OPI Swiss Haul

My partner has been spending a lot of weeks away for work lately and as he was unable to find me any presents where he was he said he would get me some nail polish instead - I think it is true love :)

He let me get the three polishes I wanted from the OPI Fall/Winter Swiss collection and the latest OPI suede I was hunkering after.

Left to right: Here Today... Aragon Tomorrow Suede, Diva of Geneva, The Color to Watch, Cuckoo for this Color

Swatches to come later on :)
Lots of Love
Lisa

Black Onyx and Sparkles

I have recently rediscovered how awesome plain black nail polish is.


Here is OPI Black Onyx with cute little flower sparkles on each nail. I have 12 different colours of these cute little sparkles and have just started experimenting with them. They sparkle more in real life, but with no sun here I wasn't able to capture it on camera.

Hope you are all having a good weekend :)

Lots of Love
Lisa

Zoya Happi over Color Club Poptastic

1 coat of Zoya Happi over Color Club Poptastic - sunshine

1 coat of Zoya Happi over Color Club Poptastic - natural light

I love this combination. Its so pretty, and gives Happi more depth. Happi has an awesome duo tone to it that changes from pink to orangey yellow.
That is all for today.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Sephora OPI Haul

So Sephora does not ship to New Zealand. Luckily my mum and dad just got back from a 3 week trip to America. I thought these would be easy enough polishes for them to get because all they had to do was find a Sephora store. Turns out it was easy, they fouond a Sephora store straight away and managed to get 4 of the 5 polishes I had asked for.

Left to Right: Go with the Flow-er, Leaf him at the Altar, It's Bouquet with me, Sparkle me silver top coat.

These four polishes are all quite sheer and see through, so im thinking of using them for layering.
Sparkle me silver is a top coat of long silver glitter pieces - I havent had a polish like this since I was about 10. And It's Bouquet with me is silver and purple glitter in a clear base and is definitely designed for layering in my opinion.

I know that these sell for US$9 each and that this is considered rather on the expensive side in America (Although to us here it is a bargain). How do you feel about Sephora OPI? And the fact that some of their polishes are online only (ARGH I SO WANT Midnight Mambo!!!!). I also noticed that they are now selling mini polishes in packs for the newer collections (seems like a good idea, the regular sized polishes seem quite large - but I think thats just because they are so tall).

At the moment I am spending all day and night at uni trying to finish my thesis, and my nails are pretty short and crappy at the moment. I cant wait to get a job and finish uni and have some spare time and money to take care of my nails properly.

Lots of Love
Lisa

OPI Love Will Blossom

OPI Love Will Blossom was a limited edition polish released for Valentines 2009 in the UK and Japan.

OPI Love Will Blossom - Sunshine

It is a glitter filled light pink/mauve colour. Unfortunately I believe this is really hard to get now. It breaks my heart because all the Japan exclusives have been amazing and so pretty and yet are so hard to get.

I think this is a pretty subtle colour, but the glitter in it makes it really special. The glitter is more sparkly in real life and it has a shimmer to it as well.

Lots of Love
Lisa

PS. I have been compressing my images to make them load better, but I think I am losing the clarity and detail of them, as well as the size of them, when I do compress them - I will work on this - because it is bugging me :(

Fellow Bloggers Giveaway Lowdown

All of the following competitions are open to international followers:

• Konad-licious! is giving away 2 BYS Cracked Polishes. Ends September 15th.

• Oooh, Shinies! is having a giveaway to say thanks. Ends August 27th.

• Lacquerized is giving away some German Kiko polishes. Ends August 31st.

• Never Enough Nails is celebrating 200 Followers by giving away some OPI and China Glaze polishes. Ends August 22nd.

• A day in the life of Dollface is celebrating 500 followers and is letting the winner choose between a $40 Sally's Beauty Supply gift card or the China Glaze Vintage Vixen Collection. Ends August 30th. (If you don't enter at least check it out for the awesome nail art she does)
  

• Milan & Vanaily are having their first giveaway, which contains a konad stamping kit and some mood jewelery from Claire's. Ends September 17th.

• Polish Freshie is celebrating 100 followers with her giveaway which includes 5 icing polishes. Closes August 32st. (by the way I was the 100th follower!)
  

Thats all for now.
Lots of Love
Lisa

China Glaze L8R G8R

So at the moment I am crazy busy trying to finish my thesis. I have less than a month to go and my whole life kinda depends on finishing it. At the moment I am not too worried about making it amazing - I will be happy if I simply finish it. So because of this I am not really feeling the bloginess at the moment :( Again my little finger nail ripped right off - it is beyond short, so I don't even feel motivated to try anything out. And for the last 3 months I have been on a 'no nail polish buy' and I am suffering serious withdrawls at the moment - add in another problem - I need a job to be able to fuel my obsession.

