I Love Burlesque (the movie and the polishes)

I've taken a sick day off work today and am sitting at home watching Burlesque (again).
I love it. Plus Cam Gigandet (who plays Jack) is super super hot! (even with eyeliner on)

Here is a recap of the Glitters from the 2010 OPI Holiday collection named Burlesque.

OPI Extra-va-vaganza!

OPI Bring on the Bling

OPI Simmer & Shimmer

OPI Glow Up Already!

OPI Sparkle-icious

OPI Show it and Glow it!

I will be back at work tomorrow as I have so much to do. :(

Lots of Love
Lisa

Color Club Age of Aquarius + Nfu Oh 55

Unfortunately over the last 4 days I haven't been able to log into blogger. Very frustrating to say the least. Luckily Chris managed to fix it all and I am back online. :)

I have already posted about Age of Aquarius at the start of the year while I was wearing fake nails. You can find this post here.

Color Club Age of Aquarius - White Light

I found Nfu Oh 55 in my untrieds. I had completely forgotten I had even bought this one. I figured it would be a good match to wear over the top of Age of Aquarius.

Nfu Oh 55 over Color Club Age of Aquarius - White Light

Nfu Oh 55 over Color Club Age of Aquarius - Shade

Nfu Oh 55 is a medium teal green flakie polish that has little bits of glitter and bigger gold/rainbow coloured flakes through out.

I found this polish a lot thinner than the other Nfu Oh flakie polishes I have. The others have sort of a thick jelly texture but this was much much runnier. This was one coat. Because of the thinness of the polish not many of the bigger gold flakes ended up on the nail, a second coat could fix this.

Hope you all had a good weekend.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Essence Thelma & Louise

This is another set of Essence polishes that Jill so kindly sent me from Europe.

Essence Twins Thelma and Louise

This set of twins is named Thelma and Louise - another couple I know of but am too young to know much about. The newer twin sets have names associated with more current couples such as Chuck and Blair (Gossip Girl), Bella and Edward (Twilight) and Gabriella and Troy (High School Musical).

Essence Twins Thelma - white light

This is two coats. It is a very very dark plum purple. It is smooth and glossy.

Essence Twins Louise over Thelma - white light

This is one coat of Louise over Thelma. It is full of little bits of purple glitter and big square shaped purple and pink glitter. The big bits of glitter are a little sparse, but a second coat of glitter could easily be applied to fix this.

I like how these glitters are designed to go with the cremes. I think its a great idea.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Orly Velvet

This is the only polish I got from Orly's Precious collection. This was released about a month ago in New Zealand and is available from Farmers (although all the ones I have visited lately have been sold out of Royal Velvet)

Orly Royal Velvet - White Light

This is amazing! It shimmers blue and teal and is a dark purple base. The picture doesn't do it justice. It needs to be worn and admired all day long. It is a huge distraction.

This is three coats. It is a thin polish and doesn't look very good at all until the colour is built up with more layers. I was wearing this with a base coat and Seche Vite on top and had a few little chips after 1 day.

I thought about adding a glitter top coat and extending it for tomorrow, but I couldn't cover it up. Haha so instead I took it off and am now tossing up between wearning China Glaze Strawberry fields or an untried.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Color Club Starry Temptress Collection

So instead of doing 6 separate posts I thought I would stick these all in one big one. All swatches are 3 coats.

Color Club Space Case - Sunshine

This is by far my favourite of the collection. It is the only one that doesn't finish matte like. This one is like a glittery versions of Color Clubs Electro Candy and appears to have the ultra violet shimmer running through it. Definitely the star of the collection.

Color Club Ultra-Astral - Sunshine

This one appears slightly oranger in the picture than it is in real life. The sun also makes it appear less opaque than it really is.

Color Club Wink, Wink, Twinkle - Sunshine

Color Club Wink, Wink, Twinkle - Shade

This is a pinky purple which looks more colour accurate in the second picture.

Color Club You Got Soul-ar - Sunshine

Color Club You Got Soul-ar - Shade

This is a bright orange neon. Not so yellow toned in real life as it appears in the pictures. Neons are so hard to photograph well!

