Dior Acapulco + Lush Lacquer Hey Jack!

Hello!

Sorry a thousand times for being so slack with my blog. Life etc has gotten in the way a bit and while I have painted my nails I haven't had time to post them here.

This is Dior Acapulco, a warm, primary yellow creme. I'm not generally one to spend $39 on a single bottle of polish but I've been hunting for a decent yellow and decided to treat myself - this is my first "premium" polish :) For this manicure I first painted my nails white (with Face of Australia's Cool Cotton) so that I wouldn't have any visible nail line - I believe Acapulco is slightly jelly-like on its own. I used three coats of Acapulco to get a completely even finish as it streaked slightly on the first two coats. With three coats though it's nice and even and dries very shiny.

Three coats of Acapulco over white with top coat.

A day after applying this manicure I went to visit my parents and I had a package waiting for me - with nail polish in it! And not just any old polish, but two gorgeous colours from Lush Lacquer! My gorgeous cousin Bek had ordered them for me for my birthday. I had two try out Hey Jack! straight away. Hey Jack! is from the halloween collection and is a mix of tiny hex and bar white glitter, different sized black hex glitter, small shiny orange hexes, and medium matte orange hexes. This is one dabbled coat on my ring finger, and I think the colours go really nicely with the yellow, even though it's not halloween anymore. I might try this over Revlon Royal next time :)

One dabbled coat of Hey Jack! on ring finger.

The formula on Hey Jack! was excellent, not thick or gloopy at all and packed with glitter, I didn't have to fish for any of the glitters to get them all on my nail. It does dry quite textured and needs either a really thick top coat like Gelous (which I don't have but am going to buy) or multiple layers of top coat.

Robyn x

Ulta3 Skittles!

Hello!

Another skittle manicure today, I think this colour combination works a lot better than the last one. I used all Ulta3 polishes for this manicure and they are:

Silver Glitter, Frog Prince, Blue Marlin, Honolulu, Spring Break and Eighties Fushsia (I know it's not spelt like that but that's what it says on the bottle!)

Application on these varied. Eighties Fuchsia was the BEST. Buttery, even, self leveling, perfect brush, made me want to happy dance, opaque in two thin coats. Spring Break was ok but had a DREADFUL brush, weirdly fluffy on the end which made it fricking difficult to make a neat line. Honolulu was a bit of a gluggy nightmare and needed four coats for full opacity. Frog Prince was ok but a little thick and was opaque in two thick coats, as was Blue Marlin. Silver glitter smells frickin WEIRD and was super thick but not as gritty as I was expecting, only needed the regular one coat of top coat to smooth out, and was super dense - I only used one coat on each nail. Ulta3 recently moved production of their polishes from Australia to China, and many people have commented that the formulation has suffered somewhat from the move. Eighties Fuchsia is the only polish in this manicure which was made in Australia (I only bought it  a couple of days ago, but you can still find the odd Aussie Ulta3 here and there) and it had the best formulation. Go figure...

Below is before I put glitter and top coat on:

Thumb to pinkie - Blue Marlin, Frog Prince, Honolulu, Eighties Fuchsia, Spring Break.

Blue Marlin and Honolulu had quite a glossy finish, Frog Prince slightly less so, and Eighties Fuchsia and Spring Break had the same slightly rubbery finish as Sunset Pink.

And here it is with glitter!

The top photo is more colour accurate (surprisingly so, as I didn't even have to colour correct it - maybe having so many bright colours in the one image helped the camera's sensor calibrate properly or sumfink?) but yay! Glitter! I love me some glitter.

Robyn x

China Glaze Paper Chasing + Lush Lacquer Lite Brite

Hello!

A super bright and cheerful mani today - my flatmate said my nails looked like Christmas :)

This is three coats of China Glaze Paper Chasing, a sheer apple green shimmer, and one dabbled coat of Lush Lacquer Lite Brite, a clear base with small brightly coloured square and hex glitter, large pink hexes and tiny holographic glitter. To get this coverage I swirled the brush around in the bottle, then plonked the brush horizontally onto the nail to get all the glitter on, and didn't swipe as this just wipes the glitter right off again. I've had Lite Brite for maybe three months and in that time I think the large pink hexes have "tacoed" slightly (curled up, like a taco shell) so I needed a lot of top coat (three coats I think!) to smooth out any pointy edges. Still, it's a super pretty glitter and I'll give this another go over a different coloured base - although next time I might try and flip the hexes so the taco-ey points are pointing into the nail bed :)

Robyn x

PS Lush Lacquer is available at Etsy and they currently have Lite Brite in stock. Shipping can be a little slow as this is a small mother and daughter team making the polishes but they are really good at keeping customers updated through their Facebook page.

