OPI DS Extravagance: Awesome Holo Goodness

Ahem ahem *clears throat and looks awkward* Before I show off the awesome holo-ness on my nails, could you guys do me a teensy favour and vote for me? (I bet you knew that was coming..) It's a simple two-step (or one, even) process: Go HERE, and look for the girl called "Grace". Looks familiar? Umm well that's because that's me! So if you've enjoyed my blog and would love to see me swatch/review more stuff, be nice to me and click on the "Vote" button. :) You can do it once a day, but I don't imagine anyone's going to do that LOL, so I'd be happy if you just voted a couple of times. If you're really lazy, CLICKING HERE leads you directly to the voting form for me :D All you need to do is enter your email address, and you can uncheck the box if you don't want Stila's spam :P

Today's NOTD is one of my favourite holos of all time. There are some holos that are awesome because of the way they totally bring out the holo rainbow on your nails (like GOSH Holographic, from THIS POST) and there are some which have a more diffused holographic glitter - you get holo glitter bits, but not the entire holo rainbow. I usually don't fancy these types of holos, but OPI DS Extravagance is one I make an exception for.

Although the holo is a little more diffused in this one, I still love it nonetheless, and I can't quite say why. Maybe its because of its holographic sparkliness, maybe its the rich pinky-plum jewel tone that really feels extravagant (like the polish name, haha) and makes me feel like I've got little gems on my fingertips everytime I wear it, maybe it's the way it glints and winks in the sunlight. Whatever it is, I love this baby. And summertime is the perfect time to wear holos - the extra daylight just makes them so much more glitzy.

Here's two coats in natural sunlight:



Application on this one was good, as good as OPI's usually get. Not streaky, opaque in two coats, and generally trouble-free. I'm personally a huge fan of OPI's Pro-Wide brush, so I love the huge brush size because it lets me do my man-hands in fewer strokes, but girls with slimmer proper ladylike hands might not fancy it so much.

Like all holographic polishes, this one was a little high maintanence and chippy. It chipped after a couple of days, which is not unusual for a holo polish. I really love this one, and it's a pity the entire DS series was limited edition. I really wanted DS Original too, but I never got to lay my greedy paws on it before it wasn't sold anymore.

NOTD: Nails Inc Diet Coke Paris: A Lovely Berry Creme

I'm sure you already know this, but for this month, whenever you buy 2 500ml bottles of Diet Coke, you get one bottle of Nails Inc polish free, out of a choice of four colours. The colours are all named after fashionable places - London, Paris, New York, and Milan. In one of my previous posts I featured Nails Inc London, with some comparison swatches HERE, and this post I'm featuring another colour - Nails Inc Paris!

Despite being a freebie, Nails Inc Paris, as with Nails Inc London, applied beautifully, was well pigmented, and totally opaque in 2 coats. It has a lovely creme finish, as does Nails Inc London. But while Nails Inc London is a greige-y nude, Nails Inc Paris is a bright but still muted berry-toned plum creme. I really love this colour, it's perfectly in between plum and purple. It looks really delicious, it reminds me of berries and jam. Yum. Berries.

Ooh, stubby fingers:



And here's a picture with the bottle. I know it's blatant product advertising, but I actually think the Diet Coke logo on the bottle is kinda cute:



This is actually similar to Nails Inc Piccadilly Circus (which I used in a very unfortunate and ugly KOTD HERE). Both of them are cremes and of similar colour and depth, but I think Paris is a lot more purple than Piccadilly Circus, which is a more straightforward berry pink.

TheBalm Read My Lips Lipstick Swatches!

Happy New Year everyone! What was your new year's resolution? Mine was to actually use up more things in my stash, hah. Today's swatches are theBalm's line of lipsticks, cutely named Read My Lips Lipsticks, and athough they have a limited number of colours - I'm not sure if I got the entire range down, but it seems that their colours are only limited to 6 - they cover most bases for lip colours. And most of their lip colours are very pretty and wearable too. They also come in cute paper packaging that looks like newspaper print - unless of course you don't like paper packaging, since these can get wet and spoil quickly. Personally, I only like the look of paper packaging, but it's not very practical for me.

Overall, I think these lipsticks are not bad. They have nice textures, and apply relatively evenly. And they don't have any weird smell - I think they just smell of unscented lipsticks - slightly chemically, but very faint. They're also all on the sheer side, although they build up nicely. They're not as superpigmented as the Barry M Lip Paints (which I'm so swatching, by the way), but they're wearable. Overall I think these are one of their better products, although they are a tad underrated.

Here are swatches, as always:



L - R: Wanted, Scoop, Gossip, Letter to the Editor, Classified, Smut

Wanted is a very pretty pinky-plummy rose, Scoop is a warmer rose that's less dark than Wanted and has more brown, Gossip is a pale pink with silver shimmer. Letter to the Editor is a shimmery bronzey brown colour with a hint of rose, while Classified is less shimmery, and less rosey. Smut is a deep purply-plum with some pink, and silver shimmer.

Although these colours are boring, I quite like them, particularly Wanted. They're good for work (unless you don't like shimmer), and these are pretty much safe, pretty colours.