Revlon Parfumerie in Espresso

I'm kinda bummed. I did this awesome mani for the GOT challenge last night and it was so sparkly I knew I had to wait until this morning to take photos in the sun. I'm not great with alarms and mornings so my plan of photographing nails went out the window. I went on with my day and by the time I was ready to snap some pics, I had some major tip wear on all my fingers. No crying over spilled milk, right? I'll recreate it again later when I feel super uninspired.

After that little episode today, I decided to keep showing you guys the Revlon Parfumerie polishes I bought recently. I chose Espresso out of the 23 I now own from that line, a black creme with green undertones that is opaque in two coats, the formula and drying time are fairly average. From the name, one could gather that this would smell like coffee and being a lover of the brewed beverage scent I was super excited to try it out. When the polish dried and the scent popped through, I could only smell rubber-burnt sugariness. Not at all what I was expecting... or pleasant, to the point of being nauseating. 

I also had some issues with bubbling but that could be contributed to me not waiting for my base coat to dry or the second thicker coat I applied on some fingers.

The one good thing I can say about this polish is that it dries fairly shiny. I am showing it with a coat of Seche Vite out of habit but it's OK without it. I think the top coat had better smell than the polish and luckily it toned it down a bit.

I know swatches of a black polish wouldn't make for a very interesting post so I added some of Ulta3 in A Lister on the tips for the glitter gradient and combined some of Essence's Let's Get Lost and Essie's Blue Rhapsody on the stamping plate. I used MoYou's plate 4 from the Sailor Collection and I think the design didn't quite come as crisp because I tried to mix the polish on the plate and not beforehand. Lesson learnt.

I never say 'don't go buy that polish' because everyone has different tastes but this not worth the money for a black creme that we all know can be bought for way cheaper than $15.95 they retail for. Unless you are into smelling burnt rubber... then maybe, but that's probably not healthy. 

I really don't know what I am going to do with it, if anyone wants to try it let me know. I'll be happy to send it anywhere in the world.

Till next time, 

Laura

Witty Titles Are Hard To Come Up With But I Like My Layered Stamped Mani

At the lack of a good title, I'm just gonna jump right into today's mani. I started with yesterday's base, Rimmel Pro Get  A Nail Tan, and stamped the triangle pattern from BM-423 with Topshop's Gilted. I knew I wanted to layer stamps but choosing a colour and a stamp took me a while, I ended up choosing a half nail, leafy stamp from BM-309 and my oldest polish Maybelline in Succulent. I topped it all of with one coat of Seche Vite.

I'm pretty happy with the result and, at closer inspection, I'm loving how Gilted shows through Succulent, even though the latter is fairly opaque.

Excuse the smudges near the cuticles...

My mum looked at my nails and she mentioned this reminded her of henna tattoos. Looking at it now, it reminds me of the packaging of a particular Australian apple cider. That's how you know where you mind is. :)

Till next time, 

Laura

Rimmel Salon Pro Get A Nail Tan 708

Over the last two months I have bought and received a lot of new polish bottles. It was Christmas, Boxing Day prices were irresistible and general awesome sales popped all over the place, all which helped my collection grow by about 50-ish bottles. I'm not sure whether I should cringe at my lack of self-control or rejoice at all the beautiful, non-duped little containers of colour. I would say I buy polish to enjoy and play around with and not necessarily to show on the blog. With this in mind, it's not surprising that it's been a while since I've done a post about a straight up swatch but today I had to show one of the best purchases of the last eight-ish weeks. 

I present to you, Rimmel Salon Pro in Get A Nail Tan 708. As the name mentions, this is a light tan creme leaning ever so slightly to pink. The formula was nothing to rave about but it dries quickly and mostly stays where you put it with the bottle's flat brush. It's opaque in two coats and it's shiny enough by itself; there's no balding, dragging or other annoying polish issues. This is a good polish in my eyes. 

