NoTD: Femme Fatale Incendius

Femme Fatale Cosmetics have recently discontinued and sold out of the following shades:
Incendius
Glinting Lodestone
Sweet Surprise
Quivering Heart
Crimson Acolyte

Click here to check and see what's left of several other discontinued shades! A lot of them are from the original collection and are seriously gorgeous.

Shiny blue hexes!

I'm showing you Incendius today. I got one of the last bottles from Femme Fatale a few weeks ago. Usually I layer glitters over a base colour that matches it. One of the things I liked about Incendius was that it had a few metallic blue hexes scattered among the gold, orange and red that are the base of this incredible polish. I decided to try layering it over Mode Runway, a dark teal. I liked the result so much, my plan to glitter-fy just my ring fingers and thumbs turned into a full glitter mani.

NotD: Smoke and flakies

Revlon Perplex. I've no idea how long I've had this polish for - months, definitely - and not touched it. I know it's a gorgeous polish but I never bothered swatching it because it's one of those polishes nearly everybody owns or knows about. Even if you don't own Perplex itself, you probably own a dupe from another brand.

NotD: Sunset Butterfly

I asked my partner what colour I should paint my nails and got a ridiculously specific nail art request instead! "Orange with a yellow stripe and red butterflies!"

Way to make it easy, babe...

NotD: Grey gradient and glitter!

Felt like doing something a bit more understated with my nails this time around. The weather is doing its usual weirdness - autumn in Australia is very much like spring, in one week you'll have a cold and drizzly day followed by a warm and sunny one! I decided to do something a bit wintry.

Polishes used:
Mode Cosmetics VIP
Zoya Harley
Revlon Steel-her Heart
Nubar White Polka Dots

NotD: Ablaze Skittles

I had a reeeeeally bad split in the side wall of my thumbnail. I patched it for about 3 weeks until it grew out, then decided on a whim to change my nails to an almond shape. I love the way it looks but the feel of it is taking some getting used to!

Anyway, I decided to do another skittle manicure, this time with Ablaze from Alanna Renee. Lots if pictures under the jump!

NotD: Lodestone Skittles

I've been checking out a lot of nail blogs lately for inspiration, and decided to try a glitter gradient manicure - over skittles!

NotD: work safe blue for Autism awareness

NotD: Light as Air Bubbles

Shopped my stash and picked out Light As Air. I love the colour and haven't worn it in ages. Remembered I had bought a wheel of rhinestones from eBay to use for nail art, so I dug those out too.

Yes, that is a giant air bubble under the middle rhinestone. It happened on my right hand as well!

What can I say, I'm just really good at messing up nail polish :P

Speck-tacular Runway (NotD)

Pardon the tipwear, this is now a few days old. Runway from Mode Cosmetics with a thick coat of Australis Speck-tacular. Runway is a little darker and bluer in these photos than it is in real life.

I was originally going to put Runway under a coat of China Glaze Wireless (which is an awesome holo top coat) but my bottle is missing :( I might have to bite the bullet and purchase a replacement soon, it's been a week or so and it hasn't turned up!

Jaded on the Runway (NotD)

More Mode polishes! I tried out Runway for the first time, which is a deep teal creme, INSANELY gorgeous and opaque in one coat. Me being me of course, I couldn't leave it alone, so I layered Jaded over the top which is a sheer green-y shimmer, which added a grass green shimmer to it. I love this combo so much.

The best thing about this mani was how fast it was; because both polishes applied so smoothly, it was literally base coat, polish 1, polish 2, top coat and DONE. Time constraints are my worst enemy at the moment :(

From polish storage: Eurotrip (NotD)

This is one of my maaaaaaaany Mode nail polishes. I have a lot of them, mostly because they're cheap but also because some of them are amazingly good. I'm not sure I've ever actually worn this before, but here it is!

Slightly blurry pic to show the shimmer :)

This colour has amazing gold/copper shimmer in sunlight. I don't normally go for darker polish colours but I really like this one. I did two thick-ish coats to maximise the chocolaty base colour and make sure the shimmer showed up.

Pic with flash, makes the base look a lot more reddish than it actually is.

