*runs in circles*

Models Own is having a whopping 50% off sale right now! It runs through the weekend, so this is your chance to pick up some awesome shades at half the price! The minimum order is £20 so round up some frenz! The promo code is FIFTYFIFTY.

They do ship worldwide, flat rate to Australia was only £7.95!

I do already have some Models Own, and while my swatches arent the best, I will share anyway. Because sharing is AWESOME.

Models Own Top Turquoise, Pink Explosion, Blue Gem, Lemon Meringue, Green Tea


Models Own Top Turquoise


Models Own Blue Gem


Models Own Pink Explosion

Run! Run right now! Or errr... type really fast and go to http://www.modelsownit.com

Sale ends Sunday!

China Glaze Stroke Of Midnight

I only made my 2010 lemming list a few weeks ago and already, one of my amazing friends has come forward to fulfill one of my wishes.

To my "fairy godmother", (geddit? Cinderella reference...LOL) thank you so much for being so awesome and I will help you out with anything, anytime!

*admires nails for the 400th time today*

Sally Hansen Mint Sprint

When I was young I had a treasured set of crayola pencils. There was one shade in the lot - Aqua - that I loved so much that I NEVER let anyone else lay a hand on that pencil.

"Oh hai, you're colouring in your mermaid? No you may not use my aqua. Try the green, bitch. I hear it's fantastic."

This polish is the EXACT match to that pencil. It arrived with a Borghese CP that a friend did for me and if there hadn't been an amazing HTF lemming in the package too, the biggest squee would have been awarded to Mint Sprint. Please to ignore the bubbles. This thing slathered on. The brush... well. Let's talk about the brush.

I have had Jumpin Jade sitting in my untrieds for about a year, so this was my first run in with the Insta Dri line. My first impression was pretty much the same as everybody else.

WTF is up with that brush?

Are ya catching my drift here? I could paint my house with the damn thing. I kept expecting a clown to burst through my door, exclaim that I had found his comically oversized nail polish, honk his nose at me and run away giggling.

I have large nail beds, so it wasn't too much of an issue. BUT for girls with little hands, Insta Dri may just be a giant pain in the ass.

Gorgeous colour, but the brush... well she needs some work. Today Sally, you are 50% ho.

I just got these babies the other day and I was so excited when I opened the package that I had to swatch them right away! Sally has been on the ball with her latest colour creations, and these four new additions to the Xtreme Wear line are almost enough to make me forgive her for changing the shape of the Salon bottles.

(Ohhh how I loves me some square salon bottles. So klasseh.)

Sally Hansen The Real Teal

The Real Teal looks more aqua than teal to me, but I'm not going to sit back and quibble about names when the colour is this hot! It's glowy and shimmery without being brushstrokey and I love it. I thought it might be close to China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise and Misa The Grass Is Greener on My Side, but I'd have to find them to make a comparison. My helmers look like a Monet. Nice from faraway... but when you get up close... whattamess! Off the top of my head I would say that The Real Teal is lighter than those two.

Sally Hansen Pacific Blue

OH. EM. GEE. Pacific Blue hurtles straight into my top ten. Seriously. I think this may well be my favourite blue. Ever. How did it take so long for someone to release this beautiful shade of cornflower blue? This is the blue of my dreams! I don't own anything like it, not even in any other finish. Shamayzing. Ten points Sally Hansen, today you are not a ho.

Sally Hansen Going Green

I wasn't sure I was going to like this one, but the green is much bluer than I thought and that tiny shimmer just about stole my heart! Look how green and gorgeous this is. LOOK!! LOOOOOOOOOK! I am glad that this one wasn't a yellowed flat creme like I expected. Pleasant polish surprises are the best!

Sally Hansen Purple Pizazz

Purple Pizazz is deep purple jelly with pink glass flecks. Beautiful, just not really original. This shade of purple jelly has many sisters. Just the other day I posted my new Mode Polish, Glitterati. Here they are side by side.

Sally Hansen Purple Pizazz vs Mode Glitterati

The colours are close (and you can tell by the redness of my skin that the SH photo is brighter overall). The glass flecks in Purple Pizazz are also a lot more dense. But then there's also Milani Totally Cool, Sinful Daddy's Girl and even to a lesser extent Urban Deacy Toxin. Pizazz is a great shade, but there are many others like it. They should have made the same thing in a different colour. Blue or Green perhaps.

