Shooting Stars nail art

Shooting stars nail art:



I did this using two coats of OPI Black Onyx.

I used Hologram Glitter (CM Nail Art) to draw the tails of the shooting stars. I found the brush on this stripper was not very good fro drawing fine lines, and because the glitter is in a clear base isnt quite thick enough to use for stripping byu itself, but using two coats in big sections works perfect for this design.

Then i stuck little silver star sparkles at the end of the corners.

I think it is totally cute :)

Lots of Love
Lisa

OPI Show it and Glow it! + comparison

I love glitter - I also love Fuchsia Polishes so OPI Show it and Glow it was something I was really looking forward to.

Here it is in a bunch of different lights (click the picture to get a bigger picture to see the detail)

OPI Show It and Glow It! - sunshine

OPI Show It and Glow It! - outside shade

OPI Show It and Glow It! - inside

Show it and glow it is a pink fuchsia glitter in a clear base, with extra silver and blue glitter. These photos are all 3 coats. I like that these polishes only need three coats to be completely opaque. Again it is a pain to take off - but after staring at your fingers all day long you wont want to. These sparkle best in the sun, but are pretty all day long. I love this glitter collection by OPI.

Sitting on my desk with my untrieds and polishes I'm working on was Sephora by OPI It's Bouquet with me (this was one of the polishes my mum bought back from America for me :)). Looks kind of similar huh?......

OPI Show It and Glow It! and Sephora by OPI It's Bouquet with me.

Both polishes are three coats in this picture. They are not dupes. They are both in clear bases but the glitter in It's Bouquet with me is much sparser and the glitter is different sizes, unlike Show it and Glow it! which is all one size. Show it and Glow it also has more colours and depth to it. I think It's Bouquet with me is more of a top coat than a stand alone polish, due to the sparseness of the glitter, which doesn't give an opaque coverage. To be honest Show it and Glow it is my favourite, and it is more versatile, as it can be used alone or as a top coat.

Lots of Love
Lisa

OPI Glow Up Already!

The first polish I tried out from the 2010 OPI Burlesque collection was Glow up Already!

Here are some swatches under some different lights:

OPI Glow Up Already! - sunshine
(Click the picture to enlarge it and see all the different coloured glitter)

OPI Glow Up Already! - inside

OPI Glow Up Already - outside in shade

This is thee coats and I think I am in love. It is a clear base with lots of lime green (and they choose such a great green - not snotty and not to dark, I would say a tasteful green) with bits of pink/blue/silver and other extra surprise colours of glitter scattered throughout.

It is simply GORGEOUS!!!!

It does however remind me a bit too much of a Christmas tree so I think this will definitely be a Christmas day polish.

Removal of all glitter polishes is a pain and this is no exception either. I recommend some strong acetate and the foil method - soaking cotton pads in the remover and wrapping them around your tips for awhile covered in tinfoil, and you still cant get rid of all the flaming bits of glitter everywhere. At least the prettiness of the polish makes up for the hassle of taking it off.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Burlesque Haul

Wohoo my first ever TransDesign order arrived. And it is full of glitter! I am not one to complain about numbers filed of or gorged out of the cap because these beauties work out to be only NZ$10 each compared to the recommended retail that we normally pay of $25 in New Zealand. I don't think people in America appreciate how cheap their nail polishes are.

I managed to narrow the Burlesque collection down to 8 must haves.

Left to Right: Let Me Entertain You, The Show Must Go On!, Glow Up Already!, Sparkle-icious, Simmer & Shimmer, Bring on the Bling, Extra-va-vaganza!, Show It and Glow It!

Swatches to come soon :)

Lots of Love
Lisa

OPI Flashbulb Fuchsia + Nfu-Oh #49

2 coats of OPI Flashbulb Fuchsia layered with two coats of Nfu-Oh #49. Enlarge the photos to get a better look at the flakey goodness.

Beautiful. I don't think I need to say much about this :)

Hope your having a good weekend - its a long one here - yay for having Monday off :)

Lots of Love
Lisa

OPI Spring 2011 Texas Collection

OPI has finally realized that releasing images of their upcoming collections and information about them in advance is a better idea than trying to gag anyone who talks about them on the internet before their release date (like they did with the Burlesque collection).

This week pictures were released of the upcoming 2011 Spring collection based on and named after the American state of Texas. It seems a bit odd to base a collection on one American state when there are so many countries and places that don't have collections yet (they could do an awesome New Zealand collection based on our green trees, blue sky and black sand beaches - I want to be acknowledged if you do use this idea though OPI).

