OPI Touring America Launch (and Muppets sneak peek!) *pic heavy*

Hey everyone! If you follow me on Twitter you will know that I am meant to be on a hiatus in the lead up to my wedding. However, I have sooooooo much stuff to post, I just couldn't stay away! So, what I have decided to do is try and get through my huge backlog of reviews and swatches this weekend, and then schedule posts for the next three weeks until I get married! It is a big task, but I just have so much stuff I need to show you and it just can't wait until after the wedding!

For this post, I have some pic spam from the OPI Touring America launch party which was held at the gorgeous Woollahra Post Office last night. I was ridiculously excited about this event, firstly because of the Touring America collection, but also becuase I was hoping to catch a glimpse of the Muppets holiday collection! The nail polish fairies must have been listening, because they had a full Muppets display and I was lucky enough to even have a mani done with one of the glitters, Rainbow Connection!

Rainbow Connection is a crazy, super blingy multi-coloured glitter polish. There's silver, green, pink, orange, blue and yellow regular and hex glitter all jam packed into a clear base. It is plain and simple awesome. I will definitely be getting a bottle (or two!) of this when it is released and I can't wait to try the other glitters in the collection as well (Gone Gonzo... drool!)

And now for the pics of the products featured at the Touring America launch event!

The Touring America collection, available now at selected beauty salons, spas and David Jones nationally for $19.95RRP.

OPI's new Lemon Tonic Manicure/Pedicure collection and Hibiscus Blossom Avojuice Hand & Body Lotion, available in August/September 2011. These lotions smell absolutely divine! 

OPI Nice Stems collection, available in September 2011.

OPI Muppets Holiday Collection, available in October 2011.

The Muppets Holiday Collection collection nail wheel swatches - *DROOL*!

Nicole by OPI Kardashian Kolor collection, available in December 2011.

Some nail wheel swatches of the Kardashian Kolor collection. Having seen the swatches, I am actually really looking forward to this collection now! That soft pink, Kim-pletely in Love, is calling out to me!

The lovely OPI Australia ladies, about to give everyone a fabulous manicure! 

Shatter by OPI available now at selected beauty salons, spas and David Jones nationally for $19.95RRP.

Serena Glam Slam! US Open duo, available in August 2011.

Nicole by OPI Texture Coat available in October 2011, and Nicole by OPI Justin Beiber - The One Less Lonely Girl collection, available now at Terry White Chemists and leading pharmacies.

Some of the entertainment at the launch party with Femme De Cirque collection and Pink Shatter. 

Femme De Cirque is available now and Pink Shatter will be available in September through to October.

The gorgeous Michelle from Cosmetic Cupcake with the lovely Ruth and Bill McKendrick from International Beauty Supplies/OPI Australia.

And finally, the only photo of the night of me! The downside of taking all my own photos is that I'm never in any! I got this sneaky polaroid taken with one of the "cowboys" at the launch party! ha!

I was lucky enough to get a goodie bag with some samples of the Touring, Nice Stems and Beiber collections so I will definitely be posting those in the coming weeks! 

OPI Serena Williams Glam Slam! England - Part 2

Hey Everyone! Today I have swatches of the second set from the Serena Williams Glam Slam! England collection which features Your Royal Shine-ness and Servin' Up Sparkle.

When I first saw the press releases for this set, I was a little disappointed to be honest. I thought it was just another metallic silver with the same glitter top coat as the other set.

Thankfully, I was pleasantly surprised by Your Royal Shine-ness (YRS) once I applied it! Unlike the other silver metallics/foils in my collection, YRS has fine gold glitter in it which brings a little warmth to the polish and gives it a kind of "old world" look, like expensive polished silver. It applied very easily, with minimal brush stroke marks and dried very fast. This was two coats, without a topcoat.

I then added two coats of Servin' Up Sparkle, which is a clear "topcoat" polish with silvery holographic glitter and holo hexagonal sequins. In bright lighting, this combo definitely sparkles, however, I think I would have liked a different coloured glitter top coat in this set, so there was a bit of contrast between the base colour and the top coat. It is still a really gorgeous combo, but I feel like Servin' Up Sparkle gets a little lost on top of YRS.

