Oh boy, I really *am* smitten with Smitten Polish

Hello all, after so long I just had to post about one of my new favourite polishes, although I have absolutely no idea if anyone is bothering to follow my blog any more because of the shockingly sporadic posting, and for that I apologise. 

I have been struggling with some significant depression- this latest episode has been going on for at least a year- I know this because I remember I didn't go outside at all summer 2013/14 and I didn't go outside this summer either. So it's been pretty damn debilitating, hence the radio silence here at Attempting Fantastic.

Mind you, I do post to my IG account on an almost daily basis, and it's 99% polish with the odd cat post and even rarer kid pic, so if you want to see lots of pretty polishes you can always follow me there (@attemptingfantastic).

O.K, lets post some goddamn polish! w00t!
Today I am going to show you a U.S based indie polish brand called Smitten Polish. And I must say, their name is very apt, as I am absolutely smitten and am on a slow, but determined mission to acquire as many of their polishes as I can without declaring bankruptcy in the process (damn you AUD to USD conversion rate ;_;).

Date Night inside under fluorescent lighting

This gorgeous baby is called Date Night and it is the most vibrant holo polish I own. Date Night is a crelly/jelly polish that is incredibly saturated- it's almost a one coater- and it looks as beautiful inside under normal lighting conditions as it does under holo friendly lighting, which isn't something I can say for most other holos.
In fact, it's that underwhelming "inside look" that most holos have that has stopped me from really getting into them, but now that I have discovered that you really can have the best of both worlds- pretty holo flame and intense pigmentation- I am starting to find myself looking at holos over almost every other finish, and Smitten Polish has played a big part in that.

Date Night inside under fluro lighting

Application-wise I used two thin coats of Date Night and one coat of Poshe top coat (which didn't appear to dull the holo) over a double layer of base coat, just to be on the safe side; I find when a polish is super pigmented you run the risk of staining, so taking the time to apply a decent base coat is always a good idea.
Mind you, I could have easily gone without top coat as Date Night is quite glossy on its own, but I'm impatient and like how fast Poshe and Seche Vite dry my polish.
The polish dries super smooth too, and I found it has amazing wear- I am very rough on my manis as I don't use rubber gloves when doing the dishes and housework (naughty naughty), so they usually require touch ups or complete removal after a couple of days, but Date Night didn't even have tip wear 3 days in.

 

Date Night in direct sunlight

Oh, and it makes a great base for nail stamping too :)

Date Night inside under fluro lighting

At the moment I also own Nose So Bright- a true red linear holo, which is a bit of a rarity in the world of holos. Like Date Night, Nose So Bright has a brilliant formula and is a real stunner... in fact, I think I might wear it tomorrow :)

And, because I'm in love, I have a couple more of their polishes coming and will absolutely share pics with you all when I swatch them.

In the meantime you can buy Smitten Polish over on their site, as well as at various stockists listed on Smitten's website. 

Oh, and I can also say that their customer service is excellent too, with the owner being really helpful and accommodating, with inquiries being answered in a super friendly and prompt manner. 

Smitten Polish are, IME, a great, customer focused small business that make amazing polish, and it's these sorts of indies that I love to support and share with other polish lovers- it's such an over saturated market that great indies can sometimes get lost in the noise, you know?  So lets support the good indies out there, share the word and look fabulous while we do it :)

Until next time, as always, ~love and polish for all~

Em xox

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

Emily De Molly is back y'all

Hi everyone, how are we today? I am feeling o.k- just got up from a nap because I only got 12 hours sleep last night :p
I do have some good news- I'm off to a job interview on Monday at a Veterinary Clinic to work 3 days a week while I study to become a qualified veterinary nurse... I'm not counting my chickens, but just getting back into going in for interviews is a huge step after two years of no work whatsoever. So think good thoughts around 2pm this coming Monday :)

Anyhoo, today I want to show you two luscious polishes by the lacquer that started my whole aussie indie obsession- Emily De Molly.
Now, her polishes are always, always beautiful to apply, rarely needing more than two coats and sometimes only one. These are no different. Restless is shown here with two coats and one of seche vite, Urban Haze is shown here with two coats and no top coat. Both were delightlful to use, no issues whatsoever.

So, lets have a look, shall we? I feel a little bad as I pretty much spammed my Instagram with pics of Restless, but it's so amazingly reflective and beautiful, I couldn't help myself. I easily ended up with over a hundred pics that I had to sort through and narrow down, this shizz had me mesmerised!

Restless

There's really nothing I can say to fully express how rich this colour manages to be, and as I said, it's also ridiculously reflective which gives it a wonderful luminosity that I love. In the shade it has very delicate flakies which give it depth and complexity and there's also some scattered holo going on in there too, but all of it is so finely balanced that no one thing overwhelms the other. Hayley really does have a great eye for what works.

