PANZ Week 7: Copycat Mani

Whoa, where did that week go?! I’ve been pretty slack at blogging, I must apologise: I’ve been around but my time has been taken up by listing our nail polishes on our Etsy shop. I have some ideas for how to get going on this again, which I’ll share, soon!

So, copycat mani! Weeeeelllll, I didn’t exactly copy. But, I did use one of my favourite nail bloggers as an inspiration, so that’s got to count. This was a ‘skittlette’ mani, inspired by Marta of ChitChat Nails – I wish I had a photography setup like hers 😉 .That aside, she has the most amazing stamping, colour schemes, and out and out classy, glamorous nails. *envy* 😀

So, I went with a somewhat subdued colour theme, and really enjoyed it. I had China Glaze Light As Air as the base for all nails except for my middle fingernail, which had Revlon Popular. I stamped a feather pattern on my ring fingernails, using A-England Excalibur, and then on the rest of my nails I added two dabbed coats of a homemade glitter polish, (Star Kin) My Mind.

 

Topped it all off with a thick coat of Misa BREAKneck, and called it done! My sister V calls it the ‘light and flooffy’ mani, and I think that name will stick 😀

Thanks for reading, I’ll be back real soon. Have a great day!

Ami 🙂

KKCenterHK Review: Hexagonal Silver Nail Studs

*Press sample alert! Press sample alert!* heh (if you are wondering, Press Sample is the new way bloggers are letting people know that they didn’t buy this product, but it should not affect the review given).

I was recently contacted by KKCenterHK, who asked if I would be interested in reviewing a few of their products. I went and had a look at their site and my brains kinda exploded, there is so many things to look at! Argh! And all so interesting! So, well, duh, I said yes please! And they let me choose two products. This was my first choice, these 5mm silver hexagonal nail studs, retailing for US$5 for approx 50 pieces.

For this initial manicure, I used two coats of China Glaze Haunting, then taped off a triangle and put China Glaze Liquid Leather to make an upside down V shape. I just pressed the stud into the sticky polish, and took these photos.

Even though these weren’t attached very securely, they still stayed put very nicely despite the several hand position changes, and I really liked the look! I think they would be far too large for my little finger nail, and my ring fingernail is possibly too curved, but I have plans for the rest, yes I do.

So next, to provide a fair review, is a wear test! For this one I wanted it pretty simple, I have 2 coats of Revlon Royal on all nails, and on my middle fingernails I put on two of the studs. Yep, two studs *wink*

I pressed them down pretty firmly into the polish, then completely slathered them in top coat (Misa Breakneck) to keep them in place. I could have glued them, but my glue has stuck the lid to itself, so my fall back of wet polish + heaps of top coat it will be.

You can see on this angle how the edges of the stud stick out laterally where my nail curves down; I can feel that free edge, but so far it’s not annoying, just something to be cautious of to avoid it getting caught on anything, and pulling off the decoration.

And, can I say, I LOVE this look? I love blue and silver together, and the dimensional quality of this silver and the crispness against the perfect blue of Royal is giving me jawdropitis every time I look at my nails.

I will finish this post tomorrow, with a report of how this lasted, in my day to day life of children, cleaning, cooking, crafts, chickens, and other things which hopefully don’t all start with the letter C.

Postscript! I lost the two studs from my right hand about 2 hours after I put them on, by accidentally scraping them off on a lid. The ones on my left hand stayed on all evening, and I lost one in the morning, and one just now, 24 hours after applying. So, given that I didn’t glue them on, that’s a really good effort I think. I’d definitely recommend these for an evening out look, or something fun and funky for a few hours.

Thanks to KKCenterHK for the chance to play with these pretties, and I’ll be back shortly with a review of the soft stamping plate.

Have a great day

Ami 🙂

Lipstick Swatches – Revlon, Kleancolor, MUA, and Indies

I decided to do something different, and catalog some of my lipsticks (and some lipglosses) by brand.

