Barielle Surf's Up

It's no secret that I love fall weather.  I'm a grumpy hermit in summer, and when fall comes along, I am so happy.  I also love fall nail polish colors, and I have been gravitating towards then since the weather turned hotter than the surface of the sun.  But, I am also beach-bound in less than a month (Cocoa Beach, FL... here I come) and I've been obsessing over our trip, so when I saw this beautiful ocean blue from Barielle, I knew immediately what was going on my nails for today's post.  

This is Barielle Surf's Up...

Surf's Up is an AMAZING, deep, cyan blue creme.  I reminded me of my other favorite cyan or cerulian blue, Zoya Robyn, but it's actually deeper and more saturated than Robyn, so you could own both with no worry of dupes.  It also leans a tad more teal than other cyan blues I've seen. 

I think I literally gasped when I pulled it out of the box, and it didn't disappoint at all on my nails.  The formula is fantastic.  I did use 3 coats, but it was opaque at two.  I simply applied 3 because it was so nice, I didn't want to stop.  LOL.  :P

Fair warning, though, this will give you smurf fingers when you remove it, and I did see a bit of staining, so you'll want to wear basecoat (I didn't) and even double up if you are prone to staining.   Also, because it's so pigmented, it does dry a bit matte.  I used one coat of Barielle No Chip Speed Dry to bring back the shine.

Basically, Barielle hit it out of the park with Surf's Up.  I love everything about it, and if you love blues, you really need this one.  It's fantastic.  

Barielle Surf's Up is available from Barielle.com and, as always, Barielle polishes are buy one get one half.  Though, you can pick up the entire Some Like it Hot collection for only $25.  

Products used in this post were provided for review.

The Polish Bar: Rainbow Jello

Hey readers! 

Today is the first sorta cooler day we have had this month...as much as I love summer, I love boots and leggings season! ;)

Today I am showing you an indie polish that comes from The Polish Bar called Rainbow Jello. I LOVE this polish! It's just so happy! I layered 2 coats of Essie Marshmallow and then 2 coats of Rainbow Jello. Marshmallow is the perfect base to show Rainbow Jello off. I tried a more opaque white first, but it didn't do this beauty justice.

So even though this is called Rainbow Jello, it reminds me a lot of Funfetti cake. More specifically, this recipe! I could practically smell these when applying this polish...I love 'em.

Rainbow Jello is the perfect combo of colors and glitters in a sparkly milky base (the tiny sparkles in the base are my fave!). I just love it. So much, that I couldn't decide between these bottle shots, so you get two. haha

 Have you guys checked out The Polish Bar before? How many of you are loving Rainbow Jello as much as me? :)

Visit The Polish Bar's Etsy shop (there is a Halloween collection!) and her Facebook page to stay updated on all things polish!

*This polish was sent to me for review in exchange for my honest opinions.

Indie Extravaganza 1500 Follower Giveaway Winners Announced!

Hey guys!

Here are the winners of my 1500 Follower Giveaway! If you are a winner I will be emailing you in the order Rafflecopter chose you so you can let me know which prize you prefer. You will have 24 hours to respond before a new winner is chosen.



  a Rafflecopter giveaway
Thanks to all those that entered! I will be back later today with a regular post. :)

Orly Emberstone

In my effort to get back to regular posting, I am trying to create posts for individual polishes.  I do have a couple more full collections waiting in my "to swatch" box, which I will try to swatch all together, but for the most part, it's singles so hopefully, I will be able to do one-per-day and not feel completely overwhelmed and also feel like I'm accomplishing something.  

Today, I have for you Orly Emberstone...

Emberstone is an amazing orange-based red shimmer, that reminds me a lot of China Glaze Cherry Pie from 2009's Summer Days collection, but rather than having tonal glass-fleck, Emberstone has gorgeous orange and purple (!) shimmer particles.  I absolutely love the contrast of the shimmer in this polish, and while the purple is unexpected, it really works with the red base.  What's funny is that I had seen swatches of this and I saw the purple shimmer, and yet in the bottle, the shimmer gets hidden.  But once I had it on my nails, the shimmer comes out to play.  This is one of those rare polishes that actually looks better on the nail than it does in the bottle.  

