Three Nail Challenge - Favourite emotion

This post is for the three nail challenge and the theme of the day was your favourite emotion. I'm posting this a bit late though (sorry) because my internet was disconnected for a few days :(

Perhaps I'm a bit corny but my favourite emotion is LOVE. And what do I associated with love? RED! So today I am going to be showing you Butter London's 'Pillar Box Red'. This is my first 'Butter London' which I received as a freebie by buying the magazine 'Instyle'. So all you Aussie girls, rush down to your newsagency if you want to get a Butter London for $10 rather than the $22 that they are valued at!

The formula of this polish is fantastic, a dream to work with, and is opaque in one coat. However because my nails are in a horrible state I did 2-3 coats on some nails because I have heaps of dents in my nails :( It dried quickly and is a beautiful creme. I wore it for a few days and it lasted well. I would definitely buy more Butter London polishes. 

Another redeeming quality of this polish is that is is 3-free!!!! I love it when polishes actually advertise this on their bottles, so much easier than having to read the ingredients list. Though I do wish there more 4-free, 5-free and water-based polishes around. 

Hope you are having a lovely day :)

Cheers

Check out what the other girls who are participating in this challenge did:
Mateji ustvarjataPurple Glitters
Mimi's Vanity Box
Nailing Nail Art
All Stars Could Be Brighter
Moonchild
Taya (Starts later)
Beauty By Shortylegs
Deja (A bit differently)
Imagination In Colour
Krystalmer
Colourful Bottle
Nail Crazy
The Nail Buff
Beauty By Suzi
Gin Shivers
Ina - Hysteria of Decay
aydii* - Girl With Pink Lipstick*
Nails By Tinks
Natalsie - Cats-n-nails
citygirl907 Beautiful Living blog
Manicura de Fantasia

31 day challenge - day 22 - inspired by a song

I'm still playing catch-up for the 31 day challenge. For day 22 the theme was "Inspired by a song". I was looking through my polishes looking for a polish to do day number 26 and my eyes landed on Confetti by Ulta3 and for some reason I thought of Katy Perry's song 'Firework'. Guess you can say I had a 'lightbulb' moment.

Confetti is pink and green glitters in a clear base. You would probably need a million coats for complete opaque-ness (I have never tried). I layered it over Essence's 'nude or what' which is a beautiful pale lilac.
Enjoy!

The winter challenge day 15

Hi guys. 

Today I want to show you a swatch of OmShe's 'Forest' polish which is free from dibutyl phthalate, toluene, and formaldehyde. Also, it is made in Australia which is always a plus and is available at Priceline stores for $9.95. I went into Priceline one day (not my local Priceline, one in the city) and asked where their OmShe stand was and they told me they hadn't  heard of the brand but nonetheless I eventually found the OmShe products tucked away in a corner. Basically, moral of the story is that you do have to look for it.... 

I was very excited to use this brand and the fact that it is 3-free and 'green' however their range of polishes is quite small so I had difficulty deciding what colour to get. I decided on Forest and whilst it's not a WOW colour it is very versatile and very pretty. I am definitely happy with the colour. Application was also pretty good, perhaps not as good as some other brands (for instance I find Revlon polishes to apply very easily) but application was still nothing to whine about. The formula is quite thin and requires 2-3 coats. The polish itself is a cross between a nude, pink shimmer and brown. My best description of the colour I guess would have to be the following: A versatile pretty beige with a pink shimmer tone throughout. Hopefully that makes sense to you :) Well anyway, as you will see in the photographs it's a beautiful pinky brown tone with a subtle shimmer to it. I picked it for today's challenge because it is definitely 9-5 friendly but not boring :) 


***currently 20% off at Priceline***

The winter challenge day 13 - winter blues

The winter blues. Gloomy, depressed, cold and sometimes emotional days. All you want is for it to be summer again. But there is a cure :) Chocolate and nail polish!!! 


Today I bring to you Revlon's 'Midnight Affair' a deep navy with an elegant, subtle shimmer to it. It is a very rich colour which is why I chose it for today's challenge because to me it looks really sophisticated and is a really easy to wear. It's also a great base for nail art or for a glitter/flakie top coat! It changes in different lights and you can make it more or less blue depending on how thick your coats are. For this particular manicure my coats are quite thick so it is slightly darker than I wanted it to be but I am still happy with it. 


Formula wise it is brilliant and really easy to apply. You only need 2 thin coats or perhaps one thick coat :) In my photos I do have a top coat on and I would recommend a top coat because with darker colours tip wear and chips are easily noticeable. 


Score: 8/10

The winter challenge day 10 - Galaxy Nails

I don’t know whether I love Fridays or Thursdays more. Fridays are awesome because you know that you the following 2 days are the weekend, which usually equates to some relaxation and a chance to catch-up with friends as well as a desperate catch-up study session. Although sometimes the properties of weekends ruin the weekend for us, with a busy weekend spent catching up and going places and getting home exhausted. On the other hand, Thursdays are pretty good too because you have the excitement of Friday and you can allow yourself to start daydreaming about the weekend.

Anyway, the theme for today is galaxy nails. This was my first time EVER doing galaxy nails and my electricity was out so no internet and no access to any tutorials. Hence I kind of just made it up as I went. Not sure if that is good or bad. Maybe you can be the judge J

I decided to do two different galaxies because I had a couple of ideas and then pick one and do all of my nails using that idea later.

