Hey everyone! It's the last Manicure Monday this year before Christmas and I wanted to make sure my nails were properly festive for the season. You may remember that I did a cute Snowman Nail Art tutorial last year, so I thought a slightly broader concept would be fun this time around. When Elleandish's Sweater Weather nails recently came up in my blog feed, I knew argyle nails would be the perfect answer!
Hey everyone! I felt like today's Manicure Monday was incredibly appropriate for it being the beginning of December since the shades in Zoya Jules remind me of sparkling Christmas lights and silver tinsel. This warm dove-grey shimmer just seems so holiday appropriate without screaming "bad Christmas sweater" which is muted and yet refreshing. Let's check it out below!
Hello my lovelies! Today I wanted to paint a bit of sunshine back in my life because sadly I've been sick with some kind of coughy, congesty, fatiguing lameness that has kept me from being my usual productive self. You know what? Nails I can do even while sick! Nobody sees the bags under my eyes or reddened nose when it's just pics of my nails, and BOY does Zoya Rica lift my mood!
Merry Christmas and happy holidays! Today I wanted to share a very special Manicure Monday because it's actually a fun and easy-to-follow nail art. It's been a really long time since I've done character nail art but every once in a while I think it's a creative way to express yourself and give a little happy boost whenever you glance down at your fingers. I've gotten loads of compliments on this look so I wanted to share it with you as well! :)
Check out the step-by-step tutorial below!
I wasn't going to post about this promo since I assumed everyone had already heard about it before, but you never know, someone may have missed it! A lot of people were messaging me making sure I knew so I'll post to make sure you know too. Hehe.
One of my favorite nail polish companies, ZOYA, is offering 3 free bottles of their nail polish with code FB2011 Jan 3-7. That means today is the last day to order! All you have to pay for is shipping which for me was $6.95.
One of my favorite nail polish companies, ZOYA, is offering 3 free bottles of their nail polish with code FB2011 Jan 3-7. That means today is the last day to order! All you have to pay for is shipping which for me was $6.95.
Here are the 3 colors that I ordered:
Gigi: A medium-opacity pale pink with silver micro glitters
Charla: "Mermaid in a bottle" blue-green with glass-flecked sparkles.
It's a dupe for ORLY Halley's Comet, OPI Catch Me In Your Net, and Essence Choose Me.
Tiffany: A foil-sparkle in a gorgeous rose-gold peach color. What made me choose this was Scrangie's (the nail blogger) swatches here but different people's swatches lean more rose or more peach.
I'm being good this time and only ordering the 1 batch but I've heard of many others doing more than one order. My nail polish collection is kind of out of hand so it was a bit hard to even choose these 3 as being significantly different than what I already have! XD
Spring cleaning this year will be a doozy!
Anyhoo, please let me know in the comments what 3 polishes you ordered with your own description of the shade so that others can use it as a helpful reference for choosing. Happy sale shopping! :)
PS - to see my previous swatches and posts on Zoya please click here.
There were sooo many people who had asked me to do a tutorial for the purple gradient nails from my BoA Game Inspired makeup tutorial so I wanted to show you guys how I did it here, as a follow-up to my Basic Nail Polish Application Tutorial post.
Products mentioned:
OPI - Who Needs A Prince?
The Face Shop - random purple glitter polish
Zoya - Roxy
Covergirl Boundless Color - Disco Dazzle
Seche Vite top coat
It looks a bit goopy in this close-up pic but it definitely looked smoother in person. My coworker said they looked like vampire nails so I suppose it's only appropriate with October almost being here. ;)
I like how my right hand turned out better than my left. Gloopy left is the photo above, but the much smoother right hand is below. Pretty bizarre considering I'm right-handed but I can be fairly ambidextrous when it comes to nail art! It must be all the practice. ^_~ The real key is making the first layer really translucent because it's easier to blend the dark parts than to blend in the light color.
Disclaimer: All items mentioned in this post were purchased by me. Some affiliate links are included in this post.
Products mentioned:
OPI - Who Needs A Prince?
