Saturday, April 30, 2011

Essie Autumn 2011 - Australia

Hi lovelies! Did you all watch the Royal Wedding?! I had actually decided to boycott the whole thing, but I really wanted to see Kate's dress and once I started watching it, I was hooked! A lot of people seemed to think that her dress was boring, but I thought it was stunning! I'm not a fan of OTT wedding dresses, so I think she looked classy and beautiful!

Anywho, today I have some swatches of Essie's Autumn 2011 collection, which was released last month here in Australia.

As I have mentioned before, some polish companies have chosen to delay the release of collections here in Australia so that they fall in line with our seasons, and Essie is one of those brands. As such, my northern hemisphere readers will recognise these colours from the "Fall 2010" collection released in the USA last year.

As one of my favourite Essie collections to date, I was more than happy to do a review on the entire collection even though some of my readers may have already seen these colours. 

Oh and I have decided to go back to my large pics rather than extra large. I wasn't feeling the giant pics..

Merino Cool - Dusty purple-gray. This is the must have colour from the collection in my opinion. Chic, modern and totally on trend for Autumn/Winter. I have worn this colour a number of times already and I always get compliments on it! This was two coats.



In Stitches - Dusty rose cream. When I first saw this colour I thought it might be a dupe for Chanel's Rose Confidentiel, which I missed out on, but from what I can tell from other swatches, In Stitches is considerably darker that RC. That doesn't bother me in the slightest though, because I found this polish to be very flattering with my skin tone. However, it does remind me of my grandmother a little because she used to wear shades like this on her nails all the time - that's not to say it's old fashioned, but I think this is a more "mature" shade. This is two coats.



Velvet Voyeur - Very dark purple cream. Gorgeous vampy colour, but application was a little troublesome and I still had patches after two coats. I probably should have used three. I also noticed that the colour changes dramatically between each coat. With the first, it is very distinctly purple, but with the second it becomes so dark it almost looks black in certain lighting. I still love it though!




Sew Psyched - Muted green with a touch of gray and silver micro-shimmer. I love this colour, but it doesn't love me! Sadly this kind of green doesn't flatter my skin tone at all, but that won't stop me from wearing it! To me, it is quite similar to Rescue Beauty Lounge's Diddy Mow. The formula on this one was a little thicker than the others, so I had to be a little careful when applying it so that it was even. But as you can see, it dried to a smooth, glossy finish. Two coats.



Little Brown Dress - Rich chocolate brown cream. Brown polishes aren't normally my thing, but this is such a flattering, classy colour! I like this variation on the black nail trend we usually see in Autumn/Winter. Super pigmented with a glossy, smooth finish using two coats.



Limited Addiction - Dark red cream. I'm a sucker for a good red cream and this one doesn't disappoint. It has an almost jelly like texture which glides on the nail. Once again a super glossy, even finish with two coats.

 

 

Overall, I think the winners from this collection are Merino Cool, Sew Psyched and Little Brown Dress. Which ones will you be picking up?

Essie nail polishes retail for $18.95AUD each and are sold in Myer in Australia or you can call (02) 9477 6900 for your closest stockist. 







The items featured in this post were provided for review. For further information on GildedNails' Disclosure Policy, please click here.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Face of Australia Molten Metallics - Part II

Hey everyone! Hope you all had a fantastic Easter! We had an extra long weekend here in Australia because the ANZAC Day public holiday fell on Easter Monday. So we got 5 days off in total! My fiancee and I took the opportunity to fly to Adelaide to visit family and my 8 month old cousin. I had all these plans to blog over the long weekend, but I was having so much fun hanging out with family and going on day trips to the famous South Australian wineries, that I just didn't feel like getting online! Sadly, my holiday is over now so I'm back to work and back online!

Today I have Part II of my Face of Australia Molten Metallics swatches for you. If you missed out on Part I you can check out my swatches here.

White Gold - Light champagne frost.  This is a very cool toned, super frosty, but very opaque polish. I really liked the colour, but not a fan of the brush strokes. This was two coats.



Iron Ore - Black with silver and blue shimmer. This was one of my other favourites from the collection! It was really opaque and applied very easily. I used two coats for consistency. My camera didn't do this polish justice and you can barely the blue shimmer in my pics, but it is definitely there!



