This manicure has Essence “Where is the party?” which is a green-purple duochrome. As an accent I have nails Inc Diamond Arcade which I scored in a nail polish swap recently. Its one of those new ‘shard’ styles of glitters (irregular sharp shapes) in a silver holo finish.
I wasn’t that excited about it at first but its very bright and holographic in the sun. It has a distinct texture though so if that bothers you it will require a couple of coats of top coat. 
My Christmas mani this year was Marrionaud Rouge Envie with a top coat of Hearts of Gold FX. These are both quite unloved in my collection as Rouge Envie (whilst insanely pretty) is the most chip-prone nail polish I own, and Hearts of Gold FX has a lot of issues with needing to fish out the large holo hearts. However in combination the wear improves a bit and the combination of red jelly and gold hearts and fine glitter seemed to call out Christmas to me.
I hope you all got what you wanted this year. I certainly did which was spending the day with my loved ones 🙂 and a nice long soak in the bath with a bath bomb.
I realised my blog has been a little… nail centric so decided to splash out on a black lipstick. I’ll admit that I was quite taken by some of the pictures of MAC Hautecore (swatches by Temptalia) but the price tag seemed a little high for what was unlikely to be a commonly used lippie in my collection. So instead I went for the $3 ulta3 Onyx lipstick. It’s described as matte black lipstick.
It did not under any circumstance get to an opaque finish, I think you’d need to layer with an eyeliner for that effect. Equally it was sleeker and more mosturising than I would have expected for a matte finish, and the combination meant it was a bit prone to feathering… and the light finish really does me it would need a full pencil undercoat as the coats are so sheer.
I wore it out and about for an hour then came home and worked up a fun opaque grey lipstick by combining it with Revlon Ginger Rose. This wore really well (8 hours) and looked quite effective but I did not manage to take any photos somehow.
Generally speaking I don’t think it’s overly flattering on teeth though, I had the impression from various editorials it was going to make teeth look really white but it casts a greyish sheen onto teeth so they actually look quite dark .
This is a sort of cool-neutral skittle. The colours are
Thumb – My Boyfriend Scales Walls – OPI
I gotta secret – Essence
I don’t give a Rotterdam – OPI
Khaki Pastiche – Marrionaud and
Bleu Precieux – Marrionaud (which seems to have taken on a really different hue in this photo next to the others!).
The links are to my previous reviews/swatches 🙂
Just discovered Gloss has 2 for $20 OPI polishes for any Aussie nail polish addicts! That may not sound great to any US readers but these retail for $20 each usually here so Im doing a little happy dance.
This is a total glitter bomb. It’s a pink-purple-teal fine glitter in a clear base. I’m showing two coats below which should give you an idea of how dense the glitter is. It’s wearing quite well – this a day 3 shot (as all of my day 1 pics turned out to be very blurry!). It’s very fun but I am so not looking forward to removing this!!!
I am rather trying to do some swatches to catch up with my untried pile before year end. This a sort of swatch with Rescue Beauty Lounge – Jane on my thumb (light neutral beige), insouciant on my index (lilac with a blue shimmer), Catherine (deep shimmery cabernet purple), 360 (blue-green) and forgiveness (light lilac).
The formula on these was great! The hardest one to work with was Jane which did have a tendency to get streaky as is common with these sort of creams. Catherine was the first to chip but probably tied with 360 as my favourite colours in the selection. Generally the wear was great with only mininal tip wear overall at day 2 before I was ready to change colours.
I just noticed in store today MYER has Essie Nail Polish for $5 at the moment if any Aussies are looking some cheap stocking stuffers for their favourite nail polish addict! It looks like they might be running it out. Not a sponsored post but thought one of my reader might be interested!
One of the colours I have always wanted to get a high end of is a nice dark blue like Chanel Blue Satin or Illamasqua Phallic. Never quite made it onto the must by list so I’ve been making do with a very nice Essence dupe called Hard to Resist and Nubar Navy Blue. Still I was delighted when I scored the free navy blue polish absolute zero from I Love Nail Polish from the pre order. The colour is lovely and then as an added treat there is a scattered holo in the sunshine.
On the down side the wear is pretty fast, this is 24 hours later and includes a top coat. But it is a delightful color and I’m really happy to own it!
Have you ever wanted something for so long then got it and not got around to using it for ages? That was me with this polish. 
It’s just beautiful – a darkened teal jelly with holo fine glitter, meduim hexes and large circle glitters. It literally looks like bubbles popping through the ocean depths. (The holo glitters do not photograph well but this always seems to be an issue with chunky holo glitters!)
The formula is a bit of a pain – lots of fishing for circle glitters and difficulty in balancing colour depth on the jelly with glitter distribution. Th effect is just stunning though so I’ll keep going and see if I can make it work.
(blurry sunshine shot to try and capture glittery goodness)
Making the most of what I've got 