Category Archives: Illamasqua

The Lazy 15: Favourite Disney Character

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Hullo there. Am running horribly late with my Lazy 15 posts (and manicures!). Work has just been a little too all-absorbing lately. Anyway, enough of the excuses and on with the post. Today’s manicure theme…well, actually it was last Wednesday’s theme (oops)…is Favourite Disney Character.

Now I think my mind must be a little too literal because this one had me stumped. I delayed doing it largely because I decided that it was too hard for my limited abilities. And well, yes it is but it was only after chatting with a dear friend and fellow polish addict on the weekend that I decided that vague up my interpretation a little.

I give you my interpretation of the Cheshire Cat:)

Cheshire Cat Manicure

Sorry in advance for the dry cuticles – not my best. taking my lead from thsee images of the Disney version of the Cheshire Cat: http://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/pictures/cheshire-cat-pictures.html I attempted to match polishes to the colours in the images. Holding up a nail art swatch stick to a computer screen wasn’t going to provide a perfect match but it is hopefully close enough.

So I used Illamasqua Jan as a base and that’s the colour on the tips of my nails. I then taped across my nails and applied the mauve stripes which was Illamasqua Velocity. I then applied tape across my tips and applied China Glaze Under the Boardwalk with a fine nail art brush in between the tape and the stripes of Velocity. the freehanding of the hot pink was a bit interesting. I’m amazed at how some people can get the most detailed art work on their nails because I can barely paint in a straight line!:) Anyway, once that was dry enough I applied crescent shapes of white stripping polish and then bordered that with black to depict the Cheshire Cat’s massive, mischievous grin. I then applied Seche Vita to the lot.

xx

Please check out the posts of the other lovely lacquerheads taking part in The Lazy 15.

Polish Us Pink: China Glaze Under the Boardwalk and Illamasqua Stance

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Hullo there. Oopsie daisies, didn’t mean to not post in quite so long. But I’ve discovered the world of Instagram!!! I’m @lacquercarefactor if you happen to be on there:)

The other night on Twitter I happened across a convo as you do and butted on in (again, as you do:)). It was a few of the polish bloggers I follow cooking up the idea of an PinkPolish challenge for October in recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness.

Susan’s post on her blog The Subtle Shimmer explains it best. But basically this challenge will involve posting pink polish of some or other variety, be it plain or arty, every Monday in October in promotion of Breast Cancer Awareness and in recognition of those in our lives who have been affected by, or who struggle with, breast cancer or in deed any type of cancer.

Not to take away from the seriousness of the endeavour, but a once a week challenge is my kind of challenge. Pink polish isn’t really my kind of polish but of course, being a collector of sorts, I own a fair few pinks of one description or another, many of them untried. So this challenge gives me a chance to crack them open.

So the first polish I’m posting today is actually one I wore back in May when I first bought it but in my slight (relatively) hiatus from blogging I didn’t get around to posting the pics. Some may say that this polish leans more towards the purple range of the colour spectrum but to my mind it’s very much in the pink camp: China Glaze’s Under the Boardwalk from their Summer 2012 collection.

China Glaze Under the Boardwalk

Like I said I’m not really a pink polish sort but when I started to see the swatches of this polish coming up on blogs, I was more and more drawn to something so bright and glossy looking. And remember, I’m in the Southern Hemisphere so I was hankering this in winter. This was two coats over base coat and topped with Seche Vite. I recall the formula being a little thick but very pigmented. I’d probably thin it down a little before I wear it next but despite the thickness of the formula it dried beautifully and I wore it for several days. It was a lovely antidote to the early days of winter. I also wore it on my toes for quite a long time too. The only other polish I bought from this collection was Ride the Waves which I’m yet to wear but I anticipate that I will enjoy that one just as much.

China Glaze Under the Boardwalk

As you can see I was rocking the nubs back then, as I have been on and off throughout much of winter. But to my mind such bright polish actually really compliments short nails.

Next up I have a manicure I wore a couple of weeks ago whilst on a mini break up in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales. This is Illamasqua Stance.

