Halloween-y Swatch Spam

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Happy Halloween Trick or Treaters!

No one came to our house this year :( The one time we had candy!
Oh well, more for me!

I never got round to doing any nail art so here's some Halloween themed swatches for you:

Elevation Sarychev sandwiched with Cover Girl Boundless Color Amethyst Mist

Sarychev is a near tangerine orange jelly from the Island Collection. The formula is kind of watery, not like a regular jelly so I had to watch how much polish was on the brush. You get decent coverage after 3 coats but there's still a little VNL left. I started off with 2 coats, then 1 coat of Amethyst Mist and 1 more coat of Sarychev to sandwich it up.

Dollish Polish Vampire's Coven over Revlon Devil's Lure

Vampire Coven is a purple and red glitter mix in a dirty purple/wine murky, semi-sheer base. There's also some fine gold sparkly particles in it too, which you don't notice until you step in to the sun. It's a relative to Lynnderella Pretty Vampire. The glitter is a little smaller and isn't curled though!!!!!!!!!!! Application is a lot kinder too. You can wear it alone with about 3 coats, but I layered it over 2 coats of  Devil's Lure which is a vampy maroon jelly. The base makes VC look like a much more vibrant plum purple!

China Glaze Spectral over Brucci Black Emerald

Spectral is a colour shifting glitter/flakie top coat from China Glaze's Wicked Collection for Halloween. There are small and medium iridescent hex glitters that shift from orange-yellow/gold-green-blue, and lots of fine flakies to match. It looks awesome over a dark base (for maximum colour shifting effect) and I used a dark forest green with orange/brown duochrome shimmer, the gorgeous Brucci Black Emerald.

Pretty & Polished Witchy Woman

Witchy Woman is part of the limited edition Halloween Collection from Pretty & Polished. It's a really sheer purple shimmer with fuchsia, green and black hex and shredded purple glitter. Because it's so sheer, wrapping my tips didn't stop it from shrinking back once the top coat dried and the shredded glitter requires some serious glitter taming because it sticks out from the nail. I used at least 4 coats of WW for these swatches followed by 2 coats of Glitter Gloss. I think it'd look better layered over an opaque purple and that would reduce the trouble with the shredded glitter. I do like the mix of colours and it does look pretty witchy.

China Glaze Immortal

Immortal is also part of the Wicked Collection. It's a concrete grey with blue and pink micro-shimmer and lots of glass fleck shimmer. It's so pretty, my favourite Halloween release by far! The formula is great and 2 coats gives great coverage.

Hope your Halloweens are super spooky

xxx

NPA

Pretty & Polished Milky Glitters!

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Hey guys,

super tired tonight so keeping it very short. Here's Candy Coated & Drama Queen from Pretty & Polished. They're both milky creme bases with glitter - a bit like a 1 step glitter sandwich.

Pretty & Polished Candy Coated layered over Barry M Strawberry Ice Cream

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Candy Coated is a semi-sheer baby pink with rose and purple hex glitters of varying sizes. Pretty, girly. I'm wearing 2 coats over a matching base. Applied great, needs 1-2 layers of top coat for smoothness.

 Pretty & Polished Drama Queen

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 Drama Queen is a milky lilac base with pink and white hex glitter and purple square glitter. In sunlight you can see the subtle glass fleck like shimmer in the base. Application is ok, it's got great coverage, 2 coats max! The square glitter does curve a little at the edges but nothing a few layers of top coat can't hide.


Happy Independence Day to my US readers :)

xxx
NPA

I Wish I Was a Pretty & Polished BEACH BUM

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Oh, if only it was Summer and I was in Whangamata, stick thin and stretch mark free, sunbathing on the beach!!!!!!
That's the dream!

Instead it's a very chilly winter and I'm about 50 kg away from being/having a beach bum!!!!
(I did have a pre-dinner nap (can you say 95 year old woman?) with the lovely Charlie though. He slept under the covers with me and everything!!!! That's a plus for winter!!)

