BYS Dark Teal

This is the polish I was most excited about trying from my latest BYS haul. A dark teal jelly.

Here we go …

Meh.

I like it, but I don’t love it. This is three coats and it’s not as dark as the bottle colour. Maybe I needed another coat or two because I did have a couple of little bald spots. I love jellies, but this one just wasn’t anything that special. Application was easy and not streaky at all. It was fairly thin, as most jellies are, but not too runny and hard to manage. I think it would look awesome with some glitter over the top .. might give that a crack!

 

Em

BYS Pink Manicure

Behold, naked nails!

Something you won’t see too often. In fact, my partner comments every time he does see it

 

Yesterday’s mani was BYS Pink Manicure. I had high hopes for this polish being a pretty, feminine, interview-safe colour. Well, meh. It was okay. It was really hard to apply, streaky as hell and took three coats to get anywhere near the bottle colour. It’s still not 100% but I just lost patience with it.

It is a pretty colour, but it doesn’t suit me. It brings out the red in my fingers, yuck. It also took ages to dry, even with my Orly Sec n’ Dry top coat over it. I got a couple of wrinkles which I tried to smooth out and failed. Meh, it did the job in my interview because I kicked ass and I’m pretty sure the job is mine. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself.

 

Look at the pretty roses on my thumbnail! My friend Amanda is a professional nail technician and has recently learnt folk art for nails. Looks awesome!

 

Til the next mani, I will leave you with the first “It’s Almost Friday Funny Video”. This is a hilarious video:

 

Em

BYS Ocean Breeze

My first proper review – woo! I decided I had to try BYS Ocean Breeze on my nails first. I was a bit nervous about this one because I thought I’d need a million coats for good coverage, and I thought it would be rough and hard to manage. Well, that’s everything this polish was NOT!!

 

This is just one coat of Ocean Breeze.

 

And this is two.

 

How amazing is that?!?! I still have a tiny bit of VNL (visible nail line) but nothing major. I love this polish. I can’t stop looking at my sparkly fingers!!! It’s got a sheer light blue-green base, fine silver glitter, larger blue glitter and silver bar glitter. I love me some bar glitter!! This was so, so easy to apply. It was the perfect consistency and even without a coat of Orly Sec n’ Dry top coat, it was smooth and shiny.

 

Here’s a close up of the bottle for sparkly goodness.

How can you not love it!??!

 

And a blurry close up to show off the sparklies.

 

I really don’t want to take this off my nails but I also really want to try the other BYS polishes I got yesterday. It’s a hard life when that’s all I’ve got to worry about at the moment I still can’t get over how cheap BYS polishes are and how amazing quality they are. If you’re an Aussie nail fanatic, you’ll know that a bottle of OPI nail polish retails for $19.95, some special collections are even higher. There is nowhere in South Australia to get China Glaze, we have a limited range of Orly polishes (I’ve only seen mini bottles for $8.95 in SA) and forget even trying to get NFU Oh. We get majorly ripped off here, that’s for sure. That’s why I’m so heavily into BYS. They have a great range and they are such good quality. You can get them from K-Mart, The Reject Shop and online at Fashion Addict.  Fashion Addict is the only e-tailer I’ve found who sell a great range of BYS.. There is one other site which has a limited range but nothing spectacular.  Now, if BYS just started making holographic polishes, my life would be perfect

 

I’ve been reading a lot of nail blogs (shock horror!!) and have seen some really cool designs which are easy to do. I’m going to try my hand at some funky designs and see how I go! Stay tuned for some weird designs.

Em

BYS haul

Can I get a woopwoop? My BYS haul just arrived from Fashion Addict and I could not be happier!!! I placed my order last week and quickly got an email back from the Director of Fashion Addict, Dave, saying that three of the colours I’d ordered were deleted lines. I selected four different colours and asked him to send me an updated total, but he was awesome enough to say not to worry about it, that I didn’t have to pay any more My polishes were shipped on Friday and they’re already here!!!!! It’s only Tuesday, plus yesterday was a public holiday. Now that is fast postage, especially out here in the sticks. Even better, postage was free because I spent over $40!!! I’ve just heard that they are now shipping internationally, which is fabulous.

