Wednesday 19 November 2014

From Powder Perfect- Love Angeline and Aliquid

Hi guys, how are you all? Well, as I mentioned in my last post, Jacinta from the gorgeous Powder Perfect has sent me some nail polishes to review, so let's get to it.

Love! Angeline is a US based indie polish maker and the two lacquers I have been sent to review are from her blogger collaboration;
Stargazing Monster, a blackened purple jelly filled with small holo glitter and a warm mutlicoloured shimmer, created with the help of blogger MrsLochness!, inspired by the colors in the sky at twilight and Let Me Fly, a beautiful teal holo filled with a green-blue shimmer and blue and green iridescent glitters, created with LacquerLoon, in a homage to the delightful colours found in the plumage of peacocks.

First up is Stargazing Monsters. The formula for this was great, I used three thin coats for these swatches and topped it off with a coat of Poshe. I like the way the shimmer gives this polish a nice complexity, so it's not completely reliant on the holo glitter for that special something...




Stargazing Monsters
The polish looks quite black under certain lighting, yet in the sunlight you can really see how this is actually a blackened purple base. The shimmer is strong regardless of lighting which I really like, and the holo glitter really gives it a lovely sparkle too.

Up next is let Me Fly. I must say I found the formula on this one to be a little bit harder to work with. There is a lot of glitter and so on in the polish, so it gets quite thick on the brush by the time you're up to the third nail.
I only needed two coats here and again topped it off with Poshe for a nice glassy smooth finish. I didn't really see the holo effect with this one, but the shimmer and the lovely colours of the glitter makes this a really beautiful polish to look at, regardless.




Let Me Fly


The second lot of polish Jacinta sent me are by Aliquid Lacquer, from their Silmarillion collection, based on the writings of the same title by Tolkien.
 

This is Hidden City, a stunning forest green holographic polish finished with shimmery gold flakes. 
The formula is great, two easy coats and oh wow, what a colour... I love this one. I topped it with Poshe and didn't experience any dulling of the linear holo effect either.





Hidden City
I really like this polish, and I don't own any greens quite like this. The formula was a breeze to work with, not at all temperamental the way some holographic polishes can be and, even though it's a dark colour, there was still a lovely holo flame on the nail without any dulling of the green. And in the shade the golden flakes give the polish a lovely depth that keeps it interesting.

Finally we have Day Shall Come Again, a rusty burgundy with a strong gold to bronzey-green shift. 
Again the formula was excellent. I used three thin coats for these swatches and one coat of Poshe. This is a really interesting colour, quite delicate with a fabulous shifting property that is almost strong enough to call a duochrome.







Day Shall Come Again

Both Love! Angeline and Aliquid Lacquer are available through Powder Perfect here in Australia, along with some other fantastic polish brands.

Powder Perfect also make their own stunning polishes, and they have a grogeous Xmas range out at the moment that you really should check out... I have Merry Xmas ya Filthy Animals and it's soooo lush :) 
Powder Perfect's customer service and range is lovely and it was a pleasure to review these polishes for Jacinta, plus there's plenty on their site to keep any polish lover happy, including nail vinyls and fab nail polish-based resin jewelry.

I hope you enjoyed these reviews and, as you know, I always give an honest appraisal of the polishes, whether I buy them myself or if they are sent to me for review.

Anyway, I have some more gorgeous new polishes I just have to swatch, so until next time
~love and polish for all~

Em xox


Tuesday 18 November 2014

My first ever attempt at painting over nail stamping, called leadlighting

Hey guys, this is a really quick post. I just wanted to share my current mani that I did yesterday using the leadlighting technique, whereby you paint your nails a light colour, stamp an image over that and then fill in the image with sheer nail polish tints.
I am so pleased with how it turned out, especially for a first go. The only downside to that is that I have absolutely no desire to change my nails and I have some gorgeous new Glams to try haha





I used the Loreal Gellie range and they gave the images a nice, water colour feel to the whole thing.

Anyway, that's it for today. Told you it was going to be a quick one ;)

I have some lovely polishes to share that were given to me to review by Jacinta of Powder Perfect, so keep your eyes peeled for that post (it will be up in the next day or so).

Until then, ~love and polish for all~

Em xox

Thursday 13 November 2014

Today is ILNP's Kings and Queens... bow down before the glory ;-)

Hey all, today is a pretty brief post, I just had to share the amazing Kings and Queens by the American indie, ILNP. They make the most amazing multichromes, but they also make sublime holo polishes and they have a new, fantabulous, irridescent opaque flakie collection coming out which I need, so so badly...
But today is about Kings and Queens, a medium purple holographic nail polish that is all kinds of awesome. So lets have a look, shall we?

Kings and Queens
As you can see, K&Q's is delightful in the shade, with a rich purple colour coming to the fore all subtly highlighted with a beautiful golden shimmer.


In indirect sunlight the colour lightens to a beautiful berry, and then when you step into sunlight it explodes into an extraordinary linear holo flame that is simply breathtaking...


The formula is easy to work with, and I used no base coat with this lacquer and experienced no issues with balding or anything of that sort. Two coats was enough for full opacity and I topped it all off with one coat of Poshe which, as you can see, didn't dull the holo at all.

ILNP is available through their site and they offer worldwide shipping, which is awesome for those of us down under.
I hope you enjoyed this quickie post- I have some really gorgeous polishes on their way to review, so keep your eyes peeled for those.

Until next time, ~love and polish for all~

Em xox

Saturday 8 November 2014

A quick Glam Polish post

Hi y'all, how's life treating you? Well, I hope.
Today's post is a quickie showing off a trio of Glams that I ordered a few weeks ago. These polishes are all from different collections and I've been eyeing them for a while now, so I finally stopped resisting and gave in to the joys of buying beautifully made nail polish ;)

Glam Polish


 The polishes are, from left to right, Witching Hour from the Exotic Illusions Series, Fangorn Forest from the Epic Journey Collection and Tiffany, from the Heart of Darkness Collection.

As with all my Glams the application and formula was excellent with all three lacquers and I only needed two coats for full opacity (and I probably could have managed one with Witching Hour). 
The colours are all to die for and I consider them all to be "car crash colours"... it's just so easy to get distracted when driving because my nails look so sparkly and amazing I keep taking my eyes off the road haha.

Ok, so lets start with Witching Hour. This is a stunning medium purple that has a very subtle shift between blurple and a divine aubergine, red-based purple, depending on the light. It's also chock full of scattered holo sparkle.



Witching Hour
The next polish is Fangorn Forest, inspired by the deep, dark and mysterious forest of the same name in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. This is an amazing dark green polish with green, blue and teal micas floating in a blackened jelly base. Gorgeous...




Fangorn Forest
And finally we have Tiffany, a delicious holo lacquer that is a lush dark berry pink with a lovely gold shimmer in the shade and an amazing holo colour explosion in sunlight.




Tiffany
So those are my newest Glam Polish acquisitions and I love them all. As always the quality is exceptional and everything about them, from the presentation to the polish's wear time, makes Glam a product that I thoroughly enjoy collecting.

And, just to make my tiny polish budget cry tears of despair yet again, Glam have come out with both a limited edition Xmas Collection and an amazing looking Broadway Collection, full of vivid colours and lots of bling.  You can check them all out at their Big Cartel store, here.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little post and, until next time, ~love and polish for all~

Em xox