Naturally Nails: Pink glitter accent nails

Hey hey

Once again, my favourite day of the week is finally here. IT’S SATURDAY! I don’t like Fridays because it’s still a school day and Sunday = school tmr so SATURDAY IS DEFINITELY THE BEST. If I could help it, I’ll have a 4 day work day and 3 day weekend. That would be my ultimate goal in life. I hope it comes true! Evertually I wanna find some way to make my money grow itself without me doing anything. Ahhh… that would be the life. Then I’ll go travel the world sampling great from all over the world just like ladyironchef! HAHA! Dreams

Got myself a very interesting nail “accessory that I couldn’t wait to try out. Here’s what I did with it!

Etude house: Matte pink
LA splash Daytona beach

The breakdown:
1. Use a matte colour of choice (etude house matte pink)
2. Choose accent nail and paint another coat of base polish over. 
3.While polish is still wet, dip nail into glitter of corresponding colour (LA splash Daytona beach)
4. Dust off excess with brush and tap off excess glitter
5. Top accent finger with top coat (if not glitter will fall out)

OMG I’m seriously loving how this turned out. I intentionally chose a matte polish to accentuate the shine of the glitter. It’s like the star of my nails right now! Look at it twinkling like little stars in the sky! You can NEVER achieve this with any ole glitter polish. Even OPI’s teenage dream doesn’t come close. The only down side? The glitter can make your nails look super chucky because it forms such a humongously thick layer.

Oh! I have to complain about the formula of the etude house matte polishes. It’s really bad. While I have never worked with any other matte polishes, I still feel that this one is REALLY bad. I think it dries too fast, there’s no time to create an even coat because it sets. It’s TERRIBLE. It’s ok on my fingers because the surface area is small but can you imagine my thumb. I redid it 3 times and still….. extremely streaky. I had to use thinner to improve the consistency. =(

Here’s a close up of the lash splash glitter. NOTE, this is NOT safe for the eyes. Nonetheless, this glitter really surprised me. I had expected a chunky, gritty texture but NO, dipping my finger into this pot transported me to coasts of Australia! The glitter was so smooth and soft it reminded me so much of the gorgeously fine sand of Australia! Lovely Lovely! Ok so Daytona beach is mainly a soft pink studded with sliver, purple and blue glitter. The colour combi is really pretty. I love this shade of pink as well. Not too hot, not too light. JUST RIGHT *Noms on porridge just like goldilocks* LOL

Alrighty, I’m off to enjoy my well deserved Saturday. Fatigue, you shall not hinder me from my happening life.

~END~
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Naturally Nails: Butterfly wing ombre

Hey Hey

Happy Belated Valentine’s everyone! Hope you had a great one with friends, family or special other half. I had a whale of a time helping my friend chase a girl for vday! Mine was spent rather quietly at my other half’s humble abode. We prepared our own army stew pot and basically dumped all kinds of delicious goodness into the stew. HAD A SUPER HEARTY MEAL! And a great time cooking it as well. We never like celebrating Vday on the day itself because everywhere is too damn crowded. Even terrible restaurants sprout ridiculous queues. Yup, just becomes a super turn off even if we had pre booked seats. Imagine Vday when we hit 6.9milion. WOW. I don’t even wanna think about it.

Nonetheless here’s what I did on my nails to celebrate the coming of my recess week! WHOO to being able to leave my nail colour longer than 2 days! =)

Base: OPI The IT colour
Gradient: OPI the IT colour à OPI I eat mainely lobster à China glaze ruby pumps
Design: TFS black, Etude house white

BAM! I am so proud of this design, so proud that it brings tears to my eyes! Real tempted to change my thumbnail now. Can you tell that they are butterfly wings? Specifically it is modelled after the Monarch butterfly! Drew inspiration for 2 vids on YT and put my own gradient spin on it. This is by far, my most ultimate, intricate, awesome nail design ever that took FOREVER to finish. The sheer amount of work that goes into painting on the wing design really takes a toll on your concentration. Nonetheless, the effort is totally worth it. LOOK AT THE END RESULT! A show stopping design IMO. I, obviously love this design the MOST! AMORE! Can't wait to show it off! *Breaks into song* "Oh I just wanna show you off to ,y friends, making them drool down their chiny chin chins"

Fair warning, this design is not the easiest and requires a heck load of patients and a crazy amount of OCDness to achieve

