Alanna's Polish Stash

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Come check our my new blog Alanna's Polish Stash

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Essie My Better Half & She's Picture Perfect

My Better Half is a pink shimmer. She's Picture Perfect is a lilac creme with a purple shimmer. Unfortunately I couldn't capture the purple shimmer in my pictures. Both shades had a great formula, I used three coats for each swatch.

If you're looking for some Essie polishes I suggest you check out Beyond Polish. They are very reasonably priced and provide international shipping.

The products in this post were provided for review. Please see my disclosure policy for more information.

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Incoco Nail Polish Appliques

Incoco recently sent me Perfect Prom Purple and Urban Jungle nail polish strips to review. I prefer nail polish strips to nail foil stickers. These nail polish strips are made from real nail polish so they are more flexible and adhere to the curve of your nail better. These are great for a special occasion or even everyday wear. They don't need to dry so you're ready to go as soon as you've finished applying them.

If you have short nails like mine you will probably be able to get two full manicures out of one packet. Each strip is curved at both ends so if you cut it in half you should have enough for two nails. The only thing is, that because these are made from real nail polish they dry out. You'd have try and reseal the packet to keep the other set fresh.

The packet says they last up to 14 days but I didn't wear either of these for more than a week as they had started to chip by then.

I really loved both of these! I don't get a lot of time for nail art any more so I enjoyed wearing some patterns without having to spend much time on them. Also even though I have short nails the Purfect Prom Purple gradient still fit on my nails.

Incoco

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The products in this post were provided for review. Please see my disclosure policy for more information.

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CND VINYLUX Review

Beyond Polish sent me some CND VINYLUX polishes to try. I'd never tried CND before but I was very impressed. Both of these were opaque, I only needed two coats. I also received the CND VINYLUX Weekly Top Coat. The brush was really soft (it might be good for use over stamping without smudging) I used it for both swatches, it dries fast too.

Both of these shades lasted quite a while, I wore them for at least a week and only had mild tip wear no chips. My favourite was Purple Purple, can't beat that gorgeous purple and blue shimmer combination.

The products in this post were provided for review. Please see my disclosure policy for more information.

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ulta3 Colour Game Collection

tone it up is a coral creme. The formula was good. Fairly opaque. I used three coats for the swatch above. I forgot how much I liked corals until I wore this, I really loved it!

palette play is a slightly muted purple creme. The formula was good. I used three coats for the swatch above. I love purples and this is no exception!

emerald inten-city is a green creme. The formula was good. I used three coats for the swatch above.

bright me is a bright orange creme. The formula was good. I used three coats for the swatch above.

block it out is a blue creme with a subtle shimmer. This was opaque and I only needed two coats. I really like this one too.

The Color Game collection will be added to the core range of ulta3 so you won’t need to worry about them becoming unavailable any time soon. ulta3 ran a promotion when they released these shades last month. If you spent $10 you got a free bag. I've got the bag and it's really useful! You might still be able to pick one up if your local store still has some left.

Image credit: ulta3

ulta3
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The products in this post were provided for review. Please see my disclosure policy for more information.

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Pretty Serious Hit The Road Collection

This collection has been out for a while now. I bought both of the new Halloween collections earlier this week so I thought I should hurry up and post these! This collection is based on famous movie cars.

88mph is a grey steel packed with holo glitter. The formula was thick, opaque and it dries gritty, like the liquid sand finish. I used two coats in the swatch above. This is my favourite polish from collection! 88mph is a tribute to the Delorean from Back to the Future. I love the movies, I think I'll watch them again soon!

Generally Hazzardous is serious orange with gold shimmer. The formula was great! I used two coats in the swatch above. You've probably guessed that this was inspired by General Lee, the car from The Dukes of Hazzard.

Hell on Wheels is a red creme. I used three coats for the swatch above. The formula was a little thin and I flooded the cuticle of one of my nails, probably mostly due to my lack of practice with applying cremes. I've been wearing glitters for a long time now! Hell on Wheels is a tribute to Christine, the car with an evil mind of it's own in the movie Christine.

Party Time! Excellent! has a mix of red, blue and gold hex glitter in a sheer green base. The glitter is dense enough that you can wear this on it's own. This was three dabbled coats in the swatch above. This is a tribute to the Mirthmobile from the Wayne's World movies.

