Rainbow Honey’s Sweet Talk

Tags

Glitter, Nail Art, Small Hex Glitter, White

Recently, I hauled quite a number of Rainbow Honey polishes during a sale after seeing such pretty photos via the various nail bloggers.

Sweet Talk was one of the colours that caught my eye. The colours reminded me of Candy Canes and Mints with its pink shimmer and 2 sizes of pinks, purple and mint hexagon glitter pieces. The pink shimmer is not apparent from afar and only under close scrutiny do you spot the shimmer. It took me 3 to 4 thin coats to achieve full opacity.

The colour is just so cute and sweet and somehow reminds me of a mesh of 2 of the original Little Ponies – Glory and Star Shine. Yes, I am a fan of My Little Ponies (love the old school MLPs!).

Rainbow Honey does have a collection based off My Little Pony (which I hauled quite a number polishes from, along with Sweet Talk) and personally I feel that Sweet Talk fits right in that collection (even though it’s part of the Valentine’s day Sweet Talk collection)!

The packaging is adorable as well, with a heart shaped window to see what polish is inside. On top of each box, there is a sticker with the polish name and colour photo swatch of the polish so you know what’s in the box when you store it upright! Lovely attention to detail *likes!*

Whites in general are notoriously hard to apply, Sweet Talk is not an exception. The polish I got was rather thick, gloopy and finicky. However it’s nothing a little polish thinner can’t fix. Please note that if you are going to thin polish, never, ever, ever use nail polish remover as the remover kills the polish. Use a proper polish thinner 🙂 I learned this the hard way *haha*

Despite the formula, I loved the colour enough to wear it another time a few weeks down the road.

This time, I decided to jazz the mani up with some nail stickers I bought by mistake, thinking they were water decals. Worst decision ever! The mani looked great from 1 metre away. Any nearer and you can see that it was an OMG-mistake. The stickers were just inflexible and unyielding, refusing to adhere to my nails. No matter how much topcoat I loaded on, the stickers refused to stick and the edges kept popping up.  It took me half an hour before I admitted defeat though. *headdesk* Needless to say, I took it off 5 mins after taking the photos below. And those nail stickers are now righhhhtttt at the very back of my nail drawer. Oh well.

I think I am going to next try Sweet Talk paired with XOXO, which I bought during the same haul, some time down the road.

That’s all for now 🙂
Toodles!~

Y.E.T’s In the Club

Tags

Black, Glow in the Dark, Nail Art, Nail Wraps, Stars

A while back, a colleague recommended these Korean nail wraps. And ooohhh boy, they are One.Of.The.Best.Nail.Wraps.Ever imho! The Koreans have really been releasing a lot of great nail stuff recently!

I bought a total of 7 nail wraps and have been slowwwwllly using them as they are precious, since the e-retailers selling these have all been slowly raising their prices. I bought them online for SGD$4.90. They now cost SGD$5.60 onwards. They can also be found in some Watsons (I saw some of these in City Square & Toa Payoh’s Watsons a while back for SGD$7.90 if I remember right). While the increase might not seem like much per pack, the difference mounts up to quite a bit when you buy as many as I do 🙂

These nail wraps last for about 2 weeks on my nails, which is a miracle considering my polishes last a total of 2-3 days max in general as I usually mistreat my nails 😡 (You know, the washing dishes without gloves, picking at price tags with my nails and all.). No chipping, no smell and best of all, despite the strong adhesive, no nail damage on my brittle nails!

Today, I will be sharing with you Y.E.T’s In the Club which has the bonus of being Glow in the Dark *Squeals!* I love me some glow in the dark! 😛

Each pack comes 18 nail wraps of various sizes and a nail file. Some of them even large enough even for the toes if you are so inclined. I used 5 of the 18 wraps for both hands, as I have really small and short nails (the larger ones for the toes can be trimmed to be used twice. *lol*). The nail file is meh though and I used my own crystal file from Nail Tek.

The nail wraps are firm without being too hard and fitted well around my slightly curved nails. They seemed to adhere well to my colleague’s more curved nails as well. The glow was really obvious. Unfortunately my camera refused to capture how glow in the dark they were, so I just ploinked in a photo from the Official Y.E.T website to show how glow in the dark they are. The photo from the Y.E.T website is true to what I had (yes the glow was that bright!).

When I am up in Korea next week, I think I am going to hunt down more of these wonderful nail wraps!

That’s all for now.
~Toodles!

Deborah Lipmann’s Ray of Light

Tags

Blue, Deborah Lipmann, Flakies, Nail Art, Purple, Water Decal

Today, I will be showcasing Deborah Lipmann’s Ray of Light, named after a Madonna song, which I had the absolute luck to win on Luxola’s Facbook page the other day. I usually have dreadful luck when it comes to contests or lucky draws so I was really surprised to have won something 😛 Shaleniie from Luxola was a total doll and ensured that the polish reached my hands even though I was unable to pick it up personally due to work.

I discovered Luxola 2 odd years back when they first started, and to date they are one of my fav online retailers. Mainly for the range of hard to find brands and the superb service they render (back then I was still working in one of the national universities, where the navigation is horrendous and appalling. It’s a wonder any of my makeup and polishes ever found their way to the department’s letterbox. *haha*).

I have yet to find an online retailer who personally calls be before the package arrives, calls me again if they are lost [I am more than happy to help since the university is an absolute rabbit warren] and calls if they are going to be late. I appreciate it loads as I have had some crappy postal/courier service come my way in the past.

Deborah Lipmann’s polishes made quite a splash in the US blog scene when they first appeared. Across the Universe, Happy Birthday and Glitter in the Air made me drool so. However I was unable to get them, nor did the price tag justify shipping them from the US as I would have to use a 3rd party courier, with the risk of getting the polish destroyed.

A friend spotted Ray of Light in an upscale nail store in Hong Kong a while back and in person the polish made us both go Ooo and Ahhhh. We loved the flakies that shifted from gold, to to red to green .

Despite the polish having a dark blurple base, the flakies showed up beautifully on the nail. The while 2 thin coats was sufficient cover the nail, 3 thin coats fully shows the depth of the polish. The flakies are smooth and lie flat on the nail.

I wanted to jazz the nail up a little and decided to tack on a golden cat water decal (can I say again how much I love water decals? Instant nail art!) since Halloween is just round the corner. The cats popped on the dark background. *loves*

I’m pretty much a fan of flakies (and halos!) and have quite a number in my stash. The closet in comparison from my stash is Nfu Oh’s 52, a green-blue flakie in a blue base and Cult Nails’ Clairvoyant (which I have swatched before), a multi-coloured flakie in a purple base. All 3 are very much different though. The closest I have got to Ray of Light is Nubar 2010 over Opi’s Ink which I will be showcasing another time 🙂

That’s all for now.

😀 Toodles!~

a England’s Elaine & Nerd Lacquer’s Pinin’ For The Fjords

Tags

Glitter, One-coater, Purple, Shimmer

Today, I have with me polishes from 2 of my favourite brands – a England (yes, again! 🙂 I love love love the brand!) & Nerd Lacquer.

I have always loved the formula of a England’s polishes. Adina creates buttery, pigmented and self leveling polishes that are usually single coaters. Great for people who are not that great at creme polish application (like me!). And best of all, they don’t stain my nails! 🙂

Below is a single coat of Elaine on my nails. Elaine is a dark purple single coater polish from the Mythicals collection and is described on the a England website as “Smoky violet amethyst”. Indeed it is!

I decided to jazz Elaine up a little with a layer of Nerd Lacquer’s Pinin’ For The Fjords, which is a sheer pastel purple polish with large and small silver hexagonal glitters, large and small blue hexagonal glitter, small purple glitter pieces as well as chunky silver shimmer.

Pinin’ For The Fjords gave Elaine a rather outer-spacy kind of look. I suspect that on black, it would be more galaxy like.
Unfortunately I didn’t think of trying it over black till I wrote this blog post.

And here’s a bottle shot of Pinin’ For The Fjords, just because it’s just so pretty in the bottle as well!

You can get a England from the a England website if you are in the UK: http://a-england.co.uk. Adina also has a list of international distributors if you are located outside of the UK as unfortunately Royal Mail has stopped allowing polish to be shipped outside of England (which is another story for another time. Thank you for the fantastic, fantastic customer service back then Adina!)

Nerd Lacquer can be bought from the Nerd Lacquer website here: http://www.nerdlacquer.com .

