Top 4 Best Nail Polishes for Work

When you walk into a shop to buy nail polish you are faced with a billion choices. The bright colours are always eye-catching but not always work appropriate. 

For work, nudes and pale pinks are a safe option. I don't know if it is only me but I find it very hard to find a pale pink nail polish with a good formula - for me they are notoriously bad. If you do want a pale pink I would recommend 'Bare' from Sinful Colours. 'Bare' is a pale pink nude with micro-shimmer. For a full review on this polish click here.

The Maybelline Superstay Gel Nail Colour polish in 'Rose Poudre' could possibly be my favourite nail polish ever (I cannot believe I said that, pretty serious for somebody with 200+ polishes!). 'Rose Poudre' is a dusty pale pink. With two thin coats the polish dries quickly and looks stunning. Perfect for anybody and anywhere.

'All eyes on nudes' from Essie is a matte nail polish however I always put a glossy top coat over it. This is a great basic nude polish, there is no hint of pink here, it is a creamy beige. The formula isn't the best but the colour is great. If you have a little bit of patience when applying it and put a glossy top coat on it, it is a fabulous every day work polish.

'All tied up' from Essie is a stronger pink polish with shimmer. Out of all the polishes I've talked about here this one is definitely the least neutral. It's a darker dusty rosy pink with gold shimmer. Super pretty! For a full review of this polish, click here.

+Bonus Polish -Face of Australia Screen Siren Limited Edition 'Monroe' -  Okay so I didn't want to include this in the top 4 because it is no longer sold. But having said that, if anybody knows of a dupe please let me know! It's definitely one of my favourite ever polishes!!! The perfect nude with a slight pink undertone.

February Favourites

Today it is time for me to write one of my favourite type of posts...monthly favourites! So let's skip all the inevitable rambling about where the month disappeared to and get onto all the products that won over my heart this month.

I'm going to begin with Garnier's Moisture Match Start Afresh Moisturiser. Last month my skin was feeling dreadful. I put it down to a lack of a good moisturiser and, hey presto, once I started using this moisturiser my skin felt so much more hydrated. I love this moisturiser and definitely recommend it!

A product that is by no means a new love of mine, rather a love I have rediscovered, is Rimmel London's Stay Matte Pressed Powder in 'Silky Beige'. I think this powder is dearly loved by many bloggers and for good reason. I'm not a "powder" person and this is the only powder that has ever impressed me. In particular, this month I have been loving this powder in combination with the Physician's Formula CC cream. I wrote a post all about that, click here to read it.

All month I have been blown away by the Essence Maximum Definition Mascara. I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting to love it this much because it costs a mere $5.75 which is ridiculously cheap. But it is a really good mascara!!! The brush is great and even though it isn't a waterproof formula, it never smudges on me. A great everyday mascara, check it out!

Moving away from face products and onto the lips, I have two lip balms that I have been loving recently. Nivea recently launched their Pure and Natural 'Olive and Lemon' Lip Balm here in Australia (I think this was launched in America a year ago?). I feel like this lip balm actually moisturises and heals my lips. You would think all lip balms would do that, but no...I actually find a lot just dry my lips out unless I slather them in lip balm every 20 minutes. Am I the only one who thinks this? I have also been loving the 'Salted Caramel' Lipsmacker. After hearing that the company had been sold in the news I thought I would relive my childhood. It truly does smell like salted caramel, absolutely delicious! Plus it does moisturise my lips and is a decent lip balm - a yummy scent isn't everything!

This is where all orderliness goes out the window. We have a random nail polish and a body butter. Shall we talk about the nail polish first? 'Timbleberry' by Sinful Colours is a polish that I have had for a couple of years now and I haven't worn it for over a year :( With the crazy hot weather we were having I thought it was time to break it out. And I love it as much as I did when I first brought it. Timbleberry is a gorgeous (and very bright) coral pink. Great for the summer!