The breakdown

1. Paint a yellow/light orange base colour over the nails (OPI the IT colour)
2. Create your gradient on a sponge and dab all over nails making sure to blend blend blend (Best gradient nail tutorial by nailasaurus     HERE)
3. Wait for polish to completely dry and in the mean while clean up the edges of your nails
4. Using a stripping brush, dip into black polish and draw on the butterfly wings meticulously. This step takes the longest. (Pssst: A good tip is to draw the lines away from you as this makes the brush much easier to control. Sometimes, moving your fingers while keeping the brush in the same place also works)

NOTE: Round out any sharp edges esp where the lines intersect. – This is the part where you need to be very OCD about the edges if not they won’t look real. I couldn’t do them at well as I wanted to but still OK

5. Using a dotting tool/ toothpick, randomly dot on some white dots but rmb to add some where the vertical lines and horizontal tip meet.

6. Add rhinestones as you wish. Use SMALL ones so they look more intricate
7. Wait at least half an hour or more before applying top coat. You do not want to smudge your design after you’ve gotten this far. Patience, patience, PATIENCE!

Tada you are done! And I just lost my train of thought… ok OK right got it back. Basically you want to be very patient with this design. Definitely works with other colours as well. Just model them after the colours of butterflies to make them for realistic. Bear in mind thought that dark colour will not make the black wing design stand out.

Hallelujah! I have successfully made OPI the IT colour work. Terrible colour SOLO but gradient when used with other colours. Added in rhinestones for the fun of it, afterall rhinestones never fail to glam up anything it’s put on. 
Ugh, some of my lines aren’t as crisp as I had wanted them to be and some edges aren’t as round as I wanted them to be but hey, nobody can seem them from afar right! Super proud that I could achieve the same design on my right hand, drawing with my left hand really tested my hand dexterity max. Well right brain, you have served me well!

Swatches:
OPI the IT colour 
OPI I eat mainly lobster
China glaze Ruby pumps

Here’s a narcissistic picture of my thumb on which I think the wing design looks the best on! Probably because there is a bigger surface area to work with so I can draw more lines!

Totally can’t stop looking at my nails now. Imma continue to gaze bimbotically at them through the week and marvel at my work of art! I am not an artist and drawing ain’t my biggest forte, it fact it’s probably one of my worst so being able to pull this off really amazes me. Ahhh there ain’t no better art than nail art. It’s so unbelievably therapeutic. ESP when the you reap the fruits of your labour at the end.

Anyways, CHEERS to the coming of my recess week. This week shall be spent wisely!

~END~
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Naturally Nails: Festive CNY nails

Hey Hey

So Chinese new year is upon us! So far it’s been a blast for me! I don’t have a ton of visiting to do because my family gathers at 1 place and it’s overkill! Ang Pao heaven! Which makes it really dangerous for any other guests to wander into our realms. People have before and their losses were huge. Could almost hear the sigh of despair from the outside when they saw how many shoes were outside my grandma’s house.

Since it’s the oh so covet CNY, what better way to celebrate it than with super festive nails!! Here’s what I donned on CNY. I was super red this year to please my dad. He was a happy happy dad. Could say that my outfit almost mirrored my nails, just that the darker red was burgundy instead. EVEN WORE RED SHOES

Without further ado!

Base: Etude house pink jelly polish
Tips: China glaze ruby pumps

FESTIVE HUH! Not as gaudy as I imagined which is good! I quite like the combination! The touch of red really changes up the look IMO. Can I just exclaim how much a love the jelly polish which also happens to be my favourite kind of finish. Looks super opaque in the bottle but when you apply it to the nails, it turns out to be a beautiful jelly instead! Best thing is that it pretty darn opaque for a jelly~. Nonetheless, I always couple it with a french tip just to make sure my nail lines don’t show through esp in the sun. Appalling how many time I have used the word jelly LOL.

Unfortunately, etude house revamped its nail range entirely so I don’t think this colour is in the line anymore =(

Anyway if you wanna check out a swatch of ruby pumps, you can find it here! (click here)

Notice any difference in my tips. Went to file them the next day to make em straighter. Think they look a better like that, more angular! I realised the problem with frenchtips. If you want them to look more crisp, a thin level of polish will suffice. I tried to make my tips look more opaque and ended up with globs for tips hhaha!! Can totally tell how rough I am with my nails. This is 2^ND day nails. Check out my third finger. Took the greatest dmg.

And the last picture for the post. Non reflective post to “reflect” the true colour of the polishes.

