OPI - Road House Blues

I let my nails rest for the last couple of days, so it was quite refreshing to have paint on my nails again! Today I chose Road House Blues, a recent acquisition but it was released 2 years ago. The polish was great in formula and my only issue was that the brush had a few bristles sticking out which slightly hindered application (no biggie though). The colour, however, I was in two minds about. In artificial light (and I assume sunlight though I've yet to see any in a week!), this is a gorgeous navy blue with a slight purple tint to it. In cloudy / shaded / low light weather it's a very dark navy blue with no purple tint (if you're lucky; most people today assumed I was wearing black polish). But it was flattering, so I'm happy I picked it up!

2 coats, 1 coat Dior gel coat.

artificial lighting

artificial lighting

more "realistic" daylight lighting (sorry for the slight blurriness)

I didn't bother posting a low lighting photo, it just looked black.

Hope you had a good day today :)

OPI - OPI Loves David Jones

I've never really shopped at David Jones since I don't have one anywhere near me, but for some reason I needed to have this polish. It's a milky, almost jelly, pink which is nothing particularly unique but still subtle, flattering and elegant. I'm sure Essie does something very similar, but this had a pretty decent formula for a semi-sheer colour (I used 3 coats, but 2 thicker coats would probably be sufficient).
3 coats, 1 coat Dior gel coat.

direct sunlight

shade

shade

May Nail Polish Haul

After suffering through tonsillitis for the first time this last week, I am finally back with a monthly haul. I was supposed to have more photos this month, but long story short I lost them somehow :( Anyway, this month I binged in nail polish more then I should have, and by the end of the month I was feeling quite terrible/guilty over how many polishes I owned. A few days later I was back to admiring all the pretty colours, but don't you hate it when you feel guilty about something you love?

OPI L-R: Done Out In Deco / Do You Lilac It? / A Grape Fit!

OPI - I Brake for Manicures

I'm not quite sure why, but I've been after this polish for a while now. I'm not really a dark polish wearer, but I just couldn't resist this one (or a few others which you'll see in my monthly haul!). Whilst it's still dark enough to look black to non-polish lovers (aka my family), I love that it's slightly grey and slightly purple (though it does look a little bit brown until you put it next to a true brown). It covered perfectly in 2 coats, with 1 coat Good to Go top coat over it.

direct sunlight

direct sunlight

shade

shade

OPI - Pepe's Purple Passion

It was a gloomy day all day today, so once again you get to see me fumbling my way through artificial lighting. This is Pepe's Purple Passion from the muppets collection, a red toned purple with red-y pink flecks (I think). Whilst this definitely looks more obvious in the bottle, I actually really liked it on my nails as well. The flecks aren't super visible unless you've got your nails a cm from your face or the light hits just so, but I actually appreciated it's subtlety. This was two coats, though obviously I shouldn't do my nails in the dark because it looks a little messed up around the cuticles! 1 coat Dior gel coat on top.

artificial daylight

artificial light

artificial light

April Nail Polish Haul

April felt like the month that never ended. I was slugging my way through everyday absolutely exhausted, so I haven't even been thinking about blogging. But May is a new month, and I really miss blogging, so I'm going to try to get back into the swing of things. I did buy some new light bulbs in the hope that I could find a really cheap alternative to the sun, but alas I'm still working on it so please excuse some of these photos! I've also been working on trying to get my blog back to what I wanted it to be - a comparison blog. So once I've done all my nail stick swatching (this weekend fingers crossed!) I want to accompany every NOTD post with a comparison of similar shades :) Anyway, enough rambling, onto the haul!

L-R: Bikini / Spring Ball / Princess / Delice / Diablotine 

OPI - You're Such a BudaPest

Whilst I was very tempted to just touch up yesterday's mani, but I decided to see how similar OPI's You're Such a BudaPest was to China Glaze's Tart-y For the Party. It is VERY similar. Tart-y is warmer, and BudaPest is cooler, but they are very similar tone wise. BudaPest did take 3 coats and it was a little hard to work with, so if you're trying to pick between the two and aren't too concerned with warm/cool undertones, I would pick Tart-y.

direct sunlight

sunlight

shade

shade

OPI - My Very First Knockwurst

This was a semi-recent NOTD that I never got round to posting, and I'm wearing it again today. I LOVE this colour. I was sure I was going to prefer Don't Pretzel My Buttons, but this one was a clear winner once they both came in the mail. This is a very pink toned nude, and it goes so well with my skintone. I wear this to work at least once a week!
2 coats + top coat from the Germany collection

shade

direct sunlight

direct sunlight

February Nail Polish Haul (and mini reviews)

February was a crazy month for me. I broke my camera; I started a new full-time job; I got a "promotion" at my new job; My camera got fixed before I promptly broke it again; Two of my close friends moved away; I got sick; I got my camera back; and I finally stumbled into march feeling a little worse for wear. This is one reason why I haven't posted any NOTD's in February. The other reason is that my nails have been in the worst condition they've been in months, which has bummed me to no end.

So instead of trying to photograph my roughed up nails, I decided to post a monthly nail polish haul (which I'm  totally copying from Alanna because I eagerly await her hauls all month!) As a bit of a disclaimer, I know my photos aren't great. They're often wonky and the background isn't always a true white, but I'm trying and it's the best I can do for now on my time schedule. Also, I wanted to point out that I know this is quite a lot of polish to buy in 1 and a half months, but I told myself I was on a no buy in February, and this was the result >_< Maybe in march I should say I'm on an all-buy? ;)

OPI - I Don't Give A Rotterdam!

