Happy birthday Pretty Serious!

Photo thanks to www.pretty-serious.com

 

It’s a celebration today! Today marks the first anniversary of Pretty Serious, brainchild of Kaz.

Kaz has worked hard over the last year to establish her brand and she produces such amazing nail polishes, eyeshadows and lip glosses.

Without further ado, here is Daphne’s Birthday Party!

 

Gorgeous, right? Daphne is Kaz’s chickie babe who adorns all her branding material and she is so CUTE!

This polish contained medium sized pink, blue, green, gold and silver glitters. So sparkly and blingy, I couldn’t even capture it. This was two coats. The first coat was a little patchy but the second coat evened it right out!

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Daphne, Pretty Serious and Kaz! You have done an amazing job

Em

HARE Golden Years & Oceans of Alloys and Dollish Polish Go Luigi!

I have a couple of pretty indies for you today. We do really have some talented ladies out there who create some beauties.

The first is a couple from HARE polish. Nikole creates some gorgeous polishes and I believe she creates them with her partner/husband!

The darker blue with green and silver glitter is Golden Years and the light blue is Oceans of Alloys. Oceans of Alloys is “a dusty light blue jelly with a mixture of gold and copper glitter in both hexes and squares in several different sizes. Mysterious iridescent blue glitter is scattered throughout, as well as delicate gold flecks.” It really is lovely. Golden Years is “a semi-sheer navy blue jelly packed full of gold glitter in squares and hexes in all kinds of sizes, mysterious iridescent blue glitter, navy blue hexes and delicate gold flecks”.
I used two coats of each and had no issues with application despite the fact they are very glitter-heavy.

The next polish is quite old but a favourite of mine.

Dollish Polish Go Luigi! layered here over black. Isn’t this CUTE!? I just love green and blue glitter. I had to fish for that poor lone star, so that’s my only complaint. This was two coats.

What’s your favourite indie brand?
Em

OPI Absolutely Alice

This is everyone’s favourite OPI, I think. I’ve seen a lot of blog posts about it and I have to admit, it is beautiful.

 

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Absolutely Alice, three coats. This is packed with blue and gold glitters of different shades. It applies really well for such a glitter bomb. I used it over a PVA base coat and I really wanted to keep the peeled off bits of Absolutely Alice. Haha, does that make me sad? I’m okay with that

 

Do you have AA?
Em

Aussie favourites–Chi Chi Plastic Fantastic and Pretty Serious Liquid Leprechaun

I have a couple of Aussie stunners to show you today.

The first is from Chi Chi, an awesome brand who have a huge range of polishes and other cosmetics.

 

This is Plastic Fantastic:

Such a pretty deep mint aqua-y green. I found it hard to describe this colour, can you tell!? Two coats. A great, creamy formula.

I stamped some pretty flowers on top.

 

And this is Pretty Serious Liquid Leprechaun:

This is from Pretty Serious’ Halloween collection. It truly is like someone threw a leprechaun into a blender and hit the go button. Poor little leprechaun  

This has a boat load of green and gold glitters. I just love it! It only needed two coats and application was fantastic so I needed to do minimal clean up. Winner!

 

Go Aussies!

Em

Love Thy Polish Dreams collection

I’m proud to announce the new Love Thy Polish Dreams collection will be released tomorrow (27th April) at 10am South Australian time.

This collection is inspired by Stevie Nicks and is a collaboration between Love Thy Polish and Tammy from Lacquer and Leather. Thanks so much, Tammy, for coming up with some amazing colours and being truly inspiring. And thanks for keeping me in line and telling me when something isn’t good enough

 

Thanks also to Kristy from The Polish Haven for the amazing swatches and blog post.

 

 

You can buy the new Dreams collection from www.lovethypolish.com … if you live outside Australia please contact me via the website to arrange your order as I will need to do a shipping quote for you.

 

I’m excited! Are you?
Em

Jade–Mystic Gold with stamping

I don’t usually ‘do’ gold, especially not yellow gold. White gold, oh yes, but yellow gold just doesn’t suit me.

I did have to try this particular gold polish, though. Why? Because it’s a holo, of course!

 

Jade Mystic Gold, two coats. Stunning, right? It’s a really rich yellow gold so it doesn’t look tacky. I just love the Jade holos because they have such a strong holo effect. You just can’t go wrong!

