Speckled Egg Manicure

Happy Easter..and all that. Not massively into Easter at the moment..to give you an example, it's Easter Sunday right? Well, I've had a sleep in vacuumed and steam mopped and done the washing. Not one egg in sight. I probably wouldn't have done an Easter type mani but I had a party to go to and I thought I should try and look festive. Just not feeling the festive vibe *sigh*. Annnnnyways..there has been a lot of ho-ha about Illamasqua an their speckled polish. I have a vague interest in only one of them, Speckled Lilac..but not enough to purchase it. So, I thought I would try and dupe the speckled look with my own color choice and turn it into an Easter-y type look :) Lets see how I went! I used various polishes and layer Nuber Black Polka Dots in between the 2 coats of polish and wiped off the top layer slightly with a brush dipped in acetone.

Speckled polish! Full Sun

L-R, TBN 43, Ulta3 Pink Hibiscus, China Glaze Re-freshmint, China Glaze Happy Go Lucky

Speckled Polish- Shade

 Speckled Polish- Shade

 Full Sun

 Full hand, thumb with China Glaze Bahamian Escape

Now how does my look compare to the Speckled Polish?

Courtesy of Haus of Polish, Illamasqua Speckled Lilac

I quite like the look I achieved..yep, I can see some brush marks..but you do have to be very close to see them. I think I can satisfy my Speckled Polish need with my DIY look and the added bonus is I am not limited by color. Obviously the more towards a jelly the polish is the better the effect. If I had more patience I would have waited for the top layer of color to dry fully and tried wiping the polish off with a make-up round to see if I could achieve the look with no brush marks. Must give it a go next time.

Hope your Easter has been more spirit filled then mine! I hope you stuffed yourself with Hot cross bun and chocolate galore :) I might wander down  to the supermarket and see what chocolate is on special...mwahaha!

Essie Penny Talk with Enchanted Polish Tummy Time

Hellooooo...this post is going to be a straight forward one. Work tonight was crazy..it's true what they say about full moon and medical things going mental!  Metallic polish plus Glitter Polish equals a lovely blingy mani. This is how I particularly like my pedicures..it gives the polish a bit more depth and dimension. Today I paired Penny Talk with Enchanted Polish Tummy time..and here is the result. Warning..too many pics because I couldn't decide. Also, I mattified this look in some of the photos, can you tell the difference??

Partial Sun

 Shade with light reflected, gorgeous rose copper!

 Full Shade

 Macro- mattified :)

 Full Sun

 You have to love a holo heart! 

Mattified!

Alrighty then. First of all what do you think of the combo? I had this on my nails and my mother asked for the same polish with an accent nail of the same glitter, LOL. The difference between the original finsh and Matte top coat was.. negligible really. It took the sheen off the brassiness of the polish slightly, but didn't significantly alter the glitter that I could tell! I will say the more I wear Essie Penny Talk, the more I love the color. Enchanted Polish Tummy Time was a great glitter topper. It's an intriguing combo of red micro glitters, black shards, holo hexes, holo bar glitters and holo heart and stars. *whew* The holo heart required a little bit of fishing but otherwise it was easy application.

Are you bored of Essie Penny Talk yet?? Should I keep going or just move along to a different polish? :)

Essie Penny Talk and OPI Black Spotted

Well, for Essie Penny Talk version 3.0 is for those who like their mani's a little bit darker but still with some bling in it. To mix it up a little I wanted to use OPI Black Spotted which is a bubble type top coat that was only release in Belgium last year! Of course I had to get my grubby little hand on it when it was released but lucky for people out there Layla cosmetics have come out with a version called Layla Bubbly. I saw it for sale on ozsale.com.au the other day,so keep an eye out for it. The other place I see Layla polishes are at Hairhouse Warehouse.


So, for today's look layered OPI Black Spotted over the Essie Penny Talk patina look. Black Spotted is a little tricky to apply. After my top coat of Poshe I waited until it was completely dry and applied a very thin layer of OPI Black Spotted. I think I was half successful with this look- the middle two fingers are my favorite!

 Shade

 Partial Sun

 Full sunlight

 Full Sunlight

  
I this is kind a cool look! The contrast of colors work well, but I do prefer how it looks in the shade. I like the coppery color better than the golden tone you see in the full sunlight. This mani was definitely more  Now, you HAVE to top coat OPI Black Spotted. How do I know? Well I thought I would see how much wear and tear Black Spotted could take..and after just one day of not particularly arduous wear, this is what my Black Spotted/Penny Talk mani looked like:

 I actually thought this effect was rather interesting..in a creative artistic kinda way  :) So, what did you think of Black Spotted over Penny Talk? Love, like or loathe..I would love to hear your thoughts..