Ah yet another rainy afternoon, this is probably the first in a very long time that it’s raining on CNY. No matter, the rain doesn’t change anything. Those ang pows will still be mine! LOL ok jokes aside, the best part of CNY for me is ofcourse the FOOD. So much sin in so little time. The best dish ever? Grandma’s and mum’s ngoh hiong. OMG to die for. Sis and I snapped up about half of it before my mum realised the degree of our gluttony and snatched it from our grasps to keep it out of sight TT. Could have eaten more seriously! Argh, there will be so much dmg control to be done after this week is OVER. OMG hahaha

Nonetheless HAPPY CNY EVERYONE. Apologies that my post is so BELATED. V’day is coming up as well but I do not think I will be in time for a Vday nails post so, perhaps this can double up as vday nails as well xD.

~END~
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Naturally nails: White jelly glitter!

Heyhey,

Now that it’s been quite a while since school started, the boring and mundane routine of studying is really starting to eat away at my soul. What’s the key to keeping your sanity? Having a life and adding COLOUR TO IT. Wow, that sentence totally jolted my memory of the powerpuff girls! You know.. the episode where everything became black and white and the powepuff girls saved the day by singing? Love x9 makes the world go round~ Anyways, here’s my dose of much needed colour for the week! (meant to wear this for xmas but well it’s too late now ain’t it =X)

COLOURED GLITTER! 

Etude house PBL 601.

This isn’t something that I’d normally gravitate toward but the BF convinced me that it’s pretty! So I got it LOL! Was pretty intrigued by it when I swatched in on my fingers.  

PBL601 is a white jelly polish studded with multi coloured glitter of differing sizes. It goes on pretty sheer for the first coat but is definitely buildable. Note that because the white polish is a jelly finish, it allows the natural colour of your nails to peek through it hence transforming that stark white colour (which I like to call blanko nails) into a more natural, wearable colour. Brush picks up a good amount of glitter / coat but of course, you still need to manoeuvre it a little. Application was smooth as butter and glitter pieces aren’t the least chucky so it doesn’t drink top coat.
Really loving the whole jelly sandwhich thing. Totally changes up the look of the glitter when a jelly polish is layered over to give a more subdued and less in your face. 

Ok so.. this glitter polish is really NOT MY STYLE. I am it’s all cutesy and all. Not that it’s a bad thing. It’s really pretty! Just not me. What that statement you must be wondering about the whole heart in between the lines thing? It was a kind suggestion from my best friend! We were painting our nails whilst waiting for the tiramisu filling to cool for an hour or so. Random baking spree! Loved the effect but again…… TOO CUTE!

So I had to counter all that insane cuteness with black tips which made me feel right at home! I quite like it I fact. Only complaint is that I kinda made the tip on my 3^rd finger a little too thick. Really irks me but it’ll do.

Again with the narcissism, another picture showing off the mani!  I’m being really perfectionistic and all but next time I’ll try to get my tips a little crisper at the edges! Just like how I did it in one of my previous design. (click here). Sharp lines make anything more edgy. Ain’t that right?

Here’s to another week of lectures and torture! Can’t wait to earn my own keep for a change. Must feel wonderful yet shitty at the same time because working is a whole new ball game. Please let me survive the workplace politics.

OOO the unrelenting rain has finally let up! Time to soak in all the sun before the weather turns into a scorching nightmare as always here in the sunny island of Singapore. Imma going to enjoy some juicy tang yuan at that!

PS: for those who haven’t watched Les miserables. Please don’t waste your time watching it. It’s BORING. Like really boring. ESP for those of you who prefer action movies or animations over anything. Too draggy and the plot advances SO SLOWLY. Ugh.. I love musicals and all but this is just… pure torture to watch. The only saving grace is the wonderfully heart wrenching, totally touching ending. As jesse (from Pitch perfect) says: Endings are the best part ^^

~END~
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Naturally Nails: Punk-y Purple gradient nails

Heyhey

1 week of school has just come and gone like that. I'm currently high from severe lack of sleep but no matter, will crash and burn later. Planning to go watch Les Miserables tmr so hopefully I'm able to wake on time!

Since the precious the weekend is here, although somewhat semi destroyed by a saturday tutorial at 8am....... what better way to get into the party mode than with a polish post! 

Base: Etude house black
Purple: OPI planks a lot (pirates of the caribbean)
Tips: Nubar Vaso
Ring finger glitter: Essie set in stones

Basically used the sponging technique to create the gradient. Love the effect of my ring finger the best!! I'm like half half with this design. Really love the colour gradient and all but the blending could have been a little more natural! Totally being perfectionist but YEAH! 

