Shades of Phoenix Blogger Collection - featuring me!

That's right, I've been lucky enough to have another polish shade named after me! Well, specifically "inspired by" and named by me, but still absolutely thrilling. There are polishes for a bunch of other really talented and lovely bloggers as well, so we best get started!'

This black and teal bombshell is Bats in a Blender, inspired by the original black and teal haired bombshell herself, Kierra from Look What the Bats Dragged In.

I used two thick coats alone to get maximum sparkle, but if you're not especially patient I would recommend using this one over a base colour so you don't have to fiddle with getting it to sit evenly.

This deep red, star filled jelly is Impossible Planet, inspired by Bettina from Bettina Nails. The inspiration for this one is pretty obviously the fantastic Doctor Who episode of the same name.

This swatch is three coats alone, just so I could get a sense of how squishy the jelly base is, but I would probably wear it over a base colour next time.

You'll be shocked to hear this iridescent purple beauty is my second favourite of the collection. This one is called Iridescent Adolescent, and is inspired by Caitlin over at Muggle Manicures, who also runs the delightful indie polish brand Moonstone Polish.

The formula for this one is as delightful as the colour - the base leans more crelly than jelly, which means you won't need a base colour. These swatches are three coats alone.

I wasn't sure about this polish, because putting gold glitter in a grey base isn't a choice I would have thought of right away. But it comes together surprisingly well! The mixture of gold, bronze, and black glitters mesh well with the grey base and makes for a really lovely, unique polish. It's called Medusa in the Morning, and is inspired by Relle from Lazy Lacquerista - who is allegedly a lot like Medusa before her morning coffee.

As with Iridescent Adolescent, the formula for this one is A+. Shades of Phoenix seem to do really good crellies, and Medusa in the Morning is no exception.

Next up we have the contribution from Kaz, the unbelievably stylish blogger from Pretty Random and founder of indie polish label Pretty Serious. This dark, vampy delight is called Secret of the Ooze.

This polish is a bit of a chameleon - in the bottle and in sunlight it shines quite olive, which makes it probably the only olive polish I own. In artificial or dimmer light though, it appears as an inky black, full of shimmering iridescent flakies in a rainbow of colours. I swatched this as three coats alone, and you can see taking the time to build it up lets the flakies really shine.

And finally, drumroll please, for MY POLISH!

Obviously I went for something sparkly, because when given the choice, as if I wouldn't. Mine is called Paint Me Blue, and is a light blue crelly packed full of as many holo glitters as would fit.

I know some people have been wondering why I chose to call this Paint Me Blue, and it's actually pretty simple. I've been listening to a band called Something Corporate a lot lately, and their song "She Paints Me Blue" really speaks to me for a lot of reasons - I can really relate to the kind of love described in it.

The Bloggers Who Inspire collection is open for presale right now, and should be open for regular orders shortly, from the Shades of Phoenix website.

Melancholia: A Powder Perfect swatchathon

I know there's been an absolute ton of Powder Perfect around here lately, but they just keep making so many pretty things, and keep being kind enough to send them to me, which means you guys get bombarded with pretty pictures! I'd say I'm sorry, but I'm not really.

Melacholia is a sequel of sorts to the Euphoria collection from Powder Perfect earlier this year, and it's a DOOZY. It's kind of odd having so many awful, personal memories attached to words like "Foreboding" and "Despair", and still being so excited by how freaking gorgeous the polishes attached to these words are. Lot of cognitive disconnect, and being me, I'm sure there will be a pseudo intellectual analysis of that soon enough. But for now, PICTURE TIME!

Home Alone - A Powder Perfect Christmas Collection

I'm pretty conflicted about Christmas. I love the giving and getting presents parts, and the eating until you burst parts. But the Santa junk, and bloody tinsel, and all that nonsense? I HATE IT. I'm that grinch you see scowling at the brass band playing Christmas carols in November. I'm the one in the corner rolling my eyes while everyone talks about the "spirit of the season". And most of all, I hate red and green together. I just do. I think it's gross. I like red, I like green, but put them together and I want to smash things.

So you can understand that Christmas collections from indie polish brands are a mixed bag for me. They're almost always where the best sparkly reds of the whole year make an appearance, and I'm a terrible sucker for any and all sparkly red polishes. But it can also get deeply monotonous - Christmas in and of itself isn't really a terribly wide pool of inspiration to draw from. Which is why I was so delighted when Powder Perfect announced their Christmas collection would be inspired by Home Alone, one of the greatest Christmas movies of all time.

