A quick peak at some stunners

Hey guys, I'm off to see my doctor (and hopefully get back on the morphine for my pain- the cold is not good for my plated hip).
anyway, I will do some proper swatches soon, but here's a couple that I simply had to share.

First up is Nubar's Cactus, a beautiful, rich swampy green that has a gold shimmer to it in certain lighting.
I am in love with this colour and suspect I will double up when I have some spare $...

Nubar's Cactus

This is a devilishly tricky polish to capture on my iphone- it's more "swampy" IRL, this makes it look cooler than it really is. The top pic is probably closest to the true colour.

The polish itself applied really well, 3 thin coats and one swipe of top coat and that was it- the formula wasn't streaky or slow drying, it reached opacity easily and the depth of the colour is fantastic. I can't praise this enough- I'm really, really pleased I went with this colour.

Now, I did my nails with Cactus last night and, of course, this morning this gets delivered;

Can you say gorgeous?

This is my first ever order from Femme Fatale, an Australian company that produces its own indie polishes as well as stocking a great range of other brands, especially indie brands.
What you see pictured is two Dance Legend polishes from their chameleon range- Roz and Sully (far left).
And the other two are by Femme Fatale themselves- we have Snapvine (teal) and Sea Pony (purple).
Unfortunately I don't have time to do a proper mani right now, but I couldn't resist trying the multichrome Roz and I just threw one coat of it over the Nubar polish.
Amazingly, that was enough for the polish to show just how strong its multichrome effect is- I am in awe;

Dance Legend's Roz

Now, this was a very quick play with Roz and my pics don't do it justice (a common refrain, as you may have noticed- that's what using a camera phone gets you).
But even with my quick and somewhat messy application you can see just how strong the colour shift is.
I am honestly blown away- this is by far the strongest multichrome I have ever come across. Just fantastic.

Anyway, my biggest challenge now is deciding on which colour to try next- they're all so lovely and I am sooo indecisive :\

Hope you enjoyed the quick update
Em x

Today lets have a look at Nubar's "Purple Rain"

Hello all (just kidding- no one reads this blog but I like to pretend hehe).
Anyhoo, today I received two bottles of polish in the mail, Nubar "Purple Rain" and Nubar "Cactus".
It was hard deciding which polish to use as one is purple and sparkly and the other is a fabulous looking green, but I decided to try the glitter polish because why not.

I also recently bought a "peel off" base coat on ebay, so I figured using a glitter heavy polish was also a good time to test this undercoat too (I just spelt out "undercats" haha... I almost adopted a third cat the other day too, but that's for another post).

So, on with the swatches;

Nubar "Purple Rain"

Purple Rain is a sheer dark purple base with lots of bright purple and holographic microglitter. The first two coats had me thinking that it wasn't going to look too good and that it was too patchy to wear without an undie, but a third coat evened everything out and it looks fine now.

with flash (shows off that lovely microglitter)

This was a bit of a surprise, it's a lot darker than I was expecting, but it looks really good on my hands and when sunlight hits my nails the polish goes from "nice" to "woah".
I ended up using two generous coats of Seche Vite to give it a nice glossy finish and overall I'm quite pleased with this polish.

Obviously this is not on the level of, say, Emily De Molly's "Cosmic Forces", but for a $4 polish it's pretty damn good and I am definitely becoming a fan of Nubar- it's just a shame that it's only available through a couple of vendors on ebay (I have the same issue with Color Club, another polish that I really like that's freaking near impossible to buy without paying ridiculous shipping fees).

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed these swatches and keep and eye out for an upcoming post featuring my first Femme Fatale polishes... I am soooo excited for that package to arrive, any day now :D

Dear Nubar duochrome nail polish, where have you been all my life?

OMG. That pretty much sums up my reaction to these two polishes when I opened my little package today.
Inside were two Nubar nail polishes- Iris Dust and Wildlife- both of which are duochromes.
Now, these have been around for a couple of years and there's not much out there written about them, so I wasn't expecting anything too amazing.
Well, I was wrong. They are simply gorgeous, and at $5.50 a pop I will be collecting the other two on my shortlist.

Here's Nubar Iris Dust and Wildlife

Now I didn't swatch them on my nails because I have a massively glittery mani on and getting it off is a total PITA. I'm also expecting some goodies from Celestial Cosmetics (my first ever nail purchase from them- so excite!) and I really want to try on the green polish that's included in that purchase, so I swatched these babies onto some of those nail stick thingies instead (I am so articulate!).