One thing worth noting is the brush. They are a lot bigger than the Xtreme Wear's used to be. I have larger nail beds, so these aren't a problem for me, but petite gals may struggle.

I hope to see more badassery from Sally Hansen like this in the near future!

Have you ever looked at a house and truly been able to see yourself living in it?

We all like to look at big, expensive houses and dream about what it might be like to live in such grandeur, but something about this house is different. My younger brother is looking at building his first home and is incredibly excited about it. Real estate talk always makes me want to check out what is on the market, and I had literally looked through about a hundred houses before stumbling on this one, just south of Kiama.

Sitting on 100 acres and backing on to national park, it suits our "dream house" specifications perfectly. Spacious, lots of land and away from everyone and everything. Beautiful high ceilings, five bedrooms, triple garage - the place is amazing.

But with its 2.8 million dollar price tag, it's more than a little out of our range at the moment. Strangely enough though, I don't feel devastated by that. This house has an appeal to me that seems oddly comforting. I feel like this already is my house. I can see myself sitting on the pool deck with a drink. I can feel the grass underneath my feet. I can see myself with a book in the bay window of the bedroom.

I am reading a book called "The Answer" at the moment, not to be confused with "The Secret", although one of the authors is the same. I have not read The Secret, to be honest, I'm kind of put off by it. The Laws of Attraction are principles that are a big part of my life, and to see them commercialised in such a way and latched on to as the "newest fad" like they were kind of cheapens them. It's not something you read about and discuss excitedly with your trend hopping friends at a cafe before skipping on to whatever new religion Madonna is promoting. Learning about the Laws of Attraction was a powerful revelation for me. They changed my life and made me a better person. They have brought me things I didn't think possible. They have helped me help people.

But I digress. Very early on in this book, the author describes unpacking boxes with his young son in his new home. A box his son discovered in the study contained inspiration boards long forgotten. Some people call them treasure maps, mine is simply a wish list - but what it is, is a bunch of pictures of things you want in your life. Cut from magazines, newspapers etc.

The author was shocked to discover a five year old board with a picture of the house he had just moved into. Years ago he had cut the picture from a magazine, not knowing where it was, or how much it cost. Now, he owned it.

When I look at this house in these pictures, there is an odd sense of familiarity that I can't shake. Could this be my house? In five years, will I look back at this entry and be shocked and amazed too?

This might possibly be the cutest thing ever.

Okay, Boo is still cuter.

But close, tiger bunneh. Very close.

(via dailysquee)

It's that time again. The time when I post bottle pics because I'm too tired to swatch. The time when I share my exponentially expanding stash with you. The time when the non NB faithful look at my stash and shake their head at the crazy lady. The time when I do this to those people.

AAAAAND GO!

Solar Flare, Doll House

Read more »

I'm really bummed this polish is named after an Australian Idol contestant. I'm not really a fan of pop music to put it lightly, and I really don't like musicians who make their name through a talent quest, but I must remember that this isn't a post about the fickle nature of the recording industry... we be talking bout the polish, yo.

But since I don't like Jessica Mauboy I will re-christen this polish Bloom Awesomesauce.

Let us continue.

Bloom Awesomesauce applied like a dream (as most Blooms do). This is an older swatch because my nails look like doody today, and I think I did a pretty damn good job with this swatch - no need for a new one. Maybe I do need a sunlight one though. Anywhoo. Application is perfecto, and this is two coats. Most Blooms are one coaters as they are super pigmented and velvety smooth. They seem to have the same self evening properties that my RBL's & Versace's have. Blooms are worth the $$ and I think that might be the only downside to Bloom Awesomesauce. The $19.95 price tag.

Bloom do have a 2 fer $30 dealio crankin (its ongoing), so if you wanted say, Mena or Bianca it would make it a tad cheaper.

Bloom nail polish can be purchased online from their website, and can also be found at David Jones, Myer & I believe Terry White Chemists. Bloom polish is available to Australian's only, which is a bummer as I think Awesomsauce & friends would make a killing OS. Why don't they sell this at Sephora or something? It worked for Illamasqua!

OH! Illamasqua! I almost forgot. In my post of Scrangie's epicness, I forgot to mention (and photograph) the Illamasqua DWS that she sent me. So there ya go! Das Scrange is even moar badass.

First of all, I'm going to go on the record to say that I don't like all snakes. I'm not particularly fond of snakes I don't know, and I sure as hell don't like surprise snakes. But my our two boys are a definite exception. Both are sweet and good natured and totally well behaved.

