Picture Polish Monroe

aka my reason for hating formula changes in polishes. Picture Polishes original version of Monroe is a vampy, holo-y jar of squishy gorgeousness, and sadly, no longer is available in this form.

Two gorgeous coats and top coat and this baby sparkles. I have a blurry photo so you can see all the holo shimmer:

Ahhh so pretty <3

Until Next Time,

<3 Bec

OPI Jinx

I'm still very much in love with textured polishes. The wear time on them is awesome, I love the feel of them and I ADORE how sparkly they can be! 

OPI Jinx is from the Bond Girls collection, and while that came out a while ago, and I bought this a fair few months ago, I'm only just now showing it off.

It's a goooooooooooooorgeous brightish orange with an intense gold shimmer. It reminds me a LOT of China Glaze's Riveting, but textured. Obviously. I only needed two coats for it to be perfect. It lasted for 6 days with very minimal tip wear and no chips at all. It only came off because really, who keeps one colour on for that long?! :p

Until Next Time,

<3 Bec

Subtle and Sparkly!

I was rooting around my stash recently and pulled out a polish that I've never used before and an old favourite and surprise! They look AMAZING together!

My base is MUD (Make Up Design) Tease Me, and I used China Glaze Techno to do a glitter gradient and full glitter accent nail.

I love this combo. Admittedly, it looks different in the lighting, as you can see in my pictures, but in reality it's closer to the second picture. As a nude, it's a bit too dark for my skin tone. But I quite like it. Still searching for that perfect nude though!

Until Next Time,

<3 Bec

Australis Blush BFFs Shop & Goss

Australis recently released a few new blush duos, called Blush BFFs, and I have been dying to check them out! I only picked up one duo, called Shop & Goss, because I wanted a few other Australis things (that I am roadtesting and will blog soon!).

Each duo consists of one matte and one shimmery shade. I originally bought this duo for the matte colour, which I love, but, I have since fallen in love with the shimmery colour. Upon doing some research, it's pretty damn close to NARS Orgasm, which has been on top of my wishlist for a very long time. This is close enough for me to be happy with and not fork out ridiculous Australian prices for the NARS!

Both of these blushes have good pigmentation, the matte shade takes a little bit of work, but nothing over the top. It's quite a stiff blush, and it's buildable, so I recommend building it up instead of trying to pick up heaps with a brush at once. The shimmery shade is perfection in blush form. It's a soft powder, that isn't too powdery. They both blend really easily and wear really well- I get at least 7 hours wear from these.

Overall, another fantastic Australis product. They're really impressing me, the products are fantastic and everything is under $20. I'm definitely picking up more of these blush duos!

Until Next Time,

<3 Bec

Just How Much Lipstick Do I Carry Around With Me?

...well, as I discovered today, a fair bit. A few Aussie ladies and I have joined forces to see just how much lipstick we find in our handbags.

I very rarely clean my handbag out, so finding a plethora of lippies didn't REALLY shock me. My partner laughed though, "no wonder you can never find anything!" he said. So, I cleaned out my handbag and pulled out these:

 From left to right- Revlon Lip Butter in Candy Apple, Chi Chi Viva La Diva in Countess, Maybelline ColorSensational Vivid in Hot Plum, Rimmel Kate Moss mattes 111 Kiss Of Life, and 113, Rimmel Kate Moss Lasting Finish in 04, Australis Velourlips in Tok-I-O, Napoleon Perdis Luxe Lip Gloss in Perfect Peach and Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Lip Tar in Black Metal Dahlia.

I also swatched them in the same order as above so you can see the pretties properly. It's a pretty varied range for me, nudes, brights, mattes, vampy. I have a few of these coming soon to the blog, but if you want to see any of them, just let me know and I'll blog them!

Until Next Time,

<3 Bec

Pastel Fun!

I was playing around with some nail templates today and randomly came up with this look!

I used Sea Siren Gossip (2 coats) for my pastel pink base, and 1 coat of Gloss 'n Sparkle Land of Sunshine layered over white. I liked it like that, but I decided to add some bright pastel studs as well and I LOVED it like that.

Until Next Time!

<3 Bec

Sea Siren Cosmetics All That Glitters/All That Shimmers Collection!

Hi guys! I apologize for my recent absence, last Friday I had a minor surgery and only got let out of hospital on Tuesday. So, please forgive me! Today I have my final Sea Siren Cosmetics polish post for now (I love most of these too much to not use again!) and it is all 8 of the latest releases- split into two co-ordinating mini collections of 4.

First up, the All That Shimmers collection. All for of these are different types of shimmers.

 Bronzed Siren- I won't lie, this is my least favourite of the shimmers. The colour is not my type. It's a copper bronze shimmer that verges on frosty. There will be brushstrokes with this one, but they seem to lessen with topcoat. Opacity was good, I used 2 coats and top coat.

 Seas The Day- a red toned purple. This one has a nice, unique shimmer to it, you can see a smidge of blue and red shimmers throughout. Looking back at these pictures, I could definitely used another coat. This is 2 coats, and while it looked opaque in person, you can see that it needs another coat. My fault, not the polishes though.

 Temptress- Oh I like this one. It's a bright red, packed with gold-ish fleck shimmer. This one is super sparkly, and looks super squishy too. I adore this one, it's up there in my collection of "sexy" reds! This is 2 coats with topcoat.

 Jealousea- I saved my favourite for last. This is a gorgeous turquoise with silver shimmer. This one also dries to an almost-matte finish. It reminds me of one of my all time favourite polishes, China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise. 2 coats with topcoat.

The other half is the All That Glitters collection. These are all multi-coloured glitter topcoats. For my swatches, I have layered them over black and white.

