Hello everyone.  First up, my Mont Blue Nail file set giveaway ended last night, and I've just drawn the winner.  I have to say that I absolutely loved all your comments, so thank you everyone for making me smile!  Congratulations to the winner Giovanna Iglesias Croccia.  I've sent you an email.

I have another very exciting giveaway planned that I will kick off this weekend, with a totally awesome and fun prize that I know a lot of you would love to win - plus it will also be open internationally.  So make sure you hang around for that!

Now onto today's nails.  I did a really simple gold and blue gradient using Priti NYC Chrysanthos and Kleancolor Metallic Sapphire.   I then stamped over it using Mundo de Unas white stamping polish.  

When I applied top coat, something rather magical happened, and it's something that is particular to the Kleancolor Metallic polishes.  The blue colour from the Kleancolor leached up through the white stamping to make it blue stamping.  The Kleancolor metallic polishes are quite notorious for doing weird things when you apply top coat.  They stamp really well because of their pigmentation, but when you top coat them they bleed and go fuzzy.  Same as when you just wear the colours on their own, they change colour slightly when you put top coat on.  The mind boggles at what sort of crazy chemical reaction is going on there to make this happen. 

What's going on people? Does anybody have anything interesting or exciting going on in their lives?  Not me.  My live is rather ordinary revolving around work and then racing around after the kiddos.  My boy started back in Kindy today after the winter school holidays.  He wasn't at all keen to go, he's had too much fun over the holiday's with his sister and Nana.   

I did find out this evening that the wife of one of my husbands friends from baseball, was on board flight MH17.  I remember going to their their wedding about 18 years ago and I know they had two daughters.  My heart goes out to them and all the families affected by this tragedy. The stories I've read just make my heart break.  I makes you hug your kids extra tight at night.

 

Onto my nails now, and here's a mani you wont see very often here. Crazy bright pink.  When I feel like wearing pink, I go all out, like this bright and metallic combo.

My base was a sponged gradient of Kleancolor Metallic Pink and White over a white base.  I really focused on the metallic white and just kept the metallic pink right on the tips.  

Next I added more pink, in the form of glitter.  The polish was Pink World by Penelope Luz and it has a combo of pink and white glitters in various sizes.  Finally I added a ruffian line using Metallic Pink.

Hey everyone.  Over the last few weeks, every night when I've gone to paint my nails Ive been watching Breaking Bad from the very beginning.  I had never watched it before, and it's been so great being able to sit down and watch and episode almost every night when I paint my nails.  I'm just about to head off to paint my nails tonight and watch the very last episode.  It's been a fun ride.

For today's mani I created a circular gradient using Kleancolor metallic polishes.  I used Kleancolor metallic gold and mango and coffee addict.  The little geckos are stamped using Mundo de Unas black and Moyou Explorer 06 plate.  I used the image as is, facing different directions on all my nails except the middle finger.  On the middle finger I cleaned up all the extra dots and squiggles on the stamper before squishing it onto my nails, this created just two clean little black geckos.

What do you think? I love how this one turned out.  The colours I used are very warm and earthy and seem to match the gecko and outback feel of the mani.

Ah, Kleancolor metallics, is there anything you can't do?  I seriously can't tell you how in love with the Kleancolor metallics I am.  Why did it ever take me so long to try them, and why did I not see anyone else raving about them on their blogs?

I've frankened with these babies, they're amazing one coaters in their own right, and now, look how well they stamp.  I've gotta say they do bleed a little when you apply top coat, so that the edges of the stamping go a little fuzzy and out of focus, but when I think about the stamping possibilities with all the Kleancolor metallic colours, I simply don't care.

My base colour here is Orly FX Shine, stamped with Bundle Monster plate BM-221 in Kleancolor Metallic Purple.

And now I'm sure you've noticed that I also added a coat of my Spectraflair topcoat.

Now I have made that SV spectraflair top coat, I'm not quite sure how I'm going to stop myself applying it to every single non holo mani I'm wearing.  I mean, come on, if you can holo up every mani, then why wouldn't you right?!?