MUA

L-R (on my arm, no primer)

• Bare – soooo pale and chalky like death on me.
• 11 -my favourite of these lipsticks, flattering on my olive-ish skin tone, not chalky, very moisturising. Doesn’t stay on long , but easy to reapply.
• 7 – looks almost like 11, but it’s more orange and patchy.
• Nectar – PEACH! wow. Sort of a strange texture, sticks around on any rough skin areas like a party overstayer. Best blended with another lipstick!
• Intense Kisses Gloss – Stolen Kisses (from Shan, thank you so much!) – I love this, a little goes a long way as it’s very pigmented, smells a bit like sweet vanilla, and the colour hangs around for longer than most glosses do.
• Out There Plumping Lipgloss – Pin Up Pink. Silly design, very long thin tube = very long thin applicator, makes putting it on tricky. Well, unless you just take the gloss off with your finger, which you have to do, because the long thin applicator is all flooopy and wobbly. Sigh. Also, the gloss smells like yucky plastic. Not my favourite gloss ever, though the colour is quite nice. Wears off almost instantly. Does it plump lips? It does not. None of them do. And yet I still try… sigh.
• Sheer Finish gloss – Some Me Time. Just like real life ‘me time’, disappears instantly. Sheer, smells generically sweet fruity, nice enough.

Kleancolor

L-R , bare arm, no primer

• 743 Pink
• 747 Soft Rose – gorgeous every day colour
• 709 Toastie Taupe
• 704 Mocha Cream – can be used to give a soft wash of colour, not just dark brown.

These are all very soft and smooth, easy to apply, and give good colour payoff. They also disappear very quickly, but reapplication is easy. They smell nice, sweet and fruity, and my eldest boy likes to eat them. sigh. Don’t leave them in the car, they melt in the heat.

Revlon

left to right, bare skin, no primer 🙂

• 230 – Super Lustrous Lipstick – Flesh Tone
• 007 – Matte Lipstick – In The Red
• 050 – Hazelnut
• 080 – Coral (it’s a very red coral!)

My sad pitiful collection of Indies..

Left to right, no primer

• Evil Shades Deviant Lipstick – Jenaveve
• Geek Chic Chrysalis
• Geek Chic Banished (gloss).

I was a bit concerned my Geek Chic‘s would be like the Evil Shades  – you know, ok, but nothing special. WRONG. The swatches don’t really show how metallic Chrysalis looks, but it does show the amazing-ness of Banished.

The thing is… I can’t, really, go around wearing these on their own to school and kindy and, you know, boring ol town. Well, if I had lips like MaSucree’s  I might, but I don’t… 😀  HOWEVER, both the lipstick and the gloss can be patted on to change other colours: I use Banished a lot to darken the light MUA lipsticks, and make them last longer. I don’t know if I could wear it on it’s own, the formula is really thick and sticky, and goes patchy. But with practice, I’m sure it’s do-able, just only use a tiny bit!

Have a great day

Ami

Valentine’s Nail Efforts – a belated post! :)

I don’t traditionally ‘do’ Valentine’s Day stuff, it’s the same ol’ toss up between commercial vs real vs ‘but every day should be Valentines Day when you are in a relationship’ waffle… but you know, every day ISN’T Valentines Day, and what the heck, I felt like going for girly colours and hearts. So I did.

This was two coats of Revlon Temptress, topped with my glitter franken (hearts, red, and gold), no top coat here. And I guess it looked ok, but it really wasn’t me.

So I added two dabbed coats of 365 Days of Color Waking Up in Vegas, and matted the whole lot with Essie Matte About You.

Which I liked quite a bit more, I definitely felt I needed the black diamonds to make it a little less princess-y.

The trouble was I thought it had dried, and it hadn’t, not properly… so it all ended up performing a little model of ‘continental drift causing the Himalayan mountain range on my nails, and I had to remove the whole lot. So, start again. With BLUE. Yes, thanks!

And this beauty is Girly Bits Arctic Sunrise, which I adore, and which I class as fully Valentine-appropriate because a) it has pink shimmer and b) I love it. It’s alll about love, isn’t it? 😀

These photos show two lovely easy coats, no top coat.

Just look at that gorgeous shimmer! It’s so pretty.

And then, just because, I added a veerrryyy subtle gradient by applying a thin coat of Ozotic 903 to the tips.

What that meant is I had powder blue nails with pink shimmer closer to my nail beds, and green, blue, and pink shimmer on the tips.

I was quite impressed with that. Sure no one else would ever notice, but I COULD SEE IT. Happy Valentines Day to meeee! 😀

And then, of course, I found a glitter topper. This is All That Glitters – Whole Hearted Remix, two dabbed coats.

