittling and really need to do it more often, so here is my attempt at a bright(er) skittle mani.

Pinky: Two coats of Ulta3 Royal fever
Ring: Two coats of OPI Fly
Middle: Two coats of OPI My address is Hollywood
Index: One coat of Ulta3 Lily white then two coats of Essie Turquoise & Caicos
Thumb: Two coats of MNY Colorama Candy apple

I then added the white stripes with my white striper polish and took my nail art stickers from Nails & Stuff to add some decoration. I love the butterfly stickers, they're sooo pretty ♥ Unfortunately, they didn't hold up too well and the edges of the stickers like the smaller wings of the butterfly or the feelers were torn off after I got out of the shower. Still, they didn't look too damaged so I kept this mani for three days :P The majority of the sticker remained in that time.

What do you think of this mani, are you a fan of nail stickers? And check out Nails & Stuff for more nail related items!

Thanks for reading :)
~Sharon

A product was provided for consideration. For more information, please view my disclosure policy.

Ugly colours, anyone?

Hi everyone! If you're a fan of 'ugly' colours, you'll love the nail polish I'm about to show you. I was in the mood for a more 'out there' mani the other day and so I decided to pull out OPI Uh-oh roll down the window to try on. In the photos below, I applied two coats. I'm not one for ugly shades like this but I actually quite liked this polish. It applied well onto my nails and the formula was pretty good - I had no issues with it.

Unfortunately, this mani didn't last long as I decided to try some fail-art on it. Being a fail, I took it off immediately and slapped on another polish :P Oh well. I enjoyed it while it lasted.

Anyone else like ugly shades like this one?

Thanks for dropping by!
~Sharon

Product provided for consideration. For more information, please view my disclosure policy.

Holo glitter!

Hellohello~ I decided to make good use of the sun we had the other day and pulled out China Glaze Atlantis. Yeahhhh, the polish with the gorgeous, more amazing holographic glitter swimming in a blue-teal base. I decided to layer it over China Glaze Holly-day; two coats are shown below.

One of these days, I'm going to have to wear Atlantis on it's own. It's just too pretty ♥

Thanks for reading.
~Sharon

Have some holo instead

Hi everyone~ I'll skip the apologies and get straight to the mani, since this is why you're all here, aye? :) So have some insanely awesome holo photos instead. I have here two coats of China Glaze OMG from the OMG collection.

Basically, I've just been feeling all meh about blogging the past few days since I've been swamped with work. I did wake up to see the sweetest email in my inbox today though, hence my posting again! I'll try get a reply out soon, if I don't get too distracted by mundane things like uni assignments.

Thanks for reading.
~Sharon

Flakey layered over flakey?

Hey everyone~So, what do you get when you layer a flakey top coat over a flakey filled polish? Lots and lots of flakies, of course! And while I'm a huuuuuuuuge lover of flakies (♥♥♥), I'm not actually sure I like this end result *shockhorror*

I started off with two coats of Orly Fowl play, which has beautiful blue-orange-red shifting flakies in a plum jelly base. I proceeded to add one coat of Nubar 2010 over it, but didn't like how the denser green-yellow-orange flakies over powered the base. So I decided to layer one thick coat of Australis Speck-tacular to re-emphasise the base flakies. I don't think it really did much seeing as Speck-tacular has really sparse flakies. And because of that, I still think 2010 looks too overpowering and makes the mani look a little...ugly. Definitely has to do with 2010 - maybe it just isn't meant to be with Fowl play.

While I consider this a fail layering, I'll be trying more flakey layerings in the future...I just need more different flakey polishes first! What do you think, is this too much? :P

Thanks for reading.
~Sharon

First attempt at drawing roses

Hi everyone~ Awhile back, I came across a rose nail art tutorial on youtube and decided to give it a go, seeing as it looked quite simple.

I applied three coats of The Face Shop PP404 onto my index and pinky nails. It is a sheer lavender shade with a light shimmer running throughout it. I think I'll be layering this over a light purple next time! On my thumb and fourth finger, I applied three coats of NOPI Kim-pletely in love. On my middle finger, I applied two coats of Ulta3 lily white. The rose nail art was made with Sinful Colors Vela and lily white. I've forgotten what polish I used for the leaves, sorry!

My topcoat bubbled, unfortunately, hence the ugly bubbles on my middle nail. And I thought my roses looks kind of like goldfishes too! :( Oh well, practise makes perfect so hopefully they'll look much better next time.

Thanks for reading!
~Sharon

When your mani flops...

