Long time, no post

Happy...2013!

 

I almost can't believe how ridiculously long it's been since I've logged on. School was so incredibly busy, and I couldn't spare a second for myself. Not to mention that blogger wouldn't let me upload any more pictures. LAME.

 

Anyhow, I'm trying to play a little catch up on the weekends with the blog as well as some personal stuff, so here we are. This is how I wore my nails for a New Year's Eve party with some friends:

 



The base colour is Date in the Moonlight from Essence. It's a charcoal gray that leans a little blue, topped off with some bright blue micro-shimmer. It's really a beautiful colour on it's own. I would tell you something about the formula now, but to be honest I can't remember. I know that it didn't require an obscene amount of coats (probably was a 2-coater) and that it wasn't too thick or too thin.

I applied Diamond Drops (pictured) from Color Club starting at my cuticles. I was going to say "sponged", since that's what you usually do when you want a glitter gradient, but the glitter in this polish is more shard-like and not very user-friendly, so I ended up dabbing the polish brush against my nail to place the shards generally where I wanted them. I finished it off by using a dotting tool to put "2013" on my ring finger...in case you were unsure of what year was coming in.

I'll include this slightly blurry picture so you can see the blue shimmer a bit. It's not really in-your-face, but it is a nice addition:

 That's really it for now. I've got a folder full of pictures still left to share, and that's not even counting the ones that I didn't have a chance to photograph before I took them off!

See you (hopefully) soon!

Flashback: Happy Halloween!

(EDIT: So I totally just failed at technology -- I wrote this post ON HALLOWEEN, thinking that I had published it, but it turns out that I never did. WHOOPS! Secondly, I actually never had time to post that "more on that later" since Halloween because I've been so swamped with schoolwork and I took a me-day yesterday, so... :$)

I told myself I would never write a blog post in class, but here we are. (I'm bored as f*** right now, but I can't be bothered to do anything more interesting.)

With Halloween being only 3 days after my birthday, I actually did not do a Halloween-themed manicure this year because my birthday one was so labour intensive that I had to keep it on for at least a few days. I did have some Sally Hansen Salon Effects on last week to make up for it, but more on that later. Instead, I'm going to show you what I had on last year. LAME.

Except not, because it was pretty epic.

I used Color Club Almost Famous as a base and then I used scotch tape to mark off the bottom part of my nail before putting on one coat of Joe Fresh Crush. I ended up free-handing the white tips with Sally Hansen White On because I simply did not have the patience to wait for the lower coats of polish to dry enough to stick tape onto them -- I remember trying after a coat of Seche Vite, but even still the polish underneath lifted straight off.

I did this on my birthday last year, as a treat to myself for finishing my patho midterm. Can you guess what it is? If you can't, I hope you know that I'm judging you pretty hard right now.

Can you at least guess what (or who) my thumb was supposed to be?

I couldn't resist. .Cute little Frankenstein thumbs? Be still my beating heart!

I used China Glaze Entourage which is a light lime green with green shimmer running through it. The hair was painted on with a black striper in no particular pattern over the tip of my nail. The eyes were done using the end of a paintbrush, as this was my pre-dotting tool era. (Can you tell?)

Here's the whole hand:

Pretty!

Needless to say, I didn't go out that Halloween. Can't remember exactly why not, but it was probably some BS (cPhm) midterm or another. My cuticles were looking pretty awful...must have been my pre-body butter days, as well.

This year, I totally copped out. I only wish I had the time to do an epic design, but...oh well. Nail strips next?

Electric!

Brace yourselves. I was really excited about this when I did it, and I hope you will be too.

YES. IT IS WHAT YOU THINK IT IS.

Pikachu Nails! Love!

Pokemon used to be my life. I ran home from school every single day to watch the show on TV, and I used to play the games for hours on end, mashing that B button in hopes of catching every Pokemon worth catching. And by that, I mean running away from every damn Caterpie I came across while wandering through the bushes.

The yellow I used was, no surprise, Color Club Almost Famous. I used Wet 'n' Wild Red Red for the cheeks, and Black Creme for the eyes. I used a dotting tool to make the mouth and nose.

