Cosmetic Cupcake

Today I have for you the last swap package that arrived on Christmas Eve. This is the 3rd swap I have completed with the awesome franken queen Chris from Lacquer Ware for Tips and Toes!


It is always such a pleasure swapping with Chris. She takes so much care in selecting polishes for me and she also writes thoughtful notes about each polish for me as many of the brands I haven't tried before. You have spoiled me!!


From L - R:
Nubar Absolute, Petunia Sparkle and Vino. My camera is being funny in these photos and not showing the colours properly. They are all so pretty!


Chris' franken Magenta Madness.


From L - R:
Orly Sweet Collection Snowcone, Gumdrop, Lemonade, Cotton Candy and Pixy Stix. These polishes have been on my wishlist for MONTHS and Chris very kindly sent me her own bottles so that I could have the collection! I now have them all (yay!) as Jess sent me Lollipop before!!!


From L - R:
Hard Candy Mushroom, Fabuluxe and Limited Edition set. OMG my first Hard Candy polishes!! The heart rings are so cute and girly and the colours are just gorgeous. Fabuluxe is soooo glittery!


Some very thoughtful extras! California Mango Mango Extreme hand lotion and LA Splash nail art glitter. The hand lotion is Chris' favourite and I can see why! It smells divine and is very moisturising.


As usual my family devoured these within seconds! My mum tells me they tasted really good lol.

Thank you so so much Chris for yet another wonderful swap package! Thank you for crossing off so many polishes from my wishlist in one go and introducing me to some awesome brands I have no way of sourcing here.

Thanks for looking!

This week at work has been one of the worst I've ever had. Constant fights, tantrums, a lack of doctors, crazy workload.. It's full moon so everyone is going bat crazy! I needed to relax so I decided to take some time out and do a Halloween skittles mani. I'm loving doing different designs on each nail, it's a lot of fun plus I get to try some of my many untrieds!

My WAH nail pic =p
I wish I could spare more time so I could do more full manicures with the designs. I got inspiration for these designs from some of the great blogs I follow! I think my left hand turned out really well but my right hand was pretty much a fail because nothing I wanted actually turned out properly. My middle finger was supposed to be candy corn but my polishes would not cooperate! So I gave up and just used trusty Grape Pop and flakies instead.


Left hand:
Thumb: 2 coats of Color Club Wild at Heart with freehanded spider web using Kiss nail art striper in white.

Index: 2 coats of Sinful Colors Mint Apple as base, BYS Black Satin for the hair, CM nail art pen and striper in white and black for eyes and Kiss nail art striper in black for the mouth.

Middle finger: 2 coats of Essence Undead with Pa witch nail sticker.

Ring finger: 2 coats of Sinful Colors Cloud 9 with pumpkin design from Konad plate m13 using Konad special polish in black.

Pinky: Rimmel I love lasting finish in Double Decker Red with spider design from Bundle Monster plate BM13 using Konad Princess polish in Black pearl.


Right hand:
Pinky: 2 coats of Sinful Colors Big Daddy and 1 coat of BYS Cracked polish in black.

Ring finger: 2 coats of of The Face Shop OR202 with bat design from Bundle Monster plate BM13 using Konad Special polish in black.

Middle finger: 2 coats of China Glaze Grape Pop and 2 coats of Nubar 2010.

Index finger: 1 coat of BYS Black Satin with skull design from Konad plate m13 using China Glaze Devotion.

Thumb: 2 coats of Essence Undead, Kiss nail art striper in black for vertical stripes and spider design from Bundle Monster plate BM13 using China Glaze Devotion.

WHEW! I'm knackered now. Which design do you like the best? I'll be MIA for the next few days as my exam for my final subject is being released tomorrow so I'll be attempting to steer clear of browsing blogs and the net until it's due on Wednesday. Here's hoping x) Thanks for looking!

My Polished Pink for October giveaway ends in 2 days so don't forget to enter here!

I have for you today my 1st ever Halloween manicure - a quick and simple NOTD using flakies and nail stickers. We don't really celebrate Halloween here Down Under however in recent years the presence of Halloween has increased. I would LOVE to go to the States during Halloween to enjoy the festivities!


I started off with a coat of BYS Black Satin which I've featured in a previous post. I then applied 2 coats of Nubar 2010 flakie to get an orangey look. FLAKIES!! I just love the way flakies look and the way they look different depending on the lighting. I couldn't stop staring at my nails and my workmates were all gaga over the flakies too and they loved this mani!


I then applied these totally awesome Pa Jack O' Lantern nail stickers (which I got from lovely Christina!) on my accent fingers and thumbs. I then topped it off with a coat of Poshe topcoat.



On day 2 of wearing this I decided to matte-ify it using Essie Matte About You.


I love the matte look! I think the flakies look even better and stand out so much more when matte. What do you think?

Thanks for looking! Don't forget to enter my Polished Pink for October giveaway here!

Hi ladies! Sorry for the depressing tone of my last post. The weekend has cheered me up - work still sucks but nothing I can do about it ha! - after spending it eating and relaxing Thank you for all your kind words =) I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

So here is a very quick NOTD to road test my awesome new Nubar 2010 flakies that my sis gave me. I did a test swatch on some nail wheels to see what colours looked best as base colours and I decided to use China Glaze Grape Pop from the Up and Away collection.

