Femme Fatale Cosmetics: Spindleweb & Winter Hyacinth

Hi all!  Apologies for the lack of posting over the past week; I always think I'm going to have more free time than I actually do at these things, and by the time I get back from a long day of dance all I want to do is sleep!  Nevertheless, I've had a pretty productive weekend in terms of blogging stuff, so there should be a couple more posts coming up soon.  

Today I've got two super awesome polishes to show you from the Australian indie brand Femme Fatale Cosmetics!  I received four polishes to review, but I took so many photos that I decided to split them up into two posts.  These were my first polishes from Femme Fatale, and I was pretty impressed.  Click the jump to read more on what I thought!  :)

piCture pOlish Blog Fest 2013: Year of the Blogger

I was so excited when I found out that I was selected to take part in this year's piCture pOlish Blog Fest; it's been so hard to keep it a secret until now!  This year's theme is 'Year of the Blogger', and we were all asked to create a unique nail art look using three piCture pOlish shades provided to us.  It was quite a challenge because we had no say in which polishes we were given, but that's all part of the fun! 

Direct artificial lighting

This post is super picture- and gif-heavy so be sure to read on after the jump for a tutorial!  :)

Guest Post at Manicurator!

Hi all!  Posting will be a bit more sporadic over the next week or so as I get settled in with my new schedule here at my summer intensive, but I wanted to drop by and let you all know about a guest post I did for the lovely Victoria over on her blog Manicurator!

You can click here to go to Victoria's blog and see the full post!  :)

Mint Manis for Talia Joy

I had planned to show you the last of the beautiful Shimmer swatches this morning, but instead I've decided to join in on Nail Polish Wars' fantastic idea to post mint manis in honour of Talia Joy Castellano.  Talia was an extremely talented 13-year-old makeup artist and YouTuber, who was battling two kinds of cancer (neuroblastoma and preleukemia) since she was diagnosed at only 7 years old.  Despite all this, she still managed to keep upbeat, motivated, and overwhelmingly positive.  She passed away on Tuesday morning, and since her last Instagram photo was of a mint manicure, we have all joined together to do mint manis in honour of Talia.  

I pulled out what has become one of my favourite summer cremes, piCture pOlish Honey Dew.  I added a double-accent nail with BM-322 and Essie Good As Gold, and put a gold square stud (which I found in a clearance bin at the drugstore) on all the other nails.  It's all topped off with two coats of Poshé top coat. 

I really love the combination of the bright minty green with the gold, there's something very classy but modern  and stylish about it.  In other news, I'm getting used to the round nails and they're growing on me a bit.  I'll still go back to squares though once I have enough length at the sides.  

You can share your mint manis for Talia on Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, etc. with the hashtags #MintManisforTalia and #TaliasLegacy.  You can also add your mani to the Inlinkz collection below.  I'm excited to see what everyone else has come up with in honour of this beautiful girl.  Keep Talia's family and friends in your prayers! <3

The Inlinkz for this event is after the jump, since there have been over 200 entries!  Click below to have a look. 

Triangular Geometrics & Round Nails

Oh dear, I have round nails!!  They were getting quite long, and I was planning on going back to super-nubs before leaving for a month on Saturday, but I decided to go round for a few days just to give it a go...

I was talking to Alexis while filing them (and freaking out,) and we both agreed that round nails look much better with nail art.  So what did I do?  Nail art it up!! 

Matt Smith is still somehow managing to make it into non-Doctor-Who posts.  My apologies. 

This nail art was initially inspired by this manicure by Alexis, although mine turned out quite differently in the end.  I'm pretty happy with it!  

I started with two thin coats of OPI You're Such A Budapest, freehanded the lines with Essie Good As Gold, and filled in a few of the lines with piCture pOlish Peaches n' Cream over white acrylic paint.  It's all topped off with two coats of Poshé, which I just got my first bottle of over the weekend and LOVE! 

Anywho, while it is an interesting change, I'm still not quite sold on the whole round-nails thing, personally.  I'll definitely be back to my lovely squares within a few days.  What do you all think of the look?  :)

La Couleur Couture Summer Giveaway Winner!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Congratulations!!  I've emailed the winner to be notified (and congratulated!) on her win!  If I do not hear back within 48 hours, another winner will be chosen.  

My gratitude goes out to Farima at LaCC for so generously providing these lovely polishes for this giveaway, and thanks to everyone who entered!! :)

Shimmer Polish: Part 3

I've got more Shimmer Polish swatches for you this morning!  You can see parts 1 and 2 here and here, which each include six polishes.  Since I pulled out my lightbox again to photograph my Nerd Lacquers, I've really begun to appreciate what it does to show off the fine details in glitter polishes.  Therefore, these last six Shimmer polishes will be broken up into two posts of three polishes each, since I've got normal and lightbox photos for each and don't want to overwhelm with too many photos.  Hope that makes sense!

Continue reading after the jump!  :)