Ulta3 nail colour review: Block it Out, Strawberry Sundae and Palette Play

Ulta3 polishes. They're a cult product in Australia. $2, fantastic shades, and great quality. I used to find my way to a bin at least weekly to dig through the polishes and find a new gem. Some of my favourite polishes are Ulta3 - Earl Grey, Watermelon, and Lollypop Lilac. So when I was looking through a bin recently and saw they were buy one, get one free, I couldn't say no. I ended up with Block it Out, Strawberry Sundae, and Palette Play. It was a hard choice, I had some pastels in my hands, but these bright colours caught my eye. My mum got a clear polish, which is why I only got 3.

Unfortunatley, these 3 polishes were a little bit of a letdown. They're just not up to the standard I expect with Ulta3. For $2 (or even the $2.50 that this shop sold them for) they're not bad, but they're not as good as other polishes I have from the brand. I heard some bloggers were unhappy when Ulta3 started making their polish in the PRC and the quality changed, but my bottle of Earl Grey was made in the PRC and I never had a problem with it. Now I can kind of understand the annoyance.

Block it Out is probably my favourite of the 3, even though blue is not my go to shade with nail polish. The quality is the best. It applies more evenly and more opaque than the others, and you could even get away with 1 coat. It's a deep blue with a kind of shimmer finish, not really noticeable until you look closely though.

Strawberry Sundae is the next best polish in terms of quality. It applies a little bit streaky, but is opaque in 2 coats. It's a bright pink, and I think a little too fluro to coin the name Strawberry Sundae, which I was a little dissapointed about.

Lastly, Palette Play, a dark 'violet crumble' purple. This was the polish I was least impressed by, taking 3 coats to apply evenly. Maybe it was because I didn't shake the bottle though, because after I did it applied a little bit better, but it wasn't fantastic. I'm not sure where the name Palette Play comes from though...

They didn't last very long on my nails, and all chipped within a day. However, you can tell how bad my nails are in the photos below, so it's pretty common to get chipping so soon even with more expensive nail polish. The quality isn't bad enough to stop me buying Ulta3 polish, and my local chemist just put up a really awesome Ulta3 nail polish display, which was completely untouched and had all their polishes on it. I'm not going to lie, it was kind of like Christmas. Hopefully it stays that stocked so I can attack it myself when I get some money, haha.

Excuse how horribly I applied these!

What do you think of Ulta3 polishes? What's your favourite colour?

W7 Glitter Polish: Multi Dazzle and Pink Shard

I went to Chemist Warehouse recently to check out their 50% off sale. I've never actually been to a Chemist Warehouse before, I don't live near one. There wasn't anything I had in mind to buy, so I just had a look. I ended up getting a foundation to leave at the boys house (Revlon Colorstay, so much better with the pump!) I didn't want to walk out with just that, and these glitters caught my eye. W7 is a budget brand from the UK. I never paid much attention to it when I was over there (think BOE from Big W and LOL from Kmart) except to have a quick look at their mascaras. Well, turns out they sell it at Chemist Warehouse and their nail polish are $3! There was quite a lot to chose from, but I went with some glitters.

top-bottom: 3 coats Multi Dazzle, 3 coats Pink Shard, 1 coat multi dazzle over Australis Peek-a-Boo, 1 coat Pink Shard over OPI Italian Love Affair.

Pink Shard is a clear based glitter with medium pink hexagons, and white medium hexagons, small circles and thin strips. It also has some medium and small blue glitters in it, not very many but enough to make it seem like it's on purpose. They don't really show up on the nails. Pink Shard has pretty good coverage with 1 coat, with 3 coats being enough to cover the nail.

Multi Dazzle is clear based, full of pink, red, blue, green and silver medium and small glitters. I bought it as a replacement for OPI rainbow connection which has started getting lumpy and gross. I probably would have preferred to pick up the Ulta3 rainbow glitter, but I haven't found it yet. Multi Dazzle's coverage is pretty appalling. One coat gets very sparse coverage, and 3 coats is not much better! This is one of those polishes that you have to dig for glitters.