I actually like the way it looks like the matte black and white glitters are floating high above the blue polish, it’s quite appealing for some reason.

And see, blurred, you can see the colour in the shimmer change between Arctic Sunrise and 903.

Close up – this was all finished with China Glaze Fast Forward top coat, which needed thinning. So it’s THICK. Ah well!

Then I called my nails finished, and went off to have a lovely day. I hope you all did too, or if not, that your days today are wonderful!

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 🙂

Revlon Royal plus Cult Nails Seduction

Remember how I said I bought some Revlon nail polish, against my better thoughts? Well… this is the main reason why. Revlon Royal. A polish I have had mad longings for since I first saw it, about a year ago now I guess. And while a large part of me is disgusted at my sell-out-ness, another part is cackling and holding this pretty to my bosom 😀

no top coat!

One thing I didn’t know  is that it dries satin. Plenty of neon pigment in here! It is my perfect blue. I love love love this colour. I did know the formula was going to be a pain, and good thing too, because it really is. Not very streaky; this is two coats and it’s even enough, but watery, and with random blobs of polish to come screaming down the brush at the last second and SURPRISE! SMURF FINGERS! 😀

As soon as I saw this on, I thought “Cult Nails Seduction.”

Pretty, pretty, pretty. This is the original two coats of Royal, with one layer of Seduction (boy are those flakies packed into that polish!) and a top coat – Kleancolor Fast Dry (lies, it doesn’t dry that fast at all, but it was all I had).

I did really like this, but I couldn’t capture the green shift in the flakes! Next time. I’ll try harder next time. These photos are all in the golden light – before twilight, but this looked lovely any time of the day.

Inside… and showing the red a bit more

Have a colourful day

Ami

Revlon Emerald City – plus dots :)

I saw Jessie’s swatches of Emerald City, and then when I saw the polish for sale at the local (Palmerston North) Postie Plus, I had to buy it. I normally avoid Revlon, as they have started animal testing after being anti – cruelty for a long time, but want the China market. I won’t go into how angry and sad that makes me. And yet – I caved with a few Revlon polishes recently. I’m nowhere even close to perfect, and that just proves it! *guilt*

Ok, here it is!

Revlon Emerald City, two coats. In the bottle it’s a lovely deep green with shimmer, and on the nail it dries completely matte. So, yeah, I love it. Here I added dots of top coat, to give it the effect you see here. Easy nail art! As easy as it gets, really.

This is inside, no good lighting. The colour is pretty true to life!

I did enjoy this, however it chipped really fast (as mattes are prone too) so it’s more of a special occasion polish, or I guess I could put top coat over the tips for a funky french / anti-chip and tip wear look. 🙂

Have a nice day

Ami

Rocking The Holiday Nubs: aka Festive Nail Polish for Super Short Nails

Yesterday, whilst in the middle of a Swatch-a-Thon, my nails gave up. I had broken my pinky nail down to the quick, and fixed it with nail glue and teabag paper. Then my index nail broke – I just glued that together. So, painting and swatching was loads of fun: every time I removed a polish the teabag had to be buffed flat again.. and I was GRUMPY. I’m waiting on some polishes to review, AND I have been really looking forward to a whole month of glitzy, blingy, holiday nails. And I couldn’t keep them fixed, not really.

So, I chopped them all off, and pouted a bit. Then thought, how ridiculous! If I want glitzy nails, I’m going to have them, and more to the point, I’ll show them! Instead of making it seem like only those with longer nails can have polish or pretty colours, I’ll rock my nubs instead :D. Here is my first super short nail post, and this is for those people with super short nails, who want to have the holiday nails without necessarily drawing TOO much attention to the length of their nails.

These are my nails. I’m glad I could trim them before they tore the whole way through. I put one coat of Revlon Catty over them. Nice coverage in one coat, and good fast dry time, Revlon. But why you go test on animals, Revlon! WHY! I got this in a sale. My ethics voice was drowned by my greedy voice. Stink. If you are super self conscious of your nails, you could just put another coat on of this, and call it done. It has a lovely little shimmer to it, and is a festive nude shade. The nail polish should also help protect your nails so they grow faster (SCIENCE: they won’t grow faster, they just don’t break as much. hehehe sorry).