I added some Konad stamping on top, a cute and funky zebra pattern.

 

What do you think of my zebra nails?

Em

Gloss n’ Sparkle–Unicorn Droppings & Goblin’s Grave

Hi all! I have been a crappy blogger, haven’t I?! I don’t remember when I last posted and now I have a huuuuuuuge backlog of photos to edit and posts to write. Whoops!

Anyway, here are couple of polishes from Aussie indie brand Gloss n’ Sparkle.

 

Unicorn Droppings:

Love, love, LOVE! A gorgeous milky white base with holo shimmer and rainbow hexes. This was two coats which gave enough coverage! I must wear this again because the night I put it on, I used a PVA base and I had to take my partner to the emergency room and he was admitted for suspected appendicitis. So I peeled it all off while in the ER anxiously waiting.

 

Goblin’s Grave:

Gorgeous!!! Look at the depth to this lovely squishy deep green polish. All the different coloured hexes:

*drool*

 

I used three coats of this as it was a little on the sheer side. This was one time I was too lazy to use my peel off base coat and I regretted it when it came time to remove it. Oh, removal was a bitch alright!

 

I mattified it for something a little different:

Ahhhh, perfect!

 

Em

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

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

HITS–Dreamer

Sometimes a polish has a crap formula, but it’s so worth it. This polish is one of those.
I bought this off the lovely Carli during her recent blog sale. I got some polishes I’ve seriously been lemming for a long time like a couple of Sally Hansen Chromes which are supposedly awesome for stamping. Thanks, Carli!

This is HITS Dreams from their Mari Moon collection:

Excuse the terribly oily cuticles … someone obviously forgot to rub the cuticle oil in
This was two coats over NYC Color Night (which is the same as Ulta3 Black Satin). It’s a one-coater black which I love! The formula for Night was pretty decent, a little patchy in some coats which made me think it wasn’t going to be a one-coater but it evened out in the end.
HITS Dreams had a terrible formula. I don’t know it needed thinning but it was gluggy and thick. I didn’t want to add thinner because I didn’t want to risk thinning it too much. Anyway, it dried surprisingly quickly for how thickly I had to paint it on and I loved the result.
Really, who doesn’t love a good multichrome? I saw so many colours in this – blue, purple, gold, red. It was just absolutely stunning and it was my favourite when it turned a deep, dark blurple. *sigh*. So pretty!

Do you have any of the Mari Moon polishes?
Em

Chanel–Peridot

Here we go, my first Chanel. *dreamy sigh*. This polish is just frickin’ unbelievable.

I got this polish from Ozsale for $15 a few months ago. I saw it and leapt on it because it was an awesome prize. I was deliberately saving it for when I went to Adelaide for a weekend so I could test how long I could get out of it and so I didn’t have to put up with chipping, yuck nails.

 

What a perfect polish to wear when you can’t change your polish.

Honestly, isn’t that just spectacular? This polish, as you all know, is a gorgeous duochrome which flashes from gold to green in the light. I actually preferred this polish in the shade because it just glowed. How I love glowy polishes!!
This was two coats which were a pretty good formula. I had a few problems with dragging but I just waited a little longer for each coat to dry and I was fine!

Now, the wear-time.

Amazing.

I applied this polish on a Thursday night and went to Adelaide on the Friday afternoon. I got back the next Monday night. The only reason I changed my polish was because I had time to and I knew I wouldn’t have time the next night. My polish still looked amazing. I had a little bit of wearing on a couple of the corners. Not chips, just a bit of wearing. But you could only notice if you looked closely.

 

I must say this polish has certainly fuelled my want for more Chanel polishes, including the Les Jeans collection. Hrmmm…

 

Em

essence–Pink Heat & Golden Sands

I really like manis where you get to try two polishes in one! I’ve been meaning to try this combo for a while because I had a feeling it would look awesome, and luckily I was right!

This is essence Pink Heat and Golden Sands:

 

Pretty! I did two coats of the Pink Heat (which I could not get to photograph properly! It is a touch more pink in real life. Funny because it looks VERY pink in the bottle!). I then freehanded some “corners” with Golden Sands, a gorgeous golden bronze foil.

