OPI x HelloKitty

For this holiday season, OPI have partnered up again with Hello Kitty to create a range of 12 polishes, I was lucky enough to get 5 of the shades along with the Infinite Shine base and top coats, all in the cutest little bag! So I'm here to share with you swatches and the art I did with each of these shades. I would say most of these are takes on classic shades, which is something OPI does do really well. And you can't go past how freakin adorable the bottles are!
First up is A Kiss on the Chic - a super flattering classic red. It's in that between zone of not too in-your-face red and vampy red, making it bold but still keeping it very classy. The formula for this one was nice and opaque and creamy. Here I’m wearing 2 coats with a glossy top coat.
For the art look I stamped over the red with Moyra foil polish for stamping using a Christmas plate 06 from Beauty BigBang and a Swarovski crystal glued on.
Let Love Sparkle - a shimmery frosty blue with iridescent micro glitter scattered through it. It looks a little textured on the nail because of the glitter but a thick glossy top coat made it feel totally smooth. It was a tad hard to work with because of that texture and the sparkle that you see in the bottle gets a bit lost on the nail. But it's still quite a nice shade and I'm pretty sure it will be a unique one for your collection.
For these nails I did some layered stamping using 2 stamping polishes from Born Pretty and used plate 122 from Nicole Diary.
Let’s Be Friends - this is actually a re-release from their first OPIxHelloKitty range as it was so popular, which makes sense as it is quite similar to Bubble Bath which has to be their all-time best polish IMO. It's a little faded out in my pics as it was hard to capture right, but it is a really pretty pastel strawberry pink. Lovely colour but it is quite a thick and very fast drying polish which is a bit hard to work with - here I am wearing 3 super thin coats.
I went SUPER easy for this art look all using Born Pretty stamping polishes hand-painted on. If you haven't seen this style done before, you literally do 3 downward strokes in the coloured polish just using the bottle brush, and once that dries enough, do the same thing again in black starting slightly lower than the colour. It's one of those looks that I can do in my sleep, but I always get tonnes of compliments whenever I do it.
Isn’t She Iconic - This is a  gorgeous shimmery pewter for when you want silver nails but want them a little more toned down. The polish is packed with tiny reflective particles that are densely packed enough that I only needed 2 coats. This applied really nicely, and even more importantly it removed really easily too! No grittiness at all.

You can tell I did these nails right before Christmas! Some simple hand-painting using Born Pretty stamping polishes again and all the crystals used are from my store.
Lastly is Hello Pretty - a rich and deep purple that real intensity in colour that you want to touch them all the time. OPI always slays when it comes to dark cremes, and this one is no different. This is 2 coats.
This last art look was done by stamping on the design, painting over the inside of the stamped area with foil glue, foiling, then stamping again over the top. I know it sounds a little fiddly, but it's a technique that always comes out looking 10x more complex than it actually is. Once again the stamping polish is from Born Pretty, the foil was just a silver holo from AliExpress, and the stamping plate is Kads Fashion 12.

OPI x HelloKitty polishes RRP: Infinite Shine $22.95, Nail Lacquer $19.95, Advent Calendar $89.95 (exclusive to David Jones) and Mini 5- Gift Set $29.95 Stockists: Available at Myer, David Jones and selected salons for a limited time




Benefit Warehouse Sale (Sydney)

Before anyone freaks at me - yes this is an event that has come and gone, but I am posting this for future reference! As a chronic warehouse sale goer, I am always googling when a brand says it is having a sale to see what they have sold in past years so I have an idea of when to expect. So for all the people in the future who want to go to a Benefit warehouse sale - here's pics and the price list from the 2019 one. It ran from 24 - 26/10 (thurs - sat) in Sydney.
This sale was in a room attached to the old theatre in Paddington - it was basically just one very large room. I got there on day 1 an hour early and there wasn't any queue. About 10min prior to opening there were about 20 people. They had to let us in one by one as you had to check your bags in as you entered, but it didn't take long (compared to those old Peeptoe Shoes sales where I stood outside for over 3 hours to get in!). All the items were put into giant boxes with prices written on the side. The best value of the day were the gift packs that were $20 each - some of them like the eyebrow kits there was loads of stock of, but others were very limited and were all done within the first half an hour. 
The shade ranges were fairly limited too - so you couldn't exactly go with a shopping list, but as someone with brown hair they had all the mid toned brow items that suited me!
 If you scroll to the bottom you can see me little haul - I didn't go crazy because I was on a VERY limited budget *sob* but there were girls there buying up BIG (and a lot I then later saw on eBay...). The Ace that Face was $5, brow brush $5, large cosmetics bag on the top $5, and the rest was a $20 gift.
Verdict: 9/10 this sale was absolutely worth it! Just make sure you check out for packs first as some of the single items were more than an entire pack that included them!
Be sure to follow Benefit on their socials in case they do this again.




Batiste Scented Dry Shampoo Packs

The other day I got surprise mail of these sweet gift packs from Batiste, so of course I'm going to show them to you, and rant about the joys of being a wavy hair girl (seeing as you all seem to love my curly girl hair rants!).
These gift packs contain one of their scented version of their standard dry shampoo formula and a matching hair brush. A great little stocking filler for the hair conscious gals and guys out there! There are a range of scents available but the 2 I have here are Tempt and Wildflower.
Tempt is described as Violet Leaf, Rose, Musk. I would say it's a bit of an earthy floral - totally my type of scent! Wildflower is Watermelon Sorbet, Apple Blossom, Sandalwood. It's a fresh floral fragrance perfect for summer. Both of these have a subtle scent, they smell amazing as you're doing your hair, and then it dissipates quite quickly so you don't need to worry about them clashing with your perfume. It makes for a nice sensory experience as you're freshening up those locks! The brush they come with is quite small but it is a cute addition and fits nicely into the handbag. 
So if you've read previous hair rants, you will know I tried out the Curly Girl method for my waves and struggled (particualrly with the hard water I had to deal with!). Since then our landlord finally replaced the hot water heater, so no more rust in the shower! I also got a haircut that the hairdresser did to help accentuate my waves. But as I am not quite ready to tie myself down to using such a specific set of products, I thought I would give it a go using what I had on hand, but all the styling techniques of the CGM - squish to condish, lathering up my hair with my Jessicirl Rockin Ringlets, scrunching in the Organic Care Hard Gel and then plopping into a tshirt. Below a pic on day 2 hair with no refreshing. And then on day 3 I hit it with the dry shampoo (hence I am loving my collection of Batiste!), and day 4 it goes into an up do. I'm going to experiment with some other products on the market to see what results can be done without getting restrictive about ingredients - so if you have any suggestions I would love to hear so I can try them out!