More Chevrons Please!

{China Glaze's Kinetic Candy, Liquid Leather & I'm Not Lion}

I loved & missed my previous chevron manicure so much (you can see it here), I asked my friend if she'd paint them for me again. Voila! I love how these turned out, and my left hand looks even better, but I can't seem to take pictures with my left hand.

{OPI's My Vampire Is Buff, Pirouette My Whistle & When Monkeys Fly!}

I know I said I was on a shopping ban, but unfortunately, that hasn't happened. I keep getting tempted by new collections & makeup I see :(

I bought these OPI nail polishes the other day, I couldn't resist, they're soooo pretty! I want to wear My Vampire Is Buff and When Monkeys Fly so much but I don't want to remove my chevrons :( #firstworldproblems

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Also placed an order with Teavana for the very first time and I LOVE the selection of tea they have, they all sound delicious and the ones I got taste amazing. I'm not really loving loose leaf teas though, they're much more inconvenient than tea bags.

Oh you know...

Just the things I want but can't buy because I'm supposed to be saving up for a big purchase. I'm going on a no-buy soon. & It so happens that just as I've decided to go on a no-buy, all my favourite companies come up the the most amazing things. 

I've been the biggest fan of Archie comics ever since I was a kid, I was obsessed with collecting & reading them. I'm definitely Team Betty though, are you? 

I knew I wanted to own pieces from this collection when I first saw it (hello blushes & eyeshadow quad & face powder!). The packaging is too cute ♥

MAC is releasing EIGHT new pro longwear paint pots! :O I think I've said it more than enough, but paint pots are my absolute favourite thing from MAC (the MSFs come a very close second). Look at the gorgeous shade on the top row, I need them all! 

I know I'm definitely going to get Vintage Selection & Let Me Pop (3rd & 4th ones in the top row). These were first seen in the Champale collection in 2010 and I didn't get them because I wasn't into wearing much eye makeup then.

And finaaaaally, the pastels from China Glaze's Avant Garden collection. I'm a sucker for pastels. I haven't looked up swatches yet, but I probably have something similar to the lilac & periwinkle colours in my collection. I'm pretty sure I'm going to get the darker pink, mint & white colour though. 

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I just need a teeny bit of self control, I'll pick out a couple of things to buy from each collection and I won't go overboard :/

Essie's Turquoise & Caicos & China Glaze's Whirled Away!

I purchased a couple of the polishes from the China Glaze Cirque du Soleil collection a month ago (I posted it on Instagram), but I completely forgot about them until I chanced upon swatches recently. I loved Whirled Away the moment I saw it but I had no idea how to wear it. 

I looked through the swatches on Google and decided that I liked it best over a pastel/light colored base so I whipped out Essie's Turquoise & Caicos ♥

Turquoise & Caicos has to be one of my favourite mint green/turquoise nail polishes. It's SO gorgeous & the formula is pretty great. The first coat may look sheer and patchy, but the second coat evens everything out. I have no problems with the formula at all. 

I had a bit of trouble applying Whirled Away though. In all the swatches I've seen, all the "glitter" pieces seemed to be well distributed & even. However, when I tried to paint it on, it was pretty hard to get the pieces to go on evenly. I actually had to fish out the white hexagonal pieces and put them on using a dotting tool.

I really love how unique Whirled Away is and I love how these two polishes look together. Whirled Away is definitely worth the extra effort it takes. 

New Year's Day Nails!

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE! May 2013 be the best year you'll have so far!

I wanted to go all out, glitter bomb for my New Year's Day nails. I love glitter, and what better occasion is there to wear glitter?! So I pulled out my most bimbo pink and brightest silver/gold polish and piled it on my nails :D

I used OPI's Teenage Dream & China Glaze's I'm Not Lion.

I layered a layer of OPI's Panda-monium Pink under 2 coats of Teenage Dream. I only had to use ONE coat of China Glaze's I'm Not Lion, I adore it!

I usually only use glitter polishes for accent nails or nail art but I went all out this time. And I really like how it turned out!

Snowglobe Nails! ❄

My friends came over to my place for some coffee & cake, and we decided to do our nails too because, why not? :D

I used China Glaze's Kinetic Candy, Shooting Stars and White on White. You can tell how much I love China Glaze ♥

I sponged White on White over my Kinetic Candy base, then did a coat of Shooting Stars over. My friend also brought over Christmas nail stickers and I couldn't resist the Christmas tree & snowflake ❄ There's also a bow on the middle finger of my right hand but I can't take a decent picture with my left ☹

China Glaze's Harvest Moon

This is part of the The Hunger Games collection from China Glaze. I remember being SO obsessed with this for  months before it launched, and when it finally did, I went out and bought almost the entire collection. I have 9 out of 12 of the polishes. I passed on Mahogany Magic & Riveting because I didn't like those colors. 

