My Top 12 from 2012

It's 31st December, the last day of 2012. So many things happened and yet the year flew by so quickly. I graduated from university, started working, made new polish friends, discovered indie polishes and survived the "end of the world" to mention a few.

So here's my year in nails - my top 12 from 2012! I'm not listing them in any particular order though, because I love them all too much to rank them.

1. My Birthday Jelly Sandiwch



I discovered a wonderful thing called the jelly sandiwch this year and I'm absolutely still crazy over it. I wanted a fun mani to wear on my birthday this year so I decided to do a birthday jelly sandwich and it really brightened my day!


2. OPI Softshades 2012





I always thought of OPI Softshades as pleasant but a little boring so this year's Softshades, inspired by the NYC Ballet, caught me offguard. I never expected myself to love these sheer, jelly polishes so much. Plus they're the perfect polishes to make a jelly sandiwch (discussed above) so I love them even more!


3. Pretty & Polished Jawbreaker



This year also brought the boom of indie polish - nail polish made by independent makers. Pretty & Polished was probably my first indie polish love and Jawbreaker was the one that opened the floodgates for me.


4. Easter In A Bottle



This is probably my favourite franken of the year. Inspired by so many indie polish, I decided to give some mixing a go and came up with this. It was especially serendipitous when I realised how close Easter In A Bottle was to Nail-venturous Lacquers Robin Laid an Egg!


5. Hey Ya! nails



I didn't do a whole lot of nail art this year but this one is still my favourite from the few. I did this for my Inspired By A Song manicure and it still remains as one of my favourite (and fun) nail arts so far!


6. Essie Navigate Her



If I had to pick one polish from all the Spring lines, Navigate Her would be it. I hadn't seen a pistachio green polish before so this was such a revelation for me!


7. piCture pOlish Orbit



My love for galaxies grew this year and Orbit (worn matte above) was such a pretty polish that looks like millions of stars twinkling in the night sky.


8. Jade Holografico Energy



A teal blue ultra holographic polish. Need I say more? :P


9. Cirque Fascination Street



My love for OPI DS Glamour is no secret and yet Fascination Street managed to wedge itself between my and DS Glamour, which was no easy feat. A deep, saturated shade of indigo, throw in some holographic goodness and you've got me a first brushstroke!


10. Layla Flash Black



Flash Black is my favourite out of the first eight Layla Holograms. It's a crazy blingtastic holo that puts all my other charcoal holos to shame! 


11. Layla Emerald Divine



Emerald Divine is such a lush shade of green. I have NOTHING like this in my stash and this was an absolute win from Layla.


12. Layla Coffee Love



Coffee Love is everything I wanted OPI My Private Jet to be, and then some. MPJ was one of my first loves (along with Chanel Nouvelle Vague) and unfortunately, I still do not own the holographic version of MPJ so when I laid eyes on Coffee Love, my heart skipped a beat and did a somersault!


So there you go, my top 12 from 2012. When I was going through my posts to pick these, I realised I didn't have much to pick from so my New Year's resolution for 2013 is to bring you more swatches!

See you all next year! :)

Pretty & Polished Jawbreaker

The moment I saw Jawbreaker, I just had to have it and I swear, this was the polish that started my love for multi-coloured glitters in a white base!

Jawbreaker, named after the sweet, has the classic colors, blue, red, purple, green and yellow, in the form of different glitter shapes and sizes, all in a milky pinkish-white base.

Because I only got the small bottle (my full-sized one was still on it's way to me when this post was being drafted), I didn't want to use any more of this delicious polish than I had to so I painted a this coat of China Glaze White on White before doing two coats of Jawbreaker on top, as well as a coat of SV to smooth out the surface.



Here's two close up shots!






I didn't really have to fish around and strategically place any glitters with Jawbreaker, though if you noticed, I only managed to get one red square on my (ten) nails. I have a feeling all the red squares in my bottle have decided to adhere to the glass wall and refused to come out and play!

Here's one last picture of the bottle for the road!



I'm absolutely loving this P&P and I can't wait to swatch the rest! Till next time! :)

KBShimmer All Decked Out

So this is Christmas and what have you done,
Another year over, a new one just begun.

And so this is Christmas, I hope you have fun,
The near and the dear ones, the old and the young.

A very merry Christmas and a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one without any fears.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Today I have KBShimmer All Decked Out to show you and to start the mani off, I did two coats of Orly Wandering Vine.



And now for the star of the show, this is two coats of All Decked Out on top of Wandering Vine.



I love love love how jolly this looks! I haven't felt such a strong Christmas vibe for a couple of years and I think this year's more special because I'm working and I cherish the public holiday more! HA! ;)





Have a happy holiday y'all! :)

Christmas Eve Nails

HEYHEY!