Emberstone is from last fall's Mineral FX collection and it's still easy to find, especially online.  I purchased mine through eBay and I paid about $7 for it.  Though, a simple Google search should show you where it's available.  Retail is $8.50 a bottle.

Emberstone was purchased by me.  

RBL Orbis Non Sufficit & Lynnderella Pentimento

I recently sent an email to the owner of my first blog crush.  Her blog was the very first nail polish blog I discovered back in 2009 and her blog not only influenced me to purchase many number of polishes, but also inspired me to start blogging. 

The blog I'm talking about is The Polish Addict.  She stopped blogging in 2009 around the time she sat the Bar exam and I can completely appreciate real life becoming way more important than nail polish and blogging. But I nearly peed my pants when I discovered that she was back blogging early last month.

Anyway, I sent an email to Steph, who turns out is just the most lovely person. I professed my nail crush and thanked her for being my inspiration.  Knowing her blog well, I also knew she was a green polish lover, so I wanted to send her a bottle of Kryptonite as a thank you and a welcome back to blogging gift.  While she was happy to receive a bottle of Kryptonite, she suggested we do a swap of her RBL creation for my PP creation.  I think my response was something like "Oh my freaking god are you shitting me, I would seriously die to get a bottle of Orbis Non Sufficit via the creator" - or something like that.

Anyway, a few weeks later this little baby arrived.  My first Rescue Beauty Lounge polish.  Orbis Non Sufficit.  I have not wore a smooth glossy simple creme polish in god knows how long.  It was such a fantastic change from crazy shiny glitter and shimmer.  This is one coat - yep, just one coat over a PVC glue base (cause you just know I'm a glitter hoe and this is the perfect base for glitter).

Did somebody say glitter?  I had no idea what to wear Lynnderella Pentimento over, but the moment I put on RBL Orbis Non Sufficit I knew it was the perfect base.

This is one coat of Pentimento over Orbis, topped with Glitter Tamer and Seche Vite. I really wasn't convinced that I liked Pentimento from looking at it in the bottle. It has a pinkish sheen and a really crazy mix of glitters.  On the nail it completely blows me away. SOOOOOOO much better than I thought it would be.  Perfectly behaved glitters, laying flat and smooth - even those white bars!

This combo is still on my nails. LOVE!!

Pastel/Metallic Nail Art

Good morning! Hope you all had an awesome weekend! I got to go to see The Fray and Kelly Clarkson concert on Saturday and it was SO good! 

So I got the idea for this nail art look from Nail Stories a while back. She has got an awesome blog with great pictures and fun nail art. I loved the look of metallic with the pastel dots...it's so simple but definitely makes a statement!

Another reason I like this look is that all it takes is a dotting tool! Here are the colors I used: Orly Lemonade, OPI Pink Friday, China Glaze Peachy Keen and Sweet Hook. The base is a metallic silver from LA Colors that I got from the Dollar Store. This has a great metallic formula!

So, do you guys like this design? 

Essie Yogaga Collection Review

Last month, I received a press release from Essie's PR collection regarding one of their new fall collections, Yogaga, which was a collection of 6 "neutral" cremes with fitness-themed names.  I thought it was such an intriguing collection for fall, and I'm so happy to show it to you today.  

Before I show you swatches, there is one color in the collection, Yogaga, that I did not receive for review, but it is looks like a soft, sandy beige.  You can see the color on Essie's website.  Here are the colors I did receive...

