New navy blue...

So I have been envying the people who get to own and wear Butter London nail polish.

my favourite colour has always been Royal Navy

I found this image at Stuff I (s)watched

so, here in New Zealand this stuff retails at about $30 (which is quite a lot for nail polish)...

so sometimes I just go in to Farmers and stand by the Butter London counter and dream...

well today, after my Butter London Dreaming, I wandered into some other stores, one of them being a cheapo shop

and guess what I found!? 

A navy blue nail polish 

- I decided since it was only $3 I could buy it and risk it looking terrible and never being used....

when I got home I put some on and I was amazed! 

it looks so similar to the Royal Navy Butter London polish and only 1/10th the price! 

I am so happy!!! 

I was actually quite surprised at the smooth formula and opaque colour of such a cheap brand.

I will definitely be shopping here again.

I did this funky manicure...

Base Coat: OPI Nail Envy (super good!)

Blue: Kleancolour Neon Sapphire (2 coats) - but it even looked good after one coat!

Ring/Index finger: Revlon Sheer Rose (3 coats)

Let me just say I am one happy customer and in all my nail polish snobbery I think I may now be introducing a few more Kleancolour's into my collection.

Marble nails...

So I thought today I could give marble nails a try...

from reading various different bloggers I thought I better try out some of my nail polishes and see if I could master the marbling skill.

Here are four thumb nails I tried (and removed) 

The pink one looks best - It was slightly watery/thinly coated though...

(also creepily the black one looks like a long old fashioned face painting...)

I have discovered that:

 1) the water temperature is important - too cold and the nail polish sets FAST as

2) Thick or globby nail polish does NOT work. (the black one was very thick - which is usually good for normal nail painting, but it didn't spread in the water - but also the water was cold...)

3) sheer/shimmery nail polish does not show up well full stop. The greeny one has actually two other blue tones which were very shimmery, all that showed up was a slight shimmer (but no actual colour)

The best nail polishes that worked were my revlon ones (I love revlon!)

See how well this manicure turned out!

Lovely colours together!! 

This worked so much better than I hoped! (except the slightly bubbly pinky finger...)

Sticks and Stones - I love thee!

Today I came home to hear my mother utter those five beautiful words....

"agirlwithsomeclothes you have a package."

and boy was I excited!!! 

I ripped it open...

to reveal...

This

Sticks and Stones by cover brands lacquers

This is a nail polish that is based (heavily based) on the lovely "connect the dots" by Lynnderella.

(she does heaps of cool nail polish!)

after reading many reviews here on both, I decided that sticks and stones is probably more me anyway

(it is also much cheaper on eBay (not originally priced) this is due to the now high demand for connect the dots)

(by the sounds of it connect the dots has more of a sheen as the main polish, while sticks and stones is a clear polish)

sticks and stones is a clear nail polish with bits of black and white glitter.

The glitter is in a variety of shapes and sizes: hexagons, circles and lines.

So my sticks and stones journey began...

First I applied my base colours.

(random and colourful - I wanted to see what it looked like on different colours)

Left: Revlon Electric Pink (3 coats)

Middle: Australis rub-a-dub-dub (2 coats)

Right: Revlon Plum Seduction (3 coats)

then, after waiting an excruciating long time for them to dry,

I applied my sticks and stones...

and I am in love! 

I think this nail polish looks amazing.

I love it over the pink's however on yellow the white glitter didn't show up as much (so probably won't do it over this colour again)

This is with one coat - using the dabbing effect not brushing (instead of brushing the nail polish on like usual you push the brush onto the nail and dab the glitter in the places you want it.)

and Revlon colourstay top coat

Enjoy some close ups

Misbehaved nails

So my Foil Nails are gone...

Peeled them off as they were starting to annoy me, the ends weren't quite smooth (I think due to the shortness of a few of my bitten nails - terrible of me I know!)

I since decided to put on some more of my Sally Hansen salon effects.

I like them! 

And they stick on to the nail so easily and they look super smooth and tidy afterwards! (unlike my first attempt at foil nails)

These are Misbehaved 

-but they do behave - unlike some ::cough cough::

(a fishnet style pattern with gold undertone)

Sorry about the creepy hand - I don't know what I was thinking...

Also, In all fairness I will be giving the foil nails another try once my nails a just a tad bit longer.

