Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Colour and top coat review - Dig Fig

Earlier this year Sally Hansen released their "gel nail polish that doesn't require a light" collection of polishes. A lot of different brands have jumped onto this bandwagon this year. However what attracted me to Sally Hansen is that they sell these sets that contain both a coloured polish and the special top coat. Normally each of these costs $16.95 but the set costs $19.95, which makes it a very good deal!  I chose the colour 'Dig Fig' which is a oxblood burgundy colour, perfect for the festive season! 

Before we get into the actual review lets quickly talk about what Sally Hansen claims about this nail polish.

The brush is the same brush from Sally Hansen's 'Salon Manicure' collection of polishes which is a good thing because it's a great brush. It is a wide, flat brush that is slightly tapered at the ends. I find it very easy to paint my nails with the brush without having excess polish ending up on my skin. 

The formula initially appears to be the same as usual. It applies easily (again, just like the 'Salon Manicure' collection) and is not streaky. With a thin coat it also seems to dry quickly BUT it isn't actually dry...after two coats that were relatively thick everything was quite wet and very easy to smudge. Luckily for me, if you smudge a nail you can paint over it with another coat and it seems to work out okay. 

Once you have your two coats of colour, step two is to grab the special, clear, top coat and apply that over the still kind of wet coloured polish. The top coat worked well and didn't streak. However the brush did get a bit stained from the red polish so I am not sure what is going to happen if I go out and buy some more colours? Whilst the top coat did provide some additional shine it isn't super duper shiny. 

Drying time was good, very comparable to normal nail polish. Durability also seems to be better than other polishes. My nails feel stronger than usual when wearing this polish. Now, what I'm sure you really want to know is how well it wears? They claim 14 days...on day 2 it was still perfect and the shiny top coat had not diminished. I didn't notice any tip wear or chips until the 4th day of wear and on that 4th day the tip wear was extremely minimal and you could only notice it if you held your nails up in front of your eyes and examined your nails closely. It was only on day 6-7 that the tip wear became more obvious. It still wasn't extreme though and there were no chips. I decided to take it off on day 7 because I wanted to change the colour.

To begin with I was skeptical but this nail polish definitely wears a lot longer than your typical nail polish. I usually have to change my nail polish after 2 or 3 days but I made a week with this easily. I am pretty rough on my hands so I suspect some people could get a couple of more days out of it... I'm not sure about the 14 days though? Overall I am super impressed by this miracle gel polish from Sally Hansen and will definitely be buying more polishes from the collection. Love it! 

Revlon Parfumerie 'Bordeaux' Nail Polish Review

Even if you ignore the delicious scents, reliable quality and gorgeous bottles the Revlon Parfumerie polishes come in, this polish is stunning for the colour alone.

'Bordeaux' is a burgundy polish with a jelly/cream (cruelly) finish. The formula is thin, non-streaky but not runny and drying time was super quick. Two thin coats were all I needed to use. 

This Parfumerie polish doesn't really have a scent that I could notice. This was surprising because all of the other polishes I have from this collection have quite strong scents. 

Overall, I really love this polish. It is a stunning burgundy polish with a perfect formula. In the photos you might notice a bit of tip wear. Annoyingly, the new top coat I am trying out isn't that good and shrinked the polish and caused some cracking! 

Thanks for reading, 

cheers :)

Covergirl - Wine to Five + FOA Platinum Matte Top Coat Review

'Wine to Five' from Covergirl is a gorgeous burgundy nail polish. In the polish it looks more like a raspberry shade but on the nails it definitely looks more burgundy. There is still that slight raspberry tinge to it though. 'Wine to Five' is opaque after two thin coats and dries to a shine. I don't love the formula of the Outlast Stay Brilliant nail polishes, they are very thin and I find that I apply too much which then means they take awhile to dry (even with a quick drying topcoat). But that's just because my preference is polishes with a thicker formula. In the photos the polish looks brighter and less burgundy than it does in real life.

Face of Australia currently has a limited edition range of nail polishes out at the moment called 'Screen Siren'. This range includes a matte top coat called 'Platinum'. I applied one coat of 'Platinum' over the top of 'Wine to Five'. It dries very quickly, wasn't streaky and had a good, easy to work with, formula. Unlike other matte top coats I have tried, this top coat kept my nails looking very matte for around two days before developing an extremely low shine. Nonetheless even after two days they were still noticeably matte.

