Cirque Ophelia & her flowers

Hello readers!

This manicure was done weeks ago and I only get to post it now.
Be warned, it's a photo-spam post!


I bought OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls from a sweet lady who posted about the sale in Facebook. Usually I won't get an expensive white polish since most of the time, I will use it as base. But this MBSW is not the typical white, it's a shy white with grayish blue undertones. Which I find it to be interesting. Not too bright and sparkly yet still look clean and polished :-)

I used two coats here, first thin layer and medium coat on the second. This white is not streaky and covers nicely without giving any issues - this is a white gem! Most of the whites are patchy on the nails, either runny or too thick. Not this one. MBSW is the new white!

To jazz up the chalky nails I added blue flowers on ring and thumb, with Cirque Ophelia on the rest of the fingers!

I used two coats of Ophelia:

And realized Ophelia's cornflower blue is not a close match to the flower's :-(
In retrospect, I should put one coat of Ophelia to complement the whole manicure (albeit the mismatched color)

Anyway...

Cirque Ophelia is another pwetty.. it's like your nails are spammed by blue fairies' dust! I'm not a big fan of glitters but this has a place in my heart. It has that soft, delicate and naive look.

I'm not sure if Cirque named it for Hamlet's Ophelia; it just occurred to me that my manicure plays right into the character!

When Ophelia went mad after her father's death, she was observed to be in white gown, walking in the streets mumbling to herself and sprinkling wild flowers. Later on, she fell into the river and drowned, her body flowed with the stream, flowers weeping from the trees and rested on her body, echoing a delicate and tragic end of her short life.

Ok, back to reality.

If you're wondering about the flowers, I bought them from BornPrettyStore. It comes in a set of 12 assorted flowers at a very affordable price:

To help you understand their sizes, here's a reference:
(the rest, except green, are bigger - they cover three-quarter of my thumb nail)

Are you tired of reading already?
I will make this quick.

After few days of feeling 'uneasy' about the blue combination, I removed Ophelia and did a simple french mani in MBSW. Ok they weren't perfect... well that's because I did it in the office toilet! How many of you did that too? Own up! Haha!!

Last to add; I bought Cirque Ophelia from Mei Mei Signatures. She has wide range of nail care and polish brands - from salon to indie ones! Go on, click and take a look.


Right, you can rest your fingers from scrolling the page now. Thanks for reading!

China Glaze Reggae To Riches & Cirque Fascination Street

Howdy!

I had this manicure two weeks ago and only managed to post it up now. I have another one pending.. oh my, even blogs have backlogs!

What you see here is China Glaze Reggae To Riches; I knew of this polish last year and was secretly lemming for it. Well, I did it discreetly because I had a long list of to-buys and was distracted by the new collections popping out in seasons. I just didn't have time to look back. Now, when this RTR caught my attention in Star Trinkets, I bought it without hesitation.

I mentioned before, Color Makeup 5 could be a dupe but no, it's not. CM 5 is a fuchsia-near-neon-more-pink-tone with blue flash. CG Reggae To Riches is violet pink with bluish-purple shimmer.

Shown on my nails, 2 coats with topcoat.

Yup, bubbles on them. Bummer! (pun intended!) My instinct told me to blame the polish. Then I sat down dejectedly, because I knew some of the bumps were the result of my rough nail beds. I was one of those kids who bite nails, and continued doing so into my adulthood. I only managed to quit the ugly habit two years ago. By then, no surprises there, my nails are dented with teeth marks. Looks like I gonna rely heavily on ridge-filler from now on! :(

[side-note] When I put RTR on, it reminded me of Nicki Minaj. She's always in violet, pink or fuchsia.. I can't shake off her image from RTR. The hair color and body suit may not be perfect match to RTR, but still... 

I lived with the bumpy manicure for a week. On that Saturday, I made an impulse move by putting Cirque Fascination Street on the tips. It was supposed to be a "gradient" effect. Yea, supposed to. Didn't look like it that way:

A medium shade is missing to create the gradient flow. I didn't have time; I was already running late for appointment. My impulse action sequence began by putting weight from the brush on the tips and light strokes from top to mid-section - all these were done in less than 3 minutes for 10 nails. That's faster than waiting for instant noodles to be ready at the table. Yep, that's instant for you and end results, for a noob like me, produced such bad color-coordinated manicure. HEE, sorry if they are eyesores :)

I owe Cirque Fascination Street a proper introduction. I will do a better NOTW for FS, I promise. In the meantime, check out FS' holographic effect, taken indoors:

Till next time, let's hope for a better manicure!

Nubar 2010 with Orly La Playa

You see, I'm so free on Saturday that I'm putting two posts up. All these manicures were done in a span of 2 days. Applied, removed, applied, removed. Mom was shocked that the nail polish remover was depleting at an alarming speed. Without waiting for further nagging I bought a new one from Watsons. And, bought Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat. Couldn't find that Colorstay top coat though.. since it garnered many positive reviews online. WHY did I get a new top coat? Because my dear Seche Vite leaked during transition! It had 10% left and was gluey and such, but now it's a milky mess and in solidifying state. SOB!

