As a nail wrap virgin, I recently jumped at the chance to review some NCLA nail wraps. A new line to Nail Polish Canada – they have introduced 24 different NCLA nail wrap designs and I have to say I love nearly all of them! Priced at CA$16.00 for a pack of 44 nail wraps and free shipping within Canada you definitely get bang for your buck out of these nail wraps. I picked out the Waxprint design pack to try.

Now the genius that I am, I failed to take a picture of the entire strip as this pack has a whopping 22 different designs. The designs are inspired by wax prints from Ghana. Because of the variety of designs and sizes, I managed to find enough designs to keep a blue theme running through all my nails. Thanks to there being two sheets, I could grab the same designs from each sheet and match my nails on each hand.

I found the application process a little difficult and I’m not sure if that’s because it was my first time or because my nails are so curved. To measure which one is the right fit, I laid my nail against the wrap still on the strip. Then I moved up two sizes from the one that matched the width of my nail to allow for the c curve of my nail which is pretty strong. I picked up the wrap with a pair of tweezers using a flap at the tip end of the wrap and then bent it slightly before laying it onto my nail My main struggle with these is that I couldn’t get them to lay completely flat no matter how much I tried to stretch them and rub them down. This could just be because my nail tips curve downwards as well as having a tight c curve made a very uneven surface to apply them to. You can see on the left hand side of my middle and little finger nails there are ridged sections that just wouldn’t lie flat. I also had the issue on my tips. For my thumb nail I needed to trim the bottom slightly as my thumb nails are very square so there was a lot of uncovered nail using the nail wrap with a rounded cuticle shape.

All the being said, I did love the end result, I felt like my nails had a photoshop finish because (most of) the edges had such a crisp edge on them and the design was far more complex than I could ever achieve myself. They were also much quicker to apply than painting my nails, I’m sure with practice they could be applied in a flash for a special occasion or if you’re just in a rush. They’re great for a back up for those days where your nail just won’t go right (we all have them!)

You can find the full set of Waxprint NCLA Nail Wraps here at Nail Polish Canada, along with a range of other designs. I love the It Doesn’t Matter set which has a set of different black and white geometric designs that would look fabulous as accent nails.

The products in this post were provided to me for consideration but this in no way influenced my review. For my full disclosure policy, please click here.

I layered two coats of Blogger over an unnamed dark blue L’Oreal polish for the straight swatch.  As you can see, the glitter is very dense and could most likely be worn alone with two generous coats or three thinner coats.  I had a hard time picking out all the glitter colours, there is definitely yellow, red, pink, turquoise and silver in there.  The pink and the turquoise are the most prominent colours to me when it’s on the nails.  I think this would also look great over a purple polish.

And here is the jelly sandwich I keep talking about.  I used one coat of Blogger between coats of White Wedding to achieve this.  I love the finish you get using White Wedding instead of a traditional jelly polish, it’s almost mattified because of all the tiny flakies in that polish.

Sorry for the slight inconsistency in my nail lengths, my original swatches didn’t come out and I’ve since had a break on my middle nail so I had to file them all down a little today (nooooo….!)

You can purchase Blogger directly from Picture Polish for $10.00 or via one of their Network members.  You can also keep up to date with all the latest Picture Polish news via Facebook and Twitter and browse swatches on Instagram and Pinterest.

The products in this post were provided to me for consideration but this in no way influenced my review.  For my full disclosure policy, please click here.

I have a bunch of random Dollish Polish to show you today from the Gamer/Music/Movie collections, so lets get right down to it shall we!

Don’t Wake Me Up was the only polish I didn’t get the reference for…apparently in my old age (of late twenties) I have no idea about recent music…my boyfriend hypothosized that the fact that I haven’t listen to the radio since I met him 5 years ago probably didn’t help me much.  Anyway apparently it is named after a Chris Brown song, youtube helped to enlighten me, I’m not missing out on much it seems.  The polish on the other hand is awesome – in the bottle I wasn’t sold but damn I love the lime green matte glitter in this.  It’s mixed in with lots of small blue squares and some irridescent hexes that didn’t really show up, as well as a few large silver matte hexes.  This looks best over darker colors, I used one coat over Ulta3 Get Teal for these swatches.