It's Christmas Eve today and my company gave us the day off. That's probably why I sound so happy! :) This morning, I woke up and decided to do some Christmas nails for the Christmas party I'm going to tonight! 

This is two coats of Winter Holly. The first coat went on pretty sparse so I'm actually surprised it managed to become opaque in two coats.



I love how fuzzy Winter Holly looks sans topcoat, really looks like a Christmas tree!



With a topcoat on, the gold holographic bits start shining through.



Winter Holly is such a festive polish! Perfect shade for Christmas!



Here's a close up shot. Pretty pretty pretty!



I decided to add an accent nail to spice things up with piCture pOlish White Wedding and China Glaze Ruby Pumps with a striping brush.



Here's a close up of White Wedding. I'm loving how the tiny irridescent flakies make the polish so much more delicate, instead of a boring flat white polish.



The glitter in Ruby Pumps reminds me of cranberry bits in some turkey sauce! It looks so delicious! 



That's all for my Christmas Eve mani! Hope you guys have jolly plans for Christmas!

Tony Moly Galactic Glittters

I hauled these babies back from the affordable polish motherland (i.e. Korea) a couple months back and I'm finally getting down to swatches them.

I have a feeling all three of them were inspired by Deborah Lippmann's Glitter In The Air.



I love how delicate yet funky they look!



This is three coats of GS08 Milky Way, a Deborah Lippmann Glitter In The Air dupe.  It's a pretty good dupe. I actually own GITA and yet, I bought Milky Way. Yes, that's how much of a polish freak I am. I think I like buying cheaper dupes of more expensive polishes so I can use the cheaper ones more frequently and save the originals for more special occasions.



This is three coats of GS09 Shooting Star. This is my favourite polish from the bunch. It has such a sweet base and yet pack a colourful punch of glitters!



This is three coats of GS10 Pinky Star. She's the sweetest of the bunch. If it was only the pink base, it would be a very not-me kind of polish but the glitters adds to the fun and I couldn't resist getting this baby as well!


Overall, I love how easily these polish apply. The glitters came out easily and I didn't have to fish for anything. And the squishiness, oh, I love how they look like effortless jelly sandwiches! 

Innisfree Yogurt Glitters

Continuing with more polishes I hauled back from Korea, today I have the Innisfree Yogurt Glitters to show you!







81 has a bubblegum pink base that really complements the pink and blue glitters in it. The colours remind me of candy floss actually!



82 is a warmer, more yellow-based green with lime green and pink glitters. This is a very unique polish in my stash. I love how special the colour is!



Moving on to 83, a cooler, mint green polish with pink and blue hex glitters. This is the only polish of the bunch that doesn't have any tiny glitters. I like how it looks much more clean cut the the rest and the min base is a perfect match for that too.



84 is yet another Deborah Lippmann Glitter In The Air dupe. This one however, packs the most punch out of them all (including GITA itself) in terms of the glitter payout. I think I probably should do a GITA dupe post soon, seeing how I have so many of them! HAHA!



85 is the sweest of them all. It's soooooo not me at all but she's the one I love the most. I feel like little girl again whenever I'm wearing this polish, if that makes any sense at all. It's a very Disney-esque coloured polish.



I used three coats for all the swacthes here and I love how I didn't need to fish for any glitters.

The Koreans have managed to master the art of making pretty glitter polishes!

KBShimmer Party

I managed to get KBShimmer Party for a steal (I bought it secondhand from someone) and I'm so glad I caved for it!

Party has tiny purple and green hex glitters, medium yellow hex glitters, large blue hex glitters and to top it off, red and black square glitters, all swimming in a white base.

This is two thin coats of Party over a white base.



As you can see, Party dries quite patchy and I thought it'd be the perfect time to see how well Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter Food works. Here I'm wearing one coat of Glitter Food on top of my Party combo.



Right off the bat, you can how Glitter Food has managed to "tame" the glitters and have provided a smoother finish. Glitter Food does dry with a satin finish though (see below).



So on went a coat of SV to seal everything together and viola!






The moment I saw Party, I immediately thought it looked like the lovechild of Pretty & Polished Party on my Yacht and Jawbreaker. Don't you think so? I'm lucky enough to own them so I thought I'd do a little comparison. Here I have Party on my index and ring fingers, Jawbreaker on my middle finger and Party on my Yacht on my pinkie.







Here's a close up of Party vs Jawbreaker.



And this is Party vs Party on my Yacht.



Please tell me I'm not the only one who sees the resemblance. That being said, I'm still welcoming Party with open arms, into my polish family!