Gelicious - Mintium - GIVEAWAY

Slowly slowly getting through my Gelicious haul.

This one is Mintium from their Precious Metal collection. And to be honest I wasn't sold on the colour when I first put it on,  it also was more of a shimmer (frost?) then a metal. I guess I wanted a different colour then what I got - but it was similar to the picture on the bottle so I was really kidding myself.

By the end of the two weeks I thought differently - it wasn't as 'in your face' as some of my other greeny polishes which was nice and a few people commented on it.

I only did two coats of this - so you can see in my photo that it was a little patchy - I'm finding most Gelicious need three coats, but it's so easy to set each coat that it doesn't take up much time.

Now to my give away... My first ever! (NZ and Aus only - Sorry!)

A brand new never been used before bottle of Gelicious Mintium and Adoree Hamilton Blue. 

 I bought the Mintium in my last haul thinking that mint would be pretty popular colour - if I like it then others would too,,, right? Pity I didn't think to get the top coat as well - sorry!

I've been keeping the Hamilton Blue aside for a while now for a give away - it seriously doesn't look that yellow in real life.  I can't seem to find the Adoree seller on eBay anymore but you can see more here: Esther's Nail Center.

If you would like to enter, please leave a comment and some way for me to get in touch with you.

 I'll random draw from the comments on the 30th of July, 2013.

WINNER!!! mel j

Thank you for commenting! 

Craptastic

 I've had a pretty crappy month. I spent most of it getting over a really nasty cold and of course there is always some work stuff.  So for most of that time my nails were pretty much neglected although I did put on some Revlon 940 Facets of Fuchsia. The problem was that I never got around to cleaning it off,,, so look away now if you get squeamish.

Eww!

These were my nails for the last two weeks, and it only got worse after that shot.  Whenever I looked at them I winced.  Words come to mind that I haven't used since the 90s in high school; slag, slurry, pog. Sorry, but when I see chipped dark polish like this that's what I think.

In fact, last night a friend looked at my nails and said 'That's most unlike you.'

Luckily, I followed the advice of this.

Sorry if you have seen this before.

On Thursday a whole box of Adoree polishes came my way.  I'm keeping three for something special, but the rest are mine!!! It helped that they were on sale.Click away!

Three coats of Adoree 159 Neon Purple. Easy to apply, quick to dry. More a pink than a purple but still lovely and bright. Maybe I got sent the wrong one? Kind of reminds me of 90s high school where we used to use our highlighters to paint our nails - except more opaque. No clean up for you! The little bubbles are from my base coat.

Random but, today a mother of two of my students came up to me in the street and told me that I must be doing something right because lately the youngest has been talking about me and what we have been doing in class, nonstop. I didn't say it but I did think it - must be because the other teachers are crap.  I didn't say it but I did think it - that's because I'm fracking awesome. 

Who's got tickets? Me!

Oh well, at the moment I need something positive.

Finally

Went to take photos of my nails and other things today to find I had run out of battery - so had to use the huge camera. So now I have an aching wrist,,, no actually I've been sewing a lot lately and crocheting which is probably to blame more than a few photos.

Here is my current mani:

Adoree - 241 - Sea Turquoise
Revlon - 900 - Gold Get 'Em



It actually took two days for me to finish of the 3 coats of sea turquoise because I'm such a slacker. It's actually quite thick but the first two coats are streaky - it's the third coat that finished it all off.

I was going to konad the heck out of it, but I found the neglected bottle of gold sparkly under some fabric. I took that as a sign.

In real life my nails are so much prettier but you'll just have to imagine it because I'm not picking up that camera again anytime soon.

I feel so lucky!

Yesterday one of my lemmings arrived.

I try to be pretty frugal about my nail polish budget - hence the whole less than five bucks! But I decided that life was too short not to buy really pretty nail polishes that will make me happy.

So I went looking for Mad as a Hatter and found an Ebay store that sells a heap of OPI ranges including the Alice in Wonderland collection. So I bought 2 bottles at $15.90 each. To me that's a lot of money for some glitter in a varnish but oh well, it sure beats the up-to-$30 I was looking to paying for it on Ebay only a month ago.

I decided to compare it with Adoree Hamilton Blue just because.



They are obviously not dupes :)



Mad as a Hatter has larger sized glitter in purple magenta (mostly) aqua, salmon and possibly some other colours but I can't work out right now because the bling hurts my eyes.

Hamilton Blue is aqua, light red, gold or silver once again - bling hurts my eyes. Hamilton Blue however isn't as sparkly as Mad as a Hatter possibly because of the size of the glitter.

Both of these are two coats - using the dab method.