Grape Pop is a dark purple creme that is darker than it actually looks in the bottle. As per usual it was an absolute pain in the BUTT to capture correctly and the below picture is the best I could do. I found it a little thick to apply but still fairly easy. Halfway through my mani though I added 2 drops of trusty Seche Restore which did the trick. It's a very pigmented polish so 2 coats is enough for opacity or even 1 with super good application. Below is 2 coats without topcoat and it dried to a nice glossy finish.


I then applied 1 coat of Nubar 2010. I probably could have used another but I am rationing my bottles and using them VERY sparingly! It looks like I have a bald patch of flakies on my ring finger but it's not in real life, my hand just wasn't catching the light properly when I took the pic =p FLAKIES ARE SO AWESOME!! =D


I had lots of fun at the Good Food and Wine Show on Saturday. I went with 2 girlfriends and my sis so I was too busy to take many photos unfortunately! There was just so much yummy food and wine to try. We also watched Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris in the celebrity theatre - those 2 are just hilarious! They kept paying out Matt Moran and Aria haha. For the Aussies who love Masterchef we saw Alvin and Courtney wandering around too! We went to the restaurant for lunch were you could purchase entrees, mains and desserts from 4 celebrity chefs.

I had Gary's main of Bastilla of lamb, olives & pine nuts. This was so delicious and you could totally tell it was a Gary recipe! It was warm and hearty comfort food - just the type of food I love ;)


My sis had Tobie Puttock's Polenta Gnocchi with marjoram, tallegio and prosciutto. A little salty because of the proscuitto but the gnocchi was delicious.


I was tempted to buy heaps of food home but refrained. We got a Ritter Sport chocolate bag with 10 chocolate bars and a cute/funny patchwork bag.


Great for grocery shopping! Or chocolate shopping haha
Also some sweets from Treats from Home:


Love Wonka candy!
Thanks for looking! Don't forget to enter my 200 followers giveaway here!

I've been feeling a bit down and out these last few days due to a combination of work issues and the cold weather =( I'm suffering from a serious lack of motivation for everything for some reason but I'm trying hard to stay upbeat! Plus my hands have flared up so badly I have to go to sleep with my trusty white gloves on so I look like Michael Jackson every night ha! So it's just a simple NOTD until I get some motivation again, please be warned you may be seeing some unimaginative/not so hot manicures coming up =p

I used OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender from the Hong Kong collection. This collection would have to be one of my faves, there are so many pretty colours and the quality is just great. Love that pro-wide brush!
Lucky Lucky Lavender is a pastel lavender-pink colour. The colour is more pink than lavender to me which is kinda annoying because I need a nice lavender polish. It's still very pretty and applied nicely with 2 coats - 1st was streaky and the 2nd evened it out. Below is 2 coats without topcoat.


I then konaded the full nail floral design from Bundle Monster plate B16 using China Glaze OMG for a subtle effect. I probably could have used a darker polish to konad so the design stands out more but I like that you can't see the design unless you're inspecting my nails closely =)


My family have been accidentally cheering me up =p My sister surprised me with 2 bottles of Nubar 2010 today!!!! One to use and one for backup ;) She knows I've been lusting after flakies for AAAAAAAAAAAGES so she tracked some down for me on Ebay for a reasonable price as a surprise! YIPEEEEEEE!


The boy gave me this tiny Tarepanda to cheer me up too =) Isn't he cute?

I know he's not official but I love Tarepanda regardless =)
AND my absolutely awesome Aunty just told me she snagged me MAC Mineralize Skinfinish in Stereo Rose! The collection isn't released here yet but even when it is I can't really afford MAC due to the crazy prices here. There's no way I'm paying double when I know in HK the prices are actually reasonable. I won't get my blush until I go to HK in November but just the thought is sustaining me =p Woot! Things are looking up!

Hope everyone has a good weekend planned full of happy and fun activities =) I'm off to the Good Food and Wine Show tomorrow for some tasty food.

Thanks for looking! Don't forget to enter my 200 followers giveaway here!

Hi ladies! The last 2 weeks have been so intense as its end of semester which means assessment time. It’s been SO crazy! Unfortunately I haven’t had a real chance to blog or do manicures but I’ll get back into it very soon. Since I’ve been really stressed out I’ve been buying a few things here and there lately which is really bad I know, but considering I’ve been working my butt off at both work and uni I thought BUGGER IT I’ll get what I want! =p

YSL Rouge Volupte in no. 1. I have been lemming this absolutely gorgeous shade for the longest time and Myer Sydney finally got it back in stock a while ago! It goes on like a dream and the colour is just beautiful.


A few items from Essie which I’ve been lemming for quite a while – The Spring collection, Sweet time of the year and Wicked and Matte about you duo. I’ve been after a matte topcoat for soooo long!




My 1st Nubar polish:


My 1st Zoya polish:


Some things that the boy very sweetly purchased for me – 3 more polishes from the OPI HK collection; some China Glaze goodies and Bundle Monster plates!! YAY.






A few Sinful Colors - you gotta love cheap and cheerful.


Nailene Acrylic Strong topcoat. The lovely Asami did a review of it here and I’ve been looking for it everywhere since her really positive review in March. I could only ever find the old packaging though but after stalking Kmart, Target, Priceline etc. for what seems like forever I finally found it at Kmart for $13! I’ve seen it elsewhere too now but it’s cheapest at Kmart for any Aussie ladies who might be interested.


Sadly I don't have time to use anything yet so it's all just sitting in my room at the moment, pleading with me to finish my assessments already so I can try them all out. Off to finish my paper now!

Thanks for looking!!