Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Color Club Revealed

Revealed is from the 2011 Alter Ego collection, which is going to be in New Zealand Amazon stores about now, just in time for summer.

Color Club Revealed - Shade

Color Club Revealed - sunshine

This is three coats which applied easily (slightly thin) and dried quickly. Its a nude/peach colour that is pink toned. Its not so visible in the pictures but there is a fine pink shimmer running through this polish. Makes a regular nude colour a little bit more exciting. It matches so perfectly with colours coming out in stores now (like Forever New - I love that store).

Lots of Love
Lisa

China Glaze on NZSale

For those followers in New Zealand, China Glaze is selling polishes on NZSale again.

I thought I would tell you what happened to my last China Glaze order off NZSale.

I ordered 6 polishes. I knew that things from NZSale could take a while to arrive. Also shipping on these is quite expensive. Shipping increases with each polish you add to your cart.

I was excited one night when we went down to the couriers to pick up my parcel. My excitement didnt last long when I recieved my parcel. It was smaller than I expected. No way 6 polishes could fit in there.

I was right. They had only sent me three polishes. But that is not the worst of it. All three sent to me were not colours I had ordered.

I rang NZSale - apparently its not up to them to fix it. Its up to the people who were selling the polishes through their website. And they no longer had any of the polishes I had ordered in stock - WTF?!?!?! Who got my polishes then? They had them in stock when I ordered them.

I did manage to get a full refund for these polishes (and shipping) after returning the 3 the had sent me. But all in all not a good experience.

The other Lisa ordered some too. Last I heard they hadn't arrived (we are talking four months later) and NZSale are blaming it on the courier company. I have my doubts here.

So if you are planning on ordering some China Glaze polishes off NZSale. Be warned. I will not be attempting another order for these. I have given up on NZSale.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Monday, October 24, 2011

OPI I Eat Mainely Lobster

I Eat Mainely Lobster is from the 2011 OPI Touring America collection which is out in stores now.
This has to have been the most painful polish ever to get colour accurate photos of. I swatched this three times over a month and nearly gave up. Finally today I managed to get some colour accurate pictures!
OPI I Eat Mainely Lobster - Natural (overcast) light

This is a complex pinky/peachy/coral/orange colour. It is quite pigmented so you can get away with two coats. It has a golden/pink duochrome-ish shimmer running through it.

The first two times I swatched this in sunshine, shade, inside, outside and under white light it would appear orange in the photos. This is not orange. The golden shimmer running through it sort of gives it an orange hint. But I have classified this as a pinky coral colour. It has the same base colour as OPI Shootout at the OK coral.

Lots of Love
Lisa

This polish was sent to me by CandyGirl in New Zealand. Check out the "where to buy" tab at the top of this page to see the range of polishes they have for sale.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

All Blacks NOTD

The final of the world cup is on tonight in New Zealand.

Here is my manicure from Friday, where we had a dress in black to support the All Black day.

This is OPI Black Onyx with a fern done free hand using Essence Nail Art Freestyle and tip painter in Silver Surfer. The stars were chris's idea. They are little silver stars.

At work I ended up doing nails like this for a few of the other girls. They mostly ended up with ferns on most of their fingernails and numbers of names on the rest of their nails.

Hope your all having a good weekend.
I am sooooo glad Monday is a public holiday here. I have needed an extra day off work for so long.
Bonus picture of Keera (because shes black)

Lots of Love
Lisa

Saturday, October 22, 2011

OPI Nicki Minaj Collection

Its official! OPI today confirmed on their Facebook page the existance of the new Nicki Minaj collection, due out next year. And I will gladly admit I am totally excited about this collection - bot because I love Nick Minaj but because the colours look great.


From the OPI Facebook page:

Despite what you've seen online, we wanted to make sure you got accurate information from us. The Nicki Minaj collection consists of a deep shimmering purple Shatter called "Super Bass" and these five Nicki-inspired colors: "Metallic 4 Life", "Save Me", "Fly", "Did It On 'Em" and the bubble gum hue "Pink Friday".

Are you excited about this collection?

Lots of Love
Lisa

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Spotted in NZ: Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure


Just spotted these at Farmers in Wellington. The other Lisa wasn't with me today so this is taken on my phone camera. I dont have an iphone so its not the best picture sorry. Looks like there are 14 polishes in the range released here. The colours didn't look overly exciting, so I didn't buy any. I could not for the life of me find the price of these polishes. In New Zealand stores don't usually stick price stickers to products, instead you have to search the shelves for a label with the price.
Farmers has Sally Hansen at 20% off at the moment.
They also have Orly for $16.99.
And you can get a free OPI shatter polish when you purchase two other full price OPI polishes.

Sale pictures from the online catalogue at www.farmers.co.nz

Lots of Love
Lisa

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

OPI Cherry Blossom

Because the Rugby World Cup is on in New Zealand at the moment, at work we had to decorate our work spaces with decorations relating to one of the countries playing in the Cup.
Our group of four desks had Japan. We made a giant cherry blossom tree (by cutting out about 500 flowers from pink paper), had origami cranes hanging from the ceiling and had Japanese kimonos hanging up.

A few weeks ago we had a Friday dress in you country colours. I was wearing OPI China Glaze on my nails with Konad flowers. In the end the people from the England group one (they were a bit nuts)

OPI Cherry Blossom - White light

Cherry Blossom is from the Japanese (and Australasian) exclusive range. It is a light pink shimmer made up of very fine glittery particles. This is three coats. The konad design is from plate m3 and is done using white konad special polish.

