Jindie Nails Noel

Heyhey! Today, I have Noel from the Jindie Nails Santa Claws collection to show you guys.

Straight up, I couldn't resist doing a bottle shot. Noel is described as a "neon green, white and red matte glitters and green sparkles densely packed in clear base," from Jindie Nail's Etsy and that couldn't be any more accurate!



I started out with two coats of Essie Going Incognito. Love how glossy it is!



Then went on one coat of Noel. What I love about Noel is that it doesn't have too much jolly green (Christmas green) glitters so using a jolly green base really brought out all its colours!



I also love how the red jumps out and make everything pop even more.



We've been seeing so much red and green hex (and bar) glitters from all the other indie Christmas collections and Noel's matter glitter is such a breath of fresh air!



I also decided to try layering Noel over some reds. This is two coats of Sally Hansen Brick Wall, Beadstreet 74 (or Brick It Up as I have christianed it) and China Glaze Hey Sailor.



This is one coat of Noel over all three nails.



Now on to some close up shots, here's Noel over Going Incognito. Love the colour combination!!!



This is Noel over Hey Sailor. Hey Sailor is a typical Christmas bright red and I'm sad that it kidna swallowed the red glitter in Noel.



This is Noel over Brick It Up. Brick It Up reminds me of gingerbread cookies and it just brings up such not so typical Christmasy feel whenever I see it.



This is Noel over Brick Wall. This one is my favourite combination of the reds. Brick Wall was dark enough to let all the glitters shine through.



LOVE LOVE LOVE!

Jindie Nails is available from Mei Mei's Signatures, who ships worldwide with the exception of Italy.

Disclaimer: This product was sent to me for my honest opinions. I am not affiliated with Mei Mei's Signatures or Jindie Nails.

Revlon Chic, the MAC Blue India dupe?

As promised earlier on, here is the new MAC Blue India comparison!

I was at Watsons a few weeks back and I was walking down the cosmestics aisle when something caught my eye. It was this gorgeous slate blue Revlon polish and I knew instantly that they brought Revlon Chic in! LIKE FINALLY!

I've been crazy about slate blue polish ever since I saw MAC Blue India, a polish which I had longed for for the longest time but wasn't able to get until I was trolling ebay one fine day last year and since a listing! I HAD TO HAVE IT IMMEDIATELY and Janelle, the kind soul that she is, helped me with the shipping (the seller only shipped within the US). I will be forever grateful to her! :)

So anyway, back to Chic, I grabbed a bottle and proceeded to pay for it, excited at how it'll compare to Blue India and the rest of my slate blue polishes!



Here we have a bottle comparison of, from left to right, my franken Blue My Mind (BMM), Sally Hansen Grey by Grey (GBG), MAC Blue India (BL) and  Revlon Chic (C).



This is one coat of each polish on my nails. Revlon Chic and Blue My Mind were the more opaque of the bunch, and you can immediately see how much greyer and lighter Grey By Grey is compared to the rest.



This was two coats of each polish.



This is Chic on the left, next to Blue India and you can see that they are definitely not dupes!



This is Grey By Grey on the left and Blue India on the right and again, no dupes here.



Lastly, we have Blue India on the left and Blue My Mind on the right. Blue My Mind was the closest to Blue India (and I take pride in knowing that I created the closest dupe of the bunch, even before I bought Blue India!) but they're still not dupes.

Formula wise, Blue India had the runniest formula, and hence was the sheerest of the bunch but it built up nicely with two coats. Revlon Chic was a little thick but still manageable. My bottle of Grey by Grey has grey streaks in it and those streaks translated to grey streaks on the nails. They're not too obvious unless you examine the nail close up but I'm still not happy about it. As for Blue My Mind, it does have a rather thick formula so I'll be adding a couple of drops of thinner to it after I finish typing this.

In conclusion (boy, I feel like I'm writing an essay!), Blue India has proven to be a polish that is undupable. As much as I love being able to find dupes of polishes, I'm actually happy that Blue India has no dupes because it makes the money I spent worth it! :)

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Where to buy:
MAC Blue India: Ebay
Sally Hansen Grey by Grey: Ebay
Revlon Chic: Watsons
Blue My Mind: Sorry ladies, this was a franken but you can get Tony Moly TR11 and add a few drops of black polish.

