She Aromatherapy Nail Varnish: Golden Sequins

Ah, the over the top appeal of gilt coated nails.  To quote Goldmember, the Dutch accented baddie in the third Austin Powers instalment, "I love gooooold!"and the polish featured in this post is the epitome of all things crazy gooooold!

 

Due to the uniformly fine micro-glitter, She Aromatherapy's Golden Sequins wears like golden lamé on the nails and is undoubtedly over the top yet beautiful at the same time.  It only took two coats to produce this showstopping effect and as I don't need to say any more I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...

 

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This is my idea of a party polish and as with all of the micro-glitters in the She Aromatherapy range this polish provides plenty of glittery bling without the headache of difficult removal. 

 

Until next time!

 

 



She Aromatherapy Nail Varnish: Pink Diamonds

Rose gold was a big trend in beauty and accessories over the last couple of years and I still love it.  Cue Pink Diamonds from She Aromatherapy's All That Sparkles collection!

 

Pink Diamonds is another quite simple but high impact, dense micro-glitter polish from this 'mystery' All That Sparkles collection (see my first swatch, Lustrous Pearls here) and is a soft rose gold on the nails.  As per usual this is two coats sealed with a top coat.

 

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Sun

 

 

I've been enjoying wearing these micro-glitter polishes because they have all the sparkle without the stubborn removal.

 

 

Until my next post!



OPI: Glamour Game

Taking a brief break from COLOUR and venturing back into neutral manicure territory I found this old holiday polish from OPI in my stash, ready to satisfy my needs for something neutral with a little twist.  When I say old, I mean older than I realised actually as Glamour Game harks back to OPI's 2008 Holiday collection Holiday In Toyland! Time is most definitely flying for me!

Glamour Game is an almost white gold metallic polish, with the tiniest shimmery flecks in the mix - just enough to lift it out of the ordinary.  I applied two coats and finished with top coat to smooth it over and here's the result.  Oh yes, please forgive my weird looking pointer/index fingernail - it's the result of a rough mending job as my nail had begun to tear. I gave up and nubbinized my nails the following week!

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Sun

 

So my year is off to a good start as I've managed to put up three posts this week - as long as I keep to a minimum of two per week I'll be more than happy with my output!

That's all for week 1, 2015!


BK Nail Polish: Natural 15

I have to laugh at this nail polish from BK being called Natural 15 because it's anything BUT natural in appearance!

 

Just one coat of this insane holographic yellow gold glitter turned a nude cream manicure into disco ball madness!  The downer was most definitely the smell...or should I more accurately say fumes - 100% toxic scariness so I was careful not to get too close with my nose.  I tamed the texture this time with two coats of top coat and there you have it...

 

Shade:

 

 

Full sun

 

That's all for this post folks! Enjoy your weekend :)



Maybelline Brocades: Knitted Gold

Time for a bit o' glitter!

 

When Maybelline brought out their limited edition Brocades collection a few months ago I went a little crazy and bought 4 shades from the range.  Glitter is clearly still a weakness of mine isn't it!  The first shade I'm posting, Knitted Gold, is a flamboyant mix of large rose gold hex glitter pieces floating in a dense sea of yellow gold glitters.  As I'm still loving the textured look I didn't seal this polish with any top coat and that may have been a mistake because...after 3 days the polish started chipping off in chunks, and I mean CHUNKS!

 

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Oh well, it did look blingy for a couple of days.

 

Until next time

Revlon: Chroma Chameleon - Cobalt (plus Hearts of Gold FX)

Now for a belated post on my NYE manicure...

 

For some reason deep blue seems to represent New Year's celebrations to me because I think of it as an equally glamorous, slightly edgier party alternative to vampy red so I chose Revlon's Cobalt as my base manicure.  Cobalt is a deep indigo blue with a very subtle violet duochrome shimmer and one of two shades I recently bought from Revlon's Chroma Chameleon range.  The Chroma Chameleon polishes are all duochrome metallic and from this first impression promise much more duochrome in the bottle than deliver on the nail - one of my pet peeves when it comes to nail polish. I applied three coats to get good coverage because this was a little sheer - the other issue was brushstrokes although I largely camouflaged this with a sweep of topcoat. 

 

On my accent nail I topped Cobalt with three coats of Hearts of Gold FX, another Revlon polish from their Top Speed line.  HOGFX is a glitter topper comprising superfine gold glitter with rather large holographic hearts.  It takes a little fishing with the brush to scoop up the hearts and some deliberate placement on the nail but overall I was happy with the result. 

 

All pictures taken in indirect daylight:

 

 

 

Not really a duochrome but the wonderful shade of blue almost makes up for that disappointment.

 

Until next time.



Christmas Day mani: OPI - Underneath The Mistletoe

Now for what's likely to be my last post for 2013!

Continuing with the traditional red and gold theme for Christmas season manicures I chose another variation for my Christmas Day mani using a combination of something new and something old from OPI, who always manage to bring out something to blow me away in their annual holiday collections.

 

The new shade I used on most of my nails is Underneath The Mistletoe from OPI's latest collaboration with Mariah Carey for their 2013 holiday collection.  Underneath The Mistletoe is a deep cranberry jelly polish swimming with fine silver glitter giving it a multidimensional sparkle.  I used three coats for an opaque coverage.  For my accent nail I chose an old OPI holiday glitter, the slightly greenish gold Glow Up Already (from OPI's 2010 Burlesque collection) to add yet more sparkle and voila!

