More Nail Polish

Valentine's Day - When I think of romance...

2012-02-13T20:08:00.000+11:00

OK, I know this is a little corny, but when I think of romance, I think of a destination like this. Walking along the beach at sunset with my husband. It's kind of nothing like my life in reality at the moment. With a three year old and a one year old racing around, there isn't any opportunities for romantic destinations like this!

For this design I sponged on the blue (Picture Polish Bombshell), then the orange (Picture Polish Citrus), then the yellow (Ulta3 Frangipani). I had to do a bit of alternating back and forth with colours to try to get it to look ok. I'm not really that good with sponging and getting a nice blend of colours, but the end look was acceptable. The sponging on my right had was sooooo much worse, but one never shows their non-dominant painted hand - ok.

Next I applied some homemade decals for the palm trees and the couple walking. Then I painted a yellow sun using Ulta3 Citrus and finally I painted a freehand black french tip.

I had a huge amount of trouble getting my cuticles clean from sponging with the blue polish. I'm sorry about that!

Here is a photo I took the next day, after I had been able to clean my cuticles a bit more.

Only one more Valentine's Day nail art to come tomorrow.

My first jelly sandwich - Valentine edition

2012-02-12T21:06:00.000+11:00

Hello my lovelies. Damn it. Now I have that stuck in my head. There is a stupid ad on TV here for 5 Seeds cider (which is bloody nice by the way) and this guy at end says 'Hello my lovelies' to the two twin girls riding a tandem bike who are delivering the cider. Their blonde hair in plaits, but their faces are edited so they are actually bearded men. All kinds of weird for me! (Geez, I really should have got paid for that product placement!)

I digressed, Ok check out this little bit of squishy and lovey goodness. This was my first attempt at a glitter jelly sandwich and I really love the final look.

I really don't own any commercially available jelly polishes, so like usual when I don't have something, I make it up for myself. I made this jelly polish up using 97% clear suspension base, and 3% Red 7 Tint. I did one layer of the jelly, then one and a bit coats of Nabi Heart Glitter. It was really one coat, but then I dabbed with extra hearts to fill it up till I liked the effect. I then layered two more coats of my jelly polish and one coat of Seche Vite.

The Nabi glitter has heart glitter in three colours, pink, silver and blue. What I love about this jelly sandwich is that the pink hearts went hot pink, the silver ones went pink and the blue ones went purple.

You should see the monstrosity of a nail art creation I have put on today and will post tomorrow. It really is worth coming back to see.

Valentine's Nails - I ❤ U

2012-02-11T23:15:00.000+11:00

I'm a bit late with my post tonight. We've been out for dinner with friends and just got home so right now I can't really think of the words I need to get this post up! Less waffle, more nails.

Here is the mani I did last night. I used Glitter Gal Copper, which is such an amazing warm peachy pink holo with a feature nail of Glitter Gal White Sparkle. I then stamped some white hearts on each finger from a Bundle Monster plate and stamped the I ❤ U in red also from a Bundle Monster plate.

Because I felt the white hearts stood out a bit too much on the beautiful holo, I put a tiny bit of spectraflair top coat over the hearts to make them holo and to match the background of Glitter Gal Copper.

Of course this morning it was so horribly overcast and the most terrible lighting for holos. This was the best I could do beside the back door.

Because I wanted to capture the amazing holo in Glitter Gal Copper, I went into the bathroom and took this photo under the heat lamps. The white balance still isn't great, but I'm not looking like too much of an oompa loompa.

Now just a quick word on Glitter Gal White Sparkle. I layered two coats over one coat of Ulta 3 Lily white. As you can see this polish has beautiful iridescent holographic glitter in it. But that's not all, it also has a pretty duochrome shift that goes from pink to gold. I didn't really capture it much in my photos, but if you look at the first photo you will see the pink shimmer on the nail. *Note to self - must try Glitter Gal White Sparkle over black*

Low and behold, this afternoon the clouds parted and there was sunshine! Yes, I could finally see this mani it all it's beautiful holo goodness.

I'm not sure, but I thought Glitter Gal Copper might be dupy of Ozotic 522, but now I'm not completely sure. Ladies, I will do a comparison swatch so we can check that out. Maybe I'll post that at the same time as White Sparkle over black.

I'm super happy with how this Valentines mani turned out, it was very pretty and girly and the two Glitter Gal polishes complimented each other perfectly for this.

Lynnderella - Matter of the Heart

2012-02-10T21:16:00.002+11:00

Hello lovelies! You're getting double bang for your buck today, because as well as my guest post over at Sparkly Vernis you get to see Lynnderella here!

Today's Valentine themed mani is the beautiful Matter of the Heart. I put this on late last night because I thought it would be a quick mani to do before bed. I guess it was relatively quick to do, but waiting for layers to dry slowed me down a bit, plus the painstaking glitter placement slowed me a lot.

Matter of the Heart has red, fuchsia, pink and silver holographic multi-sized hexagons and squares in a sheer milky pink base with subtle pink shimmer. There is also scattered holographic hearts in the bottle but I wasn't lucky enough to get any on my nails for this mani.

Because I missed out on getting a heart from the bottle, I grabbed my bottle of NYC Heart Throb which has red and silver hearts and placed a single red heart on my ring finger. You'll notice that some of the silver string glitter form Heart Throb also made it onto my nail.

For the base I started with one coat of Ulta 3 Natural Spring. I then put on a polish that I never thought I would wear again, the sorriest holo to ever be called a holo, Ozotic 527. But I tell you the undie colour was perfect and just what I wanted. Who would have thunk it, right?

I the did two very carefully placed coats of Matter of the Heart. Finished with one coat of glitter tamer and one of Seche Vite.

Till tomorrow lovelies!

Publish Post

Guest Post on Sparkly Vernis

2012-02-10T17:23:00.000+11:00

You may have already seen it, but I've just got home from work and have been able to check my emails and reader.

Check out my guest post over at Sparkly Vernis. She's said such nice things about me that I'm getting a big fat head!

The perfect pink for Valentine's Nails

2012-02-09T21:09:00.000+11:00

Today I wore this beautiful polish from Glitter Gal. This is Lavender Sparkle. You don't see the Glitter Gal sparkle polishes getting much love around blogs, and after wearing this I just don't know why.

Looking at the bottle I was worried it was going to be a watery sheer mess, but to my surprise it was opaque in just two coats. The sparkle in this polish is not holographic glitter like other GG Sparkle polishes I have. This has an amazing shimmer that almost makes you nails look like they are covered in frost. Its generally a silver shimmer, but when you look closely at it you can see fine pink and blue sparks coming through.

This polish was the perfect pink to base for some more Valentine stamping. I know these aren't very fancy Valentine nails, but I was happy with the final look.

Sorry, spot the stupid cat hair!

I'm working on some fancy designs using water decal paper, but I really need the weekend to put some time into them. One reason I really do love stamping is because it's a quick and easy way to add nail art, especially when you've got home from work, got dinner on the table, bathed the littlies, got them to bed, edited your photos from that morning and done a blog post. Then it's finally time to change you mani and it's already 10pm. But just add some stamping and you have nail art that never fails to impress muggles!

The start of a week of Valentine's Nails

2012-02-08T21:01:00.000+11:00

I had so much fun doing my week of Aussie manis a few weeks back I've decided to do a week of Valentine's mani's in the lead up to Valentine's Day.

Here is the first design I came up with. For this design I wanted to do something that wasn't pink and didn't include hearts.

I settled for an accent finger stamped using the diamond stamp from Bundle Monster plate BM09, using Sally Hansen Canary Diamond Chrome, over Ozotic 621. On the other fingers I wore Layla Mercury Twilight as the base, stamped with an ebay purchased plate with a rose, that I double painted in red and green for the roses.

For the record folks, Layla Mercury Twilight holo does lose some of it's holo effect with Seche Vite top coat. Not as much as these photos would lead you to believe though, there was no sun and I took these photos outside.

That's all folks, I'll be back tomorrow with another Valentine mani.

Switched up magnetic french tips

2012-02-07T20:12:00.000+11:00

Yesterday I was looking at the magnetic polish I was wearing (Layla Magneffect Deep Violet) and thought "I wonder what it would look like if I added a matching french tip striped the other way".

So I grabbed the polish, tried to do a neat swipe across the tip and quickly applied the magnet in the other direction.

Here is the result. As usual, some nails are better than others. I quite liked the ring finger.

So what do you think? Too weird? It certainly got noticed anyway.

Lynnderella - Love Potion No. 99

2012-02-05T18:53:00.001+11:00

In all your purple loving nail polish dreams, have you ever seen such a beautiful purple glitter as is this. Lynnderella Love Potion No 99.

This is one coat of Lynnderella Love Potion No 99 over one coat of Kleancolor Metallic purple. Then one coat of glitter tamer and one of Seche Vite. This polish has purple, violet and fuchsia hexagons and squares in multiple size, as well as violet holographic micro glitter. All an a very light tinted purple base.

I did notice the Kleancolor Metallic Purple seemed to change colour when I applied Love Potion No 99 over the top, but I have a feeling that this polish normally changes colour with a top coat anyway.

Even at just one coat of Love Potion No 99, there is still so much depth to this polish with glitter pieces overlapping each other.

It appears that Love Potion No 99 has done it's work on me, cause I really have fallen in love with this.

Lynnderella - Ruby Red Ruby

2012-02-03T21:52:00.001+11:00

You know when you've wanted a polish (or polishes) for so long and you've seen amazing photos on blogs that make you feel like you will never own such a beauty.

Then finally you get the said polish(s) and you look at them and think 'Really, is it all that great? Does it live up to what I thought it would be".

Well let me just say that is so NOT the feeling I had when I opened my first ever Lynnderella polishes. I had been dreaming of my coming Lynnderellas for so long and when I opened the package I squeeeed in delight and stared in amazement at the magical combination of colours before my eyes. Thank you Lynn and Donna for bringing my dream to life.

Truly, my photos do this polish no justice. In fact, no ones photos do this polish any justice. It is just too amazing. This is one coat of Lynnderella Ruby Red Ruby over one coat of Ulta 3 Pepper Pot, one coat of glitter tamer and a coat of Seche Vite.

I took my son to the dentist today and the technician looked at my nails and couldn't believe how amazing they were. She actually grabbed my hand on two separate occasions to get a closer look. Then she asked how I got the gems in there and commented how smooth it was. Then she asked if someone did them for me and was amazed to hear I did them myself. Finally she asked what polish it was and I had to tell her that the bottles are pretty much rarer than real rubies and are hand made by genius polish creator.

And now this next photo seems totally unrelated in this post, but I figured I would share it here as I was wearing an Ulta3 polish beneath Ruby Red Ruby. This here is a gift my sister in law grabbed for my mum. Sure it's a little late for Christmas now, but how freaking cool is this nail polish candy cane! It held 10 full sized bottles of Ulta3!

