Artform Revolutionary Range #502 Red Gold

I toyed with the idea of doing an April fools post, but unless your the first in with it, there isn't much point (you got me Kaz!)

Today I'm showing you Artform Revolutionary Range #502 Red Gold, which is a dupe of Ozotic Pro #502 which may be close to a dupe of Sally Hansen Prism Ruby Opal (see Splurge vs Save).  But before swatches I just want to mention a couple of things that annoyed me about my latest order from Artform nails.

1. I noticed on my credit card a week after placing my order that what I was charged was less that what I had ordered. I sent two emails to them asking why my order was costing less, unfortunately I never received a reply. It was only when my box arrived that there was a hand written note on the invoice that said some polishes were out of stock and they didn’t charge me for them. As their shipping is rather expensive, I really wish they had contacted me and advised if and when they were getting the polishes that were out of stock back in. I would happily have waited to receive them and ship them all together, whereas now, I would have to place another order (including the full shipping price) if I want to get the out of stock items.
2. My other gripe is that a number of these bottles were not full. The green holographic one, and a few of the multichromes have a good 5mm missing at the top of the bottle. What’s with that!!

Despite these two issues, I am really happy with the polishes I have got.

#502 is another multichrome with colours shifting through from a burgundy crimson through to gold.  This is three coats over a black base.

This one was the first I swatched, and I didn't capture it as well as I have the others.  There is a real knack to photographing duochrome polishes and I certainly got better the more I took.

Artform Revolutonary Range #505 Green Purple

Hang on a minute; didn't I just do a post on this polish yesterday? Well yes and no. This is one of the Artform Revolutionary Range polishes - #505 Green Purple, that I got in my haul last week. 

Let me just start by saying this is an exact dupe for yesterday's polish, Sally Hansen Turquoise Opal. The very last photo shows a comparison swatch. The other interesting thing is that I’m sure this is also an exact dupe of Ozotic Pro #505.

Recently when I wrote about ordering these polishes, Kira from over at Kira and Lydia's Makeup, said she was keen to see these as she didn’t want to double up on her Ozotic Pro colours. Well Kira, right you are!

What I find very interesting is that not only do they appear to be the exact same multichromatic polish, but they also have the exact same number! And even more evidence that these are probably from the same Australian manufacturer, is that it’s not just this one polish. I ordered six multichrome polishes (#502, #503, #504, #505, #506 and #508) from Artform Nails. From looking at other people’s swatches and reading the colour descriptions of Ozotics #502, #504, #505, #506, all four of these polishes are exactly the same number and colour as the Artform ones.

So the cool part is that I read a comment from Kaz over at Pretty Random saying that Ozotic Pro #503 and #508 are discontinued. So how cool is it that after looking at the Ozotic Pro colour chart, I have probably located exact dupes of #503 and #508.

Just remember that these actually cost a little more than the Ozotic pro ($10.95 v $8.50). But if you want to get #503 and #508, it’s probably worth the extra few bucks.

Anyway, onto the swatches of Artform #505.  These were all three coats over a black base.

I really wanted to photo the comparison between Sally Hansen Turquoise Opal and #505 in the sun, but the clouds came over and I had to do it under then bathroom lights instead.  As you can see even in this indoor flash picture, both Sally Hansen Turquoise Opal and Artform/Ozotic Pro #505 are dupes.

I'll be bring you more of these duochromes in coming posts.  If your a green lover, just wait until you see the discontinued #503. Ah-maze-zing.

Sally Hansen Turquoise Opal

I'm taking a break from the holographics to take you down the magical duochrome path that is the magnificant Sally Hansen Turquoise Opal Nail Prisms. 

Turquoise Opal, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

1. You actually look the same on my nail as you do in the bottle
2. Thin, smooth formula
3. Awesome colour changing from turquoise green and blue through to rich royal purple.
4. Smooth glossy finish, top coat not required
5. Magnificant in sunlight and indoors.
6. Sparkley metallic shimmer finish
7. Great durability.

Ok, so it looks like I love you seven ways.

This was two coats Turquoise Opal over one coat generic black polish.  This first photo was taken in the shade, the rest were in full sun.

This is the Canadian version of the polish, which I actually nabbed off ebay just the other day.  In fact I nabbed two bottles for an excellent price and I have a special idea for what to do with my second bottle.  So stay tuned for that...

