Preview: ThatLeanne Nail Polish Advent Calendar!

Starting tomorrow I’m beginning a very special Christmas treat – 25 holiday themed polishes! Each day until Christmas I’ll be unveiling a different polish idea for the holidays, so stay tuned for some very special holiday polishes ;-)

And here's a sneak preview of some nail polish designs to come...

Until tomorrow... :-)

Mecca Cosmetica Girl's Best Friend and my Twilight Christmas tree!

Lastnight I mentioned that I purchased the Mecca Cosmetica girl's best friend nail set which includes two very pretty nail polish shades: Diamond and Shine. Despite appearing like a cream formula from afar, they actually have a very subtle and pretty shimmer to them:

Onto the swatches! I tried Shine first which is this bold barbie like pink:

Isn't that just gorgeous? And even in natural light it's just as eye catching:

This is going to be a delight to wear this summer. It reminds me of the poolside polishes from China Glaze. So bright!

Ah the purple (Diamond). Even though it's quite light and almost lilacish it's still stunning. I honestly don't know which one I like better.

Hmm I think the pink wins for me. Diamond is also very pretty but Shine is outstanding! And while I'm on the subject of pretty purples, I thought I'd share my Christmas tree which is almost complete (still needs pretty lights). Yes I was completely inspired by the Myer twilight tree (no, not the movie, the colours of twilight which now that I think about it, doesn't really bring purples to mind but anyway)...

So I only have a little 4ft tree but I'm not even going to be here for Christmas day. I'll try to take another shot when it's lit up at night :-) Well I have some exciting holiday posts coming up so I better get cracking! Until next time...

Mecca Cosmetica Holiday goodies and Iori Japanese Restaurant!

I went out shopping tonight for a few reasons (forgot to go to Borders and get paperchase stuff but oh well). One of them was to pick up some xmas presents from Mecca Cosmetica. They had a beautiful Philosophy stand with all their holiday packs and I was very very tempted to buy several. I restrained myself well and only picked up a lipgloss set. Oh and the Philosophy Grace mini fragrance set. So lovely!

I also picked up the Girls Best Friend nail polish duo which I wasn't going to get at first until I saw it had a sparkle to it! I thought they were creams. No they are gorgeous and I eagerly look forward to swatching. Oh and I finally picked up two Lush Christmas eve bubble bars. Oh they have glitter in them... this shall be interesting. But they smell fantastic. Seriously, they are smelling up my room and it's not that typical 'lush store' smell.

Then we went out for dinner (randomly, I had a sudden need for Vegetable Tempura) at Iori:

Tucked away in the city is a sliding door that reveals a charming Japanese styled entrance:

Now I apologize for crappy iphone shots but it was very dark and fairly small inside so it's not like you can just whip out your SLR. First we have the Sapporo beer... which still tastes like beer so not really to my taste but the bf liked it.

Next we have the Teriyaki salmon. I've had the Teriyaki chicken several times and I love it... but it MAY have given me food poisoning last time I was there and I refuse to have it again. I can't pinpoint anything else that it could have been (only place I ate out and I had a fever with it). Anyway, onto more positive things:

Teriyaki salmon. Bf loved it.

The vegetable tempura. Yummy. Contained snowpeas, mushroom, pumpkin, eggplant and seaweed I believe. The salts are fantastic. This is worth trying. Then we had sushi and I was too busy eating to take a photo (sigh).

Well I picked up some good Christmas decorations from Myer on special and am eager to finish the tree. Hope everyone survived their week and has a fantastic weekend :-)

OPI Bring on the Bling and Rising Star!

I recently picked up OPI Bring on the Bling from the latest Burlesque collection. And bling is a very accurate description:

I layered it on top of Rising Star from the little teasers set. It's very intense though, one application and you can barely see your base coat! The glitter has a bit of everything, gold, green, silver, reds and oranges and is simply stunning. I wish I had done all nails however I can't stand removing so much glitter. So only the thumb nails:

Soo pretty. On a side note - do I ever learn about hopshopgo shipping? My latest bath and body works order is 11.5kg in "volumetric" weight. FFS. Do you know how much that comes to? Over 96USD. And I'm not even getting the 29USD rural surcharge :-| Even though it only weights 5.3kg in reality, the repacking option still a hefty shipping charge. But what am I going to do, fly over there myself and put it in a suitcase? I ordered some very fragile items so hopefully when they repack it, it travels safely. Knowing me however... Sigh.

