Sydney Beauty Expo Australia

Last weekend was the Sydney Beauty Expo Australia - a industry event filled with everything you could possible want in the beauty world. I was lucky enough to attend and wanted to share with you my favourite new products and trends that I saw.

First up I need to share my nail haul. No I didn't buy all the fab new items I saw because I'm not a millionaire, but my wishlist is now a mile long! As you can see I have a little crush on the Indigo powders, I also got some bling, more glow in the dark acrylic, colour changing gel and some good ol basics. 

Many of the Indigo powders have been around for a long time, but at the show they released a new one called GlassMe - which is basically a really pretty and fine mermaid powder that makes any gel super shiny. However if you haven't tried any of their old mermaid powders or pixel effect, I highly suggest you give them a go - they are so beautiful. You are meant to be a nail tech to buy from Indigo - this is their Australia Website. But if not I've had good experiences buying them on eBay. 



One of the really huge trends that we've all seen but was EVERYWHERE at the expo is nail dipping powders. For the me main one was the Kiara Sky series (partly because they have the Nail Queen demoing it). I haven't tried these yet as I'm a little addicted to my traditional acrylic extensions, but I can totally see the appeal, and there are so many beautiful colours available! In Australia Kiara Sky is distributed by Diamond Nail Supplies. Go to their site, or if you are in Sydney I highly recommend a trip to their store... it's soooo worth the drive!



Next up is the ORLY GelFX Easy-Off Basecoat. Sure it's another gel basecoat, but it comes off in 5 minutes and can be used with any brand of gel polish and doesn't require a primer. Sounds almost too good to be true! I plan to have a review of this up soon. ORLY in Australia is sold through Hawley International.

Now if you know me, you know I am a little obsessed with Max Estrada from eNailCouture - if you live off nail YouTube videos as much as I do you would know him from Suzy's Nail Career Education. So when I found out he was opening in Australia I nearly wet myself. They sell everything you need for nails in the most adorable pink packaging. And famously a monomer that smells like Fairy Floss. Check out their Australian Website

Here is the lovely Max at the show working on making beautiful nails. 

 The O'2 nails printer I first saw when Sveta Sanders played with one on her channel, and holy moly it is cool! As someone who can't freehand nail art to save my life I think this is going to be the future of nail art. You can print any image directly onto your nail, using either their pre-done images or if you're really creative any picture you like. It's a little bit of an outlay to buy one, but in the magical day when I have a salon this will be at the top of my list of needs! Check out the Australian Website.
Lastly here is a product there are has been a stupid amount of hype about in the last couple of months. Gelish Polygel. Not quite acrylic, not quite gel, but super awesome. I was lucky enough to get a nail done using it while I was there, and I have to admit I'm in love. It feels so light on but so far is super durable. Rather than have my explain how it works, I suggest just watching this video on YouTube. I can see why so many people are moving over to this system. Check out their website here. 





Glow in the Dark Nails

Glow in the dark nails are super popular at the moment, and as someone who loves shiny stuff like this, I have been collecting up some glow items. So here is a round up of what I have, what's worth buying and what's not. If you think there is a must-have item that I don't have, let me know so I can try it out!
This is Glam and Glits in Why so Sirius? A clear acrylic powder packed full with glitter. The glow is so strong in this that they just keep glowing all night long - to the stage where I had my husband complaining about the light in the middle of the night at one point.
Although there are a few places online to buy this, I bought direct from the Australian Distributor Diamond Nail Supplies. It isn't listed on their website, but you can email them to purchase it.
Glow power - 10/10




There are many glow in the dark nail polishes on the market, but here I'm swatching my favourite one from my collection - Femme Fatale Pools of Vision. When charged this glows pretty well, but sadly doesn't have a huge amount of staying power.
This polish is an oldie that you can't get anymore, but the Femme Fatale website has many other flow polishes, including the Serum No. 5 ones which are meant to be amazing.
Glow rating: 5/10
 When I saw some GITD water decals on eBay I had to grab them to try. Pretty design but sadly their glow power sucks. This picture was taken after charging in a UV lamp and you can still barely see any glow.
If you still want to give them a go, here is a link to a store on eBay selling them.
Glow rating: 1/10
 Of course I had to try out using loose glow powder by itself. Here I rubbed it into the tacky layer of some white gel polish, using 2 different colours of powder. The glow is super pretty and quite bright, and I love the different glowing colours, but sadly it did not have a lot of staying power. But they are so cheap and fun I think they are still worth it.
These powders were off eBay - here is a link to a listing for them. 
Glow rating: 6/10
Here is one of my favourite glow gel polsihes. Elite 99  in colour 6703. The downfall of this polish is that it is very sheer - here I have used 3 coats and it's still not fully opaque. However the glow is pretty awesome. It isn't quite as bright as the Glam and Glits but it is still pretty impressive and has a decent amount of staying power. Also for gel polish it's hella cheap!
I bought this polish off eBay - here is a link for the listing. 
Glow rating: 8/10

The images above and below are glitters from Glitter Haven.  Above is the Mixed Size Hexagonal and below is the Mixed Size Round. I was a little dubious about how well glitter could glow, but I was seriously amazed by how good these are! The glitter is a little sheer so you have to be careful what colour it is placed over, but the glow factor is astonishing. After I did these manis, the glitter just kept glowing all night long. Heck the bag of glitter glows every night without my actively charging it. There are so many possibilities!
Glow rating: 10/10


Opallac Thermal Gel Polishes

I recently got sent a whole bunch of gel polishes from Opallac, and although I plan to slowly go through and swatch them all, I wanted to share the thermal colour changing polishes. I'm always a sucker for thermal polishes, but the thing that I find exciting about these is that not only are they really pretty, but for all us Aussie girls, they are available at Priceline! It's so nice to have pretty polishes that I don't have to resort to buying online. 
Each of the swatches I have done 2 coats with a gel to coat. They are beautifully opaque, and they change colour really easily, so even now in the middle of the winter I'm still having fun watching them constantly shift. 
Go check out the full range of colours at the Opallac website
.
Strawberries and Cream

Two Faced

Poured in Pink

Addicted to Purple