Swatch: Enchanted Hey Jude and Octopus's Garden

Getting my hands on all six of the Enchanted Beatles Collection polishes from Llarowe at once was a huge coup for me. I'd spotted the polishes on her site months earlier, but they were always sold out. I'm not the biggest fan of holo polishes (or, at least, I wasn't) but the gorgeous colours were too hard to resist, and combined with those names (I've been a Beatles fan as long as I can remember), well, I knew I had to get them!

The next time the restock rolled around, I camped out on my work computer- 1pm restocks are 9am for me and normally I'm busy at that time, but luckily it coincided with a fairly easy day, right before Christmas.  

I refreshed and refreshed, and once they became available I clicked like a maniac to get them into my cart. I was terrified of cartjacking, as I'd heard all about people's frustrations with it. I went to pay- and had issues with my paypal account! It took me a ridiculous number of tries to log into it, and I still don't know what the problem was. With a sinking heart, I finally managed to log in- and the polishes were still there! It was a glorious victory, and I may have performed a happy dance in my office (which luckily no one was around to see)!

When they arrived, I was smitten.

Femme Fatale swatches: Sinister Calling, Glinting Lodestone and Quivering Heart

Oh boy! This is going to be a mammoth post!

A couple of weeks back, my Femme Fatale polishes arrived from Llarowe.com and I ripped the package open with glee to find these three:

                                      L-R Sinister Calling, Glinting Lodestone, Quivering Heart

I couldn't wait to try them, so last weekend, I tried on Sinister Calling, and today I tried the other two. I used a PVA base to minimise cleanup, and it worked a treat! Sinister Calling lasted 24 hours before one finger fell off, and I peeled the others off early, but I expect they would have lasted about the same.

Nail art: Zoya Purity, Girly Bits January Morning and CrowsToes Triple Black Diamond

I thought I'd try out a bit of nail art, using a couple of indie polishes I hadn't gotten around to using yet. Here's the black-on-white glitter gradient I've been sporting for the past few days.

I'm quite pleased with the way it turned out, since I normally do my gradients from the tips. It was a bit messy, and I haven't done a great clean up in these pics (and my cuticles are horribly dry!) but I'm proud of it nonetheless.

This post is going to be very picture heavy!

Swatch: Emily de Molly's Flurocious

In my ever growing wishlist of polishes, a large portion are by Emily de Molly. There's something about the gorgeous base colours and bold glitters that just catches my eye. And it drives me somewhat crazy that, despite being only a hop, skip and a jump from Australia, rules and regulations stop me from ordering direct from the etsy store. Luckily, Llarowe.com sells these delightful polishes, and I managed to get my hold on Flurocious.

I love neon pink, and always have, so I knew I had to have this polish as soon as I saw it. And then, to my surprise and delight, when I opened the package and saw it in real life, I realised that photos do not do it justice. In reality the colour just pops!

The polish has a creamy neon pink base, and contains black and white glitters in a variety of shapes and sizes- large and small squares and medium hexs in black, and large and medium hexs and small squares in white.

My First Swatch! Lush Lacquer's 'Salt n Peppa'

It seems fitting to me to begin my swatch posts with the polish that got me hooked on indie brands.

At some point in the middle of 2012, while reading various polish blogs, I learnt about the infamous 'Connect the Dots' polish by Lynderella. Since I like my polish to come without drama, and not too bank breaking, I started looking around at similar polishes. I stumbled across a few blog posts, like this one and this one, and started searching out which ones I could get my hands on.

I was particularly taken by the shimmery glitter in Lush Lacquer's 'Salt n Peppa', and was pleased to find their etsy store, and, even more excitingly, that they would post to New Zealand. I looked through their collection and fell in love with so many colours- I wanted them all.

And then when I saw they did mini bottles, I was over the moon. I immediately ordered 8 mini bottles, including 'Salt n Peppa', and eagerly awaited their arrival.

'Salt n Peppa' is a clear base, with large and small square, small hex and bar glitter in black and white, with a sprinkling of holo glitter for a bit of shimmer, and comes in two sizes- regular and mini.

About me

Before I get to posting swatches and whatnot, I thought I'd write a little introduction post about myself.