Thanks for reading, commenting, and not complaining when I went AWOL. You can still follow me on flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/michelyne-at-mua/ as the nail polish obsession still lives on, but my posting of photos is also likely to be pretty sporadic on there so don’t get your hopes up!

I will be deleting the blog itself in one week, so please update your blogrolls to take me off. I have already deleted the blog email account, so if you need to contact me, please PM me on Makeup Alley (username: michelyne)

Onto the polishes…

Carlo di Roma 40 is a very pale light blue crème. This was difficult to work with and took 4 coats to be opaque, but looked nice in the end.

Artificial light

Nubar Opulent Pearl is a flakie top coat, with blue, green and red flakes all mixed into a milky base. My only criticism with this polish is that the milky base means you can only really use it over light colors, as over dark colours the milky base makes it look a bit odd.

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And here’s a picture of an opal for a comparison:

I think I did pretty well! See the blue, green and red ‘fire’ in the stone? Opulent Pearl was very hard to capture in the photo, but over this polish the flecks were a lot more obvious in reality.

For reference, opals can come in many different shades (but this is my favourite type). If you’re interested, do a Google Image search to see some examples.

This is Chi Chi’s Toy Boy, a highly saturated, medium blue kinda glass fleck polish. I say ‘kinda’ because the shimmer is heavy, but doesn’t have that crystalline quality that true glass flecks do.

A great summer colour that is close (but not identical) to China Glaze Caribbean Blue (which is pretty in the bottle but has been in my untrieds for over a year…).

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Application was great, this was opaque in two coats (although looking at this photo my middle finger probably could’ve done with a third coat), and wear was the standard few days.

751 is from the duochrome range (not to be confused with their epically awesome multichrome range), and is a pale powder blue with subtle pink/lilac flash.
I’m going to go right out and say it – this was a disappointment for me. The formula was goopy and difficult to work with, meaning I got bubbling on my middle finger and massive shrinkage of the top few layers. Also, this was four coats.

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Yeah. Looked so promising in the bottle! This one has actually found a new home with another polish fan now, so I hope she gets more out of it than I did!

Carrot Top came out in the Spring 2010 collection, and is THE PERFECT orange crème. This is what I like to call ‘primary orange’ – if orange was a primary colour, this is the shade that would represent it. I have to admit, I am not a massive orange nail fan on myself (too pale), but I bought this because I had been searching for yonks for a primary orange to use in rainbow skittles manis (another post for another day).

This was opaque in two coats, and wear was average.

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Crazy I bought ages and ages ago, because I thought it would be similar to Zoya Annie. In the bottle they look similar, but on the nail it’s a different story. This is a sheer orange with gold/green shimmer. Jacie got it to work on it’s own, but I never have been able to. I thought layering was the best option.

This was one coat over Carrot Top.

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Look, this combo is okay, but I’m just not an orange girl, outside a token skittle nail or two.

In return for sticking at it with me, I give you Zoya Annie. This polish hails from the 2008 Chit Chat collection, and is a beautiful orangey-red-gold almost duochrome polish that absolutely glows in indirect light.
This is like the slightly more coral/orange version of Zoya Lana (which I have yet to get a photo of), from the more recent 2010 Reverie collection.

Just look at it! This one totally surprised me, because while I was hoping it would be more red, I had no idea the gold flash would be so vibrant. I’ve not seen any photos of this which accurately capture the glow in this, but the photo below is as close as I could get.

Indirect sunlight

What do you girls think? I’m not an orange person, but I think this is gorgeous.

This Inglot is a deep hot pink (that’s almost an oxymoron, but I think it describes it quite accurately) creme. Two coats.

Indirect sunlight

And below, Colorama Cold as Ice is comprised of fine (but not micro) fuchsia glitter in a clear base. One coat.

Indirect sunlight

The Inglot applied pretty well – it was one of those crèmes were it looks gluggy and streaky until you put a coat of Seche Vite over and it smooths itself out beautifully. Wear was a bit better than average, which I put down to the glitter top coat actually.

This is a nice summer combo, but I prefer my bright pinks with gold sparkles.

Reading about this polish from other people, I was expecting a glorious purple and teal duochrome that shimmers different shades constantly in the light. In reality (for me at least), this is a nice purple shimmer, that if you have your hand at just the right angle in indirect sunlight on a clear evening (between 4pm and 5pm is best) in Summer, and you look really close, has a bit of a green/teal flash on the edges. In a nutshell, this IS a duochrome, but only just. It took me SO LONG to capture just a hint of the colour change in this photo:

Indirect sunlight

Don’t get me wrong, the colour combination is lovely, but the colour-shiftingness just isn’t enough for me. Especially now I’m onto the Ozotic Pro multichromes, which are just awesome beyond words.

On the upside, application of this one was good, and unlike the Ozotic Pro multichromes, Peacock Feathers is opaque after three coats, meaning you don’t have to layer it over black. Wear was reasonable, as good as you would expect any shimmer to be.

Illamasqua Australia is calling a new year amnesty on make-up.

An amnesty that says…
No more average.
No more dull.
No more ordinary. 

Bring your dull, boring, average, everyday eyeliners and lipglosses to your local Myer counter – whether they’re old, empty, worn out or broken – and we’ll give you 25% off our extraordinary make-up.*
 

What makes them extraordinary? Illamasqua is the only truly professional make-up brand on the high street. Created using extraordinary ingredients for an extraordinary look, they are specifically designed to let you create bold, after-dark looks that will withstand the heat of the Australian summer.

So release yourself from the ordinary and join the Illamasqua amnesty exclusively in store today at the Illamasqua counter at your local Myer counter at Myer Sydney City, Robina, Brisbane, Melbourne, Robina and Chadstone. Click here to see details on your nearest store.
 
But do it quickly: the amnesty ends Sunday 30th January. 


The amnesty offer is exclusive to our Australian counters and cannot be redeemed at any other retail outlet. 

*Terms & Conditions: Discount only available in store at Myer counters in Australia from 9-30th January 2011. Not available at any other Illamasqua retail outlet. Any make-up product, in any condition, can be brought to the Illamasqua counter, but must be deposited in the Illamasqua amnesty box to achieve the 25% discount. 25% discount is valid against one transaction, on Illamasqua products only. Discount is valid against all products in the Illamasqua range.

Now by reading the T+Cs, this sounds like we can take in any makeup item, in any condition, and get 25% off nail polish in one transaction. Is everyone else reading it like that?
That would bring the Illamasqua polishes down to $25.50. That’s almost worth it! And given I have some Myer gift voucher left over from last time I bought some of their nail polishes, I think I’m going to take them up on this offer.

Has anyone else heard of this? Have you tried it out? Let me know if there’s anything I’m missing here, because Illamasqua are generally pretty reluctant to have sales instore.

This also has ‘secret shimmer’, which is invisible in this photo but which lends the polish a very subtle sheen on the nail in reality.

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This applied really nicely, but was a little sheer so needed four coats to get to this opacity. Wear was average for a crème/shimmer polish.

You may notice at the top of this post a new tag you haven’t seen before – apart from the usual colour, finish, country of origin tags I’ve created a new tag of ‘work appropriate’ for polishes which I would happily wear in a corporate environment. This move was inspired by a recent discussion on the Vogue Forums about work-appropriate colours, and I thought it would be handy for people to click a button and see the polishes in my collection which I deem to be work appropriate. Hope you like it!