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 A Piece Of Forever

This post is full of cheap goodness. Firstly, we may all know that essence is amazing at keeping up with trends at a very low price. In this occasion, essence has released a collection to coincide with the release of the latest Twilight movie, Breaking Dawn Part 2 (according to iMDb.com, the movie comes out on this Thursday, 15th of Nov. I'm not a fan so I'm not keeping up with release dates for these movies).

The collection has four polishes but the only one that really caught my attention was the yellow gold one that looked thick enough to be a one coater. To tell you the truth, I didn't even pay attention how much it cost when I first bought yesterday. However, I went to Target in the city today and bought another bottle because it's so good for stamping. I just checked my receipt and it turned out to be $3.95. Not too bad.

My other awesome purchase was a Max Factor Max Effect Mini Nail Polish from Big W for $.72. Yep, that is seventy two cents. There weren't that many colours available but I liked the blue enough. 

This was my little haul for the day.

And this is the mani I came up with:


Polishes used: 

Blue: Max Factor Mini in Candy Blue
Gold: Essence The Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn Part 2 in A Piece Of Forever
Top Coat: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri
Plate: Bundle Monster BM-218

It seemed a little to plain to have the same pattern on all my fingers so added an accent on my ring finger with the gold polish.

I didn't like how it looked so I stamped the blue onto the gold for this result.

I think I like it but I'm not sure. I'll let it grow on me, if not, there's always good ol' nail polish remover and endless combinations of polish colours and finishes!

Just a few notes on the polishes, Max Factor's Candy Blue was a dream to apply with a non-streaky, almost one-coater formula that dried fairly quickly and it worked well for stamping. In the above photos, I have two coats on but I could have gotten away with one carefully applied coat. Love it. The only bad thing I can come up with is that Big W's sale finishes tomorrow and they weren't great at stocking up their shelves with this awesome offer. Oh well. I guess I can do without those extra bottles of polish.

Now, the gold polish. To start with, the colour seems a bit odd, and even though I'm a sucker for gold polishes, the yellow gold hue that it has put me off a little bit. Yes, it is great for stamping and that's basically why I got it... Plus it's essence. Essence = Cheap. 

The other problem I have with it is that the application on the nail is S T R E A K Y. Every single hair of the brush can be seen on the nail, even when dry. You can't see it in the photos above (or can you?). I came across this post from Spektor's Nails, which in turn borrowed the idea from Polish Art Addiction, to avoid those streaks on metallic/shimmer polishes. So I applied a first coat, which would have been enough if not for the streaks, then sponged a second coat on. You couldn't see the streaks but because I used a new makeup sponge, bits of it got stuck to my nail. :(

What do you like better, gold over blue or blue over gold? 

Till next time, 

Laura