Celestial Cosmetics "Pixie's Place" & LYZ Cosmetics "Hearts On Fire" Manicure - 11 August 2015

Today I have my latest manicure, featuring Celestial Cosmetics "Pixie's Place" and LYZ Cosmetics "Hearts On Fire", from the Fairybread February 2015 Sweet Surprise Box, but unfortunately neither of these polishes are available anymore.  However both sites have lots of other wonderful polishes available for you, so please check them out and find out why I love them both so much.

I started my manicure with one coat of Pretty Serious "Rock On" Nail Strengthener, and one coat of Grace-full Nail Polish "Base Coat", to all my nails.

Next, I applied two coats of Celestial Cosmetics "Pixie's Place" to all my nails.  This polish is just gorgeous, to say the least.  It was described on the website when I bought it as "a bronze scattered holo with flakies", but I'd describe it as a pink/beige bronze holo shimmer polish, absolutely loaded with gold and bronze micro-glitter and gold and bronze flakies.  The overall effect is dazzling, especially in the sunshine, and even in filtered sunshine as shown above.  It went on smoothly and easily and, if I hadn't planned to photograph it for my blog, one coat would have given great coverage, but I wanted to get more of a crelly effect, so I used the two coats. The finish was lovely and smooth, with no problem getting loads of glitter and flakies in each stroke.  As you can see from the bottle in the photos, when I said it was "loaded with glitter", I wasn't joking.  If you get the chance to pick up a bottle of this in a destash anywhere, buy it, because I know you wouldn't regret it, but I don't think anyone would want to sell it if they've already got it.

Then I applied two coats of LYZ Cosmetics "Hearts On Fire", a clear glitter base polish, absolutely chock-a-block with tiny bronze glitter, medium pink hexagonal glitter, and silver holo shards. As you can see from the photo above, the effect is stunning.  I didn't have to do any digging at all to get the shards because there are plenty in the bottle, the polish went on very easily, and the finish was just a little rough.  I used two coats because I wanted to get a jelly effect, and it worked beautifully.  This is another polish I would definitely recommend to everyone if you can manage to get hold of a bottle, but I'm not sure that people would want to sell this one, either, if they've got it.

I finished off with one coat of Grace-full Nail Polish "Quick Dry Top Coat", which covered even the polish on my ring fingers beautifully.  This top coat seems to give every polish, glitter or creme, a perfect cover, and is so easy to use.  I can definitely recommend this if you're looking for a good all-round top coat.

Here are some more photos taken under a variety of lighting conditions so that you can see how beautiful these polishes are.  They're even more wonderful in real life, though, so I hope you can get a bottle of each one somewhere.  If you want to see larger versions of the photos, just click on them.

   

     

 

So, that's my manicure for another week.  As you can see, these two polishes are amazing under just about any type of lighting you could think of.  Please feel free to leave comments if you so wish, and if you'd like to follow my blog, you can do so by filling in one of the boxes at the top right-hand side of the page.

Thanks for visiting, and I hope you'll come back often to see what I have to share with you.  As I told you in my last post, I have some really exciting posts coming up for you in the not-too-distant future. 

Have a great week, and may God bless you!

Hugs

Christine

(Please check out my other blog below, too.)

Words of Life and Hope

http://wordsoflifeandhope.blogspot.com.au/

I have nothing to declare for this post. All these products are part of my personal stash, paid for by me.

My Skittlette Mani On 31-5-2015

YAY!!! Finally I've been able to do a manicure!  I am so over the moon that I could finally paint my nails, and even though my camera showed EVERY flaw on my cuticles and the fact that I couldn't paint over the tips of my nails because they are so short, I'm very pleased with the result.

So, here are the products I used:

 

I decided to do a skittlette manicure so that I could feature several of my new polishes in the one mani, and these three look amazing together.  All these polishes are Aussie Indie Polish from some of the best makers in the world.

I started by putting one coat of Pretty Serious "Rock On" strengthener, and then one coat of Revlon "Quick Dry Base Coat" on all my nails.

Next, I painted two coats of Grace-full Nail Polish "Kate" on my thumb, index and pinkie nails, although one coat would have been enough if I'd used a thicker coat.  This polish went on like a dream, and the colour just blew me away.  It kept changing depending on what angle the light was hitting it from, so it is very hard to describe.  Theresa, the owner and maker of the amazing Grace-full polishes, describes it as a hot pink linear holo, and it is from the "Last Girls Of Summer" collection.  All I can say is, if you don't already have this polish in your stash, you are missing out badly.  I'm going to order another bottle soon before it disappears forever, so that should tell you how much I love it.  Thanks, Theresa, for making such an awesome polish.  You're the best!

