SMPolish "Fairytale Collection" Part 2 - Pastel Colours - Just Released 31 July 2015

Just as a reminder, and in case you didn't see my reviews of the first part of this collection, here is how this came about.

I was thrilled to be asked by Shakeela Meer, the maker of these unique polishes, and a really new member of the Aussie Indie Polish Maker community, to help her name this collection, and was then really honoured when she asked if I would be her official "namer" for her polishes in the future.  I couldn't believe it, but of course I said "Yes, please!", and now I am an official member of the SMPolish team.  I will be choosing a list of possible names for each polish in each collection, and in some cases the actual name of the collection, and then Shakeela will make the final decisions on the name for each polish.  So, as you can imagine, I've really had to put my thinking cap on and go back to my childhood memories with this collection (and this is really a long time ago for me, so it was a big ask).  It's just as well that I have always been a bookworm, right from early childhood, so my memory didn't take too much jogging to bring back so many wonderful memories of the fairytales I enjoyed way back when.

The Fairytale Collection is described by Shakeela thus: "Each polish in the listing is made up of either creme-jelly bases or shimmery bases with the addition of both complimenting and contrasting glitters. This collection covers any occasion from everyday simple to a night out, from party to vacation, from tea party to wedding."

As with the first part of this collection, I used OPI Natural Nail "Glitter Off" Base Coat and OPI Natural Nail Top Coat on all my nails for the swatches below.

Now it's time for me to review the second part of the SMPolish "Fairytale Collection - The Pastel Colours", and I hope you will like these as much as I do.

 

 

The first polish in the Pastel Colours part of the Fairytale Collection is "The Shadow", a charcoal grey "crelly" polish with holographic micro-glitter and tiny black and purple glitter.  This polish went on very smoothly, and I used three coats for my swatches to achieve the full "crelly" effect I wanted.  The finish was quite rough because of the glitter, but just one coat of top coat was more than enough to give a smooth, shiny finish.  This muted polish is very elegant and would be suitable for almost any occasion.

The inspiration for the name of this polish came from the pulp fiction magazine series "The Shadow Magazine", primarily written by Walter B. Gibson and first published on April 1, 1931.  Now, I know you're going to say "But this isn't a fairytale", but the hero of this series, "The Shadow",  just seemed to fit this polish so perfectly - shadowy, mysterious, with lots of hidden depth, so I suggested it as one of the options for this polish to Shakeela, and it's the one she went with. 

 

The second polish in this part of the collection is "Thumbelina", a pretty pastel, but very shimmery, blue polish with holographic micro-glitter and tiny bright blue and pink glitter.  This polish was very easy to work with, and I have used three coats in my swatches so that the full "crelly" effect of this polish would be shown.  Once again, the finish was rough, but one coat of top coat was more than enough to smooth it out and give a lovely shiny finish.

The inspiration for this nail polish came from the fairytale "Thumbelina", written in 1835 by the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen, and published in his book Fairy Tales Told for Children. First Collection.  For some reason, when I saw this colour I immediately thought of this name, perhaps because I've always loved pastel blue dresses on little girls, especially with polka dots, and that's how I envisioned "Thumbelina" dressed this way - hence the name.

 

The third polish in this part of the Fairytale Collection from SMPolish is "Violetta", a gorgeous, pastel purple polish , with lots of holographic micro-glitter, and tiny bright pink glitter.  The polish went on very smoothly, and I used three coats so that the true "crelly" effect would show in my swatches.  The finish was a little rough because of the glitter, but just one coat of top coat solved that problem.  I really like this polish, and I think it is my favourite from this part of the collection.

I'm really not sure where the inspiration for this name came from, but many fairy tales and folk tales have heroines that aren't actually given names, and I'm sure this would be a wonderful choice for some of them, and the colour just seemed to scream out for a name like this.  I suggested it as one of my selections for this polish, and this is the one Shakeela chose - perfect, I think.

 

The fourth polish in this part of the collection is "The Sea Maiden", a beautiful aqua "crelly" polish with a smattering of holographic micro-glitter and bright blue and aqua glitter.  This polish was one of the easiest to work with, and went on very smoothly.  Two coats was all I needed to get full coverage and to give the "crelly" effect I wanted.  It was just a little rough, but one coat was all that was needed to give it this beautiful, glossy finish.  The overall effect of this polish is just gorgeous, and I'm not usually an aqua polish fan.  I think you will definitely love this polish if you buy it.

The inspiration for the name of this polish came from a Scottish fairy tale, "The Sea Maiden", part of a collection by John Francis Campbell, published in 1890 in Popular Tales of the West Highlands, and listing his informant as John Mackenzie, a fisherman, near Inverary.  I thought this name was perfect for this polish, and really portrayed the colour beautifully.

