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!

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 & 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.

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: Smitten Polish Bluebird II

I don't remember where I first saw this polish. It may have been in a blog or it may have been on Etsy. I DO remember that it was lust at first sight. I didn't look at it and think, "Oh, pretty!" or even "How unusual!" My eyes widened and my brain screeched "WANT!" Capitalism at its finest :P

I don't normally like brown polishes, but the contrast between the dark chocolatey base and the green and blue hex glitter had me wiping drool off my chin.

Swatches: Mode Cosmetics Vicious Venom

Because Mode is such a small, budget brand, it's hard to keep up with the new releases unless you're a regular visitor of one of their stockists - and I'm not! As such, getting ahold of their glitters was a bit of a quest for me. I saw this colour twice before I actually purchased it, and it sat in my bathroom cupboard for several weeks before trying it. I knew it was going to be a bitch to remove, so I waited until I got Picture Polish revolution in the mail before I used it.

Swatches: Pretty Serious Daphne's Birthday Party

Pretty Serious turned a year old, and to celebrate, released a multi-coloured glitter polish!

NotD: Grey gradient and glitter!

Felt like doing something a bit more understated with my nails this time around. The weather is doing its usual weirdness - autumn in Australia is very much like spring, in one week you'll have a cold and drizzly day followed by a warm and sunny one! I decided to do something a bit wintry.

Polishes used:
Mode Cosmetics VIP
Zoya Harley
Revlon Steel-her Heart
Nubar White Polka Dots

NotD: Ablaze Skittles

I had a reeeeeally bad split in the side wall of my thumbnail. I patched it for about 3 weeks until it grew out, then decided on a whim to change my nails to an almond shape. I love the way it looks but the feel of it is taking some getting used to!

Anyway, I decided to do another skittle manicure, this time with Ablaze from Alanna Renee. Lots if pictures under the jump!

NotD: Lodestone Skittles

I've been checking out a lot of nail blogs lately for inspiration, and decided to try a glitter gradient manicure - over skittles!

Review: Alanna Renee Nail polish "Ablaze"

Alanna Renee is another new Australian indie polish company. They have an AMAZING range of glitter polishes, but there was a lot of stuff sold out when I found them, so I decided to be sensible and just get ONE bottle of polish. I chose Ablaze.

Swatch: BSOD from Pretty Serious!

Dupe battle! Shiro vs. Aromaleigh

You may have read about my love, and search for a dupe of Aromaleigh's Champagne Toast. Lucky for me, Aromaleigh brought back some of their Christmas colours in 2012, so I grabbed myself a full-size of Champagne Toast, and Twinkling Lights, which is a green with red glitter.

Not so long ago Shiro Cosmetics released the Hobbit-themed collection called "There and Back Again", which features and eyeshadow called Fifteen Birds in Five Fir Trees, also a green with red glitter. I got myself some Shiro goodies in an effort to compare the two shadows, for those people who may have missed out on Twinkling Lights, or those with extensive collections.

Max Factor Mini Nail Polish: Ivory

I snagged 6 Max Factor minis from Kelly's blog sale :) the bottles are ridiculously adorable

First shade I tried is a neutral gold foil/microglitter polish with the odd name of Ivory. It required three (thin) coats for full opacity but you can easily wear this as a sparkly sheer. It dried really fast. I'm not a big gold person but I really liked how elegant and pretty this polish looked! I'm going to try layering it over some neutral cremes next, I don't really want to be applying 3 coats every time I use this polish or very soon the bottle will be empty!

Ivory? For serious?!

Teeny adora-bottle!

The brush was really easy to use, it was short but fairly wide and although not completely flat like CND brushes, it wasn't totally round either. Ivory dried quite smooth, but I used topcoat anyway.

Femme Fatale Cosmetics: Glittering Lodestone polish!

Sophie posted this on the Femme Fatale Cosmetics Facebook page a fortnight or so ago:

I wasn't 100% sure on all of them but I KNEW I wanted Glittering Lodestone, so as soon as they were available, I bought the 15ml version.

Femme Fatale Cosmetics: Quivering Heart Glitter Polish!

Quivering Heart

The polish I nearly didn't get!