GOT Polish Challenge: Orange

I'm back on the challenge after a two week hiatus, I'm not super excited about these nail but I knew I had to get myself back on the GOT wagon. 

I actually didn't think I had Golden Oldie orange so I had to have a double look through the rack, which led me to realise I had this beautiful colour Tangelo by Ulta3. I'd also been wanting to do these nails by Pshiiit for a while so today was as good of a day as any to try it out, or so I thought.

I started the base with one coat of Sally Hansen in White On and one of Seche Vite, let that dry and taped off the triangles on the free edge of my nails. I used one coat of Tangelo and ripped off the triangles asap before adding some lines along the inside of the triangle with Sally Hansen's Lustre Shine in Lava. Once all these layers were dry, I used my  black Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen to create the edges and patterns. Topped it all off with a coat of Seche Vite.

After I finished this manicure, I realised my Golden Oldie orange was actually Carrot Top and not Tangelo. They sit next to each other on the rack and Tangelo was the closest to me. Would I call that lazy? Maybe. Then I had to check when I had gotten Lava, turns out I got it about 10 months ago so it doesn't really fall in the category of the GOT. BTW, neither of the two oranges showed to be colour accurate in the photos.

To add to the nail fail of today, I noticed there were some cracks on the black paint. I can't quite remember if that has happened before but I'm sure I will remember now.

So that's my go at orange tribal nails. I know I haven't them any justice so I'm tagging this post as an official Nail Fail. :) Let's hope I can come up with something good for the rest of the challenge.

Till next time, 

Laura

33 Day Challenge: Chevrons

I'd like to think I'm pretty good at doing chevrons. I love tape, I've done chevrons heeeeaps of times with it, I even free-handed some not long ago and they looked decent. So when I had to have four, maybe five goes, at today's prompt, I was a bit surprised with myself.  I decided to take the extremely simply road of stamping and stud-sticking. Could this wrong too? Thankfully, it did only a hardly noticeable bit.

I used two coats of Sally Hansen's Scarab and one coat of Seche Vite as a base. I stamped the chevron pattern with Bundle Monster's plate in BM-201 (did I need to state that?) with Essence in A Piece Of Forever. Simple enough? I managed to miss the tip of my index finger but I just kept going. I applied a coat of Ulta3 in clear and started sticking these 2 mm square studs from Born Pretty Store in a chevron pattern. At this point, I top-coated the stamped nails but not the ring finger. After my last attempt top-coating studs, I've learnt to take photos before I do. I have now top-coated it because well, no one wants nail studs in their dinner, do they?

So there you have it, my interpretation of the chevron pattern. I would call it Rustic Studded Chevrons. Any imperfections *cough*crooked studs*cough* just add to the rustic feel of this mani, like vintage jewelry...

Close-up because I wanted one and that studded chevron was too... rustic. That one is better appreciated from afar.

I actually have (what I think is) a good idea for the next prompt, Indian. Until then, check out some of the other ladies from this challenge. There are some good manis below.

Til next time, 

Laura

Sally Hansen Lustre Shine Azure

At the beginning of this week, I was unpacking a bag of new clothes that I had laying around for almost a month and when I got to the bottom of it, I found a bottle of Sally Hansen Lustre Shine in Azure. I had, and still don't, no memory of the moment when I bought it. I could only imagine I bought it with the last lots of Sally Hansen Lustre Shine bottles I got as the Chemist Warehouse is next to the clothing shop. It must have been an impulse buy because I wasn't really lusting after it and when I saw the colour I wasn't overly impressed.

Azure is a royal blue shimmer with a strange formula. Swatch below done with three thin coats and one coat of Seche Vite.

The first coat went on very sheer but the second and third coats evened the colour out nicely and each coat dried quickly. That's where the good ends. Unfortunately, the shimmer was very streaky and it had some bubbles I couldn't get rid off with the brush. The bottle had been sitting on my rack for a couple of days at room temperature, so I'm not sure what caused the bubbles. 

