BYS High Impact Polishes (and an explanation for being MIA!)

Hey everyone! As you may or may not have noticed, I have been MIA since making my "comeback" after my wedding/honeymoon last year. But I really do have a good reason for not blogging over the past couple of months! My hubby and I bought a house at the beginning of November 2011 and since December we have been engaged in a HUGE renovation project. Unfortunately, I have also been a little unwell for the past few months. It wasn't anything life threatening but it was enough to knock me around for a little while. As a result, the thought of blogging while working full time and renovating a house (while still running the house we are living in at the moment) was just completely overwhelming!

Thankfully, the renovations are progressing well, and I'm feeling a little better, so I thought I'd log back in to my little nail blog and write a post! As a result of my haitus, I ended up with a whole stack of polishes that I hadn't reviewed. I considered just starting fresh and not bothering to catch up on the stuff I hadn't reviewed, but a lot of the polishes I have been sent over the past few months are really, really nice! So instead, I'm going to do a few catchup reviews in between showing you some new stuff I have received (like China Glaze ElectroPop! SQUEEEE!).

For my first post back, I'm going to do a "catchup" post featuring swatches of three BYS polishes from the High Impact range. There isn't a lot of info available about this collection online, but from what I can tell, they are a range of brightly coloured polishes which have been released for the Spring/Summer season here in Australia and are being sold by Fashion Addict.  Brightly coloured clothes, shoes and accessories are right on trend at the moment, so I'm loving these polishes!

High Impact Blue - Electric blue frost. Normally I would steer clear of frosts but this is just stunning! Unlike most other frosts I have tried, High Impact Blue applied really well and there were only minimal brush stroke marks. When I first opened the bottle, I was convinced that this polish would be really thin and sheer, but I was pleasantly surprised when I realised I would only need two coats! I have always loved vivid blues like this and will generally wear them with any outfit, but if you really want to be on trend, try pairing this nail polish with some bright orange or lime green clothes and accesories!

High Impact Green - Sheer yellow/green frost with silvery green microshimmer. Unfortunately, High Impact Green isn't for me, only because the colour doesn't suit my skin tone in my opinion. However, I think darker skinned beauties could rock this polish for sure! There was still some VNL after two coats, so it might be worth layering this polish over white or another green if you wanted the colour to really pop and be opaque. With that said, the shimmer is really gorgeous and it has a super glossy finish!

High Impact Purple - Vivid purple with fuschia microshommer. Absolutely gorgeous! I love how bright this polish is and the way the microshimmer flashes in the light. The formula was faultless so I only needed two coats. If you are like me you can't get enough of the colour blocking trend, then pair this polish with orange or lime clothing and accessories. 

You can probably guess that the Blue and Purple are my faves out of the three! But I think the best thing about these polishes is the price. Fashion Addict sells BYS High Impact polishes for only $4.95AUD which is a total bargain! There are three other colours available as well, being Aqua, Orange and Pink. High Impact Orange is calling my name for sure! 

On a final note, I'm really glad to be back blogging again! Over the past few months I kind of forgot how much I love nail polish and the way it allows you to express so much about your personality. I have had so much fun going through my collection the past few days and organising my ideas for future posts. Here's hoping 2012 will allow me to put a lot of energy into my blog and doing something I really love! 

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

Guest Post on Also Known As - Chanel Peridot

Hey everyone! Something a little different for today! Last week the lovely Kellie from Also Known As asked me to do a guest post for her and it is now live on her blog! I absolutely love Kellie and her gorgeous nails so I was super honoured to be able to do a guest post! 

Check out my review of Chanel Peridot by clicking on the photo below!

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.

BB Couture Man Bug & April Giveaway! Now Closed!

Hey everyone! Hope you are all having a great week! I'm having one of the busiest weeks ever!! I started my new job, which is going great and I have also been on overdrive with the wedding planning! Only 4 and a half months to go until the big day! Time is passing so quickly!

Anywhooooo.... a couple of weeks ago I was reviewing my nail polish wishlist and decided it was time to bite the bullet and order some BB Couture polishes! I have been lemming a heap of their polishes for ages and I couldn't resist any longer! As Overall Beauty were the only e-tailer I could find that shipped BB Couture to Australia, I placed the order with them. One of the polishes I bought was this little stunner, Man Bug.