I have many more Lynnderella's so show, and a special surprise coming up for my followers where you will get the chance to have some Lynnderella's of your own.

Flakies to franken with

2012-02-02T19:26:00.000+11:00

Back around Christmas time, I received a very small sample of some raw flakies from Kaila at TKB Trading. She wanted to know what I thought of them and whether they should get them in stock.

Cause the sample size was very small, I just mixed a little of each colour provided into a mini 5ml bottle with suspension base. I then applied it over black. I only took comparison photos against other flakie polishes, as I wanted to show Kaila the difference, and stupid me didn't take a photo of the fully mani!

My bottle mainly comprised of gold and green. I only had a tiny amount of the red and blue flakies, so they don't show up much in this polish, but the red flakes look more pink and purple in my photos. The blue ones are clearly blue, but there aren't many in my bottle.

I was so excited to try these out mainly because until now, I have not been able to locate any raw flakie that you can add to polish and it didn't lose it's colour. I know MK over at Polish and Pigments has done a huge amount of research on this too.

Anyway, I told Kaila that they should definitly still stock these, even though they are not as bright. Mainly because there still isn't anything else available as a flake. I will be getting some more because they will certainly make an interesting addition to my frankening supplies.

I think these same flakies are also now available from You Mix Cosmetics and Frankenpolish Shop. I have no experience yet with either of these companies, although I have recently ordered from You Mix Cosmetics so will know in the future.

TKB Trading now have these in stock and my experiences with them has always been excellent.

Some Layla Magneffects

2012-01-31T22:50:00.000+11:00

Have you jumped on board the magnetic nail polish train yet? I'm such a sucker for fancy effects in nail polish like these. I must say that I never really got into the crackle phase, but I am totally getting on board the magnetic phase with gusto!

Here are a couple of the Layla Magneffect polishes that I picked up with my Layla Holo order last week. These have been around for quite a few months now, but the colour range of the Layla Mageneffects is one of the best I have seen. I think they have 16 colours.

Each bottle of the Layla Magneffects has a small round magnet on the top of the bottle with a line on it. You can use that magnet to create lines . For these manis I actaully used other magnets that I had. The Layla bottle magnet works very well, but it's lines are further apart than these.

Metallic Sky

Purple Galaxy

Sparkling Champagne

Turquoise Wave

The formula on all these was excellent. Some of these polishes could be one coaters (thick, but it would work) but for all these photos I did one coat without the magnet, then a second coat using the magnet.

The star magnet is most definitely the trickiest to master. It's very hard to line it up correctly on the nail both vertically and horizontally. I'm totally getting the China Glaze magnetics as well as the magnet as soon as I can, but what I'm really lemming for is a bottle of one of the Icing magnetic polishes with the wavey design as seen here. Any US readers interested in a swap with me so I can get one of those?

Layla holo comparisons and group order for Aussies

2012-01-29T19:39:00.000+11:00

I spent this morning doing some comparison swatches for the Layla holos.

I will let the photos do the talking, but I'm sure you will agree how impressive these Layla holos are.

Hits Zeus, Layla Flash Black and China Glaze Let's do it in 3D in the shade.

And the same in the sun.

Nfu Oh 61 , Layla Mercury Twilight and Gosh holographic in the shade.

The same in the sun. This is the original Nfu Oh 61, which is apparently more holo that the lastest versions. Gosh Holo is near extinct. If your looking for an amazing silver holo, now is your chance.

Mermaid Spell and Nfu Oh 65 in the sun.

The same in the shade.

Nfu Oh 63, Layla Retro Pink, Nfu Oh 64 and Layla Ultra Violet in the shade.

The same in the sun.

Ozotic 515, Layla Ocean Rush, Ozotic 617 and Glitter Gal Marine blue in the shade.

The same in the sun.

Layla Jade Groove and Nfu Oh 66 in the shade.

The same in the sun.

Finally, nudie holos Layla Coral Glam and Nfu Oh 62 in the sun.

The same in the shade.

I am happy to put together a group order for any Aussie girls that want to get some Layla holos. I just need to make sure we get enough polishes to get the free shipping.

Each polish is $15 Aussie dollars.

If you want in, just email me by 6:00am on Wednesday 1 Feb. If we have enough people wanting some then I will place an order on Wednesday or Thursday..

morenailpolish@iinet.net.au.

Please let me know which colours you want and quantities. I will need paypal payments before I submit the order and you will need to pay for local postage in Australia (which will be between $6-7 for regular post for up about 10 bottles)

Layla Hologram Effect - Part 2

2012-01-28T20:13:00.000+11:00

Here is part 2 of the Layla Hologram Effect polishes.

Pictures first, chat chat after.

Please note that I fought with the sun all day taking these photos, running outside anytime the clouds parted long enough to take some sun shots. So most of these are actually way more holo than these photos show, because the sun was partly covered with washed out clouds for many of these photos.

Flash Black - charcoal grey seriously linear holo.

Ocean Rush - mid toned blue holo.

Retro Pink - light pink holo.

Ultra Violet - Lavender holo.

Ok ok, so now lets get into the nitty gritty stuff.

Formula. To start with, I gave these bottles a good shake cause I felt like the holo powder needed a good mix. The balls in these polishes really rattle and the polish sounds very thin. Looking at the polish, it does seem thin, but it's not runny. You can easily layer a thick coat on and it will dry really fast.

Application.When I applied the polish the holo particles seems to be floating and dancing all over the place in the wet polish, it was strange to watch. It wasn't streaky but it was definitely weird application for the first coat. My recommendation is, ignore what it looks like as it's going on, and just paint your nails as usual.

The second coat went on perfectly. I was expecting the same balding issues that you get the Nfu Oh and Gosh Holos, but no, this was just perfect on the second coat.

All my swatches show two coats, with no base coat or no top coat. So sorry, I can't tell you if top coat dulls these.

Wear. I've been wearing Flash Black for a full 24 hours now, with no base or top coat and I am totally amazed that I don't have chips everywhere. Nfu Oh and Gosh holo are terrible for wear unless you do a holo sandwich (ie two coats of holo, then top coat, then holo coat, then top coat). This polish has lasted very well. I do have some tip wear on the outer edges of the nail, but nothing noticeable, especially as Flash Black is a darkish polish.

Where to buy. I purchased these directly from Layla Cosmetics in Milan Italy after an email recommendation from Tuli from Prettify our nails - Thanks Tuli!! They cost €11.90 each and the site says that international shipping is €30 (or €15 for orders over €80). I also purchased some Layla Magnetic polishes at the same time, so my order was over €150. But at checkout it said free shipping. SWEET!

I'm not sure at what value the free international shipping kicks in, but it's worth thinking about if ladies want to do a group order. And what I discovered is that is wasn't just free regular post, it was DHL tracked. I ordered my polishes on Wednesday night, received tracking information on Thursday and got the polishes delivered on Tuesday. Less than a week! I'm super impressed by that service!!

Overall impression. The colours, the holo and the wear on these totally make them worth the €12 (converted to $14.80 AUD) I popped on each bottle. Yeah, I know that seems expensive, but when in Target today and I was looking at Revlon polishes for $15.95, I feel like these are a total bargain for what you are getting. I'm tempted to get backups.

So there you go, let me know if you have any questions.

Layla Hologram Effect - Part 1

2012-01-27T21:06:00.000+11:00

It's official, I have a new favourite collection of nail polishes. Here is part one of my swatches of the Layla Hologram Effect nail polishes. There are eight polishes in the collection and today I am showing the four palest shades.

First up let me say that these appear to have the same holographic pigment that is in the Nfu Oh holos, Gosh Holo and Makeup Store holos. That is to say they have a different finish to the more 'Spectraflair' appearing holos, like Ozotic, Glitter Gal, Ludurana and Hits. The spectraflair type ones seem more sparkely, whereas these other sort seem more metallic and rainbow like. Damn wish I knew what this pigment was, unfortunately all they have to put on the bottles is "Aluminum powder CI77000".

Jade Groove - very pale green. Lighter than Nfu Oh 66.

Mercury Twilight - Silver holo. Not sure yet where it fits in with my silver holo comparison.

Mermaid Spell - pale blue. Similar to Nfu Oh 65, but maybe a shade lighter.

Coral Glam - Nude holo (freaking awesome). Similar to Nfu Oh 62, but pinker.

Please let me know if you want to see any comparison photos.

Come back tomorow to see the other four colours, plus I'll tell you about where I got them and what my shopping experience was like. I'll also detail more about the formula on these. See you then :)

Get your Aussie on! - Flag and something else

2012-01-26T00:01:00.057+11:00

Happy Australia Day people.

I couldn't help myself, I had to go with the classic flag nail art for Australia Day.

I used a custom blue holo polish I made for the blue base. I stamped individual stars in special white polish using Bundle Monster plate BM11 to make the Southern Crosses. For the Union Jack, I used a nail art brush and free painted the white and red lines using Nfu Oh 61 (so its actually silver not white) and Hits Ares. All topped off with a coat of Seche Vite.

This is such an amazing holo mani, but it has been really overcast here today (stupid cold summer!) and I can't get it to show how pretty it is.

Here is an indoor photo I took with a lamp, although it doesn't really show the holo any better. But it shows how much the blue pops.

Now yesterday, at the end of my post I said I was off to do something a little silly on my nails. I have an EPIC NAIL FAIL that I'm going to share with you. I couldn't bear to post this mani in it's own post because its just so god damn awful. If you have a weak stomach, look away now.

What I was attempting was "shrimp on the barbie". I was happy with the base, which I sponged on grey orange and red holo polishes to represent the coals. But then I couldn't be bothered using tape to make the grill lines nice and neat so I just freehanded them. WRONG!

Then I attempted to add the prawns to the BBQ, which I had made using the transparent water decal paper. The thing is, you really have to have light coloured nails to use the transparent decals. Because you can't print anything white, it relies on the background nail colour to provide the white contrast. What I tried to do was paint a tiny bit of white on my nail where the decal would go. FAIL. I then tried to paint the back of the decal. I finally got the hang of doing that for the prawn on my pinky!

Here is the prawn on my pinking, this was the only decent looking one. All the others look like they have way too much butter and garlic on them!! Arrrggghhh garlic butter prawns *wipes drool from mouth*

Anyway, I hope you have a giggle and my dreadful and epic nail fail. Aussies, I hope you have a great day off, and to those that are taking tomorrow off too, have a great extra long weekend.

Girls, I expect to see some links pasted below to your nails for Australia Day!

