Wear it Purple Day: Inglot 834

Friday 2nd of September is Wear it Purple Day. Here's part of the blurb from their Facebook page.

Wear it Purple has a simple message: “You have the right to be proud of who you are.”

We exist in order to raise public consciousness on the issues surrounding rainbow youth suicide. We express this in three platforms: advocacy, support and education. We are run by high school students and university students. Every year on “Wear it Purple Day”, we ask people everywhere to wear purple to school, university, work, or other public venues to help raise this consciousness.

Purple is one of my favourite colours, so I'm doubly happy to take part!


As I was picking my nail polish from my stash, I realised I don't have very many purple polishes. I don't even own ONE purple creme. I have variations of purple - lavender, fuschia - but not straight purple :(

So I'm wearing... Inglot 834, a plummy purple with blue shimmer/sheen.

Purples are so hard to photograph, maybe its a good thing I don't own very many. In real life Inglot 834 is MUCH redder. The blue sheen just masks all the red when I try to capture it. I even tried using my phone camera, but the result was the same.

Two coats for these pictures, and it was prone to brush-stroke marks. The formula is very thin, and it took a while to dry. *sigh* pretty colour, but a PITA to work with. 



PS. I'm struggling with uni and work at the moment, so blogging's become less and less frequent. I will try to post at least once a week though.

Quick Post: Random greige polish

Happy spring, fellow Aussies!

Here's a random 3 dollar greige/taupe creme polish from Priceline, called Totally Taupe. I pretty much bought it for the name (and I'm easily persuaded).

Sun

Indoors

Three coats for opacity, and the formula wasn't too bad. The brush was a tad stiff (and tiny), so it was a streaky mess until the third coat.

Here's to obsessively accumulating even more greige/taupe polishes!

Back to uni

HARRO! I'm still here. I was just being super lazy about blogging. Perhaps I'm just not fit to be a blogger...

Enough babble, here's what I wore on my first day back at uni: Essie Pretty Edgy

The formula is really thin, so it was a pain to apply. Also, tipwear is a tad prominent even after the second day of wear. But the glorious shade of green!

These are just poor quality photos from my phone which I took while I was waiting for the train. Public transport sucks.

Ozotic Pro Multichrome Skittle

I couldn't wait until the end of my placements to swatch these, so I did a random skittle mani for all of  5 minutes, then removed it all. So please excuse the bad application, I just really wanted to see what it looked like!

Two coats of black polish - Maybelline Colorama Dark Chcolate - with one coat if each Ozotic. The order from left to right is 521, 528, 503 followed by black polish with nothing on it.
 

Multichrome awesomeness. That is all.

Ozotic Pro 517: Light green linear holo...

which looks silver most of the time.

Can you tell I swatched this on the same day as Ozotic Pro 509? RIGHT HAND SHOT

Maybe I fail at telling colours apart, but Ozotic Pro 517 looks the same as 509 most of the time. Maybe its the holo effect blinding me. 517 is not as sheer as 509, so I only applied 3 coats here. At first I was like "WTF I just bought two identical nail polishes", then found under artificial lighting (I noticed the difference at work), 509 is straight silver while 517 has a light green tinge.

  

I really wanted to capture the difference between 509 and 517. But clearly failed. 

With flash. Q: Can you tell which nail is which polish? Answer is below!

In shade

Under sunlight

A: 509, 517, 509, 517

517 on left, 509 on right

You can kind of see the difference in the bottle photo above. Similar or not, 517 is an awesome holographic polish!

Have you ever bought nail polish practically the same colour without realising?

Ozotic 509: Silver linear holographic FTW

After complaining on my blog about full time placements, I got the day off today as "library day". So I'm supposed to spend it researching and writing my report. Two weeks down, two weeks to go!!

I took this opportunity to paint my nails xD

I chose Ozotic 509:

Looks amazing, no?

It was quite sheer, there aren't many reviews out there for 509 so I'm not sure if its just my bottle or all of them. I applied 5 coats for these pictures, but after the 3rd coat it didn't really make a difference. I'm just really pedantic over VNL! Though it dried mega fast and applied so beautifully that 5 coats didn't even take very long to apply.

I had a hard time trying to photograph this, it just didn't want to be captured! That's why the following pictures are all wonky and such.

I'm gonna go now, and wipe the drool on my laptop.

piCture pOlish haul!

After a 8am to 4pm day of free labour (placements), I got home to find the "you missed the post" slip. I was really tired so I made mum go and get my package for me - I'm a horrible daughter, I know!

