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!

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.

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.

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 :)

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 :)

All Things Beauty

Bec's Beauty Buzz

Bloggles

Crouching Asian, Hidden Polish

Enamel Coated

Gilded Nails

Kelly's Kolours and Konads

Konad-Licious!

Less Than A Queen

Love Vulcanella...

Making Up 4 My Age

Meg Is A Nail Geek

More Nail Polish

My Chihuahua Bites

Nail Juice (NZ)

Nixxy's Nails

Polish Infatuated

Pretty Clever (NZ)

Pretty Random

Steffels

Sterling Nails

Sunglasses After Dark

The Khromazone

The Girl With A Bow

Toxic Lipstick

Violet Le Beaux

You've Got Nail