China Glaze Holographic in Strap On Your Moonboots & When Stars Collide

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It seems like ages ago now that I limited myself to just shades from the China Glaze Holographic Collection. I chose the two most unique colours - a blue and burgundy. Now it feels like every indie is producing similar shades but China Glaze manages to achieve that super fine and uniform linear holographic effect other labels just can't - even if the holo is only 1/8 as strong as their OMG collection....

China Glaze Strap On Your Moonboots

Strap On Your Moonboots is a steely blue subtle linear holo. I had to have this because the colour was quite different to all the holos that were on the market at the time this collection was released. I'm not usually in to metallics, but SOYM is pretty sweet. The formula was great, you can get away with one careful coat, but I used two for these swatches.

China Glaze When Stars Collide

When Stars Collide is a burgundy hued weak linear holographic polish. I love how ultra smooth ChG manages to make their holos. The rainbows only really stand out in direct light, but the shade is so pretty on its own, I don't really mind. The formula is very opaque too. I'm wearing two coats in these photos but if you are cautious, you can get full coverage in one coat!

Which Holographics do you own/drool over?

xxx

NPA

My OPI Mariah Carey Collection Picks

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I've been very selective with new OPIs lately. I just got to the point where I didn't actually need ALL the polishes! Now I'm trying my hardest to only buy big brand lacquers that I don't have something like already in my collection.

The Mariah Carey Collection had quite a few interesting releases, but I stuck to the two most special ones!

OPI Sprung

 Sprung is a gorgeous orange/gold/pink micro-flake shimmer. It's another Warm & Fozzie, Pros & Bronze relative. There is a kind of foil look about it at times. I only needed 2 easy to apply coats for full coverage, whereas these micro-flakes tend to be sheer, Sprung is pretty pigmented.

 OPI Stay The Night

 Stay The Night is a light black liquid sand with deep pink glitter. I think I like the finished product because the fine pink hexes sparkle so nicely when it's matte. The formula is a little disappointing though, because the base is very thin and comes off looking like a deep brown, so I used 4 thin coats in the end for full coverage and maximum blackness! You can get away with 3 if you aren't as picky :) Dry time is longer than the average lacquer.


Here it is with two coats of Aqua Daisy Glitter Gloss:

Glitter hungry indeed! I prefer it textured.

Which are your favourites from the Mariah Carey line?


xxx
NPA

Picture Polish Atomic Swatches & Review

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Press Sample

OMG I so underrated Atomic by piCture pOlish, in collaboration with Sarah of Samarium's Swatches.

It just never looked like my kind of polish; silvery metallics don't really appeal, but pp sent me it to review and I'm so happy to be wrong!

Here's the link to Sarah's post on Atomic, explaining her inspiration etc. It came out in January with the first lot of blogger collaboration releases this year.

piCture pOlish Atomic

 Atomic is a platinum white metallic with multi-coloured shimmer and holographic shards. It really is EXPLOSIVE! The formula is flawless and covers in 2-3 thin coats. Dry time is short too.

You seriously need to try Atomic for yourself!

 pOlish On-line Store     Facebook     Twitter     Pinterest     Instagram

Been really busy this week too and school doesn't seem to be slowing down, so I'll have to really apply myself in order to get some posts in the can, yikes! Hope your weeks went well and you have great weekends!!!!!

xxx

NPA

Duohrome Action - Missha HGR01

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I have a super beautiful duochrome from Missha (Korean brand), that I got off Ebay.

It's an alternative to all the Chanel Peridot dupes out there - the dominant colour is a green that get very golden in the sun, but in the shade you see lots of a beautiful sea blue/green!!! And it's so darn metallic, the sparkle and colour shift makes it look like 3D lacquer!

sunshine

sunshine

shade

shade

close-up

 I love! The shine was too much for the camera though!!!!

What do you think? Who prefers Peridot?

xxx
NPA

Christmas Present Spam - Part 2

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Ah, another week in to the new year!

Here's a little recap of my day: (for those who are not interested, feel free to scroll down to the photos!)

I woke up at 3:30am last night and did not get back to sleep. Three hours in to killing time, I woke my puppy up (a wee bit early for him, half the time he's in his crate til 8:30-9am, lazy mummy) and decided we'd brave the great outdoors for a walk since the forecast was for showers turning to rain in the afternoon.
Now Buster wasn't that excited by the idea. He much preferred licking the cat and coaxing his big brother out of bed for some rough house :)
I finally managed to convince him it was a good idea by 7:30am. Of course it drizzled on and off (I may have needed to wipe my glasses several times so that I could see where we were going), and Busty got quite wet seeing it had rained all night and he has a fondness for laying down in long grass mid walk!! He's a bit of a character :)
I was a bit proud of myself for putting the early morning hours to good use, since my standard excuse for not walking the dog is that the weather is crap; but then the rain never came back, in fact by tea time it was a wee bit sunny out there. So what did I learn? I got wet and blow dried the dog completely unnecessarily.
He did have a massive sleep in the afternoon though, so it gave me a break from the incessant chewing!!! He destroyed two pairs of jandals (thongs or flip flops for foreigners) in the weekend and has been eyeing up my last pair!!! He makes up for his naughtiness by giving 'good cuddle', though!!!!!