All that being said here is another amazing china glaze holographic from the OMG collection.

China Glaze L8R G8R - sunshine

I feel these polishes don't need much said about them anymore - they are all amazing - apply great in 2 coats and are amazingly holographic.

Lots of Love
Lisa

100th post, Update and my first Award :)

Picture thanks to Lolcats

YAY today is my 100th Blog post!

To be honest I can't believe it came up so fast. I doesn't seem like I have been doing this for long at all, so I also cant believe it has been 6 months!

I am slowly gaining followers and I appreciate every single on of you. You all keep me motivated to keep on doing this. When I have some more followers (I'm thinking 100) and get a job (fingers crossed) and have finished my Masters Thesis (1 month to go) there will be a give away to say thanks! Some goodies from New Zealand and of course some POLISH (Im thinking BYS and Nfu-Oh - which is unbelievably quite easy to get here).

I got my first tag today from PolishPig. Thanks so much hun :)

The rules are very simple:
- Answer one question: What do you like the most about your own blog?
- Pass this award on.

The thing I like most about my blog is the people. People from all over the world. And all nail polish girls are so lovely. I have meet wonderful people in New Zealand as well (Kathy from The Finishing Touch and Rob from Color Club New Zealand). I love having followers and people who comment, and I get so excited when I find out I have more people taking an interest in the things I have to say (from a little tiny country on the other side of the world).

I pass this award on to:

Zara at Never Unpolished
Jacie at You've got Nail
and the wonderful Stephanie from Imperfectly Painted

Lots of Love
Lisa

Color Club Poptastic Day 7: Poptastic

Color Club Poptastic Day 7.
Today is the final Poptastic day. This is the polish called Poptastic. It is a bright neon medium pink.

Color Club Poptastic - Sunshine

This is my favourite of the Poptastic collection. It is a bright neon medium pink. This is 3 coats. 2 coats was ok but 3 evened it out and it was so smooth afterwards. This is another slightly runny polish. Dry time is quick and like I said it dries nice and smooth.

This is brighter in real life than it appears in the photos. This to me is the most neon of the 7 polishes. When I think of neon I cant help but only associate it with highlighters. I love highlighters.

All up this is a cute little selection from the larger Poptastic range. I was suprised at the difference in the thickness of these polishes over the 7. But all the colours are cute, and wearable. Now I just have to wait for nicer weather to take advantage of the summer colours coming out.

So that ends our 7 days of Poptastic. What was your favourite of the 7? Would you wear these? In summer or all year round?

Lots of Love
Lisa

This polish was sent to me for review.

Color Club Poptastic Day 6: Pucca-licious

Color Club Poptastic Day 6.
Color Club Pucca-licious - Medium creme purple.

Color Club Pucca-licious - sunshine

This is 2 coats. This one had the best consistency of all 7 polishes. One coat gave good coverage but 2 was perfect. Dry time was quick, but it dries with a slightly matte finish.

This polish is not what I would call 'neon' and doesn't seem overly 'bright' either. It is just purple.
This is a more blue than OPI Funky Dunkey, and a bit lighter.

6 polishes down, 1 left to go tomorrow.

Enjoy your Friday :)

Lots of Love
Lisa

This polish was sent to me for review.

Color Club Poptastic Day 5: Warhol

Color Club Poptastic Day 5.
Color Club Warhol. This is a darker neon bright pink. This is one of my favourites from the Poptastic collection.


This is 2 coats. There is a slight visible nail line after two coats, I think this is more because it is slightly runny so the coats are thinner. A third coat would be perfect, but two works fine. This is more neon and brighter than some of the other polishes in this collection, and I like it. It is a neon you could wear every day and it wouldn't be too out there.

Lots of Love
Lisa

This polish was sent to me for review.

Color Club Poptastic Day 4: Almost Famous

Color Club Poptastic Day 4:

Almost Famous - Bright Dark Yellow - not so much 'neon', but definitely bright.

Color Club Almost Famous - Sunshine

Yellows are notoriously hard to get right. This one is interesting. It was quite runny, but very opaque at the same time. The 1st coat went on streaky, the second coat was better, but I ended up doing 3 coats to make a smoother finish. But surprisingly there is no visible nail line after 2 coats. The colour is dense.

I think as a yellow creme Color Club have done a good job with this one. I'm glad it is not thick and gluggy like other yellow polishes are. This is the darkest yellow in my collection.

