Orly Bubbly Bombshell

Bubbly Bombshell was my mani to my Fiances Christmas work do on Saturday night.

Orly Bubbly Bombshell - Natural Light

Orly Bubbly Bombshell - Sunshine

This is a bright pink fuchsia glitter in a clear base. There are actually two sizes of glitter in this, a smallish one and then a bigger rounder one. This is three coats, but its still got quite a bit of nail showing through and tips are really hard to wrap with a glitter polish.

Here is some bonus pictures and a comparison.

Look how it matches the shoes I wore!

Orly Bubbly Bombshell over black - Natural light

Nubar Petunia Sparkle - sunshine

Here is a picture of Nubar Petunia Sparkle for comparison. They are almost exact matches for colour, but Petunia Sparkle only has one sized glitter and has a more matte appearance.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Green spam for St Patrick's Day

Happy St Patrick's Day!

I am tired and grumpy so today's post is just some green spam. Some you have seen before and some you haven't (these may be featured in posts later on).

China Glaze Jolly Holly

Nubar Reclaim

Color Club Twiggie

Orly It's not Rocket Science

China Glaze L8R G8R

Orly Meet me under the Mistletoe

Nubar Meadow Sparkle

OPI Bikini Envy

China Glaze Emerald Sparkle

Color Club What a Shock!
(This is what I wore today for St Patrick's day)

Hope you had a great day with lots of green polish.

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.

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

Nubar Star Sparkle

I realised that the last few posts have been pink overload, so I am going to try and steer away from it for a while.

Here is one of my favourite glitters....ever!
Nubar Star Sparkle from the Sparkle collection.

Nubar Star Sparkle - sunshine

This was three coats. Its a silver rainbow glitter in a clear jelly base. It was quite easy to apply, a thin first coat and after that a great build up of glitter on each following coat. Three coats had the nail covered properly.

Nubar star sparkle - up close

This is unlike other silver glitters in the fact that it sparkles a whole entire rainbow of amazingness!!!! And its not just in certain lights - its in all lights. This is not a holographic polish - it is glitter that is making it like this.

As all glitters it is a bit of a pain to take off - I find the more expensive nail polish removers work better for glitter polish. I use OPI remover when taking off glitters (but only then, so as not to waste it - at $20 a bottle here its not something to use on a daily basis)

My first give away will be held when I get to 100 followers (63 to go). So tell all your friends about me and we will get there faster! :)

Hope you all had a great weekend
Lots of Love
Lisa

Nubar Night Sparkle

Continuing on with the Nubar Sparkle Collection we have the dark blue Night Sparkle

This one was a little bit of a disappointment (Maybe its just all dark blue glitters are) but just like China Glaze Blue Sparrow it dried matte-ish. So far none of the other Nubar sparkles have done this. Its a dark blue glitter in a medium to dark blue base. Because the base is so dark it takes the sparkle away from the glitter and makes it just look sort of like little bits of grit in the polish.

Outside in Sunshine

This was three coats. However when you went outside the glitter did show up a lot more in the sun.

Night Sparkle Close up

Hope your weekends are going well. We have had a week of non stop rain (with a break today) and it doesn't look too promising for next week either. Its also wayyyyyyy toooo coooolllllddddd now.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Nubar Meadow Sparkle

The good news is that its stopped raining (for the moment) but there is still no sun....... and Ive only got more Nubar polish swatches done so surprise surprise its another sparkle swatch.

This is Nubar Meadow Sparkle

Outside in Sunshine

This polish applies like Petunia Sparkle does. The first coat goes on thin and hardly very glittery but acts as a base coat and the 2nd coat is glitter-taculous. This one was actually three coats as the colour isn't as bright so needed the extra once over.

This colour is no where near as bright as the rest of the collection and it does not seem to fit in. I wish they had have made it darker and brighter (not quite emerald sparkle dark but somewhere in the middle of the two would have been nice)

Close up in sunshine

This one is really just one plain glitter colour. No extra sparkles of another colour (added with the pastel-ness of this colour) so it appears duller than the other colours in this collection.

Kind of a disappointment when all the others in this collection are so sparkly and awesome.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Nubar Fire Sparkle

Nubar Fire Sparkle

This sparkle glitter has a completely different feel from the first Nubar sparkle I tried (Petunia Sparkle). This one is based in a red base with red glitter as opposed to a clear base with lots of glitter. It seemed odd to me that the same collection has two different formulas - coloured base vs clear base.

Outside in Sunshine

This was three coats. And dries slightly matte. You can see because it has a red base the glitter isn't as strong as with a clear base as the colour of the base dulls the glitter down a bit. It also wasn't as thick so took more coats.

It does look a lot better in the sun than it does in the shade. In the sun you can also make out a little bit of gold/yellow/orange glitter.

Close Up - In Sunshine

That's all for today.

We haven't seen sun here in about a week now and its not looking promising either - I'm a bit stumped as to how to keep doing accurate swatches without the sun. Any ideas?

Lots of Love
Lisa

Nubar Petunia Sparkle Awesomeness!!!

This is the first Nubar Sparkle Polish I tried. (I have the whole collection yay!). And I had high hopes for this collection.

The collection is called sparkle for crying out loud - you cant get my interest any better or easier than that.

Petunia Sparkle is a vibrant sparkly Fuchsia - (It looks a bit too purple in the photos - its more pink than that).

Outside in Sunshine

I nearly cried after I applied the first coat. It was so thin and I thought I would have to do 4-5 coats to get it looking right - but I was so wrong! The second coat went on amazingly. Thicker and anchored down with the base foundation from the first coat. This second coat was all that was needed. The photos here are only two coats. I went from sad and disappointed to amazed and wowed!

Luckly the other day when I took these photos it was sunny and the sparkle as soon as I stepped outside into the sun was awesome!

This is the sparkle in the sun up close(ish)

My first Nubar experience was great!

Lots of Love
Lisa

Fellow Bloggers Give Aways

While I don't have anywhere near enough followers for a give away. Other bloggers do.....

All Lacquered Up is giving away a bottle of Limited Edition OPI Damone Roberts 1968 to anyone who lives outside of the United States. Click here for a link to All Lacquered Ups give away.


Short 'n Chic Sweetest Little Giveaway

Short 'n Chic are giving away 4 Maybelline Sweet Things Polishes. Goody Plum Drop (lilac purple) Pie in the Sky (light blue) Sweetie Pie (light pink) and Minty (light minty green)
Click here to enter Short 'n Chics give away.


Today in the mail I was amazed to see a parcel waiting for me. I ordered this lot from Beverly Beaute on Wednesday last week and today (Tuesday) it arrived. This is good. It normally takes ages for things to arrive in New Zealand as we are so far away.

Included in my order was the entire Nubar Sparkles Collection!!!!
YAY so excited!!! I cant wait to start trying these out. I just have to hope for some sun when I do get around to it.


That's all for today.
Lots of Love
Lisa