Shades of Phoenix - Let's Hear it for the Girls - Pt 1

Aussie indie brand Shares of Phoenix opened her Etsy store tonight with her new collection "Let's Hear it for the Girls".  I have all nine polishes, including the Limited Edition, to share with you tonight and tomorrow night.

Artemis - a white creme/jelly base with rose pink hex's and small pink and gold holo glitters. There is lots of glitter int his one and it does look rather rough and bumpy until you put top coat on.  But as soon as you put top coat on everything levels out beautifully. Two coats with Seche Vite top coat.

If you're not familiar with Shades of Pheonix, then let me tell you that all the polishes are themed around Greek Mythology.  Therefore each polish has its matching mythology: Artemis was often described as the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. She was the Hellenic goddess of the hunt, wild animals, wilderness, childbirth, virginity and protector of young girls, bringing and relieving disease in women; she often was depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows.

Athena - deep red jelly base with small red hexes and matte black hexes.  Also a few large matte black hexes.  The jelly base for this one is gorgeous, just enough tint to hide the nail line, whilst still being super squishy. Three coats with Seche Vite.

The Mythology: Athena is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, law and justice, just warfare, mathematics, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, and skill (busy lady).

Ceto - A dark teal jelly with small matte light green hex's, round aqua dots and small blue glitters. In full sun you can still see through this one to the nail line, but the jelly finish allows you to see through to al the layers of glitter providing heaps of depth.  Three coats with Seche Vite.

The Mythology: Ceto goddess of the dangers of the ocean and of sea monsters.

Mother is God 2.0 - a rustic plum creme base with rose coloured large holo hexes and small pink glitters.  Two coats with Seche Vite.  This is another polish that looks so much better with top coat then before top coat.  I applied my Seche Vite while the base polish was still wet, and I think the Seche Vite brush may have wiped some of the polish of the very top of the large hexes.  This made them shine through and sparkle so much more.  Really pretty.

This one isn't named after a greek goddess, rather this is what Teneil says about this polish. "This polish is dedicated to my mum. Mother Is God 1.0 was the first polish I ever made and I gave it to my mother for a Christmas gift and this is a second re-vamped version."

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.

I'll be back tomorrow with the five other shades from this collection, which are totally worth the wait if you are trying to decided before placing an order.

Polishes provided for review.

Duri Cosmetics - Rejuvacote, Miracote, Drop N Go & nail colours

Tonight I've got a review of whole bunch of Duri Cosmetics nail products to share with you.  All these products were provided to me from Pink Tiger, Australia's official distributor of Duri nail polish, and Lust Have It beauty box, who featured Pink Tiger in the recent April box.

Lets start with Miracote. Miracote is a super fast drying three free top coat.  I love it.  It dried fast and to a beautiful shiny finish.  I really wish I had this top coat while I was pregnant a few years back, because I would have painted my nails a lot more.  I didn't want to use Seche Vite because of the toluene, but Miracote is free of it, so it would have a great option.

Drop 'n Go is a bottle of instant drying drops, although rather than applying it as drops, is comes with a pump spray like a perfume bottle. You can see in the picture how much I have used. I'll talk more about it below where I have a photo of it on my nails.

Now Rejuvacote. "Rejuvacote "the nail doctor" will heal and cure your split, cracked and acrylic eaten nails. In a matter of weeks you will enjoy the look and feel of strong, vital, natural nails. It's not a promise, It's a guarantee."  Firstly, I feel like some kind of hermit for the fact that I know so many girls who use Rejuvacote religiously, yet here I am finally getting to try the product for the first time.

I've never worn acrylics so my nails are not damaged from that.  However I have recently buffed my nails to remove yellow staining so I was able to photograph some sheer polishes.  I'm pretty sure I overdid the buffing and thinned them too much, making them weak and prone to breaking.

I've been using Rejuvacote as a base coat for the last 12 days.  Here are my nails on 8 May, when I first got Rejuvacote and nearly two weeks after a break resulting in me filing my nails down.  The next set of photos were today.  I'm very happy how quickly my nails have grown in that time and of course, no additional breaks.  I'm certainly going to continue using Duri and hope to see an improvement in the thinness of my nails, and ideally bring them back to their previous steel like glory!

Next up are two of the Duri nail colours.  

Bonjour France is a pretty lavender creme polish.  The formula was beautiful and easy to apply.  It was well pigmented and dried fast.  This is two coats of Bonjour France with Miracote top coat.

Venom is a super bright neon pink creme. Again the formula was excellent, especially given this was a neon, which can often be a bit streaky.  This is two coats of Venom with Miracote.

Next I decided to create a bit of nail art with the two duri polish colours.  I started with a white base because I was going to do a gradient.  I also decided to try something new for me that I read, and painted PVA (Elmers) glue around my cuticles.  Doesn't this look delightful!

When the PVA glue had dried, it was just super glossy and transparent.

