Mani Monday: Arte Clavo - Cake Pop

Happy Mani Monday friends! Hope you had a fantastic weekend & Father's Day {for those of you in Aussie-land}. What did you get up to? :)

I can't remember if I mentioned here on my blog or not, but my nails are very damaged at the moment. I committed a nail crime a couple of weeks ago when I was wearing fake nails, and pulled them off, instead of soaking off like you're supposed to.
Needless to say, my nails are now extremely weak, peeling and awful! They were also super painful at first, which was horrible. Thankfully they aren't really painful anymore.

Since my natural nails are awful, I'm trying to grow the damage out. I decided to try and stick to mostly gel manicures for a while, as they last longer and many people also say that gel manicures add a layer of protection to your nails and help them to grow, which I do believe is true.

This is a gel polish from one of my favourite brands, Arte Clavo. I don't know a lot about the brand, to be honest, but I found them by accident on eBay. They sell very affordable gel polishes, and almost all of them are dupes {or similar - some aren't exact dupes} for CND Shellac polishes. I don't know about you, but I'd never be able to afford all of my favourite colours if I used Shellac polishes. Which is why I love these Arte Clavo polishes. I use them along with my Gelish Foundation & Top It Off base and top coats. :)

This polish is called Cake Pop. It is a gorgeous light pink creme. I needed 3 coats for opacity.
I don't believe it's an exact dupe for the CND polish, but it is similar. {I think the CND polish might lean a little more on the blue-y side of pink, and is a little lighter.}

I totally love this colour! Lately I have been gravitating towards light pinks and other pastel colours. I guess that's because springtime is starting.

I find that the Arte Clavo polishes apply great and last just as long as any other gel polish. I know that some people don't agree with using the cheaper gel polishes but I don't have a problem with it.
I wore this gel manicure for about 5 days before I got bored of it. I do think it would've lasted at least a few more days!

I also wanted to share with you a mini nail haul that arrived in my mail box today! :) I bought two items from the seller "enchantedbeautyspot" on eBay.

I made this eBay order mainly for the Nailtiques Formula 2 nail strengthener. I heard about this from Lindsay Does Nails on YouTube. You might know that my favourite strengthener has been Duri Rejuvacote for over 2 years now, but lately I haven't really been seeing results when I use it, so I decided to try something new! :) I will update you on my thoughts.

I didn't want to pay shipping for just one item, so I also bought the Orly Gel FX gel polish in Beach Cruiser! This is a super bright neon pink. I am sooo excited to try it out when summertime comes around! {Although I am not excited at all for the sticky disgusting-ness that comes with summertime.} I think it will be an amazing pedicure colour.
This will be my first time trying an Orly gel polish so that's exciting too! I only own a few "name brand" gels.

Thanks so much for reading. Especially if you got all the way to the end. ;)

What is on your nails this Mani Monday?! ♥

Mani Monday: L'oreal 'Lacey Lilac'

Hi everyone! Happy Monday & HAPPY SPRING!
I am so excited that springtime & September are here. I really love this time of the year when it's starting to warm up a bit. {Although I am not looking forward to summer/heat wave season, but that's still a few months away yet.}
It's a little ironic, however. We had lovely, warm, sunshine-y weather the past few days, but the first day of spring has been a little chilly and rainy.

Being the first day of spring, I decided to paint my nails with a spring-y colour! The past few months I have really liked painting my nails to go with the seasons. In winter I enjoyed dark/muted colours, and now I'm reaching for more pastel/bright colours.

This is Lacey Lilac by L'oreal.

I picked up this colour at The Reject Shop for about $3, if I'm remembering correctly. They had a few pastel colours there, that looked like they had been sitting on the shelf for months, and I decided to give this beauty a try. {After Googling this polish, it seems it was from a limited edition spring collection from last year, so I'm not sure how readily available it would be now.}

Lacey Lilac is such a pretty spring colour. It's walking the line between pink and purple. Depending on what the lighting is like, sometimes it will lean very pink, and sometimes very purple.
The polish has a nice brush, with a slightly curved tip, making it easy to cover the nail.
It went on a little streaky on the first coat, but the second evened it out. I added one coat of Seche Vite top coat to finish off.

I can definitely see myself reaching for this colour again soon. Pinks and purples are my favourite in the spring!

PS. A lot of you requested more nail posts in my Requests/Suggestions post, so I couldn't ignore that kind of response! I've decided to try and put out a blog post whenever I paint my nails. I can't promise anything, but I will try to put up at least one nail post per week. :) But there was also quite a lot of you that said you wanted to still see my planners, so I will also be continuing those posts.

{Just know, I don't wear anything super exciting on my nails these days. If you follow my Instagram, you would probably know that I did a huge destash of my collection recently. I can now easily fit my collection into a shopping bag. I only own a few glitters, because I'm really only gravitating towards creamy colours.}

Some people had also requested to see things like nail care, polish clean up, etc. I actually have some videos on my YouTube channel relating to those things if you are interested. I also have a nail care section on my blog which contains some things like nail care, as well as other nail related tips & tricks.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you have a fantastic week. ♥

Red Carpet Manicure Gel Nail Polish Review.

For the past month and a bit, I have been loving wearing gel nail polish. You may have realised that I am not as into nail polish as I used to be. I don't feel the need to change my colour every day or own a million polishes. I wore gel polish for my wedding, and it lasted about 9 days chip free! I thought that was amazing!
I have a gel nail polish kit from Red Carpet Manicure to share with you today. Red Carpet Manicure is a brand of gel nail polish. Before I share any more, I will let you know that gel nails and gel nail polish are not the same thing! Gel nails are a nail enhancement, similar to acrylic nails. Gel nail polish is a nail polish that needs to be cured under either an UV, or LED lamp to dry. If applied and removed correctly, it should not damage your natural nails.
I have received Red Carpet Manicure's Gel Polish Pro Kit to share and review for you. In the Pro Kit, you receive:

• the Professional LED Light (to cure the polish)
• Prep (nail dehydrator/bonder)
• Structure (base coat)
• Brilliance (top coat)
• Revitalize (cuticle oil)
• Red Carpet Reddy (classic red gel nail polish colour)
• Purify (gel cleanser)
• Erase (gel polish remover)
• Instruction manual

I applied the red gel polish Red Carpet Reddy, on the 24th of April, following the instructions that they provided. I found the instructions to be very thorough and helpful.

The colour is a classic red, it sort of has that jelly-ish formula. 2 coats was fine, but a third would ensure 100% opacity. The manicure was definitely very shiny when I was finished, which was awesome. I did notice that while I was applying the top coat, the red colour did transfer onto the top coat brush a little. I made sure to wipe the brush off on a tissue before I put it back into the bottle.

I like the polish brush on the Red Carpet Manicure polishes, it was easy to control the polish so that it didn't get on my skin.

Here is what my manicure looked like right after I finished:

By day 3, I had experienced slight (very slight) tip wear on a few of my nails (you can't tell in the photo) which was a little disappointing.

By day 4, I had one or two small chips on a couple of my nails. However the manicure was still extremely shiny and looking nice. On that same day, I had a bad nail break and decided to cut all of my nails down very short - with the nail polish still on! To my amazement, I had no additional signs of wear after this. I wouldn't exactly recommend that you do that though, because for most people I would imagine that would make your manicure chip much faster. I just wanted to share my experience.
I removed the gel manicure on day 5 (sorry, I don't have a photo) because I wanted to change up the colour. The removal process was super easy. It is just like removing a glitter polish with the foil method (video tutorial here). I soaked my nails for 10 minutes and when I removed the foil, the polish flaked off of my nails very easily! I had a cuticle pusher ready to gently scrape at any bits of polish that needed it, but I barely needed to do that! The removal process was awesome.

I also received a second colour, Leading Lady, to review. I had an even better experience with this colour!

Leading Lady, is a creamy lavender pink colour. I used 3 (very thin) coats for this manicure. It had decent coverage at 2 coats, but I decided to go for 3. I think the consistency of this polish may have been slightly thinner than Red Carpet Reddy. This polish did not transfer at all onto the top coat brush.
I absolutely adore this colour, and I got a lot of compliments on it, too! :) My husband even commented on it! :P

Here is my Leading Lady manicure at day 3:

I was SUPER impressed by this colour. Because this colour lasted NINE DAYS, still looking as perfect as the day I applied it! I had no tip wear, no chips, no wear signs at all! It was still very shiny! The only thing that changed is that my nails grew out, so there is a gap at the cuticle. Because it lasted so long, I believe that the Red Carpet Reddy colour started showing signs of wear due to user error. I'm sure Leading Lady would have lasted even longer than 9 days if I had left it on, but I felt like changing up my colour.

(Sorry for the awful quality iPhone photo for this one. And I had a cut on my cuticle on my pointer finger, which is why I'm only showing 3 fingers in this picture.)

Another thing I really liked about Red Carpet Manicure gel polish that I haven't experienced before, is that this system comes with a LED curing lamp. I have only ever tried a UV lamp before, which takes almost double the time to cure a layer of polish! I loved that the LED lamp was so efficient, and it is also very small, whereas my UV lamp is ginormous and takes up a lot of room.
I am definitely in love with the Red Carpet Manicure system and hope to try more colours in the future! I 100% recommend it to anyone who wants to try out a gel polish system.
If you'd like to see an application tutorial for Red Carpet Manicure gel polish, you can check out their video here.
You can find Red Carpet Manicure polishes online, and at selected David Jones & Shaver Shop stores.
*Product(s) in this post were provided to me by the company or PR for my 100% honest review.  For more info please read my Disclosure Policy*

Hollish Nails Swatches & Review

I have a new indie brand (to me, anyway) to share with you today! Hollish Nails is from right here in SA! :)

She has just released a huge range of new polishes on her store! I have six glitters from Hollish to show you. 

