As in oozing with germs, not as in totally awesome. Well I am totally awesome too, just a little less so from this bug I have that started as a sore throat and is now morphing into something that is sucking my will to live.

So yeah, if I'm quiet on twitter and here for the next few days, I'm not dead (or maybe I am?), just recovering. I feel rather whiny actually. I think that's because I don't really get sick often. It's been a fair few months since I actually had anything even slightly resembling a cold - I take enough vitamins and supplements each day for a small military force. But something has somehow cracked my defences. I used to get sick all the time, but now I'm just really bummed that something has broken my healthy streak.

In short, I feel like doodie.

My second favourite episode. Only trumped ever so slightly by Bambi.

Apologies in advance if I post some really weird entries in the next couple of days. It will probably be through a haze of some really good shit pretty strong cold & flu drugs and I really can't guarantee my total lucidity. But who knows, this may be fun.

Because we're now in the realm of all things gross, I'm going to post some really ugly swatches for you. Bad colours, bad formula, shoddy nails. I've got some shockers. I'll keep the pics small to keep you from clawing your eyeballs out.

Ruby Kisses Yellow & Maybelline Ocean Blue

Well the first one looks like pee. There's no skirting that issue. The second one, if I remember correctly, that was like FOUR coats. It was still a streaky, horrible mess. Gross.

L'Oreal 834 & Sally Hansen Gilty Frost

I don't think I have ever been as underwhelmed by a colour as I was by L'Oreal 834. It doesn't even have a name and that somehow seems fitting. It's the colour representation of an indifferent shrug. I have a name for it. Meh. L'Oreal Meh. The second one was an impulse market purchase that puzzles me to this very day. The formula is frosty and think, the colour stinks. Why did I buy it? There's actually a comment on my flickr for this photo with a girl saying she really likes the colour and wants to know where she can get it. I can't decide whether she's being sarcastic with me or not.

Sally Hansen Cherry Creme & Zoya Mia

Yeah I have no idea. It's not a Cherry colour. Heck, it's not even a creme. Sally's on drugs. I wonder if she'll spare some. Also note that this photo was taken before I had the slightest clue about nail care, lighting or photography. Nail fail. Zoya Mia is an alright colour I guess, but seriously my nails were crappy as back then. It also pains me that my version of the "mannequin hands" phenomenon is fucking salmon. Why am I so pink?

I still have four and a half hours left of work. I think I'll go breathe on everyone to amuse myself.

PS. Hope you're all enjoying my St Patricks Day blog theme.

Hey dudes. Wow, only two entries last week! Slack much? *kicks own ass* I'll try and be a little more productive this week, although I do have a lot on so we will see how that works out!

Zoya Reverie Collection

Today I have for you some of the Zoya Reverie collection, I didn't get all of them and I'll be honest straight off the bat - they didn't exactly rock my socks off. However, I don't not like them. They are just "good".

Zoya Gwin

Gwin is probably my favourite of the bunch. The gold flash is what sucked me in, I will admit it. I don't know what it is about orange shades, but I just really like them. Even when they don't like me quite as much. I'm like that sad kid in high school following around that popular kid, hoping that one day, one day they will like me. But alas, Zoya Gwin looks in my direction in disdain and only talks to me when she wants to copy my math homework. *sigh*

Zoya Reece

Reece is SO pretty in the bottle but boy howdy does it NOT work on me. I couldn't quite get the green flash to show up on the nail, sadly. Perhaps if I could have this would be a little more wearable for me. I wanted to like it so much, but I think even that midtone shade of pink is totally wrong for me. Honestly, it's not a very me colour to begin with. Maybe I need to give it another shot. Maybe top it with some glitter. I'm hoping we can be friends, Reece. I really am.

