Tuesday 31 July 2012

The Great Aussie Polish Challenge - Ulta3 Tuesday

Hey hey! Something fun for this week, a group of girls and I are having 'The Great Aussie Polish Challenge', showcasing some amazing Australian made polishes. We started yesterday, with piCture pOlish, and we have designated today Ulta3 Tuesday!

Ulta3 is a fantastic brand, and cheap, at only $2 a pop! And the colour I'm showing you today is one I use all the time on the false sets but I have never used it on myself!







Hot Spring. A lovely, intense, blue toned pink. It's glossy, easy to apply, and a one coater! What more do you need?!

Check out the other GAPC girls!


Pretty Purple Polish
The Polish Haven
Until Next Time,
<3 Bec


Monday 30 July 2012

piCture pOlish Blog Fest 2012!!!

Hello Hello! VERY excited about todays post, today is Australian brand piCture pOlish's annual blog fest, where bloggers from all over the world showcase certain piCture pOlish colours. I am absolutely THRILLED to have been chosen as one of those bloggers and today I will be showing you two brand spanking new piCture pOlish colours!

(Please be warned that there are a LOT of pictures here, but I honestly have no problem showing them all! Enjoy!)

First up, we have Dorothy;






Dorothy (created for the land of Oz!) is a new Mesh shade, and while it looks like another 'Ruby Pumps' clone of the red glitter in the red base, let me tell you right now that no. Not even close. I may even like Dorothy more, and that's saying something because I LOVE Ruby Pumps!

Dorothy is a pinkish-red base packed with silver and red glitter. What I really liked is that the glitter isn't your run of the mill hex or square glitter. If you look closely (you can click on the pictures to enlarge them!) you can see that it is almost like very small, thin shards. It makes it unique and sands out from the red of the red glitters in red bases that we see these days.

Dorothy covered perfectly in 2 coats, it does dry a little gritty, so I have one coat of top coat on in these photos. The dry time was good, very good, and the formula was the perfect piCture pOlish formula that I love. It was slightly thick, but that made it apply beautifully. I had barely any clean up to do!

The other shade I have to show you (brace yourselves for pic spam!) is Mirage.










Mirage is part of the new 'Collaboration Collection', and was created (in collaboration!) by Sara Hassan. Now, if you haven't seen or heard of Sara before, please, go check her out! She is gorgeous, and her blog is fantastic!

Mirage is a duo-chrome that instantly reminded me of mother-of-pearl. In the pictures above, I have 3 coats on by itself, and you can see a slight blue/purple/green colour shift in it. And while I think it is magnificent on its own, the girls at piCture pOlish suggest layering it over black, much like the new Ozotic 700 series. And when you layer it over black, it gets better...





It really turns into a whole different colour! This is 2 coats of Mirage over 1 coat of Ulta3 Black Satin.

And, just to have some fun, I tested Mirage out over some other colours!






From pointer to pinky - (2 coats of every polish) Mirage over Ulta3 Lily White, Mirage over piCture pOlish Bliss, Mirage over piCture pOlish Cackle, and Mirage over China Glaze Refresh-Mint.

My favourite combo? Mirage over Cackle. The purple base really makes it look different and awesome! Mirage was a bit thinner formula-wise, but still very manageable, and dried quickly like Dorothy.

Both these shade, plus a fair few more, are available to purchase from today onwards from piCture pOlish's website plus all the Network members! Dorothy will retail for $9.50 and Mirage will be $11.50.

So, there you have it. Blog Fest 2012. A huge thanks to piCture pOlish for including me, and to everyone who stuck through and read the whole post!


Until Next Time,

<3 Bec

Picture Polish - website
piCture pOlish - a week on your tips never on your hips! (Facebook)
piCture pOlish     


*the polishes in this post were provided to me for review. this in no way affected my honest opinion*




Sunday 29 July 2012

BFF Challenge - 80's

Hello again! My 2nd choice for the BFF Challenge today, 80's!


When I think of the 80's (even though I was born in 1990!) I think big hair, bold eye makeup, neon colours and sparkle. So, thats what I did!








Just a quick post today, I have homework to do :(

Until Next Time,

<3 Bec

Friday 27 July 2012

BFF Challenge - Punk!

 Hello Hello! It's my week for the BBF Challenge, so today is my first pick, Punk. I love punk music, the fashion, the attitude, all of it! So my mani today is inspired by one of the very first punk songs I fell in love with, God Save The Queen by the Sex Pistols (I'm wearing a Sex Pistols shirt as I write this lol!)



