Pastel rainbow skittles!

Today I've got a pastel rainbow skittles mani to show you :) Not much to say about it but I've always wanted to do a skittles mani - I thought rainbow pastel colours would look nice together!

Polishes used: (from left to right)

- Eleanor (I got this in Hong Kong but it says it's formulated in France... the bottle is pretty hehe) No. 51: light pink with subtle sheen.

- China Glaze Peachy Keen: light orange creme.

- Revlon Lemon Fizz: this one gave me some problems, it was thick and didn't want to smooth out evenly. Light yellow with subtle silver shimmer.

- China Glaze Refresh-Mint: mint creme.

- Revlon Blue Lagoon: light blue with subtle silver shimmer - looks like the same shimmer as Lemon Fizz.

 I like how this turned out :) Maybe when I get enough neon polishes I will do a neon version!

Thanks for stopping by!

- J

Festive manicure

I wore this to one of my best friend's 21st party about two weeks ago. The day before I was at work and one of the students that I tutor said that my nails looked "festive". I think that's a pretty good description! So I'm calling this manicure a festive mani :P

This was a base of Milani Gold Glitz from the One Coat Glitter collection, which I absolutely adoreeee. I have all of the original ones from the collection, and the new ones look awesome! I waited for the glitter to completely dry. Then I used normal sticky tape and cut out thin long triangles, which I put over the areas that I want to keep gold. I painted Zoya Lisa over the top and removed the tape while the polish was still wet. I topped it off with Seche Vite for a completely smooth and glossy finish. Sorry the mani doesn't look very glossy, I probably should've done another coat before taking the photos since we all know top coat is glitter's favourite food!

Blurry photo to show how glittery it is in real life.

Polishes used: Zoya Lisa and Milani Gold Glitz.

I think this look would be great for something like a Christmas or a NYE party! I loved this mani and I'm looking forward to trying different colour combinations! Which colours do you guys think would look good together? I think a basic black and white would look cool.

Thanks for stopping by!

- J

Oh starry starry night...

I'm sure most of you have come across the elusive Essie Starry Starry Night somewhere in the blogosphere. Unfortunately I caught the polish bug too late and I completely missed the time when this was available. So in an attempt to dupe it, I created my own layered version of this polish!

I used a base of OPI Yoga-ta Get This Blue and topped it with a very very thin layer of China Glaze Dorothy Who. The thin layer is so that the blue base in Dorothy Who would not lighten the dark blue. I finished off with a coat of Seche Vite.

I think this photo makes it look the most like a starry night sky :)

The polishes used: OPI Yoga-ta Get This Blue! and China Glaze Dorothy Who?
Wow I've gone through a lot of Dorothy Who.

Under artificial light.

Blurry picture to show how glittery it is.

If you haven't come across the original Starry Starry Night, here are two beautiful swatches of this stunning polish from two fellow bloggers! Omg look at that blue and the depthhh.... Utterly stunning... sighh.

This swatch belongs to Katee from e-polishblog

This swatch belongs to Kaz from Pretty Random!

Kaz from Pretty Random has a really excellent comparison of "night sky" polishes here.

My layering combo does not give the same amount of depth nor does it have the right colour, but I was still happy with it! :) Maybe Essie Starry Starry Night will be mine one day... one day...

- J

Max Factor Fantasy Fire Swatch and Review

I know the hype over Max Factor Fantasy Fire has mostly died down by now, but I still wanted to review it in case there are some people who haven't seen this gem of a polish! It's supposedly a dupe of the most coveted Clarins 230 (aka Unicorn Pee) which I sadly do not own.

This polish is a gorgeous purple with shimmer that shifts to all colours of the rainbow. It really is mesmerising!  Fantasy Fire is the perfect name for it. I made a GIF to show you just how shape-shifting (well, colour-shifting) this polish is.

It seriously looks like three completely different polishes at these three different angles!

The polish itself was very sheer, and I did 5 thin coats to achieve maximum opacity. To save polish and to avoid doing so many coats, you can layer it over a similar purple. I used Seche Vite for a glossy finish.

This is what it looks like front on and what it looks like most of the time. It's a medium royal purple with pinky-redy-purpley shimmer. It has so much depth to it.

Here the shimmer is an olive green and almost a bronze colour.

The shimmer is shifting to gold and peachy coloured.

It is orangey-pink here.

At extreme acute angles, the shimmer becomes an intense green and teal, and you can see a bit of yellow as well.

A few more pictures where you can see several different colours at once! (Sorry for the tipwear, these were taken when the manicure was a few days old.)

This reminds me of a lizard... somehow... lol.

The bottle is tiny though!

You can see how small it is next to a regular-sized Revlon bottle.

And here it is next to my Nikon lenscap haha.