Artform light blue holographic 512

Only three more holos to show you from my giveaway range.  Introducing the light blue holo.

Um, what to say about this polish that is different from the previous posts about these Artform holo polishes. Same scattinear holo finish, smooth application, glossy finish, yada yada yada.  Oh not sure if I have said this yet, they are not super fast to dry like other holos, maybe that is why the wear is so much better?

Again, I wanted to do a comparison between this and the Nfu Oh 65 blue polish, so here it is.  I did this in the shade to show you that the colour is very similar. Nfu OH 65 on the index and ring, Artform holo on Middle and pinky.

Here is the sun comparison picutre. Artform on the left Nfu Oh on the right.  Yeah, I know it's no Nfu Oh, but it still sure is pretty.

Two more to go.

Artform pink holographic 516

Are you sick of seeing holos yet??  Nah, I didn't think so. This pink Artform holographic is one that you could win in my giveaway.

Again, great holo effect with a scatt-inear (my new word for for scattered and linear all at once) finish, like those in the OPI Designer Series.

Like the others in the range, this applied smooth and dried to a gloss, so no need to add a top coat if you don't want.  Although I found that top coat didn't dull the effect at all.  This was two coats in full sun.

Artform light green holographic 517

Continuing with my holo theme, here is the next Artform holo that you could win in my giveaway.

Artform Aqua Blue - or light green to me.

This one is super sheer. This was three coats. But it would also be great for layering over any polish to make it holo.

I wanted to do a quick comparison to the Nfu Oh light green to see how it compares.  Clearly they are different animals, although the colour similaralities were there.

From what I have seen of swatches of the Glitter Gal green holo, this one looks very close, even down to it being so sheer.

What I love about these polishes is that you don't have to wear them as a holo sandwich to get good wear, the application is heaps easier than Nfu Oh (as in you don't get strange bald spots) and they dry to a nice shiny finish.

Artform Red Holographic 518

Have you entered my giveaway yet?  If you have, then this is one of the polishes you could win.

This is the Artform Red Holographic polish.

The holographic effect in these polishes is very sparkly, and sort of linear. They are not like the China Glaze Kaleidoscopes (scattered holo) nor are they like OMG or Nfu Oh (linear holo)  In fact they are both scattered and linear in appearance, most like the OPI DS series (think Original and Desire).  

This polish is the closest I've seen to a true red holo.  I know Glitter Gal do a strong red holo called "Not another red", but many of the swatches I've seen show it looking rather pinky.  This one also leans a little pink, but generally is a pretty good red holo.

As you can see this has a decent amount of holo goodness.

Thanks for looking.

Covered in Diamonds

Some time last week, I spotted this polish over at Polish This. I instantly fell in love with it and promptly went off and purchased it. 

This is Color Club's Covered in Diamonds.  This is an old school flakey to me, exactly like my old Ulta 3 Wild and Crazy.  What I mean by old school is that these flakey bits are irregular and rough, and much larger pieces than current flakes seen in the Nfu Oh or Inglot flakies.

This is one coat of Ulta 3 Midnight with two coats of Covered in Diamonds, then two coats of top coat. Photo taken indoors.  I was really worried it was going to be seriously rough, but what I did after the first coat of top coat, was press down on the nail gently, pressing all the rough bits of the flakey into the soft polish.  Then the second coat of top coat really smoothed it out, leaving it almost smooth.

Here it is in the sun.

I did find this polish really gluggy, in fact I added about 10 drops of thinner to this brand new bottle, otherwise I would never have been able to get it on my nail.

There are so many colours in this flakey polish, blue, green, orange, yellow.  I personally think it looks best over a dark colour, just like all the other flakies.  I will have to try with different coloured bases.

Holo sandwich

Awesome response to my giveaway already. Thank you to everyone that has filled in the form. I tell you, some of you girls out there have A LOT of nail polish!!  Check it out here if you haven't entered yet.

It would come as no surprise that I love holo polishes.  But one of the biggest problems with some brands (I'm talking about you Nfu Oh) is that they flake and chip so quickly.  I even have this problem with China Glaze OMG and Kaleidoscopes.  I even read something about GOSH holographic being specifically made for party's and as such wasn't designed for longevity.

In doing my blog reading catch up I discovered some blog posts from mid last year talking about nail polish sandwiches.  I thought I would try it out and do a wear test.

