Today I’m sharing a little project that I have been working on for the last few weeks. 

I was sick of not being able to readily see each of my polishes to decide what to wear, what to layer (or stamp) over what. Of course I could look at swatch pictures, but that would take way too long, and what then to do about all those untrieds? I could swatch them all out on colour wheels, but how do I sort them for swatching? Sure I could swatch similar colours on a wheel, but what would I do when I got a new polish, it's not like I could insert it into the colour wheel in it appropriate place if that wheel is full. 

So this was my solution.  I bought many sets of nail art sticks off ebay.  Each tray holds 64 sticks.  The beauty of this system is each stick is totally removable and they can be sorted and moved around on the trays allowing for new polishes at any time.

Now here they are in colour groups.

Yes, it took ages to sort these into colour groups. Actually it didn’t take ME very long before I said “that’ll do”, but my mum (as a painter) sat there for hours (upon hours) adjusting and sorting. Anally retentive anyone?

So this is what the little sticks look like. Nice clean and shiny Perspex.

There is even a little flat spot to write on. I wrote numbers, which correspond to numbers listed in a spreadsheet that details brand, polish name and the number of coats. I love the fact that I can look among all my sticks of a similar colour, and then take them over to my outfit and pick the best complementary colour. 

So, what do you think?  Do you have a system in place to see what all your polishes are and to help choose a colour to wear?  I used to paint a falsie and sticky tape that to the top of the bottle.  See some old stash pics.

*edit* for those interested, the ebay seller was "4ushop777", they were called "Nail Art Tips 64 Stick Display Stand Rack Practice Tool" I paid $7.65AUD for each set of 64, with free postage.

Something a little fun today.  I thought it about time to pull out my AVON colour morphing top coat and try it layered over a different polish.  I chose LA Girls Groupie from the Rock Star collection.  There is so much going on with the mani, first the purple flecks from Groupie, then the amazing shifting shimmer from the top coat, going from gold to green.

I was amazed how easy it was to see both gold and green shimmer at the same time, but I wonder if this would have been better over a creme polish rather than a glass fleck one, because the shine coming from groupie started to hide the other two colours.

The green and the purple looked so awesome together.

Aaahhhhh, Colour Morphing top coat, I really love you. We shall never be parted.

Also - received an email from piCture pOlish last night saying they have 10% off Ozotic polishes at the moment (until 6:00pm 5 July Aussie time), as well as saying they have cheaper standard mail for international orders.  I have no idea how much cheaper it makes the international postage, but I thought I should let you know, as they are the only place you can get Ozotics that post internationally (even if their Ozotic prices are a bit higher than some other resellers).

Another comparison today, this time between Oztoic 502 Sands and Ozotic 520 Molten.  In the bottle these two do look quite different. Sands on the right shows more duochrome colours around the edge of the bottle.

 

Here is a swatch of both colours, two coats over black, in the shade outside.  I had a hard time picking between these colours in the shade.

But when you see them in the sun, you can see the difference.  520 Molten is redder, where 502 Sands is pinker.

Here is the orange shift, which is similar, but not identical.

This comparison shows it best. 520 Molten has a burnt orange finish, whereas 502 Sand is more of a green yellow finish.

When I wore these seperately, I thought they were dupy, except that I preferred Molten on me.  Which was silly given they were both so similar.  But because I preferred one over the other I thought there had to be a difference.  And there was.

I had a request to do a comparison swatch between Artform/Ozotic 508 and Ozotic 521.  These swatches are two coats over black and show 508 on the index and ring and 521 on middle and pinky.  

As you can see, both have a purple base colour.  Here it is outdoors (with the sun behind my fat head - as you can see in the reflection).

Here in the direct sun.

Both polishes shift through shades of pinks, reds and maroons.

And finally shift to a burnt orange gold.

To my eye, I couldn't tell any difference.  So I have no idea why they would re-release this is a seperate number.  I notice that in the B-range of polishes (believed to be another private label from lymineye) that they have both shades (508 & 521) listed for sale.  

If you have one, you probably don't need the other.

Jia, I hope this was helpful.  I certainly found it interesting.

Another spectacular multichrome from ozotic today. #520 Molten.  I have the whole collection now, so I will put together a quick reference colour guide in the near future.

I feel this is rather similar to #502 Sands, although they look totally different in the bottle they have a similar base colour and shift colour - if that makes sense. #520 Molten is a burgundy rust red shifting to amber, orange and gold.

