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 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 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!

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.

Swatches: Mode Cosmetics Glitzy Glam

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

Review and swatches: Models Prefer Moisture Lust Lipsticks

The shades I have to show you today are Cupcake and Salted Caramel. I was interested in a few other shades as well, but these were the only two left at the Priceline I visited!

Review and swatches: Mode Cosmetics Beat the Blah

I apologise in advance - what I thought was going to be a straightforward swatching session of a neutral, work-safe polish turned into one of those colour-accuracy nightmares.

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!

Swatches: Silk Naturals GWP eyeshadows

Every order over $10 at Silk Naturals gets a free 3g eyeshadow with their order! Sometimes these eyeshadows become a part of the permanent range. Today I'm going to swatch five GWP shades for you.

 
The black labels are the new jar/label configuration, replacing the old white ones. They come with little three hole sifters which are quite easy to remove, if you dislike sifters like I do.

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: Revlon Jaded Night

Gloss had a bin of Revlon polishes at 3 for $12, so I indulged - after spotting this colour in the pile!

Dupe battle! Shiro vs Sugarpill

Last but not least, There and Back again compared to Sugarpill's Midori.

Review: Shiro Cosmetics Holiday gloss

The last of my Shiro haul. I haven't been using a lot of eyeshadow lately, so I decided to try one of the Holiday glosses released over Christmas. I got eyeshadow samples as well.

Swatch: Lanolips lip ointment Rhubarb

My collection is almost complete! I had a heck of a time finding this. Rhubarb and Rose are either very unpopular or extremely popular colours, they're never there when I go looking for them. They only seem to be in certain Pricelines, and when I went to Myer to find them, I found out they haven't been in stock at Myer for about 6 months?!

Max Factor Mini Nail Polish: Diva Violet

Max Factor Mini Nail Polish: Elegant Mauve (??)

So first we had Ivory which was actually a pale gold glitter, and now we have Elegant Mauve. Guess what? It's not mauve.

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.