Valentine's Day Mani

Hallo ladies,

Today I have a Valentine's Day mani for ya :D

I'm not use to having so many different pinks on my nails (I felt so girly) LOL first of all it toke me forever to find pink polishes in my stash (Damn what does that tell me?)

I love the way this mani came out, after I got over from having pink overload on my nails :D





For this mani I used

U.M.A Mr.Perfect all in one base coat.
Maybelline Wet Shine Diamonds Luminous Lilac 2 coats.
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Racey Rouge for the love image on the and lighter pink lips.
SinfulColors Sugar sugar for the darker lips
Seche Vite Dry fast top coat.






So what do you think?

Thanks for looking
Kesha

Chinese New Year mani

Hello~Happy Chinese New Year! :D February 3rd this year marks the new year of the lunar calendar and in celebration of CNY, I did a mani for it. It's really simple and I'm sad that I didn't have enough time for it but I love it all the same :).

I applied two coats of Maybelline NY's Candy Apple to incorporate the theme colour of CNY~red! Then to jazz things up Nubar 2010 was applied. I love how the flakey changes from orange to yellow-gold to green over the red polish <3. First photo was taken under the sun and the following two indoors under natural lighting. Apologies for the broken nail, I've been breaking quite a lot of them recently :(.

Kung Hei Fat Choy! Happy CNY to all who celebrate~♥ ^^

Thanks for dropping by~
Sharon

Nail art #20 - Stained glass window

I remember back in primary school we used to cut random holes and shapes out of a black piece of paper and stick all sorts of colourful cellophane to make a stained glass window. With Christmas coming up, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to try out stained glass window nail art ^^.

The first photo is taken indoors under natural light and the second indoors with flash. Sorry for the tip wear, the photos were taken after heaps of washing up ^^;;

Polishes used - 

Blue: Maybelline Colorama Electric blue

Red: Maybelline Colorama Candy apple

Green: Rimmel Forest

Silver: Ulta3 Snazzle

Gold: Ulta3 Antique copper

Black: Ulta3 Black satin

White: Ulta3 Lily white

I'm not sure I'm entirely happy with the outcome, I think it's a bit over the top to have all five nails looking like this.

Thanks for dropping by~

Sharon

Nail art #19 - Lights go on again

It's really been awhile since I've done some nail art - I blame this mostly on hectic Uni business, but I've also be really, really uninspired. However, the Korean boy band B2ST recently released a music video called 'Lights go on again' and I absolutely adore the smartly dressed suit concept ♥. Of course I had to do a mani on that, hehe.

I started off with three coats of Ulta3's Lily white as the base for my thumb, third and fourth fingers. I then used Maybelline NY's Electric blue for the heart and outlined it with Ulta3's Snazzle. For the suit jackets and bowties I used Ulta3's Black satin and Snazzle for the buttons. On my index and pinky I applied two coats of an Arezia polish which is nameless. It's a black base saturated with yellow glitter particles. I bought this polish in Hong Kong earlier this year and is also the cause of my infatuation with nail polish :P.

The Arezia polish represents the lights and obviously the suits are straight from their concept. Midnight blue happens to be their balloon colour, hence the blue heart <3.

The image which inspired my nails (screen shot of the mv which you can watch here)~

And a macro shot of the Arezia polish

Thanks for dropping by~
Sharon

Candy Apple

Ugh, I'm still in the middle of finishing an assignment. Again, taking a break to post some glorious red polish :). I am gradually starting to like red polishes more and more. I have for you today Maybelline NY's Candy Apple and have been wearing it for the past couple of days.

Shown is two coats of Candy Apple and a top coat. This deep red jelly polish was surprisingly opaque in one coat, but I went with two coats out of habit.

Thanks for dropping by~
Sharon

Nail art #18 - Can't breathe, like freeze...

Lots of ♥♥♥ to you if you get my post title :PPP. Lol I'm so sad, but this totally came to mind; oh Kpop ♥.

Anyway. Happy Halloween! :) I had meant to post a more halloween-esque manicure today, but I just had to try out the corset look after watching this video. I don't think mine came out as well though. Oh well :P.

I used Ulta3's Snazzle for this manicure and it is such a lovely silver foil. It's also not one of those extremely in your face silvers, so that just makes it all the more awesome. The black polish is from Maybelline Colorama's Dark Chocolate and Candy Apple for the red.

And here's a macro shot of Snazzle to show the foil.

Thanks for dropping by.
~shazzii

Nail art #13 - Kiwi nails!

Woah, I've made it through the week and the weekend! Hectic back to Uni week and on top of that I had a busy weekend, but I've somehow pulled through and yes, more nail art! :D This design was inspired by Cutepolish's youtube tutorial. I was all for a spring-y design since it's spring here (and most like it too, it's been cloudy and rainy since forever!) and came across the video; I obviously couldn't resist the cute kiwi nails :P.

Polishes used are China Glaze's Re-Freshmint for the base - I used two coats, Ulta3's Lily White for the middle of the kiwi, Glossyblossom's nail art striper in White and Maybelline's Dark Chocolate for the seeds.