Our big boy Shlong (yes, Shlong. And that's not a typo - his name isn't Schlong) is about 8 years old now and closing in on six feet. He still has a bit of growing to do as well. His name is hilarious and provides my boyfriend with an endless barrage of jokes such as:

"Would you like to hold my Shlong?"

"My Shlong is longer than my arm."

"Look how fat my Shlong is!"

Here he is wrapped around BF's arm.


And again.


Close up Shlong!

And for comparisons sake, here's a really bad makeup-less picture of me holding him as a one year old.

We also have a Childrens Python named Monty. (Monty Python... geddit? OMG LOL) And no, Children's Pythons aren't for Children - they are named after the dude who discovered them. His surname was Children. Funnily enough though, Children's Pythons are known to have the best temperment of all snakes and make a good first snake.

Monty had a rough start to life - he was owned by people who did not know how to care for him. When he came to us, he had been in a glass fish tank with packing tape sealing the top (no air holes). His tank substrate was clay cat litter, which would kill him if he ate it. Mould and fungus was growing in his tank and despite his calm nature he had been poked and prodded and handled with a makeshift coathanger snake hook. He was terrified and snappy. It's taken us a few years, but he's the most beautiful little man. We were even able to bath him when he didn't shed properly without getting him angry. He actually seemed to enjoy his little swim.

I am not totally sure how old Monty is, but I would wager that he is full grown.

Lastly, is my boy Spike. He's a Eastern Bearded Dragon and he's two. He's also a total grump head. He like's to puff out his beard and act tough, but he never bites. He is especially fond of his log. He gives it the occasional lick (dragon speak for "that's mine."). We got him as a tiny baby that my BF's mother rescued from her chicken coop. We don't know how he got there, there were no others and no nest around, and if we didn't take him in he would have been taken by a hawk. We had lost our Water Dragon in the weeks prior, so it seems like he was meant to come to us.

Here's Spike at about a week old.


This is Spike now.


Watching a cricket...


Posing!

So there you have it - those are my cold blooded babies. But word on the street is there might be a new boy in the house very soon. Stay tuned...

Wet & Wild has to be the weirdest name for a cosmetics brand. It sounds kind of like a porn film, or a Poison song from 1986. But I can remember seeing Wet & Wild cosmetics for sale pretty much as long as I can remember, my earliest memory being some colour change lippies from when I was five.

I was five in 1988, so maybe I'm not too far off the mark with that 1986 Poison remark.

L to R: 491A Blackest Blue, 495A Blackest Green, 456D (No Name), 455A Totally Rad, 9807 Green Glam

Now that isn't the best pic, but I couldn't lighten it up any more without the white brush handles disappearing! These five Wet & Wilds are long discontinued and those of you that know me and read my blog will know that that simply means that I will love them even more.

495A Blackest Green

The first one of the lot that I tried was Blackest Green, which was generously gifted to me for Christmas along with Blackest Blue. Despite its age (this would have to be at LEAST ten years old now) it went on fabulously. It was smooth as a baby's butt. The colour is awesome too. It's definitely blackened like the name suggests, but no so blackened that it looks like black indoors. Swatch is two coats, no topcoat.

491A Blackest Blue

The next one I tried is Blackest Blue. This is a veeeery deep blue. Inky and marvelous. The formula however is quite different to Blackest Green. It went on streaky with the first coat and I was disappointed. But when that second coat hit my nails I knew that it had fooled me. Two coats, no topcoat.

456D (No Name)

Wet & Wild 456D looks like your average old black base silver glitter polish in the bottle. But I really like the way it looks on the nail. It's not overpowering with the glitter, and it actually looks like a night sky, even though it's not a "night sky" polish. An idea began forming in my head as I looked at my remaining two polishes...

455A Totally Rad

Layering!! I knew that Totally Rad would look totally rad over 456D! I love this particular colour of green glitter. Monster Mash, Nubar Lime Glitter... I think there's even a Sinful glitter in this colour. Totally Rad lived up to my expectations.

455A Totally Rad

Here's a closeup of how it catches the light. Amazing!! But I'm not done yet...

9807 Green Glam

I thought I'd add a little more Glam... Green Glam to be exact! This wicked mad old Fantasy Makers polish was found in Canada by a friend. I think it was the perfect compliment to an already amazing mani!

I look forward to uncovering more old Wet & Wild treasures in the coming months. Who knows what other greatness is in clearance bins around the world?