Cosmetic Cupcake

When I'm in a nail art rut Japanese nail magazines always give me that nail boost I need. I haven't bought many nail mags this year actually so I made a trip to Kinokuniya last week to stock up on some mags. Kino has cut back on the number of nail mags they stock which is so disappointing - they didn't even have Nail Up! which is one of my favourites! I still managed to pick up 3 though phew.


I saw this adorable cherry mani in S Cawaii! (which I've never bought before actually) and knew I had to recreate it. I love doing bright summery manis during winter and this is super cute and fun!! Plus it's a fruit mani and you know I adore those! ♥


What I used:


Pinky and index: I used 2 coats of Barry M Gelly nail effects Grapefruit and added a small gold bead to the bottom centre of my nails.

Ring fingers: I used 3 coats of OPI GoldenEye.

Middle and thumbs: I used 2 coats of Essie Where's My Chauffeur? as my base. To create the cherries I used a dotting dipped in Barry M Gelly nail effect Grapefruit and a small brush to paint the stems using Ulta 3 chocolate cake and for the leaves I used Barry M nail paint Mint Green before adding detail to the cherries using Cult Nails Tempest.

I should have chosen a brighter green because you can't really see the leaves unfortunately but oh well!


My NOTDs will be a bit varied at the moment because I've resorted to using flash because I just can't take pics during the day. The hubby bought me a lightbox a little while ago but I haven't worked out my lighting for it yet. Hurry up and come back summer with your beautiful long days and bright light!

What do you think? Did I do the original mani justice? Thanks for looking as always!

Happy weekend everyone!! I'm off to Europe for my honeymoon in less than a week (EEEEK!) so I've been holding off on beauty purchases for quite some time so that I can go crazy over there. But as usual I couldn't resist a few things here and there! I can't go past a good sale ;)


Some gorgeous Hello Darling shades! From L-R: Georgeous, Cakefight, Trophy Wife, Sir English, Ballerina La La and Over topcoat.


Models Own had their awesome 50% off sale a while back so I took the opportunity to stock up on polishes for my kit and also pick up some lemmings! There was no way I was going to let such a good sale go even with the crazy shipping fee. I picked up the entire Hypergel collection and some cremes and glitters.



Illamasqua Raindrops has been on my wishlist ever since I saw swatches of it and I finally picked it up along with Destiny as a birthday pressie to myself! I had Myer vouchers so I only paid $14.50 for them both!


I picked up Revlon Parfumerie shades in Autumn Spice and Lime Basil when Priceline had their last 40% off sale (swatched here) and of course I couldn't go past the Ulta 3 speckled egg collection (swatched here) for Easter.


Chevron nail art is so cute but it's such a hassle with scotch tape I hardly ever do it. I thought I'd try out some Nail Vinyls to make it easier and they are definitely worth the price! I also bought some mini chevron, heart and straight vinyls too.


Bundle Monster had a 20% off sale so I took the chance to add the 2012, 2013 and Holiday plates to my stamping plate collection. It was also time to update my plate storage so I also bought 2 of their pink organisers which are fantastic - I should have upgraded my storage ages ago!!


I had to stock up on my HG makeup remover Clinique Take the Day Off Makeup Remover so I took advantage of the Clinique Valentines Day offer and scored myself a free Chubby Stick in Two Ton Tomato with my order woot!


I hope you liked seeing my recent hauls!! What have you hauled lately?

Helloooooo everyone! Happy Easter! I've been super good this year and I haven't eaten many Easter eggs at all but one thing I couldn't resist indulging in was the new limited edition Ulta 3 Speckled Egg nail collection. A beauty treat is nearly as good as a chocolate-ly one sometimes ;) The speckled glitter look is so adorable but I wasn't sure I loved it enough to get the Illamasqua ones at $22.50 a pop though so these are perfect! I've got my quick review for you today but please excuse the condition of my skin at the moment - my eczema is playing up big time at the moment and I can't seem to get it under control no matter how much cream I'm using =(


The Speckled Egg collection consists of 6 super cute Easter shades with adorable Easter inspired names containing tiny black glitter and larger black hex glitters just like speckled eggs.

Photos and review after the jump!

Happy weekend ladies! A few quick swatches for you today of Ulta 3 Earl Grey which I've been wanting to pick up since it first came out but never picked up because I have a few shades which are similar! I had an earl grey tea today at breaky and on the way home decided to just buy myself a bottle hehe.


Earl Grey is a pale taupe creme that does remind me of earl grey tea! While I like the shade, application was rather difficult which was disappointing. The formula was thick so it was difficult to get a clean finish and it just wouldn't level. It seemed to thicken before I finished polishing one nail! I used 2 thin coats and 1 thick coat to try and even it out.