I know Re-Freshmint is hardly the best green shade for kiwis but I don't own that many green polishes to begin with and so had a rather limited collection to choose from. This was truly the best I could find.

As you can see, I've filed my nails to a rounder shape due to my middle nail breaking. You can see it's awkwardly filed compared to the rest of the nails. I'm not quite sure I love the round nail look on me, I certainly do prefer square shaped nails more, but I'm not hating it. Which is good because it'll be awhile until I get my square nail shape back :P.

Thanks for dropping by.
~shazzii

Nail art #11 - Water marbling

I'm not sure I quite like how my water marbling turned out; I really have had better. Somehow the red on white polish gives my nails a rather bloody look.

Polishes used:
Maybelline Colorama Candy Apple
Ulta3 Lily White

I don't like the positioning on my first finger ,and the frustrating thing is that I had quite a nice pattern for it too. I got over-anxious, I suppose :/. Topcoat (Ulta3 Non-chip) also streaked the red polish, even though it was applied after awhile.

Thanks for dropping by.
~shazzii

Daisy Doo

Sorry for the bad pictures recently. Everyday gets shorter and more dreary so it's hard to get any good sun light for taking pictures. For this picture I resorted to using the light from my phone's camera since all of the lightbulbs in my house give photos taken under them an orange tinge.

A comment from Mistress Zombie a few days ago has given me the idea to compile a list of regular polishes I use for stamping. Hopefully it might come in useful for you guys that are into stamping without using the expensive polishes.

I actually don't own, nor ever have owned, any Konad special polishes myself and do all my stamping with regular polishes that I've found through trial, error and good guesswork. I'm aiming to get the list up some time soon - I just need some good lighting to get decent pictures of the bottles... how annoying.

Konad Plate: M3

Base Colour: BYS - Tickle Me Pink

Konad Colour: Maybelline Water Shine Diamonds - Atomic Red

BYS Flirty Sparkle for the dots applied with a brush

Maybelline Mango Sun

I hope all my American readers are have a wonderful Labor day.

Today is a gloomy rainy and yucky day :( so I wanted to bring some other to you. I sat in front of my stash and could not make up my mind so I had hubby pick out a color, I must say he did a good job. When I see these kind of orange I think of fall which is my favorite season.

This is a beautiful creme with loads of shimmer 2 coats, can you see how nice it sparkles?







Thanks for looking.

Nail art #4 - Mutated hearts

I thought I'd try my hand at some more nail art, this time making use of my newly bought dotting tools. To my dismay, I was not very coordinated and so ended up with many mutated looking hearts on my nails.

Polishes used:

Ulta3 - Spring Blossom
Maybelline - Dark chocolate


The heart on my fourth finger is from a polish I picked up from SaSa back in Hong Kong earlier this year. It's black with yellow shimmers throughout, a really pretty black polish ♥.

Because my nails were so fail, I decided to show my left hand instead. I don't normally upload photos of my left hand due to the fact that my first finger's nail is a permanent nub. I can't grow it out because whenever I do, it always splits and ends up looking really demented, all because I jammed this finger into a car door when I was young. The nail has never been the same again :(.

Anyway. Like I said, the hearts look a bit weird. I'm hoping practice will help make them look more 'heart-like' next time...

Thanks for dropping by.
~shazzii

Nail art #2 - Space inspired nails

Initially, I had intended to do a space-y sort of nail art. Except it kind of didn't work out the way I had wanted and so this is just simply 'space inspired gone wrong'.

Polishes used:

Black - Maybelline Dark Chocolate

Silver - Eclipse no.527

Glitter - mwah Magnetic

Hearts - Jordana Lilac Hearts

The glitter seemed a bit lonely on the black, so I decided to add some hearts to it. Error alert. Since when were there hearts floating around in space? :/ It did make the nail less boring, but the damage was done. I must invest in some star nail stickers.

Perhaps I should paint gold glitter onto my fourth finger instead next time.

I'm not terribly proud of my work, but eh. Lots of Uni work to catch up on now :(.

Thanks for dropping by.
~shazzii

Happy 4th of July...

.. to all of the readers in America!

I went to see Eclipse today. How good is it??!! I have read all the Twilight books and like them enough. I just haven't really liked the films THAT much so far. But this one was definitely my favourite of the three.

It's a good film on its own, without the 'Twilight' thing which is good.

I put it down to David Slade, the director. It was just so more original than the other two. And the flashback and dream sequences were communicated really well.

I just don't understand this Twilight Mania. Well, maybe I do understand it, but I think it's pretty silly myself. People sometimes take it a bit too far.

Konad Plate: Bundle Monster BM12
Base Colour: Maybelline Water Shine - Iced Mauve
Konad Colour: BYS - Glamourpuss
Top Coat of NYC

Oogle

Plate: BM19
Base Colour: Maybelline Ultra Lasting - 173 Nude Mauve
Konad Colour: BYS - 204 Glittering Purple
Top Coat of NYC

Never Have I Ever...