Get your Aussie on! - I ♥ AUS

2012-01-24T20:46:00.000+11:00

There is nothing fancy to see here today folks. We had friends over last night and I didn't get to start doing my mani until 10pm. Which, for a mum of two, who needs to be at work by 8:30 is a very late night! Thus, I did this real quick Aussie mani last night.

The blue is a custom polish I made using polish tints and spectraflair. The tip is Ozotic 518. The white line was done with a nail art brush and white polish tint. The feature nail in Ulta3 Lily White with HITS Hefesto top coat. The nail sticker is one I got from a Kiosk at my local Westfield about two years ago.

I've got something a little silly planned for tomorrow's nails, so I'm off to work on them now. Have a great night!

Get your Aussie on! - Uluru

2012-01-23T22:37:00.000+11:00

Let me tell you folks, this is so much fun doing Aussie themed nail art. I usually find it really hard to come up with ideas for nail art, but having a theme really makes it so easy. I've got so many ideas and not enough days to fit them in.

Anyway today's nails are something a little different for me. I've gone with a panorama shot of the beautiful Uluru or Ayres Rock in Central Australia.

Here's my inspiration for the nails.

I actually used the above photo and printed the rock onto water decal paper, then cut it and placed on my nails. I used Ulta3 Spring Shower as the base, sponged with Ulta3 Blue Heaven. I then painted a black french tip and put the water decals on.

So what do you think? Does it look like Uluru to you? Maybe if you cross your eyes a little and treat it like one of the magic eye pictures?

The only frustrating thing about doing a panoramic scene on your nails is that you have to hold your nail just right to show people, otherwise it looks like nothing!

Get your Aussie on - Oi, Oi, Oi!

2012-01-22T20:57:00.000+11:00

Here is mani #2 in the lead up to Australia Day this week. I still can't believe I did these nails. They are so bogan it's funny!

I'm not sure how well known this chant is outside of Australia, but every Aussie will be familiar with "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi". I remember hearing it for the first time as we were herding ourselves out of Sydney Olympic park after the end of a days competition during the 2000 Olympics.

I used three coats of Ulta3 Frangapani with a coat of Seche Vite to try to hurry it up drying so I could apply some tape. I then taped the diagonals and had to do two coats of Ulta3 Tahitian Lime to get it opaque. Next I applied the text which I again made using water decal paper. Finally I added a yellow star using konad special polish in yellow and a star from my ENAS stamps.

I'm so happy with how these turned out, I really don't want to take them off tonight to put something else on. I got quite a lot of comments today on these. Mainly people asking where I got them done, so it's a nice feeling to tell them I did them myself and seeing their reaction.

Get your Aussie on! - Kangaroo roadsigns

2012-01-21T19:51:00.001+11:00

Welcome to the start of my Get your Aussie on - Nail Art Marathon. Ok it's not really a marathon, cause it's only going to be about 5 or 6 manis, but what you will see is some totally bogan and cliched Aussie themed nail art in the lead up to Australia Day on 26 January.

I know that most of my readers are international so I'm planning to pick classic Aussie icons for my nails. Today's nail art is certainly that. Kangaroos. And not just any kangaroos, these are the kangaroos as they appear on our yellow road signs.

I made these using my water decal paper, which I printed the kangaroos on, then cut out and placed on my nails. That's why each one is so identical and crisp. There is no way I could free hand anything like this.

Now to share some pictures of real kangaroo road signs. These are a couple from around my area that have been creatively vandalized, so to speak. This one is on the Tuggeranong Parkway and shows the roo downhill skiing.

And I can't do this post without showing this big boy...

Aussie gals, are you going to do some Aussie nail art too. If so, when you do, post a link in the comments of any of these posts, we'd all love to see them.

OPI Warm & Fozzy

2012-01-19T21:00:00.000+11:00

I filed my nails down last night.I'm surprised how much I prefer them short at the moment, looking back at my early blog post my nails look like talons.

This is OPI Warm & Fozzy. Another stand out from the Muppets Collection. The general feel of the polish in normal light is brown. Blah, doesn't sound great does it. But trust me when I say this is sure is a sexy and multidimensional brown!

Zing - look at this in the sun, my eyes, my eyes. It reminds me of our old 1 and 2 cent pieces, when you found a brand new one!

The different coloured flecks in this almost make it duo-chromey. At least I think it's duo-chromy, not my seared retinas from the sun shot before.

Here you can see some of the different coloured flecks that make up this polish. Mainly the bronze and pink pieces.

Hummmm, me likey you Mr Warm & Fozzy!

And while I think of it, Aussie gals, I'm going to do five straight days of Aussie themed nail art leading up to Australia Day on the 26th. And when I say nail art, I mean stamping, stickers and decals too! So why don't you join me a get your Aussie on!

Colour Club Holiday Splendor

2012-01-17T20:36:00.000+11:00

When I first got the Color Club Beyond the Mistletoe collection, this is the first one I put on. Holiday Splendor. It's the only one in the collection that has a tinted base together with the holographic glitter.

This is such a beautiful polish. Seriously. It is beautiful. You are guaranteed to get comments on your nails when you wear this polish.

This was two coats, over Nail Tek II foundation, then four layers of top coat. Color Club top coat that came with the set, Ulta3 non-chip, Gelous and Seche Vite. Once it had totally dried, it was still a bit textured and not 100% smooth. I think some of the other swatches I've seen of this must be taken when the top coat is still wet, to get that amazing glossy finish. Just be warned, these are gritty. Just like the Nubar Sparkles.

It's hard to capture the holographic goodness of the glitter in photos. In the shade you don't see the multi-coloured sparkle, but then in the sun my camera spazzes out and doesn't show any sparkle either.

Here it is in the sun.

Holiday Splendor is very similar to China Glaze Atlantis. The only real difference is that the jelly base in Atlantis is slightly darker.

The other thing I only noticed today is that Blogger has updated the comments section and it now allows individual replies to each comment. Have I been under a rock and not noticed this for weeks, or is it just really new? Either way, YAY, I've always wanted to reply to individual comments and had considered going to another comment plugin. So expect to receive replies for as long as I can keep up with them.

Cavalry baseball nails #5

2012-01-15T20:06:00.000+11:00

Today was the last home series for the local Canberra Cavalry in the Australian Baseball League. The team were in second place on the ladder before the series and now they are tied for third place with three other teams. The boys lost four straight games on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, so in an effort to change things up a bit, I painted some Cavalry themed nails, grabbed the kids and headed out to the last game today.

For past reference here are Cavalry Nails #1, Cavalry Nails #2, Cavalry Nails #3 and Cavalry Nails #4.

Let me say I'm no Jane from Nailside when it comes to tape manis! The macro zoom does me no favours, cause you can see all my bleeding lines and dodgy black stripes. But from a distance these looked really awesome and I had several comments!

I did one coat of Ulta3 Lily white, one coat of Kleancolor metallic white, then did the taped sections using Kleancolor metallic orange. I used a long striping brush dipped in Kleancolor metallic black as the pin stripe. The a coat of Seche Vite top coat.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, my nails clearly made all the difference again today cause the boys finally came away with a win!

My Sugar Plum Fairy turns one

2012-01-14T21:06:00.001+11:00

My little baby girl turned one today. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY GAGA! I know it sounds cliched, but I really can't believe a year has gone by so quickly. Here's my little one, together with her pink monkey birthday cake I made.

For her birthday today I wore one of my new polishes I got off ebay, from the Color Club Beyond the Mistletoe collection. I can't tell you how much I love this collection!

This is Sugar Plum Fairy, and it just seemed to match the occasion. This is just one coat of Sugar Plum Fairy over violet coloured franken I made last year out of TKB pigment called Ultramarine Violet.

The glitter in this polish is predominately holographic, but with enough lavender/violet glitter colour the overall appearance of the polish. The base is totally clear. You could easily get opacity wearing three coats.

Here is the standard blurry shot as it shows the holo glitter sparkles so nicely.

And here it is in the shade where you can't really see the glitter sparkling.

The glitter in this collection are very thirsty. I'm wore four coats of top coat. Color Club top coat that came with the set, gelous, Ulta3 Non-chip and Seche Vite. Even with all that top coat there are still sections with that much top coat on!

I'm so in love with these polishes! If you like glitter polishes, then it really is a no brainer that you HAVE to get this collection.

Hope your having a great weekend. Mine should be a little quieter now that the Birthday and party are over with.

Nabi New Lime Glitter over Avon Electric Green

2012-01-12T21:42:00.000+11:00

Yep, I'm still layering chunky glitters over creme polishes, I just can't get enough of it.

The base colour is new funky colour my sister-in-law gave me for my birthday. It's Avon Electric Green and it just went so perfectly with this glitter. The glitter polish is Nabi New Lime Glitter and it was so much easier to work with than the last gold and red one. I was able to apply two coats of glitter and still finish with a relatively smooth and flat nail.

The glitter polish is made up of large green holographic hexes, medium green holographic hexes and small green hexes. These large holographic hexes are so freaking awesome.

Green polish like this is pretty out-there, it's the sort of colour you have to rock with a bit of confidence. But anytime I wear 'strange' colours like this, I get so many comments from people. And I don't mean 'eeww, look at her weird green nails' kinda comments, I mean 'holy crap, look at her green nails'. Ok, those two sentences sound identical, but say them with the right tone and the second one is such a compliment.

Top 11 of 2011

2012-01-11T20:06:00.001+11:00

Finally, here is my post with my top 11 polishes from 2011. I absolutely loved reading everyone's posts about there favourite polishes from the year. It's so subjective because I know there are polishes out there that I saw on other people's blogs that would have made it into my top 11 easily (hello Lynderella), but because I never got them before the year finished, I can't count them. Which is a shame, because I wont count them next year as I'm trying to keep the list to polishes released in that year.

I think these were all released in 2011, maybe the last two weren't? These are my favorite polishes, or polishes that really stood out to me because they were unique and nothing else similar at the time. I can't say that all these polishes would be in my all top 20 all-star polishes. Some, yes, but not all of them. But that's a post for another day.

So, in no particular order, here they are.

Chanel Graphite - The Fall collection from Chanel was really something special for me. I tried to pick a favourite from this collection, but I couldn't.

Chanel Peridot - I love gold polish and this gold duochrome is just perfect in my opinion. Just the right amount of warmth, not to yellow. Such an amazing polish from Chanel.

Ulta 3 Orchid - The Ulta3 Sping/Summer collection had one doozie of a polish. Orchid is the most perfect one coat purple shimmer polish. It really is a one coater that you can run out the door with. Such an amazing colour and only $2.25.

Hits Zeus - The HITS No Olimpo Collection was one of the stand out collections from this year for me. Lots of awesome polishes in that bunch! I chose Zeus as my favourite today, tomorrow I might choose a different one.

