Nail Juice: Daylily

Hey! 
I have a NZ indie polish to share with you as part of NZ indie polish month. Created by PANZ (Polish Addicyts New Zealand) last May, this year we are back and celebrating our back yard indies more than ever. So many talented polish makers in our little group. 

This pretty indie was made by Steph over at Nail Juice and is called Daylily. It’s a pretty crelly dark red with glitter. Everyone loves glitter, right?! This is two coats worn over OPI Animalistic which was the perfect base for this.

Now I got this polish from a blog sale last year but Nail Juice has so many awesome polishes in their online store here so you should definitely check them out!

   

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Red and black chevron nail art

Hey lovelies!

Yep! I know! I lagged again. Silly me. In any case, did you see that there’s a new Polish Addicts New Zealand blog? You can check it out (and my profile) here.

Today I have a pretty “bad-ass” manicure look for you, it’s semi inspired by the Gwen Stefani range by OPI but really just ended up looking like this after I played around with a striper for a bit and had some patience with glitter.. Hehe..

I do have the red from the Gwen collection (over and over a-Gwen) but for this manicure I actually used The Thrill of Brazil as the base colour for this mani. It is one of my fave reds at the moment, I’ve found it doesn’t stain my nail as much as other reds I’ve used have and goes on smoothly (opaque in two coats, oh yessss). I alternated the chevron base with the black striper and used glitter from an Ulta3 polish.. Very carefully fishing it out with a toothpick and placing it on the point of the chevron!

Belated Christmas Nail Art

Merry Christmas two days ago!

Sorry I’m a bit late with the Christmas nails but you know how the festive season is.. Crazy busy and you get distracted by all the lights and decorations hehehe! I hope you all had a great Christmas!

I did some nail art for my friend on Christmas Eve to get right into the festivities and they turned out great!

I used a plain black creme base colour on the pinky then layered NYX Dorothy and OPI Fresh Frog of Bel Air over the top, for the Rudolph nail I used two coats of OPI Samoan Sand then OPI Wooden Shoe Like To Know for the head and a dotting tool with China Glaze Just Be-Claws for the nose and a black striper for the antlers. The Santa suit is China Glaze Hey Sailor (one of my favourite red cremes) then black, white and gold stripers. Lastly the Santa hat is OPI Samoan Sand, CG Hey Sailor and a white creme polish.

I think they turned out so great! My fave is Rudolph but which one is your favourite?

Christmas Sweater Inspired Nails

Happy holidays!

I finally had time to try (read : attempt) Christmas nails again since it’s very nearly Christmas! Last year I did a nail art challenge and I was doing my nails every day so it’s a big contrast this year.

I started off with a red base colour on all of my nails and used a white striper and gold polish to create various sweater-esque designs on my nails. I’m not too happy with the snowflake on my ring finger or the chevron on my middle finger but oh well! I gave it a try!

Dark Red with Studs and Glitter

Hello

Last month I got an Orly polish in my sample bar box, it was actually my last subscription box so I’m stoked that I left it until then! I got a dark red called Moonlit Madness. I like Orly polishes quite a lot, it was one of the first brands of polish that I ever owned. My mum was always a Orly fan so I think that’s why I have a certain fondness for it.

I started off with two coats of Moonlit Madness then created a glitter gradient on the tips with Sassy Lacquer Utopia. This glitter is so fine with mainly gold and green. I was worried it might come off a bit Christmassy but I think it looks okay. I finished off with a stud at the bottom of each nail. These are the 5mm I believe from the born pretty store. They’re a bit big for my nails (which are very curved) so I might get the smaller ones so that they don’t fall off so quickly.

Swatch: Pretty & Polished

Hello

Just a wee swatch post of some indies I purchased from Pretty & Polished for you today. I got a red jelly glitter called Diner Daze and a blue and silver glitter called Bubbles.

