Welcome to Swatch A Palooza 2013! This is were we are going to celebrate all things bright and colourful. I'll be swatching my entire polish collection by brand, as well as all of the makeup - and yes that includes my entire pro kit as well.

If you guys see something you like, speak up. Let me know if you want more info, a proper review, a comparison with similar brands or shades. I'm here for you guys, so you get to say what you want to see.

Let's kick it off with some OPI shall we?

Into the Night
The Amazing Spiderman Collection - 2012

Glizterland
Swiss Collection - 2010

Skull & Glossbones
Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides Collection - 2011

Grape... Set... Match!
Serena Williams Grand Slam England Collection - 2011

Flower to Flower
Summer Flutter Collection - 2010

And another of Flower to Flower to really see that shimmer through it.

Ok, so that's part one of OPI done. Only a billion more to go!

I'll be back later this week with more OPI swatches and also swatches of all of my OCC Lip Tars, so stay tuned.

Hey guys,

Just a quick post today to show you my current mani which I am loving!

It's one coat of OPI Black Onyx with one coat of OPI Polka.com over the top.

Polka.com didn't impress me too much in the bottle but on the nail - wowzers. Love it's layering qualities but I'm not sure I'd be a fan of trying to get this opaque just from glitter.

It was released earlier this year as part of the Euro Central collection and it's a purple-blue, teal and fuchsia glitter in a clear base.

To sum it up? You need this polish. It's amazing. One coat, even glitter distribution. I'm sure getting it off will be a massive pain in the ass but hey, it's what we do for an amazing polish right?

So what do you guys think? Yes? No? Want to see it in another combo?

It's pouring here. Bucketing down. So what's a girl to do when it's a dark, wet and depressing? Organise her nail polish of course!

My collection is fairly large, but I know there is much bigger out there.

Pulling out the bottles and seeing all those colours and finishes makes me happy. You forget that you have some truly amazing polishes when they are tucked away in drawers all the time and you just grab the same colours over and over.

So here's what I'm going to do - swatch them all! Every single one. I think I will do them in brands as opposed to shades if that's ok with you guys, that way you won't be seeing pages of red, matte red, sparkly red, shimmer red, holo red. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but lets break it up a little shall we?

Now where do you want me to start?

I got an awesome package from the ridiculously awesome Jess of Polished Lyrics fame on the weekend. So excited. Full of makeup and polishes and all things oh so fabulous. Total squee moment.

I have the whole collection of OPI Shatters now. This is the blue one over Chine Glaze Papaya Punch which is another new one for me. Love it! Have gotten so many compliments today and the girls in my makeup class as well as my teacher went nuts over it.

One coat of Papaya Punch, let it dry. Then a thin coat of Blue Shatter. It looks really transparent, which worried me, but then I realised that when it shifts when it shatters, it groups together and forms solid chunks of colour so take that into consideration. The thinner the coat of shatter you can apply, the better it is going to crack and ultimately look.

Ok, that's it from me today. My Bloom Giveaway is going up tomorrow morning, so make sure you enter that, it's a ripper. (Which means awesome for you non Aussies)

Be awesome to each other.

Ok, so this is the mani I am currently rocking and I am loving it. It's gotten me a lot of comments from total strangers in the last few days and it's quite interesting to me because it's not a bright colour or a complicated pattern. I think it has more to do with the contrast of colour then anything else.

Ski Teal We Drop was released as part of OPIs Switzerland collection and while I didn't pick this one up first time round, I ended up buying it when I was killing time at the airport before we flew out to Thailand. I have no idea why I didn't get it initially. It's an AMAZING colour.

It's a dark teal creme that is good to go in two coats. As for dupes, it's very close to RBL Teal, but it's slightly lighter. I find it to be a really flattering shade that doesn't seem out of place in a corporate environment for some reason (not that that has ever stopped me before!)

I'll try post my new giveaway this weekend. I am giving away 2 Bloom polishes and 2 Bloom mineral shadows in the coolest shades of emerald and turquoise, so stay tuned.

To all you fabulous people who leave comments on my blog - I love you! I do read them and want to reply, but Blogger is crap and won't let me log in to do it. Very annoying. Might just be time to get my own domain sorted. Any recs from Aussies for some good people who build websites? I'm gonna need to get some professional help to get this up and running. And by help I mean, pay someone to do it for me.

That's it from me today.

Be awesome to each other.

This is one of my favourite manis I have ever done. The blue is OPI Blue My Mind which makes me cringe because the name is so lame. I mean, I know that nail polish names are not literary masterpieces, but I swear every polish company has a shade of blue with this name.

This is two coats and then one coat of China Glaze OMG stamped over the top with Konad plate m65.

I love the way this looks. The holo is very subtle and not all the noticeable indoors. It looks like a pale silver and doesn't detract from the blue polish, however when you get outside, it is amazing. The colours in the holo just pop and the blue really stands up well against it. It's not really a colour combo I had really thought about in that I don't wear a lot of bright blue polishes, but it just seemed right.

