Sephora: Summer In Bangkok

Now for something I dug out from the depths of my collection...

Summer In Bangkok is from Sephora's old nail polish line and this bottle was actually gifted to me by a travelling friend a few years ago.  I won't bore you with application because this is discontinued but will tell you the obvious:  It's a gloriously summery aquatic shade of shimmery turquoise and was a bit of fun to wear as a winter option.  As you can see below I chose a gloriously sunny winter's day to wear it too!

Full sun

Shade

Until next time!

EOTD: ModelCo Island Fever trio palette

I've been playing it safe with eye looks lately so I haven't done anything post-worthy for a while but finally(!) I've broken out of my neutral rut.  I got an interesting eyeshadow trio from Australian beauty brand ModelCo in a promotional show bag I bought at the Royal Melbourne Show last year and now I've decided to break it out of its box and play with some serious colour on my eyes!

As this look is based almost entirely on the ModelCo Eyeshadow Trio palette in Island Fever I've taken the opportunity to do a mini review of this palette before getting into the details of my EOTD look.

 Island Fever

The Island Fever palette is made up of a colourful combination of two shimmers and a darker matte shade. From left these are:  Costa Rica (a neutral beige shimmer which is something I personally can't be without in my makeup collection), Positano (a vivid turquoise shimmer which was the shade I was the most intrigued by and I guess nervous about) and Tahiti (described as matte midnight navy, perfect for use as a liner or to create a deep blue smokey eye).  You can see how the interesting mix of shades offers the choice of playing it safe and neutral with a just a hint of colour accent or going all out with a deep, yet vivid smokey eye.

When doing the initial swatching I was impressed with the smooth application of these shadows, the lack of fallout and the depth of pigment, particularly that of matte Tahiti.  These swatches are two swipes on bare skin.

Swatched from top:

Costa Rica, Positano, Tahiti

My play it safe instincts would have me immediately going for a neutral beige eye using the dark matte shade as a coloured liner but I opted to make Positano the focus of my look, and applied it all over my lids while incorporating the other two shades for highlight and definition.  It's not something I'd automatically choose to wear but I did like the way the turquoise Positano seemed to brighten my eyes:

What I applied and where:

• Bloom Eye Base blended all over lid and crease
• Positano brushed all over lid and blended in crease. I also used it as a coloured liner on the inner third of the lower lash line
• Costa Rica on inner corner of lids and brushed lightly over browbones
• Tahiti on outer corners of lids and outer lower lash line
• Mirenesse Tight Liner Hydra Gel Eye Liner (Caviar Black) drawn all along the upper lash line for definition, with Tahiti applied over it with a pencil brush to soften the line
• Bourjois Volume Glamour Ultra Curl Mascara (Black) on upper lashes and outer lower lashes

Have you tried ModelCo products?

Avon: Sequinned Turquoise

Hello again,

I'm under the weather today - I managed to catch the dreaded cold that's been lurking around the house the past week.  I won't bore you with the symptoms and the general misery, rather than that I'm going to share the fun mani that graced my fingertips for a special occasion...

I wanted to wear something a little special for the Melbourne blogger meet and greet lunch yesterday so I glammed up with one of my new Avon polishes.  I applied a single coat of Avon's Sequinned Turquoise to add a bit of extra sparkle to L'Oreal's Magic Croisette and it zhushed up my mani just nicely thank you very much!  Sequinned Turquoise is a stunning mix of silver flecks in a dark turquoise base.  It can be worn alone but I think it stars as a layering polish.  Here are lots of pictures...

Outdoors cloudy conditions.  Even clouds can't obscure the beauty...

Sunlight

Lamplight

That's all for now.

Vita :)

Some polish gems from Avon!

 Another mini nail haul -

It's been a long time since I've bought nail polish from Avon because I find the colour selection to be limited for the Australian customer and it can be a bit hit and miss getting the colour I want. The way something looks in the brochure doesn't necessarily translate accurately to real life!   Having said that, Avon recently released some more interesting shades that I was willing to take a chance on.  I bought these two which really caught my my eye:

L- R:

Violetta  Sparkle, Sequined Turquoise

Gorgeous in the bottle aren't they?  Violetta Sparkle is a deep grape with a gold sparkle, and Sequined Turquoise is obviously turquoise shot with a silver sparkle.  These shades were full of promise so I did some quick (and sloppy!) tape swatches of the colours alone and over black because that's where I think they're going to be more interesting.  Worn alone they're rather sheer and need three coats to get the full impact whereas one to two coats over black yields a more intriguing result.  I'm looking forward to the next sunny day to do a full manicure of one of these.