On my ring finger I painted Shades of Phoenix "Dobby's Ears" from the "Shades of Potter" Collection.  This polish I found to be very thin, and I needed three coats to get full coverage, but it did go on very easily, and dried quickly, with no streaks at all.  The colour is a bright muted pink, with a pearl/shimmer finish in the shade, and a lovely, soft holographic finish in the sun.  I'm really hard to please with pink nail polish, because so many don't look good on my olive skin, but this one is definitely exception.  I looks great on my nails, and will be used often in the future. This collection of polishes was bought for my by my daughter for Mother's Day, and I'm so glad she did (thanks, Megs). Thanks also to Teneil for producing such wonderful nail polish for her adoring public. They are just soooooo pretty.  There are five polishes in the collection, and they are all completely different, so please check them out.

On my middle finger I then painted three coats of LYZ Cosmetics Fairybread Artisan Nail Lacquer "Flowers For My Love" from the January "Sweet Surprise Box" so that I could get the real crelly effect that I was looking for.  This polish is an absolutely gorgeous, and the only way you can get it is by purchasing the surprise box, which will not be available much longer, and Elizabeth is not doing any more of these boxes in the future, which is a real pity.  She told me that she would be replacing it with something equally as good, though, so I'm keeping an eye out to see what she comes up with, but if you'd like to get this particular polish, you'd better be quick.  It is a beautiful very pale pink crelly, with different sizes of hot pink and gold glitter, and a gorgeous soft shimmer.  It is really hard to describe, but is really pretty.  Here is a macro shot of it.  The crelly effect is amazing!  Thank you so much, Elizabeth, for this beautiful polish, and for all the others that I have purchased from you.

Next I added some gold decals to my ring fingers, and finished off with one coat of Revlon "Quick Dry Top Coat" on all my nails except for my ring fingers, to which I added two coats for extra protection for the decals.

Here are some photos taken in different lighting effects to show the amazing differences I found in all these polishes depending on where I was when I looked at them.

Left hand in the sun

 

Right hand under fluorescent lighting in the doctor's surgery.

Right hand in the kitchen.

Right hand again in the kitchen.

   

On the left is my left hand under light at night; on the right is my right hand in daylight inside.

So, that's my manicure for this week.  Even though I was so out of practice, and made a bit of a mess of it, I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out and, of course, the beautiful polishes made all the difference.  I only wish I could have had longer, better shaped nails so that I could do them full justice, as others have done online.  However, now my nails are starting to grow again, and I'm thrilled to bits with that.  Since starting to use my Pretty Serious "Rock On" Strengthener I haven't had one break, whereas before that I was having them nearly once a week at least, so I love this product, and can definitely recommend it.  I am also using Pretty Serious "Cuticle Hero" Super Hydrating Cuticle Oil, their heavy duty oil, which is only a very new product in their range, and was sent as part of a RAOK by a friend. Unfortunately, yesterday morning I was in such a rush, because I had two doctors' appointments, one in the morning, and then another one early in the afternoon, I forgot to oil my cuticles, which is why they look so dry in the photos.  They have improved immensely since my accident with the nail glue, and I'm really disappointed that I had to use these photos, but we hardly had any sun today, and the light was terrible.

Thank you for visiting my blog, and I hope you'll come back often to see what I have to share with you.  I received three more lots of nail mail today, so will share that with you very soon.  Please let me know what you think about my blog and/or reviews and swatches.  I'd really appreciate your feedback.  You can follow my blog if you go to the top of the page on the right-hand side and fill out the boxes, etc.

Have a wonderful day, and may God bless you.

Hugs

Christine

(Please check out my other blog below, too.)

Words of Life and Hope

http://wordsoflifeandhope.blogspot.com.au/

a bright muted pink

a bright muted pink

a bright muted pink

a bright muted pink

All these products were either bought by me or given to me by family or friends, and I received no reward for these reviews.

Manicure for 4 February 2015 - Not Happy, Jan!

Firstly, I'd like to say sorry for not showing you my nail polish stashes that I received last week as promised, but I put them all away, and they all got muddled up with my other polishes before I remembered I was supposed to be photographing them for my blog.  OOOPS!!!

