Review & swatch: Apple Kid from Rainbow Honey

*Disclaimer: this product was sent to me for review, this fact has not impacted my opinion in any way*

"Apple Kid from the Summer of 199X Collection by Rainbow Honey. A bright and rosy fuchsia creme with shimmer."

Swatch & Review: Bejewelled by Cirque Colours

Disclaimer: this product was sent to me for review. It has not affected my opinion in any way.

More holo goodness! Cirque Colours are a US-based brand that is carried in the Femme Fatale Cosmetics store. They have a range of absolutely amazing holos and glitter toppers and I was really excited to get my hands on this bottle.

Swatch & Review: Femme Fatale Cosmetics Gravity Lapse (holo!)

Disclaimer: this product was sent to me for review. It has not affected my opinion in any way.

A triumphant bloggy return with a gorgeous lacquer from the new collection of holographic shades from Femme Fatale Cosmetics!

Life: 1, Me: 0

Using public wi-fi to tell you I currently have no internet at home! Not sure when the situation is going to change, but in the meantime posts and comments will be sporadic. I still have access to Twitter and Facebook on my phone, but visiting blogs uses a lot of data :( I miss the pretty pictures!

Swatch and review: Gloss n Sparkle Goblins Grave

Considering how badly I wanted this when I saw it and how long ago I bought it, this poor polish has sat untried for a long time.

Review & swatches: Sayuri Nail Lacquer #116 (Horsea!)

Finally onto the Sayuri portion of the Pokemon collection! Only two from this side.

Horsea is a baby blue crelly with tiny aqua and matte yellow glitter, larger round aqua glitter, medium matte yellow and white glitter, and large matte white hex glitter. A very glittery one!

Swatches: Detrivore eyeshadows, green and grey

Detrivore Cosmetics had a customer appreciation sale a while ago, a very generous 50% off! I got some colours I'd been eyeing, as well as a jar of their Translucent Powder, primer and Embalming tubes (lip balm). I'll be reviewing everything, but thought I should start with some eyeshadow swatches.

Swatches: Shiro Nestyr and Butts

These colours are not available any more, but Caitlin has done clear-outs of leftover Colour of the Month stock before, so I thought I'd swatch them anyway. FOR SCIENCE.

Review and swatch: Arcane Lacquer Vast & Vague

All the Australian indies bursting onto the scenes with nail polish certainly make ME happy. My wallet not so much. Sometimes it's hard to keep up! I ummed and ahhed for ages when it came to ordering from Arcane Lacquer - this brand is extra special because it's made by Nail Gun XS, a blogger whose stunning swatches are used by many other indie brands. In the end I went with Vast & Vague for my first purchase, as tiny neon squares in a dusty pastel base wasn't something I had in my collection.

Review and swatches: Geek Chic Cosmetics eyeshadows!

For my birthday (several months ago now, haha) a friend gave me a ThinkGeek voucher. Sadly for us Australians, a ThinkGeek purchase is a special occasion only deal, or a group purchase, because the only shipping options they do are expedited international. It's stupidly fast and also stupidly expensive. On a whim at the end of May, I visited their website and wishfully filled my cart with Geek Chic eyeshadows - they had a small range, but they had two of the colours I REALLY wanted. Imagine my surprise and delight when I checked the shipping options and saw they'd added economy for international shipping! Instead of paying $40+ to get my order within the week, I could pay $9 and wait a bit longer! So I got 3 Geek Chic eyeshadows and a little heart hand warmer for stupidly cheap, since my gift certificate covered nearly everything.

Excuse the glitter on the bottom jar!

Review & swatches: Mckfresh #32 (Nidoran!)

Described as "purple shimmery creme base with white, pink, purple, green glitters of different sizes."
My take: shimmery lilac base with purple glitter squares, tiny aqua squares and hexes, tiny round coppery-pink glitter, and white glitter in several sizes and shapes.

Swatch: Femme Fatale Cosmetics Noble Garden

Noble Garden is absolutely packed with glitter. Grass green in small round, small and large matte hexes are the predominant thing. There's also tiny round purple glitters, larger round pink glitters and large orange hexes. At certain angles, some of the small green hexes flash blue!

Review & swatches: Mckfresh #41 (Zubat!)

Mckfresh Nail Attire is a new Australian indie polish company that I've had my eye on for a while. They started out with a Labrynth-inspired collection, but it was their limited edition Pokemon polishes that really caught my eye (pun intended).

Left to right, top to bottom: 001 - Bulbasaur, 004 - Charmander, 039 - Jigglypuff, 032 - Nidoran, 054 - Psyduck, 041 - Zubat.

Soft and simple nail art for piCture pOlish Blogfest!

I am super duper excited to have been chosen to take part in the piCture pOlish blogfest for 2013! We were asked to create a nail art tutorial using 3 different shades. I decided to go with some simple skittle nail art that doesn't require a lot of tools, time or skills.

Striping tape and dotting tool from Born Pretty

Review and swatches: Zoya Harlow

This was gifted to me, which is excellent because I never would have bought it myself and I LOVE it! The Zoya matte velvet range come in a frosted version of their regular bottles.

Review: Picture Polish Revolution glitter base coat

Alright! I feel like I'm finally ready to review this, after testing it under a few different types of glitter.

NoTD: Femme Fatale Incendius

Femme Fatale Cosmetics have recently discontinued and sold out of the following shades:
Incendius
Glinting Lodestone
Sweet Surprise
Quivering Heart
Crimson Acolyte

Click here to check and see what's left of several other discontinued shades! A lot of them are from the original collection and are seriously gorgeous.

Shiny blue hexes!

I'm showing you Incendius today. I got one of the last bottles from Femme Fatale a few weeks ago. Usually I layer glitters over a base colour that matches it. One of the things I liked about Incendius was that it had a few metallic blue hexes scattered among the gold, orange and red that are the base of this incredible polish. I decided to try layering it over Mode Runway, a dark teal. I liked the result so much, my plan to glitter-fy just my ring fingers and thumbs turned into a full glitter mani.

Swatches: Mode Cosmetics Glitzy Glam

Polishes like this are why I adore Mode Cosmetics. Stunning, intensely pigmented polish for stupidly cheap.

Review and swatches: Femme Fatale Cosmetics blush part 1

*DISCLAIMER: some of these products have been provided for review, and some I purchased myself.*

To swatch the blushes, I put some BB cream on my arm (to give the product something to hold onto) and then buffed on a fair amount of product with a blush brush. This gives you a good idea of the base colour. Face swatches are patted on over BB cream - I dip the brush into the product, tap off excess, and then stipple with the same blush brush so that the duochrome/shimmers aren't blended away. Hopefully this will also showcase the ways that application can make these products even more versatile :)

Cosplay make-up: Bronwyn Banner [genderbent Bruce Banner]

For Supanova this year, some friends talked me into cosplaying. The idea was to do gender-bent Avengers, but it didn't quite work out. Originally we were going to have a Thor, Lady Loki, Toni Stark and Bronwyn Banner (me!) however as the event grew closer our numbers dwindled. I had Toni for 3 hours on Sunday and did the rest of the day solo. Nobody asked for my picture. Oh well! I based my look off this promo image: