NOTW - Kit 'Big Bang' with Australis 'Glitter Strikes Back'

 

This weeks nail of the week is from 2 great Australian brands with Kit - Big Bang, and a glitter top coat of Australis - Glitter Strikes Back.

I must say that I tend to steer away from purple generally as I picked it as my "one colour to hate" a million years ago and never looked back, silly I know... until recently. My friend had this colour at her house and I fell in love instantly! The brightness hooked me in, and it is such an interesting shade I ended up borrowing it from my friend and wearing it. Lucky for me, I have great friends and she got it for me as a present a month later. ^_^

This Kit 'Big Bang' nail polish, like all others I've reviewed previously has a perfect strong pigment, is easy to apply, and lasts well (these photos were taken after the polish had been on my nails for a week, so I apologise for the small chips!). The actual colour is kind of hard to capture, I think it's a little brighter than it looks on here in reality.

The Australis 'Glitter Strikes Back' nail polish is a mix of small round gold and purple and large hexagonal gold. It was the first nail polish of theirs that I've tried since their re-vamp of the brand (which I'm LOVING... so many great colours I want/need!) and I'm really impressed. I saw it in Priceline and couldn't resist buying it then and there. 

It was quite easy to apply an even coat of the glitter, and it lays flat on your nail really well so you don't have chunky glitter catching on your clothes etc. I used a top coat of Seche Vite to smooth it all out and last a little longer. This glitter would pop even more on another coloured base coat I think because some of the purple glitter colours blended into the purple of the base. The gold looked amazing though!

You can purchase Kit's 'Big Bang' from your nearest Kit store for $15.95, or you can also buy them online here or check for your nearest Kit store online here. I purchased the Australis glitter nail polish 'Glitter Strikes Back' from Priceline for $7.95 and you can also see their range and order online here.

Have you tried any of the new Australis glitters? What's your favourite glitter and base coat combination? x

NOTW - Kit 'Rose Macaroon' with American Apparel 'Light Year'

 

This weeks Nail Of The Week is Kit's new shade 'Rose Macaroon' with an accent on the pinky finger of American Apparel's 'Light Year'. 

After a visit to Kit recently, I walked away with even more shades from one of my favourite local brands! Oops. I couldn't wait to try this sweet little number out, and I knew just like the rest of the Kit range, it would be a nice creamy colour. 

'Rose Macaroon' is from the new limited edition Sweet & Chic macaroon scented collection which was released last month. The collection comprises of 5 feminine colours to mimic macaroon flavours, and each one comes with a sweet scent to match! Unfortunately the Rose Macaroon colour didn't have too much scent, not as much as compared with the Revlon scented nail polish I've used previously, but it was definitely noticeable at least and a lot better scented than nail polish generally is! 

The nail polish applied just as well as any other Kit nail polish I own. The polish is thick, the colour applies exactly as it looks in the bottle, and I got the colour seen above in only 2 coats. Almost one was enough, but I like to apply a second coat just to even it out. I also applied a coat of Seche Vite on top to give it that extra shine in the photos above. 

The colour is a really subtle rose, which is a nice change to any colours similar that I own - mostly baby pinks come to mind. This is a lot softer and I think it would suit most skin tones well. 

I've been wanting to try out the American Apparel glitter polish ever since I purchased it with the 'Smoke Dazzle' as seen in my previous post here and it really didn't disappoint! The glitter is a round holographic silver in a clear polish. It was fairly easy to get an even distribution of the glitter with this polish too as there is a lot of glitter chunks in the polish itself. I just applied the glitter, waited until it was dry enough to not move, then applied another coat to even out the gaps. You could use this glitter polish really densely or sparsely

I think the addition of the glitter in this manicure turned it from something super feminine into something a little more playful which I liked a lot. Being on the pinky instead of the index finger the glitter isn't a main attraction, but more of an offset. I think I'll be using my pinky more often like this!

