Hello, how have you been?

Hello everyone, it's been a while.

It's December already! Happy December!

Picture credit: Hannah's December album

The last time I posted was all the way in August... My goodness. School, hall life and the rest of my life in general have really been keeping me so busy. It's not that I haven't been painting my nails or scouting for good polishes (I don't think I'll ever stop scouting at least... :-P) I just haven't been blogging.

Well I will start blogging again this month, coz I'll be home a lot more now :-) And it's the holiday season, so I'm really excited to try out some new polishes my mom grabbed from the US for me (thanks momma) and some others I got locally or already have on my shelf.

Sneak peek of what I'll be swatching soon (or if you're bored, you may skip to the bottom for swatches):

Illamasqua

My wonderful mom got these for me while she was in NY. I wish Sephora would bring such awesome nail colours to the stores in Singapore too; only then will I make my virgin purchase.

Illamasqua is known to have perfect formulas. The price really warrants genuine quality! Their polishes are supposed to have shades comparable to Chanel's and with better application. CAN'T WAIT TO TRY.



Illamasqua - Milf



Illamasqua - Phallic



Illamasqua - Viridian

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butter LONDON

Well, I was genuinely sad to sell away my butter LONDON's earlier in August before even trying them on... So obviously I had to go get new ones!!? I know where to find All Hail The Queen again, but the price tag is really large on these babies. Guess the application of these polishes below will determine whether I will go get All Hail The Queen or not!

These are from Christmas collections - the former from 2012 Holiday and the latter two from 2011 Holiday collections. Those who know me well will know I've been lemming for the 2011 duo F O R E V E R. They sold out so freaking fast last year I just sat in front of my laptop screen weeping because not only were these shades wildly popular, it's so hard to even get butter LONDON shipped to Singapore. (At that point - and now, still - Nordstrom didn't ship polishes to Singapore...) Well anyways, here they are now!
















butter LONDON - Jack The Lad

(Purchased only to satisfy my lemmings for Orly's Under The Mistletoe, which looks terrific with my skin tone. Hopefully this will be good... or better!)



butter LONDON - The Black Knight & Tart With A Heart

(Can't wait to have me some effortless Cosmic nails!)

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ciaté

These boxes contain some really wonderful baby bottles of varnish and Caviar pearls to create a Caviar manicure for yourself at home! These, by the way, cost a freaking bomb so my mom really does love me. A little more about Caviar manicures soon. (Real soon, promise!)

ciaté - Mini Mani Month

ciaté - Caviar Mini Bar

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I have SO MANY MORE but I'll release them slowly. :-)

You might already be bored, so here are some quick images of swatches I have from the past week! They're actually all snapped with my iPhone's camera so I apologise for the lack of quality or clarity. And if you follow me on Twitter you would have seen some of these already:

ciaté - Knickerbockerglory 

ciaté - Headliner

ciaté - Candyshop Caviar pearls

Yep, I was serious about giving you a little more on Caviar manicures soon. But there's too much to talk about here so I'll just show you how it looks like now! Please feel free to enlarge the image of the pearls. They are just so damn cute and pretty.

Left hand: Mini roses

China Glaze - For Audrey

ciaté - Mistress

OPI - Dulce de Leche

OPI - Jade Is The New Black

Right hand: Polka dots

China Glaze - For Audrey

OPI - Alpine Snow 

I created the roses with dotting tool... so they ended up quite large, not intricate and hence not that pretty. Truly not advisable to create delicate designs with a dotting tool. Someone buy me a mini paintbrush. I did polka dots on my right hand instead coz that was all my left hand could manage at 3am. A bit messy but visually more pleasing than the roses.

OPI - I Have A Herring Problem

OPI - I Don't Give A Rotterdam!

OPI - Alpine Snow

Did alternating dusty blue polka-dotted nails for the past few days. I actually wanted to do a mini comparison between the two blues from the OPI Holland collection - I Have A Herring Problem (index & ring fingers) and I Don't Give A Rotterdam! (middle & pinky). You might not recognise I Don't Give A Rotterdam! anymore coz of the dots, though... It just looks like a bluish-gray colour beside a darker bluish-gray colour. So yeah my plan kind of back-fired. The difference really isn't noticeable from a small distance.

From a glance at my fingers right now, the difference is that I Have A Herring Problem is a darker Air Force blue compared to I Don't Give A Rotterdam! (more details about the lighter polish in the post link). Also, I noticed there is no obvious difference in the glass-fleck colours on the nail - they're both gold and very very very slightly holographic (unnoticeable unless you squint AND stare). The shimmer looks silver in the bottle of I Have A Herring Problem, though.

Application of I Have A Herring Problem was not great... very sheer and thin, which means it requires more coats to build up to the dark, opaque hue it's supposed to be. Doesn't do anything for my skin tone either. Kind of drab. Thank goodness I didn't not purchase I Don't Give A Rotterdam!...

Okay I'm done with my lengthy post. BUT WAIT ONE MORE THING.

Random trivia: Did you know 'formulae' is usually only used in mathematical contexts? Or just anything which requires a working or equation (chemistry, physics, etc). 'Formulas' - lists of ingredients - is what I should be using for the context of nail polish.

I really do things to amaze myself every day. I love you, Dictionary.

Life is good. B-) Ciao and stay tuned for more exciting stuff!!!

Picture credits:
illamasqua.com
butterlondon.com
ciate.co.uk