I added some polka dots with China Glaze Passion. I actually would have loved to do my whole mani with the dots but for some reason my left hand was SO shaky last night, after doing the accent nail on my right hand I kinda went, "Yeeeah no," so accent it shall stay. Or maybe I'll just do one extra nail a day for however long the mani lasts :P

Much better representation of the base colour.

Polka dots!

Celebration manicure!

Orly Old School Orange and Nubar White Polka Dots.

Sorry my cuticles are a big raggedy! I LOVE this combo. I might thin out Polka Dots a little so it's easier to get some of the larger glitter on my nails. The small glitter is a bit translucent, it's easier to see on some angles, then other angles it sort of takes on the colour of the base polish (which is why it looks gold in the pics).

I have a massive nail polish lemming list, including a lot of crazy glitters from some of the indie polish companies that have sprung up recently. However I'm making myself wait a little while - gotta go through my stash and use all my neglected polishes first! I think I need another orange though, maybe something a little deeper/more pumpkin-y than Old School, and hopefully something that isn't quiiiiite as sheer. This was three coats since I didn't want any VNL.

Also MOAR GLITTER.

A stove and nails and animals

I got home from work tonight with the intention of doing swatches and finishing up the post for my Silk Naturals Kisser Slickers review. Instead, I did this:

That, ladies and gentlefolk, is the cleanest damn stove in all of Australia right now. Not pictured is the cleanest damn kitchen that it lives in, because it's the boyfriend's turn to put the dishes away and of course he hasn't done that yet. It is also a newly repaired stove - the ignitors on the two front burners have been no-worky since we moved it, and the technician finally got the parts in for us and fixed it yesterday. We waited a month for our property manager to start doing something about the problem, a month for the parts, and then it took the technician TWENTY MINUTES to fix. Riiiight.

Two months since my last post! How did that happen?! I have been working on my nails in that time (read: whining about the fact that they split and peel all the bloody time, and moisturising like crazy). IT HAS PAID OFF. Here's a pic of the fabulousness before something bad happens to them.

Picture taken with my new camera that doesn't do macro as great as the old one, but I couldn't find the old one so it'll have to do. Polish is a franken I made for work. YES, my nails are rounded! Some of my fingernails aren't really... symmetrical. Especially the middle finger of my right hand, that nail curves inward quite dramatically on one side so when my nails are long and squared, it looks really weird and is actually quite uncomfortable. I decided to try out a rounded shape with the amazing length, and lo and behold, me likey!

I have lots of reviews to do, here AND over at Jade Likes Words for those of you who like reading about books and comics. I am going to do my darndest to post once a week in both places. And you can poke me via Twitter if I don't!

Speaking of Twitter, I'm going to be online a lot less often for a while as I've, er, misplaced my phone. It's literally disappeared. I remember having it in my hand when I got home from work and then just POW! Can't find it bloody anywhere. The things I have done whilst trying to find that thing are absolutely ridiculous (read: I checked the microwave, and shook every piece of clean laundry in the laundry basket, and searched the pockets of bags I haven't used in months). It's a bit of a bummer because 1) being without a phone SUCKS and 2) I still have about 7 months left on my contract for it, so if I have to get it replaced it will be kind of expensive.

On a happier and more picturesque note, over Christmas my grandparents were visiting from Melbourne (well, that wasn't a happy note for my parents who had to deal with doddery and extremely passive-aggressive oldies for two weeks) so here are some snaps from the Perth zoo.

AMINALS AWAY

Meerkat

Pretty flower

Bamboo graffiti. BAMBOO. GRAFFITI. I so do not remember seeing that the last time I went to the zoo.

TOIRTOISE

Meerkat butt

Rhino, chillin'

While I was going through these photos I found this photo from our Sydney trip of several months ago:

Carrot cake from Starbucks. God I miss you.

(there will be honest-to-god real posts soon. After all, now the kitchen's clean I have nothing else to d- oh shit I have work tomorrow. Raincheck?)

Blue Tiger Butterfly: NoTD

I have a metric butt-ton of draft posts but I'm so swamped with uni work, and moving stuff (we still have a distinct lack of furniture!) so here's a quick NoTD so you know I haven't forgotten about blogging.