Man Bug is a blue green jelly with gold and green microglitter. Its a tad sheer, but builds up with each coat. I used three coats here and WOW!!!! How gorgeous is this polish!!!!!! You should definitely click on the pics to check out the glitter in this one!

Now for the exciting news! The amazing Kim from Overall Beauty included a couple of bottles of polish in my package...... FOR A GIVEAWAY!!! Thank you so much Kim!

Up for grabs are two brand new bottles of BB Couture polish, Love 
Bug and Daisy Dweller! Perfect spring colours for my northern hemisphere readers!

Simply fill out the form below for your chance to win these! 

The competition is open internationally and will close on 25th April 2011.

Illamasqua Toxic Nature - Radium & Purity

Hey everyone! Hope you are having a great weekend! I spent over 4 hours swatching yesterday and I will be showing you the fruits of that marathon swatch-fest over this coming week!

Today I have two of the nail polishes just released with Illamasqua's Toxic Nature collection. 

My exposure to Illamasqua polishes has been limited because of how expensive they are in Australia, but I'm glad to say that the few times I have used their polishes, the formula and application has been great. These two were no exception.

Purity - Light peach cream. I have been on the search for a colour like this for a really long time! I thought that China Glaze's Peachy Keen was my Holy Grail when it came out, but the colour was wrong. Purity on the other hand is perfect! You can see a comparison of the two colours here. This is two coats.

Radium - Illamasqua describes this as an "acidic lime, shimmer finish" and that is spot on! The chemical element Radium is radioactive and luminescent and this polish definitely looks like it has a radioactive glow! Bright, shimmery, green goodness!

After trying these two Illamasqua's I am now officially lemming every single one of their polishes! haha! What do you guys think of these?

Zoya Marley & Gemma - Intimate Collection

Hey everyone! Today I have swatches of two of the colours from the recent Zoya Intimate collection, Marley & Gemma.

After swatching both of them, I can safely say, I purchased the wrong colours! Haha! I should have bought the other four instead, which look amazing!!!!! Well the other four and Gemma.... Marley is just ughhhhhhh on me, but I really loved Gemma... 

Marley - Very pale lavender with silvery micro shimmer. This polish looks so pretty and dainty in the bottle but on my nails and with my skin tone it wasn't great! I also had problems with application. It's like my bottle dried out or something? It was really thick and a little difficult to apply (look how uneven it is along my cuticles!). I have never had a problem with applying Zoya polishes, EVER, so I think this must have been a dud bottle! This was three coats.

Gemma - Murky green with blue and purple micro shimmer. I really liked this colour even though like all greens, it gave me lobster hands. I got plenty of positive comments on it as well! It's really unusual with the blue/purple shimmer and I can't think of a single dupe! This took three coats to be opaque but it applied like a dream! 

What are your thoughts on these two? Has anyone else had problems with Marley? Should I buy the other four colours?

Models Own Jade Stone

Sadly, my Texas and Anchor's Away orders still haven't arrived! I hope they haven't got lost somewhere along the way because I'm going out of my mind waiting for these collections! In the mean time, today I'm wearing Models Own Jade Stone.

Jade Stone is as the name suggests, a jade green creme. This one is really opaque and I got great coverage with just one coat but I went with two in the end. I've only had it on for a day, but it hasn't chipped yet, so that is a good sign!

Oh and I'm only 41 followers away from my massive 500 follower giveaway! I received some more products this week from China Glaze and Le Beauty to add to the prizes. This giveaway is honestly going to be massive, so get following people so I can put it up! I can barely contain my excitement about all the products... I'll have to give you all an updated sneek peak on the weekend I think! 

Borghese Stellar Notte

Today I have some swatches of Borghese Stellar Notte which I received from the lovely Carli aka Konad-licious in a recent swap.

I hate swatching a nail polish when my nails aren't perfect (according to my standards anyway!) but I hate not posting on here even more! So, on to the swatches!

Stellar Notte is a really complex and unique polish. It's a little hard to describe as well! The base is definitely blue/green and it is packed with purple, green and blue shimmer. 

Of course, such a complex colour was a total PITA to photograph! So I have included a stack of photos in different lighting to give you an idea of how gorgeous it is!

Check out the pics after the jump!

Essie Winter 2010 Part 1

Hey Everyone!