Zoya Adina

Everyone's fave from this collection is Adina. Well except for me that is. I like it a lot though. It just wasn't what I was expecting. Unlike Reece, the green in Adina is REALLY strong. I blurred the photo a little to get it to show up a little more. The downside - I'm not sure if the lilac base is dark enough for me and its pretty sheer. I can't remember whether this is three or four coats - and there is still a lil VNL. All the other Reverie's only took your standard two coats. When I was a kid, I had a BFF named Jenna. She lived on Adina St. I don't know why I never forgot that. I wonder if she's on facebook...

Zoya Lana

For some reason my Zoya Lana has no label. And I'm not talking bottom sticker with the name. Zoya isn't printed on this bottle at all. Pretty weird. Let's hear it for quality control!! Well I like Lana a lot but I was thinking it was going to look way more different to Gwin. I'm not even sure that sentence is gramatically correct, but lets continue. The base colour is just way too similar, even though Lana is darker. They really should have thrown a green with purple flash or green with blue flash into this collection. Dark plum with fuschia flash? How do you spell Fuschia? I think I'm getting it wrong here.

So I find out at 6pm on Saturday night that there was a Stargate Convention in Sydney that day. I was definitely bummed as not only did I deny the BF his chance of meeting MacGyver, but I also missed out on meeting Connor Trinneer. Yes yes, closet trekkie. The Flan wasn't in attendance, otherwise I would have been going straight to the airport and hopping the first flight to Melbourne to attend the Sunday one south of the border. Nixxy would have had to put me up for the night. I'm sure we would have had cake. Damn, that would have been fun if the weather down in Vic wouldn't have killed me. So instead, I drank heavily and ended up going to bed at 5am after a marathon game of "Shoot, Shag or Marry" with some friends. I tell you, NO ONE should have to choose between Slimer, The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man or Michaelangelo (yes, the turtle). I have sick friends.

Speaking of which, shout out to Nixx and Jacie who I know were hit by the freak Melbourne storms. I also hope that EveryShadeofPINK is okay too along with all my other Victorian blogging buddies. Stay safe and dry, peeps!

In other news, I'm pretty sure I have finally worked out what I want to do with my life. Not giving anything away, but I'll be posting more as I gather more info and find out how viable this choice is. I'm also planning an overseas trip, and contemplating another one in 2011 as well as going back to study when I get back. It's Monday, which blows by definition, but I sit here at my desk feeling pretty good. I feel like I have stuff to look forward to, changes to be made and a light at the end of the tunnel. The shackles around my ankle chaining me to this desk grow weaker by the second.

Good, because I am looking at my one lone bottle and beginning to fear that my life just might be over when I use it all up. I can only sit on my hands for so long. I will have... to order... from somewhere....

China Glaze Atlantis over NARS Purple Rain

I randomly picked out this combo and slapped it on before my date with Emma last weekend (more on my date later. She brought me Illamasquas!) and even though I had planned on fishing Atlantis (lol pun) out of my untrieds for a while due to the fact that I have been perving on Joe Flanigan watching an episode of Stargate Atlantis each night with dinner, but I had NO idea I would love it that much.

The polish, not Joe. Okay well maybe Joe too.

China Glaze Atlantis over NARS Purple Rain
Alternate Lighting

Seriously. Wow. I'm wearing this over NARS Purple Rain - which is beautiful in its own right but I discovered that it is a bang on dupe for China Glaze Let's Groove. Slightly disappointing since I dropped so much bank on the NARS, but who knew? Now I have a backup. Two coats of Atlantis with a coat of Orly In A Snap over the top dried it quickly and it was only slightly bumpy. Definitely not bumpy enough for me to pick it off. Love love looooooove. I need like a thousand of these. An army of Atlantis backups.

I'm wearing BB Couture Night Ops at the mo. Seriously fighting the urge to slap a coat of Atlantis over it when I get home.

So in other news, I stumbled on to these new Jordana polishes on the eeeeebeh.

No idea if they are new or not, I just assume they are. The Jordana website is way out of date and these are not on there.