Color Club Glitter Envy - Sunshine

Color Club Glitter Envy - Shade

A bright green polish. This one is quite colour accurate.

Color Club Otherworldly - White Light

This is a nice medium blue. This one turned out true to colour in the picture.

The formula on all of these polishes was great. All pictures are three coats. They all dried fast and the thickness of the polishes was just perfect. Color Clubs formulas seem to be improving with each new collection they put out. This collections formulas were also consistent across all the polishes.

The biggest problem I had with all of these colour (except Space Case) was that the colour is a little dense and drowns out the sparkle of the glitter, making the polishes dry matte. The glitter sparkles more in real life, especially in the sun, than it appears to in the photos.

This 7 piece set comes with a Starry Temptress Topcoat for "extra shine and twinkle!" I haven't used this in any of these pictures, but may experiment over some black later on.

Hope your all having a good weekend.

Lots of Love
Lisa

These polishes were sent to me for review. There is a couple of sets available on www.usanailsonline.co.nz for $59 a 7 pack.

Color Club Disco Dress + Nfu Oh 52

Disco Dress is the last of the three new bright colours released by Color Club as an extension of the Poptastic collection.

Color Club Disco Dress - White light

This is three coats, but you can get away with two. It is a great formula. The colour isnt very acurate here (purples are impossible to photograph right) It is a lot more on the pink/red side of purple than this. It does dry rather on the matte side, as you can see from the picture above. I quite like it, but it is a little on the dark side, as opposed to bright.

I am not getting the name of this one. Disco dress to me seems like it should be a glittery silver, not a creme purple.

Color Club Disco Dress - covered in Nfu Oh 52

This looks totally gorgeous. The Nfu Oh brings out blue and green and purple in the polish.

Lots of Love
Lisa

This polish was sent to me for review.

My Graduation + NOTD

Yesterday I graduated from Victoria University of Wellington with my Masters in Science for Applied Statistics, with 1st Class Honours.

The hood for my degree is a blue colour so I figured I would match my polish to that. I did my nails the night before with out actually having my hood for reference so I think I did pretty well to match the colours so well.

This is three coats of Chins Glaze Frostbite, covered in a layer of OPI Last Friday Night.

Here it is against my hood.

You aren't going to get a full picture of me in my robes (I dont look very goo in them) so here is it over my back.

I've had this on for over two full days now and as we are going out for a celebratory dinner tonight, I haven't had time to take it off. It has worn very well, and only has the regular shrinkage caused by my Seche Vite top coat.

Lots of Love
Lisa

China Glaze Mega Bite

China Glaze Mega Bite - Sunshine

This is another holographic China Glaze polish from the 2011 Tronica collection. This is two coats and dries quickly. Enlarge the picture to see the holographic-ness better. These are not the holo-ist of polishes but they are still great to wear. Its just a shame it is winter here now and we never see the sun anymore :(

I am graduating for my Masters tomorrow. My hood is a blue colour, so I'm going to try and match it with China Glaze frostbite covered in OPI Last Friday Night. Well see how it turns out.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Color Club Snakeskin

Snakeskin is one of 3 charcoal/silver polishes from the 7 piece Diamond set from the Untamed Luxury collection.

Color Club Snakeskin - light box light (I still don't know what to call this)

This one is a charcoal colour with a very fine gold shimmer running through it. This one only needs two coats and has great coverage. I find with each new Color Club collection their formulas are getting better and better. This colour does seem to fit in well with the rest of the Untamed Luxury collection - especially with the gold shimmer.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Spotted in New Zealand: MAC Quite Cute

Yay Blogger is working again!

Yesterday (Friday) Kirkcaldie & Stains had a an event during the day to launch MAC's new Quite Cute collection.


I stopped by on my lunch break. They had a girl dressed up in pink (looking cute but not as insane as the model in the picture) and handing out cute as scratchies, where if you matched three things up you won a prize.

They had a girl making balloon animals, I got given a green dog, but couldn't work out how to get it home on the bus without looking a bit silly.