February's Haul

Okay, before I start, I need to justify myself. If it weren't for BeautyAsia, Feb's Haul wouldn't look THIS bad.



I bought so many polishes that I had to grab them from my Helmer and put them into a plastic bag to transport them to my desk for their mugshots.



On the left is my BA haul and on the right is my "regular" haul. I told you my haul wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for BA!



This is my non-BA haul. They're mostly pretty cheap to boot so I don't feel as guilty!

Top row: Two bottles of Essence Nail Art Espress Dry Drops, Essence Hard to Resist, In Style, two bottles of Time for Romance,  a back up of Lime Up!, On Your Gracile Tiptoe and Essie Gold As It Gets
Bottm Row: Three crackle polishes I found at Aries ($4.20 each only!!!!), Tony Moly Milky Way (which is extremely close to Lippmann Glitter in the Air), OPI DS Original (courtesy of Gwen, who sold me her backup bottle), and Sally Hansen Harderning and Resistance Continuous Treatments (they were going for Buy One Get One Free!!)

Opinions:
I love the Essence drip dry drops. Fromt he reviews I read, it's pretty comparable to OPI's and it's only a fraction of its cost ($4.20)! It does leave a slightly oily feeling after it's dry but I like it because I just treat it as a cuticle oila nd rub it into my cuticle area.

I haven't tried On Your Gracile Tiptoes yet but I've been looking for the perfect coral and I haven't found one yet so hopefully this will be it. I like my corals more orange than pink and this one is slightly dusty and not too orange that it's just orange.

The crackle polishes come in a huge variety of colours and I just picked the ones that I found more interesting, like green, teal and slate blue! They're pretty okay and they do crack so I have no quelms!
The Tony Moly GITA dupe was purchased for me by a friend who went to Korea (shoutout to Annette if you're reading this!) and sadly, I haven't seen it in the Singapore stores yet.The glitter in the tony Moly polish is slightly bigger than the ones in GITA and it's also bluer but unless you paint them side by side, you won't know the difference so it's a good enough dupe for me!

I've been using both the Sally Hansen treatments on my toes. The hardening one for my second to forth toe nails because they always tear and I suspect it's because they're too thin, and the Resistance one for my first (big) and last toe nails because they're already hard so I just want they to be stronger and not crack as easily. My big toe nail was peeling very badly and I've tried a number of treatments (other Sally Hansen treatments and NailTek) which didn't work but after about a month's use of Resistance, it's peeling less! I've also noticed my other toe nails becoming thicker so I'm liking these two SH treatments!



BA Haul, picture one.

Top Row: Zoya Flecks, Skylar, Bevin, Yara, Neeka and Cynthia

Bottm Row: ChG Tronicas; Cyberspace, Digital Dawn, Electric Magenta, High Def and Techno Teal
Opinions: I grabed the Zoyas since they were only going for $7. I actaully regret not getting more! As for the Tronicas, I love them! They're so much more holo than all the swatches I've seen online!!! My only quelm is that Lynn bought a bottle of Digital Dawn on the first day and I got mine on the second, from the same shop, and hers is SIGNIFICANTLY VERY MUCH MORE HOLO than mine. Mine is pathetically scattered while hers is linear! D:



BA Haul, picture two.

Top Row: Nfu Oh #62, Orly Rage and Night Owl and China Glaze White on White

Bottom Row: Misa Indian Tan, China Glaze Ruby Pumps, Lubu Heels, Orly Out of This World, Haley's Comet, Misa Green with Envy and DL Glitter in the Air

