Happy New Year!

Can you believe we're living the last day of 2011? Time flies! On my nails something festive of course. This is by far my favourite sponged mani. In real life it's much sparklier than the pictures show, totally awesome! Yesterday I posted my ten favourite manis of 2011, but I must add this mani to the list.. so a top 11 for 2011 it is, how convenient, lol. I applied two coats of Kelly from Zoya. Then I sponged half of the nail with Speciallità - Hefesto, an amazing prismatic top coat. For some extra bling I also added Blair from Essence on the tips.

Have a wonderful day/evening/night! I hope 2012 will be an amazing year for you all. :h

Happy New Year Chromey goodness

Happy New Year to everyone.

I have HUGE plans for this evening.  As a mum of a a 3 year old and a nearly 1 year old, I'll be in bed by 10:30, I'll sleep in the new year and be up at around 6:30.  I'm such a partly animal aren't I!

Despite my plans, I did put on something with a bit of zing.  This is an older polish. Sally Hansen Canary Diamond Chrome Nail Makeup.  For some stupid reason, I never got China Glaze Millennium (I only got 2030), thinking I had a good enough silver chrome.  This is nice, but I don't think it has as much of a mirror finish as Millennium.

This was only one coat over Orly bonder.  I like Orly bonder as a base for chrome polishes because it leaves a really shiny base.  Chrome polishes always show every imperfection in the nail, so a nice shiny base helps it be smooth and glossy.

Favourite Manicures of 2011

It was SO hard to choose, but I thought it would be fun to show you my favourite manis of 2011. Layering, stamping, sponging, nail art... you can find it al in my top 10 11!

1. Canal Houses in Delft Blue. Definitely my favourite mani of 2011. ♥

2. Dots 'n' Roses. Too cute, love it!

3. a england - Tristam. This polish is perfect, just perfect.

4. Dangerous Duochrome. Stamping with peripera - Metallic Green. Awesome.

5. Another blue prismatic, can't live without them. OPI DS Glamour :L

6. A franken! Confetti Sky

7. It was so hard to choose a cake matching mani... So I picked the most recent one. :i

8. Ashes & Fire. Of course I haven't forgot my sponged tips!

9. Nfu Oh #56 over black. Looks insane, doesn't it?

10. I love prints: Tribal Print

edit: 11. I'm sneaking in another mani with sponged tips. A top 11 for 2011 it is! :O

Thanks for watching! 

Picture Polish Hypnotic flakie cover

Here is the third Picture Polish flakie cover, Hypnotic.

I think the flake colours that are in this are a teal green and orangey red.  Then the teal green colour shifts to blue and the orangey red shifts to yellow/lime green.  The teal green looks more emerald green in real life too, but my camera doesn't show that.

This one seemed to been the least dense of all three, either that or I just couldn't pick up as many flakes on my brush.  The bottle certainly looks just as dense as the other two polishes, just it just didn't translate to the nail.  This is three coats over a black base, with Seche Vite top coat.  It doesn't really need the top coat as it is very glossy and smooth, but I always put on Seche Vite when I'm wearing a full mani.

I don't think this needs to be said, but this is a totally awesome polish.  I also think it is totally unique.  I thought that Finger Paints Asylum might have been similar, but checking swatches of it I think it's much more blue, whereas this is green.

Two words: LOVE IT!

Teeez Boudoir Secrets Collection

Today I'm showing you a couple of nail polishes from the new Boudoir Secrets collection from Teeez.

"This elegant make-up collection is decorated with unique vintage charms that makes each product a treasure on its own, disguising the bold secrets inside. Because underneath the abundance hides a rebellious diva, like the 18th century queen of France Marie Antionette, who was passionate for the pleasures in life."

Teeez - Cool (04) is a light blue shade with a subtle silver shimmer. I really like the colour, but it was difficult to apply due to the thick formula. I swatched it twice 'cause it looked awful the first time (and I think every polish deserves a decent swatch), but I'm still not happy with how it looks on my nails, bummer! This is three coats.

Teeez - Gutsy (05) is a peachy nude coloured polish with gold shimmer. I can't say I'm a fan of this colour, but it applied much easier than Cool. Two coats.

Teeez - Femme Fatale (09) is a berry creme. Ahh, saved the best for last! This one is gorgeous and it applied like butter in two coats. 

To be honest, I'm not blown away by these nail polishes. Next to the unique shades Teeez made in the past, these three don't look so special. The packaging is cute though. :) Oh, but what's up with the names? I already own shades from Teeez called Cool and Femme Fatale. This can be somewhat confusing, I wish they gave them new names and not just a different number. 

Teeez nail polishes cost €4,90 for 8,5 ml. They're Big 3 Free. You can find more information on their website.

Thanks for watching!

*The product(s) in this post was/were sent to me for reviewing purposes.

For more information, check out my Disclosure Policy.

Picture Polish Splendour flakie cover

Today I have another brand new flakie cover from Picture Polish.  This little beauty is called Splendour and it's really gorgeous. 