But, glitzy nude wasn’t what I wanted, and I’m tired of feeling like I should be ashamed of my hands if the nails are stubbins. So, here is one coat of a franken I made – I really wanted Crows Toes Maxxed Out, but need to stop the buying of polish. This is a conglomerate mix of loads of different silver, gold, and holo glitter polishes. It works for me. 😀

Added to this was one coat of Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter Food, and one coat L’Oreal Quick Dry (same sale, same shame). Thanks to the Glitter Food this dried smooth as well as fast.

This is lovely and blingy, but still in a good tone range for my skin: I think silver would stand out more, but I wanted a bit of a disguise. The mid sized hexes piled up help give an optical illusion that my nails are a bit longer than they are too. And best of all, it’s FESTIVE!!

So, I think my middle two fingernails look fine with this polish at this length. My index nail is scraping by, and my poor pinky is horrible. But it’s horrible with BLING on it, so that makes it allll ok.

Micro Macro!! 😀

I have quite a stash of previous manis to post, so you probably won’t see my nails this short again. Rest assured I’ll be painting them all holiday-like though, so if you do want to see more super short nails all dressed up, just leave a comment.

Have a great day, regardless of mishaps!
Ami

Revlon Jaded Night – Swatches

This is Revlon Jaded Night – the first Revlon polish I have bought since.. ooh I think it was called Tidal Wave, and it was nice. About 10 years ago, too. It was a very sheer blue/green duochrome… and didn’t dry. And was really really sheer. I’ve been put off Revlon by that, but now I think I’m ok with them again.

I love this colour – this is two coats, and it dried really quickly. Nice and glossy, no top coat in these pictures. Lovely creme – easy removal and clean up (although you can see I didn’t try too hard as I wanted to get the photos taken very quickly). It dries slightly more forest green than the bottle colour. I also love the fact that Revlon doesn’t test on animals. Thanks, Revlon!

This was so nice to put on – just the perfect consistancy, didn’t run at all.

It was also more flattering on me than I thought it would be, and am looking forward to wearing this again!

Then I popped a glitter top coat on it, because I thought it needed it.

I was wrong though, I think it looks better on it’s own. This is one coat of L.A. Girl Glitter Addict in Nostalgic – love this glitter, the turquoise and the holographic mini glitter looks brilliant. But.. still prefer Jaded Night on it’s own, or maybe will just try a glitter tip next time.

Hope everyone had a great weekend – I did, midwinter Xmas with my family, yay! Also very busy, hence the quiet over the last few days. I’m back now though, and I’ll bet 20 cents  you didn’t notice I was gone. 😉

Ami 🙂

Weekend Nail Haul

Ooooh lucky lucky me! I was given a bit of money, and I basically spent it all on nail polish. I may have  a problem. But… if I don’t have a problem with it, is it still a problem? 😀

First stop, Postie Plus:I bought 2 Depend polishes – No. 209 (red toned purple with multi coloured shimmer), and No. 210 (pale yellow with super fine silver and iridescent glitter). I LOVED the quality of the red Depend polish I bought, so back I went for more… they were $3 each

Then two Kleancolor polishes – Frapaccino (coffee coloured with shimmer) and Love is in the Air. I’m really excited about this one: I was VERY tempted to buy Jessica Rolling Rose, thanks to swatches from Scrangie – but this looks so similar. Fingers crossed! The Kleancolors were 2 for $8.

Last but not least I bought a Revlon Color Stay base coat – always need base coat- $3.

Then off to the $2 shop, were I picked up the shimmer orange and green CR polishes, and the nail art stickers.

And at a pharmacy I bought Coral Colours with no name on it, for sale for $4 – lovely aqua with super fine silver shimmer.

Today my lovely husband stopped off at a cosmetic sale in town, and I got these wee beauties:

Revlon Jaded Night ($6) and Revitanail Prized Platinum (it is NOT platinum. It’s bronze – $5).

and two Essie polishes: Coat Azure and Sew Psyched. I’m REALLY excited about these, I’ve wanted to try Essie for awhile – these were $8 each.

And I also went ahead and bought two linear holographic polishes from Ninja Polish – I’ll be waiting for those with eager anticipation! Yay! Now to wear and swatch these from order of least interest to most.. hehehe. Fun. I love organising. Shame I’m no good at it..