Ozotic Mish Mash 531 - While I mixed spectraflair with a multichrome polish and posted about it four months before Ozotic released these polishes, I've still included one in my top 11 because it really was a unique finish and Ozotic was the first to mix it into a commercially available bottle. I'm glad you liked my idea Lumineye ;)

OPI Excuse Moi - I haven't even worn this on it's own yet, but this polish still makes my top 11 for the year. I think this polish made me fall in love with glitter polishes all over again. I've actually seen this one of quite a few other peoples lists too.

Essence Blue Addicted - Wow a Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe dupe for around $2, it doesn't get much better than this. I love how deep and inky the jelly base is, yet it doesn't dull the glitter even a tiny bit.

Picture Polish Festival - Now I really could have put Cult Nails Clairvoyant here with Festival, but the fact that I haven't actually worn it yet to photograph, made it really hard to include in my list. Therefore it's Aussie cousin Festival get's the position. Multi-coloured flakies are awesome, and now, just like the crackle phase, so many polish companies are jumping on board and releasing flakie collections.

Ozotic Elytra 528 - Ozotic did a great job with the Elytra polishes. They were something unique and different that they bought into the market. After these we saw a few more very nice duo and multichrome glitters, like the Kleancolor chunky holos, but these Elytra polishes paved the way. My favourite of the bunch is 528.

Ozotic 515 - Ok, I'm not exactly sure whether this was released in 2011, I know I certainly got it in 2011 and it became widely available through Picture Polish in 2011, so that will do for me. Seriously there is nothing more to say about this polish.

Orly Lunar Eclipse -This collection was released very early 2011 I think, at least that's when I got it. This poor little sad photo (from when my blog post photos were small, my nails longer and rounder) still shows the amazing glowiness of this polish. This was my favourite from the Cosmic FX collection.

So there you have it. My top 11 polishes of 2011, delivered to you on 11 January!

Stay tuned for another top 11 of 2011 of my favourite franken polishes from the year!

Nabi Mix Big Glitter

2012-01-10T20:57:00.001+11:00

I have another Nabi glitter polish to show today, this one is called 'Mix Big Glitter'. The polish contains large and medium sized gold holographic hexes, medium sized blue holographic hexes and small blue and gold hexes all in a slightly red tinted base.

In the bottle this polish is pretty spectacular. But damn, if this wasn't the most difficult polish for me to apply in the history of applying polishes, then call me a crazy cat lady. These photos show two coats of the glitter over a Bourjois red, which I can't recall the name of, but it was one with one of those massive flat brushes I featured on this post.

I needed some sort of fancy lure to fish out the large glitter pieces, I had to dip the brush around five times to finally get a piece. Because of all that fishing in the bottle it became really thick and gluggy, but I didn't want to thin it because then it would be just as hard to fetch out the glitter.

Anyway, I persisted with the two coats, then a coat of Seche Vite and in the end it looked like I had massive thick gel nails on. The top of the nail was dry, but it was still really dentable when I went to bed. The next morning I took these photos and I've selected the best photos here that hide the flaws as much as possible. Check out the massive shrinkage I got on the ring finger, it pulled back about 1mm.

Oh yeah, and look at those embedded bubbles on this thumb nail. Because of the thickness of the polish, you couldn't feel the bubbles at all. I actually wish I could create these bubbles in a regular top coat, where the finish is totally smooth, as it might look like some really cool nail art effect.

This polish was still dentable after more than 24 hours when I decided to take it off, because I was starting to pick at the glitter pieces.

I totally love this polish, but for me it just needs more glitter to make it more usable. I feel like getting another bottle, straining them both to just get the glitter, then mixing them into my own suspension base to get a double saturated glitter. Man I wish I could just but solvent resistant glitters like these to franken with.

Nabi Blue Big Ball over Ulta3 Spring Shower

2012-01-08T20:21:00.000+11:00

Another Nabi glitter polish today. This is Nabi Blue Big Ball, one coat over Ulta3 Spring Shower.

I love the final look, but this glitter was a beeoch to apply. I literally had to place each large piece of glitter on the nail. I couldn't wipe down the nail at all cause all the large pieces of glitter would just wipe off.

This polish has large blue hex pieces and large silver holographic hex pieces, but I only managed to get one silver piece on one nail! There are also slightly smaller lighter blue hex piece and then small silver and blue holographic glitter.

Despite the difficulties I had applying this polish, the clear base in this polish dries quite dense, which means the glitter stays nicely beneath a glossy top and the result is a smooth nail. It really surprised me.

The glitters in this polish are awesome. What I love most about them is the size of the large hexes. I have heaps of glitter polishes, but most are just small and micro glitters. It's a shame this was so tricky to apply. But really who cares if it's a little hard to put on when the results are so pretty.

Oh yeah, can cause it was so tricky to apply, I ended up with bubbles, and lots of them, the tips of my nails looked like fizzy soft drinks. But, cause of the density of the polish, even the bubbles stayed beneath the finished layer.

I used the foil method to remove this, and it almost came off smoothly. Just some of those large blue hexes stayed stubbornly on my nail and had to be scratched off.

I'm going to go pick out another Nabi glitter to wear tomorrow, I just need to decided if it will be a green one or the red and gold one.

Nabi Glitter polishes - Gold big ball over Zoya Mimi

2012-01-07T21:14:00.000+11:00

I got some new Nabi polishes last week from a discount cosmetics shop on the other side of tow.n. Here is a spectacularly crappy photo of them taken on a piece of paper on top of the BBQ out the back! That's right, no fancy light box for me, your lucky there's not grease spot showing through the paper :).

I've been so into glitter polishes recently. Every time I go to put something on I pick up a glitter bottle and work out what I can match it with. This combo is Nabi 'Gold Big Ball', which is most certainly a Chinese import and not three free from the smell of it. Ohhhh I love the smell of toxic nail polish!

Gold Big Ball has three sizes of gold hex glitter, with smallest and largest pieces being holo gold glitter! Yell yeah, super sized gold holo glitter!

I layered one coat of Nabi gold big ball of two coats of Zoya Mimi. Application of the glitter was a bit tricky and I did need to search for the glitter pieces in the bottle and roughly place them on the nail. But the final look was definitely worth it.

I wore these nails to work on Thursday (I know, totally work appropriate right!) At the end of one meeting with some ladies in another division, one of them leaned over to me an said "Seriously, your nails were so distracting during that meeting". How cool is that! I'm used to distracting myself with my nails, but I love it when I can distract someone else too!

China Glaze Atlantis

2012-01-06T20:58:00.000+11:00

Today another polish I recently got because of reading someone elses blog. This time is was Kristy from The Polish Haven's fault for making me get the most magnificent China Glaze Atlantis, with this post back in October!

China Glaze Atlantis is a teal green jelly packed full with holographic glitter. These pictures are two coats of Atlantis, two coats of gelous and one coat Seche Vite. This is a thirsty glitter that will stay gritty if you don't layer on the top coat on. Of course you don't have to have lots of top coat if your ok with the whole sandpaper feel, but for me it's not just about the smoothness. Having a glossy top also makes the holo glitter shine much more.

I have to apologise for these photos of Atlantis. I usually take my photos in full sun, but all my sun shots of this were crappy. So these photos are taken under incandescent light indoors at night. My camera has a white balance setting, but even with it set to max for incandescent lighting my fingers look a strange yellow colour like I'm suffering jaundice.

And to make things worse, my best photos were ones that showed my fingers in a totally weird and cacky manner. What's going on here with my middle finger, it's poking forward and looks ginormous - please don't focus on my ginormous nail (it's really not sticking up at you), just focus on the pretties.

You ladies with your pretty photos on your fancy blogs are killing my wallet. My head says no more, by my heart smiles at the pretties!

NYX Girls - Dreamy Glitter

2012-01-05T20:22:00.000+11:00

I'm still running with the 'iridescent glitter over black' theme here with another polish that has been around for a while. This is NYX Girls Dreamy Glitter. It contains small gold glitter, iridescent pink stars, and medium sized iridescent green, shifting to blue hexes.

This is one coat over black, but with carefully picked up stars. I picked this beauty up at a dollar shop and totally love it.

I've seen some gorgeous swatches of this polish over blue and purple, so I'm definitely going to be wearing it again soon over one of those colours.

Cover Girl Ice Slicks Crystal over black

2012-01-04T20:24:00.000+11:00

While I'm working on my top 11 of 2011 post, here is a quick post with a NOTD. I've been having a run of wearing iridescent glitters over black recently, and this one is a pretty one that shifts from yellow/gold to aqua green.

This is Cover Girl Ice Slicks in Crystal, two coats over a black base.

This is such a pretty polish and is similar to the Ozotic Elytra in the way the glitter shifts colour, yet I don't see these old polishes getting much love. I know this is a pretty old polish, and sure to be discontinued. Does anyone know how old it is?

OPI I Lily love you over black

2012-01-02T20:06:00.000+11:00

At the end of November I saw a swatch of OPI I Lily Love You over very dark purple on Shatter me Claire's blog. I hadn't realised until then what an amazing flakie and irridesent glitter polish this was. I'd seen swatches of it on it's own, but it really grabbed my attention over the dark colour. So because of her blog post, off I went and grabbed this polish.

The base to I Lily Love You is a really sheer pink jelly. I don't think you would be able to get it opaque on it's own. Here is two coats, layers over a black base.

The particles in this are so varied and complex. There are irregular shaped pieces in various colours, smaller square pieces, and even smaller round glitters. All of the glitters and flakes are iridescent and really pop over a dark base

Thanks to your blog post Sarah Claire, I now have this beautiful polish.

Do you have I Lily Love You? And have your tried it over a dark colour?

Happy New Year Chromey goodness

2011-12-31T20:37:00.000+11:00

Happy New Year to everyone.

I have HUGE plans for this evening. As a mum of a a 3 year old and a nearly 1 year old, I'll be in bed by 10:30, I'll sleep in the new year and be up at around 6:30. I'm such a partly animal aren't I!

Despite my plans, I did put on something with a bit of zing. This is an older polish. Sally Hansen Canary Diamond Chrome Nail Makeup. For some stupid reason, I never got China Glaze Millennium (I only got 2030), thinking I had a good enough silver chrome. This is nice, but I don't think it has as much of a mirror finish as Millennium.

This was only one coat over Orly bonder. I like Orly bonder as a base for chrome polishes because it leaves a really shiny base. Chrome polishes always show every imperfection in the nail, so a nice shiny base helps it be smooth and glossy.

Picture Polish Hypnotic flakie cover

2011-12-30T21:01:00.000+11:00

Here is the third Picture Polish flakie cover, Hypnotic.

I think the flake colours that are in this are a teal green and orangey red. Then the teal green colour shifts to blue and the orangey red shifts to yellow/lime green. The teal green looks more emerald green in real life too, but my camera doesn't show that.