For my holo sandwich test I used Nfu Oh 63.  The pink holo.  When I wore this in the past it didn't even last one day.  I had chips at the edges and it just flaked off in big chunks (although I didn't use the Nfu Oh Aqua base, which is meant to help with this too).

My holo sandwich was:

• One coat Nailtek II foundation base coat
• One coat Nfu Oh 63
• One coat Australis top coat (I like this top coat cause it works well when I do foils, doesn't have shrinkage and doesn't chip)
• Two coats of Nfu Oh 63
• One coat Seche Vite top coat

Here it is at the end of Day 1 - a full 24 hours of wear.

End of Day 2 - full 48 hours. Look still no chips.

End of Day 3 - I can't believe how good this still looked.

My thumb at the end of Day 3.  Yes there is wear there, but no chips or flakes.

After three days I was just busting to change my polish.  Especially as I just got a massive haul in the mail.  But I reckon this holo sandwich would have lasted at least two more days with only tip wear and no chips.

Verdict: If I need my mani to last a few days or I'm going away for a weekend, then I'm taking a polish sandwich with me!

My First Blogiversary - Giveaway - CLOSED

CLOSED

Just the other day marked one year since I did my first blog post.  Although I was pretty much on hiatus for six of those twelve months being pregnant and not being able to stand the smell of any nail polish.

Anywho, in honor of my blogs first birthday, I'm giving away eight mini 5ml Artform holographic nail polishes.

Colours are: Purple, Dark Blue, Light blue, Aqua Blue/Seafoam Green, Gold/Platinum, Light Pink, Dark Pink and Red.

These have been decanted from my bottles, into brand new mini bottles.  I'd love to give away brand new full sized bottles, but my giveaways aren't sponsored and unfortunately I just don't have that sort of money to spend. This way you are able to experience each colour, rather than just one or two.  If you don't like the idea of receiving mini bottles decanted from mine, then please don't enter.

You can get up to eleven entries, just fill in the form at the bottom.  Even non-bloggers can get multiple entries by filling in the survey questions.

Open internationally. 

Closes 20 April 2011 - anywhere in the world.

Winner picked by random number generator.

These polishes are only available in Australia, and they don't ship internationally, so here is your chance to try some awesome holographic polishes.  Some of these polishes only just arrived yesterday so I will be posting swatches of them to show you what you can win. But to get started, here are a couple.

Purple

Gold/Platinum

Plucking chickens

Today I'm sharing with you OPI Meet & Jingle with Nubar 2010 layered on top.  This did look very pretty, but I'm afraid I have a problem with red polish, and it goes back to my Granddad.

My Nana (my Mums Mum) who passed away more than 20 years ago, had beautiful nails.  My mum always comments how I inherited her nails.  Nana loved to paint her nails, and unfortunately I never got to share that experience with her. But one thing I do remember is what my Granddad used to say to her when she had red nail polish on.  So what was it?  "You've been plucking chickens again".  Isn't that just awful!

So now, whenever I wear red polish, it kind of jumps out at me and I always think of that phrase. So I'm just not sure that I like it on me.

Anyway, here are a couple of up close pictures to show the beautiful flakies in Nubar 2010.

I'm looking forward to applying 2010 over some other dark colours, probably blue tones though.

Nail blogger lingo

When I started reading nail polish blogs about a year and a half ago, I discovered a whole new vocabulary.  Lets have a quick chat about a few of them today.

Lemming - Ok, so my first thoughts when I saw 'lemming' was a small furry-footed rodent.  But the context of "I'm really lemming this" just didn't work.  My next thought was the lovable green haired characters in the Lemmings game.  Do you remember these little guys?  What a fun mindless game of the 90's.  I finally worked out that a lemming was neither of these, but in fact a longing, yearing, wish, desire etc. 

But now I'm beginning to wonder about the connection between lemmings (the game character) and lemmings (our polish desires).  I mean we get lemmings (polish desires) from seeing awesome polishes on other peoples blogs, and then getting the uncontrollable desire to have that same polish.  It seems that we are maybe a little like those lemmings (games characters) in following what we see other people do.  Umm food for thought.

Stash - So we all know what this one is, and no its not the same one as used during Movember when we say to our mates "Nice stash bro"... (Aussie gals will know what I'm talking about). I just love the way nail polish bloggers use this term.  Instead of having a nail polish collections, we have stashes.  And I just love seeing peoples pictures of the stashes, and how they store and organise them.