Considering Lava, Copperhead and Scarab, all from the Lustre Shine range, had duochrome shifts, I was a bit disappointed that this one didn't have the slightest colour change when tilting my nails. :( 

I have similar colours with better formulas but considering this bottle was $4.99, I can see why I bought it. 

Another plus for this polish: When I cleaning this up, the shimmer didn't go everywhere. I'm guessing it's got to do with the sheerness of it.

I didn't just want to wear plain blue so I added some sponged on tips with Sally Hansen's Scarab.

It's a rough gradient, I know. I decided to cut up my trustworthy gradient sponge but it  seems the inside was much more absorbent than the outside so whatever polish I'd put in it, it'd absorb it leaving no polish on my hands. Weird... I'll just have to pop in to the $2 shop for some more.

If I had been conscious of my purchases, I would have given Sally Hansen Lustre Shine in Azure a miss. There are plenty of royal blue shimmers out there that don't streak and are opaque with less coats. I should know, I have at least two others in my stash. ;)

Till next time, 

Laura

Sally Hansen Lustre Shine Scarab

Dear Queensland winter, 

You are so mild that I can see the neighbours running around in their shorts and t-shirts playing water fights at midday. I don't know how you manage to do that to some people considering I haven't escaped my hoodie for longer than five minutes just in case you decided to blow some really cold wind. The short sunlight hours are a bit of  problem too. See I was hanging out with my nephew and sister this afternoon and when I was ready to take photos of my nails, the sun was gone!!! I had to resort to using my flash light which only gave me mildly-colour-accurate pictures.

I've been wearing Sally Hansen Lustre Shine in Scarab since midday and I am loving it. I'd describe it as a power blue/teal/gold shimmer duochrome on steroids.

 .

I know I have not made justice to the polish with these pictures but I hope I can at least let all the lacqueristas out there know how awesome it is. Scarab is almost a coater but it needs two to really come to life, just like its cousin Copperhead, but it has the drying time of Lava, so a coat of Seche Vite was needed to speed up the process.

Unlike Copperhead, the blue, teal and gold shimmers one can see in the bottle translate to the nail. They are not terribly contrasting but you can see the colours change.

From blue...

To the goldish teal. There is some green in there but I couldn't quite capture it with the artificial light. 

I have another three teals in my collection but none as opaque or eye catching as this one.  I may have to add  a photo to this post tomorrow in the sun to show its true beauty. 

Now winter, the usual South East Queensland humidity is gone because you are here. My skin and cuticles are noticing and it seems that I'm finally learning to use cuticle oil more often but it's leaving my fingers too shiny for their photo sessions. I can't win. :(

I'm off to look at my nails for a little longer while I'm trying to fight you off with some warm soup and lots of tea under a blanket and a book. Hmm... Maybe you are not so bad after all.

Till next time, 

Laura

Sally Hansen Lustre Shine Copperhead

The last two weeks were very full on with the end of semester and I must say I am glad it is over! I can get back to blogging without having to feel like I need to have my head in a book. Yay! I'm sure you are here to listen about polish and not my rants about uni so I'm just going to move on right about now...

If you've kept an eye out for sales in the last month or so, you may have noticed the Sally Hansen range has been offered, at different times, at half price at Priceline and Chemist Warehouse. I made a quick trip to Chemist Warehouse and found the Lustre Shine for $4.99. When I swatched Lava, I mentioned none of the other colours really caught my attention but at that price, I could really afford to get a closer look. I ended up getting Copperhead and Scarab hoping I would fall in love as I did with Lava.

I wanted to show Copperhead first because it really wasn't what I expected and not in a bad way. Copperhead is a, well, coppery brown shimmer with green and blue undertones throughout, you could even call it a duochrome. The formula for this polish was rather impressive, it spread like butter, it dried a lot quicker than Lava and it was almost a one-coater with very little brushstrokes that can be characteristic of this sort of polish. I used two thin coats and one of Seche Vite for the photos in this post.

