taryn k.

I thought I'd do a quick comparison post on a few of the deeper red shades I have in my collection. Obviously these are not all particularly similar in shade, but I do feel a little bit more vampy when I wear them, so I put them in the same mood-category.

I even swatched! How professional of me! Same order as above.

All of these have three coats and no top-coat. I never ever where polish without a top coat, but I thought these looked shiny enough without it, so I skipped it. These are all creme finish, with the exception of Rockstar Skinny, which has a very subtle shimmer - I'm not a fan of any kind of shimmer or pearlescent sheen, but I'm actually fine with this one.

My favourite is definitely Drastic, which is also the newest addition to my collection. I wore it for about two weeks in a row, which is very unlike me.

I feel like deep red is such a classic colour that can go with any outfit and at any time of the year - it never seems to look out of place, if fine for work, great for play and manages to look both sophisticated and fun at the same time. I'm pretty sure I have more reds than any other colour in my collection.

What's your favourite go to nail polish colour?

My one negative is that this is my third day wearing it and you can see the tips have already begun to wear off. I have a couple of chips on the other hand as well. So not really a good long term polish, it's better suited when you change up your polish every couple of days.

In other news, I bought this AMAZEBALLS ring the other day.

How much do you think it cost me? Go on, guess.

Here, I'll give you some room to guess.

It cost me $3. THREE DOLLARS PEOPLE! From Diva. Now, granted, it actually fell right apart as soon as I removed it from the packaging, but that is nothing a little bit of superglue can't fix! I am so in love - I can see myself wearing this to death. I don't even know if it's still available, since I got it from an outlet store, and it was on sale there. It's not on their website either, but they don't usually have all that much available on there.

I'm just killing time now before I go pick up my husband from the airport, so I might post something else later on. Who knows? I'm in a blogging mood.

Skull and Glossbones, Mermaids' Tears, Steady As She Rose, Sparrow Me The Drama, Lubu Heels, Below Deck, Island Hopping.

All the OPI polishes are from the recent Pirates of The Carribean: On Stranger Tides collection, the others are from the last couple of years. I've worn all of them, besides Skull and Glossbones and Steady As She Rose.

I tried Steady As She Rose as soon as I got the package, but with my cuticles as bad as they are right now it looked terrible. So maybe one day down the track when I manage to stop attacking my poor, innocent cuticles I'll be happier with it.

I feel like Sparrow Me The Drama is a bit of a dupe for Essie's Splash Of Grenadine. I'll have to do an actual swatched comparison. I did enjoy that colour though and I got a few compliments. It chipped pretty quickly and was kind of sheer when first applied.

Lubu Heels is AMAZING. I absolutlely love it. It's a black polish with red glitter and it is gorgeous. From far away it looks like a brown shimmer, but when you get up close you can definately see the dimension and the glitter. Reminds me a lot of My Private Jet by OPI.

Below Deck is pretty much Merino Cool by Essie, so we already know I love that one. It was opaque in one coat so that was great. Chipped a little bit, but nothing drastic.

I love it. I really love the minty green polish trend, but I haven't been able to find a shade that suits my skin tone (I've tried Re-Fresh Mint by China Glaze and Apple by Sportsgirl FYI). MT isn't as minty as the others I've tried, probably more of a spearamint-green-Tiffany's-blue, but I feel like it's within the same family. It actually looks a litt more blue in the photo than it does it real life though.

Now for my nail polish fail. So I bought Island Hopping by Essie. When I already have all of these.

I don't even know which is which, besides Merino Cool and Angora Cardi. I have a problem. *sigh*

Ooh, it's been a while since I've done a Nail File. To be honest, I've not really had anything new to show you - I've been revisiting old favourites that I've already blogged about, or not feeling like a polish was worth a post. But I have been enjoying this combo, so here you go.

My friend Helena said I looked like I have 'fairy nails'. I like that, I think it's cute.