Purple Rain is a music reference I would hope everyone gets!  Named for the Prince song, this was my hands down favourite.  I already showed you this polish as part of my ANZAC day manicure in my instagram post last week.  Shown here on it’s own, this gorgeous mix of purple glitters in a pale lilac creme base builds to perfect opacity in three coats.  It’s also perfectly smooth and glossy with just one top coat and doesn’t get too thick unlike some creme glitter mixes.  Perfection!

That’s So Fetch comes from one of my secret favourite movies – Mean Girls.  Poor Gretchen and her oppression in the desire to be popular.  Layered here over China Glaze Traffic Jam, I used one coat and didn’t need to fish at all for the stars and hearts.  All the larger shaped glitters lie relatively flat on the nail and are easily sealed in with a thick top coat.  Honestly this polish is not for me, I’m not a fan of any shaped glitters…hearts, butterflies, flowers, star etc.  They’re just not for me.  I can however imagine this would be a hit for a young girls birthday gift or perhaps to wear to a costume party?

Gotham City, home to one of my favourite movie trilogies ever.  This polish inspired by Batman’s home city is a mix of matte black and turquoise glitters, including….bar glitter.  Usually bar glitter is an immediate turn off for me but in this polish it makes it.  I love the really fine turquoise bars.  I put one coat over Essie In My Cab-ana, I probably could have gone with a second coat looking at the swatches now but never mind.  I did find it difficult to find a colour to wear this over that didn’t hide one of the glitter colours, I think a turquoise or a really dark teal would be the only options that would work for me.

Lastly Tetris from the gamer collection.  Yep we all played it, I in fact still do from time to time on my iPhone when I need a game palette cleanser!  Shown here over Sally Hansen Lickety Split Lime, Tetris has a mix of yellow, pale blue, green and red hexes that have a slight reflective curl.  For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why the glitter in this is hexes and not squares.  The glitter in this polish sits flat despite the curl illusion but it does have a slight tendency to clump so some dabbing is required.

These polishes are available through Llarowe - all of them except Gotham City are currently available, and the best bit is that they’re all on sale for only $7.00 each.  Go Go Go!

The products in this post were provided to me for consideration but this in no way influenced my review.  For my full disclosure policy, please click here.

I have been craving a yellow and grey manicure for ages, so when I received some feather water decals from Born Pretty Store recently I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them.  The sheet of water decals I had picked out had 11 different sets of feather designs on them but the yellow feathers just called out to me as a perfect match to go with Cult Nails Feel Me Up.  I started out painting my nails with China Glaze Recycle and Cult Nails Feel Me Up on my ring nails.  Then I added the yellow feather water decals too all the grey nails.  I probably should have left it there but in my infinite wisdom I also added a black feather decal to my yellow nail and this is what I ended up with:

And no, my top coat didn’t wrinkle but I was wearing a black and white stripey top when I took these photos which showed up in the reflection of my nails!  I lost about 75% of my photos to stripey top syndrome!  Once the decals were applied, I put two coats of top coat over them to seal the edges which gave a perfectly smooth appearance and hid the edges of the decals.

These nail decals are available here for $4.73 for a sheet of 11 different feather designs (each design has 20 decals, so thats 22 full manicures you can get out of one sheet!)  Don’t forget to check out everything else that they offer – in the past I’ve purchased rhinestones, studs, nail art brushes and stamping plates from their store.  Born Pretty Store were kind enough to provide me with a 10% discount code for you all, nail art bargains all round!

The products in this post were provided to me for consideration but this in no way influenced my review.  For my full disclosure policy, please click here.

I was recently offered the opportunity to try some products from the Duri range by the Australian distributor – Pink Tiger, along with Lust Have It who featured Duri in their April box.  I’ve been using Duri Rejuvacote as my base coat on and off for about 6 months now so I jumped at the chance to try some of their other products to see if Rejuvacote is a one product wonder or if everything else lived up to it’s standard.  I was sent two polishes and their Miracote top coat to try out.  First up the swatches, jump to the bottom for specials from Duri and Lust Have It for my Australian readers:

Showstopper is a medium pink with a gold shimmer through it.  I found the shimmer was much stronger in the bottle than on the nail, however the formula was amazing.  It was truly buttery and although it was a little on the thin side it didn’t pool or run into my cuticles at all.  I used three coats, but I think if you were careful you could get away with two.  I then finished it off with Miracote.