Admittedly, they may or may not have some sort of Twilight theme and I did buy them from a seller names "Bedazzled By Twilight" or something to that effect.

Don't judge me.

OH and while I remember, WTF is up with shipping costs from Nordstroms to Australia?
They wanted to charge me $81.00 to ship ONE LIPSTICK. (If you're wondering it was Guerlain Kiss Kiss Strass in Rouge Broderie. HOT.) Now I can handle the $31 price tag on the lippie, but that shipping is ridonkulous! Shame Nordies! I'm gonna have to find myself a mule!

That's all for now. Hopefully back later with more swatches.

So today I was going to do up a post with my three Rescue Beauty Lounge Glitters. But on second thought I decided that I didn't like my swatches. My Locavore looks good, but I need to re-do the two others. I've actually been sitting on them for the past two weeks, but never got there. I guess in my heart I knew they were sub par.

So here's me modelling Claire's Jazz instead. Funny story about Jazz. I had wanted it for years. Seen swatches of it, drooled. Lusted. Etc. Claires (and Icings) are hard to come by if you don't have a store close by, and when they are gone, they're gone. Jazz is probably about three years old. Maybe older. Long gone. I took it off my wishlist (because I'm a bit of an organisational freak like that). Two days later, it arrived with a package from the lovely KonadTheBarbarian. Crazy. I love that gal.

Last night I had a really weird dream that I was watching (or was I on?) some terrible MTV Hills-Esque reality show. Jesse Bradford was also in this dream. He was this faux-gay guy, who was trying to convince everyone he was gay, but I knew that he wasn't. How? I don't know. But he wasn't gay. I have no idea why he wanted everyone to think he was gay. He was trying to launch his pop music career and believed Britney Spears was sabotaging him. I was tring to convince him that he had made dodgy contacts and his agent was to blame.

(Shame on me for princessing Jesse Bradford up. He's actually really hot. Funny thing is, while I may have added the hearts and stuff, I had nothing to do with that shirt.)

But THEN, a bunch of catty girls arrived and wanted to start a bitch fight. It was then that we discovered that we all had mutant super powers. THEN SHIT GOT REAL!

Is it just me, or would you watch The Hills if they were having epic battles to the death and they could shoot laser beams from their eyes? I would. MTV? Are you listening? (I looooove Picnik! If you have flickr, try it! As you can see, I use mine for evil and not good.)

Then I woke up with all sorts of theories on higher brain function and why we can only use such a small percentage of our brains. I'll bore you all with that when I'm bored another day.

This is CM Midnight Impostor. Imposter? Impostorrr? I can't help but hear Electric Six when someone mentions this polish. "It was... THE IMPOSTORRR!" I love NightSky polishes. There's two versions of this, I'm pretty sure. The other is more purple? I think? CM kinda messed it up. But I love CM. I'd cut a bitch for Enchanted Forest.

This is where I take my photos. I used to have the whole lightbox "outer" doobie-hickie set up too, but I got lazy and now I just use the backing. Pics still come out good. LOL You can totally see a Freddy Glove and a My Pet Monster DVD set in the background. I'm a weird girl.

Wow, these China Glaze glitters are the shizzle. If you skipped them, shame on you. I have a bunch of them I need to try. I think I'll try Atlantis next. 1. It's Glitter. 2. It's HOLO Glitter. 3. It's green. 4. I recently discovered Stargate Atlantis (late to the party AGAIN). 5. Joe Flanigan is kind of a robo-babe. He's practically babe-licious. If he were president, he'd be Babe-raham Lincoln.

I'm hungry, so I'm going to go eat my banana.

Once again. Not a euphemism.

Fruit.

Yellow. Delicious.

MALARKEY!

China Glaze Sour Apple over Chelsea Psycho Green

Folkses, lemme introduce you to my new BFF. China Glaze Sour Apple over Chelsea Psycho Green. I, in my humble opinion, am I genius* of epic proportions for coming up with this combo.

