31 Day Challenge: Day 6 (Violet)

It's my birthday today! (: Sadly, I'll be spending it mugging for my quiz tmr but my friends and I are going out to celebrate the end of our semester as well as mine and another friend's birthday after the quiz so at least there's a rainbow after the storm! (Btw, my posts are queued so I'm probably studying right now as you're reading this!)

I was so torn between painting my nails with OPI Parlez Vous OPI? and Planks A Lot but since I've already featured Parlez Vous OPI? in my first few posts, I decided on Planks A Lot. This was the colour you saw on my thumb in my Spectraflair top coat post!

I bought Planks A  Lot when it first came out and haven't worn it since. I can say the same thing for Mermaid Tears and somehow, I find that I always get caught up in buying these polishes when they're first launched and I go gaga over them. Then when they arrive, they get swatched on a nail or two before they get kept in my Helmer for ages without getting worn.

After inventorising my stash last night, I realised that maybe I'm more addicted to the process of buying the polish and the anticipation of getting them than the actual products themselves. Sigh, that's not a good thing. By the way, I've just added a STASH tab on top so you can view my collection and request for swatches!
Sorry for digressing. Here's Planks A Lot!



Planks A Lot is just a little bit warmer than how it looks like in my picture. Application was good, 2 easy coats but I kept messing up with my right hand (as usual) and had to do 3 coats on some fingers. Slapped on some SV and you're good to go!

Anyway, I discovered a good trick today! You see, my nails are really short and they are never longer than the tip of my fingers so I tend to paint my flesh in the process of painting my nail and I have to do major cleaning up with acetone and a small brush afterwards. Today, when I was painting my nails, I suddenly thought of placing some tape below the end of my nails so that the paint would get painted on the tape instead of my flesh and my manicure was so much cleaner cuz all I had to do was to remove the tape to reveal a clean finger tip! It's similar to taping your fingers when you do water marbling to prevent the flash from getting painted.

Black and white nails next...I'm so eggcited for the post I'm going to show you a preview of what's to come!



See you then! :D

31 Day Challenge: Day 5 (Blue)

I initially wanted to do today's manicure with OPI Road House Blues layered with I Lily Love You on top, which is a combination to die for, but I got distracted along the way and I remembered seeing this manicure on Sophia a long time ago! I saw her blue nails on these two posts of hers and I HAD TO KNOW what colours she had on. It was killing me not knowing because she didn't say what she used on her blog but lucky for me, she tweeted about her nails along with the names of the polish she used!

Here's the picture she posted on twitter and Illamasqua DWS, Illamasqua Muse and RBL 360 were the polish she used.



I was so happy to find out what colours she used because it really bugs me when I don't know something I want to know so badly!

So, to replicate her blue manicure, I had to do some frankening beause I have none of the polishes she used.


Instead of Muse, I used OPI Ski Teal We Drop. For RBL 360, I used the franken I created a while back, which was called Riga but I just changed its name to Le Ciel Bleu (which means the blue skies in French), and lastly for DWS, I had to create another franken with mostly white and a few drops of black and blue polish to make it a cool, blue-toned grey, which I have christianed Cumulonibus.

I think this skittle blue mani is very remeniscent of the Chanel Les Jeans Collection and how they recommend people to wear it! I didn't get Coco Blue but I ordered the Nubar dupe collection so I can't wait to get it and do a comparison post with Blue Boy and Blue Rebel! (:

Anyway, I did do a mini swatch of Road House Blues with I Lily Love You on top on my nail plate so here are some pictures! First, I did 2 coats of Road House Blues, then I painted I Lily Love You from the upper right corner to the lower left corner, and then mattified the nail using Essie Matte About You from the upper left corner to the lower right corner. This way, you can see the nail in 4 ways, Road House Blues, Road House Blues matte, Road House Blues + I Lily Love You and lastly Road House Blues + I Lily Love You matte.







I love how Matte About You makes glitters so much more pretty!

Violet nails next! (:

31 Day Challenge: Day 4 (Green)

Getting back on track with the 31 Day Challenge after my minor spectraflair craze! I'm planning to finish the first 10 days before my exam period so I can take a hiatus and come back to do the remaining (harder) 20 days afterward, when I'll have more time to paint my nails.

Green is one of my favourite colours to wear on my nails, especially with the whole military green trend floating around for fall so needless to say, I decided to do a military green shade for Day 4!



This is 2 coats of China Glaze Westside Warrior with SV on top.

I don't know if it was the polish or me but I had quite a hard time painting my nails. It overflowed to my cuticles quite a number of times but when it didn't it glided onto my nails like butter! Weird huh? I took a super duper long time cleaning up my cuticle area with my trusty brush (bought from Daiso, heh, $2 for 4 brushes, why the hell not!) and acetone, which would probably explain my extremely dry cuticles and finger tips. :(

I have been using cuticle oil before going to bed more regularly now (whenever I remember) but my cuticles still look dreadful! I did get my aunt (who lives in the UK) to help me get a tub of LUSH Lemony Flutter and my grandma, who lives in the UK too, will bring it down when she comes over at the end of December! Can't wait to try out Lemony Flutter after hearing countless awesome reviews on it! Hopefully, it can help bring my cuticles back to looking normal again!

You know, my brother, who works in one of the Big 4 auditing firms, told me that I will never get away with nails like this once I start working. Hopefully I'll get a job in one of the Big 4 too (not gonna say which one cuz I don't want to jinx it) so it probably means I'll have to kiss green,blue and dark coloured nails goodbye in slightly more than half a year's time! :(

Gonna wear all my blues and greens til death before I start work! This probably also means I'll have to stock up more on nude polishes! I already have my eyes set on OPI Coney Island Cotton Candy, Samoan Sand, Let Them Eat Rice Cake and Have a Tempura Tentrum! So much for my polish ban till the end of the year!

Blue nails next! I already know what I want to wear and it's going to be really pretty so stay tuned! (: