Color Club Ultra Violet

I AM IN LOVE!!!!!!!!!

I have wanted this colour for so long, it is part of the Color Club Electro Candy Collection.

This collection was released in 2009 for the rest of the world. But Color club has only just reciently come to New Zealand. Turns the Electro Candy collection was released at the start of summer here, along with the Flower Power Neon collection, but most retailers only stocked the Neon collection, which was a larger collection, and over shadowed Electro Candy. This broke my heart, and also explained why I couldn't find any of the Electro Candy collection in the numerous shops I looked in.

Luckily for me the Amazing people from Color Club New Zealand sent me a bottle of Ultra Violet and Tangerine Scream.

Color Club Ultra Violet - Sunshine

How AMAZING is this? Not only is it an awesome purple colour but it has blue shimmer to it too. This was three coats. It is slightly runny but still easy to apply, with no clean up needed afterwards. I wish I had this whole collection!!

LOVE LOVE LOVE!!

Hope you all have a great weekend, and may your fingers be just as awesomely coloured as mine!!

Lots of Love
Lisa

OPI Golden Rules!

ARGH I just broke a nail in the bathroom on the ceramic sink *sob* and its off my left hand which is what you always see in my swatches - never mind, you will just have to cope with my uneven nails :P

I'm going to take off my shellac tonight. I am so excited as I cant wait to try my color club ultra violet out!!!!!!!!! I have craved this polish for so long - its been hard to control myself and leave my shellac on for this long.

Anyway this is OPI Golden Rules! from the 2007 Night Brights collection. I found this in a department store not that long ago so as far as I know you can still easily get it.

OPI Golden Rules! - Sunshine

For a yellow/gold colour the coverage is good. This was three coats, but you could get away with 2 thicker ones. It comes across as quite a classy colour. I keep picturing a posh blond starlet walking down the street with a puppy inside her Louis Vuitton handbag, when I see this colour.
I was also amazed that it looked ok with my slightly pink, very white skin tone (it is winter here after all).

Lots of Love
Lisa

China Glaze DV8

China Glaze DV8 from the OMG collection.

They say a picture says a thousand words, so I am letting these ones speak for themselves.

China Glaze DV8 - sunshine

How can you not love this polish? I have nothing else this colour in my collection. I feel it is unique and interesting. Plus is it holographic so you cant really get any better than that.

Lots of Love
Lisa

OPI Black Cherry Chutney

I had wanted to get this polish for ages, and finally did about a month ago. It looks so pretty in the bottle. A vampy dark crimson shimmer. This is part of the 2008 spring/summer India collection.

I almost freaked out when I put it on one afternoon, It appeared to look like a creme. I was not amused. But alas I over reacted way too soon. I walked into the sun and was in love.

OPI Black Cherry Chutney - sunshine

This is when this polish comes into its element. It is still dark, but appears more plum coloured and the shimmer is awesome. (I couldnt work out what to tag this as, so its under red and purple).

OPI Black Cherry Chutney -up close
(believe it or not but those are not flash reflections but actually the sun)

In case you were wondering I am persisting with my shellac for a few more days. It is so hard to have just one colour for more than 2 days on my nails. Its making me anxious. I have so many polishes (including color club ultra violet! *sqee*) I want to try out and cant wait much longer.

Also a big thanks goes out to Getcha Nails Did who mentioned me in her 'New Blogs on the Block', and all those new people who started following me over night :) Great surprise to wake up to.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Woooohoooo new blog look! Hope you like it :)

Dear Nails...Why do you hate me?

I am having a bad (nail) day......

So I got Shellacked last Wednesday. Today is Monday. Two fingers are pealing off, and all the length on my little finger broke clean off while I was taking my jacket off this morning.

Now I am NOT blaming shellac on this. I am blaming my own nails. I have no doubt that if some one with thick, hard good condition nails gets shellaced then it will last forever on them. But when you have crappy, flakey, soft, bendable, brittle nails like mine, nothing seems to stay where it should.

My nails hate me. I decided to have a nail polish obsession and they decided to make it as difficult as possible for me.

I treat my nails with love and care, I moisturise, I use cuticle conditioner, I use nail hardener, I don't ruin my cuticles, I use good quality polishes and remover and my nails just don't appreciate this!

It makes me sad :(
I want a new set.

I have read that Qtica nail hardener is the one to use. What would you recommend? At the moment I use OPI Nail Envy, which works, but not enough.

Hope all of your Monday's go better than mine :)
Lots of Love
Lisa

OPI Suede Collection now in New Zealand

The OPI Suede collection is now being sold exclusively at Farmers in New Zealand. These are selling for $24.90 each.
This collection was released last year (fall 2009) to the rest of the world, and has taken ages to become available in New Zealand.

Top (left to right): Russian Navy Suede, You Don't Know Jacques Suede, Linkin Park After Dark Suede
Bottom (left to right):Suzi Skies in the Pyrenees Suede, OPI Ink Suede, We'll Always have Paris Suede

I managed to get the whole OPI Suede collection last November when I was in America on holiday. *Now would be when I would post some swatches of the suede collection, but I still have my shellac on, so am unable to swatch anything at the moment* These polishes look great by themselves and even more amazing with a top coat on, which makes them look glittery and shimmery.

My mum and dad have just gone on a holiday to America and I set my mum the task of finding me the new OPI Here today...Aragon Tomorrow Suede polish. (This is not part of the suede collection just released in New Zealand). Fingers crossed she manages to get me a bottle.

Also don't forget to get beauty club points when you purchase any make up from Farmers :)

Lots of Love
Lisa

I got Shellacked again :)

Thanks to the wonderful Kathy at The Finishing Touch Nail Salon in Wellington I got Shellacked again.

This time I went for a light pink colour called Romantique. It is a light pink creme. It almost looks like I have a french manicure done on my fingers with my nail line showing through. This looks very professional - one of the reasons I picked this colour as I am still going to job interviews.

Unfortunately my camera has not been co-operating so this is the best shot I could get of it.

Currently we are at day three - there are no chips, no scratches, no anything. They still look as if they were just done.

What are your feelings on shellac? Would you have it done? Can you cope with having the same colour on your nails for 2 weeks?

Lots of Love
Lisa

CND Effects

Today I went to get shellac done on my fingers again thanks to the lovely Kathy at the Finishing Touch Nail Salon in Wellington. Hopefully this will be tomorrows post once I get some good pictures of it.

Before Kathy applied my shellac she tried out some of the new CND Effects nail polishes on me.

There are 15 polishes in the CND Effects collection. 3 Pearls, 6 Shimmers and 6 Sparkles. They do different colours in each finish so that you can accent or change the colour of your manicure with these top coats. For a list of all the effects polishes available check out the CND website.
First Kathy applied a layer of CND Inkwell. This is a dark blue creme polish. It looks almost black in the bottle, but is actually a really dark blue.

Next we did a different effect on each finger.

left to right - Sapphire Sparkle, Ice Blue Shimmer, Lavender Pearl, Gold Sparkle

Sapphire Sparkle (#561) is a blue based sparkle, that makes the blue and a fine glitter show up on the nail.
Ice Blue Shimmer (#555) lightened the Inkwell and gave it a shimmer finish.
Lavender Pearl (#552) brought out the purple of Inkwell and gave it a pearl finish.
Gold Sparkle (#559) was a gold hued glitter that made Inkwell look more black, with very fine gold glitter on top.

For more pictures of the other effects polishes check out swatches at The Nailphile.

These are being sold at The Finishing Touch Nail Salon in Wellington for $25. They are a special order and need to be ordered in for you. As soon as I get a job and some money I will definitely be investing in some of these effects polishes. They make a polish last longer and become more versatile as you can change a regular polish after a couple of days and turn it into something special and different.

Lots of Love
Lisa

OPI Happy Anniversary!

Today is mine and Chris's 8 year anniversary!

We started going out when we were 15. We have been living together in our own flat for the last 3 years (with my beautiful cat keera) and at Christmas we got engaged :). This made me the happiest person ever!
This is a picture of what my ring looks like :) Platinum with a good quality diamond - Exactly what I wanted - He did a really good job :)

So today makes 8 years since we first started going out so to celebrate this I am wearing OPI Happy Anniversary!

OPI Happy Anniversary!

