2011 in Review

Well it is 2012 here already. I can not believe how fast 2011 went. Mainly because I haven't lost any weight and I get married in exactly 5 weeks and now I am starting to freak out.

2011 The Year of Crackle

2011 really was the year of the crackle nail polish. There were crackle offerings from OPI (Shatter), China Glaze (Crackle), Color Club (Fracture), Models Own (Smash Up) as well as Sally Hansen, BYS, Nicole By OPI and Sephora by OPI to name just a few. They all had the standard black, with most collection also containing white, silver, gold and an array of other colours.

Color Club - Broken Tokens

Color Club - Kiss & Break Up

There are still more crackles to come in 2012, starting with the plum coloured Super Bass Shatter in OPI's Nicki Minaj collection as well as a Glitter Crackle collection coming from China Glaze.

Best new Brand: A England

I only have 4 of these polishes but I love them all. The names, the colours and especially the formula on these.

A England - Isuelt

Best Product: Orly Bonder

I know this isn't a new product for 2011, but this product has been a manicure life saver for me. When a polish used to chip within a few hours on me, I know get a full solid day without chips (trust me this is good for me).

Best Holographic Polish: A England Tristam

The A England Mythicals collection contained two deep dark holographic shades. Tristam (a dark blue) and Lady of the Lake (a dark purple).

A England - Tristam

Best Collection of 2012: Color Club Wicked Sweet

I love this collection. Bright shimmery neons with ulta violet flashes of blue that smell AMAZING. I especially love I Always Get My Man-darin as I have no other polish quite like it in my collection.

Color Club - I Always Get My Man-darin

We know that next year sees the Zoya Fleck Effects collection coming out (argh more flakies), along with OPI's Nicki Minaj and Holland collections. China Glaze has a collection of neons coming out for summer as well as their promised Hunger Games collection.

Who knows what else will come in 2012. Hopefully more from A England and Models Own.

May 2012 be the year of holos and flakies!

Lots of Love
Lisa

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

500 Follower Give-away

****GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED****

Hi Lovely Ladies,

The number of followers has been fluctuating between 495 and 499 for a while now, so it is about time for the:

NEVER ENDING OBSESSION 500 FOLLOWER GIVE-AWAY!!

Prize 1 consists of:

• OPI Start to Finish
• Zoya Color Cube Enchanted Evening
• Sally Hansen Blush Diamond Nail Prism
• OPI Pink Shatter
• Glitter Gal Marine Blue 3d Holographic
• Glitter Gal French Kiss Lip Gloss

****************


Prize 2 consists of:

• Splitting Image (blue Fracture)
• Clean Break (White Fracture)
• Kiss & Break Up (Pink Fracture)
  

Provided by the wonderful people at Color Club New Zealand

****************

All prizes are brand new and unused.
They have been purchased by me for you.
Apart for prize 2, which is provided thanks to Color Club NZ.

Two winners will be drawn.
The first name will win prize one, the second will win prize 2.

This competition is open to any one in the world.
You just need to be a follower.
Competition will close on the 30th of September.

Just leave a comment below telling me:
1. Your follower name (1 entry)
2. What country you are in (1 entry)
3. What nail polish you want most in the world (1 entry)
4. If you tweeted or blogged about this giveaway (2 entries)

Lots of Love and good luck
Lisa

OPI The One That Got Away

First up a recap on my wedding dress shopping......

It was awesome!!!!
First of we went to Astra Bridal. I really really love the look of Maggie Sottero dresses. They look so great in the pictures and are made of great fabric. But after trying on about 8 of these dresses I knew they weren't the dresses for me. :(

Next up was brides on Thorndon. By this stage I had more of a picture in my head of what I did and didn't want. I knew I wanted white (my mum kept saying no to white but I knew it was fine on me and everyone else agreed white was great on me), I knew I didn't want lace, or too many sparkles. I wanted big and poofy.

The ladies at Brides on Thorndon were really nice. They picked out about 7 dresses for me to try on. Turns out the first dress I tried on was perfect. They made me try on 3 others, but I still liked the first one. An hour later I left the shop with the first dress in a bag and all mine. It fits perfectly now, is the right colour and size and is discontinued so is no longer available so that it was on sale. I never thought it would be that easy at all.

I'm not going to say to much about what it looks like in case some one who isn't supposed to see it sees what it looks like. So if you want me to send you a link of what I got email me.

