- Saturday, February 07, 2015
- 0 Comments
If any of you follow me on Instagram you would've seen this post a few days ago but here it is, leopard print on some pink nails. Very girly with a bit of wildness to it. Grrrr. I've said it for the longest time now but I've finally got around to freehanding this design even though it's like one of the classic nail designs out there.
The base is Essie's I pink I can from their Breast Cancer awareness 2014 collection. In fact I even purchased the other two from the set because they looked like awesome pinks to have but they've just not been tried as of yet.
I used 2-3 coats here with a thin runny formula. Maybe it's been too long since I've added a new Essie to my collection that I've forgotten how the formulas usually were but it is gorgeous though isn't it? ;)
For the leopard print I used Barry M's gold foil and using a dotting tool drew different patches over my nail almost forgetting that I had to add the black. With Misa's I will survive and a nail art brush I did some small lines/c shaped lines around the gold to make it more like the prints.
- Saturday, November 29, 2014
- 0 Comments
I really thought I knew where I was going with this one but halfway through I just started freestyling with some silver, some pink and dots.
First let me show you the base of this manicure. I'm pretty sure I've blogged about this one before but in a joint post with a bunch of other manicures that I didn't feel were good enough for a full post (neither did I have time for it back then)
Not a very frequent green wearer but this one is very suitable for fall. I just reread my old post to recall how I felt about this one before but this time round I was alright with it. It's more of a teal creme just that the colour came out a little different under my camera lens.
This was supposed to be some sideways cloud mani with China Glaze's Refresh mint and Icicle but things just seemed a bit..weird? I guess it was partly because I weren't getting the bubble portions similar on each nail so I added some dots with hope that it'll prettify the whole thing up.
Pink and turquoise is a pretty nice combination in my books so I added some pink. The corner could only fit two strokes which looked close to a heart so after brushing up on it, left it like so. The tips did feel a little thick at first though but after it dries it doesn't feel like that so much.
Even from the pictures above you can totally see that silver foil just reflecting the light back at you so I added a top coat to see if anything will change with that. Nothing much but I think this time I prefer the matte version.
So which one do you like more? The gloss? The matte?
- Thursday, October 23, 2014
- 0 Comments
During the Christmas sale last year I picked up this Ciate advent calender which I've finally got around to opening every single flap, only because I couldn't stop my hands from opening up every single one haha.
This is Ciate's Boudoir which is described as a sassy flirtatious red on their website. Quite right! The first coat is sheer and shows some VNL but the second coat covers everything and darkens the shade to look exactly like that in the bottle.
For the first time trying this brand the small brush surprisingly picks up a good amount and each stroke covers a good portion of the nail whilst painting. This one seems like one of the polishes that definitely needs a top coat because without it it looks uneven/rough. Clean-up was easy and it didn't leave any staining behind despite being a bold red. It does make my hand look white-ish/grey though.
Boudoir looked good on its own but I wanted to try out some of those double dotted flowers pulling so I ended up pulling Ciate's Hopscotch into the picture plus a basic white. Erm, the colour selection here just seems wrong now. Some colour clash with the bright orang and the bright red but I guess now we know what not to do next time.
Have you tried any Ciate polishes yet? What's your reccommendations?
- Sunday, September 21, 2014
- 0 Comments
When I first started out nail blogging there were a few nail polishes I
purchased that ended up being pushed aside because it was the first time
meeting those sheer, streaky or runny formulas and Essie's Haute as hello is
one of them. I feel guilty for not wearing this properly even once during the
two to three years I've had it or even attempting to fight it out with the
formula.
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| Essie's Haute as hello + polka dots. Light box photo. |
Essie's HAH is one I've always confused with Essie's Van D'go because I never gave it a proper look to realise they're actually really different. HAH is a bright peachy coral with a tricky formula, it's thin and runny which makes it hard to apply. It ends up a little streaky and the brush tends to drag the polish so it needs a minimum of three coats. I went ahead and put on a fourth to cover up some bits and bob but even so I had no problem with the polish thickness. The formula is so thin that it actually felt like there were only two coats. It has a semi matte finish with fast drying time between each layer.
It held up very well during my four hour shift at work but I came home thinking I wanted to add a little more to it. I didn't quite remember the last time I did a full polka dot manicure so polka dots it was. My hands look a little tanned with HAH on but it usually is with shades like this. I really like this shade; it really fitted the weather at the time.
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| Essie's Haute as hello. No top coat. Light box photo. |
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| No top coat. Indoor photo. |
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| No top coat. Outdoor photo. |
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| With top coat. Light box photo. |
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| With top coat. Indoor photo. |
Do you have any polishes that you've neglected because of the formula?
What do you think of Essie's Haute as hello?
- Tuesday, August 20, 2013
- 4 Comments
British weather is totally working against this season this year with all the rain and snow, so I had to do a light coloured manicure to make it feel more like Spring.
Products I used:
The flowers look 'eggy' shaped because they were supposed to be random blotches. It didn't look too right so I transformed them into flowers in the end.
Essie's We can do it pink is a light pink that's very milky but surprisingly over CG's RFM it shows up more pink.
I covered some dots with I'm not lion on the accent nail but dotted them in the middle of the flower on my thumb which I didn't photograph. I prefer the thumb design but overall it didn't look too bad.