Gold - Yellow toned warm gold foil with silver shimmer. I was really surprised by this one. Despite some initial reservations, it actually looks really great on the nails and I think that is because it has such a great formula! I used two coats, but you could get away with one.



Flaming Lava - Vibrant red with gold micro shimmer. This polish is hands down the winner from the collection! A total must have! Not only does it look amazing, but it applied like a dream and has a super glossy finish! Sadly, when I was swatching this one, I dropped it on my tile floor and the bottle smashed into a million little pieces and red polish went everywhere! It took me an hour to clean up! As such, I will be heading out to my nearest Kmart to buy another bottle when the collection launches in May because I must wear this colour again!



Overall, I think the stand outs for this collection are Verdigris, Flaming Lava and Iron Ore, but I found all the polishes had a great formula, despite some of them being a little too frosty for my taste.

Molten Metallics is a limited edition collection that is due to be released in May and will be stocked in Priceline, Kmart, Big W and other selected pharmacies. The polishes in this collection retail for $4.95AUD each - which is a bargain if you ask me!

Face of Australia polishes are toluene, formaldehyde and dibutyl phthalate free and you can learn more about the company and their products here



 



The items featured in this post were provided for review. For further information on GildedNails' Disclosure Policy, please click here.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Color Club Fractured Collection Sneak Peek

BREAK IT UP! GET A JAGGED-EDGE FINISH WITH FRACTURED, COLOR
CLUB’S LATEST LACQUER INNOVATION. JUST BRUSH FRACTURED
OVER DRY POLISH AND EXPECT A RADICAL TRANSFORMATION.

Clean Break - White
Broken Tokens - Silver
Tattered In Gold - Gold
Have a Bash - Blue
Crush on You - Fuchsia
Smash Hit - Black 


This is all the info I have on the collection at the moment, but as soon as I get some more, I will update the post. I'm really looking forward to this collection! Color Club polishes are really affordable and are great quality!

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Face of Australia Molten Metallics - Part I

Hey everyone! Today I'm back with some swatches of a new collection from the Aussie brand, Face of Australia. 

As the name suggests, the Molten Metallics collection features 8 gorgeous polishes in various rich metallic hues.  I have never tried Face of Australia polishes before, so I was really excited when these showed up at my post office! I'll be honest, I'm not usually a fan of metallic/frosty shades, but some of these polishes really impressed me!

For the sake of my hands, I'll be showing you this collection in two parts....... 

Bronze - Bronze foil with shimmery silver microglitter. I wasn't sure about this one in the bottle because it looked quite orange, but on the nails it was lovely! Application was even and smooth and only needed two coats.



Amethyst - Deep purple metallic with silver shimmer. I loved the colour of this polish but I wasn't too crazy about the brush strokes. However, if you have a careful hand (which I don't!) this could be a really awesome polish because once again, application was fantastic and only needed two coats.



Titanium - Shimmery silver foil. I love silver foils like this! They remind me of New Years Eve parties for some reason! Again, application was a breeze with two coats. Look at how shiny this baby is! Love!



Verdigris - Olive green foil with gold microshimmer. This was totally unexpected, but this one is my fave out of the four colours in today's post! I'm a massive fan of the military/urban army trends we have been seeing for autumn/winter here in Australia, so naturally this olive green polish makes me giddy! This was two coats.



Molten Metallics is a limited edition collection that is due to be released in May and will be stocked in Priceline, Kmart, Big W and other selected pharmacies. The polishes in this collection retail for $4.95AUD each - which is a bargain if you ask me!

Face of Australia polishes are toluene, formaldehyde and dibutyl phthalate free and you can learn more about the company and their products here








The items featured in this post were provided for review. For further information on GildedNails' Disclosure Policy, please click here.

Friday, April 15, 2011

500 Follower Giveaway Winner!

The winner of my 500 Follower Giveaway is............. *drum roll*.................

free glitter - http://www.sparklee.com


Congratulations!!!! I have sent you an email, so please make sure you respond within the next 24 hours with your postal address so that I can send your prize out to you straight away! If I don't receive a response, I will have to hold the draw again and pick another winner.....

Thank you to everyone who entered the giveaway! 