I decided to swatch Diner Daze over a base colour rather than test out how opaque it is. I used two coats of Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby and then two coats of Diner Daze on top.

For Bubbles, it took me a really long time to choose a base colour. In the end I chose Blagger by Butter London but I don’t think it goes very well with Bubbles unfortunately. This is two coats of each.

I definitely would love to purchase more polishes from Pretty & Polished! I think the way forward with indie brands is to save up enough lemmings and then buy a fair few at a time rather than just 1 or 2 at a time.

Angry Birds Nail Art

Hello

I recently received a request for angry birds nails. I have never really played angry birds so I’m not sure what this is all about but I have seen a tutorial for easy angry birds nail art by CutePolish on YouTube before so I gave that a go!

I only did one accent nail and started off with a couple of coats of OPI Samoan Sand. I then used a red called The Tasmanian Devil Made Me Do It (also by OPI) to create a circle on my tip then a wee half moon of white for the belly. Then a little dotting tool to create the little tufts if feathers on the top and a larger dotting tool for the eyes and a toothpick for the beak. All in all this was very easy! I must admit I took it off the same day – but mostly because I wanted to try out some of my new polishes. Hehe..

OPI Minnie Style Swatch

Hello

I’m always a bit behind when it comes to new collections and stuff but as soon as I saw the new OPI Couture De Minnie collection I knew I had to have this polish. Minnie Style is a very OPI style glitter with large hex glitters in an almost red pink, hot pink and white. I noticed that my bottle had a few square white glitter bits too but when I was swatching I didn’t really get any of them and when I did I decided to pick them out because it wasn’t cohesive enough across all my nails. A bit of a pain but nothing too major.

I swatched Minnie Style over OPI Mod About You and the result is pretty great. I’ve seen a lot of photos of this polish swatched over a similar pink from the collection called Chic From Ears To Tail so I wanted to use a similar colour. As with most chunky glitter polishes this was a B to take off! I have The Living Daylights which is the same style glitter which I absolutely adore but because it is such a pain to take off I hardly ever wear it.

Well, stay pretty my dears! The weather here has taken a turn for the worst – we are talking full out storms and in some parts of the country, tornados! If you’re from NZ stay warm and safe.

Also, please like my Facebook page, if you haven’t already! Ta!

Corset Nail Art

Hello

What a week/end! Sigh. I am absolutely exhausted.. I did overtime on Saturday and am doing a 12 hour day tomorrow as well. It’s going to be a looooong day. Oh well, it must be done! I’m trying to save for a trip to Rarotonga later in the year.

Anywho, I tried out this really easy corset nail art look this week and I wanted to share it with all of you. I am usually pretty nervous to polish my nails with black polish just due to staining but this will be totally worth it. I used BYS Black Satin as the base colour then used a stripe of China Glaze Hey Sailor. I then used a silver polish (but you could use white) and did four small dots on either side of the red stripe then used a striper to create the laces in black.

I think it looks really great! This could easily be a great accent nail look as well.

I hope you all had great week/ends. My hay fever has been wreaking havoc with my sinuses today.. So horrid 😦 I just can’t even get comfy, my eyes and throat are so itchy. I had a hay fever pill and some sudafed and it didn’t work either. If anyone has any tips for me I would pretty much be willing to try anything!!

China Glaze: Hey Sailor!

Hello

Ever since I started my love affair with nail polish I have always coveted this China Glaze polish. Finally! The time has come and it is mine.. Muahaha!

I love my bright red polishes and this is no exception. The China Glaze brush is very thin in comparison to OPI but it is still easy to get a nice even application which I find mind boggling. The formula was great, just the right consistency and the colour is just amazing.

I used it as a base for a white polka dot manicure as well and I think it looks very good – if not a little boring but hey! It looks good so I can’t complain.

I only have three China Glaze polishes but I am a fan of them. They’re not very common here in New Zealand but I have seen a fair few on TradeMe so I might hit that up next pay day.