Wearing Pretty & Polished Beach Bum helped me to 'make believe' the dream though!!!

Pretty & Polished Beach Bum

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Beach Bum is a slightly blue tinted transparent base with loads of fine matte blue hex glitter, medium and large blue/green shiny hex and square glitters. I'm wearing 3 coats which gives a full coverage look, without being opaque. I didn't have any application issues, besides the giant hexes wanting to stay on the bottom of the bottle. I just gave it a good shake and left it upside down if I couldn't get any on the brush.

Chels just announced that she has reformulated Beach Bum so I'll be interested to see if it looks any different. I think she's probably found lighter hexes to fix the sinking problem like she did with the reformulated Jawbreaker.
It's killing me that she isn't shipping international any more!!!! Why can't I live in America?!!!!!! Maybe I should make Canada my home, best of both worlds? I have family there too...

xxx
NPA

Unintentional Mermaid Nails

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I've been trying to tackle some a lot of untrieds lately.
I'm already doing the Try It On Tuesday thing, but I got a huge influx of nail mail in May that I have barely managed to even look at, let alone try on, so I brought heaps of it on holiday with me.

I've been wanting to try some of my Pretty & Polished mini glitters for weeks and weeks and China Glaze Hi Def was as good a base as any, so...

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Mind Control has a clear base with small sized aqua square glitter and ultra fine bright blue, violet and bronze-gold/opalescent glitter. In the swatches I'm wearing 1 coat over Hi Def. I didn't think they'd really look good together but I didn't bring any good base colours with me, so I gave it a go. And viola!
When I stared at my nails I felt like I was looking into the glistening sea with the sun reflecting on mermaid scales!! i.e. it looked very pretty.

Application was very easy too, I didn't have to struggle at all to get the squares out and I ended up with a rather even distribution of the glitter.

Definitely a win!!! I can see myself using Mind Control in a Revlon Royal jelly sandwich too!!!!!!!!

xxx
NPA

Try It On Tuesday: Pretty & Polished Midnight Rider

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Hey guys,

Jilltastic Nail Design and some of her nail friends were talking about how they had so many untried polishes lying around and decided to wear 1 untried each week and share it with their followers!
A lot of other bloggers have jumped on the bandwagon, including me, so every Tuesday for the foreseeable future will be dedicated to showing an untried polish. It's called TRY IT ON TUESDAY!

I have had Midnight Rider sitting around for a wee while now - I'd seen it on Chalkboard Nails and fallen in love, but it arrived around the same time as Lynnderella Very Pretty Vampire and since they seemed a bit similar I let MR fall by the wayside.
Then Jill started talking about untrieds on facebook and I thought I'd whack it on.

Midnight Rider

Midnight Rider is a dark purple shimmer with red hex and purple square glitter in it. This is not the same formula as the original Midnight Rider that I saw on Chalkboard Nails, which upset me a little because I didn't realise there had been a change made!! Plus the Chalkboard Nails swatch is still being used on the etsy listing, so it's a bit misleading...The original had a blackened purple jelly base with the same glitters in it. I don't really care much for glitter in shimmer bases myself, but MR still looks pretty great. I did 2 coats of MR and 1 layer of top coat for the photos

It's nice to get the first Untried out of the way!
What have you got sitting around waiting to be worn for the first time?

Here's a list of the core bloggers taking part in Try It On Tuesdays. I hope you can take the time to see their posts too!

Jilltastic Nail Design
Beauty Gnome
DIY Polish 
365 Days of Color
Manicurator
Munchy's Nails
College Polished
Tall Girl In Heels with Pretty Painted Nails
Princess Polish
Peace Love Lacquer
Beyond Beauty Lounge


xxx
NPA

Pretty & Polished - Midnight Masquerade

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Midnight Masquerade is a pretty awesome black jelly glitter.
It has a Mardi Gras feel to it, due to the fuchsia and green glitter! Thre's small and medium sized hex in both colours, very cool.

