I was recently contacted by Ana from The Nail Collection, asking if I would like to trial their new subscription nail box. I replied to her saying I'd love to, but reminded her that I was in Australia, and didn't think her nail polish subscription services would be available for international customers.  To my amazement, Ana replied that yes, their subscription box was open to some international countries - which is what really set them apart.

Firstly, let me show you what I received in my The Nail Collection box.  It arrived from the USA in just under three weeks, which is pretty standard nail mail time. Upon opening the box there was my package gently wrapped in black tissue paper sealed with a sticker.  Inside was pink crinkle cut filling, a note from Ana and each polish individually wrapped in bubble wrap (bottles were unwrapped for this photo).

The polishes I received were China Glaze Mimosas before Manis, OPI Can't find my Czechbook, Essie First Timer and Essie Under Where?  Naturally I had to do swatches of each of these pretties.

China Glaze - Mimosas before Manis.

Essie - First Timer

Essie - Under Where

OPI - Can't find my Czechbook

Firstly, I was very happy to receive four polishes that I didn't have. Always a bonus with a subscription.  All polishes are from recent collections, so they weren't just old cheap stock either. Plus they are all full size, not minis.

I'm sure I read somewhere that you also have the option to choose your own colours from the available collections for each month - although I can't see that info on their site at the moment.

So the big question is - how much is this subscription box?  The box price is $30USD a month and you will always get four full sized polishes from recent collections from brands such as OPI, Essie, China Glaze and Orly.  There is free postage in the USA, but for Aussies postage is $9.99 (a pretty good price considering the recent increases).

Now if we talk Australian retail prices, then this box is an absolute bargain. OPI = $20, Essie = $18 and China Glaze = $12. Total Australian retail value = $68  Of course none of us pay retail, we generally buy from etailers or ebay who are much cheaper.  But I still don't know that you would be able to get the variety of brands from one etailer, which would mean higher postage costs.

Ana also generously provided me with a discount coupon for my Aussie readers that would like to sign up to The Nail Collection.  If you use the code "ausnails" you will get the first month's box for just $20 instead of the regular $30. So the total cost with shipping is $29.99 for the first month.  You can read more about the service and sign up at The Nail Collection website.

I'd love hear what you guys think about The Nail Collection's subscription service. Do you think this is something you'd be interested in? Do you like the idea of a nail polish subscription service?

Back to longer nails today for some EPIC Crowstoes Spam. So many amazing polishes here, I hope you stick around to the end for all the photos to load.

Birthday Suit - Nude shimmer polish with a color-shifting glass flecks that go from pink to copper to gold.  Such a gorgeous nude that went perfectly with my skin tone and the duchrome shimmer makes it so much more interesting. This is three coats with Seche Vite top coat.

Green Thumb of Doom - bright, but light green with gold glass fleck shimmer. Green and Gold in a bottle together, two of my favourite polish colors melded into one! This is three coats with Seche Vite top coat.

L'il Miss Cyanide - medium violet purple shimmer polish with a color-shifting shimmer that goes from lavender to green to yellow gold.  The duochrome finish to this one is very obvious and the shifting colours are so complementary.  There are some very light brush strokes noticeable because of the rich shimmer, but it is in no way frosty. This is three coats with Seche Vite top coat.

L'il Miss Sunshine - This one feels like the chunky sister to L'il Miss Cyanide, but other than the similar purple base, they are completely different. Lil' Miss Sunshine is a purple shimmer polish with color-shifting glass flecks that shift from silver to purple to green to blue. This looks amazing on the nail. This is three coats with Seche Vite top coat.

Milquetoast - A white-based glitter polish with various sizes of metallic copper hex pieces and holographic copper micro-glitter.  I'm used to my Crowstoes glitters to being very thick, chock full of glitters and needing some skill to apply.  Not this one.  Formula is perfect and smooth, the glitters spread easily and evenly and the milky base colour is just the right tint to achieve opacity whist showing the glitters through. It's one of those 'jelly sandwich in a bottle' polishes.

Season of the Witch - Oh my, this one blew my socks off when I put it on.  Actually, I wasn't wearing socks at the time, but I tell you I was so memorized by this when I put it on.  Season of the Witch has a black base with green glass flecks that shift from green to purple/fuchsia. The final look is like a polish that is layered over black, except because it's actually a blackened jelly base, this has more depth.  The colour shift is very obvious.  This was three thin coats with Seche Vite top coat.

Tequila Sunrise - A hot pink shimmer polish with color-shifting shimmer that goes from pink to green to gold.  Three coats with Seche Vite top coat.

Toxic Buttercup - A yellow shimmer polish with color-shifting shimmer that goes from yellow to pink. I wanted to enjoy the full buttery colour of this one, so I wore it on its own.  It built to a near opaque finish with three coats and was an easy yellow to both apply and wear.  This is three coats with Seche Vite top coat.

 

I hope you enjoyed that Crowstoes spam as much as I did.

Crowstoes are available in the USA from Llarowe.  They are also available in Australia from Femme Fatale Cosmetics and Shoppe Electicco in Singapore.

Polishes provided for review.

I wasn't going to post this for about a week, because I still have a bunch of swatch photos where my nails are longer before I broke quite a few of them, but this was one mani that I just had to share!

Continuing with my renewed love of nail art foils.  Remember how I said I bought a whole new collection of nail art foils off ebay, well this is one of them.  I bought my nail foils from an Aussie seller (cause I wanted them quickly and didn't want to wait for postage). I can't see this foil listed individually on her listings, I bought mine in a set of 20 foils where I chose the 20 I wanted.  This was #45.

This foil is the only duochrome nail foil I've ever seen.  The base colour is a metallic green (think the base colour of China Glaze Unpredictable/Missha HGR001/Peripera Metallic Green). The colour shift on this foil is to a pink and purple shade (which is different to the above listed polishes which shift to teal blue).

I did a base of Peripera Metallic Green in case there were any gaps in my foils, then applied the nail foil glue and let that dry completely.  I then put the foils on and covered them with two coats of Picture Polish Revolution to protect them.

These next three photos were taken on day three of wearing this mani, so there is most definitely tip wear showing here, but I thought it demonstrated very well how good Picture Polish Revolution is at protecting the foils, whilst keeping them wrinkle free.

When I was in the shower, I noticed how pretty droplets of water looked on my nails, so I took some photos of gently placed drops to show you.

The last two photos are taken underwater.  Underwater shots make duochromes look amazing - even this mani on day three!

I hope you guys like looking at nail foils, because I'm still completely obsessed with them. I love me some shiney blingy nails, and they don't get shinier or blingier than nail foils!