Haul - Another word that I just love how nail polish bloggers use.  When we get nail polish in the mail, its not just a delivery, its a haul.  "Look what I just hauled in", like you've just been fishing and you caught a fish 'this big'.

Shrinkage - Alright, when I first saw someone writing on their blog about shrinkage, I had a little giggle like a school girl, just like Homer Simpson when he says 'titmouse' tee hee hee.  Seriously now, last time I heard the word shrinkage was from my husband after jumping into our pool and finding it A LOT colder than expected. But now I understand, in the nail polish world this means where the polish dries and pulled back from the edge of the nail, thus shrinking as it dries.

Konad - Another word that when I first saw it, I was like "what, are you serious, you named your product Konad".  When I told my husband I bought some Konad plates online, he did a double take and said "you bought what...", "Konad" I said, "not Gonad".  Google it if you don't know what I mean.

And now, because this is a nail polish blog, here are some pretty sparkly nails.
This is Nubar Violet Sparkle, three coats with base and top coat. Very beautiful, bitch to remove.

I've learnt so much from nail polish blogs, where would I be without you.

Five colour mood polish?

Last year, when I purchased my Artform holographic nail polishes, also found on their website a few bottles of five way colour changing mood polishes under the brand name of Dare2Wear.  I ordered all five at the time, but two were out of stock, and sorry, they don't seem to have them at all any more.  But I still thought I would share.

So, these polishes are meant to have five colours.  A cold colour indoors, warm colour indoors, cold colour in the sun, warm colour in the sun and glow in the dark.  How awesome do they sound!!  They had me, hook, line and sinker.

Unfortunately, they didn't quite live up to what I had hoped.  This one is suppose to be Luscious Lavender on the nail, and Baby Blue on the tip indoors, then change to Mystic Beige on the nail and Lime Gold on the tip in the sun. Finally, it's suppose to go Neon Green in the dark.

So here is the indoor pick.  I guess you could call this Luscious Lavender.  It's a nice metallic finish, not streaky and quite a pretty colour, but there isn't any difference with temperature.  I tried hot water and cold, but no changes.  I wonder if these mood polishes lose their effect over time?

Here is the sun picture.  As you can see there was a definite colour change to the Mystic Beige, but again no sign of the Lime Gold on the tip.

Finally, was it neon green in the dark?  Well, although it was the hardest picture to capture, YES.  It was really cool and kinda freaky.  I remember laying in bed after all the lights were out and giggling to my husband "tee hee, look my nails are glowing".  Although I couldn't see, I'm sure he rolled his eyes in his head as he said "that's nice darling".

I have another two bottles with other shades. I have tried one, and it is the same as this one with regards to the temperate changes.  Maybe the last one will show all five colours.  Either way, I love the two colours in this one, and the fact that it glows at night is just a fun bonus.

Franken - Aurora Australis

WOW, awesome response to the Ulta3 giveaway yesterday.  They are all but gone.  There are five polishes left and if no one takes them in the next day or so, I might pull them and create some much better frankenpolishes with them, and given those away instead?  What do you think?  Especially as the leftover ones are three glitters (which the coverage is pretty poor) and two neons.

Speaking of Frankenpolishes, here is my latest, which I have named Aurora Australis. 

The Aurora Australis are the southern hemisphere version of the Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis, and are generally only viewable from Antarctica, but can also be seen from Tasmania.  I picked this name because, well I live in Australia and because this polish is a black jelly with holographic glitter.  The black jelly is like the night sky and the holo glitter is like the multicoloured lights that appear over the south pole.

Next, the obligatory blurry shot to see the glitter.

And now up close to see the glitter.  This was meant to be in focus, my bad.

I made this starting with a 3/4 full bottle of clear polish and adding a tiny bit of black oxide pigment.  Now I mean a tiny bit, like half the size of a glass pin head.  Then I added about a teaspoon of holographic glitter.  I was super happy with how jelly like the black polish remained.  I can't believe how little black pigment you need to use.  I didn't want it to get too pigmented, otherwise you can't see the glitter within the coats. This was two coats with top coat.

Glitters are so hard to photograph, and without the sunshine, I had to resort to taking these under the tastic lights in the bathroom.  I have to work out a better lighting solution for cloudy days.