NZ Giveaway Reminder

Don't forget to enter my giveaway if you are from New Zealand. It closes on Sunday.

You could win the whole Color Club Magnetic Force Collection.

Color Club Magnetic Force Giveaway!

Celebrate the release of the Color Club Magnetic Force Collection in New Zealand by winning all 6 polishes!

Left to Right: Sci-Fi, Cop an Attitude, Hipnotic, 

Magnetic Force, Electro Midnight, Steel of the Night

One winner will win the entire set of Color Club Magnetic polishes.  

Thanks to Color Club New Zealand for sponsoring this giveaway.

Color Club Magnetic Force polishes will be for sale in New Zealand Amazon stores from next week.

This giveaway is only open to New Zealand Residents.
Giveaway will close Sunday 3rd of June.

Leave a comment below with your email address, and where in New Zealand you live.
You must be a GFC follower (please let me know the name you follow as)

You can gain extra entries if you blog, tweet or share this giveaway on Facebook  (just include a link in your comment below)

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

Color Club Worth the Risque + Snow!

OMG! It snowed in Wellington. I have lived my whole life here (25 years) and it has never ever snowed!

It started about 4pm on Sunday afternoon. There was still snow outside my house when I got the bus to work in the morning and then about 11am it started snowing again! It has been snowing on and off all day since.

Here is a picture of my mum and dads house.
Its about 15 minutes from where I live.
They were brave enough to go outside and take pictures.

This is a huge deal in our part of the country. The novelty has not worn off for me yet.

So to celebrate this awesome snow I just finished this mani tonight to wear to work tomorrow. By the way its going to be just as cold any yuck tomorrow....this means more snow.

Color Clubs Worth the Risque is a silver holographic from the 2009 Femme Fatal collection.

Color Club Worth the Risque - crappy indoor night time lighting

Unfortunately because it is 10pm at night you cant see the holo-y goodness that is this polish. This is two coats. Application and dry time were great. Even at night I can see the holo in this polish. It is a linear holographic, where the holo rainbows appear in lines on the nail as opposed to scattered all about.

I topped this off with some snowflakes done using Konad plate m59 and Black konad special polish. Its a shame that I only own two different snowflakes, as you end up repeating the same ones over again.

If your in New Zealand I hope you are enjoying the snow too!

Lots of Love
Lisa

NZ Beauty Expo Part 2

Beauty Expo Part 2 continues from the Color Club booth


Here Color Club were debuting their Fractured collection which is due to arrive on the ship from America at the end of the month. They were also selling their new summer collection Wicked Sweet, which is the fruity scented polishes, their Untamed Luxury winter collection in the 7 piece packs, as well as all the polishes from their large standard colour range.

I picked up the rest of the Wicked Sweet polishes I was missing from my collection, as well as some older polishes from the Femme Fatal and Catwalk Queen collections.

Unfortunately I didn't get any of the Fractured polishes, but Steph got Tattered in Gold and you can check out her post on that here.

There was a couple of blokes selling Jessica polishes along with their salon supplies. They seemed like a hard case, and were completely unsure about selling these polishes. I picked up a dark blue shimmer called Midnight Moonlight and a pearl shimmer called Chic. I have never seen Jessica polishes in New Zealand before. If you are interested in getting any of these send me an email and I can pass it on to the suppliers.

That was about it in the way of Nail Polishes. Lots of companies were selling gel polishes and were aiming these at salon owners.

What was notably missing from this expo was Global Beauty who are the New Zealand distributors of OPI. To be honest this doesn't stand the company in good steed in my opinion. I think they should have been there. Especially as the expo is aimed at beauty salon owners, who may stock OPI. It just seems a little arrogant to me.

Also missing from the expo but available in New Zealand was Orly, Essie and Butter London.

All in all I had a great time. I loved meeting Steph and her mum, as well as the great people (you know who you are!) at the Color Club booth, who I ended up helping out on the second day while I waited for my flight back home.

I cant wait for the next expo.

Lots of Love
Lisa

P.S. I burnt my hand really bad on some steam whilst helping my mum cook dinner today, so I am typing this one handed and an in a tonne of pain. It is also the finger tips of my left hand so there will be no swatches (maybe even posts) for a while, while I recover from blisters and huge amounts of pain. Ive had ice on it for 2 hours already and it still hurts heaps!!!!

NZ Beauty Expo Part 1

The past two days I spent in Auckland at the New Zealand Beauty Expo. It was amazing!