Next I created a vertical gradient using both Bonjour France and Venom.

After I let that dry a bit, I peeled the PVA off.  It came off easily but was still a bit stuck around the cuticles were the polish was still moist.  I ended up just cleaning that off with acetone and a brush and it was very clean because there wasn't actually any polish on my skin, only on the glue.  I definitely like this method and prefer it to taping off my fingers with sticky tape.

Next I smoothed the gradient out with top coat, following that I thought I would try out the Drop 'n Go spray.  I spritzed two sprays on my fingers, one would have been enough if I had lined up the spray a bit better on all four fingers at once.  The finish looks very wet and oily, but I just left it to dry and soak in.

I think I like the Drop 'n Go, and it seems to dry nail polish nice and fast.  I say 'think' and 'seems' because the truth is, when using products like this, I sit there thinking 'I wonder if my nails are dry yet', but I don't want to touch them in case they're not, so you wait a bit longer.  When I did check if they were dry, they certainly were.

I really should do a test with Seche Vite, Miracote and Drop 'n Go spray all at the same time - with a stop watch.  Then after, say 30 second increments, test each nail to see how much it has dried compared to the other nails. I'll add that to my to-do list.  

Here are my gradient nails with the Drop 'n Go spray on them.

Lastly, because my nails were perfectly dry, I did some stamping.  I used Konad black polish and BM223 for the design.

Pink Tiger is the official exclusive Australian distributor of Duri nail polishes. The prices are as follows:

• Rejuvacote: $25
• Miracote: $25
• Drop N Go: $25
• Nail polish colours: $18
• Lint Free Gauze (200 sheets): $13

If anyone is interested in joining up to Lust Have It so you can get to sample products from brands like Duri, then my code "MORE", will get your a $5 discount of your first months subscription.

Cause I'm so new to this brand, I'd love to hear from you guys that use Rejuvacote (or other Duri products) and to tell me your experience with it, and any do's and don'ts you may have learned

Contrary Polish - Ain't That a Beach: Summer 2013 collection

Contrary Polish is one of my favourite indie brands and Carrie never fails to impress me with her smooth and shimmery shades.  Today I have the new Summer Ain't That a Beach collection, which is completely the wrong season for me. But the timing is perfect because on Tuesday week, I'm heading off on a winter vacation to places with lots of sun, sand and surf. These polishes are perfect to get me into the right mood.

Sky - medium sky blue with gold shimmer and blue microglitter.  Beautifully sparkly and shimmery in the sun with a smooth easy to apply formula.  I chose to do three thin, quick drying coats rather than two thicker coats.  Finished with Seche Vite.

A fresh and crisp day here in Canberra - winter is coming :) But at least we have beautiful sunny winter days as witnessed by the bright blue sky today.

Sand - a dusty tan colour with gold shimmer and brown microglitter. The gold shimmer is super strong and easy to see in all lighting situations.The speckles of brown glitter give this a warm and rustic feel.  Not really the colour of our sand here in Australia, which is generally sugary pale creme, but a a gorgeous shade none the less.  This was three thin coats with Seche Vite.

Surf - a green-leaning blue with bright green shimmer and blue/green microglitter. I love the explanation that Carrie has given for the parts of this polish. "The effect I was going for was blue base = deeper water, green shimmer = shallow water, blue/green microglitter = wave peaks". Beautiful! Three thin coats with Seche Vite.

The collection is a huge hit for me, two blues and tan/gold. The formula on all these were great.  All polishes dried smooth and shiny, even those with the micro glitters in them. After another collection, Contrary Polish continues to be one of my favourite indie brands.

Contrary Polishes are available from Llarowe in the USA and from Shoppe-Eclecticco in Singapore. Minis are also available directly from Carrie on the Contrary Polish blog.   

 

Polishes provided for review.

Shimmer Spam - yes more of it!

I've recently swatched some polishes that made perfect undies for my collection of Shimmer Polishes, so it would have been crazy not to double up and reuse my first swatch as an undies for my next swatch.

For your viewing pleasure, here are another bunch of beautiful Shimmer polishes.

Adrienne - Two coats over Furless Baby Cakes

Carolina - glitter gradient over Gelicious Open Toe.

Christina - 2 coats over Furless Freak

Leslie - Two coats of Orly Harmonious Mess

Melissa - Two coats over Furless Attention Seeker

Strength - Two coats over Orly Pretty Ugly. Its worth noting that the bigger silver hexes in this were rather thick and chunky and appear to be a little unstable in the base.  The macro at the bottom shows the weird wrinkling and pitting of those glitters.

I'm still loving these Shimmer polishes.  They really do look so much better in real life than these photos.  Every time I put one on I'm always pleasantly surprised.

My favourite combo out of this lot would be Adrienne over Baby Cakes at the top. The combo of blue and gold is just so pretty.

Shimmer polishes are available from Cindy at the Shimmer Polishes site. 

Products provided for review.