Purging: Which ones to keep?

I think we all have that time in our nail polish lives where we feel that we own just a little bit much. As I am moving out of home again for university next year, I really want to trim my stash down! Today I am only showing you a little bit of the stash.

Purging is a hard thing to do... usually I am very strict on myself with the polishes that I keep. Usually it's ones that I don't have a doppelganger of, or I wear it more than a few times a year and most importantly it has to suit my skin tone.

These are my reds. To be honest, the only red I am crazy about is Ruby Pumps. I sort of only own the others because I don't have something like them and fear I will need them at some stage to match an outfit. Now that I think about it, I don't actually wear any red outfits, only ever red lipstick. Hmmm...

Left to right: Glitter Gal Not Another Red, OPI Guy Meets Gal-Veston, China Glaze Dress to Kill, China Glaze Ruby Pumps

These are some of my favourite polishes. Quirky, pale, sweet shades. I love every one of these to pieces. I can't trim down this area any more.

Left to right: OPI It's a Girl, OPI Steady as She Rose, OPI Skull and Glossbones, OPI Time-less is More

Browns, oranges and rose golds have only started to grow in the stash this year.

Left to right: Australis Citrus, OPI Pros and Bronze, OPI Ginger Bells, OPI Suzi Loves Cowboys

I could not trim down my navys any lower than this. I think I had about eight. They are the largest colour group found in my stash. I feel safe with these ones as I have one in almost every finish if I ever did need it. That is some weak justification if I ever did hear!

Left to right: OPI Russian Navy Suede, OPI Roadhouse Blues, OPI Play Til Midnight, OPI Ink

Lucky last, the greens. I'm still not completely sold on all of these shades. I do however love wearing Uh-Oh and Trendsetter.

Left to right: China Glaze Electric Pineapple, OPI Who The Shrek Are You?, China Glaze Trendsetter, OPI Uh-Oh Roll Down The Window

Do you have any shades you just can't get rid of?

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Nail Art: The Importance of Grid

I'm slowly getting back into nail art. It's sort of like a bug, you get it in bursts. Anyway, about the title. At university we've been working on a brief for creating our own wallpaper and we've all been learning about how important a grid is in setting up a recurring pattern.

I'm not sure if you remember this dress from another post or not, but it's what I wanted to wear for my final presentation along with some pretty nails.

I wanted to mimic the pattern and colour from the dress so I quickly painted up a few ideas I had. The colours used here are OPI Roadhouse Blues (navy), OPI Skull and Glossbones (grey) and China Glaze Dress to Kill (red, love that name btw).

I really loved how graphic the first nail looked with the navy flowers on the grey base. The second nail I also loved, the third was ok but wasn't as strong or bold as the first two. The last nail was pretty blah. I decided to go with both the first and second nails!

Here is where the grid comes in! Keep in mind that I did do my left hand first and didn't use a grid. Total mess. I do recommend getting some practice in before going straight into this lol. I really liked how the design looked at this stage. I may just have to have this as a mani on it's own one day.

Now Roadhouse Blues gets covered in Skull and Glossbones. I was a bit iffy about this because the grey looks quite a bit softer over the navy. I'll have to make that bit work better I think.

All finished! I think this was before I put top coat on. Because after I did it sort of smudged bits of the navy out and streaked. It wasn't major or overly obvious, but I knew it was there! >:( I used Essie 3-way Glaze for the top coat. Usually it serves me well, but not today...

An "in the shade" pic just for good measure. 


To do all of this I just used the flat end of a dressmakers pin. I desperately searched my apartment for a dotting tool and only found toothpicks. I've had bad experiences when using toothpicks for nail art and I found a rogue pin in my couch so I decided to use that.

Here is also a picture of my cat.

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NFUOh 52 over OPI DS Fantasy

After trying 52 over Fantasy, I had to wear it as a full manicure. So here it is!

I only wore one coat of 52 over one coat of Fantasy. It was one of those manicures where everything just worked and looked awesome in the end!

I love how you can see the sparkles of Fantasy in the sunlight.