On the Saturday morning I met up with Steph from Nail Juice and her mum and we went to check out the expo together. I love the fact that her mum loves nail polish as well.

Our first stop was the Nfu Oh booth. For those who are still wondering how to say this - its N fu Oh (said like kung fu).

Steph's mum went nuts over the polishes they were selling cheaply - I'm not going to say how much we paid for all of our polishes as it may make some of you a tad jealous. But I am going to say we brought LOTS here. I brought 9 Nfu Oh polishes (48, 50, 124, 90, 29, 93, 68, 80 and 69) and some heart shaped diamantes. We had to visit this booth again at the end of the day so that Steph's mum could buy even more polishes here.

The ladies at this booth were really nice to talk to as well. They come from the New Zealand Nail Academy based in Tauranga.

They are also the suppliers of Sheekee nail wraps. These have some great patterns and everyone has been commenting on this one finger all yesterday at the expo and today at work.

This is how it looks after three days. It isn't lasting two well on my fingers, but they have had a lot of use of the last three days. They do however look super cool and apparently last a lot longer if you do a gel top coat over the top. These are stuck on the nail like a sticker, heated up and stretched over the nail and filed down to fit. It seems a relatively easy process, but I am not sure I would be able to do this myself to my right hand.

I also got one finger done with the new colours from the Entity Colour Couture Collection of Gel Soak Off Gel polishes.
This is a beautiful red glitter called "All made up" after 3 days of wear. This is just like other gel polishes, where the polishes is cured under a special light and dries immediately. They had some nice new colours coming out as well.

Next up was the Zoya booth. I have never seen such a big supply of Zoya polishes in such a small space before.

Zoya is only really sold in Salons in New Zealand (well at least Wellington anyway) so it was great to be able to actually see the polishes in person before buying them. They also had all the collections in sets here, which is such a bad temptation for my wallet. After the experience of the Nfu Oh booth I was thinking OMG I have to control my spending but it was soooo hard.

I picked up Mitzi and Phoebe from the summer 2011 Mod Matte collection, Mimi and Ivanka from the summer 2010 Sparkle collection and Apple from this years summer Sunshine collection.

Nothing was bought by any of us at the Creative (CND) booth. These polishes were still super expensive in New Zealand. I am sure their booth was great for those who own salons and are interested in Shellac, but we kind of just passed straight by it.

Nail Systems NZ Ltd are the suppliers of China Glaze in New Zealand. I was surprised to find out that China Glaze was in New Zealand, as I have never seen it here. Turns out it is available in some salons, but to be honest, once the lady in charge there found out we were just bloggers and didnt have a salon we were kind of brushed aside and ignored. They also did not have many polishes on sale here and really were only selling sets of the new collections. I would have loved to have been able to get some of the Island Escape polishes.

Young Nails is an acrylic and gel nail systems with glitter and colour powders.

This is the one finger I got done with the Young Nails system, and it seems like something I would get done again. It is a clear gel polish that stimulates healthy nail growth, followed by a black coat and then any combination, pattern or colour of glitter you can think of. This is super thick on the nails once it is complete, I think its about 5 layers and takes a while to do with curing under a special light. Some ladies were getting their whole hands done like this and they looked great. They were even doing it on toes. I am going to endeavor to find a place near me that does this.

Ok this is getting super long so I am going to stop here and continue tomorrow.

Lots of Love (and although it is not celebrated here - happy 4th of July for all my international followers)
Lisa

Spotted in NZ: Color Club Electro Candy Collection

The whole Electro Candy collection is now being sold in New Zealand online at

www.usanailsonline.co.nz

These are selling for $13.90 (which is $2 cheaper than in stores) with a flat rate shipping to anywhere in New Zealand of $3.90.

I love the Electro Candy collection. Ultra Violet is my favourite polish of all time. The whole collection is made up of neons, with flashes of blue shimmer running through them. They are all gorgeous.

Go and get yours now!!!! It might be a little late to wear them this summer but you can wear them next year! (or like me and all year around)

Electro Candy

Volt of Light

Ultra Violet

Tangerine Scream

Pure Energy

What a Shock!

Lots of Love
Lisa

Color Club Giveaway winner

The winner of the New Zealand Color Club give away is Sam C from Auckland.
Congratulations Sam!

Thanks so much for Color Club New Zealand for sponsoring this giveaway and donating such an awesome prize!

Color Club New Zealand has just started selling polishes online to New Zealanders at http://www.usanailsonline.co.nz/
Shipping is only $3.90 within New Zealand and at the moment polishes are only $13.90.

