Barely There

I showed you a swatched of Rimmel Barely There a while ago on one nail and now, I have an entire mani of Barely There for you!



This was taken under my lamp. The colour is pretty accurate.



This is also the colour that Barely There sometimes assumes. It's like a versatile colour that changes. HAHA! But really, I do find that with different lighting conditions, it does alternate between a flesh tone with yellow undertones and with pink undertones. Regardless, it's still a really nice colour and best thing? It's so easy to match with all your clothes!



I then proceeded to add 2 layers of China Glaze Fairy Dust over my ring finger. This was taken in sunlight and it's the most amazing holo top coat ever! How did I only find out about Fairy Dust recently?! It's GORGEOUS and it makes me wanna do accent manicures with it for the rest of my life! I do think it's a bit too bling bling for ten fingers hence the accent mani.

Although, perhaps one coat would be less bling and then you could paint it over all ten of your nails. If you can also remember, I bought a similar glitzy polish that I showed you guys a few posts back, the Couleur Inc one. The Couleur Inc polish has larger glitter particles and the particles consist of some silver ones and some holo ones, whereas Fairy Dust has smaller particles and all of them are holo.

If I had to choose, Fairy Dust would win hands down. I have no idea why I even bought the Couleur Inc one knowinf that I had already bought Fairy Dust! Oh, I did see a similar polish from Sally Hansen at Watsons on Saturday! It has a whiter base than Fairy Dust (which is a tiny bit grey so if you notice later on, it does make Barely There appear duller).



With flash to bring out the bling bling. Isn't it to die for? Again, notice how Barely There looks pinker here.



 CLOSE UP! This makes it even more beautiful doesn't it! The photo's out of focus so it makes the glitter particles more obvious.

 

My right hand, so you know I really did a 10 finger manicure! Sometimes I just paint 4 fingers on my left hand to show you guys cuz I'm too lazy to do my right hand. Plus it's crazy hard to paint my right hand nicely! Also, take a look at my index finger in the above picture to see the really tiny shimmer particles in Barely There. The shimmer is barely there (pun intended) but in the light at different angles, you can totally see it! Sad that no one else can see the shimmer. It's a secret shimmer polish I guess!

I think Rimmel's brush was amazing and it really helped me to do a really neat mani with really little (almost none really) clean ups! FYI, I did 2-3 coats of Barely There for all my fingers depending on individual sheerness / opaqueness! Then I painted on Poshe on my ring ringer and a Sally Hansen top coat on the rest of my fingers. Polish was easy to paint on and drying time was fine! I think we all know the star of the show is Fairy Dust but Rimmel gets some credit in my books too!

Ultimately, I'm loving this mani quite a lot and I'm hoping it lasts! (Update: I got a chip on my right index and ring fingers on my third day of wear. So much for Rimmel proclaining "Up to 10 Days of Wear" on their bottles! I guess it'd only last 10 days if I don't do anything around the house and simply eat and sleep.)

Chanel Paradoxal vs Essie Smokin' Hot

So much talk about Paradoxal being the same base colour as Essie's Smokin' Hot and I must say, they are close. But of course, that wasn't going to stop me from getting them both right?



The amazing duochrome shimmer of Paradoxal in its full glory!



Swatched Paradoxal on my pinkie and it's very very smoky. It's so pretty! This was 2 coats.



This is one coat of Smokin' Hot on my ring finger and one coat of Paradoxal on my pinkie. Clearly, you can already see how much darker Smokin' Hot is.



This is two coats. Both went totally opaque in 2 coats and sadly, after painting the second coat on, I knicked the two nails on the edge of my laptop which resulted in dents. I didn't re-swatch them because you can still see them pretty well even with the knicks, and I didn't wanna waste my precious Chanel. Hope you don't mind!



This was with flash to bring out Paradoxal's beautiful shimmer!



Chanel already owns my soul.

Broken

I was way excited when my mum texted me yesterday during my lecture telling me that my polishes had arrived! And then as I read on, I got super sad. Why? See for yourself!

One of my bottles broke in the mail and spilled all over the place!  

The culprit: OPI Hey! Get in Lime broke at its neck and caused a massive mess. I was really looking forward to painting my nails with it but looks like it ain't happening any time soon. My nails are really jealous of the bubble wrap because the bubble wrap had the pleasure of being coated in the polish and my nails didn't. The green is beyond amazing as it's really nice and dreamy. I'm super bummed out this happened because it was damn hard to find this bottle and I was beyond amazed when the girl told me she could help me get it! Anyways, I emailed the girl these pictures and she was nice enough to give me a refund. 

I did however, manage to salvage just enough polish to do this comparison:

3 coats each, Hey! Get in Lime on the left and The Face Shop G503 on the right. TFS polish applied more streaky but it was still acceptable. I guess that's why OPI costs more, for its superb formula! Comparing the 2 colours, I honestly didn't expect them to be this similar when I ordered the OPI. I think if I'm desperate enough, I can always add in a few drops of blue into my face shop polish and franken the hell out of it to give me a similar shade as the OPI. Shouldn't be that hard to do!

