Choi's nails

If you’re reading from my nail blog I bet you’re thinking where’s the first attempt? Well, I only posted that on my LUUUX blog because I felt it weren’t good enough for my proper blog. Maybe I should have done so, so people could see the improvement from the first to my second. I really like how this one turned out even though it wasn’t perfect. There’s still room for improvements on some parts but overall this one was much better than my last.

I took around half an hour testing out polishes to see which ones would spread nicely in the water; I wasted quite a bit of polish doing this. In the end I went with China Glaze’s light as air and Essie’s Haute as hello which I’ve never posted as a full manicure because the bright ‘scorching coral’ as Essie describes it just didn’t look great with my skin. Thought it didn’t match I know it wouldn’t go to waste because I’d keep it for any nail art. I do that with all colours I’m not a fan of.



This time what I did different was I actually taped my cuticle area with sellotape, some of you may know it as scotch tape. Clean up was much easier without it. I used my dotting tool to draw the pattern instead of toothpick, don’t think it’s the best tool to use but it didn’t do too badly. At least you can see some sort of pattern, it didn’t come out neat but I like the colour combo. I left this manicure on a little longer than I planned to.


My cuticles aren’t looking fresh but with the amount of acetone I’ve been using on it I’m not surprised. I like the shape of my nails this time too, I rounded off the edges more than I usually do and it looks pretty good like that. I can’t really keep my nail shape consistent without having something look slightly different each time.

• Applied The Edge base coat
• Then using Essie’s Blanc to apply two even coats and wait to dry
• In turn putting a drop of China Glaze’s Light as air and Essie’s Haute as hello until the cup is filled and taking the dotting tool to draw the pattern 
• Dipped my fingers into the pattern and using the dotting tool, removed the excess polish
• After repeating the above steps to all finger, I removed the tape did some cleanups with acetone and applied a layer of China Glaze’s fast forward top coat

Please excuse any mistakes if you find any in this post. I’m half watching and half listening to the live Olympics ceremony as I type this :)

Photo taken indoors, natural light with a bit of sun

I’m happy to have this colour; I really like it, more than I thought I would. It makes me think of the word ‘romantique’, French for romantic. I believe it’s because it reminds me of China Glaze’s romantique collection which I’m sure I’ve seen a pink metallic in it somewhere.

Photo taken indoors, natural light

Photo taken outdoors, in the shade.

Photo taken outdoors, in sunlight

Unlike all the other Color club polishes I have this one really had a good formula, very opaque. I went with two coats but if you’re applying the right amount then one is all you need. It’s quite shiny! I took a photo of my nails in the sun but I don’t think it shows how shiny it is there. I didn’t really put much effort into cleanups though since I needed to do a little scrub to make it neat. Overall it’s a shade I recommend if you’re looking for a pink foil at a low price.

All photos taken indoors, natural light

• Applied The Edge base coat
• Three coats of Essie’s Blanc
• Added a thin layer of China Glaze’s fast forward top coat and wait until it dries PROPERLY
• Using striping tape to line where I want the stripes
• Applied China Glaze’s Urban night carefully then quickly removing the stripes
• Add rhinestones and pearls on the top right of the thumb, ring finger and bottom left of the middle finger
• I added a small bit of striping tape to the pinkie which was a right fail. It looked like the tape was soaked in polish having that greasy paper look
• Add a thin layer of China Glaze’s fast forward top coat 
• I added the petals on the index and pinkie finger the next day because part of it was looking empty. I even thought of adding a rhinestone in the middle of the flower. In the end I left it as that.

I tried to make it look like the design I saw in the magazine but it just doesn’t look right on me. I think I’ll have another go at Japanese nails though; I just love them too much to give up on them now.

I’ve been trying to get myself back into the routine of polishing my nails, so rather than going with the polishes I have lined up in order I just went with something that caught my eye. I wanted to use this earlier for my graduation dinner but in the end I didn’t have enough time.

Skylar is a sky blue full of silver shimmers. It’s sad to say I like this more in the bottle than I do on my nails. That’s not to say that this shade isn’t great though. It’s just that I find the shimmers seem more sparkly and a little more outstanding in the bottle.


The formula on this I can say is lovely. Its consistency is just right, not too thick and certainly not runny. That’s with most of the Zoyas I’ve tried. Two coats did the job for me and it’s what you see in the pictures. It’s actually not as bright as you see it there but my camera has a thing against blues. It always makes the background a little different or alters the true colour. I’m sure my lighting had something to do with it too; it was close to getting dark.

All photos taken outdoors, natural light

They’re not the best one stroke flowers and petals you might’ve seen, in fact looking at it closely it doesn’t quite look like them but this was real fun to do. I’ve tried out one stroke before but they were mainly failed attempts which are why I’ve never posted any of them up. I wanted to perfect this technique so I picked up the flat brush and pulled out those acrylic paints again.

One stroke sounds and looks much easier than it actually is. I did this attempt whilst watching instructions on YouTube; I started doing practice strokes on paper at first which didn’t look any good so I went ahead and tried doing some petals on top of China Glaze’s blonde bombshell since I was due for a polish change soon anyway.


It’s mainly about moving your brush in an up down motion. I did two petals in the corner as half of a flower and a random petal on the right. I like the combination of yellowy-gold, white and red. Slightly reminds me of Chinese New Year.

 I prefer this in person though because you see less of the mistakes, the brush strokes and at a quick glance they do resemble petals a bit. The base is very sparkly too but in these close up photos they just don’t look the same.

Photo taken under my lamp

 

It’s been way too long since I’ve worn a red or at least it feels like it. I miss wearing them especially those vampy ones besides I have quite a few waiting to be worn so I picked whichever was closest to me and slapped it on for the next day at work. This one didn’t disappoint in the end, the opacity was by far one of the best I’ve come across from China Glaze.

This polish is definitely a one coater, I applied two coats but one really doesn’t look far off from what you’re seeing in the photos. The formula was slightly thick though so working fast and loading your brush with a little more would help otherwise you’d end up dragging the polish which I did at some point. Partly the reason why I ended up adding another coat but I’d say one is really all you need.

All taken indoors, natural light

Misa isn’t a popular brand as much as others say China glaze or even Color club but I’ve seen a few in a nail salon my friend used to work in. I even own two shades myself but they’re nothing special. One’s a standard black crème which I have yet to use and another is a frosty purple shade which I hardly use. It’s real sheer and doesn’t even look good layered over another. Rookie purchase!

L-R: Pink cadillac, Good to be green, Bubblepop

L-R: Skinny dipping, So HOT in sunglasses, Double dutch