Have you ever had a polish combo that was so awesome it just "blue you away"? (hahahaha, now I'm lame too!)

That's it from me today.

Be awesome to each other.

I've been really slack lately remembering to take photos of my nails and makeup. When I've thought about it (i.e. at work, waiting for the train), I've taken a few photos of designs on my nails with the camera on my phone. So here are a couple.

Ozotic 505

OPI DS Original

OPI DS Original

OPI DS Original

OPI An Affair in Red Square

 I actually found that this is the only photo I have of Ozotic 505 that shows the true colour shift. It won't play nice with my expensive camera for some reason but it loves to show off for my iPhone. Weird huh? Maybe I need to photograph all my duo and multichromes with my phone to actually show you what they can do.

Anyway, that's it from me today.

Be awesome to each other.



Mondays suck - we all know that so I decided to make it a little better by  posting an awesome green polish. This is Zoya Suvi.

Three coats of awesomeness. This is a slightly dark forest green. The first coat is quite patchy, then the second evens it out, but is still sheer, so three coats is necessary for this polish.

It was released as part of the Downtown Collection in 2007. I also have Indigo from this collection and I adore it. I've seen swatches from the collection and I pretty much want them all.

So, that's Monday down for another week. It went relatively quickly without too many dramas. So that's always good. I was pondering what you guys might want as the prize for my next giveaway. Do you want nail polish? Makeup? I've got Benefit Justine Case Kits and BYS Animal Instinct palletts? Nail art stuff? Any requests?

That's it from me today.

Be awesome to each other. 

Lots of pics today because this polish it totally awesome. I picked up Bloom Bonnie in a bargain bin for $3 the other day. $3! It's normally $20 a bottle here, so even if it turned out to be a dud, it was still an exciting find.

However, as you can see, totally not a dud. It's brilliant. It's a dark indigo colour jam packed with microglitter. In the bottle, I can see hints of red in there (you can kind of see it in the bottle in the pics too), but it doesn't translate onto the nail which makes me sad, but only a little. Because it's still fabulous.

This is two coats, no topcoat, but let me tell you when you add a glossy tc, this baby smacks you between the eyes with it's awesomeness.

If you want to know what the dupes are to this, I would hazard a guess that it is close to Illamasqua Phallic, however this one is slightly darker and the glitter slightly larger and more obvious.

A stunning colour and I am more then slightly happy I dug through all the crap shades to find this gem.

That's it from me today.

Be awesome to each other. 

As promised, here is the winner of my Ulta3 giveaway - MINTY! I've sent through an email and if I don't hear back within 48 hours I will redraw.

This is one of my very few Finger Paints polishes - Psychedelic Pop. I got it in a polish sale ages ago from the incredibly awesome Jess over at Polished Lyrics. Do you follow her blog? You totally should - she's a total sweetheart!

This is a bright Barbie pink creme and while I know that bright pink polishes are hardly a rarity, this is still one awesome polish. Two coats and it's opaque, the texture is smooth although it is a little on the thick side, which is not really all that surprising for a creme polish.  Despite this, it's still totally manageable so long as you apply two thin-ish coats as opposed to one thick coat which will work but won't look as good.

That's it for me today.

Be awesome to each other. 

Hi guys. Sorry about the ridiculous slackness of my posting (or non posting) lately. I've just been having a hard time finding motivation since I got back from Thailand, but I cleaned out and rearranged my makeup and polish room and I feel like I'm ready to go again. I have a stash of swatches to show you, EOTDs to share and the winner of my Ulta3 giveaway to announce - which will happen later today. I also have another giveaway to share with you guys which I am totally excited about. I have tons of product reviews to post of things I bought while in Thailand too.

Another thing that I am incredibly excited to share with you is that I finally bit the bullet and enrolled into a Cert 4 in Makeup class and I start in a couple of weeks, so I will be able to share tips and tricks that I learn with you guys as well as posting pictures of what I get up to.

I really need to start working through my swatch library so I thought I would start with Zoya Kelly which perfectly fits the ridiculously cold weather we are having here right now.

It was released as part of the Zoya Wonderful and Wicked Collection Fall 2010. This is the only polish I got from the Wonderful collection. It is a stunning medium to dark grey creme with really strong purple undertones and often looks more purple then grey depending on the light. A perfect colour and possibly my favourite grey polish as it seems to work on just about any skin tone. I think it should be a must have for any collection.

The formula is smooth and the polish goes on almost opaque, I added a second coat to even it out, but could possibly have gotten away with just one.

I'll be back later with another swatch and the winner of my Ulta3 giveaway!

Be awesome to each other.

It's been a hectic week in Bangkok. I just have not had the time to post. I've been exhausted every single night and slept like a log even though the beds were extremely hard. As in we've put a blanket over a piece of plywood hard. It seems to have been quite good for my back though.