Well I have some power point presentations to look over so I best get to it. A programmer doing power point presentations? Sooo not happy! I shall leave you with this very cute Meerkat from the Adelaide Zoo, courtesy of my bf's excellent photography skills:

Until next post...

Inglot O2M Nail Polish Swatches in 631, 641, 642, 644 to kick off another Aussie Summer!

In an earlier post I mentioned that I would be swatching the Inglot O2M breathable nail enamel polishes I got in Adelaide. And here are my pretties, in all their shimmer glory:

At $21 AUD a pop, they're not cheap, especially as Essie and Orly retails at $18.95 and OPI at $19.95. But it promises more than your regular polishes. They are supposed to be 'breathable' due to a polymer normally used in contact lenses. That said, I still wouldn't go without a base coat as the pretty mermaid green on the left did tint my nails blue every so slightly. But I skipped a base coat :-D Naughty Leanne. Onto the swatches! Here we have Inglot polish 631, a soft champagne colour:

The first thing I noticed about the formula is that it was so smooth and silky! You could keep going over it and no horrid half dried streaks. Sure that means it probably takes longer to dry but with Seche Vite you're sorted. Natural light shot below:

The only thing I noticed is that with the ease of application comes bubbles. So be careful to keep the formula applied thinly. I did 3 coats for these swatches but the mermaid green and light purple could easily be 2 coats.

This is Inglot nail polish 641 and it is love. Ok I am biased because I love purples but eeeeeep I heart this purple.

This particular formula was quite pigmented and you could have gotten away with 2 coats.

This is Inglot polish 642 and is more purple than the picture shows. I'm disappointed I couldn't capture it as purple as it appears in reality. But in no means is it an OPI Ink. It's purple. It does have a blue base similar to that of OPI Ink but the purple comes through more strongly...

Comes through even more blue in natural light as shown above. But it's purple :-P But not my kind of purple personally, but I just can't help picking up anything that looks like purple. I have a problem. I found this polish the most difficult to apply as it was so dark.

Last we have Inglot polish 644. Just gorgeous isn't it and so appropriate for summer (that's in 9 days !_!) After the shocking winter I've had, I'm counting. This mermaid green is very pigmented and you could do one to two coats but a base coat is required as it does stain blue a little... But at least it's not yellow ;-)

Natural light shot of 644 above. Peacocks and mermaid greens are so gorgeous for summer right now.

Speaking of which, it's almost summer - yippee! One good thing about Canberra is growing roses. Even in summer they blossom and don't require any maintenance (I should know as I do zero :-D). I should plant some more. Those buds above are going to be gorgeous! Hopefully I get a photo of them in full bloom.

Currently listening to: Too lost in you - Sugababes Not my type of music but for some reason this song gets me :-| Hmph. Until next post... which will most likely be more nail polish (sigh)

OPI Coronation DS

When I was shopping in Adelaide I spied the OPI designer series polishes. They caught my eye because I don't believe Canberra David Jones stocks them. I couldn't look past Coronation, which I thought would be pretty for the holidays:

Three coats and you might notice that this polish is holographic:

I don't know how I didn't realise this until I got home. Gorgeous! Yet I don't believe this colour is listed on the OPI website anymore. Instead they have a "new" DS Radiance that looks similar but it is not as pretty. It's more of a foil colour with no pretty holographic glitter. What is with OPI and their removal of pretty polishes? I say pick this one up while you still can! Well I hope everyone is managing to survive their week, next week will be hell for me so until next polish... :-D

My Adelaide Trip and Haul in pictures

I'm back from Adelaide! It was just a short trip, but essentially I was going to the Metallica concert (the bf is a massive fan) with a few friends. I only insisted on three things: Pandas, Haigh's and the Himeji gardens.

I'll start with the haul! I found an Inglot store in Rundle Mall (then again at Marion!) I wasn't drawn to the makeup but I did spy some lovely nail polish. I was telling mum and she joked 'some Polish polish!' (I come from a Polish background). I was interested by the O2M line of polish which is meant to be more breathable due to a new polymer in the formula (used in contact lenses normally) which allows more oxygen through. Translation? Supposedly less nail damage and discoloration. As I've actually gotten yellow nails from just ONE day of usage from another popular brand, I'm pretty much scarred for life and always check for formaldehyde if it's not OPI (I've never had a problem with OPI).

