; Plisherrific

Apr 12, 2012

Starry Night - Nyx Advanced Salon Formula Moonwalk

Just a plain swatch today. I was going to post and talk about my water marbling results, but then I found pictures of this new-ish polish I got, and I just had to share.

[3 Coats: Nyx Advanced Salon Formula Moonwalk]
Nyx Advanced Salon Formula Moonwalk is a black jelly polish with scattered, big holo glitter and holo hex glitter. The glitter are dense enough that you won't have to worry about not getting good glitter coverage. Moonwalk's opacity is pretty good at three coats, but because of its jelly nature, you can see it's not entirely opaque if you bring it right up to your face. It applies beautifully, like most of the other Nyx polishes from this collection.


[3 Coats: Nyx Advanced Salon Formula Moonwalk]
Aptly named blog entry? It really is a starry night! Looking at it makes me want to wear it again, right now! It's just all that shininess against the black base.

Alright, the next few pictures are just to show you a little of how the glitter changes with just the slightest shift.


[3 Coats: Nyx Advanced Salon Formula Moonwalk]
Oh, how I wish my photos were better. Bear in mind that this is with my camera that hates photographing holo glitter. Since Moonwalk is a jelly base with dense glitter, you get glitter upon glitter when you layer it, which is just pretty.

I forgot to take photos with my iPhone, so there's no dodgy but shiny shots this time. And I just realised that I have a little cotton still stuck to my fingers, from removing the previous mani. >_> How embarrassing...

I'm a little busy this week, but hopefully, things will ease up, and I can put up more photos outside my usual posting day. :)

Apr 9, 2012

Swamp Dipped - Australis Mates Rates, Lynderella She Lived in a Swamp


Fancy a dip in the swamp anyone? ;) Jme and I have decided to try our best not to do plain swatches of the Lynderella polishes I won because there are plenty of blogs who have done amazing swatches of them all! Check out Jme's creative use of Happy Holodaze! as posted last week!

[Base: Australis Mates Rate; Tips: Lynderella She Lived in a Swamp]
I decided to go for somewhat-glitter-gradient tips using She Lived in a Swamp! Yay for shiny glittery goodness!

[Australis Mates Rates: Two coats]
I started with a base of Australis Mates Rates, a  gorgeous blackened green with gold shimmer running through it. It does tend to look like a plain dark colour but when the light hits it, it just lights up!

[Australis Mates Rates: Two coats]
The Australis polishes have an excellent formula and this was opaque in one thicker coat, but I think I used two thin ones.

[Base: Australis Mates Rate; Tips: Lynderella She Lived in a Swamp]
I then applied a glitter gradient of Lynderella She Lived in a Swamp, thinning it out nearer the base and with the highest glitter density at the tip.

[Base: Australis Mates Rate; Tips: Lynderella She Lived in a Swamp]
Only two coats of She Lived in a Swamp was needed to achieve this look! I found that most of the glitter was well behaved, phew! The exception being the stringy bar glitter which required some manoeuvring to get to lie flat.

[Base: Australis Mates Rate; Tips: Lynderella She Lived in a Swamp]
I think I used a thin layer of Milani Glosse to seal it down, then a thicker coat of Nubar Diamont to leave it shiny smooth! There you have it - just one more to go now! =)

Apr 5, 2012

Christmas in April? - Lynnderella Happy HoloDaze, OPI DS Mystery

Ev passed me one of her Lynnderellas to swatch and photograph, because she only has so many fingers. It's a huge favour of course, because it's so difficult having to play with new nail polish! Totally! :P

[Base: OPI DS Mystery
Top: Lynnderella Happy HoloDaze]
So I had Happy HoloDaze in hand, which is a thoroughly festive nail polish. I might have had it on during the wrong time of the year, but it really would be perfect for Christmas.


[Base: OPI DS Mystery
Top: Lynnderella Happy HoloDaze]
I thought I would try a little variety just for kicks. Happy Holodaze is a clear base polish, filled to the brim with green hex and bar glitter, red hex, square and bar glitter, and holo hex, square and bar glitter. All the glitter vary in size, even within the same colour. There are some very tiny holo glitter, which is more obvious on the 'gradient' mani on my middle finger, but which I didn't really manage to photograph.


[Base: OPI DS Mystery
Top: Lynnderella Happy HoloDaze]
I realised the earlier photo doesn't have the pinky finger in focus, that's why I'm including this photo too. So if you just layer Happy HoloDaze over a dark colour, like the one shown on my pinky, then that's easy enough and I think it looks rather pretty and bright like that. To try to do a full coverage with this polish (as shown in different patterns above) is a little more difficult. The glitter is larger than most, and so there can be gaps that you need to fill in with some more brushwork or by shuffling some glitter around using a dotting tool.

