Job Interview Candidates

I (FINALLY) graduated with my PhD in December. I haven't discussed my experience here much here. It is still a raw, open wound, and I am just relieved to be done. Sadly the "real world" requires that I do things like "pay bills", "buy food", etc. so I am job hunting even though my confidence is at an all-time low.

There is GOOD NEWS though! I have a job interview next week! (The bad news is that I'm super nervous, even though many of my friends work at the company already.)

I need your help!

When I feel pulled-together, I act more pulled-together. Outfit, makeup, hair and accessories might seem like frivolous things to be thinking about ahead of the interview, but I need all the confidence boosters I can get. Will you help me pick out the right interview nail polish?

The candidates are (L-R):

Essie Brides to Be
OPI Don't Bossa Nova Me Around
Essie Brooch the Subject (post here)
YSL Beige Leger (post here)

Which do you like best? Being a sheer, Essie Brides to Be is the most conservative. Where I am interviewing is a more casual workplace, so I could definitely go with something more opaque. OPI Don't Bossa Nova Me Around has a more springtime feel with its white base and lilac tone. Essie Don't Brooch the Subject blends in more with my skin, and I think the almond colour has a nice chicness to it. YSL Beige Leger is one of my newest favourites, but I'm worried that it will be noticed as "odd".

Any other suggestions would be welcome as well - what would you wear to an interview???

k2k

Belated Easter Mani: Happy Hands Motherboy jelly sandwich and a return?

Hey guys and gals! so I'm trying something new! I downloaded the blogger app so that I can make posts away from a computer, lol. 

So today's post is about my Easter manicure. It is a jelly Sandwich with OPI Don't Touch my Tutu with Happy Hands Motherboy. One coat of the OPI below the glitter and 2 over, to make the pastel glitter a bit more pastel :) It was really delicate and cute. Happy Hands has sadly shut down but a dupe to Motherboy can be found at Rainbow Polish, named Taffy.

 

Hope there is some interest in this blog still! I'm considering doing a return to blogging giveaway,  comment to let me know if it would be worth doing!  Til next time~

Lab Muffin's Top 13 Polishes of 2013 Part 1: Mainstream and Boutique Brands

2013 was a big year of swatching for me, and it was the year where I think Australian indie polishes really blossomed. It was very difficult to pick just 13 polishes that I loved, but I certainly tried! I limited myself to one polish per brand only, and to polishes that I discovered in 2013 (though they weren't necessarily released last year). Here we go, with the mainstream and boutique (i.e. small company but not hand-mixed) picks...

First, I obviously have to mention my collaboration shade, piCture pOlish Ultra Violence. The literary amongst you will know that the name is inspired by Anthony Burgess's book A Clockwork Orange. I love the holo iridescent glitter against the rich purple! I've included a bottle of Ultra Violence in my 2nd blogiversary giveaway here.

I blogged about the stunningly pretty Pretty Serious BSOD here earlier. What happened next was that while wearing it, my laptop did actually have a heart-stopping BSOD moment, in the middle of thesis-writing! Luckily I didn't lose anything, but Kaz was too sweet, and in her usual above-and-beyond customer service style, she sent me a few polishes to dull the pain.

OPI Keeping Suzi At Bay is a gorgeous blue creme that is both interesting and elegant. It may be my favourite creme shade ever. I think dark blue is actually quite work safe, but definitely not boring.

ulta3 Triple Threat was a big surprise for me. This is a complex holo glitter jelly that's indie-worthy, but comes at the ridiculously budget-friendly price of $2.

Orly Digital Glitter is one of my top 5 Orly polishes, ever. I usually think of Orly as a brand which does salon-friendly classic polishes well, but whenever they come out with something a bit different it's usually ridiculously cool (Fowl Play! Space Cadet!). I love the unlikely brown/purple/red combination - it's a bit steampunk in my opinion, and makes me think of Neal Stephenson novels. To top it off, the purple shimmer is duochrome.

I will be back soon with some of my indie picks of 2013 - hold onto your wallets!

Silver glitter gradient over nude nails

Sorry for the absence! Hope I can make up for it with this, one of the prettiest manis I've worn in ages, and a contender for favourite bridal design:

It's a gradient of Maybelline Color Show Silver Gleam over OPI Malaysian Mist, which I did using my cotton bud glitter gradient method - it's so much easier and more precise than sponging for me! It was hard to get a gradient up the nail with such a dense glitter, so I literally dotted polish with the tip of the bud up my nail, like a big woolly dotting tool.

