China Glaze Great Barrier Beige- Revisited

Hi all! Hows your week been? I've actually had a good one, albeit a bit tiring..work, study days and holiday planning. It's funny how when I talk to people about going on holidays for a month most immediately ask "So how many nail polishes are you taking?" LOL. My answer at the moment is "none" to "a few for stamping" as I have a list of polishes to purchase on my travels! 

Today I have for you a gorgeous beige cream from the China Glaze Down Under Collection released in 2005. I had these Aussie themed polishes muled to me from America as I just couldn't get them here! Great Barrier Beige is, well, a beige..and my original pics were with a lightbox. I really love how this beige looks with my skin tone so thought it was worth another swatch!. Here are my full sun swatches of this polish :)

I have a few other of the China Glaze Down Under polishes that I haven't swatched..well, also quite a few other polishes as well if I am honest. I have put myself on a no buy for this month and whilst I am wanting a few newer release polishes the compulsion to buy is very much less, which I actually think is a good thing. I am excited about shopping overseas for both polish and clothes! I am going to post some nail art tomorrow or the next day..so look out for that!

xoxo
Jas

Essence Toffee to Go with Essence Space Queen

Hello, hello and good evening to you all. I have a impulse buy polish that I bought today to show you. I have been expounding recently to the non polish people the benefits of Essences polishes. The bottle are small, the price is small and there are many lovely color to chose from. So of course, after talking about said polish to others I feel the need to go back looking at the pretties I have been promoting, LOL. Today I grabbed Toffee to Go and Space Queen from Essence when I was meant to helping the other half buy a white shirt :)

 Essence Toffe to Go- a nude glam apparently!

Quite Nude and Glam-like, I think :)

Toffee to Go with Flash, hmm dead fingers a bit? Or is that just my pale skin!

Now to add some bling, how could I go past Space Queen?

 Space Queen

Space Queen over Toffee to Go

 As you can see, Space Queen is a little hard to photograph over Toffee to Go, but they do go so well together. It makes that nude polish just a little bit blingier without slapping people over the head screaming "Look at my Glitter polish!!". The glitters appear to be holographic and the slight pink tint in Space Queen is not noticeable at all over the nude polish. This combo will have people wondering why you keep staring at your fingers...it's a secret between you and your nudey blingy digits! :) 

What did I use: Ulta3 Base Coat
                         Essence Toffee to Go
                         Essence Space Queen
                         No top Coat for the pics!

Nails Inc Porchester Square with gold stamping

I always thought Nails Inc Porchester Square was a beige-ish polish that would look reasonably light and was in the neutral range of polishes. I was right on only one of those counts..it does look pretty light in the bottle but drys darker, it is definitely a mushroom color and not beige at all, but despite all that it is a neutral polish :) I wore Porchester Square for a day then felt the need to try my Red Angel stamping plates which flopped the last time I used them. This time I chose China Glaze Passion to create a subtle effect, that was slightly shimmer but not in your face :)

Nails Inc Porchester Square

China Glaze Passion

 This is Ulta3 base coat with 2 coats of Porchester Square, stamped with China Glaze Passion and a top coat of Seche Vite. I used Red Angel plate R108 on my Left hand

Without flash

 With flash

I then used Red Angel Plate 109 on my Right

 Without Flash

 Macro

 With flash

The end result reminds me of old fashioned curtains and I love that :) I was a little concerned about how gold China Glaze Passion would turn out, but it looks lovely gold and shimmery on. I am struggling to find time for posts this week as I work 10 hour days and seem to be working everyday this week :( I look forward to be able to play with my polish to my hearts content on Saturday! Hope you liked my curtain looking nails, do you think Porchester works with my skin tone? I am in two minds..

China Glaze FYI

It's hump dayyyyy, so I thought I would pull out a fun swatch to get me through the week. China Glaze FYI of course :) Since starting polish collecting this year, I clicked pretty quick the China Glaze does amazing polishes and the most amazing of the collection is the China Glaze OMG collection. FYI was my first acquisition, so here she is :)

China Glaze FYI without and with flash..oooh see some rainbows! 

