Face of Australia 'Champagne Kiss' Review & Swatch

Face of Australia's 'Champagne Kiss' is a pale, baby pink that reminds me of candy floss. With a creamy formula, a lovely shine and requiring only two coats this is perfect when you want an under-stated but girly polish to adorn your nails.

Autumn Dotticure

I've been thinking about it and I have decided autumn is my favourite season. Admittedly, this autumn has been amazing with days hovering around 25 degrees still as well as the chillier weather that I don't mind in moderation.

I used 'Plums The Word' by Sally Hansen which is a lovely colour for autumn/winter and then I did some dots using 'Toffee' by Maybelline. I picked these colours randomly but now looking at it on my nails it looks very autumn-y and I absolutely love the combo <3

In some lights this nail-art isn't very noticeable but then sometimes you go WOAH look at that beauty :) This next photo I took quickly with my mobile when I was out and about because the lighting was really good. Yep, I'm a crazy nail blogger...

Thanks for reading :)

CoverGirl nail polishes have landed in Australia!!!

Hi Guys!!! Happy Easter, I  hope you are all enjoying the Easter break whatever you are doing. I quickly popped out to my local shops today to get some Easter eggs for my family today but couldn't go into Target without checking out the make-up department. I wasn't expecting / wanting to buy anything.....but I came out with two polishes. CoverGirl have released their nail polishes here in Australia so I decided to grab some and give you a review of my first impressions.

So before you rush off to Target here are some things you need to know:

CoverGirl in the U.S have a total of 45 shades of polish however I don't think we have them all here in Australia. Also, these were not on the CoverGirl stand with the rest of their products, there was a large cardboard bin with an assortment of different polishes and on the counter there was a smaller cardboard kind of display unit thing with, again, a random assortment of colours.

The colours I saw (and can remember) include: a metallic bronze-y colour, a lilac creme, an orange creme, a vampy red/plum, a black creme, a red creme, a blue/green glitter mix (called Midnight Magic)......this isn't a complete list of the shades but the just the ones I can remember.

I think the range of colours in the range is quite good, not unique by any means however there were a couple of polishes that grabbed my eye. Example, as soon as I saw "Midnight Magic" I had to have it even though it's a glitter and I'm not a glitter-lover!

Packaging is quite nice, especially for the price, as the glass bottle is a cute square bottle with a black lid. The brush, although not one of those "wide" ones was easy to use and a good size. The packaging of these polishes are really nice and feel like good quality which is definitely a great thing to see from Covergirl and for the price. I think their retail price is around $6.95 but they are on sale at the moment for $5.21 which is pretty good I think!!!!! :)

I grabbed two polishes from this range, "Midnight Magic" which caught my eye immediately and a bold orange creme called "Go-Go Mango".

I am currently wearing go-go mango on my nails. Application was brilliant, brush was easy to use and the finish was fantastic - very creamy, smooth and shiny! It was near a one-coater however I did two. Not sure if my coats were too thick but I found drying time to be pretty average on these. I smudged two nails and had to each for my quick drying topcoat which was disappointing because this polish is promoted as having a built-in top coat.....Hopefully next time I wear this polish drying time is better, maybe I'll do thinner coats or something? Because apart from the drying time issue (which hopefully I can sort out) these polishes are pretty much perfect. 

Thanks for reading and take care :)

Sinful Colors Nirvana (matte)

Hi guys! Hope today is treating you well :) Today I have completely fallen in love with a beautiful polish ,so without further ado, I present to you 'Sinful Colors Nirvana (matte). First up I should point out this polish is not  matte. I have no clear why the label says 'matte' but whatever. I'm actually glad it isn't matte because I literally just saw this on the shelf and fell in love with it thinking it would be a shiny creme. Didn't bother reading the label!

Nirvana is a gorgeous, stunning, amazing..... medium brown shade that has a shiny creme finish and applies like a dream. It felt like I was applying melted milk chocolate onto my nails - the formula was great and easy to apply. It looks incredibly smooth and it makes me want to munch on a chocolate bar - yummy! It was leaning towards the thin end of the continuum however didn't run everywhere. I used two coats but it was nearly  a one-coater.

I see myself wearing this a lot this coming autumn and winter! I love nude nails and brown nails. They're simple but elegant and always look great. Can you tell I am totally in love with this polish???

Also, I know this is super annoying, but if you have bloglovin' and like my blog I would really appreciate it if you followed me on bloglovin'. Thank you, thank you thank you. Also, are there any other sites you think I should sign up for since google friend connect and google reader is being retired?

