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*

DS Original and Ulta3 Royal Fever

So, starting out on my no buy hit list, I thought i'd try layering one of my new DS polishes because the net is absolutely saturated with pictures of them alone and I wanted to see how they would look over a base colour. Pretty spectacular i'd say!

Also, from the images i've seen, top coat tends to dim the effect of most holographic polishes, so I thought i'd do a comparison.

Top coat on the middle and pinkie.

I think top coat actually makes this one look much glossier, so I went ahead and did the rest of my nails.

Woo! My first holo! Think I might need to wear gloves while i'm driving though, sparkly rainbows are super distracting :P

I've got mail! Ulta3

Thank you so much to the lovely Tania from Ulta3 for sending me this package :)

I posted my recent royal wedding mani using Ulta3 Midnight Fever on Ulta3's facebook page on Friday and Ulta3 left a comment asking me to send them my address so they could send me a gift. It was such a lovely surprise to find these three lovelies waiting patiently on my doorstep after a long day at Uni!

Unfortunately I already have Flashback Fuchsia.. great minds think alike! So I think it might find a home in one of the manicure packs I am putting together for my friends Big Morning Tea later this month.

Incidentally, Ulta3 are looking for name suggestions for their upcoming Spring/Summer collection on their facebook page! Click here to add your own. Oh, and did I mention that if your suggestion is picked, Ulta3 will send you their whole collection before it hits the shelves?! Cannot wait to get my hands on it! Need to get my act together now I have 7 unworn Ulta3's to show you :) Stay tuned for pictures of my new pretties!!

Ulta3 Midnight Fever

Yes another royal mani, I just couldn't help myself with all the lovely royal blue dresses parading across the telly.

Initially I reached for my trusy navy shimmer OPI Yoga-ta Get This Blue!, but remembering that I hadn't used this one yet, decided to use it instead. The formula is really exceptional for a polish priced under $3, but I do prefer the OPI as it looks blue in most lights, while this one tends to look black indoors.

Please excuse my messy paint job, i'm currently dabbling in cleanup techniques.

With the cheapie tiara I found in the closet this morning

Showing off the shimmer..

So this is two coats of Midnight Fever which I bought from my local Blooms chemist for AU$2.25 along with Royal (purple creme), Pacific (turquoise shimmer) and Twilight (Chanel Paradoxal dupe), from Ulta3's Autumn 'Floral Fever' collection, all of which I will post about eventually.

In addition to some BYS nail stones that I picked up from Kmart for around AU$3 if I remember correctly, that come in packets of 25 pieces.

Wicked Series-Blue diamonds on a green field

This is a mani I did a few weeks ago in support of my Special Olympics swim team when we travelled to Narooma for the state swim carnival.

I was wearing just the green (Australis Limited Edition 2) initially which showed off the slight blue shimmer in the polish, when dear Mum remarked that I looked like I had boogers on my nails. I was going to take it off then and there, but I then thought of the blue glitter polish i'd bought the day before (Ulta3 Blue Glitter) and we both decide it looked much better this way. Mani salvaged!

The Australis shade has a nice creamy formula that is easy to work with and opaque in two coats. The Ulta3 glitter is meant to be a layering polish. No matter how many layers you paint on, you will still see nail but i'm fine with that.

A note of caution, if you'd like this manicure to last, do not go swimming! I spent an hour in the pool with the athletes mucking around and it started peeling off in chunks. In fact, if you look closely, you can see a chip on my index finger and this was day 2, pre swim.
This picture was two coats of Australis Limited Edition (which I purchased from my local Priceline) and two coats of Ulta3's Blue Glitter (which I picked up from my local Bloom's chemist) with OPI Original Nail Envy as base coat with Revlon Colorstay top coat.