Work Friendly Wednesday: OPI Keys to my Karma and MAC Ruby Woo

The one bright colour that is universally acceptable to wear to work is red. I'm not a huge fan of red - I think it's just a bit too plain and commonplace. But I do wear it sometimes to match with an outfit or FOTD. Today I'm matching OPI Keys to my Karma to one of my favourite red lipsticks, MAC Ruby Woo.

OPI Keys to my Karma is a blue-toned red with a jelly-like finish. It's more opaque than a jelly, but has a squishier look than a straight up creme. Because of this, it dries really shiny - the swatch below is without topcoat. I used 3 coats.

MAC Ruby Woo is a blue-toned matte red lipstick. This is the most matte lipstick in MAC's line, and because of this it's very drying, and drags upon application. However, it's so pigmented that I can apply a dab of lip balm on top without worrying about the colour coming off. This is well known as a cult red that looks great on everyone.

What do you think of the matching lip and nail combo? Do you match your nails to your makeup?

St Patrick's Day

Today's Nail Art March Challenge is St Patrick's Day... Because it's St Patrick's Day today! So I tried these four leaf clover nails using Polish and Panda's handy tutorial. They're really easy, even though you wouldn't be able to tell from the wonkiness of my attempt.

For the clover nails, I started with a base of Ulta3 Corsican Rose. I then painted the clovers with Illamasqua Rampage and painted over them with Pretty Serious Blue Gums on Boxing Day. The accent nail is a base of Rampage with a sponged gradient of Blue Gums and OPI Goldeneye. I can't get over the look of Goldeneye when it's sponged!

Illamasqua Rampage is such a perfect polish. It's a really rich dark rainforest green with a perfect 2 coat formula (like all Illamasqua polishes I've tried). But unfortunately it looks like I won't be buying many more Illamasquas anymore! This one took over 2 months to arrive, after we did a group order way back in January. Several weeks later the fiasco with Royal Mail happened, when they started destroying all nail polish to be sent out of the UK. So we didn't hear from Illamasqua for another few weeks as to the status of our order, and we had no idea what was going on with it. Eventually it just arrived on our doorsteps, and to top it all off the address it came from was an Aussie address! The ridiculous thing is that Illamasqua is made in Australia, and yet they've taken the option to ship to Australia off their website, and the prices are jacked up a ridiculous amount at the counters at Myer. This, combined with their terrible customer service and communication, probably means I will not be purchasing any more of their polishes myself. Which is a real shame because I really like them!

Happy St Patrick's Day! 

OPI Diva of Geneva - Swatch and Review

Since starting my new job I've realised that my wardrobe is seriously lacking in some essential items. I did a huge cull over the weekend, and got rid of pretty much everything that doesn't fit anymore (and those that never did in the first place), is too difficult to match with anything or is disastrously out of fashion. It was such a great feeling of relief to have all that empty wardrobe space and not have to worry about trying to work those clothes into outfits. I've been shopping a lot to fill in the gaps, but this time I'm taking extra care with what I buy. I'm starting with essentials and timeless/classic pieces like skirts and cardigans, so even though it's expensive at least I will definitely get lots of wear out of these clothes, as opposed to buying something on sale and trying to make it work when it clearly doesn't fit or match with anything else I own. If you feel the same way, I highly recommend a wardrobe cull.

Through this process I've become more conscious of my outfits, and how I accessorise them. As a result, I've been putting more thought into the nail polish I choose to wear. I used to get completely overwhelmed with the sheer number of untrieds I had to get through, but matching with outfits definitely helps the decision-making process.

Today I wore OPI Diva of Geneva to match with a pair of purple jeans. Diva of Geneva is a red-based purple with a gorgeous shimmer. The shimmer is gold and glows strongly in the sun. This is 3 coats.

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Sun

Indoors, natural light

Do you match your nail polish to your outfits?

OPI Last Friday Night Gradient

This year I've made a resolution to try and feature more nail art on my blog, and to get more into Instagram. Follow me! @everylittlepolish

I'm a complete nail art newbie so I'm pretty proud of how this turned out! This is a gradient of Essie Bikini So Teeny and China Glaze First Mate, with a top coat of OPI Last Friday Night.

