Essence Blue Addicted

This is one beautiful polish that is generally agreed to be a dupe of Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe.  Dark blue jelly with small square blue glitter and medium sized blue and green hex glitter.

I purchased two bottles of these as they are only small 6ml bottles.  I'm glad I did because I used three layers to achieve this look.  I wanted to use this colour on its own rather than layering with it, because I really wanted to have the depth of pieces of glitter suspended in the various layers of polish and overlapping each other.

Purchased from Target for $2.55.  Whoo Hoo.

This was Nail Tek II foundation, three coats of Blue Addicted, one coat of gelous and one coat of seche vite.  Look how smooth and glossy it is.  That's the gelous working for me!!

This mani totally rocked.  I wore it to work on Friday and the security guard at the front entrance noticed my nails and commented how cool they looked.  I love it when total strangers notice your nail polish!!

12 Days of Christmas Nails: Day 2 (Reindeer Nail Art)

Here goes Day 2 of my Christmas themed manicures! Coming up with ideas for this theme is so much fun and it's really getting me in the mood for Christmas. I thought I'd struggle to come up with 12 designs but as it turns out, I may have a job narrowing it down to just 12!

I can remember as a child being read the poem, 'Twas The Night Before Christmas' every Christmas Eve and I always tried so hard to remember all the names of the reindeer. I'll list all the ones I can remember and you guys can fill me in on the rest... Dancer, Prancer, Donner, Blitzen, Comet, Cupid, Vixen? Haha, am I right so far?

I used an unnamed Collection 2000 white as a base colour.

I outlined the main shape of the reindeer with Barry M Mushroom and then used black and white acrylic paint for the details. The antlers were done with L'Oreal Black Bean. Rudoph's nose is Barry M Red Glitter over La Femme Cherry Red.

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Birthday Haulage

Whoo hoo, Happy Birthday to me today!  Boo Hoo, my husband is on the road with the Canberra Cavalry baseball team on the other side of Australia, in Perth.  Seriously he couldn't be further away unless he left the country.

So whatis there to pep up a girl?  Awesome nail mail.  The best thing about all this nail mail is that it wasn't even for my birthday, it just arrived in time for my birthday.

First is my Ludurana Aurora Boreal.  I did a swap for these polishes with the sweetest Rafa from Nails Ink.  They were wrapped in the beautiful way with purple bubble wrap and cellophane bags with hearts on them.  It really was like opening a birthday present.  Thank you Rafa!

I didn't get Espetecular, and I see that llarowe doesn't sell it on her site either. But looking at bottle pics it looks very similar to Fascinate.  Rafa also included a Risque polish that looks like a Chanel Paradoxal dupe.  Below are all the holos. Arrrgggggh *wipe drool from mouth*

Next, after seeing Stefs post about Essence being available in Target, I did some googling and discovered that as of Thursday they are now available in every Target in Australia, not just selected stores.  So I hauled arse over to the Canberra city target to check it out.  Canberra ladies, don't bother checking it for a week or two, the display stand was well and truly picked over, with less that 1/3 of polishes left. 

But the polish Gods must have been smiling on me, because there were still two bottles of Blue Addicted left.  Blue Addicted is the dupe for Deborah Lippmann's Across the Universe, which after seeing Carli's post about it, I had to have. STAT!

Sitting next to that is Nfu Oh #51.  I have been trying to get this polish for at least two years.  I had all the other Nfu Oh Flakes through Vivid Nails, but they were never able to get me this last allusive polish.  The most awesome Erina got me this bottle. Thank you so much!!

I received my Cult nails order.  The Superheros collection.  I can't wait to try them.  Clairvoyant. WOW. It may seriously be the most awesome polish ever!  There's a very cool looking duochrome one in there too - Mind Control.  It looks to be a very special collection.

Finally, I had a gathering with my family last weekend to catch up for my birthday and my Dad's, who's was the week earlier.  I baked a cake.  The ladies instantly knew what it was, but one of my brothers was scratching his head for a while.  Not my best decoration, but it did kinda looks like a metallic orange gold bottle of polish.  It tasted yummy too.

I just don't have time at this time of year to do swatching, so it will have to be NOTD for all those bottles above.