This was 3 coats. It is a very fine shimmery light silver/white glitter. This polish is more designed for layering on top of other colours. With many coats it forms an almost foil looking polish and from further away looks like a glitter foil.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Nubar Star Sparkle

I realised that the last few posts have been pink overload, so I am going to try and steer away from it for a while.

Here is one of my favourite glitters....ever!
Nubar Star Sparkle from the Sparkle collection.

Nubar Star Sparkle - sunshine

This was three coats. Its a silver rainbow glitter in a clear jelly base. It was quite easy to apply, a thin first coat and after that a great build up of glitter on each following coat. Three coats had the nail covered properly.

Nubar star sparkle - up close

This is unlike other silver glitters in the fact that it sparkles a whole entire rainbow of amazingness!!!! And its not just in certain lights - its in all lights. This is not a holographic polish - it is glitter that is making it like this.

As all glitters it is a bit of a pain to take off - I find the more expensive nail polish removers work better for glitter polish. I use OPI remover when taking off glitters (but only then, so as not to waste it - at $20 a bottle here its not something to use on a daily basis)

My first give away will be held when I get to 100 followers (63 to go). So tell all your friends about me and we will get there faster! :)

Hope you all had a great weekend
Lots of Love
Lisa

Free OPI with Bride and Groom subscription

I got my latest issue of Bride and Groom magazine in the mail yesterday :) I love getting things in the mail that are not bills.


I subscribed to this magazine at the wellington bridal show a couple of months ago. I find it is the best magazine for planning weddings in New Zealand because it is full of things from New Zealand, that we can easily source here. It means I wont fall in love with a dress I see in a magazine that I can only get if I fly half way around the world.

When I subscribed to the last issue I received a bottle of Elizabeth Arden Pretty perfume. Its a beautiful scent.

But in this issue if you subscribe you get a Limited edition Blushing Bride Beauty Kit from OPI.

It includes two mini nail lacquers (Alpine snow and Bubble Bath), two eyeshadows, two lip glosses and a dual applicator brush.

How awesome is that? and if you subscribe it is only $40 for four issues, meaning it is way cheaper than buying them in the shops and they deliver them to your house for free.

Check out the Bride and Groom magazine website here.

Lots of Love
Lisa

OPI La Paz-itively Hot + My first ever French Manicure

Following on from yesterday's post of OPI La Paz-itively Hot Matte, I have the original OPI La Paz-itively Hot.

OPI La Paz-itively Hot - Sunshine

This pink is lighter than the matte version and the shimmer is more subtle. Its almost a bright colour. this was 3 coats, but 2 would have been fine. As per usual the application was great and required no cleaning up afterwards.

I used this colour to create my first ever french manicure. I had brought some of those little french tip sticker guides and used those to do this. The first time I tried it, it didn't work so well, once the stickers were pulled up they had left sticky residue behind on top of the polish. I tried googleing this but google didn't really like searching for "how to stop sticky residue being left behind when using french tip sticker guides". Most of the links I found had french manicures being done on unpolished nails.

This time it seemed to work ok with La Paz-itively Hot as the base colour. I then added a coat of CND (Creative nail design) Glow (#423) to flatten out the black tips.


So in the end I was really pleased with how this turned out.

If you have any tips for doing french manicures over a colour base please let me know. I tried a second one over OPI Dominant jeans (to come in a later post) and when I took the sticker guides off, all the nail polish underneath came off too :(

Its Saturday here, and pouring with rain. I love staying at home in the weekends in my pjamas and not doing anything. Its nice to relax once in a while.

Lots of Love
Lisa

OPI La Paz-itively Hot - Matte

Thanks to all those lovely bloggers who gave me advice yesterday after my little panic. You are all amazing people. That's one of the things I like about blogging - you get to meet such nice amazing people, who care about you and are willing to share their knowledge and time :)

I waited quite a while before jumping on the OPI Matte band wagon. I had not heard many good things about this collection, so instead I focused my interests on the Suede collection instead.

I finally did get a polish from this Matte collection and I am glad that I did.

OPI La Paz-itively Hot - Matte - sunshine

I actually quite like this. This was two coats and the coverage was good. When it is wet is still looks slightly glossy, but you can see it turning matte as it dries. It is smooth and nice to have something different for a change.

