Zeus

Hey guys, quick post tonight! I'm going to cut straight to the chase, this is 'Zeus' by Shades of Phoenix layered over 2 coats of OPI 'Pedal Faster Suzi!' (knocking out 2 untrieds in one mani *pats self on back*).

Lamp light

Lamp light

I bought 'Zeus' back in January when Shades of Phoenix launched. Unfortunately I had gone on a bit of a polish splurge and received more polishes at once than I knew what to do with and Zeus got a bit lost in my untried pile. But here it is and it's so damn pretty! 'Zeus' contains lavender, white and silver hexes, along with some sparkly iridescent purple/blue hexes in a clear base. Application was smooth and there was plenty of glitter on the brush each time, no fishing required.

Bottle shot

If you're in Australia you can purchase Shades of Phoenix from the etsy store. International girls you will soon be able to get your hands on Shades of Phoenix too! Jump over to the facebook page to stay up to date.

Disney Princess: Snow White

Week 2 of the Disney Princess Nail Art Challenge! This week's princess is Snow White. For those of you who have been reading my blog for awhile you might remember that I've done Snow White nails in the past, so I tried to up my game a little this time. It's not my best work, but considering I'd had a pounding headache all day I think it was a pretty solid effort.

Full sunlight

Full sunlight

Full sunlight

Like last week I used a temporary tattoo on my middle finger since I'm rubbish at drawing. On my index and pinkie fingers I've layer China Glaze 'Dorothy Who?' over China Glaze 'Manhunt' and used a dotting tool to create the red teardrop shapes with China Glaze 'Ruby Deer'. These are supposed to resemble the sleeves of her dress, although I don't think they're overly realistic. On my ring finger I've layered China Glaze 'Ruby Pumps' over 'Ruby Deer' and stamped on the sparrows from Konad plate Q1 to represent Snow White's woodland friends.

Here are the other challenge participants, I'll be interested to see if any of them incorporated the 7 Dwarves into their designs:

Strawbrie

LabMuffin
It's All About The Polish
ErinZi's Nails
WalkInMyEyeshadow
Ten Little Nubs
Nailed Obsession
Every Little Polish
For the Love of Lacquer
Nailoveology
Maeday Nails
LacquerDreams

1st Birthday Giveaway Winner!

We have a winner! Precious Pearl! I've sent Precious Pearl an email and she has 48 hours to respond before I pick a new winner! A big thank you to everyone who entered.

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A Little Understated...

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I did have some nail art planned for you guys, but I had a rather eventful (or uneventful depending how you look at it) weekend that consisted of food poisoning and my first ever experience with hay fever, so unfortunately my nail painting got cut short after the first layer of polish and I was left with mannequin hands. Why oh why did I choose OPI 'My Vampire Is Buff' as the base colour for said nail art? All sickness aside though, I do have something to show you:

Lamp light (facing away from light source)

Lamp light (facing in to light source - more colour accurate)

This is China Glaze 'Luxe And Lush' layered over OPI 'My Vampire Is Buff' (which was to be the base for my nail art before my nose started creating a puddle). I'll have to save that nail art to show you guys another time I'm afraid. I must say though, I'm pleasantly surprised at how much I love this combination. It's much more neutral than anything I would normally wear, but I'm ok with that. 'My Vampire Is Buff' works wonderfully with my skin tone, and 'Luxe And Lush' adds an elegant sparkle without being too over the top. I think this is one of those rare glittery combos that would still be acceptable if you worked in a corporate environment.

What do you guys think? Maybe my illnesses turned out to be a blessing in disguise? Or maybe not. I don't know if I'd want to go through all that again just to discover one polish combo!

Disney Princess: Jasmine

 *** Remember to enter our 1st Birthday Giveaway! Open internationally. ***

Hey guys! Today I'm embarking on a new nail art challenge started by fellow blogger Bec from Lacquer Dreams. I'm really excited about this one because it's one of my favourite things, DISNEY PRINCESSES! Every Saturday for the next 2 months I'll be posting one of the 'original' Disney Princesses (sorry fans of Tiana & co). Here's the line up:

So first up is Princess Jasmine from Aladdin. I wanted to go with the whole 'Arabian Nights' theme, so I hope that shows through.

Full sunlight

Full sunlight

Full sunlight

Before you all start freaking out over how perfect the Jasmine on my ring finger is, it's a temporary tattoo that I bought on ebay and applied over white polish. I thought that was pretty obvious, but I have had some people not realise. I'm not the next Botticelli! My other fingers feature China Glaze 'For Audrey' followed by Essie 'Golden Nuggets' and stamped stars using Nailz Craze plate NC02 and Essie 'Good As Gold'. I've then applied some 2mm gold square studs into my wet top coat. You can buy these from Born Pretty Store. Arabian Nights, yes?

You can check out the other challenge participants here:

Strawbrie

LabMuffin
It's All About The Polish
ErinZi's Nails
WalkInMyEyeshadow
Lissa's Polish Addiction
Nailed Obsession
Every Little Polish
For the Love of Lacquer
Nailoveology
Maeday Nails
LacquerDreams

Travelling By Bubble

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Sorry guys, I'm a little behind with blogging. Looks like this semester of uni is going to be pretty full on and I have at least one piece of assessment due each week. I'll try to keep up! This does mean however that you'll be getting a blog post today AND tomorrow!