The Queean with her facial features blocked out, a chain that I made by cutting up an old necklace, a black/white/grey Union Jack and some black white and silver tartan.

I'm not usually one to like having any 3D art on my nails, but I really love this, so it can stay ;D

So for now, check out my fellow challengers and we'll be back Saturday for my second choice!


 
Until Next Time
 
<3 Bec


Sunday 22 July 2012

BFF Challenge - Book Cover!

Hello hello! I know, I know, I'm late on this one... but in my defence, I've been ill.

Anyway, todays (well...yesterdays) challenge was Pram's second, a book cover. I would have done the book I'm currently reading, but I don't know how many people want to see Formula 1 nails! LOL! So instead, I chose one of my favourite books;






The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker. The book the Hellraiser movies were based on. Love it. My mani, not so much...

Anyway, onto the next week, which is mine! Now, check out the rest of my fellow challengers;


Until Next Time!
<3 Bec

Thursday 19 July 2012

BFF Challenge - Striping Tape

Hello and welcome to week 2 of the BFF Challenge! This weeks themes were chosen by Pram from My Nail Polish Addiction, and they are challenging for sure!

The first of Pram's two choices is a striping tape mani. And I do NOT like my results lol!



So, it's not THAT bad, I'm just not keen on it. I used Color Club Revvvolution, so it IS holo, but of course I had no sunlight today! And the pink is OPI La-Pazatively Hot Matte. And there is the problem lol Matte + striping tape = BAD. It wasn't bad at all when I had Revvvolution on top, but the fingers with LPHM on top were a bad idea. It needed two coats, and that caused drying time problems.

I do like the way the colours pop against each other though, but just for future reference, no matte on top of striping tape!

Check out my other challengers!

 
Until Next Time!
 
<3 Bec

Wednesday 18 July 2012

Ozotic 518

Hello Hello! I am excited about tonights post, I have been searching for the perfect TRUE red holo, and I think I've found it!

Australian brand Ozotic recently discontinued the 500 series, so I knew that I HAD to get some before they were gone for good (there is still some colours with some stock left!). So I picked up 509 and the polish I'm showing you tonight, 518.






This is a truly breathtaking polish. Its bright, vibrant, and PACKED with rainbows! The finish on this one is interesting, it looks almost metallic in indoor light! Gorgeous!



I used 3 coats here, 2 was enough, but I wanted to make it pop, and it dried super quick. It was incredibly smooth too, omg I actually sat there stroking my nails!


So, did you get any of the 500 series before they're gone for good?

Until Next Time,

<3 Bec

Saturday 14 July 2012

BFF- Girly and a glitter review!

Hey hey! Back again for another installment of the BFF Challenge, and it's Thia's second choice, girly! Now, I'm not girly, we know that. Quite the opposite in fact. But I liked the challenge this gave me to explore that side of me!

I thought this would be an awesome mani to use another of the KKCenterHK products I was sent! But it wasn't without its drama! See, I was using the other glitter I got (N Nail LB100) and my cat Pepper jumped up on the desk. Next thing I knew...


Glitter EVERYWHERE. So before I was able to finish my first attempt at this mani, i was covered in glitter (as were the table, chair, floor and cat) so it got stuck in my wet unfinished nails while cleaning it! Luckily I managed to save the glitter, and I gave it another shot today. The results..




Adorable! I used 3 coats of China Glaze Something Sweet, which didn't photograph properly, it's a bit pinker in person. Then, one nail at a time, I put a layer of top coat on, placed the individual pieces of the glitter on and topcoated again to seal and finished off my adding a black tip with a nail art pen.

I really love this glitter. It's medium sized holo hex silver glitter, and OMG does it sparkle! I like sparkles ;D

So I tried to be girly, and now have a sparkly cat. Success!

Until Next Time

<3 Bec

My fellow challengers!





*The glitter in this post was provided to me for review by kkcenterhk. This in no way impaired my judgement and my opinions are my own and 100% honest*

Friday 13 July 2012

Polish for a Cause!

I want to get serious here for a second ladies and gents. A member of our polish group on facebook, Danielle (who is lovely, I've bought some polishes from her blog sale) has teamed up with indie brand Nails by Laura, to create some polishes for charity.