Something Strange has a mix of red and white hex glitter with blue micro glitter in a clear base. This is perfect for layering and I've layered one coat over Hell on Wheels. Something Strange is a tribute to the Ecto-1, the car used by the Ghostbusters.
I've got the Ghostbusters tune in my head now! I'm going to have to watch those movies too!

Turbo Boost is a black creme with red bar glitter. I had so much trouble trying to photograph this one! It kept looking matte in the photos even though I was wearing top coat and it was very glossy in real life! I took 67 photos and this was the best I had. Turbo boost is a tribute to KITT (Knight Industries Two Thousand) the car from the Knight Rider TV series.

Pretty Serious
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Essence Me & My Ice Cream Collection

Ben & Cherries, three coats. This is a light pink shimmer. The shimmer is fairly subtle. 

Always in my Mint, three coats. This is a light green shimmer. Again the shimmer is subtle. This is my favourite out of the four polishes in this collection. 

Ice, Ice Baby, three coats. This is a mauve shimmer. The shimmer is subtle. 

Icylicious, three coats. This is a peach shimmer, the shimmer is subtle.

These four pastel shimmers are perfect for spring! I used three coats for each of the swatches. They all looked fairly sheer after the first coat so I was expecting to have to use more than three coats but they built up nicely.

The Me & My Ice Cream collection also comes with nail stickers and scented hand wipes.

The Nail Topping Stickers are small coloured beads on a clear sticker. Because the sticker is clear I wore these over Always in my Mint. The instructions say to cut off the excess with scissors, the small beads made cutting the nail stickers a little difficult. While I really love the look of these I didn't find them to be very practical. The beads were constantly coming lose and they were very tempting to pick off. These only lasted a couple of hours on me before I had picked all the beads off.

The hand wipes are scented, the scent was a pleasant fruity smell. There are 15 wipes in the packet. The wipes are just smaller than a tissue folded in half. These are perfect to keep in your handbag.

From left to right: Cone Head, Always in my Mint, Icylicious

I've never reviewed eyeshadows on my blog before so I hope my nail polish only readers don't mind. I don't think I'm good enough at doing make up to show you how these look on so I've just got arm swatches. I didn't plan my eye shadow photo very well, the order doesn't match up with the swatch photo.

As you can see these eyeshadows are pretty sheer.

Next up are the shimmer pearls and cream blush. The creme blush is quite opaque, and it was actually pretty hard to remove so perhaps its waterproof? There's nothing on the packaging to say it's waterproof though. Or this could be a normal characteristic for blush, I don't ever use it so I have no idea sorry.

The shimmer pearls are a very sheer shimmer that you can apply all over.

From left to right: Icylicious, Ice, Ice Baby, Ben & Cherries

The next product I have to review are the lip balms. These are scented and smell delicious! 

Icylicious smelt sweet and creamy, like strawberries and cream perhaps. Ice, Ice Baby smelt like bubblegum. Ben & Cherries smelt sweet but  I can't quite pinpoint what scent it was. 

Essence

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The products in this post were provided for review. Please see my disclosure policy for more information.

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Born Pretty Store Nail Foils

This was my first experience with nail foils. I had read that you need foil glue to apply them, and somewhere along the line I'd read a description of foil glue that I thought sounded a lot like PVA glue. I didn't have any foil glue but I have plenty of PVA glue so I thought I'd try to apply the foils using that.

I started with a black base because I didn't expect to cover my entire nail with the foil. You need to make sure the base colour is COMPLETELY dry before applying the foil. I used Seche Vite top coat to speed up the dry time.

Once the base and top coat was completely dry I applied a thin layer of PVA on one nail. When the PVA had just turned clear I put the foil over my nail with the patterned size facing up (I originally attempted applying them patterned size against my nail which doesn't work lol). I used the plastic handle of an old nail file in a rubbing motion to press the foil onto my nail. The pressure transfers the foil onto your nail. This is why you need to make sure that your base colour is completely dry otherwise you'll smudge and dent it trying to apply the foil.

I worked one nail at a time so the PVA glue would still be tacky enough to grab the foil. You need to wait until the PVA has turned clear, it won't work if the PVA is still white.

Each roll of foil came in a small plastic container and you get a substantial amount of foil on each roll! Born Pretty Store has a lot of different patterned foils available on their website here. Don't forget you can use my discount code for 10% off!

Born Pretty Store

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The products in this post were provided for review. Please see my disclosure policy for more information.