Aussie Nails Monday- Blue Cling Wrap Mani

Hello, hello..it's Aussie Nails Monday and today's challenge is "Blue". I wanted to use Essie Penny Talk still but obviously incorporating the blue..so I decided to age my copper with a patina look!  I googled a few images of coppery patina and decided that China Glaze For Audrey would make a great patina color with Penny Talk and using the cling wrap method I attacked my mani! If you don't know what the cling wrap method is, it's basically a piece of cling wrap scrunched and then dipped into the contrasting color and applied to the base coat in an artistic way, so easy, LOL :)

So this is Essie Penny Talk, with China Glaze For Audrey cling wrapped and top coated with Poshe.

In the shade

Gosh, how pretty is that!

 Partial Sun

 Essie Penny talk with China Glaze For Audrey, full sun

 So bronze-y and pretty in the sunlight!

This look was super easy, it was a matter of finding the right color for the patina cling wrap polish to apply. China Glaze For Audrey was just awesome! If you don't have a suitable blue/teal polish you can make it with white, blue and green mixed together until it gets to a color you like :) I top coated this to smooth the look out and really liked the contrast. Super happy with how it turned out. 

Do you like this look? I love it personally but it might not be everyone's cup of tea. So, what else can you do with Essie Penny talk? Look number 3 will be up for tomorrow...

Nail Gun XS - Marie’s Manicure Madhouse - Shatter Me Claire - A Polished Prance - Shades of Phoenix - The Epitome of Superficiality - Lacquer Dreams - NananaisNails - Enamoured With Enamel - Adelle1985 - Kelly's Kolors - Polished Peripherals - Every Little Polish - Mel My Issta - Walk In My Eyeshadow - JennLojko - Erinzi’s Nails - Lovessweetas - Jas’ Blingtastic Nails - Mckfresh - Maedaynails - Lili_Bete - The Reluctant Femme - Jibber Jabber - Messy Mansion - Nailovelogy - Ronda - It's All About The Polish - Pretty Polish Please

Essie Penny Talk

Gosh..how does a week go by and I haven't posted? Let me tell you how. It was my birthday last Saturday! I had a good time with my family and girlfriends for lunch and then the other half took me to dinner. So yes, it was food involved but Saturdays are my free days so I do look forward to them. I got some great cards, cool gifts (car radio!) and flowers. I also managed to rip my cuticle on my swatching hand on Sunday so there went my pics! Who wants to see a bleh cuticle? Anyways I wore DS Original for my birthday and LOVED it.. I will have to put it on again to get some pics. I've also had a great diet week this week, so yay..bring on America in September as a new person (I hope!)

Anyways, I was in the mood for some bling on Wednesday..so I chose Essie Penny Talk. Essie Penny Talk is a gorgeous copper color that I wore for most of last week..and for this week I want to post copper polish in 7 different ways! So today I have Essie Penny Talk by itself as a straight swatch :) I warn you, a few too many pics here as it really is a chameleon depending on the light! This is 2 coats of Essie Penny Talk with no top coat.

Essie Penny Talk in the shade

Essie Penny Talk

Essie Penny Talk- rose gold looking here :)

Essie Penny Talk full sun

 Essie Penny Talk- bronze looking

 Essie Penny Talk full sun..so pretty.

When I put this on I was in the mood for bling and this didn't disappoint me! The color change from shiny penny copper to bronze and then rose gold made me stare at my nails alot :) My only trouble was application. Initially I did a standard base coat with CND Stickey and had trouble with balding with the first coat and the second coat looked lumpy. For this swatch I used the Layla mirror effects file that makes the nail super shiny and I had a much better finish.

Do you have Essie Penny Talk?? Check back tomorrow for Essie Penny talk, done in way number 2!

Whimsical Ideas by Pam Superhero..with stamping!

Evening all you lovely people out there! So, I was sick last week..and I have gone from being sick to being fully back at work and working 44 hours...and I have felt everyone of those hours! I sometimes envy people who have 9-5 jobs and when they aren't feeling great can throttle down and cruise at work for a bit. I work in healthcare and the 8-10 hour shifts can drain you to the point of being comatose on the couch *cough like tonight cough*. It hasn't helped that the workload has ramped up from busy but manageable to outta-control-which-one-of-the-12-cases-that-must-be-done-right-now goes first?! I hope the dust settles soon.

Anyways, somehow my nails have grown insanely long (for me) and after the cute Ulta3 Pastel Yellow I put on the other day I decided to take the mani just that bit further and try out Whimsical Ideas by Pam Superhero I bought a little while ago in a group buy with the Aussie Nails Girls group. I decided to accent just 3 fingers with Superhero and stamp the other 2 for variety..here's how it turned out.

