‘Peaches and Lace’ Manicure

Tags

Bloom Cosmetics, essie, manicure, weddings

This is a very girly, cute manicure that I did to celebrate holidays, summer, and the recent engagement of a close friend! Apologies for the truly poor job with tidying up the sides of the polish (I didn’t realise that I hadn’t cleaned it up before I took these photos and ran out the door).

Here’s what to do to get this manicure:

1. Apply a base coat and 2-3 coats of a pale peach base colour.
2. Thumb: Use an opaque white polish to draw a bird (this was a bit of a fail :P). Use a dotting tool to make the bird’s head. Use a fine tipped brush to draw the rest of the body. Use a silver polish to add details such as feathers and a beak.
3. Index: Decide where you want your bow to be and use a dotting tool to create the bow’s knot. Draw two triangles on either side to create the bow. Use a fine brush to draw the ribbon using the same colour polish. I used a pastel lilac colour.
4. Middle: Use a fine tipped brush to create a diagonal lace design. Draw two parallel lines diagonally across the nail. On the side closer to the edge of your nails, draw a criss-cross design. On the far side draw small ‘c’ shapes for the lace edge.
5. Ring: Carefully apply two flower fimo nail appliques on slightly wet polish. Finish with a clear coat of top coat.
6. Pinky: Use a fine brush to draw and fill in a triangle for the ice cream cone. Use opaque white for the ice cream scoop. Use silver polish to add detail.

For this mani, I used Skin Food’s Milky Colour Polish in Peach Milk for the base colour, along with essie Blanc, Lilacism and Bloom Miranda.

Hope you enjoyed this one!

x

Excuse My French Manicure

Tags

Bloom Cosmetics, Maybelline, nails

The French manicure is a classic – but sometimes you want something more! This manicure is sophisticated but modern. The shimmery nude and the silver tips suit everyone and go with pretty much everything, but if you want to try different combinations the possibilities are endless! (Also, apologies for the weird formatting at the end – I don’t know what’s going on with WordPress :S)

To get this manicure:

1. Apply a base coat to adhere your polish to your nails and even out ridges if you have them. I used Essie’s First Base.
2. Apply 2-3 thin layers of a shimmery nude/pale pink colour. I used Maybelline Express Finish in Sheer Crystal Dash.
3. To create the french tip, you can either use a stencil or you can do it freehand. I do my tips freehand by anchoring the hand with the nail brush by placing my wrist on a flat surface, placing the tip of the polish brush at one edge of your nail and slowly rotating your finger (while keeping the brush steady) to create the french tip. I find this turns out much neater than using stencils (which leak a lot). I used Bloom Cosmetics’ Miranda.
4. Finish up with a topcoat. I used Essie’s Good to Go.
5. Find an outfit to match your beautiful new manicure!

Bloom Miranda and Maybelline Sheer Crystal Dash are both great polishes. Miranda is a grey-silver base with fine microglitter. Sheer Crystal Dash is a dirt cheap drugstore polish that I have repurchased multiple times because I keep using it up. It looks great with one coat, and builds up colour nicely. It makes a great layering colour if you want to give your polish a sheer shimmery topcoat. I have taken this polish with me when travelling because it dries super fast, it doesn’t show up any chips and it goes with everything!

If you read my ‘Flames and Flowers’ post, you’ll know I just bought Essie’s base and fast dry topcoat. This is the first time I’ve used either and I am very impressed. I took these photographs 4 days after painting my nails and I only have minimal tipwear and no chipping! The Good to Go topcoat is not that quick drying but it gives nice shine and doesn’t bubble at all! The price tag was worth the excellent results, in my opinion.

Try this manicure out and tell me how it went! Thanks again for reading and check back tomorrow for a new makeup look!

x

Essie and Bloom Cosmetics products are available from Myer.

‘Flames and Flowers’ Manicure

Tags

Bloom Cosmetics, essie, Myer, nails, OPI, spring

After finally finishing exams, I decided to kick back and relax…so naturally I turned to painting my nails!

This manicure was partly inspired by spring, and partly by my desire to try out the gradient effect on my nails.

Following a base coat, I used Bloom’s Audrey for my background colour (2 coats). I then sponged on OPI Glitzerland onto the thumb, index, middle and pinky fingers using a wedge-shaped cosmetic sponge. The ring finger design was made using a dotting tool, Rimmel ’60 Seconds’ in 610 Pompous for the petals, and OPI Glitzerland for the flowers’ centres. Then, I applied a basecoat to seal the design.

Here’s another view of the nails. For the first attempt, I’m pleased with how the gradient effect turned out (although I had to redo a couple of nails from scratch). I can’t wait to try it out again using different colour combinations!

Despite how much I like the actual design, I am so annoyed about this manicure, and its all because of this…

Sally Hansen Diamond Shine Base & Top Coat – one of the few beauty items I have ever bought without reading the reviews. I turned to it after a bad experience with OPI’s top coats. This is the WORST topcoat I have ever tried. Its extremely thick (I needed to thin it out after the 3rd use) and it bubbles insanely. It takes hours and hours to dry completely – I have applied this at 4pm and woken up the next morning with smudge marks!

My manicure took about 40 mins in total to do, and about 30 minutes after I was done I noticed this:

The bubbles are so clustered that they are distorting the design on the nail! It looks even worse in person because the bubbles reflect so much light. I have tried everything to reduce the amount of bubbling, but after reading reviews on the product, it seems to be the formula at fault rather than my application.

So after reading some reviews, I decided to dispose of the evil Sally Hansen bottle and went back to my favourite nail brand Essie (LOVE their Matte About You topcoat).

The First Base base coat retails for AUD19.95 and the Good to Go top coat retails for AUD21.95. Essie products are available from Myer.

I’m looking forward to a summer of relaxation, creative expression, new adventures, family & friends, and getting back to the things I love. Stay tuned for more beauty related goodness AND more book reviews coming really soon!!!

Thanks so much for reading!

x

Honeysuckle: Spring 2011 Colour Report

Tags

Bloom Cosmetics, colour report, Etsy, fashion, Nordstrom, Pantone, Trends, Zac Posen, ZARA

Chosen as Pantone’s 2011 Colour of the Year, Honeysuckle is a beautiful dynamic reddish-pink that will warm up your spirits and your wardrobe for the coming season. This colour looks great on any skin tone and can be worn everyday! Scroll down further for some Honeysuckle-flavoured eye candy!

1. Rouched leather bag by Z Spoke by Zac Posen (The Outnet)
2. Silk Taffeta by FabricsAndTrims (Etsy)
3. Vintage 1960s Cocktail Dress by DeLaBelle (Etsy)
4. Chloe Evening Dress by Natasha Millani (Natasha Millani)
5. Pamela Blouse by Elie Tahari (Nordstrom)
6. ‘Clara’ Nail Polish by Bloom Cosmetics (Bloom Cosmetics)
7. Blazer by ZARA (ZARA)