Australia Red Center Inspired Nails

Hi everyone, if you follow me on Instagram then you may have seen a picture of myself at Uluru (or Ayers Rock), as I did a long road trip to get there the other week.

The Red Centre was a beautiful place, and the colours and aboriginal influences really got my creative juices flowing for some nail art!

As I'm travelling, I do find it really hard to juggle regular blog posts, especially in the outback as there is absolutely nothing, so wifi is a laughable ask to most people. Hopefully, I can reflect my trip to you though, as well as telling you a little bit about my journey along the way.

So lets get started

Coober Pedi

So to start my journey into the centre, we started in Adelaide and drove North. It took us 4 days to get to the middle, but we stopped at a little town called Coober Pedy for 2 nights to break things up. This is honestly one of the weirdest places I have ever been in my life, but I am so glad I went just for the stories to tell people. Coober Pedy is a mining town, and what you mine at Coober Pedy, is opals.

Opals are a precious stone that vary from clear to a gorgeous blue green colour, so I chose this polish called 'waves' by Sally Hansen, to give myself a Coober 'Pedi'.

 I wish I could take credit for the pun but it was all my boyfriend, however how someone hasn't set up a business in this place called that I do not know!

(Can I also just say that never did I ever think I would post a picture of my toes on the internet but alas, here we are. Be kind, I know they are not pretty feet but can anyone honestly say they have seen pretty feet?)

In Coober Pedy I also had the amazing experience of going to a kangaroo orphanage, where I met little baby Mona who lives in a handbag!

Aboriginal Art Nails

So another really cool thing I got to do at Uluru was take a dot painting workshop, where an aboriginal artist taught us a few basic symbols for us to create some work ourselves. It was so interesting to learn the symbols, as they can mean so many different things.

Whilst at the workshop, the lady taking the class did some art as well, and in the same space of time as us, she created the most beautiful blue water hole themed picture.

Just on this bit of nail art alone, I have done a little story about my trip here.

See if you can guess what I painted about!

Uluru Ombre

Now if you are anything like me and travel crazy, then you will have seen the mystical Uluru in real life or at least in pictures. I once saw a picture of it at different stages where it looked so different in colour, I knew I had to see it myself to believe it.

Although some say it is just a rock, (which yes, yes it is), it is a really spiritual place for the indigenous people of Australia, and you are actually not allowed to take pictures in some places as a sign of respect. Another thing the indigenous people ask, is that tourists DO NOT climb the rock, as they find it disrespectful, and also quite stupid. It is dangerous and it is causing environmental damage to the waterhole and rock itself.

There is currently a petition to try and get it stopped, so if you head that way, make sure you sign it!

One thing that we and the aboriginals can agree on though, is that the rock is really beautiful.

I saw the rock in the middle of the day, sunrise and also sunset, because it truly does look a different colour all the time. Sometimes it can be a really burnt orange colour, and others, it looks a beautiful purple.

Sunrise

Sunset

My favourite time was just at sunset though, as the sun ducked behind the clouds and gave the rock a pinky red hue, so I used this as the influence for my mani.

Obviously my travels take up a lot of my time currently, but I already have a few more nail art ideas in the works so hope to do a few more posts soon! 

Thanks for reading!

Koala Nails

I told you it wouldn't be long till I offended again, and with the embedded feeling that Mondays are for hashtagging manicures I simply couldn't spend my day off doing nothing, and so, these little Koala nails were born!

I was inspired to do these because of a small day trip I went on recently to a place called Lone Pine, which is a Koala sanctuary just outside of Brisbane. The place is full of kangeroos jumping around you, and there are other animals around too so it is like a small zoo.

However, Lone Pine holds the promise of being able to cuddle up and have your picture taken with a Koala which was an opportunity not to be missed!

For these nails, I used a neon yellow base which is particularly horrible on its own. It is by a brand simply called paint and is really cheap in the drug stores, only about $3 if that!

Next I used my grey L'Oreal polish for the little faces, and used my new nail art pens for detailing and the background palms.

My particular favourite nail is my thumb, I think his face came out the cutest!

Apologies for the crap quality of pictures, I will have to think of a way around this!

See you soon!

Botanical Gardens: Rio de Janerio

As you probably know by now, I am in Rio De Janerio at the moment, on the first leg of my travels. Yesterday we went to Rio's large botanical gardens in the centre of the city. I love Rio because the city was built AROUND the forest, and has hardly been developed on. Carioca people are very respectful and thankful for the rainforest ,as it means minimal pollution. As a great lover of natural skincare, I took great delight at stumbling across the Botanical Gardens 'Medicinal Plant Collection' where they store and harvest plants. 

Having worked with natural skincare for nearly two and a half years, I instantly recognised a lot of the plants they were harvesting, and found it really interesting!

I have never seen a natural Aloe Vera plant grow this big, and as the soothing sap that comes from the plant is in a majority of our skincare, it was really good to see one thriving.

Patchouli again, is in a lot of skincare products I use, and I have never actually seen it in its natural form, like a lot of the other plants I saw. The names under each plant were all written in Portugese, but I could vaguely translate some into the ingredients I used to see every day at work.

This little hut had more information about the way they use the plants and transform the ingredients into medicines and skin care. It was really interesting to see, I wish I could have read the Portugese to get a better insight.

I didn't intentionally go in a flowery dress

Whilst we were there, the staff were actually harvesting some of the crops to be used! 

There was also a Rose garden which is another plant that is great for skincare, however it was looking a little worse for wear so I didn't take any pictures. The park was stunning though, and was a really interesting insight into the Brazilian wild life and natural world!

If you want to read more about my travels, my boyfriend and I are writing a travel blog. 

you will find it at

blogrigado.blogspot.com.

Rio

Hello my lovely followers! As you may know from my New Years post, this year is going to be a year of travel for me. At midday today, I finally landed in Rio de Janerio after a long 14 hour journey. Having only been here a few short hours, we drove to our hostel and saw the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue en route which was so amazing, as that has been on my bucket list to see for a long time now. I'll be going to see in on closer inspection on Monday.

As for the hostel, the 'Mango Tree' -which is situated right on Ipaneama beach-, is bright colourful and welcoming. My boyfriend and I spend a few hours swinging in the welcoming hammocks and swing chairs placed everywhere.

our cosy room

Looking so pale compared to my orange room

I will keep updating on my travel journey, but of course I will keep on reviewing products as per usual. I have a fair few to tell you about which have been real saviours on my trip so far, so I will keep you updated with those!