National Day Mani

Happy National Day to my peeps in Singapore!

This year's nail art idea came from my colleague. We were talking during lunch and she suggested painting the Merlion so I found the eaisest Merlion outline and viola!

After last year's national flag with the crazy small stars, this year I decided to go simple with a glitter polish. I'm wearing one coat of HARE polish Leap Light Year painted over a base of OPI Vodka and Caviar. It's the perfect patriotic red shade!

Here's a close up bottle shot of Leap Light Year.

On my thumb, I'm wearing two coats of piCture pOlish White Wedding  and I used a red nail art polish from Daiso.

Hope you're having a great long weekend! :)

China Glaze Hologlam Collection Comparison Swatches

Hey y'all! Thought I'd do a quick comparison post for the China Glaze Hologlam shades. I know you all want as much info as you can get so I'm here to supply you with that information!

Ever since I got my nail swatch sticks, I've been happily swatching my babies and I think I'm a third through my collection. I've swatched my holos, indies and toppers (that includes flakies and glitters) and I'm not really looking forward to starting on the rest because it's gonna be a long project. Back to the sticks, I think they're a great way to catalogue your collection. I'm trying to sort mine by colours and I love how you can rearrange them so if you buy a new shade of polish that's in between two existing shades you own, it's easy to fit the new one in.

The sticks are also fantastic for doing comparisons since I don't have to reswatch anything so today's post is gonna feature my lovely sticks! Hope you guys don't mind that.  

All the pictures were taken indoors, under my table lamp.

Starting with the corals, we have China Glaze TTYL, China Glaze Digital Dawn, China Glaze TMI, China Glaze Not In This Galaxy, Layla Shock Pink and Layla Red Taboo.



Next, we have the magentas. From left to right, Layla Red Taboo, Layla Purple Illusion and China Glaze Infra-Red.



On to the lilacs, we have Color Club Halo-Graphic, China Glaze Astro-Hot and China Glaze Electric Magenta.



For the lavenders, we have Layla Ultra Violet, Color Club Cloud Nine, China Glaze Get Outta My Space and Color Club Fashion Addict.



Moving on to the dusty purples, we haveChina Glaze When Star Collide, Layla Misty Blush and Layla Cloudy Violet.



For the light blues, we have OPI DS Sapphire, Color Club Blue Heaven, Layla Mermaid Spell, FNUG Fusturistica and China Glaze Sci-Fly By.



Moving on to the medium to darker blues, we have China Glaze 2NITE, China Glaze High Def, China Glaze Strap On Your Moonboots, Into The Night (Franken), China Glaze Take A Trek and Glitter Gal Teal Blue.



As requested by Olivia, here is China Glaze DV8 and Take a Trek. DV8 leans more towards a marine blue whereas Take a Trek has a greyer undertone.



Same two polish, taken at an angle to show their holoness.



For the lighter, almost seafoam greens, we have China Glaze Don't Be A Luna-tic, Color Club Angel Kiss and Layla Jade Groove.



And we mustn' forget the olives that are A-England Princess Sabra and China Glaze OMG A UFO.



For the light greys, we've got Daiso #10, China Glaze Cosmic Dust and Layla Flash Black



And last but not least, we've got the charcoal/black holos that are China Glaze Galactic Gray, Color Club Revvvolution, Glitter Gal 10 to Midnight, Layla Flash Black and Jade Magia Negra.



I tried to include quite a few brands of holos in this comparison, like the China Glaze OMGs, Layla Holograms, Jade Holograficos, Color Club Halo Hues and Glitter Gal holos so you can tell how holo the new China Glaze Hologlams are.

I must admit that the aren't as blingy as the holos I've grown to love (Laylas and Color Clubs) but these new Holograms are quite different in terms of how smooth they look. The holo particles and reall extremely fine and honestly, the closest thing to compare them with will be the original OMGs.

As I've mentioned in my first swatch post of the Hologlams, these new China Glazes do dry a smidgen slower than the OMGs or the Laylas. I would say the dry time is comparable to the Halo Hues.

Let me know if you guys wanna see any other comparisons and If I own the polish, I'd gladly take pictures! Till next time!

Holo Month Day 8: Layla Flash Black (and comparison)

Hello Polish Lovers! Today I have here the last of the Layla hologram swatches for now (I say for now because I'm fully intending to get my hands on the latest 8 holograms soon)!

This is three coats of Flash Black. You could probably get away with two coats though. Man, is Flash Black blingtastic or what!









For today's comparison, I whipped out almost all of my charcoal holos. I never knew I had this many until I went searching through my Helmer! Yikes!

I'm wearing three coats of each polish and all the comparison shots were taken in sunlight.



The TFS and Daiso polishes refused to shine under my table lamp so I had to go chasing after the sun. Not surprisingly, Flash Black remains the undisputed Charcoal Holo Queen, with 10 to Midnight coming in second!



This last picture shows the holoness in the TFS and Daiso polishes just a little better. You can click on the pictures to enlarge them. I promise the holo looks even more glorious when the pictures are bigger!



So that's it for the proper Layla Hologram swatches for now. I did managed to catch some sun so I'll be showing you sunlight skittle shots of all the Holograms tomorrow! See you then! :)

Holo Month Day 2: Layla Coral Glam (and comparison)

Continuing from Mercury Twilight, today I'll be showing you swatches of Coral Glam, a really gorgeous nude holo. It isn't all that coral so I have no idea why it's called Coral Glam but given how holo it is, I'm gonna close one eye.

This is three coats of Coral Glam, without any base or top coats. Once again, my nails were buffed to a shine before I painted the polish.









I'm absolutely loving how office-friendly this shade is so I'm looking forward to being able to wear it to work once I start at the end of August!