Overall, I'm really diggin' all three of the polishes in the Serena Williams Glam Slam! England collection, but I think the Grape... Set... Match duo is my favourite out of the two.

Which one do you like better?

Glam Slam! England is available in leading salons and David Jones stores nationally July 11th, $19.95RRP. For your nearest OPI stockists contact 1800 358 999 or visit www.opi.net.au. 

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

OPI Teenage Dream & Too Pink To Hold 'Em

Hey everyone! Before I get to today's post, I just wanted to let you all know that yesterday I changed my commenting platform for the blog and I'm now using Disqus. So far it seems to be working well and it makes it so much easier for me to reply to specific comments. I'm slowly working my way through all the unanswered comments, and I should be done replying soon.... I hope it makes commenting easier for you as well :D

I also quickly wanted to say how stoked I am with the response to my BB Couture Giveaway! Since posting it last night I've had over 120 individual entries already! And some of you guys have honestly made me bust a gut laughing at the things you have written in the comments!!  Keep them coming!

Now on to today's post! A few weeks ago, I saw a Twitter post by @the_asian_girl
  where she linked to a mani she had done using OPI's Teenage Dream and Too Pink To Hold 'Em! I fell in love with the combo so I had to try it myself!  

To achieve this look, you need to use a jelly or "sorbet" polish like the ones released with the OPI Texas collection and a glitter polish, like the ones released with the Katy Perry collection. Paint one coat of the jelly, then one or two coats of the glitter polish, and then add another thick coat of the jelly over the top. 

The final product is squishy, glittery, jelly goodness! 

I personally think @the_asian_girl did a far better job than I did, but I still love the way my mani turned out! You should definitely check out her other swatches on her tumblr page!

Deborah Lippmann - Bad Romance

Happy New Year Everyone!

For my first post of 2011 I was going to show you Part 2 of the Essie Winter Collection, but my swatches didn't turn out the best, so I'm going to show you my NYE mani instead!!

I am currently in Queensland visiting family, so a crazy nail art design was out of the question. However, I still wanted something a little bit special for the night so I decided to wear Deborah Lippmann's Bad Romance. I'm sure you have all seen it a million times before, but here it is all the same!

Bad Romance has a sheer black jelly base with small purple glitter and larger purple hex glitter.

The first coat is a little streaky and patchy but a second coat evens it out perfectly. I suggest you wait for the first coat to dry before adding the second coat otherwise the hex glitter moves around and ends up lumping up at the end of the nail. I only used two coats but a third wouldn't hurt.

Sadly, BR chipped on my pinky and pointer after only a few hours but I think it is because I used Poshe instead of Seche QD.

Here is a pic in different light, which gives a better indication of the colour of the glitter.

I promise I'll get those Essie swatches up asap!
 

I hope you all had a fabulous New Years Eve and that 2011 is a year filled with joy, happiness and success! x

Eyeko - Punk Polish and Chi Chi Polish

Today I have the other two Eyeko polishes that Carli from Konad-licious sent me in our swap :D

Punk Polish - A super neon pink. This was a little thick, and dried to a satin finish like most neons do. The finished product was quite spectacular though! One of the brightest neon pinks I have seen!

Chi Chi Polish - Rosy pink glitter in a soft baby pink base. This is a really gorgeous glitter, but it definitely needs to be worn over something. This was two coats.

I thought I'd try Chi Chi over Punk to see how it looked but sadly I wasn't a fan :S I think I'd probably like it more if it was layered over a lighter pink polish....

That's all for today! I haven't been sleeping a lot lately so I'm pretty exhausted tonight. Need a good night's sleep x

Deborah Lippmann - Across the Universe

Today I went back to work after having two weeks off for my exams and sitting on my desk were some packages! I ripped them open and was glad to see that it was my long lost orders from KissandMakeupNY that I placed at the beginning of September!!!!  :S

I was pretty happy to be getting my goodies after all this time, but the thing that got me the most excited was that my Deborah Lippmann polishes were in there! 