The Face Shop - random purple glitter polish
Zoya - Roxy
Covergirl Boundless Color - Disco Dazzle
Seche Vite top coat
It looks a bit goopy in this close-up pic but it definitely looked smoother in person. My coworker said they looked like vampire nails so I suppose it's only appropriate with October almost being here. ;)
Hope you guys enjoyed it and forgive me for the short entry. The weather here is cold, dreary, and rainy today and I'm still sick so I think I'm going to wrap myself up in a blanket and have some hot soup. Have a nice weekend!
Disclaimer: All items mentioned in this post were purchased by me. Some affiliate links are included in this post.
I cannot tell you how good it feels to finally wake up in the morning having slept through the whole night and not feeling total, complete impending doom for the coming day. Today I felt like I could breathe. Not just physically, but emotionally too. The sun was shining, and I am feeling 1000x better. Still not 100% energy yet but seriously, the fact that I can sit at my desk for more than 10 minutes at a time and not get dizzy from sickness or medicine feels like such a blessing.
I want to thank everyone who left sweet messages of encouragement and commiseration of having gone through a similar situation of being sick, having bronchitis, or being on similar medicines. It's hard to not feel like I am just being a whiny complainer but to hear such sincere stories about people feeling the same way makes me feel like I'm just human. Truthfully, I've been feeling like some weak excuse for a person lately. :P
Also, thank you so much for being supportive and not angry with me for having been inconsistent with the blogging and responding to e-mails. I've all but given up on formspring (seeing nearly 100 unanswered questions is giving me anxiety) but I'm sure I will get my second wind of answering gusto soon. :D
For now, I'll post something that doesn't need to much explaining... Nails!
Revlon Plum Baby is a pretty pinky-purple cream that has a bit of a retro feel to it but I wasn't feeling it as soon as I put it on. I don't know, I just need my polish to FEEL right and it didn't feel right! Pretty color though. Maybe too pretty. Heh.
Your Royal Shyness is one of my favorite polishes for its pale pink color. I almost wish it didn't have the pearly sheen though. Still on the hunt for the perfect opaque pale pink.
Secret Peri-wink-le is a gorgeous blue cream that my mother-in-law got me as part of my birthday present. Isn't it an amazing color? I thought it would look funny on my skintone but I ended up really loving it so much.
So that's it for my barrage of nail pics. Sorry I didn't list the konad plate names. I blame the illness. Being sick makes me unable to look up plate numbers. ;P Bahaha. The next nail pic spam shouldn't be as long since I actually went like, a whole week without painting my nails while I was sick. Pretty unheard of. Also, for some reason I wanted really boring medium pinks when I finally did paint them? Obviously, the sickness affected my brain in more ways than one. Hopefully this will be remedied soon.
Omg, it's so late. I think I'm going to pass out since I stayed up so late watching the Olympics. It royally pooped me out. I'm banking on waking up tomorrow with even more strength, health, and happiness. ^_^
PS. Did anyone else cry at Kim Yuna's gold metal, record-breaking performance? I am so not good with watching people cry, and I love ice skating so much. SO proud of my parent country and Yuna! It was absolutely brilliant. <3
I want to thank everyone who left sweet messages of encouragement and commiseration of having gone through a similar situation of being sick, having bronchitis, or being on similar medicines. It's hard to not feel like I am just being a whiny complainer but to hear such sincere stories about people feeling the same way makes me feel like I'm just human. Truthfully, I've been feeling like some weak excuse for a person lately. :P
Also, thank you so much for being supportive and not angry with me for having been inconsistent with the blogging and responding to e-mails. I've all but given up on formspring (seeing nearly 100 unanswered questions is giving me anxiety) but I'm sure I will get my second wind of answering gusto soon. :D
For now, I'll post something that doesn't need to much explaining... Nails!
Revlon Plum Baby is a pretty pinky-purple cream that has a bit of a retro feel to it but I wasn't feeling it as soon as I put it on. I don't know, I just need my polish to FEEL right and it didn't feel right! Pretty color though. Maybe too pretty. Heh.
Your Royal Shyness is one of my favorite polishes for its pale pink color. I almost wish it didn't have the pearly sheen though. Still on the hunt for the perfect opaque pale pink.
Secret Peri-wink-le is a gorgeous blue cream that my mother-in-law got me as part of my birthday present. Isn't it an amazing color? I thought it would look funny on my skintone but I ended up really loving it so much.
I decided to do a gradient with the blue as a base with NYX Lime Sparkle and Las Vegas for the gradient. This incredible glitter, a present from wonderful Eki, is my favorite new glitter polish for the different sizes of glitters. It's soooo beautiful in person, and this mani reminded me of jellyfish swimming in kelp in the ocean.
I also loved Secret Peri-wink-le so much I used it for a mani on one of my bffs Hannah. (She's the talented friend who is amazingly crafty, gifted, brilliant, and really good at hair. I'm trying to encourage her to create a blog. Shh! Don't tell!) This has China Glaze For Audrey at the tips with leopard Konad using China Glaze OMG and a silver glitter stripe.
This polish was a special gift from the hilarious The Asian Girl from the Gettin' Nailed polish blog. She hasn't updated in FOREVER and she needs to because hers was one of my favorite polish blogs! (Yes, this is me personally pressuring you back into posting. Also HUGE THANK YOU for the polish pressies! :D <3) She heard I was totally crushin' on Chanel Jade and told me this was the best dupe for it. It's Charlotte Russe's house brand in the color Jade. It was kind of a butt to apply since it was so sheer, but it does seem to be the right intensity of Jade and even has the little shimmers.
I tried to capture the shimmer in photos but failed mostly. It looks messy this close. My fault for yucky application. Also, I hate flash but the shimmers were being really fussy and disappearing in my natural light photos.
Gotta save the best for last, right? This polish is one of those amazing duo-chromes that change color depending on the light and angle you see it at. It goes from a deep purple to an amazing green. Again, it's impossible to truly capture how vibrant and cool this is in real life. It looks so dull on camera! But trust me, it's cool. I feel like I remember an old Hard Candy polish from junior high resembling this...
A close-up shoes the "essence" of the duochrome a bit better.
And, because I'm me, I used L8R G8R, a lime green holographic polish from Chine Glaze to konad leopard print over it too. And again, near impossible to capture on camera but I tried!
So that's it for my barrage of nail pics. Sorry I didn't list the konad plate names. I blame the illness. Being sick makes me unable to look up plate numbers. ;P Bahaha. The next nail pic spam shouldn't be as long since I actually went like, a whole week without painting my nails while I was sick. Pretty unheard of. Also, for some reason I wanted really boring medium pinks when I finally did paint them? Obviously, the sickness affected my brain in more ways than one. Hopefully this will be remedied soon.
Omg, it's so late. I think I'm going to pass out since I stayed up so late watching the Olympics. It royally pooped me out. I'm banking on waking up tomorrow with even more strength, health, and happiness. ^_^
PS. Did anyone else cry at Kim Yuna's gold metal, record-breaking performance? I am so not good with watching people cry, and I love ice skating so much. SO proud of my parent country and Yuna! It was absolutely brilliant. <3
Hi everyone! I was going to post my Christmas nail art but then I looked at my log of pics and I guess I have lots of nails to post. >.< Oops. I guess that happens when you change your nail polish every week and don't post it for a while so I'm just going to post a whole lot of nail stuff.
I'll start out with the nails I wore for Christmas week. I was inspired by pretty wrapping paper. I love the fancy kind with metallic printed on solid colors so I wanted to emulate that on my nails.
Here is the final product:
And here's the process:
Base color is China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise. Apply top coat to protect the base from Konad flubs.
Next, I used plate m65 to stamp China Glaze Passion onto each nail except the ring finger.
Then I stamped a present box and lollipop on each ring finger from plate m14, and a bow on each thumb from m71 (unpictured) using Sally Hansen Chrome polish in Pink Pearl.
Next I used a red Migi Nail Art pen to color the bows. (The red is too translucent to show on its own over the turquoise polish but it pops when layered.) I also added nail art crystals to the bows using Seche Vite, and a coat over each nail to seal the design.
After the final top coat has dried, go back with a q-tip soaked in polish remover to clean up the excess polish that stamped onto the skin. It's best to wait until you are completely finished so that you don't mess up the design by accident. And you are done! ^^
Just because I'm already posting nail stuff, here are a few more swatches of polishes I've worn lately.
Zoya Trixie
Didn't think this would look stellar on my skin but I ended up looooooooooving it! It reminds me of foil. Very reflective silver. I can't wait to try Konading with this.
Zoya Anaka
Really pretty glowy magenta. Fairly typical but pretty nonetheless. Sorry about the tip wear, this was after a couple days of wearing.
