Comparison: Design-er De Better vs. You're Royal Shine-ness

I'm purging the stash again, I need to make room for almost all of those OPI New York Ballets, a few Hollands, a few Electro Pops and hopefully the Misa Spring collection.


Designer De Better and You're Royal Shine-ness are too close to own both for my liking. No they aren't dupes, but you know, they're both silver foils and that's close enough for me.

Designer De Better is a lighter silver with rose gold speckles running throughout. You're Royal Shine-ness is a darker silver that has a deep green-gold base to it. They both give great coverage and I can't fault them on their formulas.

So I asked myself what I wanted them for. A silver foil that's going to pop with an outfit, well they'll both do that... so I went with Designer De Better, just because it has rose gold in it. I love rose gold.

Designer De Better was released in The Muppets holiday collection a couple of months ago, it'll be really easy to find. You're Royal Shine-ness was a special Serena Williams release and may be harder to find in store, but online will be a breeze.

Color Club Back To Boho Collection

This is the darker half of Color Club's Back to Boho collection, released for Fall/Autumn 2011. Boho chic is a cross between bohemian and hippy fashion, in a nutshell. Back To Boho offers you a whole Autumn/Fall nail wardrobe of vintage shades.

Left to right: Speedy Top Coat, Blue-topia, Voodoo You Do, Boho Mojo, Artsy Crafty, Nouveau Vintage and Rebel Spirit.

Boho Mojo

This reminds me of those beautifully designed art nouveau silver mirrors. I am not sure if it is what I was using as a base or not, but Boho Mojo was really watery. This is three thin coats shown here.

Nouveau Vintage

This is one of the most bizarre polishes I have come across! It's brown but green but gold but bronze...all in a sheer maroon base! This really is the image of vintage though, isn't it? It reminds me of old wooden furniture with brass hinges and handles.

Voodoo You Do

A deep gunmetal grey shimmer/frost. To me this gunmetal grey leans a little on the teal or green side of things. I feel like it was pulling my red, yet very subtle lobster tones out.

Artsy Crafty

Artsy Crafty is a great bottle green creme. Such a classy looking nail polish! Mum snagged this one as soon as she sore it! She decided to get rid of OPI Jade is the New Black because she loved this one so much more. Really smooth formula.

Rebel Spirit

When I had first tried this on at night, I thought my dreams had come true! A dark charcoal jelly! But when I tried it again in the day time, it was more of a really dark charcoal chocolate and not so jelly. It is very shiny though! I still like it. Nice smooth formula here too.

Blue-topia

Blue-topia is a very vivid navy. It does dry a lot darker than when first applied. Mum tried it on after me and we couldn't believe we were wearing the same colour! Just a nice rich deep blue navy jelly.

Speedy Top Coat

I cannot express in words how blown away I am by this top coat! But I will try. We've all tried heaps and heaps of top coats and as the days go by you get weary of having to try something new. After trying Essie's assorted embarrassments called top coats, I didn't have high hopes for Speedy. 


But as my manicure dried and the day went on, the mind blowing just got better and better! It dries really quickly, doesn't let any denting happen, no sheet marks the morning you wake up... I'm really pleased with it. I have even chosen it over Seche Vite many times.

New Zealanders can purchase the set here, from USA Nails Online for $34.50!

Nail Art: Happy New Year!

First and foremost, Happy New Year! Woohoo it's 2012 and we have one year left to live. I hope the nail polish selection is worth it this year!

For my New Years manicure I decided on a glitter gradient. I started with a base of Orly Le Chateau, added a thin sparse coat of OPI Gone Gonzo, followed by OPI Crown Me Already spread just along the tips, and lastly another sparse coat of OPI Gone Gonzo along the tips and up 1/3rd of the nail.

My new camera doesn't seem to be calibrated correctly at the moment. It always sees Gonzo as being quite silvery when it definitely has more blue to it. So bear with me while I try and sort that out!

Any new year resolutions? 

Mine are to work harder and be more of a good person.

OPI Crown Me Already!

Let me introduce you to one of my new favourite polishes, Crown Me Already! Hate the name, love the glitter! Crown Me Already is built up of fine silver glitter, small round glitter, small hex silver glitter and big hex silver glitter. So you've got a really nice mix of sizes in there.

I've had a lot of fun with this polish! It looks really neat layered between jellys, on the tips, graduated into another colour, layered....the list just goes on. It even looks great just by itself. I am wearing two coats of it on my toes. Kind of regretting that decision but it does look really nice in the summer sun.

This is two coats. You can see how dense it is and how quickly it builds up.

Crown Me Already was released in the Miss Universe collection released earlier this year. The collection wasn't released in New Zealand, however.

Color Club Fracture Collection

I recently received Color Club's Fracture collection in the mail! I have already shown you Tattered in Gold but it's nice to see the rest of the collection :D

This collection is Color Club's take on the whole shatter/crackle/fracture/texture trend. A nice colour selection available. Although it seems just about everyone has released a black, silver, white and a few have a gold. OPI has done a blue shatter similar to Splitting Image but this isn't a dupe. I also think Sally Hansen may have released a similar purple.

Smash Hit, Splitting Image, Clean Break, Kiss & Break-Up

Before I tried them, I was lucky enough to have a few words from the Wise about how I should apply the Fractures. Apparently he (boyfriend) thinks I apply it too thick and it covers most of the colour underneath. He was disappointed when I painted my nails purple and applied the gold fracture on top only to have the gold dominate.

Kiss & Break-Up, Clean Break, Splitting Image, Smash Hit

So I tried to apply them a little bit thinner here, I really like how they turned out. The white especially surprised me! I was a little bit iffy about it at first, but you know that old saying, "don't knock it 'till you try it".

I tried the Fracture polishes over a few shades before I tried them on myself. What I realised is that they don't fracture too well on the nail displays. But it's nice to get an idea what they'd look like over another shade.


Overall, I quite like this little collection. The formulas are nice, not too thick like my OPI Black Shatter tends to be. They fracture quite quickly and give a good coverage.

Tattered in Gold over a silver.

Names and Codes

Here is the link for Kiwis and Aussies to buy the Fractures at a cheap price! -  http://www.usanailsonline.co.nz/categories/fractured


Now that this post is over, BRING ON THE COLOR CLUB HOLIDAY POLISHES!!!

OPI & The Rugby World Cup

How cool is this?! OPI is putting a special set out just for the rugby world cup.


They are current colours, but I think it's nice that they did this. Still waiting on that New Zealand themed collection though... The rest of the world probably hasn't even heard of NZ though, so it probably wouldn't do too well in sales.


The colours: Black Shatter, Silver Shatter, Black Onyx and Birthday Babe.


I've supplied some swatches below and i'll add a few more once the pics are taken :)

OPI Silver Shatter

OPI Silver Shatter

NFuOh 050 over OPI Black Onyx

China Glaze Sexagon

This is China Glaze's Sexagon from their Kaleidoscope collection which was released a few years ago.

The formula was alright. I had to do three coats because it seemed to bit a little bit sheer. It looks amazing in the end though!

I'm supposed to be cleaning up my apartment so I don't have too much to say about Sexagon at the moment... :D