*side note. How funny that whenever I go to type the word genius, it always comes out wrong first go. Genious, geneus. I guess I am really not a gennius after all.

The new range of China Glaze glitters are off the chart cool on their own, but when layered (like this one is), it opens up a whole new level of "holy crap".

China Glaze Sour Apple over Chelsea Psycho Green

Admit it.

You're jealous.

Chelsea Time Zone, Polynesia Isle, Margarita Mix & Psycho Green

Oyyy. How in the hell is it Monday? And why do I feel more hung over today than I did on Sunday morning when I really was hung over? Lucky I did up these swatches a while ago or I would have nothing to talk about!

Mmmm. Chelsea polishes are niiiice. I first mentioned them in this post but now I have more! So it's time to write about them again! Yes! How exciting!

Chelsea Time Zone

If there's one party that Chelsea Polishes can rock like few others, it's the duochrome. Holy crapsticks this is awesome. Time Zone made its way to me recently as a part of a very generous swap and it surprised the pants off me. I'd never actually seen this one before, but if I had it would have been on my wishlist!

Chelsea Time Zone

The colour shifts from copper to red to the slightest beginnings of fucshia! How!!? That's just amazing! On top of that, it's also got the weirdest formula. It's a shimmery jelly. I've never come across a jelly shimmer before. But I think I like it! NO! I KNOW I like it! HAWT.

Chelsea Polynesia Isle

Yet another fab duochrome from Chelsea - Polynesia Isle. I've been lusting after this bebe for quite some time. It arrived with Time Zone and I was floored when I swatched it. It was everything I hoped it would be. The green gold, through to yellow, all the way to copper.

Chelsea Polynesia Isle

Will you gettaload of that? So shimmery and perfect. It's gold, but it works on me. Well at least I think it works on me. I don't really care what anyone else thinks!

Chelsea Margarita Mix

Now even with a brand of epic win like Chelsea, not everything can be a success. There's nothing at all wrong with Margarita Mix. Not that I can see at all - I would put this fail down to operator error. I'm sure someone who was better with neons or cremes would do a better job of making this polish look gorgeous, because it is - and my swatch does it absolutely no justice. The bottle itself looks so pretty! I just wish I could get that on my nails. Maybe I need more practice.

Chelsea Psycho Green

Yeah. Okay. You can all pick yer jaws up off the floor now. Please wipe up the puddles of drool as you leave. Thanks.

Totally understandable. Psycho Green is by far my favourite Chelsea polish. It's incredible! Smooth, deep, dark emerald velvet with the teensiest bit of blue shimmer. Genius. I bow down to thee polish creator-person who works for Chelsea. You deserve a round applause, a hearty meal, my undying adoration and a Spatula.

Quality wise, Chelsea is bang for your buck. If you can find them. Generally my sources have only found these at "dusties". Old dusty nail salons with ancient, long forgotten brands. I don't know if they are still in production but what I do know is that if you look hard enough, they are still around and they are usually pretty cheap to boot!

The colours are wonderfully pigmented and the formula good, and the duochromes.... dudes prepare for your mind to be blown! I wonder what other Chelsea treasures are out there just waiting to be discovered?

Hiya homies!

I've been sick for the last few days, so profuse apologies for my lack of postingness. But today I make my triumphant return with some pretty triumphant polishes. Lets begin, shall we?

Yes. Lets.

Illamasqua Baptiste, DWS, Rampage

So I avoided the Illamasqua Hype Parade for a while. I thought I had successfully conquered its allure. Turns out I was wrong. I got these three babies over the last month. One was a gift, one a swap and the other was me folding like a cheap tent and getting a CP. Now I really want Phallic. And maybe Muse. And possibly Poke. Perhaps Milf?

GAH!

