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!

Color Club Fashion Addict

Have you washed out the Monday blues yet?

I have started work in Singapore for two weeks yet my life here seems like eons ago. Left my soul in Malaysia and everyday feeling aged and exposed. New in this country again, after a 7-years' absence.

Anyway!
Here's a purple that annoyed me much. I love purples on my nails but this particular pwetty had me on the edge!


Color Club Fashion Addict

Adorned with glorious reviews, piled with wonderful pictures... An eye-pleasing purple with linear holo bits... it's a celebrity eh?

But mine didn't fared well. Is it a dud (again)?! The holo didn't show much, or rather kept to itself most of the time! It's sibling, Worth The Risque, is awesome but why is FA not performing?

Why is this happening to me??!



Fashion Addict in the shade, daytime natural light.
Color to the eye is the same as to the pic's, light lavender or lilac.
NO HOLO

FA out under cloudy sky, daytime, natural light.
NO HOLO

aiks, dry cuticles!

I caught a glimpse of it when placed under artificial amber light.
YEAH

Disappointing. The linear holo was evident as stamping polish but so subtle on its own. You could only see it from macro shots.

So anyway, I kept the mani for a week. On the sixth day I was walking out for lunch I finally saw the holo! This lavender butterfly spread its wings only under direct sunlight!

It's a beauty that flourishes under the sun. I used my  phone camera to take couple of shots, pity I couldn't capture the full linear holo but in reality it literally lit up with dazzling colors!

Though FA has holo that's too subtle, this is a shimmery lavender/lilac shade that I'm happy to have. Oh well, I don't have many light/pastels/nudes shades so yea I gonna keep this for now...

Oh before I forgot, 2 coats are enough for opacity but I used 3 thin coats :P

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!

Gemma with Sasatinnie & Essence Metal Battle

Yes I'm back! Am using my mobile internet to stay connected, Singapore mobile providers are generous to give 12GB.. my my, and way faster too!

Few days ago before starting work, I was digging into my mom's stash and found this sparkly little one, nameless, a shame it is but quite gorgeous on the bottle.

It's called 031. Mom bought from an offline bazaar and it seems to me like a franken polish. It's a silver base with tiny bright glitter. My eyes was fixated on the holographic bits and got right down to swatching it. Well the thing is, though they look dense in the bottle, it's sparse on the nails so you'll need more than 5 coats for decent coverage if used alone. Yea it's definitely a layering polish. However the holo glitter doesn't disappoint much!

Above shows three coats of Gemma (a name on a whim) without top coat. I'm a paranoid opaque freak so I applied thick coats on each layer. In the shade, natural light, florescent, night and yellow lighting, the holo blinks blinks blinks. Pity the glitter is small and scattered but at a price of S$1 it's a good dusty find!

Oh by the way, I used mom's Sasatinnie FCGR001 as base. Two coats. It's a murky tell-teal with green leanings.

Hoping to bring Gemma's talent out I used Essence Metal Battle as base. It's a black polish with super-minute red, green and blue flecks on it. Slightly obvious on the bottle and totally unseen on the nails unless you take a photo and zoom 150% in. At least it can be a one-coater ;)

Sadly Gemma's abilities remain the same throughout her performance, though it's warp-alicious on black!

Sometimes surprises come from within. Mine's from my mom's stash and it's oh-so-cheap that even an unemployed worm like me would grab it!

Thanks for reading!

Nubar Reclaim

Hello everyone!

It'll be the last post before I fly off to Singapore today, the last post written in Malaysia :) I will be out of transmission in Singapore till I subscribe to their local broadband, I wonder how I'm gonna survive without internet! Sheesh. Once cable is up Nailbytes will continue on, please wait for me ya?


Before heading home, I have chosen the critically acclaimed Nubar polish, an all-time favourite: Reclaim. I bought it sometime ago and, just like Peacock Feathers and Royal Velvet, have since reluctant to swatch on them because they are oh-so-precious! Since I'm leaving and having seen the holo magic on CC Worth The Risque, I decided to leave Malaysia with a big holographic bang :)


Nubar has this funnel-shaped bottle that looks small which somehow vexed me because their polish is superb, colors are awesome and hey, why compromise quantity? But don't be fooled, it's of regular 15ml size. I just can't believe swatching it can cause significant amount of polish loss looking from the bottle!

Reclaim is part of Nubar Going Green collection and it's the only linear holographic polish among the rest. It's a young green, leaning towards the color jade and the holo turns the polish into goldish-yellow on your nails when in shade.

It only takes 2 coats to achieve opacity. Holographic polish that's pigmented, great isn't it! However I have application issues due to the brush, sometimes it doesn't agree with me and drag itself on the nails. But it isn't a big deal since it dried smooth, glossy and real fast.