OPI La Paz-itively Hot - Matte with Top Coat - sunshine

But this is when this polish really got my attention. I added a layer of OPI Top Coat and this polish is transformed to an amazing bright pink polish with an amazing blue shimmer. This is great. I love it and will be bringing it out to wear lots this summer.

Click on the picture to enlarge it and you should be able to see the blue shimmer working its magic here.

What are your feelings on the Matte collection? or Matte in general? Do you know if any of the other ones turn to amazing shimmer with a top coat?



Lots of Love
Lisa

Help me please!!!!!

Dear fellow bloggers

How do you make your blog popular and get lots of followers? I just don't know how to do it.
Its been over 5 months and I only have 32 followers. Others have hundreds by this stage.
Is it because I am from a little country? Are my posts not exciting or pretty enough?

I need advice. (Google doesn't really like you searching for "how to make your blog popular")
I know there are lots and lots of other blogs out there exactly like this.
Any one who follows me I add their blog to my blog role - but why don't other people add me? I don't know if I am on any ones blog roll at all.

Please help me!

Lots of Love
Lisa

Lilac Holo Comparison

Hi all,

Ive been working on this for a while now but everytime I went to do it the sun would disappear - finally on Sunday we had a day full of sun!!!!

Left to Right - OPI DS Original, China Glaze IDK, OPI Sand-erella

China Glaze IDK - sunshine

China Glaze IDK - close up

First up is China Glaze IDK. As you all know by now the China Glaze OMG Collection is my most favourite collection ever. This is two coats but if your in a hurry 1 coat is ok, but two evens it out perfectly. The holographic-ness of this polish is almost always visible (although not so much when you look at the bottle). It glides on the nail so easily and requires no clean up. I LOVE IT

OPI Sand-erella - sunshine

OPI Sand-erella - up close

OPI Sand-erella is from the Summer For Shore Collection from 2003. I looked on ebay and they are selling for around US$18 each and is classed as a HTF (Hard to find) polish. This here is 4 coats! The fist few coats are very sheer and to get the colour darker and more like it is in the bottle you need more coats. The holograhic effect of this polish is more spread out and looks more like little scattered bits of glitter. This bottle does show the holographic-ness all the time.

OPI DS Original - sunshine

OPI DS Original - up close

This is OPI original from the Designer Series. This is 3 coats. It is slightly darker than Sand-erella. Again the holographic-ness is scattered and spread out. One problem I had was while I was trying to open the bottle the silver coating on the handle all started rubbing off onto my hands - not cool. now my bottle lid is a patchy silver and black :(

And a side by side comparison:

Left to Right - OPI DS original, China Glaze IDK, OPI Sand-erella

IDK is more blue toned than the two OPI polishes. The glitter apperance in DS original is slightly bigger than that of sand-erella. Both of these have a scattered appearance where as IDK seems to make a cute smooth rainbow of holographic-ness (like all of the OMG collection does).

IDK is the easiest to get a hold of out of these three polishes, and takes less coats to apply. Sand-erella and Original are HTF polishes and will cost a bit more (I think this is due to the fact that they are older polishes than IDK is and therefore rarer).

My favourite is always going to be China Glaze's IDK.

Hope this was helpful.

Lots of Love
Lisa

OPI Cherry Much in Love

OPI Cherry Much in Love was released for Valentines Day as part of the OPI Glitters Collection in 2009 (I'm not sure but I think this was in the UK). It was also released in Japan as part of the 10th OPI Anniversary in Japan (Which was pretty much the same collection as the Valentines one).

This is a cherry red jelly base and is jam packed full of glitter.

OPI Cherry Much In Love - Sunshine

In the sun this polish looks a bit funny, the glitter doesn't seem to sparkle in this photo and looks like its all just sitting there in the jelly.

OPI Cherry Much In Love - Shade

It looks a bit better here in the shade.

From the outside of the bottle this polish looks like it should be amazing - The glitter sparkles all the colours of the rainbow (not visible in the photos but it does in real life). But I think the light jelly base doesn't do the glitter justice - I think they didn't get the balance of glitter and jelly quite right. This is still a pretty polish - I just think there are better glitters out there.

