Arcane - Ineffable

There's a new Aussie Indie in town and the debut collection is STUNNING!  So stunning, that I pre-ordered the entire collection :)

Arcane is the brainchild of the gorgeous Bec from Nail Gun XS.  It started out as a personal project with no intention to sell.  After sharing some swatches of her creations, the girls at Aussie Nails made their thoughts VERY clear and Bec decided to sell her babies.

There are ten gorgeous polishes in the debut collection, have a closer look at them all here.

When they arrived, I sat and studied them for ages, trying to decide which one to use first.  It was sooo hard to choose!

I ended up going with Ineffable - a gorgeous deep purple with purple and pink hexes, squares and pink/purple microglitter that gives it a pretty shimmer look (I SUCK at polish descriptions!).

My swatches show no where near the awesomeness of this polish.

I think Bec will be re-releasing this collection with the addition of a few new shades in the very near future.  So keep an eye on her blog for more details.

x

Essence - That's What I Mint! & FOA Studio 54

Essence sure do make a good, strong polish.  And they're soooo CHEAP!  It still amazes me that a polish of this quality is less than $3!

I had the same formula issues with That's What I Mint! that what I had with Hello Marshmallow.  But maybe it is just my crappy polishing skills...  I just felt like it was a bit thick and difficult to apply with the huge brush.  I guess too much polish was coming off the brush and it bubbled a bit.  Obviously my polishing skills need some improvement...

But it is such a LOVELY colour!  A gorgeous mint (well, duh!) with a subtle shimmer.  I find myself drawn to all the soft minty colours lately (in polish, make-up and clothes) and this gorgeous colour did not disappoint.

I decided to layer on top another awesome and cheap polish - Face of Australia Studio 54.  Studio 54 is from the recently released Glitterati collection and I managed to score it for 75c in the recent KMart sale.  SCORE.  Studio 54 contains copper hexes in a clear base.  Fortunately, the glitters in Studio 54 are not curled like many of the glitters in the rest of the collection.

Please excuse the creased tips, this photo was taken two days after I did this manicure.

I love this colour combo and this manicure wore like steel.

x

ANOTHER Belated AN Monday. Lace.

Man, I really need to get my act together!

I'll make this one quick.

This week's AN Monday theme was lace.  I was stumped.  I am a crappy stamper (though I'm hoping to improve since I got my new Pueen plates this week) and I'm just not confident enough in my nail art abilities to do it freehand.

So I looked to my ever growing collection of Sally Hansen Real Polish Strips.

Luckily I had a couple of lacy themed ones to choose from.

I chose 'I Love Lacy'.

I love these strips.  They are a relatively quick and easy way to jazz up your nails and they last quite a while. Tonight is night four with them on and they are holding up pretty well.

They aren't the cheapest 'polish' option.  They usually retail for around $15, but Priceline often has 2 for 1 sales and 50% off sales on Sally Hansen products, plus I bought a whole heap from OzSale - including 'Pedicure' strips which I am wearing right now!

Next week's theme is 'Music' and after some research, I'm fairly sure about what I'm going to do.

x

Essence Hello Marshmallow & A Girl Obsessed Fruity Pebbles

Essence released some gorgeous new shades in the last month of so here in Australia.

Hello Marshmallow is one of them and it is lovely.  It is a sweet lilac with a subtle sparkle/shimmer.

Application was okay, maybe a little thick for my liking and I'm not a great fan of their wide brush. But oh well, the colour more than made up for it!

I layered A Girl Obsessed Fruity Pebbles over the top after seeing the combo done by a couple of my fellow AN gals.  It was a gorgeous pairing.

Fruity Pebbles is a limited edition polish from A Girl Obsessed.  It contains neon glitters in a clear base.  It's a LE due to the fact that the neon glitters are unstable and are starting to disintegrate in the suspension base.  When I received it, it was obvious that the glitters were starting to break apart and when I applied it, I got some clear glitters on the nail.  But I really liked the effect of the itty bitty broken up glitters.

Neon glitter toppers are all the rage right now and I have my eye on a few others.  I hear A Girl Obsessed is trying to rectify her glitter issue and re-release Fruity Pebbles.  That would be awesome and I would definitely purchase it :)

x

Belated AN Monday nails

Yep, even though I wasn't blogging, I was still participating in AN Monday.  Here are the two manicures that I didn't post.

This post is VERY picture heavy, so please check it out after the jump.

Cult Nails - Flushed

I know, I know.  I am a very naughty blogger.  It's been almost two weeks since my last post and I have no excuses.  I just haven't felt motivated to blog lately.  Work has been busy and by the time I paint my nails, the urge to blog and show it off has waned and I tell myself that I will do it later.  Later never comes.

Until today!

I assure you I HAVE been doing my nails, and I still upload my manicures on my IG account frequently.

One of the benefits of not updating your blog in a while is a huge backlog of manicures to post, so I plan to write all my overdue posts and schedule them for throughout the week.

Today's nails are simply gorgeous.

Cult Nails Flushed is a 'blurple' with an intense purple/pink shimmer that truly does glow through the polish.  I would almost liken it to a more opaque version of MF Fantasy Fire - though of course the colour shifting shimmer shows different colours than FF.  It still gave me the same yummy feeling.  And as always, I found myself staring at my nails for long periods of time at different angles to capture the shimmer.

This polish applied quite nicely, though it was a bit sheer and required four coats to get the opacity in the photos above.  I decided to jazz it up a bit by adding a pretty pink rhinestone to each nail.  I thought the pink in the rhinestone went quite nicely with pink in the shimmer of the polish.

x