 

 

The fifth colour in this part of "The Fairytale Collection" from SMPolish is "Buttercup", a pretty, shimmery pastel yellow polish with bright aqua and pink glitter.  The polish went on very smoothly, but I really did need three coats to get full coverage and to achieve the "crelly" effect I wanted.  There was plenty of glitter, and I didn't have to fish for any at all.  Just one coat of top coat was all I needed to give the polish a lovely, shiny, smooth finish.  This is quite pretty, but doesn't do a thing for me on my nails because of the colour of my skin.

The name for this polish was inspired by the fairy tale "Buttercup", a Norwegian fairy tale collected by Peter Chr. Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe and published in 1845 in Norske Folkeeventyr, a collection of Norwegian folktales and legends.  The hero, Buttercup, is described as being so named because he is "plump and fat, and fond of good things", and I thought that description fitted this nail polish perfectly.  It just reminded me of a beautiful tub of butter with pretty glitter all through it.

 

 

 

Now we come to the last of The Fairytale Collection Pastel Shades, "The Enchanted Maiden", a gorgeous, bright pastel pink "crelly" polish, with a scattering of holographic micro-glitter and tiny bright pink and blue glitter.  The polish went on beautifully, and I used three coats to get the full "crelly" effect, and I wasn't disappointed.  There were just a few bumps in the finish because of the glitter, but one coat of top coat soon fixed that problem, and gave a beautiful, glossy finish.  This polish is a very pretty pink, but unfortunately didn't suit my finger colour.  However, on someone who can wear pastel pinks, especially bright ones, it would look great.

The name for this polish was inspired by "The Enchanted Maiden", a Portuguese fairy tale collected by Consiglieri Pedroso in Portuguese Folk-Tales in 1882.  I envisaged a gorgeous maiden, in a pastel pink dress, sprinkled with fairy dust, and thus the name of this polish was born.

So, I hope you have enjoyed seeing all these lovely polishes in this new collection from SMPolish, and that you will visit Shakeela's store to check out this beautiful collection, "The Fairytale Collection", very soon.  Shakeela also has a couple of other lovely collections available, and has great plans for more wonderful polishes in the very near future.  Please support this new kid on the block in the world of Aussie Indie Polishes and encourage her to continue in her endeavours.  I know she'd love to hear your comments, too, regarding the type of polishes you would like to see her produce, and any other nail products that you think she should add to her store.  Sign up on her Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/SMnailpolish?fref=ts to be kept up to date with what is happening in her store.

Thank you for visiting my blog, and I hope you will be back often to see what I have to share with you about what I've been doing with my nails, how they are going in their recovery from my chemotherapy last year (2014), and any nail art ideas I've come up with lately.

Have a wonderful day, and may God bless you with an abundance of His mercy and grace.

Hugs

Christine

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

Words of Life and Hope

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

 I received 5ml sample bottles of all these polishes to help me choose their names,
and to enable me to do an honest review and to do swatches of the polishes.

SMPolish "Fairytale Collection" Part 1 - Bright Colours - Just Released 31 July 2015

Today I have Part 1 of the latest collection of polish from SMPolish - The Fairytale Collection - The Bright Colours - to show and review for you.

I was thrilled to be asked by Shakeela Meer, the maker of these unique polishes, and a really new member of the Aussie Indie Polish Maker community, to help her name this collection, and was then really honoured when she asked if I would be her official "namer" for her polishes in the future.  I couldn't believe it, but of course I said "Yes, please!", and now I am an official member of the SMPolish team.  I will be choosing a list of possible names for each polish in each collection, and in some cases the actual name of the collection, and then Shakeela will make the final decisions on the name for each polish.  So, as you can imagine, I've really had to put my thinking cap on and go back to my childhood memories with this collection (and this is really a long time ago for me, so it was a big ask).  It's just as well that I have always been a bookworm, right from early childhood, so my memory didn't take too much jogging to bring back so many wonderful memories of the fairytales I enjoyed way back when.

I will also be doing reviews and swatches of most of her polishes, and I'm absolutely chuffed to be doing this, so here we go with just my second official review and swatch assignment ever.

The Fairytale Collection is described by Shakeela thus: "Each polish in the listing is made up of either creme-jelly bases or shimmery bases with the addition of both complimenting and contrasting glitters. This collection covers any occasion from everyday simple to a night out, from party to vacation, from tea party to wedding."

I used one coat of OPI Natural Nail "Glitter Off" Base Coat and one coat of OPI Natural Nail Top Coat on all my nails for these swatches.

