Fables in Fashion

Introducing Part 2 of the Hello Kitty Collection swatch fest! The products were provided to me free by the company to potentially feature on the blog. I hope this helps you decide whether these items are for you or not!

Hello Kitty Pressed Powder – Pashmina Abricot

Unfortunately this powder was a bit too dark for my skin tone, but playing with the powder with my fingers, it seemed soft and pigmented. I’m sorry I can’t talk about it’s wear nor finish on the skin If you really want to know, please let me know in the comments below. I’m happy to go out and buy the lighter version to test myself, anything for you guys <3 This product goes for $14.95.

Hello Kitty Pressed Powder – Pashmina Ambre

A semi-shimmery bronzer, really lovely shade which I’ve been using to help contour my face. It’s a great bronzer but not unique. It’s not as pigmented as say the bronzer from Face of Australia, but still slightly more pigmented than NARS’ Laguna Bronzer. This product goes for $14.95.

Hello Kitty Blush – Venise

A dusty rose blush, packaging is really cute. The powder is relatively pigmented, a bit too dark for my personal tastes (I prefer light pinks), would look nice on darker skin tones. Has a matte finish. This product goes for $12.95.

Hello Kitty Nail Polish – Eva Pink

A hot pink polish, this is two coats. I really loved this polish, the quality is great as is the pigmentation! If I wasn’t already swimming in bottles of polish I’d consider picking up a few myself. This product goes for $9.95.

Hello Kitty Body Glitter – Angel Rain

This would work great for adding glitter to small wears, like maybe cheek bones or stratgeic areas on a décolletage. I don’t really see this being used on any larger areas of the body given how small the applicator is. One thing to note is that the glitter is dry, so you’ll need to use some glitter glue to help it adhere to your skin better. I’d personally prefer the glitter to be finer. This product goes for $9.95.

As mentioned before, the Hello Kitty range is available exclusively from Priceline

Introducing Color Club‘s Wicked Sweet collection, nail polish that has a scent after it’s dried! Probably one of the most interesting collections this year, indeed the concept is rather gimmicky, but the idea is still a lot of fun and I can see it appealing to many young people.

Basically once you’ve applied your nail polish and it dries, it will have a scent. Admittedly not all the scents are appealing (though they may be to you), and yet some of them are amazing! As usually, all swatches are 3 coats without a top coat.

Get Your Lem-on

An almost fluro semi-shimmery yellow, it has a very sharp scent that had I not seen the colour or read the name before hand, I would instinctively identify as lemon. It reminds me of artificial lemon jelly from Aeroplane Jelly

I Always Gets My Man-darin

A semi-shimmery orange, with a similar scent to Get Your Lem-on, but sweeter. Out of the two I prefer this one, it’s a bit more pleasant.

Yum Gum

A bubblegum pink almost pastel, the scent reminds me of tutti fruiti bubblegum if we were searching for a particular gum flavour.

Raspberry Rush

A magenta hot pink, now I know most lip balms have different smells, but this one just reminds me of lip balm.

The Lime Starts Here

A fluro lime green, this smells like a cross between watermelon and lime, and if I didn’t know the name I would have assumed watermelon, and since I love watermelon this was one of my favourites

Gimme A Grape Big Kiss

A crème purple, that smells exactly like Hubba Bubba’s Grape bubblegum! It’s amazing, my absolute favourite scent from the collection. Too bad the colour isn’t work appropriate, else I would wear this for weeks on end just to sniff my nails (why does that sound wrong?)

Wicked Sweet

A ocean blue with micro shimmers, and the name sake of this collection. It is probably my least favourite scent because to be honest I cannot really tell what it is. I think it’s suppose to be Coconut, which is actually a scent I don’t care for anyways. Scent aside, colour wise this is my favourite! It looks gorgeous

Overall, this is such a fun and unique collection~ If you’re looking for a cool gift to give a friend this may be just what you are looking for

Dec / Jan is around the time of year people are in holiday mode. So I thought why not share the Essie Resort 2010 collection. I wasn’t as lucky as others to get time off work to go holidaying, but hey having beautiful bottles of polish that remind me of resort life isn’t really a bad thing either! At least I’ll have fun colours to wear one day when I’m able to visit a resort ?

All swatches are 3 coats, with no top coat. And sorry if my hands look particularly dry in these photos O_o They certainly don’t -feel- dry!

Turquoise & Caicos

“A flirty and pretty tropical aqua”

This colour reminds me of a darker version of Apply Mint Candy, kinda. I found this particular bottle hard to apply, I have no idea why because the other 3 colours worked well for me. Could this be another “It’s me, not you” sort of thing? Me and my fabulous nail application skillz

Lapis of Luxury

“A dreamy ocean blue”

Love this dusty blue colour, totally reminds me of my time in Hamilton Island (no the name has nothing to do with that). I found the formula for this one a bit on the thin end, but still has great opacity

Splash of Grenadine

“A playful magenta pink”

Not sure I’d consider this exactly pink, feels like a mix between pink and purple. The pigmentation on this colour is great, it really only need 2 coats to achieve this.

Playa del Platinum

“An elegant and sheer sandy gray”

This would be perfect for anyone looking for a conservative yet fun office colour to wear.

Overall
I don’t think there is a colour in this collection I didn’t like! I really loved this collection, great cremes

Another Halloween collection, this time by OPI One of my favourite brands~ This collection is called Go Goth, it was a mini bottle set, not sure if they were ever released in full sized bottles. Let’s get on to the swatches!

