Opi Japanese rose garden with 3D flowers

Hope the new year brings more energy and inspirations. I'm aiming for a cheongsam/qipao look with this, to bring in some Chinese new year mood. Photos and blog post all done on the iPhone. Colors are fairly accurate.

Find me on twitter, suzieducks. I may be slightly more alive on that.

Orly's Pixie Dust -an attempt at Wedgwood blue.

PD is nowhere near Wedgwood blue but i was trying channel the delicate feel of fine china on my nails.



PD is a lovely grayed out baby blue(or dusty blue or dusky blue) with subtle glass shimmer. it's also easy to apply but still required 3 coats for true opacity. i'm wearing 2 here since i liked the way the pinks in my nail beds glowed through the polish.



here i am clutching my favourite daily drink. Yacult. it's getting sweeter on my palette but since the lady drops by every week i have no heart to send her away without buying any.

Nubar's Milk Chocolate Creme

i didn't execute this NOTD very well so it really was NOTD. i wore it for less then 24 hours before taking it off. 2 coats, see the bald spots?



the tip was 1 layer of Raspberry Truffle. didn't like how it turned out either.

i have the same application problem of it drying too quickly and thus causing cuticle drag. i have to work in a breeze free zone. i find the smaller brush harder to use too.

Chinaglaze Classic Camel with leopard spots

always wanted to do a leopard spots mani. and finally i got to try it. its as easy as everyone claim it to be. LOL! sometimes you just gotta try it to believe it and not worry about it.



my bottle of classic camel had a crack in the neck of the bottle and a wonky brush. so i'm not sure if the thick and gloopy polish was due to evaporation from the crack. plus the weird brush made application a bit of the PITB.




soon after taking the first set of photoes the bottle broke with a swipe of my kitty's tail. Nail Polish carnage! i emptied out a cheap (but with a good brush!) polish bottle and transfered the remains.



i wished the gold glitter were more pronounced or that the base color was a little sheerer for the glitter to show through. overlaying the mani with a gold glitter works too! ;)



anyways i've got new polishes so i took this NOTW off to try my new Space Cadet(Orly Cosmic FX) and Sparkelicious(OPI burlesque)

Nubar's Belize coral

Oh goody gosh i love this color. it's a pinkie coral that doesn't make me look like i have lobster claws. i am deifnitely going to get the entire coral collection.



this is relatively easy to apply as well. however, maybe it's the weather here, it does dry quickly therefore will cause cuticle pull if i were to go over any painted area within 1 coating.



this is 2 coats with 1 of seche vite.

Sinful Color's Let's Meet

i had a mini haul when Cherry Culture was having a 20% off. i got myself some Sinful Colors and i am mighty please to have gotten Let's Meet.



this is a shimmery yellow and i think this is 3 coats. it's relatively easy to apply without terrible streaking.



i've also bought a whole lot of crystals in different duochrome colors and i love to use them so expect lots of similar NOTDs from now.



crystals are very easy to use when your in a design funk but can't seem to wear a 'naked' mani.

Project's Cosmic blue with CC Dorothy who?

this was the only nail polish i got when vacationing in Italy.



i saw it in Coin(departmental/pharmacy/grocery) and it was part of a Peacock feathers collection. So far i couldn't find any information online.



it was a beautiful dark blue teal with colorful shimmer in the bottle(probably due to the refraction from the bottle) but the shimmer did not translat so well on the nails. i like to have more pronounced glass shimmer.



i overlayed the tips with Dorothy Who? from Chinaglaze for extra sparkle.

Orly's Solid Gold KOTD

the neighbour's kids are making a ruckus and OMG the echos down the corridors and stairwells. *feels a migraine coming on*



this color gives me the shivers. good shivers. see the glittery goodness? i'll bet it's look spectacular with a shiny top coat on.



i've used plate m57 for this. i've discovered that i can scratch out the Konad stamp on the matte surface. i guess it's a sacrifice i have to make to retain that matte sheen.

tip wear after a few days. you can see the metallic silver grit that they use to make the polish matte.

brown acrylic powder for the ribbons and flowers. i have not done this for so long. getting real rusty with the shapes.



tip: if you run a remover lightly over this type of matte polish, you can remover the upper colored part and reveal a different look.

i made the mistake of wearing solid without a basecoat. it stained my nails a crazy yellow! i've never experienced staining this bad ever.

OPI's who the shrek are you??

i'm sure everyone's seen swatches of this awesome chartreuse lime green goodness. i've decided to make it a little more bling bling, and create more glitter dust in the house.



the DH got me some awesome fimo flower which i've never used! bad me.



this glitter is from Coastal Scents. it's their Fairy Glitter Dust. it's a sample so i'm not sure which collection did it come from. i am very tempted to get mor of these.



the sample came in a cute little pot. better than the sample baggie i bought LOL!



and on more for luck. i didn't want to totally cover the pretty shrek green so i only cover parts of my nail with the glitter.

OPI's moon over mumbai

this mani turned out rather nice now that i've seen these pictures. i didn't particular like how the gems turned out cos some of the spangles were pearlised and the colors are not vivid enough.



this mani will be repeated again with brighter colors. that said, i really like MOM. i wore 3 coats here.



unfortunately, i only wore this for 1 day. yup. i did it on sunday (i was ill btw), and i didnt' go to work on monday so i got bored and took it off to do another mani. uh huh. the nail art must go on even in the face of a bladder infection.



hope you haev enjoyed my last series of scheduled posts. hopefully by now i'd have accumulated a few more NOTD's. :P

nubar and cherry culture hauls

i wanted to try nubar for some time, since it's BIG 3 free. i'm trying to avoid certain chemicals since we're trying to get preggers. uh huh. (i'm still reliant on seche vite, some things i just won't give up)

i managed to find a seller on evil bay with reasonable prices and decent shipping. all in all i paid 109SGD for these 10 bottles. not too shabby.



i got some chocolates, coral, green and glitter, plus their base coats. so far so good. i'm not fond of the small brush that picks up too little polish at a time.

i've also made use of the Cherry Cultre 20% back to school sale to haul some polishes that i refuse to pay retail for. i'm a cheapskate.:P



actually, together with the shipping i ended up paying a dollor or 2 less than retail. LOL! at least i got to try Sinful Colors.

i've also gotten addicted to buying crystals. be prepared to see these being used heavily in the next series of NOTDs.



blings are so easy to use when in a creative funk. plus i like shiny things.



check out the ombre shades. i want to get more!

opi's black onyx hologram goodness with coastal scents glitter

yup. i'm bad with titles. but i love this mani. i've had people asked if this was gel nails. *ish proud*


in the shade.

this is achieved simply but putting on 2 coats of black (i've used OPI's black onyx here), dipping my just painted finger into the baggie of glitter and lightly tap to adhere the glitter better, brush off the excess with a paint brush and then finally a coat of seche vite, or 2.



and because i love this so much, and it's hard to capture the holographic goodness of this NOTD, imma picture spam you guys.



blur shots show better bling.



this was the glitter i got from Coastal Scents 20% sale.



they've also sent me a sample of their golden glitter with i've worn with another NOTD.



more images. feel free to skip. lol!



i took these pics after wearing these nails for about 4 days so there's plenty of the micro scratches on the top coat already. this is a gripe with seche vite top coat, it scratch easily(then there's the smell and the fact that it thickens too quickly)