My first idea was to use the following polishes: Revlon’s Midnight Affair, Essence’s In Style (metallic teal), Essence’s blue addicted and then Ulta3’s confetti. Some photos of this idea also include Face of Australia’s aussie nature I read somewhere that galaxy nails are all about adding dimension to your manicure so that is why I chose two different sizes of glitter.

My second idea was a little more crazy but I think I actually like it more. The polishes I used for my second idea were: Revlon’s Midnight Affair, Essence’s In Style, Avon’s Flutterby, and Ulta3’s confetti.

After taking a few photos of both I was on the fence on a couple of issues:

1) Were nails really galaxy nails?

2)  Did I like idea 1 or idea 2 more?

3) Should I experiment some more?

I decided to experiment some more so I did the following layers: midnight affair, blue addicted, face of australia's aussie nature, blue addicted. This made a really cool effort.

I really like how my these ideas turned out, especially idea 2 with the matte top coat on top and I will definitely be doing a full manicure soon and uploading it. I had a lot of fun trying out galaxy nails :)

Here are photos of idea 2 with a matte topcoat, I think this is my favourite!!!

Comments on my galaxy nails?  Hope you have a great weekend!

The Winter Challenge Day 5: Grey Nails

Hi guys. Sorry for posting this a bit late. Finding it difficult to fit everything into 24 hours!

On the weekend I was lucky enough to find a brilliant little outlet store which sold OPI, China Glaze, L'oreal,  Essie and Maybelline polishes dirt cheap. Which made me very happy. Among the polishes I got was Essie's 'Fair Game' so I am going to show you Fair game for day 5 of the challenge. I will do a haul post later in the week but at the moment life is crazy crazy crazy and I just don't have enough time :/

The grey that comprises 'Fair Game' is moderate. It's not too dark but too light and the shimmer is quite subtle which makes it look elegant and not over the top. If you can't tell already, I am really happy with this colour. Application wise it was a breeze, requiring only one coat and it dried real quick, yay! In some ways it is similar to a grey creme because of the smooth appearance however it definitely is a shimmer.

I'm afraid the photographs don't quite show how spectacular this polish is, stupid overcast weather! Do you like this colour or is it meh?

Have a lovely day,
cheers

Where is Day 5 of the challenge?

Hi to all of my lovely readers. 
Just wanted to post a quick message to say that I am still doing the challenges :) Just a bit slow on the loading  of the photos onto my computer because I usually do my nails late at night and have to wait until the next day to take photos :( I am hoping to get all the posts done later this afternoon, in between work and study. 


On the weekend I managed to get quite a nice haul of new polishes. Here are some photos because I hate posts without pretty pictures :)

Have a great day! 

Safe nail polishes

I have been wearing nail polishes for years however it has only been in the past two or three months that I discovered that nail polish contains many toxic chemicals that have been proven to cause defects in children and cancer. However do not fear, by becoming a savy consumer, and by reading the ingredients list before buying you can have polishes nails AND help you avoid health issues. 

I do not claim to have a great deal of knowledge on this topic but I have done some research on the internet as this blog is growing and so is my stash. The idea that wearing nail polish could give me cancer or increase my chances or affect the health of any children I may have in the future FREAKS me out heaps and heaps heaps. Hence I have been looking everywhere for nail polish that does not contain the bad chemicals. 

There are different types of 'safe' polishes: 3-free, 4-free 5-free and water based. 3-free do not contain formaldehyde, dibutyl phthalate (DBP) and Toulene. 4-free do not contain: formaldehyde, dibutyl phthalate (DBP) and Toulene and Formaldehyde Resin. 5-free do not contain: formaldehyde, dibutyl phthalate (DBP) and Toulene and formaldehyde resin and camphor. Furthermore there is also water-based polishes that are safe for children and pregnant women. 

If you want more information there are a lot of website that talk about this topic. One of my favourites is http://www.inspirationail.com/5-free-varnish/. 

I am yet to find any water-based polish. I have sourced some and there is a little shop literally around the corner from me. I was planning on going there today but never got there. Ended up spending my day in the city instead and spent way too much money on polish :( 

Brands have taken notice and some do state on their bottles that they do not contain blah blah and blah blah. It is always wise to read the ingredients list before buying polish since there are heaps of polishes out there that don't contain nasty things. 

After discovering the fact that nail polish can contain nasty things I noticed at my local Priceline that some brands, on their displays, actually advertise the fact that they don't contain certain chemicals. 

I have found that Revlon does not contain Formaldehyde and Toulene. There are also other brands that do not contain nasty chemicals or do not contain all of them, such as Face of Australia, Models Prefer, but again please do not take my word for it and read the ingredients before buying something. It is entirely possible that I missed something or that different ranges of polish contain different ingredients (geez they write the ingredients in tiny fronts!!!) I have also found a brand called OmShe at Priceline that does not contain DBP, toluene and formaldehyde. Oh and also OPI do not contain all of the nasty chemicals too. I believe essence is 5-free however I have not confirmed this yet! If this is true it is amazing considering they are the cheapest nail polishes on the market. 

A side note, whilst shopping today there was a stand of make-up for $2 (can't remember the name of the brand) and all 5 of the bad nasty chemicals were listed in the ingredients!!! WOW!!! It was a shame too because there were some gorgeous colours. 

Hope this weekend has been great for you!