Haul: Pahlish

At the beginning of February, Shannon from Pahlish announced a very special promotion: free shipping! With a coupon code, everything in her Esty store shipped free for a few days, including international orders. Of course, I took the opportunity to grab quite a few polishes. Here are some bottle shots of my haul!

Clanking of Crystal has a sky blue base with different shades of blue circle glitter and square glitter, with blue microshimmer. A must have for a blue fiend like me!

Like Calendars Dying has different shades of green glitter in a mint green base. Like Clanking of Crystal, it has circle and square glitter. But something different is its gold microshimmer!

Ace of Fours is a very complex polish. It has a blue base with teensy glitter in grey and blue. There is also pink, purple, and blue shimmer apparent in some lights.

Still Alive has gold and green glitter and shimmer suspended in a dark green base. Photographs don’t capture the true beauty of this one!

Pink Roses and Red Valentine Lace has a dark purple base and a multitude of pink, blue, burgundy, and purple glitter.

Heart of Manis a vampy red-based polish. The glitter in this one is mainly burgundy but there are some sparks of blue and purple too.

Prayers for Rainhas a dark blue base, with different shades of green, blue, and teal glitter. Sizes and shapes vary.

This New Sun has a burnt orange base (my photos are showing it to be more vivid than it really is). The glitter in this one is iridescent, with different colours apparent depending on the lighting.

I’m so spoiled for choice with my new Pahlishes that I haven’t been able to decide which one to wear first! Any suggestions? Which one is your favourite?

NOTD: KB Shimmer Watercolor

Sometimes, when I read nail blogs, I see a polish that I have bought but haven’t got around to wearing yet. Sometimes this inspires me to grab my poor, unloved, forgotten bottle of whatever it is from the depths of one of my helmers and put it on my nails ASAP. This is what happened with KB Shimmer Watercolor! I recently received this beauty in the mail (as always, my definition of ‘recently’ is very, very loose…) thanks to a friend of mine who coordinated a small group buy. I also picked up Clown Puke, Diva, and Lilac Dreams - but that’s a story for a different day.

I layered Watercolor over two coats of China Glaze Sky High Top, a medium blue shimmer. It was the only blue I had that matched the base colour of Watercolor! That surprised me as I thought I was quite the blue hoarder. I also did two coats of Watercolor itself, for a bit of depth and more variation of glitter. Both polishes applied very well. No issues to report at all!

NOTD: Jade Fascinio Violeta

Today’s NOTD is Jade Fascinio Violeta, a beautiful purple holo. Of course, I have been a very bad blogger again and have been drafting posts with photos only, so I don’t remember if this is two coats or three. Sorry! Regardless, I do remember that it was a breeze to work with. The colour is vibrant and bright and the holo really stands out, even in artificial light.The entire range of Jade holos are awesome - if you don’t own any of them yet you need to get at least a couple!

22 February: Dragons and Leopards

Dress: eBay

Shoes: Garage @ The Warehouse

Earrings: eBay

Make up: Eyes - NYX eyeshadow base in skin tone, Shade 4 and shade 9 from the MUA Starry Night palette, and MUA Every Lash mascara in Black; Lips - NYX round lipstick in Eucalyptus; Face - Nivea Visage Young tinted moisturiser, and Australis concealer; Nails - A England Dragon

Hmmm. Another post that I half drafted and then forgot about… what to say, what to say? How about one of those tag thingys that do the blog rounds every now and then? I received the Sunshine Award from Sahra at Beyond The Base Coat a little while ago, and I’ve been such a bad friend and fellow blogger and haven’t answered her questions yet!

1. What was your favourite childhood TV program or movie? Rainbow Brite and The Star Stealer! I had it on VHS and watched it whenever I could. I also loved The Wombles, The Simpsons, and Fraggle Rock.

2.  What is your current guilty pleasure besides polish/nail art/beauty related products? Hmm. That’s a hard one. Maybe eBay. Does eBay count? I love buying cheap accessories and clothing from there.

3. Are you a summer or winter person? Summer. I feel the cold far to easily to enjoy winter.

4. If you had $500 to spend on anything you wanted what would it be? This is a hard one. I always have something I want to buy. I think I would grab something from Black Milk - perhaps these galaxy leggings or these hex colour leggings. Or both. And more.

5. What has been your most frustrating blogging moment? I don’t think I’ve ever had a frustrating blogging moment per se, but I do get a bit annoyed when there’s a user interface change on tumblr or one of the other platforms I use for my blog stuff. It’s so inconvenient to have to learn how to do everything again!

6. Who is your most hated villain character of all time? Oh, gosh, this one is tough. I’m not a huge consumer of films and TV shows, and I can’t really say I’ve ever ‘hated’ a character in a book. Um. The Governor from The Walking Dead? He’s pretty annoying. He’s too predictable, and he totally wears an Oreo as an eyepatch.

7. What is your go to comfort food? Chocolate mug cake. You’re welcome.

8. What hopes and dreams do you have for your blog? I hope to finally get to 100 followers - I’m currently at 94 so all going well it shouldn’t be too far away. Apart from that, I’m not sure!

9. Kitties or puppies? Kitties!

10. If your life was a movie what genre would it be and who would play you? Haha - my life is not interesting enough to be made into a film!