   

The first polish in the Bright Colours part of the Fairytale Collection is "Puss In Boots", a black "crelly" polish, with an explosion of gold micro-glitter, tiny holographic glitter, small black, blue and purple glitter, and a slight shimmer.  This polish went on like a creme, although a little thin, was loaded with glitter, but was a little patchy with the first layer.  The second layer went on really well, and then I added a third layer so that I could get the full "crelly" effect and to make sure I had full coverage for my swatches.  Because of all the glitter, it dried to a shiny but rough finish, and just one coat of top coat was enough to smooth it out beautifully.

When I saw this colour, it immediately brought to mind the vision of "Puss In Boots" wearing a huge, shiny black pair of boots, which is the way I have always seen him portrayed in story books. This fairytale was written by a French writer, Charles Perrault, in 1697, and is part of "The Mother Goose Tales".  Unfortunately my photos don't do this polish justice, and it was very hard to show its true beauty, for which I apologise.  I will try to better for the next SMPolish collection.

   

The second "Bright Colours" polish of the collection is "Princess Rosette", a bright pink "crelly" polish, with lots of bright blue and pink glitter and a slight shimmer.  This went on smoothly from the first coat, and there was no need to go fishing for glitter at all.  I used three coats to achieve the full "crelly" effect, and it dried to a shiny but slightly rough finish, but once again, one coat of top coat covered it beautifully. The bright pink glitter is not easy to see in the photos, but I can assure you it is there.  If you look closely at the "macro" photo above you can just see it.  The glitter that appears to be purple is really the bright blue glitter with the pink polish over it.  This really is a very pretty polish, and I definitely liked this colour on my nails, even though I'm not really a fan of pink polish.

The rose pink colour is what gave me the idea for the name of this polish.  "Princess Rosette"  was written in 1698 by Baroness d'Aulnoy, a French writer known for her fairy tales. When she termed her works contes de fées (fairy tales), she originated the term that is now generally used for the genre.

   

The next polish in this collection is "The Emperor's New Clothes", a taupe nude crelly, tending a little towards mauve on my nails.  This polish is loaded with tiny bright pink, purple and blue glitter and a little shimmer.  It is very thin, but goes on very smoothly with no need to fish for glitter.  I used three coats to get full coverage and to achieve the full "crelly" effect, which is quite dramatic. The finish was just a little rough because of the glitter, but one coat of top coat was all that was needed to smooth this out.

The first time I saw this polish I knew exactly what the name had to be, because when I thought about fairytales and nude colours, "The Emperor's New Clothes" was the one that immediately came to mind.  This fairytale was written by the Danish writer, Hans Christian Andersen, and was published in 1837 as part of his book "Fairy Tales Told for Children. First Collection". 

 

 

The fourth colour in this collection is "Royal Butterfly", and is a beautiful rich purple "crelly", with a lovely shimmer, and lots of holographic micro-glitter, and tiny bright pink glitter.  I found this polish very easy to use, and didn't have to go fishing for any glitter at all.  I used three coats in my swatches to make sure I got really good coverage, and to achieve a full "crelly" effect, and I think this was my favourite polish in the collection.  It had quite a rough finish, but I only needed one coat of top coat to get a lovely glossy, smooth finish.  

The name for this polish was inspired by the fairytale "The Butterfly", written by Hans Christian Andersen and published in 1861.  I adore butterflies, and when I think of anything "royal" I think of the colour purple, and hence the name.

 

   

The fifth polish in this collection is "The Golden Goose", a gorgeous bright yellow "crelly" with lots of shimmer, and heaps of tiny bright pink and blue glitter.  This polish went on very smoothly, and I used three coats to get the maximum "crelly" effect.  The only problem I had was a few brush marks, but I think that may have been because I put the third layer on.  The colour is stunning, and this is my second favourite of the collection, even though I don't normally like yellow polish.  

The name of this polish was inspired by the fairytale "The Golden Goose", from a collection of folk tales gathered by The Brothers Grimm. Their first collection of folk tales, "Children's and Household Tales", in which this tale was featured, was published in 1812.  This tale was the first one I thought of when I saw the colour of this polish.

 

The final polish in this part of The Fairytale Collection is "The Bluebird", a gorgeous bright blue "crelly" polish with a beautiful shimmer.  There is heaps of holographic micro-glitter, and tiny bright pink and blue glitter, with no need to go fishing for the glitter.  The polish went on really smoothly, but it is rather thin, like most of this collection, so I used three coats to achieve the fabulous "crelly" effect.  Although the finish was a little rough, one coat of top coat was all that was need to give a beautiful, shiny result.