The polishes in this collection are:

Ice Cream Cake - Creamy blue pink
Little Girl Type - Creamy pale lavender
Mischievous - Creamy pale blue mint

All three are limited edition creme polishes. Retailing in New Zealand for $26.
I didn't pick up any of these as they aren't really unique. Compared to the Venomous Villains collection they seem a bit average to be honest.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Light box results! + Sportsgirl Iris

I spent the weekend building a light box because it is now winter here and I wasn't sure how I was going to get any good photos in the rain and dark weather we have everyday.

IT WORKS!!!!!!

Here is the first photos I took using the new light box.

This is the polish I picked up from Sportsgirl when I was in Australia a few months ago. On a side note, most of the fashion stores we have in New Zealand come from Australia and I am surprised we don't yet have Sportsgirl over here.

Sportsgirl Nail it! Iris - (here is where I normally say what type of light this is taken in, but I am not sure what to call this type of light - any ideas?)

This is three coats. The first one it sheer, but the colour builds quickly, and you can get away with two coats here. It is a faint shimmer/frosty colour, that is very conservative. This is the only Sportsgirl polish I bought back with me, I picked this one because my grandma was named Iris.

Didn't it work well? And I took these photos at 9pm at night! I can now do my nails at night and take photos before I wear the polish for the next day and not have to worry about how it wears and having sun to take good photos.

You can follow the same tutorial I used to make your own light box here.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Color Club Red Velvet

This looked like an interesting polish hiding in my seven pack of Untamed Luxury Diamonds.

Color Club Red Velvet - sunshine
enlarge the picture to see the red glitter better

This is a black polish base, with little bits of red glitter in it. It is still glossy and not as matte looking as the photo makes it seem. Even though its a black base the glitter still sparkles through. This was 3 coats, the black is a little thin, so to get it a black enough black you need at least 2 coats. This was a little tricky to take off due to being full of glitter.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Spotted in New Zealand: OPI Pirates of the Caribbean collection + a small rant

Over the weekend OPI released the Pirates of the Caribbean collection in New Zealand stores.

Top: Skull and Glossbones, Mermaid's Tears, Steady As She Rose, Planks A Lot

Bottom: Sparrow Me the Drama, Stranger Tide, Silver Shatter

I also found out that Farmers has increased their retail price of OPI to NZ$26.90 a polish! This is INSANE!!!!!! $24.90 was already far too much to pay and now it is just ridiculous. I am not sure whether this is Farmer's fault or OPI's but I for one am not happy about it. Thank goodness for e-tailers that ship to New Zealand.

The only one I am interested in getting from this collection is the purple Planks A Lot, but I will not be rushing out to get it.... especially not from Farmers. I already have the p2 silver crackling top coat, so will not be investing in the OPI one.

Have you seen this in your local store? How much were they selling it for? Do you agree with me that NZ$26.90 is daylight robbery?

Lots of Love
Lisa

Color Club All That Razz

All That Razz is another one of the three extra polishes released by Color Club as an extension of the Poptastic Neon collection from summer 2010.

Color Club All That Razz - sunshine

It is a bright pink that reminds me of the furniture my Barbie had when I was about 7. This is three coats. It starts of thin but the colour builds up well after the second coat. It applies nicely and dries quickly. The visible nail line isn't so noticeable in real life, but the camera seems to capture it more than it should.

I am informed that these three new colours will be available at www.usanailsonline.co.nz soon for New Zealand purchase.

Lots of Love
Lisa

This polish was sent to me for review

BYS Colour Change Salmon

I thought because BYS colour change purple ended up being so great and interesting I would try another of the creme colour changes from BYS. These seem to be selling well in New Zealand because they only had a couple of the colours left when I went back to get more the other day. So I picked up Salmon from this collection.

BYS Colour Change Salmon - sunshine - Cold

BYS Colour Change Salmon - sunshine - Hot

Salmon is a pretty accurate colour description for this polish. And a slightly better name than the other polishes have in this collection (e.g. purple, blue). It changes from a medium salmon peach colour to a very pale light salmon colour when it is warmed up.