Illamasqua Baptiste

This sexy little number is Baptiste. I didn't notice the smudge on the bottle before, sorry about that. I'm pretty grabby with my hot polishes. It's a beautiful, rich velvety purple in the exact shade that is that is the bane of my existence. I see it, and I must own it. Seriously though folks. The depth of shimmer and glowiness of this polish needs to be seen in person to be understood. See my photo? Up the awesome factor by about 5000%. That's how good Baptiste is.

Illamasqua DWS

Call me ignorant, but I did not get straight off the bat that DWS stands for Dripping With Sarcasm. Now that I know that, it seems like a totally Illamasqua name. But in my research I discovered that DWS stands for many things. Some of my faves are: Driving While Stupid, Digital Warrior School, Direct Wafer Stepping and Dallas Wind Symphony (because I'm never too old for fart jokes!) But my favourite of all would have to be Diploma of Wine and Spirits. Now THERE'S a course I could get into! And pass with honours! But yes, DWS is a beautiful medium blue-grey creme, no matter what it stands for. I don't even like cremes. What is wrong with me?

Illamasqua Rampage

Now for the finale, is the gal everyone is raving about. Rampage. I gotta admit, I was pretty wowed when I put it on. Jellies and me, well... we aren't really good friends. I have uneven nail beds and they end up looking terrible on me. Rampage on the other hand I reckon looks pretty damn alright. It's not streaky and hard to manage like most jellies I own and the result is a fan-bloody-tastic forest green with a squishy quality that's to die for without being translucent.

Aaaaand because I love glitter so much (especially over dark greens) here it is topped with one coat of Revlon Rio Cool. Spicy!

Illamasqua Rampage topped with Revlon Rio Cool

I gotta say first up that the Illamasqua formula is so good that I am pretty sure I could have blacked out and my nails would have painted themselves in all three of these shades. My Illamasqua ownership covers a pretty broad spectrum - one shimmer, one creme and one jelly and I was suitably impressed with all three.

I'm afraid, my darling wallet, that I forsee much pain for you in the future at the hands of ... ILLAMASQUA!

(If Illamasqua were a person, I'm pretty sure they would be Zorro).

But no need to be shy... It goes on fingers too! And rather nicely!

L to R: Jingle, Holiday Sparkle, You Sleigh Me

These three (plus Sunshine on Snowflakes) are my only Piggy Polishes. They aren't exactly that easy to come by in my neck of the woods, nor have they really come out with anything that I felt was worth tracking down in my usual rabid manner. That is, with the obvious exception of the ones that I own. Apparently they are made for toes, but since I have RBL Frugalista on my toes and no sandblaster on hand, these bad girls are going on my hands.

(Just editing to add - its just a marketing ploy! There is NO difference between toenails and fingernails and there is no specific toes only polish. It goes anywhere. Just not in your mouth. (I'm sure it would taste gross)

Piggy Polish Jingle

Jingle is a Christmas Polish (all of my Piggies are), but I have no idea what year it was from. 2007? 2006? Sorry guys, NFI. But what I CAN tell you about it, is how much I freaking LOVE IT! My swatch above is three coats, and Jingle is a little on the sheer side. But once you get toa few layers, WOW. It practically glows on the nail. Lit from within gets thrown around a lot, but Piggy Polish know how to get that shit done! It's easily one of my favourite greens. A perfect emerald shade. I wish they still made it. I need a backup.

Piggy Polish Holiday Sparkle

Holiday Sparkle was part of one of last years Christmas sets. It came in a duo pack with You Sleigh Me, which we will get to later. The polish has no name, which is a shame. I'm guessing its meant to be a gold version of Sunshine on Snowflakes, but I would have liked a name. Maybe Sleigh Bells? Something nice like that. I would assume from the formula that the polish was intended to be a top coat for You Sleigh Me. It's pretty sheer. The swatch above is four coats. I love the pale colour of the gold glitter in contrast to the larger bronze pieces. This is a very unique polish. I love it.