This was cute It felt really summery to me which helped me momentarily forget how freezing cold it’s been here in the mornings. I’m talkin’ 0.6 degrees Celcius here this morning! Yuck! Still, I do like it better than the blistering 45 degree days we get during Summer here! Ah, the desert, you get the best of both worlds: freezing cold and boiling hot!

 

Have you been doing dark, Wintery manis to go with the season or splashing out with some colour?
Em

OPI–It’s My Year

I’ve been a bad blogger again! Sometimes life just gets in the way and polish falls down the list of priorities. Gasp, I know! It’s hard to believe I used to have to paint my nails every night or at LEAST every second night and now I’m lucky if I get a chance to do it three times a week. My evenings, which used to be my polish time, have been filled with massages lately.

 

Anyway, this is the polish I wore on my birthday this year:

Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. A new favourite. This is just BEAUTIFUL. I could not stop gawking at my nails. Perfection in a bottle

This was two coats of OPI It’s My Year. I’ve been eyeing this off for a long time and finally borrowed it off my good friend Kate. I am definitely going to have to buy this one. How can you resist this?

Gorgeous formula, pretty decent wear time too! Winner all round

Em

Zoya–Posh with Essie Luxeffects

 I am really, really disappointed with this polish. I've been wanting to try a Zoya matte velvet polish for so long and I finally got a couple.

This is Zoya Posh:

Um, boring. Why do all the photos I've seen of Zoya matte velvet's look so gorgeous and, well, velvety!?
This photo actually makes it look a lot nicer than it actually looked on my nails. Blah.

To brighten it up a bit I added a coat of one of the new essie Luxeffects:

This is As Gold As It Gets. My brother got this beauty for me for Christmas and I'm a little obsessed. One coat and it's the perfect amount of micro flakies.

Of course, what could be better then flakies? MATTE FLAKIES :D

Oh I loooooved this. It was so classy and understated but interesting at the same time.
I just added a coat of China Glaze Matte Magic and it transformed it!

Have you done any matte manis lately?

Em

Essence–Gold Old Buffy

I do love Essence polishes. I’m glad Targets in Adelaide are finally all stocking this brand.

 

This is one of the polishes from their Vampire’s Love collection. I picked up most of this collection when I was in Adelaide over Christmas because it had some unique colours.

This is Gold Old Buffy:

First of all, love the name! This is two coats, a really dark green with gold shimmer. It is absolutely stunning and unique. Love it

Awesome formula and it wore like steel for three days. I did apply it over my gel polish which may have helped its wear time, but I was still impressed!

 

Here’s another shot of the glorious shimmer:

I can’t wait to try the rest of this collection

Em

Model’s Own Beetlejuice–Pinky Brown

Ah, finally. I received the Model’s Own Beetlejuice collection in the mail last week and I had to try one straight away. Or, like, the world would end. Seriously. Haha

 

This is Pinky Brown:

Drool! Excuse my crappy photos … I am terrible at capturing duochromes. I’m not sure why they call this Pinky Brown, because it clearly has a lot of gold in it! And it is also a crap name. I mean, honestly, if you’re going to name a collection something as awesome as Beetlejuice, at least put some effort into the polish names! Don’t think your work is done when you choose the collection name.

Here are some more photos:

So sparkly! I love that these are glittery duochromes. It adds so much depth!

 

More pretty gold!

 

Dodgy photo but it was the best that I had to show you the colour shifting! So beautiful.

 

I can’t wait to try the others in the collection. I’m thinking I’ll have to try the Aqua Violet next. Two of my favourite colours at once? Yes please!

Have you succumbed to the Beetlejuice collection yet? I was literally out at dinner and had my phone out watching the countdown and I jumped on to buy straight away. How sad is that?! I think that’s when I realised I have a nail polish problem

 

Em

OPI Significant Other Color

I generally don’t like colours like this. I don’t know why, I just don’t. But this colour is a real beauty. I’m so glad my friend Kate picked it up for me while she was in the US.

This is OPI Significant Other Color:

This is three coats. It’s fairly sheer! But it’s pretty, huh? It’s such a dainty, soft pink with a golden shimmer you can see all the time. A lot of the time I pick up a polish that shows a beautiful shimmer in the bottle and once I get it onto my nails, the shimmer disappears. This shimmer is always present, in any light. I love that what you see is what you get with this polish.

 

 

Some call this a duochrome. What do you think? I think it’s a shimmer but I’d like to hear your thoughts!

Em