New Years Eve Mani: A-England Holy Grail (revamped), and Ozotic Scatter 912

A-England would have to be one of the few polish creators out there who make nail enamels that I want every single one of. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.

I actually can’t look at swatches of them too often, because I start to dribble, and that’s embarrassing. I don’t even play basketball. There’s no excuse. This is Holy Grail, the revamped version. I loved the original, but something about this one grabbed me around the throat and said YOU WILL BUY ME. So I did. My accent nail is black here, with Kleancolor Black, for the layering of the Ozotic.

But look at Holy Grail. Such a stunningly pretty blackened old gold shade, full of shimmer and richness. This is two coats, it’s almost a one coater. If you want to see more swatches, check out Ommorphia Polish Bar (link) – she is just amazing at conveying all the gorgeous of these polishes. Be warned, though, wear a scarf. Protect your throat. 😉

Then on my accent nail I added one thin coat of Ozotic Scatter 912 – I chose this one because as well as the purple and holographic, it has a lovely gold colour change in there too, which works with Holy Grail.

This is another stunner. I’m running out of superlatives here. Besides you can go see it here 😀

And then, NEW YEARS EVE! Party! I added a thin coat of my blingy franken – gold and silver and holographic polishes all mixed together – over Holy Grail, and to the tips of my accent nails.

And then I took a million photos of it, because I loved it so much.

The blackened gold of Holy Grail kept the yellower gold glitters in line, and the silver and holographic glitters set everything off into party mode.

I topped this off with Misa BREAKneck (I need more of this, its blimmin awesome) and it was all nice and smooth.

This candle was handmade by my mother, and given to me (along with a blue dragon candle) for Christmas. Am I spoilt or what? 😀 She’s so clever. I love her candles so much that I never, ever, burn them!

HAPPY NEW YEAR, everybody – may 2013 be filled with moments of blissful contentment, fun, joy and enough work and learning opportunities to make us all appreciate the former, and still grow as people.

Nail Mail and Birthday Hauls!

Some exciting new goodies for me to play with, some of which I already have been playing with and will be blogging about shortly.

Birthday Goodies! My birthday is on Christmas Day, which is fun. And this year my family happened to notice that I have a bit of a thing for nail polish. Possibly because I yak on about it a lot, or because I have half of them addicted to it, and am working on that other half (how about it, Sister C, Cousin F? It’s a lot of fun on the colourful side!)

Sister C bought me THESE amazing things: Nail Art Pens! But not just any nail art pens, these are super duper three-in-one beasts, two in each set (black and gold, silver/blue and pink)

They have matching rhinestone bling.

They have a thin nozzle

AND they have a brush.

So far I’ve used nozzle and blingies, and they work AWESOMELY.

AND she got me these three cuties: from left to right: Boe Beauty Champagne, Face of Australia Mystic Iris (yay, Iris!, plus, Face of Australia  don’t test on animals! Whoop!) and Boe Beauty Purple Knights. Not shown is the Face of Australia lipgloss and WAH book of nail art she also got me, they are amazing 🙂

Sister V bought me these three stunners: Left to Right: Lush Lacquer Crusin 4 a Bruisin, Seas the Moment and Starry Nights. WHOA.

Simply gorgeous.

Then, nail mail! My order from Evil Shades finally turned up (I say finally because I ordered this on the 27th September, turned up just after Christmas). I have read that she has been very sick, and I hope she gets better soon. I thought these were lost, so am just happy I have them.

Little sample of Orbs sparkle stuff, cute little lolly things, nail polishes in Pumpkin Queen (orange) and Out of the Corner of my Eye. They both look complex and interesting.

And lipstick in Jenaveve! Funny little tube, intensely pigmented lipstick.

And because I find close up photos of my lips freaky, here are some lips on my hand! hehehehe

Jenaveve with flash… the Orbs sparkles are there above it, but washed out by the light.

and more.. you can see the sparkles ( Orbs) just up the top there. Very cute.

And… my 365 Days of Color Mystery Christmas Bag! Wheeee!

LOOK at all the goodies! This was a serious bargain, $15 US for all this.

One of the main reasons I wanted to buy this was for the cuticle oil. I received Headless Horseman cuticle oil in the Halloween mystery bag, and loved it so much I wanted a back up, even though I’ve barely made a dent in it yet. And she sent Reindeer Poop, which is a very interesting scent indeed! Love the name 😀 AND two cuticle balms – Peppermint Bark: which smell divine. I love them all, and they all work incredibly well.

The two polishes: I Stole Christmas (apparantly I’ve been bad this year, heheheh, which is GOOD because this is the one I preferred!) and Chemical Romance. Pretty, and both full sized! And an assortment of other totally cute Xmas things. Thanks so much, Sunny! I’m so coming back for more mystery bags if you do anymore.