Zoya Savita
I was going to redo this and swatch it when it was fresh, but I was so disappointed that I had to show you the chipping. This was only after one day of wear. ONE DAY. It starts to peel off in chunks almost immediately. This was totally different than my Zoya Posh experience which lasted 3-4 days fine! Pretty color, but really disappointing wear.
Rimmel 615 Night Before
Oh man, this one is gorgeous. It's a deep purple base with pink pearlescence. Here is both without flash and with, to show you the range of colors this polish gets. Really pretty in any light.
And I did some nail art with it. Konaded a hearts tip pattern in China Glaze Passion and used gold glitter at the tips with Cover Girl Pink Twinkle as a top coat to add some sparkle.
Speaking of sparkle, I also wanted to mention that Hautelook has Kevin Aucoin Beauty on sale now at 60% off. >.< I've been looking for a really nice golden illuminator and I had been eying the Too Faced Absolutely Invisible Candlelight Powder but I've heard mixed reviews. When I saw the Kevyn Aucoin Celestial Powder Candlelight on sale for only $16.80 (orig $42) I looked up makeup alley reviews and WOW people are just raving about this stuff!
Ok, Hannah just got into town so I'm off to be productive. Haha!
I'll start out with the nails I wore for Christmas week. I was inspired by pretty wrapping paper. I love the fancy kind with metallic printed on solid colors so I wanted to emulate that on my nails.
Here is the final product:
And here's the process:
Base color is China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise. Apply top coat to protect the base from Konad flubs.
Next, I used plate m65 to stamp China Glaze Passion onto each nail except the ring finger.
Then I stamped a present box and lollipop on each ring finger from plate m14, and a bow on each thumb from m71 (unpictured) using Sally Hansen Chrome polish in Pink Pearl.
Next I used a red Migi Nail Art pen to color the bows. (The red is too translucent to show on its own over the turquoise polish but it pops when layered.) I also added nail art crystals to the bows using Seche Vite, and a coat over each nail to seal the design.
After the final top coat has dried, go back with a q-tip soaked in polish remover to clean up the excess polish that stamped onto the skin. It's best to wait until you are completely finished so that you don't mess up the design by accident. And you are done! ^^
Just because I'm already posting nail stuff, here are a few more swatches of polishes I've worn lately.
Zoya Trixie
Didn't think this would look stellar on my skin but I ended up looooooooooving it! It reminds me of foil. Very reflective silver. I can't wait to try Konading with this.
Zoya Anaka
Really pretty glowy magenta. Fairly typical but pretty nonetheless. Sorry about the tip wear, this was after a couple days of wearing.
Zoya Savita
I was going to redo this and swatch it when it was fresh, but I was so disappointed that I had to show you the chipping. This was only after one day of wear. ONE DAY. It starts to peel off in chunks almost immediately. This was totally different than my Zoya Posh experience which lasted 3-4 days fine! Pretty color, but really disappointing wear.
Rimmel 615 Night Before
Oh man, this one is gorgeous. It's a deep purple base with pink pearlescence. Here is both without flash and with, to show you the range of colors this polish gets. Really pretty in any light.
And I did some nail art with it. Konaded a hearts tip pattern in China Glaze Passion and used gold glitter at the tips with Cover Girl Pink Twinkle as a top coat to add some sparkle.
Speaking of sparkle, I also wanted to mention that Hautelook has Kevin Aucoin Beauty on sale now at 60% off. >.< I've been looking for a really nice golden illuminator and I had been eying the Too Faced Absolutely Invisible Candlelight Powder but I've heard mixed reviews. When I saw the Kevyn Aucoin Celestial Powder Candlelight on sale for only $16.80 (orig $42) I looked up makeup alley reviews and WOW people are just raving about this stuff!
I can't wait to try it out! If people think it's worth it for $42 and still raving, then it must be fantastic at $21.75 shipped!
If you aren't already signed up for Hautelook, here is my invite link: http://www.hautelook.com/invite/836240
note: invite links do give credit after the invitee's first purchse, but I only post when I see items I actually want to purchase too. ^^
Ok, Hannah just got into town so I'm off to be productive. Haha!
