Sea Siren Cosmetics Cabin Fever and Seashells

Hi hi all!

I bought a couple of Sea Siren Cosmetics polishes recently and the owner, Deb, was kind enough to include a few of her “Captivating Classics” shades.

 

She included these two beauties:

 

Cabin Fever. A beautiful red crelly. This is too squishy to be simply a creme! As you can see, it leans very orange on me but I don’t mind it. It flattered my skin tone!

Because it was a crelly I needed three coats for full coverage but it had a great formula. So gorgeous!

 

Next up is Seashells:

A perfect nude creme! I loooove this. It’s hard to find a good nude and everyone’s skin tone is different so we all suit different shades of creme. This is definitely a shade that flatters my skin tone. I love it! This was two easy coats.

 

Aaaand, the two I bought:

Sea Dayze and Code Purple. Such gorgeous, vibrant cremes. I loooove these. They go so well together so I had to wear them both at once. This is my current favourite way to wear a couple of shades if I can’t choose which ones to try first.

Two easy coats of each.

I added some stamping to jazz it up a little:

Love this  

 

Aaand one more shot just because I liked it:

 

Have you bought any Sea Sirens yet?

Em

Ulta3 goodies

I’ve been absolutely loving nail stamping lately. Well, more so than usual Everyone knows it’s my favourite form of nail art! Stamping never fails to wow people and have them asking how I did it. I then go into an explanation of stamping and how awesome it is and people just stare at me like I’m from another planet. Don’t get me wrong, they’re impressed, but I know a lot of people can’t fathom spending so much time and effort on nails. To me, and most other nail addicts, nails is a form of therapy. If I go more than a few days without painting my nails, I get craaaaanky.

 

Anyway, I got some more goodies from The Heat Group to play with. More Ulta3s – YIPPEEEE  

 

This is Footloose Fuschia:

A perfect, glossy fuschia creme. This is one of their older colours and I luuuuurv it. It’s such a vibrant pink. Formula was absolutely perfect and it was very nearly a one coater! I did two for good measure.

 

I added some Bundle Monster stamping for good measure:

Splatters! I used the Konad Special Polish in Pastel Pink. I am a huuuuge fan of the Konad pastels. They stamp so well and I love the single colour contrast of it over a darker shade!

 

Here we have Sizzling Red:

Yeeoooow! What a sexy shade! I love a good red creme and this one didn’t disappoint. This too was almost a one coater with a perfect formula but I did two coats as per my usual routine. I didn’t want to cover this beautiful shade but my partner loathes red nail polish (he calls every single red “Wh*re Red”) so I had to do something to try and redeem it in his eyes. Enter, stamping!

 

Booyah! I looove this! I can’t remember which plate this was but I looove it. My partner actually really liked it too so that means it’s definitely a winner

 

And last but certainly not least:

A mix n’ match mani with Striking on the pointer and middle fingers and Get Teal on the ring and pinkie fingers with a coat of A Lister on top. Two coats of Striking (although you can see I probably need a third because I have a liiiitle bit of VNL), two coats of Get Teal (which only needed one) and one coat of A Lister. Striking and Get Teal are two of my favourite Ulta3 polishes. Striking packs so much ultra fine glitter and shimmer into it but it remains sooooo smooth. It doesn’t even NEED a top coat! Get Teal is the perfect shade of deep teal and it glides onto the nail. I loved this colour combo!

Here’s another shot to show the glitter properly:

 

What’s your favourite Ulta3?

 

Em

Sea Siren Cosmetics All That Shimmers & All That Glitters collections

Hi all!

I’m back from a short hiatus. I’ve had computer problems and they were finally fixed today so I have my precious computer back *strokes*.

 

Today I have for you the new pretties from Sea Siren Cosmetics, a new Aussie indie. It’s a collection of four glitter toppers, the All That Glitters part, and four shimmers, the All That Shimmers collection!

And away we go, maties!

 

I’ve layered a glitter over the shimmer that I feel best corresponds with it. But there are endless possibilities here

 

Bronzed Siren and Seaduce

This is two coats of Bronzed Siren with a coat of Seaduce on top. The formula of Bronzed Siren was good but I found it quite brush strokey and more frosty than shimmery. It’s not really a shade I’d usually wear but I’m sure it would appeal to a lot of girls who want a bit of metallic bling on their nails! I layered Seaduce on top and had no trouble getting any glitters out, including the big silver holo diamonds which you can see a lot of on my middle and little fingernails.