The other thing is that it takes some time to get some of the larger glitter to lie flat, especially the long bar glitter but all these are eventually manageable. It took about three coats of topcoat to cover the denser spots on my manis.


[Base: OPI DS Mystery
Top: Lynnderella Happy HoloDaze]
I like this particular photo, because you can sort of see the holo on the larger glitter.


[Base: OPI DS Mystery
Top: Lynnderella Happy HoloDaze]
I actually like how the sort-of-square mani looks. I like the darker frame around it, and I think if I had square nails, this would look even prettier.

I had actually forgotten about Easter and potential Easter manis til now, but I had this photos to put up anywhere. In any case...Happy Easter everyone!

Apr 3, 2012

Shopping in Sydney - Discontinued China Glaze, OPI DS

This is an entry for polish hauls and a tip-off for Sydney-siders, or those visiting Sydney, Australia (not the one in Nova Scotia :P). All prices in this entry are in Australian dollar. If you're after discontinued China Glaze and OPI polishes, these are good places to start off:

Essential Hair, Nails and Beauty Supplies
Shop A18/53 Park Road, Cabramatta, NSW

[Picture from Google Map's Street View. Circle by Rosanne and I :P]
I found this while searching for delicious fried chicken in Cabramatta, and instead came upon a store with racks of nail polishes. The store is on a little strip of mall, as circled in red above.

If you tend to buy your OPI online, the general OPI polishes here would be more expensive in comparison, having a starting price of $12.50. However, if you're after discontinued items, in particular the nail polish from the OPI Designer Series lines, they go for the same price, which is a total bargain compared to how much they go for on Ebay! Bargain with the owner a little, and you can get the price down to $12 a bottle at the very least, if you're buying more than one.

I didn't look around at anything else, but they do sell other hair products and beauty supplies.

There are two full racks holding OPI, as shown below, and a few smaller racks.



Rosanne gets full credit for pinpointing the exact location of the shop (after I had forgotten the address), taking photos of the OPI racks, and sending me the Google Map image! I have so much appreciation, despite the punny puns that have bombarded me! :P


ProNail Supply
9 Greenfield Pde, Bankstown, NSW

This is a nail polish and manicure equipment heaven for nail polish lovers like us.

Things they sell include:
OPI - $12
OPI DS - $13
Essie - $7/8 (can't remember for sure!)
Orly - $7
China Glaze - $6
Precision - $6
Other items like nail art accessories, fake nails, full-sized nail polish bottles, make up bottles, nail polish thinners, etc.

However, similar to the shop at Cabramatta, most of these go for lower prices online, even with shipping included. The best part about shopping at ProNail Supply though are the discontinued items. You have China Glaze's holographic OMG collection, China Glaze's Emerald Sparkle and Ruby Pumps that seem perpetually sold out in most places, some of OPI's DS collection, and some older Orly shades. I'm only so-so interested in Essie so I didn't really check those out. I don't have anything from Precision, but there looked to be some interesting shades there!

In regards to the OPI DS line, it's only a dollar difference between the two shops, but if you can't find something from the DS line at ProNail, they might be there at Essential Hair, Nail and Beauty Supplies! I only had a quick glance, but it did look like they had most of the OPI DS lines there, if not all.

Paddy's Market

Since we were asked where to get China Glaze, I thought I would include the stall at Paddy's Market. You can get China Glaze there for $8, but the collection is rather limited to only some of the recent collections. The stall is located towards the front of the market. If you come down from the escalators at the main entrance to Market City, turn left and walk a few stalls down. You'll see one that sells only cosmetics, beauty products and nail polish. Tada!


Alright, too much text, not enough pictures, so let's have a few random photos:


The above are OPI DS Sapphire, Mystery and Original, from left to right. Isn't Original's holo amazing? Ev gave me three gorgeous Essence glitters as well, which I'm not going to photograph since she already did in her haul post.

And these are all the ones I had intended to play with over the last few weeks.


Time! I seem to be lacking it!

So, where do you all buy your nail polish from? Do you have any online or physical stores to recommend?

Apr 2, 2012

Polish Haul - China Glaze, Essence, Essie, Jordana


Hey hey hey! I'm in such a lazy mood these days! Jme and I have been guiltily avoiding updating The Plish List because I have something like *cough*30*cough* to add and she may... have more...? But anyyyhooo, here are some (not all *gulp*) pics of what I've collected in the first quarter of the year...

