Bloggles

Aww my poor neglected blog! I’ve been slack with posting lately but I’ll just put that down to the busy holiday season I hope you all stuffed yourselves silly and got some wonderful presents from Santa this year!

Here are a few past NOTD’s, including what I wore for Christmas.

Christmas Mani

I thought I would get into the festive spirit this year with the classic green and red combo. I had Illamasqua – Rampage on my ring fingers and OPI – Little Red Wagon on the others. Not the most original but hey, fun nonetheless!

OPI – A Grape Fit!

From the Bright Pair collection, this is a wonderful purple creme. I had the urge to wear a lighter purple (the majority of purples I own are darker like Lourve Me, Lourve Me Not) and was consistently drawn to Parlez Vous OPI (which I have already worn) but was hesitant about it because I have so many untrieds to get through. This was until I remembered I had this little beauty as a part of the mini set for this collection. It was perfect (and virginal)! I would call this PVO’s brighter summery cousin. I loved it so much I went out and got the full size bottle. Weird thing about the minis, I seem to forget they’re a part of my stash and unconsciously leave them off my spreadsheet, heh! I used to love the idea of getting a little sample of colours but I now have this thing about uniformity across my nail racks (it just looks better). Full size China Glaze polishes stick together, as do the Color Clubs and OPIs. Opting for full sized bottles means I can integrate them into my stash in a more visually pleasing manner.

Color Club – Brrr-Red

This picture is soooooooo inaccurate! I don’t even know why I’m posting it. It appears much darker and deeper in real life with a jelly-ish finish to it. I’m still trying to get my head around the concept of jelly finishes. I can see what is meant whilst applying it because it has that glossy, translucent look to it between coats but I wouldn’t be able to tell a ‘jelly’ apart from a creme at full bottle colour. Who knows!

China Glaze – Recycle

A medium grey creme. I got this as a part of China Glaze’s eCollection and have to admit that I was a little unsure about how much I would like it at that time. The thing about having a million untrieds is that it gives colours plenty of time to grow on you before you get around to wearing them. I loved this! I think I have a thing for these ‘chic’,  ‘fashion forward’ taupey, mushroomy and grey cremes. This will definitely be coming out to play more in autumn/winter.

OPI – Miami Beet

Eep! Again, I shouldn’t be posting this because this is much deeper in real life. The name for this one is spot on, it makes your finger tips look like they are covered in slices of beetroot! It’s another one of those colours that play mind games. It’s not quite red. Not quite magenta. I don’t know, but I like them complicated!

This unfortunately, is going to be a lazy post with minimal commentary but don’t worry, I make up with it with a lot of pics. What’s that thing they say, anyway? Something about a picture being worth a thousand words?

China Glaze – Tree Hugger from the ecollection. What a gorgeous colour! I liked it alot but had a few qualms about being able to pull it off. Application was a bit iffy but this might’ve been because I wasn’t used to China Glaze’s brush. I think I may have been spoilt by OPI’s Pro-wide (yes, I am indeed amongst those who actually like it!).

I got bored in between exams so I layered OPI’s “And this Little Piggy…” over it (left). I liked it. It kind of made it look ‘dirtier’ and somewhat more wearable. Not necessarily better than Tree Hugger on its own, just different.

Index comparison. Chinese finger trap, anyone?

And again on the same hand. I did say I had alot of pics.. haha.

China Glaze’s ecollection.
Unplugged, Hybrid and Shower Together.

Tree Hugger, Solar Power and Recycle.
I love this collection as a whole. The colours all look really nice together and I would probably wear most of them if not all. I just have to be feeling a little adventurous to wear Solar Power

So, exams had me out of posting action for a while but never fear, I have here a catch-up post of what I’ve been wearing over the last couple of weeks.

OPI – Chapel of Love

I really liked this colour. That wasn’t much of a surprise, though, because it’s quite similar to Back to the Beach Peach – except with a bit of pink shimmer. It didn’t play that mind game BttBP did with me though and tended to stay the one shade of pinky-coral. Since BttBP is discontinued, I would suggest that this is a good alternative. I’m pretty sure it’s a part of OPI’s Classics Collection now.

