Aussie Nails Monday - Birthday Nails

Welcome to my very first Aussie Nails Monday post! Basically it's a weekly nail art challenge a couple of us Aussie girls are doing, with a different theme each week, organised by the lovely Elissa from Lissa's Polish Addiction. I've never done nail art before so this is the perfect opportunity for me to get into it :)

This week's theme is Birthday. When I think of birthdays, the first thing that comes to my mind is a Tiffany's box. Every year, my boyfriend gives me a gorgeous piece of Tiffany's jewellery on my birthday. His choices are always perfect, and I love every single piece.

Nah, just kidding. I don't own a single item of Tiffany's jewellery. But a girl can dream, right? I've been hinting heavily that I would like something from Tiffany's for my birthday, so I suppose my nails are still somewhat birthday related. As I said earlier, I've never done nail art before so I thought I'd start with something dead simple - a Tiffany's themed french manicure. The blue is Sportsgirl Lagoon, with Ulta3 Lily White tips.

Sun

Shade

Thanks for reading! Here are the other ladies participating in Aussie Nails Monday (with entries infinitely better than mine!)

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

Emily de Molly Blue Moon + Essence Hard to Resist

I'm ashamed to say that I only recently made my first Emily de Molly order... Great Aussie indie polish supporter I am, right? But now that they've arrived, I'm totally hooked. I was lucky enough to be able to get my hands on a special polish called Blue Moon, made exclusively for the members of an Aussie nail polish addicts group.

As you may or may not know, Lynns are very difficult to come by in Australia, because she doesn't ship internationally from her ebay store. Hayley from Emily de Molly was kind enough to create an alternative to When the Moon was a Star for us, and dare I say... I actually like her version better. Blasphemy! Lynn dupe aside, this is actually a gorgeous polish. It has bright blue multi-sized hex glitters, small light blue and purple holo glitters, and holo moons and stars in a clear base. It applies smoothly and dries only slightly bumpy, and the moons and stars were easy to get on the nail. This is one coat over Essence Hard to Resist.

The blue of this was difficult to capture in photographs - it's actually a lighter, more saturated blue. Once I get my lightbox fixed and my good camera up and running, I'll update these photos.

The undies deserve a special mention. Essence Hard to Resist is the most gorgeous navy blue I've ever used. It's a one coater with a lit-from-within shimmer, and it only cost me a couple of dollars as well. If you see this in stores, buy it immediately. You won't regret it.

Emily de Molly polishes are available from her etsy store, and for international ladies they'll soon be available from Llarowe. Essence is available from Target and Priceline.

Pretty Serious They Came From Beyond Space! Collection

Yes I know... Another Pretty Serious collection! My wallet is crying. They Came From Beyond Space! is a mini collection of 3 sparkling multichromes which look different depending on how you layer them and in what lighting you look at them. They are such versatile chameleon colours!

With these 3 polishes, the colour is much softer and smoother when worn on its own. It also has more depth to its shimmer. However, when layered over black, the colours really pop and the sparkle is much stronger. They all applied fairly sheer and needed 3 coats for full opacity on their own, but over black only one thick coat (or two thin coats) is needed. The formulas are all really smooth and easy to apply with barely any patchiness or streaking. They have an almost foil-like finish.

Anyway, enough of my talking - I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

Galaxy Invader is an aqua with a light purple shift.

3 coats on its own

3 coats on its own

Index & Middle: 2 thin coats over black, Ring & Pinky: 1 thick coat over black

Index & Middle: 2 thin coats over black, Ring & Pinky: 1 thick coat over black

Phantom Planet is a muted mossy green with a blue shift.

3 coats on its own

3 coats on its own

1 thick coat over black

1 thick coat over black

 I love all of these, but I think Atomic Brain is my favourite. It's a purple-pink with a golden coppery shift.

3 coats on its own

3 coats on its own

1 thick coat over black

1 thick coat over black

The They Came From Beyond Space! collection is available from the Pretty Serious website for $9.95 a bottle, or 10% off for the full set.

Thanks for reading!