I just hope the girl I ordered the OPI from will open up a new pre-order so I can order it again! I would happily pay $12 to get the OPI, hopefully in one piece next time!

Revlon Grey Suede

As much as I would like to proclaim the two dupes, they really aren't. Grey Suede is yellower and has a shimmer to it, compared to the creme Tickle My France-y. Perhaps my definition of dupes is too stringent but really, aren't dupes supposed to be duplicates? Exactly the same? Or does similar qualify as well? You be the judge!

With flash for the picture below.

This is 2 coats of Grey Suede on my pointer and 3 coats of Tickle My France-y on my middle finger! The difference in the 2 colours is definitely more obvious on the nail than in the bottles.

Coat number one of Grey Suede and you can immediately see its beautiful shimmer!

Coat number two goes one and it becomes opaque enough for me! The colour on my middle finger is Chanel Jade Rose btw. I swatched it on for fun at the Chanel counter but I'm slowly falling in love with it!

OPI Nantucket Mist

OPI Nantucket Mist! I didn't buy it but I did choose it for my first manicure so I took some shots of it to remember it! The manicurist painted 2 coats of Nantucket Mist and one coat of Seche on top. I think she used an OPI base coat though I'm not sure which one.





Somehow, when the manicurist painted on the Seche top coat, it caused a lot of bubbling on the surface! See below!





This is after 4 days of wear! Only that chip on my middle finger. This was in the day.



However, at night, the chipped worsened and it peeled! I'm not kidding.





So I took off the polish for the first 2 fingers and painted them with China Glaze IV, which I heard was a dupe. This picture was taken on the first day of my mani and hence, all fingers were still painted with Nantucket Mist. I'm holding the CG IV bottle for comparison though.



Right, here we go, pinkie and ring finger are painted with Nantucket Mist while middle and index fingers have CG IV on. Clearly, IV is much pinker. It also went on soooooo much sheerer. It took almost 4 coats to get it opaque and even so, it still went on a little streaky.



Again, here, IV is so much pinker than Nantucket Mist so they're really not exact dupes!

I'm really liking Nantucket Mist because it's pink and yet it's still a little peachy! Perhaps salmon would be a good word to describe the colour. It's got just the right amount of pink in it to make me feel girly but again, it's not too bimbotic! It has also been rather easy to match with my clothes, although my clothes tend to be black or white these days! Hope you like the pictures!

Watsons Haul

Sad to announce that I have the poorest self-control in the whole world when it comes to polish. I went to Watsons today and I bought four bottles because they were having a 20% off promotion for the two brands I purchased! I was really not looking forward to school starting tomorrow so I had to do a little retail therapy.



Left to right: Sally Hansen Mocha Mix, Sally Hansen Cherry Red, Rimmel Beige Babe and Rimmel Barely There.

Mocha Mix reminds me of Chanel Rose Confidentiel but it's definitely darker than the Chanel. It dries pretty dark so the colour in the bottle is not really a good gauge as to it's true colour.  It applied like butter and was opaque in one coat. I did two though, just to cover up any uneveness I had (due to my poor painting technique and not the brush or formula).

Cherry Red is a red with pink undertones. It's a relatively bright red and it's really young looking!  Again, it went on opaque in one coat (I'm very impressed with Sally Hansen's formula!!) but because reds tend to appear pinker than they really are, I did two coats to bring out it's true colour. The Sally Hansen brush isn't a pro-wide, like OPI, it's thinner in fact but its formula is such a dream to work with that the brush size was okay for me!

On to Rimmel, first thing that took me by surprise was its brush size. It's wider than OPI's pro-wide so it's wide. I could paint my nails with one stroke but I chose not to fan the brush out. I wanted more control so I painted lightly and still did three strokes.

Barely There is a flash coloured polish that made me look like I had mannequin nails! Finally a polish that gives me that look! It's not a look I particularly like but it's a different look that I'm open to trying! Barely There does have some tiny tiny multi-coloured glitter particles that makes it such a pretty shade! I'm starting to like glitter now, I don't know why. I used to be a creme finish girl but recently, I've been coveting glitters! I used 3 thin coats to get it fully opaque.

As for Beige Babe, it's a gorgeous taupe creme that looks like milk chocolate! It has rose undertones so it does look a little different from OPI Over the Taupe and Essie Hot Coco. Those were the 2 polishes I have that looked the most like it. Although I must add that the difference is pretty minute so to untrained polish eyes, they'll look the same. Again, I used 3 thin coats to get Beige Babe fully opaque and it dries really glossy!

Here's a picture of Beige Babe with the other taupes I have for comparison. Left to right: OPI Over the Taupe, Rimmel Beige Babe, Essie Hot Coco and OPI You Don't Know Jacques (thrown in for good measure)



And here are todays colours swatched on! Left to right: Sally Hansen Cherry Red, Rimmel Beige Babe, Sally Hansen Mocha Mix and Rimmel Barely There



No more new polishes for the next month! I promise!

