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).

Today's nail and also yesterday's nail

After yesterday's swatching I left the Cuinong green on for a while, then I got bored and decided to give another of my untried polishes a go while the Eccentric English Boyfriend and I were watching Moonlight last night (mmmm, sexy vampires). A nice red seemed appropriate for vampire watching, so I went for Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Honeymoon Red.



What the hell sort of name is Honeymoon Red? Seriously, what does that actually mean?

Anyhoo I digress - application on this one was fantabulous. Two coats, could very nearly have been one, nice formula and just a little bit of brush strokage but nothing that steady application couldn't deal with. This is a gorgeous colour, a deeper red than it appears in the picture but with a gorgeous pink shimmer in some lights. I really love it, and I say this as someone who rarely wears red nails.

Honeymoon Red stayed on till this afternoon, then I gave Barry M Mint Green a go.



Annoyingly this picture does not show the colour at all well. It is much more of a mint green.

I've been looking forward to seeing this one on, as I'd heard it was a dupe for MAC's Peppermint Patti. I think I will have to do some side-by-side swatching of the two - just going from memory it is very similar to Peppermint Patti. A darn sight better application though. Which is not to say the application was wonderful, it wasn't, but it was better than Peppermint Patti, which was just terrible. This was three coats, and there was a lot of streaking but, like a couple of other Barry M's I've tried, it was beautifully self-levelling as it dried. I absolutely luuuuurve this colour.

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!