Before you all die of cuteness overload, I should show you my attempt at making Jigglypuff nails. Brace yourselves again. You might want to have a trash can near...or a toilet.

It looks so retarded. I almost didn't post it, but I thought you had the right to know: I suck sometimes. Jigglypuff was always my favourite: such a shit disturber. Sad that it didn't turn out well.

ANYWAY, I'll snap out of this elementary school flashback for long enough to get back to work on reality and all the problems that it brings. See you on the flip.

Almost Famous

Color Club Almost Famous is probably my most used polish, but even still, I have never worn or swatched it on its own. Until now.

It's the only yellow I own (out of the 3 that I do) that has a decent enough formula and bright enough of a shade (on my skin tone) for me to even bother wearing it at all. When I bought the Poptastic 7-piece set from Winners, I bought it for Pucci-licious but Almost Famous was a pleasant surprise.

I haven't been able to find Colour Club polishes outside the few loose ones at Winners and the ones in the 7-piece sets, but if anyone knows of anywhere that I can get these babies, I would love to know.

Another Avonspiration

Remember this picture?

The nails in this picture have some pretty bomb colour combos, so I had to try and recreate another.

I was going to do the white line/colour blocking on all the nails, but I honestly just did that first one and got lazy. The ring and pinky fingers are in Wet 'n' Wild Club Havana, and the index (and thumb) are in Color Club Warhol, a neon shade of deep pink that had a much better formula and opacity than I expected it to have.

I'll admit that this wasn't my favourite mani. It sort of looked like I couldn't decide what colour to paint my nails and then used the white line to make that painfully obvious to anyone who cared to look. Especially since it was right in the middle of my hand.

I really enjoyed the spread from the Avon catalogue, so I will probably be replicating more of those manis in the future. Keep an eye out for those!

Countdown to The Olympics #1: It's Today!

It's today! It's today!

Let's keep this short, shall we? I'm off to work soon, having PVR-ed the opening ceremonies to watch later on today. This is my final Olympics manicure:

Abstract Olympic rings! I used the same colours mentioned in my first olympic manicure, plus a coat of China Glaze White Cap for some golden shimmer. I've already received a bunch of compliments from complete strangers at work and while going about my day, though I'm not sure if they know that the lines are supposed to be parts of the rings. I used a thin paintbrush to make the curved lines.

Hope you all enjoy tonight's festivities, wherever you are!

Countdown to The Olympics #2

What are the Olympics really about?

Just kidding. (Or am I?)

Clearly, I am. This is the Summer Olympics. My people are only good at sports in cold climates. And my actual people (and by this I mean athletes from the Philippines) don't really win so much at global competitions, see Miss Philippines 2010 and her mistake-free life.

The answer would be something along the lines of global unity and camaraderie. Good sportsmanship. Recognizing that we are all one. World peace. Nothing major major. (Goddamnit, Miss Philippines, was it so hard to think of a single thing you'd done wrong?)

Anyway. Since I don't have hundreds of fingers, I only did 3 flags. Where I'm from, where my parents are from, and the host country. The pinky was supposed to be the American flag, but in the end I decided that it would have been too much effort for such a small fingernail. Instead, I went with the "WINNING!" theme and painted it gold, OPI's Bling Dynasty.

The maple leaf was a temporary tattoo, the stripes on the British flag were done using a striper brush, and the sun on the Philippine flag was made with a dotting tool.

The colours I used were: Wet 'n' Wild Red Red, Sally Hansen White On, Color Club Almost Famous (yellow), and Essence Walk on Air (navy blue).

Here's the whole hand, with the Olympic flag showing as well. Amazingly, I did this without the aid of any striping or scotch tape. In the second picture you can see that my lines and edges are not 100% perfect, but they were definitely good enough to show you guys, haha.

That's it for now. Tomorrow I'll be posting my final Olympics manicure! :D

Countdown to The Olympics #3

Okay, well, technically the Olympics have already started, as I am sitting in front of the television watching a soccer game. But at the same time, they technically don't start until the opening ceremonies, at least in my book. So the title of this post still holds.

Now, if you occasionally peruse through my posts, you probably know that I have a penchant for doing themed nails to match whatever major  (or minor) event may be happening at that time. In this series, I'll be showing the three nail designs that I tried on to mark the 2012 Olympics, ending with my final choice.

