Yes, I know it's been a month since I did this, but I mean well. Honestly. Feast your eyes below on a bunch of pretties modeled by my less than stellar nails. I have so much new stuff I need to wear, but I dyed my hair blue and kinda got one of my fingernails smurfed, then broke two of them, so yeah. No photos for you!

*in my best Food Network voice* Here's some that I prepared earlier.

Rimmel - Shocking
There's just something about discontinued Rimmel's that warms the cockles of my heart. This is a fabulous purple with a pretty blue flash, and I wish they still made it. They don't so I'm thankful for the bottle I have.

Icing - Unnamed Green
Hold the phone, I'm in lust again. This sexy thang comes from one of those weird unnamed Icing mini sets. I wish they had made it full size - I'd be all over it like a rash. This is also the only creme in that collection.

China Glaze - Toe-Quoise
Very pretty, and I lusted after it for quite some time. Now that I have it, I reckon I probably own about four colours like it, and its a tad frosty. Still very pretty though. High sevens, but not a ten Toe-Quoise. Not a ten.

Icing - Unnamed Orange
From the same set as the green above. Not many oranges work well with my skin tone, but I like this one. It's quite similar to my beloved Misa Daylily, but not quite there. Almost, but what the hell, it'll do.

Icing - Unnamed Pink
I gotta admit, I was pretty "meh" on this one, although I don't know if that'd because I'm not actually a huge fan of the colour or if I just liked the rest of the set way more. Either way, its likable but I probably won't wear it again.

Sally Hansen - Shining
Shining was one of those regrettable purchases. I saw it on someone elses nails *shakes fist at Cee* and it looked lovely. On me? Not so much. I don't wear colours like this. Luckily I only paid two bucks for it.

Australis - Emerald Star
Booyah! Freaky Styley HAWT lookin polish that I didn't have to get sent from overseas. May be similar to Rimmel Mania, Bloom Bianca and Cetuem 191. But who cares RIGHT?

Hard Candy - Mermaid
This is one of the prides of my old Hard Candy Collection. It's a tad on the frosty side, but man so pretty! I think it also may be a dead on dupe for Ruby Kisses Ocean. More green polish I say! I am bummed that they haven't re-released Mermaid with their current collection. I have Envy & Lava coming to me in the near future and I hope they are as good as the old ones.

Icing - Unnamed Green
The second green from that mismatched unnamed set. I like this a lot. It's similar to the shade of green that Maybelline keeps releasing and trying to convince everyone its a new shade (Appletini Time, Go Go Green, Key Largo Lime... I know you're the same colour guys, lets be honest here) but much denser. No visible nail line!

Icing - Bad Apple
I sure am crackin out a lotta Icings here aren't I? Well they are GOOD (if you ignore the brushes). Sour Apple is pretty and green and came to me via a super hot chicky babe. So need I say more?

Sally Hansen - Hot Date
This is one of those Sally Hansen's with the colour coordinated handles that I love the shit out of. This is an interesting colour. The glass-fleckish glitter in it makes it pretty unique. AND THE HANDLE MATCHES THE COLOUR! Sold. Sold sold sold. Sally I hate you, but I looove you so.

Nubar - Peacock Feathers
Oh wow, this is incredible! I can't believe I just let this one sit there forever. Blasphemy. Terrible terrible shame on me. This is an instant classic. The blue, the purple. The blurple? The colour shifts in this bad girl are nothing short of uhmayZING.

More next month, err I mean week.

(Same thing really, given the date and all).

In a previous post, I suggested as an Aussie nail polish advocate that you check out the brand Chimera.

I bought the polishes with my own money and liked them enough to suggest them to others. Now I'm going to publicly retract that statement.

Nailgal is a picture resource that is privately owned and paid for by a regular girl with a love of nails. It is not a corporation, she does not make any money at all. To be honest, she probably loses money paying for hosting.

The site thrives on user created content, and is used as a resource. No one pays to add their pics, nor are they paid for them.

After shilling their product on MakeupAlley (and consequently being deleted for doing so), which I'll admit, being new I was willing to forgive them for, Chimera have taken to using nailgal for advertising. Not cool. Not once, but TWICE now, pictures have been added shilling their website.

I love the two Chimeras that I have, but I will sadly not be buying any more. Taking advantage of such a medium that someone else pays for just to get some "free advertising" is not acceptable to me. The company may be in its infancy, but there are plenty of ways to get your name out there. Seek mainstream distribution like Chi Chi & BYS have. Send samples to beauty mags, and prominent bloggers like Scrangie or Stephs Closet. Actually PAY for some advertising on the web or in magazines.

Its sad, because the product is GOOD and with a little hard work it would speak for itself. The advertising methods that the company have chosen are not necessary and leave a bad taste in my mouth.

And I know I'm not alone.

If Clarins 230 really was made of unicorn pee and fairy tears then maybe I wouldn't feel so annoyed at Clarins for discontinuing it.

BUT ITS NOT.

AND THEY SUCK.

I own a LOT of nail polish. I guess that goes without saying. Nothing in my eccentrically large stash even compares to this colour, and if not for a wonderful, lovely, awesome, kickass friend of mine, I doubt I ever would have seen this in person. Its mind boggling. Screw Sally Hansen and her prisms - THIS is a rainbow in a freaking bottle.

But like everything that is remotely good in this world, Jungle Curry Kettle Chips, Cadbury Caramilk (the Aussie version), Pepsi Blue, Slap Bands, Watchimals and movies starring the Two Coreys... Clarins 230 is long discontinued and probably rarer than unicorn pee itself.

But I have a bottle of it and a lightbox. So lets rock.