Opinions: I LOVE THE NFU OH. HOLO TO THE MAX! It chips very easily though so I recommend using the Aqua Base Coat and SV on top. SV will dull the holoness but only minimally and it's worth losing a tiny bit of holoness for longer wear IMO. Don't really have anything much to say about the rest of the polishes.
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Okay, so overall, it's a large haul but I knew I was gonna do some major damage during BeautyAsia so I'm not all that disappointed with myself! March's Haul is set to be quite expensive even though it won't be as much polish. I caved and just ordered the entire Layla Hologram collection because holographic polishes seem to be my archilles heel, my kryptonite, my extreme weakness if you will. And I also purchased OPI DS Diamond during Nailvibe's recent discount special. Not to mention I finally managed to go down to DYON to get the OPI Holland and I want some Essie Sping colours too! As for ChG Hunger Games, I only want Smoke and Ashes and Stone Cold but I haven't had the time to grab them yet. Damn, March's haul will be an epic one too! :(

CNY Nails

I know I'm SOOOOO late to the CNY manicure party but better late than never right? (;

This was the manicure I did for my grandma for CNY. She wanted a dark red polish and I suggested doing a gold glitter gradient to bling things up.







I used Sally Hansen Brick Wall for the red base and TFS YL702 for the gold glitter gradient.
My grandma really liked the manicure and she told me she got quite a few compliments and my aunt even asked which manicure shop she got her nails done at!

Now, onto my CNY nails...





I bought a red dress to wear on the first day of CNY and I didn't want to look like one huge red packet with red nails so I chose to go with subtle nude nails and decided on OPI Barefoot in Barcelona. Then while I was watching the CNY show on Channel 8, I found out that black was my lucky colour and we all know wearing black during CNY isn't all that auspicious so I added some black polka dots on my thumb and ring finger. Normally, I'd just do an accent mani on my ring finger but I included the thumb as well. Some people do that too and it's been more commonly known as the Blackberry accent mani because you'd use your thumbs to type and it'll draw more attention!

I've never worn Barefoot in Barcelona before and I really like it on me! My mum had previously requested it for her pedi and Barefoot looked quite different on her because she's much tanner than I am. Funny how polish looks so different on people with different skin tones but I'm glad it still worked out fine for me! I also love how subtle the polka dots were (I think partly because I used a smaller dotting tool this time for the dots) and it's be a good way to spice up those boring nudes I'll be stuck wearing for work, without catching too much attention from the drescode patrol people at work!

Also, I couldn't resist taking a picture of my Blackberry mani with my darling BBB!

December's Haul

December's haul was so epic I had to split the entire haul up to take photos. I actually paid for most of the polish you're about to see in October/November but the polishes only arrived in December which is why they're featured in this month's haul. So technically, I wasn't THAT naughty in December!

This first set of pictures are of the polishes I collected from Cheeying from Inkypolisholicious and from Susan. I wasn't able to meet up with Susan to get my polishes but she was meeting up with Cheeying anyway and I too was going to meet Cheeying during the weekend, so she was kind enough to help me collect my polishes from Susan and passed me all my polishes! Thanks Cheeying, if you're reading this!!



December's Haul: Batch 1. This batch consisted of the Cult Nails polishes, Nfu Oh polishes and mini franken bottles the Yings helped me to order, and the RBLs and piCture pOlish Festival that I bought from Susan!

Don't worry, I got some close up shots for you! (:



Love how the Cult Nails bottles came wrapped up in brown paper with their names on the sticker! Doesn't the packaging look so chic? It really makes the packaging look so much more personal, showing how every bottle was individually wrapped by hand, with love!



Here they are unwrapped! The order's opposite from the above picture (i.e. L-R: Wicked Fast to Clairvoyant).



RBL BiBs! These were the RBLs that got shipped to Singapore first because they were from an earlier batch of BiBs. BUT, not all four are mine. One of them is actually for the giveaway that Lynn and I are going to have! We have yet to discuss the details but we should be doing the giveaway very very soon so do look out for it! And for now, I shall keep you in suspense as to which colour we'll be giving away! (:

Susan sent me the remainding two RBLs when they arrived and here they are!



These two Catherines are all mine! They're so pretty!



FLAKIES GALORE! Here are the two Nfu Ohs the Yings helped me to get and piCture pOlish Festival which I purchased from Susan! The Yings aren't really selling polishes, I just tagged along with their Nfu Oh order but Susan is selling piCture pOlish as well as Ozotic Pro polishes so if you're interested, head down over to her blog for more details!