FYI- just look at the work appropriate beige :)

FYI with the flash..come on rainbows, stop hiding!

 FYI with flash, very pretty gold looking but no rainbows :(

 FYI- final attempt to capture some rainbow, with sunlight. The pic has to be big to see it, mkay?

So, I gave that my best effort. The holo effect is super hard to capture but the polish look so pretty in person, trust me? This is FYI with a base coat and 2 coats of FYI with no top coat. The Layla holos are easier to capture but there is no similar color like FYI, and the China Glaze application is alot easier. This is a work appropriate color for those of us looking for work appropriateness but with a secret of hidden blingyness :)

Hope your hump day wasn't so bad, and FYI brightens up your day.

Kleancolor Sandstone, Ulta3 Early Grey and Ulta3 Gold Rush Fever Gradient

Tonight, I am going to show you a lovely neutral gradient mani that I did after my Flying Dragon Floam mani peeled off after I may have used Ulta3 Non Chip top coat instead of the base, oopsie! I will show the result in just a moment, it's not exactly super pretty, but it's art I tell you..art! LOL. The colors I used are here:

But first, I don't usually do rants because you always upset someone, but I've just read something on another blog of whose name I won't mention because she doesn't deserve it. Seriously. I am that so astonished and incensed at what I read that I am not going to mention her name, but I am sure you can guess who/what it's about with recent polish world goings on. ANY respect I had for this polisher as a person has gone, gondidy, gone, gone. I am not even going to go into what it says but it left me thinking "Oh my giddy aunt and are you freakin' serious?" I haven't read anything so delusional, nor more clarifying of how I feel about the whole thing. I was a bit Switzerland on the whole thing until today. Now I understand why a few people reacted like they did and their actions. My actions will be to not enable any further delusions of grandeur ...do you think the average chick wants polish at super inflated prices supported by the creator? Not this one. Simple as that.

Anyways, moving forward, I hear Dollish, Pretty & Polished AND Crows Toes have joined Llarowe..so exciting! I have managed to order some Dollish polishes and am waiting for them. I also have some Pretty & Polished polishes which I love and was sad when she announced that she wasn't going to ship internationally. Also was lusting after some of the Crows Toes polishes but again no international shipping, now not a problem! I shall make some mine :) Lets go forthwith onto the gradient mani!

The colors I used, Kleancolor Sandstone (42), Ulta3 Gold Rush Fever and Earl Grey. I was hoping to achieve a neutral but still interesting mani! I applied Ulta3 base coat, 2 coats of Kleancolor Sandstone. Then took a makeup sponge and painted 3 lines of polish with Kleancolor Sandstone at the top, Gold Rush Fever in the middle and Earl Grey down the bottom. The polish lines made up the length of my nail and then I dabbed and moved the sponge up and down slightly. This is the result.

I like the foil shiny effect, even though Earl Grey is a creme

 Beige, Gold, Taupe gradient with flash

With a change in light/angle the gold can look gold or bronze, the bronze doesn't mesh quite as well.

After a day I tired of the neutralness and thought, stamping..have at it. I'd swatched Kleancolor Coffee Addict previously and thought it would go well, so did a few accent stamping nails to make this mani bling a bit :)

 Left hand stamping using Konad and Bundlemonster

 Left Thumb stamping with Cheeky Plates

 Right hand stamping with Cheeky plates and Bundle Monster

 Right Thumb without and with flash

 The stamping transforms this gradient mani from pleasant to great. I particularly like the thumbs as one looks very giraffe pattern like and the other thumb looks snake skin like! A very happy co-incidence. This also answers my posed question does Kleancolor Coffee Addict stamp well? Yes, yes it does. I did a top coat with Seche Vite and there was no bleeding of the stamped design as with some Kleancolor colors.
Phew, that turned out to be a bit of a marathon post..I hope you didn't mind and congrats if you made it all the way to the end! Hope your week is going well, I get to sleep in tomorrow before my shift and am mightly looking forward to it :)