 

Seas the Day and SeaQuake

First of all, don’t mind my ring finger. I bumped it and didn’t realise it was that bad until I looked at the photos over a week later.

This was two coats of Seas the Day which is a really pretty pink-toned purple shimmer. It is inspired by the Pantone Colour for 2014, Orchid, and it is absolutely spot on in that regard. It’s quite a glowy purple with a lot of depth.

I layered a coat of SeaQuake over it. I’d heard reports of curling in some of the larger glitters but I didn’t experience any difficulty applying it. Looking at my photos, there’s quite a lot of reflective curling happening but I didn’t have any problems applying it!

 

Okay NOW we’re getting to my favourites.

 

Temptress and Enchanted

Um, HELLO gorgeous glowy red with a golden shimmer. This is stunning! I did three coats because I had some pesky nail line showing through, but the formula was great. I am a huge fan of reds but I am really, really picky with them. This one passes the test with flying colours. Formula was great!

I added a coat of Enchanted, a simple gold and black glitter topper which kind of reminds me of a bumblebee! I think I needed a second coat because it just doesn’t look right to me.

 

And now, drumroll please …. my favourite of the collection!

 

Jealosea and Great Barrier Reef

Jealosea is a stunning deep aqua with a lovely delicate shimmer through it. It’s almost a one coater but I did two just to be on the safe side. The formula is amazing. I’m in lurv!!

I added accent nails of Great Barrier Reef, which is my favourite glitter of the collection. I love the vibrant purples, greens and blue glitters. This is just one coat so it’s got a lot of glitter packed into it!

 

You can get these at the Sea Siren Cosmetics website for $6.95 for a 5mL bottle and $15.95 for a huge 15mL bubble.

 

Em

Cate Ruby New Yorker with Butter London Blagger

Recently I was lucky enough to score a couple of mini Cate Ruby polishes to review. Cate Ruby has the cutest bottles with a stretchy diamanté ring that you can remove from the lid and wear Who doesn’t love a bit of free bling?

 

This is one of the polishes I got:

New Yorker is a vibrant red creme. I have to admit, when I got this I thought “Sigh. Just another red creme.” and I did not think it would come close to knocking Butter London’s Pillarbox Red out of the first place position for my favourite red.

But it did.

This is a ONE COAT RED. ONE COAT, people!!! It had a gorgeous, buttery formula and was super shiny even without a top coat. Honestly, this was a dream to apply. Some reds are a total b*tch to clean up but this one wasn’t and I didn’t need much clean up at all due to the amazing formula I’m super impressed.

I added an accent of Butter London Blagger, a gorgeous medium blue creme. This is an amazing polish too.
The two polishes look so beautiful together.

 

I have one more Cate Ruby to review … stay tuned!

You can buy Cate Ruby from stockists listed on their website: http://www.cateruby.com.au/.

 

Em

Girly Bits Mother May I?

This was one of the first indies I acquired. I got it in a grab bag, I think. I really wanted to like it. I really, really did.

 

See? What’s not to like?! A lovely pale purple jelly base with all different shapes and sizes of red and blue glitter. This is three coats on top of a PVA base.

I don’t know, I just don’t like it on me. It didn’t wow me.

 

Do you have it? What do you think?

Em

Whimsical Ideas by Pam Peanut Butter and Jelly with Australis Milky Way

I was lucky enough to acquire one of the Whimsical Ideas by Pam polishes and had to try it literally the moment it arrived.

I whacked on my PVA base coat for easy removal and away I went!

 

Two coats of Peanut Butter and Jelly. This is such a gorgeous squishy red-purple jelly with gold hexes and micro glitter. Two coats and it was perfect. I didn’t have to go fishing for glitter!

I decided to do an accent nail of Australis Milky Way. Australis have been trying some different things lately and this polish is really cute! Two coats and it was good to go.

 

I just love the packaging of the Whimsies. The little bow on the bottle lid is adorable!! It’s little special touches like that which make the polish, in my opinion.

 

Do you have any Whimsies?
Em

Holo heaven–Chemistry 518 and Jade Hypnose

It’s still quite warm and sunny out here in the desert. You wouldn’t know it’s autumn, that’s for sure I’ve been wearing quite a lot of holos because well, why not!?

This is Chemistry 518:

Two coats, gorgeous formula! Chemistry is a dupe brand of Ozotics and a friend of mine got this for me for cheap cheap. I did some stamping with Konad and an accent nail using Cult Nails Nevermore and 518 to stamp on that. The stamping didn’t turn out great on the accent nail but you can still see the holo-ness!
This next one is one of my faaavourites.