Illamasqua Stance

This is just such a gorgeous polish and was one of the two polishes in Illamasqua’s Human Fundamentalism collection. This is two coats over my standard OPI Matte Envy base coat and topped with Seche Vite. The formula is wonderful and applies really easily.

Illamasqua Stance

And again, whilst I’m not much of a pink polish chick, there is something about strong, vibrant magenta toned pinks that I’m drawn to.

I purchased the China Glaze polish from a seller on eBay because China Glaze isn’t a brand that is stocked in stores here. I bought Stance from Illamasqua’s online store. A girlfriend and I tend to do mini-group buys when Illamasqua have sales or reduce their free shipping limit etc. Once you’ve made three (?) online purchases you qualify for a 10% loyalty bonus each time thereafter, plus they tend to send out cards with your order offering a further 15% off your next purchase so all in all, if you buy at the right time, you can make quite a saving.

For more information about Breast Cancer Awareness in Australia, please refer to the Breast Cancer Awareness Network.


CND Effects Sapphire Sparkle + Ozotic Elytra 529 = Blingy Goodness

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I’ve not played about with nail art and layering and glitters sandwiches or whatever they’re called much at all yet. Am still too busy discovering what I like and trying to get more polish on my actual nails than I do on the skin surrounding them:). It’s not that I’m not interested but rather that I just haven’t really got there yet.

But the other day I tried on an Ulta3 cheapie I’d come across at the local chemist store called ‘Midnight’. Midnight looks like a basic black creme in the bottle but on opening it you see that it appears to have a very dark purple tinge to the black. However, on the nails that purple tinge disappears and it dries semi matte, very reminiscent of Illamasqua’s Scorn. I haven’t got any pics of Scorn handy but here is two coats of Ulta3 Midnight without top coat.

Ulta3 Midnight

Excuse the dodgy cuticle on the middle finger:(. Ulta3 polishes are bin dive lovelies that cost between $2.00 to $3.00 AUD depending on where you find them. Generally the formula on these, as far as I’ve found to date, is pretty good although the brushes could be better. But for the price they’re great. Midnight wont be getting binned anytime soon.

Anyway, I decided to play about and slap on CND Effects Sapphire Sparkles which I’d bought off eBay a month or so earlier.

Ulta3 Midnight & CND Effects Sapphire Sparkles

So having come this far, I decided to drag out one of the Ozotic Elytra polishes I’d bought a while back and not yet christened. Cue Ozotic Elytra 529.

Ulta3 Midnight & CND Effects Sapphire Sparkles & Ozotic Elytra 529

The Ozotic Elytra polishes are multicoloured glitters in clear lacquer. Ozotic 529 has blue and red glitter. It also has quite a duochrome effect which must be inherent to the glitter. If you like the look of Ozotic 529 you need to get a wriggle on as they are being discontinued along with the rest of the Ozotic 500 series. As of today they were still available on the Picture Polish website. I can’t comment as to what availability there might be internationally through Picture Polish’s network members but if you’re keen go now!:)

Ulta3 Midnight & CND Effects Sapphire Sparkles & Ozotic Elytra 529

Ok, it’s a weird shot, mostly featuring my palm, but I wanted to show the variance of colour. This was two coats of Ozotic 529 over the rest of it, plus a coat of Seche Vita.

By this stage CND Effects Sapphire Sparkle is clearly a little overwhelmed by Ozotic 529 but I think the effect is still there, even if it is the subtlest polish on the nail by this stage:).

It was fun mucking about with these. The most I’ve tried previously is a flakie or glitter coat over one colour. Hannah of Polly Polish has arranged for Polish Days, including a coordinated glitter sandwich mani day in early July . I thought I’d participate to make myself try something different so I’m looking forward to mucking about some more with some glitter and jellies for that.

Thanks for reading and tolerating my very amateurish attempts at layering:). Do you have any layer combinations you particularly love?

xx

Blue Monday: Ulta3 Blue Marlin & comparison

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Early on in my fledgling lacquerhead life – like about four months ago:) – I was bemoaning my efforts at applying a dishearteningly thick and gluggy Chanel Paradoxal in a review on MUA when I recieved a message from another MUA member about a dupe for Paradoxal by a cheapie brand stocked by the Terry White Chemist chain, amongst others, here in Australia. That is when I first learned of Ulta3 polish.

