Face of Australia–Calypso Gold with stamping

A little while back I won a blog giveaway over at the lovely Kristy’s blog. I love Kristy’s blog and entered the giveaway mainly because I was already reading it so regularly and thought I may as well. I didn’t expect to win, though
I won the whole Face of Australia Barbados collection! This is the first polish I tried from the collection, Calypso Gold.

 

Stunning white gold foil with just a hint of yellow gold. Two easy coats and fantastic formula. I love, love, love this colour!

But I decided it was missing something … stamping, of course

 

I used one of the new Bundle Monster plates and was so pleased with the results:

I just loved this mani It was so classy and beautiful. I used the Konad Special Polish in Warm Black, which is a black with a gold shimmer through it.

 

What do you think?

Em

ANNY-Blue Bikini Girl

I recently did my first swap with a lovely lady from The Netherlands. She thoroughly spoilt me and I loved all the polishes she sent me

This is one of my favourites from her:

ANNY Blue Bikini Girl. Such a stunning electric blue shimmer. This glows, baby! It is such a vibrant, summery colour and I love it!

This was two easy coats. Great formula and lasted the few days on my tips that I had it on for.

 

Blues are my favourite so I’m always happy to welcome another one to my collection.

What’s your favourite polish colour?

 

Em

C UK Diamond Gloss-Bloom

I’ve got a cutesy, cheery mani for you guys today. Now, I don’t really know what this polish is. I got it for free from a friend and it looks quite old.

The label says “C UK Diamond Gloss 5 Day Nail Polish” and the colour is  Bloom. I think it’s just a chemist brand polish?

 

Anyway, it’s a really pretty red that I jazzed up with some stamping from my MASH plates:

Cute, huh? This was two coats of Bloom with the cherries stamped in Konad Special White Polish.

 

Very summery! Are you in a summery mood too?

Em

Manis for Race Day

Every year in the little mining town I live in we have an Outback Cup. Half the town gets doled up to the nines and the other half wear jeans and a t-shirt and we all head out to the race course to watch some horsies run and win races. It’s basically an excuse to get drunk and dress up. I don’t really drink and I hate getting dressed up so I wasn’t even going to go to the races. A friend and client of mine convinced me to do some volunteer working serving all the drunk people their alcohol. It was good fun for most of the day until about half an hour before the bar shut when people started getting rowdy and messy and just plain gross. It really made me glad I don’t drink!

 

Anyway, I’ll cut to the chase and get to the point of this post! I ended up doing three lots of nails for the races for friends of mine. I had a really busy evening the day before the races and the morning of the races prettying up three friends nails.

 

First up was Miss Michelle’s nails. Michelle wanted something natural and understated so we started off using essie’s Au Natural and we were just doing stamping over it. Then she spotted essie Footloose and fell in love so we ended up with this:

Pretty, right? A coat of essie Foot Loose (my favourite one-coater pink) with Konad in white. It turned out so, so pretty! She loved it! She ended up borrowing my bottle of Foot Loose and when she returned it she asked me to find her a bottle to buy.

 

Next up was Miss Laura.

Laura picked a base colour of Towel Boy Toy by China Glaze, a gorgeous blue neon. Silly me didn’t actually realise it was a neon so I needed three coats. If I’d started with a base of white it probably would have turned out a bit brighter. But that’s okay, it was still super bright!

She wasn’t sure if she wanted any stamping and left that entirely up to me. I decided to do some dotting. Simple, effective and eye catching!

Here’s the end result:

Pretty right? So this was three coats of China Glaze Towel Boy Toy and dots with Ulta3 Frangipani and Gelato.

She loved it!

 

Finally, we have Miss Narelle.

Narelle has been interested in trying gel polish for a while, so I tried out my BlueSky shellac polish on her. I used a pretty purple shimmer which as far as I can see, doesn’t have a name.

This is what we ended up with:

This was a coat of the BlueSky base coat, cured for two minutes, then a coat of the purple, cured for two minutes, another coat of the purple, cured for two minutes, then the BlueSky top coat, cured for two minutes. Then I wiped off the tacky layer with a cleaner and stamped a pretty Konad flower design in silver on the ring fingers and sealed that with a coat of Seche Vite.

Narelle wore these nails for about two weeks with no issues! She even said that she’d broken a nail underneath the polish but the polish had held it all together and protected it for her! Winner!

I think this is a great idea for people who don’t want to change their polish all the time but love having pretty nails. What I loved about it was that you could change the stamping designs easily

For polish addicts like myself, this probably isn’t the answer!

 

Em

Jade–Vermelho Surreal

Ah, holos. What’s not to love about them? I don’t actually think I know anyone who doesn’t love these beautiful polishes.