Both polishes take a while to dry, and can be pretty gloopy already. For $3, I wasn't expecting anything great though. Pink Shard seems to have way more white glitters in it than purple, so would probably benefit from being put over a pink base if you were after a pink manicure. Their bottles are very similar to OPI, as is their brush which is very thick and great to get good coverage. I would like to try their coloured polishes though, to see if they preformed better.

Have you tried a W7 polish? What's your favourite glitter polish?

Ulta3 Speckle Polishes: Egg-cellent and Bunny Bloom

Ulta3 released these Speckle polishes before easter, but in true Ulta3 fashion they've been nearly impossible to find. I was lucky enough to spot a reasonably full stand when I visited a Terry White, and I wasn't even looking for them!

Speckle polishes are something I've been wanting to get into for a while now, since Illamasqua's first ones made their way onto everyones blogs. It seems Ulta3 are the first cheaper brand to copy them, which was fantastic, because I love their nail polishes! I picked up Egg-cellent and Bunny Bloom. 

Egg-cellent is a mint green, and Bunny Bloom is a strawberry milkshake pink (yep, that's what I'm using to describe it!) I wasn't really keen on picking up the other colours. They both have small black circles and larger black hexagonal matte glitters in them. To be honest, the formula isn't that great. I know they're a budget brand, but they're other nail polishes are fantastic, and this wasn't up to scratch. It was really goopy and thick to apply, and because it was so thick, it's hard to see anything beneath the top layer. The polishes would also benefit from more larger glitters. 
All this being said, I have seen these polishes look really nice on other people. My nails are awful. Really awful. And I think that effected how the polishes applied, because I needed 2 thick coats of Sally Hansen Nail Rehab. This, along with Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream seem to be helping my nails strengthen. A top coat probably wouldn't hurt either.

 

What do you think of the Ulta3 speckle polishes? Have you managed to find them? Or do you have another favourite brand for speckle polishes?

OPI Euro Centrale minis!

The OPI Euro Centrale collection has been out for a while now, I know. I never really paid much attention to it before I went to Europe. But now I've been to Eastern Europe, the area which these polishes base their names from, I've opened my eyes and realised how pretty these colours actually are! They're like little souvenirs of my adventures! I was eyeing the larger bottles off towards the end of my travels, and although I knew there was a mini collection somewhere, I was going to wait and buy a few full sized bottles when I got to duty free in Sydney airport. But of course, they didn't have them. But then my lovely friend Patty bought these for me when we went for coffee recently because she's amazing.

The mini collection consists of 4 colours,

Can't find my Czechbook - Bluey teal. It also makes use of a pun that got extremely overused while in Prague.

Suzi's Hungary AGAIN! - Coraly Red. Another overused pun from my trip.

You're such a BudaPest - Grey toned purple. This joke also doesn't work if you're using the Hungarian pronunciation - 'Budapesht'.

OY - Another Polish Joke! - Yellow gold glitter with a clear base.

Can't find my Czechbook and You're such a BudaPest both apply opaque with about 3 coats, Suzi's Hungary AGAIN! only takes 2 coats, and the glitter takes about 4 coats, and that's with a colour as a base. The glitter in OY-Another Polish joke is really tiny, and quite sparse. When I applied it over 1 coat of You're such a BudaPest, I needed 4 coasts to get a decent coverage, and could have even gone another coat. That being said, because the glitter is so tiny, you could get away with just using one thin coat over other polishes to give them a nice gold shimmer. If you're looking for a full on gold glitter, I would suggest trying Ulta3 Precious (if you can get your hands on it).
There is a little bit of shimmer in You're such a Budapest, but you can only really notice it in certain lights, like in direct sunlight. Unfortunately it doesn't photograph, so I can't show you.
They wear like your average polish. I usually find I get chipping the day I apply polish, which I found with Can't find my Czechbook, but I've worn You're such a BudaPest for a day now and had no chips! This was over Essence Studio Nails XXL nail thickener, and only had Essence nail art express dry drops put on top.

Can't find my Czechbook, Suzi's Hungary AGAIN!, You're such a BudaPest, OY-Another Polish Joke.

Natural Light

Sunlight

I think the mini's are an excellent way of allowing you to own a lot of a collection, without having to spend all your money on full sized bottles. They can be quite annoying to apply, as you need to make sure the brush is really full of polish to avoid the polish going on unevenly.
This set also had the colours I wanted from the collection, except for Polka.com which is a really beautiful blue, teal and purple glitter.