Sneak Peek: Pretty Serious Galaxy Invader

I feel a bit guilty about neglecting to post for a couple of days so here is a sneak peek for an upcoming post: my review and swatches of the Pretty Serious They Came From Beyond Space collection. This one is Galaxy Invader, an aqua with a pretty purple duochrome shift. I wore this to my graduation dinner on Wednesday night and got many compliments on it.

Stay tuned for a full review coming soon!

HITS Apolo Swatches

HITS Apolo is the polish I chose to wear for my trip up to the Gold Coast a few weeks ago. What could be more appropriate for a holiday with overpowering sunlight and sweltering heat than a holo?

I'm happy to report that it lasted the full 4 days with minimal tipwear. Apolo is a dark blue holo. The holo isn't as strong as some of my OPI DS's, but it's very pretty nonetheless. The formula was smooth and easy to apply, with no patchiness, and it dried quickly. This is 3 coats with one coat of Cult Nails Wicked Fast.

Holo!

Holo!

More holo!

HITS polishes are available at Llarowe and Ninja Polish for around the $8 mark.

Ulta3 Greetings from Paradise Candy Cane Collection Swatches

Phew, that's a long title! To start off, let me just apologise for the crappiness of the post you are about to read. My lightbox light got smashed yesterday so all these photos are taken on my extremely attractive brick front porch. To add to that, these have got to have the worst formula I have ever experienced in a nail polish. Thick, gloopy, sheer, streaky - name a problem, this collection has it. I seriously reswatched these about 3 times to try and get them to look good but I eventually just gave up and did them on swatch sticks.

These are the Greetings from Paradise collection by Ulta3, which come in both a giant metre-tall candy cane for $12.95 and there are some also available as a mini collection of 4 polishes. I picked up the candy cane at Terry White at Bondi Junction, and let me say, it was pretty embarassing being judged by that crowd, carrying it through the shopping centre because they didn't have bags big enough. Anyway, onto the actual polish:

All of these were somewhat sheer and watery, and also very streaky. They all needed 3 coats for full opacity, but streaks and patches were still visible.

Click "Read More" to continue reading!

Ulta3 New 2012 Glitters

A quick reminder that I'm having a giveaway! If you haven't entered yet, do so here :)

I'm not sure if this is actually a named collection, so I'll just refer to them as "the new Ulta3 glitters". Ulta3 released a glitter collection last year which were made up of uniform sized small glitters. This time around, they've packed in a variety of sizes. The result is a collection of six polishes that I think are great staples.

First up is Twinkle Toes, a silver glitter. It's a bit difficult to see exactly what sizes of hex glitter are in this, but I think I counted 4 different sizes. There's also a sneaky diamond shaped glitter on my ring finger, can you spot it? This is one dabbled coat over Ulta3 Blue Marlin.

Pot of Gold is a gold glitter. Not to be confused with the vastly inferior BYS Pot of Gold, which contains larger gold glitters, but is really sparse. Unlike the BYS polish, this one went on easily and there was no problem getting the glitter onto the nail. This is one dabbled coat over Sephora + Pantone Parachute Purple.

Over the Rainbow is the gem of this collection. Multi-coloured, multi-sized glitters! Of course there are already dozens of dupes of this out there, but one can never have enough multi-coloured glittery top coats. This is 2 dabbled coats on the index and middle finger, and 2 wiped coats on the ring and pinky fingers, over Ulta3 Melted Marshmallow. (At the Terry White where I picked these up there was a little stand with some suggested undies for each of the glitters, and this was one of the combos. I also used the combo for the red glitter, but I can't for the life of me remember what the other combos were and I can't find them online anywhere.)

New Year's Eve comes a close second favourite. It's an almost-dupe of piCture pOlish Splash, but Splash only has 2 different sizes of glitter, while New Year's Eve has 3 or 4. Am I the only person who thinks of Blue Year's Eve every time I read that name? This is 2 wiped coats over Ulta3 Sweet Violet.

Luck of the Irish is a straight forward green glitter. This is one dabbled coat over Ulta3 Corsican Rose.

And last but not least, here is Disco Fever, a red glitter. Fairly self-explanatory. This is one dabbled coat over Ulta3 Orchid (another one of the suggested combos).

Ulta3 polishes are available in pharmacies Australia-wide, and cost around $2 each.