Festival is a gorgeous multicoloured flakie in a clear base which makes it VERY interesting! Here is it next to Clairvoyant, which is also a multicoloured flakie, except it had a darker base!



You can see the flakies better from this angle! Aren't they so purdy? (: And if you're curious how they compare on the nail, Susan did a good comparison post between Clairvoyant, Festival and Nubar 2010, so do check it out!




Here, we have the Starbites pigment I bought from TKB Trading. They make really nice glass fleck duochrome topcoats when put into clear polish! You can check swatches out here, here and here! I've made my glass fleck top coats already and you only need a little pigment for a 5ml bottle and I have plenty left so if you're interested, drop me a comment and I can make and sell you a bottle! (:



And I ordered another 20 mini fraken bottles! I've already used up 17 bottles from my previous batch of 20 mini bottles I ordered a couple months back so I needed to restock my frankening supplies! I somehow don't remember using 17 bottles! WEIRD!!!



December's Haul: Batch 2. These polishes are the ones Janelle helped to buy from the US and mailed it over to me! She was very patient with all my orders because I was collating orders from 4 other gals and she also included some extras for me because she was busy with school and had to delay sending the polishes out! She was way too kind and I'm going to repay the favour when she send me the list of polish she wants from over here! (:

Top row: Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe, MAC Blue India (!!!!!!I FINALLY OWN THIS BABY!!!!!), Sally Hasen Gray by Gray, Sally Hansen Fairy Teal, NOPI Green Up Your Act and Color Club Artsy Crafty

Bottom row: Color Club Bojo Mojo, Manglaze Matte is Murder (these were the two extra bottles Janelle got for me!), Revlon Perplex, Orly Fowl Play and OPI Nantucket Mist

Really happy with this US haul because I got to satisfy so many of my lemmings. I finally own Blue India! It's been on my wishlist since the second month of my addiction and when I saw it on eBay for a reasonable price, I jumped at the opportunity! I also managed to get Perplex, which is a well know dupe for Chanel Paradoxal, which I also have but who can resist such a good dupe? Certainly not me. I also got a backup bottle of Fowl Play and Nantucket Mist. Sadly, I overpaid for Fowl Play, Nantucket Mist and Artsy Crafty but considering Janelle threw in Bojo Mojo and Matte is Murder, I'm still a very happy kid! (:



December's Haul: Batch 3. Collected some of these polishes from Candy and bought the rest during my outing with Lynn and Candy. Oh, and some were Christmas gifts from the very very very generous Candy too! I tell you, shopping with two fellow polish addicts is very damaging to your wallet! HAHA, this batch contained so many polishes I had to take a vertical shot! D:

Let's go to close ups shall we? (:



L-R: Essie Size Matters (What a fabulous name! HAHA!!), Topless and Barefoot, Color Club Fashion Addict and Worth the Risque (THEY BOTH ARE THE FRIGGIN STUD HOLO VERSIONS!)



Nameless Beadstreet polishes again! I friggin love Beadstreet polishes because they're of a very good quality for the price you pay! And since they are nameless, I shall exercise my super creative (read: lame) brain power. L-R: 3 bottles of clear which I'm not gonna bother naming, Yellow Yellow Dirty Fellow, Orange You Glad I'm Only $2 and Night Sky. And yes, I'm VERY happy they only cost $2 per bottle!



L-R: Color Club Magic Attraction, Art Club Glitter Hologram and Gold Hologram



Took a blurry picture just to show you how holo these three polishes are! :D



Finally bought myself some proper yellows! I was doing my nail wheels and got so pissed off at having to paint 5 coats of cheap yellow polish to get it opaque! L-R: China Glaze Lemon Fizz, Happy Go Lucky, Refresh Mint and Essence Lime Up!



And lastly, Essie Smooth Sailing, Orly Sapphire Silk and Pixie Dust!