Anywho onto the polish you came here for....

My mum came over the other day and started doing her nails with this polish and ended up taking it home with her. I kind of cringe every time she does her nails because she is so terrible at it and ends up with polish everywhere.

OPI The one that got away - natural light

This is three coats. It is a pretty dark fuchsia with the glass effect finish.

OPI Black Shatter over The one that got away - natural light

I think I like this one better with out the shatter on top. I have a huge soft spot for fuchsia pink polishes, and this one is really pretty. Plus my shatter is still really goopy and thick.

Hope you are all having a great weekend.
Lots of Love
Lisa

Spotted in NZ: OPI Shatter Collection

Farmers in New Zealand now has the OPI shatter collection in stock.

Black, White, Red, Blue, Turquoise and Navy Shatter

Although the Farmers I visited today only had Navy, Black and Silver left in stock. They have figured out that these are selling very well though and are stocking a lot of shatters on their shelves for sale.

If you are quick take advantage of Farmers buy 2 get 1 free while you can, because $28 each is a lot to pay for any nail polish.

I didn't get mine from Farmers but I do now own the Blue and Turquoise shatter. The Blue and Turquoise are such pretty colours in the bottles, that even as just regular polishes they would be super pretty shimmer colours. Swatches to come later.

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

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

OPI Last Friday Night

On Saturday we managed to find a Farmers that actually had some of the Katy Perry polishes left in stock. These are selling for $25 each, so luckily I got mine ages ago online.

Here is Last Friday Night from the much anticipated and sold out Katy Perry Collection.

OPI Last Friday Night - Sunshine

OPI Last Friday Night - Shade

This is three coats.. Slightly thicker than I thought it would be. Light blue jelly with 2 different sized blue/silver/rainbow glitters. Not great alone if you don't like visible nail lines, but great as a top coat.

The Katy Perry collection was the first to have the shatter polish as part of the collection. All four polishes were designed to be layered with Black Shatter.

OPI Black Shatter over OPI Last Friday Night

I am still wearing my shellac at the moment and it has been horrible weather here all weekend so I haven't managed to get a photo of it in sunlight yet. I do have a couple of little chips that I am not too happy about. My salon gives a one week free touch up, but I so cant be bothered going all the way there to get them fixed up. I'm getting a bit bored of the colour and cant wait to try out some of my new un-trieds (Color Club Starry Temptress is calling my name). I'm thinking I might be able to make it to the end of this week before I have to remove it - It just seems a waste when it costs so much.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Color Club Fractured Collection

Color Club has jumped on the crackle/shatter/fracture bandwagon and is releasing 6 fracture shades.

Color Club Fractured Collection (L-R): Clean Break, Broken Tokens, Tattered in Gold, Have a Bash, Crush on you, Smash Hit.

Break it up! Get a Jagged-edge finish with fractured, Color Club's latest lacquer innovation. Just brush fractured over dry polish and expect a radical transformation.

• Bold shades designed to shatter expectations
• Brush over any polish for an edgy “cracked” effect.
• Always Formaldehyde/Toluene/DBP-free

Lots of Love
Lisa

OPI Pirates of the Caribbean Collection

This year OPI is releasing a collection for the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie. This continues on from their collaborations with Alice in Wonderland and Shrek last year.

Picture thanks to Claire at www.thebeautyscoop.co.uk/

These are all creme pastel colours. Who would have thought to associate pastels with pirates? I kind of imagined vampy purples and grungy greens. But in saying that all that the regular women in that time period wore pastels (I'm thinking back to the first movie where Keira was wearing giant big dresses in pastels with a giant pile of hair on her head)

Mermaid Tears : Light pastel seagreen
Stranger Tides : Lightest pastel yellow
Planks a Lot : Pastel muted purple
Sparrow Me the Drama : Smoky purple-pink
Scull and Glossbones : Pearly white shimmer
Steady as She Rose : Delicate rose pink

And of course they have added another shatter colour to the collection, with a silver shatter top coat! This is one I have to have!

This seems quite similar in the way they did the Shrek collection, a collection of 6 cremes. Some with a different finish would have been nice now that OPI has got us all addicted to glitter thanks to the Burlesque collection. Although I must admit from what I have seen these 6 cremes all look great with the silver shatter over the top.

Hope your having a great weekend.

Lots of Love
Lisa