Dance Legend - Rich Black Colletction

I have a couple more Dance Legend polishes to show you tonight. Just to recap, Dance Legend are a big Russian brand that has recently started shipping worldwide - and from my experience so far, their polishes are amazing.

These two polishes are from the Rich Black Collection, which has nine different black finish polishes. Eight of the nine polishes contain various glitter combinations, and the last one contains green flakies.  I have one of the glitters and the green flaky to show you.

Christmas Eve - a black jelly base with silver holographic glitters in three sizes.  Glitter payoff was fantastic, this polish is chock full of glitter, in fact there is so much glitter that the formula is a little thick. The jelly base is just the right opacity, sheer enough for the glitters to shine and show maximum depth and opaque enough to provide full coverage. This is two coats of Christmas Eve with Seche Vite top coat.

Green Mamba - a black jelly base with green to blue duochrome flakies. The formula on this one was smooth and easy to apply.  These first photos show two coats of Green Mamba with Seche Vite.

I put this mani on at night time and photographed it in the morning - just like my usual routine.  After I photographed it shiny, I knew that flakies look great matte, so I grabbed out my new bottle of OPI Matte top coat and slapped on a quick coat before work (at least so I thought I did).  

As I applied the top coat, I thought how milky it looked, but I knew it would go more transparent as it dried to the matte finish.  I painted both hands with the top coat and waited a few minutes.  For some reason the polish was staying shiny and it still looked really milky.  It was only then that I realized that I had mistakenly grabbed my bottle of OPI Don't touch my tutu and applied a layer of it all over my perfect black nails - and just before work too!  Let me tell you I was rather pissed off at myself.  

So I did want only another nail polish fanatic would be, I decided to be 10 minutes later to work and I removed all my polish and did it over again, with the correct matte top coat. And luckily, I loved the final look and it didn't matter that I was late for work.

Dance Legend polishes are available from the Dance Legend website.The Rich Black polishes are $9 each and international postage is $10 (for free for more than 10 polishes).

Polishes provided for review.

Fake Tattoos - The Birds

Here is another design I created using the nail tattoos I received from Fake Tattoos.  All these images are from the bird design.

I created a simple blue gradient with a white base and OPI No room for the Blues.  I got the darker shade by blending a little black polish with the OPI and the lighter shade by blending a little white.

I found placement a little tricky with these, because when the paper is face down you can't clearly see the angle of the design on your nails. This mean I had to create my black french tip a little uneven on each nail to cover the gap, otherwise some birds would be just sitting there in mid air.

I know a couple of girls that would be totally freaked out by these nails, complete ornithophobics!

Fake Tattoos - Egyptian sunset nail art

I recently received some temporary tattoos specifically designed for nail art from Fake Tattoos based in Sweden.  These little tattoos are exactly like the ones you would remember wearing as a kid, and the process for applying them is exactly the same.

You just choose the design you want to apply, cut it out, remove the protective film on the front and press it to a dry nail.  Then hold a damp cotton ball or tissue to the backing paper for about 30 seconds and the paper will slip off.

I actually found the range of designs on the tattoos a little quirky and odd, certainly not your usual flowers and swirling designs that you normally see.  Case and point, for this mani, I chose the large camel tattoo from the Arty Design set.

I created a gradient using Picture Polish Bombshell, Sunset and Citrus - which was such a gorgeous gradient just on it's own.

I then taped off the irregular chevrons for the silhouetted Pyramids.  I could have done these as regular chevrons, but to me, the design needed more perspective, so I created them different sizes and slightly overlapping.

I placed the camel tattoo on my ring finger, and attempted a free hand little camel off in the distance on my pinky. You can clearly see the different in fine detail that the fake tattoo provides.

I've done a few nail art designs using some of the other fake tattoo designs which I will show over the next few days.

Femme Fatale Cosmetics - indie stockist

I recently received a package from Femme Fatale Cosmetics containing one Femme Fatale polish and a Rainbow Honey polish. Rainbow Honey is just one of the many US indie brands that Femme Fatale Cosmetics now stocks. Check the Femme Fatale website for a full list of other indie brands that are stocked.  