OY-Another Polish joke and You're such a BudaPest

Can't find my Czechbook

$10 haul!!

I mentioned in my last wish list that I just really needed to spend some money! It's been a long time since I bought anything I didn't need that was beauty related, so I was getting a bit itchy to spend mney. So I decided to set myself a budget of $10, and head down to Priceline during my lunch break. I knew it wasn't going to get me much and I was likely going to be restricted to Essence, but I just needed some new makeup to play with!I ended up getting 3 new things to play with! Rimmel I love Lasting Finish in Black Cherries, Essence Party All Night single eyeshadow and Stay All Day Long Lasting Eyeshadow in For Fairies. I ended up spending a little over my budget, with all 3 coming to $10.75.  I was expecting it to be a little bit more, but turns out the Stay All Day eyeshadow was only $2.75! Just incase you've been living under a rock they and many other great Essence products are being discontinued, so if you want to grab one you better hurry as my Priceline was running low!

Wish List: Nail Polish

Nail polish is the product that basically ignited my love for makeup. I started collecting them around the start of last year and now I have a collection of over 60. My family seems to think I have all the colours I would ever need, but I'm sure you can all agree with me that you can never have enough nail polishes!

1. Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On  

2. Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure I Pink Can   3. China Glaze For Audrey   

 4. OPI Berlin There Done That     5. Australis Space Jam    6. Essie Matte About You

I don't actually have a white nail polish and it would be great to use in nail art (I recently accidentally bought Maybelline Marshmallow thinking it was white and was very disappointed). I saw I Pink I Can on Lilit's blog as a match for MAC's Viva Glam Niki Lipstick, a lipstick I love the colour of but don't (yet) own. I love pink polishes and don't have a shade like I Pink I Can yet (although might be close to my BYS Isn't She Lovely polish - which isn't a great quality polish anyway). I'd also love to try the Complete Salon Manicure range.

I don't own any China Glaze polishes yet, and of the few (Ok, I want all of them) I want, For Audrey really stands out. I love pastel bluey greens, and I don't think I have anything like it in my collection.

OPI Berlin There Done that is another polish unlike anything I own. I really want a nice taupey shade and this looks perfect. I'm a little obsessed with the entire German/ Holland/Euro collections because I'm excited about going to Europe this year, haha.

Space Jam is from the new collection of glitter polishes that Australis has brought out. It's a purple jelly with blue glitter, and although some reviews say it's quite gluggy, for some reason I still want it anyway!

I don't have any matte polishes and have been thinking about getting a matte top coat so I can turn any of my polishes matte (doubling my nail polish collection with just one polish? Yes please!). I was going to get the BYS one, but after seeing some reviews it doesn't seem to work that well. Essie's Matte About You seems like one of the better matte top coats, and I'm going to try and hunt it down when Myer has an Essie sale (they always seem to be on sale there!). I also noticed that Essence have a matte top coat that is comparable with the Essie one, but after a quick look in Target and Priceline it doesn't seem to be available in Australia! If anyone knows of any great matte top coats that I could find easily in Australia, please let me know!!

What polishes are on your wish list?

Gloss 'N Sparkles Nail Polish: Unicorn Droppings and They Did the Monster Mash

As you can see from my Sale haul post, after Christmas I bought some nail polish from Gloss 'N Sparkles. After spending quite a while trying to decide what ones to choose (seriously, they're all so pretty it's almost impossible!), I decided to get Unicorn Droppings and They Did the Monster Mash.

They Did the Monster Mash (l) and Unicorn Droppings (r)

I knew I had to get unicorn droppings. It's such a unique polish and nothing like anything I own. It has a white shimmery base, with multi-coloured hexagon glitters.