Danielle says (I copied and pasted this from her original post);
In December 2007, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Several months ago, I was diangosed with yet another tumor. Thankfully, benign. The last four years
of my life have been going through the recovery process. Because I am so passionate about finding a cure, I contacted Nails By Laura, and asked her to collaberate with me in making a limited edition polish, where 50% of the proceeds will go to The National Brain Tumor Society. Each bottle will be $10. There will only be 100 made and each will be numbered 1/100 and so on.
I have linked to Laura's shop above, but the specific polish can be found here. So, if you're interested, head on over and have a look, and if you can, buy a Limited Edition indie and help make a difference.
 Until Nest Time,
 <3 Bec

Thursday 12 July 2012

BFF Challenge!

Hello hello! Starting a cute nail art challenge today, a group of us on facebook decided we wanted to do a nail art challenge, but we wanted to do something different.


 Kerrie from PishPosh and Polish came up with a great idea - everyone involved gets their own 'week', where they choose 2 of their favourite things that a lot of people don't know about us. So it's a little 'get-to-know my fellow bloggers' type challenge!

So, this is what we'll be doing;


Week one, (the first 2) were chosen by the lovely Thia! Now, we all know I love cartoons, I did some awesome (if I do say so myself) Futurama nails for the last nail art challenge I did






So I had to do something different! Now, I've learnt Thia likes anime, so I decided to go with one of my all time favourite animes, Sailor Moon;


I really love how this turned out! I'm not going to list all the colours I used, because theres heaps, but you may notice my nubbins. Short nails. Tragedy struck and I broke one on my swatch hand, so down they went. They're still a good length though, and I dig them!

So, for my Sailor Moon nails, I have her silhouette, Luna the cats ears, Sailor Moons famous hair, and top, and the rose Tuxedo Mask (swoon!) throws down just before he saves the day!

So... what do you think? Sailor Moon- yay or nay?

Until Next Time,

<3 Bec

My fellow challengers!




Wednesday 11 July 2012

KKCenterHK Glitter Review!

Hello Hello! Late night blogging again, it's after 2am! I have something fun to show you today, I was contacted by KKCenterHK offering some products for me to review. Of course I said yes! I love nail art and any chance I get to use it! So, I got my package yesterday, and was a bit spoilt with items, so there's going to be some awesome nail art coming soon!

Today though, I have something simple, yet gorgeous. I was still wearing my I'm With The Lifeguard mani, so this was a perfect combo to do this;

Taken Indoors

It's a gradient, using real glitter! The glitter is N Nail C-51  (click the link to see more details!) and I ADORE it! It's semi-transparent neon green hex glitter, with some iridescent/hologram glitter mixed in, as well as some neon green micro glitter. Love love love it! 



It comes in a nice sturdy, 5gram container with a screw on top, you get SO much product too! I opened both this, and my other glitter (which I will show you soon!) and they were honestly packed to the top! 

Now, for my gradient, I kinda just made it up as I went along, but it worked well, so no complaints from me! (The rest of the photos were taken in the sunlight)


How did I do it? Well, first, I gave my nails one coat each of top coat, let it dry enough to be sticky, and dipped the tip of my nail in the tub of glitter. I pressed any glitter that was standing down, and let it dry. Then, another coat of top coat and another glitter dunk. And I topped it off with another 2 coats of top coat. The glitter is nice and thin, so even if it ends up quite thick, like mine did, it's not an inconvenience!





I really loved the results of this, simple, super sparkly and very easy! What do you think?

Until Next Time,

<3 Bec

PS: I also have a promo code for 10% off! Use the code 'lacquerdreams' with your order at kkcenterhk!

*The glitter in this post was provided to me for review by kkcenterhk. This in no way impaired my judgement and my opinions are my own and 100% honest*

Sunday 8 July 2012

I'm With The Lifeguard!

Hello Hello! I have been lazy lately, and not posted. But I got this beauty in the mail on friday and just HAD to swatch it immediately! We all know about the China Glaze Summer Neon collection, and if you know me, you know that I needed (NEEDED) this one!


I'm With The Lifeguard. Uber bright green with a silver shimmer. LOVE. It's a very in your face, obnoxious green and that is just how I like it!


If you look closely or enlarge the pic you can see the shimmer. For some reason, it didn't photograph, but trust me, it's there and it's gorgeous!


Also, I'm wearing two coats, with no white underneath! Super pigmented and opaque! I loved that about this one.






I don't know if it is my bottle alone, or all of them, but the formula on this was...interesting. It was thickish, but still slightly thin. I know that sounds weird, but thats how it was lol! But it was easy to work with, I had very little cleanup to do!



I can tell you know, I'll be needing backup of this one! Maybe more than one jar!

Until Next Time,

<3 Bec