I think this is the start of a matte nail obsession! 

Thanks for reading, 

cheers. 

Christmas dotticure

Hi guys. This time next week I will have devoured a roast pork, gnawed on crackling, eaten some plum pudding with lots of custard, given and received nearly all of my Christmas gifts and will probably be feeling sad that Christmas day only has a handful of hours left. Until then I am going to go OTT with Christmas nail art and enjoy the Christmas spirit. 

I used my all time favourite red polish, Pillar Box Red by Butter London and The Green & The Grunge by Essence. Both polishes are outstanding, one coaters and have gorgeous formulas. 

So here is the obligatory bottle shot Essie base coat and insta-dri by Sally Hansen are pretty much included in every manicure I do. 

I love how Christmassy this dotticure is and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. I was a bit impatient and I think one or two of the dots got smeared by the top coat but oh well. What can a impatient girl do?

Cheers :)

Red and White Dotticure

Hi guys, today I have a red and white dotticure to show you. The red polish is Pillar Box Red from Butter London and the white is Snow Me White from Sinful Colors.

Unfortunately I tried out a new topcoat after doing my dots and it smeared some of my dots slightly so that was a shame but I really like this colour combo and want to re-do it using a smaller dotting tool.

Thanks for reading,
cheers

Meet an old favourite - Brandy Wine by Ulta3

Hi guys,
hope you are all well and have enjoyed your weekend. I had a massive backlog of photographs to sort through for the blog so I did that this weekend and I went to the homemaker center and found myself a lovely lamp for a bedside table. I'm very happy because my old one constantly fell over which was infuriating.

Anyway today I decided to paint my nails red because I haven't worn red polish for awhile. My eyes leapt immediately to 'brandy wine' by Ulta3 which is an absolutely stunning red polish and definitely my favourite red polish.

'Brandy Wine' is an absolutely stunning red polish with a strong red shimmer effect that gives the polish a nearly  metallic and super shiny effect. Words can't describe how wonderful this polish is and apparently neither can photographs because my camera refused to show the shimmer :(

I only used one coat for these photographs and honestly didn't feel the need for a second coat (which I normally do with other polishes) and drying time is great. The formula is great and there is not really anything bad I can say about it! For $2 I highly recommend this polish and it is definitely a polish that is better than other, more expensive polishes.

So there you have it, a shimmery red polish that only requires one coat and dries quickly. What more could you want? Thanks for reading :) Cheers

Valentines Day Nails

Hi guys! Super quick post from me today because I am studying for exams and really shouldn't be painting my nails or reading blogs BUT I just can't help it! After seeing so many amazing valentines-day themes nails, I had to jump on the bandwagon.....

So I quickly did these after lunch and I am rather pleased with them. Last time I used the red glitter polish it had a pretty bad glitter-coverage ratio but it's gone all thick now and is a lot easier to use! You would think thick lumpy polish would be a nightmare but perhaps this is the exception to the rule?

So this is a couple of coats of Revlon's 'Mystical' which was part of their 'just tinted' range with ulta3's 'red glitter' layered on top. I might have done two or three coats of the glitter.....forgot to count!

Hope you enjoy your day and you'll be hearing from me again once my exams are over :)

31 day challenge day #17 - a new technique

Hi guys!!!! Hope all is well :) Today for the 31 day challenge the theme is "a technique new to you".

I love 'dotticures' but haven't got any dotting tools so I though this would be the perfect opportunity to kind-of 'make my own' dotting tools. I gathered a whole heap of pointy things from around the house and found that the two things that worked best were:

1. A wooden cuticle stick
2. A bobby pin

Well at least I think it is a wooden cuticle stick. Found it in the bathroom cabinet and goodness knows how long it has been in there - over a decade?

The bobby pin also worked but it was less reliable - the dots were not always perfect whereas with the wooden cuticle stick I found the dots to be perfect 100% of the time and it was super-easy to use!

I'm not saying this manicure is perfect or well-planned, it was just some experimentation on my behalf. And I must say I am inspired....expect to see a lot of dotticures in the future :)

I used Butter London's 'Pillar Box Red' which is a gorgeous red creme and ulta3's 'Black Satin'. I love how this turned out because at the beginning I wasn't even sure I had anything that would work as a dotting tool! My favourite finger would have to be the middle finger (done with the wooden cuticle stick) whereas the other two fingers were done with the bobby pin.

