Goodbye to GFC and Hello to Bloglovin'!

Hello Princesses!

Recently I've become aware that Google Reader will be closing down on the 1st of July! :C If you are a blogger like me, or just a reader who wants to stay subscribed to all their blogs, I have found one of the easiest solutions to transfer all of the blogs you follow via Google Friend Connect, to a new blog reader called Bloglovin'! 

 I've been a member of Bloglovin' for quite a while now, since a few of the sites hosted on Wordpress don't have an GFC following option, but only a Bloglovin' option! I find that Bloglovin' is a very user-friendly way of collecting your favorite blogs and getting the updates all in one place! (Also I think the button on my blog is a lot prettier hehe ^^)

If you want to import all of your blogs from your Google Reader to your Bloglovin', you can do it in 3 super simple steps!

(Click on images to enlarge them!)

1; Log into your Bloglovin' or Sign up for a Bloglovin' account

2; On your profile page, click Edit your profile. This will take you to your account settings, notifications, etc.

 3; Click the Import Blogs button in the "Other" section at the bottom.

And your done! Super simple! ^^ The other option is to run around all of your blogs to see if they have a bloglovin' button and follow them all manually since some of us will be completely shutting down our GFC.

If this isn't already enough to convince you to make the move over to Bloglovin', check out this neat chart Nutritionella has made to show the friendly-user blog reader.

If you want to follow me via Bloglovin', click this button here!



If  blog readers aren't your thing, follow me on my Facebook or Instagram! 

Make sure you check out my 100 Subscribers Giveaway, and don't forget to subscribe! (:

♥♥♥ from Lauren

Manicure Monday's - Green Ocean

Hello Princesses! 

I'm preparing for my group assessment at university tomorrow so this Manicure Monday was thought out specifically to suit our piece!

Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale) for Flute, Cello and Piano

If your thinking somewhere along the lines of Dory's whale talk in Finding Nemo, then you're not far off! The Voice of the Whale requires so many ridiculous special techniques from all of the players including, but not limited to; using a glass rod, Chisel, Paperclip and strumming the strings inside the Piano, Singing while playing, Singing inside the flute to create bubble noises, Harmonics, Talking into the flute, flutter tongue for flute, Strumming, Double Pizzacato and Harmonics for Cello. Along with wearing black face-masks, copious amounts of blue lighting and microphones makes this piece hard to organize and deathly difficult to play!

To match this underwater themed music, I decided to pair Colour Clubs Blue-Topia  with Sinful Colours Green ocean.

 Green Ocean is a light green topcoat that contains small blue green glitters and flakies. It looks amazing on pastel colours, but over top of darker base colours, the flakies and glitters really pop! Jack is entranced by these colours, he thinks it looks fascinating! ^^

 I thought I would include a whole hand shot to show you guys why my fingers don't lie flat on polish bottles! The females in my family carry the gene that leads to this mutation in the pinkie joint. I can't actually remember what the mutation is called, but it doesn't really affect me in any way other than the fact that I will never be a hand model. *sigh*

On my left hand I got a little carried away with trying out holo glitters! From Index finger to pinkie finger I'm wearing; Kleancolor Chunky Holo Black, KC Chunky Holo Scarlet, KC Chunky Holo Fuchsia, KC Chunky HoloTeal. 

Cute huh! :3

Make sure you check out my 100 Subscribers Giveaway, and don't forget to subscribe! (:

♥♥♥ from Lauren

Swatch and Review - Colour Club; Winter Affair Colletcion

Hello Princesses!

Ok ok ok ok I know I promised that I'd blog every Thursday Saturday and Monday, but my photo editor totally broke! :c I'm sorry!!

Also midway through my swatching (which took 2 weeks due to terrible weather) my face had another breakout from stress, which means I had to cut my nails as short as possible to avoid scratching my face in my sleep. How weird is that.

Anyway.

Today I'm going to be Swatching and Reviewing Colour clubs Winter Affair Collection, which I bought from the lovely Chels & Ta from USA Nails Online! I'm so glad I found this site, because sometimes it can be incredibly pricey to get nail polish from overseas, not to mention the challenge of getting the "hazardous substance" past customs!

