Butter London Double Take (the red version)

Butter London released a bunch of sets for Christmas this year. Two of these sets were the Double Take sets. One is Blue and the other Red, both with matching flakie topcoats.  I found these sets at Macy's while I was on Holiday in Hawaii for US$24 (when they sold Butter London in New Zealand we paid NZ$30 (US$24) a polish!)

Butter London Rebel Fox - Sunshine

Butter London Rebel Fox - Shade

Rebel Fox is a burgundy shimmer that looks a lot darker and browner in the bottle.  There is also very visible gold shimmer in the bottle that doesn't translate onto the nail.  This is three coats, and it has quite a thin consistency.  I think it could have almost used another coat, once you get it in the sun it appears a bit patchy, and I wasn't happy with it.

Butter London Brass Monkey over Rebel Fox - Sunshine

Butter London Brass Monkey over Rebel Fox - Shade

This is two coats of Brass Monkey over Rebel Fox.  It is red/orange iridescent flakies in a clear base.  This one had a better consistency but I think it could have had more flakies in it so that only one coat is needed.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Spoiler: Ciate Mini Mani Month Days 1-4

When I was in Hawaii in October the Christmas Advent calendar from Ciate was already available. I picked up two from Sephora. One for me and one for the other Lisa as a Christmas present. Here is the link to it online.

I am not the biggest Ciate fan, in fact these are the first polishes I have owned from them, after the Caviar/blogger/lawyer/drama nastiness from a few years ago. But lets be honest this is an advent calendar with nail polishes in it! Best advent calendar ever!

Here are Days 1-4 swatched.

Day 1: Snow Globe

Ciate Snow Globe (over Black) - Sunshine

Ciate Snow Globe (over Black) - Shade

Day 2: Boudoir

Ciate Boudoir - Sunshine

Ciate Boudoir - Shade

Day 3: Amazing Gracie

Ciate Amazing Gracie - Sunshine

Ciate Amazing Gracie - Shade

Day 4: Silver Caviar Metallic Pearls

Ciate Amazing Gracie with silver metallic pearls - Sunshine

Ciate Amazing Gracie with silver metallic pearl - Shade

I'm off to finish making Christmas Mince pies.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Pretty Serious Cosmetics Naughty Night Shift Nurse

Pretty Serious Cosmetics Naughty Night Shift Nurse was a special polish designed for Kirsty from The Polish Haven for her birthday as a gift from her friends and released in June 2013.  Originally 100 bottles were made, and sold like crazy.  Last month though, Pretty Serious released another 100 unnumbered bottles of Naughty Night Shift Nurse. And I managed to get one!

Pretty Serious Cosmetics Naughty Night Shift Nurse - Natural Light

This is three coats. It is quite a thin polish.  It is a duochrome fuchsia with lighter iridescent flakies.
It is purple and red duochrome base with added blue shimmer that also changes to orange in the right light, with pink flakies. This is a pretty complex polish, I mean flakies and duochromatic in one bottle!

Pretty Serious Cosmetics Naughty Night Shift Nurse

This picture was taken underwater to show the colour shifts

The Polish Haven actually swatched this over black, and it makes the polish appear a lot more purple, so I am thinking of trying it out that way.  As it is not really 'me' in this form.

My sister is a nurse and I'm wondering if she would appreciate this one. But I am torn, because it is Limited Edition and I am a nail polish addict, and she is not.

Lots of Love

Lisa

Deborah Lippmann Christmas in the City Gift set

Deborah Lippmann Christmas in the City 

Left to Right: Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree, Let it Snow!, Run, Run Rudolph

I bought this set from Nordstrom in America when I was there in October. Luckily they had started releasing Christmas polishes when we were over there.

Deborah Lippmann Let it Snow! - natural light

This is a thin white frost. This was four coats in this picture.  It looks very see through in the sunlight.  I think it may have turned out better with a white creme basecoat.

Deborah Lippmann Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree (over black) - sunshine

This is two coats over a black creme. It is green and red small and medium sized glitter in a black jelly base.  This has a coat of gelous over it as it looks kind of matte and not shinny without it.

Deborah Lippmann Run, Run Rudolph - sunshine

This is two coats over a red creme. It is a shimmer red with red/gold flakies.  This is quite a thin polish and the flakies are quite scattered in the polish so they are hard to capture on camera. 

Only one more sleep to go!

Lots of Love

Lisa

Color Club Resort to Red

Color Club Resort to Red is from my 7 piece Untamed Luxury Diamond Collection.

Color Club Resort to Red - sunshine

Color Club Resort to Red - shade

This is a dark fuchsia/red colour. This is two coats. It is super pretty. The formula was great.

This is not a unique colour. Before I spread my polish wings to other brands I owned a bunch of OPI polishes just like this. I was a sucker for anything dark pink and shimmery.

This was the only polish in the Diamond collection that is not full of glitter, so I thought I would try out with the flakey top coat - Covered in Diamonds.

