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.

An apology, some more hauls and a polish review

Hello there my pretties, apologies for the radio silence - our internet has been dead for the last couple of days. It's back up at the moment, so I'm taking advantage while it lasts.

First up, a couple of purchases from TradeMe which arrived in the mail yesterday:


Top row: China Glaze Urban Attitude, Pinnacle Quicksilver (never heard of this brand, anybody have any experience with it?), Color Club Paris White, Color Club Fast Woman, Color Club Queen of Speed. Middle row: Color Club Rev'd Up, Color Club Sugar Rush, Color Club Candy Girl.
Bottom: O.P.I. Bronze gift set, Suzi Says Da! and I Only Drink Champagne plus cosmetic bag (which I'm not particularly fond of, I only got it for the colours which were a bargain).

Next, from today's trip to the mall, a bundle of stuff from Postie Plus. I can never resist popping in to our local Postie Plus - their clothes may be a bit on the 'grandma' side but they always have bins and bins full of cosmetics at super cheap prices. Today's haul:


Nailene Rhinestone Nail Art Kit, Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Diamonds, Max Factor Nailfinity Golden Peach, Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Honeymoon Red, Maybelline Wet Shine Diamonds Jewels n' Berries, Max Factor Nailfinity Disco Pink.

And finally (phew) a review of BB Couture Peony Pink.



That is the most gorgeous pink. And I say this as someone who hardly ever wears pink nail polish! It reminds me of candy floss (mmmmmmmm, candy floss). However this was the first of the BB Couture polishes to give me application problems, and to need more than two coats. There was a lot of streaking and bald patches, which mostly disappeared by the third coat although if I'd wanted to be a perfectionist about it I probably would have gone for four coats. On the plus side, like all the BB Couture polishes I've tried it dried super fast. Application problems aside, I love it!

My nail polish collection now numbers 162. And there's several more arriving in the mail in the not-too-distant future. I may have to go to polish-rehab!