(The best Christmas movie of all time is, of course, Die Hard)

Powder Perfect very kindly sent me Decorate A Palm Tree*, Kevin! and Don't Flash Those Babies Around for review, and considering how much I loved the last polish I bought from them I had pretty high hopes. Happily, I was absolutely delighted with every single one - a pretty rare occurrence when being sent things randomly for review.

Pool Party!! Pretty Serious Party by The Pool Review

Here in my Australian corner of the world Summer has arrived with a great big bang! Most years we get a nice, slow transition from a cold, damp winter to the scorching humidity of summer, but this year it's gone straight from coat weather to t-shirt weather. I'm trying not to sulk about this too hard - I love winter and LOATHE summer - by brightening up my wardrobe and trying to put on a happy face beneath the sweat. While pawing through my untried polish pile (it's under control, I swear) I noticed this beautiful peacock blue jelly polish from Pretty Serious called Party by The Pool, and decided that this was where my Summerfication should begin.

Image courtesy of the Pretty Serious website

While not as uber-sparkly as more recent releases like Cybernetic, there is still a lot of sparkle swimming around in the squishy jelly base. As with every single Pretty Serious polish I've tried so far, I have nothing but effusive praise for the formula. Perfect consistency, perfect coverage -  the almost unbelievable consistency of this brand is one of my favourite things about it. Because it's a jelly base, it will remain a teeny bit transparent unless you layer it, so I put two coats over a base of Ulta 3 Get Teal.

In the glorious sunshine! One good thing about summer, plenty of sun for swatch photos.

Shades of Phoenix In A World Of My Own Collection - Part 2

Welcome back to the second part of my swatches posts for Shades of Phoenix's new Alice in Wonderland themed collection In A World Of My Own!

Before we get started on swatches, I wanted to reiterate all the nitty gritty buying details, and let you know about a great giveaway that's running over at Shades of Phoenix right now.

The In A World Of My Own Collection will be available for full set pre-order TONIGHT from 7PM at the Shades of Phoenix Etsy store - there are a very limited number of these sets available, and the purchase price includes free shipping, AND a free pair of handmade polish earrings. If you're looking to pick up individual bottles, they will be available from the Shades of Phoenix Etsy store from 7PM on September 3rd.

Shades of Phoenix are also running a birthday giveaway on their blog with THIRTEEN indie polishes up from grabs! Not only have Shades of Phoenix put up three polishes of their own, MckFresh, Sayuri Nail Lacquer, Loki's Lacquer, and newcomer Smudged Polish have also pitched in too, so I recommend you trundle on over and get your entries in for that.

ANYWAY, back to the pretty pictures! Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat is a clear based glitter topper filled with an explosion of teal and purple stars and aqua bars. Shades of Phoenix don't often do straight up glitter toppers, but this one is a lot of fun. It's inspired by the scene in the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland where the Dormouse recites a poem just before The Mad Hatter stuffs him in a teapot.

Shades of Phoenix In A World of My Own Collection - Part 1

The lovely Teneil of Autsralian indie polish label Shades of Phoenix was kind enough to give me some advance bottles of her new Alice In Wonderland themed collection, In A World Of My Own, to show you all. Teneil is a huge fan of Alice in Wonderland, and it really shows in this beautiful new collection.

Isn't this a gorgeous lineup? They look so pretty all together I had to make the time to get a group shot of this delightful little rainbow. Each polish is inspired by particular characters or scenes, and I think Teneil has done an amazing job of translating these inspirations into polish form. Since there are seven polishes all up, and I have a great deal to say about the whole pop cultural influence of the original book in general, I'll be dividing this up into two parts.

Animation Celebration - Love Thy Polish review

Maybe it's just rose coloured nostalgia, but I really do feel that there was something special about the cartoons of the 80's. I have what some would consider an embarrassingly large collection of them at home - Duck Tales, Batman: The Animated Series, X-Men, Rainbow Brite, I've got them all. I can't even explain to you how excited I was to finally track down a cartoon I hadn't seen since I'd hit Primary School, with only the vague memory that it was some sort of Ulysses in space story with a really annoying robot and a character that looked like a pixie. (In case you're curious, the show in question was Ulysses 31) So needless to say when I saw Love Thy Polish was doing an Animation Celebration collection, I was ALL OVER IT.

