Essie Armed & Ready with stamping

Today I'd like to share an Essie polish - Armed & Ready. This is a gorgeous dark grey taupe with tons of gold micro shimmer. The formula was easy to apply and typical of Essie - dried nice and quickly.

I thought I'd break out of my comfort zone and try a stamp I hadn't used before. This is Konad plate S6. It was actually a bit of a challenge lining up the image so that it stamped centrally on my nail. A couple of images aren't quite right but I can live with it! Interestingly my right hand turned out slightly better but it's a challenge to photograph it so you're stuck with my left!

This shows two coats.

Base colour: Essie Armed & Ready

Nail plate: Konad S6
Stamp colour: China Glaze 2030
Topped with Essie Good to Go

Inside natural light

This is Armed & Ready on it's own. You can see the gorgeous shimmer in the bottle. Unfortunately it was quite late in the day so the colours are not the best - although still pretty accurate.

Color Club Magnetic Force REVIEW - Sci-Fi

Today I'd like to show you something new to NZ - Color Club Magnetic Force. This is also my first experience with magnetic polish. I couldn't be happier with this golden green shimmer. It's not unlike Cult Nails In a Trance except Sci-Fi has large glitter chunks and the formula is a lot thicker - plus of course it has these amazing magnetic qualities!

So here's the bottle shot . . .

The lid slips off to reveal the actual brush lid. The top of the outer cap houses the magnet which has a small lip to position the cap over the wet polish on your nail. This magnet is what produces the wavy effect. It's a very simple process and easily corrected by adding another thin coat of polish and repositioning the magnet. The little lip ensures the magnet is just the right distance away from the polish on your nail, although care has to be taken to ensure you don't touch the magnet to the wet polish. Just hold the magnet still for 15 seconds and the pattern is revealed.

And this is the effect you get!

I'm looking forward to trying the other colours in this collection. Please see here for info on the rest of the collection.

This polish was kindly sent to me by Color Club NZ and will be available online in April 2012.

A England Princess Sabra

Confession time! I wondered what all the hype about A England polishes was about. I've seen many posts about this brand and it wasn't until I read somewhere that this site has FREE international shipping that I considered having a look. The website is easy to use and while the cost of the polishes is at the upper end at 9 pounds each (bearing in mind that a UK pound is doubled to NZ currency), the fact that they generously offer free shipping won me over. So I bought Princess Sabra pictured below.

This is scattered holographic polish which applies like butter and dries super quickly. The colour is a gorgeous gold which has green undertones. I can't believe I haven't tried these polishes until now! I bought some other polishes and will post them next week some time.

This shows two coats - unfortunately I couldn't get a shot in the sun - since it's autumn and we don't have any!

Butter London HRH

Phoar - what a purple this is! Even in the bottle it's a gorgeous metallic, blue-based purple that can only be described as 'royal'. I had some issues with application as the formula dries very quickly and ended up with two pretty thick coats. This is certainly a striking looking colour and I can't stop looking at my nails! I only realised now that my bottle is missing some text - lol never mind it's what's on the inside that counts eh?!

China Glaze Liquid Leather with Red Angel stamping

Sooo how about some black with gold stamping? It's been ages since China Glaze Liquid Leather popped its head out of my collection and todays the day! I love the black and gold combination and was keen to try another of my Red Angel image plates. Liquid Leather is lovely to apply and is opaque in two coats. Cleanup can be a bit messy - but you get that with black! lol This image plate was brilliant to use. The image transferred really well and I'm happy with the result.

Base colour: China Glaze Liquid Leather

Nail plate: Red Angel RA-114
Stamp colour: China Glaze 2030
Topped with Essie Good to Go

Essie Masquerade Belle

The weather is cooling off here and time to bring out some warm autumn colours. This is Essie Masquerade Belle which is a rich brown burgundy. My hubby even thought this was a nice colour lol Masquerade Belle applied beautifully although this shows three coats just because I have issues with it looking lighter around the cuticles. I completely flooded one cuticle and removed it straight away but from that I can tell this is going to stain like mad when I remove it. Fortunately my trusty OPI Expert Touch remover has just arrived in the post - yippee!

I didn't get a chance to stamp it but some gold stamping would have looked nice I reckon . . .

OPI Purple with a Purpose with FLAKIES!

Oh my! I just love how this turned out and couldn't wait to share it. Purple with a Purpose was one of my very first polishes and my first post even, but today I've added flakies from Maybelline Colorama Pink Pinata and I LOVE how it turned out. Pink and purple - what more could a girl want!? lol