gross

NEVER buy Revlon's Multi Care Base+Top Coat:

1. It creates a horrid uneven surface to paint on your colour when applied as a base coat.
2. It bubbles when used as a topcoat.
3. It stinks. (Literally and metaphorically.)

That's all.

Sigh, I really cannot post at all without my camera's SD card adapter :-( I've got Cult Nail's Clairvoyant on my nails!!! I want to show them off wehhh.

x, Ish

OH NO

I cannot find my camera adapter - how'm I gonna post!!! :''(

On a lighter note... Clairvoyant arrived today!!! :-) Guess the next post will be a super spammed one!

x, Ish

haul-o, there!

Okay so i've not been posting.

Turns out my friend Sarah's Macbook doesn't have a slot for my camera's memory card and I didn't bring the cord so I can't post anyways. Well I will talk about my buys then :-) I'll just steal pictures off Google of course.

Just in case you didn't know, I'm in L.A. right now!!!

I've purchased wayyy too many things for my own good, by the way. Especially polish. Actually I aim to not buy anymore polish with my mom's money. So I only buy when I start working. Then again I'll have other things to pay for when I start working so I'm able to better prioritise. Anyways I have close to a 100 bottles at home and like probably 85 are unused so gotta get to them before any new ones!

Okay so these were the few lucky guys who got a spot in my collection before ''official closing time'' haha!

1. Color Club!

Back to Boho Collection

Beyond the Mistletoe Collection

Omg I love glitters :-)))

2. Sally Hansen!

Red Carpet

I'm actually wearing this shade right now. First time wearing red :'') Shall post this once I hit Singapore.

In the Spotlight

Honestly, this was a stupid buy. Honestly. Application was so sparse though it looks there's some serious party happening in the bottle. But this was cheap, so never mind.

3. Wet n Wild!

Gray's Anatomy

After application, results do not resemble what it looks like in the bottle. It comes out sheer, and pearly-purple. Very pretty as a sheer polish. Good price too. Basically a sheer version of OPI's Not Like The Movies and without the glitter (I LOVE that polish, by the way!)

Teal of Fortune

I have so many ones similar to this I don't know why I bought this. Someone, please expect this as your Christmas gift.

Party of Five Glitters

I'm going to gift this too! :-)

3. OPI

The Show Must Go On

This is a really old release but omg I really wanted some of the Burlesque polishes badly! I can place this baby beside my two other Burlesque's :-)

4. Butter London!

No More Waity, Katie

All Hail The Queen

No comment yet. Heard application was great for this one - we'll see :-)

5. Deborah Lippmann! *Omg drumroll please*

Oh my god. I was completely hyperventilating. I love DL polishes SO MUCH. So much lemming for them while I was in Singapore! If I'm not wrong, they don't do international shipping. So right. I got the first two from Nordstrom. Was pretty upset because I wanted Across The Universe, which they didn't have... But later I found it! At some beauty supply store at 3rd Street Promenade. Thank goodness I asked for it cos it wasn't on display. Oh yes, my life is complete :-)

Glitter In The Air

Boom Boom Pow

Across The Universe

CANNOT WAIT to try my DL's!!! :-)

Okay I'm feeling very sick right now (my lungs are full of gunk, I've been coughing/sneezing/wheezing the past 3 days!!) sooo I'll go rest and watch American cable TV while I can.

Btw, click on links to look at picture source and maybe swatches (depending on the site). The rest of the pictures were from Google.

xx, Ish

i like it haute!

China Glaze - Some Like It Haute

Ta-da!!! I wore this for my prom. Many compliments from me to this polish:

1. GREAT dry time! I only did these like half an hour before my prom and no dents, no scratches (which couldn't be easily fixed with just a little dab of polish) and no major problems really.
2. Glitters like craaaazy!
3. The dense micro glitter in the clear base once layered on the nail (pictured here is 2 coats) gives it a very smoky, deep look and I just LOVE it!

Oh gosh I LOVE GLITTERS!!!! Preferably dense micro-glitters with some chunky glitters. Which is basically perfected in this polish!!! Best coverage and best sparkles!!! Perhaps I should invest in Material Girl, the pink counterpart to Some Like It Haute. It just bothers me that its colour is so similar to OPI's Teenage Dream. I mean I know they are different but they look reaaally similar from afar anyways and I'm not that addicted to the point that I have to have near-dupes because they're not dupes.