I purchased Kit's 'Rose Macaroon' from the Kit store in Chadstone shopping centre for $15.95, or you can also buy them online here or check for your nearest Kit store online here. I purchased the American Apparel glitter 'Light Year' from the American Apparel store in Melbourne in a deal of 3 nail polishes for $28, or it was $14 for the single nail polish. You can also see their range and order online here. I think I need every single glitter shade they have. They all look amazing!

Have you tried any of the new Sweet & Chic scented nail polishes from Kit or any American Apparel glitters? What do you think of this sweet and spunky combo? x

NOTW - American Apparel - Smoke Dazzle (Metallic range)

 

[with flash]

This weeks Nail Of The Week is American Apparel's - Smoke Dazzle - from the Metallic collection. 

I wasn't sure if I liked this nail polish when I first put it on as I'm mostly a fan of cream nail polishes and other finishes often just feel cheap and strange, but after wearing it for a week I can say I definitely fell in love a little! 

The colour is a nice dark silver in most light, and reflects as a dark grey, green, pink/purple depending on what light you're in and how you move the angle of your nails. I guess you could definitely describe it as a duochrome for that reason, but not as much of a shift as some others I've seen and almost impossible to photograph the colour shifts as you can see in my attempts above! Quite impressive though really. Most metallic nail polishes I've tried have this lovely transformation about them, but depending on the colour and finish it can look a bit cheap, but that's not the case here. 

The formula was really easy to work with, and for a metallic nail polish it was relatively streak free which is a definite bonus. You generally get the streaks from the brush in the nail colour, but I didn't really work hard to avoid this and as you can see, there are barely any brush strokes to be seen. I only used 2 coats of this colour to achieve the look above. You could layer it over a black to get a more intense look too which would be interesting.

I thought this colour would be quite comparable to Chanel's 'Black Pearl', but Black Pearl is definitely darker, less silver and more green. 

American Apparel nail polish is Manufactured in the USA. Cruelty free, DBP, toluene and formaldehyde-free.

Overall I think this is a perfect metallic nail polish that would be a great addition to any nail polish lovers collection. I will definitely be looking to get a few more American Apparel nail polishes now, as this was my first one that I've tried. The Neons look super pretty too! 

I purchased this from the American Apparel store in Melbourne in a deal of 3 nail polishes for $28, or it was $14 for the single nail polish. You can also see their range and order online here. 

What do you think of this metallic colour? Have you tried any American Apparel nail polishes? What's your favourite metallic colour? x

NOTW - Kit - Siesta Indigo

 

[natural light]

[with flash]

This weeks nail of the week is Kit's 'Siesta Indigo' which is an indigo blue so deep, it's basically black!

This nail polish was part of the Viva La Colour range from winter 2011 which drew inspiration from Mexican delights and included mostly bright colours like green, yellow, and purple, but of course I was drawn to the darkest colour of the bunch (typical, haha).

The formula of this nail polish was great. It's nice and thick and you could use just one coat if you're careful, but I used 2 just to even out the colour. The nail polish dries with a super slick sheen and the finish wouldn't even need a top coat, but as always I used Seche Vite as a top coat to get the quick dry and glass like finish you can see in the top picture.

It was hard to take a photo of my nails to show the true colour because it just looks black in most light. The only real indication of the blue coming through is on my rough edges (sorry about that, haha). This is a colour that I love because it's such a contrast to my pale skin. Great in winter where I'm extra pale!

I purchased this from Kit Cosmetics for $15.95 when the range was released in 2011, but it appears to have been quite popular and has been added to the permanent range. It's available online from Kit here or Mecca here or you can pop into your local Kit or Mecca store to check out their full range instore, it's super impressive! I can never decide which colour I want next.

Have you tried Kit nail polish? What's your favourite colour? x

NOTW - Essie - A Crewed Interest & Essie - Shine Of The Times

[natural light]

[with flash]

This weeks Nail Of The Week is Essie - A Crewed Interest, with an accent nail of Essie - Shine Of The Times. 

