Friday 24 June 2011

OPI DS Signature

As i've said before, i'm not a pink girl. I have nothing against wearing pink, I just don't like the way it looks on my nails. However, shades like this one are slowly changing my mind.


DS Signature is a gorgeous rosy pink loaded with strong holographic shimmer. Although the old black label OPI formula is a little on the nose, it is hands down the best formula I have ever worked with. Like the majority of holographic polishes it is very fast drying, but this polish and the other old DS i've tried, Original, pretty much apply themselves!
It also doesn't hurt that this particular shade of pink works beautifully with my cool skin tone.


Isn't she lovely? Isn't she wonderful? Do you have that song stuck in your head now? Hehehe...
I think i'm going to have to hide this one from my sister who loves anything pink, or I won't have any left!


So if you are lucky enough to spot this beauty at a supply store or while dusty hunting, I definitely recommend picking it up!
It's such a shame that gorgeous holographic polishes like this can't be made in the new 3 free formulas.

Monday 20 June 2011

Fashion Addict haul

EDIT: A reader has brought it to my attention that Fashion Addict will not post nail polish to certain international locations.

Last week I made my first order from Fashion Addict (Who now ship internationally!!) after stalking my local suppliers for weeks trying to pick up the very elusive Flaming Lava from Face of Australia's Molten Metallics collection. I was very impressed with the prompt shipping. I placed my order the Wednesday before, received a shipping notice on the Thursday and my package was in my hot little hands on Friday!
Originally, I was only going to purchase the one polish, until I saw that domestic orders over $40 get free shipping! So I went a little overboard...

I bought the Face of Australia polish in Flaming Lava that I was after, in addition to a massage therapy lip gloss in Torquay. I also bought 6 BYS polishes; Blue Sapphire, Fuchsia and Amethyst in a box set, and the three polishes from the Wonderland collection; Down the Rabbit Hole, Through the Looking Glass and Adventures of Alice. After all that, I was still a few cents short of $40 so I picked up a hair clip too, which i'm really liking!
Seeing as i'm sold on anything Alice in Wonderland themed after having a character role in my year six musical (hehe), here's two of the BYS glitters with their corresponding colours in OPI's Alice collection.


Adventures of Alice is a green version of Mad as a Hatter, but it is no where near as opaque as the OPI. However, Through the Looking Glass is very close to Absolutely Alice, but the blue glitter is quite big and the gold is more like a micro glitter, with the same opacity issues. So if you missed out on the OPI glitters, these BYS polishes are a rather good alternative in my opinion. Especially as Mad as a Hatter is going for absolutely ridiculous prices on ebay.
Expect to see a post dedicated to Flaming Lava very soon, as I am going to wear it when I go and see Mary Poppins the musical on the weekend.
Aussie ladies, if you'd like to get your hands on some BYS polishes, Cat from The Khromazone is holding a competition in conjunction with Fashion Addict, with the prize being 10 BYS polishes of the winners choice!! Go and check out her Big Birthday BYS Bonanza if you're interested.

Tuesday 14 June 2011

What the hell is a Hufflepuff?!

'Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow, turn this stupid, fat rat yellow!' 
'Are you sure that's a real spell? Well, it's not very good, is it?'
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone p 79
Ah, Ron, I feel your pain.
A few weeks ago, I decided that I needed a nice canary yellow polish to do a house colours mani for the upcoming Harry Potter movie and for a rainbow skittle mani i've been wanting to do for ages. I had heard that yellows are notoriously tricky to apply and that it's very difficult to find one that flatters cool toned gals like myself. So, I walked into my local Priceline a few days ago and picked up the yellow I saw sitting innocently on the Rimmel stand. Really, for $5, I wasn't too worried about the quality. I now feel like chucking this particular bottle in the bin. Rimmel Sunshine is a medium sheer streaky mess. I think it's growing on me...
This is three thin coats over my usual OPI Original Nail Envy base coat, and one extra thick coat on top due to my frustration at the streakiness, and my Revlon top coat.

I really do like the colour and the fact that it dries to a nice glossy finish, but I think that 4 coats is way too much effort for a full mani. You can still see VNL and several bald patches. This bottle won't hit the bin because want to use it for a skittle and more Harry Potter manis and I think I may still find use for it, but this is really the most temperamental polish I have ever worked with!

So here's my very first sticky tape mani in all its messy pre cleanup glory!

Yes, I did do the other hand in the same pattern, but no, i'm not posting a picture of an epic fail :P
I used Bloom Mena for the patterns, it's a perfect one coater. I think this is the closest i'll ever get to a true black holo, although I think it's more a holographic Vegemite... wouldn't that make breakfast interesting? I also used page reinforcement stickers for the half moon on my ring finger.
Oh, and I found the idea for my thumb nail design from a guest post from Do not refreeze by Emily from Emily's nail files, yay for bad-ass lightning bolts!
Anyway, does anyone really have an answer to my question?
Thank you Cedric :P
I'm getting so psyched for Deathly Hallows part 2! Anyone else have tickets to a midnight premiere? Just me? Thought so :)

Thursday 9 June 2011

Gumleaf Mafia!

As you may have noticed with the addition of the adorable Blingy Bill to my sidebar, I have recently joined the Gumleaf Mafia. For those who don't know, the Gumleaf Mafia is a group of Australian beauty bloggers, with a few New Zealanders thrown into the mix, who have an interest or focus on nail polish.
So if you'd like to see some awesome swatches of nail polish and other beauty products, I definitely recommend the blogs run by these lovely ladies :)

























Friday 3 June 2011

Zoya Mimi

My first time wearing a Zoya polish... i'm officially a convert!!
I applied this last Thursday and am only just contemplating taking it off as i'm writing this. That's 8 days of wear, including three hair washing sessions, which always give me major tip wear, with zero crazing and I only have minor tip wear and a few little chips on my thumbs which I always have trouble with anyway.
I absolutely love the brush, which is short, wide and moderately flexible, with a comfortably shaped handle. I find it to be the most user friendly brush i've tried so far.
This is three coats.
Isn't she pretty?


I've never seen anything quite like the glitter in the Zoya Sparkle collection, it's almost like tiny flakies! I think my search for the perfect royal purple has reached its end :)


Here's my pretty girl, Cindy, and my Mimi mani

Thank you so much to Sharon from the Australian Zoya Facebook page for going out of her way to get this lovely polish to me!
I'll be swatching the two other Zoyas I purchased, Charla and Ivanka in the next few weeks :)