Although I love the colour of this polish, I found it super frustrating to apply. I decided to do 3 thin coats to try and get glitter layers, but each layer took ages to dry. I also found that it was quite a clumpy polish and really struggled to get a nice even layer across my nails. I've only ever heard good reviews about this, so I'm sure it's just my inability to use nail polish that made me struggle. It's relatively long lasting, and I got a few days with minimal chipping using Seche Vite as a top coat(which is rare for me because of my brittle nails).

sunlight

flash

artificial light

They Did the Monster Mash is a blue cream polish bits of black, purple and green glitter, with small circles, larger hexagons and squares, and thin rods. I thought this was a pretty unique polish as well and looks awesome. I found that this polish also took quite a long time to dry, although seemed to be a bit easier to apply than Unicorn Droppings. Another down side is that there doesn't seem to be enough glitter, which is disspaointing as I don't like hunting for glitter and it's pretty dificult to do when the polish isn't clear. The glitter also doesn't show through the layers very well, unlike Unicorn Droppings, so there's no point trying to get enough glitter on your nail until you're on your last coat. This polish really only needs 2 coats. I used 3 coats on some nails because I wasn't happy with the glitter coverage.

sunlight

flash

artificial light

Overall, I'm pretty happy with these polishes, mainly because of how unique they are. They're also 3 free, and Australian Made which is a double plus. I would love to try some more polish from Gloss 'n Sparkles, particularly some jelly polishes (Like 3D Glasses Included and Pink Cigarette. I've read on Gloss 'N Sparkles facebook page that the etsy shop will be closed for a few weeks, so if you want to check out the polishes available you'll have to check the facebook. They have also been added to Femme Fatale, but won't be available to purchase for a few weeks. Australis have also recently bought out a polish that's very similar to Unicorn Polish called Milky Way (see it swatched on Beauty with the Beautifool) and may be easier to get your hands on (although I haven't been impressed with Australis polishes).

Have you tried either of these polishes? Do you have a favourite indie polish brand?

Weekly Nail: Mod-ern Girl

I got this polish for Christmas off a friend, and I thought I'd wear it when I went down the coast this weekend. OPI Mod-ern Girl is an orange with a slight coral tinge. It's the kind of polish that looks completely different in different lighting, and under certain lighting it looks a lot more orange than it looks in sunlight. Although it's a lovely colour (and the kind of colour I've been loving to wear lately), unfortunately it's not the best formula. It's quite thin and needs 3 coats to become even and opaque. 

Again, my nails are looking pretty terrible sorry! I've run out of the base coat I've been using (Sally Hansen Maximum Growth) and I really need something that's going to strengthen my nails.

Do you have any products you use to keep your nails healthy? What colours have you been wearing on your nails lately?

Coral Polish.

After my last (last as in previous, and because I'm no longer allowed to buy polish) nail polish haul, I've had a look through my nail polish collection. It's grown enormously over the last 6 or so months, and I'm starting to get a lot of similar colours. I've had a bit of an obsession with corals lately, meaning I've collected a fair few coral polishes. Here are the 6 corals (or close enough) that I have in my collection. I do love all of these, but I am still on a hunt for the perfect coral (which would be OPI Tropical Punch, which is discontinued and I can't find it online). However, these will tide me over until I use up some polishes and am allowed to buy more again.

OPI - I Eat Maily Lobster. This is my favourite of the 6. I got this for Christom my Dad (my sister had also bought it for me online but Dad didn't know, woops) after I've been wanting it for months. It's the darkest of the 6 and also has a slight gold shimmer to it.

Essie - Cute as a button. This is my second favourite colour. It's more of a pink toned coral. However, it's probably my least favourite formula of the lot, with an annoyingly small brush and long drying time. I'm not a fan of Essie's formulas, but I do like the colours once I've actually got them on my nails.

Ulta3 - Watermelon. This is the darkest coral I own, and my favourite of my Ulta3 polishes. I've talked about how much I love Ulta3 before so I don't need to say any more.

Rimmel 60 Seconds - 415 Instyle Coral. This coral is more orange toned. It also was the polish that went on the most un-evenly.

Australis - Todays News. Ok, this one might not be exactly a coral, but I'm adding it in because it reminds me of tropical punch. I prefer my corals to be more pink toned than orange, so I think this is a fantastic colour.

Face of Australia - Would you Like Some Orange Sherbet. Ok, again, not a coral, but if the Australis polish is included I thought this should be. I like the pink tones in this orange (which, ok, I may be imagining) so to me it's kind of a pastel coral. Click here for NOTD using this colour.

Clockwise from thumb: Today's News, Cute as a Button, Instyle Coral, I Eat Mainley Lobster, Watermelon.