Essie's 'A Crewed Interest' is from the Spring 2012 Navigate Her collection, which was full of nice lights and brights as can be seen in the full collection swatches here. A Crewed Interest is a beautiful peachy creme which applied quite well considering it is such a light colour. I was able to get an even opaque coverage in 2 coats, but then decided to put 'Shine Of The Times' over all my nails, then regretted it so did a top coat of  'A Crewed Interest' again on all the nails except the thumb and accent finger. Haha. I'm ridiculous I know! So that's why in the pictures the nail polish looks so thick! Sorry about that. 

The colour really is wonderful though. This is one of my favourites in a long time. It worked well against my pale skin, and was a nice colour in the sun, or in artificial light. Not too orange, but not too washed out either. If you're pale, I would definitely recommend this one! 

The Essie - Shine Of The Times flakie nail polish is a really soft highlight on this colour. Not too noticeable, but a gentle glimmer in the right light. It reflects a silver and gold mostly, and because it's over a light colour, the colour it reflects is a lot lighter too. 

This is definitely a nail polish I will be turning to again, and would work well with almost any outfit as it's so light and neutral. Essie nail polishes are yet to disappoint me and I can't wait to get more!

This is another nail polish I bought in my last haul (as seen in my post here) from mbeautylounge and was $7.10 ($US). You can probably also find this on ebay for around the same price, or BeautyBay.com are now stocking Essie and have A Crewed Interest available online for $11.90 ($AU) AND have free postage to Australia. Myer also stock Essie, but I'm unsure of their availability on every collection so just head in to your local store and see what they have. :)

What do you think of Essie's 'A Crewed Interest' and 'Shine Of The Times'? Have you got a favourite Essie nail polish? x

NOTW - OPI - Black Cherry Chutney

This weeks nail of the week is OPI - Black Cherry Chutney from OPI's India collection from 2008. 

This was another nail polish that I had recently received in my haul from mbeautylounge.com and as soon as I saw it in the bottle I couldn't believe how pretty it looked. I couldn't wait to get it on my nails! Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed once I did. 

In the bottle it looks a deep purple with flecks of red undertones, however on the nail I lost that almost completely. It looked like a flat colour of deep purple, and the only way to see the undertones is in direct sunlight, and even then it's not so noticeable. In the second picture I've used flash, so you can almost see the other flecks of colour coming through there.

I thought this would be comparable to my previous post OPI - Midnight In Moscow and I guess in a way it is, but this is a lot more purple, and the undertones aren't as noticeable. It almost looks black without direct light on top. I definitely can't complain though, it's another awesome vampy colour to add to my collection, and OPI do these sort of colours oh so well. 

This was a little harder to apply than Midnight In Moscow, one coat was quite streaky, but it evened out with the second and I left it at that. Maybe a third coat would really intensify it, but I think 2 is plenty!

Overall I really do like the colour that this turned out, I was just a little disappointed with the initial lack of shimmer once it was on the nail. If you love a deep vampy purple this is a lovely colour. 

I purchased this from mbeautylounge.com for $6.15 (US) but it may still be available in stores too. In Australia David Jones stock OPI instore for around $19.95 (AU), or check out the OPI website for a stockist near you! 

What do you think of OPI - Black Cherry Chutney? What's your favourite OPI colour? Do you like vampy shades? 

NOTW - China Glaze - Peachy Keen

This weeks Nail Of The Week is China Glaze - Peachy Keen. 

Peachy Keen is, as the name implies, a light creamy peach colour. It was one of the nail polishes I received recently from mbeautylounge.com as seen in my last haul post and is from the Up & Away collection of 2009. 

The colour is actually quite bright, almost a neon against my pale skin, but muted slightly by the creaminess of it. 

The polish applied quite well. It's thick and didn't streak too much when it was applied. Although, like most China Glaze polishes it can be so thick it can get a little hard to manage unless you work quickly. Even so, mine is quite thick with 2 coats and still finished neatly. It stayed on well for a full week, only just chipping towards the end.

This will definitely be a colour that I'll come back to. It worked really well with my skin tone, and it's a nice bright colour that would be great for summer!  

China Glaze - Peachy Keen can be found online at mbeautylounge, or crush cosmetics for an Australian site that will ship faster, and other sites that sell China Glaze that you know may have it in stock still too. I wish there were stores that stocked China Glaze in Australia, it's such a great brand that never fails to impress me so it'd be great to have it more readily available. 