... used EIGHT COATS to get a polish to look opaque on my nails!!
This is one of my new polishes from Martian Delights and it took at least 8 coats. Oh, and you can still see nail line :(
It's a shame cuz it's a really nice colour too. Hopefully it will thicken up, maybe in a year or two, haha.

Plate: BM14
Base Colour: Maybelline Express Finish - 264 Ocean Blue
Stamp Colour: NYC Glossies - 243B
Cherry On Top: Rimmel Lasting Finish - 61 Exoctica
Top Coat of NYC

Maybelline has a new look

Woo-Hoo maybelline finally had a make over :) about time i'd say :) I'm liking this new look. The nail polishes bottles are so cute. I did not pick up any polishes but i'm so going back to get some (Loving the yellow and green ones).









Do you see anything you would buy? I know you nail junkie's are drooling over the polishes :D

Thanks for looking.

Pink

Plate: Fauxnad M34
Base Colour: BYS - 145 Lilac Bliss
Fauxnad Colour: Maybelline Water Shine Diamonds - 125 Atomic Red
Top Coat of NYC

Maybelline Matte Grey

Good morning, Dear Reader!

I have ano9ther Dollar Tree find to show you this morning. The upside is that it cost $1, the downside is that since it's old, it's chock full o' DBP. However, since it's just a once-in-a-while thing, I put it on. If something falls off as a result, it's my own fault.

I used two coats over a base with no top coat. This is one of Maybelline's Express Finish line, so it's quick dry and no top coat wasn't a hassle.

It's not as chalky matte as some of the new mattes, but I prefer this finish, I think.

That's it for now, Dear Reader. Until next time, love and nail polish to you!

Lacquered Up with Pink Hearts

Good morning, Dear Reader!

Today I decided to do an early Valentine's Day mani.  I wanted to use Maybelline's Sweet Valentine, the polish with pink glitter and pink hearts that I recently showed you.  I chose Essie's Lacquered Up as the bright, true red to use as a base, and was pleased to find that with shorter nails, Lacquered Up is a two-coater.  I finished the Essie with a coat of Seche Vite, then waited 5-10 minuted to apply the hearts.

This is where the real work began - fishing those little hearts out of the fresh bottle of Sweet Valentine was no easy task, but I did it!  I then sealed the hearts down with another coat of Sweet Valentine, which also added more glitter, then added another coat of Seche Vite for shine.  If I have another break today, it's certainly not for lack of nail polish!  Here's what the end result looks like.

 

 

It's happy, it's cheery, it's Valentine's Day!  The down side to being in the midst of a divorce for Valentine's Day is that I don't get any presents, but the upside is that I get to have the joy of living alone, and I don't have to pick out any presents for anyone else either.  This year, I'll take that deal, and celebrate Valentine's Day with the rest of you until the 14th!

As a matter of fact, let's start celebrating now with a little present for you.  I just paused while I was writing this to create a new contest, another random drawing.  This one is for a new bottle of Essie's Cindy-rella, which was an Ulta exclusive a few years back.  I live near The Ulta That Time Forgot, and they still had it, so I got one for you.  Here's a picture of the bottle, and the pretty black label that lets us know it's full of chemically goodness.

I'll be taking entries for a week so that the winner will get it in time for Valentine's Day.  The drawing is open to all readers, your name will show as you enter it (so no need to enter your full name), and your email address will only be used to notify you that you've won.

That's all for now, Dear Reader!  Until tomorrow, love and nail polish to you!

Wet Velvet & Maybelline's Valentine's Day Pretties

Good morning, Dear Reader!

Today is a nervous day for me - it's the first court appearance for my divorce.  I decided I should do a mani that would make me really, really happy, and I had just the thing - China Glaze's Wet Velvet.  My friend AuntEmmy sent this to me a while back, and I've been saving it for just such an occasion.

I'd heard WV is a dupe for OPI's Real Teal, and in the bottle, that looked like it was true.  On the nail, however, WV has a slight blue flash to it that Real Teal does not.  It's a miniscule difference, but a difference nonetheless.  Here she is - it took four coats, as the polish had thinned with age, but the result is more than worth the effort.

 

 

On to the other pretties!  I very recently came across Maybelline's Valentine's Day display with three glitter top coats, and couldn't resist a sale price combined the the additional $1 off coupons attached to the display.  Yesterday, I saw bottle pictures of the OPI European exclusive offerings for Valentine's Day, and it looks like two of these, the pink and the red,  seem to be dupes to those.  They're close enough that I have no need for the OPIs.  Here are bottle pictures, with the text of their names across the front being my addition.

I used the clear one over Essie Mesmerized yesterday, and took a quick and dirty picture to show my message board what it looked like while we were talking about them.  I've never had the patience to arrange the hearts nicely - I'm lucky I have the patience to fish them out of the bottle!  For the first coat, I did go fishing, picking out five hearts per nail.  Then I added a second coat to seal on the hearts, just taking whatever landed on the brush.  The hearts stayed sealed on well - I didn't lose a single one, nor did I have troubles with them catching on anything.  Here's the quickie picture of Clearly in Love applied.

 

That's what I have for you for now, Dear Reader.  Until later, love and nail polish to you!