PPS I bought Lite Brite for my own use. No one has sent me free polish to review...yet!

China Glaze Strawberry Fields + Revlon Sheer Seafoam + Revlon Radiant

I went into Priceline recently and they had reduced all their Revlon polishes to $9.95 so I picked up Sheer Seafoam and Radiant. Also, the first anniversary of my grandmother's passing happened recently as well. She was my last surviving grandparent and we were quite close, so I did a manicure that I think she would have enjoyed - she loved pink and sparkles :)

The pink nails are (surprise, surprise) two coats of Strawberry Fields. I hadn't worn this before and I'm glad I finally did - this is a gorgeous polish! I couldn't really get the colour accurate in the photo even with colour correcting, it's quite a vivid cool pink loaded with gold shimmer. For the thumb and ring fingers I did one coat of Sheer Seafoam, one coat of Radiant and then two more coats of Sheer Seafoam. I have to admit that even though SSF was labelled as such, I wasn't expecting it to be *that* sheer! I might have to mix it with a creme if I wear it by itself. I'm not looking forward to removing the glitter...I keep forgetting to buy PVA glue to make a peel off basecoat though.

 Robyn x

PS If you're lucky enough to still have them, go hug your grandparents x

Max Factor Purple Haze + Ozotic 528

Hello!

Today's manicure is a multichromic, glittery beauty. Max Factor Purple Haze is a dark, almost dusty purple creme which went on in two fairly cooperative coats (I HATE the brush that comes with this polish though - it's in the same bottle as Fantasy Fire. Stupid tiny mini splayed out brush which makes control impossible, hence the gross messy cuticles). On top I did three coats of Ozotic 528, a gorgeous multichrome glitter which shifts from turquoise to fuchsia to (at extreme angles) an orange leaning gold.

Check out that shift! It's even more noticeable in real life.

A photo with flash to show Purple Haze underneath.

Unfortunately 528 has been discontinued and I don't know if it's available anymore.

Robyn x

OPI A Grape Fit + Gold Shatter + Essence Make It Golden

Sorry sorry sorry for the lack of posts this week. I've just worked six days in a row so haven't had a lot of free time. Luckily I have still painted my nails a few times so I have some new manicures to show :)

I was looking for a pale lilac/lavender creme which I could wear at work, and saw OPI a Grape Fit on sale online for about $10 so got that - it's one of very few OPIs in my collection as I refuse to pay $24.95 for a bottle of nailpolish which sells for a third of that in the States.

Unfortunately A Grape Fit was a lot darker than I thought it would be so I can't wear this at work but I will still wear it happily out of work. It is a very pretty colour, and goes on nicely in two easy coats.

I need to learn to leave cremes alone once I've done a manicure...I always seem to end up putting glitter or something else on top of them...I really do like how cremes look but I think I get bored too quickly! The day after putting on A Grape Fit I added some OPI Gold Shatter and Essence Make It Golden on the thumb and ring finger.

I might try this with China Glaze White Cap on top next to see if it makes it light enough to wear for work...

Also I bought another bottle of my go-to topcoat, Sally Hansen Insta Dri Non-Chip Topcoat (to be henceforth referred to as SHIDNCT!). I've had my current bottle since February and am reaching the very last dregs, which are cloudy, no doubt from all the nail polish it seems to pick up, and also from being thinned three or four times - this TC gets SERIOUSLY thick and gloopy about two thirds in! I still love it though, even after being thinned a billion times it still dries really fast, and I'm happy with the amount of shine. I'm not sure about the wear time of SHIDNCT as I tend to change my nails every couple of days. Aaaanyway, I was holding out on buying another bottle as it costs something like $16 here in oz, but found a great website, feel unique, which ships FREE to Australia (my favourite thing when I'm internet shopping!) and sells SHIDNCT for less than $10. So I now have a lovely, fresh, runny bottle of SHIDNCT to play with, and my nails are very happy!

Thick, cloudy, old-but-useable SHIDNCT on the left. New, runny, glorious SHIDNCT on the right. I still use the old one but it bubbles pretty badly so I save it for glitters where the bubbles are less noticeable.

 - Robyn x