So these last few days have been pretty strange. I must have been feeling really stressed out because I keep waking up 4 or 5 times throughout the night, often from nightmares. It's probably because my husband just went through surgery on his toes (ouch!) yesterday morning. He is the one who should be feeling crazy but I really, physically, am. Does this happen to any of you guys? When you are so close to someone that when they are suffering you feel their pain too? I actually woke up crying from a dream at one point last night and I haven't even cried in a long time! >_<
I've also recently been dealing with some photo-stealing issues, to the point where a company cropped out my watermark and then put their own watermark over my picture to use for selling a product. Needless to say, it hurts to feel used that way. I put a lot of hard work into my blog entries and photos and for someone to remove my own identity and claim it as their own like that... One part of me wants to warn everyone not to do business with them but another part of me just wants them to sincerely apologize. They still claim to have done nothing wrong. T.T
I know I usually don't post anything negative on my blog, so I'm really sorry for bringing the tone down here! I will try to cheer up the mood with some photos and news about nails.
First of all, I did finally try my Del Sol color-changing polish in Surfer Girl. I'm glad to say that the color change was noticeable and did happen, but it sadly isn't the most flattering shade of orange on my tan skin. It would be so cute on someone fairer than me! I think I'll put it up for sale. Please let me know if you'd be interested. :)
Suuuuuuuuper cute pale pink before the color change.
Pale orange is a little too close to my skintone. :(
I also happened to win the Zoya Colorlock System from Zoya's Twitter giveaway not long ago, and I was super excited to try it out. I'll probably go more in-depth into the whole kit later, but I did a quickie test with Seche Vite vs. Zoya Colorlock using Zoya's Zara polish.
Here is Seche Vite after application. I used Seche Clear base coat, Zara, then Seche Vite top coat. Smooth and shiny, and dries crazy fast which I need to prevent dents! Seche does tend to be goopy and thick during application so you do need to learn how to apply it right.
Here is Zoya's Colorlock system. Sticky base coat on 2 fingers and Get Even on the last 3, then Zara, then topped with Armor. You can already see that Colorlock is a shade darker than Seche Vite and not as glossy. It also took much longer to set, but it was thinner and easier to apply than Seche Vite.
After a ridiculously long time of wearing the same polish, I took these photos almost 2 weeks after application. Obviously, this was an impressive run. Seche was on my non-dominant hand so I expected it to hold up well, and it didn't disappoint. Nail growth shows more than anything, and moderate tip wear.
Here is the shocking result of Colorlock. The large dents I got shortly after application, but the rest appeared throughout the time I wore the polish. After 13 days, my polish was nearly matte! It looks like there are a bunch of tiny cuts all over my nail. I'm used to Zoya having very good quality products so this was rather disappointing. Granted, this was my dominant hand and had more wear than the left but I still prefer my topcoats to stay shiny throughout wear.
Overall, both systems work well to lengthen the wear of polish but for now I will stick to Seche products to keep my shiny addiction satiated.
Like I said, I will go more in-depth to Colorlock later, but I will say in its defense that Remove+ is the BEST polish remover I have ever used.
And finally, I have my current polish and Konad to share with you. I haven't done a konadicure in what seems like forever and after doing a few dark polishes, I thought the pearly OPI Who Needs A Prince? would be perfect. It's the coolest polish. Semi-sheer pale pink with fine, red opalescent shimmer. I like my polishes pretty opaque and this was fine at 3 coats but I did 4 to get this milky shade.
I thought a holo would look fantastic Konaded on top, but Extravagance wasn't opaque enough to show the shimmer.
So I ended up dabbing on streaks of China Glaze's How About A Tumble on top of the konad here and there, which did the trick quite nicely. Here is my final konadicure.
Speaking of Konad, I am totally honored to share with you guys my very first coupon code! The website I buy all of my Konad supplies is now offering the code frmheadtotoe for a huge 30% off your total purchase at http://www.wowsocool.com. This only excludes the "Build Your Own Kits" which are already steeply discounted. Not only that, but you receive FREE SHIPPING on orders over $20 after the discount!
I just think this is so cool because they are -the- best website for Konad out there, period. In my experience, I've never seen better customer service. They literally ship out your order asap, I'm talking sometimes the same day you order. Crazy! (And no, I am not receiving any $, product, or discount for this, they are just my favorite and I've ordered from them many times! ^^) I highly recommend buying the Konad Special Polish in black and white since they work the best for stamping.