 Pros:
- THE SHIMMER IS COLOUR SHIFTING FROM BLUE TO GREEN TO YELLOW TO RED!!!!!!!!!! So incredibly awesome!
- The base purple is a beautiful colour. I would love it even if the shimmer isn't colour-shifting.
- Might satisfy some people's lemmings for Clarins 230.

Cons:
- Pretty hard to find. Only sold in the UK... I got mine on eBay a few months ago, and it seems like the price has dropped since then. So if you haven't bought this, now is a good time ;)
- Bottle is tinyyyy, only 4.5 mL...
- Very sheer, probably better over a purple base colour if you want to conserve polish.

Dupes?
- See Scrangie for a great comparison of Fantasy Fire with several similar polishes.

Overall: 
9.5/10

Thanks for stopping by!

- J

Bright Summer Manicure with Color Club Ultra-Astral and China Glaze Peachy Keen

It's winter here in Australia, but I wanted to brighten the day by showing you a manicure I did a long while ago. It's perfect for those who are experiencing warm summery days (so jealous)! It is super easy to do.

First I applied a base of Color Club Ultra-Astral, which is a beautiful and bright bright bright pink with small holo glitter. I then used stick tape (normal stick tape will do, just make sure your base colour is completely dry before you do any taping!) to tape off two diagonally opposite quarters of my nails and painted on China Glaze Peachy Keen. I removed the tape while the polish was still wet and voila! Of course I finished off with a coat of Seche Vite to give it a glossy finish.

Stay warm, those who are in Australia- I think/hope the cold will be ending soon. And to those who are in summer weather, enjoy it!

- J

K.K. Nail Polish in Mint Chic (No. 27) Swatch and Review

I came across this brand in Cosmetics and Fragrance Direct in Sydney's DFO (Direct Factory Outlet - from what I've heard though it does not even compare to the outlets in America!). I had never heard of it before, but everything - I recall seeing eyeliner, lipstick, polish, etc - was only $2 each! So I picked up the most interesting-looking polish - No. 27. A quick Google search came up with the brand's website. The polish I got is actually called Mint Chic on the website but it has no name on the bottle, just the number. It is pretty awesome so I will definitely be getting a few more, and maybe some other makeup stuff next time I go there. I haven't seen this brand sold anywhere else, so if you know where else it is stocked, let me know and I will update this post! :)

Mint Chic is an absolutely stunning medium jade green jellyish base with dense greeny-silvery flakies. The flakies are similar to the ones in Orly Meet Me Under the Mistletoe but Mint Chic's are more densely packed, have less gold colour and does not have a teal duochrome. I did 4 coats plus two coats of Seche Vite. Anyway, enough talking, here are the pictures! (I had to colour correct some of these to make them more colour accurate).

I think I actually prefer this kind of polish in the shade, you can see how reflective the flakes are.

In direct sunlight. It's much more sparkly in real life, but my camera couldn't capture it.

Under artificial light. So sparkly!

Pros:

- Colour is really, really beautiful and iridescent.

- You can't really argue with a $2 price tag!

- Dried faster than I had expected.

- Lasted a week with only very minor chipping and basically no tipwear.

- Bottle is pretty huge - 16mL.

Cons:

- The smell is quite strong.

- Bottle looks cheap and the labels are clumsily stuck on.

Dupes:

- None in my collection. The closest is Orly Meet Me Under the Mistletoe, but that is way darker.

Overall:

9/10

I'm really amazed at and in love with this polish, especially given it's from an unheard-of brand and is dirt cheap at $2! The quality is fantastic and the colour is spectacular. If you're a green lover like me, this is a must-have!

- J

The Amazing Spiderman!

I went to watch The Amazing Spiderman with my boyfriend and of course I couldn't miss the opportunity to do an awesome Spidey-Man(i) (haha see what I did there). Spiderman is one of my absolute favourite superheroes so I was really excited to do this nail art. It took me ages though coz it kept turning out badly. I actually did this on the 4th of July so it could have been an Independence Day mani if it wasn't for the accent nail, though we don't celebrate 4th of July here in Australia. :P

I did a base of three coats of the beautiful blue glitter China Glaze Dorothy Who? (one of my fave polishes of all time), waited for it to dry completely, then used sticky tape to diagonally tape off half the nail. I painted a thick coat of shimmery red Zoya Lisa over the nail and peeled off the tape before it dried. See Nailside (the queen of tape manicures) for fantastic tutorials including how to do tape manis. The silver foil stripe was Color Club What a Drag and I actually used a small lip brush to do it coz I don't have any nail art brushes (how sad). The lines weren't too straight so I went over a bit of it using the red or the blue on either side to straighten the lines out.