Thanks for reading :)

Brandy Wine + stamping

I wore this a few days before Christmas for a get together with my best friends but somehow never got around to posting it until now.

This is Ulta3's 'brandy wine' - a gorgeous red shimmer (maybe a metallic). A truly stunning red colour!!!! If you don't have this polish you seriously need it. The colour is amazing, it dries fast and only requires two coats.

The stamping was done with ulta3's 'black satin'. 'Black satin' isn't a polish designed specifically for stamping but works great.

Please feel free to leave a comment or vote in the below poll. Cheers.

What do you think of this manicure?
	Awesome
	Good
	Okay
	Bad
	Horrible
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Christmas Day Nails

I love the Christmas season.....and Boxing Day! Boxing Day is brilliant, I always spend it with my family and we usually spend a good proportion of the day watching the cricket! One of the only days of the year that we are all home and spending time with each other. Anyway this is just a quick post to show you the nails I wore for Christmas. Don't forget you can click on the photos to enlarge them :)

This is two coats of Essence's 'Gorgeous Bling Bling' and two coats of Essence's 'Gold Fever' and a coat (or two?) of Essence's 'gel-look XXL shine topcoat'.

I was super thrilled with how these nails looked. SUPER shiny and very festive with all of the glitter. However I am kicking myself because I didn't use essence's 'peel off'' base coat which means that this is going to be an absolute pain to remove. The thing we do for beauty......lol

I took these photo's this afternoon so there is a little tip-wear but no major chips, wish I had gotten photos yesterday but as usual Christmas day was chaotic!

I hope you had a great Christmas,
cheers.

Battle Nail Challenge - Geometric

Hi guys, hope everybody is well and enjoying the Christmas season! I haven't been posting much lately because I have been running around everywhere buying presents and organising things. Oh, and some silly person (err. me) decided to take some extra classes over the summer period! What was I thinking???? Instead of watching the cricket and painting my nails after and winding down after Christmas I will be pulling my hair out writing two assignments.

Anyway, I am finally in the spirit of the season and did this awesome manicure. Inspired by wrapping paper it is red, green and gold stripes done using sticky tape. Not very geometric I know but I really love this mani and wanted to share it :)

Polishes I used:

• Essence - A Piece of Forever
• Butter London - Pillar Box Red
• Revlon - Emerald

 Thanks for reading and please feel free to comment or vote in the poll below, cheers.

Do you like this manicure?
	Yes!!!!
	Kind of
	No!!!
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Christmas Mani - Getting into the spirit

Wow, I can't believe it's the 15th of December already!!! Well actually, I can't believe is it already DECEMBER!!! Can somebody please tell me where the year went? Since I'm still coming into terms with it being Christmas and all I have only just started trying to get into the 'spirit' of the season. Because we are currently renovating and our house is upside down we decided to skip getting a "real" tree which is a shame because I think having a tree is my favourite part of the season and we are making do with a small fake tree from IKEA. Pretty good for the price though..... It is smothered with tinsel and lights and navy blue and silver decorations. Since the tree went up yesterday I thought I would do a Christmas Mani. But I couldn't decide what nail polish to use, so I used them all :) Hahahaha that's evidence of my indecisiveness right there :)

So today I bring to you:

• Butter London's 'Pillar Box Red' 
• Revlon's 'Emerald'
• Essence's Breaking Dawn Part Two ' A Piece of Forever' 

All are very Christmas-y polishes and one-coaters too!!! Yay :)

Pillar Box Red and Emerald are glossy creams and A Piece of Forever is a metallic (non-streaky) however because of the overcast skies and rain the photos don't show how awesome these polishes are although they have both featured on my blog because....AND I ran out of nail polish remover before I finished my clean-up so please accept my apologies. Not a great start to the day (did these straight away this morning) and I planned to do heaps of swatching today but now I'm not so sure with the weather and all. 

While typing this post I decided that the photos didn't really show how funky this multi-coloured mani looks in real life. In particular, the colours are wayyyy more vivid. But anyway, holding the camera under my chin I attempted a 'both hands' mani. Ummm.... please feel free to laugh :) 

Thanks for reading, I would love to hear from you so feel free to comment or vote in the poll below. Cheers. 

