Sunday 25 December 2011

Festive Nubbins

I couldn't let Christmas go by without wearing this little beauty I found at a Hot Dollar store!
This is Easy Paris Cosmetics in the shade #026 and it has large hexagonal, slightly holographic green and gold glitter interspersed in small silver hex and round glitter in a sheer green base.


I was feeling rather festive while I was picking out a base colour and decided to do alternate both my Christmas favourites.


The green nails are two coats of China Glaze Emerald Sparkle, with one coat of the green hex glitter, and the red is two coats of China Glaze Ruby Pumps, with one coat of OPI Gettin' Miss Piggy with it.
It's just rolled over to Christmas morning in Sydney, so Merry Christmas from down under, i'm off to get some sleep!

Tuesday 6 December 2011

Ulta3: Summer Siren Selection

Still working through my sample bags from the ABBW, I received a selection of four polishes from Ulta3's Summer Siren collection.
I was given Orchid, Mermaid Green, Sunset Pink and Blue Marlin.

Orchid is my pick of the bunch. It's a beautiful purple shimmer with a slight gold duo-chrome flash which looks way more expensive on the nail than it's $2.25 price tag. It also has a lovely formula that is opaque in two coats.


Mermaid Green is a murky blue green creme which i'm currently wearing on my nails. Seemed to fit with the nasty 'summer' weather we've been experiencing in Sydney lately :P


Sunset Pink is bright! If you're after a cheery, blue based, two coater pink that's cheaper than your morning coffee you'll want to snap this one up.


Blue Marlin was definitely the problem child. It is a lovely bright royal blue however the formula was not so good.


If you look at my swatch of Blue Marlin closely, you will see how patchy the coverage is on my index nail. Also, opening this polish gave me a bit of a shock!


I couldn't get this one back into the bottle without trimming off the bit sticking out the side...
As much as I love the colours of these polishes, I was rather disappointed with the quality. Ulta3 has been my go to brand for cheap and cheerful polish however this experience coupled with some other changes the brand has undertaken recently, have caused me to search for other polish brands.

While Ulta3 have kept the size of their bottles the same, the glass at the base has been thickened,  reducing the amount of polish in their bottles from 13.5ml to 13 ml. They have also moved the manufacture of their polish from Australia to China. Pity, I really liked the idea of buying aussie made and owned polish.
Below I have included a picture of two new style Ulta3 bottles (left) with two old style bottles (right) to show the changes made to the bottles.



*Some products included in this post were provided to me for consideration*