And finally, Ninja Polish recently released a bunch of discontinued Ozotics, and I KNEW my Sister V was craving some of them, big time. So I got her some as an early birthday present, and threw a couple of extras in for me (of course!)

I got her these gorgeous ones…

see? Unfortunately I waffled a bit deciding on mine, and one of her wants got cart jacked. But I got her another one instead! 😀 (whoops, sorry V!)

Ozotics: 505, 515, 526 and 532

And for me, I bought Jessica Cinnamon Kiss, and A-England Holy Grail (the new revamped version). WHOA. So pretty

Look at the lush glowing colours!

I feel so lucky! And on that note I shall go and look at my pretties some more 😀

Have a great day

Ami

Day 13: Animal Print

Aarrgh. Just quietly, arrgh. I am not a fan of animal print. It doesn’t make me want to gouge my eyes out per se… but I just don’t like it. I remember it in the 90’s; I’m scared now. So, this was a tricky challenge for me. But then I thought.. what about animal PRINTS? I don’t mind them in the slightest. So, ta DA!

This is two coats of Color Club Love ‘Em Leave ‘Em, with paw prints from a sticker stencil in A-England Dragon. Finished with a top coat of Orly In A Snap. Looovveee

You know, something I ADORE seeing in real life is those flash, new, sparkly cars with cat prints all over the bonnet. Nothing looks cuter. I’m not as much of a fan of the mud prints my cat and dog bring inside, or the chicken mudprints, but still, cute. Just a little-known-fact-about-Ami.

I left one nail bare of prints for effect – hehehe yeah right. I left it bare of prints because I munched the polish up a bit while it was wet and it needed another coat, so there’s three coats of Love ‘Em Leave ‘Em on my index nail. On my thumb, which I will show you despite it being as short as a nail can be.. it’s more a thumbtack than a nail, truly … I dotted a line of prints with my dotting tool, still using Dragon.

Whole hand photo in the meagre sunlight…

Have a great evening! 🙂

Ami

Darling Diva Polish BzzBzz: skittles

One of the things I like to do when choosing a top coat glitter polish is to sit and think about what that particular top coat would look good OVER. This is quite important to me, not only does it make choosing more fun, but it also means I get a lot more wear out of the polishes I buy. And with 4 people, 1 cat, 1 dog, and 37 chickens on 1.3 incomes, I can’t afford to  buy everything I want, so I do put a lot of thought into my purchases. Mostly hehe.

See? Lots of colours work with this top coat!

BzzBzz by Darling Diva Polish hit a lot of my ‘buy now!” triggers – the base was clear, the colours were yellow gold and black, so theorectically I could wear it over a lot of colours. Yes! It’s true! I could! Here is my skittle mani, 10 colours I thought should go well with BzzBzz:

Left hand polishes (left to right)

• China Glaze Let’s Groove – 2 coats
• China Glaze Harvest Moon – 2 coats
• Color Club Pardon My French – 3 coats
• China Glaze Drive in – 2 coats
• Misa Grey Matters – 2 coats (on thumb)

Right hand polishes – left to right

• OPI The One That Got Away – 2 coats (on thumb)
• Kleancolor Metallic Aqua – 2 coats
• Depend No 210 – 3 coats
• Orly Nite Owl – 2 coats
• China Glaze Re-Fresh Mint – 2 coats

BzzBzz was 2 dotted/placed coats, and it was finished off with a coat of Orly Sec ‘n’ Dry

I wish I could have got a flower on all of the nails, it sort of seems unfair that I couldn’t. Also, sorry about the blurry photos and raggedy cuticles on my thumb and right hand, I guess I don’t take as much care of that hand as it’s not photographed very often at all! I loved the yellow flower and gold hex’s over the deep purple (smooookee on the waaaatterr… ahem) – China Glaze Let’s Groove, little finger left hand. Shame I lost the black…

I also wore a mani of A-England Dragon, and I just can’t take that polish off the next day. It’s a stunner. However, I put on last Wednesday (the first school visit for my eldest son) and I chipped one nail pretty quickly in my nervous neurosis, so thought it would be a nice idea to layer another polish over it – yes, BzzBzz!

A-England Dragon with DDP BzzBzz on accent nail

I loved this, remind me of flowers on the grass. The holographicness of Dragon peeped through and the gold and the flowers were stunning against it.

Which of these would be your favourites?

Rivka Vanessa with A-England Dragon

As I’m sure I mentioned in my earlier post here, Rivka Vanessa is a gorgeous gold holographic nail polish with a strong green tinge. Something about the shade reminded me strongly of A-England Dragon (also swatched previously, here and here) – another sigh worthy green holographic, but a much darker colour green. As I had some tipwear on Vanessa (that sentence cracks me up. My family will get why), I decided to play around by adding stripes and spots of Dragon to my ring finger and thumb.