I broke my pinky nail off a couple of days ago when I was taking off Sprung, so I didn't upload my last manis. But then I thought if you've been reading my blog for awhile, you've seen my nails in worse condition so why not. So here is I Don't Give A Rotterdam! from the Holland collection. This was probably my most wanted colour from that collection, even though I'm not huge on blues, so I was so excited when it came a few weeks ago. But now looking at it on my nails, I'm not the biggest fan. I mean its nice, but the silver shimmer gives the colour almost a watery effect, which makes it look a little splotchy/bald in places, even though I don't think it was. But I'm still glad I gave it a try, I might like it better in winter or with another coat.

2 coats, 1 coat Essie GTG top coat.

direct sunlight

direct sunlight

shade

Oh and you know how I was bummed when Chanel's Emprise nail polish was sold out at my local (and only) counter? Who knew you could buy Chanel on eBay! I got it from a seller who had 10,000 positive reviews, so it better not be a fake!

OPI - Sprung

I know absolutely nothing about Mariah Carey and I'm not into textured nail polishes (the whole fish egg, flocking, liquid sand, etc. trends), so I was completely fine at skipping this collection and buying up the whole of the Euro Centrale collection. But somehow I ended up with Sprung and Anti-Bleak, and I'm skipping the entire euro collection - go figure. The foil/glitter/shimmer/whatever formula on this is the one that OPI does so well - this is like the rosy gold/pink cousin of Warm & Fozzie (which leans more antiqued golden as the 'base' colour). I did 3 coats but you could get away with 2 careful coats, and I popped Revlon's Colorstay top coat on top. Note: I took these photos at the end of the day, so I could only capture 1 'sunlight' photo before the sun disappeared.

cloudy/daylight

cloudy/daylight

cloudy/daylight

sunlight

OPI - Strawberry Margarita

When this came in the mail yesterday morning, I just knew that it had to be my next manicure. I've heard this talked about so often on youtube that I just had to see what all the fuss was about. In the ebay picture this did look a little more coral toned so that's what I was expecting,  but this definitely is a medium neutral pink. Very pretty nonetheless, and it even survived cleaning the bathroom with only minor tip wear-no chipping!

2 coats, 1 coat Revlon colorstay top coat.

direct sunlight

direct sunlight

shade

Nail Polish Collection: OPI [January 2013]

Almost at the end of my nail polish collection, just a few more posts to go! You might think my OPI collection looks quite small considering how many nail polishes I own, but for the longest time I really disliked OPI because of their brush. Whilst I'm still not a huge fan of their brush, the Holland and Germany collections woke me up to how beautiful some of their colours really are! In fact I have a shipment of OPIs heading to my door right now - gotta love eBay!

NOTE: I have to mention that I took all my photos in a crudely made lightbox. Well, I don't think you could call it a lightbox...it's two planks of white painted wood and a lamp with a daylight globe! So whilst I tried to get these as colour accurate as I could, some colours may be just a tad off. I'll try to let you know when that happens, otherwise just google image the colour you were looking at. Also, I took these photos freehand so I'm sorry that some are a little crooked..I hope it doesn't bother you as much as it bothered me!

L-R: Don't Pretzel My Buttons/ My Very First Knockwurst/ Steady As She Rose/ Significant Other Color, Pink-ing Of You

OPI - The Spy Who Loved Me

So, who knew you could run out of photo space on blogspot? Because I certainly didn't! Since I'm uncomfortable with monthly subscriptions, I chose to upload my photos onto Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/knicksandnails/) and forward them here. I'm really only letting you guys know this in case it affects the layout or quality or if my photos suddenly disappear because I'm new to this kind of stuff so please bare with me! Also, if any other bloggers use flickr, please let me know how you do it because there has to be an easier way than how I'm uploading!

So onto todays post. I purchased the mini Bond collection from ebay and I'm so glad because I love 3 of the 4 colours that it came with (the gold one looked pretty terrible on my fingers). This went on so smoothly, I barely even had to clean up my nails at all. This is 2 coats with 1 coat top coat. Isn't it gorgeous?!

direct sunlight

direct sunlight

shade

shade

OPI - Last Friday Night

I don't often say this, but I was in need of some glitter. And because I didn't have an hour to remove it, I layered it over Ulta3's Hollywood - a typical shimmery deep blue that every brand does. I love the sparkle of this, especially in the shade, and I'm interested in how this will work over different colours.

Direct sun

Direct sun

Shade

Shade

Shade

OPI - Pink-ing of You

This is one of those pinks that looks like it'd be super dupe-able, but I couldn't find anything this exact shade of pink in my stash. 2 coats, no top coat.

OPI - Mermaid's Tears

Hmm, it seems I'm in a green mood lately. I've been craving this polish since it was first released, but only got a chance to buy it last month. It's so pretty that it's worth the exhorbent price of AU$19.95. This was a one coater, but I did 2 because it's what i'm used to. No top coat and all photos taken in direct sunlight.

OPI - OPI Red

Every once in a while, it's nice to go back to basics. Slightly pinked-out reds are my favourite type of red to wear, and I keep forgetting how much I love it! This applied really nicely - smooth and opaque in 2 coats. No top coat.