This one seemed to been the least dense of all three, either that or I just couldn't pick up as many flakes on my brush. The bottle certainly looks just as dense as the other two polishes, just it just didn't translate to the nail. This is three coats over a black base, with Seche Vite top coat. It doesn't really need the top coat as it is very glossy and smooth, but I always put on Seche Vite when I'm wearing a full mani.

I don't think this needs to be said, but this is a totally awesome polish. I also think it is totally unique. I thought that Finger Paints Asylum might have been similar, but checking swatches of it I think it's much more blue, whereas this is green.

Two words: LOVE IT!

Picture Polish Splendour flakie cover

2011-12-29T21:05:00.000+11:00

Today I have another brand new flakie cover from Picture Polish. This little beauty is called Splendour and it's really gorgeous.

I think Splendour is made up of orange and green irregular shaped flakes of various sizes, but because it is has a strong duochrome colour shift that shows green, red and yellow, it's really hard to tell what colour the flakes are because it changes all the time.

I found the flakies to be more dense in this polish than Festival, which is awesome. It meant I didn't have to go fishing for the flakes, they came up on the brush easily. This also had a very smooth finish, you could get away with no top coat as it's super shiny. These photos show two coats of Splendour over black and one coat of Seche Vite top coat.

Colour wise, I thought this may be similar to Nubar 2010 (and Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure) and it's true that the colours are the same. But Splendour seems to have the addition of some green flakes, whereas 2010 really only has the orange flakes that shift to green. The flakes in 2010 are also smaller. I actually really love them both, but I think I slightly prefer the larger flakes in Splendour because they sparkle more.

This polish looks like it would be similar to the new Finger Paints 'Flashy' polish, but again I think it only has the red flakes, not the extra green ones.

Here you can see the green shift of both polishes, but also how the green flakes in Splendour go slighly blue toned.

This is another totally awesome polish from the girls a Picture Polish. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think these are the first flaky polishes from an Australian brand. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie .... Yeah, you go girls! These polishes are a total winner.

These cost $11.90 and are available from Picture Polish. Ladies outside of Australia may think that $11.90 is a bit pricy. But here in Australia, where OPI retails for $20, Chanel for $39 and Revlon for about $12, this is a comparatively pretty good price still, especially for a flakie that is otherwise only available from Inglot or Nfu Oh for close to $20.

Ulta3 summer gelato collection

2011-12-27T21:07:00.000+11:00

Here is the latest collection from Ulta3. Canberra girls, I grabbed mine from the chemist next to Coles in the Gungahlin town centre. I was surprised to see another Ulta3 release this summer, given they released eight polishes in spring. Usually they only do two collections a year, maybe they are going to up that to one every season. I sure hope so.

The Ulta3 gelato collection is a set of six creme polishes. They are not brights and they are not pastels, they are somewhere in between.

First up is Violet Crumble. Arrrgggghhhh Violet Crumble *wipes drool from mouth* I can't remember the last time I had one of those. And now, damn I wish this polish was that metallic purpley blue from the Violet Crumble wrapper, that would have been totally awesome. Sadly it's not, instead it's dusty violet colour which is still pretty, just not awesome. This was three coats (and it needed all three!) with no top coat.

Blue Heaven. Oh yeah baby, this really is blue heaven. I totally love this one. There was a serious lack of decent blue cremes in the Ulta3 range, so this one fills a big hole in my opinion. This was three coats and a coat of Seche Vite top coat, again two coats were a bit streaky.

Kiwi Kaos - I'm surprised to see a green in this collection, given that they did three greens in the last collection. This is a toned down green that is quite wearable, unlike the rather hideous Frog Prince. This was three coats with no top coat. I really shouldn't have been lazy on this swatch and added the top coat, cause it would have looked so much better with it.

Lemon Tart - Very pretty light yellow. Streaky and horrible to apply. This was four coats with SV top coat, but once it dried it was great and very nice on the nail. This is the last one I swatched and I wore it as a full mani.

Mango Mayham - rich orange creme, but not neon or ultra bright like tangelo or tahiti. A unique colour in the Ulta3 range. With a name that includes the word Mango, I was expecting something more yellow, like mango flesh, mmmmmmm I have one on the bench I might go eat now! This was three coats with Seche Vite top coat.

Strawberry Sundae - A medium bright pink creme. Ulta 3 have a stack of pink cremes so I'm sure it's similar to something they have already released, I'm just not sure which one yet. I'm not a huge pink lover, but I'm really feeling this one at the moment.

The formula on all these was only OK. Very much like the last collection. Runny, but thick at the same time. I had a lot of trouble with the brushes from these polishes. The Ulta3 brushes used to be delicate and smooth, but I found these rather stiff. So much so that the brush left drag mark ridges through the polish as I wiped it over the nail. I had this same problem with the spring collection. I'm guessing they are probably using a lower quality brush now that the polishes are made in China, rather than made in Australia like all the previous polishes.

Despite the weird formula and crappy brushes, I totally love the colours. I also love collections like these that just go together and look like a set. They almost did this with the Spring collection from 2009 which were almost a set of pastels, except with Hot Spring and Spring Break.

Over all, yep they are totally worth their $2.25AUD price tag and are a great addition to my nearly complete set of Ulta3 polishes.

If anyone wants comparisons swatches just let me know what you want to see.

Merry Christmas 2011

2011-12-25T19:00:00.000+11:00

Merry Christmas everyone. It's the end of Christmas day here and the kids are exhausted from 100% play all day. We've had a lovely day at home with the family, and will be off tomorrow to visit the rest of the family.

Here is my Christmas day mani. The gold base is Orly Luxe, I then painted holly leaves using a fine brush and the dark green holo polish I showed here. I highlighted the leaved with China Glaze L8R G8R and black and then added red gems for the berries. The accent finger is a pimped up bottle of Ulta3 English Rose, which I added a little extra red and gold micro glitter to. It's such a totally awesome red polish now.

I love how the red gems glowed golden orange in the light.

I totally loved this mani, and because I pressed the gems into the outer edge of each nail I hardly even fiddled with them, which means they lasted well.

I hope you had a great day, or if your Christmas day is just beginning, I hope it is wonderful.

Chrsitmas Baubles

2011-12-24T21:32:00.000+11:00

Just a quickie tonight. Finally just got the kids to bed and still have presents to wrap before Santa arrives.

Here is a quick Christmas mani I wore yesterday. The base is OPI Designer de better from the Muppets collection. Totally love that polish which I just got in the mail on Friday. The baubles are stamped in Konad special polish in red and green, using the bauble image on the Bundle Monster plates.

From a distance this mani looks nice a Christmassy, but up close I think they more look like upside down balloons.

Goodnight everyone. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas with your friends and families.

Candy Canes

2011-12-22T22:33:00.000+11:00

Today's nails were inspired by a readers mani, which she sent me a photo of and link to her flickr account. scratchureuesout did an awesome candy cane mani in red and green and then put a spectraflair top coat over it. You can check it out here.

She inspired me to do candy cane nails. I haven't got around to adding the spectraflair top coat to it yet, I will do that tonight and photograph it again to add to another post later.

I used some fancy striping guides to get the nice even lines, then I used Konad special polish in red and painted some polish on the glass table top. I then dabbed the stamped into the polish to cover the tip, let it dry and then rolled it over the nail. It gave it a nice thin smooth coverage of polish and the tape came off without any bleeding.

The feature nail is another water decal from the "Fing'rs Holiday Nail Art Decals".

Oh, and how to you like my little nubbins. These are the shortest I've ever posted on my blog.

Ludurana - Maravilhosa holographic

2011-12-21T22:02:00.001+11:00

Bad luck comes in threes right? I'm officially up to five, the last straw for me on Tuesday night was breaking a nail! Damn it! I'm now totally nubbinized with the shortest nails I've had for a few years.

I've noticed a few girls sporting nubbins at the moment. Maybe it's cause of the time of year when we are all rushing around to get things done. I certainly know that is the case for me. I broke the nail on my car steering wheel. And you know what, I seem to break a disproportionate number of nails somehow relating to my car. Closing the door is a doozie for me, when you fingers slip off the door at the tip and flick, there goes one or two nails!

These aren't my nubbins, this is a swatch I did two weeks ago. This is Ludurana Maravilhosa. Google translates Maravilhosa to 'Wonderful', but surely it means 'Marvelous' (Damn it, now I have that Twelfth Man song in my head - if you know the song I mean then your a true Aussie who's getting a bit long in the tooth!)

As you can see Maravilhosa is a blue toned light pink holographic polish with a chrome metallic base.

The formula for this was OK, but again I got some small bubbles on a few fingers.

Here is a shade comparison photo with Maravilhosa, Ozotic 516 and Hits Hestia. All three of these polishes are very very similar.

Quick, off to finish my current mani. Good night and I hope none of you break a nail!

Holo holly holiday nails

2011-12-19T21:07:00.000+11:00

Here is my latest holiday mani. The base is a new custom polish I made, which is a few shades darker than the Fairway Green polish I made. I called the polish Holo holly. And of course I had to add some red to make the holly complete.

I put one layer of JQ red glitter which I bought of ebay earlier this year. It's strange glitter cause each piece curls slightly, rather than laying flat. Seche Vite smooths it right out, but the bends in the glitter make it look rough.

Here is Holo Holly on it's own. Unfortunately there was no sun, so I took a few photos with the macro LED light to show the holo off.

And on a non-nail relate note: Mum said I must have killed a china man, cause we've had some rotten luck over the last week or two. My husband dislocated his shoulder on Saturday night during a baseball game, bye bye season for him! My son tripped up the stairs and smashed his front teeth on the tiles, chipping the front of one off and pushing it right back up into the gum (poor little fella) Our pool solar heating has gone kaput and I spent $100 on a new probe and it still doesn't work. And today our TV started going brrrrrr, brrrrrr, brrrrr and wont even turn on. Come on, enough already ok!!

Picture Polish Festival over Aphrodisiac and Bombshell

2011-12-17T21:18:00.001+11:00

I'm so very happy to share with you today, Picture Polish's new Festival flakie top coat. I'm so excited to see them release this polish, as it is something very unique in the Australian market.

Festival flakie cover is a multicoloured flakie polish in a clear base. Now it's really difficult to tell what colour flakies are actually in this, because a number of them a duochrome flakes and change colour on different angles. But what I can tell you is the colours I see, and they are green, yellow, orange, blue, teal and an occasional purple/pink.

These pictures are three coats layered over Picture Polish Aphrodisiac.