Thanks for reading :)

Essence Limited Trend Edition: Circus Circus My Sparkling Acrobat Review

Essence's Circus Circus trend edition got released this week here in Australia and is exclusive to Priceline. I immediately knew that I wanted  needed the 'My Sparking Acrobat' polish in my life! A duo consisting of a lovely shiny black creme and a mix of golden glitter particles interspersed with larger square glitter pieces, My Sparkling Acrobat is absolutely stunning and pretty unique. Personally I think the entire 'Circus Circus' trend edition is pretty exciting and the release of more of these double-ended polishes is awesome. I have my eye on the eau de toilette from this range too!

Originally released in December 2011 for other countries this has just landed here in Australia and it looks like a great collection so run (don't walk) to your closest Priceline!

So I began with one coat of the black creme and can I just say WOW!!!!! This is seriously one amazing polish - super shiny, with a perfect creme finish and it applies like a dream. Oh and it's a one coater too! Love, love, love it!

Here is a picture of the black polish on it's own.

Then I did one coat of the gold glitter. This is also, super impressive, as it is a very dense glitter and you don't  need to arrange the glitter at all. It too applies wonderfully. Here is a picture with one coat of glitter! How impressive is that? seriously....a one-coater dense glitter top coat!!! :)

I then added another layer of the glitter but this was totally unnecessary and I think I prefer it with only one coat of the glitter. Oh well, I know for next time! I then used essence's 'gel look XXL Shine' top coat. This glitter does need a topcoat to feel smooth.

Overall this is definitely a polish to get excited about.

Thanks for reading and enjoy your weekend :)

Sinful Colors - Be Happy!

The Sinful Colors nail polish stand only landed in my Target a few days before Christmas and I have already fallen in love with their polishes Their range is fantastic, their price is amazing and they are 3-free which is something very important to me. As an additional plus they have also been 25% off so I am one happy nail-obsessed blogger! (I have also seen them at Priceline. Run don't walk!) Anyway, I picked up 'Be Happy' yesterday and have a swatch to show you.

When I sat down to write this post I would describe this polish as a minty (kinda pastel-y) green polish with a lovely creme finish however looking at it in different lights and after looking at some swatches of it online I have decided that either a) I'm going colour blind, or b) it's one of 'those' polishes with an identity crisis that can't decide if it is blue or green. Know what I'm talking about? Also in the photos it looks more blue than green.....

***in the shade

Anyway, the colour is super fun. The formula was a little tricky. First coat applied streaky, second coat was a little better but I had difficulty with one of my nails so had to do three coats on one nail because the streaky-ness wouldn't go away. After drying it didn't look super shiny and was a tiny little bit streaky so I think it would benefit from a top coat...Drying time was great. Photo's show two (+ 3 coats on one nail) with no top coat. I've go no idea what colour it's going to look like on your computer because when I logged onto my blog from another computer I found that MaxFactor's 'purple haze' which is a bright purple looked totally blue......silly silly silly computers :p 

Cheers :)

Do you have this polish / do you want this polish?
	Yes, I have this polish and love it!
	Yes, I have this polish but it's only okay...
	Yes, I have this polish but I'm not very fond of it.
	No, I don't have this colour but wouldn't mind it.
	No, I don't have this colour but desperately want it.
	No, I don't have this colour and boy am I happy I don't!!!
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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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Essence Snow White Collection - Doc

The Essence Snow White Trend Edition collection was released this week (yay!!!) so I got myself to the shops last night and was pretty devastated to find the stand already trashed and only a few polishes were left. I was lucky enough to get Happy, Doc and Sleepy.

I haven’t been able to swatch and review them all yet….but don’t fret, they’re coming.

Doc is a stunning orange creme, Happy is a lovely yellow crème and Sleepy is a pale blue. I’m yet to swatch Sleepy but in the bottle there is a very subtle colour-shift so we’ll have to see how that goes.

The first polish I swatched was ‘Doc’ which is a really stunning orange with a shiny creme finish. The formula was thicker than other essence trend edition polishes (which I think is a good thing) such as the season of extremes polishes. The formula was pretty good, drying time was good and I loved the brush. Sometimes with small brushes they are impossible to manoeuvre but this brush was great to work with. I even managed some free hand nail art with it! I was palnning to do some nail art over this colour so I only used one coat but I am undecided if this is a one-coater or two-coater. Next time I will probably do two coats so it is perfect but if you are careful you could get away with only one coat, for sure!