Here's the lovely Iris Dust (please excuse the totally crappy pictures- I don't have a camera and I need to build a light box, so yeah, not great quality);

Nubar "Iris Dust"

 It's a lovely dark pink, leaning towards purple polish with a beautiful copper through to bronze duochrome effect. It's quite sheer, but three coats and it looks great. I didn't add a top coat here, but on the nail I would recommend it just to amp up the shine factor.
The application was very smooth and there's no visible brush strokes. All in all a very nice polish.

Now onto Wildlife. Now, I'm a sucker for green polish. I just love green. And oh boy does this polish make me feel all warm and gooey inside *sigh*
Here we go;

Nubar "Wildlife"

I just love this- the colour shift from dusty pink to green is so strong- it's the strongest duochrome I've ever owned.
Mind you, I've never really bought many because they've always left me feeling a little ripped off, like the promise that's in the bottle never eventuates when applied to the nail.
But with this baby? Oh yeah. It honestly gorgeous.
The application was a dream, the formula was slightly thicker than Iris Dust so it was easier to achieve opacity. This is three coats of Wildlife with no top coat. Again, I would recommend a coat of seche vite or poshe when wearing it as I think a super shiney finish would make this look even more delicious than it already does.

And here's some pics of the two polishes side by side;

Aren't they stunning? I am definitely considering doubling up on Wildlife because it's a discontinued colour and I've only found one place that has it on ebay thus far. I also want to get my hands on Purple Beach and Moon Shadow (also known as Moon Eclipse).

I am very interested in the Dance Legend duochromes also, and the fact that they're named after Monsters Inc characters makes them all the more appealing imho :)
But they're more pricey and I worry about them being shipped safely from Russia- their postal service isn't exactly renowned for their care and prompt delivery y'know?

Anyway, that's enough from me. Now I've just got to resist removing my polish until the Celestial Cosmetics polish arrives... gah!

And it just keeps going... WTF universe?!

Soooo, the surgery I was supposed to have had to promote my fractured pelvis to heal has been cancelled. The good news is there's been some bone growth, so the need fr a new bone graft with an internal electrical stimulator is no longer necessary.

However, my left leg still doesn't work properly and I am not scheduled for any further orthopedic surgery at all.

I am, however, still scheduled to have the herniated bladder fixed- an issue that is a direct result of my last surgery (the internal stitches gave way, so my bladder pushed out below the pubic mound... lovely, right?). As for when I'm having that surgery, well, only the god-like waiting list nurses know that one and I am currently completely in the dark.

Needless to say, I am preeeety pissed off right now. I feel as though I have been shoved into the "too hard" basket and have been left to simply struggle on with a dodgy hip indefinitely. Thanks a lot St Vincent's, you really fucked me over on this one... they really need to work on their public relations, because the way they operate (no pun intended) currently is fucking terrible.

In the meantime I'm keeping myself busy buying bottles of nail polish and expanding my etsy wishlist daily haha

I am getting better with my manicures and am starting to play around with using tape etc to create interesting designs, though I'm steady enough to draw the smile lines on my french manicures free-hand. I still love glitter the best though.

Ahhh glitter... I love glitter. Except for how bloody difficult it is to remove. I use the ol' aluminium and cotton balls soaked in acetone, but it's still a pain in the bum. So I've ordered some "peel off" undercoat that is supposed to work brilliantly with glitter polishes- I've ordered Innisfree, a Korean brand, as it was cheaper that the OPI version but should work just as well.

Also, did you know acetone eats through plastic? I didn't. Until I accidentally spilt nail glue all over my dining table (a beautiful antique table that needs to be re-sanded urgently lol). The glue also got on the bottom of my shiny Apple track pad and when I used acetone to try and remove it I ended up removing some of the track pad instead. Thankfully it's only cosmetic damage, and very minor at that (it's not noticeable unless you're looking at the underside of the track pad, and why would you do that?). So that was a bit of a nightmare to deal with- I swore pretty damn loud and long, that's for sure.

Speaking of polish, here's Nubar Star Sparkle and Violet Sparkle

And here's Emily De Molly's "Fashion Victim" with Nubar Star Sparkle on the accent nail;

And finally, Color Club's "Holiday Splendor" which, like the polishes above, is impossible to photograph properly because of my crappy camera phone's inability to capture the glittery goodness...