Chanel #583 Taboo Le Vernis: Swatches & Review

Warning: This post is pic-heavy. But it's so worth it.

As a nail polish addict with over 500 bottles, there reaches a stage where you realise that most polishes are dupes of others, and you already have something extremely similar in your stash. It takes something really special to grab your attention and get you truly excited. Chanel #583 Taboo Le Vernis is one such polish.

The colour is impossible to describe accurately. I would sum this up as a galaxy in a bottle. It has a deep red-based purple base, filled with swirling, shimmering, iridescent flecks of red, violet and pink.

This comes in the classic square Chanel nail polish bottle with a matching square cap. The cap is removable, revealing a second, round cap underneath which is very easy to grip and wield the brush with. The brush itself is medium sized - not a wide brush, but definitely not thin by any means. The brush aids application extremely well. This is evidenced by the swatches below, which required no cleanup.

On the nail, the colour transforms to a darker, bluer based purple. The formula was phenomenal - nothing less than what I have come to expect from Chanel. The polish flowed easily but wasn't too runny, and could easily have been a one coater. I used two coats here just to be sure of complete coverage.

This is such a beautiful, vampy colour, and is perfect for winter. It looks like it would be the perfect base for MaxFactor Fantasy Fire, but I think it's lovely enough on its own. It has a slight shift in hue from red to blue from different angles and lighting, and always seems to glow from within.

Taboo is part of Chanel's core line, and will be available in Australia in June for AU$36. You lucky Americans can already get it online from Nordstrom for US$27.

Do you think Taboo is as unique as I think it is? Will you be splurging on it?

Happy Birthday Pretty Serious!

Today is the first birthday of our beloved home grown Aussie indie brand Pretty Serious! The company has grown in leaps and bounds within the short space of a year. It's become a cult brand the world over, recently being featured in New York Fashion Week and the Lust Have It Eco Box. Pretty Serious is now so successful that Kaz, the owner, was able to quit her day job and run it full time - now if that's not every polish addict's dream, I don't know what is!

To celebrate, Pretty Serious fans are painting the town with multi-coloured glitter with the release of Daphne's Birthday Party. Daphne is the brand mascot, and features on every Pretty Serious polish box. Apparently she's a bit of a party girl too, because she always makes an effort to dress in theme for different collections. Here's a couple of the variations we've seen so far:

Daphne's Birthday Party is a combination of 5 different coloured glitters of the same size, designed to look like sparkly confetti on your nails. The colours are so bright and cheerful, it looks fantastic layered over anything. I decided to layer it in a gradient over Poltergeist Puddle, one of my favourite Pretty Serious polishes. It can also be worn on its own with full opacity in 3 coats.

You can't help but feel like celebrating with this polish on your tips!

And of course, I had to mattify it. It still looks great!

Daphne's Birthday Party is not limited edition, so you can pick this up any time for $9.95 from the Pretty Serious website.

Join me in saying a big happy birthday to Pretty Serious! I can't wait to see what they have planned for the future.

Purple Nails for Boston

I did feel a bit awkward continuing my scheduled posts over the last few days, in light of the terrible tragedy that's happened in Boston... So I interrupt my regular broadcast to pause and take a moment to acknowledge what has happened.

The nail community is showing our support by painting our nails purple, with the hashtag #purplenailsforboston. While I know that painting my nails purple won't do anything to help the victims or speed along the investigation, I'm doing it to show those affected by this that they are not alone. Even here in Australia, on the other side of the globe, we have you in our thoughts.

I actually don't really like this mani, but decided to post it anyway to show my support. I used Butter London Marrow, Illamasqua Poke and Essie Love & Acceptance. I don't pray, but my thoughts go out to those affected by the bombings.

Aussie Nails Monday: Inspired by Clothing

Today's Aussie Nails Monday theme is Inspired by Clothing. I chose one of my favourite tops by Bettina Liano. It's a sheer tank top with a purple, black and white print and charcoal square bead embellishments around the neckline.

To mimic the pattern I did a splatter design using black, white and b by Bloom New York. The purple doesn't stand out very much so next time I might use white as the base. Jen from The Nail Polish Project actually did a similar design a few days ago with a white base and it looks great!