Midnight Masquerade - 2 coats - sunshine

Midnight Masquerade - 2 coats - shade

Midnight Masquerade - macro

Isn't she awesome? The jelly seems sort of brown-black to me, so it's a little softer than say, OPI Black Onyx, but it's still very dark and at 2 coats it gives full coverage, yay! No more VNL. I do love that in a jelly.

I'm wearing 1 coat of Lacey Lou's Liquid Fusion as a top coat so it's uber glossy! You definitely need a top coat because the hexes can make the finish slightly bumpy if they are stacked on top of each other.

Chelsea is opening up the store on Thursday 31 May (US Time) with like 700 bottles ready to go!!!!  Sadly, it's not available to international ladies due to shipping regulations,but she's working on that front, so hopefully we'll be able to get our hands on more of her pretties soon!

xxx
NPA


P.S. What's your favourite indie polish/brand?

Pretty & Polished - Forever Rose

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How long has it been since I've posted a mainstream polish?!
Feels like forever! An today is no different.

Forever Rose is a sheer matte pale pink with mega gold shimmer. It's very pretty, but holy moly does it need more pigment! In the photos I'm wearing 5 coats. Yes 5 coats! And I still have some serious VNL. I just kept layering til there was a decent depth to the colour and gave up on getting it opaque.

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All these pics were taken under my daylight lamp.

See how pretty she is? Just wish it was more opaque, but very nice for a subtle mani. Not sure what it looks like with top coat... I like it matte!

xxx
NPA

Pretty & Polished minis - swatches & review

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Sad Sunday to you all!

Sunday's are so depressing!!! I never want to go to sleep because I know when I wake, the weekend will have ended.

Actually the afternoon sun is just starting to warm up my bedroom (because it faces full west) and I've got the radio on so my Sunday's feeling quite lax right now :)

So I bought some Pretty & Polished mini bottles round my b'day and realised I hadn't posted them for you yet. Chelsea's got some really great lacquers at her etsy store and I managed to pick up 3 of them.

CCBB - 2 coats - white light

CCBB - 2 coats - closeup

Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang is a sheer light pink filled with golden shimmer and multi-coloured hex glitters. In the photos I applied 2 coats to my natural nails but this is probably a polish that most would wear layered. I think it's beautiful! The delicate shimmer is so pretty and the hex glitter adds a bit of fun! Application was great, not too thick or thin and it went on really even with good glitter dispersion.
 

Fun Haus - 2 coats - white light

Fun Haus - 2 coats - white light

  
Funhaus is a dirty light pink with weak linear holographic effect. To be honest I was a bit disappointed by Funhaus. I was hoping the holo would be stronger :( But it has a pleasing formula, applies like a really opaque creme and I didn't really need the second coat. I also didn't get to see this is full sun because we had really crappy weather when I swatched it so... I kind of like that it's a dirty pink because it makes it a bit more of a wearable work colour. Most of the pinks I have are either baby pink or really bright/bold and super girly!!

Jawbreaker - 2 coats - natural light

Jawbreaker - 2 coats - natural light

Jawbreaker - 2 coats - close up

Jawbreaker is definitely my favourite! It has a soft white (leans slightly pink) base and is filled with tons of  glitter in different sizes, shapes and colours. There's small purple standard glitter, blue, yellow and red small hex glitter, large blue hex glitter, green bar glitter and a smattering of large red square glitter. The application was great with a good dispersal of the different glitters and only 2 coats to give full coverage. The only fly in the ointment was that it was tricky to get the red squares onto the nail. They are obviously more dense than the other glitters so really liked to hover around the bottom of the bottle!!! I had to spend some time fishing them out for the photos. Other polishes I own with red square glitter seem to have the same problem too fun-illy enough!

Have you got any of Chelsea's polishes at home?
You can check them out at her etsy store Pretty & Polished

Enjoy the rest of your lazy Sundays!

xxx
NPA