NOTD: Neon Gradient + Watermarble

   ♫♪ I can't sleep at night, when you are on my mind ... We belong together babyyyyy~ 

   Anyone listen to old school Mariah Carey? :P I found a playlist of old school songs in a folder on my laptop and now I'm getting sidetracked and instead find myself singing along (trying to) with whatever lyrics I remember - it's a tad hard writing this post with impulses to sing every 2 seconds ♪Your lips, your smile, I love it when you kiss me baby (next track - Mesmerized Ja Rule).

   Okay. Anyways. I put the volume down, maybe that'll help - and here I thought I was good at multitasking. SO. NAILS. This neon gradient is by far my most fave! From a lime green to a medium blue to bright pink  (Tony Moly P004, Australis Sky's The Limit and #totesamaze) - it just screams Summer. I was so tempted to leave it as is, cos come on, just look at it, it's so stinkin' cute! :P 

   As for what to layer on top of the gradient, I had a couple of ideas: waterspotting, black tribal pattern, or I could have taken the lazy way out and just added a glitter topper... but I was feeling adventurous, so I gave water marbling a go. Just as an FYI, water marbling and I do not mix well: I attempt it, I fail miserably, I try another 10 times, and finally, successfully marble 1 nail - ONE nail. This little escapade wasn't any different, just my left hand took at least an hour and a half! 

   And the bubbles! Damn the bubbles! I pull my finger out of the water and there are air bubbles in my water marble - it drives me nuts! What am I doing wrong?? ): What I did to try and salvage them, without having to redo the gradient and the marble, was to pop the bubbles and paint over it with a small brush and black nail polish. You can sort of see in the photos where the black is slightly darker - that's where I painted over :P

   Buuuuuuuut... the results are just so pretty, I don't mind facing off against my arch nemesis every now and then.

   So water marbling is my love/ hate relationship, what's yours? 

   ALSO, NAIL MAIL :P Swatches of these will be up on the blog within the week ♥

Review: Femme Fatale Cosmetics Press Kit

   Morning all :D So this month, I thought I'd give applying for a Femme Fatale Cosmetics Press Kit a go, and fortunately I was selected in this month's batch of applicants.

   Femme Fatale Cosmetics carries a wide range of Australian and International indie polish brands, as well as their own Femme Fatale Cosmetics range of beauty products. It has grown to become pretty much a one stop shop for all Australian nail polish lovers - though Sophie now offers international shipping so international customers can now order polish through the site!

   Now, onto the polish! In the kit, Sophie included 4 mini bottles from 4 different brands she carries on the website for me to swatch and review. I've decided to split the review in half and do the first two today, and the next two tomorrow. So first up is Love Thy Polish Shangri-La.

Taken in the light box using a flash on the SLR Camera

   Shangri-La is a peachy - pink linear holo that really surprised me! I'm not one for holos because the two that I have from the first Color Club Halo Hues collection looked washed out under normal light and only bedazzled (I like that word :P) me when in direct sunlight or under a flash. But Shangri-La was super holo just sitting in my room!

Under normal light taken with my camera phone

   It's coming off really pink in the above photo, but leans halfway between a nude peach and a dusty rose in person. It's such a unique shade, and is so soft and subtle on the nail, makes me feel so feminine :P I had no problems applying it, though the formula is a little sheer, but easily buildable. In all the swatch pictures, I'm wearing 3 thin coats with 1 coat of top coat. 

Taken outside of the light box, with direct flash from the SLR camera

   And of course I couldn't resist doing a bit of nail art on top :P My first successful watermarble of this style! Despite the bubbles (anyone have tips on how to NOT get them?!) I think it turned out pretty neat :D

   Next up, Femme Fatale Cosmetics Edge of the Cosmos. 

   It's a dark purple - almost black - jelly base jam packed full of glitter! It's incredible how much glitter a little bottle can hold! This is 3 "dabbed" coats over black, and as you can see, plenty of sparkle! Mixed in with the fine holographic particles are different coloured holo stars, moons and large dot glitters, as well as medium sized holo hex glitters. It's a feast for the eyes. 

   The only minor hurdle I came across when applying the polish (as with a lot of shape glitter polishes) was even placing of all the shape glitter. But it wasn't nothing a little dabbing and glitter placement couldn't fix! Not a biggie at all - easy as pie (: 

   Sophie writes in her description for this polish: 

            "To make this a little more interesting we vary batches slightly, replacing one or two glitters with another of same size and shape but different colour. We wanted to embody the ever-changing beauty of the universe with our mini version in a bottle ;)"

   And so, I decided to match it up with some colourful galaxy nail art that I've been meaning to try for ages. Didn't turn out too shabby :P

   These first two polishes get a big thumbs up - smiley face - YAY from me! You can purchase both of them (and a bunch of fabulous others) from the Femme Fatale Cosmetics website. 

Love Thy Polish Shangri-La

Femme Fatale Cosmetics Edge of the Cosmos

   So two down, two to go! Stay tuned for the other half :D

*The item/s mentioned in this post were sent to me for my 100% honest review. This in no way affects my opinion of them. For more information, please read the Contact and Policy page of the blog*

Pretty Pastels

   Hey y'all! Sooooo... here we are again, another day, another mani. Though, if you're anything like me, then that means playtime! :P With Easter right around the corner, I've had an urge to play with pastels, and since I haven't attempted a watermarble and/or gradient in a while, thought I'd mash the two together for a pretty pastel mani.

   I started off with two coats of Sinful Colors Easy Going (this is such a pretty delicate pink shade, so bummed I didn't take a shot of it on my nails *sob*). Then with Chi Chi Plastic Fantastic, BC Co. Shade 21, Essence Bloom-A-Loom and Sinful Colors Easy Going, I did a simple watermarble pattern for the accents. Using those same colours, I sponged on the gradient for the rest of the nails.

   I know that there are different methods people use to do gradients, but what works best for me is painting my base coat of colour first and letting it dry, then painting on the strips of colour directly onto the sponge and dabbing it onto the nail in sort of an up (towards the cuticle) and down (towards the free edge) motion (i am terrible at explaining, I hope that made sense).

   And just because I felt like a little sparkle :P I topped everything off with Bloom Cosmetics Aspen (sort of like an extremely fine version of CG Fairy Dust).

Though I really do like the end result, it still feels incomplete... so maybe a design on top tomorrow? We'll see :P

Marbling Mayhem

Anyone else think water marbling is stressing?! 

(the claw pose rawr! haha)

   This was very first attempt at water marbling about three months ago. I chose to do a pink/ white/ silver marble over black nails, with some added glitter, kind of like a galaxy. It was a disaster, it didn't look pretty at all ): like all the other marble nails I was seeing on tumblr. 

   I was so disappointed I pretty much gave up on marbling altogether. It just took too much time taping my fingers and mixing the polish in the water trying to get a decent pattern; not to mention the waste of polish when I mess up ): So for a good few months, I left water marbling be. 

   Until tonight, I was lacking inspiration and had time on my hands, so I thought I'd give it another shot. And this is what came out:

   I used a black base again, and white/ pink/ silver for the marble. But this time I opted for no glitter and used different brand polishes, I guess the ones I used now had a better formula for use in water marbling because IMHO these turned out great! Not very galaxy-like like how I intended them to be, but more like a smoky pink!

   Hopefully this wasn't all a fluke! haha

ALSO: don't forget about my nail art contest on Instagram! @xtinemayyy for details (: