Simple Summery Mani

South East Queensland is being hit by ex-cyclone Oswald and as you can imagine the weather is dreadful. Don't get me wrong, it's very good to get the rain considering how dry everything was, I just wasn't expecting to all come down in one day.

Anyway, this mani came about because I wanted something bright compared to this gloomy day. 

Base polish:         L.A. Girl Matte Flat Finish in Matte Raspberry
Stamping polish:  Sally Hansen Diamond Strength in Antique Bronze
Top coat:            essence XXXL Gel-Look Top Coat

*EDIT* I forgot to put the stamping plate I used. Oops! Bundle Monster's BM-225, by the way... 


I know it's nothing too flashy but I like the fact that it is bright yet subtle.

Til next time, 

Laura

Mimco At Your Fingertips

As you guys may be aware, the Australian brand Mimco came out with a line of cosmetics (think lipstick, bronzers and nail polish) in September last year. Yes, I know I'm late for the party but better late than never, right?

Mimco's description of their polishes, as it is on their website:

Glamour at the tip of your fingers, our Mimco Nail Polish is high performance and high coverage. A superior neon pink gloss finish with a quick drying time and a smooth self-levelling formula will have them eating out of the palm of your hands. Free from Formaldehyde, Toluene, Camphor & Dibutyl Phthalate. 

Not bad, so I just wanna show you a few swatches of the three polishes I acquired from this beautiful brand. 

Jade. A bluish dark green creme, not the most original colour, but it has one of the best formulas I've tried. The polish stays where you've put it, it does it so well I didn't need any clean up on the mani below, plus it dries QUICKLY. Another benefit is that it is almost a one-coater, if carefully applied. However, it is shown below with two coats and no top coat. Can you see how shiny it is? I also find that polishes of this particular shade tend to stain my bed nails. Not this one though. It is amazing! Big tick for this one.

Bright Coral. It is bright but I wouldn't call it a coral. I would say it is more of a tangerine,  but I'm sure like Jade above, there was a reason for the name. This also has an amazing, quick-drying formula, though it is rather sheer, still a creme, just a sheer, shiny creme. If you look at the bottle you can sort of see how sheer it is. The swatch below was done with three thin coats and no clean up. Really shiny without top coat too. Another big tick for Mimco.

Riviera Blue. A very pretty baby blue with the tiny, tiny silver shimmer. If you look at the bottle below, you can see the shimmer just above the second M. Can you see it? Unfortunately, it doesn't show in the nail so I was left with just a plain creme. The formula was a little harder to work with than the two above but still pretty good for a light colour. I used two medium coats had to clean up around the cuticles a little. 

After all the swatching (very rare thing for me), I couldn't just leave Riviera Blue by itself and double stamped each nail with Essie's Penny Talk and Bundle Monster's BM-218 plate. The mani reminded me of Cinderella and her pumpkin carriage. Is that just me?

I bought this polishes just before Christmas for about $11 each at a retail shop when they had a $25% off sale. They are now retailing on Mimco's website for either $5, $9 and $15.95 + postage, depending on the colour and, as far as I've seen, they are still in stock at the shops for $15.95 each. Ooh, I forgot to mention, these polishes are Australian made!!!

Just in case, you are wondering what they look like, I've included a photo below. And in true Mimco fashion, they were given to me in a little black, satin pouch. I am impressed. Apart from the not-so-original colours, I'd put these Mimco up there with the luxury brands. Ok, I don't own a lot of the luxury brands but I could compare it to Illamasqua formulas. Yes, I went there.

So, if you are looking for a little luxury from the renowned brand without blowing the budget (who wants to pay $30 for a hairpin?), I would highly recommend these polishes. 

Til next time, 

Laura

essence Snow White Glitter Sandwich

Going through Tasha's stash has given me quite a few lemmings. One of them was Essie's Jelly Apple. I loved the colour (my favourite polishes have always been red) and the jelly finish (which until now, I never owned). When swatches starting popping up on the WWW of essence's Snow White collection and its polish of the same name, I knew my lemming would be satisfied for a very low price. 

I patiently waited for Target to stock the collection but it took a few months before the display was up. I guess the release of Twilight was more important than Snow White (not on my books...). It took a few attempts and visits to two local Targets to get my hands on this puppy. I actually ended up buying three bottles, but at $3.50 each, it is still cheaper than buying one discounted Essie online.

Swatch below is done with one coat and no top coat. Isn't pretty AND shiny? I also love the fact they have a wide, flat brush that makes the application of this extremely-easy-to-work-with formula even easier.

I couldn't stop admiring the colour but after a few hours it got kinda boring and I thought 'Why not paint myself a glitter sandwich?'. I used my favourite glitter topper, American Apparel's Supernova. It's doesn't need to be dabbed on too much for an even coverage of its different size glitters and it's pretty colourful. Only applied one coat on the photo below.

I let it dry for a bit to avoid any drag and applied a second coat of Snow White. What happened to the colour of the glitters really impressed me. The glitters were either light or black and no actual colour showed thru. I'm still no connoisseur of colour theory and a lot of my experimentation is trial and error. Either way I was very happy with the result. It sort of reminded me of strawberries... 

 At the end, I added a matte top coat but wasn't too impressed. For once, I liked the shiny version better.  

Til next time, 

Laura

China Glaze Sweet Hook Toughened Up

It's been almost four weeks since my last post. I'm not even gonna try to make excuses as to what happened, I'm just hoping you guys can still be entertained.

In the last four weeks, I have made a rack for my polish bottles (post to come) so I could see what colours/finishes I have and what I can still justify purchasing new bottles. It happened that I was buying the same colour in different brands, mostly because every time I bought a new polish, I would use it a couple of times and store it in a filing box and I couldn't really see what I already had. 

This post is about one of those polishes that I justified as I had nothing remotely similar. If you haven't guessed from the title of the post, it's China Glaze Sweet Hook from the Electropop collection that was released in the States in February 2012. I'm going to thank Tasha for this colour being added to my collection for two reasons. First, she has it on her stash and has let me use it a couple of times, each time in only one finger though (because i was using one colour/finger to create a skittle not coz she wouldn't let me), I fell in love nonetheless. Second, she pointed me towards eBay as the place to get cheap China Glaze. I got mine from this seller for about $7 bucks. 

I present to you my version of Sweet Hook. This polish was sooo sweet, it got me hooked... Bad joke, I know. It was almost like a dad joke.

I've mentioned before I'm not usually a fan of pastel and light colours but I'm warming slowly to them. The swatch above was done with two coats of this almost flawless formula. I felt like I needed to take some of the sugary goodness of this colour away and added some 2 mm square studs from Born Pretty Store. I used Manicare's Hi-Shine Top Coat to stick the studs and to finish off the mani. I really like the combination of the lilac and gold. What do you guys think?

One other thing that I have managed to do in this post is to take close-to-accurate colour pictures. The photo below shows fairly closely the actual colour of the bottle. I'm really proud of that! Woohoo! I have to admit, I have been trying to make my skin look paler that it actually is. I guess it's like looking at glossy magazines and having their expectation of beauty to  match reality.

I hope you guys can stick around. After building the polish rack, I discovered I have close to 300 bottles, which need to be put to good use.

Til next time, 

Laura 

Alanna Renee Indie Polish

Just a quick post to promote a new brand of indie polish. I'm sure most of you who follow gumleaf mafia bloggers have seen swatches of the collection, but for those of you haven't, go check them out! I've ordered a few bottles, and I'm really excited to wear Sandpit. It's not like anything I have in my relatively small collection.

Alanna Renee Sandpit (http://www.facebook.com/alannareneecosmetics)

Keep an eye out for my swatches!