Swatched L-R:

Violetta Sparkle alone, over black, Sequined Turquoise alone, over black

 Have you tried Avon nail polish?

Until next time.

Vita :)

Essence: Viva La Green

A quickie Tuesday night post -

I'm mixing it up with a pop of colour featuring a smooth creamy green from Essence's Colour & Go line. Viva La Green is a cool but vibrant mint (almost turquoise?) green and would be a fantastic spring/summer shade for fingers and toes.  This is China Glaze For Audrey's distant green cousin.

It's a pretty straightforward creme finish and the formula was a little on the thick side so the coverage was a teeny bit uneven.  Nothing a few drops of lacquer thinner can't fix!   This is two coats without top coat.  Essence creme polishes have a wonderful glossy finish so you can easily go without an extra layer of sheen.

Sun

Shade

I like how the cool undertones contrast with the yellow undertones of my skin. 

Until next time.

Vita :)

OPI: Turquoise Shatter + Ski Teal We Drop

Sorry for not posting yesterday - I was really busy trying to cram my full weekend into one day - grocery shopping, laundry, off to see the last Harry Potter instalment at the movies with my family, then out to dinner.  Challenging as you can imagine!

This is a quick post to show you Turquoise Shatter over a dark cream shade.  I decided to try it over Ski Teal We Drop from OPI's Swiss Collection.  STWD is a deep teal cream and I thought this would provide a good base for a tone-on-tone look. 

The different shatter finish is really interesting.  To quote an old Australian candy bar commercial (for Violet Crumble bars I think?), "It's the way it shatters that matters..." and this shattered very differently from my last combo with the silver foil.  When Turquoise Shatter dried over STWD it produced a fault line style of cracking rather than the usual meshy effect.  See here:

Outdoors shade

Full sun

Which finish do you prefer?

Until next time - I'm off to the airport in a few minutes!

Vita :)

Yet another shattering shade: OPI - Turquoise Shatter

I thought I was done with the shatter polish fixation - and then I saw OPI's new range, and was instantly smitten with Turquoise Shatter.

This is the most gorgeous metallic turquoise that would stand on it's own as a 'normal' full coverage polish.  The idea of this as a shatter was definitely seductive to me and I just couldn't resist.  I thought this would be a great partner for my silver Bionic mani and I was really pleased with the look:

 

I think this would make a great summer pedicure on (fake) tanned feet.

That's all for now.  Have a wonderful weekend - mine's gonna be short.  I've got to fly to Brisbane on Sunday for an early Monday workshop.

Vita :)

NOTD: Gosh - Ocean

I bought some bottles of Gosh nail polish a couple of years ago from Zuza back when they stocked the Gosh range of cosmetics.  Although their website suggests they still sell Gosh, I can assure you that sadly they don't anymore in their Melbourne Central store at least...

Ocean is the first of the Gosh range polishes I decided to swatch.  I was expecting Ocean to be more of a true turquoise blue but it leans more toward the green end of the spectrum on my nails - of course it looks more blue tinged in the pictures and I just wish it looked that way IRL!  Its a very metallic finish and looks luminous in bright light.  This was two coats of colour.

Lamplight

Outdoors - cloudy

Do you have any Gosh polishes?  What's your opinion of them?

That's all for now.

Vita :)

NOTD: OPI - Austin-Tatious Turquoise

Happy Easter everyone!!

I finally got around to trying one of my Texas collection minis - Austin-Tatious Turquoise. This is a gloriously shimmery turquoise which changes from ocean blue to green to a pinky-purple in the light.  It has a slightly sheer almost watery finish so three coats of colour were required to bring the polish to full opacity.

Here are the pictures:

Lamplight

Outdoors shade



Full sun

Before I go, I couldn't let Easter Sunday go by without some cute bunnies!! 

[Source]

Have a lovely Sunday whatever you do!

Until next time.

Vita :)

NOTD: Essence - Choose Me!

This is one BEAUTIFUL colour!!!  This turquoise polish definitely leaps out with its green and gold microglitter and says Choose Me...

I would like to be able say that it is unique but most nail bloggers know that Choose Me! is an absolute dupe for Zoya's Charla and OPI's Catch Me in Your Net.  The formula was great for an inexpensive polish and two coats glided on smoothly for me.  I don't want to say too much about this one so I'll let lots of pictures do the talking for me...

With the lack of sunshine today the above daylight pictures all lean towards blue.  To try and bring out the green and gold here are some lamplit photos:

That's all for now.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

Vita :)