Color Club Covered in Diamonds over Resort to Red - sunshine

To be honest I am not a huge fan of covered in Diamonds. It is thick and goopy and I feel that the oddly shaped glitter particles are too big. I feel that Nfu Oh flakies are much easier to work with.

Lots of Love
Lisa

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.

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

Nfu Oh #39

Quick post today.

We are unable to get Sally Hanson Hidden Treasure in New Zealand, but Nfu Oh is much easier to get, which for us is pretty lucky as these retail for about $15 which is super cheap for us here.

Nfu Oh #39 over black - Natural light

Nfu Oh #39 over black. This is more green than I thought it would be but in the different lights it has amazing blue as well. I always do two coats of Nfu Oh to get a good amount of flakey bits.

Back to working on the thesis (6 days to go)
Lots of Love
Lisa

Upcoming Summer Trends: #5 Flakie Polish

The big polish of the American Summer this year was Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure.

This polish was HUGE in America. People layered it on top of EVERYTHING and then mattified it afterwards to make a whole different look to their manicures

This however is going to be a hard trend to follow in New Zealand. As Sally Hansen polishes are not available in New Zealand (we do get their treatments and other nail bits and pieces).

And to make it worse alot of the other flakie polishes are not available in New Zealand.

Color Club Covered in Diamonds top coat was release as part of the fall/winter untamed luxury collection (another 6 months away for New Zealand). Check out ebay if you can not wait 6 months and don't mind paying for the shipping.

Nubar 2010 - Best bet for this is to have a look online. I got my Nubar Sparkle collection online at Beverly Beaute.

But never fear all those whose hearts have just sunk at the prospect of not getting any of these gorgeous flakey nail polishes ............. Nfu-Oh is available in New Zealand.

I registered an account at the New Zealand Nail Academy, where you can order Nfu-Oh polishes from New Zealand.


The three I own (and as soon as I get a job I will be getting more of these!) are #52, #49, #39.
Nfu-Oh Flakiey polishes are slightly different to the others just mentioned as there is more than one of them and they are all tinted with different colours. $52 is blue/purple, #49 is pink/orange and #39 is green/white. I do love these polishes and try to match them to different base coats all the time (some posts on this coming up soon).

So that is it. The five big summer trends from the other side of the world this year. Hopefully we can carry them on into our summer here.

Lots of Love
Lisa

OPI Cuckoo for this color + Nfu Oh 52 Layering

This is the last of the three polishes I got from the OPI 2010 Swiss Collection.

OPI Cuckoo for this color - sunshine

It is a dark shimmery green, with silver shimmer through it. Application was easy, this was three coats. I had this on for a couple of hours, but it wasn't making me as happy as it should. It seemed to be missing something.

So I added 2 coats of Nfu-oh 52 (posts on this polish to come at a later date)

Click on the pictures to enlarge so you can see the flakey amazingness of this combination.

This was sooooo cool. It is like a dark green version of OPI Merry Midnight. Different lights brought out the different colours of the Nfu-Oh - you can see the green and blue versions in the two photos above.

How did you feel about Cuckoo for this color by itself?

I'm crazy busy at the moment trying to finish my thesis (I was at uni till 10pm last night) but I'm getting there - Just need to find a job now.

Lots of Love
Lisa

OPI Didgeridoo your nails? and Nfu Oh #49

Hope your weekends are going well.
The best colour I could find in my stash to match yesterdays post of Nfu Oh #49 was OPI Didgeridoo your nails? from the 2006 Australia collection.

OPI Didgeridoo your nails?

This is a Shimmery pink colour - but I don't really want to label it pink - its more a funny red/pink/mauve colour. This was three coats as it was a little bit thin and slightly runny.

Nfu Oh #49 over OPI Didgeridoo your nails?

These two polishes were a perfect match - neither are pink or red or orange and they suit each other well because of that. Again I did two coats of #49 over the colour to make the flakey glitter stand out and be noticeable.

In case any one is wondering what a Didgeridoo is.....

This is my partners one that he bought back from Australia. They are an Aboriginal Musical instrument and are extremely hard to play (or even make a sound on).

Lots of Love
Lisa

Nfu Oh #49

I was lucky enough to find an online retailer actually based in New Zealand to order these from, this means I save a whole lot on postage :)

This is Nfu Oh #49

It is a very think clear gel base with a tiny tint of pink in it and full of flakey multicoloured (yellow, orange, pink and red) glitter.

Nfu Oh #49

It is definitely a polish designed to be a top coat. Here you can see that the pink seems alot more dense in the bottle than one the nail.

Nfu Oh #49 over Black

I didn't like this originally - orange doesn't seem to go well with black to me, its too halloweenish for my liking - but this turned out quite pretty. I used two coats of 49 over black. One coat doesn't give quite enough flakey glitter coverage but the second thicker coat makes it perfect.

Lots of Love
Lisa