 

From L-R: Ozotic Pro 528, 503, 521, 517, 509 and piCture pOlish Antique.

I can't wait to swatch them all! Too bad I'm doing my full-time placements at a hospital for the next 2 and a half weeks, so I can't paint my nails.

Here are some close-ups:

Ozotic Pro 517 and 509

517 is a light green linear holo, while 509 is a silver linear holo. They look really similar though...

Ozotic Pro 503 and 521

503 is a green based multichrome, and 521 is a red-purple based multichrome.

These pictures were taken in my bedroom with crappy lighting. When I get around to swatching these, I promise I'll have better pictures!

The Face Shop: GL112 aka goldish metallic

What a shame the Face Shop don't name their polishes. I absoultely fail at describing a specific colour - like this one - and the name GL112 doesn't do this colour justice at all! I got this on my recent(ish) Melbourne trip. I'm so jealous of you Melbournites, with easy access to pretty asian cosmetics and MACARONS!!

Glittery frosty finish, but not streaky. I may have mentioned before, but I can't apply frosty polishes to save my life (streaky mess, anyone?). This one, though frosty, wasn't too horrible in the brush-marks department. 3 thin coats for opacity as per these pictures, and no top coat here. The only issue I had with this polish was the size of the brush. It is FAT. Not only fat, but FANS OUT. What does that mean? Messy application - for me at least - because I clearly apply nail polish with my eyes closed. I'll post a picture of brush comparisons soon.

But for only 3 bucks, I'll recommend everyone to go and get this polish. Along with 50 other polishes from the Face Shop. 

PS. I just updated to the new blogger editor. I don't like it very much because I'm not used to it. Maybe it'll grow on me.

7 things about me tag

I was tagged by the lovely Vita at Making up 4 my age. I've never been tagged before, thanks Vita! :)

7 THINGS ABOUT ME

1) I'm Korean (legally Australian, but you get my drift)

2) I'm studying to become a pharmacist

3) I cannot live without chocolate

4) I also cannot live without bubbletea

5) I still live with my parents
6) I may be in love with Dr Sheldon Cooper - BAZINGA!

7) I will become a crazy cat lady in my due time

THE QUESTIONS

1) Name your favorite colour: Peach, beige, purple, taupe...

2) Name your favorite song: at the moment "Moves Like Jagger" by Maroon 5

3) Name your favorite dessert: Macarons! *drools*
4) What pisses you off: selfish ignorant stubborn people

5) When you're upset you: whinge about it

6) Your favorite pet: my one and only doggie <3

7) Black or White: Black for clothes, white for electronics
8) Biggest Fear: becoming infected by a highly drug-resistant strain of microorganism

9) Best features: forearms? haha

10) Everyday attitude: Leave it for tomorrow - I'm such a procrastinator!

11) What is perfection: having a lazy day, relaxing and eating lots of yummy food with friends
12) Guilty Pleasure: Buying pretty nail polish. I know its not a necessity, but buying polish makes me happy :D

Revlon Matte Suede: Powder Puff

White polish is one of those things which remind me of childhood - good ol' White Out nails *cringe* Revlon's Matte Suede range in Powder Puff, doesn't repulse me though!

The base colour isn't stark white, it leans slightly pink. And it has blue shimmer. Pinky white with blue shimmer! You can see the blue shimmer in the bottle really well here, not so much the nails.


This was 4 coats - because I'm pedantic - but 3 would be enough for full opacity. As I put on more coats the blue shimmer disappeared with each layer which made me really sad *cries*

The finish is somewhat strange. I wouldn't call it matte because of the blue shimmer, but then its not glossy. I'd go with satin?

Another thing - this took FOREVER to dry. You can see some of the marks on my nails from my doona.

I bought Powder Puff a while ago, and actually only put it on for the first time just so I could stamp over it and do a cow print mani. THEN I FAILED. Maybe next time!

Today I don't feel like doing anything

The little getaway to Melbourne was great, but when I take a lil break from blogging it turns into a HUGE break. It takes a while for me to get back into it.

But the real reason is that I've been having major fail with my ENAS soft stamping. I usually do my nails at night, and take picture the next morning. But since I've been so unhappy with my failed attempts, I removed them before I went to bed. Therefore no pictures the next day.

Excuses excuses, right?

Maybe I'm just being a lazy shit:
This is my dog by the way, sometimes I wish I could be her for just one day (so I can sleep all day too).

ENAS soft-stamping kit arrived! *SQUEEEEEE*

As this scheduled post goes up, I'll be at the King Tut exhibition in MELBOURNE! I've never been so I'm really excited because I've heard so much about the food and shopping. Here's hoping I don't spend too much money on unnecessary things.