Bridal Nail Polish Picks.

(Alright I totally messed up Love Month. I decided that the schedule was way too much for me to keep up with - I should've known that - so I decided to stop Love Month here.)

I have been posting some bridal nail art ideas recently, but I figured that a lot of brides out there would be more likely to wear a more subtle manicure for their big day.

Here are my top nail polish picks for brides.

If you want something traditional, subtle, feminine, you can go for a classic sheer pink or white. Some of my favourites are all from OPI, including Don't Burst My Bubble, I Theodora You and Don't Touch My Tutu. Or for a more opaque finish, you can go for a rosy nude like My Very First Knockwurst.

If you're on a tight budget, Cotton Candy or Sweet as Candy by Essence are also a nice choice.

If you'd like to add a little bit of sparkle to your mani, some of my favourite glitters are OPI Crown Me Already, which will give you an opaque bling-bling finish, Twinkle Toes from Ulta3 (another great budget buy) is pretty over any colour, or for a glitter gradient, and China Glaze Glistening Snow which would work for an opaque look or glitter gradient.

If you're looking for your something blue I have two recommendations. Essie's Borrowed and Blue is an opaque almost-white baby blue, and obviously perfect for a wedding. Or perhaps you need a colour to go with your Tiffany's ring, if you happen to be so lucky. ;) You can't go past For Audrey from China Glaze. These colours would also make a cute wedding pedicure!

Last but not least, I have a few indie polishes that would make a great wedding day mani.

Pretty Serious Bloody Bride is a unique and different pick, but so incredibly beautiful and would be pretty on anyone.

If you're looking for a little bit of subtle sparkle to go over any colour you choose, you can't go past Fairy Lights by Love Thy Polish.

Another adorable romantic glitter topper that features super cute hearts is Gloss n Sparkle's Hearts Aflutter. This would look very cute as an accent nail over a subtle pink polish.

You may notice that I also showed some of these polishes in my Valentine's Day Polish Picks post a couple weeks ago. They're just perfect romantic shades so that's why! :)

What polish would you (or did you) choose for your wedding? I would love to know some of your recommendations!

Glam Polish: The Supernatural Collection.

I know I said that I'd only be posting on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sundays during February, but I have an extra post for you this week! :D

Today I have my Glam Polish Supernatural collection swatches for you! This collection is made up of 5 jelly glitter polishes. They all have pretty much the same glitter mix in them, but each one has a different colour jelly base.

These are fantastic, so without further ado, let's get into the swatches!

Love Month. Day 17: Pink & Gold Chevrons.

Hi friends!

I am so sorry. This post was supposed to go up yesterday. I thought I'd have time earlier today to get a post up, but my fiancé and I ended up spending the whole day getting wedding things done! I'm really glad that we were able to do that, though. :)

Today will be a quick post to show you a manicure from about two weeks ago that I didn't share here! I can't believe I didn't, because I really loved this mani.

For this manicure I used OPI's Mod About You - one of my all time favourite pink polishes. 

I paired that with a chevron accent nail using China Glaze's I'm Not Lion, a gold holographic glitter. I have a picture tutorial on how to do a chevron nail here, but I actually used a different method for this manicure which is a bit less time consuming. Nailsofjessiek on Instagram has a video tutorial for the method I used, which you can see here. I find this way to be a bit easier & less time consuming.

Hope you enjoyed. :) ♥ Hopefully I will be able to get back on track with my posts tomorrow.

Love Month. Day 13: Sweethearts Duo. ♥ - A Pretty Pots Collaboration.

Today I have something special to share with you. :) I am so insanely excited about it!
A couple of months ago, Jalene from Pretty Pots asked me if I'd like to collaborate with her on a polish duo to celebrate my engagement to Russ! I helped Jalene come up with a concept for both polishes for the duo and they turned out absolutely perfect; just what I was picturing in my mind!
This duo is called the Sweethearts Duo. ♥

Love Month. Day 8: Gold and Pink Valentines Mani.

I've had my DSLR camera for about 2 months now and I only just figured out how to use the live view function (so you don't have to look through the little viewfinder thing). Yep, took me 2 months to figure out how to turn it on. All I was doing wrong was that I didn't press the 'ok' button. Seriously?!
Anyway. Nevermind that. Today I have a short post to show you another Valentine's Day nail look. I really like this one.

My skin colour looks fairly alien-like in these photos... Please excuse that.

For this manicure I used China Glaze Something Sweet (baby pink), Loki's Lacquer Scrooged (glitter) and OPI Kiss Me On My Tulips (hot pink).