Can you believe we have had two sunny days in a row! AMAZING! but still freezing cold, you can still see your breath outside when you breath (even at 11 in the morning).

How do you feel about yellow cremes? Yay or Nay? Would you give this one a chance? Or is it just a tad too bright for you?

Lots of Love
Lisa

This polish was sent to me for review.

Color Club Poptastic Day 3: Chelsea Girl

Color Club Poptastic Day 3
Color Club Chelsea Girl. Wow can you believe that it has been clear blue sky here all day today. Although it is still freezing cold. I took this picture this morning as there was a big slip at the bottom of my street so had to wait a while for the road to open so I could get a bus to uni :(

Color Club Chelsea Girl - sunshine

This is three coats. This was on the runny side, and for such a dark colour I cant believe that it needed three coats to get rid of any visible nail line (this was three thin to medium coats). It was not streaky at all and the dry time was quick.

This is the darkest colour in the 7 piece Poptastic collection I have. Not so much 'neon' but definitely a 'bright'. I really want to layer something over the top of this as it seems like it would make a great base coat for something. Its now on my list of things to do.

Chelsea is my favourite name - I plan on naming my first born girl Chelsea!

Lots of Love
Lisa

This polish was sent to me for review.

Color Club Poptastic Day 2: Wham! Pow!

Color Club Poptastic Day 2.
The second polish I tried from the Color Club Poptastic Collection was the bright orange Wham! Pow!

Color Club Wham! Pow! - sunshine

This polish was much runnier than yesterdays Twiggie (I'm using this as the standard, but it really was thick). This is 2 coats and there was a slight visible nail line. This was not streaky at all. It is slightly less yellow than the picture shows, so is nicer in real life. I feel this is the most 'neon' of this 7 piece set. It is by far the brightest. I do not have any other polishes in my collection to compare this to, so in that sense it is unique (to me). This polish is definitely a summer polish. Yay I cant wait for summer.

Lots of Love
Lisa

This polish was sent to me for review.

Color Club Poptastic Day 1: Twiggie

Color Club Poptastic Day 1.
Twiggie was the first polish I tried from the Color Club Poptastic Collection. This is a minty green creme.

Color Club Twiggie - Sunshine

This is 2 coats. This is a thick polish, so two coats leaves no visible nail line. After two coats it is not streaky and has evened out. It is slightly yellower and brighter than this picture shows - the bottle picture is more colour accurate. (This whole collection was hard to get colour accurate pictures of) I actually really like this colour. It is a bluer version of OPI Gargantuan Green Grape, and requires a lot less coats of polish. Dry time is good and short and clean up is easy for this polish.

Hope you are all having a great weekend :)

Lots of Love
Lisa

This polish was sent to me for review.

Color Club Untamed Luxury + Poptastic

OMG! OMG! OMG!

Color Clubs Untamed Luxury Collection looks AMAZING!!!

This is the Fall 2010 collection for the Northern Hemisphere, I am assuming this will be released next month sometime to all you lucky folks in America.

Pretty in Platinum, Wild Orchid, Positively Posh, Soft As Cashmere, Nothing But Truffle, Jewel of a Girl.
De-Luxe-Cious, Ms. Hautie, Red Velvet, Untamed Luxury, Resort to Red, Snakeskin, Covered in Diamonds.

How can you not be excited about this collection? Glitters, flakey top coats, Shimmers and amazing colours make this a must have collection! I cant wait.

This however is at least 6 months away for New Zealand. We run a season behind on Color Club polishes, so that collections are released in the correct season here.

In September the Poptastic Neon Collection will be released in New Zealand. This is the 2010 Spring/Summer collection, and replaces last years neon Flower Power Collection from last year.
I was lucky enough to receive the 7 piece sampler pack from Color Club NZ, and so with 7 colours and 7 days in a week, guess what next week will be? A week of Poptastic Neons (Hopefully - I'm waiting on a bit of sun, to get more colour accurate pictures of these neons, but it wont stop raining here!)

Hope you all have a great weekend :)
Lots of Love
Lisa

Essie Ruby Slippers

Yesterday I met on of my followers Morgan. She is moving back home and then going overseas to live for a few years, and so she is sadly selling her nail polish collection. I brought a couple off her, and she so amazingly kindly gave me a bottle of Essie Ruby Slippers.

Essie Ruby Slippers - Natural light

This is a thick red jelly full of rather large chunks of red glitter. There is a few silver glitter bits as well, and in the sun has a slight orange glow to it. Here I did one thin base coat and 2 thicker coats over top (2 thick coats would be fine, but more than one is definitely needed). I feel because the glitter in this is so big, the polish becomes really lumpy on the nail. Top coats still leave a lumpiness underneath.