I've been hitting up every Target I can find to collect my Essence lemmings! I've gone to the Shire... Eastern Suburbs...and even Hay St Mall in Perth! It was all worth it though!

[Essence Vampire's Love (L-R): Into the Dark, The Dawn is Broken, Gold Old Buffy]
I managed to find old displays of the Vampire's Love collection with lingering bottles, phew! Though the name makes me cringe, these are all lovely lovely polishes - this is the finish I've been loving lately too, cremes with shimmer/glitter. <3 Anyone notice that these bottles are EXACTLY the same as the Australis polish bottles? ;D

[Essence (L-R): Shiny Godness, Mellow Yellow, Camouflage, Sweet As Candy, Rose Glam]
I also picked up a couple from the regular "colour & go" range and a french manicure polish. I picked up Camouflage and the French Glam because it was marked as "going to be discontinued" so I thought, why not!

[China Glaze: Twinkle Lights; Essence (L-R): Make It Golden, Time For Romance, Blue Addicted]
Here are some glitters I picked up... China Glaze Twinkle Lights... so festive! And through my dedicated travels, I managed to find all three of my Essence glitter lemmings! Not just that, I managed to score them for Jme too! WIN!

[China Glaze OMG: DV8, 2NITE, TTYL, L8R G8R]
Like most Sydneysiders, I set aside some time to go pick up some polishes from the China Glaze OMG collection. I've been after DV8 for the longest time. Teals have been my go-to colour since forever!

[Essie (L-R): Ridge Filling Base Coat, Da Bush, Fair Game, Your Hut Or Mine, Lion Around]
I saw that Ozsale was selling Essie on the Gumleaf Mafia page and decided to put a tiny order in for some minis from the Resort Collection and their Ridge Filling Base Coat. I already use Essie Fill the Gap! and so far the RFBC seems pretty similar. As for the Resort Collection, I'm loving these colours - they're almost all of the creme shimmer finish!

[Ozsale Rough Handling vs Essie Resort Collection]
Ozsale does have a reputation for knocking your packages around though and this is how my little box of plish arrived. One of the minis had actually fallen out of the box and was rattling about in the padded envelope. Thankfully nothing was damaged aside from the packaging but it did look quite battered! Just a word of warning if anyone is thinking of purchasing from them.

Finally, just this week, I received three Jordana Glitters polishes from a Cherry Culture order I made with Jme during another recent 20% off sale. I'm happy to say they are all fairly dense - potentially full coverage in 3 coats? Maybe 2 coats even!

[Jordana Glitters: Cosmic, Magenta Magic, LA City Nights]
I tweeted this a day or two ago but Magenta Magic is fairly easy to franken into a Revlon Scandalous/Facets of Fuchsia/Deborah Lippmann Bad Romance dupe. All you need to do is combine 1/3 Magenta Magic, 2/3 clear polish and about a dozen drops of a plain black creme to tint the base.

I haven't got swatches yet because I can't bear to remove the Lynderella I'm currently wearing but I will try to get it done soon!

Apr 1, 2012

Housekeeping + April Fools - Google+, Bloglovin, Hellocotton, Pinterest!


Happy April Fools Day! This is not a joke-post actually, but I have hidden a secret joke-thingit on our blog somewhere that I'll leave up for the week! Try to spot it and leave us a spoiler-free comment if you can! ;) (The joke-image has now been moved to our QotW page!)

Anyway, this is another housekeeping post as I babble about blog matters - in this particular case, social media! As the status of Google Friend Connect appears to be up in the air at the moment, Jme and I wanted to make sure that everyone has plenty of options when it comes to keeping up with updates here at Plisherrific.


You may have noticed our little collection of icons on the sidebar has exploded into a multicoloured array of icon-y goodness! You may now pick from a variety of options:-

Facebook, Twitter or Google+
are useful for getting update notifications.
        

Bloglovin or Hellocotton (or RSS) are great if you
want a blog feed and/or following method.

     

Pinterest is excellent for spreading the love
or bookmarking favourite photos.
 
 

We will generally crosspost to all of the above, hopefully in a timely fashion! They may not all be up-to-date at the time I post this up, but we're working on it!

Just a note, Hellocotton is for women bloggers... This may just be my opinion, but not only does each user's page look awesome, it is extremely easy to link up to your feed, and the team even left a personalised welcome message on our page within hours of my setting up an account there. Good work, girls! Highly recommended to all of you women bloggers out there~ =D

Well, have you spotted it yet? ;)