Well there is a downside (isn't there one to every polish haha) to this wonderful polish. It's a major topcoat-eater. It's not sandpaper-y feeling anymore on my nails right now, but it isn't perfectly smooth, which I really expected after 3 layers of Seche Vite... Plus, what I did was I'd painted 2 coats of glitter and 2 coats of top coat on a few of my left-hand nails about 3 hours before I did my right hand (which means more dry-time on the left). But when I layered a 3rd coat of top coat on all my nails, the pre-painted ones turned out exactly like my freshly painted right-hand nails. Somehow the top coat sinks between the little spaces of the glitters, regardless of dry-time. Weird huh. I really don't think it's possible to achieve a totally smooth finish for this polish! THOUGH, it would be truly amazing if that was done!

Still a fantastic polish for me though. Like Scrangie once commented on OPI's Burlesque Holiday Glitters, it feels like craft glitter glued to my nails! And yet the gun-metal grey glitters and the holographic chunky glitters make it so elegant and luxurious.

Thanks China Glaze! For creating such a nice polish!

I've yet to try Marry a Millionaire.

x, Ish.

Ps, And yes, for once I shaped my nails. Hehe oops 0:-)

pre-vacation

OPI - Designer... de Better!

YES! A double post today. It's a surprise for y'all I guess, I didn't think I could show this to you guys! Haha.

Well I wore this for SC Homecoming last Saturday. I'd initially thought that I'd not bothered to snap pictures but I did in the middle of removal (haha, explains the 3 nails instead of 4!). I had lots of dents and scratched-off bald patches due to the mad rush that day before my nails could dry fully! But I think these nails pictured were my good ones. Okay anyways.

This is one of my favourites! Seriously, even more than Rainbow Connection and the other more glitzy shades in the latest Muppets Holiday Collection. In fact I think the glitters are complete let-down's. They look brilliant in the bottle but turn out terrible on the nail. The clear base and the sparse application just spoils all expectations induced by how it looked in the bottle.

Okay back to this wonderful polish. It's just beautiful!!! I believe that the foil is a silver-champagne base (not a true silver nor a true champagne? If you get what I mean!) with orange specks of glitter and creates a really warm look on the nail.

I think the pictures that I took are true to what it looked like on my nails but really it's much, much more... luminous and radiant. The orange specks serve as little candle lights, and they warm up the silver-champagne base so nicely.

There were issues, of course. If I remember accurately, this polish revealed VNL!!! VNL is visible nail line, which is basically the line separating the part of your nail that's pink and the part that's white. This formula ran pretty thin as well, it'll be best at 3 coats with about 5 minutes waiting/dry-time between each coat, though I've only used 2 coats due to my hurry. Also I have quite a bit of ridges on my nails and foil finishes definitely give your ridges away!

I still love this polish to bits. I've yet to try Warm and Fozzie, the other favourite I managed to score despite it being completely out of stock everywhere. Hehe I have my ways.

BUT a pity I won't be able to post Warm and Fozzie or Marry a Millionaire in the next 2 weeks... The next post will be of a newly purchased polish when I'm in... L.A.!!! I'm leaving in less than 12 hours, and can't wait!!!

x, Ish.

emotionally absent

Orly - Fowl Play

Rough week. Rougher than all the previous ones.

I've actually used OPI's Russian Navy (Suede), OPI's Designer... de Better and Nubar's Iris Dust the past 3 days but I've been so bummed recently to snap pictures, so here's a guest post from one of my best friends from secondary school, Brittany.

I did her nails a couple of days back (she loves it so much she refuses to take it off) and I just grabbed a few pics to admire my handiwork, hehe.

Just look at the flecks. And the glitters. And the violet jelly base that creates that deep, embedded look. It's amazing.

I think I can let this purple peacock shine for itself. Pity that other than Nite Owl and Fowl Play, the rest of Orly's Birds of a Feather Collection was such a disappointment. To me at least! And to most other nail fanatics as well. I just know that Fowl Play's so overwhelmingly popular I'm so glad I grabbed it like a good month back.

Anyways, prom's tomorrow and I'll be wearing something from the new China Glaze Eye Candy 3D Glitters Collection. I'll promise I'll snap a pic.

Here are Brit's thumbs also coated with Northern Lights Hologram Top Coat.