I have also been loving a new discovery, Jergen's Deep Conditioning Shea-Butter Rich Body Cream. This is a luxurious body cream that absorbs quickly, lasts a long time and isn't greasy. It also smells really nice. I'm not a huge body moisturiser person but what makes me love this so much is that it doubles for hand cream. Most body creams and body butters are way too thick and greasy for hand cream  but this truly sinks in quickly.

What were your favourite products for February?

Sinful Colors - Bare Nail Polish Review

The Christmas Party season has come to an end, so has Christmas and New Years Eve which means it's back to work and unfortunately it also means conservative nail polishes have to start gracing some people's nails. So I have a beautiful pink polish to show today which is definitely work appropriate but not without being really pretty...introducing Sinful Colors' 'Bare'.

'Bare' is a pinky nude with a subtle micro shimmer from the Bare Necessities Collection. As always with Sinful Colors the brush was good, the formula was good and leaning towards the thicker side of things which I prefer. Drying time was (again) good and it stayed chip free for a good handful of days. Overall I was really impressed with both the colour and quality of this polish. I often find pale pink polishes to be a runny, messy and horrible to work with. But not this one!!! Yay :)

Thanks for reading and take care,
cheers.

A pop of colour for your summer face

With the end of spring coming to an end, summer just around the corner and the weather starting to improve it is the perfect time to mix up your make-up routine. I have been experimenting with some new products and digging out some of my favourite summer products.

For an easy summer face...

• Covergirl Stay Fabulous 3 in 1 Foundation 

This has been my "go to" foundation for a couple of months now and I really enjoy using this foundation. It gives good coverage, applies easily and lasts well. This shade is also my perfect shade for summer when my pale skin is slightly (erm, very slightly) less pale. 

• Innoxa Skin Perfecting Pore Vanishing Cream*

The whole point of this post is to highlight how, using a select few products, you can create an easy summer face of make-up. This product definitely belongs in here as it helps to minimise the appearance of pores, fine lines and shine whilst acting as a primer for your foundation. I also love using this underneath BB cream. 

• Innoxa Skin Perfecting 5 in 1 BB Bronzing Creme*

I love a little bit of bronzer in the summer and this bronzing creme gives you a natural sun-kissed effect. I also love how you can apply it easily and quickly with your fingers :)

• Physician's Formula Organic Wear Mascara

This is my second tube of this mascara. I'm not going to rant on about how I love using it because I've done that numerous times before on this blog. Enough said. 

• Rimmel London Apocalips in Celestial

A bold lip is my lazy way out of make-up on a warm summers day when I don't feel like a  (melting) full face of make-up!

• Sinful Colors Timbleberry

My all time favourite polish for the summer is Timbleberry from Sinful Colors. An extremely bright coral polish that is nearly neon. Puts a smile on my face every time I wear and looks amazing all summer long. 

What products do you reach for during summer?

*Products provided for review purposes 

Black Matte Glitter Accent Nail - Ulta3 Outasight

I'm not a huge glitter lover, I'll be honest, probably because it can be annoying to remove and I find it wrecks my nails...but now and then I come across a glitter I cannot say no to. I have a special place in my heart for matte glitter so a few months ago when I heard that ulta3 had released a few matte glitters I knew I needed them. So for most of the year I have been searching high and low for these polishes...finally on the weekend I found them =) YAY!!!

Anyway, I'll stop rambling and introduce you to 'Outasight' by Ulta3 which I layered over a coat of Sinful Color's 'Feeling Great'.

'Outasight' is a matte black glitter combo comprised of small circular glitters  and larger hexagonal shaped glitters. It's not a very dense glitter so you do need a minimum of two coats and I found that within each coat I had to do multiple brushes, as well as wiping the brush against the side of the bottle to try to leave as much of the clear base at possible on the side of the bottle...well worth the result though!