BYS are my favourite Aussie nail polish brand. Unfortunately I’m pretty limited where I live for nail polish choices, especially BYS. A gift store here sells a few BYS colours but a lot of them are old and starting to get thick and gluggy. Last time I bought a few polishes from there, they were way too thick. Oh well, I’ll thin them out with Seche Restore when I get around to buying it!

Anyway, I digress. Onto the goods. But first, look how carefully and considerately these babies were posted to me?!

 

 

Wrapped in bubble wrap, then some kind of soft material, THEN held together with plastic and padded with paper in a sturdy box. I was so relieved! I’ve heard and seen way too many horror stories about broken nail polishes in the post, spilling all over everything.

Eleven lovely polishes all standing in a row …

 

Indian Nights, Plum Crazy (glitter) and Raspberry Sorbet. Raspberry Sorbet is a gorgeous dark red with a shimmer through it. Beautiful!

 

Dark Teal, Fern (glitter), Hocus Pocus (glitter) and Ocean Breeze. Dark Teal looks like a jelly – squeeee!!!! And Hocus Pocus looks completely and utterly amazing. I wish I could have capture all the loveliness but to be honest, I suck at taking photos and this camera is just not that great. I may have to pinch my partner’s to see if it’s any better.

 

White Pearl, French White, Pink Manicure, Baby Pink. Some fairly tame colours which I desperately needed (I’m currently job hunting and need some “safe” interview colours).

 

The only dilemma now is which polish to try first!? Any ideas? I need to do my toes too, which I’m thinking I might do Plum Crazy … is it okay to post toe pics on here!? I know some people are funny about feet, but I don’t mind them. I’m a massage therapist so I’m often asked to massage feet, and I don’t have a problem with it. As long as they’re clean and taken care of, I see nothing wrong with feet.

You’ll hear from me soon!
Em

First frankens

Welcome to my first frankenpolish post! First, if you’re not sure what the hell a frankenpolish, check out Dr Frankenpolish’s post on Frankenpolish 101. It will tell you everything you need to know about frankening.

On Saturday I made my very first franken, a baby pink glitter.

I mixed 2/3 of a bottle of a Colour Co pearly white shimmer with 1/4 of a bottle of a The Face Shop’s bright pink and added fine white glitter. Next time I will have photos of the nail polishes I used which went into the mix instead of just the end result. But this time I got a little overeager and forgot!!

Here’s my end result:

Sorry for the crap photo. I’m learning how to take good photos of nails!! I promise I will get better!

This franken turned out pretty good. I liked the colour, but I definitely overdid it on the glitter so it was too lumpy. God it was thick, but it actually made it really easy to apply.  I put on two coats of Orly Sec n’ Dry in the hope that it would smooth it out a bit. It did, but not enough! I’ll add some clear polish to the mix and that should thin it out a bit. I didn’t name this one because, well, it’s crap, so let’s just call it No.1.

 

My second franken went very well! I’ve completely fallen in love with jelly polishes but find them really hard to find in South Australia, let alone the desert where I currently live in a mining town 600km from the capital city of Adelaide.  So I decided to do the next best thing and create my own.

I call this one Squashed Grape.

Pardon the messy cuticles.

I love it, love it, love it!!! It’s a gorgeous purple, almost magenta (the colours are slightly pinker in this photo because of the light) which looks so squishy and cute. My first jelly!!! It was a fairly thin consistency so I had to make sure not to overload the brush when I was applying. It’s worn pretty well, only one chip on my thumb and one bald spot on the other thumb (maybe I just have weird thumbs!)

For this one I used half a bottle of Mode XOXO purple creme polish and half a bottle of some Maybelline clear top coat I had lying around. It was so, SO easy and I see many more jellies in my future.

 

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll get my order of BYS polishes which I ordered off Fashion Addict. I’ve ordered 12 of them so stay tuned for some reviews on this great Aussie brand.

Em

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog, Nails in the Desert. I am a 20-something year old from Adelaide currently living in the desert, well out of my comfort zone and away from friends and family. So how do I deal with this? I paint nails!

For the past six months I have been getting more and more obsessed with nail polishes. My collection of polishes is growing and I'm now starting "frankenpolishing", which is mixing my own nail polishes.

Stay tuned for a couple of my own creations, I hope you enjoy!
Em