Lippmann's Across the Universe was my second biggest lemming after Fortune Teller and now that I have both, I have to say, Across the Universe is the clear winner. 

Across the Universe has a dark blue jelly base and is packed with green and blue hex glitter and blue regular glitter. Its fabulous!!! 

Considering that it is a glitter, it applied really well and dried quite quickly with a coat of Poshe top coat. I waited a couple of minutes between coats of ATU so that the glitter didn't move around too much. This is my first experience with Lippmann polishes and now I can understand why everyone raves about them! I got a few other Lippmanns as well, so I will be sure to show them to you over the next couple of days :D

Check out the pic spam of Across the Universe after the jump!

China Glaze - Fortune Teller

Ok........ This is a big deal... A big, big, big, big, deal! 

I have been lemming China Glaze Fortune Teller for agessssss! It was numero uno on my lemming list, but I could not find it anywhere.. Not even evilbay had it.... And then the other day, I decided to search for it again, and BANG! THERE IT WAS! So I shelled out the dosh and then started counting the days until my little baby arrived... 

Here is a picture of what it was like when I got Fortune Teller....

So of course I had to put it on straight away.... 

Behold, MY PRECIOUS..... ! Haha!

Check out the pic spam after the jump!

OPI - Extra-Va-Vaganza!

Ok I couldn't resist! I had to try out one of the OPI Burlesque colours tonight! I chose Extra-Va-Vaganza! because it's the one I have been the most excited about! 

And wowzers! This glitter is outstanding! I used one coat of Zoya Trixie and then three coats of Extra-Va-Vaganza and my nails are on fire! I took a bajillion photos in different lighting, but I just added a couple here :D

And here is a blurry one to show how sparkly and glittery and FREAKIN AMAZING this polish is! 

And a closeup for good measure!

Ok, I'm off to keep studying! Hope you are all having a great day! x

Scandal - Green Pearl

When I saw this beauty on You've Got Nail, it immediately jumped to the top of my lemming list. However, the sad truth was, I didn't think I would actually ever find this polish, because I just don't have that kind of luck!

So you can imagine my surprise when I walk into this random late-night chemist at 10pm the other night to get medicine for my mum, and there is an enormous stand of Scandal polishes!!! Naturally my sick mother became second priority and I ran to the stand to hunt Green Pearl down. 

And here we have it ladies (and gents?)! In all its teal glittery glory! This polish is simply breathtaking!

I was also lured in by Blue Pearl, so I'll have swatches of that coming up. I think I'm going to have to go back to that chemist this weekend and see what other gems I can snatch up :D

China Glaze - Awakening Collection Halloween 2010

Even though Halloween isn't really a big deal in Australia, I had to get my hands on the new China Glaze Awakening Collection for Halloween 2010. I ended up buying Mummy May I and Ick-a-bod-y only as I had read that Zombie Zest is a dupe for SpaRitual's Optical Illusion, which I already own.

Sadly, application for these was a bit of a PITA. They were really gluggy and thick! Admittedly, I applied them really quickly, but after the second coat I still had patches, so a third was needed for a solid colour. Both dried quite gritty and lumpy so a top coat is definitely needed! However, they are both freaking gorgeous colours so I still love them. Ick-a-bod-y turned out to be my favourite! The orange/coppery glitter is simply stunning against the green/black base!

 Mummy May I

Ick-a-bod-y

Orly - Space Cadet

So this post is super late :( And I only have one of the colours! I have been really, really slack this past weekend because I was super busy. My sister's bridal shower was on Saturday afternoon, and Sunday I spent most of the day catching up on study. This coming weekend I'll have plentyyyyyy of time to swatch! :)

Any-hoo! This is Orly Space Cadet! This is an amazing duochrome that flashes green, mauve, pink, purple, yellow, and copper.... When you put the first coat on the actual base appears to be a dark blue/green colour, but it builds up to this really dark purple with all those amazing flashes!