I wasn't really a fan of Harvest Moon when I saw it too (orange really doesn't appeal to me at all) but I thought it might be alright for Fall/Winter.

This is the first time I've worn it!

I think it looks better on than I expected, doesn't make me look like an oompa-loompa, I hope? 

I quite like the metallic finish of this polish and it applies really well too. The first coat is a teeny bit streaky but the second coat totally evens it out & makes it opaque. The only downside to this polish is that it takes slightly more effort to remove as compared to the normal creme polishes. It's not a big problem though, especially if you're used to removing glitter polishes!

OPI's Strawberry Margarita & China Glaze's I'm Not Lion

I decided to do the two-accent-nails thing again (did it once HERE), not a very novel idea, I know!

I wanted to paint my nails something simple & fun so I decided on OPI's Strawberry Margarita and added China Glaze's I'm Not Lion as an afterthought to jazz it up.

Strawberry Margarita is one of the most classic OPI colors, it's just a bright pink creme polish that everyone loves. The formula is perfect too, it goes on so smoothly and it's completely opaque in 2 coats. No streaks, no patchiness at all.

China Glaze's I'm Not Lion from the On Safari collection is another winner. It's a glitter polish and I'm positive it consists gold and holographic glitter. It does look different in different lighting though, sometimes I think I see silver and other times I think I see bronze. I swear I'm not cray-cray though hahaha.

China Glaze's Shocking Pink!

I have China Glaze's Shocking Pink on right now! I don't know why but I've always had the impression that Shocking Pink was from the Summer Neons collection. But it isn't, it's from the Wow Factor collection. Maybe China Glaze has too many (Poolside, Wow Factor, Summer Neons) neon collections?

This is 3 coats of Shocking Pink with one very goopy coat of Seche Vite on top (I need a new bottle).

I didn't plan on buying Shocking Pink at first, because I thought it was too similar to China Glaze's Flip Flop Fantasy, which I already own. I decided to get it in the end because I couldn't decide what else to get. When I compared them, I realised that FFF is much more coral, and SP is a true neon pink. They're not dupes at all!

The formula of this polish is okay, for a neon. It was a little streaky and uneven, but 3 coats was enough to level everything out and make it opaque. 3 coats is not bad at all! I'll never forget how China Glaze's Yellow Polka Dot Bikini took me 6 coats, never wearing that again!

Mint & Gold ♥

I saw a post on The Beauty Department on Robin's Egg Nails and I thought they were GORGEOUS. I decided that I had to recreate that manicure soon.

If you click through the link to look at that TBD post, you'll see that my manicure generally doesn't really look like that one. I do still really like my version though! They actually look better when they're not THAT up close.

 I used Sally Hansen's Mint Sorbet and China Glaze's Solar Flare. I've done a review on Mint Sorbet on my old Tumblr (here) and it's great-- 2 coats for complete opacity. I used one coat of Solar Flare for this mani because it's meant to be a glitter top coat, not a polish on it's own, Topped that off with 2 coats of Seche Vite Dry Fast, and tadahhhhh!

Polish Overview Part Two: Pinks & Corals

Part two has taken me a week to post, I'm a terrible blogger! Its so hard to find the time to take pictures, and I think I really need a new (better) camera that takes nicer indoor, low light pictures.

Anyway, here's part 2 which is dedicated to pink & corals! Wanted to make a special post for my coral polishes because they're my current fave, but it would have been way too short. 

Pinks

First row: OPI's Panda-monium Pink (which looks purple under some lights, strange), Sally Hansen's So Much Fawn, OPI's Dusk Over Cairo, OPI's Strawberry Margarita & butter LONDON's Snog

Second row: China Glaze's Wicked Style, Make An Entrance, Fuschia Fanatic & Seduce Me

I actually forgot to include Deborah Lippmann's Shape Of My Heart, which is a pale pink. I've post a couple of pictures of it on this blog before, you might want to take a look if you're interested (:

 Corals

First row: Essence's On Your Gracile Tiptoe, Revlon's Mad About Mangoes & China Glaze's Flip Flop Fantasy

Second row: China Glaze's Make Some Noise, OPI's Lunch At The Delhi & Deborah Lippmann's Daytripper

I lovelovelove my coral polishes right now, they're soooo pretty & perfect for the season now! I think the next post should come some time in the middle of this week, hopefully I get some good pictures taken! Part 3 is probably going to be yellows/blues/greens. I only have 1 yellow polish and a couple of green ones, so I'll be posting mints in that part too!

China Glaze's Manhunt & I'm Not Lion

I got a couple of polishes from China Glaze's On Safari collection the other day! I meant to get the entire collection when I first saw it a couple of months ago, but the colors don't appeal to me anymore. I still think they're gorgeous, but they're not colors I'm into right now. 

I had to get Manhunt because it's my favorite color from the collection, and I'm Not Lion because lions are THE BEST animal in the world.

I'm sorry about the TERRIBLE paint job on my pointer finger. I forgot to wipe the brush on the corner of the bottle and it glooped (such a professional term LOL) around my cuticles :/ I usually wait for my nails to dry, then take a shower so all the excess polish peels off. Didn't do that for this one, obviously.

Manhunt is a dark blue which I thought would be a dupe for China Glaze's First Mate but it isn't really. Manhunt is noticeably brighter. It's opaque in two coats and not streaky at all. Great formula! I'm Not Lion is a glitter polish with flecks of silver, gold and holographic glitter. I put on 3 coats, but that was just to be safe. 2 coats would probably be sufficient! 

I really love doing two accent nails :D

Nail Polish Overview Part 1: Reds & Nudes

A friend who reads this blog suggested that I do an overview of the nail polishes I own. And I thought it was a pretty good idea because 'nail polish collection' post of sorts has been requested on my Tumblr quite a few times, but I didn't know how to go about doing it. Anyway, we decided I could probably group them according to color. So here's part 1!

Reds

First row: Sally Hansen's CSM in Right Said Red, OPI's Big Apple Red, Essie's Very Cranberry

Second row: OPI's Quarter Of A Cent-cherry, Deborah Lippmann's Supermodel

You can find reviews for these polishes (except DL's Supermodel, it's new in my collection) on my old Tumblr (here).

Nudes

First row: China Glaze's Innocent, OPI's Bubble Bath, OPI's Tickle My France-y

Second row: OPI's Barefoot In Barcelona, China Glaze's Dress Me Up, Sally Hansen CSM in So Much Fawn.

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It's such a hassle to take pictures, because I don't have a good camera & I prefer natural sunlight. I don't really have the time to take pictures on weekdays, especially since I only get home at night. Part 2 will probably be pinks/oranges/corals!

Colors for Spring/Summer ☼

These are my nail polish picks for Spring/Summer! I'm totally feeling pastels now, and these colors are top on my list now. I don't really like any finish other than creme right now so... they're all going to be creme polishes.

   

Left to right: OPI's Panda-monium Pink, Essie's Nice is Nice, Sally Hansen's Mint Sorbet, China Glaze's Kinetic Candy

Panda-monium Pink is a pretty blue-toned pink creme polish which can make it look slightly lilac in some lights. You can see the swatch of it here. 

Nice is Nice is a pastel lilac color which is really pretty but kind of annoying to apply. I use 3 coats because it's pretty streaky. Here's an updated swatch because I don't like the one on my Tumblr.

   

Mint Sorbet is your typical mint green color, it's a good dupe for Essie's Mint Candy Apple and Revlon's Minted. Mint Sorbet has the best formula of all, to me at least. It's completely opaque in 2 coats and not streaky at all. You can see a swatch of it here. 

Kinetic Candy is baby blue creme polish, and it's a pretty close dupe (not exact) for OPI's What's with the Cat-titude. I prefer this polish over WwtC because it's completely opaque in 2 coats,  and WwtC takes me at least 4 coats. Look at the swatch here !

Let me know if you have any great Spring/Summer colors you'd like to recommend, I'm definitely looking for more polish to hoard try ;)

Manicure Monday?

I painted my nails with OPI's Mermaid's Tears (thumb, pointer & pinkie) and China Glaze's Goddess (middle & ring finger). I really like how these colors look together!

After a couple of days, the polish started to wear away at the tips a little and I thought it'd be the best time to try half moon manicures (which I have been wanting to try) because they cover up the tips. I layered China Glaze's Kinetic Candy on top. 

I thought it was a pretty fail manicure because the half moons were shaped weirdly. I should have stuck the tape further down and left less of Mermaid's Tears visible!

China Glaze-- Electric Beat & Shooting Stars

I painted my nails with China Glaze's Electric Beat and Shooting Stars. I really love how they look together! Electric Beat is a really pretty cornflower blue & Shooting Stars is a glitter layering polish with very fine & larger pieces of glitter.