Anyway, I picked up 4 colours which I will be swatching shortly. They don't have names but numbers so for reference I purchased 641, 642 (purples), 644 (green) and 631. I also picked up OPI Bring on the bling from the burlesque collection because it was sold out in DJs here and also a DS polish corination because I thought it would be pretty for the holidays.

Other purchases include a glasshouse candle (the ones they burn in Peter Alexander stores), some Lush (they were sold out of Christmas Eve bars, boo) and of course a Panda from the Zoo :-D I thought I'd share some pictures from my trip in case you ever wanted to visit :-P

Firstly we stayed at the Majestic Roof Garden hotel (garden, meh) which is in an excellent location with regards to Rundle Mall and has 24hr reception and valet parking. The view from the rooms is nothing but you're paying for the convenience. Previously I have stayed at the Stamford (in both the city and at Glenelg - Glenelg location highly recommended, the views are gorgeous of the beach) as well as Sofitel with those 'New York style' lofts. That hotel was nice too. But further towards the University, so an easier walk to the Botanical Gardens and the Zoo.

That is Wang Wang, the only panda that came out of the glass enclosure. The girl panda, Funi, not so social. Well according to their descriptions on the website, it's the other way around :-S

The flamingos were hiding most of the day and didn't come out until there was bad lighting. Sigh. But aren't they just beautiful?

The Macaw was on show when we arrived.

Ok this cutie wasn't part of the zoo but he caught my attention sitting on the fence of the Giraffe enclosure.

The Arcade was well decorated for Christmas.

I stocked up on some Haigh's from the original retail store, the 'beehive corner'. Sooo many nice Christmas things for sale.

We then went to the Himeji gardens, Adelaide's sister city of Japan. These gardens were smaller but much prettier than the Nara Gardens we have in Canberra.

More of the gardens. These gardens were beautiful.

The entrance to the gardens. Definitely worth a visit.

Another SA original, Fasta Pasta. I know there are locations outside of SA, but there aren't any in Canberra, so we went to the one on South Terrace. This is the pumpkin ravioli. Delish!

I might as well include some snaps from the concert since it was the reason for my trip ;-) I just spent a good 10mins trying to pick a couple of photos from the several hundred I took.

I must admit - I'm not the biggest Metallica fan but the concert was pretty damn good.

Last day in Adelaide we went to Felici espresso on Rundle St.

And who would order something silly like a nutella croissant? Me!

Well I hope you enjoy the piccies and if you're considering visiting Adelaide, now is a good time to go! I previously went during March and that happened to be during the biggest heatwave. I was not happy jan! Being in stuffy wine cellars with 40+ degree heat was not ideal.

Essie Splash of Grenadine, Adelaide trip and a very cute reindeer

Ah the holiday season again. Which means cute gifts, good food and lots of Christmas shopping! I tweeted earlier about my hand sanitizer obsession so I thought I'd post a cute little picture of my latest acquisitions. Rudolph (despite his lack of red nose but that's his name) has made a return this year to feature some of the mint scented Bath and Body Works Pocketbacs. Very cute stocking stuffers indeed! I may hold onto one or three :-D

Onto the nails! I decided to try Essie Splash of Grenadine, from this year's resort collection (natural light):

I don't know why I haven't tried this earlier? I have the mini set and it's just gorgeous! I must admit Essie cream polishes can be fickle to work with, it seems to change every polish but they are generally nice to apply and don't finish streaky. Flash shot below:

And of course I've been dying to try the OPI Burlesque glitters so I layered on Show it and glow it (flash):

Sooo pretty. I want to do all my nails but I know I'll die getting the glitter off. Natural light shot below, reminds me of Sephora by OPI's It's Bouquet with Me:

Lastly I'm off to Adelaide for a little while. I've been a few times before, and have done a lot of the touristy things such as the Penfolds Winery, Botanical Gardens, Adelaide Zoo, etc. But I'm going back to the Zoo to see the Pandas! And there's flamingos (meep). I love flamingos.

And other beautiful birds:

I'll also be getting some nice Haigh's Christmas gifts for the family. Ok I have to pack, left it way too late! Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!