Anyway anyway... am showing a famous layering polish here. This season has various polish that produce similar effects but since I have this baby in my stash and failed to glorify it last time (click here & here to understand better) I decided to layer it on Orly La Playa, latter being my trusty blue base :)

First up, a picture devoted to Orly La Playa. True blue, royal blue, inky blue, navy blue... yea it fits to all these descriptions. One-coat is good enough but I want to be 110% opaque, so two coats applied.

Now for Nubar 2010. A clear polish with iridescent flakies. Holographic flakies. Didn't know it's so outstanding till now. Fool I am!

Above was done with two coats of Nubar 2010 without top coat. Placing flakies can be trying but I learnt by brushing same layer twice-thrice on the nails to quantify them :)

When applied I became increasingly aware that it looked almost similar to Cult Nails Clairvoyant, though the latter comes with purple base and doesn't have gold element in it. I will do a comparison next time!

Below is a swatch of single coat of Nubar 2010 on Orly La Playa.

Nubar 2010's awesomeness cannot be ignored. I'm sure the similar flakies from CND, Color Club and others  are outstanding as well but for me, I'm superbly contented with this one :)

Have a great day ahead!

China Glaze For Audrey & ELF Chocolate = Let's Play!

Hello readers!

It's a Wednesday, mid-week of early March and I have almost lost count of the date and days because I have been bumming at home :) Left the company and currently having a helluva time packing and cleaning. Nonetheless, I did not forget manicures!

This is done last week, a simple design and require little effort. All you need is masking tape to create the shape. My friend said they looked like Play buttons and hence the post title, ha!

First up, as usual, bottle pics!

For this manicure I used China Glaze For Audrey and ELF Chocolate. My CG is almost finishing and application is thick and gluey, making it a chore to apply and to even out. ELF Chocolate is a delicious brown true to its name, like chocolate fudge. It dries glossy, super shiny.. surprising for a polish belonging to a non-dedicated polish brand!

For Audrey is a Tiffany blue but of course it's not the exact color, it should be 98% similar and this dreamy cottage blue suits ALL skin tones. I was a fool to use it for nail art, it's so pretty on its own. To compensate I used it for pedicure :)

I apply CG For Audrey as base and let it dry completely. Using masking tape, I cut various triangle shapes and placed them onto nails. After which paint one or two coats of ELF Chocolate and remove the triangles. Let dry and add top coat. Ta-daah!

Besides looking like Play buttons, do they remind you of anything? Do you like this design? :)

OPI I'm Not Really A Waitress + Bloop H187 = Christmas mani!

Here I am again, two posts in a week! I'm heading to Sabah for holidays from tomorrow onwards, with no polish to change and no treatment for my nails, I thought of putting this mani up before closing the final week of December 2011.

It's the Xmas week now, what are your festive plans? I did a Xmas manicure right after my exhausting Singapore trip. Done in a hurry with a half-hearted attitude, no surprise it's a sloppy paint job :(

These are the polish I used for Xmas manicure:

I did a brief swatch on OPI I'm Not Really A Waitress before, click here to view.

Bloop H187 is a semi-frosty, semi-metallic elf-green polish. It's the perfect Christmas green but my camera sucked out the green and produced a teal. Hmm. The true color can be seen on my nails in the swatch photos below.

OPI Sparkle-icious is part of OPI Holidays 2010 Burlesque collection. It's a clear base filled with purple, gold and blue micro hexagonal glitter. It screams festive yea?

Here's the swatch; would you believe it's done by a leftie cat? :p

I used french tip guide for the color block. Apparently my lousy tip guide is not arched enough to create the curves on all nails. Not only that, I removed the tips while polish was still wet. As a result the polish dragged with the tape and made the lines uneven. Aarrrggh!!

In reality they don't look that bad but I should have done a chevron manicure instead. Oh well, always a lesson learnt for future improvements!

A closer look at OPI Sparkle-icious. To be honest, I'm creeped out by the tons of dots piled up on my nails. It's appears glittery and dazzling on the naked eye but my skin crawls by its macro shot...

P/S: I used Elianto White as my base before putting 3 coats of Sparkle-icious

Since I won't be around till end December, Nailbytes hereby wishes you:

Take care guys!

Splatter Mani in Blues

Greetings! December is a busy month isn't it? Mine is all about travelling for holidays, to attend interviews, for family gatherings.. Sometimes I wish we can slow down our festive pace and reflect on the things we have done for the past months to sum up 2011. When the year passed by, we will be tied up in daily stuff and tend to forget about simple pleasures we used to have.