Recently Sarah Claire organised a group buy on the Jade holos in the Aussie Nails group on Facebook. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get my hands on these beauties. I ended up getting about six different colours including gold, pink, blue and this beauty right here:

Vermelho Surreal, a stunning true red holo. Oh man, this is perfect. There is no other word for it. I’m in love, head over heels for this polish.

This was two easy coats. No fancy base coat needed, and a coat of SV on top didn’t dull the holo effect at all.

 

Have some more holo spam:

Ooh ah.

 

Check out those rainbows!

 

This is probably the least holo-y of all the photos I snapped.

 

Sigh. Wonderful!

 

Aussies, are you loving the holos now that the sun is out in full force?

Em

L’Oreal–Blue Reef and French Riviera

I’m going to bring out another one of my favourite sayings: shock horror, it’s another L’Oreal (that one was for you, Liesl!) In fact, it’s two L’Oreals!

 

I was so, so excited to find the new L’Oreals at my local pharmacy because let’s face it, here in the desert we miss out on most things beauty related. The only places to get make up is the pharmacy and Woolworths (grocery store for any non-Aussies). So when I spied these babies I was beside myself.

I decided to try two polishes in one hit seeing as I couldn’t decide between two! Luckily the two polishes went well together so I did an accent nail.

 

Here is Blue Reef and French Riviera:

The, er, dark green polish on the accent nail is Blue Reef. Don’t ask me why they decided to call it Blue Reef because it is most definitely a dark, dusty green. The mint green is French Riviera.

I used two coats of Blue Reef and three of French Riviera. The formula on French Riviera was a bit of an a-hole. It was fairly streaky and gloopy but it managed to even itself out in two coats.

 

Watcha think?
Em

China Glaze-Want My Bawdy

Ah, the long awaited China Glaze Bohemian Lustre Chrome collection. Everyone was bitching that the colours weren’t as duochrome as they are in the bottle pics, but you know what? The colours are still stunning.

 

This is China Glaze Want My Bawdy:

Two coats of this gorgeous dark blue shimmer. It’s supposed to be a blue/purple duochrome but it’s not really. Good thing it’s a gorgeous colour to make up for it!

 

Here are some more photos:

 

Love ittttt!

What do you think?

Em

Savvy-Grapetini with stamping

I do love a good bargain. A couple of months ago I was in Adelaide and picked up this cute colour from Priceline for $2.99. You can’t go wrong!!

This is Savvy’s Grapetini:
 

Two coats. The formula was pretty decent and I had no dramas with application. It wasn’t the most durable of polishes but for $2.99 whose complaining?!

 

I tried out another of the new Bundle Monster’s designs using the Konad Light Purple polish:

Pretty, right?

 

Em

L’Oreal–Magic Croisette

Hullo hullo!

Another one of the new L’Oreals. You guys must think I’m obsessed! If you’re wondering why then just take a look at this polish:

 

Magic Croisette. Droooool. Two coats of loveliness. Honestly, isn’t this the most perfect blue you’ve ever seen? Just look at that gorgeous shimmer. I’m in looooove!

The formula on this was fantastic and as per usual, the brush did an amazing job on my nails. Minimal clean up

 

Are you loving this as much as I am?

Em

OPI-Swimsuit…Nailed It!

Oh how I love this polish. But I also loathe it so much I had to get rid of it.

 

This is OPI Swimsuit…Nailed It! From the Miss Universe collection:

Stunning? Right? This is two coats of the possibly one of the most stunning polishes I’ve seen.

What’s the problem then, you ask? It stains like a MOFO, Honestly, I had it on for less than six hours because I made the mistake of layering blue flakies on top and it just didn’t work. I took it off and promptly got a bad case of the Smurfies. Blue fingers, blue cuticles, blue nails. RARRRR! It took some vigorous buffing and a long time in the shower scrubbing the rest off my skin and picking rogue blue bits off my skin to get my hands clean.

 

Such a shame. I Googled this polish and it’s a common problem. Why, OPI, Why!?!

Did you get a bad case of the Smurf Hands when you used this polish?

Em

L’Oreal-Mysterious Icon

It’s another Loreal! Shock horror When I first got these I spent about a week trying the different ones just because of how beautiful the colours were.

 

This is a rather popular shade amongst the Aussies on Facebook, Mysterious Icon:

How friggin beautiful is that?! It’s a gorgeous mocha colour with a gold shimmer. It looks so different to how it does in the bottle but I love it to pieces. I actually stamped little paw prints all over this but for some silly reason didn’t take a photo of it?!

Anywhoo, this is two coats using L’Oreals fabulous new brush. I can’t rave enough about it! It is so nice to have a polish which accommodates for wider nails. <3

 

Do you have Mysterious Icon? What do you think? And what do you think the name is all about?!

 

Em