Hi ladies~Isn't it terrible when a beautiful mani just doesn't work out? Here, I started off with two coats of OPI Vampsterdam from the Holland collection released earlier this year. I thought this polish was so out of place in the spring/summer collection - a vampy, dark polish. I'm such a huge purple lover and vampy polishes are normally my favourites but I just didn't click with Vampsterdam :(  Although, people were saying it was rather brush-strokey but I didn't have too much of a problem with that. First coat was a little sheer but it built up by the second coat.

Because I was a bit meh with the polish, I decided to layer over it OPI I juggle...men. It's a gorgeous polish with a duochrome shimmer shifting from purple to blue. Unfortunately, it also pulled my base polish and made my manicure look like it had been applied so roughly. I'm hoping it's because it didn't like my Ulta3 top coat.

As much as I liked the combo, I took it right off after the photos haha. Maybe I'll try it again in the future without a top coat to seal it, seeing as I juggle...men dried really quickly!

What do you think of the combination?

Thanks for dropping by.
~Sharon

A product was provided for consideration. For more information, please view my disclosure policy.

Skittling with blue

Hello hello~ Keeping with the blue and holographic theme from my last post, I decided to have a skittle manicure and play with the different finishes of nail polish too :) This is definitely one of my favourite simple manis to date ♥

Pinky & index: Two coats of OPI Russian navy suede. I love this polish so much and am so glad I picked it up in Hong Kong ^^ Ahhh, if only I can get my hands on more of the suede collection by OPI!

Ring & thumb: Two coats of China Glaze 2NITE. Beautiful, light blue holo <3

Middle: Two coats of China Glaze First mate, layered with one coat of OPI Last friday night. I've shown this combo so many times on my blog, but I never get sick of it! LFN was totally made to be layered over First mate.

I've included a photo I took under artificial light only because there was no sun when I wore this mani! What's with no sun in summer, Australia? The polishes aren't too colour accurate, but at least you can still see the gorgeous holo goodness :D

Are you a fan of skittling and combining different polish finishes? :)

Thanks for reading!
~Sharon

Pretty, pretty holo ♥

Hi ladies :) Back when I had some sunny days, I pulled out China Glaze DV8 from the OMG collection to wear so I could admire the beauty that it is. It's not as holographic as the other polishes I own from this collection, but it's still super pretty ♥

I applied two coats onto my nails before sealing it with a top coat. As with the other polishes in the collection, application is tricky as you may experience dragging when applying a second coat. Definitely wait until the first layer is dry before applying the next! The bonus though, is that DV8 is a really opaque polish :D

And here it is, when no direct light is shining onto it. Still so pretty! :)

Do you own any polishes from this collection? Which is your favourite?

Thanks for dropping by!
~Sharon

Comparison: Orly Faint of Heart

As promised, here is the comparison of Orly Faint of Heart which I showed in my previous post :) I brought out my nail sticks as I had them all swatched out and at hand - I hope you don't mind!

From top to bottom:
High society, Faint of heart, French quarter for your thoughts, Earl grey

High society is the most different of the four, having more purple in it than the others. Earl grey, French quarter for your thoughts and Faint of heart are more similar but if you look closely, Faint of Heart has just that smidgen more purple in it to help it look different to the other two polishes.

Do you really need all of them? For a girl who isn't all that into neutrals, I'd say no (and I'm quite surprised I have so many similar ones in my stash!). However, if you're a collector and love neutral shades, you'll probably be able to justify the differences to own all of them :P

I hope this comparison was helpful! What do you think, do you need all four? And I would love your feedback on the nail sticks too - like/dislike? ^^

ps. I just changed my blog template too; I just had to bring back the purple love! ♥

Thanks for reading :)
~Sharon

Swatches and review: Orly Faint of Heart

Hello hello! I have today Orly's Faint of heart from their Cool Romance collection. Faint of heart is a pretty neutral taupe shade. When I first put it on, I thought it looked really similar to Ulta3 Earl grey and Color Club High society. I'll get a comparison post up of this soon!

Anyway. I started off with three coats of Faint of heart. I found the first coat to be really thin and was afraid it wouldn't be opaque, but it built up by the third coat.

Whilst it was a nice crème, I needed that something more so layering it was! I applied two coats of Australis Speck-tacular over it. Yes, it is a flakey!! I need more of these hehehe. Too bad the flakies were so sparse, even with two coats I wasn't satisfied with the coverage it gave. Ahh, the search for more flakies continues!

What do you think of flakies over neutral shades like Faint of heart? :)

Thanks for reading!

~Sharon

Products provided for consideration. For more information, please view my disclosure policy.