So here it is, the polish that started it all for me.

This is Jessica's Palladium.  I bought a bottle of this years ago from Priceline, it was just a fluke acquisition, cause I had never seen Jessica polishes there before and I have never seen them there again.

It is the most sparkly champagne gold colour.  It is so pretty and it matches my jewellery perfectly.  I LOVE IT.

Eventually my bottle ran out, and I don't think I have ever run out of a polish before.  So I started trying to find a replacement.  I finally found some online, and it was this tiny 7ml bottle and it cost be about 12 pounds to buy and post to Australia.  But I'm so happy to have a little bit of it again.  I have heaps of colours similar to this, but have never found a dupe.  Has anyone seen any Jessica polishes for sale here is Australia recently?

Oh, and because of all my online searching for this polish, I found some awesome blogs showing even more awesome swatches of polishes available overseas and the rest they say is history.

This polish is an NYX called Bronze.  It was kind of 'meh' to me so I deceided to Franken it up with some more glitter.  I added pale gold, yellow gold and orange glitter and also 'copper reflecks' all which I bought online from TBK trading.  They have the most amazing range of glitters, micas and pigments and I have been having so much fun franking different polishes up using Ulta3s as my base.  But more on them later.

Heres a pic of the glitters and copper reflecks.

The final polish was just amazing, and the above photo doesn't do it justice.  There was so much glitter and bling shining through the leopard spots.

So far I've only used the leopard print from this plate.  I know I will get to the zebra print soon.  Not sure about the lacey lines, might be a bit to prissy for me.

Last weekend, my husband's baseball team played in the grand final.  His club had four teams in the grand final, the women's team and men's A grade, B grade and C grade. So for the occasion I did myself up in team colours.

The base was Totally Beautiful Nails in Neon Blue.

I then added some wobbly chevron lines using Ulta3 black satin.  Then a white nail art pen for the lines. 

So how did they go, well not only did my husbands A grade team lose, but so did every other team!! And his team was minor premiers too, only losing a few games all year!! FAIL!

So I went straight home and took off my loser nails!

After doing my 'playing the blues' mani, I wanted to do a comparison swatch of my blue shimmers.

From left to right Ulta3 'Hollywood,' Sally Hansen 'Blue It', Artmatic 'Peacock Blue' and L'oreal Jetset 'Jet.'

Each of these was two coats, except Artmatic, which was three.  Seeing them all together my favourite is the Sally Hansen. It's a richer blue colour and was much more opaque than the others.  The application brush on the Sally Hansen is weird though, it would take some getting use to.  The brush really long and wide and the actual wand part is slightly curved lengthways, which holds lots of polish.  I reckon you could do at least five nails before you would need to re-dip.

I got my SH from Priceline - it was about $7.  Pretty good value and nice quality.  I will have to go and check out the other colours.

Here are the greens and blues that I have in my Ulta3 collection.  If you know of others let me know, and I will see if I can find them.

Jelly - It's another nyc colour, but it's in the same Ulta3 bins and has the Head Group as the distributor.  So I class them as the same thing.  This is a fluro neon green jelly. Dries to a matte finish.  This was three coats and it was still very transparent.  I would like to see what it's like over white.  Not really a colour I image many people would wear, but it's good for nail art designs.

Lagoon - I love this one.  It's a pale shimmery green.  It applied smooth with no streaks.  This was three coats and it probably could use another to get rid of the nail line. 

Wasabi - This looked so beautiful in the bottle but I was really disappointed that it applied so streaky.    I hoped that the streaks would disappear when it dried but unfortunately they didn't.  Its such a nice colour with a strong shimmer to it.  This was two coats.

Bottle green - This is a frosty green that is a little dirtier in colour, but I really like it.  The good thing about this polish was that although it applied really streaky like wasabi, this one actually smoothed out as it dried, leaving no streaks.  I got a cat hair caught on my ring finger though, so it's a bit lumpy.  This was three coats - as I was trying to cover up the cat hair.  It really only needed two.

Jelly bean - This one is really pretty.  It's like its half way between blue and green.  This was a little streaky, but nothing like wasabi.  It's got a great metallic shimmer to it.  This was two coats.

Razzle.  A metallic pale blue.  It took me ages to decide whether to get razzle or little boy blue.  I actually got little boy blue first, then went back a week later and got razzle as well, cause I just had to see how they compared.  Razzle is a deeper blue than little boy blue and its shimmer metallic look isn't as strong either. This was three coats, and I smudged my index finger putting on the third coat. Otherwise application was good.  Streaky at first but the second and third coat smooth it out.