What do you think of this manicure?
	Awesome
	Pretty Good
	Good
	Okay
	Poor
	Pretty horrible
	Absolutely horrible
	Okay but your photo's make me want to cry they're so bad!
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Aussie Christmas Nail Challenge:Elf

Today as part of the Aussie Christmas Nail Challenge I have an elf inspired manicure to show you.

I googled "elf" for inspiration but didn't really get any amazing inspiration. Wasn't sure how to translate green leggings into a manicure, hahaha, so since they all seem to wear Christmas hats I decided to nail-art a santa hat onto my middle finger. I decided for an accent nail rather than 10 santa hats across all of my fingers because I don't think it would look that great. Less is more, what do you think?

I used Essence's walk on the wild side and Revlon's All Fired Up for this manicure as well as a white nail art pen. You can't really see it in these photos but I think 'walk on the wild side' is an awesome green Christmas polish, shimmer shimmer shimmer!

 Thanks for reading and please feel free to leave a comment, or vote in the poll below :)

Please feel free to let me know what you think and vote or comment below. Cheers!
	This is awesome.
	This is pretty good.
	This is okay.
	This is pretty boring.
	Yuck!
	You need more santa hats!
	I like the accent nail.
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Fishnet tights manicure

I have nicknamed this manicure the 'fishnet tights' manicure. It is the first time ever I have done a stamping manicure using my Konad polish and plates that I got in a set from the carnival. I had my fingers crossed that the Konad polishes would actually make a difference because my previous stamping attempts haven't been too successful. I was pleasantly surprised, the polishes so far seem to work well with stamping and I love the designs on the stamping plates. Stay tuned, I have lots of ideas floating around my mind. 

I used my Butter London pillar box red polish as the base-coat and then using the black konad polish I stamped the lattice pattern onto my nails. I was pretty impressed with how it looked but then decided to add black tips. Probably shouldn't have done this, I always seem to go too far with my ideas and they end up looking like a dogs breakfast! All photos have a top-coat.

This manicure is a bit gothic and vampy and was pretty easy to create :) I have already received compliments. Even from my skeptical mum who thinks my obsession with polish and doing my nails is crazy! Well, she is probably right!!!!

Would you wear this manicure? With or without the black tips?

Product vs Product - BYS Mega Shine Lip Gloss / Rimmel London Royal Gloss

Another week has gone by - wow!!!! Time is really flying at the moment.
I decided to do a lipgloss battle this week for my product vs. product post. Lipgloss is always floating around, on my desk, by my bed and I usually have 3 or 4 in my handbag......I don't wear them all but they just accumulate!

The two lipglosses I will be reviewing are:

• BYS Mega Shine LipGloss in Strawberry 
• Rimmel London Royal Gloss in 701 Cookie

The BYS gloss retails for $4.95 and I think the Royal Gloss was recently discontinued :( as I saw it in a sale bin for around $4 but originally it was probably around $10. If I knew that it had been discontinued I obviously would not have included it in this review but oh well. 

Both glosses come in a tube and are marketed with a scent, are quite sheer and basic glosses useful for layering over lipstick if you like doing that. 

The BYS gloss is quite thick and a little sticky but not unbearable, the stickiness becomes more apparent after wearing it for awhile. It lasts for around an hour (no drinking or eating) and gives your lips a very sheer, shiny appearance. The scent is of strawberries and is quite strong, even after applying it onto your lips however after around 20 mins I found that the scent faded away. As I said, it is a little sticky but I wouldn't say it is too sticky. 

 Overall score: 6/10 because it is an okay product and does what it's suppose to do but nothing more.

The Rimmel gloss has a lovely scent of cookies and smells delicious. It is a subtle scent that is not as strong as the BYS gloss and does not last very long once applied. The gloss applies very smoothly and as advertised, this gloss is definitely not sticky! It lasts for a little over a hour and gives your lips a subtle glossy/shimmery look. I love this gloss and often wear it on it's own but I'm guessing you could whack it over some lipstick too.

Overall score: 9/10 because it smells great, moisturises your lips and is a great formula.

The winner of this battle is the Rimmel Gloss however it should be noted that the BYS gloss is a great, cheaper alternative. Perhaps useful for a kris kringle gift (Mum told me this week that it is 3 months until Christmas-yikes!!!!) or a birthday gift for a teenage lip gloss junkie :)