Overall  I am pretty pleased with 'Outasight' although I do wish it was a little more dense. I think it will look great layered over a multitude of different polishes and I'm kinda kicking myself for not getting a second bottle since it took me all year to find this one...silly me :p Also, as a side note, I want to mention that these photographs show the polish with a layer of clear quick-dry top coat, because I was inpatient and wanted to get photos before the good lighting disappeared.

Cheers :)

Red and White Dotticure

Hi guys, today I have a red and white dotticure to show you. The red polish is Pillar Box Red from Butter London and the white is Snow Me White from Sinful Colors.

Unfortunately I tried out a new topcoat after doing my dots and it smeared some of my dots slightly so that was a shame but I really like this colour combo and want to re-do it using a smaller dotting tool.

Thanks for reading,
cheers

ABC Challenge: B is for...blue nails!

Hi guys! I've got another installment of the ABC Challenge for you. B is for...blue nails using my fave blue polish. If you want to join in on this challenge please feel free, there is no strict schedule but I'm personally trying to get one post done a week. The inlinkz is below...blah blah blah.

'Endless Blue' from Sinful Colors is an amazing blue polish and I absolutely love it! It's a one-coater, dries quickly and applies effortlessly. And because it was Friday afternoon and because, well I just felt like it...I added some holographic glitter on top! This was only one coat of 'Diamond Glitter Crystal' from BYS and boy is it sparkly!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was kind of ridiculous how many photographs I took of this NOTD. Generally you would think that the better the lighting the better the photgraph...yeah? But I found, after lots of frustration, it nearly turned out better when I was in darker room. What the heck? So I want to assure you this was seriously sparkly ( and therefore, awesome) but my camera fails to show you how it really looks :( Any tips for photographing holographic glitter?

And to finish on a happy note here is a picture of my dog looking at me while I was photographing my nails...she probably thinks "humans" do really weird things. Hahaha

You can grab your inlinlz code for your own blog here:
get the InLinkz code Cheers

Sally Hansen Fuzzy Coat - Wool Lite

Recently nail polish has all been about texture, whether it s feather, cement/conrete or leather-look polish, it's been hailed as the trend by many. Me? I haven't been so sure. But I decided for the sake of the blog (or at least that was my excuse, hehehe) that I would try out Sally Hansen's Fuzzy Coat polishes. I believe these are limited edition and are currently on the shelves at places like Priceline. 

Out of all the polishes in this collection I picked up Wool Lite which is a cute pale pink bar glitter (is that what you call it?) or perhaps I should call it a feather polish? I nearly picked up 'All Yearned Up' because it is a little fugly and I don't mind a fugly polish or two but I thought Wool Lite would look awesome over a brown polish. So here it is, Wool Lite over Sinful Color's Nirvana which is a lovely basic brown. This manicure reminds me of chocolate cupcakes with pink sprinkles - yummy!!!

The formula was really easy to use and these pictures show one coat of Wool Lite. All the bars dried flat and don't feel too rough so top coat isn't a must which is good for a polish like this! Overall, for what it is, it is a great polish because you don't have to waste time placing the glitters where you want them and you get a decent amount per swipe and they dry flat. The only problem I have is a personal opinion, I just don't know if I love how this looks? But as I said that's just me and if you want to try an easy "texture" polish this could be a great place to start. 

I went to IKEA and got myself a Lekaryd lamp which I hope will act as a lightbox kind of set-up for me. With these wet, overcast winter days I felt like my photographs were rapidly decreasing in quality and considering they were never very good to begin with action needed to be taken! I'm still mucking around with it but please feel free to let me know what you think about the pictures...

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great week :)

Dotticure: Dancing Nails and A Piece of Forever

Hi guys, today I have a dotticure to show you. I used one of my absolute favourite polishes, Dancing Nails by Sinful Colors which is a stunning metallic-ish rosy pink colour and A Piece of Forever by Essence which is my good old trusty gold polish. 

Please excuse my horrible dry hands and cuticles.........winter...

Have a lovely day and thanks for reading!