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Sorry guys, I haven't been able to post much this week. I had a huge issue with my web host and both my blogs all but disappeared for more than a day. I was massively panicked, thinking that all my entries were forever gone, but thankfully I was able to recover them. I now have a new, much more reliable host and everything is (hopefully) back to normal.

Despite the fact that my week was less than stellar, packages from my buddies and eBay managed to put a smile on my face. Let us ogle the polishes shall we?

This is what I came home to find today...

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Then this post might be for you.

It's no secret that I adore old, discontinued polish lines. Hard Candy, Urban Decay, Caboodles etc. But way up the top of the list was Revlon's Hard Candy rip off line, Streetwear.

Hologram, Midas, Psychedelic

Why do I love it so much when I will so readily admit that it's a ripoff? Well to be honest, I don't even remember Hard Candy being sold in Australia in the 1990's, but I know for a fact we had Streetwear. The colours were bright and edgy, straying away from the typical reds & pinks that dominated nail polish trends before Urban Decay and Hard Candy cames along and set the precedent for cool. Revlon picked up their idea and ran screaming into the night with it, and made it readily available all over the world - for a decent price no less.

Shady, Dark, Jam

Nowadays, Streetwear is a distant memory. The line is long discontinued but the odd bottle has been known to show up on eBay from time to time. More recently, a beauty supply in NYC has been selling old stock, four polishes for a dollar. Seeing all these new pics got me thinking. Just how many Streetwears were there? Allow me to introduce the:

The answer will astound you. Every day girls are coming forward with new finds and the little checklist I threw together has grown to mammoth proportions. I hope it will be a useful resource for all of you out there who are interested, and if you can help complete it in any way, my mailbox is open.

I'd like to thank all the girls who have contributed so far. You've been such an awesome help.

Just to be clear though too, please note that NONE of these items are for sale, nor do I know where to find them. This page is a RESOURCE ONLY.

FRIDAY... I AM HERE AND WAITING!!! BRING ON YOUR AWESOMENESS!

OMFG I love KISS.

Image from Flickr

People often ask the question, “Where do you see yourself a year from now... five years from now... ten years... etc.” While I think it’s impossible to predict where we might be five or ten years from now, I think that 12 months is pretty doable and is a great time frame for a life change.

A year from today I want to look at my life and feel pride for the problems I have solved and the obstacles I have overcome. Discovering spirituality and deeper meaning to things has been an interesting and very important journey for me so far. In the beginning it helped me to improve bad habits in relation to others, and taught me all about karma. As I progressed I began to learn a little bit more about who I was, and more about the girl I wanted to be. It has helped me to appreciate what I have in my life, and how I’ve been blessed. It has also taught me to strive for the goals I long thought unattainable.

To be honest I feel like I am at a crossroads. There are two paths ahead of me. One looks easy, but leads nowhere. The other looks bumpy, cracked, dangerous and hard, but unlike the other path, I can see a rainbow at the end of it. I guess it would be a no brainer which road to take, huh?

Sometimes I feel like I just physically can’t walk down that hard path. I don’t want to walk down the easy path either, because I know that I would be cheating myself. So I stand here. Waiting. Stagnating. Trying to decide, when in fact my mind was made up a long time ago. There are days where even though that voice in my head is pleading with me that I know better, I simply just can’t do it, and I do the wrong thing, say the wrong thing. Think the wrong thing. I continue to stand at the fork in the road instead of putting one foot in front of the other and really making that choice.

I know I can’t walk down the easy road unless I know I would be content with a simple, complacent existence. Breezing on through, not making use of any of the gifts I have been given. Ignoring the people who appear with opportunities. Not trying. Just being. I know I can’t do that. But still, I am yet to set foot on what some might refer to as the road less travelled.

What am I afraid of?

About a year ago I made the obvious sounding discovery that every problem has a solution. Big or small, there is an answer. It isn’t always possible to perform all the steps ourselves, but there is always an answer. This might sound dumb, but honestly, it felt like a revelation. So often we become overwhelmed with things that are simply day to day occurrences. Too much housework. Not enough sleep. Bad traffic. Worst day ever, etc.

While these things happen - and they will always happen and bite us on the butt, the biggest revelation of all for me was working out that it was ME who was setting these standards. It was only too much housework because I believed it was too much, instead of concentrating on the task and not thinking about the multitude of it. It’s only not enough sleep because I keep telling myself every twenty seconds that I’m “So tired” rather than just waking up and going about my day. The traffic might be bad, but it’s my choice to let it annoy me. And it very likely isn’t the “Worst Day Ever,” but we all like to mope, don’t we?

When you break things down and look at things almost clinically, everything is manageable. Emotion is great, and it’s what makes us human but it sure does get in the way sometime. Emotion is necessary to relate to other human beings, but I gotta tell you – when I’m upset because I have yet another load of washing to do and it’s all just too much, clinical thinking sounds like the party I want to be at. I’d love to be able to just switch off and operate on a much more simple level at times. Maybe with practice, I might get a little better at it.

Clarity is probably one of my favourite words, because I love everything it embodies and represents. Beautiful crystal, sparkling and pure. The word itself seems to have an otherworldly quality. It seems far away and unreal. I’ve had flashes of it in the past, where in the midst of chaos I would all of a sudden know what I was doing or how to control the situation, and then in an instant, it’s gone. How do we latch on to that? How can I stay calm and know all the answers?

I often get the feeling that I am teetering on the edge of a cliff. I know I should jump. But I’m afraid. I can see what is behind me, and even though there is nothing for me it still seems safer than the darkness that I see below. Adrenaline is pumping. I know I have to jump. I’m somewhat excited about it. I’m on the edge of something amazing. But yet, I’m still deathly afraid.

So to answer the question, a year from now, I would like to say that I finally worked up enough courage to jump.

Who knows what might be out there waiting for me?