I've got another Aussie indie to intoduce to you... SM Polish :)

Hi guys, long time no post, how are you all? Well, I hope.
Ok, lets get down to business, today I want to share with you a new Aussie indie called SM Polish, which is handmade up in Queensland by a lovely lady by the name of Shakeela and has only been around for a few months.
They have quite a range of polishes already and today I am going to show you some lacquers from the Precious Gem Collection and the Farewell Winter, Hello Spring flakes collection.

First up lets have a look at the lovely precious gem polishes.
Application wise they all applied in a similar fashion- being packed with microglitter and shimmer they are a little thicker than a crelly or creme, so require a light touch and patience between coats, but they achieved opacity with only two coats and are very sparkly, especially in the sun.
You could wear them either as a textured polish or, as I prefer to wear them, with a couple of coats of topcoat for a smooth finish. However, I have swatched them here without topcoat to show you what they look like as is.

First up is one of my favourites, Tourmaline Crystal. This is a beautiful olive-leaning green lacquer that has sparks of true green, gold and bronze throughout. It's a very complex colour and really lovely both in the shade and outside;

Tourmaline Crystal

And here we have Shimmering Garnet, a silvery shimmering polish flecked throughout with red microglitter that adds a lovely flash of colour and sparkle in the sun;

Shimmering Garnet

This next one is probably my favourite, which took me by surprise actually as I've never really gravitated towards gold, but Tiger's Eye is just gorgeous- a soft gold polished filled with gold holo microglitter that flash green, red and copper. Really lovely;

Sky Blue Topaz is just that, a shimmery sky blue lacquer with scattered bright blue microglitter. Very soft and delicate;

Sky Blue Topaz

And finally this is Tantalising Tanzanite, a soft purple colour that has lots of shimmer and, like the others in this collection, has complimentary microglitter for that added sparkle;

Tantalising Tanzanite

I was also sent some of SM Polish's Farewell Winter, Hello Spring flakes collection, which consists of large, irregular shaped glittery flakes of colour in a clear base alongside smaller, matching coloured glitter. These polishes are meant to be worn as a topper, although I did apply them to one bare nail in both of my swatches, just to give you an idea of the sort of coverage you get with one coat.

The flake lacquers need to be applied a trifle carefully- I found if I used the usual painting-style brush stroke then the brush removed most of the large flakes as I moved down the nail. Instead I tried dabbing the polish onto the nail and was able to get a much better dispersal of both large and small pieces of glitter this way.

For the following swatches I applied "Get Lost Jack Frost" over FOA's Mystique and "Spring Comes Alive" over FOA's Wicked Witch of the West. I then applied a generous coat of Poshe for a smooth finish and was good to go.

Here's Get Lost, Jack Frost;

Get Lost, Jack frost

And here's Spring Comes Alive;

Spring Comes Alive

SM Polish also have a latex based skin protector called Spic and Span that is perfect for nail art clean up and they also have a latex based undercoat called Take It All Off that's designed to be used under glitter heavy polish for ease of removal.

Now, I usually use craft glue for a peel of base coat and have never used a latex based base coat before and I'm not sure how long it will hold up- I found I got a good day and a half's wear before moisture got under my polish and weakened the bond.
But I am also very hard on my nails and never wear gloves when doing the washing up and what have you.

The most important thing with any peel off base coat is to make sure you cap your tips and really seal the polish well with top coat, and if you do that and wear gloves when doing the dishes etc you may get several days out of a mani before the base loses its grip.

I also found that, unlike a glue-type peel off base coat Take It All Off dried very quickly as I was applying it, which could be great if you hate waiting for your peel of base coat to dry, but it might be an issue in the hotter weather as it may dry too quickly, resulting in pulling as you apply it- just something to keep in mind.
It did however remove really neatly and easily with no damage whatsoever to the nail and no polish left on the nail either, which is always a good thing when it comes to glitter removal ;)

All in all I was quite pleased with my first ever SM Polishes- their polishes are very pretty and also very reasonably priced for an indie at $9 a bottle. I definitely think they're off to a good start and I hope they have a promising future ahead of them.

You can find their etsy store here so go check them out and see if anything takes your fancy.

Until next time ~love and polish for all~

Em xox

There's a seriously awesome competition happening here in aussie indie land...it's AIPAS 1st Anniversary, yay!

Hi guys, how is everyone today? Well, I hope :)

The reason for today's quick post is to let all of you know about an epic competition being run right now.
The Australian Indie Polish Appreciation Society (or AIPAS as it's more commonly referred to) is running a fantabulous competition (that you can enter here) to celebrate their 1st Anniversary. And holy moly, there are lots of amazing prizes up for grabs. Check it out!

THE PRIZES

Celestial Cosmetics

Winner's pick of 6 bottles of polish from the existing range (international)

Gloss n Sparkle

$25 store credit

Help Me Ronda
1 Cuticle Cocktail and 1 Rub-a-Dub Scrub in Winner's choice of scent (Rub-a-Dub Scrub will also be scented as an added bonus for this giveaway) (International)

Hollish

3 bottles of polish from their upcoming Spring Collection (If this prize is not available, the prize will be substituted with 3 bottles of exclusive glitter toppers not available on Etsy)

Loki's Lacquer

1 bottle of polish

Loki's Lacquer

1 pack of vinyl decals (international)

Mckfresh Nail Attire

Winner's pick of 3 bottles of polish from the existing range (international)

Moonstone Nail Polish

$30 store credit

Peaches Polish

1 Magic Balm, 1 bottle of previously unreleased polish, 1 bottle of Tink Topper

Peita's Polish

$30 store credit (valid for 6 months) (international)