Grey and Pink Stripes

Hi  guys!!!! I have my first ever successful striping tape adventure to show you today. It's only an accent nail because I have a very busy week ahead and didn't want to go too over the top!!!

I had a craving (can you have a craving for nail polish????) to use 'Grey Matter" by Rimmel London even though I generally don't like it's formula. But I don't know....I just wanted to use it :) But I also wanted some colour considering it is grey, overcast and raining on and off. I decided to do an accent nail using 'Oasis' by Sinful Colors. This is the most gorgeous pink, and its coming from a person who use to say she hated pink. Well I still do for most things but I've made an exception in this case. Anyway enough rambling! '

I am actually really proud of myself because normally whenever I get the striping tape out it is an absolute disaster.

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful day :)

Girly Girly Nail Art Challenge - Think Pink

Hi guys! I don't think many people would object to Friday's being called "good" but today it is officially "Good Friday" and a public holiday - yay!!!! - so today is a super good Friday!!!!! I hope you all enjoy your  Friday and have a brilliant weekend.

Today marks the first day of the "Girly Girl Nail Art Challenge" organised by Mani's by Moore so please check out her blog and if you want more details about the challenge it is all explained :)

Today the prompt is "Think Pink - wear your favourite pink nail polish and nail art". I'm going to be honest I'm not a very girly girl and it is only recently that I have started liking pink polish. For day #1 of this challenge I have decided to show you a dotticure. I used the seriously awesome pink polish called "Oasis" by Sinful Colours and the grey polish is "Grey Matter" by Rimmel London.

I was pretty pleased with how this turned out however I am still slightly disapointed in the dotticures I have been producing. The tools are simple enough to use but I have difficulty with knowing where to place the actual dots so that they look good.........I do love this colour combo though :)

Thanks for reading and enjoy your weekend!

Sinful Colors Nirvana (matte)

Hi guys! Hope today is treating you well :) Today I have completely fallen in love with a beautiful polish ,so without further ado, I present to you 'Sinful Colors Nirvana (matte). First up I should point out this polish is not  matte. I have no clear why the label says 'matte' but whatever. I'm actually glad it isn't matte because I literally just saw this on the shelf and fell in love with it thinking it would be a shiny creme. Didn't bother reading the label!

Nirvana is a gorgeous, stunning, amazing..... medium brown shade that has a shiny creme finish and applies like a dream. It felt like I was applying melted milk chocolate onto my nails - the formula was great and easy to apply. It looks incredibly smooth and it makes me want to munch on a chocolate bar - yummy! It was leaning towards the thin end of the continuum however didn't run everywhere. I used two coats but it was nearly  a one-coater.

I see myself wearing this a lot this coming autumn and winter! I love nude nails and brown nails. They're simple but elegant and always look great. Can you tell I am totally in love with this polish???

Also, I know this is super annoying, but if you have bloglovin' and like my blog I would really appreciate it if you followed me on bloglovin'. Thank you, thank you thank you. Also, are there any other sites you think I should sign up for since google friend connect and google reader is being retired?

Thanks for reading :)

31 day challenge - inspired by a blogger

Today I wanted to bring to your attention the awesomeness of Scrangie, who has the most amazing swatches ever! If you haven't checked out her blog you seriously should click here and pay her a visit! Amazing, I tell you!

So in honour of Scrangie's consistently awesome swatches I decided to have a go at doing a perfect swatch (using my new camera which I'm still figuring out how to use ). I used two coats of Sinful Color's 'Endless Blue'. This polish applies brilliantly, dries quickly and has a lovely shiny and creamy finish. All Sinful Colors polishes are 3-free which I love!

Not perfect but passable? I hope! 