Now, green is not my color. From experience my skin tone doesn't go well with greens, especially in lighter shades. But I do like Reclaim very much, the linear holo holds so much of my attention and awe that everything is forgiven!


All are taken without top coat. Below photos are shot indoor, natural light, daytime. Holo is visible though not too obvious. I have other polish that couldn't show their holo talent in the shade so Reclaim surpasses them all!

Here's the holographic bang when Reclaim is shown under direct sunlight!

You don't have to twist 'n turn your fingers to find them, holographic in Reclaim is e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e. Such a winner, totally glorified and deservedly so!

Are you a Reclaim fan too? Linear holo is still very much visible even with topcoat. Awesome yea? Definitely a keeper! :)

SueSa S19 & Color Club Worth The Risque

Howdy!

In the month of February I took part in BlogShopBuzz's weekly giveaway to celebrate Valentine's Day. What we needed to do was to share the nail polish picture and comment on who we wanted to give the polish to, and why. This year marks the 20th year of friendship between Joyce and me, and I wanted her to know how much I love her, my dearest friend for so many years. And yes I won! Within 2 days they sent Mei Mei's Signatures in-house brand SueSa S19 to my Singapore home. I have been thinking about it and now I finally brought it back! So here's the swatch!

Sorry for the dry cuticle! Anyway SueSa S19 is a black glittery polish that dried matte, oh and dried real fast too! Application is a breeze though the brush can be wonky at times. This cool polish is also a one-coater! Yes one stroke and there you have it, full opacity and well pigmented! Black isn't anything new in polish line but there's something about S19 that's captivating. The matte glitter creates depth which is rare for matte polish and it has an almost charcoal grey in it, though not always visible. Interesting, I like it :)


I swatched Color Club Worth The Risque at the same time. When I used Fashion Addict for Konad stamping (view here) I was dismayed at how mild the holo was and concluded Worth The Risque will be a dud too. Well, I hereby issue an apology because Worth The Risque has stronger holo than FA! I couldn't stop staring at my nails.. it's quite amazing. I gotta admit this is the first visible holo I had on my nails and a newbie like me was stupefied!

I had big plans for S19 but the end results were once again, epic failure. So what you see here are the initial swatch before they became an accumulated disaster (nope, ain't gonna show the ugly free-hand painting).

Wouldn't you agree that CC Worth The Risque and SueSa S19 are good combination for nail design? It's just too bad my drawing really sucks.. oh well.

If you like SueSa S19, you can get it here. Mei Mei Signatures carry a wide variety of polish products; Glitter Gal, A-England, Nfu-Oh, Blaze, Cult Nails, Megan Miller and etc. Their in-house brand is equally impressive, as shown above :)

Above swatch was taken without topcoat.

Thanks for reading!

Winmax Rainbow Pink

Good day my dear readers! What I have here is a little surprise from Daiso, a Japan lifestyle store that sells everything for RM5 each. Everything includes pottery, stationery, cosmetics, kitchenware, snacks, clothes, shoes and etc etc etc...!

I bought this cute polish together with Heart No. 2 , Winmax K-series and Color Makeup. I have a couple of these three brands bought in different colors, I just didn't post them up together :) Whereas I was impressed by them I had kinda neglected this part of my stash ever since I received my second haul of CG, Nubar, Orly and Color Club from Secret Allure. Perhaps I was blindsided by the branded ones because this Winmax Rainbow is a gem that, though it's cheap, it's not to be undermined.

Let's find out why!

Winmax Rainbow comes in a twisted-shape bottle with a round cap that doesn't adhere to the body shape well. At first glance, all I could see is coral polish with shimmers. I didn't understand their rainbow concept, is it the brand or the series?

But I grasped their idea once peered closely at the polish;

It has crazy tons of tiny tiny colorful shimmers packed in this small bottle. Gold, silver, red, blue and even scattered green minute flecks! I find it hard to describe the color, would it be a coral-pink?

I have tested other Winmax polish before and was not too happy to find most of them being sheer that require more than 3 coats. However, this little one defies my judgement. A single coat is pigmented enough and two coats are more than perfect. Color shown on the nails is 90% similar to the bottle's with coral missing a large part of its presence.

The shimmers transferred smoothly (no grittiness) onto the nails, transforming an otherwise dull boring salmon shade to a shining pretty girl. The above pictures were taken outdoor with overcast sky.

Under direct sun, the rainbow (which was named) defines itself. It's a sweet scattered holo with delightful sparkles!

I admit the shimmers are not as bright and visible as other well-known brands but with RM5 a bot, you can get the same holo effects as Color Club's (or any others that have subtle holo). For budget-conscious polish addicts, this is a good alternative to pretty up your nails :)

Application-wise, no issues. Drying time, fast. Except for the wonky brush but it's not too difficult to work with. One coat for 90% coverage and two coats for depth, this 'twisted' beauty does add a punch! I shall use this for my Konad experiment :)