Layla Ceramic Effect 64

Brrrrrrr it's cold in here....the fan on our ducted gas heater carked it yesterday and the repair man wasn't able to fix it today.  A different repair man will come tomorrow so he better be able to bloody fix the thing.  I can't go for a third night with it getting down to 14 degrees inside.  Stupid freezing Canberra.

So not too much typing tonight or my fingers just might freeze off.

Here is another of the Layla ceramic effect polishes I bought, this is number 64.  It's a purple base with a very strong blue shimmer that makes it the most amazing purple to blue duochrome.  This is two coats over Nail Tek Foundation II, and topped with a layer of Seche Vite.

In the sun it just looks all purple.

But in the shade, like all duo and multichromes, it's simply divine.

If you're wondering what the very distinct line down my nails is that distinguishes the two colours, it's just the eaves of the house.  The blue side was the sky and the purple side was the reflection of the white of the eaves.

Another huge win with this Layla polish. I'm four for four.

See you again when it warms up *heads off to heat up a wheat bag*.

How I organise my stash

So I have quite a few bottles of polish.  I actually consider myself a bit of a collector. I have never really felt the urge to want to have a blog sale or sell any of my polishes, as I still want every single polish that is here in my collection.  But with any collection comes the need to organise it well.  

This is my set up, and it works really well for me.  Don't get me wrong, it not always a neatly packed up collection.  My husband will attest to the fact that I usually have a lot of polish crap all over the dining table, but at least it can easily be cleaned up and put away.

The clear drawers here on the left contain all my bits.  Top left drawer has my go to polishes that I need everyday, top coats, base coats, thinner, remover etc.  Second top drawer on the left is my untried drawer - oh dear!  I have a couple of drawers dedicated to glitters and pigments for frankening, another for stamping stuff, another with decals, stickers and tattoos and one with all the spectraflair packaged up ready to sell.

The two IKEA Helmers contain all my polishes.  I still have two empty drawers, but think I will need another Helmer soon.  I sort my polishes in the drawers by brand and each drawer is labelled with what brand is inside.  On top of my drawers I have my stamping plate folder and swatch sticks box.

Here is my folder for stamping plates.  I actually have my mum to thank for this, she saw it on a blog and did it all for me.  The sleeves are collector card sleeves and each one has a piece of non-slip drawer liner cut and inserted so that the plates don't fall out.  It's so easy to flip through and browse plates to choose what to stamp.

Here is my plastic box that contains my swatch sticks. When I get a new polish, I swatch it on the stick immediately, together with writing the brand, polish name, how many coats and a number the corresponds to that polish in my spreadsheet.

I group all my sticks into colour groups and have the looped onto rings.  Then the whole group looped onto a single ring.  Here is the collection of my yellow and gold polishes.

And here is the same pile splayed out.

Silvers, includes foils, chromes, magnetics, holos and glitters.

Reds and maroons.

Oranges

Pinks

Duo and multi chromes.

With the duo and multi chromes I actually paint half the swatch stick black first.  This splay shows the side with the polish over the black half.

This is the same group of polishes, showing the clear side.

Purples.

Blues

Blacks, charcoals and greys.

Greens.

Layering glitters - those that will never achieve opacity on their own.  All colours.

The only special grouping that remains by brand.  My Lynnderella swatch sticks.

I love these swatch sticks, especially because as soon as I get a new polish I can open it up and paint the stick to see what it looks like, without the need to remove the polish I am wearing.  They are also fantastic for comparing colours and trying laying combos.

These sticks are easily found on eBay, and the rings are just document rings we purchased for$1 from the local discount dollar shop.  

I also love the fact that I have all my polishes sorted by colour on the sticks, which are clearly labelled by brand and name.  Which then makes it really easy to find the polish in the labelled drawers.

Layla - The Butterfly Effect 52

Like I said yesterday, these new Layla polishes jumped straight to the top of my 'must wear now' list.  This is Layla Ceramic Effect polish  number 52, The Butterfly Effect.

As you can see this is a gorgeous purple jelly polish with red shifting to green flakies.  Hello Nfu Oh 51 dupe alert!

Here is lots of photos of this polish, trying to capture the oh so pretty green flash to the flakies.

Some of these photos show the purple jelly looking much darker that it really is, the above photo would be the most accurate for the purple colour.

Here is a bit of the green, it's much easier to see in real life.

Like I said earlier, dupe alert for Nfu Oh 51.  I did a quick swatch comparison with both one and two coats of these polishes.  As you can see they are very similar, the purple jelly shade is exactly the same, it's just that the Layla poilsh is slightly more pigmented.  Which in my opinion is fantastic, because it means you can get it opaque in just two coat, rather than the normal three that Nfu Oh 51 takes.

Again, I got these polishes directly from the Layla Cosmetics website and they cost €7.60.  The bottle size is only 10 ml, although it feels much bigger because it's a tall bottle with a long brush.

I'm three for three with these Layla Ceramic Effects.  I'm wondering if I should have got more than the six I did get!

Layla Cermaic Effect 61

Another day, another freaking stunning polish from Layla. Here is another of the Ceramic Effect nail polishes, and this one was only just released a day or two before I placed the order.  It doesn't seem to have a name, just a number - #61.

It's bright green with golden micro glass fleck    These pictures might be a bit warm toned, cause they were taken just as the sun was coming up - very, very early morning.  If you look closely you can probably see the start of frost forming on my nails as it was -3 degrees outside as I took these.

It also has an emerald green duochrome shift.  Arrggghh its just so beautiful!!!

And here it is in the shade.  This was two coats, over Nail Tek II foundation, topped with Seche Vite.

The wear on these Ceramic Effect polish from Layla is just fantastic.  No tip wear, no chips, just exactly how a polish should be.

I know I only just got these Layla polishes in the group order, but they have all jumped to the top of my untried pile - which embarrassingly has now filled an entire drawer of my little nail trolly.  

It's such a battle wanting to try new polishes, but not wanting to remove the one you currently wearing.  I propose we grow new limbs so we can have multiple arms and hands with fingers to paint.  Think Ganesha, but I'll pass on the elephant head.

BSJ Diamonds

I want to get a post up tonight, but I haven't downloaded any photos off my camera.  So today you will get some photos of a polish I wore a work or two ago.  

This is BSJ Diamonds Holographic polish. I think its just called #4. I got this in a swap with Neelai from the Philippines, who blogs over at naiL staSh. She makes lovely frankens (especially since she just got some spectraflair :) and she also takes amazing photos of her manis. 

This is a lovely light copper shaded holographic polish.  Not only is it holo, but it has a slightly metallic finish too.   Just my sort of colour!  And even though it is freezing here tonight in Canberra, just seeing this colour makes it feel warm and sunny.

 

I love being able to do swaps for polishes from brands that I have never heard of, especially when they are as lovely as this holo polish.

Layla Green Galaxy

When I did my latest Layla order from Italy, I decided to try some of the polishes from their regular line.  I've seen both the holograms and magneffect polishes in store at Price Attack, but I've never seen their regular line, the Ceramic Effects.

This one is a slightly newer release and it's called Green Galaxy.  I can't tell you how much I love this and how many comments I received on it.  Absolutely stunning.

This is two coats of Green Galaxy topped with Seche Vite top coat.

As you can see, this is a gorgeous dark green jelly polish with very fine square green glitter, and two sizes of green hex glitter.  The formula was excellent, the brush was great and the wear was fantastic.  WIN!

I bought six ceramic effect polishes and I can't wait to try the others.  

I purchased directly from the Layla Cosmetics website and they cost €7.60. For anyone having trouble trying to register because of the TAX ID, I registered before that became a required field on the form (I get heaps of emails asking me that).  If you have troubles registering you can try emailing them.

Purple dragon nail art

Here is some nail art I wore last week.  I found some images of dragon stuff online, then edited them in Photoshop to get the designs and colours I wanted.  I then printed them onto the temporary tattoo paper that I featured in the tutorial here.

The index finger represents the dragon skin/scales, the index finger is clearly his eye.  Thank you to Mr Kitties26 for his suggestion to make the dragons eye green, it looked so amazing!!  The ring finger is the fire that the dragon breaths, and the pinky is an abstract part of the dragons wing.

The ring finger is painted with Layla Mercury Twilight, and the other fingers are painted with Layla Ultra Violet.  Apologies for the tip wear, these were taken at the end of day two.  I suddenly had a gap in the clouds and snapped some sun shots, rather than the photos under the bathroom light.

I love this up close of the dragon eye.  The gradient of the yellow and green, with the holo behind it was so cool.

Finally, here is the image used on my thumb.  I had to take a photo in the shade, because the sun photo was just too holo to be able to see the actual image on my nail.

Sorry about the lack of chit chat ladies, I'm so unbelievably busy at work at the moment, I just can't empty my brain of work stuff to insert nail stuff into it.  Damn stupid brain  - work faster or something.  I wish I could just backup my brain to an external hard drive, and then reload it ready for work the next morning!