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Duri - What a Keeper, Provocative Innocent, Miracote, Drop 'n Go & Pink Tiger Lint Free Gauze

What a Keeper is a purple creme with a subtle blue shimmer. This was really opaque and I barely needed the second coat. It's more of a one coater but I used a second coat to even out the first coat a little.

I couldn't really capture the blue shimmer on my nails but you can see it in the bottle.

               NAIL POLISH INFO 

Brand: Duri

Name: What a Keeper
Number: 604
Coats For Opacity: 2
Colour: Purple
Finish: Shimmer
Made In: USA
Volume: 15ml | 0.5 fl. oz. 
Price: $18.00
Where To Buy: 
Duri
Pink Tiger

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Provocative Innocent is a berry cream polish. This wasn't as opaque as What a Keeper but built up to opacity easily in three coats. 

I really like berry shades but don't actually own that many. The formula was really nice.

               NAIL POLISH INFO 

Brand: Duri

Name: Provocative Innocent
Number: 594
Coats For Opacity: 3
Colour: Berry
Finish: Cream
Made In: USA
Volume: 15ml | 0.5 fl. oz. 
Price: $18.00
Where To Buy: 
Duri
Pink Tiger

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Duri have a polish drying spray called Drop 'n Go. You spray it on your nails after applying top coat to help speed up the dry time. This left an oily residue on my nails which I didn't really mind because I just rubbed it in like cuticle oil when my nail polish dried. I always use quick dry top coats so I don't ever need to use a drying spray.

Duri Miracote is a fast drying top coat. I've been using it for a while now and does dry really fast. The fast dry top coats that I've used previously were thick and when you got down to the last half of the bottle they had to be thinned out. Duri Miracote has a thin formula so I'm hoping it won't need thinning  when I get towards the end of the bottle.

My nails are quite long and I noticed that while Miracote was drying that the tips of my nails went frosty. The frosting disappeared once the topcoat had dried. I tried using Miracote over a few different brands of polish but the frosting appear on all of them. I have tried using other brands of top coat and the frosting didn't appear so I'm not sure why it happens with Miracote. 

I also received these Pink Tiger Lint Free Gauze Sheets to try. I usually use cotton balls and they leave behind plenty of fluff! The gauze were good in terms of not leaving behind any lint but I found that the remover evaporated quicker. They were good for scrubbing off glitter polishes though!



The products in this post were provided for review. Please see my disclosure policy for more information.

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piCture pOlish Blog Fest 2013

Celebrating the Year of the Blogger

I was lucky enough to be selected to be part of the piCture pOlish Blog Fest this year! I was given three shades to use to create some nail art. I received heavy metal, starry night and bright white. I decided to use the three shades to do a dotticure.

piCture pOlish shades are available worldwide from either piCture pOlish or the piCture pOlish Network. For more information on shipping prices visit their Shipping page. Make sure you check out the Everyday Deals page too!

There are 3 Blog Fest awards to be won this year. Each award is the opportunity to create a collaboration shade with piCture pOlish. The winners will be chosen via Pinterest as follows:
1 award for the highest voted design by piCture pOlish fans.
1 award for the highest voted design by Blog Fest 2013 participants.
1 award for the design chosen by Jules and Megs from piCture pOlish.

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The products in this post were provided for review. Please see my disclosure policy for more information.

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June 2013 Haul

 Pretty Serious - Turbo Boost
Pretty Serious - 88mph
Pretty Serious - Party Time! Excellent!
Pretty Serious - Naughty Night Shift Nurse
Pretty Serious - Hell on Wheels
Pretty Serious - Something Strange
Pretty Serious - Generally Hazzardous

I purchased these from Pretty Serious.

ulta3 - celebutant

ulta3 - gossip

ulta3 - a lister

ulta3 - striking

ulta3 - infamous

ulta3 - show stopper

ulta3 - xoxo

ulta3 - glamourpuss

ulta3 - stop the press

ulta3 - triple threat

ulta3 - outasight

I purchased these from my local Soul Pattinson Chemist.

 Lilypad Lacquer - Stretch for the stars
Glam Polish - Ahhh... Aliens!!!
Love Thy Polish - How Do You Spell FBI?
Peita's Polish - Hello! I'm Trixie
Alanna Renee - Lenny

I purchased these from Glam Polish as part of the June What's Indie Box?

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