My Secret Polish Elf Haul #1

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The NZ nail polish Facebook group I belong to did a Secret Polish Elf for Christmas this (last) year. We had an uneven number of participants so I volunteered to gift for two girls and got two gifts myself! Super doubly exciting!!!!

My first Polish Elf sent me 5 polishes off my wish list - talk about spoiled!

L-R Essie Leading Lady, China Glaze It's A Trap-eze!, Color Club Alias, Happy Hands I Just Blue Myself, Black Cat Lacquer Let Them Eat Cake

I've already posted Essie Leady Lady here, so on to the rest:

Happy Hands I Just Blue Myself

shade

I Just Blue Myself isn't even one of the better lines Tobias has, so you know Arrested Development is hilarious! This super blue tribute glitter is amazeballs! The two different shades of blue glitters are so bold and bright they are practically glowing! There's fine, small and medium hexes (some of which are holographic), short fat bar glitter and some squares too, in a slightly (possibly accidentally) blue tinted base. The base is thick though, which makes application a little trickier. Some polish thinner sorts that out and then you're free to 'blue yourself'.
I'd go for two layers of top coat because when I was wearing one coat of SV it wasn't perfectly smooth.

China Glaze It's A Trap-Eze!

 It's A Trap-Eze! I like, probably not as much as other people who were raving about it, but I'm sort of drifting away from my "Glitter, glitter, glitter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" stage, so that might explain it. In this pic, I'm wearing 2 thin coats, so the coverage is pretty good. The first time I tried IATE! out, I used thicker coats and just hated it! It was so lumpy and chalky, but with thin coats it looks 100% better. The formula is jam packed full of glitter, but it applies pretty darn easy. You'll probably only need 1 layer of SV too, because the glitter sits pretty flat.

Color Club Alias

 Alias is a smokey purple with multichrome glass flecks. They shift purple - pink - orange - green and you get an overall effect of a purple/green duochrome polish. The downside is that the formula is super thin, so you're better off layering it over a base colour. I wore 3 coats of Alias with 1 coat of INM Out The Door.

Black Cat Lacquer Let Them Eat Cake

Let Them Eat Cake has been a lemming of mine for MONTHS! So happy to have this mix of pastel and white glitter top coat! I paired 1 coat with Ulta Bam-Blue-Zled, a periwinkle blue creme. The pink, green and blue matte glitter looks gorgeous on top! It'd be perfect for a baby shower mani too!!!! The formula wasn't noteworthy and the bubbles were from my top coat (as in all the swatches - because my SV needed thinning!).

These are all winners, I'm so grateful to my Polish Elf!!!! The only let down was Akias, but I think I'll like it more over a black or purple creme.

Did you do Secret Santa for xmas last year? I'd love to hear what you got!


xxx
NPA

Color Club Spam

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I'm feeling lazy today. Really glad it's the weekend so I can curl up in front of the tv and catch up on sleep.
So here are some color clubs I got recently:

Red Velvet of Untamed Luxury Collection. Along the same lines as CG's Lubu Heels. Black jelly base with fine red glitter. Takes 2-3 coats. A bit gluggy but by 3 coats I had it evened out quite nicely. Definitely needs thick top coat as it dries gritty- which you can see in the non-flash photo.

 With Abandon from Wild At Heart Collection. Black creme filled with flecks of brown/gold shimmer? Really nice and unique also. The cuticle drag shows up in the flash photo but I just didn't wait long enough in between coats. In RL you couldn't tell. I really like this one, it takes 2-3 coats depending on how thick you make each layer.

I Always Get My Man-darin from Wicked Sweet Collection (so it smells like mandarin - in a good way) is a light tangerine dream! You can see in the shade pic it is quite yellow. The white looking shimmer running through this guy is actually green. The only fly in the ointment is that IAGMM is really sheer. This was 4 coats and there's still VNL - not too strong but more than I would like. I would try layering it over a similar creme polish or white. Or if you have a really opaque ridge filler try that!

That's it goodnight,
NPA xxx

China Glaze Metro Collection Fall 2011 Preview

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The theme for CG's upcoming collection is more or less New York City. From the press photos I'm not all that impressed, looks a bit like a been there done that collection. But some of the descriptions peak my interest so I will keep a look out for pre-release swatches to see if they are worth purchasing!

They are described as follows:

  

Skyscraper: A sparkling, glitter blue reminiscent of the sky over the city. 

 CG in the City: Glittering dusty purple, bronze and silver multi-tonal glitter, perfect for a pop of edge from West side to East side.

Urban-Night: Exactly what you need for a night on the town – rich purple crème.

Traffic Jam: Stop traffic with a breathtaking, raspberry pink crème.

          City Siren: The perfect deep, red crème to match any outfit

Loft-y Ambitions: Burgundy shimmer and cocktail hour – nothing better.

Brownstone: Burnt terracotta crème mirrors the quaint townhouses of the city.

Midtown Magic: Burgundy base with flecks of gold shimmer captures the latest fashion trend.

                Street Chic: This gorgeous beige crème is the perfect go to shade letting                   clothes do the talking.