It is really a shame that OPI (and other brands) have ranges of polish that are exclusive to certain locations. Everything should be available everywhere!!!

Lots of Love
Lisa

Monday, October 17, 2011

Color Club Tattered in Gold

This is the gold offering from Color Club in their Fracture collection.

Color Club Tattered in Gold (over A England Galahad) - Natural light

Tattered in Gold is a metallic shimmery gold, and because of this it is more sheer on the nail. It feels like it needs to be thicker to get the gold to show up better, but obviously cracks different with different thickness coats.

I honestly found this really hard to pair with base coat colours. I just could not make up my mind over what to stick it over. If you have a gold shatter/fracture/crackle what colours are you using it over?

Lots of Love
Lisa

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Spotted in NZ: BYS Scented collection

This post is a bit late. I found these in store the weekend before I got really sick and never got around to posting them. So they have been available for a month now.

I found these polishes after stalking my local Cosmetics Plus store and ringing the up about four times to find out when these were coming in. A few times I got sales assistants who had no idea what I was talking about, which is frustrating when as a consumer you know more about a product than the retailer. If I worked there I would spend a couple of minutes a week on the BYS website and would made sure I knew my stuff. Anywho.....

Image from www.bys.com.au

The BYS website says there are 18 polishes in this collection. My local Cosmetics Plus store only had 8 of these. Apparently its up to the managers to decide what colours they bring to New Zealand. :(

Next issue I discovered was that no where on the bottle or in the shop did it tell you the scent of the polish. The labels on the bottom of the bottle just tell you the colour and these names have no link at all to the scent. Also because of the smell this brand of polishes has it was impossible to smell the scent in the shop.

So I went based on colour and only picked up one of these polishes.

BYS Scented Light Pink - Natural Light

Want to hazard a guess at the scent of this one???

Surprise.... It is Roses!

The formula on this was nice. It was three coats and the polish actually has a golden shimmer running through it, although it feels like a creme polish. The shimmer was hard to capture in the photo but trust me it is there, its just very subtle.

My problem is again with the naming of these polishes - This one isn't even really light pink. Its a nude/peachy colour. And there was no way to guess it was rose scented before I bought it home and tried it.

In saying that it does actually smell like roses. You have to wait until it is dry to smell the roses. It smells a bit like rose scented soaps.

Unfortunately (unlike the Color Club scented polishes) you can not really smell the roses that much through a top coat (I used Seche Vite). The problem with BYS is it really does need a top coat to prolong its wear (which for me is especially short with BYS).

All in all, I like this colour, I like the roses smell, but I wish it was stronger so I could smell it better through my top coat.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Saturday, October 15, 2011

I found the perfect nude polish (for me)

I never thought I would find one, but low and behold I have.

Color Club Incognito - Sunshine

Color Club Incognito - Shade

This is three coats of Incognito from the Color Club Alter Ego collection. I realise that these photos make my hands look pinker than they really are. Incognito is a pale grey tones biege. It doesn't seem to have too much pink in it. It is a sheer jellyish creme polish.

The Color club Alter Ego collection will be in Amazon stores in New Zealand by the end of the month. I have more swatches of this collection coming in the future.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Models Own Lilac Dream

Hello again lovelies!

Its been a while. The flu I have had has really knocked me for six. It has been almost two weeks. The first week was spent in bed. I still have a runny yucky nose and trouble breathing. I think I am operating at about 70% at the moment.

Because of this my nails have been totally naked. I have had no energy at all. Today was the first day I felt up to swatching. There was also a bit of sun.

Models Own Lilac Dream - Sunshine

Lilac Dream is a perfect one coater creme polish. It is smooth and opaque. This is two coats, but in a hurry you could definitely get away with one. My ring finger is stamped using an Essence plate (these oddly don't seem to have names or numbers) and Models own Purple Mystique.

I think next time I might do the stamping with a holographic purple, like Color Club Wild At Heart or China Glaze Virtual Violet, especially when I can take advantage of it while its sunny.

The is my first Models own experience. These polishes are not B3F (although the Models Own Pro Series is) so they do smell a bit. The round fat-ish lids are harder to control while holding, and the brushes are not overly special at all. I do love the box they come in, and am totally looking forward the the up coming Bettlejuice collection, due to be released in November.

Bettlejuice collection: Golden Green, Pinky Brown, Purple Blue, Aqua Violet and Emerald Black

Hope you are all feeling well.
Lots of Love
Lisa

Sunday, October 2, 2011

500 Followwer Giveaway Winners!

There were 551 entries from 166 followers.

Winner of prize number one is entry number 258


Which is Holly Boneham from Canada!
Congrats Holly.
Can you please send me an email with your address and I'll send your prize out to you.



Winner of prize number 2 is entry number 85.

Which is imfeelingnail-venturous (aka Amy) from America!
Check out her AMAZING blog. Her nail art is to die for.
Congrats Amy.
Can you please send me an email with your address and I'll send your prize out to you.

Congratulations to the winners and thanks to all who entered.
Next giveaway will probably be at 750 followers.
I am going back to bed to continue dying. This is day 6 of the my flu and I still feel terrible.

Lots of Love
Lisa