It's A Me, Mario & Go Luigi! - Dollish Polish + Neon Gradient

It's definitely becoming more spring like here in Auckland and with the sun, comes a will to wear bright colours (actually who am I kidding, I never follow seasons). Anyway that sound like a good excuse to try something more with the China Glaze Summer Neons.

I started with a bit of a gradient with 'I'm With The Lifeguard' (green) and 'Splish Splash' (blue). 'Splish Splash' isn't quite as opaque, so you can see the the green is showing through quite a bit under it on my middle finger. That's ok though, you'll see why in a moment. This is without any top coat, hence the funny texture from the sponge. As usual, I followed Sammy's gradient technique.

Seeing as it appears no manicure is complete, these days, without a lick of glitter, I dipped into my vastly expanding collection of wonderful creations by Dolly and had to get out 'It's A Me, Mario!' with an accent of 'Go Luigi!' on my middle finger.

I loved wearing this so much! So bright, fun and slightly obnoxious, just the way I like it. I couldn't decide originally what I wanted to wear 'It's A Me, Mario!' over, so I think it's good that I got to see it over both green and blue here. I also like the way that it's not immediately obvious that there's anything different about any of the nails, then you realise that one of them has green instead of red glitter. 'It's A Me, Mario!' and 'Go Luigi!' work so perfectly together.

The China Glaze neons, 'I'm With The Lifeguard' and 'Splish Splash', both are pretty effortless to apply. They are ever so slightly sheer and so I had to apply 3 thin coats, but it's worth it. Both glitters could have done with a little more shaking, but I was a bit too excited and so application wasn't quite as easy as it could have been. At the end of the day, just regular glitter application really though. I fished for one of the stars and got slightly over-zealous sticking it down - with the skewer that I used to mix the colours for the gradient! So the star on my middle finger is covered in green, but I promise you this is entirely my own fault and there is no bleeding of colour, or anything like that, with the polish.

China Glaze polishes can be purchased from Candy Girl (for the Kiwi's out there) and the Dollish Polish Mario collection can be purchased from the usual places - Dolly's Big Cartel Shop as well as Llarowe (and I've just now checked and they're in stock, so go quick!!).

Expecto Patronum - Dollish Polish

I am officially at the beginning of a two week study break :) I'll be going home to Wellington in the second week, which will be nice, and hopefully I'll have a go at a few more nail techniques (might have another go at water marbling). Anyway, I've got a polish to show you today that I love, but I'm going to be honest, considering that it is inspired by Harry Potter... I was bound to like it. This is Dollish Polish 'Expecto Patronum'.

'Expecto Patronum' has a white, jelly base with three different sizes of teal glitter. There is also some iridescent flakie bits in there too. You can't really see them in any of my photos but they appear sort of red in real life and they catch the light.

I love polishes that basically give you an instant jelly sandwich. The base is just sheer enough to be able to see the glitter in the underneath layers.

You can see the jelly sandwich look in the macro, where some glitters are more prominent, at the surface, and some are slightly more hidden.



I used four coats of 'Expecto Patronum' for these photos. I actually left my left hand at three coats and that was enough for regular wear. The polish was a bit too thick and that gave me pretty thick nails. I will definitely thin it out a little bit next time I wear it, not a big issue though. One thing I loved was the clean look of the white polish without the white-out look. The teal glitter gives 'Expecto Patronum' a really ethereal look, perfectly fitting for this magic inspired polish.

Dollish Polish is available from Llarowe and of course Dolly's Big Cartel shop, as well as a couple of other e-tailers.

Agro - China Glaze & Secret Sauce - Enchanted Polish

Hi folks!

I've got a little something to show you today that has been around for a little while now. This is 'Agro' from China Glaze's Hunger Games Collection. I absolutely love the look of a lot of the polishes from this collection and this one isn't an exception. I love olive coloured polish, so naturally this polish had to be bought...

'Agro' is packed with shimmer and this is showing it with no topcoat. You can see some little brushstrokes but they're not bad and with top coat, they're not really noticeable in real life. I love the earthy look the gold shimmer gives it. Reminds me of all the pine forests we drive through in the central North Island, when we drive home to Wellington (which reminds me that I can't wait to go home in a week and a half!!). Also how when the shimmer catches the light, is accentuates the slightly blackened edges.

