Gloss 'n Sparkle Nail Polish Review ~ SpectraFlair

Today I thought I would introduce you to one of my favourite Top Coats by Gloss 'n Sparkle.

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This is SpectraFlair, a molten silver rainbow holographic top coat that you can use on its own or to brighten up any nail polish.  I especially love to use this over polishes that I would not normally wear, I just love the effect it has on brightening dull shades.

SpectraFlair 2 coats
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SpectraFlair is a course grade holographic in a clear base suspension base, so you won't have to shake every time you use it unlike heavier glitter polishes.  1-2 coats is enough, 2 coats really brings out the rainbow effect and I love wearing this on bare nails, the effect in sunlight is mesmerising.

Applies easily and drys smooth to the touch in no time.  Angela the creative lady who makes these lovely polishes suggests applying a top coat for longer wear.  Angela is based in Queensland and sells her polishes on Etsy you can visit her shop here, she also sells internationally through distributors and you can find out more about that on her website here.

Now for the fun bit, some swatches.  I found it interesting while I was going through my nail polish collection I chose mainly earthy flat tones to sample SpectraFlair with, I hope you like them.  All swatches were photographed using a day lamp.

Sapphire Dream  ~  Thanks a WindMillion  ~  Jayd  +  SpectraFlair  (1 coat)

Mineral Fusion   ~   Sapphire Dream
OPI   ~   Thanks a WindMillion
Coral Colours   ~   Jayd

Midnight Madness  ~  do you speak love?  ~  Coraliscious  +  SpectraFlair  (1 coat)
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ModelsPrefer   ~   Midnight Madness ~ gorgeous aubergine, purple first coat almost black 2 coats
essence color & go   ~   do you speak love?
Rimmel 60 Seconds   ~   Coraliscious

Jaded    ~    Muse    ~    wanna say hello
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Revlon Top Speed   ~   Jaded
Revlon   ~   Muse
essence color & go   ~   wanna say hello ~ dark brown

Botticelli Nude    ~    sweet berry    ~    dark room + SpectraFlair 1 coat
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Borghese   ~   Botticelli Nude
Savvy by DB   ~   sweet berry
MUD   ~   dark room ~ black


Well there you are, SpectraFlair certainly makes any polish special.

What are your favourite combinations?   Please leave a comment and let me know.

Revlon Top Speed Celestial FX Nail Polish

Ok I caved........today while I was waiting for my son to finish his Piano lesson I quickly popped in to my local BigW and they had Celestial FX sitting right there on the shelf calling for me.  Eek!!

Priceline have Celestial FX  and Heart of Gold FX on sale for $9 this week 18th July.

Gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous, I love this polish.

I am dying to try this on my nails but I am into the second week of my Revitanail Nail Strengthener course and I am abstaining from nail polish because you have to add a coat of Revitanail every day for 7 days, remove the lot, start again and repeat for 28 days.  I am already seeing fantastic results but that's another review.

So......swatches it is!

The first swatch is just on it's own.  Celestial FX is a mix of holographic & silver Stars, Moons and Diamonds in a micro holo glitter gel base.

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I find it's best to start off with a coat of the micro glitter base, once that gets tacky, fish and dab on extra stars, moons and diamonds where you want them.  This also helps stop the larger glitter pieces from curling and helps glue them down.   Once you are happy with placement go over with another coat to seal it all.

I didn't find it too hard to fish out the larger glitter there is a lot in there, what frustrated me was when I wanted stars I got moons and vice versa, there are lots of diamonds, no worries fishing them out.

My favourite base was MODE High Fashion, a very dark blue which I think shows off Celestial to best effect.  I have tried to capture the swatches with different light effects, these were all taken at night under a day lamp.

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I love anything pink so could not swatch without a pink one!  This is essence ~ free hugs, the shade did something strange to the micro glitter but I still like it.

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This last swatch is Sally Hansen Lustre Shine ~  Azure.

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I hope you like my swatches, please let me know what you think of this polish in the comments below, I love to hear from you.

Jac x0x

Whimsical & Heavenly Revlon Nail Polishes

I wanted to show you all some swatches of a couple of my favourite Revlon Nail Polishes.  I know that these polishes have been around for quite a while overseas but they have only recently become available in Australia.  I have found them at Priceline, Kmart and David Jones.

WHIMSICAL

The definition of Whimsical is  'playfully quaint or fanciful'  and I think that description suits this polish perfectly.