Why am I saying this is so great? Well... I've mentioned many times in this blog nudes, the beige/pink/light ones, and I don't really mix. It's only recently I had a light-bulb moment where I realised that the natural pigmentation around my cuticles didn't allow me to achieve that stylish mannequin hands look that I had seen floating around on the blogsphere and so much desired. This polish doesn't give me that look but it's a little more in sync with my skin colour that makes my nails look clean and, er, polished. Yeah, I'm in love.

I had previously bought another polish from the same Rimmel line but it was streaky, it took forever  to dry and it had bad formula all round. I bought this colour because I knew it would be unique in my collection and it was half price so if I got a bad formula again, it wouldn't be the end of the world. 

Is the light hitting the polish differently in the next photo? No? Never mind. The revelation that there is nude colour for my hands is a big deal for me!

I have Nubar in Toasted Marshmallow, a polish I would use whenever I wanted a sober, subtle manicure, and I thought it would be similar to Get A Nail Tan. By looking at the bottles, I could tell they were on different sides of the spectrum but I still wanted to show a comparison just for the record. As you can see, TM is a mustard tan and GANT looks a little bit more pink.

I found my nude. And I can be happy about that.

Until next time, 

Laura

GOT Polish Challenge: Green

Hello, hello. I'm a bit short on words at the moment so I'm just going to show you the mani I created over the course of about 72 hours for the green prompt of the Golden Oldie Thursday Challenge. 

I started with two coats of base coat and then layered two coats of Seed Heritage in Emerald, a beauuuuuutiful emerald green with the tiniest turquoise shimmer that I bought in September 2012. Once this base was dry, I added one thin coat of OPI's Just Spotted The Lizard, also bought late 2012, and saran wrapped it while it was still wet. I finished it off by adding one coat of Seche Vite.  

I've loved Emerald ever since first got it. The colour is a wonderfully creamy, lit-from-within, hard-wearing polish with a buttery formula that dries to a semi-satin finish, however, it stains as bad as terrible quality teal polish and it takes forever to dry. I have only just found a good base coat that won't allow this type of colours to stain my nails so I was quite happy to bring it out for this challenge. I enjoyed putting this colour on this time and even though I knew that it would take some hours to dry, I didn't add any quick drying top coat. I went to bed with almost dry nails and woke up with hair marks on my then dry polish. :( I left the colour on for a day thinking that I would have to repaint my nails and went on with my day.

Well I didn't have to because after running around I remembered I had another older green, just Spotted The Lizard. We all know the hype around this polish... I got caught in that hype with no regrets. 

After creating the saran wrap mani, I added some black and green lines but I wasn't that keen on the final result so I left it simple this time. Sometimes, less is truly more.

Till next time, 

Laura

Holographic Stamping Because Why Not?

Stamping with holo polishes has been around for a while and in my slow fashion, I just got to try it out. The original plan was to create a tone-on-tone mani but as most of my plans, it went out the window when I realised I only have two holos, one black and one silver, and the black one was calling my name. I'm pretty happy with the resulting mani so I'm about to photo-spam you.

I started with two coats of CoverGirl's Constant Caribbean, swatch included at the bottom of the post, and used the scaly/feathery pattern (is that what this is?)  from the BM-410 plate to stamp with Ozotic in 528. I topped it all of with a coat of Seche Vite.

Of course, the photos were going to be taken out in the sun to show the holo particles. You can sort of see the linear holo effect that 528 would normally have. 

Excuse the dirty cuticles, the black holo was really hard to clean up!

I took some photos in the lightbox and I was happy to see there were some rainbow coloured particles from the holo. Nothing impressive but they could still be seen.

This is Constant Caribbean by itself and even though this is a gorgeous colour, the formula is very streaky so it seems to be a good base for stamping.

That's all from me today, I'm glad i was able to keep this short and simple and let the pics speak for themselves.

