Tag Archives: Holidays

China Glaze Let’s Groove (and how to flatten camera batteries!)

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Howdy thrill seekers! Am in quite a sleep-deprived but silly mood tonight. Not sure why…although it could just be because I am on HOLIDAY! Yes that’s right, coming to you live (well, at time of blogging at least) from still-balmy, sunny Noosa, mid-north east coast of Australia.

In honour of a week off, and the opportunity to wear open toed shoes again, I bought a stack of polish with me so I will have a crack at reducing my untried stats further. But one of the friends that I’m holidaying with particularly requested purple nail polish, so much of what I bought with me is in that hue. So it could well be a purple swatch-fest.

One polish that would have qualified for a trip in my suitcase to Noosa but for the fact that it’s not an untried is China Glaze’s Let’s Groove. I wore it last week after seeing it on a girlfriend’s nails. It’s only the third China Glaze polish that I’ve worn but wow, it was so luscious that I ordered a backup on eBay the day after. I just knew it would become a regular love.

China Glaze Let's Groove

China Glaze Let's Groove

This is two coats. It would be a single coater for someone who is a wee bit more adept at application than I am. I took about 30 shots of this but only about half a dozen came anywhere close to capturing the colour. It’s a very rich, vampy, berry purple. The formula is great to work with, applies easily, dries fast. It was certainly one of those ‘I can’t stop staring at my nails’ polishes. After wearing this I’ve since ordered a few other China Glaze polishes from the Retro Diva collection that this one was part of.

Despite that I am in love with this colour, curiosity got the better of me on the second day and I decided to see what it looked like with a coat of Clarins 230 over it. Stunning. Simply stunning. But quite a change. Under Clarins 230 Let’s Groove looked more blackened and of course the green, red and purple multichrome effect of Clarins 230 dominated. Despite that I loved the combination, I almost regretted not leaving Let’s Groove alone as it is that good just on it’s own. It really doesn’t need any embellishment.

Sadly though, on setting up the camera to photograph the product of my experiment I found that I’d managed to flatten the newly replaced batteries in our camera by leaving it hooked up by USB to the computer.  So I don’t have any pics to show you of Clarins 230 over Let’s Groove. Bad nail polish blogger Kate.

Am sure I will do this combo again in future though so I’ll no doubt get some pics then.

xx

Glitter Gal glittery bits: Operation Untrieds

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I’ve been on a mission to try all my untrieds as my untrieds by far and away outstrips the number of polishes I have worn.I also hacked off my nails whilst I wait for my right middle fingernail to regrow. It will be a slow process sadly.

Back to Operation Untrieds. Amongst those untried were two of my three Glitter Gal polishes. It wasn’t long after discovering the world of nail polish blogging back in February that I came across Lizard Belly by Glitter Gal. That was thanks to the beautiful nails and polish skills of the owner of Fashion Polish. Lizard Belly was just stunning in her photos, so off I went to investigate and order. I ended up ordering Lizard Belly and wore it straight away.

Glitter Gal Lizard BellyGlitter Gal Lizard Belly

Glitter Gal Lizard Belly

I also order Turbulence and Code Red. But I’ve only just got back to them, having got swept away with a range of other new polishes shortly after buying them. Glitter Gal have recently brought out some new polishes and I dearly want to buy a few of those to try as well but I felt I can’t go there until I’ve worn all the GG polishes that I already have:). Here’s Turbulence.

Glitter Gal Turbulence

Glitter Gal Turbulence

And Code Red:

Glitter Gal Code Red

Glitter Gal Code Red

These are two coats each, except for Turbulence which took three coats because it’s a little more sheer that the other two. No base coat or top coat. These are the only holo polishes I’ve worn so far. They seem to take longer to dry than your average polish and fast dry top coats don’t seem to make any difference. Am unsure whether that is just a feature of holo polishes generally or Glitter Gal holos. Anyone know? I have a number of holos in a brand called Chemistry (made by the same manufacturer as Ozotics) so I will experiment with them soon and see. It just means it’s not a polish to apply when you’re about to rush out the door:)

I thought I’d better pull my finger out and post these as I’m off to Noosa for a week as of Friday morning. My lovely partner is home alone for the week whilst I get to have a girls week away. For those of you not familiar with the east coast of Australia, Noosa is a lovely cluster of beach and river-side villages and resorts about 90 minute drive north of Brisbane. Most importantly it is well and truly feeling like Autumn in Canberra where I live, inland in the south-east of the country. Overnight temperatures are getting down to zero degrees celsius here so it will be lovely to spend a week in climes where it is still warm enough to swim at the beach. The trip has kind of snuck up on me and I got a surprised when I realised how close it was. But now my head is used to the idea I’m starting to get excited about it.

So there’ll probably be limited further action here until I get back home on 11 May, that is unless we manage to find internet coverage and iPhone photos don’t look completely awful.

xx