November Haul

Hello! I have my haul for November to show you! :D I'm sorry this is my third post for today! Eek. I always have a lot of posts to do at the end/start of a month. :(

I definitely tried to not buy so much since last month I went absolutely insane. I swear I bought a quarter of my current stash in October. :| So this month I think I did pretty good. Didn't go overboard. I bought some things on sale, when there were good deals, and used vouchers. You've probably already seen the majority of these on my blog, sorry!

Target had packs of Chi Chi polishes in different quantities for AWESOME prices! I got a set of 8 glitters for $20 and usually the polishes this size retail for about $13 on their own! BARGAIN! Sadly, these don't have names on them. Which makes it annoying when I'll want to blog about them. I have seen some of these colours in the core line though (with labels) so if you know any of the names, let me know.
Purchased from Target Australia.

Hello Kitty polish Violet Salome. A really gorgeous shimmery-foily purple. It looks like it has a goldish bronze duochrome in the bottle but sadly it doesn't translate to the nail. :(
Purchased from Priceline.

OPI Tomorrow Never Dies from the Skyfall Collection. This is the only polish (apart from The Man With The Golden Gun) that I have from the Skyfall collection so far (I'm getting the rest of the ones I want for Christmas). It's a gorgeous blue-ish purple. My camera won't pick up the purple-ness in this one.
Purchased from eBay.

China Glaze GR8 and China Glaze OMG. Gold holo and amazing silver holo. Found while dusty hunting at a salon. OMG has been used a bit, but I don't even care. I am so so so happy to own these!
Purchased from a local salon.

Gloss n Sparkle Harlot. A dark berry/red/magenta colour with a scattered holographic shimmer. Um, can you say gorgeous!? :D Reminds me of OPI DS Extravagance a little, but I don't have that one to compare it with. I think Extravagance is more pink. :)
Purchased from Gloss n Sparkle Etsy Store.

Sally Hansen Lady Luck from the Gem Crush line.
Purchased from Priceline.

Mirenesse Berry Boa, a freebie with Woman's Day magazine!
Purchased from Coles Supermarket.

Essence Sweet As Candy and Date In The Moonlight. I already own Sweet As Candy in the old style bottle, but I've used up about half of it and it's a nice French manicure pink so I decided to buy a back up.
Purchased from Priceline.

From a group buy I participated in, in the Aussie Nails Facebook group, I got Essence Night In Vegas, Mrs and Mr Glitter and Circus Confetti! Thank you to Kelly for organising the group buy.

OPI The One That Got Away which I bought from Kelly's blog sale. :) So gooorgeous. I'm so happy to have this in my collection.

Mode Vicious Venom and Rock Me Sweet. My first two Mode polishes. I always thought Mode just had boring plain colours so I never really looked twice at them. But a while ago I saw Vicious Venom on Dana from PolishedClawsUp and I HAD to get it! Mode polishes are only $2.45!
Purchased from a local chemist.

Soooo, this month I definitely wasn't as bad as last month. :P
If you did a haul post or video for November, let me know in a comment below!

Elissa xx

Darling Diva Polish Holiday Collection Swatches and Review

Hey guys! Sorry I've been a bit absent for the past week or so, I've been a bit sick and I've also been busy opening up my Etsy store among other things.
Also, thank you so much for 150+ followers! :) I never thought even 10 or 20 people would want to read my blog but it means so much to me that I have over 150 followers now. :D You are all awesome. I hope to hold a giveaway in the future but I can't be sure when that will be so just keep your eyes peeled.

Tomorrow is the 1st of December which means CHRISTMAS TIME and also Summer here in Australia! Though it feels like it's already been summer for a month with the hot weather we've been having!
So I think it's an appropriate time to show you some Christmas/Holiday polishes! :D I'm super excited to be able to show you these 3 (of 12) pretties from Darling Diva Polish's Holiday 2012 collection, which is based on the movie A Christmas Story (which I have not seen... Now I have to).

Crooked Star* is a clear base with gold, blue, green, red, orange and silver bar glitter, gold stars and different coloured micro glitter! The bar glitter is meant to represent tinsel on a Christmas tree and I think it does that perfectly! I experienced some slightly curved bar glitter but that sort of thing doesn't bother me. Nothing a couple coats of topcoat won't fix. :) I loved that the stars weren't hard to get out of the bottle, as some polishes with shaped glitter can be. This is so fun and festive!

1 dabbed coat over OPI Tomorrow Never Dies. (I was wearing Tomorrow Never Dies when these polishes arrived and I thought it looked like a perfect base for Crooked Star*!)