What do you think of Peachy Keen? What is your favourite China Glaze colour? x

NOTW - Essie - No More Film + China Glaze - Meteor Shower

This weeks nails of the week is a little disappointing from my point of view, so I apologise as a first priority to my readers. As you may be able to tell by some of the scratches and chips in my nails, I didn't get to take photos as soon as I finished my manicure, it was actually a few days before I found time to take photos, and of course by then they had already started to chip! I forgot how absolutely horrible long square nails are for that. HORRIBLE. Lesson learnt on that front - shorter than my fingers, or not at all.

But moving on to the colours, which I actually loved... I have Essie - No More Film on most of my nails which is from the Essie Resort 2012 collection that came out around March this year. This is a new nail polish that I recently got from mBeautyLounge and I'll be posting a haul picture of the rest of the nail polishes I got in my order very soon. 

The formula on this nail polish, like most Essie nail polish was really rich and easy to apply, although as you can tell from my messy cuticles, it was a little harder to get neat than some others I've used before. You could probably get away with one nice coat of this colour as it is thick, but I believe I used 2 coats in the pictures above just to even it out. The true colour of this nail polish is so hard to capture with photos, as it feels as though it almost has a creamy purple tinge to the base which makes for a beautiful blue in real life that sets it apart from any other dark blue or navy nail polishes that I've used before. The formula finished in a lovely shiny polish, but I topped mine with Seche Vite top coat just to give it an extra bit of shine.

On my ring fingers I have China Glaze - Meteor Shower which is a coarse glitter nail polish. I didn't need to use any coloured base undercoat with this nail polish, it's pure glitter and dark base gives a deep shimmer of blues which are hard to capture the depth of within the photos above. It's extremely sparkly, trust me, and it's beautiful! As you can see in comparison to Essie - No More Film, China Glaze - Meteor Shower is a true navy blue so that may help you visual what I was attempting to say about the purple undertones earlier. I feel this nail polish definitely works best with a top coat, as without it it is textured and not as sparkly in the light. The formula on this is really thick, and a tad hard to apply as it is so chunky with glitter, but the top coat evens that out anyway. You only really need one coat of this because it's so thick.

I haven't worn this nail polish much since I purchased it around a year ago, not because I don't love the colour, but more because when I did wear it previously it chipped so easily and it is quite painful to remove. This time around with using a base coat and top coat it actually lasted a lot longer than the Essie colour did really, I was quite impressed. 

Essie - No More Film should be available in Myer and other major retailers that sell Essie for around $15-$20, or you can purchase it online. As I said, I purchased mine from mBeautyLounge for $7.20 US.

China Glaze - Meteor Shower is an older nail polish now, and I purchased mine from Crush Cosmetics at least 12 months ago, and from what I can see it's no longer available on there. They are great for China Glaze though and an Australian based website. If anyone knows where you can still buy this nail polish online, let me know and I will update this post. You might need to try ebay even, sometime's you get lucky there! 

What do you think of this colour combination? Have you tried Essie Nail Polish before? What's your favourite colour? x

My Manicure Essentials

Anyone that knows me, knows that I love to have perfect nails at all times if I can help it! I'm painting my nails at least once a week, and gosh forbid if I get a chip before I have time to repaint my nails it stresses me out until it's fixed. Haha. Perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, but I do like having neat nails! Don't we all?


Today I thought I'd give a run down of the tools I use to keep my nails nice and neat, and I've pictured pretty much everything I use above.


Personally I have quite strong nails that grow rather quickly, so I'm pretty lucky in that sense, and I don't bite my nails at all, so the only time they get maintenance is when I sit down and do my nails. I work in an office so they're not really under much duress on a daily basis, and I wear gloves when I wash the dishes (but that's mostly because I hate having wrinkly hands! Haha), and am constantly using hand cream to try to keep my hands nice and hydrated.


