Bella Belle Nail Couture - Water Marbling and Sparkles

A new indie discovery of mine is Bella Belle Nail Couture. This indie brand is Australian and made not far from where I live in Victoria. Bella Belle Nail Couture boasts one of the most amazing collection on indie cream polishes I've seen which are supposedly amazing for water marbling. Of course, my water marbling skills are not the best, but I had to see if these polishes were worth the hype. 

Short answer, yes, yes they are worth the hype! 

SoNalicious Inspired Edgy Geometric Nail Art

I've already done an blog post about the awesome Nail Stars Melbourne event and said that I had challenged myself to re-create the nails Maria, from So Nailicious, was wearing on the day. Her nails are simply perfection, so I tried my best and came up with this girly version of her edgy geometric design.

Nail Stars - Melbourne 2014

From sonailicious.com

One day, while doing my daily instagram trawl, I came across the exciting announcement that Maria, from So Nailicious, and Chelsea, from Trophy Wife, were pairing up to teach some exclusive nail art sessions. I immediately decided I wanted to attend as I've admired both Maria and Chelsea's work for a very long time. All I had to do was find a friend to drag along with me and book some tickets.

My friend, Caroline, and I elected to attend the 4.30-7.30pm class so I would have time to travel up to Melbourne for the event. We arrived at Trophy Wife Salon at 4.30pm, a beautifully set up building right in the heart of Richmond, and were immediately greeted by Chelsea and Maria. I was pretty excited by this but managed to contain myself as we sat down and dug into our awesome Ulta3 goody bags, the sponsors for the event.

Sunday Swatch Time - Celestial Cosmetics - Meteoroid

It's Sunday which means one thing, it's SWATCH TIME. It's been a while since I've posted but I've been busy with things and so I shall make up for it with this epic Celestial Cosmetics shade, Meteoroid! 

 (click for more)

Arcane Lacquer - Sanpuru 20 - Swatch

I missed swatch Sunday so I shall make up for it today. The other day I brought some polishes from Arcane Lacquer, including a sample polish (meaning one off and exclusive, coolness). I had my eye on a few other sample shades but unfortunately could only snag this one. It's called Sampuru 20  and here are some swatches (click to see more).

Rhinestone Nail Art

I haven't posted anything for a few days so I'll rectify that with these sparkly nails. I've seen a few gem encrusted nails around and thought I'd give them a try. It's a really easy look to pull off and I like them, although they're a bit messy as I didn't spend a lot of time on them. For more pictures click read more!

Sunday Swatch Time - Shades of Phoenix - 'Weird & Wonderful Flavors' Trio

Welcome to the first instalment of Sunday Swatch Time. Every Sunday I shall try to share with you swatches of the polishes in my collection. This gives me the opportunity to show you some pretty polishes and also for me to see what I have in my stash.

The other day I created some nail art using two polishes from the 'Weird & Wonderful Flavors' trio by Shades of Phoenix. I promised swatches of the whole collection so what better way to start off Sunday Swatch Time than with those polishes?

The 'Weird & Wonderful Flavors' trio is a really cool concept which is part of a 6 polish partnership between Moonstone Nail Polish and Shades of Phoenix. Each polish in the collection has two different names or flavors, one wonderful and one weird. The magic is that you don't know which version of the polish you will receive until you eagerly rip open your nail mail. This idea is based off the concept of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, which sold me on the polishes right away because I'm a massive fan of Harry Potter. I only purchased the Shades of Phoenix side of the set, but the full collection can be found here.

Mint Leaf

The first polish I received was the wonderful Mint Leaf (or Spinach for the weird). This is a glitter packed polish in a lightly tinted green base. All the glitter in this polish is green and it comes in every shape. The formula is so glittertastic that Mint Leaf is opaque is just two dabbed coats. However I found that I could still see the tips of my nails with two coats so the swatches here are two dabbed coats, plus a third, normally applied coat, topped with one layer of HK Girl top coat. 

This was possible my favourite polish of the collection and I did edit my pictures a little so that the colour truly reflected what I was seeing in real life.

Gladiolus Nail Art

I have another instagram prompt inspired nail art for you today. The prompt was Gladiolus and I came up with a sort of single gladiolus, ruffian thing.  Once again, my free hand skills are not that good, so sorry about that, but more images are available just click to read more.

Shades of Phoenix - Weird & Wonderful Flavors collection - Taped mani

The other day I got a parcel of Shades of Phoenix polishes that I ordered during a flash sale. I had been eyeing off quite a few of their polishes for a while, so I jumped on the opportunity to add some to my growing Aussie Indie stash (the was before my no-buy, which I have since broken, whoops). 

I ended up buying two collections, the 'Up All Night' trio and the 'Weird & Wonderful Flavors' trio. This nail art was created using two of the colours from the weird and wonderful collection. They are amazing and I'm loving this look so much so there are a heap of images if you click read more!

Ikat Nail Art

As part of an instagram challenge there was the prompt to do some ikat nail art. Ikat is a type of pattern which personally I'm not too fond of as all recreations tend to look similar. I didn't want to skip the challenge so I decided to attempt something a little different which is water colour ikat. 

Celestial Cosmetics - Poppy's Flower Swatch

A while ago I discovered Aussie Indie polishes and set about expanding my collection. This might have been good for my nails but not so good for my bank account. I have officially ceased collecting until I can find a job but before I went on my no buy, I purchased some beautiful polishes from Celestial Cosmetics. Today I have some swatches of one of those polishes, Poppy's Flower, to show you.

Classy Skittlette Mani

Happy International Nail Art Day as declared by instagram! I had to do some nail art in honour of this day and therefore created this classy skittlette mani.