March Nail Art Challenge: Colour Block and Luck

Double whammy today! Instead of combining two themes into one mani like yesterday, I'm just posting two nail art designs in one post.

First up is my mani for the Colour Block theme. I really should be using tape to make it less wobbly, but I'm too impatient. I used Butter London Macbeth, Ulta3 Earl Grey and Chanel Blue Rebel. I'm actually in love with this combination of colours. Blue Rebel is the perfect one coater navy, rich but subdued. Also, Y U SHRINK SO MUCH SECHE VITE? *shakes fist* This photo was taken within an hour of applying top coat and you can already see an unacceptable level of shrinkage.

For the Luck theme, I chose to feature Ulta3 Luck of the Irish as a glitter gradient along with I Love Nail Polish (or I <3 NP) Ginger Spice Latte, over Essie Navigate Her. Now that I've combined green and gold, I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do for the St Patrick's Day theme...

If you follow me on Instagram, or know me in real life, you may know that I saw The Prodigy live last week. I've seen them live before but I never tire of their incredible energy. Even though the entire concert was an exercise in getting elbowed in the face, it was awesome. The support act was Borgore, who admittedly I had never heard of before, apart from this one song:

Again, if you know me in real life at all, you will know that I love cake (and dessert of any kind, really). And that I also hate to share. I suppose that trait is a product of my only child upbringing. I refuse to share any food, even when I order meals that are obviously way too big for me to just eat myself. I mean, I'm fine with letting people take a couple of bites. But I absolutely detest splitting a meal with anyone, especially my boyfriend, whose definition of "taking a sip" is inhaling most of your drink. So when I heard this song, I thought, "This is my life song. Someone has finally written a song about me!"

Combined with this hilarious Hyperbole and a Half comic, I feel it sums up my existence perfectly.

(Source: Hyperbole and a Half)

March Nail Art Challenge: Gradient & Aussie Nails Monday: Stripes

I'm late for both of these so I combined them into one mani. I've seen this design doing the rounds on Instagram lately, originally inspired by @sparrownails and @nailsofjessiek. I was planning on doing a different colour combo so as not to completely copy them, but I just love blues so much! So I ended up using OPI It's Totally Fort Worth It for the base, Ulta3 Spring Shower, OPI Fly and China Glaze Man Hunt for the gradient.

Here are the other girls participating in Aussie Nails Monday:

Lissa's Polish Addiction - Nail Gun XS - Marie's Manicure Madhouse - Shatter Me Claire

 A Polished Prance - Shades of Phoenix - The Epitome of Superficiality - Lacquer Dreams

 Nananais Nails - Enamoured with Enamel - Adelle1985 - Kelly's Kolors

Polished Peripherals - Mel My Issta - Walk In My Eyeshadow - JennLojko - Erinzi

Lovessweetas - Jas' Blingtastic Nails - Mckfresh - DamoJess - Lili_Bete

The Reluctant Femme - Jibber Jabber - Messy Mansion - Nailovelogy

In "things I have wasted my money on recently" news, I impulse bought these Black Milk Black Triangle Leggings and Blue Galaxy Swimsuit. I regret nothing. I never actually understood the hype about Black Milk, and leggings in general, until I tried these. The swimsuit is so flattering, and the leggings make my legs look a million miles long. I don't care if people say that leggings are not pants, I will wear these as pants and look kickass!

Untried C: Crowstoes Cheshire - Swatches & Review

Today's Untried is the letter C - Crowstoes Cheshire. This one is basically the perfect definition of a glitter bomb. It's a lot of fun, with a mix of different shades and sizes of purple hexes, some gold and holo hexes and the occasional oversized magenta hex. It's like a lucky dip!

Cheshire is obviously based on the cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland. It's pretty much an exact match, don't you think?

Source: Lenny's Alice in Wonderland Site

I tried to build it to opacity using 3 coats on its own, but it's definitely a top coat. It was thick and gloopy, making it very difficult to build up. Even after 3 coats there were still bald spots. I vaguely recall getting a note with one of my past Crowstoes orders saying that they are intentionally thick, so you can thin them to your liking, so I may need to do that before the next time I use it (make sure you always use thinner, not acetone, to thin your polishes!).

So here are a couple of layering combos. These are all one dabbled coat over the base colour.

Base: Butter London Marrow

Base: OPI Do You Lilac It

Base: Picture Polish Tiffany

Crowstoes are now available for Australian customers at Femme Fatale Cosmetics! Like their facebook and subscribe to their newsletter to receive restock updates. You can also find them at Llarowe. Weirdly enough, they are actually cheaper from Femme Fatale, and with cheaper and faster postage, it's a no-brainer to buy them from there.

March Nail Art Challenge: Stripes

Today's theme for the March Nail Art Challenge is Stripes. I received a couple of stamping plates for my birthday so I got all inspired by this nail art by Pshiiit where she layers a stamp over a gradient. I practiced my stamping but it was an epic fail... So I did this half-hearted tape striping mani instead.

I started with a base of Essence Date in the Moonlight and sponged a gradient of Butter London Scouse onto the tips. I then taped off the middle and painted Date in the Moonlight over the sides. I used black on my ring finger to see what it would look like, and I think it looks better. I'll probably redo this mani sometime with a thinner middle stripe, because I really love the way Scouse looks as a gradient.

I was originally planning to use OPI DS Magic, which is a dupe for Scouse (I compared them in this post). But this tragedy happened: 

R.I.P. DS Magic

Luckily, as it's a dupe, I don't need to rush out and replace it. But it's still saddening when you lose a beloved member of your polish army! Have you ever dropped or smashed a nail polish, and which one was it?