 Great Barrier Reef- predominately blue and green glitters, with smaller, red/pink glitters and tiny gold micro glitters. This one had a nice, smooth formula, and I only needed one coat to acheive what is in the above picture.

 Seaquake- Pink, purple, orange and gold glitters. This one was super sparkly! It was also quite thick, this is one dabbed coat. The golds in this one are curling ever so slightly, not enough to bother me.

 Enchanted- black and gold glitters. This one shone like crazy! The gold is very reflective, to the point where it looks curly, but isn't. This one is thinner and sparser than the rest, this is 2 coats.

And finally, Seaduce- pink, purple and blue glitters with holo silver diamonds. The diamonds seem a bit out of place in this polish,but they are gorgeous. This one had good coverage, this is one coat with extra dabbing on top.

As well as these polishes, I also recieved the Sea Gloss Fast Dry top coat and Sea Seal dual base and top coat. I used Sea Gloss as my topcoat for these swatches, and I will say, I was a little disappointed. It is FANTASTIC over glitters, but it fails in the fast dry department. It dries quite slowly on me. The Sea Seal base coat, I have only tested as a base coat, and I wasn't thrilled, nor disappointed, It's ok.

Until Next Time,

<3 Bec

*the products mentioned in this post were sent to me for my honest review. This in no way affects my opinion of them*

Help Me Ronda Pina Colada Cuticle Cocktail

I've not long switched from cuticle oils to cuticle balms, and this baby is the reason why. Help Me Ronda's Pina Colada Cuticle Cocktail is a gift from the gods.

The balms are handmade, a very generous sized tin, handbag friendly and they smell AMAZING. The Pina Colada one is so fresh and coconutty, sometimes, I just sniff it without applying it! What I like about these balms is that you only need a tiny bit per finger, as the balm melts due to  your body heat. However, if it's a hot day, and it's in your bag, it WILL melt! They're made from all natural ingredients as well. It absorbs so quickly, and instantly makes your nails and cuticles look better. There's just nothing bad I can say abut these. I strongly urge everyone to go give these a try, you won't regret it!

Until Next Time,

<3 Bec

Pitting My Two Favourite Eye Primers Against Each Other!

Every makeup lover knows that a good eye primer is an essential in your makeup kit. I have a decent collection of them, but always find myself reaching for the same two over and over again. So, I did what any makeup addict would do, compare them!

The primers in question are Too Faced Shadow Insurance (SI), and handmade Femme Fatale Cosmetics Shadow Magic (SM). These two primers are both very, very good, and yet very different. SI is a liquid primer, and SM is a hard, waxy primer. Application is different because of that, but I have never had any trouble applying either.

For this 'experiment', I tested the primers, one on each eye, under three different eye shadow looks - matte neutrals, mettalics, and a cream shadow (which I did smother in powder shadows!). I took photos straight after applying, and just before removal. Each day, I had SI on my left eye, and SM on my right. Also, I did have to take some of the photos on my phone, so forgive me if the quality is not absolutely fantabulous. Also, my eyebrows are terrible, I know.

Day one was the matte neutrals test. I used my beloved Urban Decay Naked Basics palette for this, with Maybelline Master Precise liner.

First off, I had a bit of trouble applying and blending the crease colour over SI. At the end of the day, the SM eye was still almost perfect, and the SI was only a tiny bit faded. Score 1 to Femme Fatale.

Day 2 was Metallics. I used the red and gold from my Napoleon Perdis Fire Quad, and added a tiny bit of Urban Decay Crave. Liner was Maybelline Hyper Glossy.

At the end of the day, both eyes had some shimmery fall out and fading. I'd call this one a draw.

And finally, for day three, I tested the primers with a creme shadow base, NYX Jumbo Pencil in Milk. I then added a bunch of crazy neons from Sleek's Acid Palette. This look is from an xsparkage tutorial, I used the same colours, but different brands (she used Sugarpill for hers). Liner again was Maybelline Hyper Glossy.

Now, this one at the end of the day. The SM had creased, and faded quite noticeably. Of the three looks, this was the worst end of day eye I had. The SI had faded slightly too, but not anywhere near as much. SI wins this round!

So, at the end of this, both primers fared equally. Obviously, they individually work better with different shadows- I've learnt that for mattes, stick with Femme Fatale, and for cream shadows, Too Faced is my guy.

I really hope you guys enjoyed this post, because I had a lot of fun with it!

Until Next Time,

<3 Bec


*the Femme Fatale Cosmetics primer mentioned in this post were sent to me for testing purposes. This in no way affects my opinion of it*

Sea Siren Cosmetics part 6!

Continuing on with the Sea Siren swatches- almost finished them all! Today I have four more polishes, and I haven't had the time to nail art them up, so I do apologize. But I hope you enjoy!

 Pamper Me Pink. Super cute, darker than pastel pink. Started off pretty sheer, but it built up perfectly in 3 coats.

 Clownfish Conga. First of all, this DOES NOT photograph correctly. No matter what I did, I could not get a proper photo of this colour. It is super bright, but it's more coral than orange. There is definitely more pink in person. I love the colour, it's a great pedi colour. Perfectly opaque in 3 coats.

 Where's My Sunnies? This may actually be my favourite Sea Siren. It is an amazing, in your face yellow, with an amazing formula. Yellows are usually difficult, but this one was flawless. Opaque, not streaky and dried very quickly. This is one and a half coats.

Sea Glass. Multi coloured glitter topper. This reminds me a bit of an Australis polish, but better. This is one coat over Mojito Madness, and I didn't have to dab or fish the glitter. It has a thicker formula, which makes the glitter denser. And it doesn't eat topcoat either.

I have one more Sea Siren post for you, and in the coming week I have some exciting makeup posts!

Until Next Time,

<3 Bec

*the products mentioned in this post were sent to me for my honest review. This in no way affects my opinion of them*