I wore this to Spa and Beauty Expo, and it lasted me almost a week - the glitter tips are great at keeping tipwear at bay!

Liquid Sand dotticure

I'm not a massive fan of creme liquid sands - they look kind of lumpy and plastic to me (unlike the shimmers, which I generally love to death). So I've decided to try using them for nail art... and surprisingly, I really like the result. Win!

The base is OPI Keeping Suzi at Bay, a deep dark blue - it's my favourite out of all the cremes from the upcoming San Francisco collection (click for my original swatches). I dotted over it with OPI Wharf! Wharf! Wharf! which is slightly darker. I didn't really enjoy wearing it as a full mani (see the liquid sand swatches here), but this was completely different.

I'm looking forward to trying out a similar thing with OPI It's All San Andreas's Fault, the other creme liquid sand from the collection, in the hopes that it'll also grow on me.

What do you think of creme liquid sands? Yay or nay? Fad or innovation?

OPI Polka.com black jelly sandwich

I recently scored Camouflage Colour Black in a Lust Have It! sample box - at first I was disappointed, since it's just a plain black, but then I swatched it and discovered that it was extremely sheer. Hurray! Jelly sandwich!

I started with a couple of layers of Black, then dabbed OPI Polka.com, a pink/blue/purple glitter (see my original swatches of it here), and finished with an extra layer of Black.

The result reminded me of some of the indies in jelly bases floating around - I'm in love! It's made me want to collect jellies in all the colours (so 2012, I know).

Purple Use-Up-the-Polish mani number 1

During my Helmer clean out, I discovered that I have an obscene amount of purple polishes I haven't even tried. Obviously, this needed rectifying, so here's the first of my half/half manis where I jam two purple polishes together and try to make them work in a manicure.

First is Gloss 'n Sparkle Purpetual Darkness paired with OPI DS Original (two coats layered over Models Prefer Beam Me Up). DS Original is the most linear holo I own, but it's really sheer. I really liked this mani - it was interesting enough to last me a couple of days, but not too exciting that they'd become a conversation starter. For some reason I hate when talk centres around my nails, it makes me feel really awkward! Do other nail addicts have this problem?

Purple/gold gradient

I've always done gradients with two cremes, so I decided to mix it up a bit recently and tried a gradient with a creme (OPI Vant to Bite My Neck?) and a foily metallic gold (Hello Darling likeomg).

I really loved this on my nails, and I'm definitely going to try it out more often! I usually hate how foils look on my fingers, but this was spectacular, and my right hand looked awesome, so this is going to be my foil-wearing design of choice.

How do you wear polishes you don't "do"?

St. Patrick's Day! Pahlish: Stroke of Luck + gold flakes

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I haven't posted in a bit -- this past week was my Spring Break and I went to Los Angeles for a few days and I just lazed around after returning (other than taking the GMAT yesterday, yikes). I've been doing NOTDs (which I've been posting on Instagram) but I'll catch up posting here, too :)

Now, I've been lemming gold flake polishes forever (starting with the Rococo original) but couldn't justify the price. Mainstream brands such as Zoya, OPI and Sephora by OPI were nice enough to release their versions of the gold flake polish. I got one from each brand, and they're all pretty different (in size of gold flakes) so I feel it's semi justified. That and I didn't pay full price for any of them (usually 50% off).

I was wondering what to use for a St. Patrick's mani when I thought, green of course! and the bottle of OPI: Man with the Golden Gun that was sitting on my desk caught my eye and the idea was born. Of course, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one with this mani idea and I've seen a few NOTDs already with the same theme but great minds think alike, yes?

I layered all three polishes over Pahlish: Stroke of Luck (which I felt was appropriate also).

In the shade picture, you can see the square glitters in the Pahlish. It also has tiny gold glitter, which is hidden by my use of gold flake topcoats.

The smallest flakes are from Sephora by OPI, and the larger/medium sized ones are from Zoya and OPI.

I don't like shard shaped glitter but I like how the gold looks. Hope everyone has an excellent day!