Onwards to what turned up on my doorstep on Monday -->

I've been staying away from Konad because I know I will fail miserably. Konad requires one to be speedy, and I'm so slow in general (and especially slow with nails). When I read about ENAS soft stamping, I thought I struck gold! Soft stamping requires you to wait for the polish to dry a little on the plate before you stamp, which I was happy to do.

So I bought an ENAS kit containing two plates, three polishes and a topcoat, as well as two other plates:

This is the back of the pack, just explains how to soft-stamp (thank god I can read Korean, or I'd be like "WTF"):

Here's my first attempt at soft stamping. I ripped it open pretty much as soon as it arrived and applied it on my half-day old mani. I used Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear in Celeb City, and to my surprise it worked pretty well!

When I do a full mani using these, I'll post step-by-step pictures.

Finally caved in: BYS Down The Rabbit Hole

I should have just bought the damn thing when it launched. Lately I've been lemming this SO MUCH! After a couple of weeks of hopelessly wandering about discount beauty stores, I gave up. Then two days ago, BAM! It was hiding behind other BYS polishes at my local Cosmetics Plus.
That is how I procured BYS Down The Rabbit Hole. This launched with the mid/late-2010 Wonderland collection. Why didn't I pick it up then? Because I was out of my mind, clearly. Actually I had a good reason back then. I never used to wear dark polishes, last year was my year of brights! But lately I'm loving dark colours as well as anything with glitter/holo.

4 coats for inky-black opacity because of the jelly formula, but the result is pretty so I won't complain too much. Did I mention how pretty it is? I absolutely hate the smell of BYS polishes, but I was willing to sit there and apply 4 coats of DTRH because of the sparkley colours. Am I the only person who can't stand the smell of BYS polishes?

L.A. Girl Color Addict: Extreme

Here is the last of the three L.A. Girl Color Addict polishes I own: Extreme. So I'm guessing the gold shimmer actually IS the common theme across Color Addict polishes, unless gold shimmer just happens to be present in the three I own?


Extreme is a unique shade of periwinkle (how I love you Wikipedia and your "shades of"). The gold shimmer throughout casts an almost green sheen, and I can't help but stare at my nails constantly!

This was three coats, though two could suffice if applied with care. Photos were taken on the second day of wear, and there's only minor tipwear. I love the formula of these, and if it wasn't for my mum nagging me about my constantly expanding stash, I'd buy the rest of Color Addict polishes.

L.A. Girl Color Addict: Intoxicate

"Purple with gold shimmer? YES PLEASE." This was what went through my head when I bought L.A. Girl Color Addict in Intoxicate. I actually picked this up before Delirious, because it looked so pretty in the bottle.


After swatching Delirious, I had high hopes for Intoxicate. I thought the bottle would translate exactly the same on nails. It turns out I shouldn't make assumptions. It may be because of the red-based purple, but on the nail the shimmer takes on a copper tone rather than gold. Or the gold shimmer just isn't as prominent as it is in the bottle.

I still like it and all, but its not as gorgeous as Delirious. In some lights/angles it does look super gold, but generally just coppery shimmer.
Two coats for opacity, and the pictures are with Sally Hansen Mega Shine Topcoat. The topcoat brings out the shimmer a little more, otherwise the polish looks pretty flat.

PS. Excuse the messy application (as in the polish all over my cuticles). I did clean it up after the photos. I think.

PPS. Gotta love scheduled posts. When this goes up, I'll be slaving away at work. Yes, I'm working until 9pm.

L.A. Girl Color Addict: Delirious

I love my blues and greens, so this is right up my alley: L.A. Girl Color Addict Nail Polish in Delirious. When I first saw this sitting at the chemist, I thought I already had a similar colour so I passed. Then I kept daydreaming about it... so I had to get it xD

Just look at it! How could you say no to that fine gold shimmer? HOW??? (click to maximise the photo and bask in the glory of the gold shimmer) Two coats for opacity, and it applied well without streaking. It is a gorgeous colour and a great pick-me-up for the winter blues. But a day later, I got bored. So I applied NYX Pink Avenue, the only flaky polish I own.

Here's a shot in the shade, because the flakies refuse to be photographed in the sun. I applied two coats here, but maybe I need to do three. Or ten. This just feeds my lemming for other flakies because I know there are better ones out there!

I don't need you, Deborah Lippmann!