The name of this polish was inspired by the fairytale "The Bluebird", another lovely tale from Baroness d'Aulnoy, the French writer known for her fairy tales, which was first published in 1697. As mentioned earlier, the term she used to describe her works, contes de fées (fairy tales),  was the origin of the term that is now generally used for the genre.

So, that's the end of my reviews of Part 1 of the latest collection of polish from SMPolish - The Fairytale Collection - The Bright Colours.  I hope you like these polishes as much as I do.  They are available now at SMPolish on Etsy, so I hope you will go and check them out, and hopefully purchase some of them to support this new member of the Aussie Indie Polish Maker community.  

I'll be reviewing the second half of this collection, The Fairytale Collection - Pastel Shades, next, and hope you will check that blog out, too.

If you like this collection, please spread the word among your friends who love nail polish and nail art.  New makers only become known through word-of-mouth and/or searching Facebook, Instagram and Google, etc, so Shakeela really needs your support at this early stage of her endeavour.  Signup to her Facebook page for her polish at https://www.facebook.com/SMnailpolish?fref=ts so you can keep up with the latest news from her store.

Thank you for visiting and I hope you will come back often to see what I have to share with you. 

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/

 I received 5ml sample bottles of all these polishes to help me choose their names,
and to enable me to do an honest review and to do swatches of the polishes.

Green Skittlette Manicure - 23 June 2015

Finally I've managed to get my manicure for this week done, and it is a green skittlette, featuring two of the polishes I got in the Lyme Disease Awareness Giveaway Prize and another beautiful green polish.  I can't stop looking at my manicure, even though I thought I would never wear green nail polish, because it's never been one of my favourite colours.  Needless to say, I've changed my mind.  Then again, with these three beautiful polishes to use, I think it shouldn't have come as a surprise to me.

The polishes I used are Pretty Serious "VT100", Grace-full Nail Polish "Lyme for a Cure" and Emily de Molly "You're Not That Great".  "Lyme for a Cure" is the Limited Edition polish made only for the Lyme Disease Awareness Giveaway" last month, and "You're Not That Great" was also in the prize package. If you haven't already seen my post about this prize that I won, you can check it out below.  I also used Pretty Serious "Rock On Strengthener" and Grace-full Nail Polish "Quick Dry Top Coat".

Taken in the shade in my sunroom.

I started with one coat of Pretty Serious "Rock On Strengthener" on all my nails, then another coat on a couple that are still very fragile to give them a bit of extra protection.  Then, would you believe I forgot to put on my base coat?  I couldn't believe it myself, but there you go.  It will be interesting to see how "Rock On" performs as a base coat on its own.  I'll let you know when I do my next manicure.

Next I painted my pinkie and my thumb nails with two coats of Pretty Serious "VT 100", which is a beautiful deep-green shimmer polish with micro silver and green glitter, which unfortunately is no longer available.  The polish went on really smoothly, and is almost a one-coat polish, but I used two coats for my manicure.  The colour is gorgeous, and there is an amazing amount of glitter, which unfortunately was very hard to catch in some of my photos, but here is a macro photo of it that will give you some idea of how lovely it is.

Taken in overcast conditions outside.

Then I painted my index and ring fingers with Grace-full Nail Polish "Lyme for a Cure".  This polish is just beautiful to use, and coverage was fantastic with two coats.  I'm so glad I won this prize, because this polish isn't available to others, and the colour is so gorgeous and rich, with so many colours flashing through it I couldn't name them all.  It's a beautiful green holo, but unfortunately I was unable to catch its true beauty with my camera.  Here is a macro of it, however, which does show some of the colour shift.

 

Beautiful, isn't it?  This is one of the polishes that has completely changed my opinion of using green polish on my nails.  I can assure you, I will be using lots more in the future.

The polish I used on my middle nails is Emily de Molly "You're Not That Great", which is a lime green crelly, loaded with holographic lime and turquoise glitter, and blue shimmer.  I used three coats because I wanted to get the jelly effect, and the effect is amazing.  I don't know why it is called "You're No That Great" because it certainly is great!  I found it shifted almost to turquoise on my nails, but still had enough green in it to look great with the other two polishes.  Here is a macro shot of it for you to drool over.  

This polish is still available, so pop on over to Emily de Molly for a look at some more great photos.

I finished my manicure with one coat of Grace-full Nail Polish "Quick Dry Top Coat".  This is the first time I've used this top coat, and I'm very impressed with it.  There was no bubbling on any of the polishes, unlike with the OPI "Natural Nail Top Coat" I used for my last manicure.  The finish is lovely and glossy, and it flowed on beautifully.  I can really recommend it, so pop on over to Grace-full to check it out now.