With just a hint of robin's egg blue base and a multi-mix of blue, pink and micro holo glitter.  This polish looks good on it's own with 2-3 coats or as a top coat for a base shade.  What I like best about this polish is that even when you add multiple layers, it is sheer enough not to dull the glitter.  Long-lasting polish that doesn't chip and gives a subtle hint of colour and glitter for those of us that don't always like to sparkle.

Whimsical (l-r) One coat  ~  2 coats

There really isn't a difference between 1 or 2 coats of Whimsical as you can see above.  You do need to gently roll the polish between coats to mix the glitter thoroughly.

Whimsical (l-r) 3 coats  ~  4 coats
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After the third coat you can certainly see more of a hint of base colour showing through.  It tends to look more blue in natural light as opposed to camera light.  Again not a lot of difference between the third and fourth coat so if I was wearing this on it's own I would stop at 2-3 coats. 

Whimsical really looks gorgeous as a top coat, imparting a delicate spray of glitter over a pastel base.  I have used 4 different bases.  The first two are;

Revlon Blue Lagoon  a beautiful baby blue with micro silver shimmer &  Sinful Colors Cinderella another baby blue with micro red shimmer.  You may be able to make out the silver and red shimmer below.  Baby blue is my favourite combination with Whimsical, I adore this shade of blue, when my twins were babies this was the colour on the walls in their room.

Revlon Blue Lagoon  &  Sinful Colors Cinderella
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With the Whimsical top coat it helps to bring out the red shimmer in Cinderella below on the right here.

Revlon Blue Lagoon  &  Sinful Colors Cinderella
2 coats Revlon Whimsical
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The next two shades are MODE Ooh Baby and MODE VIP just to show you how well Whimsical works as a top coat on pastel shades, I find it a very feminine and understated look for those days when you don't want to be too flashy.

MODE Ooh Baby  &  MODE VIP
2 coats Revlon Whimsical
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HEAVENLY

Revlon Heavenly
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This is a gorgeous multi-coloured opalescent glitter polish which is so jam packed full of glitter you only need to apply one coat and it looks gorgeous on it's own but absolutely fantastic over a dark base.  Most of these polishes are available at David Jones or Priceline in Australia.

Revlon Heavenly one coat and one coat over black polish
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I will do another review of Heavenly with a variety of coloured swatches soon.

I hope you like my swatches, please leave a comment below and let me know what you think of Revlon Glitter Polishes.

Jac x0x

Face of Australia glitterati review ~ Boogie Wonderland

(l-r)
Boogie Wonderland - Heart of Glass - Funky Town
Dancing Queen - Studio54 - Saturday Night Fever - Lookin for Some Hot Stuff - Disco Inferno

You can find out more about these Limited Edition Polishes at the Face of Australia Website here.

Heart of Glass

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In my comments for the review of  FOA's Heart of Glass, the lovely Madeleine Lee of Madeleine in Wonderland commented that she would really like to try Boogie Wonderland, so I thought  I would do a little review and show some swatches for you all.

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BOOGIE WONDERLAND

Boogie Wonderland ~ The best way I can describe this polish is An Exploding Lavender Pinata Bomb!  There is so much glitter in there it just explodes on your nails and you can't help but get a thick helping of glitter on every nail.  Has the same tinted milky gel base as Heart of Glass but I found my base was slightly thicker than HoG and I had trouble applying thin coats to my nails. Where'is with  Heart of Glass  I felt I needed 3 coats for good coverage I was happy with 2 coats of  Boogie Wonderland.

Boogie Wonderland has a wonderful mix of glitter, the ones I could pick out were, Green, Blue and White Bars.  Small Orange, Blue, Pink, Purple and Red Hexes and larger White Hexes.  I did find I needed to roll the bottle between application or the heavier glitters tended to sink to the bottom, I had no trouble getting an even coat of glitter all over the nail because there is SO much glitter!

1 coat  ~  2 coats  ~  3 coats
Boogie Wonderland
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I experienced curling with the bar glitter and you need a few layers of top coat to seal them.  This was a bit tedious for me as I don't have time to sit there applying layer after layer of top coat and waiting for it all to dry.  This is not a nail polish I would wear if I was in a hurry.

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I had applied 4 layers of topcoat for this photo and STILL had not managed to seal the curly bars sticking up.  Anymore coats and the whole lot is just going to peel off, I think FOA should have left the bars out of this one, what do you think?

Now for some swatches.  I chose four base coats picking out the shades to match the glitter in the bottle.  I chose strong shades because the milky base makes everything turn pastel except for the last one Revlon Lily which is such a gorgeous creamy pastel I thought it would look good with a layer of glitter.