Aussie Nails Monday: Galaxy Nails

Today's Aussie Nails Monday theme is Galaxy. I've seen galaxy nails done heaps of times but they always looked too difficult for me to try myself... Turns out they're actually pretty easy! I started with a black base, and sponged on Picture Polish Tiffany, China Glaze Frostbite, Ulta3 Purple Passion and Ulta3 Lily White (in that order). I painted the gaps with China Glaze Fairy Dust, added the little white dots to represent stars, and dabbled a coat of Alanna Renee Milky Way over the top. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out!

Please excuse the terrible cleanup (or lack thereof), the lighting in my living room isn't very good and I didn't realise I hadn't cleaned up properly until I loaded the photos onto the computer.

Here are the other girls participating in Aussie Nails Monday:

Lissa's Polish Addiction - Nail Gun XS - Marie's Manicure Madhouse - Shatter Me Claire

 A Polished Prance - Shades of Phoenix - The Epitome of Superficiality - Lacquer Dreams

 Nananais Nails - Enamoured with Enamel - Adelle1985 - Kelly's Kolors

Polished Peripherals - Mel My Issta - Walk In My Eyeshadow - JennLojko - Erinzi

Lovessweetas - Jas' Blingtastic Nails - Mckfresh - DamoJess - Lili_Bete

The Reluctant Femme - Jibber Jabber - Messy Mansion - Nailovelogy

In other nail polish related news, I received these beautiful colours as an extremely generous birthday present from my grad project supervisor, who I will also be working with at my new job in a couple of weeks! She has such great taste in nail polish. We often share news about Illamasqua sales with each other. I'm so excited to try the Chanels, both Blue Rebel and Paradoxal have been lemmings of mine for a long time. And aren't those Estee Lauder bottles amazing?

L-R: Chanel Blue Rebel, Chanel Paradoxal, Illamasqua Scarab, Illamasqua Swinger, Estee Lauder Smashed, Estee Lauder Blue Blood

Untried A & B: Alanna Renee Mardi & Black Cherry

I'm theming it up in March! Apart from doing the Californails challenge, I'm going to be swatching my untrieds from A-Z. This means each day that isn't a challenge day or Aussie Nails Monday, I'll be posting about a nail polish that starts (either the brand or the name) with a certain letter of the alphabet.

Today is A and B combined into one post - Alanna Renee Mardi and Black Cherry. Alanna Renee is a new Australian indie brand by Alanna from Pretty Purple Polish. It launched at the beginning of the year, and I was lucky enough to get these two from Alanna herself at the Aussie Nails Sydney meetup.

Mardi is a mix of pink hex glitter and small gold glitter in a pink base. The website claims that the small gold glitters helps build up the opacity so it only needs two coats, but I found I needed three. The formula was excellent and it dried very smoothly, but I would recommend waiting a bit longer between each coat to avoid dragging.

I absolutely love Black Cherry in the bottle. I wore this to Soundwave last week. It's a mix of large and small red hex glitters, large red square glitter and small black hex glitter in a deep red toned purple jelly base. I can't think of a name that would describe how this polish looks more perfectly. It needs three coats for complete opacity, and the base becomes almost black, but in a deep and squishy jelly-ish way.

I really want to love this but the formula just isn't quite right. It's a bit too thin so all the glitters sank to the bottom of the bottle, and I found it really difficult to get a good number on the brush even after vigorous shaking. I might just have a dud bottle unfortunately.

Bonus photo from the Blink-182 set at Soundwave!

Alanna Renee polishes are available from the Alanna Renee website (Australian shipping only) for $7.99 with free shipping over $50. They will soon be available from Shoppe Eclecticco and Color4Nails with international shipping.

I just got a new job, starting on the 20th! It's more corporate than my previous jobs so I've had to start investing in a new work wardrobe. This is what I've bought over the last few days:

• Witchery Knit Peplum Skirt $89.95. It has a rose gold zip down the front but I think it looks better at the back.
• Witchery Blue Silk Snakeprint Top $99.95. I can't find it on the website but the one in the pic below is similar. I'm really loving blue right now.
• Michael Kors Pressley Cap Toe pump in Stone Suede/Patent. Again, I couldn't find it online but it's the same style as the pumps in the pic below. $112.45
• I really want a Proenza Schouler Leather Satchel ~$2200, but I found this Atmos&here dupe on The Iconic on sale for $28.80 instead. I bought it in black as well for $35.96.
• 1&20 Blackbirds Contrast Shoulder Bag Satchel on sale for $31.96.
• I also want this Witchery Twist Jersey Skirt $79.95, but it might be a bit short for work. I'll have to go back and try it on.
• Total: $399.07. So much for saving, but these are essentials! And I now have $30 Witchery credit. I'm going to make more of an effort to buy only things that are on sale from now on.

March Nail Art Challenge: Chevron

I've decided to do the Californails "Totally Doable I Have A Life!" March Nail Art Challenge to get back into the groove of doing nail art and posting on this blog. 

Yesterday's theme was Chevron so I did a quick tape chevron with Nails Inc Kensington High Street and Sportsgirl Goddess. It's a bit wonky (especially on the pinky finger) so I need more practice, but I really like this colour combination! Plus tape manis are super easy to do - this tape manicure basics tutorial on Lacquerheads of Oz has some really great tips for getting it right.

I'm also going to be blogging about a bit more than just nails. My main goal for a few years now has been to buy my own place, but that's recently fallen by the wayside with graduating from uni and job hunting. I need to get back on track with saving up so I've decided, in order to hold myself accountable, I'm going to be documenting my progress and my daily purchases, and keeping a tally. I did consider setting up a separate blog for this but I barely have time to update one blog, let alone two. I won't be writing too much - just a short couple of sentences at the end of each post, so it'll be easy to ignore if you only want to look at pictures of nails. But it makes it easier for me to save if I know that other people are judging my rash puchasing decisions!