2 Coats of Superhero on first 2 finger, stamping with China Glaze Happy go Lucky

Macro shot of Superhero, jelly yellow base with blue and yellow hexes, red stars and micro gold glittahs

 Macro on the nail, gorgeous glitter combo!

Glitter and stamping..do they go together?

Mix and match yellow mani, sucess or fail?

I quite liked how this turned out..in real life the stamping contrast wasn't quite as great with the  images being a little difficult to distinguish from the background..but maybe I could have picked a better stamping image choice...like stars (duh!) to tie in better with Superhero. Clearly, I thought contrasting rather than matching when I did this :) Anyways, it made me happy to wear it. Whimsical Ideas by Pam Superhero was easy to apply, I didn't have to glitter fish and the bow on the bottle is always so cute!

What do you think? Mani yay or nay?

Ulta3 Pastel Mini Collection

Quickie post tonight peoples! With feeling sick last week I decided to brighten my mood with an impulse buy from the pharmacy with Ulta3 having a 2 for $10 mini sets. Tonight I have a lovely Yellow Pastel from the Pastel mini collection. This little polish doesn't have a name which is sad, but its a very pretty yellow.

Ulta3 Pastel Yellow, 2 coats with Seche Vite top coat

 Ulta3 Mini me colors, very cute and lovely shades!

 Lovely and opaque and quite flattering with my skintone

For an impulse buy, albeit it not a super exxy one, I was pleasantly surprised with the formula and opaqueness of the polish. The smaller brush took a little bit to get used to but wasn't unmanageable. This was one of those colors that dried a little darker, and in the shade was quite yellow, and in the sun more pastel yellow. I actually like the smaller bottles as I am in 'travel' mode when I shop at the moment due to my impending holiday to America in September, this seems to be including polishes! Luckily my friend is very understanding of my polish fetish so will not stop me from coming back with lotsa pretties! 

Next post will have some stamping/bling of this gorgeous pastel yellow polish. See you soon :)

Hello lovely ladies! TGIF I guess :) Friday is never a bad day although I am working tomorrow. I have for you today an Australis polish that is just super fun and definitely keeping up with the trend of glitters in a milky base..and funnily enough, this one is called Milky Way! This was one of the 3 latest release polishes to dazzle the Aussie market..and of course I had to hunt out all three. 

Australis Milky Way 3 Coats with top coat

L-R, Milky Way, Space Jam and Glitter Strikes Back.

Photo Courtesy of Beauty with the Beautifool.

The white milky base has blue micro glitter and large multicolor ones that float as you layer.

Love!

 Look..all da glittahs!

I really loved how Milky Way built up on the nail and I had fully opacity with 3 coats. I did wait longer than usual between each coat so I had no dragging and even coverage.The blue microglitters can make the polish look a bit blue in the bottle but the base is definitely white and white on the nail. Like quite a few of Australis glitters there can be some *cough* tacoing *cough* but it was managable and covered with 2 coats of Seche Vite. I very much enjoyed wearing this polish and will be bringing you the other 2 at a later date :)

So a winner or a loser for you guys?

NOTD photos over the last few weeks

If you don't follow me on Instagram, then you have been missing my Nails of the Day which I have been doing but not blogging. If you wish to follow my on Instagram you can find me @Jasmsb. I thought I would round up my NOTD and show you what I have been wearing the last few weeks here :) These are all taken with my Iphone.

OPI I Don't Give a Rotterdam

Definitely doesn't show how sparkly, but a lovely blue/grey. My cuticles were rubbish here!

China Glaze Pinkie-Promise with Millennium stamping and Enchanted Polish Tummy Time

OPI Can't Let Go

Purple Liquid Sand Polish..it was better than I thought!

OPI Can't Let go with flash. Really loved wearing  this :)

The Lady Varnishes As The World Falls Down

China Glaze Fancy Pants.

L-R, Rimmel Metal Rush Royal Blue. Dotting with TBN Blue, Stamping with CG Harmony and Fancy Pants on it's own.

I am still wearing the last mani but will be taking it off to try the Orly gels system. I really like to use the gel as a base coat and just paint over the top of it. I am trying to slow down on my polish purchases, but I am a sucker for collections when it comes to movies I love. The Lady Varnishes has a whole collection based on Labyrinth which I couldn't resist and Northern Star has The Princess Bride collection which I want as well! 

Anyways, hope you feel caught up with my NOTD...I have been polishing..just not blogging! I will be back to blogging in ernest now :)