I am very happy to have both in my collection because I am a bit of a glitterati. Bring on the next lemming,,, Happy Birthday!

This week I had this on my nails:



BYS - n238 - Matte Mint Green

It was a two coater and a really lovely colour. It got a lot of complements. This was actually my first matte and it didn't really live up to my expectations, as it had a dull shine and wasn't truly matte. Maybe I expect too much. I top coated it glossy.

Easy to apply and it lasted for 5 days before it chipped. Value to money I think.

C*m Shot:

Catchen up

My holidays have started! The last few weeks of term were incredibly hectic so I didn’t have much time for nails or anything else bar school. I did do one manicure last weekend, but because I was rushed I didn’t let my nails dry so they got dinted heaps. Much like my manicure at the moment.

I’m not really a brown make up person. I remember when I was in my teens and brown became a really popular lipstick colour – and the Avon lady said “That really looks like shit on you” – haha! So I don’t really know what possesses me to buy brown polishes but I do.

Base colour is Rimmel357 Azteque; a terracotta which was a two coater.


The dahlia flowers were stamped in Australis Caramel. Which looks like melted milk chocolate.


Next time I do this I’ll just leave it at this step!


And the bling is Revlon Molten Metal. I do love the idea of Molten Metal, it looks so pretty in the bottle and on the nails, but it never seems to last for long :(


Top and base coat is the usual suspect.

There was a whole lotta stuff going on in this mani, but I found myself looking at my nails heaps - lol - vanity.

So currently on my nails, I have Adoree 201 Pink Pansy. It’s a lovely mushroomy pink with a flash of pastel purple iridescent. This was four coats, which is too many for me usually but I really like the colour. I can’t wait to use it for layering.

Bling my nails

Second polish for the week is:

Adoree 220 Hamilton Blue

I like this one a lot.

It took at least 4 coats to get it opaque - I lost count - but it dries super fast so I didn't care. It does have a scaly finish so I top-coated it twice but I don't mind a little texture, it makes me wanting to rub my finders over it; sensory deprived childhood?

I always worry that glitter will chip - but 24 hours later it is all good. I took this photo yesterday afternoon after a really busy day at school - a nail punishing sports day basically.

Anyways - I luff this polish - the glitter is a mix of tiny green, gold, light blue, red and maybe silver flecks with a gray clear to hold it altogether. I will need to get a backup bottle of this one for sure; I say that about a lot of polishes -_-,

Now be prepared for some ugly cuticles - they have been really awful lately and in the photo I had just oiled them:




You were warned!

Adoree blues are over

I have been having such a bad computer day today, if the world wide web blows up in a few minutes, blame me.

While I was doing my uni readings this morning I wiped off the other mani and started with another Adoree polish. This time it went awesome.

2 coats of Adoree - 241 - Sea Turquoise
top and bottom coats - Maybelline Express Finish

I gotta say that I love this colour, it's the colour of my yoga mat and also my wedding shoes. It is slightly greener in real life. It reminds me of the blue 'white out' that you used to get.

I also love this nail polish, it was two coats. If it lasts until tomorrow without chipping then I think I'll have to by a backup. Imagine all the nail art I can do with this, well maybe you can't but I can. I'm already lining up something with a Mode polish for tomorrow.



Hopefully when I press "publish post" nothing will go wrong, cross fingers.

OK

Yes I know I promised photos of toes - but I decided no, I didn't need to terrify the world with a photo of them. I blame high school science; when we learnt about genetics. Up until that point I thought everyone had hairy knuckles and an index toe longer than the 'big' toe. I've been paranoid about them ever since. Which conflicts with my love of shoes but I'm not going to analyse myself too much.

On with the nail polish:

I chose to start with Adoree's Rockport Gray. I quite like this colour - in fact my car is this colour - but I think it's called pearl green or something. It is a 'work okay' colour as no one at work noticed it, when usually I have people asking me about my nails.

It took four coats, might need another but that's as far as I'll go. It was streaky, highlights the ridges on my nails and already had a chip in it by lunch. I only put it on last night and work was kind to my nails today.




For six bucks though, I'm pretty happy - not ecstatic but okay.

Adoree - I adore you

So last week I ordered some Adoree from blossomandbe22 on ebay. They arrived here today - with nail stickers! Hello Kitty nail stickers!

They were $6 each - above my budget but oh well. I can't remember the names of the polishes - but most were ones that I saw somewhere else in the interwebs so I knew they were pretty good.







Already tried them on my toenails - I'll maybe take a photo tomorrow.

Everyone at work liked the pink and plum french mani. Is it a complement when people ask if you nails are fake?