Jade Hypnose. Jade holos never fail to impress. This is two coats. I just love this gorgeous, summery blue.
e

What’s your favourite holo?

Em

Pretty Serious Santa’s Sunburn

Hello hello!

 

I have a beauty for you today. This gorgeous polish is from Pretty Serious’ Christmas Without Snow collection. I give you, Santa’s Sunburn:

 

Isn’t this the most perfect red you’ve ever seen!? *drools*. Two coats of a fantastic formula. This polish glows and is just amazing.

 

Look how long my nails were in this photo! I say this because I’ve just chopped them down to be super nubs. I love my nubs but I think this length looks good on me too. Nubs are just easier for me to deal with in my profession (massage) and just feel neater to me.

 

What do you prefer, nubs or long nails?

Em

Butter London–Pillarbox Red with Cult Nails-Coveted

Merry Christmas, everyone!

So, the Christmas mani I did yesterday didn’t quite work out but I have another one for you. This is the mani I did for the Christmas Pageant in my little town:

Two coats of Butter London Pillarbox Red and two coats of Cult Nails Coveted. So, so gorgeous. Pillarbox Red is honestly the most perfect red I’ve ever seen and Coveted is such a lovely, deep green jelly with glass ‘shards’ in it.

 

I decided to make it a little more Christmassy:

I sponged white on the tips and stamped some Konad designs on. Cute little snowmen on my fingers and “Merry Christmas” on my thumbs. Everyone at the pageant loved this!

 

Hope you’ve had a happy and safe Christmas!

Em xx

Max Factor–Fantasy Fire over Kiko 336

I’ve been wearing some gorgeous polishes lately, some of which have been hiding in my stash for too long. For example, Max Factor Fantasy Fire. Why on earth did it take me so long to wear this pretty!? I knew I’d love it so I bought multiple back up bottles, yet it sat in the untrieds drawer of my Helmer for months.

 

I chose to layer FF over Kiko 336, a pretty bright royal blue very similar to Nails Inc. Baker Street. I got 336 in a swap  I did with a lovely lady from The Netherlands. It’s a lovely colour on its own but silly me forgot to take a photo so you’ll just have to deal with a couple of pics of Fantasy Fire (oh, what a shame ).

 

One coat of FF over Kiko 336. *Happy sigh*. The royal blue base really brings out the hot pink and purple sparkles in FF. I loooove this. I got so many compliments on it and I think this mani needs to happen again SOON.

Here’s another shot:

Hmmm… yes, I think FF is calling … You’ll have to excuse me!

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

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

Vodka Cruiser–Blurple with OPI Red Shatter

Here’s another one of the polishes I grabbed from my friend’s moving sale. This was part of a Vodka Cruisers range (for the non-Aussies, Vodka Cruisers are pre-mixed Vodka drinks). This one doesn’t have a name, so here it is:

Beautiful blurple creme. I had such trouble capturing this one on camera! It is a bit more purple than this in real life.

Formula was excellent and wear time was a little average but I think this was a pretty cheap polish so I wasn’t too fussed.

 

I added some OPI Red Shatter over it for something different:

The red goes quite a nice shade of deep blood red over this colour. I liked it

 

What do you think? Have you seen these polishes before?

Em

Revlon–Jelly with D’Signer stamping

This pretty polish has been sitting in my untrieds drawer since my lovely friend Kate gave it to me as a birthday gift at the start of April. Wow, that’s almost four months! I’m so glad I decided to try this polish because I love it. I love, love, love it. I’m definitely going to bring this baby out for summer because it is just such a gorgeous, happy colour.

This is Revlon Jelly:

Ahhh, isn’t it beautiful?! This was two perfect coats. Formula was amazing, it dried fast (it was one of the Top Speed ones) and it wore fabulously.

 

I’ve been meaning to try out my D’Signer nail stamping plates for a long time. I got them from Catch of the Day, an Aussie deals website, months ago but have never gotten around to using them. I tried out a different flower on each nail

 

Not bad! I dotted the middles with Ulta3 Frangipani, a bright summery yellow.
I felt like these plates wouldn’t stamp crisply enough. Don’t get me wrong, they weren’t bad (especially not for the $7 I paid for the whole kit which includes 5 plates, a stamper and scraper), but there is no way I’d pay the $20 price tag these are supposed to have in Target. The whole nail images are tiny, tiny, tiny, and I doubt they would fit my nails at all.

This mani was very cute and it made me feel very young, like a 11 year old girl doing her nails for the first time!

 

Have you tried the D’Signer Nail Stamping Kit?

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