I've actually noticed minor frosting at the the tips of my fingers with other polishes, though not as obvious as how it looked like with the NL topcoat! I wonder what the problem is, I really need to investigate.

Maybe I just need to trim my claws :-( I don't want to!

x, Ish.

by the way

Btw, I'm so confused with the Html for the posts. If you realise, I can barely get a consistent font size for all my posts, though I swear I just selected everything and clicked font size 'Small'. This is so annoying and I hate being such a tech noob!!! :''(

Someone help, please?

x, Ish.

(Edit: And omg, I didn't even select a font size for this post and it turned out as 'Small' on my blog. This is all too weird and difficult to resolve at 1.22am. I am going to hide under my blanket. Also, I do not know how to change the time of my posts. I need to take basic computer class, serious.)

gemmed

Orly - Nite Owl
Color Club - Covered in Diamonds

This has got to be my favourite combination of nail polish! :-) The minute I swatched both after receiving Covered in Diamonds in the mail and purchasing Nite Owl from a local nail store, I was in love!

Firstly Nite Owl was a stunner. A nice nude hue with bits of tiny silvery flakies. Very unconventional from the typical creme shades. (I dislike cremes.) It would give a very pretty sheen in the night, just a subtle one. Sort of like how owls are pretty hard to spot at night!

Then I layered Covered in Diamonds over. I was like... OMG. The 'diamonds' are super chunky and sparkly and I LOVE CHUNKY AND SPARKLY! The 3D effect is nice too, unless you can't stand the roughened surface... But it really is a topcoat-eater for it to be smoothed out! In my case I left it bumpy. In addition, some of the chunky glitters are kinda sharp and pokey! Especially the larger and harder ones. But I do love the mix of irregular shapes! Gives your nails texture.

Come to think of it I do wonder what material these glitters are made of. Plastic, I'm guessing. But some turn up like foil-flakes, some are actual plastic fragments, and they all flash colours like crazy in the light. (Hahaha no clue, never mind...)

Also another note on the colour: the chunky glitters do not actually look pink, yellow and blue like they do in the bottle. (Unless layered on a white base, I guess.) The pictures were taken under artificial light, and hence do not accurately capture the true beauty of the gems; they were flashing orange, purple and green. Yes, orange, purple and green. (And other colours but predominantly these.) THE LOOK IS SO MAD, SERIOUS. At night or even in the day when you're like texting or whatever it'll flash rainbows. The effect of the flashes can be best seen when Covered in Diamonds is layered over a black base. The flashing of the jewels are definitely not as exaggerated as flakie polishes like Nubar 2010 (which I'll feature...some other time) but it gives a very very different finish. One of a kind, I must say.

Anyways, I'm so glad I own this polish! Though I admit... I kind of dread removal! (As in, the tediousness of it...) Will update once I do.

x, Ish.

like magic

OPI - Planks A Lot

China Glaze - Haute Metal Crackle Glaze

3 reasons why I love shatter/crackle finishes:

1. They are designed to look good messy. You'll always end up with something decent.

2. They crack the best over creme shades, which in my opinion are the easiest to mess up (dents, dust, bits of cotton wool stuck to your nails... one of the reasons why I dislike creme finishes).

3. They can fix any of your messed up manicures! (Also supported by the reason explained in parenthesis above.)

Okay so yesterday was a harrowing experience with the friggin' bottle of shit - Northern Lights Hologram Top Coat. Guess I'll just use it on my mom from now on cos she keeps short nails. Her theory is that the NL topcoat becomes frosty over parts of the nail which aren't in contact in skin and that's why it happened to my long nails. Doesn't make any logical sense to me so... whatever it's hers for good.

So yes anyways, look at my right hand! The one I didn't mess up. Crackle Glaze totally saved my left hand too in a swift 15 minutes! :-) Impressive, really. The 3am me was completely sold. Now I don't regret buying so much Crackle Glaze! (Ok, only 2, but still.) I have Haute Metal and Tarnished Gold, as well as the Black, Turquoise and Silver OPI Shatter shades.