Crooked Star

Crooked Star

Close Up of Crooked Star

Electric Sex* is a black jelly base with small, medium and large gold holographic glitters, gold holo bars glitters and also some squares mixed in! Really pretty! This was a pretty thin, runny formula. I like my polishes a TEENY bit thicker than this but that can be fixed by just leaving the bottle with the cap off for 15 minutes and it will thicken up a little. :) This can be built up to opacity in 3 coats but I chose to layer it over a creme black.
One coat of Electric Sex* over one coat of Ulta3 Black Satin, topped with Sally Hansen Insta Dri topcoat.

Electric Sex

Electric Sex

Soap...Poisoning* is a milky white, sheer base with small and medium iridescent hex glitters and medium iridescent square glitters. This one is supposed to look like soap bubbles. :)
This was a teeny bit too thick for my liking, so after doing one coat, I added some thinner and then the polish was more to my liking. :) It dried surprisingly fast for being thick!
3 coats over Essence Sweet As Candy, which is a very sheer French mani pink (I just used it to cover the staining on my natural nails) on my index, middle and pinky, and 1 coat over a white, all topped with a coat of Sally Hansen Insta Dri topcoat. I think I preferred it before I added the third coat on my nails however because my nails did become very thick after the 3rd coat.

Soap...Poisoning

Soap...Poisoning

Overall I think these polishes are great for Christmas and the Holiday season. :) I have to be honest, I haven't seen A Christmas Story, but now I want to watch it because I loved these polishes! All 3 polishes are very unique to me and I own nothing else like them! I recommend all three polishes. :)
I think my favourite would have to be Crooked Star! It's just so unique and I think it's awesome for Christmas time. :)

Darling Diva Polishes range from $8USD to $12USD for 15mL bottles, and are hand made by Carrie.

*Products marked with an asterisk were provided to me for review but this does not influence my opinion in any way. My reviews are 100% my honest opinion. For more information please see my Disclosure Policy.

Blog Sale Update

Hey guys! I'm so sorry I haven't posted my nails since Monday. :( I've been a bit sick this week and it's also been stinking hot so I haven't felt like sitting and editing photos. :( I hope to get a post up for you by tonight though, okay? :D

I just wanted to let you know that I've updated my blog sale! Lots of new polishes have been added and I adjusted prices on stuff that was already on there. :)

BLOG SALE

Edit: Thank you to Kelly for letting me know that the link didn't work! x) I've fixed it now.

Hope you'll check it out! :) Have a great day and great weekend too!

Elissa xx

ANNOUNCEMENT! Etsy store open!

Hey guys! :D Sorry that this is my 3rd post in 24 hours, LOL!

But I have something exciting to share with you!

I have just opened my Etsy store! I will be selling handmade polymer clay charms, jewellery and accessories!

CLICK HERE TO GO TO MY ETSY STORE!

I am so excited about this! Along with my polish obsession, I also love crafts and cutesy things which you'll definitely see in my charms. :)

I will be adding to my shop over time with more cute accessories! :) Please check it out and add me to your Etsy Favourites to keep updated!

Elissa xx

Aussie Nails Monday 26/11 Weather

Hey guys! Sorry I didn't post over the weekend! Hope you had a great one. I had a couple posts planned but I was feeling pretty average all weekend. Had a terrible headache for most of Saturday and then yesterday I developed a cold! :( Boooo.
In other news, today is 3 months till my 20th birthday! Woohoo! (Yep, I'm only 19 lol. I feel like a baby sometimes lol)
Anywho, onto the reason I'm sure you're here - POLISH. :D

For today's Aussie Nails Monday, the theme is 'Weather'. I thought this was a pretty unique theme and can be interpreted in many ways. :)

I chose to do some nail art (I use that term loosely) with neons because in a few days it'll technically be SUMMER here! Woohoo! Towards the beginning of this month we had some pretty hot weather though so it already felt like summer for a while there! But then the weather got a bit chilly again. :( Haha.

I used mostly Ulta3 polishes for this! I don't own many neons but for some reason, I think all but one or two of the neons I do own are Ulta3!

For the base colour I used Sally Hansen Insta Dri in Whirlwind White, which I really need a new bottle of because mine is almost done and is thick and bubbly. :(
For the splatter I used Ulta3 Fruit Tingle (pink), Ulta3 Citrus (yellow) and Color Club Age Of Aquarius (aqua/turquoise). I used a straw to create the effect by blowing the nail polish onto my nail but I didn't really find this technique easy. Let me know if you know of a more effective way to create this look! I taped off my fingers so I wouldn't have too much cleanup to do, but really it still ended up really messy. :( lol.