Till next time, 

Laura

GOT Polish Challenge: Stripes

When I saw the 'stripes' prompt for this challenge I knew exactly what I wanted to do and I did it, but it didn't turn out quite the way I was imagining in my head. I took photos of it and all but I don't think I'm ready for it yet. I'll leave it for later... I started again with naked nails and brought two older polishes that I knew I liked and went well together. 

For the base I used two coats of Ulta3 in Bouquet, a lovely fuchsia crelly with lots of blue shimmer which was purchased at the beginning of 2012 for about 50c. I then brought out the striping tape and created an unintentionally uneven diagonal stripe pattern on middle and ring fingers. I used Sally Hansen in Bejeweled for the textured stripes and created a glitter gradient with the same polish on the rest of my fingers. I topped my pinky and index with a coat of Seche Vite.

Bejeweled was one of the first swatches I did in this blog back in June 2012 but it was so terrible I redid a swatch here. It's always been one of my favorite polishes because of the combination of colours, how quickly it dried, the relative easiness to remove this super packed glitter and the texture. I liked the way the glitter didn't sit smoothly on the nail and I believe this is the polish that started my luuuurve for textured polishes, even though this isn't labelled as one.

This was a bit of a rushed job but I'm still happy with the way it come out, I can't stop running my fingers over this textured stripes. 

Check out the rules for this challenge and other striped manicures below. There are some real winners in the.

GOT Polish Challenge: Pink

In my endeavour to post three times a week, I have chosen to take part in the Golden Oldie Thursday Challenge from The Crumpret's Nail Tarts group on Facebook (rules at the bottom of the post) as an incentive. I have a lot of polishes that have been left on the back burner as new pretty, mostly textured polishes have come into play, so this challenge seems to be a really good way to re-shopping the stash. 

For this week, I chose two Nails Inc pink polishes I got in a mini-bottle gift pack from some UK Black Friday sales. That's how I know how old they are and that they are both the same age, I also know I have tried them but haven't blogged about them. On my ring finger, I'm wearing three coats of Elizabeth St, a creamy pink nude that is quick drying and one of the better nudes I own. On the rest of my fingers, I wore four coats of Notting Hill Gate, a neon pink, which is nooooot colour accurate in the pics below. I didn't mind doing so many coats as each one didn't take very long to dry and with the help of Seche Vite, all four coats were dry to the touch within 10 minutes. I forgot how good neon colours can look against my skin so I might bring them out more often, plus it's summer on this side of the world. What better time to use them, right?

I knew I wasn't gonna be able to leave the plain colours, as pretty as they are, and I added some water decals and triangular studs I got from eBay. I went for a tough/sweet sort of look and I'm not quite sure if I achieved it but I am happy with the result.

Wanna check out some more pink manis? Click on the links below; there are some talented ladies in this challenge.

Till next time, 

Laura

January's Tri-Polish Tuesday

I'm back on The Crumpet's Tri-Polish Challenge for this month. The rules have changed slightly from last year allowing a little more flexibility. Different polishes can be used as long as one sticks to the month's colours and only one mani has to include all three colours, the rest of the month's manis need to include at least two colours. Also, as the name suggests, instead of doing the manis on the last two weeks of the month, they will be posted on Tuesday. 

Why not start with the one with all three colours? I wanted to do a mani that would mirror the colours and curve from the pinky and index fingers on the middle and ring fingers. So this is what I came up with...

Polishes used:

Orange:  Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Sun Kissed
Yellow:  Ulta3 in Honolulu
Red:      Essie in Silken Cord
Black:    Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Black Out

I used a dotting tool to create the leopard spots and striping tape to create the concave lines. The lines on the middle and ring fingers were free handed. Topped it all off with two coats of Seche Vite. 

This is a very out there mani for me but I really like the combination of colours and the way the lines on the pinky and index fingers frame the spots. However...

