Today's nails: LA Girl Turntable and Essie Barbados Blue

I've had quite a bit of luck lately stumbling upon stores selling brands I thought were unavailable in New Zealand. LA Girl for instance in the Life Pharmacy outlet store at DressMart - look!


Left to right: Blueberry, Metallic Purple, Turntable, Vinyl Record, Funkadelic, Deejay, Dance Studio and Bedazzle.

And here's Turntable (plus some cute nail art stickers):



Ok I apologise for my camera - both of today's swatches didn't capture particularly well, this one especially. Turntable is much greener, a delicious plasticky astro turf green that I love! Application was pretty good, two coats to opaque, a little prone to dragging but nothing major.

And here is a slightly fuzzy pic of Essie Barbados Blue, which I got a while ago from Grace's polish purge. (She's just had another one, I'm eagerly awaiting my parcel!)



Quite sheer, it took four coats to be opaque, and was very brush strokey and prone to cuticle drag. The colour's pretty - I know it's not a metallic but I think metallic when I look at it.

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).

More swatching - Barry M and L.A. Girl

I went through several polishes today, which is all good for you my pretties because you get more swatches!

First I put on Barry M Racing Green:



Now you're looking at this thinking 'Selina will totally love this one' aren't you? And with good reason - I love green polish, I love dark blue polish, therefore a dark bluey-green should be a shoe-in. But you know what, I don't like it. It's weird really, looking at it I know it is a stunning colour, and there will be a lot of people who absolutely love it, but somehow it just doesn't do it for me. I think it's because the addition of a blue tint to green makes for a very cold colour. It did apply nicely though. I think this is three coats, and check out the big smudge on my pinky - I only realised it was there when I uploaded the picture! I must have done it while I was taking the pictures, and then I took the polish off straight away so I never noticed it!

Once Racing Green came off I decided to go for something bright and cheerful. Barry M Cyan Blue:



Gorgeous! This is one bright and cheerful colour. It's perfect for wearing on a cold winter's day (like today) because every time I look at it I feel happy! Two coats - almost opaque in one coat. There was a lot of dragging and ridging as I applied it but it's one of those wonderful self-levelling polishes - within seconds any ridges that were there had levelled out leaving a lovely smooth glossy finish.

I thought that was it for the day, but then I managed to bump my polish before it had dried properly and smudge my thumb something shocking. So off came Cyan Blue and on went L.A. Girl Rock Star Heavy Metal:




I am so in love the the L.A. Girl Rock Star collection - so much so that I'm seriously tempted to order the remaining polishes in the set. Heavy Metal is gorgeous, and totally lives up to the Rock Star title - you wouldn't look out of place with this on your tips at a Metallica concert!

This is a black base packed full of tiny silver glitter which makes it look charcoal grey. Heavy Metal has more of a matt finish, even with Seche Vite over the top. Like all the L.A. Girl polishes application was great - two coats, no dragging or streaking and dried super fast. I think Rock Star may well be my favourite polish collection.

More swatchy goodness

The good thing about having 13 Year Old Daughter home sick is there's another set of nails to try polishes out on. So once she'd removed Overdose we gave China Glaze He's Going In Circles a whirl:



I got this on my toes when I had a pedicure a while ago and fell head over heels for it. Is this not the most amazing polish? Glittery holographic eye popping gorgeousness. However, application = not so good actually. He's Going In Circles has an odd milky consistency that gives lots of dragging and bald spots even on the third coat - definitely a tricky puppy to work with. Worth it though, definitely worth it.

Jessie says is worth it:



And also, scratch a little lower please kthxbai.

Unable to contain myself, I removed Punk and gave Rock Star a whirl:



(Click on the pic for the larger version which shows the glitter better). Now I love me some black polish, but I'll be the first to admit that a plain black polish can look a little flat - it needs a little something to lift it. And that's precisely what they've done with Rock Star. Unlike the in-your-face glitteriness of Punk, Rock Star has lots of tiny pinpricks of purple glitter in a glossy black base. They almost disappear in some lights, which means while this colour is good it's not great. I'll definitely be wearing it again but it doesn't have quite the oomph it needs.

The next two weeks are school holidays, which means 13 Year Old Girl can wear nail polish in colours other than clear or natural, so expect double the swatching!

My nails are rockin'!

Here's my latest haul:



I've been coveting the LA Girl Rock Star range of polishes since I saw them on another blog a while ago, so imagine my joy when I was checking out Cherry Culture and there they were! Left to right we have LA Girl Flare in Sunny, LA Girl Rock Star in Heavy Metal, LA Girl Rock Star in Rock Star, LA Girl Rock Star in Punk and LA Girl Rock Star in Overdose. The photo doesn't do justice to the colours or to just how full of glitter the Rock Star polishes are. We also have a double ended kohl eyeliner in black and silver by Amuse, and the Amuse Fine Eyeliner Pencil in Black. I've never heard of Amuse before, but the eyeliners were on special so I popped them in my cart (hellooooo - ON SALE!). The fine eyeliner pencil is actually a felt tip and I love it.



I love liquid eyeliners but let's face it they're a real bugger to apply unless you have the steadiest of hands, this was a cinch and gets my vote for my fave new product. AND it was only US$2.50.

Here's a swatch of the fine eyeliner pencil (top), and the double ended black and silver kohl (bottom).



Woah, in close-up my hands have got some serious freckling going on!

Obviously I had to do some swatching straight away, here's Punk:



Oh boy, pretty deep blue AND packed with pretty glitter - does a polish get any better? Application was lovely, three coats to be completely opaque. What I couldn't capture in a photo was the beautiful purple this polish throws in some lights - it really is a stunner.

13 Year Old Daughter is home sick today with the same tummy bug that had me laid up yesterday, so she went straight for Overdose. Warning: seriously bad application ahead, her skills are hampered by not feeling very well!



More glitteriness. (Now that I've made the word up I'm going to keep using it!). Overdose is a clear base with purple, silver and blue glitter, but it's so jam-packed with glitter that with a couple of coats it's virtually opaque.

Mmmmm, lots of purdies!