Sally Hansen's Grape Gatsby

Okay, let's try this blogging thing again!

Today I have a quick swatch and review of one of Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure polishes. Grape Gatsby is a pretty pastel purple polish (try saying that 3 times fast!) with a cream finish. I bought this shade online from the US as I don't think it has appeared in Australia yet. I love the colour, a little bit pinker than a true lavender, it looks very pretty, girly and elegant.

The formula is decently pigmented, and only takes 2 coats to reach opacity, however, it was a little tricky to work with as it dries quickly, so it can get thick and goopy as you continue your manicure. To avoid cuticle drag you need to work fast and make sure you don't go over the same area twice in one coat. I would also recommend using thin coats as I had some problems with bubbling when I used thicker layers to try and smooth things out. Next time I'll try adding some polish thinner to my bottle to help stop it gooping up during application.

The colour matched the flowers on my dress perfectly and I got compliments on my nails when wearing this polish, especially together with this dress. I'd definitely recommend this polish, despite its slightly tricky formula, because the colour is so gorgeous!

Lord of the Rings nail art

I went to the West Australian Symphony Orchestra's performance of the music from The Two Towers on the weekend, and wore some Lord of the Rings nail art for the occasion. The orchestra played the soundtrack live on stage while the movie screened, and it was just amazing, although I kept getting caught up in watching the movie and forgetting about the performance!

On my left hand I had the Eye of Sauron, an idea which I borrowed from Chalkboard Nails, and on my right hand I had part of the map of Middle Earth.

For the Eye of Sauron design, I painted my thumb and pinky with Sally Hansen Midnight in NY and my other three fingers with Essence Happy from their 'Snow White' trend edition. I then spread some of the same polish on my thumb and pinky using a small fan brush to begin the "wreathed in flame" effect and continued layering with Rimmel Sun downer, Wet n Wild I red a good book, Rimmel Rapid ruby and Cult Nails Nevermore. I used both a fan brush and also just the polish brushes (with very little polish on them) to get a streaky gradient effect. The actual eye was done with a small nail art brush using Nevermore over a background of Essence Destination sunshine from their 'Ready for boarding' trend edition.

I originally tried stamping for the map design on my right hand, but I couldn't get my stamper to pick up the design from the plate. The stamp was quite detailed and shallow, which might have been the problem, but I also need to practice my stamping technique. Don't you just hate it when you want to be good at something straight away but then it doesn't work like that? Lol. Instead I did a messy background of Nevermore and Ulta3 Creme brulee  streaked over one another to give that 'old parchment' look and then used Lab Muffin's technique of drawing with permanent marker to create the details of the map.

Above are the polishes I used -  sorry for the messy bottles, this was a rather messy process! I also used Essence Peel off base coat for the PVA top coat over the permanent marker, and KBShimmer Clearly on top to top coat everything. The whole look took ages to do, so much so that I was running late and only had 15 minutes to get ready to go out to the concert! Oh well, my nails were done and that's what's important right?

Any other Lord of the Rings fans out there? And has anyone else gone all-out with nail art for a special event before? I'd love to see your blogs/pictures.

Nail mail and my experience with MBeauty Lounge

A few weeks ago I received some unexpected nail mail. In the chaos of moving house, going on our honeymoon, the holiday season and going back to uni, I had completely forgotten about my order from MBeauty Lounge. I had assumed that I had already received the order, as I had placed it in October last year, and I was so convinced it must've been a mistake that I checked through (almost) my entire collection. While I was very relieved that I did actually receive my polishes in the end, I was rather annoyed at how long they had taken to get to me. I placed the order on October 15, received a shipping notification on November 6 and received the package on April 10. That's a total of six months - wtf?! And on top of that, my order was missing one of the polishes with a scribbled note on the included packing slip saying "$6.75 - credit refunded." As of yet there is no sign of a refund in my account, but I haven't contacted them about it as I'm not sure it will be worth the headache, based on my experience with their customer service so far.

My invoice - I've highlighted the date and circled the missing polish

Not only had they not included one of the polishes, not informed me of this AND not actually processed the refund, the polish I was missing was from the Mariah Carey Christmas collection and trying to find it in April (and in Australia) was near impossible. Thankfully, I managed to find it on eBay for a not-too-exorbitant price, but I was actually in the United States in November for my honeymoon - if only they had let me know that they were out of stock when they sent the package, I could've picked it up there.

L-R: This gown needs a crown, Miss you-niverse, I'm feeling sashay, 
Baby please come home, Silent stars go by, It's all San Andreas's fault

OPI - Baby please come home

Thankfully the rest of the polishes arrived safe and sound. I got the OPI Miss Universe 2013 mini collection, two of the Liquid Sands from the OPI Mariah Carey Christmas 2013 collection, and the one Liquid Sand from the OPI San Francisco collection that had been out of stock when I ordered the others from a different supplier. I also picked up the Zoya Pixie Dust Autumn Collection.

