OPI: Goldeneye – Swatches and Layering

One of the polishes I bought with my birthday voucher from Candy Girl, this is OPI Goldeneye – from, obviously, the James Bond collection.

Pond. Fish Pond. *cough*

This is a very nice polish, photos show three coats (it’s sheerer than it looks but builds well), with Misa BREAKneck top coat.

Intensely shiny and sparkly, it’s a flakie not a glitter; applies pretty well and dries fast.

I love gold. This gold is much warmer than most, but I still loves it.

And then, because The Bling Was Not Enough (heh), I added more to the accent nail – namely a coat of Ninja Polish Shattered Star, then another coat of my gold and silver franken. And more top coat. Mmmmm bling.

This just added the right amount of sparkle to my day.

Have a lovely day

Ami 🙂

Color Club: Abyss, plus Ozotic 509 and Ninja Polish Alexandrite.

This is Color Club Abyss, from the Color Club Kaleidoscope collection, one of two they have recently released with nary a whisper.

Two coats here, no top coat – the formula was pretty good, there was the occasional blob but that was more about user error than the polish. And dry time was quick, too!

Nice and shiny without top coat, as well. I bought this one from Head2Toe beauty, online. It’s nice- a pretty mid green creme, almost emerald hued but with a lovely murky blue tone to it. Not teal, still green, but nodding in Teal’s direction. These photos show this polish as more blue than it is, but in the sunlight (as here), it really does throw a lot more blue.

Then I added one coat of Ozotic 509, a gorgeous silver super-holo which works as a top coat over almost everything as well as a gorgeous silver polish on it’s own.

So pretty!

Rainbows… mmmmm.

And then, one coat of Ninja Polish Alexandrite, topped with Misa BREAKneck top coat.

The shimmery glitters in Alexandrite were sheer enough that the holographic effect of the Ozotic polish was still clearly visible, as was the base colour of Abyss.

I counted this as a layering win, even though I couldn’t really capture the colour shift of Alexandrite (purple to green) as well as I would like, or the strength of the holographic effect of the Ozotic, we had NO sunshine when I was wearing this!

Ah well, shift happens regardless of photographic evidence 😉

Have a wonderful day

Ami 🙂

Ninja Polish Shattered Star and Revlon Royal. Oh Yes.

A quick post, my current mani! (although, by the time I actually hit ‘publish’, probably not!) This is Ninja Polish Shattered Star, aka All Kinds Of Awesome, layered over Revlon Royal.

I used two coats of Royal to get that lovely deep colour, and one coat of Shattered Star – although I did two coats on my accent nail (ring finger) too see what that looked like. Blingy, as it turns out. And sort of like I have a massive ridge down my nail, although I didn’t see that until editing the photos heh.

Blue and gold are my favourite colours, so I love this combo! I topped it off with one coat of China Glaze Fast Forward, and it’s nice and smooth to the touch.

A day later and I’ve noticed a tiny bit of chipping though, that’s not too unusual for my soft nails, and I’ve noticed Royal has a really short life expectancy, so I’m guessing Shattered Star actually extended that. Pretty, and practical!

Looking forward to trying Shattered Star over, well, all the polishes hehe. Love the gold and silver holographic bling. Yup.

Have a sparkly day!

Ami 🙂

piCture pOlish Splash – holographic update!

Just a few quick photos – an update on yesterdays post! The base was OPI Russian Navy, topped with Ninja Polish Alexandrite, and then piCture pOlish Splash – topped with Misa BREAKneck. But, me being me, I had to see what it looked like with holographic shimmer… in the bad early morning light, sorry for the poor quality photos!

So this is adding one coat of my Topper, a franken topcoat with spectraflair, holographic shimmer flakes and iridescent flakies too.

I really do like this, the wee peeps of rainbow through everything else.

Ok, I’ll stop mucking around with this mani now and post something else… and please, excuse the tip wear, I’ve had this on for a day and a half now. I KNOW :O

Pretty long lasting, these polishes!

Have a fun day

Ami 🙂

piCture pOlish Splash: review and many, many swatches and combinations :)

Jules and the gorgeous ladies at piCture pOlish asked if I would like to review a few more polishes of theirs, and you KNOW I’m not going to say no. Boy do I love their polishes. I have bought so many of them since I was lucky enough to get Orbit and Pshiiit to review for Blog Fest 2012… and now I’m addicted. 😀 And now that my nubs have grown out a little, here is the first!