Let's Talk   ~  Sapphire Dream  ~  A Roll in the Hague  ~  Lily
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SINFUL COLORS ~ LET'S TALK ~ liked this one better with only one coat of Boogie.

MINERAL FUSION ~ SAPPHIRE DREAM ~ This is a new polish I picked up from iherb, you can find out more about the range here.

OPI ~ A ROLL IN THE HAGUE ~ I did not like this combination, too milky and ruined the gorgeous vibrancy of Hague.

REVLON ~ LILY ~ This would probably be my favourite combination.

Let's Talk  ~  Sapphire Dream  ~  A Roll in the Hague  ~  Lily
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All of the swatches above are with two coats of Boogie Wonderland, personally I didn't feel that two coats of Boogie looked too good on a different shade base except for Sapphire Dream.

In the photo below I did like Boogie as a one layer topcoat on Let's Talk (middle) it's not too busy and Lily (R) but I prefer two coats on Sapphire dream (see above) but I don't think Boogie did anything at all for OPI A Roll in the Hague (see above).

Sapphire Dream  ~  Let's Talk  ~  Lily
One coat Boogie Wonderland
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My final verdict:  I don't like this polish as much as Heart of Glass, what ruins it for me is the curly bars of glitter.  I think they detract from an otherwise gorgeous glitter and look like loose strands of eye lash or broken bits from the brush.  I felt two coats of Boogie on my nails without a base colour looked the best but I am not in love with this polish.

I picked up the complete set for $4.95 per bottle online at Makeup Express and they are also available at Fashion Addict and Priceline.  Love to know what you think,  please leave a comment below I would love to hear from you.

Jac x0x

Face of Australia glitterati review ~ Heart of Glass

(l-r)
Boogie Wonderland - Heart of Glass - Funky Town
Dancing Queen - Studio54 - Saturday Night Fever - Lookin for Some Hot Stuff - Disco Inferno

You can find out more about these Limited Edition Polishes at the Face of Australia Website here.

I haven't reviewed a nail polish in an age and I have had the entire new Limited Edition Face of Australia glitterati range for a while now so I thought I would share with you my thoughts on the nail polish I am wearing this week.

Heart of Glass

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Heart of Glass is part of FOA's disco themed glitter polishes and I have to admit I remember when this was a  Number 1 hit for Blondie back in 1979.  I didn't really like that song but I loved Hanging on the Telephone and Sunday Girl.

Heart of Glass is a milky pale pink polish with Red, Purple, Pink, Hot Pink, Holo Bars, White Glitter and Pink Hearts in varying glitter sizes.

It applies pretty easily and doesn't take too long to dry between coats.  I did have to fish for the Pink Hearts because they tend to sink and found the easiest thing to do what hold the bottle upside down between coats to bring the hearts to the top.  I found personally I needed three thin coats to reach desired opacity on it's own but only two thin coats as a top coat.

(l-r) 3 coats  ~  2 coats  ~  1 coat
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The above swatches give you a good idea of what glitter is in there and the difference between coats.  I found I was having to dab at some of the glitter to move it around.  You can also see the larger red squared and the pink hearts tend to curl but if you apply a good top coat they sit nicely.  The gel base builds up to a nice pale pink which doesn't show too well in my photo.

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This was a Limited Edition Pack I picked up from Priceline a few months ago and I thought I would use these as bases for the Heart of Glass polish.

Flirt  ~  Dreamer  ~  Elegant
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These three gorgeous shades from Revlon were the winners from a Revlon Inspires Competition where 5 Australian bloggers were invited to get inspired by their 3 favourite shades out of a collection of 24.  

Drop Dead Gorgeous Daily was the lucky winner and these were her three choices above.

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I applied two coats of Heart of Glass over the top of the three shades, I was quite happy with the results, I love pastel milky nail polish.  I haven't sealed these with a top coat but would do so on my nails to keep the glitter from curling.

When I took the photo below of my poor little nails I had been wearing this polish for two days.  In that time I had scrubbed and seasoned our campfire cast iron pots in preparation for our camping trip next week and I had just hand fed our cattle before coming in and taking this photo.  The point is, NO CHIPPING!  The nail polish has held up better than my poor skin.

Base coat - 2 coats Heart of Glass - Top coat
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I picked up the complete set for $4.95 per bottle online at Makeup Express and they are also available at Fashion Addict and Priceline.   I hope you like these swatches.  Have you picked up any of the Glitterati Range, what do you think?  Please let me know in the comments below.

Jac x0x