Ulta 3 - Precious

A very yellow gold foil. Easy to paint. I used two coats but it took a while to dry completely. It's a very speckly finish, you can see a paler dotty gold over the top of a richer, orangey base.

Ulta 3 is probably the cheapest polish you can get in Australia and are found in chemists and Big W.

Noticed pretty good wear and tear on this one. That is, it seems to avoid damage!

The good thing about that speckly finish is that it avoids looking streaky. I like it.

Chi Chi - Pussy Galore

Easy to put on and easily a one coat wonder if you are careful, however this polish chipped like crazy from the moment it dried. Even a top coat wasn't much help. !!! so not happy. I wonder if some super strength basecoat or several layers of basecoat would help it. *sigh*

Let it be known there are several good quality foil finish cool gold tones out there and you need not bother with Pussy Galore at all.

Chi Chi... I am disappointed.

Missha - JGL01

A lovely soft gold foil glitter. That's right, both a foil and glitter mixed together from Missha's crystal range. It has a very wide flat brush which I dislike working with. But this colour performed admirably and is a pretty and feminine metallic that suits most clothing. The only Missha store I know of is in Sydney, in Town Hall station.

Eleanor - ENP029

A lovely cobalt blue with silver throughout, dries to a beautiful foil finish, thoroughly eye catching hue. Painted on lovely. Quite good and wore long (I had it on about 5 or 6 days). Doesn't even smell too bad.

This was one of a big bag my friend Wiggles brought over from Malaysia in return for Ozzie goods I shipped. Yay! It came from Sasa the major beauty chain in Asia.

Ulta3 - Antique Copper

This is a pretty rose gold colour foil polish that has specks of dark copper running through it. It's not as apparent in real life but the camera and direct sunlight seems to highlight it. I really love the matte satin feel of the polish so no top coat for this one. It's a great bargain for $2 at the chemist. One of the nicer Ulta3 colours there are. Nice, runny polish that was easy to apply and dried well. Foil is great too, hard to see any streaking or uneven layers. :)

Orly (mini) - Rage

I love foils. This one was so thick with pigments, so grainy. It picked up every unevenness on my nail! Be sure to buff or use a ridge filler first.

I am not so fond of these mini bottles now. The caps are just hard to hold when they are that short and stumpy.

Rage is a beautiful, soft rose gold. It went on well and even with 1 coat it was fairly decent. The second coat makes it really brilliant.

Beadstreet's Michelle Nail Colour - T72 (chartreuse / metallic yellow)

My friend sent over a bunch of polish from Singapore as a thank you present for sending him a My Little Pony. Hooray! So this polish seems to be made for a store called Beadstreet, located at 8 Grange Road.

The reason I have listed this under two shades is because when you put it on alone, it really is a very fresh, zesty green tinged yellow. I would call this a foil finish, and has that wonderful habit of streak finish like all frosty colours. I did two coats and there was some bald patches, so did another coat later. (the pic with the cup is 3 coats, the others only 2 coats).

Now, the surprise was when I applied Sally Hansen Mega Shine. All the green vanished and it turned a bright yellow instead. You can see on the two hand pic the difference between the colours. Quite different, eh?

I'm quite pleased with the result, but have to say this polish is badly highlighting all my ridges and dents in my nails! Thanks to CJ for my present. :-)

Essie - Demure Vixen and Ulta3 - Envy

Not being a total nail fanatic I find it hard to describe Demure Vixen. I guess its like a nude blossom purple, with electric violet iridescent. I did 3 coats on one hand and 2 coats on the other. I like it better with 2 coats because the iridescent shows up better. I really like the formula of this - you can take ages putting it on, and its liquid enough to smooth itself and not dry out and get clunky on the brush. The brush is amazing too.

I've discovered that nail polish brushes are a bit like art brushes. You get low end, very bad stiff plastic with bristles that go everywhere, and then really good brushes where all the hairs sit straight and they move and spread fantasticly.

I wonder if some of the higher end polishes even use sable hair or some other mad rare animal fibre. Ugh!

Ok, so then I got excited about some metallic cheap polishes I found at the chemist. Ulta3 is made in Australia and you get them at the chemist for $3 each. I got gold, silver and bronze. I guess this is what they call 'foil' because when it goes on it looks all shimmery and sparkly like tin foil. Otherwise, you just get flat metallic gold that just looks smooth instead. So anyway, this is the bronze tone but you can barely tell in the photo because its just a strip. I cut a sweetheart line out of some sticky tape and then stuck that over the nails before I painted the bronze on. I guess if I dotted two dots on either side I would have something that looks like an owl or monkey. :-)