Now, here are some more photos of my complete manicure, which will show you why I'm so pleased with the result.

  
These photos were taken in the sun on my front porch.

Taken in the shade in my sunroom.

  

Taken inside under artificial light.

Taken in overcast conditions outside.

Well, that's my manicure for yesterday.  I'm really pleased with all the polishes I used, and just love the final result of the combination of these three polishes.  I hope you agree, and I would really appreciate any comments you might have.

Thanks for visiting, and I hope you'll come back often to see what I have to share with you.   You can follow me by filling in the boxes at the top right-hand side of the page if you so wish.
 

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/

 

I was not paid in any way, shape or form for using any of the items mentioned in this post,
and my honest opinions are given freely and without any bias at all.

Brown And Copper Skittle Manicure - 14 June 2015

Finally, after over a week of major ups and bigger downs in our home and in our lives, here is my latest skittle manicure.  I used five different brown and/or copper colours, and I am amazed at how well they went together.  Here are the products I used:

Now to some photos of my manicure, taken in artificial light at BigW and outside, but with light cloud cover, and just a touch of sunshine.

  

                      Under Artificial Light at BigW                                   Outside In Shade

Outside Under Light Cloud

I started with one coat of Pretty Serious "Rock On" Strengthener on all my nails, and a second coat on a couple that are still very thin and fragile.  Then I put one coat of OPI Natural Nail Base Coat on them all.

On my pinky fingers I used Model's Prefer "Double Shot" creme polish, which looks like a really dark brown in the bottle, but with two coats on my pinky nails it looks black, so I was a bit disappointed, because I wanted it to be brown to fit with the rest of the colours I used. However, it was very easy to work with, and I had excellent coverage with two coats.

On my ring fingers I used Grace-full Nail Polish "And My Axe", which is a dark red-brown jelly packed with holo, silver, gold, copper and bronze glitter.  In real life, just looking at it on my hands, I seemed to have full coverage with just two coats but, thanks to my hubby buying me a smart phone with such good photographic ability, I realise now that I should have added another coat, and perhaps done a bit of dabbing.  Like all my Grace-full Nail Polish, it looks amazing under any lighting, but especially under artificial light and in the sun.  Unfortunately it was cloudy yesterday, so it was very hard to get any photos in full sunlight.  That's the problem with living in Tasmania in winter.  Unfortunately this polish is no longer available, but there are heaps of other wonderful polishes available.

On my middle fingers I used Pretty Serious Cosmetics "Seasonal Sunset", a rusty, jelly-base colour packed with gold and copper glitter. In real life it is a real glitter bomb, and it was so hard to get a a photo that did it justice.  It goes on like a dream, and I only needed two coats to get fantastic coverage.  I probably could have had enough cover with just one good coat, but I wanted it to look good for the swatch, so I gave it the extra coat. This polish is also no longer available, and was a gift from a dear friend who knew that I wanted a bottle of it and that I hadn't known about Pretty Serious Cosmetics when this colour was available.  Thank you, Therese.  I absolutely love it!

On my index fingers I used Shades of Phoenix "Fred's Courage" from the Shades of Potter Collection, which is a burnt orange, autumn-leaf coloured polish.  It went on really smoothly, with full cover in two coats, but when I put the top coat on it bubbled, and got worse overnight.  I was so disappointed, because the colour is amazing, and I was so looking forward to using it.  I will definitely use it again with a different top coat.  The Shades of Potter Collection is wonderful, and I can't wait to try the other colours in the collection.

Finally, on my thumbs I used one of the new Ulta3 Autumn/Winter Metallic Collection polishes, "from the mine", which is a gorgeous copper, metallic glitter bomb with a textured finish.  I also added just one coat of this polish to my pinky fingers to try and take some of the starkness off the colour on them. I don't normally like rough finishes, but with just one coat of top coat this was not so rough that it catches on things, and I love it. All this collection is beautiful, and I just had to give this one a try.  If you haven't tried these polishes yet, get to your nearest Terry White Pharmacy and find them as soon as you can.  There are five in the set, and every single one of them is just gorgeous. 

I finished off with one coat of OPI Natural Nail Top Coat, which gave everything a lovely glossy finish.  However, as I mentioned earlier, it made the polish on my index fingers bubble, but not any of the other polishes.

So, there you have it for this post.  I'm really pleased with how the colour combination worked out and my nails are growing once again, although they still have a long way to go, thanks to both the Pretty Serious Nail Care treatments I am using, "Rock On Nail Strengthener" and "Cuticle Hero Super Hydrating Cuticle Oil".  They are really great, and I'm so glad that I discovered them, and was blessed with some items from this range by a lovely friend of mine.  Thanks, Chris, you know who you are.