Now to this week's mani.  After looking at the photos my hubby took for me today, I have to say that I have a lot to learn about the art of cleaning up my manicures.  My cuticles and the side of my nails look dreadful, so I'm going to have to do some research and see if I can find any tutorials to show me how to do it properly.  However, despite the horrible cuticles, etc, I've decided to show you my first mani for Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month - featuring the color "teal".

Products used are:  OPI Natural Nail Base Coat; Revlon Top Speed Fast Dry Nail Enamel Spirit, the white polish on my index and ring fingers; Essie Beach Bum Blu, the teal blue shimmer on my pinky and thumb nails; and LYZ Cosmetics Fairybread Nail Polish Mermaid's Voice, the first Australian Indie nail polish I have used, on my middle finger. I also used Savvy Teal and a stencil from Smart Nails (see photo above) to do the OCA ribbon design on my ring fingers, and two different shape and size teal blue rhinestone decals, bought through AliExpress, on my index fingers. Then I finished it off with one coat of OPI Top Coat on all nails except the nails with the decals, where I used two coats..

Mermaid's Voice was one of the two polishes in the December Sweet Surprise Box I purchased from Fairybread Nail Polish.  They put out a Sweet Surprise Box every month which has two polishes in it, and all you see in the listing is the name of the polishes and two photos which give you a clue to what type and colour polishes you may receive.  It is such a lovely surprise to get when you open the packaging.  So, in case you decide you want to purchase the December box (it is still available on the site), or one of the other boxes on offer, I won't tell you what the other colour I received is.  But I can assure you it is beautiful.  My photo doesn't do Mermaid's Voice polish justice, though.  It is a soft teal base, with heaps of teal and pink small and medium hexagon glitter, and lashings of microglitter, and looks particularly beautiful in the sun or under artificial light.  I used 2 coats of Mermaid's Voice on my middle fingers, and got good coverage, but I'm still trying to work out whether I should have used it as a top coat or on its own. It looks beautiful in the sun, and in the shade, but I couldn't catch it properly in my photo.

I'm afraid to say that I do not like the Revlon Top Speed Spirit I used on my index and ring fingers.  It was hard to get good coverage and, even after three coats and a top coat, I still couldn't get a smooth finish. I certainly won't be using it as a base for any nail art again.  It may be good for stencils and dotting, etc. though, so I'm sure I'll find a use for it sometime.

The Essie Beach Bum Blu is a beautiful, bright teal blue shimmer, and it went on very well, but it took 3 coats to get full coverage, because it is a fairly thin polish.  Unfortunately, though, after I put the top coat over it, the polish on my right thumb bubbled, so it looks awful.  However, the other three nails I used it on are just fine. So it really has me puzzled.  Also, I have no idea what the white mark is on my thumb nail in the photo, as it's definitely not on my nail.  All I can think is that it must have been a trick of the light at the time.

The Savvy Nail PolishTeal  I used for the stencil came out a lot darker than it looked in the bottle, which was disappointing, because I thought it would be just a bit darker than the Essie.  However, the SMARTnails Stencils were amazing.  They stuck to my nails really well, without being TOO sticky, and I had no trouble with smudging when I removed them.  However, when I put my top coat over my middle nails, the ribbon smudged badly on my left hand (I obviously put too much pressure on it, because it was very, very dry, and shouldn't have smudged.  It smudged very slightly on my right hand when I virtually just waved the brush over it with the top coat, but nowhere near as badly, and that is why you are seeing my right hand instead of my left, which is actually my preferred hand to photograph because it is my non-dominant hand, and the nails are actually better to look at with regard to shape and length.

When attaching the rhinestone decals, I dabbed a little top coat where I wanted them to go, picked them up with a wax pencil and placed them on my index nails. I then put two coats of top coat over them to hold them in place.

Overall, I'm pleased with the actual colour and design of the manicure, but I just wished my nails looked neater, and that the photo showed the colours better.  I really am going to have to work on both of these aspects of my manicures, because it really upsets me when I see how bad they look compared to others on the web.

I hope you all have a wonderful week, and that you have enjoyed my reviews and my manicure.  I hope you will come back often to see what I have to show you, and check out the beautiful, exciting hand-made nail polishes at LYZ Cosmetics Fairybread Nail Polish, the fabulous nail art stencils at SMARTnails, and the wonderful array of nail art supplies available at AliExpress.  You will be very pleasantly surprised if you haven't discovered these sites yet.

God bless you!

Hugs

Christine

(Please check out my other blog below, too.)

Words of Life and Hope
http://wordsoflifeandhope.blogspot.com.au/