Sorry I haven't been posting much, my internet keeps disconnecting :( Hopefully I can get back on schedule soon!!!!

Dupe post - So Much Fawn and English Rose

Sally Hansen So Much Fawn (left) English Rose Essence (right)

My first dupe post! And it's between Sally Hansen's 'So Much Fawn' and Essence's 'English Rose'.  I brought both polishes for completely different reasons. 'So Much Fawn' because I wanted a coral creme and 'English Rose' because I wanted a dusty/murky rosy pink polish. But after wearing 'English Rose' last week bells started ringing in my brain and I begun to think that it was a possible dupe for 'So Much Fawn'. As Sally Hansen polishes can be over 6 times more expensive than Essence polishes I decided to compare the two. The sun is shinning today and it is a lovely warm day. Perfect for some swatching. Ok anyway I should stop babbling and tell you what's what.

I would describe 'So Much Fawn' as murky pink toned coral. It is a lovely shiny polish, requires only one coat and dries quickly and is non-streaky. On the other hand 'English Rose' is a tad murkier and more 'burnt' (?) and instead of being coral it is a dusty rosy pink. Ok well I am totally hopeless at describing polish colours and I'm not feeling very confident in my descriptions!!!!

Left: So Much fawn
Right: English Rose

English Rose

 Obviously 'So Much Fawn' is less pink (and more orange-y) than 'English Rose' and 'English Rose' is less crisp and a little darker than 'So Much Fawn' however they are extremely similar. I'm not super-fussy and would say these are dupes (and feel a little ashamed to have both) but if you are really into your oranges and pinks, there is a difference however slight it is. Would I own both of these polishes? If they were both expensive polishes I would say no but because the essence polish only costed $2.75 I'm not feeling too guilty.....well a little bit.....

I hope you enjoyed this post, please feel free to comment below and let me know what your thoughts are. Are these two polishes dupe or not?

Max Factor - Purple Haze

A few months ago Max Factor's 'Fantasy Fire' and a lot of us bloggers scrambled to get our hands on it. Yeah it was sheer but it c'mon it was love in shimmer!!! Because it was so sheer I brought ‘Purple Haze’ also by Max Factor which I have swatches for you today.

‘Purple Haze’ is a lovely blue-based purple crème that is super shiny. It is a fun purple colour that, to me, is the stereotypical purple colour.

This polish comes in a mini bottle and thus it’s a mini brush.  I found it a little difficult to apply this polish initially but after trial-and-error I found the best way to manage the small brush and slightly-uncooperative formula was to apply it quite thickly. It required two coats but dried relatively quickly. I don’t like saying this because the colour of this polish is gorgeous but I found the formula a little difficult. It was tricky getting the right amount of polish on the brush and when I didn’t have enough polish on my brush for the first coat it ended up a little streaky. But luckily a thicker second coat helped hide imperfections.

Like a lot of purples, I am very sorry to say that my camera refuses to take a colour-accurate of this polish which is super annoying!!!!!! In the pictures this polish looks blue but it is PURPLE PURPLE PURPLE!!!!!!! Grrrr stupid camera.

This polish is a fantastic purple polish and the crème finish on this polish is spectacular. A brilliant polish for layering stuff over  (I’m thinking of fantasy fire) but can totally be worn on it’s own!

*Even though I really love this polish and recommend it if you don't already have a basic purple polish in your collection I personally wouldn't repurchase it. But not because it is a bad product. I really love how shiny and creamy this polish is!!!

Thanks for reading,

Cheers.

Three Nail Challenge - Favourite emotion

This post is for the three nail challenge and the theme of the day was your favourite emotion. I'm posting this a bit late though (sorry) because my internet was disconnected for a few days :(

Perhaps I'm a bit corny but my favourite emotion is LOVE. And what do I associated with love? RED! So today I am going to be showing you Butter London's 'Pillar Box Red'. This is my first 'Butter London' which I received as a freebie by buying the magazine 'Instyle'. So all you Aussie girls, rush down to your newsagency if you want to get a Butter London for $10 rather than the $22 that they are valued at!

The formula of this polish is fantastic, a dream to work with, and is opaque in one coat. However because my nails are in a horrible state I did 2-3 coats on some nails because I have heaps of dents in my nails :( It dried quickly and is a beautiful creme. I wore it for a few days and it lasted well. I would definitely buy more Butter London polishes. 