I've worn Rumples Wiggin by itself a couple of times, but it always seems a little too pale for me - I much prefer Chi Chi's Label Queen which, surprisingly I've never blogged about. It's still a lilac colour, but a little more dusky and grey. I'll do a post on it in the coming weeks and do a side by side. Rumples Wiggin is a little streaky. I had to use three coats, just to get rid of the streakiness. So not the easiest polish to work with, whereas Label Queen applies like a dream.

Now I know I wrote a blog a couple months ago saying that the Electric Lilac was a bit crap and it slid right off my nail. That was when I was using it all by itself. It hasn't done anything like that when applied over Rumple Wiggin. I'm going to try it over Chi Chi's On The Prowl now, see how that goes.

Well off to eat my dinner - we're being a bit naughty and having pizza tonight - and then I'll probably be back for my 30 Day Challenge Post. Gotta find a photo that makes me happy.

It has come to my attention that I am actually crap at painting my nails, haha. My family and family friends went camping over the Easter weekend and we joined them on Good Friday. My friend Blaire and I were painting our nails (as you do when you're camping) and I noticed that her technique was far superior to mine. Ah well. Practice makes perfect ;)

I thought I'd show you my crackle polish win from a week or so ago. You will remember in my OOTN: Girls Night video I mentioned I'd do a blogpost on my nail look. So here it is. I used Essie's Lapis of Luxury and China Glaze's Broken Hearted, which I love as a combination. I couldn't stop staring at my hands for the three days I was wearing it, and whenever anyone asked about it, I got all geekily excited and started rambling on, far more than necessary.

Hello lovelies! Happy Saturday to you all. I had a pretty low-key Saturday evening this week - I had a lovely dinner at a local resturant with four of my best girlfriends - we hadn't caught up in a while, so it was great to have a chat over cocktails and dinner. I tried to take photos to do an outfit of the day, but I can never get it right, so I just decided to film it instead. The lighting isn't the best, but if you like these style of posts, let me know and I'll sort out a better filming location.

Since going on my beauty and fashion shoppng ban I've been doing a lot of 'shopping my closet', hence most of these items being a little older. I have never worn this combo before though, so it felt like a whole new outfit.

Earrings: Diva
Shirt: Mooloolah
Pants: Valleygirl
Heels: Steve Madden
Ring: Diva (I figured it out!)
Bracelet: Portmans
Watch: Urban Outfitters - still available here
Nails: Essie Lapis of Luxury & China Glaze Broken Hearted (blog post coming soon - probably tomorrow morning)

Hope you're all enjoying you weekend :)

Okay, I'll start with the good news - I love OPI's Baguette Me Not from the French collection a couple years back. I've had this for a while and worn it once or twice, but I always almost never reach for it. I always think of it as boring when I see the bottle - but it comes out so lovely on the nails. I'm not even sure how I would describe it - almost a dusty coral?

Until the next morning when it all fell off. I'm not talking chipped off. No - it came off like a fake nail would come off, all in one piece. SO bizarre. Granted, I wasn't wearing a base coat, but I've never had this problem before. I wasn't even doing anything that would usually chip my nails - I was driving when the first two came off! Everything was gone by mid-morning, so I spent the rest of the day nail polish-less. Oh the shame ;) I'm gonna try it over another polish soon, see it a similar thing happens before I give up on this polish - it is really too gorgeous.

I bought some cuticle oil from my local beautician yesterday. It smells like "Honey Suckle" and so far I really like it. It's the brand 'Chemistry' and was $8. I really don't think this is going to be an easy habit to break, but dammit, the thought of biting my nails freaks me out now, so I have faith that I can do it.

This is actually as glittery on the nail as it is in the bottle. Not that I have many glitter polishes, but this is the first I've seen that applies this well. I think this is what Bloom's "Mena" is trying to be - except it fail miserably.

Next up is OPI's Vodka and Caviar. I said in my haul post that I bought this colour for my friend as a Christmas gift last year and that I've wanted it ever since. I am so glad I finally purchased it for myself - it's a very classy red, but I can't get it to photograph properly.