USA Nails Online is part of an entrepenuership program, which is working with the NZ Distributor of some of the USA's best nail products! Currently they are only shipping within New Zealand, but NZ'ers will be glad to know that they charge a flat rate of $4.90 no matter how much you order! Nail Polish, Treatments and Art Pens contain flammable components, so special regulations (Transport of Dangerous goods) will be met.

This was actually my very first experience with Colour Club polishes, and USA Nails Online! Initially I was attracted by the very low price, and the gorgeous green polish, Ho-Ho-Holly! I sort of assumed that the rest of the polishes would be a little average and that I would sell them all on after swatching them once.

How very wrong I was.

I found the formula for the whole collection to be very good. The colours were mostly opaque with two coats, and the drying speed was very fast, which probably surprised me the most! None of the polishes stained my nails and were all quick and easy to remove (with the one exception being Gift of Sparkle which is a glitter polish.)

 One coat

Two coats

Berry and Bright - This is a gorgeous bright red foil shimmer. I found that the polish dried a little dull, but a generous top coat fixed this us straight away. In the sunlight it looks super pretty and sparkly, and was almost opaque in one coating.

Gift of Sparkle - This is my favorite of the collection! Gift of Sparkle is a warm, blue-toned purple with red and purple shimmer. It's also stuffed with a good amount of glitter, and there looks like there is some small holographic glitters mixed in there too. This polish dries with a rough texture and needs 2 to 3 generous coats of top coat to get it smooth.

 Macro of all of the glitters!

  I wore this polish topped with Snowflakes for almost a whole week! It only chipped slightly after the 3 day mark, which I thought was a pretty good effort. I wore this mani during the photographing for my 100 Subscribers Giveaway post.

Glitter Wonderland - This is a warm blue purple shimmer with tiny flecks of red, blue, and purple micro-glitter. This polish is really shimmery and pretty, and has a slight pink flash which I thought was really neat! Glitter Wonderland was the sheerest polish of the collection, and needed 3 coats to be fully opaque.

Ho-Ho-Holly - I had picked this polish to be my favorite of the collection, and it ended up coming a close second to Gift of Sparkle! Ho-Ho-Holly is a rich green and gold foil which looks predominantly green, until you tilt your nails in which case it becomes a warm, golden shimmer with a hint of cool toned blue and green flashes. It's such a perfect Christmas colour in my opinion!

Winter Affair -  I tend to collect a lot of this type of colour, but this is quite a stunner in it's own rights! Winter Affair is a vampy wine colour with duochrome shimmer, and is made up of red, gold and orange depending on where the light is hitting. This is the type of colour I gravitate towards when the weather is getting colder, and this is surely going to be one of my favorites this winter!

Snowflakes - The Winter Affair collection also includes a flaky top coat polish called Snowflakes. This is a basic red-green flake polish with flashes of orange and gold,  and while Snowflakes looks really gorgeous by itself in a very subtle way, it also looks beautiful on the rest of the collection. I layered Snow-Flakes over each color from this collection, and I really like how different it looks over certain colors.

 Snowflakes

Berry and Bright & Snowflakes

Gift of Sparkle & Snowflakes

Glitter Wonderland & Snowflakes

Ho-Ho-Holly & Snowflakes

Winter Affair & Snowflakes

Chels & Ta were incredibly helpful and friendly throughout the process or ordering from USA Nails Online, and the package took one night to be sent out, and two days to arrive, safe and sound. I would most definitely recommend ordering from USA Nails Online if you are a New Zealander! I'm currently eyeing up the Nouveau Nail Lamp so I can do some home gel nails! 

Make sure you check out my 100 Subscribers Giveaway, and don't forget to subscribe! (:

 

♥♥♥ from Lauren

♥♥♥ 100 Subscribers Giveaway ♥♥♥

Hello Princesses!

I've finally gotten over 100 subscribers! Yay! ^^ 

So to thank all my subbies for their support, I've set up a giveaway made possible by Uniqso!

 

What can you win? 

Your very own pair of Blue contact lenses! :3

 

This giveaway is open Internationally, but you must be over 18, or have a parent or guardians permission to enter.

 Since this is a thank you to all of my subscribers, you must me subscribed to me some way or another!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 A huge thank you to all of my subbies, you all make blogging so much more fun! ^^

 

Don't forget to subscribe! (: 

 

♥♥♥ from Lauren