The downside is that such formulas get really goopy with time. A personal quick-fix I've found to revive these polishes:
1. Fold a cotton pad into a little 'V' shape and dip the tip into nail polish remover.
2. Place the tip of the cotton 'V' over the neck of the bottle of shatter and squeeze such that the drops fall nicely into the bottle.
3. After about 3 to 7 drops (depending on how much formula you have left) quickly re-cap the bottle (it will get goopy all over the stem of the brush and on the tip!) and shake up!
The formula may be slightly runny if you squeeze too many drops (just keep it under 10) but it'll be fine after application :-)

This is just my personal experience with Shatter polish, I haven't had to do this for my Crackle Glazes so try it at your own risk? Anyways it's a known fact that Shatter shades don't last! This is just my attempt at trying to lengthen the life of my polishes!

x, Ish

deep, deep resentment

**EDIT**

I have clarified this with a professional. I'd probably applied it a little too thick especially around the tips OR it just doesn't work well with long nails... Well I hope to redeem this polish again because I really do love the effect of the subtle, scattered holo bits on plain cremes!!

Do forgive my extreme sarcasm and over-the-top ranting! (It was 3am; I was tired and frustrated...)

** **

You screwed up everything.

I usually complete my manicures in under or within an hour. Now, at 3.21am, I am fucking only halfway done only because of you. It's my first time using you, and so it wouldn't be fair to be so harsh on you... But considering you retail for up to SGD$20 per bottle, and considering that you're actually a top coat which ''Dries in Seconds!'' and is supposedly ''The Symbol for Nail Professionals'', of course I had high hopes.

At first when I glided you onto Planks A Lot, I was amazed. You looked awesome, just sparkling and being your beautiful holographic self (!!!!?!?!) and I was simply in awe! Who never experiences awe with a holographic polish!?!

But you took me for such a fool. Just look at those nasty frosted tips and try to convince me that is what it's supposed to be like.

:''(

I'm too tired to be pissed anymore. Just so, so frustrated. Mostly tired.

Ish.

---

Now it's 3.36am and I am finally going to go to bed! I sound much happier because man, did something save me! :-) Like seriously, this is one quick fix!! (That pun was painfully lame.)

Tomorrow I shall reveal this nail saver! ;-) For now I'll just leave you with pictorial reasons not to get Northern Lights Hologram Top Coat. (Really dude, you let me down too much.) No one deserves such terror especially after that many coats!

lost city

OPI - Black Shatter

China Glaze - Atlantis

This polish pair is beauuuutiful! Goes so perfectly together. I love how the little glitters from Atlantis peeks cheekily out through the cracks.

I also did four 'accent' nails (because they didn't stand out more than the shattered nails but I liked the mix and so did everyone else) using a black base and Atlantis for a french tip. I didn't use OPI's Black Onyx or CG's Liquid Leather... I used a brandless black polish my mom bought in the US for 3 for USD$10 - such a good deal, glides on like butter and opaque in one coat!

Removal of the glitters was decent. Glitters are notorious for their stubbornness towards polish removers. This one wasn't too bad. Perhaps the real test is when I try to remove OPI's Rainbow Connection from my toes!

Ps, I layered OPI Rainbow Connection over OPI Planks A Lot and it looks really good, because Rainbow Connection contains all sorts of coloured glitter except for purple, and hence the glitters can stand out against a dull purple. Try it :-)

Pss, thanks Iris for suggesting the french accent nails! They turned out amazing and I received so many compliments yesterday and today. I think my initial idea of OPI Silver Shatter over a black base would've been overkill!! So thanks babe ;-)

x, Ish

freshie again

Color Club - Fashion Addict

This wasn't exactly a polish I had fancied from what it looked like on my Mac's screen. It wasn't the first one I dug for in that little brown packet I'd collected from the post office after days of waiting, and it wasn't one I'd typically wear first after a large purchase due to my fascination towards flashy, glittery and flaky shades.

Well a swatch changed my mind, and I've waited a whole 3 weeks to actually get to wear this polish out! The holographic finish isn't as striking even with a layer of Seche Vite, but I love how it flatters my skin tone and how it actually makes me look... kind of sweet. Sweet-looking. Like I was really demure, and innocent and a little playful. But mostly sweet.

... I don't know how I could ever end up looking 'sweet', but this one did a good enough job.

This dries slightly dull; the Seche Vite will truly cast light on the rainbow holographic bits that will keep you staring at your nails for hours. That's why I posted a picture which is a tad off-focus (I'm no photographer!) and shaky too, to reveal the hints of rainbow which run and hide each time you turn to look at your nails from a different angle.

x, Ish

freshie

hello, this is my first post.