Lots of Love
Lisa

New Zealand Earthquake update

So for those who don't know I live in New Zealand. We are quite a small country made up of three islands. We have a population of about 4 million. I live in Wellington which is the capital and the center of the country.


Today Christchurch had a 6.3 magnitude aftershock for the first earthquake they had in September last year.

I was at work when it happened and had to wait 3 hours to find out if my brother who lives in Christchurch was OK. Luckily he is OK and is planning to leave the city for the next week.

So far 65 are confirmed dead and the city is destroyed. Our local media website is a great place to check out if you are interested/concerned www.stuff.co.nz. For a little country like ours this is a massive deal. Two out of our four TV channels are playing news all day long.

Hope all are well and my heart goes out to all my New Zealand followers at this time. xoxo

Lots of Love
Lisa

OPI Texas and Katy Perry in New Zealand

For those who are wondering where it is......

The Texas collection is due for release in New Zealand on Monday the 14th of February. It will be sold in Farmers and Life Pharmacies as well as Kirks and other department stores and polishes retail for NZ$25.


OPI New Zealand has also said on Facebook that the Katy Perry collection will be released in New Zealand in time for her concerts in May. So don't worry - it is on its way!

Lots of Love
Lisa

Color Club Giveaway

Color Club New Zealand have kindly sponsored this latest giveaway here at never ending obsession.

Color Club has been in New Zealand for a while now and is selling their polishes for rrp$16 in salons, pharmacies and Amazon stores. You can check out a list of stockist here on the Color Club New Zealand website.

Color Club New Zealand has kindly donated the 7 piece (not available in New Zealand stores - and even I don't have a set!) Rebel Debutante collection.

Left to Right: Who are you Wearing, High Society, Best Dressed List, Charity Ball, Uptown Girl, She's sooo Glam, Ms. Socialite.

This is the perfect nail polish collection for autumn (or if you live in Wellington like me - it is perfect for the weather we are having now - which is grey and rainy). It is full of the trendy colours for autumn/fall including purples, greys and taupes. All seven of these polishes are cremes and perfect for day time work and sophisticated night time wear.

This give away is open to New Zealand residents only. And through this we are going to try and build more brand recognition in the Color Club brand in New Zealand and the never ending obsession blog. I want to be able to make this blog about New Zealand. What is available here and when and for how much. So it makes sense to have more New Zealanders following.

To enter:
1. Be a follower (give follower name and email address) (1 entry)
2. Tell me where in New Zealand you live (1 entry)
3. Refer your fellow New Zealanders on to Color Club and never ending obsession. Get your friends to follow and enter in the giveaway - if they mention that you referred them here you get another entry.
4. Tell me what polishes you like to buy from New Zealand (1 entry)
5. Tell me what you want to see on this blog - do you appreciate the "spotted in NZ" posts? BYS posts? how to order/swap with overseas? where I buy my polishes from? (1 entry)

Leave a comment in the comment section.
Closes March 10th 2011.

Good luck and lots of love
Lisa

Color Club news from all around the world

Color Club can not really do any wrong at the moment. They are on a roll.

It was announced the other day that the new summer collection is called Alter Ego and will be on sale in the Northern Hemisphere (you lucky ducks) from the 15th of February.

This is what Color Club had to say about the collection:Color Club lets you create high-fashion looks for every identity with Alter Ego,their latest collection of diverse, long-lasting lacquers!

Alter Ego’s consists of 12 shades! Go incognito with our opaque shades or rendezvous in full view with our sheers of Alter Ego ‘LIGHTS’ and ‘DARKS’!

Alter Ego’s ‘Reveal Your Mystery Collection’ 7 piece salon pack includes Get aClue, Revealed, Incognito, Secret Rendezvous, Sheer Disguise, and Give Me a Hint shades plus Milky White Base Coat.
The ‘Keep It Undercover Collection’ 7 piece salon pack includes Alter Ego, Secret Agent, Total Mystery, Alias,Ulterior Motive and Masquerading plus Vivid Top Coat (OMG very pretty DUO CHROMES!!!!!)

This collection is an extra six months away for New Zealand. But if you really cannot wait you can order them online from Transdesign.com

New Zealand is in the middle of summer at the moment, so currently the main collection being sold is the Poptastic collection. This collection has a total of 18 colours all sold separately in New Zealand for a recommended retail of NZ$16. (7 piece packs are not sold in New Zealand)

Recently Amazon stores have started stocking the Poptastic collection in New Zealand, so hopefully this will help make a name for Color Club in New Zealand.