Another redeeming quality of this polish is that is is 3-free!!!! I love it when polishes actually advertise this on their bottles, so much easier than having to read the ingredients list. Though I do wish there more 4-free, 5-free and water-based polishes around. 

Hope you are having a lovely day :)

Cheers

Check out what the other girls who are participating in this challenge did:
Mateji ustvarjataPurple Glitters
Mimi's Vanity Box
Nailing Nail Art
All Stars Could Be Brighter
Moonchild
Taya (Starts later)
Beauty By Shortylegs
Deja (A bit differently)
Imagination In Colour
Krystalmer
Colourful Bottle
Nail Crazy
The Nail Buff
Beauty By Suzi
Gin Shivers
Ina - Hysteria of Decay
aydii* - Girl With Pink Lipstick*
Nails By Tinks
Natalsie - Cats-n-nails
citygirl907 Beautiful Living blog
Manicura de Fantasia

Product vs. Product - cheap nail polish

I'm back!!!! sorry I haven't posted all week, I  had 4 assignments and essays to write these past two weeks and have been swamped. But now all I have to do is study for exams, hahaha!

Ok so if you read my blog you will know that every week (usually every thursday) I put two products in battle against each other. This week it is ulta3 polish vs. essence polish. Both retail for between $2-$3 and are found at places like Target, Big W, Priceline....I have even seen ulta3 at Woolworths!

 To try and make sure it was a fair battle I have used two similar colours/finishes from each brand.

From Ulta3 we have:
Mermaid green - a creme
Orchid - a chromey purple

From Essence we have:
Meet Me Now! - a creme
Where Is The Party? - a duochrome

Please ignore the terrible photos. I know, I DID NOT clean-up but that was because I was taking photos after every coat of polish and was in a hurry.

After applying a first coat of each this is what I noticed:

Mermaid Green - did not apply opaque in first coat and was streaky but dried very quickly.
Meet Me Now - didn't apply opaque in the first coat (but was more opaque than Mermaid Green) and was not streaky. Dried quickly.
Orchid - applied opaque in first coat, easily and without any streaks.A dream to work with.
Where Is The Party? - was very sheer.

You can see that other one coat Mermaid green an d where is the party is are still sheer.

First coat of Meet Me Now!

Second coat notes:
Orchid - didn't apply a second coat and it was not needed.
Mermaid Green - second coat applied very easily with no streaks. Fully opaque. A dream to work with.
Meet Me Now - technically it was opaque but I went back for a third coat. Applied easily with no streaks.
Where Is The Party?- second coat still not opaque. Photographs fail to show this but you could still see my nail line.

Two coats

Two coats

Two coats - Where Is The Party? Is still sheer although it is hard to see in this photo!

After two coats it is kind of opaque. 

Third coat notes -
Mermaid green & Orchid - no third coat required.
Meet Me Now - third coat was the final coat applied.
Where Is The Party- polish now opaque - yay!

Yay it is opaque and beautiful with its duochrome.

Overall:
The results are not exactly clear cut here and I'm trying really hard not to be biased, so I am going to break it into categories.

Price:
Ulta3 - $2 for 13ml
Essence - $2.55 (not sure if this is correct) for 5ml
Winner in the price category: Ulta3

Application:
Ulta3- brushes are a good size and polish applies easily
Essence - brushes are fine and the polish applies easily
BUT the winner is Ulta3 in the application based on my experience only!

Product availability
Ulta3- polishes are sold in large bins and from what I have noted stock-turnover is low, but this is just my opinion and other shops that I don't go to might get more stock more frequently.
Essence - Target and just recently, Priceline, stock essence make-up and both have a reliable stock of the normal range however differ in their availability of the 'limited edition trends'. Some Targets put them out onto the shelf super quickly whereas at other Targets they still have not appeared. It would be awesome if we actually got the products a) when they were released in Europe b) we got all the ranges c)the individual Target and Priceline stores put them out onto the shelves ASAP.
The winner - essence  because they have a neatly organised shelf and easy to find price tags!

Range:
Ulta3- have a large range of different polishes however it's more pot luck in regards to what catches your eye in the bin display.
Essence - always so many pretty polishes on display from their "normal" range and the limited edition polishes are usually swoon worthy, although the application of the limited edition polishes are not as good as the non-limited-edition polishes.
The winner for this category: Essence

Overall I prefer essence polishes but there is no winner for this battle because essence polishes can be difficult to apply whereas my experience of applying ulta3 is that they have a great formula. Essence is a very fun brand to buy. Both brands are great quality and a great price!


Result of battle: No winner, both great polishes