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PInk and brown high coffee mani

Sorry for my semi-absence! I've almost finished my thesis (eeee!) so I've been keeping myself busy. Here's a mani I did a couple weeks ago for high coffee with some Sydney beauty bloggers. I used the new Liquid Sand polish, OPI What Wizardry Is This?:(swatched here). The pink accent nails are 365 Days of Color Make Me Laugh-y Taffy over a pink creme. I like how the brown tones down the pink, but I don't think the pink is very me. One for the swap pile!

OPI...Eurso Euro chevron nail art

After I swatched a few polishes from OPI's Euro Centrale collection on my blog here last week, my friend asked to borrow OPI... Eurso Euro. So to make sure I was properly sick of it before sending it off on its little journey (sob) I thought I'd nail art it up a bit, with last year's tangerine (ulta3 Tangerine Tango).

I taped the white chevrons, but then I couldn't be bothered waiting for the white to dry to tape off the orange, so I freehanded it and it looked pretty good - I think my freehand skills have definitely improved!

And then before I took it off, I turned it into ALIEN COWS. Because clearly thesis writing has driven me insane.

I am totally in love with OPI...Eurso Euro - it's such a rich blue! Definitely a keeper.

OPI Tomorrow Never Dies

Perfection, thy name is shiny violet nail polish!

I can never resist snagging glowy colours for Autumn (Illamasqua Scarab and Viridian being two of my favourites) and so this was instantly on my 'need' list from the Skyfall collection. It really didn't disappoint - like those two, it glows from within with this incredible understated sheen. Beyond gorgeous. The colour is a very inky purple - it's a blurple, really, but a blurple by virtue of the fact that it's purple with a dark blue base. It looks like a deep indigo and some lights, and a screaming purple in others. It's also completely reminded me of my violet obsession - it's probably my favourite colour, but one that doesn't really suit my colouring, so I try to keep it away from my face -  on nails it's perfect.

The only problem I had was that it was a bit tricky to apply. I think it didn't like my base coat (the Illamasqua bog standard one) because the first two coats were sliding everywhere and dragging streaks and gaps. Fortunately the third coat sorted that out, but I'd recommend a grippy ridge filling base coat since I reckon you could probably get away with two coats that way.

I should also apologise for the scraggy cuticles and lack of clean-up - I'm powering away on the PhD at the moment and that, plus teaching, is sucking up all my time. So I'm nearly always applying my polish late at night before work (in this case, at 12.30am in front of the second Harry Potter film) when I can't see what I'm doing. I always intend to clean up up the next morning but when the alarm goes I'm too frazzled to remember! The tribulations of being an academic and a nail blogger... :)

OPI: The Color of Minnie + some extra stuff :)

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I usually cook for my family but this year, with finals being more intense (along with classes) I decided not to put myself under the stress.

When OPI came out with their Minnie Mouse collection, I knew I would have to get a couple because... well, my online handle is minnie :) I didn't necessarily like the colors, but totally got some because of the names.

This is about 3 coats of The Color of Minnie, and there is a pink shimmer I wasn't able to get to show. I don't usually go for these polishes but golly, I love the OPI brushes!

After a day or two of just red, I decided to do some kind of 3 layer thing... I did a ruffian type layer with OPI: Excuse Moi! (3 layers) and did a ruffian from that layer with a thin black jelly I made from clear and a little bit of black polish.

I really like how it came out! The gradient was a bit more gradient-y in real life. I really like how shiny the black jelly made the manicure, too, because it's based on clear.

Finals aren't here yet but it's sooo stressful :( I'll probably be doing my nails more than I need to for the decompress time, haha.

Hope everyone is enjoying the brief Thanksgiving break!

A polish for all seasons - OPI Miami Beet

I am one of those people that follows seasons. I wear certain polishes in accordance with the weather. I know I should probably have more of a "wear whatever you want to!" attitude, but I can't help it - I WANT to wear seasonally appropriate colours! This polish is one of the few that I feel is appropriate year-round.

OPI Miami Beet...


The brightness of this polish does well in spring and summer, but the richness and berry tone makes it equally fall and winter appropriate. If you're looking for a succulent red-purple-berry polish, this is an oldie but a goodie!

Do you wear whatever year-round, or do you follow seasons like me?

kittytokaren

Happy Hands: Motherboy

The moment I saw this glitter, I knew I needed it. Okay, that's kind of how it is for a lot of indie glitters, but this one and one other in this same collection, Mayonegg, had my name written all over it.

