Crows Toes TANGLED WEB

 

Nope, I haven't been weaving any tangled webs lately...have you?

 

One coat of Crows Toes Tangled Web over Gelish Tiger Blossom.  I love the large black heagons in this mix.  This color combo would also look fab mixed into a white glitter sandwich.

 

All Crows Toes can be purchased at Llarowe and Overall Beauty.

Antiquing At The Beach

We quite often head off to Ocean Grove for a long weekend and once a year I also have a Glass Festival there.  We always frequent the Antique stores and Mill Markets and this visit I took some photos.

 

First up The Mill Market:

 

 

And these are the items I wanted to put on the roof rack and take home immediately:

 

Deco walnut veneer sideboard.

 

 

 

This gorgeous Laminate table set from the 50's.  Quite reasonable priced at $595.

 

 

Funky 50's bar with Martini glass and bubbles motif.

 

 

Groovy 60's bubble chair.

 

 

Lusted very hard over this Deco dresing table.  But at over $1,000 it wasn't coming home with us :(

 

 

There's my Sunbeam mixer and canisters peeking at me!

 

 

An old Cinema sign from a Melbourne theatre.

 

 

This divine florr length mink collared coat.  The mink collared stood up!  It was also reasonably priced at $150 and I would have purchased it if it hadn't of been for the 5 moths that flew out of it as I tried it on.

 

Then it was on to the The Antique Store next to Schott's in Geelong.

 

 

A powder blue 50's Vespa!  Vroom vroom!

 

 

 

 

The Sexiest Man idolises Vampirella and couldn't believe his luck when he saw a styrofoam cut out version.  Unfortunately for him, Not For Sale!

 

He is also holding part of what we purchased: a 50's Novelty skirt for Miss 11, a 60's Allens lolly jar in the shape of a bear, and a Paul Frank school bag also for Miss 11.

 

 

Do I have any followers from Geelong and have you guys scored any bargains in these shops?

Gelish Bella's Vampire

 

Another wear test with gel polish. This time Bella's Vampire by Gelish.

 

First the bad bits.

This formula was nothing like I had experienced before. It was watery. The first coat just seperated into nothing! I re-swiped a thicker coat and it seperated again, also webbing near the cuticle area. I cured it anyway, thinkig another coat would fix it. The second cured coat did the same thing: webbed at the cuticles, watery and seperated over the nail. By this time I was starting to get very frustrated and peed off. The third THICK coat brought it all together but the wateriness at the cuticles just could not be fixed, you can see a little bit of the effect in the photos.   A very thin fourth cured coat fixed most of the cuticles.

 

 

 

 

The good bits.

 

The color is gorgeous! And the above 3 photos are 10 days later. Some of the glossiness has gone, but the wear was fantastic. Even at the tips there is hardly anything and that was without even wrapping them.

 

Just to recap my gel applying method:  I started with Gelish base coat and cured for 1 minute under a UV lamp. 4 coats of Gelish Bella's Vampire , each coat cured for 1.5 minutes, and finished with Gelish Top coat cured for 2 minutes.

 

Has anybody else experienced watery gel polish formula before?

FNUG Futuristica

 

 

 

FNUG Futuristica, 2 coats, with FNUG Aqua Base coat.  Finished with Seche QD.

Lime Crime Velvetines Wear Review

After trying for ages to source these at Lime Crime's website, and they being continously out of stock, I finally tracked each color down in 2 seperate online Australian stores! Yes, a lot more expensive way of getting them, but I was just happy at finally sourcing both colors!

So, how do they wear? 

Red Velvet.

 

My swatches. This was 2 coats.

Online promo swatch.
As you can see, my lips looks nothing like the online color even after 2 coats. Even after several coats I can't see this lipstick turning out as dark as the promo swatch....maybe a bit of photoshopping went on?

This is after 6 hours, breakfast and lunch. The tackiness turns into little dried 'balls' of lipstick after eating. (Love my super technical way of explaining things?!)   It is necessary to wipe down your mouth to get them off. So after all this wiping and eating I was surprised to look in the mirror and see I was still wearing color on my lips, even if it didn't look perfect.

Suedeberry

 

Stop looking at that errant eyebrow hair on my lip and thinking it's a moustache.

Application is a little more tricky with Suedeberry. The first coat is always patchy and streaky, so I wait till that is dried and apply a second coat. A third coat is also needed to be free of streaks completely. As a result of so many coats, my lips feel very tacky and dry.

This is after 2.5 hrs and a Subway lunch. Wear is not as long as Red Velvet, but I do attribute this to the patchy formula.

Would I re-buy?  I do have to think hard but probably not.  The concept is great and the colors are very nice.  But the texture and feel of them on my lips is too unusual for me to handle for very long.  As I said, it feels like hours old lipgloss gone tacky and 'ball-y' and makes me feel a little conspicious thinking I have food on my mouth.  It is nice to scrub it off completely and put on vaseline!

I did read that there are new colors in Lime Crime's pipeline so it will be interesting to see what they look like.

Anyone else have any thoughts on the Velvetines?

Crows Toes BONE DADDY

 

One coat of Crows Toes Bone Daddy over Essence Grey-t To Be Here. Bone Daddy is a mix of white and iridescent glitters in a milky grey base. You can see the sprakling teeny, tiny blue iridescents glittering!