Shade

Sun - the camera's freaking out here...

Until next year!

 

Face Of Australia: Between The Flags

I hope you've all had a wonderful Christmas! I have been busy catching up with family and friends so the first of my Christmas manis are being posted just after Christmas day - but hey they're still within the "12 days of Christmas" which ends on the 6th of January so I'm technically not late to this party!

 

 I went for traditional with a twist with this one, embracing red and gold but using textured and foil polishes to give it a bit of interest.  The red polish is Between The Flags, a textured polish from Face Of Australia's recently released Carnivale collection.  Two coats did the trick with that one.  For the gold accent I went with three coats o the most golden foil polish I have in my collection - Goldeneye from OPI.  I've previously worn this as a full manicure but I think it works so much better as a contrasting accent, as somehow it looks even more gold if that's at all possible!

 

All pictures taken in cloudy conditions:

 

 

 Until next time...

 



Sportsgirl Nail It! Rose Gold

For lovers of rose gold here's another post for you!

This Sportsgirl nail polish from the Nail It! range makes no bones about what it is.  It's very straightforwardly called Rose Gold and is a mix of different sizes of rose gold glitter in a clear base.  I used two coats over my pearly rose gold base polish and ended up with something looking like a rough foil, or almost sequin effect.  It was one of those weekend manicures I couldn't bear to take off and it stayed 100% intact all week too - a total winner for me as I can't seem to get enough of this precious metal at the moment...

Shade

Sun

 

What do you think of this tone on tone layering?

Until next time.

The Face Shop: 17 Pearl Brown

It's been a few months since my rose gold makeup post and I finally got around to wearing another of my rose gold polishes.  As usual I'm wondering why I waited so long because I find rose gold to be a very flattering shade of gold for my skin tone.   Just another one of those really meaningful First World musings, huh?

This polish from Korean brand The Face Shop is simply labelled 17 Pearl Brown which is also a fairly accurate description.  Pearl Brown has a very strong satiny pearl finish which I think you either love or hate.  I used to really love pearly polishes when I was a teenager but then moved away from anything remotely pearly or frosty unless it was an edgy colour.  These days I guess I've softened towards pearl finishes again - well at least where it comes to rose gold as I found this a particularly pretty polish to wear.  If I must fault it, it's the tendency of a pearly polish like this to show up brush strokes, but it's only really obvious on one nail so more careful application would take care of that problem.  It's the usual two coats of colour on my nails here.

Sun

Shade

Until next time.

Nabi: New Gold Pearl

I've been making an effort to revisit my nail polish collection and bring out some older things to wear to mix it up a bit - even if I have the constant temptation of the newest bottles right under my nose!

 

 Nabi - speaking of things under my nose Nabi polish smells horrifically toxic - does have some interesting colours so I have a small handful from their range.  New Gold Pearl is lush with gold micro-glitter and looks like antique gold lamé to me - that flashy fabric woven with gold thread!  The golden sparkly sheen is really something in real life, although in muted light the dark green undertones can dominate and it looks a little dirtier and murkier, as seen in some of the pictures.  I had a bit of fun wearing New Gold Pearl although I think this would look much more effective on darker skintones to do it more justice.

 

Sun

Indirect daylight

 Do you prefer gold or silver on your fingertips?

Until next time
 

A vintage Revlon nail polish: Streetwear - Breathless

I haven't been stash diving in such a long time and was hunting through the collection for some variation of gold to wear for a night out.  Usually I'll go for a vampy shade for after dark wear but I just wasn't feeling it, you know?  In the end I surfaced with a very old Revlon polish - a bona fide vintage for those nail polish collectors out there.

I don't care to remember how long ago it was that Revlon had their Streetwear line - Man it was a long, long time ago!  I actually have two of these vintage polishes in my collection and both were just about forgotten until I dug Breathless out from the darkness. 

Breathless is a bronze-gold with a smattering of coppery micro-glitter.  The formula was pretty watery and I had to apply three coats and honestly this would take four to get the perfect coverage.  I was a little underwhelmed by it all round but weirdly enough, where I usually struggle to get a polish to look as lovely as it does in real life this little polish was very photogenic! It actually looks more interesting with the slightly gritty texture added by the micro-glitter. Very strange but anyway...

All pictures taken in cloudy conditions



Do you have any vintage nail polish in your collection?

Maybelline Limited Edition: Boho Gold

I received this amazing multi-chrome polish from the amazing Liz (Beauty Reductionista) a few months ago and it certainly is a treasure.

Boho Gold is a limited edition polish from Maybelline's US Fall 2012 collection so I don't imagine there's an Australian release on the way which is really a shame - fingers crossed I'm wrong!  The beautiful metallic Boho Gold has a distinct warmth to it and it is predominantly warm vintage gold which flashes bronze and green as the light hits at different angles.  It reminds me a little of Chanel's iconic Peridot but Boho Gold seems warmer to me.  Peridot is one of the few Chanel polishes I own so I'll dig it out for a definitive comparison sometime soon!

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What do you think of Peridot's warmer cousin?

 

 That's all for now!