Limited Releases of the Pardon my French collection and the Rebel Debutante collections are also available at the moment in New Zealand. These can be found in stores stocking the huge Color club displays (mainly in Auckland).

Pardon My French Collection

Rebel Debutante Collection

Australia has just announced a Color Club distributor. Artform Wholesale Pty is based in Perth and is currently getting their first supply of the Poptastic collection delivered. I am not sure what retail for Color Club in Australia will be.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Stylish blogger award

Jenny from Polishology tagged me for this blog award the other day (also check out her blog for the latest Katy Perry Collection swatches).


Here are the rules for this award:

1. Thank and link the person who gave you this award.

2. Share 7 things about yourself.

3. Award 15 recently discovered great bloggers

4. Contact these bloggers to tell them about this award!

Im struggling to think of 7 things about myself so I am going to list the first things that come to my head right now.

1. Tomorrow I start my first proper full time job as an analyst at the Ministry of Education in New Zealand. I am freaking out and very nervous! Its a great job and a great way to get experience for me to move onto better things in the long run.

2. As a continuation on from 1. I have spent the last 6 years at Victoria University in Wellington studying undergrad and postgrad there. I finished my Masters in Statistics a few months ago and am going to miss Uni and all the great people there. The Stats department was quite small and I enjoyed hanging out with all of our lecturers and other students.

3. I wish I had better nails sooooo much. Mine are short and thin and while they grow relatively fast they are funny shaped and I wish they were like those of the people I see in other blogs.

4. Nail polish is really hard to get in New Zealand and what we can get is really expensive. We pay NZ$20-25 for OPI, Orly and Essie polishes. Color Club polishes are NZ$16 and BYS is NZ$5-10. That is pretty much all we can get in New Zealand. Kind of sad really.

5. I love Chris! We have been together almost 9 years and it is 13 months until we get married (next February) and the wedding planning has recently stepped up a notch. Our parents are helping out, but that means they have to approve and agree to everything first. Once we get further along on in the planning I will post some things.

6. I am currently watching the 3rd season of The Big Bang Theory for about the 10th time. I love this show and when there is nothing else on TV I play it in the background while I do work.

7. I also love my cat (Keera). I am 24 and don't have kids so she is my baby. She is almost 7 and follows me everywhere (even to the toilet). She sleeps on the end of my bed and loves to cuddle. She is also a giant woss.

Okay so that wasn't too hard. :P

I think most people have done this by now, so I tag those who have not yet told us 7 things about them. Leave a comment if you do get around to sharing your 7 things.

Lots of Love
Lisa

My Top 10 of 2010

Happy holidays fellow nail polish addicts! Hope you all had a great Christmas and a gearing up for a great new year.

I thought I would share my top 10 polishes of 2010 with you. I have limited this to polishes released in 2010 and ones that I personally own.

(Please note that in some of the swatches below I am wearing fake nails. This is not my standard practice but is due to sever breakages in my nails from the holiday season and all the gardening I have been doing - when I say gardening I really mean weeding.)

These are in no particular order

1. Deborah Lippmann Bad Romance - This one was bought online as DL is not sold in New Zealand. It costs about NZ$40 but was worth every dollar. A black base with hexagon purple glitter and smaller regular purple glitter. Done in two coats and a great vampy polish.


2. Orly Meet me under the Mistletoe - Recently released as part of Orly's Christmas collection called 'Tis the Season. Luckily these came to New Zealand stores in time for Christmas (all our other Orly collections are 6 months behind). A great glass effect green with golden shimmer. Really pretty and my favourite of all the Christmas polishes this year.


3. BYS Down the Rabbit Hole - One of three Alice in Wonderland themed polishes released in New Zealand and Australia by BYS. These are supper affordable and easy to find in New Zealand. The smell is a bit iffy but apart from that they are great. This is a black jelly base with holographic sparkles.


4. Orly Out of this world - from the 2010 Cosmic FX collection. There was a lot of hype around this whole collection and in my opinion it didn't disappoint. It sort of kicked of the era of 'glass effect' polishes and the start of the duo-chrome phase. This is a great purple (the picture doesnt do it justice). It is hard to describe all the colours you can see in the different lights for this one, even just moving the bottle in your hands is awesome.


5. Nubar Star Sparkle - part of the 2010 Sparkle collection. Another one of my online purchases as these are not sold in New Zealand. This is an awesome silver glitter packed full of sparkle. Some silver glitters are just silver (like Zoya Luna) but this one sparkles a whole rainbow in the sun.