Here's what I came up with. I must say I struggle a little with this. Couldn't get the perfect way to blend the black into the purple without it looking crazy messy. Right after I slapped my polish on though I came up with the method - paint a layer of black polish over and let completely dry. Created black and purple gradient on sponge and dab instead of directly dabbing purple directly. It should theoretically produce better results. Will test it some when, some time.

Ugh! The unblended edges really irk me. Guess this is what happens when you don't blend your makeup properly either. Fatal move. I will perfect this gradient technique!

Tips from my experience: 
1. Use a glitter top coat to even out the gradients better
2. Works very well with lighter colour gradients (i.e Medium pink to pink etc)
3. Glitter/ shimmer polish blend much better

Here are some of my other gradient posts:
1. Kpop inspired (my favourite)
2. Pink gradient 

Ahh! Shall enjoy the rest of the weekend while it still lasts. Nothing beats lazying on the couching and flipping through channels looking for a good movie. That's the life. MONDAY PLEASE GO AWAY

~END~
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B.e.a.uteafull: Gunmetal liner with lilac accents

Hey Hey,

Welcome 2013! A fresh new year and of course a fresh new start. Thankfully, school hasn’t started for me yet, relief RELIEF! I need a break from that hell hole.

Lemme kick off the new year with an EOTD! =) Here’s what I came up with

Totally digging this look. I favourite part is the lilac accent at the bottom. I feel like it kinda softens and completes this look. What daya think?

The breakdown
1. TFSI (of course) over the entire lid plus lower lashline
2. Line your eyes with a gunmetal coloured liner of your choice. I used the Maybelline colour tattoo (15 audacious asphalt). Feel free to pull your liner into a wing as I did or stop at the edge of your lash line. Totally up to you. I personally love winging eyeliners! Gives my eye a more feminine shape
3. Set the liner with a gunmetal shadow of choice
4. Line the upper lash line thinly with the blackest liner you can find. I like to use liquid liners when lining on top of other product because I get the BEST opacity. 
5. Line lower lash line with lilac cream liner of choice. I used the etude house’s bling bling liner.
6. Set the coloured liner with corresponding shadow of choice. I actually opted for a periwinkle shadow to mute out the purple tones and cool down the liner so as to match the coolness of the gunmetal. 
7. Line the inner corner with a silver liner. I used the clio gelpresso waterproff pencil gel liner in metalic silver No.6
8. Curl lashes and apply mascara.

Lining the eyes is easy peasy don’t you think?

So did any of you guys catch the magical word up there? That’s right, MAYBELLINE 24 hr COLOUR TATTOO! Omg it’s finally in Singapore. I almost gave up hope on them. Life has a funny way of turning itself around. Just when you least expect it =) Imagine my amazement when I saw them sitting prettily atop the Maybelline display shelf. I can’t believe this took forever to come. While the whole beauty community was raving about this, we were here, sitting, wishing that we were in the US basking in its glory as well. No matter. It’s all forgiven now that I have gotten my hands on them.

I understand why the colour tattoo’s received the attention that they did back when it was first released. They are G.O.R.G.E.O.U.S AND G.L.A.M.O.U.R.O.U.S! Comes in an array of bright colours as well. I don’t think the whole range is here but it’s enough to keep my occupied for a while. Couldn’t decide between purple, gunmetal or orange when I swatched them together. The other half really liked the orange but I put down the orange reluntantly and got the purple and gunmetal ones. Haven’t been regretting since!

Just a heads up on how amazing they are, the swatches on my hand once set couldn’t be rubbed away by sheer force, neither with water. Survived the bath process and remained on my hand till the next day. OMG. Super budge proof and lives up to the 24hr claim. NAISE.

If you wanna grab em. Check em out at watsons. They are $3 off now =) I don’t recommend the branch @ plaza sing because it’s fresh out there.