I used a tiny funnel that I usually use for frankening, but it was quite difficult to get the distance and aim right with such a short length. Most of the polish ended up on my fingers or on the table! Next time I'll probably use a small juice popper or Up & Go straw.

This is my first time doing rhinestone placement and it's quite tricky, at least with the ones I used! I bought these from the craft section of Spotlight because I didn't have time to order proper nail art ones from ebay. They're self-adhesive so that might have contributed to them being really difficult to pick up and place on the nail. I also don't like the bumpy feeling of them so I end up picking them off. Needless to say, this mani came off pretty quickly.

Here are the other girls participating in Aussie Nails Monday:

Ten Little Nubs - Nail Gun XS - Marie's Manicure Madhouse - Shatter Me Claire

 A Polished Prance - Shades of Phoenix - The Epitome of Superficiality - Lacquer Dreams

 Nananais Nails - Enamoured with Enamel - Adelle1985 - Kelly's Kolors

Polished Peripherals - Mel My Issta - Walk In My Eyeshadow - JennLojko - Erinzi

Lovessweetas - Jas' Blingtastic Nails - Mckfresh - DamoJess - Lili_Bete

The Reluctant Femme - Jibber Jabber - Messy Mansion - Nailovelogy

Work Friendly Wednesday - Rescue Beauty Lounge Insouciant

Hey everyone! I've decided to start a new post series - Work Friendly Wednesdays. I've just started my new job in a semi-corporate environment so my usual fare of glitter, bright colours and nail art aren't exactly appropriate. Since this job is part time Wednesday - Friday, every Wednesday I'll be showing you the polish I'll be wearing to work that week. Since a lot of people also have jobs that restrict the types of polish you can wear, I hope you will find these posts interesting and useful!

To kick things off, I am wearing Rescue Beauty Lounge Insouciant. This is a greyed out purple based taupe with a very subtle blue shimmer. A common complaint I've heard about RBLs are that the shimmers are evident in the bottle, but barely visible on the nail. Unfortunately, this is true for this polish. I can't see the blue shimmer in normal indoor lighting, but it definitely has a softness that sets it apart from a standard creme finish. The shimmer does show up a little bit in the sun though.

This only needed 2 thin coats, and dried faster than most polishes I'm used to. Perfect for slapping on quickly the night before work.

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Sun

I tried it with a matte top coat it but it looked awful. I think I've finally broken my mattifying obsession!

Rescue Beauty Lounge polishes are available from the RBL website for $20 each. Insouciant is actually limited edition so I'd recommend getting it quick! Shipping is free for international orders over $200.

Untried C: Crowstoes Cheshire - Swatches & Review

Today's Untried is the letter C - Crowstoes Cheshire. This one is basically the perfect definition of a glitter bomb. It's a lot of fun, with a mix of different shades and sizes of purple hexes, some gold and holo hexes and the occasional oversized magenta hex. It's like a lucky dip!

Cheshire is obviously based on the cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland. It's pretty much an exact match, don't you think?

Source: Lenny's Alice in Wonderland Site

I tried to build it to opacity using 3 coats on its own, but it's definitely a top coat. It was thick and gloopy, making it very difficult to build up. Even after 3 coats there were still bald spots. I vaguely recall getting a note with one of my past Crowstoes orders saying that they are intentionally thick, so you can thin them to your liking, so I may need to do that before the next time I use it (make sure you always use thinner, not acetone, to thin your polishes!).

So here are a couple of layering combos. These are all one dabbled coat over the base colour.

Base: Butter London Marrow

Base: OPI Do You Lilac It

Base: Picture Polish Tiffany

Crowstoes are now available for Australian customers at Femme Fatale Cosmetics! Like their facebook and subscribe to their newsletter to receive restock updates. You can also find them at Llarowe. Weirdly enough, they are actually cheaper from Femme Fatale, and with cheaper and faster postage, it's a no-brainer to buy them from there.

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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Indoors, natural light

Do you match your nail polish to your outfits?