Close up:



Details: Ulta 3 nail polishes are available from selected pharmacies, Target stores and Woolworths for $2. You can use their Facebook store locator app here.

The formula for Ulta 3's can be a bit hit and miss sometimes unfortunately and for me this is a miss. I'm going to add thinner and hopefully it'll do the trick! But for $2 it's not a huge waste at least x)

Thanks for looking as always!

Soooooo I've kind of been doing a bit of hauling over the last month and a bit Xp I was relatively good on my spending ban for most of the year but I treated myself to a few things at Christmas hehe. The temptation for Christmas and LE collections was just too much! I also received some awesome gifts too yay! The majority of my haul was nail polish (of course) and in about 1 month I bought about 6months worth of products HAHA. FAIL. Here we go!


HARE POLISHES!!!!! *squeal* I lusted after The First collection for SOOOOOOOOO long and when Nikole reformulated them I knew I had to get my hands on them! They are so gorgeous. I also picked up 2 from The Finders Keepers colleciton. There was a little mix up with my order and my polishes were accidentally sent to Mich from The Polish Well but she very kindly sent them on to me and also included a bottle of her franken Sloth for me too which was so sweet! Thank you Mich again =D

Happy New Year everyone!!! Can you believe it's 2013 already??? OMG! I hope you all had a fabulous Xmas and NYE =) The last few weeks have been absolutely mad hence the lack of posts but I've finally got a new post for you today. I recently hauled some indie items which included a few products from Vivid Lacquer. I was excited to get my hands on the stamping plate VL 001 which has a full skull image (so I can do manis for my skull loving friends Anita and Ange!) and other cute designs too. This mani doubled as my NYE mani as I didn't get time to do my nails doh!


What I used:

Thumb: I used 2 coats of OPI Glitzerland and Konad Special polish in black to stamp.

Index: I used 2 coats of Ulta 3 Black Satin and Konad Special polish in white to stamp.


Middle finger: I used 2 coats of OPI Alpine Snow and added 2mm square gold studs down the centre.

Ring finger: I used 2 coats of Ulta 3 Black Satin and I used China Glaze Passion to stamp.

Pinky: I used 2 coats of China Glaze Midnight Kiss as my base and added 1.5mm black round studs for a studded framed nail.




I treated myself to a new DSLR and macro lens for Xmas and I'm still getting used to it so my pics will be a bit all over the shop for the time being! Bear with me lol. I hope you're all having a fantastic start to the year! Thanks for looking as always =)

On Saturday morning Anita, her fiance S and I headed to The Star for Zumbaron Day. It was the first Zumbaron Day for both of us so we were both very very excited of course haha. Zumbaron Day (previously Macaron Day) is held once a year to celebrate Adriano Zumbo's birthday and when 60 something unique and wonderful macaron flavours are available. S very kindly drove us which meant we got there at about 7:30am and thankfully we were one of the first there yay! We were expecting a crazy line but even by the time they opened the doors after 8am the line still wasn't too crazy . Adriano Zumbo tweeted a pic of the line at The Star - can you spot Anita and I in the pic??!! (hint we're on our phones LOL)

For my international ladies, Adriano Zumbo is a patisser extraordinaire and comes up with some AH-MAZING creations with macarons being one of his most famous. His cakes and macarons are definitely out there with macaron flavours that have included pigs blood, beetroot and raspberry and mango and sweet corn. All his creations are like works of art! You can peep a post I did a few years back here.


Before I show you my macaron haul I thought I'd show you the mani I've had on over the weekend. Of course I had to do a mani for Zumbaron day so I went with a macaron accent!


What I used:


Pinky: I used 2 coats of Hello Darling Hopelessly Devoted* and used Kiss nail art paint striper in white to draw vertical lines.

Ring finger: MACARONS!!! I used 2 coats of OPI Alpine Snow as my base and freehanded the macarons using a small nail art brush. For the chocolate macaron I used Canmake Colorful Nails 54 (Chocolate Syrup) for the cookies and Ulta 3 chocolate cake for the filling; raspberry macaron I used BYS Pink with a Punch for the cookies and Hello Darling Hopelessly Devoted* for the filling; pistachio macaron I used Hello Darling Mint Slice* for the cookies and Essence Lime Up! for the filling and blueberry macaron I used Hello Darling The First Corsage* for the cookies and China Glaze Grape Pop for the filling. PHEW!


Middle finger: I used 3 coats of Nails Inc. Sweets Way.

Index finger: I used 2 coats of Face of Australia Once in a Blue Moon*.

Thumb: I used 2 coats of Hello Darling Hopelessly Devoted* and stamped full polka dot image from Konad plate m79 using Konad Special polish in white.




