Happy birthday to me!

It was my 21st birthday yesterday, and I felt so loved and spoilt! I worked all day but had delicious food with friends for dinner, followed by the cutest and delicious cake EVER!

(Bad quality photo, but I forgot my camera. This is off a friend's phone >_<)

According to my parents, it wasn't my birthday yesterday. For my birthday my parents go by the lunar calendar which generally rolls around a month later. Crazy Asians right? But my friends and I celebrate on the 26th of Feb, because that's my DOB on legal documents.

That's my life story for you, let's move on to some nail polish:

This is Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear in Celeb City (13). I'd been eyeing this one ever since I laid my eyes on it when the Sally Hansen brand was brought in at work. Oh how I love working in a pharmacy/drugstore just for the staff discounts!

Two coats for opacity without brush stroke marks, and it isn't too goopy or too runny. Drying time was average, but just look at the silver shimmery greatness :3 It's definitely not a foil, but looks almost like a foil because its such a shimmery metallic!

I'll now go back to nursing my big toe. I've had to teabag wrap it :(

Discovery of a holo from my beloved brand Chi Chi

Last year when I started blogging, I ranted ALOT (here, here, here, here, and here) about Chi Chi, an Australian cosmetics brand. Australian owned and made, I just adore Chi Chi nail polishes. I've been neglecting them for a while but I'll return to my favourites eventually.

As I was just casually browsing through Myer (one of the two department stores that exist in Aus), I went to the Chi Chi section as per usual and discovered this little beauty. Under the store lighting it looked just UH-MAAAAY-ZING.
The shade name for the holo Disco Diva. It applies well (as I think all Chi Chi polishes must), one thick coat was needed for coverage like in the above picture, dries fast and is so sparkly :D I really need to learn to take pictures properly so I can capture the sparkles! I've layered it over another Chi Chi polish, Gimme Gimme A Man.

I figured I'd do a comparison of this new discovery and my other holo, CoverGirl City Lights.
Intentionally blurry shot! You can see how the larger chunkier Chi Chi particles look more sparkly than the finer CG particles. Also note how the baby blue Chi Chi bottle is AUD$5 for 10mL, whereas the regular bottles are $12.95 for 15mL. So I suppose the regular bottles are more value for money, but the mini-size is cheaper for trying out different colours!

Can you tell which holo topcoat is on which fingernail? The middle finger is CG City Lights and the ring finger is Chi Chi Disco Diva! Couldn't get the holo-ness to show up in a picture, but it is definitely there for both. On a random note, the bottle is great to look at.

The base shade here is called Gimme Gimme A Man. How cute are the shade names? The formula is the same - beautiful - as other Chi Chi cream-finish polishes, but the brush is smaller (smaller bottle) so it was harder to get even coverage with two coats. Three coats for opacity and no brush stroke marks as in this picture, but it did dry fairly fast for a cream-finish. And PASTEL BABY BLUE. I just couldn't resist. I'm also pleased to also report, this lasted three days on my nails with no noticeable tipwear/chipping!

Oh what a crappy day... let's make it better with a holo topcoat!

I've had a horrendous day today (or yesterday, since it rolled over midnight):

Woke up early to make it in time for a meeting with my supervisor,
spent 50 minutes on the train,
the transfer train was 10 minutes late,
my supervisor didn't turn up for an hour,
I texted him and he replied "be there soon",
waited another THREE HOURS (starved myself in the process in case he turned up while I was gone to get food)
he rocks up then runs off to god knows where,
FINALLY got to speak to him and plan the rest of my project for a good 3 hours,
checked my email...
WTF MY TUTORIAL GROUP HAS BEEN CHANGED TO THE CRAPPIEST ONE AVAILABLE

Ahh. Hating life right now. Have to re-arrange work and whatnot. Why the hell did I wake up at 5:45am to sign-on to classes if they are going to kick me out because they feel like it?

Enough with the ranting, I'll get to the pretty holo.

The holo topcoat is CoverGirl Boundless Color 430 City Lights. The particles are very fine, and one thick coat does the job shown in this picture. The picture doesn't do it justice. SO. MANY. SPARKLES. *drools uncontrollably* When I first got this, I put it over everything. Then realised it doesn't particularly look good over yellow/orange polishes. City Lights dries pretty quickly, and feels less gritty than some glittery topcoats, just because the particles are so fine. I also think this topcoat also makes the manicure last longer. And underneath the topcoat, I'm wearing:

This here, Scandal 5863 Sky Blue, I picked up over a year ago in Korea, just because the bottle was unique (and the colour is unique too!). Three coats for opacity, the formula is a tad runny and it is prone to brush stroke marks but I just love the colour of it. Even though its called Sky Blue, I think it is far from it. If the sky was this colour I'd stare at it all day!

In my next post, I'll do a comparison post of this holo with a recently discovered holo.

Random cute photo

Look who I found hiding behind a picture frame in my house:

Isn't he the cutest?

We have these geckos of varying size all over our house. They make weird clicking noises and frighten me by randomly scurrying away, but at least they don't look scary. Living in Australia means having to deal with huge 8-legged monsters on a daily basis, but at least I get to live with these cuties too. We even had a green tree frog on a window once!

Guess who's back, back again...

OH HAI!

Originally, I stopped updating because of the floods in Queensland. Then I was stuck in a polish rut, where I felt everything looked ugly on my nails. Recently I've been super busy, and just plain too lazy to keep up with blogposts.

As part of my on-course honours program, I have to spend pretty much the entire summer holidays in the lab. I don't even get to blow things up or do anything cool, just sit at this boring machine:
I know, exciting right? :

The main issue with labwork is washing up glassware using acetone. ACETONE! Which needless to say, greatly shortens the lifespan of my manicures. I've still got just over a month of labwork to do, but I decided I can't keep using that as an excuse.

So in summary, I'm back and shall try to update regularly!