In the shade

With flash – you can see the shimmer if you look closely

Illamasqua – Rampage

I was so excited to find that Illamasqua were willing to ship internationally. I picked this up along with MILF and paid more than I usually would for a bottle of polish. Once again, Australians chump out at £12.50 which equates to $22.40 AUD at the moment. These can be had by American polish lovers for just $14USD (around $15AUD) on Sephora – too bad they don’t ship internationally! WHY OH WHYYYY must we endure such injustices???!!  This has me so depressed *sigh* If only I had some connections overseas!! Especially some in the US. I’m still dying to add Muse and Lament to my collection.

This really deserves a post of its own… But I can’t be bothered! Oh well, here goes…

My package, eeee! I was so excited to finally have this in my hot little hands! I was pretty anxious, considering it contained two of the most expensive polishes I have ever bought.

The contents! They included some nice brochures as well. That was nice

The precious cargo! Rampage and MILF (which I am yet to wear). My very first bottles of ‘varnish’ as they call it in the UK, heh-eh!

And finally, the swatches…

This was outside in natural light. I’m holding the bottle weirdly because I was trying to hide the shrinkage that occurred. I think it was the Seche Vite’s fault. Or the way I applied it.. or something.

This is it just after I painted my nails. Messy, I know. I don’t know what happened here, I don’t usually make this much of a mess

And yes! I got it on the sides of my fingers, too! This is a comparison of it without top coat (above) and with Seche Vite (below). As you can see it dries kind of satin-y which was weird – I didn’t expect this since it was sooo lovely and glossy as I applied it. But hey, nothing a lick of SV can’t fix.

OPI – Purple-opolis

I have to admit, this colour didn’t really impress me in the bottle. For something that was purple, it certainly looked pink. It was lovely on, though and much closer to what it’s named with some shimmer. Remember Kinky in Helsinki? Purple-opolis is kind of what it looks like when it isn’t reddish indoors. I suck at colour descriptions so I’ll let it speak for itself in the pictures – they’re pretty spot on.

In the shade

In direct sunlight

This is Blushingham Palace. A dusty pink shimmer that almost comes off as frosty. There’s a flash of gold in the bottle which unfortunately isn’t visible in any of my pics (sorry! not my best, I know) but that doesn’t matter too much because it doesn’t really translate onto your nails… Ok, maybe it does,  but only very slightly! I don’t know what it is with me lately, but unless the colour is bright and in your face, it will have me snoring whenever I look down at  it, zzzzzzz (not even alternating caps zzz’s!). It came across as a ‘nanna’ shade to me, something senior citizens would wear and I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did on my nails before I scratched it off to replace it with some real colour. Maybe I’m being a little harsh. It’s probably just the mood I’m in at the moment. It is pretty much summer here in Australia, after all!

Before I go ahead with the pictures of this colour, I just want to thank Nixxy over at NIXXY’S NAILS for the wonderful competition she held not too long ago. I was the lucky winner of the two tickets to Sydney’s Fashion Weekend. THAT’S RIGHT! I WON! YIPPEEE! I’m having a pretty good week so far because I also managed to score $36.90 on Shocking in the Melbourne Cup! *dances*

Anyway, I’m looking forward to hitting this up with Nghi and hear that Glitter Gal is giving away a bottle of blue or green polish to the first 50 people who visit their stall and mention Nixxy’s Nails. I hope there are some left by the time I get there! I’ll be taking some photos and posting them up afterwards for anyone who couldn’t make it this year!

On with the colour!

OPI – Shootout at the OK Coral – Direct sunlight

OPI – Shootout at the OK Coral – Flash

This, my friends, is Shootout at the OK Coral. A bright ‘in your face’ pinky-coral with a crazy flash of  hmm… fuschia. It’s amazing! I couldn’t stop staring at my nails the whole time I had it on. I must admit, I didn’t think I would be wearing it much, if at all, when I first got it but boy am I glad I ended up with it. It’s my ideal colour for summer and matches the flowers on my maxi dress perfectly! If only the sun would come back out again