Because I have this multicoloured glitter by Hawley Manicure in #92! By the looks of a quick Google search, Hawley Manicure is based in Australia and NZ. I picked this one up from FHAB, a beauty store in Harbour Town Gold Coast. Hawley have a huge range of colours and finishes, and I can't wait to try more :D

Now on to the multicoloured glitter:

PS. Please excuse the atrocious state of my cuticles. I wore this one right after exams, and I tend to nervously pick at my cuticles during exams.

I'm wearing 4 coats in the above pictures. I think next time I would add another coat if I could be bothered. Or wear it over black. Now that I think of it, I don't own a straight black cream polish.

As you can see, the glitter is really small and sparse. The size of the glitter is so small that its comparable to holo particles. At least it's multicoloured glitter right? Riiiight??

Okay I lie, I DO need Deborah Lippmann's Happy Birthday (or even the Nordstrom "Get This Party Started" set) -_-;;

Revlon Limited Edition: Ornate Ore

This is a revisited post, following my Molten Metal post. I originally posted Revlon Ornate Ore for Christmas last year. This came up in my comments for Molten Metal, so I wanted to do a revisited post. Ornate Ore was released in the same collection as Molten Metal in 2007 (Thank you Cat, Jaztee and Vita!).



I swear this looks prettier in person, I just couldn't capture the multicoloured sparks. Three coats for opacity and the formula is quite runny- which on the upside translates to fast drying time!

Note to self: wear this polish more often.

Mode Cosmetics Nail Enamel: Messed Up

Grurple, greige, poo-colour... whatever you wish to label this colour, I'm in love! *Jenny-colour alert* In some lights it has more purple leanings, but in some it has more brown leanings. The two photos here represent the two end spectrums:

I received Mode Cosmetics Nail Enamel in Messed Up as a birthday present (way back in February) but I'm only getting around to posting it now. This was two coats, and the formula was wonderful - no streaking :D

Once my spending ban is lifted, I need to track these down and buy ALL OF THEM.

I'll run off now to get ready for work :(

Revlon Limited Edition: Molten Metal

Today's polish is Revlon's Molten Metal. This is limited edition, and I have no idea when it was released. Google tells me 2007 or 2010. I picked it up sometime early this year in a bargain bin at a pharmacy.

Please excuse the tipwear and imprint on the ring finger. I believe I wasn't wearing a topcoat, and this was taken on the second day of wear. Three coats for even opacity (though I think 2 thick coats may have sufficed), and shimmery Revlon polishes seem to dry fairly quickly.

Looks like a common brown shimmery polish, until you see it in sunlight. Oh hai gold and bronze sparks :D Click the photo to enlarge and see the sparks!

Gahh how I love sparkly things ^___^

ps. I can't believe how good I've been with blogging every day for the past week!

Maybelline Colorama - Tutti Fruitti

This sparkler is Tutti Fruitti (3). I generally prefer smaller sized chunks of glitter or a glitter bomb, but this rests somewhere in between with its sparse large glitter.

The silver/gold glitter sits in a sheer pink base with a lavender sheen, and I reach for this when I can't be bothered applying polish neatly. The glitter masks any messy application, and it's so sheer you can't really notice if you paint all over your fingers. I applied two coats for the picture above, and I doubt any number of coats would hide the VNL. I'm guessing Maybelline meant for this to be a topcoat. (WHY DON'T WE GET FLAKY COLORAMA TOPCOATS IN AUSTRALIA? *rants again*)

This is the last of the Coloramas that I've already got swatch photos of, but I do have a couple more Coloramas. I will post those when I feel like wearing the shades ;)

Maybelline Colorama - Redcurrant Jelly

Thank you for wishing me luck, but the interview was horrible. I was a blubbering mess, and I'm just glad I made it out without crying. (Em, since you asked, it was for next year's hospital pharmacy internship. I've never mentioned it on here, but I'm a 4th year pharmacy student.)

Today for the interview, my nails were just one coat of Revitanail Cherry Blossom: a sheer pink. I would post about it but I can't seem to ever apply it evenly - plus its boring!

Redcurrant Jelly (17) is the Maybelline Colorama that refects my mood tonight, dark and emo.

Can't say I think of redcurrant jelly when I see this colour though. When I think jelly, I think transparent. Mmmmmm jelly *drools* I would describe this more as a vampy dark burgundy. I suppose one coat is somewhat transparent, but looks streaky and ewwy. Three coats for opacity as above, and again excuse the random bubbles. I'm just so impatient. Being a dark colour, it was a bit of a pain to apply evenly because any drag would leave a streak. After three coats though it was all good!

I'll run off now and continue being emo.