I bought a bunch of stuff from BornPretty.com as a celebratory "we got the house!", also using Lillian's 10% off code. Yay! It arrived just before my three-day break from work, so I pulled out a polish I bought a while ago but had yet to use. Blue Tiger from Australis. HOLY SHIT. I don't know why I never used this before! I mean, yes it's royal blue and I prefer turquoise/aqua shades but this is beautifully bright and OPAQUE IN ONE COAT.

A little snark about Australis polishes: "Intense colour with a high shine". The last polish I tried from them, Satine, was so sheer I didn't even bother trying to make it opaque. It was very shiny though. Blue Tiger is incredibly opaque, BUT it dries semi-matte. Obviously I have topcoat on in my photos, but still, I thought it was funny.

I got Konad plates, dotting tools, stamping polishes and some Fimo pieces from BornPretty and I honestly did not know what to do first, so... I decided to use a little bit of everything, minus the dotting tools. Please ignore the cuticle on my middle finger, I banged it at work and it's taking forever to heal up, despite twice-daily applications of cuticle cream!

Stamping done with China Glaze Millenium.
Layering on middle finger done with Mode Chillax.

The Fimo pieces have hard edges from being slathered in topcoat, and they do catch on things a little bit. I was SO tempted to do a French tip-esque line with the dotting tool, but LESS IS MORE. I think. Sometimes.

Another fun layering combo: Essie Demure Vixen topped with China Glaze Wireless holo topcoat. Subtle enough indoors that I didn't get in trouble at work, but SO GORGEOUS and sparkly outdoors! This does look a bit beat up, sorry.

The holo topcoat has the effect of almost merging the base colour (soft taupe-cocoa) and the shimmer (violet) into this lovely muted mauve-brown. The holo itself looks predominantly silver-green in the shade, but direct sunlight does give it more of a rainbow effect.

I think my bottle of Demure Vixen is reformulated, because it takes at least 3 coats to get opaque, and even then there's still a bit of VNL. I'm going to experiment with some of my nude/taupe polishes and see if any of them work OK as a base so I don't have to apply so darn much of Demure Vixen to get it looking good. It also develops tipwear really fast; I don't know if it's my base/topcoat or the actual polish though.

There you go, some pretty pictures! I'm off to Sydney next week for work training (boo) and a mini-holiday (yay!) so expect some posts when I get back. I should have some sporadic internet access while I'm there and I'll also be able to VISIT ILLAMASQUA! I'm so excited. I'm planning on getting an eye pencil and maybe a lipgloss as well.

NotD: Zoya Shay

This is such a weird colour. It's like a golden peach-y muted coral? I dunno. All I know is that sometimes I look down and it's goldy-orange and other times it's a yellowy-pink. It looks okay but I definitely prefer the other two polishes from the Zoya Touch collection.

You can sort of see the colour 'change' in these photos, the sunshine was coming and going in a very annoying way when I was trying to take photos!

So there you have it, all 3 Zoya Touch polishes swatched by yours truly. I still can't believe I got the full-sized versions for SO CHEAP. Ebay FTW. I've just placed a moderate order from Born Pretty, so you might see these polishes swanked up with some stamping and some Fimo (!) in a month or so as I try to find ways to spice up my nails on my days off without having to bother about changing my polish.

HELLO and Zoya Minka NoTD

MOVE COMPLETE!...

More or less. All of our belongings are in the new house, we have bought the necessities like bed, fridge, washing machine, dryer, microwave, bean bags (yes they're necessary!) and we've been food shopping. I haven't unpacked anything except my makeup (hehehe) but it's feeling more and more like home everyday.

Because I'm studying externally this semester, I actually NEED internet for my uni work, so the boyfie went out while I was at work and got us some pre-paid wireless to get us through until we can clear the getting of "real" internet with the house owners <3 it's a really low cap but hey, IT'S INTERNET!

I tossed Zoya Minka in my handbag to put on after the move. Four days later it's a bit beat up and there's some tipwear and nicks but it actually still looks passable!