The reason this is so great for Aussies is that we no longer have to pay a huge amount for international postage to get the overseas pretty polishes, plus it means you can select from a number of different brands and just pay the one shipping price.

Anyway, lets look at the two polishes I was sent.

Femme Fatale - Twilight Meteorite - a rich plum pink base with a blue to pink duochrome glass flecks.  To start with, I tried Twilight Meteorite on it's own.  This is three coats with seche vite top coat.

Layered over black it takes on a completely different look.  You can really see the blue to pink duochrome change very easily.  This is one coats of Twilight Meteorite over black. No top coat.

Rainbow Honey - Snake Eyes. This is my first Rainbow Honey polish, so I was pretty excited to try it. Snake Eyes has a sheer base with lots of light green shimmer. The glitters are a majority of light green, accented with glitters in purple, magenta, gold, and black.  

Now I'm not usually a fan of glitter polishes with a heavy shimmer, because they usually make the polish look very lumpy, so I was a little unsure how this was going to look.  I paired this up with the best matching green base in my collection. Ulta3 Jade from their metallic collection last winter.  Ulta3 Jade is actually a polish I don't really like because it's very frosty and brushstrokey, but I couldn't go past it for it's colour.

This is one coat of Ulta3 Jade with two coats of Rainbow Honey Snake Eyes.  This mani looked so beautiful.  The shimmer in the base of Snake Eyes completely hid the frosty finish of Ulta3 Jade, and better still, it didn't make the glitters look lumpy.  So not only is Snake Eyes a beautiful polish, it means I've got a use for one of my polishes that I filed away under "nail art only"

Both Femme Fatale and Rainbow Honey polishes are available from the Femme Fatale website. Rainbow Honey are $10.50AUD and Femme Fatale are $9.85.

Polishes provided for review.

Shades of Phoenix - Let's Hear it for the Girls - Pt 2

Here is the second part of the collection released yesterday by Teneil from Shades of Phoenix.

Chloris - a light pink creme base with multi coloured, multi sized square and hex glitters. Three coats with Seche Vite.  The Mythology: Chloris is the goddess of flowers. 

I found I needed to wait for each coat to dry quite well before applying the next coat, otherwise if the brush moved any of the lower glitters, they would leave gaps in the creme base.  This polish looks kind of bumpy until you apply top coat, and then it looks smooth and oh so pretty.

Enyo - a deep rusty red jelly polish with multi sized red, orange and yellow glitters, some matte and some holo, with micro red glitters that give it a slight shimmer. Three coats with Seche Vite.
The Mythology: Enyo is the goddess of destructive war! 

Formula on this was really great, smooth and easy to apply with just a scattering of glitters.

Eris - a black jelly base with various iridescent glitters colour shifting glitters, including red to gold and orange to yellow. There are also fine blue to purple iridescent bars and small bright red glitters. Three coats with Seche Vite.  A little tricky to apply because of the bar glitters, but totally worth the effort.

The Mythology: Eris is the goddess of strife, discord, contention and rivalry.

Hermera - This one is the only one that can't be worn on it's own, it's a glitter topper in a clear base.  The glitters are copper, gold, rose gold and light pink hex glitters in various sizes and the sparkle projected from this is just gorgeous.  I layered two coats of Hermera over OPI Designer de better finished with Seche Vite.  The photos don't show just how stunningly gorgeous this was in real life - of course it was gold too, so I'm absolutely completely in love with this one. 

The Mythology: Hemera is the goddess of day time.

Persephone - this one is the limited edition polish and it has a deep plum purple base, with a blue/purple duochrome shimmer. There are also small purple glitters and lavender flakes in it. Three coats with Seche Vite.

The Mythology: Queen of the underworld and wife of Hades (God of the underworld)

Shades of Phoenix polishes are available on the Shades of Phoenix Etsy shop for $9.50AUD.  The Etsy shop only ships to Australia, but international ladies will soon be able to get these through Color4Nails.