That’s all for now 🙂

Toodles!~

 

Nerd Lacquer Haul (of Shame)

Tags

Haul of Shame

First of all, kindly do forgive the quality of these photos. These were taken in my office with my mobile phone’s camera the moment i got the package. Yes, i was that excited! (It also helps that I do have polish loving colleagues who wanted to see my latest haul of shame :P)

A verrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyy long while back I got ahold of a number of Nerd Lacquers. This was from before Collier went on hiatus for a bit. But I’m glad that she is now back!

I love how much attention she pays to packaging! Check out the lovely satin bows around the bubble wrap!

I will get around to swatching some of these soon! (I hope! :P)

You can get her polishes here: http://www.nerdlacquer.com/

Cuticle & Hand Care Part 4 – Steam Cream

Tags

Moisturizer, Steam Cream

This is my absolute favorite moisturizer of all time. *hearts*. My Holy Grail of Moisturizers, if you will 😛

I read about this on another local blog some time back and I was totally sold by the packaging (Yes, I am a super sucker for pretty packaging :)). The first time I tried it IRL, I was hooked as it was such a lightweight and super absorbent moisturizer.

I use it mainly for my cuticles and sometimes if I have dry patches of skin. A little goes a long way and it’s bye bye dry patch.

Steam Cream is Japanese in origin.

STEAMCREAM pioneered the use of a steam technique to create this unique, gentle and loosely-bound emulsion. This looseness allows each ingredient – including a moisturising and soothing oatmeal infusion, orange flower water and healing lavender oil – to breakdown and penetrate areas of the skin that other creams find hard to reach.

The Good: It absorbs super duper fast. Half the time of that of the Body Shop’s Body Butter and Bert’s Bee’s Cuticle cream. I love, love, love the light texture and that it’s super moisturizing despite said light texture. A 5 out of 5 from me! Bonus is that the tins are super duper adorable (yes, to date I have more than a dozen empty tins lying around which I use to keep thumb drives, clips and pins)!

The Bad: It costs and arm and a leg at SGD$25.90 (If i remember right) for 75g tin. The tin’s the same size as the Body Shop’s mini Body Butter featured above. I finish a tin a month 😦 I also dislike the scent of lavender, but it works so well, I tend to ignore the lavender smell.

That’s all for now 🙂

Toodles~

———————————————————–

Part 1: Love & Toast Hand Creme – Sugar Grapefruit
https://justlacquer.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/cuticle-hand-care-part-1-love-toast-hand-creme-sugar-grapefruit/

Part 2: The Body Shop – Mango Body Butter
https://justlacquer.wordpress.com/2013/01/08/cuticle-hand-care-part-2-the-body-shop-mango-body-butter/

Part 3: Bert’s Bees – Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream
https://justlacquer.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/cuticle-hand-care-part-3-berts-bees-lemon-butter-cuticle-cream/

2013 Jan Haul (of Shame)

Tags

Duo-Chrome, Glitter, Halo, Haul of Shame

Can’t wait to swatch these! 🙂

Cuticle & Hand Care Part 2 – The Body Shop – Mango Body Butter

Tags

Moisturizer, The Body Shop

This was a gift and strangely, much as I loath using it as a body moisturizer, I loved it as a hand  / cuticle cream. The smell of shea butter drowns out that of the mango though. But who cares, it works 😛

The Good: Super moisturizing. Out of a 5 I would give it a 4. Absorbs rather quickly within 5 minutes (at least for me).

The Bad: Since I can only use it on the cuticles, the HUGE tub never finishes… which is a waste. The one pictured below is the mini size.

That’s all for now 🙂

Toodles~

———————————————————–

Part 1: Love & Toast Hand Creme – Sugar Grapefruit
https://justlacquer.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/cuticle-hand-care-part-1-love-toast-hand-creme-sugar-grapefruit/

China Glaze’s Spring 2013 Glitz Bitz ‘n Pieces Collection Swatches

Tags

2012, Bling, Glitter, Glitz Bitz ‘n Pieces Collection, Spring

Yay! I managed to get my hands on the Glitz Bitz ‘n Pieces collection rather early 🙂

This is also the first time I have tried swatching almost an entire collection and boy was it hard work and not the least bit easy