So I know the first thing you're wondering is how does this compare to Cult Nails Clairvoyant? This next swatch shows three coats of Festival on the left and three coats of Clairvoyant on the right. I did three coats because I wanted to show the difference in the flakie coverage. In general terms, they both have the same flake colours, from what I can see. But clearly Clairvoyant has lots more flakies in it. This isn't a great swatch of Clairvoyant cause I got a really large flake right in the middle of my nail, an then all the other flakes got stuck on it. Clairvoyant also has more of the pink/purple flake than Festival does.

The other thing I noticed was Clairvoyant had a rougher finish. Festival is really very smooth, these photos have no top coat and Festival has a really beautiful cabochon effect.

I love this photo of the Festival bottle cause it looks so much like a white opal!

Here is Picture Polish Aphrodisiac on it's own. It's very dark indoors, but in the sun you can see what an amazing rich purple shimmer polish this is.

I also tried Festival over Picture Polish Bombshell, which I have shown on it's own here.

The outdoor reflection in this is pretty extreme, but I was trying to capture some of the multichrome shift.

Over all, I'm really impressed with this polish. The flake colours are beautiful, the formula is great and finishes really shiny without the need for a top coat to smooth it out. The only improvement it could have would be a more dense flakie coverage. That way I wouldn't have to do as many coats.

I'm guessing these Picture Polish flakie covers will be quite similar to the new Finger Paints ones that are officially released in January. But given that Finger Paints are very difficult to get here, in Australia, I'm so glad I have easy access to these beautiful polishes. I can't wait to get the other new flakie colours too!

These can be purchased from piCture pOlish for $11.90.

Ludurana - Emocionante multichrome

2011-12-16T20:08:00.000+11:00

I present for you today Ludurana Emocionante, which translated by Google is 'exciting'. And just like Big Kev used to say, "I'm excited" cause this is a special one! It is the same colour shift as Ozotic 504, which goes from dark blue through to pinks, purples, oranges and reds. But again it's in this polishes opacity that makes it super special.

These photos are three coats with Seche Vite top coat.

I really can't get over how well this covers the nail on its own. It probably does need the three coats, but they dry quickly so it's not too bad.

Here is the comparison photo against Ozotic 504:

index finger - one coat Emocionante over black
middle finger - one coat Ozotic 504 over black
ring fnger - three coats Emocionante no black base
pinky finger - three coats Ozotic 504 no black base.

You can really see how much more colour shifting pigment is in Emoncionante, both over black and on its own. I personally think it's better than Ozotic 504. I really love this one on it's own without the black base.

The down side is that these polishes are expensive. You can purchase from llrowe where you can get 8ml of Ludurana for $14USD or you could 15ml of Ozotic for $17.50USD. Of course you can also get Ozotic from Picture Polish for $14AUD.

Finally... a Christmas mani

2011-12-15T20:39:00.000+11:00

I told you yesterday I had a work Christmas lunch do/afternoon thingo and I had to do some sort of festive Christmas nails. I was hoping to do something with the new Picture Polish Festival flakie, but it didn't arrive in the post until just a few hours ago. So instead I picked traditional red and green.

I used Ozotic 518 as the red base and stamped with snowflakes from Konad plate M59, in white special polish. On the ring finger accent nail I painted a plain white nail and placed a Christmas tree water decal from a pack of "Fing'rs Holiday Nail Art Decals". The only thing I might have done different was put a holo top coat on the white before putting the decal on.

I chose to do the snowflakes because we are having the coldest start to summer in south east Australia in something like 50 years. Not that there is any chance of snow cause it's still around 23 degrees, but when it should be 33 it's kinda strange.

I'm really going to try and push for as many Christmas mani's as I can muster in the remaining few days before Christmas, but it's hard because when you create something you love, it's so hard to take it off. I will probably still have this on on Saturday.

Who walked over my Power Thief

2011-12-14T21:08:00.000+11:00

Here is another really cute design that I did using ENAS soft nail art stamp number A15.

I wanted an earthy colour as the base and my brand new bottle of Cult Nails Power Thief was just the right base. Its a chocolately brown with a silver shimmer, but there is also the tiniest bit of a pink shimmer too.

The stamp I used has two sizes of the paw print, so I just chose to use the small one. This took a while to do because I did each paw one by one, but the effect was really cute. My thumb was also stamped, but I forgot to include that in my photos.

I'm so glad I gave ENAS another go. With a bit of practice, I'm feeling much happier with the results. Multi coloured design here I come, but tonight I putting on my first Christmas mani for a work Christmas do tomorrow. So I'm off to look at all your blogs to get inspiration about what to put on.

Easy Nail Art Stamp revisited with baseball nails #4

2011-12-13T22:15:00.000+11:00

I posted about these soft nail art stamps back in March. If you've read that post you'll see that I didn't have much luck using them. I received a follower request asking me to do a follow up review. So here goes.

We had another home series with the baseball on the weekend, so I had to think of something new to do with my nails. I've already done Cavalry Nails #1, Cavalry Nails #2, Cavalry Nails #3. This seemed like a perfect time to pull out the baseball soft nail stamp. I chose to do a very simple design with one colour, just to see if I could get it to work. The bats as an accent nail on one hand and the ball as an accent nail on the other hand.

There is now a lot more information available on the interwebs about this product. It's generally known as ENAS, which stands for Easy Nail Art Stamp. I have also watched a number of video tutorials and read other people's reviews, so I felt much more prepared to attempt this again.

Here are my two stamps. I just used konad special polish in black, painted over the design lightly then blotted it off on paper. It hardly used any polish, certainly no more than a regular konad design anyway.

Here is my first transfer, photo taken imediately after application before top coat. I was so freaking happy because the design came out perfect!!

And now the ball on the other hand. Yep, it was pretty much perfect too!

Here is my final look. I wore JOSS brand polish in Wipe Out, which is a bright neon orange creme. I then layered one coat of JOSS Duotone Pink Sparkle. It was so amazingly bright, retina searing bright!. The duotone top coat shifted from pink to orange, so depending on the angle my nail were either slightly pink toned, or flaming hot glowy orange. I topped everything, including the stamp, with a coat of Seche Vite.

And now something special for you today, a picture of my right fingers. Rarely seen, these nails are nearly always shorter and with filed away sides where they peel. But at least this proves that I'm not a one armed mutant.

I've since done another really cute design with another of my ENAS, although again it's only a single colour stamp. I will share that tomorrow, along with some tips of what I have now learned my use of ENAS. This weekend I am definitely attempting a multi coloured stamp design.

Ludurana - Supremo holographic

2011-12-12T21:39:00.001+11:00

You know I haven't done a single Christmas mani yet! I can't believe Christmas is less than two weeks away. I've really got to get into some Christmas nails cause I'm seeing so many gorgeous ones on blogs at the moment.

Usually at this time of year at work, things as starting to quieten down and you have a bit of time to stock take on where you are at. Not this year. I don't know why it is, but this year there are so many people at work who need stuff finished before the end of the year, and at the moment I just don't see how it's all going to get done.

So at the end of a long and crazy work day, after my littlies are asleep, I love to play with my polish. It relaxes and unwinds me.

Today's polish is another from the Ludurana Aurora Boreal collection, which can be purchased from llrowe. This is this prettiest lavender colour holographic polish. I did three coats here, but only needed two. I just did three cause that is what I was doing with all these polishes.

So now a quick colour comparison with some other purple/lavender holos. On the index and pinky are Supremo, on the middle finger is OPI DS Original and on the ring finger in HITS Dionisio. I've previously compared Dionisio with Ozotic 513 , which is why I didn't include it here.

As you can see, Supremo is more blue toned. It is also much more opaque than OPI DS Original.

Whoo hoo, another unique holo colour! And no bubbles from this Ludurana holo.

Ludurana - Reluz multichrome

2011-12-10T20:55:00.001+11:00

Ludurana Reluz from the Aurora Boreal collection is a blue to purple to pink shifting multichrome. I google translated Reluz, and it came back with 'glitter', which I thought was a bit odd for a mulitchrome polish. A holo called glitter, absolutely, but a multichrome? Brazilian readers, is that translation correct? Does Reluz mean Glitter?

Anyway, this is another fantastic polish with a very noticeable colour shift. This was two coats, no base or top coat as I did this as a swatch, not a NOTD.

Anyone that knows their Ozotic multichromes will immediately notice that Reluz has the same colour shift as Ozotic 506. But again it's in the polish opacity where these Ludurana polishes are different, and in my opinion, totally awesome.

Now I've just realised how lazy I was and I didn't even caption this comparison photo to tell you what was what. Sorry about that! This comparison shows:

Index: Reluz one coat over black
Middle: Ozotic 506 one coat over black
Ring: Reluz two coats
Pinky: Ozotic 506 three coats.

So just like I reported with the green multichrome Admirável, I love how you can wear this polish on it's own and not have to layer it over black if you don't want to. You do get a slightly stronger multichrome effect over black, but you still get a very good multichrome shift just wearing the polish on it's own.

But, again I suffered some bubbles with this polish. What gives! I never get bubbles. I haven't seen anyone else complain of them, so maybe it was the weather, maybe it was me. I will report back another time when I wear this as a NOTD to see if I got bubbles.

BTW: I was just re-reading this post before putting it live and noticed a spelling error that the spell check didn't pick up for me, and rightly so. But, note to self: ensure you type shift correctly, as these polishes do not have a great colour shit!

Ludurana - Notável holographic

2011-12-09T20:00:00.001+11:00

Back to a holographic today from the Ludurana Aurora Boreal collection. This is Notável, which translated to English is 'remarkable'. And let me tell you, this polish certainly is remarkable!

Notável is a light grey holographic polish. It's most definitely not silver, it's a light charcoal.

I love this polish so much. Great holo effect and smooth application. No bubbles for me with this one, like the last two I wore. This was two coats, over Nail Tek II foundation and Seche Vite on top.

This polish really reminded me of one of my absolute all time favourite polishes. China Glaze Lets do it in 3D from the Kaleidoscope collection. Here is the comparison swatch. I also put HITS Zeus in there for a comparison, cause it's also a grey holo.

This last shot is in the shade to show the base colours better, without all that holo rainbow getting in the way. This photo shows the particle size a bit better too, where you can see the larger particles in Let's do it in 3D that make it look speckled.

I love that these Ludurana Aurora Boreal holos aren't just a rehash of the more common holo colours. Well some of them are (like the silver one) but it sure is nice to be able to get some unique colours too, especially when you have as many holos as I have managed to collect.

Ludurana - Admirável Multichrome

2011-12-08T21:48:00.000+11:00

Here is the multichrome amazingness that is Ludurana Admirável.

The colour shift in the polish is identical to Ozotic 503 - the polish that is nay impossible to get these days, unless you managed to scoop one up through Picture Polish when they had them available earlier this year.

But there is something very special about these Ludurana polishes compared to Ozotics, but I will get to that a bit further down. First up, here is some Admirável spam.