No I’m not advertising for Maybelline if you were wondering. I’m just excited about the colour tattoos and can’t wait to share them with you guys

Once again, another narcissitic post of my eyes just because. TOTALLY LOVE THE LINER. Omg where is there a pesky any crawling up the screen of my computer *flicks*

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Now that the New year has passed, it’s time to look forward to Chinese new year of course! That’s all the way in Feb, but yet not too far away either. I am tempted to recycle my old clothes from last year for my New year’s outfit because they are all in the colour oxblood. How apt for CNY! As long as nobody knows that they aren’t new it’s fine right??? I hope so =) Doing the whole chriselle lim trick. Switching up outfit so that I never look like I ever wear the same thing twice when I actually do xD

So far, I am really enjoying the whole holiday thing. Korea was a mega blast and waking up 11pm without guilt is awesome! Gotta relish in the moment and do more shopping before the hols also past by in a flash. Then there’s a stock pile of nasty homework awaiting completion. Oh life. Oh my life. =(

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B.e.a.u.TeaFull~: Purple Shadesticks

HeyHey,

Know I haven't been posting in a while. Super sorry about that. School's been so busy for me that I have barely touched my computer for the whole week. IKR. Madness. I haven't even got the time to paint my nails. DISASTER MAX? Thankfully, I am able to squeeze this post in though.

So, today's supposed to be THE.DAY. 21/12/12. The apocalypse, or end of the the world as we know it. Haha there's a considerable hype about it which really amuses me. Not that I don't believe it or anything but if the world's going to end, the "comet" will take everyone with it. That being said, everyone technically will perish together, hopefully via some kind of quick death. If it were going to happen, there isn't quite anything we can do about it either ain't it. Not like we could teleport to another earth somewhere >.< Anyhoo. I still don't wish for the world to end though. There' just too much fun in being alive! Although I must say, I'm pretty satisfied with my life, it's been rather fruitful and I have no regrets so far. xD

Moving on...

Since my nails have been stark naked for the past 2 weeks, today's post will naturally not be about nails. Pardon the quality, my tripod was not in the vicinity.

Featuring: Etude house bling bling shade stick ande nxy jumbo eye pencil in lavender (Top to bottom)

Nyx Jumbo Eye Pencil (can be bought from fleas/sprees around S'pore. Most stabily located at *Scape)
Now we all know that nyx's jumbo eye pencil has been revered for years and years now in the beauty community. Well, I must say it really lives up to it's name. The texture is the creamiest I have ever come across and the pencil just glides right on to your eyes. Not only that, the colour range is beyond awesome. I had to stop myself from buying almost every colour. (ok I probably exaggerated that part but ALMOST ALL the colours were nice). Like most youtubers mention as well, the best way to apply this pencil evenly and thinly is to pick up some product on your fingers and warm up the product with your natural body heat (that is of course emanating from your fingers) rather than using the pencil directly. Totally agree with that. If you use the pencil directly, it tends to load on too much product - creases easily this way.
One thing I noticed though is that it rubs off VERY EASILY. It's not particularly smudge proof or waterproof. I suggest setting this liner with a corresponding shadow colour for the maximum colour pay off and to prevent smudging/creasing.
Nonetheless for those who can't be bothered to use your fingers, the size of the pencil tip is awesome for hooded lids. 1 "coat" is quite sufficient for my lids, no more madly drawing multiple lines. 

Etude house Bling Bling shade stick
This guy is also ULTRA CREAMY. Almost as creamy as Nxy's jumbo eye pencil but not quite as smooth. Like the jumbo pencil, this shade stick is not particularly smudge/waterproof. Super sad. But it costs a good $5 cheaper than the jumbo pencil though. Unlike nxy, etude house carry a terribly limited colour selection for their shade sticks. Great colours but super little to choose from. 

R-L: Nyx jumbo eye pencil in lavender, etude house shade stick

Lavender is a beautiful frosty, almost irredescent lilac. Yes I said lilac! Cmon, the shade seriously looks nothing like it's name implies. In fact, the etude house's shade stick colour resembles lavender much more closely. Wonderful shade and goes on SUPER pigmented and true to it's colour

Etude house shade stick (which shade exactly I forgot because I peeled off the sticker by accident) on the other hand is a gorgeous shimmery lavender. This one was a stunner, I swatched it on my hands and was sold immediately! Totally love it that my other half bought it for me, he said I was far too excited about it to gave it up so he just took the liberty of buying it for me. LOL! =) Awww xD. This shade sticks applies evenly and smoothly with great pigmentation as well. THUMBS UP THUMBS UP.

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On a side note, I am actually leaving for a Korea this afternoon! Yes, up in the air when the world ends. LOL! Unless it decides to end in the morning >.< Blog won't be updated probably next year as I don't think I'll be blogging over there. In any case, XMAS IS NEARING! I wish all my lovely readers (hopefully we are still around) a very MERRY XMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR in advance =) The holidays are finally here! Hope you guys get loads of presents as well! Yup, I'm childish like that xD

END~
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