Anyway...
I have a fun manicure to show you today! I learned from Polishaholic about splatter mani few months ago but didn't have time to try (add to the fact of having a slight phobia in cleaning up ever since the water marbling experiments). It's always in my to-do list, so, making use of a long weekend I sat down and patiently completed this manicure - though I redid two nails - with success!

Instead of neons and reds, I opted various blues for the splatter:

I used Elianto white as my base, the rest are in different shades of blue - Nubar Baby Blue, Splash S031, Splash S061 (awesome shimmery midnight blue that gives depth), Essie Lapis of Luxury (cornflower blue) and Sasatinnie FCGL001.


Special mention to Sastinnie FCGL001: It's a sheer blurple with irregular-sized colored flakies! Copper, yellow, green flakies swimming in the bottle and it's absolutely visible on the nails. I bought from SaSa for RM8.90. Cheap but so pretty, polish addicts are you excited yet? Or you have them in your stash already? I have another one in copper brown :)

To avoid extensive clean-up I followed Polishaholic's advice by wrapping my fingers with tape.
To make the splatter, Polishaholic used Ikea straws. I was curious on the effects of each splatter used on different straws so these are the ones I had:

I cut them in half and used the bottom part to dip each straw into each different blue polish. Then from the top end of the straw I puffed out the polish (a single strong puff will do). It's not always on target, some of them landed on the paper towels and most of the time globs of polish were splat out instead. So yea, it's another messy affair second to water marbling. I find that the black and white straws gave better splatter than others.

This is how it's like after all the splattering. Looks terrible at first glance huh?

Taking deep breath and measuring my patience, I carefully cleaned up my fingers and cuticles with cotton buds (some call it Q-tips). Now I present you, Blue Splatter Mani!

Right hand

Left hand

Okay the clean-up is less than perfect. And the imperfect splatter is what makes it look unique! If you take a closer look, the Sasatinnie flakies are flashing among the seas of blue!

This splatter mani is well-liked by my friends and colleagues. It's eye-catching, fun, easy to do (albeit messy) and doesn't require painting skills - Why don't you give it a try too? :)

Hope you like it!

Nubar Indigo Illusion

Hey readers, how are you? I had a busy social week which includes the A|X anniversary event, two friends' birthday parties and celebrating my ex-boss's new job.

For A|X event I changed my Sparitual Sacred Ground mani to Nubar Indigo Illusion to match with my navy blue pedicure (shade is almost similar to Orly La Playa, but a level lighter).

Initially I wasn't sure about Indigo Illusion, it seems a tad faded for duochrome and washed out for a fashion event. It's extremely sheer so I tested it over black base, the color changed to metallic pink and olive green, just like Nubar Wildfire. I had to put 3 medium coats of Indigo Illusion on my nails, which used up 1/5 of the polish in the bottle (heart pain).

Here's the bottle pic, on the left is Sparks S082 bought from SaSa;

In the bottle, Indigo Illusion has a fantastic array of shimmering blue, pink, gold and green;

Sparks S082 is a clear polish filled with prismatic crescents flakes and tiny round glitters. To be honest, it's so much denser than Nicole by OPI Step 2 The Beat Of My Heart. You'll definitely get the flakes and glitters on your nails without effort.

On the nails, I only have greyish blue, violet-pink and green. The gold did not show up. I smudged my ring finger's nail so I used Sparks S082 to conceal the mistake. Didn't help much but it's a good layering polish, especially for accent nails.

(Photos were taken 2 days after manicure)

It was a harsh week, my cuticles and skin were dry and brittle. I had over-cut the cuticle on my pinky resulting in long laceration at the edge. Imagine my scowls when applied with acetone polish remover and polish. It was painful!

Duochrome is at its best on Nubar Indigo Illusion. In reality, without top coat it dried to satin matte finish even though the shimmer settled down to oil-slick smoothness. No twisted angles or various lighting needed to reflect all the colors. Green is strongest under the shade, Denim grey-blue is obvious under indoor artificial light and every intended colors show up in natural lighting.

A blurry macro shot;

Splash S082 is so interesting on Indigo Illusion that I added it to my thumb as well. Even with prismatic flakie and glitter, the duochrome doesn't shy away!

I love duochromes, they always pose a challenge to cameras... you have to take multiple shots to find the colors as seen in reality. I found the missing gold shimmer blended with green, you gotta contort your fingers in a way to see it!

Earlier on I expressed my concerns on the faded, washed out shade but all worries erased after applying them. Nubar Indigo Illusion is gorgeous! It's subtle from far but amazeballs within distance! Whereas Wildfire is eye-catching, Indigo Illusion is a hidden treasure. I found myself staring at them throughout the whole week!


3 coats of Nubar Indigo Illusion
1 coat of Splash S082
1 coat of Seche Clear base coat
1 coat of Seche Vite dry fast top coat (I used 2 coats on ring & thumb to seal the flakies)