The big difference with this polish, compared to Ozotic 503 is in its opacity. Ludurana Admirável is much more opaque. You can get total coverage in three coats, whereas three coats of Ozotic 503 on it's own is still very sheer.

I really love that I can get this opaque on it's own as I often get tired of a black base because I feel my nails look a little dirty when I wear one. You know when you wearing a pretty colour on top, but underneath the tip its all dark and constantly has you making sure it's clean under there.

Here are some comparison shots of Admirável against Ozotic 503.

It is worth noting though, that both Ludurana Admirável and Ozotic 503 look identical applied over a black base.

Again for some reason I had a few issues with bubbling with the Ludurana, I'm guessing it was more to do with user error and rushing my mani, rather than a formula issue. But I'll reserve judgement until I wear this again.

These polishes are available from llrowe (or through an awesome swap buddy in Brazil).

Ludurana - Superior

2011-12-06T20:44:00.001+11:00

So many new polishes I don't know where to start. But I had to start somewhere and the sun was out, which means holos!

This is Ludurana Superior from the Aurora Boreal collection. The collection has six holos and six multichromes. I'm going to alternate a holo and a multichrome each day.

Superior is a yellow gold holo. The particles in this look very spectraflairesque. That is, this polish would match in well with the Ozotic holos.

The colour is very simiar to China Glaze L8R G8R from OMG Collection, but the holo effect is completely different.

This was three coats, you could definitely get away with two coats, but I wanted to ensure a nice rich bottle colour for my photos. Application was smooth and easy, no bald spots, but I did notice that I got a few tiny bubbles as it dried. I never get bubbles so I'm not sure what that was about. A coat of Seche Vite quicky covered the bubbles and also didn't dull the holo effect.

I got this polish from a swap, but you can purchase through llarowe.

Essence Blue Addicted

2011-12-04T21:04:00.000+11:00

This is one beautiful polish that is generally agreed to be a dupe of Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe. Dark blue jelly with small square blue glitter and medium sized blue and green hex glitter.

I purchased two bottles of these as they are only small 6ml bottles. I'm glad I did because I used three layers to achieve this look. I wanted to use this colour on its own rather than layering with it, because I really wanted to have the depth of pieces of glitter suspended in the various layers of polish and overlapping each other.

Purchased from Target for $2.55. Whoo Hoo.

This was Nail Tek II foundation, three coats of Blue Addicted, one coat of gelous and one coat of seche vite. Look how smooth and glossy it is. That's the gelous working for me!!

This mani totally rocked. I wore it to work on Friday and the security guard at the front entrance noticed my nails and commented how cool they looked. I love it when total strangers notice your nail polish!!

Birthday Haulage

2011-12-03T18:30:00.002+11:00

Whoo hoo, Happy Birthday to me today! Boo Hoo, my husband is on the road with the Canberra Cavalry baseball team on the other side of Australia, in Perth. Seriously he couldn't be further away unless he left the country.

So whatis there to pep up a girl? Awesome nail mail. The best thing about all this nail mail is that it wasn't even for my birthday, it just arrived in time for my birthday.

First is my Ludurana Aurora Boreal. I did a swap for these polishes with the sweetest Rafa from Nails Ink. They were wrapped in the beautiful way with purple bubble wrap and cellophane bags with hearts on them. It really was like opening a birthday present. Thank you Rafa!

I didn't get Espetecular, and I see that llarowe doesn't sell it on her site either. But looking at bottle pics it looks very similar to Fascinate. Rafa also included a Risque polish that looks like a Chanel Paradoxal dupe. Below are all the holos. Arrrgggggh *wipe drool from mouth*

Next, after seeing Stefs post about Essence being available in Target, I did some googling and discovered that as of Thursday they are now available in every Target in Australia, not just selected stores. So I hauled arse over to the Canberra city target to check it out. Canberra ladies, don't bother checking it for a week or two, the display stand was well and truly picked over, with less that 1/3 of polishes left.

But the polish Gods must have been smiling on me, because there were still two bottles of Blue Addicted left. Blue Addicted is the dupe for Deborah Lippmann's Across the Universe, which after seeing Carli's post about it, I had to have. STAT!

Sitting next to that is Nfu Oh #51. I have been trying to get this polish for at least two years. I had all the other Nfu Oh Flakes through Vivid Nails, but they were never able to get me this last allusive polish. The most awesome Erina got me this bottle. Thank you so much!!

I received my Cult nails order. The Superheros collection. I can't wait to try them. Clairvoyant. WOW. It may seriously be the most awesome polish ever! There's a very cool looking duochrome one in there too - Mind Control. It looks to be a very special collection.

Finally, I had a gathering with my family last weekend to catch up for my birthday and my Dad's, who's was the week earlier. I baked a cake. The ladies instantly knew what it was, but one of my brothers was scratching his head for a while. Not my best decoration, but it did kinda looks like a metallic orange gold bottle of polish. It tasted yummy too.

I just don't have time at this time of year to do swatching, so it will have to be NOTD for all those bottles above.

Excuse Moi layered over Metallic Red

2011-12-02T22:06:00.000+11:00

It's my birthday tomorrow and I've got an early birthday present to show today.

I'm proud to say that my mum and I recently converted my muggle sister-in-law to the world of polish. I was so totally excited to received one of the OPI Muppets polishes from her and the family when we caught up last weekend. I love this so much that I'm going to have to grab a few more of the Muppets polishes. Watch out Warm & Fozzy, Rainbow connection and Designer, de Better (I'm coming for you!)

I wore one coat of a dollar shop polish brand called NURY in Metal Red. This is a gorgeous colour, but I didn't remember to photograph it on it's own. I then layered two coats of OPI Excuse Moi, then gelous, then Seche Vite top coat.

This layering was so pretty. My photos just don't do it justice.

Excuse Moi is such an interesting polish. It's opaque enough to wear on it's own in two coats, but it also is perfect for layering too. Because of it's pink base, I didn't realise there were so many interesting glitter colours in this polish until I got the macro shot. I think that is why it looked so pretty on the nail.

I only took this off cause I scored a bottle of Essence Blue Addicted at Target yesterday and I had to kill that Across the Universe lemming immediately! I will be putting this laying combo back on again soon. Love it!

Rona Caribbean Blue pigment custom polish

2011-12-01T20:48:00.000+11:00

I recently got some more frankening supplies from the Aussie supplier Beauty World. Previously I have got some of the Rona Volcanic Sparks powders which I made into a top coat. They also have two other Rona pigments. Caribbean Blue and Volcanic Fire.

Firstly here is Caribbean Blue, which again I made as a top coat. This is two coats layered over black.

Remind you of anything?

Aqua blue shifting through to purple.

I really couldn't believe how much this one is almost a dead on dupe for the Models Own Aqua Violet.

Of course I did a quick comparison swatch. From left to right: Index Caribbean Blue, Middle Models Own Aqua Violet, Ring Luna Blue top coat.

Same order, from left to right: Index Caribbean Blue, Middle Models Own Aqua Violet, Ring Luna Blue top coat.

Caribbean Blue and Models Own Aqua Violet are basically identical. They are all in the same colour range, but Luna Blue pigment from TKB just has slightly larger particles.

I've got a few grams of this pigment, so I think I will do some mixing with tints to make an actual polish, not just a top coat.

ADORme - Metallic Green

2011-11-30T20:34:00.000+11:00

I've been so busy lately that I haven't done any swatching, and I've only been changing my mani every two - three days. One of those manis was an amazing dark blue glitter franken that I made, but stupid me only photographed it in VGA mode (which is what I set the camera to when taking photos of the colour morphing powder/spectraflair envelopes before I post them). So the photos I took of that mani are just terrible and I refuse to post them here. I will have to redo them.

After this post I officially have no spare swatch photos to post!

This polish is one my mum picked up at the local dollar shop. The brand is ADORme and they stink to high heaven. But the polish is great. It wore well and covered in two coats easily. In fact it would probably be ok to stamp with as well.

I love foil finishes, and I didn't have one this colour in my collection, so it was a great score. It was also under $2.

I love finding these random brands from China, the problem is that next time you visit the store it's unlikely that you will see the same brand or colours again. So if you see something you like, grab it then.

Also, I'm looking for some recommendations for a cuticle remover. The ones that you paint around your nails and they dissolve the dead skin off the edge of your nail near the cuticle. If anyone has a good recommendation I'd be very grateful.

Cavalry Baseball nails #3

2011-11-28T21:07:00.000+11:00

I said I was going to do Canberra Cavalry baseball nails for every home game, so here are the nails I wore for this weekends home series.

The team finally got white uniforms for home games this season, so because they were wearing their whites, I decided to as well (with an accent nail). I don't do accent nails very often, but I really love them. I think I will do them more!

I also layered a Spectraflair top coat over the white. It looks amazing. Holo topcoat over white certainly curbs my lemming for Glitter Gal Light as a Feather.

The orange polish is Picture Polish Citrus. It's the perfect bright orange creme. A lovely summer colour.

Here is a close up of my accent nail. This is a water decal that I had made up from a site on eBay. The only tricky bit is that the decals are on transparent paper, so I have to create a white dot on my nail. I did this by punching a hole in a piece of paper and then sticking that to our glass table. I then used that paper as a konad template and put my polish in the hole, wiped it off, picked up the polish circle and stamped it on. It worked amazingly well. And the hole punch I had was the perfect size for the shaded baseball on the decal.

Here is a close up of the holo topcoat on the white. Sooooooo purdy!!!

And now a quick story about the local wildlife.

Yesterday Mr Three was playing out in the backyard and came sprinting inside. He told me he saw a really big dinosaur outside. I grabbed my camera and followed him out. I asked him where it was and he walked me up to under the apple tree. "Don't get too close mummy, you don't want it to bite you". Of course there was nothing to be seen anywhere, but we have now figured out that he saw some sort of lizard! We've had blue tongue lizards in the backyard before, but I'm not sure what this one was.

While out there I heard another strange sound which I investigated. Sitting on the side fence was this very cute and fluffy baby kookaburra. The kookaburra's have been laughing their heads off here recently with all the stormy and wet weather. It's mother and father were flying around in the gum trees too. I snapped a picture of one of them with a MASSIVE spider in it's mouth, but forgot that the camera setting was only on VGA and not 10MP. D'oh! But then again, I'm sure not too many of you would want to see that spider in the birds mouth. We grow them big down here!

The other week when I was playing golf, there was a huge troop of kangaroos (and apparently 'troop' is the correct terminology for a group of them!) I really wished I had taken my camera to show my international readers just how close the roos roam near us down here! I want to share more pics of the local wildlife, I hope you all don't mind.