I don't really have as many nude corals as I'd like but I did manage to find three others - Winmax α-Rainbow #1 (a $2 holographic polish from Daiso), Nfu Oh #62 and China Glaze Cyberspace.







All pictures were taken under artificial lighting.

Winmax α-Rainbow #1 is the least holo as you can see, but for $2, I'm not complaining! It is actually pretty close to Cyberspace, just a tiny bit paler. Cyberspace is also more holo but the two of them are obviously not even close to Coral Glam in terms of colour. Nfu Oh #62 is the closest thing to Coral Glam I have in my stash. #61 is a touch pinker though so still no dupe.

Hope you're enjoying the Layla Hologram Effect Swatches series so far! Stay tuned for more swatches of Retro Pink!

April's Haul

I haven't been really successful on my low-buy but hey, at least it's a marked improvement from a lot of my other hauls!



Got these Kleancolors from a tiny spree that Lynn, Candy and I did! (L-R) Chunky Holo Black, Chunky Holo Bluebell, Chunky Holo Purple, Chunky Holo Fuschia and Holo Chrome.



L-R: Milani Hi-Tech, HD, Hi-Res, Silver Dazzle and Gem

I'm pretty much in love with the first three holos! They're not your typical strong linear holos but under the sun, they do spread some holo cheer!



Got Cult Nails Living Water and Iconic because I wanted to utilise my 10% discount from Meimiesignatures and I got Revlon Chic because I heard it's a good dupe for MAC Blue India. I'm gonna tell you upfront, it's not a dupe for Blue India. I'll do up a comparison post soon to let you see how they compare.



Moving on to some cheaper polishes - Daiso polishes, a Golden Rose bar glitter and lastly Nubar White and Black Polka Dot!



And now, for the best part of the haul, FLAKIES! I got all these flakies from Cheeying! She's now affectionately know as Evillee, my evil polish cousin! :D I LOVE YOU EVILLEE!

YAY! Done with April's Haul! I'm sorry if March and April's Haul are less detailed. I'm rushing these posts out as fast as I can because I have yet to finish packing for my trip (by the time you read this I'll be in Korea!!!) and I still have a few other stuff on my mind so my concentration is really scattered for the timebeing. So sorry but if you need more info about anything, just drop me a comment and I'll try to get back to you when I come back from my trip! (:

And btw, if you haven't already entered my giveaway, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?! It's open internationally and it closes in two days so go enter it now!!!!!

Daiso Rainbow Holographic Polishes

So this is the first of my holographic polish series! I've been in a holo craze ever since I laid my eyes in OPI My Private Jet (original holo version), which I sadly do not own and I've been looking for as many holo babies as I can find (and afford) to fill up that void. HAHA!

Managed to track down 4 holographic polishes from Daiso at the IMM branch. The Ion and Eastpoint branches always only have the same 2 boring shades. I was so happy when I saw these 4 babies!









Took these first 4 pictures under my table lamp. Do you see how the silver holographic one has this pink sheen, especially in the forth picture?

The next series of pictures were taken next to my window in indirect sunlight.











End of picture spam! As with all the pictures on this blog, click to enlarge them!

I wore 2 coats of all 4 polishes in all the pictures but they were a little sheer so 3 coats would be better. Even though the bottles are really small (5ml each), they're only $2 and I will probably never finish any of my polishes so size should not matter! :D

I think the charcoal one is more holographic than my dud version of CC Revvvolution! For $2, it ain't bad at all! Perhaps I should have bought a couple more to mix with my other polishes and franken up more holo babies!

Today's the last day of January! How has 2012 been treating you so far? I hope that it's better than 2011!

31 Day Challenge: Day 28 (Inspired By a Flag)

Since I was a teenager, I've had this strange attraction to the Union Jack so obviously I was pretty stoked to paint it for this challenge. Weirdly, I've never done a Union Jack manicure so this is my virgin Union Jack nails!

I chose to do a deep blue base with OPI Dating a Royal.



Dating a Royal is slighter darker and more purple than this. It was quite a difficult colour to photograph. Dating a Royal has a jelly finish and it really is a very pretty colour. It does give off a certain royal feel. Very British!



I decided to do an accent nail because doing Union Jacks on all my nails would be overkill and I like it! I used Daiso's nail art polish in white and red.

On to Supernatural nails for the next challenge! From what I envision, it will be very Halloween-esque. See you then!

31 Day Challenge: Day 22 (Inspired By a Song)

I chose OutKast's Hey Ya! for today's manicure but I was more inspired by the music video than the song because of all the bright colours! More specifically, I was drawn to the clothes worn in the video and this was what I ended up with:

Let's go into some close ups shall we?

The black suit and red shirt on my thumb was inspired by the manager's outfit. I love how the lapel of his blazer has matte trimmings so I drew on a matte lapel on my thumb too, using Essie Matte About You.

I didn't dare attempt the ruffles on his shirt so I just left the shirt a plain red!

This green shirt and blue and green plaid pants combination is so cute on the singer! Love the colours together!

I think my plaid design was a a bit of a failure compared to others I've seen before but it's good enough for me.

The keyboardist was wearing a white shirt, green cardigan and an orange with blue stripes tie. Really like how the tie makes the outfit pop!

Sadly, when I painted the white polish on top of the green, they kinda mixed and I ended up with a cream colour instead of white. D:

The guitarist's outfit was the easiest of the bunch.

Just a green shirt, yellow and orange tie, and brown suspenders.

Okay, the drummer wore nothing but the crown so that's the only thing I could paint on my nail, unless you want me to paint his pacs! HAHA!

Not sure if you noticed but all the band members are portrayed by the same guy! LOL!
Hope you guys like this manicure! (: