Halloween and Blood

Everytime I looked at these nails I would think of the My Chemical Romance song "Blood". Then I'd sing it. And as I work in a call centre I'd start singing it, then a call would drop in right when I was getting to the best parts. heh.

Not totally cleaned up because I was so excited that I wanted to take pictures straight away. And I had skittles right there!! You can see that my hand is a bit hot - it's melting the skittles. And yes, that is a hair. It was still attached to my head, I was just leaning over to take the picture. I have really long hair that I do absolutely nothing with. 

I used a Revlon white (so old it has no label. I rarely use white), and Essie - Limited Addiction. So far I would have to say that Limited Addiction is the closest colour to blood that I have been able to find. If anyone has found any better blood colours I would be happy to hear your recommendations! 

Oh, and how to do this look. You will  use a LOT of polish doing this, just a warning. I painted my nails white, then used a straw and dipped it in the essie polish. Then I blew down the straw and it splattered them. Keep newspaper or something behind your nails because it gets everywhere. I experimented a couple of times on the newspaper just to see what the best way to do it was. And I didn't try to make every nail the same because it's impossible and looks weird if you try. 

Bug Nails

Who doesn't love cute little bugs/beetles! They're adorable!!

I got the googly eyes from Spotlight. I think I scared the sales girl when I came up behind her and said "Oh, excuse me. Do you have GOOGLEY EYES??" with a slightly crazed look in my eye. 

Any colour you want for the bugs works. As you can see I tried doing some designs on the backs of the bugs as well. The gem things don't work very well and it add about 10 mins onto removal time. Also doing the bugs the other way around works, too.

I kept scaring myself when I would put my hair behind my ear because I could hear the eyes moving. 

If you are doing lady beetles for the whole hand (this is fun and easy!) then I recommend using China Glaze - Ruby Pumps as the colour for the red - it looks amazing. 

Christmas Nails

More Christmas nails? Yay!! This is slightly harder to do (especially on using your non-dominant hand). It took me a fair while to do. It was also about 3am when I started so that might have been having an impact on it too.

Tree and Presents!!!

I used China Glaze gold colour as a base colour, then random coloured nail polishes to create the boxes. Then I used a black nail art polish to outline the boxes and a silver nail art polish to do the ribbon on the boxes. On the tree I did the three triangular shapes of the tree first, then the trunk then the tinsel and then randomly dotted on colours I thought would make good decorations.

I think the hardest part was getting the shape right using just the colour for the boxes (if anyone has any better ideas on how to get a good shape for the boxes I'm all ears).

Hope everyone has a great christmas!!

Easy Christmas Nails

An easy christmas manicure! Christmas present nails!!

It's really simple, see?! I've used China Glaze - Ruby Pumps for the red nails and just a no name green for the feature nail. I've used my Sally Hansen nail art nail polish for the silver 'ribbon' parts and finished it all off with a nail gem. 

Something quick and easy for christmas! A more complex manicure to come soon!

Christmas Eyes

I went to a Human Nature concert recently, and thought I'd do a Christmas themed eyeshadow look for the hell of it.  I went with green, red and gold. The concert was amazingly good. So much so that I'm considering going to Vegas on my own just so I can see them again (also so I can catch the Cirque du Soleil shows).

These pictures were taken after the concert. Look at the amazing staying power of my makeup!

For this I used a Too Faced Shadow Insurance to prime the lid. Then I used a gold eyeliner at the corner to help intensify the colour, and a white kohl pencil for the rest of the lid. I then used gold eye shadow, Midori by Sugarpill Cosmetics (green) and a MAC burgundy colour for the crease. Over the burgundy colour I then used a black eyeshadow just in the crease, then I blended that out using Love+ by Sugarpill Cosmetics (a really vibrant red) to intensify the red. Over the Midori on the lid I used a moss coloured eyeshadow to blend the gold and green together a bit better. Then I sparkled it all up by using Sugarpill Cosmetics loose eyeshadows in Goldilux (gold), Tipsy (green) and Magentric (a magenta/pink). The sparkle doesn't show up in the picture because I couldn't get the picture very bright. I blended out the very edges using a light pink eyeshadow, and then used gel eyeliner and fake eyelashes. 