What A Keeper is a dark blurple in the bottle, however on the nail it dries very much on the dark blue side of blurple!  This polish has a gorgeous blue shimmer in it but it needs to be under a really strong light to be seen. so for the most part it just looks like a creme polish.  The formula on this was a bit thinner and although it’s highly pigmented, I wish I had gone with three coats instead of two as it showed a lot of ridges at the base of my nails, even with a top coat.

I decided to do a wear test with What A Keeper to see how Miracote would stand up against my usual top coat – Poshe – and I was pleasantly surprised.  Polish doesn’t last long on me anyway and I put my nails through two days of office move hell to test this.  We’re talking not just packing and unpacking boxes but hauling lots of IT equipment, hooking up about 50 computer and carrying tables and chairs up and down stairs between multiple floors.  I alternated my top coat between Poshe and Miracote and there was absolutely no discernable difference to dry time, shine or wear. The above swatches have Miracote on my middle and pink fingers and Poshe on the others.  What I did notice was Miracote didn’t seem to scratch up quite as easily as Poshe though.  A definite plus for me as I like a really glossy finish.

I also used Rejuvacote as my base coat for the wear test – I love Rejuvacote because I find in combination with taking Biotin, it keeps my nails long and strong (not a single break during the office move!).  I do find however it hardens my nails to the brink of snapping.  To prevent that I only use Rejuvacote as a base coat 1-2 days per week now.

If you have made it this far I have some good new for you all, Pink Tiger are currently offering a free Duri nail polish when you spend AU$50 on their site.  Rejuvacote and Miracote retail for $25 here which is in line with OPI Nail Envy range, while nail polish colours are $18 each.  All you need to do to claim your free nail polish is email redemptions@pinktiger.com.au with your proof of purchase.  They also offer their own line of nail files and amazing lint free gauze for polish removal which is fabulous for removing creme and shimmer polishes and scouring away stubborn glitter ($13 for 200 sheets)…I also found them good for cleaning my camera lens!

If you’re interested in signing up for a Lust Have It subscription, you can also get $5 off using the code PROJECT.  They often feature nail products – I just received Pretty Serious Tux in my quarterly eco box!

The products in this post were provided to me for consideration but this in no way influenced my review.  For my full disclosure policy, please click here.

I would recommend putting this over a white or nude creme if you wanted full opacity as the polish is quite thick .  Alone I think it would build up and be too thick before you could get it opaque.  Under most lights the irridescent flakies only flash pastel colours however put this polish under a strong light and it will sparkle like a rainbow!

You can purchase White Wedding directly from Picture Polish for $12.00 or via one of their Network members.  You can also keep up to date with all the latest Picture Polish news via Facebook and Twitter and browse swatches on Instagram and Pinterest.

The products in this post were provided to me for consideration but this in no way influenced my review.  For my full disclosure policy, please click here.

I’m getting more and more lazy about photographing my day to day nails, but luckily I still instagram the good ones so I have a couple of manicures to show you today that never made it to my blog:

This was China Glaze Recycle and Girly Bits Stormy Skies, stamped with a dandelion design in Ulta3 Wild Berry from a Nail Craze plate.

I wore this manicure to a nail meet up a few weeks ago. I used White Owl Lacquer Dwelling on Love and my accent nail was NOPI Selena. I can’t remember where the flower design came from anymore and then I added a gold stud to finish it off.

Finally I wore this on ANZAC day when we went to see Iron Man 3 and visit some family. From left to right – Essie Smooth Sailing with black studs from Born Pretty Store, Dollish Polish Purple Rain, OPI Nein, Nein, Nein, OK Fine! with white chevron decals over the top, Essie Smooth Sailing.

Bonus Picture! I got a third Helmer recently, so I reshuffled all my polishes as my existing Helmers were getting very full. I could just fit all 18 drawers on my 7 seater couch! I got some new bright red-pink drawer liners too which I found for $2.50 per 5m roll at Officeworks. Turns out polish looks pretty crappy on it, so I will have to go and get some more black drawer liners soon.

Still my favourite indie brand, I held myself back to three polishes from the Spring 2013 releases from Hare Polish.  They almost have half a helmer drawer to themselves these days…my addiction to Hare may be out of control.  Anyway you’re here for swatches, not waffle so here you go.  All swatches are three coats plus a top coat.