I love the pastel mix, and despite it looking bumpy, topcoat had it feeling smooth :) It's layered over OPI: My Boyfriend Scales Walls, which I actually wore by itself for a few days, I liked it a lot! Kind of out of place seeing as it's fall with winter coming upon us, but nothing like glitter inspiration to make a mani! I don't usually repeat polishes (I have too many to risk that) but this may see an encore in the spring :)

Happy Hands can be found on her Facebook page here and her Etsy here.

OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls

I had written off the OPI Spiderman collection. Just Spotted the Lizard was a complete fail for me, and none of the others called my name. Until this one caught my eye in Ulta the other day....

OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls...

When I found this in the store, I rolled the bottle over a few times in my hands and thought "Yeah....yeah this is for me..." I'm glad to say that that feeling remained after I put it on my nails. Tons of people have described this before me and done a magnificent job. Suffice to say, it is mainly white with a good helping of grey to it, that helps to keep it from looking too stark and bright on the nail. It reminds me of paper mache and I think it is supremely cool.

Has anything surprised you in person lately? I really didn't think I needed this before I saw it in the store!

kittytokaren

Butterscotch Penny - OPI Rising Star

I've been knee-deep in vampy polishes for a few weeks now, but when I feel the need to lighten up, I usually like to go with a bronze/gold metallic. (My favourite is OPI DS Glow.) Today, I bring you OPI Rising Star. I saw it on vintageortacky on YouTube one day and HAD to have it.



OK so this probably isn't the most flattering shade on me. BUT it is more flattering in person than in this picture. The colour is like a very clean penny coated in butterscotch. Yum. I do like this very much, but I am seriously a sucker for anything gold....

Are you a fan of bronze/gold polishes? Let me know your favs!
kittytokaren

OPI GoldenEye

OK, I have to confess...the nerdy fangirl in me really wanted the OPI Bond polishes. But especially this one. I remember going to see it with my mum at the cinema at the age of nine and bonding (sorry) with her over our shared appreciation for Pierce Brosnan. My now-boyfriend also helped work on the N64 computer game as a games tester when he was a teenager (he's older than me, before anyone does the maths and starts wondering!). So it had a pretty special place in my heart!

In the bottle, this one really grabs me. It's so glimmery and sparkly and it looks as though there are an awful lot more colours in there than there are. It catches the light beautifully. On the nail, it *is* sparkly and gorgeous, with a strange colour-shifting personality and a fleck that seems to be half-way between glitter and flakes. It's more yellow-gold than it appears here (Autumn light to blame), but there is a slight bronzey undertone in certain lights.

However, it is a bit sheer. This was three coats, and it really would need a fourth or a fifth to completely get rid of VNL. (I applied at night, so I didn't realise that it was a bit patchy). Next time I'll layer it over something else - this would look amazing over black, or a dark red...

What's your favourite of the Bond polishes? I'm desperate to get one of the metallics.

OPI Don't Touch My Tutu & Pirouette My Whistle

It is official. I now own all of the OPI NYC Ballet collection. (See my other posts on the collection here and here.) Very rare for me - I don't think I own any other complete collection! The only two I was missing were Don't Touch My Tutu and Pirouette My Whistle. They actually pair together quite nicely.

Don't Touch My Tutu on its own...


...and with Pirouette My Whistle on top...


The reason I decided to complete this collection is that the formulas are consistently awesome. Don't Touch My Tutu is taking the place of Essie Allure in my collection. Both are gorgeous squishy sheer whites, but DTMT has a much easier formula to work with. Pirouette My Whistle is a really lovely subtle glitter topcoat. It really is, I swear. Thanks to the oddly translucent pieces of white(ish?) hexagonal glitter, this topcoat gives the polish under it an ethereal feel - really nice with some of the sheers in this collection! My hope is that one day they make a gold version...

Do you own a complete collection of polish? Which one(s)?

kittytokaren

Traditional Fall - OPI Mrs O'Leary's BBQ

Almost every fall season in my memory, burgundy has popped up as an "on-trend" colour. Which to me makes it a classic, as opposed to trendy, but who am I to argue with the fashion magazine gods? OPI Mrs. O'Leary's BBQ is one of the most traditional incarnations of burgundy that I know of, and every fall it always seems just right...

Creamy, rich, and dark without being black - if you want to add a burgundy to your fall nail wardrobe, this is a really solid choice. Plus, it really does remind me of barbecue sauce!

What is a classic "fall" colour to you?

kittytokaren