This photo was taken in full sun, two coats over black.

Next photo taken outdoors, in the shade with the LED camera light on to show the shimmer and multichrome colour effect.

Outdoors, sun behind a cloud.

Full sun, different angle.  I love this shot, the colours in the polish make it look like its late afternoon in summer with a hot sun setting, whereas it was actually about 11am and 10 degrees.  I love that it makes me feel warm when it's so damn freezing at the moment.

I will do a comparison swatch of this and 502 just to see the differences on the nail.

Up until two days ago, I didn't own a crackle or shatter polish... and I still don't.  No, I have a 'Mosaic' one.  Seriously why can't nail polish companies stick with a consistent name for these sorts of polishes?

Anyway, this is the new Ozotic Mosiac polish, which for all intents and purposes (man I love using cliches - I might just have to pull a few more of them out of my hat) sorry where was I, oh yes, it works the same way as China Glaze Crackle, OPI Shatter, BarryM Instant Nail Effects etc.

So here are my baby gaga nails with mosaic on top. Application was a piece of cake and these crackle polishes are kinda fun to play around with. Then, waiting with baited breath to see what effect it will create when it crackles.

Below  is another quick mani I did as soon as my polish arrived in the mail.  Initially, I was a little disappointed with the crackling effect, but then I did some reading about crackle polishes (specifically this post from the lacquerista) and realised I should have waited longer for the base to dry.

I've only used this crackle polish twice, but both times I had that crack line just below the tip of my nail, on every nail.  Interesting. I think my thumb was the driest in the picture below and cracked to my liking the best.

So, while its a case of seen one, seen them all, I'm pretty happy with my Ozotic Mosaic and don't feel the need to try any other brand.

You can buy ozoitc mosaic from a number of etailers, with prices ranging from $5.95 - $12.95.  Just Google 'ozotic mosaic' and you'll find them.  Although I think only piCture pOlish ship internationally.

On another note, I was looking at the Artform website the other day and noticed that they no longer list their private label holographic or multichrome polishes.  I guess you girls bought them all out!  I also read on the Makeup Ally Nail board, a few girls ordered a polish from Artform and had an Ozotic Pro delivered.  

I guess I was right in saying their polishes were exact dupes of each other (using the same numbers etc), or more accurately, that the Artform polishes were a private label produced by Lumineye, whose proprietary brand is Oztoic. Looks like Artform will be supplying Ozotics to Aussies soon, and I think their prices will be a little better than piCture pOlish too.

Oh and sorry, I can't help it. Must. Use. More. Cliches.

Last night I was inspired by my daughters stripy jumpsuit to paint my nails.  This is the result.

Skyla was being very cute yesterday giggling and laughing, so I grabbed the camera and snapped a couple of pics of her (which is a good thing, because being #2 child there are only 1/10th the number of photos of her than of her brother!). Skyla has two nicknames at home, 'Poppet' (a name we started using after she was born) and 'Gaga', which is what her big brother calls her, as he can't seem to pronounce Skyla.  So more often than not, she is now called Baby Gaga.

Polishes used in this were, base layer of Ulta3 'bon bon', then strips applied using Ulta3 'poppy' and 'lagoon'.

The photos were taken under the bathroom light last night and appear a little bumpy, this is because they don't have a top coat.  I wanted to leave it top coat free as I was going to put a crackle over the top.  I'll show you those pictures tomorrow.

Please check out her post and vote (for whomever you like)!

Let me start by saying that this mani looked WAY better on the nail than it does in these photos, which show my very messy application.

On Saturday I ventured out for high tea at the Hyatt Hotel Canberra with my mum and my two sisters in law. High tea at the Hyatt, oh my, it is just amazing.  We all stuffed our faces (well at least I know I did) on amazing canapes and sweet creations, while sipping a fine cuppa.  

I put together this mani on Friday night to match my outfit.  I started with Sally Hansen Celeb City for the silver base.  I then used tape to mask off the line and the rest of the nail.  I then painted black in a black holo franken I had.  Finally I applied metallic silver foil stripes from a nail decals kit I had. Then many coats of SV top coat. This photo is indoors.

Here it is in the sun.  It was amazingly blingy, and really hard to capture because of the light flares.  Just check out the shine off the pinky.

So here is my top that I was trying to match my nails to.  I think it matched really well.  And like I already said, from a distance this looked way better than my zoomed in photos which are showing my rather ordinary technique with the tape!