Return To Nature adds to my growing stash of neutral “work appropriate” polishes and really hits the spot for me as a good balance between neutral and indie polishes.  I’ve tried a lot of indie neutrals recently but this is definitely my favourite for two reasons – the base colour is not only very flattering but it’s not streaky like most I’ve swatched recently.  Also the gold and silver glitters are absolutely loaded into this polish yet they’re not overwhelming at all.  Good work Nikole!

Party Palace was the first polish I saw from the Spring collections that I felt I must have.  I really am a sucker for saturated pinks and purples these days.  This polish sits right on the edge of pink and purple for me and has a lovely mix of red and white small squares mixed through, along with a subtle purple shimmer.  This could easily be layered over a creme to cut down on the number of coats needed.

Hooky In The Hamlet is my surprise favourite of the three.  I took a gamble on this polish as the base colour looked turquoise in some photos I’d seen – turns out it’s just a nightmare to photograph and it’s actually a really vibrant aqua green colour.  My photos don’t do this polish justice but they’re close, I have nothing even remotely close to this in my stash, not even a creme.  I also love the simplicity of the mixed white glitter and a scattering of irridescent blue glitter.  There is a hidden purple shimmer in this one too but it needs the right light to be seen.  Definitely a good polish to take a gamble on, I got lots of compliments on it when I wore it a few weeks ago, even the guy at the bottle shop was fascinated by it :)

Hare Polish is available via Etsy, Llarowe, Femme Fatale Cosmetics and Shoppe Eclecticco.  Both Party Palace and Return To Nature are currently in stock at Llarowe and Return To Nature is even on sale right now!

I have another Picture Polish collaboration shade to share with you today, and it’s another all Australian collaboration!  Shocked is a deep fuschia jelly with micro holo flakes designed by Sarah of Shatter Me Claire.  This was love at first sight for me, I always love a good pink polish and this is no exception.  This shot straight to the top of my favourite pinks list :)

The  swatches shown here are three coats with a top coat.  You can see a very tiny bit of VNL under this polish which would be easily solved with a quick coat of a pink or nude creme before applying Shocked.  This polish really sparkles and is loaded with the holo flakes – it’s also worth noting there is absolutely no glitter in this polish so it’s very easy to remove.  The second photo under my desk lamp is a little more saturated than the polish in real life, but shows the sparkle so well!  You could easily amp up the saturation of this polish by adding a hot pink creme underneath it.

You can purchase Shocked directly from Picture Polish for $12.00 or via one of their Network members.  You can also keep up to date with all the latest Picture Polish news via Facebook and Twitter and browse swatches on Instagram and Pinterest!

The products in this post were provided to me for consideration but this in no way influenced my review.  For my full disclosure policy, please click here.

Hooray for new Alanna Renee polishes! I’m a bit slow off the mark showing these polishes, I’ve had them sitting in my untried tray for nearly a month but they were well worth the wait.  Alanna Renee’s most recent collection are all inspired by Harry Potter.  Now I have to confess I never really got into the Harry Potter phenomenon, so I didn’t lose it over these polishes and immediately go into need all the polish mode but these two looked really soft and pretty so I couldn’t help myself!

Patronus is a a very slightly off white/grey polish with the smallest blue micro glitters.  As you can see, they give the polish a slightly mottled effect but aren’t strong enough to overpower the base colour.  As a sucker for all things grey, I loved this polish and thought it looked a bit like a really pale granite.  I used three coats here just to make sure it was completely opaque

Draught Of Peace has to be mine if for no other reason than it is blue!  This polish is a beautiful sky blue creme loaded with small silver hexes.  The hexes don’t dominate the polish or make it sparkly, instead just adding texture and interest.  I needed only two coats to get this polish opaque and even and one top coat to smooth it all out.

As a bonus, I also have Milky Way which is an irridescent top coat loaded with small flakies and irridescent squares and hexes.  This is two coats shown over A England Avalon.  A quick word of caution is that this polish does shrink when a QD top coat is applied so I recommend wrapping your tips with every coat to avoid this.

Alanna Renee polishes are available directly from her website for a mere AU$7.99 each, you can also find an up to date list of all her international stockists on her website.