Edit: I'm sorry for my little rant in the previous post about multiple entries! I have now deleted it because life is too short to be angry and I'm not that kind of a person anyway! But thank you to everyone who supported me and commented!

Don't forget there is still time to get your name down for my BB Couture Giveaway


ORLY Birds of A Feather Collection Press Release - For my Aussie readers!

These will be available in June for $18.95AUD each. For stockists visit www.orlybeauty.com.au.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

OPI Los Cabos Coral and Blog Sale Question

Hey everyone! Sorry for the lack of posts the past few days. I have been working such long hours, I just haven't felt up to swatching/posting when I get home from work. Since I haven't got anything new to show you at the moment, I thought I'd show you something from the "vault".

A couple of months back I was on a big coral kick and I bought a stack of discontinued coral OPI polishes on evilBay. One of the colours I purchased was OPI's Los Cabos Coral which I believe was from the Mexico collection.

When I first got it I was a little disappointed because it looked so frosty in the bottle, but once it was on the nails, I actually really liked it! I remember I had to use three coats, but the polish was quite thin so this wasn't an issue.

(I actually loaded these pics up to Imageshack months ago so they have my old watermark! )



From what I can tell, you can still find this polish on eBay, for a fairly reasonable price if you want to get your hands on it! 

In other news, the other night I was cleaning out my makeup bag and realised that I own a RIDICULOUS amount of unused and untried makeup! Before becoming a nail polish addict, I was a huge makeup fanatic and this has resulted in me having crazy amounts of makeup that I never use..... Think 60+ blushes and hundreds of eyeshadows! 

I also have a stack of nail polishes that I want to off load, sooooooooo I was wondering whether you guys would be interested if I held a makeup and nail polish blog sale? I would keep prices reasonable, even for HTF items, and I would be willing to ship internationally... So let me know what you guys think? If I get a good response, I'll try and take the pics and post the sale up over the weekend...

P.S 500 Follower Winner will be announced shortly! 



Sunday, April 10, 2011

Swap with Cristina from Let Them Have Polish!

Hey everyone! Hope you are having a great weekend! Sadly I have felt really unwell this weekend, so I spent all day in bed today. The weather was really crappy outside, so even though I felt sick it was kind of nice to just chill out and watch movies.

I didn't really feel up to doing my nails or swatching but I really wanted to show you guys the amazing swap package that Cristina from Let Them Have Polish sent me last week! She was kind enough to help me get my hands on the China Glaze Tronica's that I wanted and she also included a stack of other surprise polishes in there as part of our swap! 


I absolutely love the polishes she sent me! Thank you Cristina! You are a sweetheart!

I was hoping to swatch them all this weekend, but as I said, I honestly didn't feel up to swatching. But the other day when I was playing with the BB Couture polishes I got, I decided to experiment with some glitter over the top of Painted Lady and I used the Milani Jewel FX in Gold that Cristina included in the package!

I'm not sure I like the combo (I love them individually though!), but it was just a bit of fun, so I thought I'd show you..... (Sorry, photos aren't the best!)



In other news, I have finally replied to all the comments you guys have posted over the past couple of weeks! Never again will I let myself get so behind in comment replies! I'm so sorry for being such a slacker!

In the process of replying to comments, I realised that I never posted Part 2 of my China Glaze Anchor's Away swatches! haha! What a scatter brain! I think the time has passed to post them, but I might still do it if I run out of other things to post! 


Friday, April 8, 2011

Le Beauty Swatch Spam

Hey Everyone! Happy Friday! I am so glad the weekend is here! I'm totally exhausted after my first week in the new job. Thankfully I really like the work I'm doing and the people I work with, so the week went by pretty quickly!

Today's post features the Aussie brand, Le Beauty. I have previously swatched one of these colours (#70), but it was such a crapola swatch I'm not even going to bother linking it! I actually bought a stack of these polishes last year, and I have worn quite a few of them, but for some reason I hadn't swatched them for the blog! So I thought I'd remedy that tonight with some swatch spam.... Enjoy!

Le Beauty # 43


Le Beauty #169


Le Beauty #200


Le Beauty #21


Le Beauty #70


Le Beauty #168

That's all for today! I know, I'm a slacker and I haven't even included descriptions etc, but I'm honestly typing this while falling asleep! Night!