Onto Zumbaron Day! Below is the order form with the list of flavours available this year. 62 awesome flavours!! It was so hard to choose which ones to get because obviously I would have loved to try them all but I had to limit myself.

My haul!! Obviously it wasn't all for me though lol. I got 24 macarons in total which included 4 of the made to order Zumbarons only available at the Star and also a slice of the infamous V8 cake. Cola is my favourite flavour of all time and I enjoyed the fried donut, fried chicken, redskin and palm sugar & coconut ones the most. Kimchi was sooooo weird and vegemite tasted a bit odd too!

The made to order ones I hauled (clockwise from top left): custard fritter, pork belly, fried donut and fried chicken. These were amazing! They were double the price of the other macarons though which they didn't advertise but considering how cool they were it was all good haha.

I'll leave you with some macaron porn from the day xp

All in all it was fantastic morning and I am all macaron-ed out now haha. It certainly won't be my last Zumbaron Day!! I hope you all had a great weekend! Are you a fan of macarons too?

* Product(s) provided to me for consideration but this in no way influenced my review in any way. As always, my reviews are my 100% honest opinion. My Disclosure Policy can be viewed here.

Work is stressing me out big time at the moment so I've been changing my manicures almost daily to keep sane. I wanted something bright today so I went with a super quick and easy candy stripe nails. My stripes are far from perfect because my white striper is getting way too thick even with thinner and it's beyond saving!! Grrrrr. I think it's time for a new one...


I used 2 coats of China Glaze Sugar High for my thumb, China Glaze Peachy Keen for my index fingers, Ulta 3 mojito for my middle fingers, Ulta 3 honolulu for my ring fingers and OPI Suzi Says Feng Shui for my pinkies. I used Kiss Nail Art Paint Striper in white for my stripes.




Thanks for looking as always ladies!! =)

Happy Monday ladies! I hope you've all had a good start to the week =) Yesterday I watched Snow White and the Huntsman with 2 of my lovely girlfriends so I thought I would do a Snow White inspired mani. But it was a massive fail because I didn't know what I wanted to do for each nail and I don't think it gelled properly! ARGH. I hate when that happens. My photos suck as well because my heart wasn't into this mani doh.


What I used:


Pinky: I used 2 coats of BYS Astro Gold and 2 coats of Sephora by OPI Only Gold for Me top coat.

Ring finger: I used 2 coats of OPI Alpine Snow and used a small brush to freehand the bitten apple using China Glaze Phat Santa, Ulta 3 chocolate cake for the leaf and a green rhinestone for the apple.

Middle finger: I took inspiration from this movie poster and created a gradient nail using BYS Astro Gold, Tom Ford Silver Smoke and China Glaze Jolly Holly.

Index finger: I used 1 coat of Rescue Beauty Lounge Concrete Jungle and stamped the gold crown image from Bundle Monster plate BM08 using China Glaze Passion.


Thumb: I used 2 coats of Glitter Gal Serpent Black* as a black base. For the axe I used a small brush to freehand using China Glaze Devotion for the blade and Essie Brooch the Subject* for the handle with Essie Hot Coco* for the darker wood accents.


I instagrammed this pic on Saturday night halfway through my mani and I thought I'd post it here too xp I like to have everything in reach when I'm doing my mani so my supplies take up about 1/3 of my desk. My routine is to turn on a good DVD and relax while doing my mani!


Have you seen Snow White and the Huntsman? I really enjoyed it and Kirsten Stewart didn't annoy me as much as I thought she would lol. Lots of decent action scenes and a bit of eye candy too!

Thanks for looking as always =)

* Product(s) provided to me for consideration but this in no way influenced my review in any way. As always, my reviews are my 100% honest opinion. My Disclosure Policy can be viewed here.

Hi ladies! I'm nearly back to normal posting =) I have so many things to post about but so little time argh! Today I have the mani I did to celebrate my anniversary last week. I struggled to do something less crazy (like what I usually do!) so I still had to do an accent finger with some stamping lol.


I used 3 coats of Barry M Strawberry ice-cream on all fingers except accent finger and sponged Color Club Sex Symbol* on the tips. For my accent fingers, I used 2 coats of Ulta 3 party shoes and then stamped bird and hearts image (isn't it adorable!) from Konad plate m83 using Konad Special polish in white.


Simple but still with my touch ;) I love doing gradient glitter nails. It looks fantastic and it's so easy to do! I can also get my glitter fix without such a painful removal too lol!

Thanks for looking as always ladies!

* Product(s) sent to me for consideration but this in no way influenced my review in any way. As always, my reviews are my 100% honest opinion. My Disclosure Policy can be viewed here.