Aussie Nails Monday - Animal

Welcome to 2013! I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and New Years. I went down to Melbourne to visit the boyfriend's family and get a handful of that famous Melbourne shopping. Surprisingly, I didn't buy anything in the boxing day sales! But I got a couple of cool Christmas presents - Jamie Oliver's 15 minute and 30 minute meals, The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling, the new Harry Potter Book of Spells PS3 game and a new camera lens. I can't wait to use them all! Did you get anything awesome for Christmas or in the boxing day sales?

Today's Aussie Nails Monday theme is Animal. I was planning on doing a leopard print mani but I completely forgot until this afternoon. So I present to you... Pawlish by OPI Doghouse Blues. This is a colour from an old range that OPI released targeted at the pet market. It's supposed to be "quick-dry, one-coat nail colour for pets", according to the blurb on the bottle.

I can't say whether it's more quick-drying than any other OPI polishes, but on my nails it definitely isn't a one-coater. This is three coats. The colour is a nice bright sky blue with a bit of foily sparkle in the sun, but it's pretty streaky.

Sun

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Indoors, natural light

I was going to test it out on my cat's nails but it reeks of chemicals and has a black label, so I wasn't entirely sure that it's actually non-toxic. Also, I have a job interview tomorrow and I don't really fancy turning up with scratches all over my arms, so I decided not to risk it.

Sadly, the Pawlish by OPI line is discontinued, but luckily there is a dupe for us humans - OPI Teal the Cows Come Home. It's the same colour but less streaky, and 3 Free!

L-R: Teal the Cows Come Home, Doghouse Blues, Teal the Cows Come Home, Doghouse Blues

L-R: Teal the Cows Come Home, Doghouse Blues, Teal the Cows Come Home, Doghouse Blues

 And because it is animal week after all, here is a photo of my cat who made my photo area his new bed.

Here are the other girls participating in Aussie Nails Monday:

Lissa's Polish Addiction - Nail Gun XS - Marie's Manicure Madhouse - Tales from the Makeup Bag

Shatter Me Claire - A Polished Prance - Tee Bee's Nails - The Epitome of Superficiality

Lacquer Dreams - Nananais Nails - Enamoured with Enamel - Pretty Polish Please - Adelle1985

Kelly's Kolors - Polished Peripherals - Nicki - All Things Charmed - Mel My Issta

Walk In My Eyeshadow - JennLojko - The Polish Haven - Nails In The Desert - Erinzi

Gloss n Sparkle Cotinga - Swatches and Review

I received my first ever Gloss n Sparkles from my Aussie Nails Secret Santa last week! I don't have any polishes by this Aussie indie brand, so I was really excited to try them out.

The first one I tried was Cotinga, a pretty combination of blue, aqua, teal, turquoise, lavender, purple and silver hex and shredded glitter in a clear base. I really like the shredded glitter, it makes it more interesting than your average glitter bomb. I layered this over OPI DS Fantasy, and the glitter payoff was great. This is only one dabbled coat. I also found the formula to be very smooth, needing only one coat of top coat to be perfectly smooth.

Sun

Indoors, natural light

Indoors, natural light

Indoors, natural light

Here is DS Fantasy on its own:

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Gloss n Sparkle polishes are available to Australian ladies from the Gloss n Sparkle etsy store, and international shipping is available currently from Shoppe Eclecticco and soon from Llarowe.

What do you think? Aussie girls have got magic nail polish making fingers haven't they? The other Gloss n Sparkle I received is Above Deck which I will hopefully be showing you soon!

OPI Fly - Swatches and Review

OPI Fly, like Did It On 'Em, is from the Nicki Minaj collection. Fly is almost everything I wanted Butter London Slapper to be - bright, fun, super shiny teal creme! While Slapper let me down by leaning predominantly green, Fly leans blue. It's such an on trend, awesome colour. Love it!

This needed 3 coats to be completely opaque but applied very smoothly and dried quickly. I wore this as a full mani for a week and only experienced minor tipwear.