Boxer Shorts - light periwinkle blue.  Boxer Shorts is the reason that I put the word neutral in quotations above, because while it is a calm, serene blue, it's not what I would exactly call neutral.  It is, however, a gorgeous color and it's my favorite of the collection.  This one is definitely on the blue side of periwinkle, but there is a enough purple in the base to make this one a periwinkle rather than a cornflower blue.   Also, of the 5 I swatched, Boxer Shorts had the best formula.  It did take 3 coats to reach opacity, but the coats were thin enough that there was no issue with evenness or leveling.  

Gym Dandy - medium-toned, brown taupe.  Essie calls this one a "greige" and while I definitely see brown and mushroom and taupe, I don't see much grey.  It's certainly in the same vein, but it's more brown than what comes to mind when I see the word greige.  This one is one of the more fall-ish colors in the collection.  I did have a bit of issue with the formula, as it was a tad thick, but going slow and trying to keep a thin amount on the brush helped.  3 coats.

Marathin - slightly spicy, tea rose pink.  Marathin is the one that I have shown you before, and it's a very pretty pink for cooler months.  The more I wore it, I did think it age my hands a bit, but in all honesty, that also could have been from the Julep remover which dried out my hands while I was swatching.  This one is a great pink for those of you that just like to wear neutral colors.  For example, my mom and aunt would LOVE this one.  I did have the same formula issues that I had with Gym Dandy, but they were nothing that couldn't be handled.  2 coats.

Pilates Hottie - light grey-lavender.  Now this is one that I would call a "greige", albeit a very pale one.  It's a really pretty grey/lavender hybrid, but unfortunately, it didn't look all that great on my nails.  Though, I think it would look much better on a darker skintone.  These pale greys and lavenders always have a tendency to give me a case of "dead hands".  Like the other 2 light colors I swatched, this one also had a thicker, slightly temperamental formula.  3 coats.    

Spinning Again - brick red.  In the bottle, I thought this one was going to be more brown, but on the nail, it's a fantastic brick red that just screams "FALL!".   It's also very flattering on my pale skintone. It had one of the better formulas in the collection and is my second favorite behind Boxer Shorts.

I think this is a very wearable fall collection from Essie.  It's funny because while it is a collection of neutrals, my favorites were the least neutral of the bunch.  What does that say about me?  LOL.  

The collection, including Yogaga, is currently available from Essie.com, as well as other outlets (I think I actually saw it at Target last week), and retail for $8 a bottle.

This collection was sent to me for review.  

Picture Polish - Monroe reborn

You may have seen some sneak peak photos of the new reborn version of Picture Polish Monroe on their Facebook site.  Here are lots more photos and some more comparisons to the old version.

This is three coats of Monroe with a coat of Seche Vite top coat. As you can see, this polish now has those gorgeous larger scattered holo flakes - the same ones that are in Kryptonite and the Ozotic 600 series.  What I love out this polish is that it's like a darker vampier version of Ozotic 621.

Compared to the first version of Monroe, which was a little tricky with application to get it all smooth and non streaky, I found this version to be much easier to apply and it seemed to self level a lot better.  I could have got away with two coats, but I love the depth that three coats provided.

Here are the comparison photos.  You can really see how much sparklier the new version is, which is on my index and ring fingers.  The older version has a really subtle holo effect that you can just see in these photos.  The jelly blood red base looks to be the same in both polishes, but because of the sparkles, the new version looks a little pinker where the holo particles reflect blue and purple hues.

The reborn version of Monroe is available from Picture Polish for $11.50AUD or through their Network members (price varies).

I love both versions and I'm glad I have both in my collection, they are similar yet quite different. Which is your favourite?

This polish was provided for review.

Enchanted Polish - Secret Sauce

Last week I had the pleasure to receive a box full of Enchanted Polishes sent to me for reviewing purposes.  But there is nothing worse than when the delivery man hands over the package and you can smell it.  You just know that some poor polish is laying in that box, all gooey and sticky, bleeding its beloved innards all over its self, and potentially all the other polishes in the package.

Chelsea had packaged the box up perfectly, but unfortunately this box received some bad handling, cause one corer of the box was smashed in, and when I opened it, that was where the broken bottle lay.