So now on to the polish 'bit'...
My darling/awesome/amazing/(insert cool adjectives here) sister in Australia sent me some Essence Colour & Go polishes for xmas! BTW Love that European brands spell the word COLOUR correctly!!!!!!!! All the US brands do my head in spelling-wise. I've started second guessing myself whenever I spell a word that has an US English alternative!
Here are the goodies:

Camouflage - 2 coats - lamp

Camouflage is an awesome khaki/olive brown? creme. I just think of it as a military hue. Only two coats, dries super shiny (as you can see) and quick, plus it's not a dead on dupe for OPI A-taupe The Space Needle, yay! Even if it was I wouldn't mind - it's like the mini version you take on holiday!!! It's actually a shade or two darker than the OPI.

Movie Star - 2 coats - lamp

Movie Star is a blue based concrete grey creme. It's perfect. I only had maybe two greys in my stash and they were relatively light in comparison. Good one KT Pie!!! Again, 2 coats, great shine & quick dry time.

Viva La Green - 2 coats - lamp

Viva La Green is  Essence's version of the super popular 2011 jade/mint/sea foam green creme. It's brighter and less greyed than the other big ones like OPI's Mermaid Tears. Not sure how it compares to the Orly Ancient Jade as I do not own it. It's a dream to apply, are you tired of me saying 2 coats, super shiny and dries fast, yet?

Break Through - 3 coats - sunlight

Break Through - 3 coats - sunlight

Break Through deserves two pics because it has a beautiful subtle shimmer you only really see in direct sunlight.  It's a pretty bright yet sort of medium/dark red based purple. The shimmer looks sort of golden-ish. This is probably my fav, I'm not too original! This one actually needed 3 coats to look nice at the cuticles, but I suspect that was because the end of the brush was cut sort of diagonally which made application a bit more difficult. BTW the polish didn't bubble, it just looks a bit bumpy because there were bits of cotton fluff stuck to my nails with the base coat I used!!

Luxury Secret - 2 coats - natural light

Luxury Secret is a metallic gunmetal grey. Or is this too light to be a gunmetal? Either way it's very similar to Orly Sea Gurl but not as complex. Two coats and I was good to go!

KT Pie also got me Shiny Goddess, the gold version of Luxury Secret, but I haven't tried it out yet. It's not a yellow gold at all, thank god! Will probably add it to this post when I get a chance.

So I didn't do too bad at Christmas, did I?
My dad's in the US/Canada at the moment and I gave him a list of polish brands to look for at places like Ross, so hopefully he manages to locate some harder to get polishes for me! Though last time I asked him to pick up some OPIs duty free he came home empty handed because it was all a bit difficult for him!

Til next time,
xxx
NPA

L.A. Girl METAL Swatches

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Happy Weekend Everyone!


I actually meant to post these last Friday but I ran out of time so they've been sitting in a semi-finished draft post all week. I think it's about time I set them free.

Antique Gold

Sunlight

Shade

Antique gold is an olive antique gold shimmer. It's a bit watery and takes 3 coats to build up but it dries glossy and looks gorgeous. 

Brass

Overcast

Overcast

Brass is my favourite - I've featured it before :) It's a medium brown mixed with fine silver giving a speckled look. Like the formula of a foil but without any shimmer/sparkle. Dream application, nice consistency, 2 coats.

 

Copper Alloy

Indirect Sun

Sunlight

Shade

Copper Alloy is a pretty reddish orange with a strong yellow gold shimmer - in a similar style to Antique Gold. Again a watery 3 coats is needed (and really a fourth would have added depth) but the pay off is worth it. The base has a pinky tinge to it and the total effect is a wee bit duochromey.

Metallic Olive

 

Indirect Sun

Sunlight

Shade

Metallic Olive isn't olive at all. It's a dark swampy forest green with a lighter green (possibly where the 'olive' comes in) shimmer. Basically the green version of Antique Gold. I love it. Such a pretty green and it's yellow based so it loves me back :)

Iron Red

Sunlight

Sunlight

Iron Red is also oddly named. It's a pink foil for crying out loud! Great formula (like most foils), only 1-2 coats are needed. There is an orange tint to the pink so it's a pink foil for warm skin tones - hallelujah! praise jesus!


I got all these from the same Cherry Culture haul that netted me the LA Girl Rock Star polishes. I think it's another 2009 release - but I'm too lazy to look it up so don't take my word for it! There's a couple others from this collection that I still want, including Trilogy. It's an unusual plummy purple foil - I think!

What do you think, do you have any from this release?

xxx

NPA