IMATS Sydney 2011 is Coming!

On the 24th & 25th of September, the Sydney Convention centre is playing host to the International Make-Up Artist Trade Show. That's less than a month away!

As my very first blogger event, I am very excited to be attending IMATS as part of the Australian Beauty Bloggers Weekend (ABBW)!

The ABBW has been organised by the hardworking Kimmi behind The Plastic Diaries and Jacie from You've Got Nail, as a two day event, involving 80+ beauty bloggers from all over Australia. That takes some serious organisation!

I am looking forward to meeting some of Australia's awesome beauty bloggers and picking their brains. Oh an shopping up a storm!!

However, if you aren't attending the ABBW, IMATS is open to the public! So if you're interested in attending one or both days, you don't need any credentials from the beauty industry.

Tickets are available at the door, but to avoid disappointment, it is recommended that you purchase online.

Entry is $65 for a two day pass or $75 at the door

or $40 for a single day or $45 at the door ($20 for children aged between 5-12)

Show hours are 8:30am - 5pm on Saturday the 24th

and 10am - 5pm on Sunday the 25th

Once you're in, you also have access to several speakers well known in the beauty industry who will be presenting over the weekend.

Most notably

Napoleon Perdis

Elessa Jade of Pursebuzz

Rae Morris

Nicole Thompson

The full schedule of speakers may be found here.

If you're after shopping, IMATS won't disappoint!

M.A.C.

Napoleon Perdis

Inglot

Ben Nye

Crown Brush

just to name a few, will all have stalls at the event.

The full list of exhibitors can be found here.

I would love to know if you are planning on attending IMATS, might see you there!

Nox Twilight Sugar Plum

A month or so ago I was perusing the OPI stand in DJs when something caught my eye. After a little chuckle, I headed over to the '25% off all twilight merchandise' sign to have a quick look at the cosmetic line just to make sure I wasn't missing out on anything.

The whole nail polish line was still there along with some lip products that featured Cullen and Black staring at you creepily. Just a little heads up, i'm not Twilight's biggest fan ;). I've picked up the holographic 'Disco Darling' a few times, but just couldn't justify the $30 price tag. I wasn't planning on buying anything on this occasion either, but Mum who I was shopping with that day, took the polish up to the counter to see if they were included in the storewide stocktake sale.

Turns out they were selling for $7.50 each! A bargain in Aussie terms, so I rushed back over to the stand and picked up the other polish that had caught my eye, and left with Disco Darling and Sugar Plum.

The bottles feel rather heavy and expensive and hold 16ml.

Sugar plum is a medium pink with strong purple undertones and blue shimmer.

The formula is rather thin and dries very glossy, this is three coats.

These are older pictures as my ring finger nail on my swatch hand is still growing out. Here's hoping that  it's back to normal before the ABBW!

China Glaze OMG

Today i've got some silvery holo eye candy to share!

Although temperatures are back down to usual winter frigidness and the clouds have rolled back in, I managed to get a few holo swatches in during last week's blazing sunshine! Unfortunately i've had three breaks since then, including one on my more photogenic hand. So lots of naily envy, solar oil, old swatches and boring colours while I grow them out again boo!
These photos are over freshly (lightly) buffed nails and a ridge filler because I find that holo polishes are extremely unforgiving to any imperfections.

The first photo is sans top coat and the second is after. I really can't see any dulling of the holographic effect with top coat.

@_@

Love that rainbow effect!!

Mmmm this one's going to get a lot of wear come summer, the perfect polish for a day out in the sun!

OPI Purple with a Purpose

So I have something a little bit special to show you today.

Back in 2008 after a fair bit of window shopping I found a purple dress that I wanted to wear to my formal. As I was still a nail biter at the time, no mani, but I wanted to find the perfect purple pedi colour. I had absolutely no idea where to start looking! I had never bought nail polish before, I had no need for it, and if I wanted to give myself a quick pedi i'd just borrow one of Mum's Revlons :P

Woo! Spinning in my pretty dress :)

(Incidentally, this picture won me a free lippie in Australis' Shadey Friday competition that they run through their facebook page. Will definitely swatch once my face clears up a bit)

So this led me to my first visit to the OPI section of the local David Jones. I'd never seen so many pretty colours!! After a good half an hour of drooling, I walked away with this polish clutched in my hot little hands.

I apologize for the overly shiny/blurry pictures, but my camera freaks at the mere mention of purple and these were the only two that didn't look horribly washed out.

Purple with a Purpose would be just your average purple polish if it wasn't for the lovely red and blue shimmer that comes out to play in good lighting.

Looking at this colour now in comparison to some of the other colours in my stash, it's a little boring. Don't get me wrong I still love it as a pedi colour to go with a more complex purple mani, but I think i'm a little spolied by for choice with the more outrageous colours in my collection! It is a very nice staple to have.

piCture pOlish blog fest: Candy

If this posts on time, i'll be on my way to the first day of my second semester at uni! Only nine weeks till mid session break.... but who's counting?