Piggy Polish You Sleigh Me

Finally, You Sleigh Me. This, ladies and gentlemen, is my new favourite red. The depth is nothing short of amazing. Not to mention that it also has the BEST name for a seasonal polish ever thought of. I bet Suzi got word of this polish and got super steamed that she didn't think up that awesome pun of a name herself. She would also be even more steamed because You Sleigh Me craps on all her reds from a great height. Oooh double burn, OPI. Swatch is 2 coats, went on smooth and easily. Much love.

Aaaand the moral of the story here kids, is that Kaz needs to pay more attention to Piggy Polish, most notably their seasonal offerings. You should too!

Edited to Add: Turns out the Gold is called Holiday Sparkle. Thanks Piggy Polish website!

I'm running late with this post today. Let's see what I can rustle up.

Oooh I like that idea. An old collection. 2009's Sally Hansen Passport to Harajuku collection, from Canada. For some reason Sally Hansen has a bad habit of releasing totally badass collections in Canada only, much to the infuriation of the rest of the polish loving world. Lucky for me there are awesome Canadian babes that I know that have been willing to purchase them on my behalf.

I briefly wrote about these polishes last year, before I got them in this post. Here's the pic of the display that my lovely Canadian pal took for me.

But now that I've owned them for a while and have swatched them I thought I might cover them in a little more detail.

Sally Hansen Harajuku Station

Harajuku Station is a gorgeous, vibrant hot pink. My laptop monitor (that I am working on now) dulls the colour a little, but my PC monitor shows it as the gorgeous bright pink that it is. This is two coats, and although the formula on all of these polishes was pretty bad, this was manageable and I think worth the effort.

Sally Hansen Yoyogi Park

Yoyogi Park is a medium purple with a blue/lilac shimmer. I like it a lot, although I am pretty sure I already own a lot of other purples like it. This is two coats, and being a shimmer, the formula was much better than the cremes. It picks up more blue on certain angles and the colour is actually pretty neat.

Sally Hansen Cosplay

Like it's namesake at a bad convention, Cosplay was nothing short of a disaster. This is the only swatch I have ever taken off FOUR times and put back on again and still not been happy with the end result. It was gloopy and thick and runny at the same time. How does that happen? Well whatever freakish forms of chemistry Sally Hansen used to make this polish I hope she never uses it again. I can get the same shade from my Zoya Creamy with half the hassle. Boo Cosplay! BOOOOO!

Sally Hansen Gothloli

Gothloli probably handled the best out of all the cremes, but it's just a flat black creme, Nothing special. It does have a ridiculously cute name though. But I would have thrown in some pink or silver sparkles. Just to jazz it up a little. Two coats here, unlike a bunch of my other black cremes that are one coaters. I'm keeping this one because of the name (and also because it is part of the collection).

Sally Hansen Meiji Jingu

I saved the best for last. Meiji Jingu is a pretty cherry red with a teeny pink flash. It's unique in my collection and even though I don't usually gravitate towards reds without gold shimmer, I can definitely say that this was my favourite of the bunch. What a fab coincidence that it also had the smoothest formula!

So there you have it. I can bang out a post under pressure. Booyah.

*runs in circles*

Models Own is having a whopping 50% off sale right now! It runs through the weekend, so this is your chance to pick up some awesome shades at half the price! The minimum order is £20 so round up some frenz! The promo code is FIFTYFIFTY.

They do ship worldwide, flat rate to Australia was only £7.95!

I do already have some Models Own, and while my swatches arent the best, I will share anyway. Because sharing is AWESOME.

Models Own Top Turquoise, Pink Explosion, Blue Gem, Lemon Meringue, Green Tea


Models Own Top Turquoise


Models Own Blue Gem


Models Own Pink Explosion

Run! Run right now! Or errr... type really fast and go to http://www.modelsownit.com

Sale ends Sunday!