Yes, alright, it took me a while to blog this. I'm a bad blogger.

Because unfortunately I can't afford to buy ALL the polish, I picked out the three I couldn't possibly pass up - East Australian Current (inspired by Finding Nemo), No Ordinary Teddy (inspired by Superted), and How Do You Spell F.B.I? (inspired by Toy Story)

Ulta3 Ultrapost!

There is a little known secret hiding in great, sparkling piles in chemists all over Australia - these little bottles are usually sold for between two and three dollars, and since they're so cheap they're hardly ever presented well or organised, or paid any attention at all by staff. But they wait, in their cluttered bins, waiting for someone who knows their worth to haul them out into the light...

Ulta3 in their natural habitat

That's right, I'm talking about Ulta3 polishes!

Delicious Delights - Indee Polish Co Review

Today's review subject is two polishes I picked up from brand new indie polish maker, Indee Polish Co. I'd seen some pictures floating around Instagram of late that piqued my interest, and being the dedicated indie supporter I am I made some room in the budget to try them out.

Indee Polish Co have been recruiting a fair few bloggers lately to try and get their name out there a bit more, so I wanted to choose some polishes that didn't already have awesome swatches (I'm not even going to try and compete with Nail Guns XS for attention). This meant I ended up with two that are kind of palette swapped versions of each other - Cerise Clafoutis and True Blue Aussie, both from her Distorted Reflections collection. They're relatively sheer jelly bases in cherry red and primary blue respectively, with lots and lots of holographic sparkle in each.

I'm sure you can go ahead and guess which is which.

Time and Relative Dimensions In Polish

Today I've decided to mix it up a little bit and show you an American indie polish. My devotion to the Australian indie polish industry usually takes up what disposable income I have, but once in a while something from our cultural neighbours catches my eye. When I noticed Lyn B Designs on Etsy, I decided I needed to make a little room in the budget. Her collections cover all sorts of nerdy fandoms - Sherlock, Land Before Time, Princess Bride and Dr. Seuss, but it was the Doctor Who polishes that I just couldn't go past. 

I used to be an enormous Doctor Who fan - I remember loving Tom Baker as a wee little proto Cassie, and even knitted myself a couple of different versions of his scarf. I was over the moon when the series was rebooted, and (some) of the hoky special effects updated. I loved Eccleston's initial incarnation of the The Doctor, and got deeply obsessed during David Tennant's run. But slowly, over time, my enthusiasm faded. Martha annoyed me so much I nearly jumped off, but then Donna brought me back. The last two seasons however? I haven't even finished watching them. I've watched bits here and there, and every bit I watch reminds me why I stopped watching. But more about my feels later - first I was to show you these pretty, pretty polishes that in every way live up to the show I loved.

Time and Relative Dimensions In Space is a navy blue jelly with scattered silver glitters, that goes on remarkably easily for a jelly. These pictures are actually two coats alone - no undies!

Flakie Frenzy!

Because Australia lags horribly behind on cosmetics releases sometimes, we only got the Revlon Moon Candy polishes in stores very recently. If you haven't heard of them, they're a neat little idea - two little bottles in one tube, where one is the plain base colour and the other is pretty foily flakies to go over the top. I think they're stretching a bit to call it "nail art" as they do on the packaging, but I'm aware my definition of what constitutes "nail art" is probably skewed by all the amazing nail artists I follow online. Regardless, they're still quite pretty, and very easy to use.

See The Shining Light - Rainbowland Collection Glam Polish Review

Yes, these are my toys. No, they are not from when I was little.

I remember reading somewhere when I was quite small that Capricorns tend the age backwards - they start off alarmingly serious children, and slowly grow up into ridiculously childish pensioners. Being a Capricorn and thus an alarmingly serious child, I thought this was total bunkum, but nowadays I wonder if there was any truth to it. I've found myself getting more and more comfortable with the things I tried to pretend I didn't love as a child - whereas once I could read books I pretended I didn't like cartoons anymore, now I will happily collect VHS copies of HR Puff'n'Stuff.

If It Bleeds, We Can Kill It - Loki's Lacquer review and nail art

I'm excited to have something super fun to show you today! As you might have noticed from my previous reviews, Loki's Lacquer LOVE doing tie in polishes with movies, tv shows, and anything generally nerdy. I was scrolling through the Etsy store a little while ago when I came across a glow in the dark polish called, "If It Bleeds, Kill It", and I knew that it must be mine.