I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas! Mine was a little hectic as we had to visit three lots of family, but all in all I had a lovely Christmas. I was also a very lucky girl and was given a new camera! Say hello to my new Canon DSLR! 

This means no more crappy swatch photos! However, it also means I am going to have to look after my cuticles better (as you will see from the photos below!). Apologies in advance for the horrible cuticles! :s Please also excuse the nubbins. I had a killer break on my middle finger a couple of days ago so I had to file them all down *cries*.

Today I have swatches of three of the new colours from Essie's Winter 2010 collection. The collection consists of 6 chic and elegant wintery colours. Even though it is summer here in Oz, the colours are so gorgeous, I will definitely be wearing them!

Check out the pics after the jump!

NARS Mash

And the naughty blogger award goes to......... ME!

This time thankfully I haven't been away from my blogging duties due to bad stuff! I was actually devoting all my time to wedding dress shopping! And I found one! Yay! I purchased my dress on Sunday and I am over the moon. I wish I could put a photo up to show you all but my fiancee checks out my blog sometimes (not that he would admit it!) so I don't want to risk him seeing it!

Since Christmas is almost upon us, I decided to rock a green nail polish the other day to get into the spirit of the season. For this I went with NARS Mash.

Mash is a mossy green with a gold shimmer. This polish is a gorgeous colour but it is also a total PITA to apply. Despite my best efforts I got nasty brush strokes! With that said it wore really well and after about 4 days I only had minimal tip wear. 

As you can see, I only have one photo. My camera is on its last legs! But hopefully Santa is of the opinion that I have been a good girl this year and a pretty Canon DSLR will be waiting under the tree for me on Christmas morning (hint hint Micheal or Mum and Dad! :P). Fingers crossed! 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!

MAC - Venomous Villains

Today I have swatches of the three nail polishes from MAC's Venomous Villains collection. 

Bad Fairy - MAC describes this as a red with multi-changing red pearl, however there are definitely flashes of gold and pink. It has a distinct foil like finish on the nails as well. This was the only unique colour out of the three. As you are probably all aware, the other two are dupes for two of Orly's Cosmic FX colours.

Check out Formidable! and Mean & Green after the jump!

Rescue Beauty Lounge - Scrangie

Hi all! I am finally feeling a bit better tonight. A big thank you to those who sent me well wishes! :D

Today I am wearing Rescue Beauty Lounge's Scrangie. 

Scrangie herself describes this polish as "a medium blue-based purple with green iridescence and green microshimmer". Personally, I feel that the shimmer is more teal than green, but hey, who am I to argue with the blogger that created it :P

I found it a little hard to apply but that might be because I put a base coat of nail strengthener on because my nails are suffering from all the meds I have been taking (and my cuticles, as you can see). It was still patchy after a second coat, but I was worried if I put a third it would never dry! I think this is a polish I'm going to have to swatch again, because I haven't done this stunner any justice with these photos :P

Don't forget there are only 2 more days to enter my BYS Wonderland Giveaway!

Milani - Dress Maker

So my Models Own order didn't show up.... *stomps around like a 5 year old*  Hopefully it shows up soon! I'm starting to get worried it will never arrive :( Its ok though, because I have been meaning to try Milani Dress Maker which I got over a month ago now. 

Check out the swatches after the jump!

Chanel Les Khakis de Chanel Nail Collection

I finally got around to doing some swatches today. Sadly yesterday I was told by my vet that my dog is not going to get better so we have to put him to sleep on Monday morning. I am devastated to say the least. Anyway enough of my sadsack stories...!

The much anticipated Les Khakis de Chanel collection was released on the 10th September for Fashion's Night Out and I went and snapped up one of each of the colours straight away! I couldn't believe it, but Khaki Vert sold out while I was at the counter! A woman came in and bought 5 of each colour! I'm glad I didn't wait to buy these babies.

With that said, as I anticipated, I'm not sure these colours actually suit my skin tone. However, they are some of the best quality Chanel polishes I have ever used. The colour is extremely opaque for all three and they could all easily be 1 coaters, but I did 2 just in case. I will advise as to dry time and wear once I've had them on for a few days...

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! 

Essie Fall 2010

 Today I have swatches of three of the colours from Essie's Fall 2010 collection, which is officially being released tomorrow.

I have to say from the outset, all three colours applied so well! The formula is fantastic! I love all of them, but I especially adore Velvet Voyeur and Sew Psyched!