Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Polish hunting in Melbourne

Chris and I booked our trip to Melbourne ages ago to see Tim Minchin play with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. If you have not herd of Tim google him and be prepared for a laugh. He is a genius.

My plan was to shop - and of course that included shopping for nail polish. I was mainly looking for Australian brands that are unavailable in New Zealand. This included Glitter Gal, Illamasqua and Ozotics pro polishes.

We flew into Melbourne on Thursday morning. Out hotel was in the middle of town and right opposite a giant Myer and David Jones.

Myer was up first. They recently opened an Illamasqua section there and this was my first stop.

Illamasqua polishes retail for AU$34 each. I bought a bunch for Lisa (the other one) but only got myself Baptiste as I was finding it hard to justify that much money on one polish.

I also found Make Up Store polishes in Myer. These are AU$26 each - so again I only brought one. Madeleine which is a nude bronze holographic polish. (Pictures of these down further)

Next door to Myer was a giant David Jones store. This had the biggest display of OPI I have ever seen in my life.
This stand was double sided and surrounded by other littler stands full of OPI. These were retailing for AU$19.95 each. They had the new Texas collection and the Katy Perry collection (although half of these colours were sold out).

In Australia the 2007 Japanese Exclusive Yokohama Collection is part of the core line.

Left to Right - Bay Bridge Sunset, Penny for your Thoughts, Baby Blue, Pinkerbell, Vintage Violet, Sweet love at the Ferris Wheel.

I brought 6 more of these and now have a couple of double ups. (If anyone is desperate to own Baby Blue or Bay Bridge Sunset send me an email).

Chadstone mall was my next stop. Here I discovered Inglot. We don't have Inglot in New Zealand. I loved the little shop they had. I got a pallet of four gorgeous shimmer eyeshadows (you get to pick your own colours) for AU$40. I also picked two polishes - a purple and a green - unfortunately these only have numbers and not names.

Left to Right - Make Up Store Madeleine, Illamasqua Baptiste, Inglot 319, Inglot 833

Lastly I found some Nicole by OPI in a random Hair Care shop in the center of town. These were $14.95 each.
Left to Right - Nail It! (Sportsgirl) Iris, Nicole by OPI Love your Life, Nicole by OPI Blue Lace, OPI Its Totally Fort Worth it, OPI Austin-tatious Turquoise

On the way through customes at the airport they had two OPI polishes for AU$25 so I picked up the only two polishes from the OPI Texas collection I was interested in.

So 15 polishes later I am a lot poorer and still don't have any Glitter Gal or Ozotic pro polishes. I tried so hard looking for them. Chris was super sick of polish hunting by the end of three days and I was getting depressed because I had run out of money and had no luck finding the Australian brands I was looking for.

Swatches will come later once I have some spare time. Hope you are all doing well!

Lots of Love
Lisa

6 comments:

  1. Sorry you couldn't find Glitter Gal or Ozotics D: From what I hear, they're pretty HTF in stores, even in Australia.

    That OPI display is awesome! Love the gradient effect.

    Ooh, did you see any of the flakie polishes at Inglot? I'm kicking myself for not buying Nubar 2010 when it showed up on TradeMe.

    Smith and Caugheys have just started stocking Nicole OPI I think. Went in there today, and they had a display of the Justin Bieber collection. Hopefully there's more coming!

    Looking forward to seeing swatches :) Baptiste is such a gorgeous colour.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I feel so bad for not having that many choices of nail polishes here! :( And that's also why I can't wait for the swatches ^__^

    ReplyDelete
  3. Love everything you got, but what is polish expensive in Australia!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hey Sam - yes I saw the Inglot Flakies but they were teeny tiny bottles and were still full price. You can order the Nfu-oh ones in New Zealand (Just contact debbie from www.nznailacademy.co.nz and ask to set up an account and you can order them from there - they are quite good prices too).

    Ohh exciting that Smith and Caugheys is getting Nicole by OPI. we dont have one of those shops here :(. I like Nicole by OPI but am strongly against Beiber polishes on prinicple :P

    Oh Deborah you have no idea how expensive polish is outside of America! We pay NZ$25 for our OPI here. It is insane!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I can set up an NZ Nail Academy account, even if I'm not a nail tech? :O This is excellent news! Although not so for my bank account. How do I go about contacting Debbie? Just through that 'Contact Us' form on the site?

    Haha, yes same call on the Biebs. Although it would seem others aren't so picky - there were only 2 or 3 colours left on the display when I found it!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Sam - yes just send Debbie an email. I'm not a nail tech but I get polishes from them. They send out a cute little email each month with specials as well. Definitely worth setting up an account.

    ReplyDelete