I’m not going to tag any other bloggers to pass this award on to (boo!) but if you’re interested in answering the same questions I did, feel free to do so in the comments! I’m not tagging as I’d like to know what you think of tags and awards like this one. Are they fun, or not something you want to see from time to time on LCC? If you’re a blogger, how do you feel about being tagged in these things?

21 February: Flare

Top: Supre

Black top: Garage @ The Warehouse (worn underneath)

Skirt: Garage @ The Warehouse

Shoes: Garage @ The Warehouse

Necklace: eBay

Earrings: eBay

Make up: Eyes - MUA Every Lash mascara in Black; Lips - Rimmel Moisture Renew lipstick in Berry Queen; Face - Nivea Visage Young tinted moisturiser, and Australis concealer; Nails - OPI Chop-sticking To My Story and Pahlish Three French Hens (check out more photos here!)

This outfit was so much fun to wear! I haven’t worn heels in a while so it was strange to be tottering around in them again but they made me feel very fancy schmancy on a day where I didn’t have much planned. Short skirts and heels certainly aren’t an outfit choice I go for often, but sometimes they can both be incorporated into a look tastefully. I think the loose fit of the orange singlet balances everything out. What do you think - are short hemlines and high heels mutually exclusive?

NOTD: Pahlish Three French Hens

So many photos! Pahlish Three French Hens is such an amazingly beautiful polish that I couldn’t resist. Here it is (one coat) layered over two coats of OPI Chop-sticking To My Story. In my recent Pahlish haul post I said I would pair these two together soon, and here it is. A perfect match just like I thought!

Chop-sticking To My Story is a burnt orange creme that leans much more brown than say, China Glaze Life Preserver, which is definitely on the orange end of burnt orange. It is very unique and I hunted it down on eBay after seeing swatches on Vampy Varnish.

Three French Hens has brown, bronze, and red glitter suspended in a burnt orange base. The glitter mix is so complex! Love love love. Another perfect creation from Shannon.

Unfortunately for you guys, Three French Hens is now discontinued, but Pahlish has a big list of other amazing polishes currently for sale. Check out the Pahlish etsy store here and don’t forget to ‘like’ Pahlish on Facebook for regular updates about new colours and sales.

NOTD: Jordana Lunar Lights

These photos show one coat of Jordana Lunar Lights over two coats of Essence Bloom-a-loom. I am super duper lucky to have a polish addict friend living close by, and she lent me some of her Jordana glitter polishes to play with, including Lunar Lights. How awesome is that? Thank you Grace!

Bloom-a-loom (goodness, I do not like that name) is a pale lilac. There are flashes of pink and blue visible in the bottle but they don’t translate on to the nail at all. Lunar Lights is an interesting glitter mix: translucent and iridescent hexes and microglitter in a clear base. The glitter doesn’t look like this all the time - instead, the iridescence is more subtle. Sometimes the glitters are blue, sometimes yellow, sometimes purple, sometimes pink. It all depends on the angle the light is hitting your nail beds. You can thank my camera flash for making all of the colours show at once!

The formula of both polishes was good, although Lunar Lights will probably need some thinner eventually (sorry, Grace, I swear I didn’t do anything!). I love the result of the combination. I think it looks really ethereal and reminded me a lot of fairies!

NOTD: Pure Ice Twinkle

Today’s NOTD is three coats of Pure Ice Twinkle. Twinkle is a coral-y orange with gold shimmer. It’s very pretty and perfect for summer. The formula was great, although coverage was a little thin. Three coats was necessary for adequate opacity. If you look really hard you can see my smile line a tiny bit but this was not at all obvious IRL.

Haul: Nostalgic Nail Lacquer

Recently I placed an order with Nostalgic Nail Lacquer for some New Zealand polish loving buddies and myself. And what a haul it was! We ordered 24 bottles between 9 of us. It was super exciting having the giant bubble mailer arrive on my doorstep. Even if most of the goodies inside weren’t mine, nail mail is still nail mail!

I was very, very disciplined and picked up only three polishes, all of which were on sale for US$5.

Way Existential is a mix of matte black, white, and teal glitters in a clear base. Similar to I Love Nail Polish Full Turqued in thought, but completely different execution. If you love one, you’ll love the other, and you can definitely justify both!

The Athlete has several different shades and sizes of orange glitter, as well as white squares.

The Princess has white, red, and pink glitters suspended in a pink base. I’m not sure whether this shade of pink will work with my skintone, but for $5, I’m willing to give it a chance!

NOTD: Layla Aqua Zen

Another Layla today! This is two coats of Layla Aqua Zen, #09 from the Softouch range. Aqua Zen is a bright matte teal. It’s really vibrant! And a unique shade in my collection. I was originally thinking I might destash this one, but the colour is unlike any of my other teal/turquoise polishes, so it gets to stay.

The reason I was considering purging Aqua Zen is its formula. All of the other polishes I’ve tried from the Softtouch range have been a breeze to apply, but Aqua Zen was a problem child. It was streaky and I had to be very, very careful not to go over the same spots too much or I would ruin everything. I know that this is a product of most matte polishes - but going on my previous experiences with the Layla Softouch line I did not expect this. I think the formula variation is down to the fact that this a ‘creme’ polish from the range. All of the others that I have tried have been shimmers.

Regardless, it’s still a gorgeous polish. The finish has a retro plastic-y look to it, which I think is really neat!