Models Own - Purple Blue

2011-11-26T23:10:00.000+11:00

So we all know that the Models Own Beetlejuice collection is awesome, right? And we all agree that the names are crap, right? And we've all see lots of swatches on every one's blogs, right? And now you wish we would all just move right along onto the next big thing? I'm starting to feel just a little bit over this collection right now, but I must finish with my last post about Purple Blue.

Here it is in all it's glory. The blue in this is a very interesting steel blue, with a very metallic look in brighter light.

Next up is the comparison shot. It's almost identical to Orly Cosmic FX Galaxy Girl, except Models own Purple Blue is more purple looking. Blue Purple is on the left, Galaxy Girl on the right. My index finger looks like it has a strange bend in it, but it's just the shadow created by the sliding door.

That's it, I'm done with the Beetlejuice collection. I'm really glad I got it, and I thinks it's awesome that it is a regular line. Especially as there are so many polishes that are dupy of the amazing Orly Cosmic FX collection.

I'm starting to feel a bit ho hum about just plain polish on my nails at the moment. I think I need to spice things up with some nail art, stamping, decals etc.

Models Own - Pinky Brown

2011-11-25T20:42:00.000+11:00

Models Own Beetlejuice Pinky Brown. Yep you know the deal, it's pink, it's brown, it's beautiful.

Again, the back lit acute angle really brings out the colour shift.

And the comparison this time is:

Models Own Pinky Brown on the index finger,
Orly Cosmic FX Space Cadet on the middle finger and
Rona Volcanic Sparks top coat over black on the ring finger.

All are different and oh so gorgeous. Sorry for the boring post.

Models Own - Gold Green

2011-11-24T21:02:00.000+11:00

Models Own Beetlejuice collection Gold Green is a gold shimmer base with a green duochrome shift. It's not the strongest duochrome, but it's a very interesting olive golden green. This is three coats on it's own.

This picture used the LED light on my macro setting, and it shows off the golden shimmer well.

Like the other polishes in the collection, you can see the duochrome shift the best when you view the nail on an acute angle with back lighting. That is how I took this photo and you can see how green this polish goes. It's really pretty.

This comparison is against Ozotic 507. I totally forgot to compare it next to Chanel Peridot, but you can check out Kristy's comparison at the end of her Beetlejuice post.

Models Own Gold Green is on the index and ring fingers, Ozotic 507 is on the middle and pinky. Both are three coats on their own.

The angle, back lit picture is where you can really see the difference between these two polishes. As you can see the Ozotic 507 shift is more of a aqua blue, whereas Models Own Gold Green really shifts to more of an emerald green.

After seeing how green the MO Gold Green polish shifted, I decided I also needed to compare it to the Gold to Green colour morphing powder franken. So to make sure I compared apples with apples, I removed everything and applied a black base. I then put two coats of each polish over black.

MO Gold Green on the index, Gold to Green colour morphing franken on the index and Ozotic 507 on the ring finger. This is where the colour morphing franken really shows off. Just look at that green in the middle!

When comparing the gold colours you can see that the colour morphing franken looks much warmer, almost red, in fact I even checked the bottle again to make sure I didn't put on the red to green polish.

So, all similar, but no dupes. If I have to pick one of them as my favourite Gold to green duochrome, I think I couldn't, because my bottle of Chanel Peridot wins that category hands down.

Models Own - Emerald Black

2011-11-23T20:19:00.006+11:00

Emerald Black from the Models Own Beetlejuice collection is very black. So black that almost every photo I took of it, it just looked plain black. But it does have a green shimmer and also hiding beneath the depths of the black is actually a violet blue colour shift.

Unfortunately, it's really difficult to see the blue shift very well on the nail, and even hard to capture it on camera. But I think I managed to sneak a bit of it in, in the second photo.

At this acute angle, with lighting from behind, you can see the blue, you can also see how blue it is in the bottle at this angle too.

This shot is with artificial light, and probably shows what it looks like most of the time.

And with the LED macro light.

The only polish I have that shifts from green to blue is my colour morphing top coat. So I put a layer over black on the index and pinky fingers to compare the difference.

As you can see, the blue shift is identical and below, the green base is identical too. The only difference is that the Models Own polish is a very pigmented black, which means you lose most of the shimmer.

I love it idea of this polish, but for me it's just a bit too richly pigmented with black, resulting in the loss of much of the duochrome shift.

Models Own - Aqua Violet

2011-11-22T21:09:00.000+11:00

Oakey doakey everyone. There are lots of gorgeous swatches of the Models Own Beetlejuice collection popping up on blogs at the moment, but unlike all those very organised ladies who swatched the entire collection for a post, your going to have to make do with one polish at a time from me.

But, I have done lots of comparison pictures to try and make up for it, and really there are just far too many photos to do more than one polish at a time.

First up, Aqua Violet which, together with the rest of this collection, takes the prize for the dullest names in the history of dull and boring names.

Here is Aqua Violet on it's own, three coats. Very pretty aqua to violet duo-chrome shift.

Now some comparisons. Firstly against Ozotic 505, which also shifts from aqua to purple. From left to right:

Index - one coat Aqua Violet over black
Middle - one coat Ozotic 505 over black
Ring - three coats Aqua Violet (no black base)
Pinky - three coats Ozotic 505 (no black base)

At some angles Ozotic 505 on it's own looks similar to Aqua Violet, but in reality, Ozotic 505 is so sheer it's not really worth comparing. Over black, the purple shift in Ozotic 505 is much stronger than Aqua Violet.

My second comparison is against two of the Custom Polishes I made with TKB Pigments (Luna Blue Moondust and Cherika Moon Star Bites)

Index - one coat Aqua Violet over black
Middle - one coat Luna Blue over black
Ring - three coats Aqua Violet (no black base)
Pinky - two coats Cherika Moon over black.

Both the custom polishes with TKB pigments were a really close colour match, although the larger glass fleck particles in Cherika Moon give it a totally different appearance.

The Luna Blue moondust was a the closest match to Aqua Violet, but it was actually much more sparkly in the sun. I think I actually prefer the Luna Blue moondust polish over the Models Own polish.

Pimped up frankens

2011-11-21T20:37:00.000+11:00

I have a couple more frankens for you today. These are two that I made up about a year ago, but I rarely wore because they were settled at the bottom of the bottle and I couldn't be stuffed shaking them like crazy to fix them up.

But now that I got some suspension base, I poured off the clear that was settled at the top and replaced it with some suspension base. Whoo Hoo, they look super awesome in the bottle now.

This first polish is made with TKB Copper reflecks, 1/4 a bottle of black and the remainder suspension base.

I ended up being a rich and sparkly chocolatey brown.

The TKB Reflecks are very fine but have a glass fleck appearance.

This next polish is a bit of a mash together of a few things, and because I did it a year ago I don't actually remember what went into it. I know there is lots of green glitter, a little gold glitter and some silver holo glitter. I originally put some green pigment in too, because the clear polish that I poured off was very green.

Because I poured out the green base, I added some new green tint, which was Ferric Ferrocyanide and Yellow 10 tint, plus filling the bottle with suspension base.

I originally called this polish "lights on the tree" because the holo sparkles looks like Christmas lights on the bright green tree.

Just in case you hadn't checked, TKB is now shipping suspension bases internationally!! I think the price that they are shipping it for is really quite good. I was expecting it to be a lot more expensive than that.

Here are the basic prices for 480ml of suspension, which includes shipping:

Canada: $39 = $1.22 / 15ml bottle or 40 cents / 5ml bottle.
Rest of the world: $69 (but they say ONLY IF your country allows the import of nail polish?!?! they say they will have a list of countries soon) = $2.15 / 15ml bottle or 72 cents / 5ml bottle.

Sure it's not cheap, but at least it is available. They are also selling in other various sizes so you can mix bases and tints. It's been a real long time waiting girls (nearly a year) but now almost everyone can get some base.

Glitter Gal - Yellow Gold 3D Sparkle and Lizard Belly

2011-11-20T21:18:00.000+11:00

A friend recently sent me this bottle of Glitter Gal 3D Sparkle polish in Yellow Gold. I didn't own any of the 3D sparkle polishes, so this was such a wonderful surprise to receive.

I had imagined yellow gold to be a rather brassy and warm toned polish, but this certainly not what I expected, in a really good way. I love cool toned golds, and this is exactly the right shade in my opinion.

The holo in this polish is more of a micro holo glitter, so it's not a linear holographic, but it also isn't like Ozotic 604, which is a scattered larger particle holo. This is a scattered, micro holo glitter, which was still pretty smooth to the touch.

Next is Lizard Belly. This polish has been blogged about to death, and it's easy to see why (although I actually found this a little tricky to photograph for a holo). Like others have said, this is so green it's almost black, but the holo effect is beautiful (although I personally think the bottle looks a little more holo than it does on the nail)

Application for both these polishes was smooth and easy. Both polishes are two coats.

I also received a free double ended lip pencil with my order, which I'm happy to report is beautiful to use. Both colours in the pencil are nice, not the hideous sorts of colours you usually get with a freebee. Oh and unlike the delivery issues with my first order, I got my package in record time.

I can't wait to see what names win the Glitter Gal naming comps. I didn't enter. I struggle enough with coming up with names for my own polishes. I hope they pick good ones! It will also be interesting to see what price their new larger bottles sell for.

Custom polish - Coinage

2011-11-19T22:11:00.000+11:00

Lynderella's latest collection has a polish called Change in it, and I fell in love with it the instant I saw it on her blog. Unfortunately she doesn't ship internationally, so if you want to get her polishes you have to find someone in the USA that would be willing to buy on your behalf and ship to Australia.

I had someone lined up who kindly offered to arrange it for me, but I missed the opening of her shop by 4 hours and therefore missed out on getting included in the order. DOH!

So I figured I will pull out all my glitters to see what I could mash together.

I created this custom polish, which I have called Coinage.

I really struggle photographing glitters, so you will see this polish in various lighting and tones as I took photos over two days. I actually wore this polish for four days, which is like a record for me. I just loved it that much. This was three coats, with no underwear. I was really happy with the opacity.

This polish has 18 different glitters and flakes. There is silver holo hex's in two sizes, gold holo hex's in three sizes, chartreuse coloured hex's, brilliant gold hex's, pale gold hex's, copper hex's, orange hex's, micro glitter in silver, brown, desert sand, copper and cinnamon, and gold, copper and bronze reflecks glitters. Holey hell that is a lot of glitter in one bottle. I can't believe I actually had that many gold toned glitters!

I was also gifted a bottle of Gelous to try as a top coat to smooth out glitters. This mani had a coat of Gelous and a coat of Seche Vite and it was shiny and smooth. I love Gelous, I can't believe I had never tried it to smooth out glitter polishes. It really does make a difference. Thank you!!