This is three coats. It is a nice formula that is easy to apply and dries quickly. It does dry slightly matte though, but a glossy top coat fixes that problem (and as I discovered last time, the colour change still works with the top coat)

I finally got fed up with our lack of sun and crappy weather and spent today building myself a light box. I still need to get a new lightbulb, but hopefully it works out and I will be able to photograph swatches when ever I want to. Fingers crossed it works well :)

Hope your weekends are going well.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Color Club Space Case

I am just going to put it out there.... I think that Color Club created the Starry Temptress collection just for me.

It is perfect. Shimmery neons and rainbow glitter combined into amazingly awesome polishes!!!

Space Case is the first polish I tried out from this collection.

Color Club Space Case - Sunshine

Color Club Space Case - shade
(Enlarge the pictures to see the rainbow glitter better -
unfortunately compressing these pictures ruins them)

It is a medium neon pick full of rainbow glitter. It also has a ultra violet blue shimmer running through it like the Electro Candy collection polishes do. In saying that Space Case is a lighter pink than Electro Candy.

This is three coats. It is easy to apply and the formula is perfect.

Lots of Love
Lisa

This polish was sent to me for review.

Free Nail Polishes with Bride and Groom Magazine

What is better than free nail polish????

Lets be honest..... Nothing is really

Bride & Groom Magazine in New Zealand is giving subscribers two free full sized Orly nail polishes when you renew or start a subscription.

Orly Cut the Cake and Lift the Veil

The good news is a 1 year subscription is only $40 (saving about $24 a year) and you get two free polishes which retail in New Zealand from around $23 each. Bargain!

Lucky for me my subscription ran out with the most recent issue, so I re-subscribed last week, and got home to find my two new nail polishes in my letterbox. My next issue of Bride & Groom wont arrive until August though.

Lots of Love
Lisa

OPI Glam Slam Duo

As far as I know OPI is not releasing the Serena tennis collections in New Zealand. It isn't really a big sport here and I don't think they can cash in on it enough here. Unfortunately from my point of view rugby is the big sport here with the World Cup here in a few months.
My pack of Glam Slam actually came in this cute little packet, although it does seem a little bit excessive as half the packet is just empty plastic.

OPI Simply Smash-ing! - Sunshine

OPI Simply Smash-ing! - Shade

This is three coats and as you can see in the sunshine picture it is still a little sheer. It is however a gorgeous yellow limey green colour with a glass fleck texture. It applies easily with the pro-wide brush and dries quickly.

OPI Black Shatter over Simply Smash-ing! - Sunshine

To be honest I prefer the yellow without the black shatter over it. I just don't think I am Black shatters biggest fan. I dont like covering up pretty polishes with black bits. Mine went goopy and thick and it is hard to get consistent "shattering" across all nails, as some need a few strokes and then it just goes blah.....

As for my comment above I suppose the Black Shatter could be paired with a silver or white polish underneath and match the All Blacks colours and therefore be suitable for rugby :S

Lots of Love
Lisa

Color Club Peace Out Purple

Color Club Peace out Purple is one of three new bright neon polishes released by Color Club as an extension to the Poptastic collection.

Color Club Peace out Purple - Sunshine

Color Club Peace out Purple - Shade

This is a thin polish, but still glides on great. This is three coats and dries to a high gloss shine. I think it leans more to the pinky/fuchsia side than the purple side. The picture in the sunshine is the most colour accurate. It is a lighter version of Mrs. Robinson from the Poptastic collection (which I have yet to swatch - sorry).

At the moment the only place I have spotted these new colours is at www.head2toebeauty.com underneath the Poptastic collection.

Lots of Love
Lisa

This polish was sent to me for review.

Nail Mail Brightens my Mondays

Woohoo for mail arriving on Mondays and making my crappy first day back at work better :)

Alas my no buy is well and truly over.

My 7 piece Untamed Luxury Diamond Collection arrived today from www.usanailsonline.co.nz
This cost me NZ$59 and $3.90 for shipping. Without shipping it works out to $8.40ish a polish.
Pretty good bargain.

Swatches to come later once I have some time and hopefully some sun. If you only want a few of these polishes they are being sold in pharmacies and salons all over New Zealand for around $15 a polish.

Lots of Love
Lisa