This first one is actually from The Daily Varnish, a simple design that I just simply had to try for myself:

I decided to make the Olympic Flag by using my smallest dotting tool and roughly making the rings with small dots. I considered larger dots with white dots inside to make the ring, but I wanted the rings to appear more intertwined. You'll see this Olympic Flag nail be the focal point of my future designs, too.

The colours I used were (Left to Right): Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Blue Me Away, Color Club Almost Famous, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Going Green (one of my most favourite polishes of all time), and Wet 'n' Wild Red Red.

Will you be doing olympic nails too?

Nail Art Is the Best Medicine

This specific attempt at something resembling nail art has been cooking in my head for awhile, ever since a coworker at the pharmacy mentioned that it would be awesome to have a nail polish that was the same colour as the capsules she was currently counting out. Sometimes I think my friends support me and my addiction too much. BUT THANKS GUYS, I LOVE YOU ALL!

Considering that I spend most of my time in the summer working around prescription drugs, and most of my time during the school year [pretending like I'm] learning about prescription drugs, it was only a matter of time until this found its way into my nail obsession.

It's an idea I've had for a VERY long time, but I wanted to wait until my nails were the right length/shape for them to resemble capsules. I did these by painting on 1 to 2 coats of the lighter or least opaque colour of the capsule on each nail, and then painting on the second colour on the other half. I was going to use scotch tape to guide painting on the other half, but I was much too impatient for  that and ended up free-handing them. The numbers were put on using a toothpick.

I also had a ridiculously hard time deciding which capsules should be represented. I wanted to have those which were common enough to recognize, but also something unique enough that one who knew what these were would be able to distinguish it as such. A few of them could be a number of things...but I tried.

I'll let you guess. Don't scroll down just yet...here are some lolcats to entertain you while you scroll.

Here they are, if you were actually attempting to guess instead of attempting to care. :P

Colours used:

• Orly Mint Mojito
• Zoya Cho
• Joe Fresh Crush
• Orly Wild Wisteria
• Color Club Almost Famous
• Wet n Wild Black Creme
• Wet n Wild Through the Grapevine 

Colours used:

• Orly Mint Mojito
• Sally Hansen Wet Cement
• Wet 'n' Wild Candy-licious
• Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme
• Color Club Almost Famous
• Sally Hansen Cherry Red
• Sally Hansen White On
• Zoya Breezi

Now, I'll be completely honest. As much as I enjoyed this manicure, I only wore it for about 2 hours before I decided that having all these colours together in one manicure was just...ugly. It was a novel idea and something that has been on my mind for awhile, so I was glad that I did it no matter how brief  the wear time was. :)

Covered in Diamonds Jubilee

Wouldn't you know it, the second that I mention that I am ecstatic to have extra material to post, I don't post for almost a week! It's going to be a quick post today, because I'm just coming back from a steak dinner and I'm feeling symptoms of major itis. I missed a birthday dinner for a friend of mine to go to this other dinner for work, so I'm pretty pleased that it came with some delicious steak. :)

Over the weekend, I was pretty much parked in front of the television during the hours where I wasn't at work for two reasons. The first being that Friday is TLC's Bride day and I| was catching up on a bunch of Four Weddings episodes (I can't get enough of that show!), and the second being the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. I have been obsessed with the royals ever since the 5th grade when I borrowed a book about Prince William from my elementary school's library, forgot to return it over the summer, and then...switched schools. WHOOPS! It still claims a shameful spot in my book case.

I wanted to do a manicure to commemorate the occasion, but I was so darned busy that I failed to paint my nails any colour at all. To make up for it, I'm posting a quick layering mani of Color Club Covered in Diamonds over How I Met Your Magenta.

I didn't end up wearing this for long, because I was in the process of changing my polish when I decided to do some layering over my existing manicure before I removed it. I didn't end up putting a top coat on, but I could tell from the texture of the polish that it would take a couple of coats to even it out. I was drawn to Covered in Diamonds because it bore some similarity to Luxe and Lush from the Hunger Games Collection. The formula for this was pretty terrible -- I would liken it to a bunch of glitter shards mixed in with some clear paste. You pretty much have to drop a huge glob of it on your nail and then spread it around as best you can...