I think Splendour is made up of orange and green irregular shaped flakes of various sizes, but because it is has a strong duochrome colour shift that shows green, red and yellow, it's really hard to tell what colour the flakes are because it changes all the time.

I found the flakies to be more dense in this polish than Festival, which is awesome. It meant I didn't have to go fishing for the flakes, they came up on the brush easily.  This also had a very smooth finish, you could get away with no top coat as it's super shiny.  These photos show two coats of Splendour over black and one coat of Seche Vite top coat.

Colour wise, I thought this may be similar to Nubar 2010 (and Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure) and it's true that the colours are the same. But Splendour seems to have the addition of some green flakes, whereas 2010 really only has the orange flakes that shift to green.  The flakes in 2010 are also smaller.  I actually really love them both, but I think I slightly prefer the larger flakes in Splendour because they sparkle more.

This polish looks like it would be similar to the new Finger Paints 'Flashy' polish, but again I think it only has the red flakes, not the extra green ones.

Here you can see the green shift of both polishes, but also how the green flakes in Splendour go slighly blue toned.

This is another totally awesome polish from the girls a Picture Polish.  Correct me if I'm wrong but I think these are the first flaky polishes from an Australian brand. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie .... Yeah, you go girls!  These polishes are a total winner.  

These cost $11.90 and are available from Picture Polish.  Ladies outside of Australia may think that $11.90 is a bit pricy.  But here in Australia, where OPI retails for $20, Chanel for $39 and Revlon for about $12, this is a comparatively pretty good price still, especially for a flakie that is otherwise only available from Inglot or Nfu Oh for close to $20.

Camelot & Ares

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, I did! The church service was nice, the food was yummy and spending time with my loved ones is always great. ♥ I was happy with Ares on my nails, but after a day I wanted something else. Something darker. So I applied one coat of a england - Camelot and one coat of Speciallità - Ares. The result: dark maroon coloured nails with a smashing prismatic effect. Like!

Thanks for watching!

Ulta3 summer gelato collection

Here is the latest collection from Ulta3.  Canberra girls, I grabbed mine from the chemist next to Coles in the Gungahlin town centre.  I was surprised to see another Ulta3 release this summer, given they released eight polishes in spring. Usually they only do two collections a year, maybe they are going to up that to one every season.  I sure hope so.

The Ulta3 gelato collection is a set of six creme polishes.  They are not brights and they are not pastels, they are somewhere in between.

First up is Violet Crumble.  Arrrgggghhhh Violet Crumble *wipes drool from mouth* I can't remember the last time I had one of those. And now, damn I wish this polish was that metallic purpley blue from the Violet Crumble wrapper, that would have been totally awesome. Sadly it's not, instead it's dusty violet colour which is still pretty, just not awesome.  This was three coats (and it needed all three!) with no top coat.

Blue Heaven.  Oh yeah baby, this really is blue heaven.  I totally love this one. There was a serious lack of decent blue cremes in the Ulta3 range, so this one fills a big hole in my opinion.  This was three coats and a coat of Seche Vite top coat, again two coats were a bit streaky.

Kiwi Kaos - I'm surprised to see a green in this collection, given that they did three greens in the last collection.  This is a toned down green that is quite wearable, unlike the rather hideous Frog Prince. This was three coats with no top coat.  I really shouldn't have been lazy on this swatch and added the top coat, cause it would have looked so much better with it.

Lemon Tart - Very pretty light yellow.  Streaky and horrible to apply.  This was four coats with SV top coat, but once it dried it was great and very nice on the nail.  This is the last one I swatched and I wore it as a full mani.

Mango Mayham - rich orange creme, but not neon or ultra bright like tangelo or tahiti.  A unique colour in the Ulta3 range. With a name that includes the word Mango, I was expecting something more yellow, like mango flesh, mmmmmmm I have one on the bench I might go eat now! This was three coats with Seche Vite top coat.

Strawberry Sundae - A medium bright pink creme.  Ulta 3 have a stack of pink cremes so I'm sure it's similar to something they have already released, I'm just not sure which one yet.  I'm not a huge pink lover, but I'm really feeling this one at the moment.

The formula on all these was only OK.  Very much like the last collection.  Runny, but thick at the same time.  I had a lot of trouble with the brushes from these polishes.  The Ulta3 brushes used to be delicate and smooth, but I found these rather stiff.  So much so that the brush left drag mark ridges through the polish as I wiped it over the nail.  I had this same problem with the spring collection.  I'm guessing they are probably using a lower quality brush now that the polishes are made in China, rather than made in Australia like all the previous polishes.

Despite the weird formula and crappy brushes, I totally love the colours.  I also love collections like these that just go together and look like a set.  They almost did this with the Spring collection from 2009 which were almost a set of pastels, except with Hot Spring and Spring Break. 

Over all, yep they are totally worth their $2.25AUD price tag and are a great addition to my nearly complete set of Ulta3 polishes.

If anyone wants comparisons swatches just let me know what you want to see.