Okay, I'm going to try to get some good sleep tonight. Wish me luck for sleeping through the night!
xoxo
I've also recently been dealing with some photo-stealing issues, to the point where a company cropped out my watermark and then put their own watermark over my picture to use for selling a product. Needless to say, it hurts to feel used that way. I put a lot of hard work into my blog entries and photos and for someone to remove my own identity and claim it as their own like that... One part of me wants to warn everyone not to do business with them but another part of me just wants them to sincerely apologize. They still claim to have done nothing wrong. T.T
I know I usually don't post anything negative on my blog, so I'm really sorry for bringing the tone down here! I will try to cheer up the mood with some photos and news about nails.
First of all, I did finally try my Del Sol color-changing polish in Surfer Girl. I'm glad to say that the color change was noticeable and did happen, but it sadly isn't the most flattering shade of orange on my tan skin. It would be so cute on someone fairer than me! I think I'll put it up for sale. Please let me know if you'd be interested. :)
Suuuuuuuuper cute pale pink before the color change.
Pale orange is a little too close to my skintone. :(
I also happened to win the Zoya Colorlock System from Zoya's Twitter giveaway not long ago, and I was super excited to try it out. I'll probably go more in-depth into the whole kit later, but I did a quickie test with Seche Vite vs. Zoya Colorlock using Zoya's Zara polish.
Here is Seche Vite after application. I used Seche Clear base coat, Zara, then Seche Vite top coat. Smooth and shiny, and dries crazy fast which I need to prevent dents! Seche does tend to be goopy and thick during application so you do need to learn how to apply it right.
Here is Zoya's Colorlock system. Sticky base coat on 2 fingers and Get Even on the last 3, then Zara, then topped with Armor. You can already see that Colorlock is a shade darker than Seche Vite and not as glossy. It also took much longer to set, but it was thinner and easier to apply than Seche Vite.
After a ridiculously long time of wearing the same polish, I took these photos almost 2 weeks after application. Obviously, this was an impressive run. Seche was on my non-dominant hand so I expected it to hold up well, and it didn't disappoint. Nail growth shows more than anything, and moderate tip wear.
Here is the shocking result of Colorlock. The large dents I got shortly after application, but the rest appeared throughout the time I wore the polish. After 13 days, my polish was nearly matte! It looks like there are a bunch of tiny cuts all over my nail. I'm used to Zoya having very good quality products so this was rather disappointing. Granted, this was my dominant hand and had more wear than the left but I still prefer my topcoats to stay shiny throughout wear.
Overall, both systems work well to lengthen the wear of polish but for now I will stick to Seche products to keep my shiny addiction satiated.
Like I said, I will go more in-depth to Colorlock later, but I will say in its defense that Remove+ is the BEST polish remover I have ever used.
And finally, I have my current polish and Konad to share with you. I haven't done a konadicure in what seems like forever and after doing a few dark polishes, I thought the pearly OPI Who Needs A Prince? would be perfect. It's the coolest polish. Semi-sheer pale pink with fine, red opalescent shimmer. I like my polishes pretty opaque and this was fine at 3 coats but I did 4 to get this milky shade.
I thought a holo would look fantastic Konaded on top, but Extravagance wasn't opaque enough to show the shimmer.
So I ended up dabbing on streaks of China Glaze's How About A Tumble on top of the konad here and there, which did the trick quite nicely. Here is my final konadicure.
Speaking of Konad, I am totally honored to share with you guys my very first coupon code! The website I buy all of my Konad supplies is now offering the code frmheadtotoe for a huge 30% off your total purchase at http://www.wowsocool.com. This only excludes the "Build Your Own Kits" which are already steeply discounted. Not only that, but you receive FREE SHIPPING on orders over $20 after the discount!
I just think this is so cool because they are -the- best website for Konad out there, period. In my experience, I've never seen better customer service. They literally ship out your order asap, I'm talking sometimes the same day you order. Crazy! (And no, I am not receiving any $, product, or discount for this, they are just my favorite and I've ordered from them many times! ^^) I highly recommend buying the Konad Special Polish in black and white since they work the best for stamping.
Okay, I'm going to try to get some good sleep tonight. Wish me luck for sleeping through the night!
xoxo