This is Splash, a aqua blue glitter in a clear base – small hexes and teeny specks.

This photo is one thin layer of Splash over two coats of NYX Ink Heart – a pairing to me which seems a classic choice, blue on blue.

sunshine

AND these bottles all have a  QR code on the side, so people with fancy phones can scan in the code and get more information 🙂

sunshine

Then for a different look, I layered on thin coat of Splash over two coats of Nfu Oh 131 – this was nicely contrasting!

inside

And it had this amazing sparkle and shine…

sunshine

So amazing, in fact, that here is another photo of it. No top coat here, Splash sits very flush to the nail.

sunshine, happiness!

And because my goal here is to show off the versatility of this polish (something I really look for in a polish; how many ways it can be used!) I’ve layered it here over a classic pinkish/sheerish nude. In this case, three coats of Opoola 36 (a CR Cosmetics polish, from the $2 shop!). I used one thickish coat of Splash to get this effect.

inside, shade…

And in the sun…

And then with one more coat of Opoola, to sandwich the glitter.

shade…

This had a lovely soft watercolour effect, although I’d use a slightly thinner and quicker drying polish next time, the Opoola didn’t want to dry, and I dinged my nails. Ah well, the idea is there!

sunshine!

And for something even more toned down, this is two coats of OPI Steady as she Rose, with a glitter tip gradient of Splash.

a whale! yes! It, too, Splashes. Shade…

Mmm, probably a bit subtle for me, personally, and it could use a nice top coat to smooth out that gradient tip waterline there.

sunshine, whale!

And now, to go from subtle to UBER sparkly, this is one coat of Splash over two coats of piCture pOlish Orbit. With accent nail bling.

plus a lovely geode. Purdy

Why? Because I think mermaids wearing Splash would like water toned glitter. Thanks to Ariel The Little Mermaid (movie version) I now think they are all sort of magpies… 😀 I think this should have had top coat, but then my camera would have freaked out at the shine and glitter. I love how Splash adds that little extra pop of contrast and sparkle to Orbit!

sunshine, glittery rocks and polish

And here is one thick layer of Splash over two coats of Up Colours Azul Arco Iris.

I do love how the glitter shines inside, and still lets the subtle holo peep through in the sunlight 🙂

sunshine and rainbows!

And, finally, my favourite combination!

This is Splash over two coats of OPI Russian Navy, and one coat of Ninja Polish Alexandrite.

taking time to smell the roses? Yes, but mostly to admire the nail polish…

Those two polishes (Russian Navy and Alexandrite) look spectacular together, Alexandrite really pops over the blue and colour shifts blue/purple/green all over the place: but when you add Splash over the top…. WOW.

Gilding the beetle, I’d call that. Taking something beautiful, and making it MORE beautiful – it complements the blue base and shift, and contrasts with the other colour changes. This was one thick coat of Splash, topped off with Misa BREAKneck.

Important notes: the base texture of Splash is almost too good – its so smooth and flowing it’s almost slippery. It’s super easy to place the glitters, but they can tend to slip towards the tip of your fingernails if you over work the polish – sometimes I did wiggle the brush a bit to replace the glitters, but there was no real ‘dabbing’ or mucking around. Dry time was average, and the glitters lie very flat, no gritty glitter here!

bottle, posed on the BBQ. SUMMER! 😀

You can buy this polish from piCture pOlish’s website, or if you are based here in New Zealand, check out Gracie Lou: all sorts of goodies here, including piCture pOlish, Ozotic, and more. Amazingly fast and well packaged shipping from both of those shops, in my experience.

Thanks for reading, have a great day!

Ami 🙂

*Disclosure: the piCture pOlish shown here, Splash, was provided to me for review. All other polishes, bad cleanups, poor photography, overly wordy descriptions, opinions and random hand poses are entirely my own.*

Up Colors Azul Arco Iris & Ninja Polish Alexandrite.

I’ve taken my time posting this, for sentimental reasons. This was the mani I wore for our family get-together on the one year aniversary of my aunt’s death. For some reason, I associate her with the flower Iris, and bought this polish in her memory in the immediate grief-stricken ‘buy things to feel better’ phase just after her passing. This polish arrived broken. I’m sure you could guess how I would feel about that, in light of the reason for purchase. Ninja Polish though (who I purchased it through in the first place), belatedly found out about it and replaced it, plus extras, which made my day – especially as it arrived 3 days before the 1st year sadiversary. Funny thing, life.