I managed to paint and clean up this manicure real neat this time so I thought I'd take photos of my base first. Just in case the design didn't turn out right I'd still have something to show.
What do you think of my manicure? How is the weather like for you guys?
Products I used:
- Two coats of China Glaze's Refresh mint
- Using a dotting tool and Essie's We can do it pink for the flowers and dots
- China Glaze's I'm not lion for the glitter dots on the accent nail
The flowers look 'eggy' shaped because they were supposed to be random blotches. It didn't look too right so I transformed them into flowers in the end.
Essie's We can do it pink is a light pink that's very milky but surprisingly over CG's RFM it shows up more pink.
I covered some dots with I'm not lion on the accent nail but dotted them in the middle of the flower on my thumb which I didn't photograph. I prefer the thumb design but overall it didn't look too bad.
I managed to paint and clean up this manicure real neat this time so I thought I'd take photos of my base first. Just in case the design didn't turn out right I'd still have something to show.
What do you think of my manicure? How is the weather like for you guys?
- Saturday, March 23, 2013
- 6 Comments
I‘ve been meaning to do the half polka dot nail design but
this didn’t look the way I thought it would. The similar nail designs I’ve seen
has that sort of cute effect to it and mine just looks..boring. I’m immensely
impressed with the base colour I used though. I usually wear new polishes as a
full manicure first before I use it for any nail designs but since the base
colour looked somewhat ordinary to me I felt it would’ve been okay to go
straight into a design.
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| All photos taken outdoors. |
I think I can skip the instructions for this because it
looks pretty straight forward. The star of this design is China Glaze’s
Poinsettia which is a bright juicy red that I paired with a basic white, Essie’s
blanc. I love this red. I know I have many in my collection and I’m sure I’ve
said the same for some of them but this one just looks yummy.
Opacity was great and application was as smooth as a baby’s
butt. You could almost get away with one coat but adding another will make it
more vibrant and bright. It’s not looking as bright as it should be in the photos
because of my lighting though. I think my China Glaze fast forward topcoat
doesn’t really work here because it only smudged some of the dots that were
dotted on with Poinsettia even after I gave it some time to dry first.
At first I wasn’t too impressed with it even though almost everything
went smooth with this design but eventually I started to think it looked fun. Maybe
next time I’ll make the dotted area smaller and add a bit more to it to give it
that cute look.
What do you think of this nail design? Do you own Poinsettia
or any colour like it?
- Thursday, September 13, 2012
- 2 Comments
I had second thoughts about whether I wanted to post this
manicure because if you look carefully you’ll see a few mistakes and some parts
are not straight. I have a list of manicure ideas I want to try out and the
first on the list is a dotted manicure. Simple enough right?
I couldn’t decide on a base colour, I was torn between a few
light and dark ones before I went with more than a few pastels. I’m surprised
to say I didn’t have the right blue which would have been perfect for this
manicure. Need to make a mental note of this for any future purchases.
I should have used a different sized dotting tool because I
feel the dots are a little too big. I did something different for the thumb though;
I used Essie’s Blanc as a base and dotted all the pastel colours on top. It
looks even more fun than the other nails; I might recreate it when I’m feeling
for a dotted manicure again.
What’s on my nails:
Thumb (Not shown): Essie’s Blanc
Index: Essie’s lilacism
Middle: China Glaze’s re-fresh mint
Ring: China Glaze’s something sweet
Pinkie: Essie’s Lapis of luxury
Index: Essie’s lilacism
Middle: China Glaze’s re-fresh mint
Ring: China Glaze’s something sweet
Pinkie: Essie’s Lapis of luxury
I prefer the manicure in person and from afar because it’s
colourful and you see less of the mistakes. I received more than a few compliments
at work from my colleagues and customers, in the end I left them on for almost
a week.
Excuse the photos, I was in a slight hurry my cuticles doesn’t
look too healthy and my nail shape isn’t on point. I realised they weren’t so straight
after I’ve already painted them, I attempted to file them but it only made the
polish go wrinkly because it hadn’t dried yet and my patience level was too low
to wait for it to dry.
- Saturday, July 21, 2012
- 3 Comments
Here’s the first polish I’ve tried from Misa’s HOT summers
collection. I picked the shade I least liked from the bunch, that’s not to say
that I don’t like it just not as much as the other ones. Usually green isn’t my
thing, I have a few dark greens nothing as bright as this one though.
From the promo pictures and the bottle it actually looks
like an alright green, I had a feeling I’d like this one but I wasn’t so
interested in it once it was on the nails. The colour just wasn’t doing it for
me; it reminded me of goo, a bogey green.
The formula was alright, slightly runny on the first coat
but everything evened itself out on the second. The brush does take a bit of
getting used to though; it’s a little thinner but also a little longer.
I left it on for 15 minutes before I thought I needed to do
something to it. Anything like a pattern or a design as long as it covered a
patch of the green. My dotting tool was within arm’s reach so I did some basic
flowers using Essie’s Blanc. It looked much better than when it was without the
flowers, I accidently dug a hole on the pinkie though. They’re not the best
looking flowers but they did the job for me. I only did the left hand and
didn’t bother with the right. I certainly do prefer the one with the design more.
What do you think of my NOTD?
- Thursday, July 12, 2012
- 0 Comments