You will most likely be experiencing an influx of piCture pOlish themed blog posts today. This is due to the scheduled piCture pOlish blog fest! Late in May, the ladies at piCture pOlish sent out an email to their e-newsletter subscribers asking for beauty bloggers to apply to swatch one shade from their range. The aim -  to have every piCture pOlish colour reviewed on the same day.

I was lucky enough to be chosen, and received the shade Candy to review, a bright, pastel bubblegum pink.

piCture pOlish is an Australian based company and their shades retail for AU$9.90 each, a steal compared to some other brands distributed in Australia. They come in little square bottles that hold 11ml of product with a nice, easy to hold cap and a medium length brush. If you have tiny nails like I do, you'll want to make sure that you wipe the excess polish off the brush before applying because it holds a lot of product.

This is three thin coats of piCture pOlish Candy over my usual ridge filler, topped with Out the Door fast dry top coat.

The formula was a little streaky and thicker than what i'm used to working with, but evened out nicely after the third coat and top coat. Candy lasted 4 days before I found a single tiny chip and removed the next day after finding a few more. As that's the sort of wear i've come to expect from higher end polishes I was really pleased.

I'm not a pink girl, but I was pleasantly surprised by this one. Even my dad who usually couldn't care less about polish though it looked really 'fresh'.

After I took the picture of the bottle with all the musk flavoured lollies, during a brief sugar high, I tried my unpracticed hand at a little dodgy nail art. Not sure if I should be sharing, but what the heck :P

Hehe have any tips for me?

If you would like to see swatches of the other 'blog fest' shades, I have been told that pictures will be posted on their facebook site and in the 'blogger swatch' section of the website. piCture pOlish is available at selected retailers and from their website which also stocks Ozotic polishes. Gotta get my hands on a few of those holographics!

Please note: This product was sent to me for the purpose of this review. This has in no way altered my opinion of the product.

Make up baby steps

Whew! After surviving 6 nerve wracking minutes of uni tutorial enrolments I decided I needed to get my butt into gear, and give my neglected blog some love :) I've had a rather rough couple of weeks with a major uni drama, horse manicure emergencies (lol aka split hooves) and packing and unpacking from the annual snow trip. The snow was awesome once we got there though! We got stuck in a blizzard and our friends had to spend the night in a lodge because their car isn't a 4 wheel drive :P Here a picture of a few of us skiing out the back on the one day it wasn't worth buying a lift ticket.

Anyway, after sending off my confirmation today to attend The Australian Beauty Bloggers Weekend I decided that I need to start playing with a little make up if I want to hold my own with 84 gorgeous Aussie bloggers. Mum was ecstatic that I wanted to shop for something other that nail polish, although I did come home with two Revlons.... more on that in another post!

So with Mum in tow for a second opinion we headed to the MAC counter in our local David Jones. It was a rather memorable visit. The poor girl at the counter was run off her feet as the other artist had called in sick. The place was super crowded with people sheltering from the disgusting weather and there was glass all over the floor from a dropped foundation palette. Despite this, Casey was absolutely gorgeous and went out of her way to make sure I purchased the correct products.

I came home with a bottle of Mineralize Satinfinish SPF 15 foundation in NW20, a Powder Blush in Cubic and two Eye Shadows in Shroom and Sable.
 I was a little scared when Casey swatched the foundation on her hand. I do not fancy sporting the sparkly vampire look! However, on the face it gives a really nice dewy finish to the skin. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone with oily skin because it's rather moisturising, but if you have dry/normal skin or even combination, (if you're prepared to powder you oily sections) and after sheer to medium coverage, this evens out skin tone really well and stayed put for 9 or so hours before I removed it. Costs AU$49.

I found that the two shadows I tried lasted really well with only minor creasing without primer.
Shroom is a really nice overall highlighter colour, but I think it would be rather dupable in a cheaper brand.
I really love Sable. It's a good everyday colour but could be intensified by adding more product for a night time look.
MAC shadows are AU$33 and powder blushes are AU$41.

I also tried the Opulash mascara and Cremesheen Glass in Deelight which I didn't buy. Although I really loved the colour of Deelight, I cringed a bit at the $43 price tag on my student budget. However i'm definitely going back to get the mascara at some point! It stayed put all day, didn't clump at all and didn't weigh down my long spindly lashes.

The real reason you've been experiencing somewhat of a posting drought is because i'm starting to become a little bored with posting about nail polish all the time. I still want to focus on polish, but what would you think about spicing it up a bit with the occasional post focused on a different area of beauty?  I have some gorgeous Australis and Evil Shades lip products and even some shoes that I would love to share with you! I'd love to know what sort of posts you'd like to see in the future.

Face of Australia Flaming Lava

So this is the elusive Flaming Lava from Face of Australia's current Molten Metallics collection.

After many fruitless trips to my local Priceline, K-mart and Big W, I finally decided to purchase it from online from fashion addict, and i'm so very glad I did!

This is two coats of Flaming Lava sandwiched between my new Revitanail ridge filler and Out the door fast dry top coat.

This is the second of the two reds I have in my stash, the other being China Glaze Ruby Pumps. I believe this must be remedied, this polish made me feel rather glamorous! 

This is a cracker of a polish for it's $4.95 price tag. I can see my bottle getting a lot of use!