Aussie Nails Monday: Inspired by Clothing

Today's Aussie Nails Monday theme is Inspired by Clothing. I chose one of my favourite tops by Bettina Liano. It's a sheer tank top with a purple, black and white print and charcoal square bead embellishments around the neckline.

To mimic the pattern I did a splatter design using black, white and b by Bloom New York. The purple doesn't stand out very much so next time I might use white as the base. Jen from The Nail Polish Project actually did a similar design a few days ago with a white base and it looks great!

I used a tiny funnel that I usually use for frankening, but it was quite difficult to get the distance and aim right with such a short length. Most of the polish ended up on my fingers or on the table! Next time I'll probably use a small juice popper or Up & Go straw.

This is my first time doing rhinestone placement and it's quite tricky, at least with the ones I used! I bought these from the craft section of Spotlight because I didn't have time to order proper nail art ones from ebay. They're self-adhesive so that might have contributed to them being really difficult to pick up and place on the nail. I also don't like the bumpy feeling of them so I end up picking them off. Needless to say, this mani came off pretty quickly.

Here are the other girls participating in Aussie Nails Monday:

Ten Little Nubs - 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

OPI The One That Got Away & b by Bloom Osaka

I'm alive! Sorry for my absence, I've just been so busy. I went up to the Gold Coast over last weekend for the V8s. I was so busy with my graduation project that I ended up staying in the hotel room working on it the whole time. But I did get to fulfill my 10 year dream of seeing Good Charlotte live, so it was totally worth it! My grad project is due next Friday so I've been completely flat out getting it finished, writing the report, sending the report off for printing, working on my showreel etc... I barely have time to paint my nails, let alone update my blog. My cuticles are in a horrifying state. But there's only one week to go, and then after that I'm free!

Here's a polish I actually swatched before I left last weekend, but I couldn't find my camera when I got back and didn't have time to look for it until today. This is OPI The One That Got Away, a deep sparkly magenta with glass-flecky shimmer. It's one of those tricky shades that looks glittery at one angle, and almost metallic at another. It applied opaque in 2 coats.

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I thought it might be a dupe for an Aussie polish in my collection, b by Bloom Osaka. They look almost identical in the bottle, except Osaka has a tiny bit of gold flash which unfortunately doesn't come out obviously on the nail. But swatched side by side they're quite different. They are both red based purples but Osaka is darker, and packed with much more shimmer. It looks like the shimmer in The One That Got Away is irregular shaped like flecks or shards, while the shimmer in Osaka is tiny round glitter. It also looks like it has different shades of pink and purple glitter in there. Both polishes are gorgeous and I don't think they are dupes.

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I managed to pick up my first two piCture pOlishes from a store up at the Gold Coast, so swatches of those will be coming soon when I have time! Thanks for reading :)

Pretty Serious In The Night Collection

Notice anything different? I finally made a custom header for my blog! Yay! What do you think?

Apologies in advance for this brief, non-wordy post (or maybe you might like less words?). I have to finish my graduation project next week so I've been really busy trying to catch up. I'll still be posting this week and next but I won't have as much time to write in depth. I'll try and take really good photos to make up for it :)

While Pretty Serious was having their sale on the Hello World! collection, I figured I may as well grab the In The Night collection as well to save on shipping. It's apparently based on a video game called NiGHTS into Dreams, which I've never heard of, but my boyfriend tells me it's outstanding. He said something along the lines of "guy with a magic hat, lots of bright colours". So I think this collection will be pretty interesting!

The collection consists of 6 polishes: Into Dreams, Nightopia, Elliot, Dream Delight, Claris and Nightmaren. These photos are all taken without top coat.

Into Dreams

Into Dreams is a shimmering, vibrant purple. I love that this is a very pure purple, and isn't too dark that it appears black indoors. I seem to have that problem constantly with purples. The formula is fantastic, and it's completely opaque in 2 coats.

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Nightopia

Nightopia is a teal green polish with gold shimmer. It applies a little streaky but it's not that noticeable. This is 3 coats.

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 Normally I'm really excited by bluish colours like this, but I think I'm a bit "meh" about it because it's a dupe of a polish I already own: b by Bloom San Francisco. San Francisco is a tiny bit greener. The b by Bloom collection was produced exclusively for Target but is now discontinued (they may still be floating around on clearance though).

L-R: Nightopia, San Francisco, Nightopia, San Francisco

L-R: Nightopia, San Francisco, Nightopia, San Francisco

L-R: Nightopia, San Francisco, Nightopia, San Francisco

Elliot

On the Pretty Serious website, Elliot is described as a "sky blue with multi-coloured micro flecks." I think it's actually darker, more like a mid blue, with silver micro flecks. The flecks are difficult to describe. They're not glitter, they're not shimmer - they're kind of like glass flecks, but in a creme polish. I think it might be similar to China Glaze Carribean Blue, but I don't have that polish so I can't do a comparison unfortunately. This is 2 coats of Elliot.

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Dream Delight

Dream Delight is jam packed full of dark and light silver glitter. It's pretty thick because of the jelly base but is pretty much opaque in just one coat. This is 2 coats for good measure. It dries gritty so will probably need a couple coats of top coat. I really like this one, I don't own anything like it.

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Claris

Claris is one of my favourites from this collection. It's a pink jelly with gold shimmer. Such a beautiful combination, and perfect for spring! I like that the gold is obvious in both sun and indoors. The formula is really easy to apply. This is 3 coats.

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Nightmaren

Nightmaren is a gorgeous shimmery warm red with a golden glow. Again, great formula, opaque and smooth in 2 coats. It's a bit streaky in this photo but that might be because I applied it a bit too thickly. It reminds me of a warmer-toned A-England Perceval.

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The In The Night collection is available for $9.95 (or the full set at a 10% discount) on the Pretty Serious website. They're also releasing a Halloween collection on October 10th which looks amazing, and a limited edition polish!