Lots of Love
Lisa

OPI Venus Di Violet

Ive started having interviews for jobs for when my thesis is finished in two months time and this was the colour I wore on my nails for the first interview I went to yesterday. I wanted something light and not too outrageous - I don't want to miss out on getting a job because I wear bright green nail polish.

This polish was originally part of the 2001 Italian Collection, but was re-released last year as part of the Colorcopia collection.

OPI Venus Di Violet

This is 3 coats. Its a light pink shimmer that actually shimmers blue and purple in the right light. Its good because it is not completely sheer and looks pretty when its shimmers.

Lots of Love
Lisa

PS. I think the interview was OK, but not that great :( Guess well wait and see.

OPI Bright Lights - Big Color + Konad

OPI Bright Lights - Big Color

This is OPI Bright Lights - Big Color. Very pretty. Its a shimmery polish from the OPI Brights collection. This was 3 coats. It changes colour in the light from orange to pink to yellow to coral. (so I've tagged this as coral)

The first time I tried this colour I didn't really like it much, I didn't think it suited my colouring but it has grown on me and I am quite fond of it now.

Again continuing on with Konad plate m36, I used white konad polish to stamp some flowers on top of this NOTD. (Sorry its a bit hard to see in the sun) I think the white on BLBC was a good combination and I would do it again.

Lots of Love
Lisa

BYS Ruby Jewel

I couldn't work out what to write today's post on - I was not feeling the love or motivation today.

So here is a BYS I tried a little while ago.

BYS Ruby Jewel (sorry its in horrible light)

This was 3 coats. And a very thin and runny polish. Its a dark magenta pink with a slight shimmer to it. Its pretty but not great. It doesn't scream "you must buy me now".

I have a few more BYS polishes to post but I don't think I am their biggest fan to be honest. I always seem slightly disappointed with their polishes.

But I think everything is a bit bleak at the moment (Id probably hate any polish I tried on today) - less than 2 months left to finish my Masters Thesis and I am stressed out to the max! (I've got zits in places on my face I have never had them before, and I can only assume they are from the stress) and it just keeps raining and raining and its freaking cold!

Lots of Love
Lisa

China Glaze LOL

Another BEAUTIFUL polish from the China Glaze OMG Collection. I think the pictures speak of how awesomely beautiful this polish is by themselves. I somehow managed to get the purple in these photos looking pretty darn accurate :)

China Glaze LOL - Sunshine

China Glaze LOL - Up Close

Holographic amazingness!!!!

Lots of Love
Lisa

China Glaze For Audrey + Layering

Believe it or not we have actually had some sunny days this past week in Wellington, which meant I got to catch up on some swatching.

A polish Ive had for a while but not tried out was China Glaze For Audrey. This polish had a lot of hype about it on the blogosphere...

China Glaze for Audrey - Sunshine (YAY!)

....But I dont get it. This wasnt like my other China Glaze polishes that I love so much. It was streaky and gulgy and I dont even really like the colour that much. This was two coats and they were painful to paint on. Maybe I got a dud bottle but I'm just not loving it - Sorry.

So I did what I always do to creme polishes I don't like much by themselves.....

OPI Baby Blue over China Glaze For Audrey

....I layered a coat of OPI Baby Blue (from my last post) over the top of For Audrey. This I like much much better, but I think it is down to the awesomness of Baby Blue not For Audrey.

Hope everyones weekends are going well.
Lots of Love
Lisa

OPI Baby Blue + Konad

I was lucky enough to find an bottle of OPI Baby Blue from the Exclusive Yokohama Japanese Collection. I have seen polishes from this collection for sale on ebay for US$40!!!!! Outrageous!
I wish they were more easily available because the whole collection looked so pretty and I would have bought all of them if I could have.

This polish is so cute and exactly what it says it is.... Baby Blue

OPI Baby Blue - Overcast weather

I think this was 3 coats but 2 is ok with this as it is no where near as thin and see through as other light blue polishes are. This is more opaque and beautifully shimmery.


Still continuing on with using Konad plate m36 I added some purple flowers (using OPI Black Chutney Cherry) and then some little crystal gems.

I really liked how this turned out. Very pretty!

Lots of Love
Lisa