I really like the pink and gold colour combination right now!

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend. ♥

Love Month. Day 4: Cutesy V-Day Water Decals.

Valentine's Day is less than 2 weeks away, so I created some cutesy nail art to share with you today. (How poetic of me!)

A super easy way to create nail art is by using water decals, like these ones I have used from Born Pretty Store.
These decals (pattern BLE1774) include pictures of little bird cages, birds, roses and some little quotes that don't really make sense. You get 21 decals for $2.86.

I used China Glaze Something Sweet for my base colour, and Rimmel Aurora from the Space Dust line for the accent nail. These colours are both perfect for a Valentine's Day manicure!

I really love the bird cage decals especially!

If you'd like to know how to apply water decals, I talked about that in this post.

I couldn't resist sharing a close up shot of Rimmel's Aurora.

You can get 10% off your Born Pretty order using the code CAL91. They do free worldwide shipping all the time.

*Product(s) in this post were provided to me by the company or PR for my 100% honest review.  For more info please read my Disclosure Policy*

Love Month. Day 3: V-Day Polish Picks.

Hi guys! For the third day of Love Month, I thought I'd share my favourite polishes for Valentine's Day with you. I have quite a few to share, so I'll get right into it!
Pink and red are obviously the most popular colours for Valentine's Day, and I think OPI does pinks and reds the best.

Three of my favourite light pinks from OPI are Mod About You - a very pale, opaque baby pink, Pink Friday - a classic lighter Barbie pink, and Chic From Ears to Tail - another pastel pink, but with a subtle silver shimmer (I only have a mini - I need the full size!).

If you're into a more sheer pink, my favourite is I Theodora You, also from OPI.

If you're into textured polishes, OPI's Liquid Sand in Magazine Cover Mouse is a pretty red with a gold shimmer.
A classic hot pink that I love is Kiss Me On My Tulips. Or if you're more of a lavender girl, you can't go past Lucky Lucky Lavender.

Another beautiful hot pink, with a purple undertone is Flirt by piCture pOlish (appropriate name for V-Day! ;)). This one also has a flawless formula. You can get away with just one coat!

February is summer time here in Aussieland, so I had to include a nice neon pink. My favourite is Bottoms Up by China Glaze. The formula on this one is less than perfect, so it will take a bit of patience, but the end result is awesome.

A classic bright red option is Ever Reddy by Covergirl, from the Outlast Stay Brilliant line. This one is available pretty much everywhere. It has a jelly-ish sort of finish.

For the glitter gals! Ulta3 Disco Fever is a great red glitter that's pretty easy to find, and only $2! It would look cute over any of the light pink polishes I mentioned above, or a red.

Haley Good Lookin' is a pretty rosy pink glitter from Nicole by OPI. NOPI is now available at most Target and Woolworths stores here in Australia, so it's fairly easy to get your hands on, if you come across a well stocked stand! This would go well over any colour, really. It has great coverage with just one coat, also.

If you prefer a purple look, China Glaze's Put a Bow On It from the 2013 Holiday collection is a nice full coverage glitter.

Last but not least, some indie glitter options!
Hearts Aflutter is a cute glitter mix that Gloss n Sparkle released for Valentine's Day last year. It's an assortment of pink, lilac and silver glitters in a clear base. It includes cute shapes like hearts and butterflies also. Ruby Soho by Emily de Molly is a nice red glitter in different sizes that would look pretty over a baby pink. And for the hot pink lovers, Blossom by Love Thy Polish is a great mix of hot pink holographic glitters.
I hope this post helped you decide what polish you might wear for Valentine's Day, or just gave you some new polishes to add to your wish list. ;)
What are your favourites for V-Day?! Let me know in a comment. :)

Shades of Phoenix Qandisa & Yarillo {Swatches & Review}

Teneil from Shades of Phoenix has released ten new mind-blowing-ly gorgeous shades, and I have two of them to show you today! Without further ado, let's jump into the beauties. Qandisa is a pink jelly with pink and silver holographic glitters. This is a gorgeous, sparkly, girly glitter! Great coverage and opacity in two coats, but it is definitely a top coat eater. I'd suggest one or two coats of a 'glitter food' type top coat, like Essence Gel Look, and then one coat of a fast drying top coat like Seche Vite to get a smooth finish.

Yarillo is a purple/plum base with little flake glitters that look like they shift from purple to blue. What a beautiful purple! A little sheer; it needs 3 coats for opacity but it's not thick and it dries fairly fast, so it's not a problem.

These two polishes, along with 8 other beautiful new shades, are available now from the Shades of Phoenix store. They have also discounted their discontinued polishes to $5-6, so definitely go and grab them before they're gone for good!
*Product(s) in this post were provided to me by the company or PR for my 100% honest review.  For more info please read my Disclosure Policy*