Little boy blue -  The metallic effect in this is better than razzle.  Its paler than razzle, in fact it's a pale blue version of Envy and Snazzle. This is three coats. 

Razzle and Little boy blue comparison. Very similar, but you can see that razzle is bluer and little boy blue is sparklier.

Metal - I love this colour.  This metallic grey has a beautiful blue tone to it.  Applied great. First coat was streaky, second coat perfect.  This was two coats.

When I apply my Ulta3, I always try to do a really thin coat first.  On most of their polishes, the first coat is really sheer and streaky.  Just let it dry for a moment (usually just doing all ten fingers is enough dry time for the first coat).  The second coat usually smoothes out the finish.  I usually only do more than two coats if the polish is still transparent on my nails, and I want to achieve a colour closer to that on the bottle. 

None of the above had a base coat - I'm a bit slack and tend not to wear one.  These swatches didn't have a top coat either, but for a mani I always put on two coats of Seche Vite (I bought mine on ebay and its been worth every cent).

I'd been wanting to use the music lines and piano keys from konad m73 for ages and couldn't think what colours to use.

Then my mum found this beautiful blue polish by Artmatic that she had had for ages. I don't even know if its still available. But I've got some other readily available polishes that are similar, and I'll do a comparison swatch soon.

I stamped this using konad special polish in white, the topped it with two coats of Seche Vite.

I was so happy with this design that I actually left it on my nails for a few days, which is really saying something from me as I like changing my polish almost daily.

Here is my m73 plate.  So far I've used two of the images from this plate.

Ok, this one is going to be a long post, as I now have heaps of Ulta3 pinky shades.  Here we go, in no particular order...

Bee Sting - is a dusty pink shimmer.  The shimmer in this is silver.  This one was a little thicker than the others to apply, but that might have been just because I did it sitting outside next to the trampoline while my almost two year old son jumped around in a frenzy. This was two coats.

Silver Pink - this really reminds me of lolly pop pink, or bubble gum pink.  It looks like it should taste really sweet with a strawberry flavor, or like strawberry hubba bubba.  It's almost got an orange tinge to it and it has a pink shimmer.  No streaks. This was two coats.

Pink Supreme - In the bottle it looks similar to star dust, except a little pinker, where stardust is dustier.  But on the nail this one was really sheer. This was two coats, which left a clear nail line.  It's a shimmer with what looks like pale pink and light gold glitter particles.

Pink Colada - Wow this one has some pigment.  This was one coat.  I didn't do another because I thought that the polish would end up looking much darker and redder, and I wanted to try and keep it pink.  It looks much pinker in the bottle.  If you want a one coater and then out the door, this one is for you.

Bo peep - is a very similar to Footloose Fuchsia, but just a shade lighter.  It's a strong bright pink cream with good pigment.  This was two coats.  Application on this was good, and easier than with the Fuchsia colours coming up. No idea why?

Footloose Fuchsia - a slightly darker pink than bo peep. In the bottle they look a lot different, but on the nail, very similar, but not a dupe. This was a cream finish and I found it hard to get good clean application, as they were thicker and gloopier than my other Ulta3s. A different batch maybe?

Flashback Fuchsia - is the reddest of the fuchsia colors. Again I had trouble with application for this one.  It was gloopy and hard to get a smooth finish.  This was two coats.

Eighties Fuchsia - is a purple tinged pink.  You could almost say it had some elements of a neon polish cause it almost dries matte as you can see in the pic.  This also was yuck application, you can still see the lumpies on my pinky finger.  I guess I just didn't get a good batch of Fuchsias.

Black Plum - a rich burgundy red with a dark shimmer to it.  Application was smooth.  This is two coats.  Appears darker in the bottle than on the nail and it reminds me of a nice glass of cab sav.

Mulberry - a deep purply red jelly finish.  Its ok, but it doesn't really go 'kapow' at me.  I thought this would be redder, and more like when I had just finished raiding the mulberry tree in the back yard and my fingers and nails are all covered in juice.

Gooseberry - a very dark purply plum. Indoors it pretty much looks black, but under strong light or outdoors you can see the plum colour.  I'm not a huge fan of really dark polishes, but I could certainly use this with layering.