Okay, as you can see, I'm pretty much broke and need to eat grass for the next two months so I can afford to buy the gorgeous polishes coming out in 2012! I'm praying my addiction will improve in the New Year! HAHAHA! That shall be my New Year's Resolution! TO BUY LESS POLISH! :D



(L-R: Elianto White, Twilight, Perisian Indigo, Night Glitters, Etude House BL505 and OR207)

December's Haul: Batch 4. These were the polishes I bought during my one day trip to JB. I was searching extensively for Elianto and when I finally spotted it, I squealed! Got myself a back up of their black and white polishes because I love how creamy and opaque they are, and I also got two more polishes from their Sparkling Diva range. Etude House was ahaving a 30% off for their polishes so I grabbed a multichrome blue and a dusty salmon/coral colour. Really Happy with the coral colour because I've been having a tough time finding a coral I like and this one is so pwetty!



(L-R: Extra Strength Lacquer Remover, Emerald City, Sacred Ground and Twisted Vine)


December's Haul: Batch 5. These were from the SpaRitual nail class I went to with two of my friends as well as Cheryl! Emerald City came with my goodie bag, along with a buffing block, zebra file and samples of their Handprint Hand Serum and Hydrating Hand Salve (which are not in the picture above). As for the rest, the course fee of $38 was fully redeemable for products and I chose to redeem the lacquer remover, Sacred Ground and Twisted Vine.

MAC Blue India and Comparisons

OH YES, YOU READ RIGHT. MAC FRIGGIN BLUE INDIA. And this didn't even cost me as much as I thought it would so double yay! (:

A few weeks back, Candy sent me an email requesting for a comparison swatch between Sally Hansen Gray by Gray, MAC Blue India and Essie Bobbing for Baubles, and I decided since I'm gonna swatch my precious, I might as well throw in some similar shades too.



L-R: Tony Moly Indian Blue, Sally Hansen Gray by Gray, Blue My Mind (my own franken), Mac Blue India and Essie Bobbing for Baubles



The closest of the five are Gray by Gray and Blue My Mind.The latter is a tad greener though. Just a tad.
Gonna show you individual swatches first before the comparison.



This is Tony Moly Indian Blue. I'm not even lying about the name. On the bottle, it only says TR11 but when I checked my receipt, I saw the name Indian Blue. I mean seriously? Come up with a more original name! Two coats here. I love Tony Moly's formula. Real nice and buttery to apply. They just glide on!



Sally Hansen Gray by Gray. I wanted this the moment I saw it on ALU, being compared to Blue India. Sadly, my bottle had swirls in it, like the pigments weren't blended together. And it caused streaks when I painted it on my nail. Grey streaks. It isn't that obvious but close up, OMG, the horror! I'm cringing! Colour-wise though, lovely colour. The tappered brush is similar to Rimmel's brush and it does miraculously help me to paint neater. Wearing two coats here.



My gorgeous franken Blue My Mind. See how much more original my franken's name is than Indian Blue! This baby's formula is great, applies like butter, isn't too thick and best thing ever? It's a one coater.



The star of the show, or rather, post, MAC Blue India! This was two coats but I have a teeny tiny bald spot so maybe three coats would have been better. I'd still wear two coats though, probably with a ridge filler below to make it apply more opaque. This one had the jelly-est consistency of the bunch.



Essie Bobbing for Baubles. Deep blue polish that applied well with 2 coats. Very hot colour! I'm waiting to get Essie's Luxeffects and layer them on this baby! I must save up because Smoochiezz will be having a booth at Jurong Point when school reopens so I NEED TO SAVE MONEYYYYY!



Thumb to pinkie: Indian Blue, Gray by Gray, Blue My Mind, Blue India and Bobbing for Baubles.



Same order but from a slightly different angle. The colour is slightly more accurate here.



These three are so close to each other. Gray by Gray, Blue My Mind and Blue India. So so close. Which means my franken was pretty darn close! :D

Blue My Mind is greener than Blue India and Gray by Gray is greyer. Blue India is, well, bluer than the two, so technically, no dupes here but for all normal-people-who-are-not-polish-addicts purposes, you don't need all of them.

I got my Blue India on ebay and Gray by Gray from the US, just in case you're wondering.
Okay, going on my one week break now! See you!