This is much darker than Nubar Fire Sparkle, with much larger bits of glitter. I do not own China Glaze Ruby Pumps so unfortunately I can not do a comparison for you guys sorry.

If you live in New Zealand you can find Morgans nail polish auctions on Trade Me. Search for her under her user name mandy8595.

Lots of Love
Lisa

Orly Oh Cabana Boy + Konad

This Polish is Hot!

Orly Oh Cabana Boy is from the aptly named Hot Stuff collection.

Orly Oh Cabana Boy - Sunshine

Orly Oh Cabana Boy - Up close

This is actually a little brighter in real life. It has a beautiful blue shimmery flash running through it. This was 3 coats, two was good, but three got rid of any visible nail line. This was easy to apply, with no clean up needed.

I then added pretty little hearts in black to this manicure.

Hope you are all having a great day :)

Lots of Love
Lisa

Mac and Disney

Mac and Disney have joined together to create the winter 2010 Mac Venomous Villains Collection. To say I am a little bit excited is an understatement. Disney and nail polishes are two of my favourite things in the whole world, so combining them is awesome.


They have created a range of products, including lipstick, blush, eyeshadow, eyeliners, pigments and more. All products in this range are limited edition products. They are due to be released in September 2010.

They have created three nail lacquers for this collection:

Bad Fairy - Red with multi-changing pigments
Mean & Green - Purple with teal pigment
Formidable! - Teal with pink pigment

These lacquers are retailing for US$12 each

(Thanks to www.temptalia.com for images and information)

These look amazing! The only problem is they probably wont make it to New Zealand. The last Mac collection Alice & Olivia (summer 2010) was not released in New Zealand, meaning this collection probably wont be either.

Last November me and my fiance went to Hawaii and LA on the best holiday of my life. I love Disney so much, my Disney DVD collection is huge and I love it, so to finally get to go to Disneyland was the most amazing experience of my life. Here are some photos from our trip.



Unfortunately no pictures with any of the Disney villains. I think they might scare the little kids if they were walking around all day long :P

Lots of Love
Lisa

Coral Peach Holo Comparison

Taking a step back from the Neons today (there will be more later in the week) and here is another Holographic Comparison for you.

Left to Right: OPI Bay Bridge Sunset, China Glaze TTYL, OPI DS Reserve

First up is OPI Bay Bridge Sunset. This is one of the very sought after polishes from the Japanese Exclusive Yokohama Collection. I am working on getting more from this collection, but when they are asking for US$30-$40 for each bottle on ebay, I have to say No. That is flat out ridiculous, and I hope they stay on there forever and never sell, because no polish is worth that much. Luckily one of my bridesmaids is going to Japan in November so fingers crossed she can find some then. :)

OPI Bay Bridge Sunset - sunshine

OPI Bay Bridge Sunset - sunshine - closer up

This has a scattered holographic effect. 2 coats, that went on perfectly. It looks like it is full of glitter dust, and is very pretty.

Second is China Glaze TTYL. Now I don't actually know what TTYL stands for (naive I know - sorry) But if you know what it means please let me know :)

China Glaze TTYL - sunshine

As you all know by now I Love the China Glaze OMG Collection. This is 2 coats, which apply easy and dry fast. The holographic is this is linear (straight lined) and appears to make each finger look like a little rainbow in the sun. This one has the strongest holographic-ness of the three polishes (but that may just be because it is easier to see because it isn't scattered out).

The final polish is OPI Reserve from the Designer Collection. I saw some of these on ebay going for quite high prices as well, I think I bought most of mine a year ago and I paid regular prices for mine, so I'm not sure why this is happening.

OPI DS Reserve - sunshine

Designer Series polishes are said to have "Diamond Dust" in them, creating the holographic effect. This is again a scattered, slightly muted, holographic appearance. I thought it might have been a bit pinker than the other too, but it isn't really. Again 2 coats, that applied easily and dry time was average.

Finally is the side by side comparison:

You can clearly see the difference between the China Glaze linear holographic and the scatter holographic of the other two OPI polishes. DS Reserve has bigger glitter and holographic particles than Bay Bridge Sunset. All three have a very similar colour appearance.

My recommendation would depend on how holographic you want your polishes to be. If you want the in your face holographic - you would go for the China Glaze (this is still the easiest and cheapest of the three to get). DS Reserve may be easier to get than Bay Bridge Sunset, so eiter is fine if you can get it.

I hope this helped :)

Lots of Love
Lisa