The last few days OPI on Facebook released swatches of the polishes from this collection. If your not already a follower of OPI on Facebook I suggest checking it out now that they are using it to inform customers of what they are actually up to. (http://www.facebook.com/#!/OPIProducts)

• Don’t Mess With OPI - A lean, mean, kick-grass forest green
• Austin-Tatious Turquoise – Cowgirls love this bodacious blue-green
• It’s Totally Fort-Worth It – A shimmery lavender grey that’s so worthy of you
• Do You Think I’m Tex-y? A “berry” sexy bloom of Dallas dahlia
• Big Hair…Big Nails – A rosy pageant peach
• I Vant To Be A-Lone Star – You won’t want to share this starry Texas-sky blue
• Houston We Have A Purple – A galactic red-violet that’s ready to “rocket-roll”!
• Suzi Loves Cowboys – But she loves this campfire chocolate shade s’more!
• San Tan-tonio – A “honey” of a ten-gallon tan!
• Too Hot Pink To Hold ‘Em – A red-hot pink-red that deals a winning hand
• Guy Meets Gal-veston – An “engaging” coastal coral. A very orange pink
• Y’all Come Back Ya Hear? – This Texas tangerine will be waitin’ for ya!

I am kind of glad to say that I am actually underwhelmed by this collection. There appears to be only one shimmer and a great deal of reds and brown colours. This is definitely good for my bank balance after the amazingness of the Burlesque collection (which I am still waiting for in the mail to arrive). I think that OPI came up with great names for these polishes but that is about it.

What are your opinions on this collection? Yay or Nay? and how do you feel about a collection based on one state?

Lots of Love
Lisa

Butter London Thames & Henley Regatta

Farmers started selling Butter London polishes in store almost a month ago. They are selling for $29.90 each. (ouch) so I waited till a Farmers sale that had 15% off and paid $50 for two polishes.

The two polishes I got were Henley Regatta and Thames.

I was really excited about Thames because it looks awesome in the bottle. An aqua shimmer that changes from blue to green and all shimmer colours in between.

But alas it does not look so cool on the nail. It appears flat and just more one colour. It doesnt convert well too the nail.

Butter London Thames - sunshine

This was the best pic I could get of it. 3 coats. It applied ok and dried ok but does not wow me at all like I expect a polish this expensive to do. It only looks good in the sun and inside looks flat and boring.

Butter London Henley Regatta over Thames - sunshine

So then I added a coat of Henley Regatta over the top. This helped make the polish better but I am still not excited by it.

Henley Regatta by itself is a lot better than Thames.

Butter London Henley Regatta - sunshine

This is 3 coats. The glitter in this is really really tiny. The first coat is sparse and provides a surface for the next coats to stick too. The third coat is needed to make this opaque. The glitter is has a few different shades of glitter in it and sparkles really nicely in the sun.

Henley Regatta redeemed this brand in my eyes, but over all I do not think I will be going out of my way to buy anymore of these polishes. NZ$30 is way too expensive (this is $23 American) for polish. Most of their colours don't seem too unique for me, and I am sure I can find very similar colours in cheaper brands.

What do you think of Butter London? Would you pay that much for a polish?

Don't forget to enter my giveaway! (There is not many of my original followers entering - and this giveaway was for you folks who followed me from the start!!!)

Lots of Love
Lisa

Upcoming OPI Katy Perry and Serena Collections

OPI on Facebook just released pictures of their new collaboration collections due out in 2011.

Katy Perry Collection: "OPI will be ringing in 2011 with the Katy Perry collection complete with glitter, gun metal & black shatter!"

Left to Right: Last Friday Night, Not Like the Movies, The One That Got Away, Teenage Dream and Black Shatter.

Serena Glam Slam Collection: "The Serena collection has a bit of a twist. Sold as a two pack this coming January, you can get your hands on both "Simply Smashing" and black Shatter. This is the first set coming out for the Australian OPEN, and there will be more with more color combos as well!"

Simply Smashing and Black Shatter

CAN NOT WAIT!!!!

Check out the YouTube video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1piNxgXJzI

Lots of Love
Lisa

(Pictures and quotes were all taken from OPI on Facebook)

MAC Formidable!

MAC Formidable! is another of the MAC Venomous Villains Polishes. Another Duochrome polish that changes in different lights. It has a purple base with teal flashes throughout it. These pictures were three coats. A fourth coat or thicker coats may have been required to get better coverage as these polishes are quite sheer.

