nail polish

Cheap n cheerful – Cutex’s French Manicure range

Hi!!!! Has everyone been enjoying their weekend? 🙂 Mine got off to a lousy start – due to being unwell I did not make it to the Morricone concert. 😦 Since Saturday, however, I’ve been feeling much better and I did get to do some fun things this weekend. I also received a huge surprise early birthday present from Mr R (my birthday is actually this week)! I will tell you all more about that later on.

I briefly mentioned this polish in an earlier post, but love it so much I thought it was worth a proper review post all of its own – from Cutex’s French Manicure polish range. 🙂 There are several colours in the range, including pinks, whites and creams, and I have ~

#603: French Rose

Here it is, on my nails today! 🙂

I've got 2 coats of the polish on here. This pic unfortunately does not show the pinkish side to this polish to the fullest!

Price: I picked this up on sale for $2.99 AUD but usually it’s between $5 and $10 AUD, if I remember correctly.

Where can I get it? In my earlier post, I mentioned Priceline, but tonight I realised that actually I had bought it at Chemist Warehouse! You can get it at both of these places, however, as well as discount department stores such as Big W and some supermarkets.

I love the shade of this polish as it is a nude but it has a slight pink in it. It is long wearing however be careful to apply thin coats. I did have problems with the polish peeling off the same day (!) when I applied it thickly (I had wanted a more opaque effect at the time, but I now know that was not the way to achieve it!).

With a top coat this lasts on my nails up to 5 days, which I’m very happy with. However, as time goes by the colour of the polish can change slightly – becoming slighly more yellowed than pinkish. This has happened regardless of whether or not I’m wearing a top coat.

A good performer at a very good price! My rating of this product is based on the price I bought it for, which of course is a sale price –

Beautiful rating: quality 4/5, value 5/5.

***

Usually I’m very talkative, aren’t I, and have something to say down here! Not much to say tonight! (Don’t worry it’s not you it’s me! ;-))

Have a great week ahead everyone and thank you for visiting, reading and supporting the blog! I hope to have a new (privately hosted) version of the site up and running by month’s end… Overambitious much?! LOL 😀

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY! <3

Hi everyone! 🙂

I know it’s not a very original theme for a post, but thought I’d write about Valentine’s Day! I hope that you all have a great day, regardless of whether or not you are in a relationship.

I’ve done a special manicure for Valentine’s Day… I’m not the world’s greatest nail artist so kept my nails pretty simple! First I’ll show you the nails before doing the arty part, featuring O.P.I‘s DS Reserve (DS027). I really like this polish and would give it a quality rating of 4/5 and value rating of 4/5 (O.P.I polish is not cheap in shops here, retailing for approx. $16.95 AUD/bottle):

Here’s what they looked like with some “art”! 🙂 (Do you recognise the nail stickers?! LOL)

For more great examples of nail art including Valentine’s Day nail art designs check out the blog Tip Top Nails‘ latest post here. 🙂

*

I’m not sure what R will be doing for me for Valentine’s Day but I have made him a cake! I cheated a bit as you will see, but I’ll let the photos tell the story! 🙂

I had this in the pantry so thought I'd try it! 🙂 (Yep this is in the new kitchen I promise to upload more pix of it soon!)

mmm chocolate cake batter which included choc chipssssss

...bake for 50 min...

... the cooked cake with the choccie icing (frosting), ready to decorate!

The finished cake! 🙂

What I used to decorate the cake; available at supermarkets.

***

Have a great day everyone; thank you all for visiting, reading, following/liking/subscribing! xxxx

A few duds!

Hi everyone! 🙂 Well after my not so positive review of the Kiss Nail Dress product the other week (if you haven’t read it yet, click here), I wanted to avoid other reviews of things I don’t like so much for a while. I like to be honest in my reviews, so am not afraid of giving constructive criticism where it’s due, but I also don’t want to look like I’m whinging! :-0

Nevertheless, I have used another two products recently (haha yep I’ve been unlucky huh?!) which have been disappointing. They are both from popular brands so I thought it worth sharing my thoughts on them as you may consider buying either of them in the future. (Oh – and “duds” = defective in plural form. :))

So here goes! 🙂

***

Dud #1 – THEFACESHOP’s White Mud Nose Pack

Price: I picked this up for $9 AUD on sale.

Where can I get it? Exclusive to THEFACESHOP

I’d read a lot of positive reviews from overseas bloggers about this product at the time I bought it, approximately 4 months ago now. However, I didn’t actually get around to trying it until the weekend. It promotes itself as being equivalent to the “pore strips” (such as from Biore) but I thought it could be a lot better, because it is in gel form so it would be easier to apply to any area where there are blackheads is congestion (sounds nicer as “congestion” hm?! ;)).

I tested it on my nose which is a congestion prone area for me. Unfortunately, despite following the instructions, NONE of the congestion was removed by the product! 😦 I waited half an hour to give my skin a rest (though it was a very gentle product) and used a Biore strip instead – it sucessfully removed the congestion.

So glad I got this on sale as it didn’t perform! However, given the positive reviews I’d seen, did I perhaps simply receive a bad batch (especially given it was on sale)???

Beautiful rating – quality 1/5, value 1/5 (it does not do what it claims to be able to do).

*

Dud #2: Rimmel I Love Lasting Finish nail polish in Black Cherries (#193)

image: amazon.co.uk

Price: I also got this on sale, for approx. $2.50 AUD.