I decided I wanted to add something to 'Agro' and I thought I'd give Enchanted Polish 'Secret Sauce' a go. Turns out it was not really very obvious over 'Agro'. That's ok though.
There's one coat of 'Secret Sauce' on top of my pinky and middle fingers.

'Secret Sauce' gives 'Agro' a more golden tone. You can notice a bit of the red sheen that I love about 'Secret Sauce', but I was really hoping that it would be more obvious.


Overall I liked these polishes together, but I was left hoping for something a little more. 'Agro' was really easy to apply. Two coats gave more than perfect coverage and that meant that you could use the second coat to make it nice and even and take care of your brush strokes.

Kiwi's you can get 'Agro' from Candy Girl and 'Secret Sauce' can be purchased from Llarowe.

Lapis Amethyst - Sally Hansen

Earlier in the week when I was wearing 'Unfor-Greta-bly Blue', I had to go to work and I didn't really have time to take that off, so I had to quickly put something on it to tone it all down. I do this quite often, but this time I had to show you guys because it actually looked really pretty. I used Sally Hansen's Nail Prisms 'Lapis Amethyst'.

I know it looks kind of frosty here and believe me, I run from frosty polish as much as the next guy, but I actually really liked this. It is just such a gorgeous duochrome, shimmer top coat that goes from a bright aqua blue through purple to pink. I couldn't seem to capture the bright aqua colour but this is showing the more blue side of it (plus look at those bright purple sides of my nails).

This is the more pinky purple side of 'Lapis Amethyst'. It's really glowy and looked really gorgeous in the sun (these photos are taken in late afternoon sun).


I really liked how the stamped lightning bolts just peeked through from underneath this polish. This is just one quick coat of 'Lapis Amethyst' and I think it was just the right coverage in order to still see the manicure underneath.



And now for something a bit different, when we were on our way home from work last night, a little electrical storm started. I love storms and I especially love going to sleep when it's raining, I find it so calming. We took some videos just on an iphone and then screen captured some of the frames (so please excuse the quality). The pictures that we got actually quite remind me of this mani so I figured I may as well show you them too. If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram (@PinpointPolish), you may have already seen them :)

Unfor-Greta-bly Blue - OPI & BM-305

Today I would like to show you the second polish that I got from the OPI Germany collection that has just been released. I am a sucker for blue polish, so naturally, I had to get this polish. This is 'Unfor-Greta-bly Blue'...

This is a super dooper glowing blue with a super dooper amount of ultra-fine teal shimmer! Love, love, love! This is without top coat.

I decided to add a bit of stamping and I somehow ended up with a mani that makes me think of super heroes. I'm so happy with this polish and this stamp! I used Bundle Monster plate BM-305.

'Unfor-Greta-bly Blue' has so many facets. It can look really bright teal blue...

But it can also become sort of blackened around the edges. Ahhh so deliciously pretty.


'Unfor-Greta-bly Blue' was really easy to apply. Like 'Every Month Is Oktoberfest', the first coat gives decent coverage and the second coat just makes everything come together and gives that gorgeous glow. I was worried that it was going to be really brush-strokey, but once it dried, most of that disappeared. You actually can't really see any brush-strokes in real life. BM-305 was also really fantastic. I had absolutely no problem with this at all. I used China Glaze 'Sci-Fi' as my stamping polish.

Every Month Is Oktoberfest - OPI

I managed to get my hands on two amazing polishes from OPI's Germany collection that has just been released, so today I'll be showing you the first of them. 'Every Month Is Oktoberfest' is one that I knew I had to have the minute I saw it popping up on all my favourite blogs. Turns out it is even more beautiful than I could have imagined in real life.

This is just such a delicious vampy shade. MMMMMMMM I love it! It is infact an indigo, purpley blue base with a ridiculous (ridiculously good) amount of shimmer. I think it's all red shimmer, but it seems to shift a little bit to gold in certain lighting. The blue of the base is really obvious on the first coat, but disappears quite a lot on the second coat. Even though it's less obvious, it still gives this polish a perfect little something extra in my opinion, that hint of underlying indigo is what makes this polish jump to the top of my favourite vampy polish list.

This shimmer was so hard to capture in all its glory. These photos show a little taste of the bright red glow that this beauty has. I decided to add a little stamping and so I tried a couple more designs from my new Bundle Monster plates. Both these designs are from plate BM-313. I used Barry M 'Gold Foil' to stamp and I think the gold played well with 'Every Month Is Oktoberfest'.

You can see here that slightly gold shift. The corners of my top two fingers are showing the base colour. I'm not quite sure why this is so obvious here. It must be a slightly thinner bit of application, but I looked and looked and could not see this blue in real life! Strange.

The formula on this was also lovely. One coat gives really good coverage and the second coat just deepens everything and gives the polish that beautiful glow. 'Every Month Is Oktoberfest' is not too thick or thin and has a perfect self-levelling formula, applying like butter. I can't say enough how much I love this polish and it really has to be seen in real life to fully appreciate it. As for the plate, BM-313, no problem at all! Both images picked up and transferred really easily. I am still a bit of a newbie when it comes to stamping, but I figure practice makes perfect and maybe one day I can learn to not panic every time I attempt it - you should see me, as soon as I've picked up the image, my heart starts beating FAST and it's panic station. I have to admit I tried to do my pinky finger one and missed literally 2/3 of my nail with the first stamp!

For the Kiwi's, I got this at Life Pharmacy and there is a buy two, get one free deal at the moment. I think OPI's cost around $25 at pharmacies so they're a bit cheaper than Farmers and made even better by the special deal :)

I also want to say that I have been nominated by two lovely ladies for a Liebster Award. I received one from Nicola from Always Trust The Gene Genie and the second nomination was from GelaNails. They both do some gorgeous nail art! I am absolutely swamped at uni at the moment but I have a mid-semester break in a couple of weeks so I will try and answer the questions etc then :) Thanks again ladies!

Jelly Sandwich Take Two - Spank You Very Much - Dollish Polish & Care To Danse? - OPI

I did me just a little shopping over the weekend and I managed to pick up a couple of the polishes from OPI's just-released Germany collection (they are AMAZING!). I've never known NZ to get a collection so fast! I hope this is how it will always be in the future. For any Kiwi's, lots of pharmacies have a buy two, get one free deal going on at the moment. I also finally got a polish from the New York City Ballet Collection by OPI, so logically I had to do a jelly sanger ASAP right?! So here we go with my second ever jelly sandwich (how have I not done more of these mani's?)...

I used a coat of OPI 'Steady As She Rose' to give a bit of colour under the jelly so I didn't need a billion coats (it is almost exactly the same colour). On top of that, I put one coat of OPI's 'Care To Danse?' followed by one coat of Dollish Polish 'Spank You Very Much' and finally two more coats of 'Care To Danse?' (I know, that's a lot of layers of polish).

I love how this has a really soft, milky look. And I think 'Spank You Very Much' is the perfect glitter for this. This polish is so densely packed with glitter that you can have good coverage with one quick swipe. 'Care To Danse?' has a really pretty subtle pinky purple hue to it.

This photo is taken under artificial, white light and the polish leans slightly more peachy pink on me. I think this is just because I am SO pasty! I love how pretty and feminine this mani is.

Here's the macro so you can see just how amazing 'Spank You Very Much' is. I will have to definitely show you this one on its own at some point.



'Care To Danse?' really is very sheer, though nice and easy to work with.The thin coat of 'Steady As She Rose' just really helped to give it that little boost of colour and saved on several coats. 'Spank You Very Much' has a great formula for a glitter. As I said earlier, it is so dense so it's really easy to get plenty of glitter on your nail without having to use a really thick (or multiple) coats. I used fairly thin coats of 'Spank You Very Much' and I really like the coverage that gave.
I loved wearing this girly mani and I can't wait to try some other jelly sammies!

Kiwi Olympic Nails

It had to happen. I had to jump on the bandwagon and do some olympic nails at some point right? Well the other night, I was feeling patriotic and I had been called off work so I decided it was time I showed some support via my nails. I wanted to do something silver fern inspired and I was going to just draw some silver ferns on but I tried a few things and this is what I ended up with...

So my pinky finger is silver fern inspired if you use your imagination :) and the others... Well they just sort of happened. I used a-england 'Camelot' and 'Excalibur' and these polishes are truly brilliant. Both one coaters (even I left it at one coat - unheard of). The base colour on each nail is just a single coat of perfectly formulated polish.