I Wanna Do Bad Things With You....Loki's Lacquer and Lilypad Lacquer Review

It seems that there are just too many awesome Australian indie polishes these days to show them to you one at a time - I'd never have time to do anything else, let alone do the job that allows me to buy them. So today I'm doubling up with two True Blood themed polishes; V from Loki's Lacquer, and True Blood from Lilypad Lacquer.

Wander the streets of Tokyo with Sayuri Nail Lacquer

As soon as I opened my package from Sayuri, I started kicking myself for not ordering earlier. Sayuri Nail Lacquer launched a couple of months ago, with their inaugural Streets of Tokyo collection inspired by the diversity and creativity of Japanese street fashion. I was fascinated by the idea, but my growing obsession with indies means my To Buy List is forever getting topped up, and somehow this label got lost in the hubbub. Finally I got back around to this little note on my list, and I'm so very glad I did.

Left to right:Mizuiro, Love Sayuri, Fairy Kei

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Welcome dear friends to what happens to be my 100th post!

Just like on my actual birthday, I don't want to get too serious - instead, let's have some fun looking at some nail art I did last night that I am unbelievably proud of.

I got a little bottle of blue holo stars from the discount store down the road weeks ago, swearing I was going to do something nail related with them, despite not actually having used rhinestones or studs or any of that sort of thing before. They were just too freaking cute to leave there!

I Wanna Be Where The People Are - Loony Lacquer and Peitas Polish Reviews

I freaking LOVE The Little Mermaid. I know, I know, changing yourself to suit a man you've seen once is a HORRIBLE message, and I don't really care for the original Hans Christian Anderson story. But I looooove the Disney movie, possibly largely because it contains one of my favourite Disney songs of all time, Part Of Your World. When it comes on my headphones while I'm on the train, I find it EXTREMELY difficult not to wave my arms and mouth along, and it's a staple of my "Home Alone Karaoke" playlist, along with most of the soundtrack for Wicket. It's been in my head all morning while putting this together, so here, you can have it in your head too.

Now that's off my chest, let's talk polish. I have two lovely mermaid themed polishes for you today, so let's start with Ariel's Ocean from Loony Lacquer, an Australian indie maker. It's from her Disney Princess collection - yes, she has done an entire Disney Princess collection. I bet you can all guess how I came across her work!

Aussie Nails Monday - Galaxy

I've been pretty slack with these lately, and this only just qualifies, but what the hell. The theme for Aussie Nails Monday this week was "galaxy", a really neat type of nail art where people use sponging and sparkles to create the impression of outer space on their nails. When done well, it looks absolutely breathtaking, so be sure to check out the other bloggers contributions to this theme - there are some talented artists in this challenge!
I however, am not nearly so talented and have also been rather busy, so my contribution is instead two polishes that remind me of galaxy nails.
First up is an absolutely adorable polish from indie maker Pieta's Polish, called Shooting Stars. While it is admittedly quite tricky to use (the stars need to be placed pretty carefully) , I was so delighted with the results I declare it totally worth the effort. Unfortunately, my photos don't capture the delightful little holo specks in the base, or the blue to purple shimmery colour shift. These photos are all one and a bit coats over Bourjois 1 Seconde Blue.

 

New Nails Related Project

Because I'm always looking for more people silly enough to publish my ramblings, I have put my hand up to join a group of Australian ladies looking to compile a repository of everything a budding nail polish addict needs to know.

If you've previously looked at getting into the whole nail polish "thing", and wondered where the hell to start, THIS is where you start. The ladies I'm working with know everything there is to know about nails, and well, I'm kind of good at writing and funny and stuff, so come along and check out what we're up to!

Hades and Zeus - Shades of Phoenix Review

You might have noticed a little bit of a change in the way I've been doing nail polish reviews of late. I've decided in order to give some extra value to those of you kind enough to read even though you're not super into nails, I'm only putting up reviews I can either spin into an interesting article, or reviews of local indie polishes, because I really like supporting people putting themselves on the line to create something. Happily, today's review knocks both those birdies down with one stone!

Shades of Phoenix is a brand new Australian indie maker, and like Alanna Renee are a really good example of just how exciting and interesting indie nail polish can be. As with any kind of "home made" product, indie nail polish in general can be a bit of a crapshoot - some of it is godawful, but some of it just blows me away. And Shades of Phoenix definitely falls into the latter category.