Accent nail: I got inspiration (slash basically copied lol, so all credit goes to Nailasaurus) from this lovely mani by Nailasaurus. The base was Zoya Lisa, I drew on the eyes and web using a toothpick (due to aforementioned lack of nail art brushes :( haha) dipped in Color Club What a Drag and outlined the eyes using a black creme Asian polish - Go Go #88.

Lastly, I used two coats of Seche Vite on all my nails for a glossy finish.

I'm a nail art noob so I was pretty proud of this! :D

- J

Bargain Alert! Essie 2011 Summer Collection Minis Cube

Just a quick post to tell you guys about a great bargain that I picked up! :D

I got this Essie Summer Collection Cube from Cosmetics Fragrance Direct in DFO (Sydney) for $5, discounted from RRP $25!!! I love shopping at this store, I also got a $2 green flakie polish (um yes please! I will post swatches and a review soon) and the limited edition Maybelline Be Scene In Green for $4. They also sell quite a few Revlon polishes for $5. I never pay full retail for Revlon polishes - they are so overpriced here! I can get them for around $3 AUD in Hong Kong. There's no way I'm paying RRP, which is around $14 or $15 for a bottle. Urghhhh. Anyway...

This Essie Cube has minis of 4 out of the 6 polishes from the 2011 Braziliant Summer Collection, namely Smooth Sailing, Super Bossa Nova, Meet Me at Sunset and Braziliant. Scrangie has great swatches.

As I said, the RRP is $25 and it was discounted to $5. :D This is probably coz the collection is more than a year old but I don't care haha :D The polishes are only 5mL each but I think it is still a bargain coz it comes out to be only $1.25 each. I'm so happy coz I already had the full size Essie Too Too Hot from the same collection but it wasn't one of the minis.

I went a few days ago and they still had tonnes left. I don't think the Cosmetics Fragrance Direct in Market City had any though. Anyway, I hope this helps someone bag a polish bargain!

- J

Sportsgirl Nail It! in Phoenix - Swatch and Review

I've already shown you one of the three Sportsgirl polishes I recently bought. Nail It! in Cobalt was reviewed here.

Today I have Phoenix to show you and I think it is just the most perfect name for it! It is a stunning orange with prominent gold shimmer/foil particles. I don't really care for gold polishes but I'm a sucker for anything with gold shimmer. Weird huh :P As soon as I saw this I knew I had to have it. It is such a fiery and phoenix-y polish. I did 4 thin coats plus Seche Vite, but 2 or 3 thicker coats should do - it depends on how orange you want it. Less coats means it looks more pink.

I actually think it is a pink/coraly polish, but due to the immense amount of gold shimmer/microglitter it turned the polish orange! Here you can see the base colour.

Pros:
- Absolutely stunning colour. I don't own anything even close to it nor have I seen something similar.
- Relatively affordable at $7.95 for 11mL.
- Easily to find - you can even test it at the store.

Cons:
- Chipped pretty quickly and only lasted about 4 days. It seemed to be prone to chips because it has so much microglitter/foil particles in it - it's hard to explain but it's kind of like there isn't enough base to hold the shimmer so it just flakes off.
- Drying time was quite long.


Dupes?
- None in my collection and none that I have come across.


Overall:
7.5/10

The last of the three polishes that I want to show you, Emerald City, is coming soon!

- J

Sally Hansen Gem Crush in Lady Luck - Swatch and Review

Woo glitter!! I bought Sally Hansen Lady Luck at Priceline for $9.95. I don't own many Sally Hansens (actually only two I think! lol) but the ones I do have are pretty good.

This is a clear base with small glitter in the most gorgeous shade of magenta/fuchsia and a splatter of larger holo hex glitter. The coverage was quite good - I used 3 thin coats. However, like many full coverage glitters, it eats top coat for breakfast! Even a thick top coat (I used Seche Vite) couldn't tame it. The manicure ended up pretty thick with a few coats of top coat. Despite that, I think the colour pay off was well worth it. I got a few compliments wearing it. :) Removal would have been annoying but this actually peeled off cleanly - I had little molds of my nails! I gave the most perfect one to my boyfie for luck. :P

Apologies for this bad photo - it was taken before I decided to start a blog :P I also had to recolour this photo to make it more true to colour, but it is still not very colour accurate - imagine it more pink!

Pros:
- Gorrrrrrgeous colour.
- Full coverage glitter without doing 230948198 coats.
- Easy to find.
- Peeled off cleanly without need for remover - though some people may find this to be bad thing.

Cons:
- Needed a few coats of top coat for a smooth, glossy finish. Ended up being quite thick.
- Bottle is quite small - only 9.17mL (what a random number... equates to 0.31 Fl Oz, also a random number o.O).

Overall:
- 7/10

- J