For the gradients, I mostly followed Sammy's tutorial and on my middle finger, I just brushed a tiny bit of Dollish Polish '3 Best Friends That Anyone Could Have' to give just a wee dash of colour. On my ring finger, I stuck some Born Pretty Store loose glitter (aka "glequins") on. I made my pinky finger matte with Essie's 'Matte About You' and then stamped (using 'Excalibur') with BM210.

I love the spartkle that '3 Best Friends That Anyone Could Have' gives the gradient and the microglitter in it just seems to carry on the gradient perfectly.



I have loved wearing these nails, they're a bit of fun. Also With the Kiwi's having won three golds in the rowing in the last 2 days, I feel even more patriotic then ever :) Not bad for our little country, I am one proud Kiwi (of all our athletes actually!). Back to the nails... I've already said how brilliant the formula was on 'Excalibur' and 'Camelot'. As far as black polish goes, I don't think it gets much better than 'Camelot' and 'Excalibur' is the perfect silver and stamps like a dream.
Well that's all from me, I need to get in a bit more study before I go back to watching the olympics. Hope you're all enjoying watching the Olympics too. Don't know about you, but I get so inspired when I see all these amazing people doing such amazing things.

As usual, a-england is available from their website and remember they have free worldwide shipping :D

Go Luigi! - Dollish Polish & One Big Happy Fame-ily - Nicole by OPI

I have another polish from the box of happiness that Mimi sent me. Today, it's 'One Big Happy Fame-ily' from Nicole by OPI. This is another Kardashian Kolor and this one is a CVS exclusive. If you follow me on instagram or twitter (@PinpointPolish), you may have seen that I received my Dollish Polish Super Mario Bros. Collection in the mail the other day. I originally wasn't planning on adding anything to this mani, but with the Mario polishes winking at me, how could I resist and 'Go Luigi!' seemed the perfect glitter to go with 'One Big Happy Fame-ily'.

'One Big Happy Fame-ily' is one super pretty polish!! I don't generally wear a whole lot of purple polish. I think I've said it before, it's not that I don't like purple polish (far from it actually), it just doesn't often call my name ;) Well this polish was not so much calling but screaming to be worn. The silver shimmer in it is so gorgeous and not at all shy. As for 'Go Luigi!'... let's just say I think I am in love with this combo.

'Go Luigi!' is a simple mix of bright green and blue hexes with some silver stars in there too. I was worried that the stars may be hard to get out, but these two fingers were my first painted and the stars just happened to come straight out of the bottle. My other hand doesn't have any stars on it, but that's ok too. On my ring finger is two thin coats and on my middle finger is one thin coat.

I love the finish in 'One Big Happy Fame-ily'. It's that same type of shimmer/fleck/...? that we have seen a bit of lately (seen in collections like OPI's Holland collection etc). Definitely one of my favourtie finishes.

In the macro, it looks like the glitters are curling slightly, but I have to tell you it's a trick of the light! They really aren't, I promise. The corners of the one of the stars is sticking up slightly but I really should have made sure it was stuck fast before letting it dry (I will know for next time), but this isn't a biggy at all. I just popped a couple of layers of top coat on and it was mostly tamed (the hexes were no problem under a couple of coats of my thin top coat). As you can see here, the stars are actually holographic (as if this polish needed any more to love).



'One Big Happy Fame-ily' was super easy to apply. It is a little bit sheer, but three coats give good opacity. The polish is not too thin or thick and flows on really easily. As for 'Go Luigi!', again nice and easy. I mentioned the stars earlier and to add to that, I think if you wanted stars on every nail, some fishing may need to be done, but there are lots in there so if you're happy to just get them when you get them (like I did), then you will certainly get some. The hexes applied perfectly, staying where they were put, but I did employ the dabbing method as the stars did want to stay on the brush a little. I did use fairly thin coats of it, this is the kind of glitter where it's really easy to get more or less glitter coverage depending on what you feel like. Overall, like I said earlier, I am absolutely in love with both of these polishes. Thanks again Mimi for sending me the loveliness that is 'One Big Happy Fame-ily'!!!

If you are wanting to get your hands on the Super Mario Bros. collection, you may be in luck as it will be on Llarowe today (Wednesday) at 1pm and 7pm MDT, though as usual they will fly out the door like hotcakes I'm sure.