Fingers – please excuse the tipwear and mess, I was in a hurry to get these photos before heading off to market day for to sell our wares. (True story hehehe)

Rivka Vanessa and A-England Dragon

Whole hand.  These two photos were taken in the kitchen lighting before sunrise, so they show that shade change which both polishes get in the darker settings.

Whole lot together – taken in even dimmer conditions, hence the red toned fingers (I promise they weren’t like that in real life!) but also showing the gorgeous gold toned holographic rainbows that both Vanessa and Dragon have. These two were perfect together. They had the same density holographic shimmer, and the tones matched so well. I used striping tape with Dragon over it (then removed the striping tape) for my ring finger, and a dotting tool for my (really short, sorry) thumbnail. No top coat, and just one coat or dot blob of Dragon.

Slightly blurred to show that rainbow

And another photo…you can also see that I bumped the wet paint while cleaning up the Dragon. Oops. I also did a quick touch up of the Rivka Vanessa, to hide the tipwear. 🙂

And lastly, a whole hand shot out in the early morning non-direct sunlight. This is pretty colour accurate – although you can’t see the holographicness without the direct light – it’s a nice colour anyway. Then the holo explodes in the right light… aahhhh.

Have a great day, everyone 🙂

 

 

A-England Dragon – full hand swatches

I just had the nicest compliment paid by Morganvsmorgan on the Dragon photos. And it made me think that I’m doing these swatches a bit wrong. Well, not wrong, but not completely right and fairly, either.

I have often had the experience of falling for a polish because of a swatch, tracking down numerous other swatches and reviews, and then buying it, only to be a leeeetle bit disapointed. These close up photos do show the polish in all it’s amazingness, usually, but.. they are also so big, and often you cannot see that detail at arms length (which, after all, is where our hands normally are, right?!). So I thought I should add some arms length photos, just to show how it might look at a distance. Not so pretty, or arty, but – I think – fair.

Now lighting will be different for everyone, as will your skin tone, which is where the close up photos come into their own. And with a polish this beautiful, it’s quite likely you will have your nails up in front of your eyes a lot, or is that just me? 😀

So this is inside, overcast day, dim lighting.

And this one is in the kitchen, incandescent overhead light, moderately dim. This is pretty colour accurate to what I see during most of the day. Theres the dusty mid green I mentioned, and the gold oversheen. Although no holographic sparkle is visible at this distance, it’s still very flattering on because it’s not so stark.

bit out of focus, sorry!

So, any feedback on this idea? I thought I might try it with every polish for a while, see what it looks like. It does mean you have to see my whole hands, knotty knuckles and long fingers and all; is it worth the trade off?

I’ve finally got an A-England!! This is Dragon… Swatches and Drool.

I bought two polishes from Ninja Polish (website here), and this is one. I was so excited, and it didn’t let me down. This is Dragon from A-England, and it’s gorgeous.Bottle shot…

 

And bottle shot showing this dusty gold film this polish has. Totally shows up on the nail as a gold sheen at the right angle overlaying the center.

 

In the shade this is a gorgeous, faded green – sitting somewhere between forest and camo to my eye. It looks really true forest green in these photos, because of the extreme close up. But there is a dustiness to this which is so appealing and wearable, even when the holographicity (is SO a word. See? It’s written right there!) isn’t showing up.

Please excuse my ragged cuticles, I’m embarking on a massive moisturising bender, its needed!

 

These photos are all two coats over a base coat,  with top coat as well. It was wearable and pretty at one coat, but two just deepened the green that little bit more. Dragon is 13ml, so full sized (though slightly smaller than the average OPI etc which are 15ml), so no panic over running out like there is with the Glitter Gal’s and other mini bottles out there.

in the sunshine…

Dry time was great, wear has been excellent. I put it on this morning, but I’ve said it before and will no doubt say it again, I’m HARD on my hands. I have some tip wear, but nothing too bad, and no chips at all. Thats good going for me!

I took a heap of photos from different angles, trying to get all the shades and sparkles to come out and play.

Ahhhhhh

And another for luck!

Feeling lucky, yet? I am! 😀

 

Ninja Polish was good to deal with, they bubble wrapped the polishes well, and postage was great, arrived in a week. Dragon I love… I had to get it because of the name, as well – but I am so pleased I chose this one. Great formula, perfect colour, awesome-ness all the way around. I want them all, now. I knew I would! Sometimes I hate it when I’m right…

I have been leaving these photos bigger, do you prefer them this size, or smaller?