Ignore the dent on my middle finger. You should see my right hand! I've broken my thumbnail pretty badly. I thought this was going to be far too yellow for me, but I actually don't mind it. The formula was much thicker than Pandora, I actually did two thin coats of this rather than one thick one since it probably would've taken ages to dry.

Next to try is Shay! I have a ton of housework, uni work, unpacking and work homework (personal evaluation stuff, blah) to do today, but I'm going to take some "me time" this evening to do my nails and play some games. Boyfie bought us a new xbox game, Dungeon Siege III. I'm finding it a bit tricky to adjust to the viewpoint and controls, but I'm looooving playing Anjali with her super cool fire form! After I've finished that game, I have Dragon Age Origins for PC waiting for me :)

NoTD: Zoya Pandora aka OHGODYES

My work decided to get even more strict on grooming standards. The 'neutral' and 'understated' make-up rules have been replaced by "clear, light pink or French" for nails and "natural, subtle colours" for all make-up. I will also be spending the next few months learning how to do new hairstyles to comply with the new requirements. I swear, if this job didn't pay so well and I didn't work with such kick-ass people I'd be OUTTA there. I went to private school! I've already done the Barbie-clone-automaton thing! GRRR.

So basically all the lovely pastels, beiges and greys I've added to my stash are totally out. Which pisses me off a little bit since I spent a fair chunk of change expanding my polish and eyeshadow collection for colours which are now not going to get used very much.

The only pink-y shades I have are either sheer or have such horrible formulas that I don't even want to open the bottles lest I 'accidentally' throw them in the bin. Unfortunately most nudes and nude-y pinks are sheer, and I really DON'T like sheer polishes (on their own. Layering is a-ok with me, especially the CND effects which I now own 3 of!) and I especially don't like spending fucking ages putting on tons of boring polish for work. I don't even like having to do more than 2 coats for fun, sparkly and/or bright polish! I'm lazy like that.

When I hear about the Zoya Touch polishes I was over the moon. OPAQUE NUDES?! Of course Zoyas are prohibitively expensive over here in Australia and rather hard to get. Being nudes, I wasn't sure what would work on my skintone either, and I wasn't keen on buying all three to add to my already over-stuffed 'work polish' collection.

I finally bit the bullet a few weeks ago and ordered what I thought was the mini set of all three polishes. It ended up being the full-sized set!

I grabbed Pandora first. On me it's this amazing creamy, rosey mauve which is so subtle and lady-like. The formula was a bit thick and went on with lots of brush-stroke-y mess, but it levelled itself out quickly and by the time I applied topcoat, it was smooth and shiny and most importantly OPAQUE. This is one coat (over basecoat and a coat of CND effects because I was too lazy to take it off first). If the other two apply like this as well I'm going to be over the goddamm moon. I would have to describe the finish as "pearl", it has the smooth, glossy appearance of a creme but with this super soft, glowy shimmer that doesn't make it look frosty or even really shimmery, it just adds this lovely soft glow that prevents it looking dull or drab.

The best part? I have a white mark on my middle fingernail from hitting my hand (which happens a lot) and you absolutely can't see it under the polish! ONE COAT!

I have nubbins at the moment because I broke a nail setting up a fridge and a bed yesterday (I'm moving in with my boyfie <3) and I'm moving all my shit on Friday, so I figured I may as well trim them down to prevent more mishaps then.

Expect more swatches in a few weeks, and some reviews! We do not yet have internet at the new house, so I'm not sure how long it will be until I can start blogging regularly. Which is a shame, since I have a Linnaeus order, more Venomous Cosmetics, two Ozotic Pros and a long overdue Furless Brush review...

Matchy-matching LOTD

You are about to be treated to a dose of my EXTREEEEEEEME colour-coordinating skills.

Here is the shirt I wore today:

Here is the eye look: Sugarpill Midori and Tako, false demi-lashes, and Covergirl Liquifyes Liner.

Lips: Morgana Cryptoria Shreiking Orange with Sobe Botanical's Gothstix in Panic over the top.

Lastly, nails: Zoya Harley.

Problem? What problem???