Restless

The second polish that I'd like to share with you is a much more sublte number called Urban Haze, a smokey olive holo that has very small gold flakes scattered throughout. This is very holographic in the sunlight, but I actually prefer it in the evening, where a colour shift seems to happen that sees the polish reveal a lovely metallic charcoal as shadow hits it.
I'm actually planning to wear this on Monday to my job interview as I think it's lovely whilst still being understated (my daughter was surprised by my choice- she's used to me rocking things like bright pink glitters 99% of the time haha).

Urban Haze

Again, flawless application, great coverage, beautiful polish. Then again, Emily De Molly is a master at producing top shelf lacquers, so that's hardly surprising.

Urban Haze

Emily De Molly is available in Australia through their big cartel shop and there is a list of international stockists here.
As I mentioned above, Emily De Molly was my first ever indie polish- I had never even heard of indie polish before seeing a swatch of her amazing Cosmic Forces- and the rest, as they say, is history.
I now own a ridiculous amount of polish, the vast majority of it Australian indie lacquers. As much of a pain as living in the arse end of the world can be, we sure as hell have some amazing polish makers :)

Anyway, I will be back soon with more goodies to share (and hopefully a damn job too) but, until then as always ~love and polish for all~

Em xox

My first foray into the world of Celestial Cosmetics

Hello non readers of my obscure blog, how goes it?
Today I received a bundle of joy in the form of a post pack envelope.
And inside? Lots and lots of lovely polish :D

I like the little personal note on the back of the Celestial Cosmetics card

 Not only were my 4 ordered polishes in there, but there was an additional polish called "Birth of a Star", a beautiful grey leaning, dusty purple holo




I actually emailed Celestial Cosmetics as I thought they had accidentally added the polish to my order, but they emailed me back to let me know it's part of their birthday celebrations and that all orders receive a bottle until the 25th of April.
Awesome!

Birth of a Star

So, apart from Birth of a Star I also received Nomad, Charming, Crow Eater and Neon Nights (Nomad, Charming and Crow Eater are all from the Sons of Anarchy collection). Both Crow Eater and Neon Nights are very different polishes to what I normally buy, so it wasn't surprising that Nomad and Charming are my faves as they're very much my type of colours.

Nomad

Charming

Crow Eater

Neon Nights

Application wise they varied quite a bit, with Neon Nights being the thickest formula and Nomad being the sheerest. Both Crow Eater and Charming applied in a similar fashion and had the nicest consistency to work with, although all were good.

Now, for some reason I don't wear blue polish- the closest I'll get is turquoise, but a true blue is just something I have never been drawn to. Crow Eater has actually got me reconsidering this- it is a gorgeous polish and looks fabulous on;

Excuse the shitty swatches- I only have a camera phone right now

Next up is Nomad, which is quite sheer and thin when applying, so I used two coats of it over one of Ultra3 Chilli. That undie made all the difference and allowed Nomad to really come to life on the nail. It has a gorgeous depth to it and that great squishiness that jellies have;

Nomad over Ultra3 Chilli

Then there's Charmed, which is tied with Nomad as my favourite. This is a simply glorious green that looks great after two coats, although three would probably give it even more depth. I love this colour, it's bright, vibrant and fresh... it really has charmed me;

Charming

Next up is Neon Nights. To be honest I'm not sure how I feel about this one. I have never worn a white polish- ever. I know, right?! So it feels really odd having such a light, bright colour on my nail.
Part of it is also my age- I suspect this would suit a younger person. I also think it would look better on my during the warmer months when my hands are tanned.
Aside from my own inexperience in wearing those sorts of colours the polish itself was easy to apply and was opaque in only two coats;

Neon Nights

And finally there's Birth of a Star, the lovely surprise polish :)
This is a beautiful grey leaning, dusty purple holo with lots of colour complexity depending on the light. Again, two coats was enough to get full opacity and I even threw on a top coat with no dulling effect.
And being a holo it was, of course, bloody tricky to capture, but here's what I managed to get;

Birth of a Star

Now, I know these swatches are less than stellar and these two didn't help matters either

I'd get a great angle and suddenly a cat tail would block the light, and Peanut was determined to eat my boot for some reason.
here is Smudge enjoying the swatched fingers;

Anyway, all in all I am absolutely rapt with my first Celestial Cosmetics encounter and I look forward to adding to my collection as time goes on.

I've also decided to wear Nomad to the gallery opening that is being held in honour of my mum's passing- she will have died a year ago on the 29th of this month and my sister has organised for a showing of some of my mum's photographic work in honour of this first anniversary.
I've decided to wear Nomad because my mum always wore red nail polish, and her nails were done even during those last weeks and days of her life.
In fact, her nails were still perfect while I held her hand as she passed away, far too young and from preventable cancer (so please, don't forget to have your annual pap smears).
I think she would have loved the colour and it's just a little something my sister and I can smile about together on a night that is bound to be a tad emotional.

And now, before I get all emotional writing this, I shall sign off.

I hope you've enjoyed the review and I would definitely recommend adding some of Celestial's polishes to your collection- and I will certainly take some more pics of my fully manicured hands wearing Nomad too.

Cheers,
Em x