I'll be back again soon to show you my birthday present stash from my hubby, and a couple of other great finds.  Thanks for visiting, and I hope you'll come back soon to see what I have to share with you.

Have a great week, and God bless you!

Hugs

Christine

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

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

burnt orange Autumn leaf coloured polish.

More Retail Therapy Arrived Today 14 May 2015

I just had to share with you the wonderful polish stash I received from Hayley at Emily de Molly, an Australian Indie Polish maker, whose products I absolutely adore.  I purchased three of them, and the other one Hayley added as a bonus gift.  She also included some cute, oval-shaped silver decals. Thank you so much, Hayley.

 

"Serenity" is described as green leaning blue creme/jelly with different sizes of copper, lavender and turquoise glitter.  I can't believe how beautiful this polish is, and the name fits it perfectly.  Click on the name to be taken to the website and more photos.

"Absent Minded" is described as a purple jelly with iridescent glitter that flashes from blue to green, along with different sizes of copper, blue and red glitter.  This polish in real life is so gorgeous, words can't describe it.  You really have to check it out for yourself.  Click on the name to be taken to the website and more photos.

"A Beautiful Mistake" is unfortunately no longer available on the site (I think I bought the last bottle), and I say unfortunately because, now that I've seen it in person, I want another backup bottle.  It is the most amazing red jelly, with different-sized red and iridescent glitter.  I am in love once again, and can't wait to try it  out when my nails are ready.  I think it would be a wonderful polish for times when you try a red polish on your nails, and it's not really what you were hoping for.  One coat of this polish over the top, and Voila!  Perfection!

"Regal Beginnings" is the polish that I received as a gift from Hayley, perhaps because it was the last one, as it is now sold out. I have to admit that it is not a polish that I would have purchased after just looking at it on my computer screen, but now I've seen it in person, I can't believe how wonderful, and different, it is.  The more I look at it the more I like it, and I can't wait to try it out, perhaps on a feature nail as part of a marbled manicure, using all the colours that are used in this particular polish.  It is described as a medium purple jelly/creme, with different sizes of gold, blue and black glitter. I would actually describe it as a pale lilac, but what's in a name? 

All Emily de Molly polish is 5 free hand-blended, custom nail polish (Toluene, Formaldehyde, TSF resin, Camphor and DBP free).

I'm afraid the photos don't really do justice to these polishes, but if you check out the photos of the ones that are still available on the Emily de Molly site, there are some great photos of swatches there that will give you a better idea of their true beauty.

I also received another parcel from Catch of the Day, which is a set of three OPI Top Coats called "Sheer To The Top" Top Coat & Glitter Trio.  Sorry the photo isn't as clear as I would have liked, but with the plastic in the front of the box it was hard to get a good picture.

 

The description on the back of the box says "Top it shiny, top it matte, or for more drama, top your manicure with glitter!  The perfect finishing touch is yours for the choosing!"

Top Coat - dries nails to the touch in one minute, completely in five, with just one to two coats.

Matte Top Coat - matte protection for all OPI shades! For velvety finishes and oxidized shimmers that fly under the radar.

So Elegant - Black & Chrome confetti add sophisticated drama to this glitter.

These three top coats were a real bargain on Catch of the Day, and I just couldn't resist buying them.  Firstly because I love the OPI Top Coat, and have used it a lot in my manis on my blogs.  Secondly, I needed a good matte top coat, so thought I would give this one a try.  Thirdly, I loved the dramatic look of the black and chrome glitter in "So Elegant", and I'm sure it will be used with all sorts of base colours in future manicures.

Thank you for visiting my blog, and I hope to be back soon with even more retail therapy stashes, my Mother's Day present, which I'm getting tomorrow, and anything else that comes up along the way.

Have a wonderful day, and God bless you!

Hugs

Christine

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

Words of Life and Hope

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

All polish was bought by me, my opinions are unsolicited and I have not received any payment of any kind.

My First Water Marble Manicure - 24 March 2015

Yesterday I did my first water marble manicure, and I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out. 

Picture on left was taken inside under artificial light, and the one on the right was taken in the shade.