I’ve only tried a few polishes by this brand but each of those have amazed me. First was the Paradoxal dupe, a polish called ‘Twilight Fever’. Next was one called ‘Midnight Fever’, a dupe for Chanel’s Blue Satin. Now dupes are  pretty much par for the course in polish-land. And even spot on dupes are not that unusual. But spot on dupes that cost less than half a skim cappuccino that you have to go ‘bin-diving’ for are a less common occurrence. I’ve not got around to posting these two dupes but I swear I cannot tell them apart from the Chanel polishes, both of which I own.

So that was my introduction to Ulta3. Recently I was scouring ‘drugstore’ polish world for anything interesting, new and noteworthy. Unfortunately in the Australian market the pickings are a bit scarce which led me to revisit Ulta3. And I’m happy that I did because there appear to be some interesting new colours about. Now by bin diving I mean that these polishes are not stored on a shelf in some orderly display. Ulta3s really are just chucked into a bin, all mixed up and you have to rifle through to see if there’s anything of interest. They cost about $2.50 AUD (which is roughly the same in USD at the moment) and not every store will have exactly the same colours. You’ve just got to hunt about and see what you come up with.

So in keeping with my new found love of blue nail polish, when I came across Ulta3 Blue Marlin I grabbed it.

Ulta3 Blue Marlin

Now this brand proves the old adage that you can’t judge a book by it’s cover. Here we have a really very ordinary and cheaply presented bottle of polish, complete with dodgily applied clear plastic label.  However, there haven’t been too many polishes that have made me go ‘Oh wow’ the moment I apply to the first nail. Blue Marlin is without doubt an ‘Oh wow’ polish.

Ulta3 Blue Marlin

Ulta3 Blue Marlin

I’m pleased to say that the colour in the pics is spot on. But so that you can get a sense of where this colour sits relative to some better known, and frankly pricier polishes, I did a comparison.

L-R: Ulta3 Blue Marlin, Dior Electric Blue & Illamasqua Force

I had thought Illamasqua Force would be a closer match to both of these but was surprised to see it wasn’t. Mind you, whilst I think the pics have captured the blue of both Blue Marlin and Electric Blue, Force doesn’t look as pale as that to the naked eye in my view. I think the camera is playing silly buggers with me again. Here they are on the nail.

Pinkie = Ulta3 Blue Marlin; Ring Finger = Dior Electric Blue; Middle Finger = Force; Index Finger = Ulta3 Blue Marlin

I’m not sure what was going on with Illamasqua Force but it wrinkled up slightly after I applied the Seche Vita top coat. I’ve not worn either Force or Electric Blue before applying them here so I will have to experiment with Force to see whether I have further issues.

Pinkie = Ulta3 Blue Marlin; Ring Finger = Dior Electric Blue; Middle Finger = Force; Index Finger = Ulta3 Blue Marlin

Please forgive the horrid cuticles. Despite daily cuticle cream applications, the winter climate seems to be playing havoc with my skin. That and I’m still photographing my left hand whilst I wait for my right middle fingernail to regrow. I always have problems with the cuticle and surrounding area on left top side of my left middle finger as it is the spot that pens rest when I write so it gets fairly tough and almost calloused.

Formula-wise, Ulta3 was a little prone to some bald spots on first coat but it could be a one-coat polish if you did a careful thick first coat. I’m not overly careful so this is two coats. I had the same bald spot issues with the Dior polish, although the very wide, curve-tipped brushes Dior polishes have makes a difference. All three of them had good formulas. Illamasqua Force is a possible one-coater but I used two. Brush on the Ulta3 polish was pretty bog standard. No worse or better than the Illamasqua one. But for $2.50 Blue Marlin is dead set amazing.

I don’t know who makes Ulta3 or whether they’re in anyway related to the Ulta brand. The bottle says ‘Made in PRC’ so I’m guessing they’re not free of any of the usual undesirable ingredients. But given the colours, there must be a bit of trend-spotting going on by the makers. I’m not sure what else could account for the couple of dead-on dupes on high-end polishes and a range of interesting colours untypical of other bin-dive or low-end brands.

xx