The Glitz Bitz ‘n Pieces collection is China Glaze’s Spring 2013 collection and it consists of 6 polishes:

• Mosaic Madness (Deep blue glitter with black Bitz ’N Pieces)
• Glitz ‘N Pieces (Deep blue glitter with black Bitz ’N Pieces)
• Bling It On (Royal Purple glitter with black Bitz ’N Pieces)
• Scattered & Tattered (Luscious Red glitter with black Bitz ’N Pieces)
• Graffiti Glitter (Bold emerald green glitter with black Bitz ’N Pieces)
• Razzle Me, Dazzle Me (Pink glitter with black Bitz ’N Pieces)

I have here 5 of the 6 polishes (I did not get Graffiti Glitter as I am not that fond of green in general :))

The polishes consist of black hex, string/bar and mini circular glitter as well as coloured hex and mini circular glitter in a clear base.

What I have done is swatched the Glitz Bitz ‘n Pieces collection on its own as well as on a few base colours as I think unless you are looking to go for 5 or 6 layers, it would be almost impossible to get full opacity. The glitter dries matt and a top coat is needed for a smooth touch. Loads of topcoat actually, as even with 2 layers of Seche Vite, it dried slightly bumpy. But then again, that’s the case with most large glitters.

Razzle Me, Dazzle Me

First up is Razzle Me, Dazzle Me, which is pink glitter with black Bitz ’N Pieces. In the bottle, it looks rose pink, however once out of the bottle, the pink is not as obvious. The pink doesn’t really show up on in the photos, but on my nails, you can see a light rose pink.

Mosaic Madness

Next is Mosaic Madness which has deep blue glitter and black Bitz ’N Pieces. The blue is vibrant and shiny. I really like this colour as it adds a pop to sea spray.

Bling it On

Bling it On is the only colour without a base colour because… well…. I forgot to take photos. *Headdesk*. I layered it on OPI’s I Don’t Give a Rotterdam!… only to forget to take photos before removing the combination *tears*I only realised while processing the swatch photos and finding that it was not in my camera :(

Scattered & Tattered

I didn’t expect to like the colour based on what I saw in the bottle, but on the nail I realised it’s a lot nicer than I thought and it became one of my favourite in the collection.

Glitz’N Pieces

I feel that it’s not the most unique of combinations, but it is still really lovely and rather classy. I loved the below combination where Glitz’n pieces was layered on For Audrey

My Final Thoughts

Honestly, when I first saw the bottles in the press releases at various nail blogs, I was not the least bit impressed, specially since I thought it would be a collection of different coloured versions of Whirled Away from the previous China Glaze release, Cirque de Soleil. However I changed my mind real quick when I saw it swatched on the nail wheel IRL and I came home with 5 of the 6 colours and an empty pocket.

While both GlitzN’ pieces and Razzle Me, Dazzle me are similiar, side by side, the difference is obvious. GlitzN’ Pieces is the more Bling of the 2 ; Razzle Me, Dazzle Me’s more subdued.

Over all, Glitz Bitz ‘n Pieces is a lovely collection. I will definitely be using it often to jazz up my manis 🙂

Cuticle & Hand Care Part 1 – Love & Toast Hand Creme – Sugar GrapeFruit

Tags

Cuticle Care, Love & Toast

I have very dry skin due to my eczema, and the dermatologist has advised that I should do tons of moisturizing, so tons of moisturizing I do. To add on to naturally dry cuticles, I also do quite a fair bit of polishing (and polish removal is drying, acetone free or not… at least for me that is)

So for the next few posts, I will be doing a series on the moisturizers I am using.

Variety is the spice of life 😛 Some are hand creams, which I rub into the cuticles, while other are body creams which I also use as cuticle creams (Strange, I know. But it works :P).

I bought this on a whim a while ago from an online store with a matching perfume.  I was drawn by the packaging (Sucker muche :P). If you like the smell of grapefruit and citrus, you will like the smell. After buying this, I realized that I am not a fan of the smell of grapefruit AND citrus all rolled into one. It was much too citrusy to me O.o

The Good: Pretty moisturizing. On a scale of 5, I would give it a 3. I love, love, love the packaging!

The Bad: Scent aside, it’s not a bad hand cream, a tad oily and takes a little too long to be absorbed for a hand cream imho.

That’s all for now 🙂

Toodles~