 
Please forgive the rough skin around my finger tips and cuticles, but my nails have had a pretty tough time over the last few days.  My index finger and my middle finger on my left hand, and my thumb on my right hand, all have patches on them.  They broke half-way down my nails - they have all pulled away from the nail bed down the side of the nails because of the chemotherapy damage, and they are still very thin and fragile there.  I still don't know whether this damage will be permanent, or if they will grow back onto the nail bed as the new nail growth comes through.  Only time will tell!  I went out today and bought some Revitanail "Strengthener", "Keratin Strengthening Serum", Nourishing Oil" and "Hand & Nail Cream".  They are on special at Terry White's Pharmacies, 3 items for the price of 2, this week (in Australia), and I'm going to start using them all as often as possible.  I'm afraid I haven't been following my own advice lately because I've been so busy, and have also been feeling really depressed and not at all motivated, so I have to start practicing what I preach again and try to get things back on track.

Now, on to my water marble manicure.  I started with 2 coats of Sally Hansen "Hard As Nails" strengthener because all my nails are so fragile, and I'm hoping this will help to keep them from breaking.  I got 6 bottles of it REALLY cheap before Christmas on eBay, but forgot I had it.  When my nails broke (after I'd stopped crying - literally), I started thinking about what strengthening base coats I had that I could use, and I remembered I had this.  So, God willing, I won't have any more breaks for a while.

I then added two coats of OPI "Alpine Snow" white cream polish to all my nails. I don't really like this polish because I need three coats to get a smooth finish, but because I was actually planning to do a plastic wrap marble manicure (tutorial here http://polishandpearls.com/watercolor-nails/ and elsewhere online), I just left it at two coats.  However, I couldn't get this manicure style to work with the polishes I wanted to use, so I decided to try an actual water marble instead (tutorial here http://www.beautybay.com/EssentialBeauty/Articles/watermarblenailstutorial and in many other places online). 

I then smeared Vaseline around all my nails and part-way up my fingers to make cleaning up a lot easier, because water marbling is very messy.  I had to be careful not to get any of the Vaseline on the actual nails, because it would have stopped the nail polish from going onto the nails.

Next, I filled my bowl with tepid water straight from the tap, and added drops of OPI "Alpine Snow" (white), Face of Australia Pastels "Boys 'N' Berries" (blue), OPI "Mod About You" (pale pink) and OPI "Planks A Lot" (lilac) (in this order).  I did this three times for each design (twelve drops in all), and then used a toothpick to make my design, following the above tutorial as a guide.  All the polishes spread over the water really well, which was great. I used a small glass bowl because I wanted to do all my nails at the same time, instead of individually or in pairs, which is the usual way it is done, because I was so frustrated that the other design hadn't worked and wanted to get it over and done with.  My design was a random one, instead of any particular design, in which I just swirled the colours around and through each other until I was happy with the distribution of the colours.  Then I just dipped all five fingers of my left hand in the bowl at once, and repeated all this with the other hand.

I finished off my manicure with one coat of Revlon "Quick Dry Top Coat", which gave me a beautiful, glossy finish. I am rather pleased with the end result, and really love the way the colour combination worked out.  Of course, I still have a lot to learn about this technique, but with all the advice and tutorials available on YouTube, and numerous blogs and websites online, I should be able to have a lot of fun trying out new designs, and a multitude of colour combinations, in the future.  It really is quite easy to do, I found, and the mess was easy to clean up because I had used the Vaseline around my nails and fingers.  Next time I'm going to try using sticky tape around my nails and fingers, and see how that goes.

Thank you so much for visiting, and I hope you'll come back often to see what I have to share with you.  If you so wish, you can follow me by filling in one of the boxes at the top right-hand side of the page, and I'd love you to share it with your nail-art friends.  Now I'm off to put some cuticle oil on my cuticles and lots of hand-cream on my hands.  I couldn't believe how dry they were until I took the  photos.  My new phone has a really good camera, and it's picking up flaws in my manicures, and every little bit of damage to my nails, cuticles and hands, which don't show up when you just look at them day to day.  So, I've got lots of work to do to repair all the damage, as if I didn't have enough problems with my nails already.  Oh, well, that's my own fault, I guess, for letting things slide.

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/

My Manicure for 1 March 2015

Today I have a full "skittle" manicure to show you, which happened by accident, because I only intended to put the pink polish on 3 nails on each hand, but I was watching TV while I was doing my mani, and before I knew what I'd done, I had pink polish on all five fingers on my left hand.  So, I just went ahead and did my other hand, but then added other polishes to my thumbs, index and pinky nails, mainly because I didn't like the color or finish of the pink nail polish on my nails, but also because I wanted to feature the Moonstone polish "Sample 10" on my middle fingers.

Photo taken in shade.

Products used:  Revlon Quick Dry Base and Top Coats, OPI "Pink-ing Of You" , Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear "Golden-I", Moonstone "Sample 10", Savvy "High Voltage", L.A. Colors Color Craze "Tinsel", and China Glaze "Bridezilla".