Powder Perfect

Limited Edition Anniversary Trio of Monsoon, Forecast; Optimistic and Storm Rainbow

Sayuri Nail Lacquer

$25 store credit

Shades of Phoenix

$25 store credit (international)

Resinail Lacquer

$30 store credit

Two Birds Lacquer

Trio of One of a Kind polishes created for this giveaway prize, plus  one cuticle oil in the Winner's choice of scent

Beading Bug

3 soy wax melts in Winner's choice of scent (value $18)

Sponsor:  Cathy Offler

Femme Craft

Polish Pendant and matching earrings, made with the Winner's choice of polish

Sponsor:  Cassandra, Reluctant Femme

Serenity Nails

Custom commissioned polish from Celestial Cosmetics

The competition details can be found here, and, as you can see above, it really has some brilliant prizes, so go and try your luck.
The rules are very easy and you might just discover some awesome brands and bloggers that you weren't aware of too, especially if you aren't too familiar with the world of Aussie indies.
As they say, you've gotta be in it to win it ;)

I also have some nice swatches that I'll post over the next couple of days from a variety of Aussie indie makers, plus I am waiting for my amazing Glam Polish order to arrive too, so prepare for lots of fangirling and pics galore when that arrives :D

Until next time ~love and polish for all~
Em xox

Here's some Pretty Serious polish for your viewing pleasure

Hi guys, how are you today? The sun is out where I am and it's so lovely after such a cold, wet winter. Of course, I know that we still have plenty of cold and rainy days ahead, but the tree in our front yard is covered with blossom, flowers are starting to poke their heads up, the birds are singing and you can just feel that winter is at an end. Hooray!

Anyway, I just bought a couple of polishes from Pretty Serious Cosmetics the other day as they were having a sale and just had to take a bunch of pics too, so here's some of them, from me to you, with love.

The beauty on show today is Haddonfield, named after the Halloween movies and part of Pretty Serious's "Killer Fangirls" trio which also includes "Crystal Lake" inspired by Friday the 13th and Elm Street inspired by, obviously, A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Haddonfield is a fabulous orange jelly filled with gold shimmer, orange microglitter, larger holographic hexes and random shaped black shards...it's the most divine colour- a deep, rich orange that reminds me of ripe tangelos.
I reckon this would make the perfect Halloween polish if you celebrate that sort of thing (I don't as it's not a holiday we celebrate here) but I also think it would look amazing with a little black dress, as it has a certain luxe feel. IMHO it's definitely beautiful enough to be a "special night out" polish.
Oh and you get a very cool collectors card (each of the Killer Fangirls trio comes with its own card that gives a cute nod to the polishes namesake). Here's a pic of the Haddonfield card;

 

And now onto the polish itself. Application wise I only needed two coats, no dabbing required, easy peasy application and two coats of Seche Vite to smooth and seal it all.

Haddonfield

I can't praise this polish highly enough, I love it. I think the colour is incredibly wearable, especially for an orange. The depth, the unusual black shards, the gold shimmer... it all adds up to a really eye catching, glamorous nail polish that I would encourage anyone to try, even if you don't normally do orange. I think you might be pleasantly surprised :)

Haddonfield

So, what do you think? Haddonfield, Crystal Lake, Elm Street and oh so many other goodies are all available at the Pretty Serious Cosmetics online store. Oh, and Kaz has a new range coming soon, so keep your eyes peeled.

Until next time ~love and polish for all~

Em xox

Another Emily De Molly... the delightful Serenity

Hi guys, hope everyone is doing well. I'm currently on hold with Centrelink, with an estimated wait time of only 45 minutes! Wow, I am so stoked! So I figured while I sit here with the phone stuck to my ear I might as well do some blogging...multitasking at its finest ;)
Ok, today I want to show you a gorgeous little polish by one of my all time favourite polish makers, Emily De Molly.
This one is called Serenity and is what I consider to be a perfect summer polish. I know it's the middle of winter here, but one of the facebook groups to which I belong had a "Sun and Sand" mani theme, so I figured that that was an ideal reason to break this baby out...

This is such a beautiful polish, but sooo damn hard when it comes to taking accurate photos of it- the colour is a stunning turquoise that can appear more blue leaning in some light and far more green leaning in others, hence the colour discrepancies in my pics. My apologies for that- I will say ten Hail Glitters as penance.

Serenity is a very easy polish to use, with a great balance between glitters and the creme/crelly base. I only needed two coats here for full opacity and one coat of Seche Vite to top things off. There was no fishing for glitter and no need to dab or place the glitter at all- it dispersed very evenly onto the nail. The dry time between coats was good and there was no dragging or balding or glitter clumping.
Really, there was nothing that I found problematic in terms of application, and three days into wearing it and there's no chipping and minimal tip wear, so it stays on well too. What else can I say? It's a great polish.

The thing that really lifts this polish up from being just another turquoise creme, in my opinion, is the delightful combination of glitters- there's aqua, gold hexes of various sizes and beautiful little bursts of lavender, along with what looks to be some small holographic hexes and some other tiny blue glitters as well.
It's these interesting colour combinations that make Serenity unique and so lovely to wear.

Emily De Molly is on hiatus at the moment due to the arrival of her little boy, but do continue to pop in there to check as her store will be up and running again soon (even better, Serenity is still part of her current range).

Also, if you check the tags here you'll see that I've reviewed several of her polishes recently and I am clearly a big fan of her products...well, she does offer some bloody ah-mazing polishes, plus stamping plates and various rhinestones and studs for nail decoration, so what's not to love?

Anyway, until next time ~love and polish for all~

Em xox