6. OPI Glow up already - this is from the 2010 OPI Holiday collection Burlesque. OPI's Mad as a Hatter started of the glitter craze this year, and OPI actually listened and included 6 more in this collection. My favourite of all the glitters is this one. Its a lime green colour, with a smattering of pink, blue, silver and orange glitter. These glitters are all done in 3 coats, but are a pain in the ass to take off (But worth it for their amazingness).


7. Color Club Wild at Heart - This was part of the Wild at Heart collection which was released in New Zealand for winter 2010. This was the stand out holographic of the season. A dark purple holographic polish, that only needed one/two coats.


8. OPI Let Me Entertain You - also from the OPI Burlesque collection. This was my favourite of the 6 non glitter polishes. I am still a sucker for pinks and fuchsia polishes any day. Again this is a 'glass effect' polish, but it is super pretty.



9. OPI Catch Me in Your Net/Orly Halley's Comet - How could I not include these two in the list. Catch me in your net came first and was released as part of OPIs Summer Flutter mini collection at the start of the year. Orly's Halley's Comet came later on in winter as part of the Cosmic FX collection. Both are dupes and there is also a Zoya dupe (charla) and an essence dupe. This is in my top 10 for 2010 but unfortunately would not make my overall top 10.


10. Color Club Poptastic - The bright neon pink creme from the Color Club Poptastic collection. Released a couple of months ago in New Zealand (and retailing for NZ$16). This collection goes great with summer fashion this year and makes your nails stand out. I also love Peppermint Twist from this collection, but have not yet swatched it)


Honorable mentions also go to the Mac Venomous Villains Collection, China Glaze Jolly Holly, OPI Mad as a Hatter, OPI Show it and Glow it!, Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe and the Milani 3D Holographic Series.

So there it is. My top 2010 polishes. It was a great year polish wise and I cant wait to see what 2011 brings - I'm sure it will be great with the OPI Katy Perry collection due out in January, China Glazes Tronica holographic collection, and the upcoming Pardon my French collection from Color Club (in New Zealand).

Lots of Love
Lisa

P.S please let me know your feelings on the pictures in which I have the fake nails on.

Color Club Volt of Light

This weekend was amazing in Wellington. It was so sunny. It is not normally this sunny or hot in November in New Zealand (it doesn't normally get like this until January).

Chris made me go for a walk with him at Makara (this is a beach about 25 minutes from the center of Wellington). We hiked up this massive hill.

This picture is from about 1/10th the way up. It was a huge steep hill but has great views from the top. you can see the South Island from up there.

Here is a pic from up the top of the hill. The hike took a lot longer than I thought it would and I got seriously sunburnt and now can not sleep properly because my shoulders hurt so much. This is the down fall of living in a country with a damaged ozone layer.

Anywho because it is so summery I was wearing Color Clubs Volt of Light - another stunning shimmery neon from the Ultra Violet collection.

Color Club Volt of Light - sunshine.

This is actually 4 coats (but they were thin ones). I love this. The blue shimmer that all these polishes have make them unique and so pretty. You can enlarge the photo to see the shimmer better. This whole collection is truly my favourite summer polishes.

Lots of Love
Lisa

This polish was sent to me for review.

Sally Hansen Ruby Diamond

When Lisa (the other one, not me) went to Australia for a conference a while ago she bought me back Ruby Diamond. This is from the Sally Hansen Nail Prisms collection. Tina (aka smoochiefrog from Manicure Mommas) informed me that these are quite old now and hard to find, which explains why Lisa found it in a bargain bin on sale. I did see these about a month ago in New Zealand at a cosmetics plus store, but in the weekend when I asked if they still had any left they said they were all sold out but they may be getting more Sally Hansen polishes back in stock later on. (fingers crossed)

Sally Hansen Ruby Diamond - sunshine

This is a great holographic polish. Only 2 coats is needed (but I seem to automatically do three for everything now). Very awesome pink rainbow finish. These photographs don't really do it justice. I really like it a lot.

With China Glazes OMG collection now on the hard to find list, I suggest it maybe easier to hunt some of these down (especially if you are in America). It seems like this would fit in perfectly with the other polishes in the OMG collection. I wish you all luck on your holographic hunts.

From what I know Sally Hansen is quite a big thing in other parts of the world, but here it barely features at all. Farmers sells the treatments and a very small selection of polishes but that is about it for New Zealand.

Lots of Love
Lisa