L-R: Dhara, Chita, Sunshine, Tomoko, Carter, Arabella

As much as I was thoroughly annoyed by this whole experience, I will point out that I have ordered two other times from MBeauty Lounge before and I received my orders within six weeks with no missing items. It may seem that I'm giving them a bad review, but I do think MBeauty Lounge has their place in the online nail polish world, especially for those from countries where some brands just aren't available (I'm looking at you, Zoya). Their prices are good (very good for us Aussies, where OPI's retail for at least $20 each) and they have a pretty big range, including new collections. The polishes seem legit as far as I can tell (which isn't very far), although the OPI's do have their serial numbers scraped off. Shipping does take a long time however - at least a month to Australia, plus the order turn around time which seems to be about one or two weeks, so you're looking at about 6 weeks from the time you place the order to when you receive it. The shipping costs are pretty reasonable, especially compared to other online sellers - it's usually about a quarter of the cost of the polishes (e.g. about $20US for 10 polishes), depending on the size of the order. Their customer service is atrocious, as I've already described, but if you're willing to put up with this and the long shipping times, you can get your nail polish fix for a pretty good price.

Have any of you ever ordered from MBeauty Lounge? How did it turn out? And what are your recommendations for online nail polish stores?

First post woo! ... and Sugar Skull makeup

Hello Interwebz!

I'm so excited to start my beauty blog, finally! I've been thinking about it for quite a while and posted a few nail polish reviews/pictures last year, but I got a new google account (I got married and changed my name) so I thought it was a perfect time to start from scratch. I've been working on the name/logo and layout for a week or so with the help of my hubby (who handles anything code-y - thanks hun!) and I thought it was time to get cracking on my first post.

I've been a follower of the beauty/nail blog community for a couple of years now (mostly as a silent lurker!), and some of my favourite blogs are Vampy Varnish, Nouveau Cheap, The PolishAholic, Samarium's Swatches and Musings of a Muse (and lots more!). I really wanted to get more involved in the beauty blogger community and actually share some of my opinions instead of just being a creeper, so what you can expect from my blog are makeup and nail polish reviews, hauls, and other beauty-related things. Especially with being a beauty junkie in Australia, we have access to a number of brands that are pretty much unheard of elsewhere and so it's hard to find reviews and swatches. Makeup and nail polish are a big hobby of mine and this blog is just an extension of that passion, so I'm not too worried if I'm the only person who ever reads it (although hubby said he would, for solidarity), but if I can help just one person with my finds and reviews then I'd consider it a job well done.

Anyway, on to the makeup...

A few weeks back hubby and I went to a Mexicana-themed night and, although it wasn't exactly a dress-up event, we thought we'd have some fun. Hubby wore a sombrero, a fake moustache and a blanket with a hole cut in it for a poncho, while I came up with this look after browsing through photos of sugar skull makeup on google.

To start with, I covered my entire face with white face and body makeup that I got from my local costume shop for $8 - not too bad you might think, but this stuff was terrible. I'm not sure if maybe I went about it all wrong, having never worked with costume makeup before, but it went on patchy so I had to apply multiple layers to get the opaque white that I wanted and even then some areas just wouldn't build up coverage! I tried using my fingers and beauty blender to apply it, as well as two different kinds of brushes (my Optical Blurring Brush from Urban Decay and a flat-top kabuki from Coastal Scents), but nothing seemed to help, and it was hell on my brushes. Even after a good spot cleaning they still have white stuff caked all over them and the bristles are very stiff, and my poor beauty blender has gone from black to grey and is as hard as a rock. Nothing a good deep clean shouldn't be able to fix, but it was just so messy! The worst thing about this makeup, however, was that soon after it dried it started to crack - I had fine lines running all over my face, especially around my mouth, and flakes of makeup were falling off during the evening. Hubby said it added to the skull effect, but it was still annoying (you can see in the picture where a flake had already come off on my forehead, and this was in the car on the way there!).

The other products I used for the look worked really well however. I used the Jordana Made to Last Eyeshadow Pencil in 02-Stay on Black for the eye and nose sockets, mouth and parts of the spiderweb and flower outlines around the eyes and chin. The Jordana Made to Last Eyeshadow Pencil in 07-Prolong Purple I used for some of the flower petals, and I used a Revlon Colorburst Matte Balm in 240 Striking for the red petals, as I didn't have a red eyeshadow pencil. The Covergirl Liquiline Blast Eyeliner in Blackfire did the detail work on the petal outlines and spiderweb, but any smudgeproof black eyeliner pencil would have done just fine - I chose this one because it's not one of my favourites so I hardly ever use it for regular makeup. I used the Milani Shadow Eyez in Snowy White, a matte white from their 2013 Holiday Romance collection, to fix up any mistakes and also to add coverage to parts of my face where the white makeup wasn't staying put. The Elf HD Powder was to try to set and add a bit more coverage to the white makeup as well. I patted a matte black eyeshadow on top of the eye and nose sockets to give more depth and added some silver detailing to the petals with another jumbo eye pencil. A pair of crazy big false eyelashes finished off the look.

For the floral headband I used different flower clips and hair accessories that I'd accumulated over the years and clipped or tied them to a black plastic headband. This was actually where I started the whole look, as I then matched my makeup to the flowers. For my first foray into a costume makeup look, I was really pleased with how it all turned out and it was so much fun to do.

So from me and hubby, welcome to my blog, and I promise I usually don't look this scary in real life. (Well, unless it's really early in the morning perhaps - haha!) And sorry for the super-long first post - I promise the next one will be shorter!

Have any of you ever tried an out-there makeup look? Do you have any tips for working with costume makeup so that it doesn't get so patchy and flaky? I'd love to hear your thoughts so please don't hesitate to leave a comment (but be nice, it's only my first post!)