Now the unexpected part. On the photo above you can't see the green or blue shimmer and it ends up showing as a pretty average darker coppery brown.  The minty shimmery swirls and blue duochrome did not translate to the nail. The look on the bottle was what got me to buy this polish so I was a tad disappointed. 

Look at all those pretty colours

I applied Copperhead last night but waited until there was sunlight to photograph it. I noticed the polish can have different tonalities and sometimes have a pinkish undertone in shaded natural light, incandescent light makes it look more gold/orange and darker and fluorescent lighting brings out the green undertone very, very little. 

Either way, I couldn't really see any of the colours from the bottle. In a closeup, however, you can see the green particles meshed up in between all the copper. 

Am I imaging it? Maybe. I've been looking at this polish for the last day and I would like to think there's another colour there. It may also be possible that in a very small numbers of occasions the duochrome may actually show. Can you see it in my pinky below? Yes, it's blurry but it's there. No? Ok. 

This is where the fun part begins. I was checking out my nails last night and saw the blue shimmer finally make an appearance. Basically what I had to do to see was:

1. Face a source light.
2. Hold hand up between face and the light source. Let's pretend there's a line between the two for the purposes of the next step.
3. Make sure nails lay more or less parallel to the imaginary line from the step above.
4. Admire the beautiful sometimes royal blue, sometimes purple colour of the polish.

I had to go out to the garden to get full sunlight and leave the comfort of my lightbox because it just wasn't showing and I didn't have the right angle. The following photos are not flattering but they show the colour pretty well.

Next one is just a stub but the colour and shimmer are soooo pretty, right?

Finally, I took a photo in direct sunlight to see how it would look like. Dark, coppery and SHIMMERY. Ooh, yeah...

Overall, Copperhead is a pretty good polish from the formula to the subtle colour shifts. If you are looking for a darker copper, I'd recommend it highly. Especially when the Chemist Warehouse has extended the half price offer and the Lustre Shine Range is only $4.99 per bottle. Worth every cent.

Till next time, 

Laura

Sally Hansen Lustre Shine in Lava *Photo Spam*

Sally Hansen has recently released their Lustre Shine Nails Colours collection into our shores. Sally Hansen describes these polishes as  'intense radiant nail lacquers infused with real silver inspired by the lustrous colour flip of molten, liquid metal and iridescence of a peacock feather'. There are 7 duochrome mesh shades and 1 opalescent white polish, all which are available in Priceline.

No, I could not resist buying Lava but I could resist buying the rest as duochromes very rarely float my boat. The best bit about it was the price. Priceline is having a half-price sale on all Sally Hansen products and this beauty came up to a total of $5 for 10 ml. 

Anyway, Lava is a beautiful reddish rose gold and yellow copper duochrome mesh polish. I applied three thin coats and no top coat.

The formula was pretty average. I had to use three thin coats to get an even coverage and each coat took a while to dry. Having crooked fingers didn't help and I managed to smudge my pinky and dint my index finger on the corner. I also found it hard to wrap the tips and it looks like I have tip wear in a freshly done mani.  

Apart from formula issues, I really love the combination of colours. Isn't pretty? It goes from that deep yellow, coppery colour to...

... Gold rose, strongly leaning towards a mauve pink. 

Here you can see the duochrome effect.

I'm spamming you with photos because I love this polish. That and I had the opportunity to use my light box with sunlight. It made everything look softer and the colours not as grey as they would otherwise.

Gold...

... Pink.

Close up. I'm in love.

One last time, gold...

... Duochrome...

... Pink.

I noticed this polish look darker in the sun but it had a pretty sparkle.

Back in the box. 

Before the Blogger app in my phone decided to delete half my post after fixing ONE word, I had a really witty rhyme for this polish right about here.

 Hahaha! I wish I was witty with my writing. I guess you can give me the benefit of the doubt with this one... :)

Have you guys tried any of the Lustre Shine polishes? Are there any duochromes that rock your world? Let me know. I really like hearing what you think, so leave us a comment.

Till next time, 

Laura