Thanks for reading and take care :)

31 day challenge - favourite colour

I have a couple of different favourite colours for different things. I love black, teal, coral and red clothing. For make-up and lipsticks I'm into nudes and brownish tones and my bedroom is fitted out with latte walls with black furniture and red accessories. On the other hands, I find yellow cars very "sexy" but then when it comes to nail polish I don't really like wearing black nail polish and nude polish is only worn when I'm either lazy, have an important meeting or have super short gross nails! So anyway, this summer I have been loving corals so I decided to do coral nails for today. I chose a neon coral because I was feeling quite cheerful but in winter I go for the more subdued corals out there (Sally Hansen's 'So Much Fawn' is lovely).

This colour 'pops' a lot more in 'real-life'. These photos really don't do this polish justice :(

Can you believe the challenge is nearly over? I can't and whats more.... I am still participating. Last time I attempted this challenge I bombed out quickly because my nails were not healthy enough and I didn't have enough polish! I think I might have missed four or five days of this challenge but hopefully I will be able to get those challenges up before the end of the month.....fingers crossed!

Please check out what the other guys have done for today's challenge and take care :)

31 day challenge - day 27 - inspired by you

Hi guys!!! Today the prompt for the 31 day challenge was "inspired by you". Now I don't particularly like skittle mani's and crackle polish isn't my favourite type of polish but this manicure which is suppose to represent me includes both! Weird huh? 

Anyway who am I? I am a student studying to be a clinical neuropsychologist, I love nail polish, handbags, shoes, books, interior decorating and I am a TV junkie. I consider myself to be a bit quirky, a bit unique, very  conscientiousness, fun ....and a bit random! And perhaps most importantly, I don't care what people think, I am who I am :) I don't believe in following trends and having to think what everybody else thinks!

 Oh and did I mention I was indecisive? I couldn't even decide what type of mani I wanted to do today!!!! I ended up doing a skittle with the following colours (and then adding OPI's 'silver shatter' ontop): Unamed polish by Solace, Timbleberry by Sinful Colors, Endless Blue by Sinful Colors and Be Happy by Sinful Colors.

These photographs are of my rarely seen right hand so apologies for the weird photos. I find it so difficult to hold the camera in my left hand!

I am really in love with how this crackle turned out. Crackle, I find, can be quite unpredictable but this crackle turned out quite awesome I think. 

Thanks for reading, take care :)

P.S --> sorry for the wonky formatting on this post. My computer just won't behave! GAH!!!!

31 day challenge day #16 - colour opposites

Hi guys, today is the 16th day of the 31 day challenge, yay!!! And the theme is "colour opposites". I decided to go for orange and blue as they are colour opposites on the colour wheel (I think....it has been awhile since my last 'art' class).

I was literally out all day and just got home so this is a pretty basic tape mani but oh well. I love how these two polishes go together and think I might do some stamping with them in the near future.

The polishes I used were:

• Endless Blue - Sinful Colors
• Doc - Essence Snow White Collection

Both of these polishes apply like a dream and dry super quick. I did one coat of each and think this mani took less than ten minutes. Polish it more blue than it is appearing on my computer monitor. Why is it that purple polishes look blue and vice a versa on computers? Today it got to 42 degrees Celsius so was too tired to do anything amazing! But the result is still cool I think. What do you think?

Thanks for reading and have a great day! :)

31 day challenge - day#10 - geometric

Hi guys, hope this finds you all well and happy!
Today I have a nail-art fail for you :( In my head this looked awesome, but it didn't pan out quite how I thought it would.....Maybe my black lines are too thick?
The one redeeming quality of this manicure (in my opinion) are the colours, most of these polishes were literally brought at the shops less than hour before I did this manicure. I just couldn't wait to try these lovelies.

The polishes I used for this manicure were:

• Endless Blue - Sinful Colors
• Timbleberry - Sinful Colors
• Black Satin - Ulta3
• Emerald - Revlon

Endless Blue and Timleberry are the lastest additions to my ever-growing collection. I also grabbed Australis' Spek-tacular and Ulta3's Lagoon. 

This manicure was inspired by a piece of artwork by Piet Mondrian. 

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful day! 

Cheers :)