And in full sunlight.

Bone Daddy was from Crows Toes Halloween collection and is still available for purchase at Llarowe.

Crows Toes PURPLE PEOPLE EATER

 

Some colors just do your head in to try and capture properly on film. Purple sends my camera into overload.

Crows Toes Purple People Eater is a super blingy concoction of different hued Purples, Blues and Greens in a clear base.

Llarowe's stock photo of this color shows a very thin layer of PPE over a base color.  I have no idea how that blogger got her glitter to look that thin, because my photos are only 2 coats and see how opaque it turned out!  3 coats would have eliminated the need for a base coat.

 

And in full sunlight!

 

Purple People Eater was part of Crows Toes Halloween collection and can still be purchased at Llarowe.

Shoes Day!

 

 

My Miss L Fire 'Tropicana' heels are perfect for keeping The Sexiest Man in line.

 

The Tropicanas have scrolled detailing with seeds beads sewed on all over and are extremely comfortable.  They also match all my vintage hawaiian and Tiki themed outfits perfectly.

 

 

You have already seen this outfit photo, but it's a good one with these shoes.

 

These Poetic License wedges are a great match for my vintage wardrobe, with their Hawaiian look.  You can't really tell from my small photo, but the shoe has a gold shimmer and the flowers are raffia.  I need to find a HUGE raffia beach bag to match them!

 

This dress was featured in my last post.  Aren't novelty prints divine?

Undergarments Make-th The Woman

I am one of those ladies that actually detest underwear. However, and obviously, it is a necessary evil. But there is nothing better than whipping off a bra at the end of the day and sighing with relief........

Nevertheless, I own quite a lot of vintage undergarments.  Bralette's, corsets, high waisted panties, a plethera of bullet bras. And they must be Deadstock vintage as the repo garments just don't do the same 'thing'...IE: give you the right shape and keep the 'bits' IN.

In some cases tho, undergarments are a must, and in the case of a plain color fabric & drop waisted dress, very necessary!
The all in one body suit in the photo above is a vintage, upcycled with fresh red dye piece.  It has a bullet shaped cup, corseted waist and little tight shorts with suspender straps.  It also has a little opening so a lady can visit the bathroom without getting totally naked! (Disclaimer: I actually haven't used this as the thought of it is very off-putting......what if I can't wee straight????  So I just hang on till I get home...cough, cough.)  The end result is a smooth outline with slightly nipped in waist.

For something similar, Rago makes something that looks almost the same called the Rago Full Body Shaper Girdle Shapette Long Leg Body Briefer.

 

Onto the dress.  It's from one of my favoutite vintage sellers,  ForeverLovelyVintage.  I have purchased several times through her and my clothing always arrives super quick and freshly laundered.

 

 

50's Novelty Dress: Forever Lovely Vintage

Shoes: Poetic License

Necklace: Modcloth

50's cateye sunglasses: eBay

 

Crows Toes VOODOO

 

Voodoo is a FAB mix of bright Orange, Purple and Teal glitter in all shapes and sizes. It's a mixture that will pop against any base color and as you can see, it's blingy even in natural shaded light.

This was one coat of Crows Toes VOODOO over Gelish Bella's Vampire.  LOVE one coat glitters.

This can be purchased from Llarowe and Overall Beauty.

GELISH Wear Test and Review

There's a Gel polish hype that seems to be blowing around the Aussie blogs lately, and it's made me want to get on the bandwagon.

 I can see the benefits: less wear on your cuticles by not having to use polish remover constantly, a hard base to help prevent chips and breaks, a non chip system to make your manicure last longer, etc etc. But on someone like me, who almost goes BATTY if I wear the same color longer than 2 days, the whole method is a little wasted. But for testing sakes, I managed to get through 12 days without changing my polish! I know!

 

 

This is Gelish base coat, 2 coats of Hot Rod Red and Gelish Top coat. I purchased an el' cheapo UV lamp on eBay for $13.

  NOTE: these photos were taken 3 days after application, I kind of forgot to take them on the first day. You can see that my first gel polish application was a little messy...nobody warned me that when this stuff has cured, it's NOT budging!  You can't fix it up with acetone and a brush!

 

10 days. The tips have worn a little bit BUT I didn't wrap them with polish.

 

And after 12 days. Yes, I had a little pick at my ring finger's cuticle to try and fix it up and the end messy result is what made me finally remove it.  Pretty good wear tho isn't it?


Things I did wrong on my first attempt at gel polish:

*Painted near my cuticles.  Really try hard to stop the polish at least 1mm away from your cuticles.

*Painted thicker coats.  Too much polish will run and it's too hard to clean up properly.

*PEELED THEM OFF!  Do NOT peel them no matter how great the temptation when they do start to lift a little at the sides.  You WILL end up with peeling on your nails.....on the whole nail too and just not at the ends.  Trust me, I know from experience :(

*Didn't seal the tips.  This attributed to tip wear after 3 days.

The benefits of gel polish is that I don't have to worry about changing my polish while on holidays.  I now know that I can go at least 12 days and still have nails that look good.
It also helped me grow my nails super long and be able to be shaped into a semi stiletto shape.
I have since purchased a few more colors so I look forward to playing with these!

Anyone have some gel tips for me?