MAC Formidable! - sunshine

MAC Formidable! - shade

Just like Mean & Green there is an Orly dupe for this polish from the Cosmic FX collection called Galaxy Girl. Cosmic FX is still around 6 months away from reaching New Zealand, but fingers crossed we will get it here for next winter.

I still haven't worked out which of this collection is my favourite yet. Bad Fairy is still to come later on.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Color Club: What a Shock!

What a Shock! is another amazing neon shimmer from the Electro Candy Collection.

Color Club What a Shock! - sunshine

This is three coats and applies great. If you enlarge the pics you can see the blue shimmer that is in all the polishes in this collection. I like these so much more with shimmer in them than regular neons.

Lots of Love
Lisa

This polish was sent to me by the awesome people at Color Club New Zealand.

Spotted in NZ: LA Colors

LA Colors was first spotted in New Zealand a week ago. These are being sold at Warehouse Extras. I had to visit 2 Warehouses before I found one that was actually a Warehouse Extra and had the LA colors display.

They display looks like this and has a whole range of make up and was located near the check out counters (not with the rest of the make up)

The displays also contain the Art Deco nail stripers.
The display at the Warehouse out by the airport in Wellington had all LA Colors make up selling at $5 a piece - but when I first found out about these in New Zealand I heard the polishes were selling for $9.99 each.

One thing that does bug me with LA colors polishes is they say that they are 15mls. But they are much much smaller than OPI bottles which are also 15mls. I am tending to believe that OPI is more likely to be 15mls and LA colors isn't. Has anyone else noticed this? It doesn't seem right to me.

The polishes both have the same diameter but the OPI is much taller. I just can not get my head around them both having the same amount of polish in the two bottles.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Color Club Electro Candy

Color Club Electro Candy - I'm having a really hard time trying to decide which of the polishes from the Electro Candy collection is my favourite. I want to put the whole collection on my top 10 list. But i sure do love this one.........

Color Club Electro Candy - sunshine

(Enlarge pic to see the shimmer better)

This is a bright pink with a ultraviolet blue shimmer. LOVE in a pink bottle. This is 3 coats and applies easily. I'm still wearing this now and with out a top coat it hasn't chipped at all after 2 days, does have a little bit of tip wear but not bad for no base or top coat.

Lots of Love
Lisa

This polish was sent to me by the awesome people at Color Club New Zealand.

Recent Hauls

Is it still called a Haul if some one else gives it to you?

My bestie went to Australia for a conference and bought me back these polishes from Oz.

Left to Right: Poppy, Lagoon, Sweet Violet, Hollywood and Pearly grape.

Ultra 3 is like a cheaper drug store brand in Australia. These polishes are 13.5mls and I think they are about AU$2 a polish.

Thanks to the awesome people at Color Club New Zealand I now have the who Electro Candy Collection.

Left to Right: Ultra Violet, Electro Candy, Tangerine Scream, Volt of Light, What a shock! and Pure Energy.

*squee* I am so in love with these polishes. I am currently rocking Electro candy (the pink one) on my nails now, so will post that tomorrow. I also love how these polishes look with a simple konad design done in black over the top.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Color Club Teenie Halloweenies

Halloween is not a big thing in New Zealand at all. There may be the odd halloween dress up party but it is more of an excuse for people to get drunk and dress skanky than anything else (I don't think I will be joining in at all this year). There is almost no trick-or-treating or anything like that here.

But color club does have the teenie halloweenies nail polish pack out for those in New Zealand who do want to theme their nails this year.

The pack contains 4 mini polishes. Silver glitter, French tip, orange revenge and black. These are 7mls each. I was quite surprised to see that these have good length brushes inside and not some stupid little mini brush that makes it hard to apply the polish.

Color Club - Silver Glitter, Black, French Tip and Orange Revenge - Sunshine

Theses are all 2 coats. The black is a really good one coater and the silver glitter worked really well with just two coats. All polishes were a good consistency and the white was surprisingly opaque.

The 3 colours topped with silver glitter - sunshine

The silver glitter in this pack is a clear jelly with smallish silver glitter in it. After 2 coats it gives almost complete coverage. I think it works great as a top coat on top of the other three aswell.

Color Club Wham! Pow! and Orange Revenge

Orange revenge is a dupe for Wham! Pow! from the 2010 Poptastic collection.

Unfortunately my camera refused to photograph these well at all and kept making them appear really yellow. The bottle pictures above are much more colour accurate. Both of these polishes are 2 coats and it is impossible to tell the difference between the two of them.