I did a mani with leopard spots a little while ago here and I remember them being a very easy to not get wrong. I don't think some spots are terrible but there could have been a bit more separation between the black edges to have a little more definition. Like the from my index finger

I'm looking forward to creating more manis for this challenge so much, I already have a few things lined up.

Till next time, 

Laura

In Really Old News...

Guys, guys!!! Did you know Mariah Carey released a range of Liquid Sand polishes in collab with OPI? *Insert Slowpoke meme here*. In all seriousness, I avoided buying OPI's Liquid Sand merely because of the AU$20-$25 per bottle price tag and I wasn't sure I was going to like them. When drugstore brands started bringing out textured polishes I jumped out on that bandwagon ASAP and fell in love instantly at the much lower price. 

Recently, I got a $20 Christmas coupon (which are almost unheard of in this country) for a department store and after some deliberation I decided the best way to spend it was on some Mariah Carey's Liquid Sand minis from last year's collection. I only ended up paying $5 for 4 minis! I don't think I could have done any better online. Woot woot!

Plain swatches were going to be boring, so I paired Can't Let Go up with some plastic nail wraps I got from eBay from this seller and some rectangular studs. Voila! 

I started with two coats of base coat because a. I didn't know if the Liquid Sands stained and b. I've had issues with non-polish nail wraps ripping out my nail bed when removed. Can't Let Go was opaque in two coats and even though I wasn't blown away by it, I really like the darker blueish purple matte finish of it. The nail wraps were also super easy to use and malleable but I managed to get a little bit of one stuck on the cuticle of my middle finger and didn't fix it enough for macro photos. :( That issue aside, they look sparkly and overall pretty especially after I applied a coat of Seche Vite on top of the nail wraps. 

  

I'm pretty happy with this mani and I love those nail wraps. I might have to get some more for Christmas presents... for myself... Or others. 

Till next time, 

Laura

33 Day Challenge: Shapes

Today's vague 'shapes' prompt was a little bit too much for my over thinking tendencies so I jumped on Google to give myself some direction. One search lead to another and I ended up with an idea completely different to what I had googled but it all turned out for the best. Have any of you girls played with a tangram at some point in your lives? I remember having a couple when I was younger and when I got my first smart phone, one of the first games I downloaded was a tangram. I finished 200 levels of this puzzle in less than a week and went ahead and got myself another app that had different shapes. Thinking about it, it's kinda lame how excited I am about tangrams and doing a mani about them. Well, lame I will be because I really liked putting the shapes of the tangram on my nails.

I started with two coats of Sally Hansen's White On and a coat of Seche Vite and let that dry completely. I then used striping taping on my fingers to create the shapes of the puzzle, one finger at the time. Most of the colours I wanted to use were a bit sheer, so instead of putting layer upon layer of the same polish, I used some undies on all fingers but my thumb. Colours used (base first, top colour second) on each finger:

Pinky:  Sinful Colours in Innocent and Topshop in Eclipse

Ring:    Max Factor Mini in Purple Haze and Topshop Plume

Middle: Essence in Flashy Pumpkin and Sally Hansen Lustre Shine in Lava

Index:   Max Factor Mini in Candy Blue and Sally Hansen Lustre Shine in Scarab

Thumb: Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Golden-I and Revlon in Fire Fox 

I didn't use any topcoat after creating the shapes to keep the slight 3D effect they have. 

This is the picture I based the tangram shapes on. There are a lot of variations of this puzzle but this configuration is the one I remember playing with. Disclaimer: The shapes in my manicure are for illustrative purposes only. Scale may vary in real life . :)

Source

Only shot I got in sunlight. I think the colour's a bit off but it shows the shimmer well enough.

In a slightly related note, there is a Topshop opening tomorrow in my city and I am sooooo tempted to go raid their polish display but I'm thinking that may be a bad idea. I may end up poor and I hardly have any  polish rack space as it is... This story will continue.

Check out the other ladies' manicures for today's prompt. 

Till next time, 

Laura