Now I was going to tell you that I still have loads of material to go through, but this time no promises will be made! My cousin is getting married on Saturday, so it has been pretty hectic. Keep your fingers crossed!

Black, White, and Purple

I think I use this blog more for late night down time after a stressful test more than anything else! I decided to do my nails again tonight after completing my exam this morning -- halfway done!

I posted awhile back about finally getting my hands on Color Club's Pucci-Licious as the perfect pedicure colour. I posted a horrendous toenail picture, which I am usually against. It was a horrible, colour-inaccurate picture and I would like to apologize now for the fact that you had to see my big toe for no reason.

This was one of the first nearly-colour accurate pictures that I've been able to capture of this colour -- a bright, almost neon blurple. It is a less blue in real life, but believe me, it usually photographs completely blue, so the fact that any purple at all showed is kind of a miracle. It dries matte like a neon as well. I actually had bigger plans for this mani, after stumbling upon some new Nubars at Winners over the weekend:

This is one coat each of Nubar Black Polka Dot and Nubar White Polka Dot. Each contains small round glitter with large hex glitter in black, and white respectively. The little white pieces are actually iridescent. You can't really tell from the pictures, but the ring finger and the index finger are lacking in bigger white polka dots. I would fix it, but...let's get real. I'm much too lazy for something like that.

I'm really hoping that these were enough to squash my lemming for Lynnderella's Connect the Dots. I've fallen off the wagon pretty hard this time around, having successfully completed my no-buy. And I'm going to be going on vacation to the US pretty soon, which is a pretty bad sign for my wallet, and my nail polish drawer. :S (or :D, depending on how you look at it) I think inventory has to be done on my collection pretty soon.

Until then, I will live in blissful ignorance and denial about my addiction, so I can finish the last of my exams and be done with this school year. Summer needs to start. NOW.

Out of This World

PROCRASTINATION is the devil.

A very fun, and relaxed devil.

I was supposed to have my CV ready on top of my writing assignments done and taken care of by now, but instead I spent the last hour and a half doing this:

It's based off cutepolish's galaxy nails tutorial. The best person in the world, my friend Susan, has been dying to try this out. Let me tell you. That youtube girl makes it seem so freaking easy. But this took FOREVER to do, and I like to fancy myself at least a notch over beginner on the nail art expertise scale. I don't quite like how some of it turned out, especially the stars and the "fluffiness" of the nebulae, but nothing that a coat of fine holographic glitter can't fix!

Holographic goodness above!! And below:

Here's my right hand, which I actually like better in some respects, especially in the "fluffiness" department:

On my desk right now is a multitude of nail polishes which just didn't make the cut. The ones I used were: Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme, Wet 'n' Wild Tickled Pink, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On, Sally Hansen Complete Salon Thinking of Blue, and Color Club Almost Famous, with a thin coat of Nicole By OPI Make a Comet-ment on top.

I also got a brand new bottle of Revlon Quick Dry Topcoat, which is currently my favourite top coat of all time, since it dries just as fast as Seche Vite, with a far less offensive odour. I ordered a box from work and what better way to crack open a new bottle than with this gorgeous mani?

Bye for now, wish on me some productivity!

Oh, Canada!

Happy Canada Day! This will be a pretty short post due to the two barbecues I'm going to today! YAY, SUMMER!

CANADA DAY themed manicure! I'm actually pretty surprised by the way this turned out, what with the lack of nail art pens...the leaf was done with the aid of only the brush that came with my Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Cherry Red nail polish. I was going to do all the fingers like the thumb, but decided not to because it would be both time consuming and too busy to look at.

The other fingers were done up in Zoya Reva from the Summertime collection, a deep red with lots of gold shimmer. It kind of reminds me of China Glaze's glass fleck nail polishes -- which I'm totally going to buy more of, btw. I renewed my Sally's card for $5 and got a $5 off coupon for my next purchase! SCORE!

Last, but not least, I thought I would post a quick picture of my latest satisfied lemming: Color Club - Pucci-licious. I usually don't approve of feet pictures, but I adore this colour!!