Lamp light

Lamp light

Today I have my first Smitten Polish to show you, 'Travelling By Bubble'. Smitten Polish released her Wickedly Smitten collection earlier in the year, and she sucked me in with it's theme (I'm a sucker for a polish with a good theme). This particular collection of polishes is inspired by the musical Wicked, which I'm a massive fan of. 'Travelling By Bubble' is a reference to Glinda's mode of transport, and the colour is inspired by her blue dress (with a touch of pink as a nod to her dress in the Wizard of Oz movie). On a somewhat unrelated note, Glinda's 'bubble dress' in the musical includes 25 different types of sequins and took 3 months to sew. Crazy right? And they have to make several for each production! *Obsessed fan alert*

'Travelling By Bubble' has a milky blue base with a subtle shimmer through it, and is packed with blue and pink dot glitters as well as smaller fuschia and blue hexes. I've used 2 coats, but you could add a 3rd for extra opacity or layer a single coat over a blue base. Application was smooth and I didn't have to place any glitters. I did have to fish a little for the dots though, but that was to be expected. Unfortunately I had to take my photos under the lamp due to rain, but the glitters are very pretty and sparkly in the sun.

Bottle shot

Smitten polishes are available from the etsy store, but can also be purchased from several retailers including Shoppe Eclecticco (and for those of you in Australia, Femme Fatale Cosmetics will be stocking them shortly too!). This definitely won't be my only Smitten Polish, I think I'll be back for a second order very soon!

She Walks In Beauty

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I'm still on a mission to get through my untrieds, and I've managed to knock out 2 untrieds in one mani. Not gonna lie, it feels like an accomplishment! The random number generator pulled A England 'She Walks In Beauty', and I thought what better to layer it over than a fellow untried A England, 'Galahad'.

Lamp light

Lamp light

'She Walks In Beauty' is an intriguing and beautiful polish, and I don't think I've seen any photos that do it justice. It consists of rose glitter hexes in a shimmery gold/green base. I'll admit when I first heard it described as a gold/green base I wasn't too keen, but there's a certain magical quality about it that grabs your attention. It's very solid from some angles but translucent and soft from others. Application is smooth and no glitter placement was required. 'Galahad' also has a  smooth application and is even and opaque in 2 coats.

'She Walks In Beauty' bottle shot

A England polishes are available from the website for those in the UK. Unfortunately due to recently enforced shipping laws (Royal Mail is x-raying packages and destroying those containing polish) Adina has had to suspend international shipping, but she does have a list of international stockists listed on the website. I wish her all the best in finding a solution to reinstate her international shipping soon!

Ladybird

  *** Remember to enter our 1st Birthday Giveaway! Open internationally. ***

The next untried to be pulled from my stash by the random number generator was China Glaze 'Ruby Deer'. This red polish reminded me of ladybirds for some reason, so today I have a ladybird nail art tutorial for you!

Lamp light

Lamp light

Step 1: Apply your protective base coat and then apply a red polish to all of your nails.

Step 2: Taking a black striper or black polish and a nail art brush draw a straight line down the centre of your ring finger nail.

Step 3: Using a black polish paint a rounded tip on the same nail.

Step 4: Taking a white polish and a dotting tool, give the ladybird two eyes. If you're feeling brave you could give it a little mouth too.

Step 5: If you have round black studs, apply some to the ladybird's back. If you don't have studs use black polish and a dotting tool to make your dots.

Step 6: Apply some studs/dots to your other nails.

Step 7: Apply your clear top coat.

Fun fact: Ladybirds are the only insects that can touch me without causing me to shriek incessantly.

Pinkie Promise

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I know that I've been a bit absent lately with Sayuri's launch, but I think I'm finally back on the blogging wagon! I have a million untrieds to get through, so I've decided to make a list and I'm using a random number generator when I'm feeling indecisive. Today Rainbow Honey's 'Pinkie Promise' got pulled, and I'm really glad it did because I've been meaning to use this polish for far too long now.

Full sunlight

Full sunlight

Partial sunlight

'Pinkie Promise' is from the Equestria Collection which is inspired by the My Little Pony ponies. 'Pinkie Promise' is inspired by Pinkie Pie.

Meet Pinkie Pie

'Pinkie Promise' has a shimmery pink base that flashes gold and is filled with different sized hex and bar glitters in magenta, blue, and yellowy-gold. I've layered one coat over OPI's 'If You Moust You Moust' and stamped Hello Kitty from the FUN 2 plate on my ring finger using OPI's 'No Room For The Blues' (simply because I felt like doing some stamping and hadn't tried that plate yet).

Apparently I'm not quite back on the blogging wagon yet because I forgot to take a bottle shot, so here's the one from the Rainbow Honey website.

Bottle shot from Rainbow Honey

Rainbow Honey polishes are available directly from Rainbow Honey for those living in the US and Canada. Everyone else can purchase from several international distributors including Shoppe Eclecticco who have just started stocking the twin gift sets (hooray!). Don't forget to use the code NO2PC for a discount on every Shoppe Eclecticco order.

Nailed Obsession's 1st Birthday Giveaway!

Hey guys! Big news, Nailed Obsession is celebrating it's first birthday! Technically the blog turns 1 on the 13th of March, but since we've reached 40000 page views I've decided to celebrate early.

I was planning to have a big giveaway for Nailed Obsession's first birthday, but with the launch of Sayuri things got a bit hectic and I forgot to plan anything. However, in a way this turned out to be a good thing, because now the prize is 5 Sayuri Nail Lacquer polishes of your choice, and the giveaway is open internationally so those of you outside of Australia have a chance to get your hands on my polish! Hooray!

Now I know what some of you are going to say, if I can post the giveaway prize internationally how come I can't always give you access to Sayuri polishes? The answer is that I'm being sneaky by posting the giveaway prize internationally (yep, I go to these lengths for you guys). Nail polish is classified as a dangerous good here in Australia and it's illegal for it to be sent by air mail so from a business perspective I can't always be sending stuff overseas. From a personal blog perspective however I'm willing to do it every now and then.

Anyway enough talk, let's get started! Giveaway closes on March 20th, keep your eye on the countdown timer for an exact time as we're all on different time zones!

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