I think this is a great little collection for the New Zealand market. Although we are not getting the newest color club halloween collection like the rest of the world this is a great start for color club who are relatively new to the New Zealand market. These 4 packs are selling for $29.95, which is a good deal as the polishes aren't actually that small and have decent brushes with them.

Lots of Love
Lisa

These polishes were sent to me for review by the awesome people at Color Club New Zealand

BYS Down the rabbit hole

BYS Down the rabbit hole is from the 2010 Wonderland collection. It was thought this was just an Australian collection but it is also here in New Zealand. I brought mine on Saturday at a cosmetics plus store for $8.90 (and they had plenty more in stock as well as the other 2 polishes in this collection).

It is a black jelly with silver holographic glitter. The following pictures are all 3 coats and were taken in different lights to show how the glitter changes in the light.

In the shade this polish just looks black with silver glitter in it

BYS Down the Rabbit hole - Shade (inside)

BYS Down the Rabbit hole - Sunshine

The camera doesn't manage to capture all of the holo - so it is sparklier in real life. I do wish the black was darker but that's not what happens when you have a black jelly full of glitter (if the black was too dark you would drown the glitter).

The one problem I had with this polish is the smell. It smells like something you would use to wax your car with. As far as I can tell from my chemistry knowledge and the ingredients on the back of the pack these are B3F (although if you know for sure if they are or not please let me know)

This polish is featured in my 100 followers giveaway. Click here to enter to win 4 BYS polishes.

Lots of Love
Lisa

My 100 Followers Giveaway!!!

Here it is......
My 100 followers give away :)

The prize is made up of 4 BYS polishes.


Left to Right: Let's Glow!, Gold Boom, Matte Purple, Down the Rabbit hole.

Gold Boom is a regular Metallic gold BYS polish.
Matte Purple is a medium purple matte polish.
Down the rabbit hole is a holographic glitter polish in a black base (I brought one for myself so swatches to come a bit later on)
Let's Glow! is a UV polish that glows under UV lights.

These are all brand spanking new (I bought them an hour ago) and unopened. The only one I will have swatches of is Down the rabbit hole as this is the only one I brought for myself.

The rules:

1. You must be a follower (Please put let me know your GFC name) and provide an email address (1 entry)
2. Blog about this give away or put it in your side bar (1 entry) please provide a link
3. Add me to your blog roll (1 entry) please provide a link
4. Tell me what country you are in and what polish brand you wish was sold in your country (1 entry) for example: I live in New Zealand and I wish that they sold China Glaze here.

Pretty easy really just leave a comment below with your details :)
This is open to international followers too (Thats the reason the give away is made up of BYS so that someone in another part of the world can experience this brand too)

This give away will run until the 10th of November 2010 (1 month from now) and I will announce the winner just after that. I'm thinking of writing my own random number generator code to select the winner (an actual use for something I learned how to do in my honours year at uni)

Good Luck
Lots of Love
Lisa

Spotted in NZ: Orly Viva!

Farmers now has the Orly Viva! collection in stock. This collection was released in May 2010 around the rest of the world. New Zealand is 6 months behind with Orly polishes. These are selling for NZ$23 and come with a free Mini bottle of top2bottom.

The Viva! collection contains four polishes. The colours are:

Bailamos – turquoise shimmer
Ole – coral orange creme
Fiesta – hot pink shimmer
La Playa – blue creme

I looked at these today but none of the polishes are overly unique, so none came home with me today. Good for my credit card though :)

Lots of Love
Lisa

MAC Mean & Green

This is the first of the 3 Venomous Villains polishes I tried out.

Mean & Green is teal with pink pigment and even in the same light can look completely different.

The best I can explain this is through pictures (please excuse my stubby nails - this is a result of a bunch of breaks over the weekend)






I personally like it when it is looking pinkish. This was three coats.
I'm not really a fan of of the silly little brushes that accompany these polishes.
When you take off this polish the cotton pad goes blue, showing the base of the teal that the polish has, which isn't so visible on the nail.

Orly Space Cadet from the 2010 Cosmic FX collection is said to be a dupe for this polish. Cosmic FX has not yet made it to NZ, so I an unable to do a comparison (We have just got the Sweet collection in NZ). I know that over seas Orly is much cheaper than MAC, but in NZ MAC is $26 and Orly is $23 so there isn't much difference at all.

One of the big problems with these MAC polishes is that they are only 10mls as opposed to the standard 15mls of other brands. This is a shame and makes me not want to waste these Limited Edition polishes.

Lots of Love
Lisa