It really isn't quite this...tomatoey. Definitely a deeper, more classic red. I do have red polishes similar to this, but they are NP Set polishes and I haven't seen them for sale anywhere since I originally got them.

At the moment I'm wearing China Glaze's "Recycle". It's just a nice, flat grey. I love it. It's similar to my "High Heeled Housewife" by Chi Chi, but without any brown tones. It applied beautifully, lovely formula, nice and opaque after two coats.

I've really got to start working on my cuticles. I've definitely broken the nail-biting habit (hurray!!), now I've just gotta kick the cuticle-chewing habit. I need to buy some good cuticle oil to get me started. Hopefully next week will show some improvement.

I'm hosting my mother-in-law's 60th birthday tomorrow afternoon - it's a 60's theme, so I'm about to go paint my nail a pastel pink colour, which hopefully looks kinda 60's. I'll try to remember to take photos of my costume and decor, hopefully I'll post tomorrow evening. I've got a busy night tonight, I want to get everything prepared tonight, so I can focus on our costumes tomorrow morning. We'll see how I go - I'm not the world's most organised person!

Okay. I'm going to have a whinge. I going to preface by saying, I know that I can't please everyone, nor do I want to. But seriously, some people are so rude.

Today I wore China Glaze's Lemon Fizz. I must admit, it didn't turn out quite like I'd hoped - the colour was a little disappointing to me (probably because I had such high hopes) and I applied it quite slap-dash (as I generally do). Here's my thumb so you get the idea.

So probably not my favourite nail polish moment, but anyway.

In case I haven't already told you, I work at a bank. One of the other girls had a customer today, who had a bit of a tricky question. I came over to help, HELP, this customer and the first thing she says to me, before I had even opened my mouth, was "Oh, it must be said - that yellow nail polish is absolutely horrible!!"

Honestly, why would one think that was socially acceptable? I was so angry, not because of her opinion, but because of the outright rudeness. But since I was at work, I just smiled and carried on trying to solve her drama.

I just don't understand why people think that it is okay to say absolutely everything that comes to their mind. Why do they think it is their business? Do I tell this lady that her mullet kinda makes her look like a man? No. A sense of decorum people!!

Ah well, she went on her way, oblivious to her own rudeness, and my life continued as usual. Apart from that it was a lovely day. I got the new Britney CD, which I was very excited about, and upon first listen hasn't disappointed. I love me some Britney.

I know this blog has been quite nail polish heavy lately, but I've got some posts coming up that are nothing to do with my nails, I swear. If anyone has anything they'd like to see, please post in the comments section and I'll see what I can do :)

I hope everyone is having an amazing week. Talk to you soon!

Yay, happy Friday! Hope everyone had a fabulous week. Today I have a bit of a nail haul for you. And yes, this means I broke my spending ban. But, in my defence, I really needed a pale yellow polish for Easter *smiles innocently*

As usual these are from Beautyzone2007 on Ebay. I got "Vodka and Caviar" and "My Private Jet" by OPI. I bought "Vodka and Caviar" for my friend for Christmas, but I got jealous and had to get it for myself. "My Private Jet" has been on my wishlist for quite some time, so I'm quite excited to have finally found it.

Now I'm not entirely sure why "Vodka and Caviar" is looking so tomato/orange-y in the photo. It's much more of a blood red in real life - I'll be sure to do a post on it when I get the chance to wear it.

From China Glaze I got "Recycle", "Broken Hearted", "Electric Lilac", "Turned Up Turquoise (Neon)", "Lemon Fizz" and "Re-Fresh Mint".

"Broken Hearted" is my first crackle polish - I did a quick test-run with it earlier today and I must say, I was pleasantly surprised. I'll do a proper post on in in a week or so, after I've applied it properly. I also tried "Electric Lilac" over "Lincoln Park After Dark" and it looks promising - I'll keep you posted :)