New foil nails

Today I went to the women's expo.

It was filled with numerous stalls with things focused at women!!

I found a stall selling nail foils!!!

And I went a little crazy....

(7 in total!)

I had actually been looking at these on the Internet lately, and have been trying to find somewhere that sold them in New Zealand. eBay was looking like my only option....

So I was very happy when I saw these in my own home town!!!!

So excited that I put some on tonight!

And to be honest....

They look AMAZING! But they took ALOT of effort to get on.

I think that was partly due to the fact that I had cut my nails so short just yesterday (a little bit too short)

I will definitely give these nail foils another try once I grown my nails a bit longer...

So keep piste for more reviews.

Oh, and I got a Yummy apple too!!!

Toffee Apple!!! 

om nom nom 

Crackle polish?...

Today I had a wonderful time at a friends house. We did all sorts of amazing things!

Including (girlyest of all) painting our nails.

As you all know I have a hefty collection of nail polishes - but missing from my collection are the OPI (or any brand) shatter effects.

My friend had some black shatter, so I jumped at the chance to try it!

And this is the result. What do you think?

I'm still unsure if I LOVE it as I'm used to having precision and controlling the look of my nail polish. But I think I could learn to love it.

I really like the greeny colour under the black. And perhaps would prefer a silver shatter over the red.

I'll let you know if I decided to buy some for myself!

Red: red carpet by Sally Hansen

Green: Ocean Breeze by Revlon

Black shatter by LA girl (cheaper alternative to OPI)

Konad criss cross - with a bit of Fizz

A second Konad attempt, and I think they worked quite well.

I really wanted to try some of my new scented nail polish (to see how they look and how long the scent lasts)

I began with a Revlon "Midnight Affair" base coat

White Konad special nail polish with Criss-Cross design

Three nails have Colada Fizz (by Revlon) as top coat

and two have Mint fizz (the darker blue)

Overall love the look! and the sheer-ness of the Fizz nail polishes meant it only tinted the criss-cross slightly, so the pattern was still really visible.

The middle nail polish is Midnight Affair (I used as base coat)

left: Mint Fizz

right: Colada Fizz

Update on the nail polish.
The mint fizz scent lasted really well and was still minty fresh after about 3 days.
The colada fizz smelt ok up close for about a day and a half... Towards the end it started to smell a bit stale.

But luckily I had the mint fizz to cover the scent. I will try the colada fizz alone sometime in the future to see how it smells on its own.

Orange fizz

This is the first of my new revlon "fizz" polishes I have tried. I felt like a bright splash of colour and boy does this provide.

Positives:
I really love the colour it has slight flecks of glitter in (which are more like tiny tiny bits of foil - as they stay flushed with the nail, not risen like some glitter, and it gives a more shimmery look than chunks of glitter)
They shimmer most when they catch the light, but when you look at them you can tell the nails are shimmery because of the slight textured look.

And the smell is spot on!!! I love the smell of citrus, this is the best nail polish to wake you up in the morning.

Minor downside:
The nail polish is quite sheer so you do need to paint a few layers if you want a solid colour look.


This is the finished product.

Nail polish

So I'm some what a nail polish fiend.

If I see a new colour I just have to have it.

Now most people rave on about OPI and yes, sometimes their colours are cooler and admittedly they do have a pretty darn awesome iPhone app.

But my nail polish love is Revlon.

That's right the iconic shaped bottle the gold printed letters around the base of the neck.

I find revlon nail polish to be smooth and easy to apply. It doesn't clump up over time, and they're the provider of my favorite top coat "999 colorstay top coat" (GET SOME)

Now I'm no nail technician, and I don't think I'm an expert on nail polish. But I love the stuff, and I like to try new colours/patterns/styles.

After Revlon my other favorite nail polishes would have to be:

Australis: they usually have quirky different colours and come in a cute cylindrical bottle. The formula is easy to apply, doesn't get clumpy overtime and tends to dry smoothly (admittedly I ALWAYS use a topcoat)

Sally Hansen: (mostly "salon effects- real nailpolish strips") these allow you to do patterns you never though possible. They're similar to minx nails worn by many of the celebrity's but don't require a UV lamp to set. They say they'll last up to 10 days; and I'd agree. I can usually keep mine on for a good week (with a few chips at the end)

More on each brand and colour later.