Now to the title of the post, annoying stripes.  OK, this mani was so annoying I had to take it off on Sunday.  Those silver foil stripes looked great but where I had placed them with an end of the free edge of my nail was a terrible mistake. Lesson learned here!  

The tips just kept lifting and catching like a bit of broken nail - on every finger.  I can't convey how annoying it is to have every single nail snag on your clothes or your hair.  It didn't matter how much top coat I put on, or how well I filed the edge of the foil smooth, it just kept lifting. Next time I use these strips I will make sure both ends are against my skin edge to protect it from lifting.

Today's post is about some of the crazy brushes I have come across in my stash.

First up is a bottle Bourjois with this seriously wide brush.  It's meant to be a one second application, but I couldn't get the hang of this massive brush.

Just as a comparison, here is my OPI DS Glamour, with the OPI pro wide brush. See what I mean, that is one seriously wide load!  Because its so wide it holds so much polish, which makes it hard to not get cuticle flooding.

Next is a bottle of Stuf. That's Stuf. the brand, ok.  It seems that this brush is a little too long for it's bottle, and therefore it curves at the bottom of the bottle.  This is an old polish and it has obviously gone like this over time, but geez it really made it a PITA to apply polish neatly with this.  You think you are lined up for a nice neat curve at your cuticle to find the brush kick to the side and smear polish down you skin.

Next is a new polish.  This is my bottle of Orly Lunar Eclipse.  Half my bristles are snipped halfway down on a diagonal.  This leaves me with only half the brushes to apply the polish and its really thin.  Not a huge problem, but I thought I would include it.  I makes you wonder what happened to this brush in the manufacturing process for it to end up like this.

Finally, my favourite screwed up brush.  This one is hilarious.  Now those strands sticking up are actually caught in a split up the side of the wand.  I couldn't believe my eyes when I opened this bottle, those strands flicked out and splashed polish across my table.  This is another old Australia brand called Blush-amour.  Evey time I open the bottle I think, I should cut these off, but I never have.  I think its more fun this way.

So how many defect or 'strange' brushes do you have in your collection?

It's located in the Robina town centre on the Gold Coast. Which is a two hour plane ride away for me, but still.  What an awesome idea!!  Ladies overseas, do you have nail polish vending machines where you live?

I wore the multi coloured JQ glitter first, because there seemed to be the most interest in this one. 

This was one coat of Ulta3 midnight, one coat of JQ glitter polish and one coat Seche Vite.  There are a few rough patches, but it certainly isn't annoying nor does it make you pick at it like a kid with a week old scab (ewh!). The suspension polish forms a nice glossy layer over the polish, but you still must wear a top coat to get it feeling smoother.

These polishes are smelly, and with no ingredients on them I would guess that they are not three free.

This one, has hex shaped glitter in it, large blue, pink and fuschia pieces and small silver ones. Its really hard to take full sun shots of a glitter because of the light flares of the glitter particles.  The above photo is in the shade, below in the sun.

Super up close.  Because these hex glitters are very thin, you can see how they actually curve, sometimes they curve downwards, other times upward.  Where possible I tried to get mine curving downward because it gave for a much smoother finish.

I wore this over black for the day, then I was browsing the web last night and saw swatches of Deborah Lippmann's 'Glitter in the Air'.  I thought it looked kinda similar, so I took off my mani and applied it over a light colour.

Here I have two coats of Ulta3 Allure and one coat of of JQ multi coloured glitter.  I really like this combination too.  It's not as in your face as over a dark color.

Unlike Glitter in the Air, the glitter pieces in this are super shiny and very reflective.  The Glitter in the Air ones look kinda dull, maybe because of the milky base?  The coverage of the glitter in this also seems much better. Although the glitter particles did stick together a little bit, I was easily able to separate them with the brush on the nail.

My verdict so far with these JQ glitters is, AWE - wait for it - SOME!  I'm really looking forward to trying the other polishes with different colour combinations.

Because I haven't swatched any of the JQ glitters yet, here are some pictures of Ozotic 505 Eclipse to drool at. Turquoise green base with purple multi chrome shift.  This is two coats over black.

Here it is in the shade outside.

In the full sun.

Seriously, this doesn't even look like the same polish does it!!

The purple goes almost red. Spectacular.

Now grab a cloth and wipe your keyboard.