Gradient Tips

Decided to try out gradient nails after seeing countless tutorials on youtube as well as various nail blogs, so I went to one of those cheap provision stores amd bought a whole pack of sponges. I bought the kind of sponge that you would use to wash dishes because I didn't know that you can apparently use makeup sponges too!



On my thumb nail, I have on ChG For Audrey and I sponged on ChG Flyin' High although you can't really see a difference (I know) cuz of my sucky camera! On the other four nails, I have on Color Club High Society, Essie Hot Coco, Revlon Grey Suede, OPI You Don't Know Jacques and OPI Over the Taupe painted and sponged on in no particular order. You just have to decided whether you wanna paint on the lightest and then slowly move down the line of polishes to sponge on darker and darker colours, or paint the darkest one and spongue on lighter and lighter polishes. For my index and middle finger nails, I did the first method (light to dark) and for my ring and pinkie, I did the latter (dark to light).

Here's a close up picture so you can hopefully see the gradient a little better!



Obviously I don't have a superb sponging technique so I hope you don't mind my first attempt!

Please comment away if you have any tips on how I can improve my sponging and tell me whether you used a dishwashing sponge or a makeup sponge! Til next time!

Chanel Khakis Collection

I recently added Khaki Brun to my Chanel polish collection. It's not really a collection when I only had 2 but whatever. It's going to be a collection one day! Headed down to MBS to swatch Riva but the sales assistant told us that they had brought a couple of bottles of Khaki Brun in from overseas cuz they sold better here! And of course, S and I cracked and gave our $35 away! In the picture below, I've compared Khaki Vert and Particuliere (not from the Khaki collection) with 2 rather similar looking Essie polishes! Khaki Vert with Essie Sew Psyched and Particuliere with Hot Coco.



The Essie colours are rather similar to the Chanel colours but I wouldn't consider them dupes but rather, cheaper alternatives. Chanels should never ever have dupes.



So, coat number one! On the left, we have Khaki Brun and on the right, Khaki Vert. With the first coat on, it was clear that Brun was much much much more opaque than Vert.



Here they are against the light so you can see how opaque/sheer the first coat was.



Second coat now and they look better already. I'm sure skilled hands can get away with one coat of Brun! Vert definitely needed the second coat.



Again, against the light, Vert was still a bit sheer against the light but it was quite alright for me on the nail. Brun was perfectly opaque with coat number 2.



So here they are, Brun on top and Vert below. Brun's an olive while Vert is more army green.



And here is Vert with Sew Psyched. Sew Psyched is on top and Vert below. Sew Psyched has a very slight silvery shimmer to it upon closer inspection but further away, it looks very creme like. And you can see Sew Psyched is more blue-based while Vert is more yellow-based. So, they are really not dupes!



Left to Right: Sew Psyched, Vert, Brun





Left to Right: Brun, Vert, Sew Psyched, with flash, after 2 days of wear.



I added China Glaze Ingrid on my pinkie because it was in the whole earthy-tone range and I wanted to see what it would look like with the other 3 colours! I think minus the shimmer, it would have been a nice combination!



In natural sunlight (not direct, cause I was just sitting beside a window).



Hope you liked this review / comparison post! Oh, and did I mention the Chanels applied like butter? Really easy to work with!

New Polishes

I caved at the Expo Robinsons Sale and bought 2 bottles of Couleur Inc polishes. They're $3.50 a bottle so not that bad. Plus my mum paid for them along with her other stuff so I shelled out nothing!

I've been looking from this blue bottle for sooooooooooo long. A couple of months ago, I saw the plastic swatch thing that they paint the polishes on and I knew I had to have it. since then, I've been looking out for this shade at every Robinsons / John Little outlet and it has always been out of stock. I guess my luck came through and I found it today! :D



Took the picture under a lamp and I had to photoshop the colour to make it more accurate! It's darker and bluer than CG For Audrey and a little bit lighter and bluer than CG Flyin' High if you have the above mentioned two polishes to compare it with. The polish also dries a tiny bit darker than in the bottle!

I also realised that I have an Elianto polish that's almost the same colour when I got home and checked my stash. The Elianto one is  a little greener than the Couleur Inc one but they're quite close. Also compared it to Essie Turquoise and Caicos as I had it painted on one nail already. Again, I had to photoshop the colour of my nails because they all look the same on camera. It's Couleur Inc 97 (ONE coat), Elianto Turquoise (two coats) and Essie T&C (3 or 4 coats, can't really remember) from left to right.



The other polish I got was a clear glitter. I'm currently waiting for CG Fairy Dust to arrive and I think the glitter particles in this polish is larger (and hence different) than those in Fairy Dust.



And to show off it's beautiful silver and multi-coloured glitter particles:



I tried painting the glitter polish over one of my coral nails and it looks quite sweet! It's the polish on my thumb in the above 2 pictures! There's a post coming soon on my coral mani with an accent nail so do look out for it!