We spent a lot of time shopping. We ended up spending three days exploring MBK, which is the really big centre with over 2500 shops. On the first day we were there and only got through 2 floors. Seriously.

We also found the Siam Discovery building which had a Madam Tussuad's so we had to go in there for the corny poses. They also had some more upmarket makeup brands like Bobbi Brown and Shu Uemura. There was also the Siam Centre where I found a MAC store, Smashbox, Etude House and a heap of boutique makeup and skin care places that I went nuts in. I now have 6 new MAC shadows, another paintpot, lots of BB creams and related products, assorted eye shadows and an AMAZING Etude House polish.

At MBK I found lots of places selling fake MAC products and fake MAC and Bobbi Brown brush sets (actually, the Bobbi Brown brush sets were surprisingly good quality, but quite good brushes if you're not ready to plunge head first into expensive brushes). There were fake designer handbags and wallets galore and while you know they are fakes, they are also well made and with actual good quality leather so I couldn't pass up on getting a few of those.

There is also a Japanese department store called Tokyu which had a few brands I hadn't heard of so I ended up getting four shadows from there just to give them a try. I also found the most adorable limited edition Hello Kitty Maybelline Mascara that I just had to have.

The food here is divine as you would expect and I am getting used to the burning in my mouth and my lips going numb.

We went on a full day tour on Tuesday which involved riding elephants (and seeing baby ones!), rafting on a rickety bamboo raft and visiting the famous bridge over the River Kwai. It was a long day, but an incredibly memorable one. Our elephant was big on walking and snacking at the same time, which was amusing. Our driver man was really cool and grabbed my camera and jumped off and started taking photos for me, which was fabulous. Considering he'd never seen any kind of camera beyond a point and shoot before he did pretty well. And he quite enjoyed learning how it worked.

I went to a ladyboy cabaret and it was awesome. It was so camp and hilarious. The best way to describe it is to imagine a badly dubbed movie, thow in some ladyboys, sequins and big hair and that's the result. I don't have any photos of that since I didn't think I would be allowed to take my camera in, but I can tell you that some of them I would not have picked. They were stunning. Quite a few were mannish and in dire need of a wax, but all in all it was fairly impressive. I'm planning on hitting another cabaret before I head home, so I will endeavour to take pics there.

The grand palace in Bangkok. The only half decent photo I managed to get on the cruise.

Last night was our final night in Bangkok and we did a night cruise and of course, it poured torrentially with rain making it impossible to take photos. While waiting for the cruise to start we killed some time in the bar with cocktails and watched an Asian Elvis impersonator who was really quite good if not under appreciated by the somewhat snobbish clientele.

We flew into Koh Samui this morning and are staying at the Outrigger, which is breathtaking. I've got so many photos that I have taken today, but I will just pick my faves. There are three pools here. Our room overlooks one of them and we have our own private spa on the deck which is awesome. Now, if we could just figure out how to work the damn thing....

I've just had dinner and it was incredibly tasty. I had stir fried chicken with cashews in a spicy brown sauce and Kim (my housemate/ travel buddy) had Massaman Curry. It was tasty too. Oh, and the most amazing smoothie which had yoghurt, honey, banana and pineapple.

There is a tropical storm going on outside so we are staying in tonight after a day of lounging on sun lounges, swimming, sitting in the spa and of course drinking cocktails at the swim up bar in the infinity pool. Ah...it's a hard life, but someones got to do it.

That's it from me today.

Be awesome to each other.

I don't know how many of you guys have seen these yet, but this one of three polishes in the new Ozotic Elytra Collection.

I know that when someone says Ozotic, there is a collective intake of breath all over the world because you guys already know that Ozotic = Awesome. Well prepare yourselves, they've just gotten awesome-er!!!

These are laying glitters that in my opinion, look best over black, but work over other colours too. So what could be better then the multi and duo chrome awesomeness that Ozotic already offers? Multichrome glitters! Seriously!!!!

These glitters are total chameleons. This one in particular looks green in the bottle and on the nail, but shift your hand slightly and its purple, hit it at the right angle with sun, there is a bit of gold there and even a touch of red. The polish is predominantly green/purple though.

I took a bazillion photos since I didn't know how well the colour shift would translate, and I never like to let a good photo go to waste. Click them to enlarge into all their awesome glory.

BTW, this is layered over Illamsqua Boosh which is a fab one coat black in case you are wondering.One layer of 528 over one layer of Boosh.

I adore that an Aussie polish company is creating something that I have never seen before. It's really good to see that we can start trends as well as follow there over here.

These polishes are available at piCture pOlish and guess what? They ship internationally! And cheaply too! Click here to go get your own - you know you want to!

My skincare giveaway is still running - click here to enter if you haven't already.

That's it from me today.

Be awesome to each other.