Sun

Sun

OPI Skyfall Collection - On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Live and Let Die - Swatches and Review

Wow, that was a long post title! I was at my favourite beauty supply store the other day and noticed they had finally gotten the OPI Germany and Skyfall collections in, but were sold out of all the shades on my wish list except for these two. But it's well worth it, these are beautiful shades! I picked up On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Live and Let Die.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service is jaw-droppingly gorgeous and so complex. It's a somewhat sheer grey base packed full of multi-coloured shimmery flecks. It's hard to tell exactly what colours are in there, but I spotted blue, silver, gold, red and pink. I think it's really unique and special, but apparently it's a dupe for Zoya FeiFei. The sheerness of the base allows the shimmer to be layered for incredible depth. I used 3 coats here.

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Shade

Shade

Lightbox

Live and Let Die is a smoky dark green with gold flecks. It actually dries darker on the nail than it is in the bottle. Such a beautiful sophisticated colour. It only needed 2 coats for full opacity, and like most OPI polishes it dried quickly.

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Indoors, Natural Light

Lightbox

 Here is a quick comparison with China Glaze Smoke and Ashes. In the bottle they don't look at all alike but when Live and Let Die dried darker I thought they might actually be similar. They're not really - Smoke and Ashes is a blackened blue base with larger blue and green glass flecks compared to the dark green base with small gold shimmer of Live and Let Die.

L-R: CG Smoke and Ashes, Live and Let Die, Smoke and Ashes, Live and Let Die

I really love these two colours and I'm glad I managed to get them. Goldeneye is still on my wishlist. I was really tempted by The World Is Not Enough in the shop, but it looks quite similar to Pretty Serious Gargoyle Ganache. If I manage to get my hands on it I'll do a comparison.

OPI Did It On 'Em

As you may or may not know, I recently completed my graduation project. We just got our semester results back and I got 95 - way, way better than I was expecting! Rumours were going around the class that the highest result was a credit, and that the tutors didn't want half the class to have their work shown at the end of year exhibition because the standard of work was so awful... At the graduation dinner one of the tutors got pretty drunk and told me not to keep my hopes up about getting good marks. But it must have been a decoy because most of us got awesome marks! So I'm suitably happy, I managed to keep my average mark high and I get to graduate with a distinction. If you are a nosy person like me and want to see my grad project and other related work, you can check it out on my personal website.

That story is related to the polish I'm about to show you in this post! I definitely wouldn't have gotten such a good result if it wasn't for my fantastic supervisor who provided guidance and really pushed me along the whole way. She's a bit of a nail polish addict too, and gifted me four polishes as a Christmas/graduation present - Illamasqua Viridian and Untold, and OPI Need Sunglasses? and Did It On 'Em. It was so nice and unexpected of her. 

Did It On 'Em was released as part of the Nicki Minaj collection earlier this year. It's a really unique and bright greeny-yellow. I think the most accurate term for this colour is chartreuse. The interesting thing about it is that it applies very green, but as it dries it brings out the yellow a lot more. It's such an edgy colour, I love it. The formula was a little sheer, but it evened out and was totally opaque in three coats. These swatches are without top coat.

What do you think of this colour? Is it too out there for you? 

Aussie Christmas Challenge 1/12 - Red

It's December! And we all know... that means searing heat and Christmas! I love seeing all the indie Christmas collections and seasonal manis created around this time of year, but I always feel a bit disconnected from all the 'wintery' polishes because, obviously, it's summer in Australia. So to stop us Aussies from feeling left out, Elissa from Lissa's Polish Addiction has created an Aussie Christmas Nail Challenge with a different theme every two days. I probably won't be able to keep up with all of them but I'm certainly going to try!

To me, Christmas is all about barbecues, beer, and LOADS of seafood! We always go to my aunt's place for a big family lunch and although the menu changes slightly every year, there is always guaranteed to be mountains of prawns. But I realised just yesterday that because my family is Chinese, I've never actually had Christmas ham. This year I'll be spending Christmas with my boyfriend's family down in Melbourne so fingers crossed that they'll be having more traditional Australian food and I'll finally get to experience my first Christmas ham!

I'm a little late to this challenge, but today's theme is Red. I chose A-England Perceval with a coat of OPI DS Coronation as an accent nail. Perceval is a glowing one-coater red (but this mani uses two coats). I know I've been raving about the sun and the heat during our Christmas, but I like that delicate snow-y look that DS Coronation gives. It's made up of tiny irregular holo silver shards rather than glitter. I used one coat over Perceval for the accent nail.

Aussie Nails Monday - Glitter

I can't believe it's already been a week since I last posted! And I missed Monday so I'm just going to have to post this Aussie Nails Monday mani a day late... Oops! I didn't want to miss it completely though because this week's theme is Glitter, and I glitter is my absolute vice when it comes to nail polish. What can I say... I'm like a magpie, I love anything that sparkles!

I decided to create a glitter gradient mani using Essie Dive Bar as the base coat, and OPI Last Friday Night, BYS Diamond Glitter Aquamarine and a random old silver glitter I have in my stash. It didn't turn out as gradient-y as I'd hoped, but I still like the end result.

Thanks for reading! Here are the other girls participating in Aussie Nails Monday:

Lissa's Polish Addiction - Nail Gun XS - Marie's Manicure Madhouse - Tales from the Makeup Bag

Shatter Me Claire - A Polished Prance - Tee Bee's Nails - The Epitome of Superficiality

Lacquer Dreams - Nananais Nails - Enamoured with Enamel - Pretty Polish Please - Adelle1985

Kelly's Kolors - Polished Peripherals - Nicki - All Things Charmed - Mel My Issta

Walk In My Eyeshadow - JennLojko - The Polish Haven - Nails In The Desert - Erinzi

OPI The One That Got Away & b by Bloom Osaka

I'm alive! Sorry for my absence, I've just been so busy. I went up to the Gold Coast over last weekend for the V8s. I was so busy with my graduation project that I ended up staying in the hotel room working on it the whole time. But I did get to fulfill my 10 year dream of seeing Good Charlotte live, so it was totally worth it! My grad project is due next Friday so I've been completely flat out getting it finished, writing the report, sending the report off for printing, working on my showreel etc... I barely have time to paint my nails, let alone update my blog. My cuticles are in a horrifying state. But there's only one week to go, and then after that I'm free!

Here's a polish I actually swatched before I left last weekend, but I couldn't find my camera when I got back and didn't have time to look for it until today. This is OPI The One That Got Away, a deep sparkly magenta with glass-flecky shimmer. It's one of those tricky shades that looks glittery at one angle, and almost metallic at another. It applied opaque in 2 coats.

Sun

Sun

Lightbox

I thought it might be a dupe for an Aussie polish in my collection, b by Bloom Osaka. They look almost identical in the bottle, except Osaka has a tiny bit of gold flash which unfortunately doesn't come out obviously on the nail. But swatched side by side they're quite different. They are both red based purples but Osaka is darker, and packed with much more shimmer. It looks like the shimmer in The One That Got Away is irregular shaped like flecks or shards, while the shimmer in Osaka is tiny round glitter. It also looks like it has different shades of pink and purple glitter in there. Both polishes are gorgeous and I don't think they are dupes.

Lightbox

Lightbox

I managed to pick up my first two piCture pOlishes from a store up at the Gold Coast, so swatches of those will be coming soon when I have time! Thanks for reading :)

OPI Swimsuit... Nailed It!

Continuing on from yesterday's post, here is another polish from the OPI Miss Universe Collection - Swimsuit... Nailed It!. It's a bright blue base with dense microglitter, and looks almost metallic. I used three coats with no top coat.

I love this, and it's almost an HG for me. But my HG blue is slightly darker. Can you recommend one for me?

Thanks for reading!

OPI It's My Year + Giveaway!

Big news: I'm holding my very first giveaway! I feel like a real blogger now! The prizes are awesome, if I do say so myself, and you will be kicking yourself if you don't enter HERE.

Now on to the polish. This is OPI It's My Year, from the 2011 Miss Universe collection. This is seriously one of my favourite collections, ever. The colours are just so gorgeous! It's My Year is a red-based purple with a really strong gold shimmer. The formula was great, it was almost opaque in 2 coats but I did 3 just to be sure.

The sun hasn't been out to play for a couple of days so I only have lightbox photos for now... I can't wait to see this one in the sun!

Thanks for reading :)