There was Secret Sauce all over the bubble wrap, and a sticky and lumpy mass the corner of the box.  But all was not lost...

Chelsea had already gone to so much effort to select, package and send these to me, I didn't want her to have to resend just one polish for me to blog about. I wanted to see if I could at least salvage one mani good enough to blog about, out of that gloopy polish in the box. I grabbed a palette knife and scraped up some polish and wiped it onto my glass table.  I then added nail polish thinner one drop at a time until I was able to get a workable consistency.

Then I applied two coats of Secret Sauce, straight off the glass table onto my black base.

As you can see, Secret Sauce is a colour shifting top coat.  This is a topcoat made with the red to green colour changing powder that I sold small sample size amounts of last year.  I've not worn one of these color shifting polishes in ages and I forgot how simply amazing this shizz is.

So while I can't specifically comment of the formula or the brush of this polish, I can say that if I can get it to work this good off a lump of polish in the corner of a box, reconstituted on a glass table, then I think you will be pretty much right with a bottle of Secret Sauce.

Enchanted Polish is available from their Etsy Store or from Llarowe

This polish was sent to me for review.

Footy Fever - Canberra Raiders nail art

The football season has just started in the USA, but here in Australia it's finals time.  This week I have some NRL nails for you, specifically Canberra Raiders nails.  The Raiders won last week, in week one of the finals. Tonight they play an elimination semi-final, which they are not favourites to win.  But there's nothing like a bit of supporter nail art to bring the team home, right!

For such a basic nail design, this took me bloody ages to do.  I kept bumping and smudging nails (as evidenced with my pinky nail). I tried to do it neatly with tape, but was too impatient to get it finished, so the tape started pulling off the polish beneath.  I therefore had to touch up with a nail art bush, and promptly made are rather shitty mess of it.

Putting my nail art skills aside, I really did love the colours I picked for this mani.  I did a white base with Ulta3 Lily White, the blue is Picture Polish bombshell, the yellow is Picture Polish crazy and the perfect lime green is Picture Polish lime lite.

I got lots of compliments on these nails, and from a regular distance, they looked pretty eye catching, but these damn macro shots for the blog are a killer.

I created a water decal with the team logo on it, and I'm really happy with how it came out.

Here are the team jerseys which I based my nail design on.

Now an extra special awkward sharing moment.  Here is something that not too many people know about me.  In the early 1990's I was a Canberra Raiders Raiderette cheerleader.  Surprisingly I have basically zero photos of me as a Raiderette.  It was a time before digital cameras (yeah, I'm that old!) and while I know I did have some photos that were printed, after nearly 20 years I have no clue where they could be.

The only photo that I have is one that was published in the NRLs Rugby League Weekly magazine in 1993.  I'm the one in the middle.

Bwahhh haa haa, that was fun. GO RAIDERS!

Edit: so they sucked and lost - BOOOOOOO

Hit Polish Shockwave

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you all have plans for a relaxing weekend!

I have another polish from one of my favorite indie brands to show you today. This is Shockwave from Hit Polish. I believe that this was discontinued but then brought back again because of demand. I'm glad it was because I would hate to show you a polish that you couldn't get your hands on!

I layered 1 coat over China Glaze Elephant Walk. This combo is perfect! Shockwave has an awesome formula: no digging for glitter and everything placed just right on its own. This is a very eye catching polish...love it! I also layered 1 coat of Gelous over this before my topcoat and this baby was so smooth and glassy. I get too lazy to do an extra step all the time when doing my nails, but this is sooo worth it when you want your glitter polish to really look amazing.

I love all the tiny bars in here!

Are you guys loving this polish as much as I am?

Be sure to check out Rachel's shop...she has over 60 polishes available to choose from!

Also, don't forget you have the chance to win 3 minis from Hit Polish and lots more in my Indie Extravaganza giveaway that ends in 4 days!!