Concrete Catwalk: Steel grey crème is amazing for a chic mani.

Westside Warrior: For the trendsetting woman this camo green crème is to die for.

          Trendsetter: Mustard yellow shimmer translates beautifully from hot dogs to nails.

Not sure when these will hit the stores my my gut tells me it'll be around mid August in the States, so I'm sure here in NZ we'll have to wait a little longer.

That's all for today. Will be hitting you with some more photos/reviews soon.

OPI Le Collection de France 2008

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These  polishes are on the verge of turning 3 years old but they're pretty amazing and I have gotten my hands on a few so I thought I'd dedicate a post to them!
This was a 12 piece collection that suited the season well. It includes the following shades:
Louvre me, louvre me not
Parlez-vous OPI?
Tickle my France-y
Eiffel for this color
You don't know Jacques
A Oui bit of red
Yes... i can-can
Baguette me not
Crepes suzi-ette
i'm fondue of you
bastille my heart
we'll always have paris

I have 7 of them but Parlez-vous OPI? was borrowed and apparently "lost" - I don't believe it, the colour is too awesome to be misplaced!!!!! And hard to find too! One day I hope to get it back! Anyway, here's the other 6:

A oui bit of red - indoors

  A Oui bit of red is a bright red with subtle fuchsia shimmer - click here for more from a previous post http://nailpolishanon.blogspot.com/2011/05/nail-of-day-notd-konad-issues.html

Bastille my heart - indoor

Bastille my heart - flash

 Bastille my heart is a rich burgundy shimmer, feels a bit glowy, very pretty but not unique. STAINS like my senile, 21 year old cat when she misses the kitty litter box! I don't have any other polishes like it though so for me its a keeper, nice formula too, about 2 coats.

I'm fondue of you - indoor

I'm fondue of you - flash

I'm fondue of you is a really gorgeous medium plum brown  with lots of fine shimmer kind of like a mixture of milk chocolate and berries. I love it! I used 3 coats but my 1st was ultra thin so 2 normal coats would have been fine.

Louvre me louvre me not - indoor

Louvre me louvre me not - flash

LMLMN is in the same vein as Overexposed in South Beach style wise but is a much more violet purple with fairly strong red undertones. The shimmer is pretty, hated the formula took 3 coats. It was quite gloopy in my opinion and you can see the unevenness of it on my nails especially in the flash photo. Of course, taking more time would have reduced the cuticle drag etc and I'm sure a few drops of thinner would sort it out.

 

Tickle my france-y - indoor

This is a really pretty nude with a pink undertones. Truth be told in person Tickle My France-y does nothing for me, just shows how yellow my skin looks in comparison to this  pale cafe au lait creme polish.   But on other ladies its true beauty would be obvious. Two coats of lovely formula is perfect - more to eliminate VNL.

You don't know Jacques - indoor

YDKJ - flash

You Don't Know Jacques is one of OPI's most popular colours, I believe it started a major greige trend in the nail lacquer world. A dark purplely taupe. The flash makes it look far too light! You feel so chic when you wear YDKJ, definitely a corporate power colour if your office allows it. Just perfect for winter and its a creme.

I "borrowed" this from the polish addict's blog

Parlez-Vous OPI? was my first ever OPI and it is the most awesome-est dark, greyed out, purple n the market. The formula is ever so slightly thick but great coverage/ very opaque. Very hard to find - one of my favourite  polishes of all time!

I plan to get my hands on  Yes... i can-can, Baguette me not, Crepes suzi-ette at some point too because they look right up my alley. What do you think of these polishes? Is it one of your favourite OPI collections too?
xxxxx

Nail of the Day (NOTD)/ Konad issues

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Today I'm wearing OPI A Oui Bit of Red from the La Collection De France for Fall 2008. It's a  red with subtle pink shimmer that really makes it stand out. I've seen reports that it looks like a creme most of the time but to me up close the shimmer is visible and even when it isn't the dash of pink shows through. Here's what it looks like with and without flash respectively:

It had pretty decent staying power too, I think this might have been 3 coats because I don't like even a hint of VNL showing through (not that anyone else but me can tell) but I think 2 coats was opaque and I also have a coat of Nubar Diamont Top Coat on here as well.
When I wore this polish I couldn't stop staring at my nails and gushing about the colour to my dad and brother who I was with at the time - not that they appreciate polish but to placate me they said it was awesome.

So I'm having major Konad stresses tonight. To understand what konad is go to www.konadnailart.com, but basically it's stamping a design on top of your nail polish instead of having to use nail art pens or decals. It's super awesome but I just can't get mine to work yet.
I bought a knock off stamper though so that could be to blame and I haven't used my stamper with the Konad Special Polishes I've just been trying polishes from my own stash and I'm not sure that they're thick enough. I managed to stamp a cloud pattern from plate m79 onto my ring finger tonight but it's patchy and thin. My plan is to persevere (ok that's the first time i've ever spelt persevere right, which is sad for a 23 year old but still it put a smile on my dial!) with the normal polish and see if it's just my technique and if not I'll be saving up for some real Konad stuff.
Later gator