Anyway! Here is it, on it’s own, Up Colors Iris.

Stunning polish, a bit lighter than the swatches I saw, but a lovely pale blue with diffuse but present linear holographic effect.

Dry time was fast, and application was very easy. This is three coats, two was enough but I really liked the depth of colour better at three.

Sun shine

Macro!

I loved the way this looked with the jeans I was wearing 😀

And then I layered one coat of Ninja Polish Alexandrite over my ring finger as an accent. Alexandrite is an amazing color shifting glitter in a clear base – the colours seem predominantly green – blue. I’ll do a full post on Alexandrite in the future. I wanted to wear this on that day because one thing Karla was great about, was changing her opinions and her mind. She never forgot the previous argument, but she was super open to changing things, sometimes just for giggles. And when she was in the mood, she’d argue white was black and black was white just to stir things up. 😀

Dim sunshine…

Macro… all those little colour changing glitters…

I miss my aunt!

Have a lovely day

Ami

Nail Mail WOW’s from Ninja Polish, plus other Nail Mail Stuff :)

I received an almost-unexpected surprise in my mail today, a parcel from Ninja Polish! I didn’t order it, there’s a back story. The first, not-so-good part can be found here, but it’s not big drama. Basically, almost a year ago, a polish I bought was broken in transit, and I emailed to tell them. Breakages happen, we all know this. It’s sad, but it’s life. A few weeks ago, after many attempts on my part to communicate, I heard from Rhonni, in a really sweet email. My emails were lost in transit, but now found – and she was wonderful to talk too. Great customer service. She mentioned a few days ago that she was sending a replacement polish to the broken one, which I really did NOT expect: all I wanted was to alert them to the issue. And today, in the mail, was this:

Up Colors Iris, Ninja Polish Eye Candy, Ninja Polish Alexandrite

OH WOW. Replacing Up Colors Azul Iris was over and above duty, as far as I was concerned. But there is Ninja Polish Eye Candy, and Alexandrite! Sqquuueeeeeeeeee!!

So, people – go buy stuff from Ninja Polish. They’re good people. Thank you, good people. And thank you, Rhonni!

Also in todays exciting mail was my recent splurges from Gracie Lou:

Ozotic 506 and 504, and Orly Rock-It. I had to. They’re being discontinued. And they’re beautiful.

A few days ago I received my purchases from Head2Toe Beauty:

China Glaze Make a Spectacle, CG Cast A Spell, CG Kalahari Kiss, and Essie Matte About You (how I’ve missed you, Matte!)

China Glaze and Essie – I accidentally clicked on two Kalahari Kisses, when I wanted the Lion named glitter one. Brain has just died. Can’t recall name. argh. But, anyway! Pretttyyyy! And Color Clubs, including some of the new Halo Hues collection, SQUEE!

Color Clubs: Ho Ho Holly, Holo-Graphic, Blue Heaven and Harp On It

Wow, right? But notice something? Color Club Harp on It, and Blue Heaven, are IDENTICAL. And they shouldn’t be, from all the swatches I’ve seen.

Which is which? One does look a bit different here, but in real life they’re both silver…

I’m pretty sure these bottles were mis-labelled at the factory, because the labels are right..

I’ve emailed Head2Toe, because I really wanted Blue Heaven, and not sure how to sort it out.

And over the weekend was this haul – a really guilty splurge from Darling Diva Polish. She had a limited run of 5 polishes for US $25 – mystery bottles. This is how much I love her polishes, I took the chance and bought one.

Darling Diva Polishes: Vetiver, X-Rated, Penny!!!Penny!!!Penny!!!, Cherry Jubilee, and Queen of Hearts

I am SO glad I did.

Well, actually looking at all of these is giving me palpitations: I have SO many I have yet to try on! I’ve been steadily going through them, and have a large backlog of partially completed blog posts, but I NEED to wear and appreciate all of these, I can’t just swatch them and be done. It may take me some time, be patient with me 🙂

However, if anyone out there in internetville has anything they DESPERATELY want to see soon, let me know and I’ll see what I can do! My nails for you, gentlebeings.

Have a great day

Ami