I think this looks so cool! I will definitely be rocking this again in summer. :D 

Elissa xx

Please go check out the other lovely ladies' nails for today! :D

Nail Gun XS - Marie’s Manicure Madhouse - Tales From The Makeup Bag - Shatter Me Claire - A Polished Prance - Tee Bee’s Nails - The Epitome of Superficiality - Lacquer Dreams - NananaisNails - Enamoured With Enamel - Pretty Polish Please - Adelle1985 - Kelly's Kolors - Polished Peripherals - Nicki - Every Little Polish - Mel My Issta - Walk In My Eyeshadow - JennLojko - The Polish Haven - Nails In The Desert - Erinzi - Strawbrie - Lovessweetas - Jas' Blingtastic Nails - Mckfresh

QOTW 9: Hobbies

Hey there! :)

Today's QOTW isn't polish related but still fun! :)

What are your hobbies other than nail polish/nail art?

I have to admit, I don't have too many hobbies. Nails are my main hobby. :D

But some other things I enjoy are...

• Crafts! I'd consider myself a pretty crafty person! I really like making charms with polymer clay (though I haven't done that for a few months now). I used to be very into card making and scrapbooking too! :)
• Blogging. Yes, this is nail polish related because my blog is obviously a nail polish blog but I thought I'd include it anyway. ;) I love blogging, it's really fun for me.
• Movies. I love going to the movies! :) I see at least a few movies a month. It would be a lot cheaper to wait till movies are on DVD and then rent them, but I like the whole "experience" of going to the cinemas. That sounds so cheesy. :P
• Writing. I guess this is where my blogging love comes from. In primary school I absolutely loved reading and writing! I wrote a lot of stories and even wanted to be an author when I was younger. I am a huge list maker also. ;)

They're just a few hobbies I can think of off the top of my head. :)

So what are your hobbies? I'd love to know. :D

Elissa

Sally Hansen Gem Crush - Lady Luck

Hey hey! I have a quick polish swatch to show you!

I bought this polish last week because I got my Priceline "payback" reward voucher a week or two ago. :) It wasn't a lot, but it made my decision to buy this polish easier. ;)

I think this was probably one of the first 20 polishes to go onto my nail polish wishlist ever! I wanted it when I first started collecting in February, which I think was around the time this line was released here. But I never owned it til now. I think that's because to me, they're a little expensive (compared to the US prices. But that really doesn't surprise me at all anymore, everything here is double, sometimes triple the price of US cosmetics). And that's why having my little Priceline reward made me feel better about buying it.

Anywho!

This is Sally Hansen's Lady Luck from the Gem Crush line. I eventually want to own all/most of the Gem Crush polishes. I'm crazy about glitter and lately I've been really liking small glitters like this, and usually I only like chunky glitter. 

Lady Luck is teeny tiny magenta glitters, and larger (still small though) silver holographic glitters in a clear base.

From other swatches and reviews I've seen, I expected this to be more opaque. But I actually needed 3-4 coats to get it opaque. And as you can see, it still isn't even fully opaque. :(
I think it would work better if the base was thicker. Maybe I'll leave the bottle open for 15 minutes so it can thicken up a bit, lol.

But sheer-ness aside, this is totally gorgeous and so sparkly! Love.

I bought mine at Priceline as I said, but I've also seen them in Target, Kmart, and a couple at Big W. Woolworths also had a few I believe. They cost $9.95 but Sally Hansen is on sale in the shops I mentioned pretty often so I'd suggest waiting until SH is on sale if you want these. :)

Elissa xx

The product(s) shown were purchased by me. This post is not sponsored by Sally Hansen in any way.

Face of Australia Pretty Pastels Collection Swatches - My Picks

Hey guys!
I have swatches of the new Face of Australia Pretty Pastels collection to show you! This is a little late, I'd planned on doing this as soon as I had all of the colours I wanted but other things got in the way. That's okay though. I have them for you today! :)
I actually picked up the whole collection even though in the beginning I'd planned on only getting 5 of them! :P Most of you probably know that I am mad about pastels! So really it's no surprise that I bought them all.

Here's what Face of Australia says about their Pretty Pastels collection...
"- Advanced formula, dries in 60 seconds
- Long wearing, chip resistant
- Gloss finish
- Toluene free, Formaldehyde free, Dibutyl Phthalate free"
Source

After Dinner Mint is a bright mint green. It's much brighter and maybe a bit bluer than any other mint green I own. 3 thin coats.

Boys 'n' Berries is a great periwinkle purple sort of colour. Great pigmentation. 2 coats.

Castle On A Cloud is a pale, muted purple with a grey undertone. It has a very fine silver shimmer that doesn't really show on the nails much. Very opaque! 2 coats.

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy is a lemon yellow, as the name would suggest. ;) This is 3 coats. It looks a bit uneven; topcoat would smooth that right out.

Have Your Cupcake and Eat it Too is a blue toned bubblegum sort of pink. Great pigmentation, 2 coats.

I'll Take You to the Candy Shop is a light pink with a frosty/pearl finish. I'm sadly not a fan of this one, just because of the finish. It looks pretty streaky on the nails too. 3 coats.

Once in a Blue Moon is a baby blue. My bottle is pretty thick and not that nice to work with. I need to add some thinner. This is 3 coats. It's strange that it's thick, but still needs 3 coats, lol.