The first thing I usually do when I change my nails for the week is remove the old nail polish. I am not fussy when it comes to nail polish remover really, as long as it works it's fine by me. This time I picked up a Sally Hansen 'Strengthening' nail polish remover for about $5 in Priceline, and it's been quite good - if you have weak nails it might be worth taking note on little things like picking something like this to help strengthen your nails from the get go. I use this with Swisspers round make-up pads to remove the nail polish, you can obviously use any cotton pads/cotton balls, but I find these really stay together well without the cotton coming apart and sticking to your nails - unless you're removing glitter, and that's another story altogether! Try to be gentle and patient when removing your nail polish, or you may rip up the surface of your nails, not fun.


Once they're clean I will cut and shape my nails. I use nail clippers usually as it's easy to get a nice straight or round starting place for the shape of your nails with these. Make sure they're sharp or they may just bend your nail instead of cutting it cleanly. Mine are Revlon clippers and I've had them for well over a year now and they're still great. I can use them on my toes too. I have a good pair of Manicare nail scissors for when I want to round them off even further. I've had these for over a year now too and they're still extremely sharp, worth paying a little extra for good quality with these tools as you'll generally have a better product that will last longer.


I don't use my nail clippers or scissors every time I paint my nails, sometimes I can get away with just using the nail file to shape my nails if I've cut them really short the time before. I got the Sally Hansen nail file pictured above in a Beauty Box ages ago, I think it was a Glossybox, and before this I had always just used those cheap ones you can get in a 10 or 20 pack. I must say, having a proper nail file has improved the shape of my nails tenfold. I can now have nice flat nails in a few seconds, and shaping them round is so easy too. I need to buy a new one as you can tell by the photo, but this has lasted me around 6 months and they're only about $5, which is what you would pay for the smaller thing nail files in bulk anyway. I do keep one of those kind in my hand bag at all times though, good for touch ups if you pull your nail etc. because they're smaller.


Last but not least - Base and Top Coat! If you're not using a base coat especially before putting on your nail polish colour, you really should start now. Base coats are necessary for promoting healthier nails, and ensuring easier application of your nail colour. They help your nail polish last longer, stop any staining that some nail polishes can leave on your nail (I'm still growing out a stain on my nails currently, because I forgot my base coat one time, once!), and can include nutrients needed to help your nails grow stronger. I'm so glad I've added a base coat into my nail routine. It only takes a few extra seconds and the benefits are enormous. I am using an Essie 3 way glaze at the moment, but I will soon be searching for a base coat specific nail polish because the all in one nail polishes can sometimes not be as good for the nails. 


After the base coat I will paint my nails with whatever colour I feel like for the day, then finish with a top coat. Top coat is not really essential, but since I've gotten a good top coat nail polish - Seche Vite (which I will review soon) - I never want to go without it! It leaves your nails perfectly shiny, makes the manicure stronger overall, and a lot of them have faster drying properties to set your manicure a LOT faster which is definitely what I love about mine most. Top coat nail polish can be skipped if you're going for a certain look with your nail polish, for example textured nails, or matte finish nail polishes, but probably 9/10 times I will use a top coat now. 


And that's it! I hope you're looking after your nails if you're keeping them polished every day! What's your nail routine?

NOTW - OPI - Midnight In Moscow

Nails of the week!

This weeks nail of the week is O.P.I. - Midnight In Moscow. An all time favourite from the brand for me, and a colour that I come back to more than any other colour I own. 

This nail polish is a deep dark brown, with teeny tiny red glitter undertones which make the nails shine an awesome red burgandy in the sun. 

I love the contrast of this nail colour against my pale skin, and it's a classic classy colour to suit every occasion and outfit. 

The formula is a generous thickness and so easy to apply perfectly every time. I used 2 coats to get the look achieved above. It doesn't really need a top coat as it dries to a nice shiny finish, but as with most nail polishes the top coat will really bring out the best in the nail colour.

O.P.I Midnight In Moscow is available in Australia in David Jones, and other general retailers that stock the O.P.I. brand (see here for stockists Australia wide) for around $19.95 I believe (I bought mine a while ago sorry!). 

What do you think of O.P.I.'s Midnight In Moscow? Or do you already have this gem in your collection? x 


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