Obscurity

This is a matte black polish, it applies shiny and dried matte. I’m not sure how I feel about this, mainly because I find the formula hard to apply, hence the streaky outcome. Although it could be because this is coming from a mini bottle and my craptastic application skills. I don’t have many matte shades, so this is a welcome item to my collection This is 3 coats, no top coat.

Sanguine

A deep, dark blood red-maroon with some very soft shimmer to it. Love this, but then again it’s not the most unique shade and I’m relatively certain there are plenty of other shades you could pick up the match this. This is 3 coats without top coat.

Nevermore

OPI claims this is a blackened purple, but it kinds looks like a purple and blue duo-chrome with tiny glitter particles. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again, I love glitter! But the best kind is tiny glitter, gives the polish a smooth application and makes removal very easy! 3 coats, no top.

Unripened

Ooh, I love looking at this one close up! The official description claims it is a dark glittering green, but I can’t seem to see any green in this formula. Instead I see and duo chrome blue and purple glitter, see below.

The glitter particles were very small, not at all chunky. This polish however from a distance will appear almost black. 3 coats and no top coat.

Overall, it’s a nice collection, but nothing that really wowed me. I think at the moment China Glaze’s Halloween collection is still sits at my favourite this year

I could not resist this collection, two reasons. Duo/triple chromes are my favourite of all polishes, amazing to look at! (Oh shiny!) And it’s so glittery without being chunky! Which means I don’t need to spend heaps of time scrubbing away at my nails :/

The consistency and formula for all polishes I find to be very similar, you will need to apply at least 3 coats to build up the opacity for this polish, which I found a bit misleading when I looked at the bottle (seemed pigmented from the outside). Another thing I found annoying were the brushes, for each bottle the brushes were not smooth / straight. Some were a little bent, which I found made application slightly more challenging.

Swatch time~

Bad Fairy

One of my favourites of the collection, it’s essentially a red colour with hot pink / red / gold shimmer. Under the sun it’s a red polish that reflects gold, beautiful! If you lean towards the conservative side of nail colours *cough*Sefie*cough* then this might be a good colour to give yourself a bit of a kick into the more colour spectrum. This is 3 coats, no top coat.

Mean & Green

This is a hard colour for me to pin down, it reminds me of beetle shells, I can’t really tell what the base colour is. Almost like a green, with gold and purple shimmer, depending on the light it can look purple or green. A very cool tri-chrome (is that even a word?) colour. This is 3 coats, no top coat.

Also apologises for the terrible swatch photo of this My white balance was completely off.

Formidable

My other favourite from the collection! It’s a duo chrome blue and purple shimmer, most likely with a dark purple base. I’m so great at describing colours aren’t I? It’s gorgeous in the sun, purple that reflects blue, beautiful colour. This is 3 coats, no top coat.

I’d wear Bad Fairy to work, and Formidable at night / on the weekend. My two favourite colours! I’d say Bad Fairy is more wearable, but I’m a cosplayer, so it’s pretty much in my DNA to want outrageous colours, so Formidable is my favourite!

If you’re as nail polish obsessed as I am, you most likely will have heard of Seche Vita Top Coat. It has to be one of the most popular top coats, and rightfully so! I can start and end my weekly manicures in under 20 mins, go straight to bed and my nails will be perfect the next day!

But after finishing my first bottle of Seche (you have no idea how accomplished I feel! I finished an actual bottle of nail polish! Ignore the fact it’s a top coat ) I was itching to try something I could actually get locally that did the same job. And I think I’ve found it in Sally Hansen’s Mega Shine.

It dries incredibly fast, and keeps my polish strong and chip free (so long as the polish I’m using isn’t completely crap!) and a beautiful shine to it too. And the fact that I can get it at Priceline? Did I ever mention how addicted I am to that store? I wonder if it’s like the Ulta of America? (Damn those lucky Americans are their abundance of products!)

There are only two things that bug me about this product tho. Non-see through bottle means I can’t tell when I’m running low. And the clear brush means I can see when my polish “rubs off” on to it. I know it happens, but I’d rather not know!

At least my manicures are set for now, top coat wise. I’m nearing the end of my OPI Nail Envy Strengthener which I use as a base coat, so I may be in the market for a new base coat soon! Can you guys recommend any?

Pros:

• Easy to use
• Clean application
• Solid opacity

Cons:

• Tends to Chip
• Very matte

Price: $12.95AU

Rating:

Where: Priceline and Target

Note: If you read the comments below, you’ll note that this pen is not great for full coverage, so your best bet is to just stick to bottles!

Before I discovered Sally’s Nail Art Pen, I had been using YSL’s Nail Touch Pen which I had purchased from Hong Kong. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the pen anywhere in Australia and ordering overseas was expensive! So I was glad when I found these new nail art pens popping up in of all places, Priceline!

If you follow the instructions down to the letter you should have no problems with application. It may be difficult to get a thin precise line if you allow too much polish through the tip. Practice however does make perfect.

I listed “matte” as a con only because typically polishes are shiny, however I did only purchase the white pen, I have no idea if the other colours have a shiny finish. Generally the pen is easy to use, I only found it difficult when trying to colour the tips on my right hand since I am right handed (and had to use a brush in the end). I also found it a bit annoying how easily this polish chips. When I use my standard OPI white polish, the tips last at least 2-3 days, whereas with the pen, by the end of day one I could see noticeable chipping.

Overall, for the price, it’s not bad. Probably better for drawing nail art than french manicures if your concern is polish longevity. If all you want is a manicure, and you’re fine with a bottle, stick to it! Still, these pens are kinda cool to play with~