The fake eyelashes look super long in the box then I put them on and they're a teeny bit longer than my natural lash. Very annoying. 

Birthday nails

I had my birthday recently and I had to do my nails in an appropriate celebratory manicure. I figured that balloons were birthday-ish.

This is what I came up with:

I used Color Club - Take me to your Chateau as the base, then just grabbed any colour that took my fancy for the balloon colours. I just used my black art deco nail art polish for the strings. Then a coat of glitter polish which I think ruined it. So I did another one three days later, haha. I'll  post pictures of that as soon as I upload them. 

Fire nails, oh my!

Nail look time! I usually do a new manicure every week because I get bored having the same nails day after day.
I have titled this look my "fire nails" as the colours are very fire-ish. Well, I think so.

You can get this effect by doing one coat in the base colour, then sponging on slightly darker colours, sponging on less up the nail as you change colours.

I've used Revlon - Hot Pepper, Revlon - Orange Flame, China Glaze - Cross Iron, Sephora by OPI - Shopping Frenzy, OPI - Christmas Carol, L.A. Colors - Antique Burgundy (Ah, colours spelt without the u looks WEIRD), and Maybelline - Red Comet.

This manicure is a little bit worn because I took a picture of it after I had already worn it for a week.

Muse concert? Hurrah!

So I went to the Muse concert and it was amazing. I wasn't really that into Muse before I went, but now I am an obsessed Muse fan.

For the concert I wore a blue and green make-up look. I forgot to fix my eyebrows up for the pictures, whoops.

I used Sugarpill Cosmetics in Absinthe for the light green across the lid, and two Ben Nye blue colours for the crease (Sorry, I don't have the names - I have only just started to note the names of my different eye shadows, and the de-potted ones don't have anything attached.) Any bright blue and slightly darker blue should work. Then I used Sugarpill Cosmetics in Taco for highlighting. Lancome kohl pencil in a weird blue/green colour for the eyeliner.

Overall the look kinda feels a little mermaid-ish to me. I like it.

Also after moshing for the entirety of the concert in the hot Australian summer my clothes desperately needed a wash as they were damp with sweat, but my eye make-up was fully intact. I could've gone out clubbing after if I didn't feel so icky sticky. Thumbs up for staying power!

First Post! How exciting!!

Hello!! I'm Ana. I'm a university student who is doing a degree that bares no relation to make-up or nail or beauty in any way, but I'm obsessed with it!

To start I think I will cover my staples. Firstly I'm devoted to Clinique for skin care even though it's more than double the price in Australia compared to the US. I use the Foaming Facial Cleanser and the 7 Day Scrub Cream as basics for skin care. I also use the Type 2 Toner (the purple bottle). Moisturiser is whatever I decide to grab because I have way to much left over from 'gift's with purchase'. When I do use a favourite I use Clinique Gel Moisturiser, because I find the regular one makes my skin too oily.

I used to use Nivea before I moved to Clinique. The mattifying moisturiser is great to use if you go to school and can't wear make-up.

I'm currently trying to find somewhere that sells facial primer in Australia (I've only found the Australis one so far), but I buy Too Faced Shadow Insurance on ebay. I highly recommend this if you have problems with eye shadow wearing/fading and colour not being vibrant enough. 

I have stupidly pale skin (most of the 'ivory' colours are too dark on my skin) so foundation is always an effort. I currently use Revlon Colourstay in ivory, but I find that the colour can be a bit streaky and unpleasant sometimes. I've also found that setting it with a good translucent powder generally helps with that. I'm also currently trialling Ben Nye, MAC and Dior foundations. I'll let you know as I go how that works. 

For nails I used to religiously use Dr Lewinn Revitanail as my nails were really poor quality. They would peel off and crack all the time. So I used the Revitanail and at the end of two weeks my nails had already grown longer. I did find that Revitanail made my nails more yellow when I wore coloured nail polish over the top and it took forever and a day to dry. So now I do a Revitanail week about once every couple of months, and I use Nailtek the rest of the time. I use three different types of Nailtek (I know, I only had to use ONE type of Dr Lewinn) once a week when I do my manicure. I also adore Seche Vite top coat. 

Anything else you want to know about me? Just ask!