I started with one coat of base coat to every nail, then one coat of OPI "Pink-ing Of You" to every nail.  It was at this stage I had realised that I was supposed to be doing a "skittlette" manicure, with a feature nail and another nail with a different colour on it. (Big BOO BOO that!!!)  I then added another coat of "Pink-ing Of You" to my thumb, index and pinky nails.  However, I still did not have full coverage, so I added another coat, but still the coverage was patchy.  The polish is very thin, and not easy to work with.  It was very hard to stop it from looking patchy no matter how careful I was. That was when I decided to do a full "skittle" mani to cover up the patchiness by adding three different glitters/toppers to the pink nails, hence the "skittle" instead of the "skittlette" manicure.

Next, I added two coats of "Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear "Golden-I" to my ring fingers.  This polish is sooooooo beautiful, and I almost got full cover with just one coat, but used two for this mani, and because it is over a coat of pink, the effect is gorgeous, with just a tinge of pink showing through.  The finish is beautifully smooth and shimmery, and it went on like a dream. I will definitely be using this polish a lot in the future when I want a golden nail, or for stencils and/or nail art, and will have to go out and find another bottle before they decide to take it off the market (I hope they haven't already), because the bottle is only 11.8ml, so it probably will not last very long.

Then I added two coats of Moonstone "Sample 10" to my middle fingers.  This is a colour that, unfortunately, is no longer available, and Caitlin (the owner and maker of Moonstone polish) told me she has lost the formula, so she can't make any more.  When I first received this polish in the mail, I was so blown away by it that I went straight back to the site and bought the last bottle Caitlin had, and have since bought several more.  It is a beautiful, very, very pale blue crelly, loaded with heaps of gold and holographic micro-glitter; gold, hot pink and pink tiny, round glitter; small white square glitter; and larger pink hexagonal glitter.  It was wonderful to work with, and looked gorgeous over the one coat of pink underneath, even with just one coat, but I wanted to get the full crelly effect, so I used two coats for this manicure.  It went on smoothly, and two coats was more than enough to achieve the effect I wanted.  It looks like milky jelly with layers and layers of different glitters (see the close-up below).

My next job was to try to cover up the patchy pink polish, so I went searching through my glitter polishes and toppers and found three that completely transformed the OPI "Pink-ing Of You" to something beautiful.

The first one, which I added to my thumb nails, was Savvy "High Voltage".  It is an amazing glitter polish, loaded with gold and holographic micro-glitter (and I mean LOADED), as well as heaps of small pink and gold hexagonal glitter.  It can be used on its own, with two coats giving good coverage, but I just wanted to add a little extra to cover up the flaws in the pink polish underneath, so only used the one coat.  It was lovely to work with, and no fishing around in the bottle was needed to find the glitter. It was like adding a light smear of gold leaf with flashes of pink and gold glitter, and the shimmer effect is just beautiful.

The second glitter/topper polish I used was L.A. Colors Color Craze "Tinsel", which I added to my pinky fingers.  It is a pink jelly polish, with lots of pink and holographic micro-glitter, and larger pink and holographic hexagonal glitters.  Just one coat smothered the pink with a slightly richer, pink jelly layer that sparkles like diamonds.  It's just gorgeous in real life.

The last glitter I used is a sheer, pale pink polish with lots of holographic shimmer from China Glaze.  It's called "Bridezilla", and is simply beautiful.  It can be used on its own by using two or three coats, but even then it is very sheer, so I prefer to use it as a pink shimmer topper, and the effect is stunning.  This would work over almost any light or dark colour, and I can't wait to try it over black one day (SIGH!).

Overall, what could have been a disaster, because of the bad performance of the OPI "Pink-ing Of You", turned out to be a lovely skittle manicure, IMVHO.  I'm really happy with the result, and here are some pictures for you.

 

 

Both photos taken inside.

   

First photo taken in shade, second taken in sun.

  

The first photo is a close-up of Moonstone "Sample 10", the second one of the whole mani in the sun.

As a follow-up to last week's mani, by the time I took my polish off yesterday, 6 days from when I put it on, there was hardly any wear anywhere except the tips, which had only worn because I am constantly typing on my computer.  It left no stains on my nails, and came off very easily.  I am just so thrilled with all the Superficially Colorful polishes I have tried so far, and I can't wait to try another one from the "Remants Of Winter Collection".

 
Thank you for visiting my blog, and I hope you'll come back often to see what I have to share with you.  I have no idea what I'll have to show you next, but I will try to make it as interesting as possible.

God bless you, and have a wonderful day.

Hugs

Christine

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

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

P.S. All polishes mentioned in this blog were purchased by me, and I was not paid in any way for my reviews.