Poor little courier man

Our poor courier man, we may have the two friendliest dogs in the whole world but when people come to the door they make a lot of noise. Enough noise that even when he has a 'sign for' parcel he simply drops it on the doorstep and runs. Surely though, if you're going to choose a career as a courier driver, you'd want to not be scared of dogs? Just saying.

Anyway, here's the contents of my parcel from TransDesign:


China Glaze Loves You Snow Much collection. Ruby Pumps, 5 Golden Rings, Tinsel and Emerald Sparkle. Mmmmmm, Emerald Sparkle. Photo doesn't do it justice, the pictures I've seen on other blogs are stunning - can't wait to put it on.


O.P.I. Tattoo Ta-Boo! minis set. Witch Arm?, Glow-ink in the Dark, Tattoo You Want Candy?, I Love Mummy. And super cute Halloween tattoos, those bats are adorable.


Orly La Petite French mani minis set. Orly Bonder base coat, Je T'aime, Sheer Nude and White Out. Not my colours obviously, but I'm doing nails for my little brother's wedding in December and the bride (hehe, I just typed that as 'bridge') has requested french manicures for herself and the bridesmaids so I thought I should have some appropriate shades. The inclusion of a mini Bonder is a bonus, because I've seen it recommended often and wanted to try it out.


Finally a bottle of my trusty CND Stickey base coat, a bottle of CND Air Dry, and a bottle of Poshe. I always like to try out new top coats when I see them recommended. I'm especially interested in trying Poshe, polish lovers seem to fall into two camps - those who love Poshe and those who love Seche Vite. I wonder which side I'll end up on?

Hauls, lots of hauls. And an apology in advance

I've been a bad, bad girl my pretties! Remember when I said that I wasn't buying any more polishes in the lead-up to my Melbourne trip? Yeah, about that ...

First up, here's my haul from the BB Couture sale. Which you already knew about, so it's all good:

Left to right: Top Rock Top Coat, Green Goblin and Laguna Lagoon.

Left to right: Midnight Malibu, Spellbound, Midnight Desire, Maleficent Magenta

Left to right: Moon Over Manhattan, Sea of Cortez, Zuma Wave Rider

I'm not sure I actually realised how many purples I was ordering. It's a good thing I like purple.

Anwyay I was absolutely determined that was going to be it for a while. Determined. But then I stumbled upon the polish purge sale that Grace over at The Kitchen, The Closet and the Laboratory was having, and got a few polishes. Just a few. And hey, it's supporting a fellow blogger so totally justified, yeah? Yeah?

Left to right: O.P.I. Glamour Game, BB Couture Electric Avenue, Essie Barbados Blue

Left to right: China Glaze Watermelon Rind, China Glaze Coconut Kiss

Left to right: Orly Country Club Khaki, Orly Enchanted Forest

Left to right: NailTek Quicken fast dry top coat, NailTek Foundation II ridge-filling nail strengthener

Left to right: Zoya Raven, Zoya Irene, Zoya Midori

My first Zoyas! And there's a whole heap of colours in there I've been coveting for some time, so yay for Grace!

And last - because you just knew there would be more - I was out with 10 Year Old Son today helping him choose a present for 13 Year Old Daughter's upcoming birthday, and accidentally bought these when we were buying her present:



A set of neon minis by mwah!. The colours don't have names, but the set was only NZ$12.00. They're more for 13 Year Old Daughter than me, and I was going to hold off giving them to her until her birthday but couldn't wait. I have no information about mwah! polishes, they tend to be stocked in clothing stores like Jay Jays. I already have a couple of their colours and they're not bad.

Blog posts might be a little thin on the ground for the next couple of weeks. As well as my upcoming Melbourne weekend to prepare for (only a week and a half away - YAY), 13 Year Old Daughter becomes 14 Year Old Daughter this Thursday. How this happened I don't know, it seems like only a couple of years ago she was this little:



I am going to be SO unpopular for posting that! Look at her little Buddha Belly!

So as I was saying, 14th birthday coming up, and a gaggle of teenage girls (actually it should be a giggle of teenage girls) are coming over in the weekend for the Sleepover Party Extraodinaire! Which means lots of organising for me, and apparently lots of painting of nails. So in between running around like the proverbial headless chook over the next couple of weeks I will try to keep up with the posting, but I apologise in advance if I'm absent. I will make up for it when I come back from Melbourne, with lots of "look at the cool stuff I bought" posts, I promise.

Hauls, hauls and more hauls

It's been a busy few days for our courier dude, what with all the pretties that keep turning up on my doorstep.

First some Creative polishes bought from TradeMe (in three separate lots):



Look at that rainbow of colours, so pretty. Left to righ: Make a Wish, Kumquat Dahlia (best name ever, even if it doesn't make any sense), Porcelain Doll, Replenish, Rejoice, Aqua Jet, Blue Nirvana and Blue Blood.

Next some polishes from Transdesign:



Left to right: China Glaze LOL, China Glaze Kaleidoscope Him Out, Orly Tiki Time minis (Teeny Bikini, Calypso Breeze, Sol Cabana, Mint Mojito), China Glaze Lubu Heels and Entity Blue.

And finally, a parcel from Eyeko, which yet again had problems with a leaky polish bottle but I didn't lose too much of the polish this time thank goodness:



At back: Saucy Red Polish (for naughty nails), Punk Polish (for neon nails, and the leaky one!) and Pretty Polish (for neat nails). Middle: Minty Fat Balm, Strawberry Fat Balm and Raspberry Fat Balm. Front: Touch Up & Go Concealer and Touch Up & Go Highlighter.

I am such a fan of Eyeko's stuff, the products are adorable and reasonably priced AND international delivery is FREE! So I can totally justify ordering stuff now instead of waiting till we go to England next year. I was so impressed with the Strawberry Fat Balm I bought last time that I ordered another tube (along with the other two colours) for 13 Year Old Daughter. Like me she now carries it around with her everywhere. The Raspberry Fat Balm is a little darker than I was expecting, but I read in one of Eyeko's recent Tweets that they've just changed it and the colour is now a little more subtle (pic here). Which of course means that I'll have to order that too, but that's fine because they also Tweeted that they have a new range of polishes coming out soon in Cosmic, Vintage, Lilac, Coral, Purple and Nude, so obviously I'll be ordering those anyway!

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.

I am keeping the courier drivers of Auckland in business - another haul

I finished the last post, looked out the window and there was another package, this time from 8ty8Beauty. Today is like Christmas AND my birthday!

Wall-E would like to present:



Colour Club Where's the Soiree?, Orly GoGo, China Glaze For Audrey (yes I finally found somewhere that has it in stock), Colour Club Pure Energy, Orly Charged Up and O.P.I. Miami Beet (which 13 Year Old Daughter has been coveting).

At this point, faced with nine new nail polishes to try, I have to keep reminding myself that the logic behind me staying home full-time was to make a start on the renovations and generally keep the house in order, NOT to spend all day trying on nail polish.

Here is a side-by-side of Essie Greenport and China Glaze For Audrey. Certainly in the bottle they are very similar, Greenport seems slightly darker, with a more greyish cast. Wall-E says swatching is in order!