You are probably sick and tired of NFUOh posts by now! I do have a few more lined up, but won't be posting just yet :)

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NFUOh 052

Today I have NFUOh's 052 to show you. 052 looks quite navy in the bottle but it's actually quite purpley, like 051. All you need is a blue to layer it over and you can get the same results as how it looks in the bottle.

I decided to layer 052 over bare nail, OPI DS Fantasy, Australis Blue Tiger and Australis Limited Edition 2.

052 went on a little bit uneven over the lime but I did love it over the two blues. Fantasy especially.

We're on two coats here. As you can see 052 is a little bit sheer by itself but can be layered up to be worn alone. Fantasy brings out the green more, Blue Tiger brings out the light blue and Limited Edition 2 the purple side of 052.

Here we get to see the green, blue and purple duochrome a little bit. It's definitely stronger in person, I wasn't able to capture it nicely with my camera.

052 is my most favourite NFUOh polish along with 050. As soon as I did that first swipe over Fantasy, I knew 052 was the one. The only navy with blue and green flakies I will ever need.

More NFUOh posts on the way!

More about → NFUOh 052

NFUOh 084

Today I've got NFUOh's 084 to show you. 084 is a mainly purple glass fleck shimmer but it also contains gold and blue. It does have a tint of purple in it's base but it's quite sheer. So it could alter your nail polish underneath if you layer it up a bit.

Here I've layered 084 over bare nail, Essie Sexy Divide, Color Club Wild at Heart and OPI Ink.

I wasn't able to see 084 in the sun as the polishes I used as a base are quite reflective themselves. But in the shade you can see what a pretty effect 084 has on the purples.

Like a lot of the other shimmers and flakies, 084 doesn't look all that great on it's own. You can also see the slight tinge of purple it gives.

With two coats of 084 you can see the sparkle of it more over the purples here. My camera wasn't actually able to capture how pretty it looked in the sun.

And again in the shade you can see how lovely 084 is over these purples. It reminds me of a not-completely-black OPI DS Mystery.

More NFUOh posts to come!

More about → NFUOh 084

OPI Go Goth Halloween Set 2010 UPDATED

UPDATED: Here are each of the colours on the nail. The formula on these are all very nice. Have to be careful when applying Obscurity though, it can get streaky.

Here is just a quick look at the Go Goth collection! This collection came out for Halloween 2010. I'm really excited to see what they have in store for us this year! 

Retails for $39.90, a bit of a rip off but I really loved these colours.

Sanguine is a beautiful dark red, plus I love saying it. Sanguine.

Nevermore is a very pretty navy with pink and purple sparkles.

Unripened is really nice! I really hope OPI brings this sort of shade into a normal collection.

In order above in outdoor lighting natural vs. flash: Ink, Obscurity, Sanguine, Unripened and Nevermore.

Here is Ink and Nevermore side by side. Can you spot the difference?

Did you pick this set up? Did you like them?

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MAC Liberty Of London: Nail Polish Swatches

Blue India was very popular in the states and sold out so quickly. However, at the release party I went to, I think my mum and I were the only ones who paid attention to the polishes! So I don't think they will be quite as a big seller here.

BLUE INDIA

FORMULA

Was amazing! Best MAC formula ever! 98% coverage in the first coat. It was so smooth and creamy. I hope MAC produces more like this!

COLOUR

The colour of Blue India is sort of a dusty teal. But it doesn't have too much green in it, more of a blue teal. But definitely dusty. 

It is quite a universal colour too, I tried it on and loved it, same happened with mum. My hands are more neutral coloured with yellow tones around my cuticles where as mum has more red undertones. So I think it will work with multiple skintones.

VESTRAL WHITE

FORMULA

The formula for this polish was really... different. I've never come across something like this before so I wasn't too sure on what to do for it.

It felt like I was applying a cream polish but then it left weird streaks as matte polishes do when you put them on too thin. I had to use 3 coats to get it all evened out.

I feel a white ridgefiller would help with this.

COLOUR

The colour of Vestral White is not quite a stark white. More of a creamy white. Like it has a little bit of softness to it as apposed to OPI Alpine Snow but not quite as soft as say Zoya Lucy or OPI Time-less is More.

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