Last but not least is Would You Like Some Orange Sherbet, which is a peachy orange. An orange I don't mind on my skintone! This needed 3 coats and was a teeny bit patchy still. Probably could've avoided patches if I was more careful, however.

I would have to disagree about them drying in 60 seconds, sadly. It wasn't like they took hours to dry or anything like that, but I really don't think there's many polishes that actually do dry in 60 seconds, though many of them claim to...
I can't comment on them being long wearing, since I only swatched these shades and I don't wear my polish longer than a day or two.

Overall, I really love these polishes and even though I'm a huge fan of pastels and own a lot now, they're pretty much all unique to my collection! :) The only one I'm not a fan of is obviously I'll Take You To The Candy Shop, because I don't like the finish.

I've only found this collection in Priceline and Big W so far (Big W had a fully stocked stand but I went back to Priceline a week after they'd had the stand fully stocked and there was only a couple polishes left), apparently it will be stocked in Kmart, and some girls have found it there, but the Kmarts near me don't have it yet.
They retail for $4.95 but sometimes you can find Face of Australia on sale. :)
You can also buy Face of Australia at FashionAddict but they do not ship nail polish overseas unfortunately.

Elissa xx

The polishes shown were purchased by me. This post is not sponsored by Face of Australia in any way.

I Love Nail Polish Swatches and Review

Hey hey!

I have another indie brand to show you today! I <3 indies so much!

This brand is I Love Nail Polish! Isn't that just the most perfect name for a brand, EVER?! ;) I have 4 polishes from I♥NP to show you. :)

First is Animal Cookie*, a clear base with lots of pink glitter! I see small holographic pink glitters, medium hot pink glitters, medium light pink glitters, square hot pink glitters, and there's also some white larger hex glitters and bars too! I really wanted to layer this over a plain white polish but I chose to go for a (very) light pink so you could see the white glitters. :) When I first painted this glitter on, I thought the base had bubbled right away, which was weird because I didn't shake it or do anything out of the ordinary. But, on closer look, I see that it's just a really super fine shimmer. :) Phew! No bubbles here! :D

1 dabbed coat over 3 coats of Sinful Colors Easy Going with Essie Good to Go topcoat.

I also matte-ified this and loved it!

Bella* is a clear base with small and medium black hex glitters, small black bar glitters, teeny tiny micro-fine red glitters, small red hex and medium red square glitters.

If you know me at all, you'll know why I wanted this polish, just by reading the name. ;) Yep, the name is based off Twilight which I happen to be a fan of. You don't have to be, but I am. :) 

1 dabbed coat over 1 coat of Ulta3 Black Satin (my go-to black!), with Sally Hansen Insta Dri topcoat (because it looked a bit bumpy).

I also swatched Bella* on one nail over white, so you could see the black glitters properly. :)

Teal Me Please* is a mix of teal glitters in a clear base. There are really tiny micro-fine glitters, small hexs, and medium squares. I quite like this one! :) I like this combo too. I tried this over a few combos and this was my favourite. I think it'd also look nice over white.
1 dabbed coat over Essence (Ready For Boarding Collection) 03 Exits On Your Right, no topcoat.

The Deep Sea* is a mix of aqua and blue glitters in a sheer blue-ish base. It has small and medium aqua glitters and larger blue glitters from what I can see. I probably wouldn't wear this one alone, but you could with a few coats. :)
1 dabbed coat over 2 coats of Rubi Under The Seaport, no topcoat. LOVE this combo.

PS. If you were wondering what I was going on about with the "dabbed coat" thing, check out this post by More Nail Polish, there's a video in there that is basically the method I used to apply these polishes, and which I use to apply a lot of glitters. :)

Overall I absolutely love these cute, unique glitter polishes! If I had to pick, I'd probably say that Animal Cookie or Bella are my favourite but I absolutely adore them all!
The polishes were packaged SO nicely and professionally! They come in really cute boxes, which I love so much. I will be keeping them inside the boxes because I think they're just adorable! The labels on the outside of the bottle, and the bottom of the bottle are also very professional looking!

I also love that the nail polish lids are coated in a rubbery material so they are really easy to unscrew, and if it ever gets stuck, well, it probably won't because the rubbery cap will make it easy to unscrew! Haha. The brush is also really nice and wide which helps a lot with application!

All I Love Nail Polish polishes are also 3 free which is awesome and they come in a suspension base so your glitter should not sink! :)

I cannot say enough good things about this brand! I recommend them 100%. :)

I Love Nail Polish is available on Etsy for $10USD for a 12mL bottle!

Elissa xx

*Products marked with an asterisk were provided to me for review but this does not influence my opinion in any way. My reviews are 100% my honest opinion. For more information please see my Disclosure Policy.