Christmas Has Come Early For Me

Actually, I need to be honest about the early Christmas I'm about to show you and say it came a week ago when I went to see Tasha. The mailman came at the right time and Tasha gifted me this beautiful little Essie bottle last Tuesday.

I present to you my four-month-old lemming, Essie's Penny Talk from their Mirror Metallics Collection. The expression 'Woohoo!!!' cannot express the excitement I feel when I'm holding this beautiful shade of rose gold. Not trying to get too deep here, but this polish has stopped me looking at other polishes. It has completed my collection. I love it that much. I don't want any other. I would marry it if it was a person (am I showing my excitement yet?)

I'm gonna stop drooling over it and show you my swatches.

This polish is a bit strange. In some lights, it looks like a gold loaded with lots of fine silver shimmer, sometimes it shows beautiful rose gold shade. Even when Tasha opened her bottle we were both confused as to whether it was the right colour or not. It was, it just changes a bit depending on light.

Now onto the formula, it is streaky, voiding the mirror effect of the collection name.It also drags if you aren't quick enough with the application. Quick meaning a couple of seconds. In the swatch above I used two thick-ish coats where I applied too much polish and then removed the excess with the brush. They are still not perfect but they are the best I could do. I didn't add any top coat either. I wanna see how long it will last on my fingers.

I usually don't buy Essie bottles because of their Australian $18.95 price tag, delay-of-season availability and thin brushes but this colour is fairly unique at the moment. This collection reminds me a lot of colours used on in the late 90's, early 00's. I remember catching the bus to school when I was twelve and I saw this girl, she must have been a couple of years older than me, wearing bright blue metallic lipstick and matching nails. At the time, I thought she was the epitome of coolness. Fourteen years later, I'm still loving the metallics.

A little while back, Tasha asked me what my favourite polish was. I had a couple but I couldn't really just select one. Now, I would say Penny Talk is the favourite, hands down.

Could you pick one out of your collection to be named favourite? Have you had a long time lemming that you've recently satisfied?

Til next time, 

Laura

Dry Marble with Face of Australia Pastels

 Browsing through YouTube I came across this video from MissJENFABULOUS. I had actually seen it when it first came out back in June but I was browsing through her channel. Yes, I'm a fan of hers and she has some cool ideas.

So as a good 'Monkey See, Money Do'-er that I am, I brought out my lightest coloured polishes and created this mani.

Excuse the lobster-coloured hands and shiny cuticles, the colours of the polishes are the best I've captured and my cuticles have been way too dry from work. 

Polishes used: 

White (as a base): Rimmel London I <3 Lasting Finish in London Clouds

From left to Right: All Faces Of Australia from their Pastels Collection. After Dinner Mint, Boys 'N' Berries, Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy and I'll Take You To The Candy Shop. 

Top Coat: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri

I'm really happy with the result and the technique is super easy. Including drying time and clean up, this mani only took me about twenty minutes. I also need to say, even though the formula in Face Of Australia polishes isn't generally great, I'm really loving these polishes for their slow drying time. Basically, it means that I can play around with them to create nail art (like this marble) and if I stuff it up, I can take it off without too much trouble. I'm seeing the positive on these polishes... Plus they were $1.65 each when I bought them. :)

What do you reckon? Would you try this technique? Maybe other colours? Oooh, I might try this with some metallics...

There's something really exciting (for me, at least) that I wanna show you guys in the next couple of posts. It might involve a long time lemming... Stay tuned.

Til next time, 

Laura

Glitter Skittle

Not sure if you guys have noticed but skittled manis rock my boat. In this occasion, I ended up with a heap of different coloured glitters thanks to Tasha's stash. I would say Tasha has a very different taste in polishes that I do. She tends to go for pastels and lighter colours while I usually go for bright colours and in your face finishes. It's actually quite refreshing to see (and use) someone else's stash to try something different and expand the my colour horizons. Or I could say I just got more lemmings.

Pointer finger: Mirenesse in Forever Pearls and DBP in Jane

Middle finger: Colour club in (I think) Harp On It

Ring finger: OPI in The Living Daylights

Pinkie: China Glaze in Sweet Hook and glequins from Born Pretty Store

I can't actually remember the name of the polish on the thumb so I'll get back to you guys soon with that one.

For the top coat, I used Tasha's Seche Vite. It was my first experience with this top coat and I can see why it is so popular. All the glitters that I used are completely smooth and I wanna see how long they last. I guess I'll keep you posted on that one too.

Till next time, 

Laura

Polish Binge Pt. 1

A couple of weeks back, I went on a massive nail polish shopping binge, mostly on Beauty Bay as they had 20% off everything and free international shipping as a part of their Black Friday sales.

I got the first out of two packages on Friday. I got a heap of mini polish sets and the first one I'm going to show you is one by Orly. It's called Mani Minis Hot Shots and it has four brightly coloured polishes.

From left to right: Hottie, Hook Up, Holla, Blue Collar. All two coats except for my middle finger, in which I needed 3 coats to make Hook up opaque.
I added an accent with Bundle Monster's BM-225 plate motif of what I believe is a Christmas bauble with essence's Silver twister.

These are my first Orly polishes and I was amazed. This spread like butter and dried fairly quickly. Even Hook Up, the yellow one, was a dream to apply. I find any yellow polish takes a bit of work to make it look good but not this one.

I'm so happy with these purchase and I'm really looking forward to showing you the rest of my (new) stash.

Till next time, 

Laura

Bow Tie Nail Art

Here's some nail art I did a few days ago. I got the design from a Wah Nails nail art book that Laura gave me. It's a bit messy for my liking, but that's when I need to remind myself that I'm a hobbyist, not a professional, and that I'll improve with time!

Pretty bows!

I used Natio Azure and OPI Rumple's Wiggin'. I painted the bows using  black and white BYS stripers.

Natio Azure is part of the Natio Little Treasures collection. The collection has 23 colours, in 9ml bottles. I picked this one up at David Jones for $5.95, and I was really impressed with the formula and colour. The collection has a few too many pinks for my liking, but I plan on buying quite a few more bottles. The bottles are adorable, I'd totally recommend this one. 

Yay!

I had a horrible week of VERY short nails after going back to work. I had to cut and file them right down since I managed to break two of my nails... *cringe*. Now they've grown a little but but my skin and cuticles are a little bit dry. Please excuse them in the photo below, I was just happy that I have a normal length again. Yay!

Polishes used:

Coral: L'Oreal Color Riche in 305 Dating Coral

Green: L'Oreal Color Riche in 618 Santorini Lagoon 

Black: Konad Special Nail Polish in Black

Top Coat: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri

Stamping plate used: Bundle Monster BM-203

I applied three coats of the coral polish to get it opaque and then sponged on the green with some foam. It then took me forever to choose what pattern I wanted to put on the top as the gradient looked a bit strange. I think the pattern above still shows the gradient  but hides my terrible craftsmanship.

Now, onto the L'Oreal mini polishes. I'm always out for a bargain and for some reason I thought this polishes were on special when I was in Target (maybe a big '25% of L'Oreal' sign gave me that idea...) but I ended up paying the full $6.95 for each 5 ml bottle. I had use them by the time I noticed the price so I couldn't really return them, could I? I don't think any of their colours are extremely unique the two above were different enough from what I have in my stash to *cough* justify my purchase.

Unfortunately, the formula isn't great. The coral was sheer and the green is a stainer, and even with thin coats for both, it took them a long time to dry. I wouldn't recommend them or buy them again. If I want a little bottle I'll just buy an essence polish for cheaper.

Have you guys tried any of the mini bottles? Any shades that are worth the price? Or have you had a better experience with these polishes?

Til next time, 

Laura 

What Will They Think Of Next?

* Edit *Check out my DIY version here*

Quick post. I just saw the news that Nails Inc is coming up with a new nail polish that feels and looks like leather. This has me very intrigued and I really wanna see what leather nails would look like. For those that are curious, this is what the bottle (and packaging) will look like.

Nails Inc. Leather Effect. (www.nailsinc.com)

Unfortunately, Nails Inc is a hard brand to come across in Australia even though they officially launched their product in Aussie retailers in July this year. They generally, like every other brand, take a season or two to send their new collections and Google only gave me a NSW number to call for the stockists. A number really? 

Nails Inc is available from their website but only deliver to the UK, so that e-tailer doesn't really work for us Down Under. The only other two e-tailers that I know sell Nails Inc and deliver to Australia are BeautyBay.com and adorebeauty.com.au. Then again, they don't keep up with the latest but sometimes you can get pretty good deals, especially from Beauty Bay.

Going back to the purpose of this post, I wondered what texture will be created and put into a polish bottle. We've had the crackle, magnetics, matte top coats, gold leaf (what am i missing?) and let's not forget the caviar and velvet manicures. I'm sure the possibilities are endless. I'm sure someone will come up with something crazy that we can stick to our nails and put it in a bottle and we'll be drooling over it.

What is your favourite texture-in-a-bottle manicure? Personally, I really like the magnetic polishes now that I've worked them out. I only own three but I think they will be used to the last drop.

Till next time, 

Laura