Retail therapy for 13 Year Old Daughter

13 Year Old Daughter had a half day at school today, and as she was seriously in need of some retail therapy because BOYS SUCK I took her and her BFF to the mall. Which of course meant another trawl through the cosmetics bargain bins at Postie Plus.


Left to right we have Entice Dusk, Maybelline Prismetal Purple, Sally Hansen Insta-Brite Nail Whitener, Australis Valentine and No 7 Sorbet, plus at the front is an NYC Liquid Eyeliner in Sable.

Here is a swatch of the NYC Liquid Eyeliner, which like the Plum version I bought the other day is very, very matte but nicely pigmented.



A lovely black brown colour, I like.

It wasn't until I got home that I read the packaging on the Sally Hansen Insta-Brite and realised that it's not intended for whitening nails, but rather for making them appear whiter. Oh and apparently it also fills ridges. Not what I wanted but never mind, let's see if it does what it says on the box. First up my nails before, post-acrylic damage and all:



Yep, yellow.

And, here they are after the recommended two coats of Insta-Brite:



Ummmmmm. Still yellow. They maybe look a little less yellow in the photos, but in real life they were the same, just shinier. Oh and the ridges were still very obvious (which you can't see in either photo because my camera was having a bad day). So, that goes in the bin.

Here's another mini haul for you that arrived the other day from Cherry Culture:



Fred feet! It took me forever to set up that shot, he kept sniffing the bottles and knocking them over! Anyway we have LA Girl Disco Brites Hustle and NYX Carnation. You should see Hustle on:




*squeak*

Bright purple. Bright, bright, bright purple. LOVE. IT! This one's gone into my top ten list. Apparently it's also a black light polish so in theory it glows under UV light. The chances of me ever testing that out are pretty slim, but who cares because this colour rocks. Application was nice, three coats if I remember right, but unlike the other L.A. Girl polishes I've tried drying time wasn't so great. Although it was touch dry pretty quickly (with a top coat of Seche Vite), it was very dentable for quite some time afterwards and I ended up messing it up. So I tried out Carnation:




Gorgeous, buttery, cheerful yellow. Just beautiful. Pretty good application for a yellow, three coats and some streaking that evened out with the top coat. Fast drying and stayed on really well through me doing the dishes this morning (which is the acid test for wearability on my soft nails).

A small haul, a broken nail and some swatches

A quick trip to the mall today, and a small haul from the sales bins at Postie Plus:



When I was last there I picked up a bottle of Orly Armor for NZ$8.00, and I have been so impressed with it that I stocked up on another bottle, plus an Orly ridge filler and quick dry top coat. Orly products normally retail for around NZ$20.00 a bottle, so NZ$8.00 is a bargain - I'm presuming it's because they're in the old-style bottles.

Below that is a NYC liquid eyeliner in plum, some Nailene nail glue and BYS polishes in Blue Buzz and Dark Teal. (Oh and a new cushion, which the haul is sitting on.)


At some stage during the shopping trip I broke the thumb nail on my left hand (oh noes!), hence the nail glue purchase. I read a post over at Helen and Sheenie's Nice Things a while ago ago about a nail repair trick that I got a chance to try out today.



Not the neatest repair job, but very effective. That papery stuff on my nail is the paper from a tea bag, believe it or not. When Helen repaired her nail break she painted her nails with a coat of Nail Envy and stuck the paper down over that, I painted the strips of paper with nail glue and stuck them down with the help of an orange stick and some tweezers. Helen's method is less fiddly, and less likely to result in stuff being glued to other stuff that it's not supposed to be glued to.

A quick buff of the edges to smooth them down a bit, and one repaired nail. I am really surprised at how strong it is, it's really not moving. I'll be interested to see how it holds up to my daily nail polish changes.

Once the glue had dried on my fabulous repair it was time for some polish. BYS Dark Teal to be precise:





Dark Teal is a jelly, and you can see from the photos how very, very sheer it is. This was four coats and there is still heaps of visible nail line. In fact, if you look closely you can see the white spots on some of my nails from where I bumped them. I don't know how many coats it would have taken to be opaque, more than I could be bothered doing.

Transparency aside, I love the colour. It makes me think of the deep dark depths of the sea. The Eccentric English Boyfriend says it reminds him of a gemstone, but he can't remember which one. It's funny though, I wasn't blown away by the blue/green of Barry M's Racing Green, yet this blue/green has me all excited. I'm a freak obviously.

Dark Teal did take forever to dry though, even with Seche Vite on top. Is it just me that finds jellies are consistently slower to dry than other polish types? Does anybody else have this problem, and if so do you have any tips or tricks?

Finally, here's a swatch of the NYC Liquid Eyeliner in Plum.



Very thickly pigmented, I do like this colour. It's plum with a brownish cast to it that makes it ideal for most colouring. It has a faint shimmer which doesn't show up in the photo and dries very matt. Very, very matt. It showed up every little wrinkle on my hand, so you wouldn't want to use this on wrinkly eyes! (Also, eewwwwww - yellow nails!)

What do you think of the new look my pretties? The background is from Background Fairy, who has some gorgeous vintage feel designs.