 

And now for my nail mail all the way from Brazil.  I did my first ever swap with Tata Nada Ver.  I've always been too worried I'd get busted with the whole dangerous goods in the post business, but when she contacted me to do a swap for the Holográficos Hits no Olimpo, I sucked it up and lied my ass off on the customs declaration!  And yay that we have easy access to Ozotics to swap for too (especially as Picture Polish don't post to Brazil at the moment).  So here they are on our garden wall this arvo!

Left to right: Zeus - black, Hefesto - top coat, Artemise - silver, Hermes - gold, Poseidon - light blue, Apolo - dark blue, Hera - aqua blue, Dionísio - purple, Héstia - pink mauve, Atenas - magenta, Ares - red, Afrodite - pink, Deméter - orange.

Oh yeah baby!!  Any requests for which one first?

Yesterday I tried to do a water marble using some of my new Kleancolor metallic polishes.  I shit you not when I say I had metallic rainbow polish from ear to asshole. Suffice to say, I prompty removed that hideous mess.  Water marbling is just a skill I can't master!

As I was removing it, Mr Three came up to me and saw all the bottles open in front of me.

"Do Bay's nails please mummy".  So I did.  Then I did mine matching his.  He still thinks its awesome.

Anyone else with little boys?  Please tell me that its not weird for him to want to wear nail polish too.  He is such a boyish boy and I thought why the hell not.  I can't wait for Miss 6 months to be old enough to do her nails!

Here is my haul of Kleancolors I got from Beauty Joint.  Thanks to Carli who showed us her haul of kleancolors and specifically some of the metallics in the range, I had to buy them all.

Ok, so this first one here isn't a metallic, its 'Coffee Addict', but I loved the look of the colour and thought it could easily squeeze into the metallic collection. In fact I got it instead of Metallic White, because I just didn't think it would do it for me. These are quick crappy pictures taken with a flash because of the gray watery sky outside.  The bottle pics here are over exposed and washed out, but the swatches on my nail sticks are more colour accurate.

I've read about some trouble other bloggers have had with their Beauty Joint orders, specifically where caps were not on tight and the polish leaked and then having issues with getting bottle replaced etc.  Maybe they are now making more of an effort to ensure the caps are on nice and tight and suitably packaged, because mine was perfectly wrapped in multiple layers of bubble wrap and all caps on very tight.

I'm still wearing and swatching my new Oztoics/Chemistry's, and I'm determined to try them all before I try these.  But I have to say that there really are spectacular and I love that I was able to get every colour in this metallic range at such an affordable price - $1.75 US, which was even cheaper with the Aussie dollar conversion.

The colours are really saturated and bright and some of these were one coaters on my nail sticks.  I can see them being ok for stamping and really great for nail art. 

We're seeing Kleancolors all over blogs at the moment, I think all because of Beauty Joint.  As far as I could see they were the first company to sell Kleancolors that shipped internationally and they are selling them for only $1.75. Their bottle pics on the ordering page is also very good and helps in choosing colours.  So, from me, thank you Beauty Joint. I'm very tempted to get some more after No Buy July is over, I just wish their shipping wasn't quite as expensive now.

I recently got a swap package from Sam over at The Real Polish Princess (who actually has an amazing giveaway on at the moment with a lot of sort after holo polishes, including some CG Kaleidoscopes, Glitter Gals, Ozotic Pros etc - go on, get over there and enter).  She was kind enough to send me all the Kleancolor Chunky Holos, and this one, Chunky Holo Scarlet, jumped right in there with my other favourite red polishes and made its way into my Red Week.

These chunky holos have been all over blogs at the moment.  But first, let me just confirm that the use of the word 'holo' in the title of these is totally misleading for anyone that thinks they might be getting a holographic polish.  These should be called chunky duochrome glitters. 

All these Chunky holos actually have the exact same glitter in them, which shifts yellow to red, but they are all in a different coloured base.  If you layered them all over black they are all the same (except holo black because of the different sized glitter). Scarlet is by far the most saturated colour, and possibly the only one that could be worn on its own without layering.

The duochrome glitters in these can actually be seen better indoors or in the shade rather than in full sun.

The other thing that everyone says with these polishes is that they are stinky.  And yep, its true, they are smelly. It's the sort of smell I reckon lacquers would have smelt like in the 1950's.  Totally worth the smell for the colour.  Thanks Sam, I love them.  Expect to see them all swatched soon.