Nailympia Australia

Seeing as I will be attending the Beauty Expo Australia in Sydney this year, I thought I'd do a quick shout out to their Nailympia nail art competition for any nail technicians who would like to try their hand at it! I'm a long way from being that good, but hey goals right? The entries will be judged by a panel of 15 international and national judges, and the winners will receive coverage in international press along with a series of additional prize opportunities.

There are 10 categories to enter in the 2017 Competitions: 
Team Title Trophy 
Soak Off Gel Polish
Liquid & Powder Acrylic Sculpture & Tips/Overlay 
Salon Nails (one hand)
Stiletto Nail 
Reality Nail Art 
Fantasy Nail Art 
3D (Mixed Media)
Photographic Nail Art, 2017 Theme: Medieval Fantasy. 

Entrant registration closes at 5:00pm, Monday 7 August 2017. For full terms and conditions of entry for each category please visit: http://www.beautyexpoaustralia.com.au/competitions/nailympia/

And here are some images from last years Melbourne Cup themed competition... because hey pretty nails! 




Miniso Water Based Topcoat

I have a quick post today just to share my little exciting find - I was at a Miniso store the other day and noticed in their small polish range that they had some water based polishes, including a top coat. To be honest I've never owned a water based top coat so I had to buy it and try it out. For a grand total of $2.99 it was worth the risk. So now I have done 2 separate manis with foil using it, and there has been no wrinkles of any kind. It is seriously like magic! The first image here I used the top coat on my first and middle fingers, and the ring and pinkie have nothing on them. The second picture I used it then put a normal quick dry top coat over the top for extra protection. Still no wrinkles at all. The ONLY downside is it does take a while to dry, but worth it. This is the holy grail of foil top coats!
Here is the link to Miniso Australia's website - at the moment they only have stores in Sydney and Melbourne.



Not quite Aeropuffing

 If you live on Instagram as much as I do you will have seen the new Russian fad called Aeropuffing. If you want to brave some Russian language and see some videos on the real deal check out their website here. Seeing as it is both quite expensive and a pain to get your hands on, I decided to give it a go using similar tools.  I used these stencils from Twinkled T, and the sponging tool I got from eBay.
I started out using a range of gel polishes assuming that they would work like the gel paste from the Aeropuffing kit. Turns out that they just don't work. You don't get any opacity and not the nice airbrushed look. So in the long run I used all normal stamping polishes from Hit The Bottle. They worked great! Ok I know that you can just paint over stencils with normal polish and that works, but this did give a nice airbrushed effect. So not quite what I wanted and it hasn't changed my want for the original kit, but it was an interesting experiment.
I didn't take any video of actually applying, but if you look up Aeropuffing on Youtube you will find a million tutorials.



Hit the Bottle Holo the Rainbow

I have been eyeing the Holo the Rainbow stamping polishes from Hit the Bottle off for ever! So when I was at the Indie Con I had to pick up the entire collection. 9 polishes of holographic stamping magic! My lighting doesn't show up the holo very well, but they are super holo, and they stamp really well! I was slightly dubious at first as they look a little sheer on the stamping plate but as soon as you transfer to the nail it's voila sparkle magic!


So below are stamping swatches of each of the 9 colours over white and black cardboard. I promise they all stamp a treat so if any look a little smeary it's my stamping skills and trying to take macro images on an iPhone!
Glint of Gold

Holo there Beautiful

Under the Strobe-berry Lights

Musk Have the Holo

Amethyst Sizzle

Prismatic Purple


Hololulu Blue

 
Turquatic

Lucky Spark
Holo the Rainbow collection from Hit the Bottle is availble in differing sizes and pricing so you have no excuse not to invest! These are available in Australia from their website here.