Where can I get it? Kmart, other discount deparment stores, various supermarkets and chemists.

When I saw this deep plum I thought “pretty!” so was quick to scoop it up. 🙂 However the big let down with this product was its staying power. I applied this to my nails last night whilst watching TV, and it began noticeably chipping the next morning as I was going about my usual business, getting ready for work! I had not applied a top coat, but I still think it performed very poorly. Especially when “lasting finish” is in the product’s name! :-0

Check out the chipping on my nails by the time I’d got home from work, where I was only doing light administrative duties (I’m gripping my car’s steering wheel! :)):

Beautiful rating: quality 2/5 (nice colour but doesn’t last!), value 2/5 (I guess you get what you pay for?! :)).

***

Oh yeahhhh, Friday tomorrow! Can’t wait till the weekend! 🙂 I’m looking forward to catching up with friends and also doing some more “benkyo no nihongo” (Japanese study) as the class I attend starts again soon! What do you guys have planned for the weekend? 🙂

Silly Season Mani – feat. Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear

I’ve seen some absolutely AMAZING! manicures on the web lately, most of which have been done for Xmas. 🙂 I was a bit lazy this year and what I did doesn’t look Christmassy, but I think it does look festive, I think. Here tis!

I used two coats of Sally Hansen’s Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear polishes to acheive this look – the purple is Purple Potion and the glitter is Disco Ball. (Sorry about the quality of the pic – I’m intending to get a better camera in the new year! The product pic below actually looks better – what the?! As they were taken with the same camera!)

Price range: These were $6.95 each.

Where can I get it? I picked mine up from my local supermarket but you can also get this range at chemists, Priceline, and similar places.

Both shades glided on smoothly and the purple was opaque after one coat, but I applied two (and then two of the glitter as I wanted my nails to look very sparkly!). The purple has a lovely pearlescent finish but the glitter is fairly average.

The polish chipped noticeably after 2 days, and these were 2 days that I was not working on renovations (as of course the manual labour would’ve damaged my mani quickly!). I was disappointed with this as the packaging for these polishes claims that the polish can last for up to 7 days (!!?). I wasn’t expecting it to last for 7 days, but 3 days without notable chipping would’ve been nice!

Some glitters can be hard to remove – this product wasn’t which was excellent! I was very happy about this aspect of the glitter polish.

Would I repurchase these? Hmm… not at full price.

Beautiful rating: quality 3/5, value 3/5 (I did not think it was any better lasting than cheap polishes that I own!)

If you’ve uploaded some Xmas/holiday mani pics lately comment below with a link to your blog or vlog post and I’ll check it out! 🙂

**** Psst…. DON’T FORGET TO ENTER MY XMAS GIVEAWAY COMP! 🙂 Entries open till midnight 4th Jan ’12 (Adelaide time… +09:30 GMT)… just visit http://t.co/FosqoXck ! Good luck! 🙂

lady in red: face of australia (FOA) colour pro triple action nail enamel

Hey! 🙂 How’s everyone’s week been so far?

I’ll be putting up a few posts today and tonight as I won’t have time to write over the weekend. On Saturday I’m going to TED x Adelaide – which is a free event organised by fans of the TED concept (which I think originated in the USA – basically it showcases a variety of speakers on a whole heap of interesting topics – some are health related, some science related, some politics related, and much  more). I am not sure if there are any more tickets available but you can find out and read more about it at http://tedxadelaide.com/. 🙂 You can also watch recordings of various TED speakers at http://www.ted.com/ or on their YouTube channel.

If people would like to know how TED x went let me know and I’ll do a post on it. 🙂

***

I have a loooooooot of nail polish. I confess, I’m not usually fussy about the brand I use but once I find a polish I really like I am loyal to the particular brand for that particular colour. However, I am yet to find a nice rich red polish that I like.

This led me to try FOA’s Colour Pro polish. When I saw this product I thought great no need to spend extra time doing a top coat, as it is reportedly meant to be a 3-in-1. As described on the bottle: “intense, durable colour with professionally formulated three-in-one base, colour and top coat.” It is also toulene, formaldehyde and dibutyle phthalate free (not sure what the last one is but it doesn’t sound nice does it?!). I love the name of the shade too: lady in red.

Price range: I picked up my bottle for around $7.00 AUD

Where can I buy it? most chemists and stores like Big W and Kmart.

The colour of this polish is absolutely beautiful. It was just what I was wanting; not too dark and not pinky! It went on well and had a super glossy finish.

I was very tempted to apply a seperate top coat out of habit but I didn’t as of course I wanted to test its staying power! After a day of working in an office environment, and cooking dinner from scratch, there was some slight wear on the tips of the index fingernails. By day two, chipping on the index fingernails was noticeable and needed a touch up and by day three my middle fingernails were the same (on my hands I find that my ring and pinkie fingernails as well as my thumb nails tend to chip last)! That wasn’t *too* bad however I have other polishes which seem to last better and are cheaper, believe it or not!

When I next use this I will be applying a seperate top coat despite FOA’s claim that it has built in top coat properties. 😛

Beautiful rating: quality 4/5 (it could be more chip resistant seeing it’s meant to have a built in top coat), value 5/5 (it’s reasonably priced and is also free of several nasty chemicals!).